The Vanguard and Democratic Centralism
by Rick Gunderman
Successful revolutionary activism requires the all-around strength and unity of the forces of the people. These forces can be looked at as comprising of three parts, each with its own contributions to make – the masses of people at large, the organized masses in popular, democratic organizations, and the vanguard leadership.
The masses are largely apolitical. They are content to go about their lives without concerning themselves too much with politics, instead limiting themselves to their immediate surrounding and conditions. As such, they are prone to vacillations, supporting whichever idea or person sounds best at the given moment.
The masses of people are mobilized for revolutionary action by campaigns. Petitions, demonstrations, pickets, recreational events, film screenings, pamphleteering, postering – all of these are means by which the masses of people can be injected with revolutionary energy. With this energy, many choose to join mass organizations.
Mass organizations can work around a single campaign and be expedient, or they can be firmly established, ostensibly permanent and working on many campaigns surrounding a single idea or cause.
Mass organizations are where the people who wish to learn about political struggle and activism go. This is because there is no time when the reality of class society is made more apparent than in the heat of battle. It is where a progressive and revolutionary consciousness is developed, where activists can see the bankruptcy of class collaborationism and see the necessity for prolonged, principled struggle of the working and oppressed peoples.
It is where the people can be organized and mobilized, and in the process they learn to take up leadership and develop all of their skills. It is where leadership is made.
It is from this leadership that the central vanguard is composed. The vanguard is made up of those activists with the most experience, the broadest connections among the organized and unorganized masses, and as a consequence of this, the most advanced and developed political consciousnesses.
Anarchists reject this model because it is supposedly “undemocratic”. In their view, only mass organizations should exist, and their purpose is rarely seen as being to provide leadership. Rather, they are to be the source of all power in future society – or rather, they are to be the force that prevents any power from being had by anybody.
So as not to digress, the anarchist vision of a perfect society will not be addressed in depth. General opposition to authority, however, must be dealt with briefly.
Since the demise of the First International, anti-authoritarians has defined itself as the rejection of all authority. In this view, nobody should be able to compel any other person to do anything against their will. Everybody should be free to do whatever it is that they wish, so long as it does not harm another.
In his iconic work, On Authority, Friedrich Engels deals with this undeveloped, primitive view of social relations. His argument is essentially that any time there is a combined action of individuals, the absolute autonomy of the individual must to some degree or another be subordinated to the general will of the group. Engels asks:
Everywhere combined action, the complication of processes dependent upon each other, displaces independent action by individuals. But whoever mentions combined action speaks of organisation; now, is it possible to have organisation without authority?
Engels answers with an emphatic no. The organization of multitudes of people into a series of tasks, each dependent upon the other for the successful completion of the overall goal, requires that each individual submit herself or himself to the task they have been assigned. This task can be assigned in a variety of ways, some ways with democratic character and others with autocratic character, but it does not alter the necessity of the task’s fulfilment to the overall goal.
Engels uses various examples to illustrate the absurdity of the anti-authority bend of the anarchists. Referring to railways:
Here…the co-operation of an infinite number of individuals is absolutely necessary, and this co-operation must be practised during precisely fixed hours so that no accidents may happen. Here…the first condition of the job is a dominant will that settles all subordinate questions, whether this will is represented by a single delegate or a committee charged with the execution of the resolutions of the majority of persona interested.
In either case there is a very pronounced authority. Moreover, what would happen to the first train dispatched if the authority of the railway employees over the Hon. passengers were abolished?
But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas. There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and absolute obedience of all to the will of one.
As Engels heavily infers, the breakdown of order, and particularly the authority that characterizes it, always comes with the threat of unnecessary danger to peoples’ lives. Another inferable position of Engels is that anybody who has ever worked with more than one other human being should be instantly aware of the absurdity of the anti-authority fixation.
Does this mean that Engels and the socialists fetishize authority? Quite the contrary! Engels admits that, “all socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society.”
The social revolution draws the people in. The people are organized into mass organizations, they learn politics, they elevate themselves to leadership, and before long all of society is buzzing with revolutionary energy. The masses of people evolve into a thoroughly advanced, revolutionary force when they are all or virtually all organized. After a long process of education, campaigning and mobilization, full of varied experiences and requiring the utmost patience and devotion from all those involved, every person is eventually capable of performing the administrative tasks needed for society to function.
A coherent, logical, scientific vision for the development of revolutionary society into an ultimate classless, stateless society. To Engels, this represented the “conversion of political rule over men into an administration of things and a direction of processes of production – that is to say, the “abolition of the state”, about which recently there has been so much noise.”
If Engels’ logic is to be considered sound, that authority is unavoidable until all people are capable of collectively managing society without a division between the leaders and the led, then the anarchist obsession with authority loses its relevance to any serious political movement.
However, as with all central leadership, the vanguard runs the risk of corruption. There is every chance that a vanguard leadership, no matter how pure in origin or intent, if left on its own will develop into a despotic clique of autocrats. This is indisputable – the leaders, to be good leaders, must always be connected to and a part of the masses at large.
There is a structure capable of ensuring the greatest reach of democracy with the most coherent leadership. This is the model of democratic centralism.
Democratic centralism works in a very simple way. In any organization, the rank-and-file elect their leadership from among themselves. They keep this leadership constantly under their watch, issue principled and comradely criticism, and have the power of instant recall.
The leadership is bound by the decisions of the rank-and-file, often expressed in conventions or congresses of the membership. The leadership does the day-to-day work of the organization and ensures that the decisions of the central convention/congress are carried out at all levels of the organization. The leadership is not a source of power or arbitrary authority – it is the force behind the authority of the membership at large, overseeing the implementation of their decisions.
Democratic centralism is not a model exclusive to the vanguard, but can apply to mass organizations as well. Leadership is democratically elected at all levels of the organization, ideally based on their ability and will to lead, and they are always subordinate to the decisions of the membership.
This, the anti-authoritarians would have us do away with. In favour of what? Rarely is anything offered as an alternative, but when it is it usually revolves around the idea that mass organizations can function without defined leadership.
Have these individuals ever been members of an organization? Every organization requires that somebody does work in order for it to function. Every organization requires that decisions be made and plans be formed in kind. Every organization requires that somebody, whether one individual or a committee, oversees the implementation of decisions. You cannot have organization without having some variety of leadership and authority. That is to say, the authority to enforce democratically-reached decisions.
The children of Western society, reared with a thoroughly bourgeois education, are taught the inviolability and indisputability of individualism. They may pay lip service to the words of fictional characters, such as “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one”, but veritably the core philosophy of Western society is to look out for number one.
With this view, a surprising number of individuals have shown the ability to do mental gymnastics. They get jobs working with innumerable numbers of other people; they may take public transit which requires some amount of co-operation and respect from all riders; or they may drive on roads where they must show deference to the speed limit, the lanes and the mandated direction of traffic; they absorb media created by other people; they eat food grown and often prepared by others; they go in and out of buildings built by others; they wait in lines while other people are served before them; they cross roads when it is indicated to be safe; and often, doing this requires that they surrender some of their resources (i.e. money) in order to procure that which they need.
And yet after all this, they exalt themselves as completely sovereign individuals, living in a bubble, their will unrestrained by anything at all.
This may be an extreme interpretation of the anti-authoritarian consciousness, and it may be more philosophical than an explanation of what a vanguard is normally would require, but it highlights the fundamental issue that most have with the vanguard and democratic centralist models – that they are too “authoritarian”.
The petit-bourgeoisie, whether they actually do or not, aspires to work individually. And why should they not? Their nature as a class is rooted in individual competition and in the fantastical illusion of being one’s “own boss”. Why should they conceive of the importance of collective activity?
Those who have had to work for other people, on the other hand, should be fully aware of the value of co-operation and collective activity. In a sense, it becomes a matter of grasping one’s own insignificance and making peace with it. That is something that most petit-bourgeois individuals will roundly fail at, but something that genuine revolutionaries have no problem with.
What does this have to do with the vanguard? When one can let go of their own over-inflated sense of self, they are able to effectively place themselves in the political struggle. It leaves their development from apolitical and apathetic to organized and learning, and ultimately to experienced and wise. Somebody who has not shed her or his obsession with resisting authority is unsuitable to participate in any organized action, let alone lead it.
As such, anti-authoritarians confine themselves to a position of permanent opposition. They best they can do is be a sometimes-logical (but rarely so) voice in the lower ranks of a mass movement, muse on sometimes-valuable (but rarely so) philosophical questions of personal lifestyle decisions like polyamory, and offer sometimes-comradely (but rarely so) criticism of the organization, its line and its leadership.
In order for the vanguard model and democratic centralism to make sense, juvenile and obsessive anti-authoritarianism needs to be rejected in favour of dealing with actual political realities and actual social relations.
Mass Campaigns as an Apparatus for Broadening the Struggle
by Rick Gunderman
The success of every revolutionary movement is at the mercy of its ability to rally large numbers of people behind it. Mass organizations give the people a way to take direct action in a democratic way for causes they wish to take up. On their own, however, mass organizations are still only a means for the core activist vanguard to connect with non-political people and bring them into the struggle.
The simple reality of the matter is that non-political people have existed everywhere, in all phases of history, and it is the furthest thing from a simple task to change their beliefs. Decades worth of effort in many socialist countries still left considerable segments of the population apolitical. Plainly put, these are the people who are content to go about their lives as long as there is political and economic stability.
When there is stability, it is less likely that large swaths of the population will take up political struggle. Political struggle materializes when the people rise up against those aspects of their conditions that they cannot tolerate, and conversely political complacency is the norm when large enough numbers of people can tolerate their conditions.
One major aspect of the manufactured satisfaction with capitalism is the efforts, especially of neoliberal, ultraconservative and libertarian ideologues, to convince the people that capitalism is the only way. The people are hypnotized by their claims that socialism has “failed” and that capitalism has proven itself to be immutable, unshakeable and unequivocal.
In order that progressive activists may shake up this false sense of permanency, it is necessary to be cautious, tactful and discreet. Preaching the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism to people who may think that a parliamentary cabinet is a piece of furniture where legislators store their canned goods is about as useful as trying to fly with cardboard wings.
Explaining all the complexities of the communist movement’s history, philosophy, economics, political structures and the capitalist class’s unceasing disinformation campaign against it cannot be done in one short sitting. Even sustained efforts at educating somebody on this topic are useless if not a part of the learner’s personal growth as a class-conscious fighter for social justice and working class power.
Apolitical people can sometimes be deaf to any talk of politics, but other times they prove to be very open-minded as long as the facts add up and the argument is rational. Focusing on hard, readily verifiable facts and offering intelligent but easy to understand solutions that can be campaigned for is the best way to draw otherwise apolitical people into a political struggle.
This is also the best way to win over to the communist movement people who have pre-existing political inclinations. By solidly demonstrating good leadership in the mass organizations based on decidedly Marxist-Leninist principles and appealing to the common beliefs of the organization’s members, the non-communists can see with their own eyes the effectiveness of an activist armed with genuine revolutionary theory. This offers the best chance to attract even the most committed anarchists, social democrats and libertarians to our ideology.
Put in the simplest terms, actions speak louder than words. Chanting complex and esoteric political slogans with convoluted and tangled theories that make sense only to political science graduate students will advance a movement no further beyond campus pubs. The core vanguard of activists must be have the deepest and most composite understanding of Marxist-Leninist theory to help them guide the struggle for social justice and working class power, but only for this purpose. As a tool for advancing the mass political struggle it is virtually useless.
This is not to say that the masses should not be exposed to communism and some aspects of Marxist-Leninist theory. On the contrary, it is necessary for the relevance of the vanguard to the current struggle and for the constant replenishment of the vanguard with new leadership.
This is one of the major purposes for building the mass organizations, from the vanguard’s perspective. Those in the vanguard do not cherish their leadership as some sort of noble title. They know that their leadership is only legitimate only so long as they are actively carrying out the duties democratically assigned to them by those they are responsible to. While it is important for the leadership to retain stable working relations with each other, the vanguard leadership must keep in mind the value of refreshing their ranks as often as possible.
If the core vanguard leadership is composed of the most advanced and dedicated activists, it is self-apparent how developing the mass organizations is a matter of developing good leadership skills among the people. When all of the people are capable of good leadership, there ceases to be a distinction between the leaders and the led. The ultimate result – far off as it may be – is all of the people running society collectively.
For the replenishment of the vanguard, strong mass organizations are needed. How do the ranks of the mass organizations get replenished, then?
In a word, mass campaigns. A mass organization is not just an organization of the masses – it is an organization for the masses. They must be composed of, as well as constantly among, the people. They must be public and visible, able to attract attention by calling on the people to struggle for the betterment of all of humanity.
A student union federation cannot just stay silent and unperceived to the students it claims to represent. It must get the students involved in campaigns to demand lower tuition fees, better learning facilities and student housing, access to well-paying jobs, a university administration that solicits their opinions, etc. It must ask the students what they want, and as a democratic body reach conclusive plans of action in the name of the students.
To build a student union, clubs and student associations under their umbrella must always be expanded. Their executive and legislative institutions must be democratic to the core, with expansive representation and direct democracy employed and expanded on a constant basis.
Another example is the Palestine liberation movement. Organizations exist that are dedicated to this goal, and for their campaign’s goal to be achieved they must always be out agitating among the people. The activists in the Palestine liberation movement must be patient and sensitive to the masses, working to educate without aggravating the wrong segments. At the same time, they must be vigilant of a powerful, well-organized, resourceful enemy – the Zionist movement. Their task is, through their campaigns, to win the masses away from Zionist ideology and toward the ideology of national liberation.
However the tactics are put into exact practice, the paramount determinant in a student union’s success as a mass organization is its drive to engage every single student in their campaigns for the betterment of all students. The most interested students will become leaders in the student union, building it as a mass organizations. These leaders, if exposed to a core vanguard with a solid revolutionary theory, will be of the highest quality and will be worthy to lead the whole movement to victory.
It is important to understand that although the vanguard is in the leadership, a true revolutionary movement vests all power in the masses – that is, those masses that will participate. The mass organization, in a revolutionary society, is the source of all power. The vanguard simply serves to direct the masses in their development – they are there to elevate the masses.
If a revolutionary movement can be thought of as a tree, the masses are the tree’s sustenance– sunlight, soil nutrients, water, etc. The mass organizations are the leaves and the roots, the means by which the tree absorbs its sustenance and converts it into energy. The vanguard is the trunk and the branches, channelling all of these processes to ensure the healthy development of the tree.
As inexact a metaphor as this undoubtedly is, it shines light on what role the vanguard, the organized masses and the masses at large all play in revolutionary activism. If the tree hopes to absorb sustenance, its leaves and roots must be healthy and open to input – but also capable of filtering out that which harms it.
*originally written and posted on Facebook on January 12, 2012.
Build the People’s Mass Democratic Organizations
by Rick Gunderman
In those countries where organizing is legal enough to allow it, the first task in starting political struggle is to form a core group of leaders that are capable of rallying a periphery of supporters into action. This core vanguard must be politically advanced, class conscious, dedicated to social justice, but above all else must have strong, deep-rooted connections with the broad masses of people. In this way, the vanguard does not condemn itself to political obscurity and irrelevance, but exists with and for the people.
It is of great importance that those in the vanguard are able to effectively marshal people, especially their supporters, into action. When the vanguard is capable of this, this periphery of supporters must be shaped into various mass organizations that are capable of attracting and mobilizing ever-larger numbers of people to achieve political goals.
Mass organizations are the peoples’ progressive forces in the struggle against capitalism, imperialism and reaction. It is in these organizations, where large amounts of people can unite on a common basis to work for a specific and defined set of goals, that the foundations for a socialist society are laid.
Mass organizations are where the people learn what it means to challenge and confront the powerful, and thereby develop class-consciousness in a practical way. It is where information related to political struggle is disseminated and discussed, and the progressive movement as a whole is strengthened by this collective generation of knowledge. It is where democracy is learned and applied, where the will of the people is clearly expressed in concrete ways.
It is not out of thin air that mass organizations appear – they appear naturally in the course of political struggle. This is true universally, although from one country and one historical period to the next they can take on greatly different forms.
Sometimes mass organizations are started by experienced and dedicated activists, other times by regular people inspired to take up arms for a particular cause. Sometimes full-time activists and casual activists work together. This does not change the nature of mass organizations – they are always the seeds of mass, socialist democracy. Whether they yield a good harvest, however, depends entirely on the quality of their leadership.
An example of what mass organizations are and how they work can be found in labour unions. Labour unions can encapsulate whole workplaces of people into a single democratic unit, where all workers are members and where their will is elucidated and their opinions constantly solicited.
The labour union can work for its membership, using their funds not only in the struggle to better their members’ lives but to enrich them as well. Many unions provide or subsidize recreational activities and vacations alongside housing and pensions for their members.
The quality of leadership of a labour union is directly correlated to their success as mass organizations. A union is successful when its members are paid fair wages for their labour, when its members are actively involved in both the decision-making process and the social life of the union, and when it is constantly striving for the education and consciousness development of its members.
A labour union is not successful when its leadership exists above and disconnected from its membership. When its leadership collaborates with the capitalist bosses, when its members are hardly or not at all involved in the decision-making process, and when it fails to bring benefits and good wages to its members, the union is a moribund shell of a mass organization.
Another example of a mass organization is Greenpeace, an international group for environmental activism. Greenpeace unites environmentalists of all political stripes for action on issues like climate change, nuclear waste, whaling and deforestation.
For Greenpeace to be a successful mass organization, its members need to be active participants not only in their actions but in their decision-making process as well. Its publications must be regular, informative and free of charge. The path to irrelevancy is lined with solicited donations and bumper stickers as the primary means of member engagement.
Labour unions and environmental groups alike are flexible and stable mass organizations with broad, long-term goals. Conversely, there are mass organizations that are impermanent and narrow in focus.
One such example is the historic movement for women’s suffrage. While the women themselves were often politically involved on multiple fronts, they united on the basis of winning the franchise for the female sex. Upon winning this, the women’s suffrage movement lots its raison d’être and became a chapter in history.
Impermanency in no way negates the value of these types of mass organizations – although the term “mass movement” may be more accurate if they are not united in a single organization. Rather, they can be a great impetus for expanding the progressive movement as a whole. The women’s suffrage movement was not a fly-by-night act of rebellion, but a part of the wider movement for women’s liberation. From the women’s suffrage movement emerged many great feminists like Nellie McClung, Alice Paul and Emmeline Pankhurst.
This shows that mass organizations can either be permanent and broadly focused, or temporary and narrowly focused, depending on exact goals and purposes.
In either case, the core vanguard must clearly understand the purpose of mass organizations as they relate to the long-term goal of achieving mass socialist democracy. Mass organizations are the fertile ground where socialism grows. They are the fountains from whose heads spring the waters of democracy. If the core vanguard is the roof of the house of socialism, the mass organizations are the foundation, the frame, the bricks and the mortar.
It is a mistake to view mass organizations as the guiding force in the revolutionary process, or to believe that they need no guiding force at all. Every revolution needs plans, direction, leadership and the ability to replace old state institutions with new and radically different ones. This is the role the core vanguard fills.
A car could not run without an engine, and that engine cannot run without gas. A revolution cannot succeed without a vanguard, but the vanguard cannot succeed without the masses. Herein lies the reason for the importance of mass work, and also of maintaining a solid and effective vanguard.
*originally written and posted on Facebook on January 11, 2012.
40 Helpful Tips For Becoming a Successful Anti-Communist
by J. Slavyanski
1. Constantly insist that Marxism is discredited, outdated, and totally dead and buried. Then proceed to build a lucrative career on beating that supposedly ‘dead’ horse for the rest of your working life.
2. Remember, any unnatural death that occurs under a ‘Communist’ regime is not only attributable to the leaders of the state, but also Marxism as an ideology. Ignore deaths that occur for the same reason in non-Communist states.
3. Communism or Marxism is whatever you want it to be. Feel free to label countries, movements, and regimes as ‘Communist’ regardless of things like actual goals, stated ideology, diplomatic relations, economic policy, or property relations.
4. If there was a conflict involving Communists, the conflict and all ensuing deaths can be laid at the feet of Communism. Be careful when applying this to WWII. Fascist movements who fought against the Soviets or Communist partisans are fine, but try not to openly praise Nazi Germany. Save that for private conversations if you must do so.
5. You decide what Marxism “really means”, and who the rightful representatives of Communism were. Feign interest that Trotsky was somehow robbed of power by Stalin, despite the fact that you hate him as well.
6. Constantly talk about George Orwell. Quote from Animal Farm or 1984. Do not worry about the fact that he never set foot in the Soviet Union and both of those books are novels.
7. Quote massive death tolls without regards to demographics or consistency. 3 million famine deaths? 7 million? 10 million? 100 million deaths total? You need not worry about anyone checking your work, which is good for you seeing that you probably haven’t done any.
8. Everyone ever arrested under a Communist regime was most likely innocent of any crime. Communists only arrested harmless poets and political prophets who had a beautiful message to share with the world.
9. Everything Stalin did or didn’t do had some sinister ulterior motive. Everything.
10. Keeping with the spirit of #9, remember that Stalin was an omnipotent being, perhaps an incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu, who had full awareness of everything going on in the Soviet Union and total control over every occurrence which took place between 1924 and 1953. Everything that occurred during that time was the will of Stalin. Stalin knew the exact details of every criminal case that took place during that era and out of his boundless cruelty, had tons of innocent people shot for no reason regardless of where they were or their position in life. Being omnipotent, he was not dependent on information passed up from tens of thousands of subordinates.
11. Constantly attack ‘Communist’ regimes for actions that occur in capitalist regimes up to this very day.
12. Claim that Marxism is utopian because of its description of a possible future society. Alternately claim that Marxism failed because it never gave a detailed description of how a Communist society would look. Do not pay attention to the massive contradiction here.
13. Start referring to Marxism as being some kind of religious faith, Messianic, or whatever other spiritualist bullshit you can come up with. When people point out that you can draw similarities between virtually any political ideology and other religions, ignore them.
14. Remember the one-two anti-Communist attack: Attack the post-Stalin system on economic grounds, and claim it just doesn’t work. Since an informed opponent will most likely point out that actual socialist economics did indeed work during the Stalin era, and in fact worked very well, attack that era on human rights grounds.
15. Two words- Human nature. What is human nature? For your purposes, human nature is a quick explanation why political ideas or systems you don’t like are wrong.
16. Bolshevik revolutions were carried out with violence and bloodshed. Bourgeois revolutions were all carried out by democratic referendums, and there was no violence whatsoever.
17. Use words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ constantly. Do not accept any challenge to define these terms.
18. Communists can be for or against whatever is popular in your particular area. If you are preaching to a right-wing crowd, Communists are for degeneration and homosexuality. If you are preaching to a more mainstream audience, Communists were homophobic. Essentially, Communists are for moral degeneration and puritanical prudery at the same time. Again, do not notice the contradiction.
19. Constantly flog Stalin over the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, while totally ignoring massive support and collaboration with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan on the part of America, Britain, and France, long before the war and even after in some ways. As usual, do not allow your opponent to examine the context of the non-aggression pact.
20. Praise the newfound “freedom” of Eastern Europe. Ignore the massive depopulation via migration, plunging birthrates, huge alcohol and drug problems, political instability, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, sex trafficking and child prostitution, organized crime, high suicide rates, unemployment, disease, etc. Who cares about all that when you have freedom of speech?!
21. Constantly talk about the culture of fear in Communist nations, about that ‘knock on the door’ in the middle of the night. Ignore the ‘kick in your door in the middle of the night, stick a shotgun in your back, and haul your ass out of bed etc. because you are suspected of dealing,’ a normal occurrence in the American War on Drugs.
22. Attack Communists for suppression of religion. Attack Islamic fundamentalists for not being secular. What contradiction?!
23. Do not notice the irony that the US is currently fighting an incredibly expensive, losing war against an opponent which it funded, supported, and even handed its first victory in Afghanistan.
24. What should you say when confronted with all the continuing and often worsening problems in the world today, and asked for a solution? FREEDOM!! (Repeat as necessary until your opponent goes away)
25. Nothing from “Communists” can be trusted. Unless it somehow works in your favor, ala Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ from 1956, or anything Trotsky wrote.
26. Communist leaders were ‘paranoid’ for devoting so much time to security against counter-revolution. Ignore the mountains of evidence, including the restoration of capitalism in the East Bloc, that this threat was indeed real.
27. Communist regimes were never popular. If proof is presented in various cases to show otherwise, claim that the people were brainwashed. Make no effort to consider the budgetary and logistic constraints on such an undertaking.
28. Communist propaganda is crude and primitive. If someone mentions Red Dawn or worse, mentions the J. Edgar Hoover-endorsed comic book series known as The Godless Communists, run away.
29. Praise secularism in the name of ‘freedom’ and ‘pluralism’ until faced with a Communist. Then play the religion card.
30. Atrocities and other bad things that happen under non-Communist regimes are the fault of individual ‘bad people’. Anything bad that happens under a ‘Communist’ regime is the fault of the ideology and system. And Stalin.
31. Being an anti-Communist means not having to have any sort of ideological consistency whatsoever. Preach populist left-wing pseudo-socialism 90% of the time, and then compare the capitalist system to “Stalin’s Russia”(if you never really studied the subject, just read 1984 and Animal Farm). Bitch about capitalism 99% of the time, but balk when someone suggests Communism as an alternative. Far right wing Fascist? Constantly bitch about cultural degeneracy under capitalism, while remaining fanatically opposed to Marxism for no discernable reason save for your affinity for historic nationalism.
32. If you’re an anarchist, keep pointing out the ‘failure’ of Marxism while ignoring the fact that your ideology has a 100% failure rate throughout its entire history. Blame those failures on Communists, or stronger military powers. Ignore the fact that the most wonderful society is worthless if it can’t defend itself from reaction.
33. Neo-Nazi? Communism is Jewish!! Debate over.
34. Neo-Hippy? Tibet!
35. Constantly condemn the genocide that allegedly occurred under Mao, while ignoring the US’ relations with China established by Nixon, and the massive role capitalist China has played in the modern US economy. When you want to talk positively about China, it’s a capitalist country. If you need to criticize it, it’s still ‘Communist’.
36. Claim Marxism is not empirical. Neither are neo-liberalism, ‘democracy’, or ‘freedom’, but don’t worry about that.
37. Always insist that despite the location, country, historical era, past experience, and all other factors, Communists must want to recreate a modern-day copy of Stalin’s Russia, and all that entails according to you. Do not notice the inherent idiocy in this concept, such as your particular country being already industrialized, and not having a historical problem of severe backwardness.
38. Learn to use the magic word ‘totalitarian’. This word allows you to link two ideological opposites, Communism and Fascism.
39. Ignore the fact that socialist states experienced more economic problems parallel to the number of market reforms they made.
40. When challenged about numbers or historical context, resort to labels like “ruthless tyrant”, “cruel murderer”, and such. Remember, people like Stalin were mass-murderers because of all the people they killed, and we know they killed all those people because they were mass-murderers. It totally tracks!
Anti-Stalinism for Dummies!
by J. Slavyanski
In the past, I wrote an article on how to be an anti-Communist. Today we are going to focus on the proper techniques of handling Josef Stalin. See, just as Tupac Shakur has somehow released albums long after his death, so has Josef Stalin committed crimes. In fact, it’s very likely that somewhere, somehow, Stalin is having people put to death, possibly in your very neighborhood. Any unsolved murders in your city lately? It could be him!
1. This is the most important technique: Everything Stalin ever did, or didn’t do, was negative if not evil. Stalin never did anything right, and anything he did that could be seen as positive actually had some hidden evil motive. All your work should begin from this starting concept.
2. Everything that happened in the Soviet Union during the time of Stalin’s leadership was the direct will of Stalin. If someone was shot- Stalin did it. He may have done it personally, possibly bursting through the window of a room full of innocent people, wielding matching gold-plated Tokarev TT-33s, diving sideways in slow-motion as he squeezed off round after round into the surprised occupants. If someone died in a mine accident in the Urals, that was also Stalin’s fault. If someone was run down by a bus in Stalingrad, you had better believe that was a planned murder, the death warrant having been signed by Stalin.
3. Stalin’s orders regarding Red Army POWs was cruel. His application of those same rules to his own son was also cruel. Of course had he not applied those rules, he would have been an evil hypocrite as well.
4. Stalin was evil because he directed the famine against Ukrainians. Of course there is a great deal of documentary evidence showing that he was not even aware of the extent of the famine until conditions were severe- but that was his fault too. He had to have been feigning ignorance about the genocide he ordered!
5. Stalin’s “Dizzy with Success” was actually written to cover the fact that everything in the countryside was actually going precisely as he planned it! Remember, whenever Stalin openly criticized something, it was because he actually devised and ordered that to occur.
6. Stalin’s cynical quotes on some subjects prove how cruel he was. George Orwell’s cynical comments show how well he grasped “ugly truths”.
7. Stalin was only supporting the Spanish Republic in order to foment a Communist revolution in that nation. However, Stalin is also evil for curtailing the “real” revolution there in favor of the Republican government. The weapons Stalin provided were actually “obsolete”; pay no attention to the fact that the small arms were often standard issue in the Red Army at the time, the I-16 fighters dominated the Nationalists’ CR-32 Fiats and Heinkels, the SB-2 was an exceptional bomber at that time, and the T-26 dominated Nationalist armor until the last year or so of the war. Stalin was also evil because he charged the Spanish Republic for these things. Pay no attention to the fact that the Spanish Republic was desperately trying to buy weapons but was prevented from doing so by the Non-Intervention agreement.
8. Stalin helped start WWII. Never mind the fact that France and Britain had totally emboldened Hitler and Mussolini for years while the USSR was practically begging for some kind of anti-Fascist pact. Never mind the fact that the USSR only considered such a non-aggression pact until there were no viable options left.
9. All regimes after Stalin were in fact Stalinist. No matter the insane lengths they went to remove Stalin from their history, to denigrate him and his regime, even if they opposed him during his life time, they were Stalinist. Whenever a capitalist or layperson asks why such and such socialist country failed, one need only blame Stalin, and the argument will be over!
10. Stalin was in favor of a bureaucracy. Never mind all the articles he wrote encouraging people to struggle against it; remember everything Stalin criticizes, he was actually for! Stalin’s will was omnipotent, despite the fact that there are plenty of contemporary source documents showing Stalin’s proposals being ignored and opposed in the Central Committee throughout his entire term.
Follow these steps and you’ll be on your way!
What Lies Ahead for the Communist Party of Canada?
“Why vote Communist?”
A question I am frequently asked as a Communist Party candiate in Ontario’s provincial election. A vote for the Communist Party is a vote like no other.
When you vote Liberal, PC, Green or NDP, you vote for capitalism. You vote to accept that the system we have now, whether it is working presently or not, is good for the people.
When you vote Communist, you vote for capable worker-politicians. You vote for dedicated activists whose work among the people, for the people, gives us a unique quality. We know how government policies affect the people, how they play out on the ground, and how the people can be organized into the engine that turns the wheel of history.
We are not a party who takes its advice and cues from big business, small business, or foreign business. We learn from, and develop policies for, the working and oppressed people in this land.
Our aim is a socialist Canada, brought about by a large coalition of peoples’ and democratic forces under the leadership of the Communist Party. As the most dedicated activists, we aim to be the most strong-willed and capable leaders. We aim to keep the people firmly grounded in our position in the struggle, directly facing the exploiters and oppressors. We wish to marginalize and weed out those leaders of the people that preach retreat and concession when advance and determination is the order of the day.
Big business in Canada and their talking heads in the media advance anti-communism because communism is bad for them, not bad for the people. When they talk of communism, they focus on leaders and countries far detached from the current realities of Canadian life. When we talk about communism and craft our policies and positions, we base it all on nothing but the realities of that life. They demonize socialist countries for things that are present in our society, and often to a worse degree.
Forget what they say about “economic stability”, about “freedom and democracy”, about “trickle-down economic” or “rising tides lifting all boats”. Forget the business section of the newspaper – it is not neutral or unbiased. No news or information is. All news and information serves a purpose and is spoken from a certain bias. Anybody who says anything to the contrary is not accepting reality. And the business section, the financial advisors on camera, the “wisdom” taught to economic students…all of this serves the interests of the capitalist class.
We, not just the Communist Party but all progressive forces in society, are marginalized. We own no mass media; we do not write the history or economics textbooks; our only resource is the people and their determination to escape the mindlessness, misery and alienation of life under capitalism. Capitalism breeds no solidarity, no peace and certainly no justice. Capitalism breeds division, hate, isolation, and neverending conflict.
Socialism – that which we fight for – puts the people, their views, their needs, their interests and their culture, ahead of the interests of the elite. We work at the grassroots to bring power from the grassroots.
Canada in 2011 is not Russia in 1917, China in 1949, or Cuba in 1959. The means used to achieve and consolidate revolution in those countries will not be the same as used here, just as they were not the same among themselves. But however we bring about a socialist state, whose aim will be to bring all working people into running the country and conversely to knock the capitalist class out of power and out of existence as a class, we must bring it about.
To that end, we advance a program that is progressive to its core that calls for immediate action to improve the lives of working and oppressed people in Canada. We do so to rally all progressive, grassroots organizations around our party’s leadership. The mass organizations and trade unions are the social and economic foundation of socialism; the Communist Party and its allies are the political foundation.
It is the Communist Party that will guide the revolution, but the people and their mass organizations that will make it happen – it is they who will consolidate the revolution at every level of society.
This revolution will not come out of nowhere, or be a matter of the spontaneity of the masses. For this revolution to be a possibility, the Communist Party must achieve trusted leadership among the people. Our members are today working as leaders of the trade union, peace, democratic, farmers, student, youth, LGBTQ, women’s and national liberation movements in Canada. But our leadership needs to be expanded, brought together, and working cohesively. We are working always to achieve this goal.
The necessity of securing firm, committed, unrelenting, Marxist-Leninist leadership over the peoples’ movement has rarely been more pressing. As the presently-dominant social democratic leadership wavers and retreats, the forces of reaction grow stronger. The victory of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives at the federal level, various right-wing mayors exemplified by Rob Ford in Toronto, and the impending possibility of Tim Hudak becoming premier of Ontario, reactionary politicians, activists and businessmen are overjoyed. They have already started the war on the people, and to fight back against that is the duty of every progressive person. It is the duty of every communist to take up the leadership of that fightback.
Worse yet, the signs of nascent fascism are rearing their ugly heads everywhere. Seemingly-isolated incidents like Gary McHale’s antagonism of the Six Nations people fighting to protect their rights, the unleashing of state violence on peaceful protesters at the G20 and Montebello summits, and increasingly aggressive attacks by police on immigrant and guest worker communities are in fact connected to the rise of the reaction in Canada.
The nature of the right-wing is a reaction to progressive forces. In France, the revolution of 1789 met with hostility from the monarchs and lords who wished to preserve their feudal privileges. In America, the revolution of 1779 saw elements loyal to the British Crown battle for years before fleeing to settle in Canada. In interbellum Germany, the Nazis rose as a reaction to the strength of the Communist Party in the country – at the time, the German Communist Party was larger than the Soviet Party.
When capitalism is in extreme decay, and the forces of liberalism no longer enjoy the confidence of the people, fascism enters to fill the void. When that happens, the decisive question becomes a matter of life and death – we must do everything possible to resist the rise of fascism. We cannot do that by conceding, as the Social Democrats fatefully tried to do in Germany.
Politics is the expression of economics through the state. In a moment of extreme crisis, three political options are present:
-Fascism takes over in the interests of the most reactionary elements of capital, and their most subservient and treacherous members of the underclasses;
-Liberalism regains its footing and gains a new lease to rule as a system of class collaboration;
-The working class overthrows liberalism, crushes fascism, and begins to wage a protracted struggle against capitalism to construct socialism, led by their communist party.
The recession of 2008 was a minor speedbump for liberalism, not any sort of real threat to its ability to rule. However, if we are on the cusp of a crisis much worse than the ’08 recession, we may find that the option of liberalism disappears before us.
If that happens, it will only be the widespread faith of the people in the Communist Party’s ability to lead them to power that can prevent fascism’s rise. It will require that at the decisive moment when we must choose one path or the other, that the Communist Party issues correct leadership and makes the right decisions.
Whether we will soon be confronted with this task or not, we must work tirelessly to ensure that when we are confronted with it, we will be ready for it.
*originally written and posted on Facebook on September 24, 2011.
Announcing the Return of Red Continent to the Blogosphere!
Dear friends, comrades and readers,
Red Continent has been inactive for the last two and a half years. And by inactive, I mean totally inactive.
All that is about to change. I am proud to announce my return to the world of blogging!
Several events have spurred me to this decision. Chiefly, my involvement in the progressive student movement, the communist movement and in intellectual discourse on politics, sociology and history have confronted me with this immediate task. My training in journalism at Mohawk College would seem to have been a total waste if I were to not put it to use, and what better use than to advance the causes that are so dear to me?!
In the two and a half years since my last post (October 16, 2009, according to my dashboard), much has changed.
Although I am, sad to say, no longer involved in the United Socialist Movement of the Americas in any real way, I am proud to proclaim my membership and involvement in the Young Communist League of Canada and the Communist Party of Canada. I joined them in Fall 2009 and Spring 2011, respectively.
Along with this change in my organizational membership has come a shift in my political thinking. While I used to strictly identify as a “libertarian socialist”, I am now a shameless communist in the Marxist-Leninist tradition. All of my old beliefs remain strong – anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, anti-imperialism, support for national liberation, the labour movement, feminism, etc. All that has changed is my approach to activism and my view on socialist countries.
But, I’d prefer to let my journalism and my ideas speak for themselves. The more I write for the progressive student movement at McMaster University, where I am currently enrolled in Humanities I with an eye for Honours History, the more I feel like I’m doing exactly what I was made to do!
On that note, to new readers – welcome! To former readers – welcome back!
To everyone – I hope you find the content on Red Continent, whether my own or anybody else’s, informative, thought-provoking, and worthy of further exploration into the topics at hand!
In peace and solidarity and with red salutes all around from the heart of the Golden Horseshoe,
Rick Gunderman
