The 11-day stand-off between American and Chinese imperialism in April was the first international crisis weathered by the new Bush administration, and it gave a glimpse of what lies ahead for American imperialism. The crisis with China should not be seen as a surprise or anomaly. Just as the election of George Bush has set off alarms bells in European capitals (see Internationalism 116), so too the tensions with the Chinese bourgeoisie have been exacerbated, as both the Chinese and American regimes are feeling each other out now that a new foreign policy team is in place in the US. For the Chinese, the central foreign policy concerns at this juncture include continuation of the strategic partnership in Asia between the US and China brokered during the Clinton years, attempts to influence the US not to sell sophisticated weaponry to Taiwan, continued integration of China into the World Trade Organization, and maintenance of most favored nation trade status with the US. Once the accidental collision of the American spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter, it was inevitable that the Chinese would seek to test the mettle of the new Bush administration foreign policy team.

As readers are aware, a routine American reconnaissance flight was buzzed by Chinese fighter jets over international waters off the Chinese coast. One of the Chinese jets accidentally collided with the propeller driven spy plane, sending the Chinese pilot to his death. The crippled American plane, crammed with sophisticated surveillance technology and manned by a crew of 24, made an emergency landing in Chinese territory on Hainan island. The resulting squabble was over release of the American crew members and return of the plane, which is still in Chinese hands, as the Chinese demanded a formal apology from the US and an end to surveillance flights.

The reconnaissance flights serve several functions for American imperialism. Loaded with sophisticated intelligence gathering technology, the spy planes compliment American spy satellites already monitoring military movements around the world, and in China. The flights also serve a more prosaic imperialist function - that of reminding the Chinese, with their pretensions of dominant status in Asia, that the US, the world’s only remaining superpower, can do whatever it wants to anywhere in the world, including in China’s own backyard. American imperialism itself would never tolerate reconnaissance flights by another power so close to its national territory, regardless of whether they were technically flown over international waters. But the Chinese are routinely forced to acknowledge their powerlessness against American assertiveness, emphasizing that the US is top dog in the so-called strategic partnership. In this sense, the rift that has surfaced should not be viewed as totally new, as a break with the prevailing situation in the Clinton years. The provocative flights were not begun by Bush, but are a continuation of Clinton policy. The vehement Chinese objections, and interception and harassment of the flights by Chinese fighters, began during the Clinton years. The accident, while unplanned, fanned the flames of the uneasy relationship between China and the US.

The Collapse of the Imperialist Blocs and the Pressure on US Hegemony

American assertiveness is particularly important because of the chaotic situation on the international level since the collapse of the two international military blocs which were formed at the end of World War II, and the disappearance of the resulting bloc discipline that kept secondary and tertiary powers in line. The demands of the larger bloc-level confrontation forced the lesser powers to subordinate their own imperialist appetites to the larger strategic goals of the bloc, and especially of the bloc leader. Though neither the European or Asian powers can hold a candle to American military power today, America’s former allies and antagonists alike are increasingly playing their own imperialist cards, trying to exert their own imperialist appetites around the world, or on a regional basis. From the US perspective, a key element in its strategy is to prevent any potential rivals to assert themselves, even on a regional level, in a way that might endanger American hegemony.

The US first made its initial overtures to the Chinese government during the Nixon Administration, at the height of the cold war. Nixon having been for so long an anti-Communist poster boy was probably the ideal American president to push for rapprochement with the Chinese. A left/liberal member of the Democratic Party would have been lambasted as an “appeaser” or dupe for such a move. But American imperialism recognized that not only was China a major player in the Far East, but its shift toward alliance with the US would exert tremendous pressure on Russian imperialism, which could not face confrontation with the US bloc on both western and eastern fronts. Following the collapse of the two-bloc system, and the emergence of an “every man for himself” tendency on the imperialist level, the US-Chinese relationship was up for grabs. While the opening of Chinese markets to American industry, providing cheap labor and a wider market for American goods, was a welcomed development in the 1990s for the US, the Chinese ruling clique’s belief in their “manifest destiny” to be the dominant regional power in the Far East was counter to American policy which aimed at “deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role…”(Defense Planning Guidance document, 1992).

During the later part of the 1990s there were serious divergences within the American bourgeoisie on the strategic orientation for the Far East. The drama played out in the Clinton scandals and impeachment process were just a reflection of this behind-the-scenes effort by the right to block the Clinton administration from playing the China card and adopting a policy of a strategic partnership with China in the far east. Opponents of the alliance with China argued that China was too politically and socially unstable to be a reliable ally, and instead preferred a strategy that emphasized Japan as the key US ally in the region,. However the dominant faction of the bourgeoisie at the time was united behind the pro-China policy, and the right went down to political defeat on this question.

The Continuity of US Imperialist Policy

This continuing unity within the dominant faction of the bourgeoisie, including the mainstream of both the Democratic and Republican parties, was demonstrated by full support to the measured response of the Bush administration. While many on the right were seething at the mild mannered response by the Bush administration in April, most bit their tongues and declined to voice their criticism, except for Weekly Standard editor William Kristol who denounced the Bush administration policy as a national disgrace, and insisted on the imposition of economic sanctions, and sending US warships into waters off the Chinese coast, and other warlike measures - all of which was intended to force Bush to de facto rescind the strategic partnership relationship.

Nonetheless, the response by American imperialism demonstrated a complete continuity with the Clinton policy orientation. Despite the fact that during the presidential campaign, Bush appeared to back away from the phrase “strategic partnership” in regard to China and spoke of that country as “a rival,” the American response during the crisis was very mild and measured. The hawks in the administration, like Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld were confined to a backbench, and not permitted to speak in public. Despite the militant posturing by the Chinese military, refusing to release either the 24 US crew members or the plane, and steadfastly demanding a US apology and an end to the reconnaissance flights, it was clear that the US concern was to come out of the crisis without inflicting long term damage to the US-China relationship. Secretary of State Colin Powell orchestrated a low expectation diplomatic offensive, eventually managing to draft a statement that expressed great regrets and said the US was very sorry for violating Chinese airspace by making the emergency landing without actually making an apology, giving both sides opportunity to declare victory.

The continuity in policy was acknowledged by the New York Times which reported, “the new president sounded at moments like Mr. Clinton, talking about the risks to the broad, if ambiguous, relationship between the world’s most powerful nation and its most populous one.” President Bush, in his statement following release of the crew, reiterated the Clinton policy in these words, “Both the United States and China must make a determined choice to have productive relations - to have a productive relationship that will contribute to a more secure, more prosperous and more peaceful world."

This will not be the last tense confrontation between American and Chinese imperialism. American strategy designed to maintain US hegemony and prevent the rise of rival powers, both on a global and regional level, will inevitably put strains on the tense US China partnership. Factions within the bourgeoisies in each country, in the military in China, and on the right in the US, will continue to seize on these unavoidable conflicts to undermine the strategic relationship. But the dominant factions in both countries will not lightly abandon the current imperialist orientation.

EF & JG, 15/05/01

For years the media painted a rosy picture of the state of the American economy. Today all the hype about never-ending prosperity seems a distant memory. The myth of the “new economy” and the “end of the business cycle” has unraveled. The media is full of stories bemoaning the deteriorating economic situation. Officially the country isn’t yet in recession, although there are few economists that hold fast to this view. Elsewhere around the world, the situation is not much better with increasing signs that world capitalism is heading towards a new global, open recession. The situation is actually a lot worse than they would want us to believe.

A worldwide crisis

Capitalism has been in open economic crisis for over 30 years, going through a series of more and more devastating open recessions followed by short-lived recoveries. The devastating effects of this ever-worsening crisis on humanity as a whole are immeasurable. Under its blows what was called the third world collapsed during the 1970a and early 1980s. Then came the collapse of the so-called socialist countries -actually nothing more than a particular form of state capitalist systems - at the end of 1980s and the beginning of 1990s. Contrary to the bourgeoisie propaganda that relentlessly extolled the wonders of capitalism, the last decade has seen the world economy to sink even more into the abyss. The most powerful economies in the world, in the heart of capitalism, have been finding it increasingly difficult to push the worse effects of the crisis onto the peripheral countries of the system. In fact, the so-called recovery following the recession of 91-92 was the weakest since the beginning of the open economic crisis at the end of the 1960s. With the exception of the US, the other powerful capitalist countries have not been able to point to much to back up their claims of prosperity. Western Europe has had at best anemic rates of growth, while Japan has not been able to revive its economy for the last ten years.

Currently, with Japan’s continuing economic decline, and the US plunge into a new recession, world capitalism is heading towards new convulsions, and we are already seeing their first manifestations: the Asian economies, still suffering after the 97-98 financial crisis, are reeling under the impact of the troubles in the US and Japan, Europe is slowing down, while in Latin America, the three most important economies -Argentina, Brazil and Mexico - are facing increasing difficulties. Of these countries, Argentina is already officially in recession, while Brazil seems headed towards a new round of hyperinflation. Since January 1, the Brazilian currency, the real, has fallen 10 percent. Mexico, with 89 percent of its exports headed for the US, is uniquely placed to be affected by American economic troubles.

The end of the illusions in the US

We have frequently published articles in Internationalism unmasking the myth of a healthy American economy during the decade of the 1990s. We have shown that what the bourgeoisie portrayed as the “longest running recovery in history” after the 1991-92 recession, was based on a sickly growth that in the long run was bound to lead the economy into new convulsions. To start with, the American bourgeoisie was able to overcome the worst effects of 1991-92 recession thanks to an aggressive monetary expansionist policy leading the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates 33 times between 1991 and 1992. This cheap money was the secret of the economic growth fueled by the so-called thecnological revolutions, which together with a massive wave of lay-offs and permanent insecurity of employment, gave the US an important competitive advantage over its commercial rivals.

This growth began to lose its momentum after 1995 with successive financial crises that culminated in the “Asian flu” of 1997-98 and stagnated between 1996 -98. At that time the American bourgeoisie was able to avoid a new fall into open recession by resorting to an historically unprecedented speculative bubble. Playing in the casino of the stock market was turned into the “only profitable investment.” What is worse this investment was not directed towards classical industrial enterprises, but towards the infamous dot-coms, most of which never turned a profit. Families and businesses in America were pulled into the aberrant mechanism of taking out debt in order to speculate on the stock market and using the acquired stocks as collateral to fuel domestic consumption. This form of investment ruined businesses and led to a 300% rise in the level of debt between 1997 -99. Following a period of positive savings levels for 53 years, since 1996 savings levels have been negative. At the same time, the American balance of payments suffered a spectacular degradation, going from a deficit of -2,5% of GDP in 1998 to -4,7% by the end of 2000.

The speculative financial bubble finally burst last year, sending the economy into a tailspin, the first consequences of which we are seeing today. Economic growth has gone from a 7% annual rate in the last half of 1999 to a 1.8% annual rate in last six months of 2000. For the current year, according to the economic indicators that the bourgeoisie uses to measure the performance of its economy, the economic decline continues: GDP is running near zero, industrial production has declined for six months in a row, company bankruptcies are setting records, profits are falling… For its part the stock market continues feeling the pain of the burst speculative bubble. Billions of dollars of paper wealth had been wiped from the economy. And yet, for most analysts the stock market still remains overvalued, presaging that the worst is still to come. The illusion of easy riches that drove millions into the frenzied speculation on Wall Street has for many turned into a nightmare. Many have lost their life savings, others are overburdened with debts contracted in the hope of striking it rich in the so-called ‘new economy.” Some former stock-option millionaires are finding their once lucrative stock options worthless after plunges in their stock prices.

As usual the working class is bearing the brunt of capitalism’s economic troubles. Lay offs are at the order of the day in every sector of the economy. In the “new economy” sector itself the job cuts that began last year at the now-disintegrating dot-com firms have widened considerably to include some of the most prominent technology firms, including chip giant Intel Corp. and networker Cisco Systems. Since December the tech industry has shed more than 38,000 jobs, according to government statistics, and thousands more layoffs are expected. The slowdown in the tech industry is symbolic of the collapse of the economy because it has contributed more than one-third of the US economic growth in the last three years. Kodak has just announced a further cut of 3,500 jobs on top of the 23, 000 that that it has eliminated since 1997. Texas Instruments is laying off 2,500, 6 percent of its work force. The Timken Company will cut 1,500 jobs. Experts say all this bad news hasn’t really shown up yet in government statistics, partly because companies have yet to carry out all their planned cutbacks.

The American dominant class is doing its best to manage this new descent into the abyss. The Federal Reserve has started a new aggressive expansionary monetary policy cutting interest rates already three times this year, while tax cuts are being considered by the central government. However after years of the abuse of the drug of credit, the margin of maneuver of the bourgeoisie has been greatly diminished. There is not much enthusiasm being shown by the bourgeois economists themselves about the chances for an immediate economic revival. By their own account, things will get worse rather than better.

From the working class perspective there is only one response to the worsening economic crisis: fight on its own terrain for the defense of its class interests and for the final overthrow of capitalism.

ES, 15/05/01.

Previous instalments in this series have addressed De Leonism’s contradictory legacy to the working class, including both its positive contributions to the workers movement in the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century, and its enormous confusions on economic analysis, the class struggle, and the development of class consciousness. This article focuses on De Leonism’s curious confusions on the nature of bourgeois democracy and proletarian revolution.

De Leonism on Bourgeois Democracy: The Ballot as ‘Weapon of Civilization’

Perhaps the most quixotic feature of the De Leonist political legacy is its cluster of bizarre positions on such basic class principles as the nature of parliamentarism, the possibility of overturning capitalist domination through a peaceful, non-violent revolution, the proletariat’s historic tasks in relation to the capitalist state, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. De Leonism departs so completely and fundamentally from the acquisitions of Marxism on these issues, it seems almost inexplicable. It is indeed ironic that at the same time that De Leon rejected the possibility of reforms within capitalism (even in the period of capitalist ascendance when durable reforms were actually possible, see Part II of this series in Internationalism # 114), he believed the proletariat could peaceably take over control of the bourgeois state through the use of the ballot, use the bourgeois state for its own purposes, and simply legislate capitalism out of existence. As he put it in “What Means This Strike” in 1898, “The aim of all intelligent class conscious workingmen must be to bring the government under the control of their own class by joining and electing the American wing of the International Socialist Party - the Socialist Labor Party of America.” He warned that “a labor organization must be perfectly clear upon the fact that it cannot reach safety until it has wrenched the government from the clutches of the capitalist class; and that it cannot do that unless it votes, not for Men but for Principles, and unless it votes into power its own class platform and program…”

A strong proponent of American exceptionalism, De Leon argued that peaceful revolution was possible in America, but not in Europe, because the American bourgeoisie were cowardly swindlers who lacked a “feudal” tradition that stressed “valour,” whereas the European bourgeoisie still had heavy feudal influences that emphasized “deeds of valor.” De Leon spoke optimistically of the “ideal so dearly pursued by the Socialist - the peaceful solution of the social question” (Socialist Reconstruction, emphasis in the original). De Leon affirmed that “the political movement bows to the methods of civilized discussion: it gives a chance to the peaceful solution of the great question at issue” (emphasis in the original). And he wrote in glowing terms of the bourgeois ballot: “The ballot is a weapon of civilization; the ballot is a weapon that no revolutionary movement of our times may ignore except at its own peril; the Socialist ballot is the emblem of the right”( Socialist Reconstruction, emphasis in original).

Now on one level it is understandable that De Leon might have confusions on bourgeois democracy at the turn of the century. A considerable amount of the clarity developed by Marx and Engels on the nature of the state, on the nature of bourgeois democracy, and the tasks of the proletariat in regard to the state had been completely buried during the period of the Second International. The idea that socialism could be gained peaceably at the ballot box through piecemeal reforms was propagated by the right in the Second International. And while De Leon generally oriented himself in alliance with the Left in the Second International, it is clear that he held certain positions in common with the Right, as on democracy. It wasn’t until around 1910 that efforts were made to again address the Marxist orientation on the state, notably by Pannenkoek. In 1917, three years after De Leon’s death, Lenin systematically reclaimed the theoretical thread, restating Marx and Engels’ insights on the state in State and Revolution. If De Leon’s confusions were at least understandable in the period in which he lived, what is completely ludicrous is for his adherents to maintain in a cult-like fashion the same mistakes a hundred years later, despite all the historical examples that refute the confusions they are wedded to.

For example even today his adherents still echo the naive belief in bourgeois democracy and revolution at the ballot box, still believe that the revolution will come when the socialists win a majority in Congress and adopt a resolution to abolish the government and turn power over to the Socialist Industrial Unions. The Socialist Labor Party (SLP) and the New Unionist Party (NUP) continue to run candidates in capitalist elections. What’s more they even go so far as to twist Marx and Engels to justify their confusions. For example, NUP leader Jeff Miller has insisted that De Leonism’s position on bourgeois democracy is derived from Marx and Engels’ assertion in the Communist Manifesto that “the first task of the proletarian struggle ‘is to win the battle of democracy,’ that bourgeois democracy is not literally a dictatorship, and that participation in capitalist elections is necessary for the legitimization of socialism

Marxism and Bourgeois Democracy

De Leon’s belief that American capitalist democracy was less repressive than its European counterparts notwithstanding, the history of the class struggle has amply proven that whatever particular juridical form the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie takes in any country on earth, it will never hesitate to vent its terror on the working class, unless checked by the possibility of organized defensive violence by the workers. Whatever the basis for De Leon’s profound fascination with feudal valour, the class struggle is not a gentlemen’s duel, but a struggle between two totally antithetical social classes in which the control of society and the future of humanity is at stake. To tell the American working class that their capitalist adversaries would relinquish their domination of society and shrink from violence completely contradicts the experience of the class struggle in America. In the railroad strike of 1877, at Haymarket, at Homestead, and Ludlow, the American ruling class demonstrated beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt that it is ruthless, treacherous, and vicious in its willingness to unleash the most unspeakable violence against workers and their families. Maybe they didn’t do the dirty work themselves, maybe they used hired goons, pinktertons, cops, and soldiers to do their dirty work, but there is no doubt that even in De Leon’s own lifetime the American capitalist class revealed itself as a pernicious and deadly adversary

While it is true that in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels originally believed that the proletariat could take hold of the bourgeois state and wield it for its own purposes, the experience of the Paris Commune in 1871 convinced Marx and Engels of the error of this view. In his analysis of the lessons of the Paris Commune, written for the First International, Marx recognized that this momentous experience in the workers movement demonstrated that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery and wield it for its own purposes,” but rather had to destroy it. The incredible claim that revolution at the ballot box is derived from the Communist Manifesto is just a wilful misinterpretation of what Marx said and meant in this historic text. The NUP’s Miller quotes Marx as saying the workers must “win the battle of democracy,” as if he meant getting elected to office. However, Marx made it clear in the Manifesto that by winning the battle of democracy he meant that the proletariat had to seize power by violent revolution. The full sentence that Miller quoted from, reads “We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.” Seven pages earlier we find what Marx was referring to when said “we have seen above.” In this passage he explained how the working class would raise itself to the position of ruling class. “In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.” As we wrote in Internationalism No. 88, “how De Leonism manages to convert these remarks into a view of a peaceful transition to socialism through victory at the ballot box in bourgeois democracy is a mystery.”

The necessity for violent revolution was restated by Engels in Anti-Duhring: “That force, however, plays another role in history, a revolutionary role; that in the words of Marx it is the midwife of every old society which is pregnant with the new, that it is the instrument by the aid of which social development forces its way through and shatters the dead, fossilized, political form - of this there is not a word in Herr Duhring. It is only with sighs and groans that he admits the possibility that force will perhaps be necessary for the overthrow of the economic system of exploitation…”

The De Leonist view, expressed by Miller, that bourgeois democracy is not a class dictatorship over the working class, constitutes yet another departure from the basic theoretical acquisitions of Marxism. As early as the Manifesto, Marx made clear that the bourgeoisie wages a class dictatorship over the workers. And in 1891, Engels wrote, “And people think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of the belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another; and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy…” (Introduction - Civil War in France).

The imbecile claim that workers enjoy the same political rights as capitalists is enough to leave one speechless. Rather than utilizing the Marxist method to see beyond the superficial, to read between the lines in order to understand material social processes, De Leonism accepts at face value capitalism’s own propaganda, and fails to take into account the manipulative process by which the ruling class determines the nominees for high office, and how the media is utilized to assure desired electoral outcomes. Furthermore, as we noted in a previous article, “the idea that the proletarian revolution must seek legitimization from the political/juridical process of the enemy class fails to understand that a revolution overturns and crushes those processes; to the revolutionary proletariat there is nothing legitimate about capitalism’s rule” (Internationalism No.104).

De Leonism seems simply incapable of grasping the nature of the Marxist method, of understanding the material conditions under which the proletariat wages its struggle against the bourgeoisie, and develops forms of struggle that correspond to these conditions. For example, as we have argued in previous instalments in this series (see Internationalism No. 115), in the ascendant phase of capitalism, when the system was still an historically progressive mode of production, capable of promoting the further development of productive forces, it was indeed possible for the proletariat to wrest durable reforms from the bourgeoisie in the course of struggle. These conditions made it possible for the workers movement to participate in capitalist elections, as part of the struggle to gain reforms in an epoch when material conditions did not yet favor the posing of proletarian revolution, and in certain circumstances to enter into temporary alliances with certain factions of the bourgeoisie. The changed conditions under which the proletariat struggles against its class enemy in the period of capitalist decadence, beginning around the time of the First World War, in which durable reforms are no longer possible, meant that old forms of struggle (e.g., participation in bourgeois elections) were no longer appropriate. The De Leonists know only that Marx said workers could participate in elections in the 19th century, so therefore they must always do this, even at the beginning of the 21st century, when the conditions under which the class struggles have changed so fundamentally from the late 19th century.

De Leonism’s Rejection of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

De Leonism’s adulation of bourgeois democracy and the belief in peaceful revolution has been accompanied historically by a rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat, Marx’s use of the term being dismissed as a “mistake.” Yet the writings of Marx and Engels are replete not only with references to the dictatorship of the proletariat as the form of working class rule in the period of transition between capitalism and communism in such key works as The Civil War in France and The Critique of the Gotha Programme , but with an insistence that the conception of the dictatorship is one of Marx’s key, unique contributions to the theoretical arsenal of the working class. The importance that Marx placed on the conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat is demonstrated in this excerpt from correspondence with Weydemeyer, dated Mar 5, 1852: “And now as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society, nor yet the struggle between them. Long before me, bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle, and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production; 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.”

In rejecting the dictatorship of the proletariat, the De Leonists deny the necessity of a period of transition between capitalism and communism, and, like the anarchists, believe that the state will disappear overnight. In the case of De Leonism the disappearance of the state will apparently be achieved by a resolution to disband the state and turn society over to the Socialist Industrial Unions.

In his 1891 introduction to republication of the Civil War in France Engels noted that Marx’s text on the Paris Commune, was “a most important work of scientific communism, in which the main Marxist tenets in relation to the class struggle, the State, revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat were further elaborated on the basis of the experience of the Paris Commune…In this work Marx corroborated and further developed his idea on the necessity for the proletariat to break up the bourgeois state machine, set forth in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Marx drew the conclusion that the proletariat should break it up and supersede it by a state of the Paris Commune type. Marx’s conclusion on a new, Paris Commune type of state as the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat constitutes the essence of his new contribution to revolutionary theory.” (The Civil War in France).

We quote here so heavily from Marx and Engels, not because their texts are biblical scripture, infallible for all time. Quite the contrary, Marx and Engels’ analysis and writings are subject to the crucible of the class struggle. Marx and Engels themselves engaged in this process of measuring theoretical propositions against the concrete experience of the class struggle, as they did in assessing the question of whether workers should capture and use the bourgeois state, or smash it. In theoretical reassessment of the experiences of the class struggle, it is possible to reach the conclusion that on this or that point Marx and Engels were wrong in their analysis. But the approach of the Marxist method would be to identify those positions that were mistaken and had to be discarded, and provide argumentation to prove that they were wrong. However, this is not the method of De Leonism, which, in cult-like fashion maintains the blunders of its founder, and then refuses to acknowledge the contradiction between their dogma and the theoretical legacy of the Marxist movement, and worse, falsifies history to insist that their positions are consistent with Marxism. This type of political dishonesty stands as a total contradiction to the spirit of the Marxist method.

These basic theoretical propositions are not controversial in the revolutionary workers movement, and haven’t been for decades:

• bourgeoisie democracy is a form of class dictatorship over the working class

• workers can no longer advance their interests in parliament

• proletarian revolution requires the violent overthrow of the capitalist state

• proletarian revolution cannot use the capitalist state for its own purposes, but must destroy it

• the workers revolution must establish its own class dictatorship, the dictatorship of the proletariat, to rule society in the period of transition between capitalism and communism the workers councils are the historically discovered form of the dictatorship of the proletariat

Yet all these fundamental Marxist positions are completely alien to the De Leonist current, condemning this political milieu to an unsavory mish mash of semi-anarchist and naïve political perspectives, and rendering them incapable of understanding the historic tasks of the revolutionary workers movement.

JG, 15/05/01