Subject: LL9804039 Ben Seattle on communist unity (reply to Jim Hillier)
Date:    Monday, March 30, 1998 9:35 PM


Hi Jim (and everyone else),

I am glad to see you raise the question of 
communist unity.  All intelligent and sincere 
communist activists would like to see the 
development of greater unity amongst themselves.  
The question that comes up, however, is:

     ================================
     How is this unity to come about?
     ================================

What are the practical steps that will lead to 
this unity?

Your post, which I very much liked, discussed 
various revolutionary organizations in Turkey 
and/or Kurdistan.  You raised questions which, 
in my mind, are central.  What objective forces 
make it difficult for these groups (all of which 
command the loyalty of a section of class 
conscious activists) from working together more 
effectively?

My own focus is more on a similar question as it 
relates to conditions in the more developed 
countries of bourgeois democracy.  The 
circumstances in these countries is more favorable 
in many respects and yet we see a similar 
inability of various groups to effectively 
coordinate their actions.

At present, there are numerous groups and 
grouplets of activists who consider themselves 
to be communists but who, for many reasons, are 
hardly on speaking terms with one another.  It 
is one of the characteristics of the current 
period that many of these groups combine features 
of principled revolutionary organizations with 
features of religious cults.  The twin diseases 
of our movement, reformism, and its close 
partner-in-crime, sectarianism, are everywhere, 
just as is the air we breathe.

The development of mailing lists like this one, 
or the Spoon's lists, while primitive in many 
respects, will help to point the way forward.  
This is because such lists represent the 
*earliest signs* of the immense impact which the 
coming revolution in digital communications will 
have on the development of a communist movement.  
Communist activists from many different 
backgrounds will learn, in the wake of the 
communications revolution, how to cooperate 
*without* giving up their principled opposition 
to what they consider mistaken in one another's 
viewpoints.  This is not an overnight process.  
But it is a process which has already begun.  
What will be the result?  Sectarianism will be 
crushed and the influence of reformism will be 
punctured.

I have identified, I believe, those tasks which 
are decisive for the creation of a communist 
movement which would be worthy of the name, fully 
capable of capturing the imagination of millions 
and, eventually, leading the working class for 
the overthrow of bourgeois rule.

I discuss these tasks in my essay "1917 was the 
Beta Version" which I wrote for the 80th 
anniversary, last year, of the October Revolution.
This essay was originally written to be my 
introduction to LeninList.  LeninList was in 
crisis at the time, however, principally due to 
the failure of you (and others) to grasp a pivotal
tactical principle:

     ====================================
     Incorrect views cannot be defeated
     if one exercizes too heavy a hand
     and attempts to force the discussion 
     to conform to what one considers 
     to be correct.
     ====================================

A heavy hand will kill a discussion.  When you 
took it upon yourself to dictate what Adolfo 
would be allowed to say about Cuba--you killed 
the discussion about Cuba and nearly killed 
LeninList.  But intelligent discussion is what 
is needed at this time.  Nothing else will kill 
the incorrect ideas which stand as obstacles to 
the creation of a powerful communist movment.  
Only intelligent discussion can serve to drive 
the stake thru the heart of the undead.

Since LeninList was in crisis, I posted my "Beta 
Version" essay to the Spoon's Marxism-International
(with only a summary to LeninList).  My essay, 
unfortunately, drew only a single comment (by Mark
Jones, which I did not consider serious enough to 
require a reply).  But I am confident that this 
discussion must take off, sooner or later.  
Communist unity is necessary for the overthrow 
of bourgeois rule and, as such, will inevitably 
come about.  But communist unity can only come 
into existence as a result of taking up those 
tasks which are decisive for the creation of a 
powerful communist movement.

What are the tasks which I identified in my essay 
as being decisive for the creation of a powerful 
communist movement?

          *          *          *          * 

The decisive task *in practice* is the development
of an electronic news service without copyright 
and created such that readers could not be 
*barred access* to any progressive political trend.

Readers themselves (thru a collaborative process) 
and competing political trends will rate articles 
and decide what will appear on various competing 
"front pages" that will function as windows into 
a single common database to which all trends will 
contribute.  Such a news service will eventually 
provide millions of readers easy access to a 
common indexed system of progressive articles, 
commentary and opinion on all important topics 
and will, furthermore, allow readers to add their 
own public comments or questions to all articles 
and, in this way, will serve as the launching 
ground for a large number of forums.

I am currently at work on a very modest web-based 
prototype of such a system.  My prototype system 
would be capable of being used by hundreds of 
people, not millions.  But it will help to 
illustrate the concepts involved.  My hope is that
it will both be of practical use (in a limited way)
and inspire further work.

Lenin unified the scattered, squabbling marxist 
groups in Russia around a common newspaper that 
linked the various organizations to one another
--and to the masses.  The linkage of the scattered
groups thru a common information system (ie: Iskra)
facilated their unity in practice and created 
conditions for the successful ideological struggle
against the immense influence of reformism 
(ie: the reflection of the bourgeois ideology 
within the marxist movement).  A distributed 
electronic news system, controlled by no single 
trend with a heavy hand, will likely begin to 
play a loosely analogous role in the first decade 
of the next century.

Make no mistake.  Such a news service, 
representing a powerful beacon to millions and 
embodying the hopes, dreams and aspirations of 
all progressive mankind--will inevitably emerge.  
The only question remaining is whether such a 
news service will be created now by progressive 
activists such as ourselves--or later by others 
with deeper insight and a more powerful dedication
to the proletariat.

          *          *          *          * 

The decisive task *in theory* is the development 
of a living picture of how workers' rule will 
function in a modern, stable society.  From a 
scientific standpoint, such has *never existed*.

In order for a communist movement to be viable, 
much less capable of shaking the earth, the 
present-day crisis of "communist" theory must 
be overcome.  Nowhere is the bankruptcy of this 
theory more obvious and more critical--than in 
its utter failure to realistically explain (or 
even intelligently discuss) the *alternative* 
to bourgeois rule.  This is *the* central 
question of communist theory.  And until it 
is answered, until the *discussion* of this 
question succeeds in drawing in workers--a 
genuinely communist movement will never be 
able to outgrow its infancy.

     ==============================
     How will a workers' state 
     suppress the newly overthrown
     (but still immensely powerful)
     bourgeoisie *without also*
     suppressing workers ?
     ==============================

Against such a question, all the immense confusion,
self-deception and inbred charlatanism (which, at 
present, dominate the present-day "communist" 
movement) -- will have about as much chance as 
a goldfish in a blender.  

All that will be left will be pink, frothy water.

          *          *          *          *

My essay, "1917 was the Beta Version" can be 
reached by clicking the prominent link to it 
at www.communism.org.  I invite all readers of 
this list to check it out and either comment on 
it here or write to me.  I am committed to 
linking, at the bottom of my essay, to all 
serious and thoughtful responses.

Ben Seattle
----//-// 30.Mar.98  3am
www.Leninism.org