¡Ya basta!

Refugee in America

2005-11-16T15:23:00.000-08:00

There are words like Freedom
Sweet and wonderful to say.
On my heart-strings freedom sings
All day everyday.
There are words like Liberty
That almost make me cry.
If you had known what I knew,
You would know why.
--Langston Hughes

On ‘Civilization’ and ‘Democracy’

2005-10-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

In the words of a man whose words have seldom fell upon the non-Russian’s ears,

In explaining the class nature of bourgeois civilization, bourgeois democracy and the bourgeois parliamentary system, all Socialists have expressed the idea formulated with the greatest scientific precision by Marx and Engels, namely, that the most democratic bourgeois republic is no more than a machine for the suppression of the working class by the bourgeoisie, for the suppression of the working people by a handful of capitalists. [First Congress of the Communist International, Speech at the Opening Session of the Congress, March 2 1919, V.I. Lenin]

That is, the summation of all the machinery of bourgeois civilization – the armed forces, the police, the bureaucracy – are a means of political and economic repression of the proletariat, the working class. The material basis of modern society, of all of ‘civilization’ is that of free-market capitalism and ‘democratic principles’. Or more precisely, in dialectics, the basis of modern society is a contradiction.

The contradiction within ‘democratic capitalism’ is evident in that the modern state claims to be ‘democratic’ and yet capitalist in nature. However, the state is inherently a dictatorship of the ruling class. In the risk of stating the obvious, the ruling class under the capitalist mode of production is the capitalist class. Democracy, coming from the Greek “demos” meaning “people” and “kratein” meaning “to rule”, is the rule of the people. I hope you are catching on to what I am saying so the next phrase will not be a surprise to you. The contradiction between ‘democratic capitalism’ is that it simultaneously tries to be a class dictatorship of the rich business-owning class against the proletariat and the rule of the masses. That is it! Bourgeois ‘civilization’ is based upon a sham!

Now one is left asking, when is democracy not a contradiction with the mode of production? The point at which human civilization reaches a political and economic system that are both democratic is socialism. Socialism is best defined in two short terms by the classical theoreticians Marx and Engels as “liberation of the proletariat” and the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.

I will cover the second phrase first, if you remember, capitalism is a class dictatorship of the rich business-owners. Then socialism as the dictatorship of the proletariat is the class dictatorship of the proletarian masses. Finally, civilization reaches a level in which the class dictatorship is a democracy.

Now as for the first phrase, “liberation of the proletariat” we must examine history. Think back to your studies as a youth, do you remember studying the American and French Revolutions? These revolutions could be defined as the ‘liberation of the bourgeois’ or liberation of the property-owners. The liberation of the proletariat is similar and different, it is similar in that it is a revolution but different in the sense that it is for the masses not against them.

Now, I have a phrase for you to carry to your workplaces and schools and social centres, “Our ‘high civilization’ is based on a sham and the only hope is socialism!”

Saint Proletariat

2005-10-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

They called me a sinner and I felt like a saint,
They said I couldn't win it and I should just given.
I proved them wrong,
I seperated the wholehearted from the faint.
I set things straight, I made a break.
I broke my chains and made a workers' state.

The Reason for Our Cause

2005-06-02T16:20:00.000-07:00

As concluded from analysis of history through dialects, it is apparent that contemporary society is a direct result of direct and indirect conflict between the ruling class and the oppressed class.

Marx summarized this revelation in the words,

"The history of all hitherto existing society [of written history] is the history of class struggles."

These two groups, the oppressor and the oppressed, have always been antagonistic and their cannot be a resolution amongst the two. In feudal times, this antagonism was between the feudal lords and the serfs.

During the liberal revolutions of the late 18th century and the 19th century, the power of the feudal lords was given to a parliament and the land of the feudal lords was divided between the bourgeoisie (the modern oppressors). The serfs who had worked on these lands for centuries, continued to work on them as the peasant (a division of the modern oppressed).

As industrial engineering developed from early manufacturing, the peasants who were frequently unemployed flocked from the villages to the centers of development. This was the Industrial Revolution, and this revolution of the economy had two side effects:

The transition from agriculture to industry and the changing of the peasant to the proletarian;
The irreversible advancement of humanity from the life of simple farming;

The Industrial Revolution has given birth to machines, telegraphs, telephones, televisions, and the computer. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the bourgeoisie have been devising ways to produce more, spend less, and increase profit.

This greed led to the creation of hazardous working environments, contamination of the water supply, exhaustive working hours, terribly low wages, and a clear division between the rich and poor in society.

With this wealth, the bourgeoisie could influence government and decide who would be elected and when they would be elected. The democracy of these republics was a sham, and it was a democracy only for the rich.

The most disturbing part is that this perversion, this dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, prevails today. However, this is not a dictatorship of all the bourgeoisie, the modern corruption is a dictatorship of the corporate bourgeoisie.

The counter-action to this to establish a real democracy, a democracy for the workers, is to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. This is new society, based on the dictatorship of the proletariat, is a dictatorship by necessity.

However, it is not a dictatorship in the sense of one ruler, or the minority, ruling over the masses. It is the people, the masses, through democracy, dictating against the elitist minority of the bourgeoisie.

It is, the indigenous peoples of Central and South America, forming a government solely of indigenous peoples, dictating against the oppressive Spaniards.

It is, the African peoples, forming a government solely of African peoples, dictating against the oppressive British.

A government by the proletarian, a proletarian state, would not resemble the modern state, as it would be a tool for the proletarian to establish classlessness. Overtime, after a period of classlessness, the proletarian state itself would disappear.

This is completely different from the democratic republics of our time, our federated proletarian communities will have only the interests of the workers, of humanity, in mind and it will struggle to overcome inequality and injustice, to establish true freedom, a freedom so immense that not even the state is needed.