Why I am a communist

Apologies before I begin:

This is my first post.
I will apologise for the length of this post before it is written and at the same time apologise for its personal nature. It is not usual to introduce historical, political and philosophical debate in this way, but, after some reflection, it seemed the best way to avoid some all too familiar assumptions and unproductive diversions.

Before becoming a communist

I am a baby boomer (b. 1956) who grew-up surrounded by veterans of World War II. The Vietnam War dominated my youth, and I became an avid newspaper reader in my school years as I was convinced that just like World War II the Communists to Australia's north were a direct threat; just as Japanese imperialism had been in WWII.

In High School I joined the Army Cadets, learnt First Aide and became a medic. Believing the threat to be real I decided I should volunteer when I came of age because I would be a hypocrite not to knowing what I thought I knew. To my mind it was not right that someone who did not see the threat should be drafted instead of me and therefore I should be prepared to do my bit even if I missed the draft.

I did not relish the idea of war, I had been steeped in its horrors, and feared its effects both personally and what I might be called to do to others. Australia's participation had dwindled as I grew, but in 1972 the extraordinary happened the Labor Whitlam Government was elected and Australia withdrew from the war.

It was inconceivable to me that Australia in 1939-1940 might have withdrawn from war with Japan, the threat was real and the idea that Australia could say "sorry we made a mistake we're going home now" was ridiculous, impractical and suicidal. Yet in believing the justifications for the Vietnam War were of the same import, the new government had materially demonstrated that this was all a lie, a lie I was prepared to follow at risk of life and limb, but what really hit me was a readiness to kill and maim people who would be doing exactly what I, and many of my friends would do if we were invaded — that last bit struck particularly deeply.

Working out what was the truth, and what were lies, became very central to my life from that moment onward. As one who believed a lie I knew that you did not have to be dishonest to propagate untruth, and that the most effective liars were those earnestly believed to be true by people desperately wanting to do the right thing.

Then there was the other side of the coin, and that took a darker-side, that there were those that were prepared to concoct lies for convenience, that they did not care about the consequences. I had come across some of these people, one John Howard, a future prime minister, was a young Liberal activist in may suburb as I grew-up and he lied a lot and was not really very good at it — a vocal supporter of the war, for others to fight. I tend to agree with Hannah Arendt that such evil was banal and John Howard was living proof of that — but such lies needed a lot of collaborators who avoided critical questions and made the despicable appear respectable. For instance Howard needed a lot of help, as did Tony Abbott, a contemporary, whom I argued with at University (another Prime Minister) — the current PM is Turnbull a director of Goldman Sacks people who are not, by any stretch 'natural' leaders nor very intelligent.

For me this question of the elevation of lies went hand in hand with the suppression of truth — the lies were by themselves flimsy so the two go together. Early on I decided if the establishment was lying so much, then the truth would be elsewhere.

While at school, read the Fabian socialism of Bertram Russell, a handful of anarchist works, and The Communist Manifesto; the later had left a slight and inaccurate impression — I became sceptical of such alternative visions, utopia's and other such schemes; these all seemed insubstantial and dangerous — I had also read quiet a bit on Fascism and Stalinism and saw evidence of the rhetoric of lies and deception and how 'utopia' was used duplicitously in both. So long as I looked for political solutions it all went in circles, and just because something appealed to me did not make it any less of a lie — truth was something else than belief or faith.

I should add that I also had contact with Trotskyism, anarcho-syndicalist socialism (IWW), and anarchism — and I was similarly not impressed with such ideals (the people themselves were often impressive I should add, but the ideas were less substantial).

The best I could do was to say I was a 'radical socialist identifying with ordinary people' by sentiment and a ultra-critical reader by habit. Bits and pieces from a number of sources rang true, but truth was not a merit consistently found in any of them that I could see. And faith and belief was not an option for me as I had already made that mistake I had no intention of repeating it.

History and epistemology

History is resplendent in examples of desiring one thing and creating another, of good people doing bad things, and occasionally bad people doing good ones. I studied the Holocaust first from the position of a victim so that I could see why people behaved the way they did, and realised I would not have behaved differently to thousands of others. The big surprise was when I decided to read on the basis of being perpetrator. Most of these mass murderers appeared to be typical "Authoritarian Personalities" 'Johnny Howards', or Iago from Shakespeare's Othello, Adolf Eichmann types; but some appeared to be true believers and on that basis I cast myself back in time place read Mein Kampf and other nonsense, as if I knew no better. I read these as I once read the Sydney Morning Herald, and I could see myself placed in one circumstance after another, graduating as a murderer of thousands; a realization that did not lessen my condemnation of such individuals, but a sobering thought that took several years to properly digest.

History became a passion, and I wanted to crack some harder eggs; I read a lot about the October Revolution, the Russian Civil War, the Stalinist purges and Labour Camps, the USSR's war against Fascism both its heroic and more horrible aspects. I also read on other subjects closer and further afield. One thing that emerged from this was epistemological — history was a constraint and potential on the present; any present — past, present or future. At no time in history was the hope for better absent, nor the struggle for it; but what determined these infinite present tenses was what had preceded them: People make history and history makes people.

For instance: The radical "Diggers" of English Civil War devoted themselves to building a New Jerusalem. They were not stupid nor deluded, but they did not really see all they were up against, they had not prepared themselves for the fight that came to them. And this is repeated in history from Spartacus' servile war, down to the Paris Commune, 1917, The Spanish Republic and all the rest. It always appears as some massive cheat, as a false goal; but this is actually not the case at all — the goal is remarkable similar in one stage or another and in its development. And despite all the Gandhi-like sentiments it did not seem to matter if the form was initially bloody or peaceful. Lenin's seizure of power or Allende's peaceful election.

In either case the aim is always equitable, but the repression disproportional and devastating. Gandhi did use peaceful means for independence but the British ensured there would be no peaceful independence — millions died by a civil war designed and implemented by the UK's foreign office — religious differences were stoked for just this effect as they were in Iraq more recently. The aims are equitable and that makes the force great, the ideas that bring this about are historically diverse and the social context even more so — but what actually emerges is shaped by all the players, initial victory is not the same as final victory.

There is power in this people's movements a lot of power: Empires shake, rulers hide when the people move, but then overtly or covertly the movement is repressed and always disproportionately in its horrors; even when it wins it can lose (ie the USSR), and sometimes what it was really after in the first place emerges regardless (China as national liberation is now emergent some fifty years after independence).

By such measures Stalin was not the product of ideology, but of convenience; he used ideology, especially utopian, to manage a large and diverse nation and in this he had historical allies, not aristocrats nor foreigners, or 'bourgeois elements', but historical irony. In Russia a new class managerial emerged with power, where there had been technicians, functionaries and overseers, as products of the Civil War (if being invaded by 42 nations can be called a civil war) and of a state of siege imposed by necessity by whoever was defending the people was not a product of ideas but circumstance.

The historical irony was that the most fervent defenders of the people's interest created the basis for the people's overthrow because the Western alliance killed 13 million Russians, destroyed its agricultural and industrial base (15% its WWI capacity) and then imposed decades of sanctions and isolation.

If different ideas had been in power, it would not make any real difference to the outcome, it did not matter that the Bolsheviks predominated, the anarchists. or the liberals the problem lay in the challenge this presented to rulers elsewhere — the 'Civil War' was a war of submission and rapine; Russia was not meant to survive it, but even though the West lost social forces had been created by that War that would overwhelm the people — it was not in the intended design ot things, but it was nonetheless the product of it.

Personally it was the study of what went wrong in the USSR and elsewhere that propelled me into looking toward Historical Materialism (Marxism), not as a groundwork for utopia, but as a tool for understanding dystopia. In this the key to ideology is not the ideas, but the context where the ideas take on a life of their own; generally true of any period of history.

This does not dismiss the influence of ideas, but it does refute their self-sufficiency. Ideas are the mediators of activity, they have a role, they shape things in definite ways, but never freely. It really isn't a battle of ideas that count, but finding truth. 'Truth is Revolutionary' (Gramnsci's motto), but establishing what that is hard and messy work. For truth is not a fact, or a material reality, but a concept of how things relate to one another (Hegel). It is therefore strange and slippery beast, that can be viewed from different standpoints and different levels of generality, appearing differently and delivering different answers. Hopefully this will make sense in the next section.

Being a communist

Somewhere along the line I became a self-acknowledged Communist after rereading The Communist Manifesto where I was struck by these three points:

1. "The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. "
2. "They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. "
3. "They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement."

I had somehow missed these when I first read it, perhaps I was not then aware of their importance.

I stand-by the working people and therefore I am a Communist, because more flows from that then just idle support. Mental and physical devotion is required, along those three main points. To the extent I do these things I am a Communist.

It has another side which some people find disconcerting. Anyone who acts and thinks on these points is a Communist and is my comrade. This includes friends who ware anarchist by creed, Christians, Jews, Muslims and other religiously inspired people, even people who are avowedly conservative, and the many others who have no apparent political beliefs, but in their actions they are Communist. It is a kind of reverse McCarthyism.

The bite is many that espouse Communism are anything but Communist, whatever they say their actions are not for working people.

This leads me to my final point, made as a Communist to my brethren no matter what they call themselves — the ideological labels do not matter, and left and right gauges nothing; the mental and physical alliance with the interests of working people, both immediate and long term, is the only measure that counts and one of the few that can be discerned despite differences over anything else. It really is not hard seeing those that that ally to working people, warts and all, and those that do not, but working people literally make this world and that really is a natural starting point for any real political change — people make history everyday by making everyday life possible.

However, today's globalist economy is not just about the 1%, but their battalions of managers — public an private. The immediate is this front of managers, not some head living in the clouds, it is not the state nor even corporate ownership, not property nor business, it certainly is not ideals: It is the power of these managers over our lives, it is the dictatorship of the overseer in culture, economy and politics. This is an immediate concern, the actual battle front and in this, I hope, Steemit has a role to play.