Reply #38: Actually

It's both. The Revolutionary Worker is the voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

The question of Communism is very relevant to this discussion, although it is being raised in an unprincipled, anti-communist way. One thing we are going to have to do if we want to have a revolution in this country that doesn't just take us back to the same old shit is address the problems which are often brought up as blind attacks.

I also wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Stalin as simply not being communist. I think it is important to embrace the real legacy of communism and Stalin is a part of that. Of course when I say real, I have some fundamental disagreements with the kinds of attacks brought out.

Firstly the October Revolution was a great thing. They got Russia out of the War. They gave the people of the world an example of rebellion, this was one of the primary reasons that countries like Britain, France and the U.S. invaded Russia during their Civil War. They were the first to completely legalize abortion and give women formal equality as well as more freedom than they had ever had in Russia, or that many women had or have ever had in the world. They ended feudal oppression. They completely ended serfdom which in Russia was essentially slavery. They organized people to get educations and became one of the most literate societies in the world.

Even Stalin did some good things. He defeated the Germans, who had been unleashed by the U.S. and other imperialist nations to be a buffer against the Soviet Union. He strengthened the productive ability of the Soviet Union. He created amazing public works. And I would just like to add that if you go to Russia you will find a very large portion of the Russian people, especially those who lived during Stalin, wish that he was back. I remember when I saw Lenin's tomb there were people in front of me crying, not because they hated him, but because they loved him and what he stood for. I would also like to add that life in Russia today is immensely worse than it was under the "Communists". Having said all that, if we can't do better than they did in the early part of the 20th century then perhaps there is no point in trying. I believe we can and must do better.

Secondly I disagree with the idea that democracy should be our ultimate goal. This comes from an understanding of what democracy is which is not widely held. Democracy and Dictatorship exist hand in hand. You cannot divorce the two from eachother. They are two sides of the same coin. Looking at early greek democracies, upon which the U.S. was partially based, one finds that democracy was always reserved for a small elite, while dictatorship was excercised by this elite upon everyone else. This program especially fir what the founding fathers wanted because just as in Greece thousands of years before it is an excellent system for maintaining slavery, while allowing for "innovation". In the U.S. democracy was reserved for the elite formally until at least the 60's. And in reality it is still controlled by the elite.

Democracy is for the Bourgeoisie dictatorship is for everyone else. Freedom of speech is respected as long as you uphold the system, while if you contradict it's imperatives you are at the very least marginalized and many times much worse. There is a reason that black people don't generally like cops, because they are the very real face of dictatorship to those people who are the focus of control in this country. For the middle class often times these realities are blurred by ideologies like patriotism and consumerism. But no matter what class you are from if you contradict this system, it's myths and it's lies, then you reap the whirlwind.

What we need to do is supercede the concept of democracy and with it dictatorship. We need a society of freely associating human beings. We can never have this with democracy or dictatorship. We need revolution. Constant upheaval and revolutionizing of productive relations, property relations, and the ideas that go along with these relations. We need to be firmly fixed on truth as a starting point and be completely open to discussion and argumentation from all sides, as a way to continue to move forward. Struggle is the impetus for all social advancement. A socialist revolution will help to facilitate this with the ultimate goal of ending itself, the state, and the communist party, while at the same time providing for peoples basic needs and not so basic needs.

This is as good as democracy gets. If we can't do better than that then we're not going to last much longer. As Avakian says we can do better than democracy.

These speeches by Avakian go much deeper into this: "Elections, Democracy and Dictatorship, Resistance and Revolution" http://bobavakian.net/

"Dictatorship and Democracy and the Socialist Transition to Communism"
http://rwor.org/chair_e.htm#democracyspeech

"Epistemology- On Knowing and Changing the World" http://rwor.org/a/1262/avakian-epistemology.htm

This is new stuff. This isn't the same old shit. This IS revolutionary.

For the anti-communist stuff I would just say that you have an incomplete picture of the truth at best. Most of the verdicts that are reproduced by anti-communists comes directly from the McCarthyist House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Hardly a impartial group of people who have been discreditied over and over again. While I can't go into every mistake that was made by communists or every lie ever told about them I would suggest checking out this article about the truth of the Cultural Revolution in China:

http://rwor.org/a/1251/communism_socialism_mao_china_facts.htm