Comments on economism, right, and left errors
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Posted under: essential reading, First Worldism and social imperialism, science and epistemology, theory, Trotsky, united front
Comments on economism, right, and left errors
(llco.org)
“Dear Leading Light,
What is does the error of “economism” refer to?”
Leading Light replies:
Thank you for writing.
“Economism” is a term used to refer to a certain type of error. “Tailing” or “tailism” is another term often used for this error. Continuing rightist errors lead to rightist revisionism, a certain way of abandoning the revolution. It is the error of overemphasizing the more immediate, short-term, local, etc. interests of the masses to the detriment of their more distant, long-term, universal, etc. interests. For example, to only focus on the immediate interests of the masses (or recruits) such as higher wages or political reform, without connecting those the distant interests of abolishing class, ending patriarchy, liberating the Earth, actually reaching Leading Light Communism is to make this error. Lenin criticized those who tailed the trade-union movement of his day. Lenin saw that tailing the trade unions was an error that would not lead to revolution, but only reform. Similarly, Lenin criticized those who held that revolution could be achieved by tailing political reformists through social-democratic, legislative victories within the bourgeois state. Mao criticized those who tailed after the united front to the point of liquidation of the leading role of the Party. Revolution is not made by gaining small, piecemeal concessions from the capitalist order. Revolution is not made primarily through reforms within the bourgeois order. Leading Light Communism is not reached by making small steps within the current system. There is no compromise with the old system, the Old Power. The Old Power is fundamentally an instrument of oppression. Rather, the Old Power, must be swept away. It must be replaced by a New Power. To sweep away the Old, to create the New, to really win, requires the strong leadership, organization, discipline, political line, science of Leading Light Communism.
Right errors are errors of tailing the masses (or recruits) or their organizations, rather than leading them to Leading Light Communism. In a sense, all errors are errors of political line, errors that can be solved through political rectification, education, training, discipline, etc. However, right errors are also tied to bourgeois or petty-bourgeois character. Such political errors can be exacerbated and caused in part by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois traits, a bourgeois or petty-bourgeois mentality: cowardice, lack of courage, lack of discipline, liberalism, putting superficial unity with others above political line, big ego, etc. Rather than taking on the burden of leading people to Leading Light Communism, those who make this error tail after everything under the sun. They tail after the immediate demands of the masses (or recruits) they tail after their friends and family, they tail after nationalists, First Worldist fake-feminists, or others. They do not have the courage to stand up, point out errors, teach and lead. They make the fundamental mistake of thinking that the way to lead people is by pretending to agree with them, not criticizing them, not educating them, etc. Although they do not see it, they are usually not respected by those they compromise with. Spinelessness is not an attractive characteristic. Rather than pulling the masses (or recruits) to revolution, the masses (or recruits) pull them to reformism and First Worldism.
By contrast, left errors are usually when you are too far ahead of the masses (or recruits). Left errors are usually when your demands on the masses (or recruits) are so advanced that you are unable to effectively reach or positively influence your audience. For example, anarchist demands to immediately end all hierarchy, to dispense with leadership, discipline, organization, etc. are ultra-left. The demand to end marriage or the traditional family immediately is ultra-left at present. The radical green attempt to save the Earth without regard for human need is ultra-left. The demand that people change every aspect of their personal lives immediately is ultra-left. You cannot simply wave a magic wand and change the world. You cannot change the world by fiat. Also, you cannot simply command change at bayonet point. You can demand anything you want, but really changing the world means meeting people where they are and pulling them forward, leading them. Mao called this “mass line.” You connect local, immediate issues to the big picture. Peasants want land. Mao used the issue of land as a way to advance people in stages to socialism then communism. Just as land is not an end in itself, better wages are not either. Land and wage struggles amongst poor peoples should only be seen as bridges to further revolutionary advances. They are not ends in themselves, by themselves they are not revolutionary. Another left error is the inability to make limited alliances with social groups or forces. For example, those who fail to support the united front against imperialism make a left error. Those who fail to side with patriotic-bourgeois, Third World regimes and forces that are attacked by imperialism make a left error. The Leading Light neither tails, neither cheerleads, neither liquidates into the united front nor to abandons it. The Leading Light line is “Uphold the broad united front! Hold the Red Flag high!” In other words, critical support to all those fighting imperialism while at the same time contending for leadership of the united front. Those who seek to remain so pure that they cannot make alliances engage in a destructive left error. Like all errors, left errors are political errors, but they too can be exacerbated or caused in part by a bourgeois or petty-bourgeois character, bourgeois or petty-bourgeois mentality. Meanness, impatience, big ego, lack of love for the people, lack of compassion, lack of empathy, lack of humility, for example, often accompany left errors. Compounded left errors can lead to left revisionism just as compounded right errors lead to right revisionism.
Right and left errors often are found in the same individual. Individuals who make errors will often zigzag between the right and left. Sometimes right errors hide left errors; sometimes left errors mask right errors. This is because both kinds of errors result from lack of revolutionary science, from lack of solid Leading Light Communism, organization and discipline. They stem from lack of fully understanding Leading Light Communism, but also from lack of implementing its political line at the level of your character. Both types of errors can lead to revisionism, do nothingism, wrecking, pig work, snitching, gossiping, and other counter-revolutionary behavior.
As always, remember that the First World is very different from the Third World. The First World has no significant revolutionary social base, no proletariat. The vast majority of the Third World is made up of proletarian classes, poor peoples. This means that techniques of leadership will be very different in the First World than the Third World. In the Third World, mass line is an important tool. While some of Lenin’s and Mao’s approaches are still useful in the First World, Leading Lights in the First World will need to be much more creative. In the Third World, Leading Lights must mobilize the revolutionary social base. In the First World, Leading Lights must gather up anomalies for resistance against the First World. Since there are no significant masses in the First World, mass line does not apply broadly in the First World as it does the Third World. Those who attempt to simply apply mass line in the First World as you would the Third World end up in First Worldism, tailing reformism, tailing NGOs and non-profit organizations, bourgeois parties, etc. Accommodating First Worldists generally does not help the cause of the proletariat unless it is generating resources and recruits for the Leading Light. Those who muddle First Worldism with Leading Light Communism end up lying to the real masses in the Third World and giving cover for First Worldism of various kinds. Leading Lights in the First World will need to find new ways to recruit, new ways to educate, etc. that do not pretend the populations of the First World are revolutionary. In the course of implementing the glorious strategic plan of the Leading Light, the leadership has developed new, creative methods that will gather First World anomalies and transform them into Leading Light cadre.
Currently, the main problems are rightist ones. Rectify this by increasing the level of political education within the organization. Every cadre must deepen their grasp of the general line. Those rightists who tail so much that they let First Worldism slide do no favors to our cause. Every cadre should make an effort to educate at least one recruit or fence sitter. Those cadres with a better grasp of leadership should make an effort to educate those who have slipped into errors, especially rightist errors. Every cadre must increase their discipline as we go forward. Leading Lights are soldiers as well as teachers. Every cadre must put in work, sacrifice, donate on a regular basis. Be a red soldier of the Leading Light! Follow the Leading Light! Be the Leading Light! The sun is rising. Our day will come.
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Leading Light Essentials
Plenty of people claim to be oh so r-r-r-revolutionary but when it comes down to it, they dont lift a finger for the oppressed. At every opportunity to actually help concretely, they run. The FW is filled with fakes who talk a good game. Luckily there are real communists like you! Warmest RS to the Leading Light!
Being a real revolutionary, a Leading Light, is not just about having a set of ideas in your head, understanding or reading a webpage, etc. It is also about action, really leading people. This is one of the first lessons of Marx: the point is to change the world. Lenin and Mao understood this simple lesson also. Without action, there is nothing. For those who suffer, the need for real action is obvious, just like the need for leadership, discipline, sacrifice, organization is obvious. This is something of a given for the real proletariat. There are those in the First World who may connect with our ideas in some abstract way, but because they are too caught up in their First World ways, too caught up in their egos, they do next to nothing to really aid the proletarian movement. They give very little, if anything, of themselves. So, you basically have a bunch of privileged people talking about how privileged they are, but when asked to actually sacrifice anything to help the people, they become silent, drop out, or worse, piggishly attack the movement. It takes time to find the real, hardcore people. It takes time to find those with the potential to become true servants of the people, warriors of the people, teachers of the people, Leading Lights. We will always have to separate the wheat from the chaff. Actions speak louder than words. We are the ones who will live and die for Leading Light Communism.
Liberalism in the United States is very damaging to the left…people keep on believing the Democrats can just push the appropriate reforms and of course get fooled…you can’t compromise with capital. Reform is clearly not the answer….
thanx for this crystal clear explanation. I was a lil confused about right and left. I have made both types of errors. Me thinks it is harder to stay true to LLCism when alone. I am surrounded by liberal and nationalist forces and find myself slipping. It would be easier if I had local comrades to rely on to help correct me. The center has always been quick to respond and help. I have no criticism of the center but I just wish I had more help locally. Being a LL can be hard when you feel all alone.
Why is this post tagged with “Trotsky”? Is this to suggest that Trotsky was the personification of left or right error? I challenge anyone to attempt to make that case (without conflating Trotsky himself with self-proclamed Trotskyists).
Trotsky fell into error in his early attempts to mediate with the Mencheviks and his misplaced faith in the German proletariat, but his political line had no substantial differences from the LLCO positions taken in this post. Please attempt to prove otherwise.
Instead of tagging Trotsky, you should tag Stalin as an example of right deviation, since it was Stalin who was so eager not to antagonise the KMT that he countenanced Kai-shek’s massacre of Shanghai workers. Trotsky was warning about this inevitability for years!
We do not disagree that Stalin made errors, including rightist ones. However, our view is that Trotsky’s errors were far greater than Stalin’s, so much so that Trotsky placed himself outside the revolutionary camp by the end. The reason we specifically tagged Trotsky here is because of all traditions claiming to be revolutionary, the Trotskyist one has been the most First Worldist. Now, this isn’t to say that the Maoist tradition has not also been First Worldist, it has. However, at least the Maoists and Marxist-Leninists have placed a greater emphasis on the role of Third World liberation forces. Whereas, these are often dismissed by those who claim to uphold Trotsky. Of course, this is not absolute. In any case, our view is that the more fundamental error shared by both Trotskyist and Marxist-Leninist and Maoist traditions is their shared First Worldism. Today, we do not see any First Wiorldists as true communists whatever past leaders they uphold. Leading Light Communism is the only real communism today. We are not really about dogmatically upholding past leaders. What is correct in Trotsky should be upheld just as what is correct in Stalin should be. If there is something to learn in Trotsky, we should learn that, just as we should learn what is correct in anything. We hope that all First Worldists wake up, be they Trotskyist or Maoist, and join the real Leading Light Communist Organization.
A basic definition of Economism is the following: the narrow conception of Marxist theory, as well of the role of Social-Democracy and its political tasks. Let me note, first and foremost, that when Lenin talks about Social Democracy, he was referring to Revolutionary Social Democracy, not the reformist, “third way” kind. Marxism-Leninism was, in part, born out of criticizing those who were committing left and right errors at the time. The Bolsheviks would not have led the proletariat to victory in 1917 had they not drawn a sharp line in the sand between them and the Economists. Lenin noticed that primitivism and Economism were connected. Economism held the workers back in pre-scientific ways of thinking. Trade unionism served as the ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeois. Trade unionism condescends the complexities of class struggle to a mere economic struggle against the employees and the government.
It appears to me that the reason Economism had such a big intellectual influence at the beginning of the 20th century was due to the egregious desire by Russian Social Democrats to transplant the political culture of trade unions from Germany to Russia. This venture proved to be unreasonable as German workers were far more educated and advanced, not only materially but organizationally, than Russian workers. Unlike Germany, freedom of assembly was suppressed in Russia. This was the First Worldism of their day. Lenin saw beyond what the Economists and Social Democrats could see. Lenin criticized them at home and abroad. He criticized the humanism of Eduard Bernstein, a prominent German Social Democrat. He spent a great deal of time breaking down the fallacies of Rabocheye Dyelo (an Economist publication) in ‘What is to be Done?’. Economists believed that workers could develop class political consciousness from within – Lenin argued that it had to be brought from without. Revisionists of all kinds misinterpret the role of the revolutionary vanguard. The party of Communism doesn’t tail the workers, it seeks to lead. It acts as a conduit of knowledge from the world of high science to the organs of the proletariat. Modern socialist consciousness first arose from the bourgeois intelligentsia, not from the spontaneous experiences of the proletariat vis a vis their employees and the bourgeois order at large. For this reason, it is incorrect to presume that workers and peasants can instinctively and spontaneously “lead their way” to victory in a life or death socialist revolution.
This incorrect presumption stems from metaphysical and transcendentalist philosophies. On the other hand, Marxism looks at class struggle in a scientific context. It injects the materialist conception of history into the narrow outlook of the trade unions. Reformist Social Democracy overlooked the process of proletarization, and the intensification of capitalist contradictions. Humanists like Bernstein held that socialism is the final result inherent in human aspirations, not the mere product of revolt against the capitalist middle class. This psychological approach does little to advance the aims of the proletariat. Humanism rejects scientific methodology like experiments, and typically uses qualitative research methods. Another failed doctrine practiced by the Russian Social Democrats was eclecticism.
Lenin writes:
“To confound recognition, in principle, of all means of struggle, of all plans, and methods, provided that they are expedient, with the demand at a given political moment to be guided by a strictly observed plan is tantamount, if we are to talk of tactics, to confounding, the recognition by medical science of various methods of treating a disease with the necessity for a adopting a certain definite method of treatment for a given disease.”
Although early Social Democrats had a militant line, they were bogged down by their bad science, Eclecticism sought to reconcile (although not fully) contradictory ideologies by juxtaposing them without adopting the whole parent system of each and every one. Marx warned against this. Instead, he argued that the vanguard should enter into agreements that satisfy the practical aims of the movement, but do not allow any bargaining over principles. Do not make theoretical concessions. Today Leading Lights must struggle for ideological leadership within the Broad United Front. Spot left and right errors and call them out. Learn to repudiate these errors. Call out First Worldism in its various manifestations, First Worldism is like a fungus living on the backs of the proletariat.
Red Salute!