Click on the headline to link a website that features George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."
Markin comment:
Politics, including revolutionary politics, has its up and down moments; this one is an up one and moreover is also a “teachable” moment to boot. Recently I received a message from a young leftist militant, or at least that is how I would categorize him politically, asking about the various terms used in our left-wing movement to define sundry political types and trends. He was, not surprisingly, when one thinks about it confused over the common use and interchangeability (whoa!), including by this writer, of terms like left-wing militant, leftist, socialist , revolutionary socialist, workers party, revolutionary labor party, workers government, dictatorship of the proletariat, Bolshevik, and, the holy of holies, Communist, the “C” word of the headline.
Well, frankly, part of the interchangeability is to vary up the usage in an article or series of articles, depending, sometimes, on the subject and to whom the entry is directed. I will, however, let the old socialist writer George Orwell take me to task on this one. For those not familiar with Orwell’s work, “Politics and the English Language”, I have linked that gem above. Now Orwell had many political faults, including that funny little quirk of a touching faith in British imperialism in the early Cold War period of the 1940s shortly before his death in 1949, but he had it exactly right about the virtues of political precision. I can only say, as I have on other occasions, that I have honored that wisdom in the breech more than in the observance on more occasions that I care to recount.
But to address the young militant leftist’s point more fully I will try to draw some differences in terminology starting with the categorization of "militant leftist". I would say today that political designation would include someone against the American imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other imperial adventures and willing to go into the streets on the question. Someone also, perhaps, vaguely disenchanted with international capitalism but with no particular strategy to change it beyond some “tinkering” with the system. In short, the predicament of the vast majority of those, especially of the young, who are looking for a way out of the impasse posed by capitalism. Today, one may wear the badge “militant leftist” with some honor. Whether that will remain true in the future will depend on not yet known circumstances.
Beyond that general political characterization in order to see whether our fellows fall on “the side of the angels” or not, there is something of real and defining history in the usage of certain terms in the socialist movement. Before World War I, and the overwhelming betrayal by many of the European Social Democratic parties in supporting their own country’s capitalist government's war efforts, that term was in general usage and highly regarded. Even then, as factions developed within these “party of the whole class” organizations, reformist and revolutionary socialist wings were apparent. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the clear defining line was between the now committed reformist Social Democrats and the equally committed revolutionary Communists. That distinction reflected the Bolshevik “hard” position that it was necessary to overthrow the capitalist governments of the world and create new working class institutions that would serve to put society on the road to socialism. I submit that that distinction is still a good approximation for the differences between ostensibly socialist organizations today.
I want to give special attention to the terms revolutionary labor party, workers party, dictatorship of the proletariat, and workers government, terms that are strewn all over many of the entries in this space. These expressions are terms of art in the revolutionary movement so some clarity is necessary. When I propagandize for a workers party my idea is not some generic version of the old Labor Party in Great Britain that serves at the sufferance of the Queen but of a revolutionary labor party based on a transitional program of demands that require a socialist overturn of society to be implemented. And that overturn is reflected in the idea of a workers government. That, my friends, is nothing less than the old Marxist idea of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” –the first tentative step to the socialist stage of development and then to communism, the classless society. Now if this information does not help let me put it this way. If I have a preference as to what I want to be called, politically, and would be happy to have etched on my grave marker then inscribe the “C” word please. And you should be too. In the meantime I will,and hopefully you will also, continue to fight for our communist future-the classless society.
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