From:	 Ben Seattle [icd@communism.org]
To:	 marxism@lists.panix.com
Cc:	 George Goldstein [gg@gn.apc.org]
Subject: Re: Political rights under workers' rule
Date:	 Wed, 1 Jul 1998 04:04:41 -0700

Hi George,

First, I would like to thank you for your response.  
I appreciate your calm tone and believe it will help to
attract attention to this topic in a way that is productive.

George:
=======
> Your discussion on the "rights of workers to use the 
> internet under the future 'dictatorship of the 
> proletariat'", seems strange. 

Ben:
====
What will eventually seem strange, I believe, is that
such discussion ever seemed strange.

George:
=======
> ... you talk of a 'modern stable society', future 
> socialism, the transition period to communism, in 
> which not only remnants of bourgeois ideas exist, 
> but also it seems considerable commercial use of 
> the net and significant bourgeois resources.  

Ben:
====
Yes.  

The workers' state will not be able to immediately
expropriate all of the capitalist corporations, if only
because it will take a considerable period of time for
workers to learn how to run the economy without reliance
on capitalist methods.  In the meantime, a considerable
section of the economy will likely be run by capitalists
(or former capitalists) who have experience in making 
things run smoothly.  The workers' state will permit 
this because it will need a functioning economy.  But at 
the same time the workers' state will need to restrict 
the ability of these bourgeoisie (or former bourgeoisie)
to use the resources at their command to restore bourgeois 
class rule.  That is the whole point of the "D of P".

George:
=======
> This surely cannot be a stable world.

Ben:
====
In my view, it will be more than "stable enough".

George:
=======
> The coming world revolution ... will not happen evenly, 
> but patchily, and this time such is the development of 
> the productive forces, the possibility of socialism is 
> more than over-ripe. As such, from the beginning the 
> bourgeoisie in many countries will find, after the 
> first revolution, no choice but to impose immediate 
> bonapartist rule which in ma[n]y places will quickly 
> move into fascism. It is not 1917.

> As such, phone and internet communications will not be 
> in one united camp, but separated, and all 'left' talk 
> under capitalism will quickly be forced underground. 

Ben:
====
You are raising a number of important and interesting points.
What is most important to see, in my view, is that, as time
goes on, it is going to become increasingly difficult for the 
bourgeoisie (in a modern, developed country) to impose 
measures of fascist repression for anything more than very 
short periods of time.

Fascist repression involves (and requires) the near-total 
control of news and information.  This is going to 
increasingly become *impossible*.

The reason that this will become impossible is *not* merely 
technical (ie: the incorrect notion that it becomes physically 
impossible to shut down the internet, etc).  Rather, the reason 
is that shutting down the internet would so badly cripple the 
economy--that the political crisis would only *accelerate*.

This may not be so obvious today.  But I believe it will 
become increasingly obvious.  The internet will become the 
heart of the economy of every country and region on earth.  
For the bourgeoisie of any modern country to shut it down--
would be like holding its breadth--something that could only 
be done for a relatively short period of time during which it 
hopes to somehow decapitate revolutionary leadership and 
overcome a revolutionary crisis.  In a connected world with 
an active online population--this becomes increasingly 
difficult.  In such a revolutionary crisis, the bourgeosie 
could certainly kill a lot of people.  But in so doing it 
would only be pouring gasoline on a fire and hastening the 
day of its overthrow.

Nor, would it be possible to somehow "filter" the net (of 
either revolutionary or foreign ideas) without shutting it 
down.  I don't have the time to go into this--but such ideas 
by frightened bourgeois are not realistic.  One case in 
point here is China.  Currently, China is attempting to keep 
its internal net free of the ideas of dissidents or other 
"troublemakers" who dare to point out the hypocrisy and 
corruption in the ruling circles and criticize the growing gap 
between the rich and the poor.  But this "firewall of China" 
will certainly collapse.  I once met a Chinese technical 
worker, quite familiar with computers (TCP/IP and all that) 
and told him that I could not see how the Chinese government 
could possibly keep the internet closed for more than 20 
years.  He responded by telling me that they will have to 
open it up within *ten* years.  I hope he is right.  But the 
point is that whether it is ten or twenty years--the long-term 
trend is that it will become increasingly impossible for *any* 
government to restrict the flow of information to and from 
its citizens.

George:
=======
> From this small e-mail of yours, it seems you are trying 
> too hard to predict the future world (something the likes of 
> Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxembourg, Trotsky, never spent too 
> much time on simply because it was beyond their brilliant 
> reach) 

Ben:
====
The advantage we have over the people you mention (some more
brilliant than others ;-) is that we live at a later time--and
all the factors involved have had time to mature so that the
tendencies of development can be more clearly seen even by 
people who are not brilliant.  We are closer to the overthrow
of bourgeois rule on a world scale--than anyone before--and 
certain important features of the system of workers' rule can
be more clearly seen now than earlier.

It becomes important, necessary and (at this point) decisive
to clarify certain issues because otherwise the future system
of workers' rule becomes essentially unthinkable--something
that cannot even be *imagined* in any realistic sense--because 
the conditions of its existence involve imposing on modern 
society measures that were only appropriate 80 years ago for 
a backward peasant country with a ruined economy.

And without the central unifying goal of workers' rule, the
goal of overthrowing bourgeois rule also becomes unthinkable
--and we are left with no communist movement worthy of the
name--only a motley collection of grouplets that can barely 
speak to each other and which consider the "D of P" to be a 
religious icon to be worshipped with *no real connection* 
to practical activity (which inevitably degenerates into
reformism or sectarianism or both).

Workers, under workers' rule, will have access to the 
internet.  This must be clearly said.  If someone wants 
to say that the head of the workers' government is corrupt 
and deserves to be hung--they will say so.  Such people will 
find an audience only if there is truth to what they say.  
A future workers' state will rest on the support of the 
vast majority and will not need to be so afraid of such 
criticism that it would feel a need to repress it.  (What it 
*would* repress, and repress most decisively, however, 
would be such expressions that were backed by 
*bourgeois resources* such as paid labor.)

The future workers state will require and *rely upon* the 
unfettered expression of the workers.  *This* will be the
powerful weapon that will oppose and win against bourgeois
ideology in millions and billions of encounters large and
small.

George:
=======
> ... perhaps we should discuss how we utilise the internet
> now to enhance and build class struggle, build a new world
> party of socialist revolution in these very dangerous time 
> we live in.

Ben:
====
Well, a couple of points.  We should not get carried away by
the danger.  I suspect that a lot of the "apocalyptic thinking"
that dominates discussion of the kind of revolutionary crisis
that will lead to the mobilization of millions of workers--
originates in frustration over the failure of workers to
swallow theory which is bankrupt.  "When things get bad enough
--when the workers are desperate enough--*then* they will 
listen to us" goes this line of thinking.  Many of us have
heard this line of thinking in one form or another.  I think
this line of thinking should be opposed because it blinds us
to the revolutionary potential which exists in front of our 
noses.

Yes, George, I agree that we should discuss how to use the
internet to build a communist organization that strikes terror
into the hearts of the bourgeoisie.  They will see the dogs
of hell unleashed--but we will be taking to millions the idea
that it is necessary and inevitable that we storm heaven.

I believe such communist organization will eventually coalesce 
around efforts to create an electronic news service for the 
working class.  I think we should talk about such a thing and
discuss ideas for how such projects will be organized.  Control
of the "news" will be a weak link in the system of bourgeois
control of the thinking and ideology of the masses.  It is our
responsibilty to exploit this weak link to the max.  If we do
not--then these tasks will eventaully be taken up by others who 
have deeper insight concerning what is decisive and are more 
dedicated to the proletariat.

But I do *not* agree (if this is what you are proposing) 
that we should drop discussion of the democratic rights 
of workers in a future workers' state.  This is the 
decisive question that must be understood before a 
communist movement can emerge that would be capable of 
overcoming the existing theoretical crisis and mobilizing
millions of workers.

George:
=======
> Oh, and why do you end with:
>
> > Unfortunately, with very few exceptions, the most 
> > esteemed and expert "marxists" on these lists will 
> > not touch this topic with a ten foot pole.

Well, with all due respect to everyone, that has been my 
experience.

Ben Seattle -- www.Leninism.org
---- 1.Jul.98 -- 4 am ----//-// 

(More discussion of this topic can be found at my site
 in chapter 8 of "How to Build the Party of the Future")