Trotsky the Prophet vs Daniel Fielding: A debate on Communism [2/3]

Hi comrades! This is PART II of my debate with Daniel F, where we discussed the differences between Marxism and Leninism, revolutionary movements, and Lenin's theory of the state. Enjoy the debate!

D: Though your points about the difference between my views and Marx's on the subject of idealism and materialism are valid, they do not change the way I think, because I mostly believe in idealism. You know very well that I define a commodity different to Marx: a commodity to me is 'a raw material or primary agricultural product that can be bought and sold, such as copper or coffee,' or, alternatively; 'a useful or valuable thing.' I would like to emphasise the value being specified on the latter definition.

Also, I would like to denounce the quote by Lenin, as I do not ethically agree with his style of communism. I also do not think that is possible in the short term, and neither did Marx. Marx believed that communism would come around as an evolution of other political systems: he believed that before communism would happen, socialism naturally would. That would have stopped a lot of the violence in 'communist' countries everywhere such as Soviet Russia and Maoist China. Also, I believe that everything has worth. As a result of that, I believe that all labour being equally paid is not going to happen. I ethically agree with it and think that there should at the very least be a high minimum wage, but I don't believe that is 'fair.' Some people are more skilled than others, and as a result get paid more. This could change more as people got education standards raised, but I don't believe that gap will ever truly close.

Your opinions also differ from mine as I don't believe that all humans are truly dedicated. I believe they can be, but they do not start out this way. Though I don't necessarily disagree with Georg Hegel, I think it is much too easy for people to be alienated for communism to work in our modern-day world.

P: It has been clear that the fundamental discord between our ideas lies between materialism and idealism. I, as a faithful materialist (and atheist), do not wish to elaborate too much on this since it would require lots of cumbersome yet futile discords. There are, nevertheless, some other things I would like to illustrate:

“Also, I would like to denounce the quote by Lenin, as I do not ethically agree with his style of communism. I also do not think that is possible in the short term, and neither did Marx. Marx believed that communism would come around as an evolution of other political systems: he believed that before communism would happen, socialism naturally would.”

Personally, I’ve read a lot of articles portraying Marx and Engels as “good commies”/liberal philosophers, but Lenin/Stalin/Mao as ruthless totalitarian dictators. Karl Marx, as a 19th-century philosopher, was not Jesus Christ and would never be able to anticipate society one-and-a-half centuries later. Where there are huge differences between Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism, it is evident that Leninism and Maoism did not develop on its own foundations. On the contrary, they emerged from Marxism. Lenin’s application of “democratic centralisation” and Mao’s “People’s democratic dictatorship” were derived from Marx’s “Proletarian Dictatorship,” as he elucidated in “Critiques of the Gotha Programme.”

“Between capitalist and communist society, there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Marx did acknowledge that a democratic republic would make the lives of Communists much easier, though; he never believed that the bourgeois class would retreat from power peacefully. For him, public suffrage in a capitalist democracy only allowed “the oppressed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them.” Hence, Marx believed bourgeois democracy was “democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich.” As a result, development towards communism would proceed through a revolution, for the resistance of the capitalists and their control of public power cannot be broken by peaceful means.

Marx has also expressed direct encouragement for any revolutionary movements aiming to overthrow the bourgeois states, such as the Paris Commune. During that movement, Marx greeted the proletarian revolution with the greatest enthusiasm, despite unfavourable auguries, and expressed it as “stormed heaven.” His support for revolutions can also be seen in the Communist Manifesto, which stated that “the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.”

Engels further developed this idea in his “Anti-Duhring” by stating that only after the proletariat revolution abolishes the bourgeois state and seize state power themselves will the society “naturally transition” into communism, i.e., “the state withers away.” True, there will be a “natural transition, but one which would not be realised until the bourgeoisie is overthrown.

The proletariat seizes from state power and turns the means of production into state property, to begin with. But thereby it abolishes itself as the proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, and abolishes also the state as state... The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished.’ It withers away. - Vladimir Lenin

D: I agree that Marx and Engels weren't totalitarian, and that is where the difference lies. You cannot compare Stalinism and Maoism to Marx - they're such different things. Stalinism and Maoism were based around an evil dictatorship, and while Marx and Engels were merely philosophers with an interest in politics.

I also do not agree with Marx, as he stated that;

“The oppressed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them.”

I don't think that this is true, because if a government doesn't have enough popular opinion, then it cannot pass certain important policies. People can also protest (like what's happening right now with Black Lives Matter) and, as we've seen, this can change things. I do agree, however, that democracy could be further refined to allow for more opportunities to vote, but I refuse to believe that all presidential candidates and their entourage are 'oppressive.' In fact, many of them have gone into politics because they want to right a wrong that they have seen in the world, and to reduce oppressiveness. What is the government supposed to oppress?

Along with the above, you cannot simply divide the world into Proletariat and Bourgeois. Take the police for instance; they are workers, for the government. Who do they serve? They protect the Proletariat by stopping people from breaking the law but are enforcing a government's law. However, the government has implemented these laws with the permission of the people. Sorry if the last bit was confusing, but that is exactly why you cannot define someone as a 'Proletariat' and a 'Bourgeois,' as such. What are your thoughts on this?

The point about; “the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things,” just gives me another point against communism. That is essentially anarchy and that won't work, because, as I said above, I believe that selfishness and greed are human emotions. I would also like some clarification on the meaning of 'the state' in communism. Marx viewed the state as a creature of the bourgeois economic interest. Firstly, a communist society would still have an economy, and secondly, as I said above a bourgeois (in Marx's terms) is 'the capitalist class who own most of society's wealth and means of production.' If there was a dictatorship of the proletariat, then wouldn't they control all of the wealth? Wouldn't they control all of this production?

“But thereby it abolishes itself as the proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, and abolishes also the state as state... The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished.’ It withers away.” The idea is sound, but it has way too many holes in it. For instance, I don't think anarchy will work and isn't an 'administration of things' essentially a government?