Monday 18 October 2010

Marxists And The Workers State Index

1. The Nature Of the Soviet State – The Marxist And Subjectivist Analysis, examines the question of the class nature of the USSR from the Marxist perspective, and contrasts it with the Subjectivist method of the Third Camp.

2. Workers States And The Vision Of Perfection Part 1, and 2, argues that the Third Camp subjectivist tradition, starts with a view of the working-class which is romanticised and unrealistic. It goes from the correct idea that the working class is the revolutionary class, whose historical role is to establish Socialism, to the wrong idea that this working-class must then be inherently Socialist, and progressive. Whenever, the real working-class then fails to conform to this idealised vision it causes the Third Campists, to recoil from it. A good example was the Lyndsey Oil Refinery dispute, which led some Third Campists, and other sectarians, to denounce the workers for having raised the reactionary demand of “British Jobs For British Workers”, and for some even to propose organising a picket against the strikers themselves! The same thing was true of an actual Workers State, which failed to live up to the idealised view.

3. Marx And Socialist Construction, argues that Marx's view of how Socialism would be built from the bottom up by workers self activity, and self-government within existing society is the opposite of the top down, Statist view of both Reformism and Leninism/Trotskyism.

4. Critique of The AWL On Socialist Action, argues that the AWL's criticism of “Socialist Action”, is based on an inadequate, and non-Marxist methodology.

5. A Reply To Mike McNair Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and Conclusion is a wide ranging discussion with the CPGB's Mike McNair on Historical Materialism, The Workers State and other issues.

6. Dialectics At Work, looks at two contemporary discussions in the pages of the Weekly Worker and Permanent Revolution. It argues that on both the question of the workers party and the Workers State there is too much formalistic thinking, and not enough dialectics.

7. Shachtman And Leninist Apologism, argues that his defence of the Bolsheviks, and the first years of the USSR, fails to identify what was wrong with the Leninist model.

8. A Response To Mike Mcnair On Marxist Theory And The USSR, continues the earlier discussion.

9. Chinese Workers And The State Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, looks at the recent strikes in China in the context of its economic and social development over the last 30 years, and asks what that tells us about the nature of the Chinese State, and of other states such as Russia.