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The ABC’s of Communism Bolshevism 2011 Jason W. Smith, Ph.D.
Author’s Preface to the 7th (2011) Edition Scientists define the stage of Modern Communism as something no one has yet seen and the stages of Primitive Communism as something we left behind prehistorically. However, “Communism” in the capitalist press means what we Bolsheviks are doing, or have done, where we have or had state power. The reality is the man in the street, knowing no better, accepts this constant repetition of the latter definition of communism, and thus our cadre must deal right off the bat with questions such as why was Communism overthrown in the Soviet Union, why does Communism do this, why that? In current affairs then to most North Americans “communism” means what we Marxist-Leninists have done and are doing, where we do have state power, and where we do not. The answers to all these questions are in this Handbook, thus the name change to “The ABC’s of Communism” from the earlier editions published as the Fundamentals of Historical Materialism. Nor is this a new and unusual propaganda direction for the capitalist press. In fact, this is the normal way the bourgeoisie uses everywhere to lie to the mass of producing people. In this regard the US is exactly like everywhere else.- And has been since day One. Lenin said it best in his address to the 1st Congress of the Communist International in 1919: “The falsity and hypocrisy of this argument (counterpoising democracy and dictatorship) repeated in a thousand strains by the capitalist press…are obvious to all who refuse to betray the fundamental principles of socialism.” This is a Handbook for revolutionary cadre regardless of Party affiliation. You may think of it as the citizen’s equivalent of a soldier’s Field Manual. In this sense this handbook serves the same purpose as Nicolai Bukharin’s book (1918) of the same name. (Co-authored by Bolshevik theoretician Yevgeny Preobrazhensky) The Bolsheviks and their Red Army of that time (1918 – 1920)) had the task of securing the national home base for socialism in the SovietRepublic and then the Soviet Union. – And, they had the additional task of triggering the world socialist revolution. Your task is to speed up the law governed process of sociocultural evolution so as to get us through the stage of Capitalism as quickly as possible. Especially now, when the positive contributions of capitalism to sociocultural evolution have been completed and only the bad remains. Bad is too mild a term. The lethal component of capitalism now threatens our species very existence. This means you additionally are to lead the struggle for armed insurrection against the capitalist regime in Washington DC and establish working class state power over the entire North American nation. Thereby finishing the task of global socialist revolution. Without us communists, it will take millennia to make the transition. With us communists, we can do the job in a few generations or decades. Disaster in the Gulf In 2007 I wrote that what the capitalists had in mind, among other things, with which to attack working people, were environmental disasters of geological proportions. At the time I was thinking of the farce put on by the gringo scumbags Bush (now an actual trillionaire member of the US ruling oligarchy) and (the formerly poor-White-trash) centi-millionaire Clinton, after the tidal wave disaster in Indonesia. More to the point for the USA population now is that the then ultimate environmental disaster that could have occurred occurred in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. What this proves, as if any more historical evidence was needed than history has already provided, is that without us, the capitalists will destroy the world in their insatiable greed to produce profits at any cost. The capitalist disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is just the tip of the coming iceberg! With us, working people will destroy the cap threat and propel our species into the Era of Freedom. The last several chapters of this book (Ch. 24 to 27) deal coincidentally with BP from its inception as Anglo-Persian at the turn of the last century. You will find this historical insight into BP useful in your day to day conversations with others. Bungler’s Paradise The Implosion of Gringo “Intelligence” Perhaps the most interesting non-economic development of the year in Gringolandia was the Washington Post July expose, where it becomes evident that the Gringo “intelligence and subversion” establishment has imploded. In fact, many different systemic failures came to head at the same time in the gringo “intelligence” establishment, just as they had in the overall imperialist economic structure. There is nothing surprising about this to us. US intelligence has always been considered to be a joke in the major spy centers of the globe. The reason being the (1) general historical ignorance of those employed and (2) the inability to build ties to anyone in the colonial and semi-colonial, Third World comprador classes. (3) To the degree that gringo agents have had success it is because of the suitcases full of money they carry and that is it pure and simple. (4) No significant tradecraft knowledge exists among gringo agencies including their so-called agents on the spot. In the last decade the imperialist bosses in Washington simply did what they always do and that is to try and buy their way out of every mess they have created with borrowed money. So, what was already a pathetic intelligence establishment (measured by what you get for what you pay) became an out and out travesty as thousands upon thousands of con men were hired as analysts (one stop on the two ladders upward in Washington – government jobs being one and private contractor jobs being the other. A gringo equivalent to Middle American peasant life where one ladder up is civil and the other the church). No one in gringo “intelligence” has the slightest idea what they are doing and furthermore they never will. Take my word for it – they have always been lost and now they are lost in space and will never find their way back. This does not mean they are not dangerous. Even a hog will root out a pearl now and then. But it does mean they can be handled by normal means. Wikileaks Shortly after I wrote the foregoing section on the Washington Post expose of the total incompetence of gringo intelligence after its 9/11/2001 so-called “long awaited reform” we discovered that a US Army Private soldier had managed easily to get his hands on all the secret cables of the US State Department to and from its embassies around the world and furthermore had had no difficulty in copying them and sending them to the website Wikileaks. Is this level of incompetence even possible? Doesn’t this make the Brit capitalist error in permitting Soviet penetration of MI5 and MI6 look strictly “small potatoes” in comparison. The entire episode simply reinforces the truth of what I said foregoing. The gringo’s don’t have the slightest idea what they are doing on the ground, with each agent and agency running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Furthermore there is no reason to believe we will be up against anything better than this sorry joke of an enemy in the foreseeable future. 5 What Do We Want for Humanity’s Future? The first stage of this new Era, where humans are no longer confronted first, foremost and forever with the problem of satisfying their most fundamental wants before they are FREE to do anything else, will begin with the Stage of Communism. The transitional modes in the organization of modern society with revolutionary proletarian governments, we establish to accelerate the process, we have to come to call “socialist.” I have tried to provide you with the information you will need to answer the many questions people have about sociocultural evolution, ranging from primitive days, through the rise of monumental architecture (e.g., pyramids), to the present day. Accordingly this Handbook now has an index. When working people understand what Modern Communism will really be, once accomplished, then they will set out enthusiastically on this road into the Era of Freedom (as Engels termed the period which will begin with the stage of Modern Communism.) I want you to remember and never forget that there are only a few of us Communists among those fighting for liberation from wage slavery and the establishment of working class power, in our country. Most people on our side are simply fighting for justice in order to survive and hopefully prosper. They know very little about the facts of history and even less, usually nothing, about the laws of history. This is not an accident. The ruling class and especially its new trillionaire oligarchy have seen to it that working people get only lies as news and history. It’s been that way acutely for some 65 years. On the other hand, a few people are knowledgeable. Specifically, us communists. It is our historical obligation to lead the working masses and in so doing complete the task at hand. Some of us have always been communists. We will always be communists. In practice this means that we take command of every situation in which we intervene as a combat organization of professional revolutionaries and provide the leadership the masses must have to win their battles. That’s what Leninism means in the phrase Marxism-Leninism. In North America we have had to create a new Party for reasons you will come to understand herein. The first job of our Party is to train the next generation of communists to take our place. For, as Thomas Jefferson was fond of saying, “the Earth belongs to the living.” The rectified North American vanguard party, the Communist 6 Party USA (Foundation), is tasked with taking command of the revolution of the working masses of our country. What is coming will not be an easy fight. It will not end well for our enemies or it will not end well for us. However, this is a price we are willing to pay, for as Mr. Jefferson was also fond of saying “better that there be no more than one man and one woman left in every country on the face of the Earth than that things should continue as they have.” In this 7th edition I have done more than deepen and expand certain sections. I have changed the name of the book from Fundamentals of Historical Materialism to The ABC’s of Communism retaining the subtitle Bolshevism and the year of the edition (in this case 2011), mainly for the reason above. You should note this name change also reflects the fact a real Communist Party has now been created in the USA and to differentiate us from the FBI front party of the same name operated by career FBI Special Agent Sam Webb. In short, since the day to day practice of our politics is what most North Americans think of when the term communism is utilized in the cap press we now rise to the occasion, defining in this limited sense, what communism is all about in contemporary life. Accordingly, even though we are still in the last days of the pre-Modern Communist period (the Era of Necessity as Engels termed it,) we should always answer the questions being asked by workers about what they consider to be “communism” and in the process of doing so, convert the situation into an opportunity to present the facts about how our day to day political policies have developed since 1917. In such a way dialectically convert the sabotage and obfuscatory tactics of our class enemies into weapons to open the vaults of historical truth. For the moment let’s tackle the number one capitalist propaganda tenet; namely, that capitalism is coming back in the Socialist Camp (China, Vietnam-Laos, Cuba.) In short this is just nonsense. Just another capitalist lie. In the Soviet Union and East Europe the New Class (originating as socialist bureaucrats and emerging after Stalin’s death as a new bourgeoisie) did overthrow socialism. They have established a kind of half-assed capitalism benefiting no one but them. Currently they are facing a crisis where they must decide which way to turn – return to a socialist path toward communism or try and establish some kind of fascist capitalism. On the other hand, where the New Class was weaker, and working class control of the Communist Party stronger, socialism was also accordingly stronger. Thus, in China, Vietnam-Laos and Cuba, the Communist Party did not lose power but adjusted to changing circumstances. In these latter countries we are implementing what we have learned from our own experimentation in the 20th century, and continuing now in the 21st, in the backward countries of our Socialist Camp. In short, in today’s Socialist Camp we are still completing the task of building the infrastructure we should have inherited from a fully developed capitalist stage. Experience in the USSR has shown us it is often necessary to use in this process the bourgeois and especially small bourgeois, elements of society to get this done (chapters 13 and 14). Under our direction, of course. As part of our general plan. In all these countries the socialist component of these economies is by far the overwhelming dynamic controlling highest portion of the economies in question. This is why China handled the global capitalist collapse so successfully (Chapter 28 below). 7 Why mixed economies before full socialism, not to mention communism? Because social justice is one thing and communist stage egalitarianism quite another. You can not artificially impose permanently the latter. It can only be permanent when the mode of production is fully developed to the level necessary to make practical the slogan “from each according to her ability to each according to her need”. Let us next take a quick forward peek to see why. The remainder of the text in this book explains this insight into the future in scientific terms. This time warp view of the future is Marxism perfected – what the term Marxism is all about in the phrase Marxism-Leninism. A few comments on how we got to our current correct understanding of human social and cultural evolution (sociocultural evolution) and the shining path it has opened for us. A Completed Theory When Karl Marx and Frederick Engels met each other for the first time in Paris, in November 1842, they quickly recognized they had each, independently, come to the same general conclusions about how society evolved to its present stage (what we now call Historical Materialism, and its constituent sciences of evolutionary anthropology, history, psychology and sociology). They also recognized that Marx had begun unlocking the secrets of production of the Capitalist Stage itself. In so doing Marx was answering the question as to why the more science and technology contributed to the ability of humans to make more things, more effectively, and cheaply, the less the people making these things actually kept for themselves. As Hegel had remarked, to paraphrase, “never did a labor-saving invention do anything other than worsen the conditions of the laborers themselves.” Marx’s theory of capitalist production was presented to the international working class movement in various forms through the 1850’s and 1860’s and culminated with the publication of Capital Volume One in 1867. (A) The last seven years of Karl Marx’s life (1877-1883) were spent trying to extend the historical materialist theory of sociocultural evolution back into the detailed history and prehistory of mankind. Marx, in other words, had already unlocked the secrets of the Capitalist Stage and was attempting to do the same thing for the preceding stages in the social and cultural (sociocultural) evolution of humanity. Thanks especially to a century’s work, on the part of innumerable anthropologists (especially archaeologists), that task has now been completed, as this book will prove (B) What We Did Not Foresee: Why Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez are Correct. As far as I can tell neither Karl Marx nor Frederick Engels ever anticipated that the working class would take power anywhere other than in an advanced capitalist country. Even in their later years when conversing with Russian Social Democrats about the possibility of revolution in Russia, did either seem to have anticipated the strange unfolding of events which was about to occur. Marx did see the possibility that Russia could be the trigger of world socialist revolution but that is all. The idea that Russian workers could go it alone never occurred to him. What is the significance of this? What am I talking about? About the fact that workers first took power in the least advanced of the capitalist countries – namely Russia and its Empire. Nor, then, could the founders have foreseen that the next great addition to the global workers government stage would come in China which was only capitalist in 8
On the contrary, Marx and Engels had seen capitalism being moved rather swiftly out of the way, as its own advanced working class replaced it, with a new system which put them and the masses at the top of the priority list rather than on the bottom of it (See Chapter Two paragraph 22 of The Communist Manifesto). In the highly schematized way we have of looking at social and cultural evolution that was natural and it is quite understandable, especially to anthropologists; particularly to archaeologists. (Archaeology is one of the four subdisciplines of anthropology: the other three being cultural anthropology, physical anthropology and linguistics) Why? Because we in archaeology, especially, are always drawing sequences from older to younger, in archaeological sites, in regional and area synthesis, in overall evolution. One layer gives way to the next. Let me show you: In an archaeological region or subarea, in the USA Southwest, we might have the following reconstruction: Modern human remains Pueblo VI remains Pueblo V remains Pueblo IV remains Pueblo III remains Pueblo II remains Pueblo I remains Anasazi III remains Anasazi II remains Anasazi I remains Proto-Anasazi remains Archaic Desert Cultural remains Proto-archaic remains Palaeo-indian remains This reconstruction would be based on several different sites. Each site would have enough of the sequence within it so that, in a like fashion to tree-ring matching and tree-ring sequence building, we can put together a sequence of occupation for the entire region or cultural subarea, or area. However, this is highly schematized, not that there is anything wrong with schematics – far from it. Schematizing archaeological sequences and broader sociocultural evolutionary sequences is one of the principal tasks of archaeology. What can be wrong with this approach is not the approach but the assumptions that could go with it. For example, this particular schematic shows little about the processes occurring (quietly unassertive) in each level. These we have to figure out for ourselves based upon both theory and detailed analysis of the remains of each level, sublevel by sublevel, in each of the sites in question. When we do this we begin to see an entirely new picture. For example, how and why did the Anasazi people move from the pithouse domestic structures of Anasazi I – III into the above ground house and room buildings of 9
Now, in the preparation of summaries for our colleagues, for students, for readers of prehistory in general, we usually produce the kind of schematic you see above. When we look at the even larger picture, say all of North and Middle America, we often draw a schematic that looks like this: High Cultural Civilization of Mesoamerica (the Aztecs and the Mayas for example) Primitive States (Teoitihuacan, Oaxaca, Palenque for example) Tehuacan Chiefdoms (the Archaic levels) The Tehuacan Simple Chiefdoms (the proto-archaic and archaic levels) Broad-spectrum Hunting and Gathering (Palaeo-indian sequences at Tehuacan: Lerma, Clovis, Folsom levels) - And, we may even generalize further as: White Contact Post-Classic Classic Formative Archaic Proto-archaic Lithic In this latter schematic we have a sequence equivalent to the historical sequence of Modern Communism Capitalism Feudalism * Slavery Primitive Communism * Feudalism: as I explain in the text, the term feudalism is loaded with the idea of small fiefdom society in Western historical literature. That is fine. However, that definition has little in common with the use of the term here, where a broad global sociocultural evolutionary stage, is the object to be defined. Here, therefore, we use the term Feudalism to represent the global, universal, transitional stage between chattel and wage slavery, which occurred everywhere in the world where there was autochthonous (indigenous) sociocultural evolution and, therefore, feudalism, as a global stage, may be fiefdom in polity (e. g., Europe) or imperial (e.g., China). 10 Now the point is, to look at how much we miss if all we have is the latter sequences. We miss almost all of the transitional evidence. We don’t quite miss it all as Feudalism is a transitional stage between chattel and wage slavery, but even that may be hard to see without a more thorough sequence of stages and phases to show us the transitional period (and its, at least, two Chiefdom Stages) which had occurred already between primitive communism and slavery. It is for this reason, as I say; I went into archaeology to begin with. To try and find what Marx was looking for in the last seven years of his life. Namely, the transitional proofs for the movement out of primitive communism into chattel slavery. I thought if we had that part of the sequence than perhaps we could gain insight into characteristics of the current transition from wage slavery to modern communism. I believe I was correct in that regard as the first ten chapters of this book will prove. Practical Application: the Source of Ultra-Left and Trotskyist Errors You can use our now accurately reconstructed, model of prehistoric with historic sociocultural evolution and see where the Trotskyists and the Ultra-Left took the completely wrong fork in the theoretical road; namely, by confusing in 1917 where we were with where they wanted to be, to wit: Communist Stage Second Egalitarian Epoch Begins Here ! Where the Ultra-left want to be and think we were in 1917 Advanced Socialist Stage(s) ! Where we are now Stalinist Socialist Stage ! Where we really were in 1917 in Russia but without the completed capitalist stage technological accomplishments Second Transitional Period Begins Here Capitalist Stage Feudal Stage Slave Stage Servitude Epoch Begins Here Advanced Theocratic Chiefdoms Stage Simple Chiefdoms Stage 11 First Transitional Period Begins Here Tribal Agriculture Stage Hunting Gathering Bands Stage 3 (Homo sapiens) Hunting Gathering Bands Stage 2 (Homo erectus) Hunting Gathering Bands Stage 1 (Homo Australopithecus) Ape-like Humans Primitive Communism (1st Egalitarian Epoch) Begins Here Human-like Apes Primate Origins Discussion Because the Trotskyists and ultra-leftists of all stripes had no accurate prehistoric-historic knowledge about sociocultural process – reflected above in our archaeological chart of sociocultural stage evolution, or fundamentally about the more profound implications of our theory, these Trots, and later the followers of Jiang Qing, Chairman Mao’s wife (Madame Maoists), took the wrong road. This is their objective, scientifically derived, commonality. Those who followed Stalin and what became the Party’s General Line had no such knowledge either but they had common sense and knew their way was in fact the only way. The latter persevered and the former have not. History speaking for itself i.e., unfolding as it did is the proof. By correcting this profound error – going back to the fork and taking the correct road – those in error (Trotskyists and ultra-leftists) can become effective fighters for rapid transformation to Communism, once again. These people are our comrades, and many if not all have suffered greatly for their beliefs, and we should at least try to help them, despite their problems, if we can. We want them to rejoin the international revolutionary movement via the correct Communist Party and correct international working class revolutionary line. After all, everyone was confused for awhile. Those who were right by accident will now know why they were right. (The revisionists old or modern were always wrong and anti-Marxist-Leninist then and now but that is another matter altogether.) Problem resolved. Let’s not get off on the Wrong Foot right at the Start The brief explanation of the history of the internationals in a blurb at Venezuela analysis is completely misleading, wrong and unacceptable. The First International did not collapse. It was threatened by anarchist takeover in Europe so General Secretary Karl Marx sent it to Philadelphia. There the 19 sections of US communists dissolved it at Marx’s bidding. In its stead they created the Workingmen’s Party of the United States and other Marxists in Europe created their own social democratic parties. I discuss this in detail in Part III on the history of the Labor Movement in the USA. The Second International was taken over from the beginning by revisionists. By revisionism we mean those who try to justify capitalist rule by preaching “the reform of capitalism.” They did what we have come to expect from revisionism. (Both this 12 The Third International created by Lenin set things straight. It is a lie to say that the Comintern was perverted by Stalin and/or Stalinism. If we are going to start a new international it cannot be just an excuse to bring Trotskyist mythology back to the fore. In this book you can read the truth about the history of the 3rd International in the160 pages of chapters 13 through 16. The Fourth International of the Trotskyists never got off the ground. They have never been able to secure state power anywhere. Originally because, at least in my opinion, the only programmatic difference between Stalin and Trotsky was on the question of pace of the five year plans. The only other real difference being the personality struggle between the bourgoisiefied would-be aristocrat Trotsky and the long term Old Bolshevik Stalin. Trotsky was an enemy of Bolshevism most of his life and with us only a short time. Stalin gave Lenin the first permanent labor union in the Czarist Empire in the oilfields of Baku and Batum and robbed banks and stage coaches and ships to get Lenin money. It was Stalin and associated Old Bolsheviks (never including Trotsky) who triggered the national general strike that led to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and the Russian Revolution of 1905. All of this and the history of the Russian Revolution of 1917 as well, is discussed in this book. A fifth international is exactly what is needed but not one based on silly Trotskyist lies, distortions and mythology. If those assembled should decide to create the 5th International they should consider setting up a Historical Commission to study and resolve differences of opinion on all these matters. Any attempt to foist Trotskyist mythology on the international working class movement’s most important central body will doom such a body to defeat right from the start. We need to get off on the right foot. This is just the first course in Marxism-Leninism Finally, in 2010, I wrote a synthesis for my colleagues in anthropology, concerning the completion of Marx’s theoretical research into the origin and evolution of human modes of production. This monograph also serves as an introduction to graduate level coursework (e.g., Anth 501 Advanced Historical Materialism, for those of you teaching ABC’s courses.) That monograph entitled Karl Marx’s Second Magnum Opus: Archaeology and Primitive Communism. We have Great Opportunities The Enemy is finished – The Gringo Imperialist Empire is collapsing Asimov’s “Foundation” Analog As 2011 opens the USA and its Empire is at a defining point in history: namely, the end of the Gringo Empire, the demise of the so-called North American Century. No matter what the US ruling tiny group of oligarchs does now, it is too late. The US Empire is doomed and nothing its rulers do now can save it. The trillionaire Rockefeller, Morgan, Mellon, DuPont, etc. super-capitalists can and will save themselves by changing 13 In this sense we are where Hari Seldon was when his mathematics of psychohistory predicted the inevitable end of that Empire. It was this fictional analog I just referred to in the subheading foregoing about the Isaac Asimov story, As a matter of interest Asimov’s story propelled both (Nobel Prize winning economist) Paul Krugman and me into our search for the foundations of human sociocultural evolution. – And, it is this story which is on-target today (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation.) Another analog is the situation for humans in the quandary of contemporary global warming in that no matter what the US now does it is too late. In other words, even if today we stopped all further CO2 pollution (which of course we won’t) it would be far too late to stop what is now environmentally inevitable. Fortunately, the road forward for you young revolutionary communist cadre is far more easily seen perhaps than it was before the global capitalist system collapse of 2008. Your task is to speed up this transition from the Servitude Epoch (and its capitalist stage we are now in) to communism via the most rapid possible transitional stages (we are also in now.) This handbook has been produced to assist you. You must fight for a constitutional convention to rewrite our fundamental document in favor of Socialism and against Capitalism. To secure our victories in this arena we must have a working class army and police force and that should grow from our armed seizure in combination with the military not against it. – And, we must have a model. To you students let me say the most important part of this book in my opinion are the first ten chapters which explain how class divided and state (army/police) organized society came into existence after 99.99% of human history having been spent in a period of egalitarian and altruistic social relations (what we call primitive communism.) I mention this because many of you are in political Parties where there are contentious matters having to do with 20th century issues in our movement (Trotskyism for example.) I recognize many of you are anxious to get to those chapters. Fine, get to them first if you need to, but don’t forget the most important lesson herein lies in how and why we left the epoch of primitive communism and entered the Servitude epoch (the slave stage, feudal stage and capitalist stage) and these facts you will learn in the first ten chapters. Why is this, the most important topic? Isn’t it essentially academic? No, it is not a purely academic endeavor for if we know how we traversed the period between primitive communism and Slavery (1st stage of the Servitude Epoch) than we may well get insights as to how we will get out of Capitalism (the last stage of the Servitude Epoch) and into modern communism! Two transitional periods, each composed of at least two sociocultural evolutionary stages, we know existed and exist. In any science it is pro forma to investigate for possible transitional commonalities in such situations and so we conduct such an investigation in social science. 14 At any rate, in these remarks, and in additional chapters at the end of this book, I will also comment on what happened in the USA during 2009 when there were dramatic developments in this heartland of world imperialism leading close to: (1) The brink of collapse of the entire Empire! The Capitalist Stage (Imperialist phase) USA Empire is fatally flawed and can be taken down soon! However, even with the dismissal of Gringolandia from its role as sole global superpower our problems will remain. Specifically, the problem that construction of Communism via the intermediary steps of Socialist stages will take longer than we had originally thought, with or without US imperialism as the leader of the global capitalist stage. (2) Furthermore, as you will see in this Handbook the international situation with regard to working class revolutionary seizure of power has improved radically. This Handbook also reflects (3) A perfection of the Specific Theory of Primitive Communism as a distinct main point and part of its structure. A distinct contribution if you will to the General Theory of Historical Materialism. (4) As usual I will summarize the developments that were most important to you (as a revolutionary cadre) in 2009 from a scientific perspective. Never forget we have the science of culture, society and their history as our virtual sole property and we should rely heavily upon it. Not just to be right. But to be more effective than our enemies. Our enemies live in a dream and fantasy-like world of religious superstition and ad hoc radical screw ball slogans of the far right (fascist) wing US leaders. This ridiculous ideology which arose to delude the sheep is now leading the Rockefeller-Mellon-Morgan et. al. oligarchy into one fatal trap after another. We have seen this happening to them over many decades and now their ignorance is coming home to roost for them. Ignorance, silly political prejudices, and religious fairy-tales, as the main stay of your educational and information system are one thing when you are running the show – when you are in fact the Empire. But when you are just another failing capitalist country, history proves fairy-tale religion combined with general ignorance of history and sociocultural evolutionary anthropology, will fuck you in the ass every time. For the gringo capitalist oligarchy there is no going back to being number one top dog. They will be fortunate just to hold onto a leading place in the wolf-pack of advanced capitalist countries. – And, if they are allowed by their bourgeois brethren to hold onto a respected place in the alpha group of capitalist countries it will be a gift. One they have not earned, and do not deserve except, for their inertia. (Meaning their huge in-place capitalist institutions in manufacture and finance. Although by dismantling much of this and sending it to cheap labor centers abroad, they have screwed themselves in this regard too.) The hope of the world is that the election of President Obama will mean a retreat to the otherwise rather clear course toward World War we have been watching unfold. Obama may lead the US into the not altogether despicable position of being “the guy in the room who fucked everything up, but couldn’t help it because he is the village idiot.” In the end that is the best he will be able to do for the oligarchy. Murdoch (FOX – balanced and fair neo-Nazi propaganda – fascist oxymoron news and commentary) may jump ship and go back to Australia and you can expect many other similar centi-billionaire and trillionaire families to ditch the US for better homelands elsewhere in the world. After all the educated US petty bourgeoisie has been jumping ship for decades and now at least 250,000 USA originating families emigrate 15 Real versus Phony Communists (5) This is excellent news for us Communists because now with a proper ideological rearming (as herein for example) we can make up for lost time quickly. More importantly we can bring about the end of capitalism even more quickly than we might have imagined even a year ago. If we do we will definitely be starting out in some kind of advanced Stalinist socialism so we want to be sure we shape this thing the way we want it. Along those lines the Communist Party USA (Foundation) was formed to earn a vanguard position among North American working people. Real communists had no choice because the US FBI had succeeded in replacing long time self-deluded modern revisionist Gus Hall as chief of the modern revisionist archetype Party CPUSA, with a real traitor scumbag in the form of its longtime FBI payrollee Sam Webb. Best of luck to all of you in that barely remnant Party in any endeavor you may launch to save your “rump” Party... However that may turn out, when we US Bolsheviks do succeed in replacing the bloodsucking vampire Gringo capitalists, we will still be confronting the problems of transition. I noticed in the latter part of 2010 a website set up by dissidents within the FBI Party operating under the website label of National Board CPUSA – I found their website by typing into my browser “Sam Webb FBI special agent.” Actually it is well done and quite humorous to read. One wonders how long it will be until one of the disgruntled geriatrics still hanging around the FBI Party puts bullets between the eyes of the conspirators led by Sam Webb and his gang (including long-time revisionist traitor Danny Rubin.) Going to Completion (6) Harry Bridges used to point out to his colleagues in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) a most critical fact. Namely, this is a capitalist country, and as long as it is, there is only so far the Union can go. In other words being a worker in a capitalist country is something like being a ten year old boy on a first date. In my own case I thought I was in love with a ten year old girl in my elementary school class and I went as far as to arrange a date. My father took us to see Marilyn Monroe in River of No Return. The problem was, at the end of the date there was nothing to do! My father drove us to our respective homes and that was it. I didn’t know about sex and had no idea what to do next and the whole thing just died a natural death. A ten year old boy can only rarely go to completion. Industrial workers are in the same boat until they destroy the capitalist thuggery (the Army-Police) holding them in wage-slavery, creating our own state (Army-Police) and go over to seizing and taking total ownership over the means of production. Turning their own labor and the resulting income stream to their own benefit. 16 Seizing the Means of Production Class conscious workers in a Union are also stuck in a nowhere-to-go situation. As long as this is a capitalist country there is only so much value and surplus value to be directed toward the needs of the men and women who actually do the work. That amount of Value is finite and limited. Winning a strike is great but it leaves you right where you were to begin with as long as capitalism is retained. The capitalists still have the legal right to own the factory and make all the decisions (except for the issue you just won because of the strike.) The worst part is that the capitalists get to keep coming back to screw workers again and again no matter how many limited worker actions we might win. Unless we liquidate them and their system, and replace it with us and our system, workers will always be in the quandary of a ten year old boy on a first date. Unable to close the deal. Only moving toward a fully conscious demand for Socialism and Now can workers get beyond this conundrum by seizing ownership of the factories and other means of production by armed force and establishing our own police power over enemies of the people – e. g., the capitalists – preventing them by law from ever coming back to an ownership position. Then workers can use the profits of their endeavors for themselves, their families, and society overall. The Private Property Trap Classes are defined on the basis of the ownership relations of a group of people to the means of production and the subsequent right to oversee distribution. People consider themselves part of one class or another when they assume a commonality of interest. This is the Achilles Heel of the petty bourgeoisie for example because they assume a commonality of interest in the private ownership of the means of production with the big bourgeoisie because they think they must. The capitalists convince them that ownership of private property is a universal right, the same for giant factories as it is for your bathroom toothbrush, and if you want what goes along with being bourgeois, (that is, some special privileged position with regard to ownership, then they have to agree that all of the means of production and distribution must be held privately too). These rather pathetic small bourgeois elements are thereby coerced into thinking they have little choice but to accept this, thus defined, Doctrine of the Sanctity of Private Property. That is the capitalist pitch. The truth is private ownership of the giant factory type and the individual householder type should be two totally separate categories in law and can be easily made so in practice. In fact, they already are, often in capitalist countries as well. At any rate, in the current capitalist crisis the media (which is always under oligarchic dictatorship) consistently talks as if the one unquestioned assumption is that there always has been and there always will be private ownership of the means of production and distribution. We, of course, counter with “No. Private ownership of the means of production and distribution is a new phenomenon of perhaps 6,000 years duration and in the previous millions of years property was held in common. It was the division into society of classes and the expropriation of public property by the ruling class which put the means of production into private hands. Theft, in other words. There will be no permanence now to private ownership of the means of production and distribution. In fact we intend on 17 seizing all the means of production and distribution above a certain level immediately upon seizing power.” Protecting Your Personal Property What is that “level?” Another capitalist trick is to give people the idea that we communists are going to seize their cars and Ipods. This is just bullshit but some people will believe anything. We have no interest in the personal property of people being publicly owned. That would make no sense at all. In fact, just the opposite! We are trying to get as much personal property as possible into the hands of individuals. That is what “…from each according to her ability to each according to her needs” means for goodness sakes! Private ownership of the principal means of production (steel, autos, aluminum, electricity, etc.) is a totally separate category from personal private property (cars, houses, the stuff in them, etc.) That is the point, and you need to internalize this. We will seize in totality the commanding heights of all finance and industry and simultaneously protect the interest of working people in their ownership of their private personal property. WE will seize the corporate farms and assist small and middle and even big farmers who want to stay private and work along a co-op road (especially important here are some religious groups who practice cooperation and collectivity such as the Mormons, Mennonites and Amish.) Right now the capitalists own the principal means of production and fuck around at will with the people’s personal property (mortgages, credit cards, crop price supports, etc.) Our revolutionary armed seizure of power will reverse that situation and double-quick! I – The International Capitalist Situation: (1) Political economy: The two central global financial developments of the preceding year have been (1) the ruling class response (a) in the US and (b) internationally, to the US instigated financial collapse and (2) the rapid recovery of the Peoples Republic of China from the global catastrophe. Let’s take China first. Since China has a Capitalist sector we must review that aspect of Chinese development within the context of the overall growth of the Socialist sector of the economy (incomparably larger.) When we do we see one thing crystal clearly – it was the Socialist sector and its strength which allowed the Party to move in and take the necessary steps to do an equivalent injection of capital to what is called “stimulus” in the new US ruling class lingo. In fact, it was easy for them because of half a century of state power dealing with much more difficult investment problems, not to mention prior decades of learning how to make do in the insurrectional environment of Civil War. The Chinese Communist Party has now proven it can handle Two Systems One Country and its ability to do so is primarily due to its leaders honesty combined with the strength of the socialist sector of the PRC economy. But, from our standpoint, the critical point is the Deng solution of a NEP like program for Chinese revolutionary construction does work! We have our Party in command of China, implementing an industrialization of industry and mechanization of agriculture with both capitalist and socialist answers. Despite the collapse of the world capitalist system the Chinese Party was able to handle the consequences within China while stepping up their program for increasing GDP. 18 Workers will see, if you explain it to them that what worked in China could work even better here! Namely, by putting people back to work as they have in China but have failed to do in Gringolandia, with its thirty million workers now on the dole. In fact the same methodology in government will work better here because we do not suffer from technological backwardness which is still the central feature of the PRC economy. The US “rust belt” could be resuscitated overnight, and we communists would do that. With cash infusion comparable to the way we converted Detroit from automobiles to tanks and planes these factories (a la World War II) could be up and running in months. Our socialist government would put everyone to work immediately! But this will require a revolutionary armed seizure of power by working people and how that is to be done needs to be worked out. – And, most importantly, as good as the Chinese example is it is inadequate because China is so much more backward than would be required for Socialism (let alone Communism.) We have to build our own model of US Socialism, in order to take advantage of our great technological sophistication, as well as the experience we Bolsheviks have gained in building Socialism since 1917. (2) Class analysis: Meanwhile class shock continues unabated among working people of the advanced capitalist countries. We will deal extensively with the situation in Gringolandia and elsewhere in the capitalist world in the last chapter of this book. Developing socialist economies in Latin America have featured continuing redistribution of wealth and power more democratically as in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Now these four are in political and military alliance with Cuba. What a dramatic shift in global relationships in the eight years since I visited Cuba, when this homeland of Socialism was relatively isolated and on a near-war footing, awaiting gringo invasion. - And, in all four of these nations, major potentially progressive strata of the Latin American nations, with a few exceptions (Colombia and Peru), are stronger and more empowered and emboldened than ever before. This is an unexpected negative for the gringo imperialists who did not figure on a broad front of Latin American (i) national (patriotic) bourgeoisie, (ii) petty bourgeoisie (include farmers here), (iii) working class and (iv) indigenous peoples, emerging from the US instigated global capitalist financial collapse, and emerging stronger than they went in. What the gringo oligarchy had been thinking about, and all they had been thinking about in their greed, was getting out from under the collapsing burden of too much cash going out and too little coming in to the USA, and buying time by borrowing money which was what the sale of US paper is all about. To get out from under this fatal imbalance they had to wreck the other capitalist classes and they proceeded to do so. All in all the US capitalists were right in this regard, for as a class oligarchy anyway, the top of the top one percent did win out, at least compared to what happened to their class brethren internationally (although this betrayal will come at an as yet unknown political price). The US imperialists were forced into “stall and retreat” actions against the progressive Governments and movements in Latin America. The gringo imperialists don’t have the money or the troops to send anything more to South America than the small-unit trouble-making forces composed of US Navy Seals, US Army Green Berets, and US CIA agents. So far all these guys have succeeded in doing is causing trouble in 19 (3) The Next and Immediate coming crisis: Importantly, the US rulers at least have begun preparing people for the inevitable monetary crisis. Specifically, the crisis created by the rapidly devaluing US dollar. This devaluation was inevitable even without the collapse. Now the degree to which this devaluation has been accelerated by the trillions of printed dollars created for the gringo oligarchy to get out of its current crisis is the only remaining question. One way or another a second currency will be brought into existence. Either the existing dollar removed from control by Washington and turned over to a new governing body (EU for example) and a new domestic currency created for the gringo politicians to fuck around with, without affecting the rest of the world. Or some combination of international currencies to form a basket of convertible notes to replace the US dollar, the gringos left to handle their mess anyway they can. The first hint of this new capitalist propaganda mass-line I heard on NBR (PBS show National Business Review) September 16, 2009, when Paul Kangas’ guest told viewers, even though we have gotten used to the idea of US Treasury notes being as good as cash, the truth is they are not cash and their value is in question, if over a ten year perspective, and investors should be aware that low risk does not mean no risk! Furthermore, he says you should consider your US instrument buying to be short term to avoid the longer term risk. Then on October 7th yellow (anti-immigrant) “know nothing” journalist Lou Dobbs invited several so-called economists to discuss a second international currency (These CNN talking heads are just idiots like Dobbs but in this case we have a classic example of “it’s not important what they say but that they are admitting the issue.”) In short, the sheep are getting the message: “The US dollar is not sacrosanct and subject to the same objective laws of economics as everyone else.” With that Dobbs kicked off his new Financial News section and one suspects one central ideological feature is going to be an ongoing dilution of the truth about the inevitable collapse of the Post-World War II financial world order, featuring the US dollar and several shock-absorbing sub-currencies (originally the Mark and the Yen but now including the Yuan) in command. (Dobbs resignation at CNN coming shortly thereafter is simply a concession to the rapidly burgeoning Mexican and Hispanic population.) 20 October brought official admissions that even Brazilian currency, until recently one of the Pariah currencies of Latin America, appreciated 40% in the first nine months of 2009 over the US dollar! On October 8, BBC World News reported that the major Asian central banks had intervened in the currency market to stop the headlong crash of the US dollar. Not to be outdone CNN reported October 9 the Dollar is in severe doldrums. Whatever that means. Actually it means nothing except one more step in admitting the truth to the North American people about what has been done to their money. On October 10, CNN Your $$$$$ which is another regular “business” show reflecting the policy of the US oligarchy, dedicated much of its program to the “collapsing US dollar”. One of the guests was humorously if unusually honest saying “I thought I knew a lot about economics but I don’t understand anything happening right now.” Unfortunately, for the North American people, this is going to be the general line; namely, somehow things got out of whack but eventually we will get out of this “recession” and everyone will go back to living happily thereafter. In fact, on October 16th the Los Angeles Times ran a front page headline implying that the decline in value of the US dollar was actually a good thing since US exports would be cheaper. On the day before Thanksgiving I heard for the first time the phrase “the US is a declining power and India is a rising power” on a BBC report on the visit of the Indian President to Washington. The same day PBS News Hour conducted an examination of the monetary crisis: India’s central bank bought 200 tons of gold from the IMF. This is a desperation move to turn devaluing US dollars into something solid before it is too late – but - it also puts such important central banks as that of India (especially China, but also the central banks in Venezuela, Brazil and soon Cuba) in the position of becoming major international currency brokers and price setters. This is the beginning of the final move away from US currency as the international currency. The same report pointed out Canadian dollars were now about equal to US dollar; the Euro at $1.50 heading for $1.60. Everyone knows the value of the US dollar will continue to collapse as the Gringo Regime prints more and more money with nothing whatsoever to back it up except the “good faith and credit of the US Government?” On Thanksgiving Day the bosses of Dubai announced they were defaulting on loan payments and set them over unilaterally for six months. The money in Dubai’s real estate development does not come from oil but from investment and much of that was of the gringo variety – meaning highly shaky. A Dubai bankruptcy could bring down capitalist banks all over the world including Gringolandia. – And, on that same day the US dollar collapsed to a fourteen year low against the old shock absorbing standby currency of the Japanese Yen. On June 9th 2010, Jack Cafferty admitted on CNN that the 19.5 trillion dollar US debt (by 2015) can never be paid! He concluded the Obama Administration is destroying the country by continuing the massive spending programs of stimulus, war, and interest payments not to mention other long overdue corrections as in health care. US workers are not living happily ever after now, and now they never will be – under capitalism. Thus, your task is a lot easier. As the year closed NBR reviewed (12-08-2009) US productivity and found “significant gains” for capitalists surviving the latest round in the gladiator contests as workers were forced to work longer hours for less money. More temporary workers were being hired as capitalists shed all health care benefits. What should have been technological advances at the service of mankind 21 became instead death traps for workers forced to the street, unemployed, health uninsured, their children long since forgetting about college, and if they are in a minority preparing instead for a life in prison. Of course, that happily living forever I mentioned above, happened only in the daily propaganda of television and radio as far as US working people are concerned. It’s been fifty years since Leave it to Beaver might have had even the remotest reflection of daily life for any substantial number of US families. As if to prove it, the 26th of November issue of the comic book Time (magazine) had a cover beginning to hint at the truth in its “decade of hell” theme. We will review relevant data about North American Labor History leading up to the current capitalist depression in Part III. The most relevant fact concerning “recovery” as far as working people are concerned is that it took from 1929 to 1945 to get out of the last capitalist major depression and that happened only because of the massive government World War II spending that put everyone back to work and drafted huge new feminine reserves into the industrial work force. That spending was the greatest in US history and amounted in the end to many trillions of contemporary dollars spent over a period of three and one half years. The point here is the US oligarchy has men and women at its command now who know this and who will lead the US to recovery by doing the same kind of spending (regardless of the excuse; it doesn’t matter as long as it gets money into the hands of hundreds of millions of people on a regular basis.) Yet this matter is severely complicated by the fact that the value of the dollar itself cannot be maintained. That is not a condition existing in the great depression of 1929-1945. No one knows therefore exactly how this policy of continuing trillion dollar spending injections will play out. If the stability of the US dollar cannot (and is not) to be counted upon, and is to be replaced by a stable alternative of some kind, then the dominant leading role of the US in the international capitalist class can no longer be expected to be what it was. In fact, it is only a matter of time until the gringo oligarchy is pushed into the background, as far as the other ruling classes of the rest of the capitalist world are concerned. Capitalists as classes all over the world are getting bigger and more powerful than the gringo oligarchy – China now has nearly as many billionaires as gringolandia; the Britainization of the Gringo Empire is underway and irreversible. On June 30, 2010, Jack Cafferty again led the way on CNN when he devoted his show to the replacement of the US Dollar with an international new currency beginning with a “basket of currencies” as advocated that day by UN financial analysts. So, finally, the US population will begin to hear the truth about what has happened (irreversibly) to their currency. In other words, as we began this Preface, the truth is no matter what the US oligarchs do now they cannot save their Empire. As in Hari Seldon’s Galactic Empire, US Imperial collapse is inevitable and analogously this is identical to the model predicted by Seldon’s science of psychohistory. But this is not a novel. History has led the US Empire to its inevitable dissolution and this collapse is underway, law governed, and most importantly irreversible, no matter what steps the US ruling families take now. – And the science is the dialectical and historical materialism of Marxism-Leninism. As 2010 unfolds we will hear more discussion of the fringe effects of monetary devaluation (of the US dollar) on various aspects of the domestic US and international 22 economy. This is no accident but part of the overall propaganda theatre being choreographed by the masters of media control. This phase of the current capitalist depression is far more severe than it was previously and much more unstable in terms of international fiscal policy of various capitalist governments. What I mean is we have to watch closely to see how they handle this phase as I said we would have to do as far back as the 2007 edition, when I predicted this collapse, to see how the capitalists would handle their crisis. This “watching” being about all us communists can do at the moment in the USA. Why? Because (1) we communists are spread out among a broad-spectrum of parties considering themselves communist (plus an FBI front Party [CPUSA]), and (2) as usual, as some kind of haunting specter always at our heels, international anarchism. To escape the current crisis permanently the US people have to (3) reject capitalism and to do that they will eventually have to have a (4) real vanguard revolutionary working class (Communist) Party. (4) Information Control: Why is this as important as the first three factors? Because the key thing I learned about the way the gringo capitalist oligarchy (Rockefeller, Morgan, Mellon and other trillionaire families) got out of their 2008 catastrophe and leveled out into the current depression in 2009 and 2010 is, they got away with it because they have absolute control of the media and we need to understand how that was and is being achieved. In short, it has been a masterful use of television and radio to maintain an atmosphere of calm, “normality if severe”, “we will inevitably rebound and soon”, and it worked, even while millions lost their homes and jobs. I doubt working people in any other capitalist country would have stood neither still for this, nor for an occasional check from the Regime on the Potomac as a sop to keep them from starving on the streets. In the first nine months of 2009, of the nine million scheduled and already processed foreclosures, only 500,000 have been helped by the Federal Regime of Barack Obama. In short even the progressive government of Obama has really just done a social justice deed for a few people while they have given an absolute blow job to the capitalists. At any rate absolute and masterful media choreography is how the US oligarchy held on while their emergency room actions to save their economy were underway. Learn all of the lessons inherent in this fact. Break this control of the airwaves by a half dozen trillionaire families somehow and their days will be numbered. (5) The Gringo Conundrum: Fatally Flawed World-view Models of the dying USA ruling class is the other side of the “information control coin.” We have generations of journalism and political science students (among others in related fields) who have internalized the fantastic stories and models of the US rulers. They actually believe the official (e. g., Time, Newsweek magazines) version of the world. Since this model has literally no accurate reflection within it of the real world, and the causality and process inherent therein, believers are doomed to a Wizard of Oz kind of understanding of the world in which we live. As I have mentioned, it is one thing to have a fantastic view of the world we live in when it doesn’t matter. It no longer matters, for example, whether one is protestant or catholic (excluding the crackpot evangelist far right wing nutballs where every fairy tale nuance of their Biblical interpretation is important) as it did at the time our Republic was founded. But it is important if the fantastic world-view means to completely 23 misunderstand or totally non-understand the history of the United States and of the international working class movement. Since the “official” models are silly and non-reflective of reality it leaves US trained journalists and political scientists, who are would-be willing agents of gringo imperialism, lost in space! Real space cadets. As the gringo Regime on the Potomac stumbles into one catastrophe after another because their view of the world is not only unscientific it is actually anti-scientific, the fantasy world models of these poorly educated and trained “wannabe” journalists and political scientists are of no real world use in advising the USA trillionaire oligarchy. Instead of intelligence being gathered, a silly world-view is being propagated, and as useful as that is in fooling the sheep back home it is counter-productive when what you need is the incisive insight afforded by a scientific (academic) understanding of the issues at hand. The real world is a mine field and only those with an accurate understanding of it will have a chance to traverse it successfully. The gringo ideologists at CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and PBS are not just the purveyors of calm in a chaotic capitalist crisis but sponsors of silliness in the understanding of the real world and its history. Therefore, they are also the grave diggers of the gringo capitalist system because you can’t negotiate a mine field at all if you are truly blind and alone. The gringo capitalists and their flunkeys are truly blind and very alone. Helping, if unwittingly, to delude the US people, the pathetic US journalists and political science graduates are now also helping to fuck up gringo imperialism simultaneously with their silly op-eds and hypothesis based on nothing but fairy-tale models of reality. Their current dilemma over Cuba a case in point. Their dilemma over Afghanistan another (not to mention, Iraq, Venezuela, and virtually everywhere gringo planners have substituted fairy tales and religious superstition for the realistic scientific descriptions of nations and events which real world politics requires.) Another Example of Dialectics in Practice This conundrum, which is irresolvable by the gringo capitalists, is an excellent example of dialectics in practice. A social and cultural mechanism created and shaped over many decades to delude the masses has within it the assurance that imperialism’s brain trust will be made up of retards! Dialectical method allows us to see this and is an obvious example of how our superb scientific understanding of social and cultural causality and process gives us a superior position from which to fight the class war. The Problem with Models - It’s Time We Advanced Once Again Searching for the Model; Building the Model This is the Stalinist Road of Expanding Global Socialism The problem with Models for us has been that the only one we had – the Soviet Union – was not really adequate for us. The Russians being in a far more primitive mode of capitalist production at the time of the October Revolution. We shall see where we are now in the overall reconstruction of US capitalist history in Part III below. This doesn’t mean it is methodologically bad to use a model. Quite the contrary. Model building is the first step in scientific higher education at places like Cal Tech, and it should be for us too. The problem with a model lies in the degree to which this new cultural “software” fits the old social “hardware”. In other words, the better the 24 model the better the outcome. The more poorly a model approximates reality the poorer the outcome. As Professor Gilman has pointed out for many decades, Stalin’s theory of socialist expansion had one Soviet Republic after another, probably bordering the USSR, being created cookie-cutter style. This Russian model however kept changing. Changing from the idealized War Communism model, to the NEP model, and finally to the Five Year Plan model of socialized agriculture in collective farms alongside a supporting industrial power plant greater than the world had ever seen. All good models for Russia in their time. But perhaps only the latter applicable to the USA. However, it had taken fifteen years for the Stalinist model to really take shape. In the meantime the US communists had had their own battles to fight and their own future models to think about. The Chinese after 1975 expanded their search for the right model(s) in a way quite similar to the way the gringo bourgeoisie did. The division of the capitalist nation (USA) into “states” effectively allowed the local bourgeoisie to be the bosses of their own areas. It allowed for a multitude of social experiments to be conducted simultaneously. Some states had advanced working class legislation while others had outright chattel slavery. This social structure became an extremely effective way of letting off steam from many sources. For example, Utah is nearly world wide known as the “MormonState”. (Never mind the fact Utah guarantees the civil rights of all religionists.) – And, in the course of our history we have had States dominated by Catholics, right wing nutball Evangelists, Protestants of the respectable Presbyterian variety, even left wing state governments under a variety of populist leaders have existed from time to time. One thing they all share in common is their acceptance of capitalism. The other thing they have in common is that each constitutes an experiment which if and when successful might be duplicated by other States. China has been doing exactly this kind of experimentation, at the provincial, county and municipal level for decades now and it’s paying off for them just as well as the gringo bourgeois experiment we call the USA worked out for them. Except here in China all these experiments share in common their acceptance of socialism and CPC direction. We have a choice which is to build our own model now while the enemy has state power and then try to impose it during armed revolutionary struggle. Another choice would be to utilize a loose governing structure such as the US federal system while the Party proceeds to impose its program. We could wait for some other advanced capitalist country to set the pace. Wait until we can model ourselves after them. Frankly, I think we will in practice witness all three of these options coming to the fore in the coming decades. The Cover The cover of this book presents a picture of the Stalinist model of Socialism on the road to Communism as pictured for the masses of Russia and the world. At its center the idealized picture of the USSR in the 1930’s with its mechanized collectivized agriculture on the “American scale” so admired by Lenin and Stalin. The industrialized base for mechanization (e. g., tractors) is shown in one overall grand scheme of things. – And, hovering above it all is the image of Joseph Stalin symbolizing the fatherly, wise, 25 protective, leading role in all this of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As Professor Antonio Gilman has pointed out it is this model the Comintern presented to the world to be duplicated in country after country. It was this model we had to sell in the 1930’s and 40’s and indeed into the 50’s and beyond. The model was highly attractive for decades around the world and still is especially in developing countries. However, it is our task to improve and perfect this model to the standards now attainable in the advanced capitalist countries and the advanced socialist countries. You should be giving our perfected model a lot of thought because this is what you have to sell. It is this model we have to sell to the newly forming Fifth International. II – Theoretical Matters (6) Using Our Sociocultural Evolutionary Chart: The most important immediate conclusion to the completion of the general schematic of human sociocultural evolution has been to see the answers to our questions about where we are, and why, in the overall course of history. When we do this we can see the real at-bottom theoretical source of confusion for the last century has had to do with one or another misreading of where we are on the ladder of sociocultural evolution. For example, we were not on the verge of being able to create Communism in October 1917, not even what we have come to call Socialism. In fact, we were in the most primitive beginning phase of industrial capitalism (as we had come to know it in North America and Western Europe). It was a pattern to be continued for many decades in our Socialist Camp. Since that phase has lasted so many decades and featured its duplication in many countries we conclude, following the rule history is always unfolding as it should, what we have seen is a special subphase of the second transition or what in fact is what we have come to call a distinct stage in sociocultural evolution – i.e., Stalinist Socialism. It too we see will evolve into an advanced form of Socialism and there may well be more as yet unseen transitional Stages yet to come before we enter the Stage of Communism. Make a copy of our chart of sociocultural evolution and put it on your wall. Your tasks as revolutionaries in the future will be to work out the steps and phases relevant to your own situation and act accordingly in terms of developing a strategy and tactics to propel your Party into power. Much of that will depend upon where you are. What is relevant in Nepal is unlikely to have any relevance to what needs to be done in Singapore or the USA. Here it is. (7) Chart of Sociocultural Evolutionary Stages (Read this chart from bottom to top which is to say from the oldest to the most recent category.) Second Egalitarian Epoch (Era
of Freedom begins)Star Trek Stage 26 Second Transitional Period (Era of Necessity ends) Advanced Socialism Stage Stalinist Socialism Stage Servitude Epoch (Epoch of Chattel and Wage Slavery) Capitalist Stage Feudal Stage Slave Stage First Transitional Period Stage of Advanced Theocratic Chiefdoms Stage of Simple Chiefdoms First Egalitarian Epoch (Epoch of Primitive Communism) Stage of Tribal Agriculture Stage of Advanced Homo sapiens Hunting and Gathering Stage of Homo erectus Hunting and Gathering Stage of Home australopithecus Hunting and Gathering Practical Application: the Source of Ultra-Left and Trotskyist Errors You can use our now accurately reconstructed, model of prehistoric with historic sociocultural evolution and see where the Trotskyists and the Ultra-Left took the completely wrong fork in the theoretical road; namely, by confusing in 1917 where we were with where they wanted to be, to wit: Communist Stage ! Where they want to be and where they think we were in 1917
Second Egalitarian Epoch Begins Here Advanced Socialist Stage(s) ! Where we are now(China, Cuba, Vietnam) Stalinist Socialist Stage ! Where we really were in 1917
Second Transitional Period Begins Here Capitalist Stage Feudal Stage Slave Stage Servitude Epoch Begins Here Advanced Theocratic Chiefdoms Stage Simple Chiefdoms Stage First Transitional Period Begins Here 27 Tribal Agriculture Stage Hunting Gathering Bands Stage 3 (Homo sapiens) Hunting Gathering Bands Stage 2 (Homo erectus) Hunting Gathering Bands Stage 1 (Homo Australopithecus) Ape-like Humans Primitive Communism (1st Egalitarian Epoch) Begins Here Human-like Apes Because the Trotskyists and ultra-leftists of all stripes had no accurate prehistoric-historic knowledge about sociocultural process – reflected in our archaeological chart of sociocultural stage evolution, or fundamentally about the more profound implications of our theory, the Trotskyists and the Madame Maoists took the wrong road. This is their objective, scientifically derived, commonality. Those who followed Stalin and what became the Party’s General Line had no such knowledge either but they had common sense and knew their way was in fact the only way. The latter persevered and the former have not. History speaking for itself i.e., unfolding as it did is the proof. By correcting this profound error – going back to the fork and taking the correct road – those in error (Trotskyists and ultra-leftists) can become effective fighters for rapid transformation to Communism, once again. These people are our comrades, and many if not all have suffered greatly for their beliefs, and we should at least try to help them, despite their problems, if we can. We want them to rejoin the international revolutionary movement via the correct Communist Party and correct international working class revolutionary line. After all, everyone was confused for awhile. Those who were right by accident will now know why they were right. (The revisionists old or modern were always wrong and anti-Marxist-Leninist then and now but that is another matter altogether.) Problem resolved. 28
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Click on this book (below) first for a complete Three Part theoretical introduction to (1) Marxism-Leninism, (2) the history of socialism in the past 170 years and(3) a summary history of the US working class movement. Mastering this presentation constitutes qualification for membership in the Communist Foundation Party, USA.
Fundamentals of Historical Materialism: Bolshevism 2009
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Officers General Secretary for the Central Committee Secretary for each Subcommittee, the Press, the IB, KMU and WMT
Staff Political Bureau Theoretical Bureau External Relations Bureau Internal Security Bureau Organizational Bureau Science Bureau Finance Bureau Publishing Bureau Daily Worker International Brigade Karl Marx University World Marxism Today
The End (for now) For our purposes it is time to wind down this discussion. In future years, I intend to elaborate different sections of this Handbook. For the moment suffice it to say that the Fundamentals of Historical Materialism have been presented to you to the best of my ability given the space constraints of a handbook.
You’re Tasks Propaganda, agitation and organization are the three magic bullets if you will, of the first phase to a revolutionary working class seizure of state power. This is your task. Never forget that in the capitalist countries revolution is now on the table - it is the order of the day. We have the technological basis to make both Socialism and Communism work, or in the latter case we soon will. The General Crisis of Capitalism has created the conditions which necessitate working class action everywhere in the world. Only after revolution can working class state power allow the successful construction of Socialism and Communism. It is the task of those of us who call ourselves Bolsheviks to proceed to the leadership of the class struggle everywhere, and to take it in the directions outlined above. Namely, the new Bolshevik Party in the USA our Communist Foundation Party USA. Never forget that we are American Leninists. We know we are right. We know we are going to win and by taking command now we will be privileged to make the World know it too. Thus we return to Epilogue as Prologue where we began this book - we have come Full Circle. Good Luck.
Table of Organization Communist Foundation Party USA
Central Committee Subcommittee for Political Affairs Subcommittee for Theoretical Matters Subcommittee for External Relations Subcommittee for Internal Security Subcommittee for Organizational Matters Subcommittee for Science Subcommittee for Finance Subcommittee for Publishing Daily Worker International Brigade Karl Marx University World Marxism Today
Officers General Secretary for the Central Committee Secretary for each Subcommittee, the Press, the IB and KMU
Staff Political Bureau Theoretical Bureau External Relations Bureau Internal Security Bureau Organizational Bureau Science Bureau Finance Bureau Publishing Bureau Daily Worker International Brigade Karl Marx University World Marxism Today
Chart of Sociocultural Evolutionary Stages
(Read this chart from bottom to top which is to say from the oldest to the most recent category.)
Second Egalitarian Epoch Star Trek Stage Communist Stage
Second Transitional Period Advanced Socialism Stage Stalinist Socialism Stage
Servitude Epoch Capitalist Stage Feudal Stage Slave Stage
First Transitional Period Stage of Advanced Theocratic Chiefdoms Stage of Simple Chiefdoms
First Egalitarian Epoch (Epoch of Primitive Communism) Stage of Tribal Agriculture Stage of Advanced Homo sapiens Hunting and Gathering Stage of Homo erectus Hunting and Gathering Stage of Home australopithecus Hunting and Gathering
Biographical Data Jason W. Smith was graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology from California State University Los Angeles, in 1968. He received the Ph.D. from the Faculty of Graduate Studies, Department of Archaeology at the University of Calgary in 1974. He authored his first textbook Foundations of Archaeology, in 1976 (Jason W. Smith, Glencoe Press, Beverly Hills, 568 pp. see The Romantic Years) and his most recent in 1999, New Perspectives in Physics The author’s autobiographical books are entitled Idaho Smith’s Search for the Foundation in eight volumes five of which have been published and are available in university libraries across the US and Canada, and from Foundation Press. For autographed copies contact IdahoSmith@hotmail.com. |
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