[A-List] Gus Hall - (Hero or Zero) 1

[Charles Brown]

Comment 
 
Fine, Socialist revolution will come from voting, in the opinion of  Gus 
Hall.  

^^^^
CB; And in your opinion it won't. fine.

^^^
 
Let look at Chavez for a moment. 
 
When Chavez  regime was threatened with overthrow and he was  imprisoned, a 
referendum was not held where he was voted out of imprisonment.

^^^
CB: This is warped argumentation.  He was voted _in_ . That meets the notion of change through electoral process.

^^^^
 It  is a lack 
of information at best, that makes one believe that the armed  insurrection (in 
the form of the existence of the state as military) , rooted in  and based on 
an upsurge (uprising) of the masses, did not free Chavez.  A  section of the 
army sided with Chavez forces and would not slaughter the people  and 
destabilize "the revolution." 

^^^^
CB: That there was no vote in defending against the coup is not at all an argument that the current revolutionary Venezuelan process was not critically electoral.

^^^^
 
There is a documentary on this process. 
 
Tradition and history suggest the mass uprising as the thing that  
destabilizes and polarize the state making it possible for a group of men and  women to 
seize power. The other tradition as history of real events, is a war  time 
collapse of the army as the thing that destabilize the state and makes  possible 
the capture of the commanding heights of power by revolutionaries. 
 
The act of seizing power, described as the revolutionary crisis by Lenin,  is 
either as an insurrection or a military coup. If the group of men and women - 
 as a political association or organization, have members that are part of 
the  constitutional authority, and they will, they most certainly will have to 
swing  the armed forces over to the cause of revolution. Here is the meaning of 
 insurrection, and it is not counterpoised to voting, or more accurately 
taking  part in the electoral process, which is not limited to voting. Even with 
the  narrow and bizarre vision of voting as the path of the Socialist 
revolution, the  demand to line up a section of the military is necessary for political 
change  and this process is the meaning of the insurrectionary process. 
 
The fact (meaning indisputable by anyone that examines the data and  
information) of the matter is that political change in America always call for  lining 
up the forces of insurrection to one degree or another. When Colin Powell  
lined up with Obama, the reason he is Colin Powell is as representative of the  
armed forces. The reason Obama is recruiting existing members of the state 
into  his administration  - (as armed force and intelligence agencies), is  
because insurrection and military coup is an inherent aspect of all  institutional 
power, at all times in all of the history of classes, in the  world. And 
politics at the highest level is inconceivable without military  forces and lining 
them up to ones side. 
 
What is wonderful is that we live in a mount of history where we can  witness 
revolutionary currents and process in real time. 
 
Obama had to be able to win a section of the military to his side to get  
elected with credibility, in the eyes of the state and the people. There is  
nothing revolutionary about Obama, or rather, there is no evidence of Obama  being 
revolutionary, in as much as he is not even President yet. Lining up  section 
of the military is a public act in America, with an incredible amount of  
transparency. The real military in America is polarized in a way no one has seen  
or experienced since Vietnam. Also, the Obama campaign - as a process, had  
characteristic of a mass uprising. To equate any of this with a concept of  
ballot box socialism is a stretch. 
 
The conception problem of the meaning of revolution and insurrection is  part 
of the bourgeoisie's job in keeping revolutionaries confused and to deny  and 
repudiate our own history. I will not repudiate our collective history. 
 
Insurrection is the crown on the head of the revolution. Without it is  
impossible to "stabilized the revolution." 
 
Look at the October Revolution, which as a process involved voting. Lenin  
was not running around with a gun, which is the concept the bourgeoisie wants  
people to envision, when the word insurrection is mentioned. The 
insurrectionary  aspects of "the revolution" was the Solider Soviets and winning over a 
decisive  section of the military. Read "Ten Days That Shook The World" by John 
Reed and  read about the real insurrection. 
 
The inordinate attention Chavez daily and hourly takes in reorganizing the  
military is proof positive that "the revolutionary" process has to be  
implemented, safe guarded by arms and stabilized by arms. Not a concept of "the  
people have guns" or even "the armed people" but winning the "weighty"section of  
the military to ones side. Chavez is insurrection or the insurrectionary 
process  made flesh. Chavez career was/in the military. The military is arms 
personified  and as the central focus of the meaning of the word "state," had to be 
already  polarized into opposing sides, for him to win office.  
 
Chavez is a breath of fresh air, but a "peaceful change" in the production  
relations in his country is minimally, predicated upon another series of  
changes, interlocked with changes in America and the world. At least this is how  
things seem in 2009. Maybe in 2012 things will look different. A revolutionary  
America will be strong enough to pull most countries in its wake and opens 
the  possibility for a peaceful transition. The idea that Chavez represents 
ballot  box socialism is ridiculous or rather needs to be explained. Anytime a 
section  of th military divides and opposes itself unleashes the insurrectionary 
process,  or rather is by definition either insurrection or a military coup. 
 
Change in social relations of production or what is the same, "production  
relations" have a meaning. Communists, with a Marxist tradition, speaks of  
changes in the production relations. 
 
Production relations or "social relations of production" means "the laws  
defining the relationship of people to property in the process of production."  
Despotic inroads" into capital, on behalf of the people at large, are always  
welcomed.  At the end of the day you have to change institutional law from  the 
interest of one class to another. When this is attempted you better have the  
armed forces, or a decisive section of it on your side. If a decisive section 
of  the armed forces are on your side that is the armed insurrection. 
 
Nepal is a very different matter. 
 
The act of seizing the commanding heights of power is called revolutionary  
insurrection, when such seizure takes place in the context of a waves of  
revolutionary change in the productive forces and whose expressed intention is  the 
overthrow of an institutional (power) class. Revolution, by definition  
springs from qualitative changes in the productive forces, which compels society  
to change the production relations (social relations of production).  Not  only 
is society compelled to change from the center of gravity that is the fact  
of changes in the material power of production, but such changes are already  
taking place. Revolution must take place because these changes cannot be  
completed, without a change in the "superstructure." The change in the  
superstructure cannot be stabilized without the armed might of the state. This  
stabilizing by the armed forces that is the state is called insurrection or the  
insurrectionary movement.
 
Insurrection is the crown on the head of "the revolution."  The ballot  box 
socialists, as an intellectual current are of course part of the  revolutionary 
change wave and I have always worked with them and  respected their vision, 
as the right wing of communism/Marxism. On the other  hand I vote, have run for 
offices and have won elections. I lost more  than I won and find nothing 
wrong with communists working in the general  parliamentary arena. Most work of 
communists and socialist in the parliamentary  arena have been distribution of 
their literature rather than voting. 
 
WL. 



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