CADETS (CONSTITUTIONAL-DEMOCRATIC PARTY)
“The chief party of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie in Russia. It was
formed in October 1905 and included representatives of the bourgeoisie, landowning Zemstvo
members, and bourgeois intelligentsia. Prominent leaders of the Cadets included P.N. Milyukov,
S.A. Muromtsev, V.A. Maklakov, A.I. Shingaryov, P.B. Struve, and F.I. Rodichev. While calling
themselves the party of ‘people’s freedom’, the Cadets in reality sought to make a bargain
with the autocracy in order to preserve tsarism in the form of a constitutional monarchy.
After the February revolution, as a result of a bargain with the S.R.-Menshevik leaders of
the Petrograd Soviet, the Cadets had a leading place in the bourgeois Provisional Government
and pursued an anti-popular, counter-revolutionary policy favorable to the American, British
and French imperialists. After the October Socialist Revolution the Cadets became irreconcilable
enemies of Soviet power and took an active part in all the counter-revolutionary actions and
campaigns of the interventionists. After the rout of the interventionists and whiteguards, the
Cadets fled abroad and continued their anti-Soviet activity.” —Note 8, Lenin, SW 3 (1967).
CAMUS, Albert [Pronounced (roughly): al-bear ka-MOO] (1913-1960)
French writer associated with existentialism, whose most
famous book was L’Etranger [The Stranger, or The Outsider] (1942). Although
active in the French resistance during the Nazi occupation, a member for a while of the revisionist
Communist Party of France, and co-editor with Sartre of a “left”-wing
newspaper for a few years after World War II, he was never a genuine Marxist revolutionary. In
1948 he broke with “left” political writing, and focused more exclusively on promoting his decadent
philosophy that “absurd humanity exists in an absurd world”. He received considerable applause from
the bourgeoisie for his anti-Communist writing, such as his book L’Homme Révolté
[The Rebel] (1951). He also supported French imperialism in its efforts to maintain control
of Algeria (where he as born) and other colonies. Nevertheless, Camus remains a favorite author in
bourgeois academia. He received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957.
CAPACITY UTILIZATION RATE
The proportion of a company’s, an industry’s, or the entire economy’s productive capacity
that is actually being used at the given time. If 20% of the factories, mines, etc., in a country
are completely closed down, while the other 80% are being used at full capacity, that would be an
overall 80% capacity utilization rate. If all factories and mines are running, but with short hours
or minus one or more work shifts, so that they collectively produce only 80% of what they really
could, that is also an 80% capacity utilization rate. A high capacity utilization rate encourages
the capitalists to build more factories and is characteristic of a strong economy, whereas a low
capacity utilization rate makes the capitalists reluctant to expand production, leads them to
focus more on cutting costs to boost sales, etc., and is a sign of a weak economy (or one in
recession).
Obviously the capacity utilization rate depends
on standards for what full capacity is understood to mean. Since the fundamental
contradiction of capitalist production leads to the continual construction of new capacity that
is not really needed, if the standards for what is considered to be operating at “full capacity”
remained the same, the capacity utilization rate would drastically fall over time (though there
would be smaller ups and downs within that overall trend). To hide this (and fool everyone,
including themselves), from time to time the capitalists and their government lower the standards.
Thus if at one time the definition for full capacity meant that factories operated around the
clock with three shifts, but because of the increase in the number of factories, the usual
situation is for most factories to have just one or two shifts, the standard for “full capacity”
for the economy as a whole might be adjusted to say 1.5 shifts on average. In that case what the
government counts as an 80% utilization rate might actually be only a 40% utilization rate
on the older definition!
The U.S. capacity utilization figures are available
on a monthly basis from the Federal Reserve website at:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/G17/default.htm
“The history of war production [in World War II] thus demonstrates with
crystal clarity that, as far as real capital is concerned, talk about a capital
shortage is sheer nonsense. Not only does the United States economy have the latent ability
to generate an enormous amount of new capacity, but it can fabricate a great deal more with
just the existing capacity. If the standards for getting more production used during the
Second World War were applied today [early 1976], we would probably find that only 50%, or
maybe less, of existing manufacturing capacity is being used—instead of the official
75-percent figure based on current operating practices.” —Paul Sweezy & Harry Magdoff,
“Capital Shortage: Fact and Fancy”, Monthly Review, April 1976. [By December 1976,
that 75% utilization rate had fallen further to 73%. But that month the Federal Reserve
succumbed to mounting pressure from the “business community” and other government agencies
and revised their statistical series drastically upward again. What had been called a 73%
utilization level was suddenly said to be 81%! (See: Business Week, Aug. 2, 1976,
p. 16, and Dec. 13, 1976, p. 16.) This further amplified the point being made by Sweezy
& Magdoff! —S.H.]
“According to a Fed [Federal Reserve] report on Apr. 15 [2009], one-third
of manufacturing’s productive capacity is going unused, the biggest share on record back to
1948.” —Peter Coy, “What Good are Economists Anyway?”, Business Week (April 27,
2009), p. 31. [The official U.S. capacity utilization rate for manufacturing in April 2009
was 65.6%. The preliminary rate for manufacturing for June 2009 fell further to just 64.6%,
and for industry as a whole stood at just 68.0%. And again, keep in mind that these
capacity utilization figures—as low as they are—are still more grossly exaggerated
today than ever before! My guess is that at present the true capacity utilization rate is
probably only about 35% by any reasonable standard. —S.H.]
CAPITAL
[Simple definition: ] [To be added...]
[More precise, but more technical, definition:] Self-expanding value,
or a value which generates surplus value (and hence more
capital) as the result of exploitation of wage labor. Capital expresses the socioeconomic
relations of production between the two
principal classes in capitalist society—the capitalists (or
bourgeoisie) and the workers
(proletariat).
“Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking
living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” —Marx, Capital,
Vol. I, ch. 10, sect 1. (Penguin ed., p. 342.) [The idea being expressed here is that
the capitalists, through their ownership of capital which came from the previous
exploitation of workers, are thereby in a position to further exploit workers.]
CAPITAL (DAS KAPITAL) — Engels Editorship Of
“Marx died before he could put the final touches to his vast work on
capital. The draft, however, was already finished, and after the death of his friend,
Engels undertook the onerous task of preparing and publishing the second and the third
volumes of Capital. He published Volume II in 1885 and Volume III in 1894 (his
death prevented the preparation of Volume IV). These two volumes entailed a vast
amount of labor. Adler, the Austrian Social-Democrat, has rightly remarked that by
publishing volumes II and III of Capital Engels erected a majestic monument to
the genius who had been his friend, a monument on which, without intending it, he
indelibly carved his own name. Indeed, these two volumes of Capital are the
work of two men: Marx and Engels.” —Lenin, “Frederick Engels” (1896), LCW 2:25-26.
CAPITAL ACCOUNT BALANCE
See: BALANCE OF PAYMENTS
CASTES (India)
The religious/feudal division of the population into hierachical groups (castes and sub-castes)
with the higher castes having the most advantages and privileges, and the lower castes being
oppressed and discriminated against in many ways. Traditionally, and to a large extent still
today, people are restricted in the occupations they may engage in, who they can marry, and so
forth, on the basis of the caste they are born into. Although this ancient caste structure has
weakened somewhat as India and the other countries of South Asia become more modernized (i.e.,
especially in the cities), it is still a very serious problem in the region and strong evidence
that feudalism and feudal ideas remain strong there.
The caste system is associated with the Hindu
religion especially. The highest and most privileged class is the Brahmins, who dominate many
professions. The lowest caste, now called the Dalits (formerly known as the “Untouchables”)
are the poorest and least educated. However, the Adivasis (or
“tribals”) may be even worse off. Each year there are still many hundreds of “honor killings”
in India in which families avenge inter-caste marriages and liaisons. It will almost certainly
take a real social revolution in India to totally eliminate the caste system.
Caste Structure in Bihar
This is the caste structure in the state of Bihar, which is
similar to (but not exactly the same as) the rest of India: |
“Upper” (or “Forward”) Castes
Brahmin
Bhumihar
Rajput
Kayasth |
12.7%
4.6%
2.8%
4.2%
1.2% |
“Upper Backward” Castes
Bania
Yadav
Kurmi
Koiri |
18.8%
0.6%
10.7%
3.5%
4.0% |
| “Lower Backward” Castes |
15.6% |
| “Other Shudra” |
15.6% |
| Total for "Backward” Castes |
50.0% |
| Muslim |
12.2% |
| Bengali |
2.4% |
“Scheduled Castes” (Dalits)
[“Untouchables”] Includes: Ravidas,
Dusadh, and Musahar) |
13.8% |
| “Scheduled Tribes” [Adivasis] |
8.9% |
[Source: Prakash Louis, People Power: The Naxalite Movement
in Central Bihar, (Delhi: Wordsmiths, 2002), p. 82.] |
CATEGORIES
[In Marxist philosophy:] The most general notions or concepts reflecting the
basic and essential properties and uniformities of the phenomena of nature, society
and thought, such as matter, motion, time, space, consciousness, contradiction,
necessity, chance, quality, quantity, capital, exploitation, etc.
CENTRISM
[In Marxist usage:] Views and positions which attempt to find a “middle ground” between
revolutionary Marxism, on the one hand, and liberalism or
revisionism, on the other hand. In other words, centrism
is in practice usually a weaselly form of revisionism itself.
It should be noted, however, that merely
from the fact that one holds a view which is in between two extremes, it does not follow
that one is a “centrist” in the Marxist sense. For example, revolutionary Marxism itself
holds a view in between pacificism and the sort of wild-eyed anarchism that views
violence as always being appropriate, no matter what the circumstances.
CHANGE — Sudden
Virtually all major natural and social processes and developments occur through periods of
relatively long and gradual changes leading up to comparatively sudden and major qualitative
changes. Often these periods of gradual and sudden change alternate. Why this unevenness?
It is because change, when viewed as a single overall process, is actually composed of many
different smaller changes and subprocesses, each of which is governed by laws appropriate
to its own particular contradictions. Or, in other
words, some of the subprocesses proceed at one speed, others at a different speed. And those
which proceed quite fast are for relatively longer periods held up by those among the
prerequisite changes and subprocesses which proceed more slowly.
Some changes must necessarily occur very
rapidly. This is perhaps most obvious in natural science. Chemical changes often happen
extremely fast—and not just in the case of explosions! Sub-atomic particle interactions
generally happen even faster, in tiny fractions of a nanosecond! (On the other hand, even
there all physical changes take some amount of time; strictly speaking, there is
actually no such thing as “instantaneous change”.)
But even in human society some changes must
be brought about quite rapidly if they are to be successful at all. There is an apocryphal
story that illustrates this: Some country or other once decided (for whatever reason)
to switch over its roads so that instead of driving on the left side of the road, people
would drive their vehicles on the right side of the road. Supposedly some government
official told the public not to worry about the switchover, because “the change will take
place gradually”. In reality, of course, that would be the very worst way to try to do it!
It would be much more sensible to say, for example, that as of 2 a.m. on some very quiet
Sunday morning all traffic will be required to simultaneously change from driving on
the left to driving on the right. Many of the major steps in social revolution must likewise
be carried out very rapidly if they are to be successful. Certainly this is true of
revolutionary insurrection, for example.
CHASI MULIA ADIVASI SANGHA (CMAS)
A militant but peaceful organization of adivasis, or tribal
people, in the southwestern part of Orissa state in India. In particular the CMAS has
struggled for the redistribution of land to the adivasis, and against illegal mining on
their land by giant mining corporations. The CMAS has been accused by the police and media
of being a front organization of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), and this was the
“excuse” given by the police for murdering 3 adivasis (including a CMAS leader) at a
demonstration led by CMAS in Narayanpatna, in southern Orissa, on November 20, 2009.
However, the leadership of the CMAS is actually made up of some of the middle range of
revolutionary forces in India, who have been trying to wage a peaceful struggle for the
people. In an interview, one of these top CMAS leaders, Gananath Patra, explained their
political ideology and strategy this way:
Satyabrata: The state has militarized itself. What will its effect
be on the movement?
Gananath Patra: We know very
well that behind the military intervention of the State is its intention to militarize
our movement in order to find a plea to brutally subjugate it. We know their intentions
and we are careful about any move we shall be taking. The movement must continue.
Satyabrata: The CMAS is being
projected as the frontal organization of the Maoists. Is that true?
Gananath Patra: You mean the
CPI(Maoist). No. we have considerable differences with the CPI(Maoist) line, though
they are our sympathizers and critics. I believe in Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought,
which has considerable differences with the Maoism of the CPI(Maoist). Our method of
occupying and cultivating land is mass line task and has nothing in common with the
CPI(Maoist).
Satyabrata: Why are you being
projected as Maoists then?
Gananath Patra: We pose a danger
to the status quo the ruling class wants to maintain and hence it wants us to be branded
as Maoists. Then the matter becomes simple; pick up anyone who is against this status
quo, brand him a Maoist and rob him of his movemental potentiality by either putting
him behind bars or by gunning him down. History has been spectator to this strategy of
several States at several conjunctures in the past. The state has banned the CPI(Maoist)
to facilitate this purpose. [From: “Narayanpatna: An Interview with Gananath Patra”,
online at: http://sanhati.com/articles/1917/]
However, it seems that Gananath Patra has inadvertently put his finger on the fatal problem
with the CMAS political strategy: The state will simply not allow them to proceed with
their programme no matter how peaceful they are. They will simply be attacked and destroyed
by the armed forces of the Central and state governments of India. Peaceful strategies will
not work against governments willing to shoot you dead anyway.
In early December 2009 hundreds of adivasi
people associated with CMAS surrendered to the police in what was falsely billed by the media
as a large surrender of “Maoists”. Those are the alternatives facing the people there: abject
surrender to the government and their perpetual victimization, or else a very different form
of struggle involving the force of arms.
However, as of January 2010, it appears that
either the CMAS organization, or part of it, or at least a large number of those who have been
members of it, are moving rapidly towards the Maoists and the Maoist approach to revolution.
See the news article
“India Drives Tribals into Maoist Arms” for more information.
CHIANG KAI-SHEK (New style: JIANG JIESHI) (1887-1975)
A reactionary Chinese military leader and political dictator who was eventually overthrown on the
Chinese mainland by the Chinese Revolution in 1949. He then fled with the remnant of his army to
Taiwan where he ruled as dictator until his death.
Chiang was an associate of Sun Yat-sen, the founder
of the Guomindang [Kuomintang] or Nationalist Party, and assumed
control of the GMD after Sun’s death in 1925. Chiang had been the commandant of the GMD’s Whampoa
Military Academy, and had become the top GMD military leader. In 1928 he led the Northern Expedition
(with considerable support from the Soviet Union and members of the Communist Party of China) which
succeeded in displacing a number of warlords and in more or less unifying the country.
But Chiang then turned on the CCP which had been
supporting him within the GMD, and massacred thousands of its members and sympathizers. Chiang led
a pitifully inadequate nationalist resistence to Japan’s invasion of China during the 1930s. This
gave an opening for the CCP, under Mao’s leadership, to wage a more determined fight against Japanese
imperialism. Even during World War II Chiang spent considerable effort fighting the Communists (rather
than Japan); but after the Japanese surrender he turned his full attention toward trying to wipe out
the Communists in a major civil war. However, despite enormous material help from the U.S. (and only
very limited help to the Communists from the Soviets) Chiang was defeated and fled to Taiwan.
On Taiwan he established martial law and ruled in his
usual dictatorial manner. The GMD, at first with Chiang’s son in charge, continued to rule Taiwan
for many years after his death, until bourgeois democracy was finally introduced there. Most of the
hundreds of statues of Chiang on Taiwan that the GMD erected have been taken down and even there a
majority looks back at him with complete disdain.
CHOMSKY, Noam (1928- )
Famous American linguist and political radical, who is known very widely for both things. He
is perhaps the most prominent American intellectual who regularly speaks out against United
States imperialism. Politically he is variously described as an anarchist, an anarcho-syndicalist,
or a libertarian socialist. He is surprisingly weak when it comes to political theory and
political economy, but quite often effective in criticizing American foreign policy.
Chomsky is one of the most famous linguists in
history, and his contributions starting in the 1950s are now known as the “Chomskyian Revolution”
in that branch of science.
In the 1950s, Chomsky began developing his theory of generative grammar,
which has undergone numerous revisions and has had a profound influence on linguistics. His
approach to the study of language emphasizes “an innate set of linguistic principles shared
by all humans” known as universal grammar, “the initial state of the language learner,” and
discovering an “account for linguistic variation via the most general possible mechanisms.”
He also established the Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages in terms of
their generative power. In 1959, Chomsky published a widely influential review of B. F.
Skinner’s theoretical book Verbal Behavior, which was the first attempt by a
behaviorist to provide a functional, operant analysis of language. In this review and other
writings, Chomsky broadly and aggressively challenged the behaviorist approaches to studies
of behavior dominant at the time, and contributed to the cognitive revolution in psychology.
His naturalistic approach to the study of language has influenced the philosophy of language
and mind. [From the “Chomsky” entry at Wikipedia.com]
Chomsky first became known as a critic of American foreign policy during the Vietnam War.
He has published a large number of books which expose the day-to-day activities and outrages of
American imperialism in detail. Indeed, sometimes these books are a bit dull because of all their
many details and extensive source notes! But his writings are a good source for particulars about
the actual role of the United States in the world today. Chomsky has also given many extensive
interviews (a number of which have been published in book form), and gives frequent public
lectures on political matters (many of which are available as videos on the Internet).
Chomsky describes himself as a libertarian
socialist, which he says is “the proper and natural extension of classical liberalism into the
era of advanced industrial society.” [“Government in the Future” (1970)] The surprising thing,
however, is how very non-radical his political ideas are when you look at them carefully! He
seems to think that American politics is “democratic”, or has mostly been so far (even if there are
now growing “limitations” to that “democracy”. He has no deep theoretical criticism of bourgeois
democracy, of the sort that Lenin did. When it comes to political economy, his ideas are even
more startling! He actually said in a recent video that contemporary American corporations can be
“democratized” and thus be transformed to serve the people. He has little or no understanding of
Marxist political economy, and doesn’t even understand something as basic as the nature of surplus
value. Thus, like many liberals, he thinks the cause of the current economic crisis is the
foolishness of the banks in creating and promoting sub-prime mortgages and securities based on
them, and doesn’t even begin to understand that capitalist economic crises are inherent in
capitalism, and ultimately arise from the very extraction of surplus value!
Chomsky’s contributions to linguistics are important
(though not always completely correct), as are his constant criticisms of American foreign policy.
But his theoretical writings and lectures on politics and economics are of little value. He is
called an “anarchist”, and even wrote a book promoting his idea of what anarchism is. But actually
he is proof of how pedestrian and non-revolutionary anarchism can sometimes be! He is really
only proposing that we make some rather limited and superficial modifications to the American
bourgeois socioeconomic system that in fact deserves to be completely destroyed and reconstructed
from the ground up.
CIVIL SOCIETY
The sphere of society which takes up the middle ground between the private sphere of
individuals and their families and the official sphere of the state. This includes the
large number of voluntary organizations and associations, NGOs,
political parties, trade unions, professional associations, charities, churches and
religious organizations, cultural and educational groups, etc. In bourgeois society it
would seem that this should also include capitalist companies and corporations (though
this is often downplayed or ignored), but it would also definitely include all the many
organizations formally or informally representing the capitalists, such as the
Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, industry groups, lobbying
organizations, numerous reactionary “think tanks”, and so forth.
The general concept of civil society
can be traced back to ancient times, but derives especially from the thinkers of the
Enlightenment, and after that especially
Hegel and Marx. It was also a prominent theme of Alexis de
Tocqueville’s book, Democracy in America (1840). De Tocqueville contrasted the
voluntary associations of Americans for private and public purposes with the domination
of the state in Europe, and felt that this tended to help form Americans into a distinctive
nation.
However, in more recent times the notion
of civil society has a much more pronounced bourgeois air to it. In bourgeois
society bourgeois individuals, or at least bourgeois ideas, generally control or pervade
most of the organizations and associations that make up civil society, as well as control
the state. Despite this, civil society is presented as being somehow and in some way,
qualitatively superior to the state. This is generally only really true for those
relatively few parts of contemporary civil society that are controlled, or at least very
strongly influenced, by the working class.
The liberal bourgeois tradition treats
civil society as in many ways superior to the state, since the state ultimately
depends on force, whereas the organizations of civil society are voluntary. However, as
Lenin said, the bourgeoisie rules by means of the gendarme and the priest. Both
are means of class rule, even if force lies directly behind one method while “mere”
ideological indoctrination lies behind the other. Where ideology fails, force begins. If
you start from the perspective of the actual needs and interests of the working class and
masses, rather than simply focusing on which method of bourgeois domination of society
is “best”, then the supposed superiority of the civil society seems far less clear.
And curiously, the bourgeoisie itself often rails against civil society—though not in those
terms—as when they condemn the pervasive role of “special interest groups” (omitting any
mention of course of the groups which represent their own “special interests”!).
The fact is that both the bourgeois
state and bourgeois civil society must be overthrown by the revolutionary
proletariat! We will then construct our own revolutionary proletarian state and our own
revolutionary proletarian civil society. (Some concessions will have to be made to the
old civil society in order to maintain the unity of the masses, such as by allowing the
continuance of religious groups provided they do not engage in counter-revolutionary
activity.) Eventually, as socialism is transformed into communism and the proletarian state
withers away, that proletarian socialist
civil society will be itself further transformed into communist civil society.
“There is yet another major misconception–that ‘innocent’ people
are being caught in the crossfire between the Naxalites and the police. First, this
is not a fact. Secondly, the ‘people’ are not a homogeneous mass; the ruling elite
and their hangers-on are with the state, while the masses of the oppressed are with
the Naxalites. The former support state terror (as in the Salwa Judum), while the
latter act together with the Maoists to resist such terror. The misconception of a
homogeneous populace is linked to postmodernist thinking of a so-called ‘civil
society’, which conceals class divisions within society. All the same, in conflicts
involving state terror and the people’s resistance to it, there will be some sections
not allied to either side, but the majority are polarised into two camps–a minority
allied with the state, on the one hand, and the masses backing the Naxalites, on the
other.” —Azad, spokesperson for the Communist Party of India (Maoist), “Maoists in
India: A Rejoinder”, Economic and Political Weekly, October 14, 2006.
CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS — Proletarian
[Intro to be added... ]
“Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only
from without, that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the
sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is
possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships of all
classes and strata to the state and the government, the sphere of the interrelations
between all classes.” —Lenin, “What Is To Be Done?” (1902), LCW 5:422.
CLASS INTERESTS
The collective interests of the members of a particular social
class; the interests which they hold in common; the things which benefit them as a group.
These differ greatly from one class to another. Thus the capitalist class has an essential
interest in exploiting workers in order to generate surplus
value and therefore profits. The working class, on the other
hand, has a strong objective interest in ending this system of capitalist exploitation,
whether or not individual workers are aware of this class interest of theirs at a particular
time.
“[A]n essential condition for such an alliance [between socialists
(communists!) and bourgeois democrats in the struggle for democracy] must be the full
opportunity for the socialists to reveal to the working class that its interests are
diametrically opposed to the interests of the bourgeoisie.” —Lenin, “What Is To Be
Done?” (1902), LCW 5:362.
CLASS STRUGGLE — In Bourgeois Society
[Intro material to be added... ]
“The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of
feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new
classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old
ones.
“Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie,
possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms.
Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into
two great classes, directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” —Marx &
Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), MECW 6:485.
COINTELPRO
A secret program within the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the U.S. federal government
to frame revolutionaries for crimes they didn’t commit, foment suspicions and conflict
within revolutionary and radical groups, and blacken the reputations of revolutionaries
with all sorts of false accusations and rumors. Although this sort of thing has gone on at
one level or another within the government for well over a century and continues to happen
today, the official COINTELPRO program ran from 1956 to 1971.
COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series
of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political
organizations within the United States. The FBI used covert operations from its
inception, however formal COINTELPRO operations took place between 1956 and 1971. The
FBI’s stated motivation at the time was “protecting national security, preventing
violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order.”
According to FBI records, 85% of
COINTELPRO resources were expended on infiltrating, disrupting, marginalizing, and/or
subverting groups suspected of being subversive, such as communist and socialist
organizations; the women’s rights movement; militant black nationalist groups, and the
non-violent civil rights movement, including individuals such as Martin Luther King, Jr.
and others associated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Congress of Racial Equality, the
American Indian Movement, and other civil rights groups; a broad range of organizations
labeled “New Left”, including Students for a Democratic Society, the National Lawyers
Guild, the Weathermen, almost all groups protesting the Vietnam War, and even individual
student demonstrators with no group affiliation; and nationalist groups such as those
“seeking independence for Puerto Rico.” The other 15% of COINTELPRO resources were
expended to marginalize and subvert “white hate groups,” including the Ku Klux Klan and
National States’ Rights Party.
The directives governing COINTELPRO
were issued by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered FBI agents to “expose, disrupt,
misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” the activities of these movements and
their leaders. [From the Wikipedia entry on COINTELPRO.]
See also: GERONIMO PRATT
COLD WAR
The long post-World War II contention between United States imperialism (and its bloc) and
the Soviet Union (and its bloc). This contention came very close to becoming an
inter-imperialist nuclear war at several points, most notably during the
Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. But fortunately
(and rather surprisingly!), all-out war did not happen. The contention was fierce, however,
and involved a number of “proxy wars” by each side against the other, an enormous military
arms race, major economic struggle, and so forth. During the first period (up until the
mid-1950s), the Soviet Union was still a socialist country—though one with many serious
defects—and from then on the Soviet Union was a social-imperialist
country (i.e., socialist in name only, but capitalist-imperialist in actual fact). Thus most
of the Cold War was an inter-imperialist contention between the two capitalist superpowers
armed to the teeth. Humanity was lucky to have survived it!
[More to be added... ]
COMMAND ECONOMY
A term used by bourgeois economists to describe planned economies (socialist or
state-capitalist) where there is no (or very limited) open market for commodities at least
within the sphere of production. (Even under socialism distribution of consumer goods to the
public is still mostly through commodity markets until we get to a communist society.)
Bourgeois ideologists oppose these “command economies” to the so-called “free market”
economy, and therefore view “command economies” as inherently authoritarian and opposed
to “freedom”. What they have failed to notice is that within virtually every
capitalist corporation itself, there exists this very same sort of “command economy”! Thus
every automobile corporation makes detailed and elaborate plans about how many cars to build,
in a given period, the processes and materials to use, the design and location of its new
plants, etc. State capitalism in the Soviet Union was also a planned economy for the most
part, and in a sense “one big corporation” with multi-leveled layers of detailed planning.
The commandist (anti-democratic and anti-mass line) structure and operation of revisionist
Soviet industry has colored the conception of bourgeois economists about what a “command
economy” must be like.
Under genuine socialism, and communism too,
it will be important to oppose any actual commandist aspects that may develop in production,
especially within the individual workplaces (where they are nearly universal and mandatory
in capitalist production today). Emphasis on the mass line,
proletarian democratic management of industry, and obtaining ideas and input from all the
workers involved are our main tools to combat the possible secondary bad aspects of economic
planning.
See also:
PLANNING (Economic)
COMMANDISM
Ordering, or even forcing, people to do something, rather than using the method of
discussion and persuasion to convince them to act. Commandism is a bourgeois method of
leadership, not a proletarian method. But unfortunately, some revolutionaries have not
been adequately trained and educated in the use of proletarian democratic methods. For this
reason commandism within our own ranks is a continuing problem to be struggled against.
“Commandism is wrong in any type of work, because in overstepping the
level of political consciousness of the masses and violating the principle of voluntary
mass action it reflects the disease of impetuosity. Our comrades must not assume that
everything they themselves understand is understood by the masses. Whether the masses
understand it and are ready to take action can be discovered only by going into their
midst and making investigations. If we do so, we can avoid commandism.” —Mao, “On
Coalition Government” (April 24, 1945), SW 3:316.
COMMITTEES OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM
The Committees of Correspondence is a social-democratic
(i.e., revisionist and non-revolutionary) organization, originally organized within the
revisionist Communist Party USA as a pro-Gorbachev, anti-Gus Hall faction,
and opposed to what was called “Leninism”
in the CPUSA milieu. They were led by Gil Green and included many prominent members and close
associates of the CPUSA, such as Herbert Aptheker,
Angela Davis and the folk singer Pete Seeger. In 1991, at
the time that Soviet social-imperialism was collapsing,
they split off from the CPUSA to form an independent organization. Their name (appropriately)
comes from the committees organized by the governments of the American states during the
American bourgeois revolution for the purpose of promoting coordinated action against
Britain. In the year 2000 they added the phrase “for Democracy and Socialism” to their name,
which is ridiculous since they have no idea what either genuine democracy or genuine socialism
even are! They are sometimes referred to by their initials as CCDS, and allow dual membership
with the reformist so-called Socialist Party USA.
COMMODITY
1. [In Marxist political economy:] A product of labor made for sale, rather than for
direct use. “[A] commodity, that is, a use-value which has a certain exchange-value.”
—Marx, TSV, 1:399.
2. [Widespread broad bourgeois sense:] Any product, regardless of whether it is produced to
be sold or not.
3. [Narrow bourgeois sense:] A product which is produced by a large number of seriously
competing companies, the sale of which therefore cannot create extra profits for any
monopolistic or oligopolistic producer. Thus we see comments such as: “PC’s have become a
commodity, which is why IBM got out of the business of selling them.”
COMMUNIST
[Marxist sense:] A person who works to bring about the overthrow of capitalism by the
working class, and the transformation of capitalist society into socialism and then into
communist society. Communists attempt to do this collectively, which means they form and
promote revolutionary parties.
“They [Communists] have no interests separate and apart from those
of the proletariat as a whole.
“They do not set up any sectarian
principles of their own, by which to shape and mold the proletarian movement.
“The Communists are distinguished
from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the
proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the
common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In
the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the
bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of
the movement as a whole.
“The Communists, therefore, are
on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class
parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other
hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of
clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general
results of the proletarian movement.” —Marx & Engels, Manifesto of the Communist
Party (1848), Ch. II: MECW 6:497.
COMMUNIST LEAGUE
The first international organization of the revolutionary proletariat, which was founded in
London in the summer of 1847.
“The League was organized and guided by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
who, on instructions from the League, wrote its programme—the Manifesto of the
Communist Party. The Communist League set itself the aim of overthrowing the
bourgeoisie, destroying the old bourgeois society founded on the antagonism of classes
and establishing a new society without classes and without private property. The Communist
League played an important historical role as a school for proletarian revolutionaries
and as the embryo of the proletarian party; it was the predecessor of the International
Working Men’s Association (the First International). It existed until November 1852, its
most prominent members later playing a leading role in the First International.” —Note
7 to Lenin, Selected Works, vol. I, (Moscow: 1967).
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST)
The largest revisionist so-called “Communist” party in India, most often referred to by
their initials as the “CPM”. [More to be added... ]
“How uncivilised, if the wave of ‘boss-napping’ in France is indeed
sinister. [Referring to the article “Vive la différence!”, The
Economist, May 9, 2009.] It was different in West Bengal in the 1970s when the
Communists [CPM] took power. One afternoon, a colleague was informed that he and I
would be gheraoed (sourrounded, literally) at close of day
by the staff at the Calcutta office in protest at our regressive management policies.
Alarmed at what would be a delayed start to the usual whisky session at our club, we
negotiated and were granted permission by the protestors to leave early, go home to
shower, change into comfortable clothing and return suitably armed with our favoured
libation.
“And so we spent our evening
surrounded by 35 staffers who made impassioned speeches and gave high-decibel calls
for death to capitalists as we depleted a bottle of Black Knight. It didn’t much
improve the taste of the whisky, and the calls for our demise did at times seem over
the top. But sinister? Not at all.” —Letter from Stanley Pinto of Bangalore, India,
to the editor of the British ruling class business magazine, The Economist, May
30, 2009, p. 20. [It is clear that even back in the 1970s the CPM was merely pretending
to be revolutionary. Their calls for the “death of the capitalists” were merely part
of their stage play secretly conducted along with the capitalists and designed
to fool the masses.]
COMMUNIST REVOLUTION — Bourgeois Fear Of
[Intro material to be added...]
“A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism. All the Powers
of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar,
Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.
“Where is the party in opposition that
has not been decried as Communistic by its opponents in power? Where the Opposition that
has not hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced
opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?” —Marx & Engels,
opening words to the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), MECW 6:481.
COMMUNISTS — Aims Of
The long-term goal of communists to is bring about communist
society. However, there are many more immediate tasks which must be carried out for this
to occur, each of them with many sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks. The communists must:
Organize themselves into a political party;
Connect themselves up closely with the
class struggles of the working class;
Educate the working class on the need
for social revolution and what that means;
Help the working class organize
itself for revolution;
Lead the working class and its allies
in seizing political power;
After this seizure of power, transform
capitalism into the transitional stage of socialism;
Lead the working class in struggling
against any attempts by the old (or any newly developed) bourgeoisie to return to power; and,
Lead the working class in transforming
socialism into communism, where no social classes exist any longer.
“The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the
other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the
of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.” —Marx &
Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. II: MECW 6:498.
“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary
movement against the existing social and political order of things.” —Marx & Engels,
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV: MECW 6:519.
“The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the
enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the
present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.” —Marx &
Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV: MECW 6:518.
“While actively leading immediate struggles, Communists in the capitalist
countries should link them with the struggle for long-range and general interests, educate
the masses in a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary spirit, ceaselessly raise their political
consciousness and undertake the historical task of the proletarian revolution. If they
fail to do so, if they regard the immediate movement as everything, determine their
conduct from case to case, adapt themselves to the events of the day and sacrifice the
basic interests of the proletariat, that is out-and-out social democracy.” —A Proposal
Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement: The letter of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in reply to the letter of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963 (Peking:
Foreign Languages Press, 1963), p. 19.
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly
declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing
social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The
proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.” —Marx &
Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV, final paragraph:
MECW 6:519.
“We Communists do not conceal our political views. Definitely and beyond
all doubt, our future or maximum programme is to carry China forward to socialism and
communism. Both the name of our Party and our Marxist world outlook unequivocally point
to this supreme ideal of the future, a future of incomparable brightness and splendour.
On joining the Party, every Communist has two clearly-defined objectives at heart, the
new-democratic revolution now and socialism and communism in the future, and for these he
will fight despite the animosity of the enemies of communism and their vulgar and ignorant
calumny, abuse and ridicule, which we must firmly combat.” —Mao, “On Coalition Government”
(April 24, 1945), SW 3:282.
COMPATIBILISM
The philosophical view that free will is compatible with
determinism. In other words, the view that although everything
(including each of our own decisions) has definite causes, we are nevertheless still able ourselves
to decide what actions to take. Dialectical materialism supports this compatibilist viewpoint.
Of course, there are normally reasons (either
explicit or implicit, and either important or trivial) which determine what we consciously decide
to do, but far from precluding a free choice, these reasons are what help us decide
what choice to make. Conscious human beings (and also many other animals, for that matter) are
themselves part of the causal chains that lead to the choices that they make. The parts
of the causal chains that are internal to them, and which they are conscious of, are the parts
they have control over, and therefore manifestations of their free will.
The opposite view, incompatibilism, holds
that if determinism is true (i.e., if everything has causes—including each choice we make),
then free will is impossible. But this is a simple-minded or naïve conception of what “free
will” might plausibly be construed as. Philosophical idealists often
subscibe to incompatibilism, because they do not wish to view people’s actions as being determined
by physical causes. On the other hand, naïve materialists
also sometimes subscribe to incompatibilism because they have a simplistic notion of what “free
will” must mean, a notion similar to that of the idealists. Thus these naïve materialists
accept the fact that everything, including each of our own choices, has causes, but falsely
conclude that this means there can be no such thing as free will.
COMPLEMENTARITY (Quantum Mechanics)
A set of related philosophical concepts especially associated with the idealist
Copenhagen Interpretation of
quantum mechanics. On a gross level, complementarity can
simply refer to wave-particle duality in which the
view of entities in the microworld as behaving as waves in some situations complements
the view that these entities behave as particles in other situations. Here the concept of
complementarity can be innocuous, and might only mean that in some experiments and situations
it is useful to view electrons and other subatomic particles as waves instead of
as particles.
However, complementarity usually implies an
idealist philosophical stance, such as the view that microworld entities like electrons are
in fact both waves and particles, or the view that they are “neither” until they are observed
or measured, or the view that electrons and the like actually do not even have any definite
properties at all until they are measured, and so forth. Here is one description of this
conception of complementarity with an unsupported idealist philosophical conclusion at the
end:
“A profound aspect of complementarity is that it not only applies to
measurability or knowability of some property of a physical entity, but more importantly it
applies to the limitations of that physical entity’s very manifestation of the property in
the physical world. All properties of physical entities exist only in pairs, which Bohr
described as complementary or conjugate pairs (which are also Fourier transform pairs).
Physical reality is determined and defined by manifestations of properties which are limited
by trade-offs between these complementary pairs. For example, an electron can manifest a
greater and greater accuracy of its position only in even trade for a complementary loss in
accuracy of manifesting its momentum. This means that there is a limitation on the precision
with which an electron can possess (i.e., manifest) position, since an infinitely precise
position would dictate that its manifested momentum would be infinitely imprecise, or
undefined (i.e., non-manifest or not possessed), which is not possible. The ultimate
limitations in precision of property manifestations are quantified by the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle and
Planck units. Complementarity and Uncertainty dictate that all properties and actions in
the physical world are therefore non-deterministic to some degree.” —From the Wikipedia
article on Complementarity.
This idealist conclusion that “all properties and actions in the physical world are therefore
non-deterministic to some degree” simply doesn’t follow! This is only a limitation on the
formulas of quantum mechanics to determine properties and actions beyond a certain level
of accuracy, not a limitation on the reality or definiteness of reality itself.
CONSEQUENTIALISM
1. The view that only the consequences of an act are relevant in determining its
moral justification, not the motives or intentions or “duty” of the person performing the
act. Marxist ethics is an example of a consequentialist ethical theory, while Kant’s
ethics is an example of one which is not.
See also:
DEONTOLOGY
“In examining the subjective intention of a writer or artist, that
is, whether his motive is correct and good, we do not judge by his declarations but
by the effect of his actions (mainly his works) on the masses in society. The
criterion for judging subjective intention or motive is social practice and its
effect.” —Mao, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art” (May 1942), SW 3:88.
CONSPIRACY THEORY
A theory that a secret conspiracy existed (or continues to exist) which led to some event,
most often some well-known event such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in
1963. Generally conspiracy theories are foolish nonsense cooked up by individuals who may
or may not be right in being suspicious about some event, but who often construct elaborate
stories to explain the event which are based on little or no evidence or investigation.
Thus, while an occasional conspiracy theory might turn out to be true, in general such
theories are a triumph of suspiciousness over investigation.
Sometimes young or naïve revolutionaries
will construct or adopt conspiracy theories about capitalist society. Thus when first learning
about social classes and the dictatorship of the ruling capitalist class, they might jump to
the silly conclusion that this means that there are periodic secret meetings of all the
important capitalists in a big room somewhere where all the important decisions are made.
Such folks are not sophisticated enough to understand that all the ordinary public
institutions of American society, including the Presidency and executive branch, the Congress
and the judicial system, are themselves the means by which the capitalist class makes
its decisions and rules. While there may indeed sometimes be secret meetings of important
big-shots, for the most part the mechanisms of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie are quite
open and public. However, the fact that this system of rule is actually the
dictatorship of one class, the bourgeoisie, is something that is almost never openly
admitted, and may not even be fully understood by all of those who are actually exercising
that class dictatorship.
CONSTANT CAPITAL
The sum total of the value of the means of production:
the factories, machines, raw materials, fuel, electrical power, and other necessary products
and material inputs used up in the production process, but not including
labor-power which is placed in a separate category,
variable capital.
[The above description is the standard
definition of constant capital, as presented by Marx. However, on another interpretation
still within the Marxist milieu, machinery can also be considered to be variable
capital. For discussion of this point see the entries for variable
capital and the Labor Theory of Value.]
CONTRADICTIONS — In Nature
The dialectical contradictions which exist in nature (the physical world) itself. According
to Marxist dialectics, there are contradictions not only in human thought and human society,
but also in the physical world. Those who don’t understand the basic idea of dialectical
contradiction often fail to understand this. Thus Engels quotes Eugen Dühring as saying
“Contradiction is a category which can only appertain to a combination of thoughts, but not
to reality.” [Anti-Dühring, MECW 25:110.] Engels responds by pointing out that
Dühring incorrectly identifies contradiction with absurdity, and therefore
says that contradiction cannot occur in the real world. In short Dühring is not talking
about dialectical contradiction at all, but
rather about logical contradiction. Dialectical
contradiction is a matter of oppositions (or conflict) within things and processes,
while logical contradiction is simply a matter of simultaneously affirming a statement and
denying it. Yes, it is unfortunate that the same term, ‘contradiction’, is used for these two
very different things, but we are stuck with this situation for historical reasons. An
educated person must come to understand that the term ‘contradiction’ means something different
in different contexts. In speaking of contradictions in nature we are of course talking
about dialectical contradictions, and not logical inconsistencies.
[More to be added... ]
COOPERATION — In Nature
[Intro material to be added... ]
“Of Darwin’s doctrine, I accept the theory of evolution, but
assume Darwin’s method of verification (struggle for life, natural selection) to be
merely a first, provisional, incomplete expression of a newly discovered fact. Before
Darwin, the very people who now, wherever they look, see nothing but the struggle
for existence (Vogt, Büchner, Moleshott and others), once laid particular stress
on co-operation in organic nature, the way in which the plant kingdom supplies
oxygen and food to the animal kingdom and, conversely, the latter supplies plants with
carbonic acid and manure, as indicated notably by Liebig. Both conceptions are to some
extent justified, but each is as one-sided and narrow as the other. The interaction
of natural bodies—both dead and living—comprises harmony as well as strife, struggle
as well as co-operation. Hence, if a self-styled naturalist takes it upon himself to
subsume all the manifold wealth of historical development under the one-sided and
meagre axiom ‘struggle for existence’, a phrase which, even in the field of nature,
can only be accepted cum grano salis [with a grain of salt], his method damns
itself from the outset.” —Engels, Letter to Pyotr Lavrov, November 12-17, 1875, MECW
45:106-7.
COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION (of Quantum Mechanics)
The absurdly idealist philosophical interpretation of
quantum mechanics put forth by Niels Bohr, Werner
Heisenberg, and their supporters. According to this bizarre conception, there is no such
thing as an objective world until it is perceived (or “measured”) by someone. Heisenberg,
for example, stated that “Some physicists would prefer to come back to the idea of an
objective real world whose smallest parts exist objectively in the same sense as stones or
trees exist independently of whether we observe them. This however is impossible.”
Another physicist, David Mermin of Cornell University, under the spell of the Copenhagen
Interpretation even went so far as to claim: “We now know that the moon is demonstrably
not there when nobody looks.” It is difficult to believe
that anyone can seriously put forward such nonsense!
In response to this sort of foolishness,
Albert Einstein commented: “The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving
subject is the basis of all natural science.” And he
added, more specifically, that “The Heisenberg-Bohr tranquilizing philosophy—or religion?—is
so delicately contrived that, for the time being, it provides a gentle pillow for the true
believer from which he cannot very easily be aroused. So let him lie there.”
[All these quotations are taken from Nick Herbert,
Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics (1987).]
See also:
COMPLEMENTARITY,
SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT
CORPORATION — As a “Person”
In 1886 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern
Pacific Railroad Company that a corporation has some of the same legal rights
as a person, a human being, has. Since then this absurd doctrine has been expanded
by the courts as well as in actual practice to cover other legal rights of persons under
the U.S. Constitution. At present this has reached the point where corporations now
ridiculously claim to have the right of “free speech”, and thus supposedly cannot be
prevented from spending millions of dollars to promote politicians who are in their pocket,
nor from indoctrinating the public with reactionary ideas and opinions that suit them.
Corporate capitalism already essentially controls the U.S. and the world, but this is not
enough for them. They want to keep expanding their control and power until it is
absolute, and the masses have no say whatsoever. Thus one liberal bourgeois constitutional
scholar, Garrett Epps, after attending Supreme Court hearings in 2009, expressed the
opinion that some Justices (such as John Roberts and Antonin Scalia) now seem to feel that
corporations do not simply enjoy the same rights as persons, but rather that they
actually enjoy greater rights than mere persons do!
COUNCIL FOR MUTUAL ECONOMIC AID (CMEA)
An intergovernmental council, known familiarly as Comecon, originally set up in
January 1949 by the USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania, to promote
mutual trade and the coordination of the economic plans of the member countries. Even during
the Stalin era the organization tended to serve the economic interests of the Soviet Union
more so than any of the other member countries. (This was an aspect of the “great nation
chauvinism” that Stalin was sometimes guilty of.) But in the revisionist period in the
Soviet Union (mid-50s on) Comecon became more and more simply a means for the social-imperialists
to exploit the other nominally socialist countries under their thumb. This occurred through
bullied and unfair trade agreements, international planning decisions more favorable to the
development of the Soviet Union than to the other countries, and so forth.
Albania joined CMEA in February 1949, East
Germany (the German Democratic Republic) in 1950, Mongolia in 1962, Cuba in 1972 and Vietnam
in 1978. Yugoslavia became an associate member in 1964. In the late 1950s North Korea and
China acquired observer status, though after 1961 China no longer sent observers. After 1961
Albania also no longer participated. Romania weakened its connection to Comecon in 1973 and
moved closer to the European Community.
Comecon was initially hailed by supporters of
the Soviet Union as “the Russian Marshall Plan”. In its early days it did help to develop
the economies of the Eastern European countries. Besides developing general goals for trade
and technical assistance, Comecon organized joint scientific research and development.
In 1954 Comecon moved more in the direction of
economic integration of the member countries through the coordination of the various five-year
economic plans, and in 1955 production priorities were set for each country. Energy policies
were also coordinated. In 1961 “Basic Principles” for the long-term development of member
countries were drawn up. But Khrushchev’s proposals in 1962 for the creation of a single
economic plan and single planning authority for all the countries was rejected by the other
Comecon countries on the grounds that it was a major encroachment on their national
sovereignty. Romania was especially outraged by the Soviet “suggestion” that it should
specialize in agriculture instead of any all-round development of its economy.
In the Brezhnev era the Soviet
social-imperialists further stepped up their efforts to integrate the Comecon economies
under Soviet direction, but there was much resistance to this from all the countries except
Bulgaria whose lacky rulers seemed happy with its assigned agricultural role.
In 1963 Comecon set up the International
Bank for Economic Cooperation as an alternative to the IMF, and in 1970 the International
Investment Bank to finance projects that were part of coordinated five-year plans, and as an
alternative to the World Bank.
The Comecon countries agreed in 1970 to
medium and long-term economic cooperation up to 1980, and a central planning bureau was set
up in Moscow to direct this. In 1987 joint Comecon ventures between some productive
enterprises and research institutes in the USSR and Eastern European countries were
established. But the still crude forms of economic cooperation were illustrated by the fact
that profits from these joint enterprises could be returned in the form of commodities because
of the problems involved in currency negotiations. Overall, trade and economic cooperation
and integration within Comecon declined during the Gorbachev period.
By 1989 the increasingly market-oriented
ideology in all the Comecon countries led to many calls for less economic planning, and there
no longer seemed much point to CMEA to the revisionists. In June 1991 CMEA was formally
dissolved.
CRAMDOWN
A (usually court-ordered) forced restructuring of a debt load which involves the reduction of
the amount owed, in order to allow the debtor to at least be in the position to continue to
pay back part of the debt. This happens most often in bankruptcy proceedings. The term arises
from the fact that lenders view such reductions in the debts owed them as something that is
being “crammed down” their throats!
Under present U.S. law (as of November 2009)
if a person files for “Chapter 13 bankruptcy” (a court-supervised, multi-year plan designed to
provide at least partial payment of debts to the creditors), the judge can reduce the amount
owed on credit cards, auto loans, student loans and even mortgages on second homes, but
not on mortgages on an individual’s principal residence. At present there are once
again proposals to change the law in order to allow cramdowns on these sorts of mortgages
as well, as part of the desperate effort to resolve the financial crisis in the U.S. which
first broke out in the sub-prime mortgage sphere in 2008. At present, banks are often rapidly
forcing foreclosures, and then the sale of the house to someone else (even at a much lower
price), in order to quickly recover as much of the bad loan as they can. If this change is made
it might make it somewhat more difficult for the banks to do this, because a judge might cut
the mortgage amount owed and allow the person in bankrupcy proceedings to keep their home (thus
preventing the bank from selling it again).
CRASH OF 1929
The major stock market crash and financial crisis that
broke out in the United States in the fall of 1929 and is generally viewed as the beginning of
the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Most bourgeois economists view this Crash and
overall financial crisis, along with the inept handling of it by the Hoover Administration and
the Federal Reserve, as the main causes of the Great
Depression, which then spread through the entire world capitalist economy. This theory, however,
is mostly nonsense. A recession was already developing in the U.S. economy by the spring of
1929, and it was the fundamental workings of the real capitalist economy that led to
overproduction of capital, the massive debt bubble, the
initial recession, the wild financial speculation, then the Crash, and finally the Depression.
While it is true that financial crises such as the Crash of 1929 virtually always play a
prominent role in capitalist economic crises, they are by no means the fundamental cause of
them. Still, it is also true that a more rational response from the government (for example,
via what is now called Keynesian deficit financing)
might have somewhat mitigated or even postponed the Depression, at least for a while. But the
bourgeoisie was trapped by its own ideology that proclaimed the capitalist system as
self-regulating, and therefore was unable to respond with even limited effectiveness.
CREDIT SYSTEM
[Intro material to be added...]
“The credit system itself [arose] out of the difficulty of employing
capital ‘productively’, i.e., ‘profitably’. The English, for example, are forced to
lend their capital to other countries in order to create a market for their commodities.
Over-production, the credit system, etc., are means by which capitalist production
seeks to break through its own barriers and to produce over and above its own
limits.” —Marx, TSV, 3:122.
CULT (Political)
Most people associate the term ‘cult’ with unorthodox or outrageous religious
sects characterized by fanatical devotion to the doctrine and
leadership of the sect and the refusal to even seriously entertain the possibility that
anything the top leader might say could be mistaken. But there are also similar political
cults. The key concept in political cults, too, is devotion, the devotion of the
adherents to every single aspect of the doctrine of the cult and an unquestioning acceptance
of whatever the top leader says.
Cult members are conditioned by powerful social
pressures within the cult toward:
1) The belief that their top leader is an
indispensable individual, and in effect, a savior not only for their group alone, but
for their whole country and even for all humanity;
2) Inability to question any significant aspect
of the doctrine of the group, unless and until the top leader makes a change in the
official doctrine;
3) Frequent direct quotation of their leader,
especially when asked by outsiders to explain the doctrines and ideas of their group;
4) Fear of publicly saying anything else; in
other words, the fear of getting approved doctrine slightly “wrong”;
5) A tremendous reluctance to raise any
disagreements or criticisms of the group (let alone of the top leader), because they will be
harshly pounced on, and possibly ex-communicated, if they do;
6) A great reluctance to raise any new ideas
of any kind, even if they don’t seem to go against current doctrine (because these ideas might
be interpreted by the leadership that way);
7) A strong tendency to hide their own
personal shortcomings and failures to successfully carry out the instructions of the group and
its leader (because they similarly know they will be severely attacked if shortcomings and
errors come to light). This is doubly the case because of the often extreme demands which
are placed on the members;
8) A strong tendency toward
sectarianism, and the strong beliefs that only their own leader
and group can generate knowledge about the correct path forward; and even the subtle feeling
that anyone outside the group is really sort of the enemy (even if they have never directly
criticized the group);
9) A strong tendency toward monasticism,
of making the group and its leader the entire focus of their whole life, and of restricting or
cutting off even social relationships with other people and the masses (especially if they ever
express any strong opinions the group disapproves of, and certainly if they ever express any
major criticisms of the group or its leader whatsoever);
10) A tendency to nevertheless “burn out” and
drop away after a number of years when the false predictions and expectations of the group
continue to prove wrong time after time—especially if they are among the members of the
group who get blamed for these failures. (The leader of the group rarely admits to any
personal role in these failures of the group, except where it is absolutely unavoidable. Even
then various excuses will be offered up.);
11) The tendency to seize upon the defections
and departures of other members as an opportunity to blame them for the failures of the
group, and to view them as having been hidden enemies who the group is now well rid
of;
12) A tendency to still be infected with
much of the outlook of the group and its leader even if they themselves do drop out or
get forced out, and the tendency towards an inability to think how to organize and operate a
political group in any other fundamentally different way. (Indoctrination runs deep.) Of
course over time, and with the exposure to different ideas, more of the lingering
indoctrination can be expected to fade away.
All of this is a total travesty of Marxism, and
is in essence a religious approach to politics rather than a rational, democratic, and
scientific approach. It is hard to understand how anyone could ever think otherwise.
A clear current example of a political cult in
the United States is the Revolutionary Communist Party with its top
leader Bob Avakian being the undeniable object of devotion
by the members of the group, who are required to promote a “culture of appreciation,
promotion, and popularization around the leadership, the body of work and the
method and approach of Bob Avakian.” (See: AP&P).
CULTURE
All the accumulated social consciousness (knowledge, opinions, abilities, etc.)
of a society, especially in regard to its manner of living, and the material results
of that social consciousness, which together characterize the historical stage attained in
the development of the society. Culture may therefore be divided into intellectual
culture, consisting of all social knowledge and consciousness, and material culture,
consisting of all the material wealth and means of producing this wealth. Culture in both
its intellectual and material forms undergoes constant development, and is transmitted from
one generation to the next.
See also:
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS,
IDEOLOGY
CZECHOSLOVAK CORPS (In Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution)
An army of Czech and Slovak soldiers which under the influence of the Entente alliance in
World War I revolted and, with the active participation by the
Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries, joined the attempt
by the imperialist countries to suppress the Russian revolution.
“The Czechoslovak corps was formed in Russia prior to the Great October
Socialist Revolution from Czech and Slovak prisoners of war, soliders of the
Austro-Hungarian army, for waging war against Germany. After the establishment of Soviet
power, the Czechoslovak corps, by agreement with the Soviet Government, was to be sent
to France through Vladivostok. But the counter-revolutionary commanders of the corps,
perfidiously violating the agreement with the Government of the R.S.F.S.R. on the
surrender of weapons and deceiving the Czechoslovak soldiers, at the end of May 1918
began an armed insurrection at the bidding of the Entente. Acting in close co-ordination
with the whiteguards and kulaks, the Czechoslovak whiteguard corps seized Chelyabinsk,
Penza, Tomsk, Omsk, Samara and other towns. Nevertheless, a considerable section of the
Czechoslovak prisoners of war did not succumb to the anti-Soviet and nationalist
propaganda of the reactionary top stratum of the Corps; over 10,000 Czechs and Slovaks
fought in the ranks of the Red Army.
“In the autumn of 1918 the Volga
area was freed by the Red Army. The revolt of the Czechoslovak corps was finally
suppressed at the end of 1919 together with the rout of Kolchak.” —Note 2 in Lenin,
SW 3.
Dictionary Home Page and Letter Index
MASSLINE.ORG Home Page
An early mass semi-revolutionary movement of British workers which arose because of the
bad economic conditions they suffered and their political disenfranchisement. Chartism
was one of the earliest working class movements in the world. The Chartist movement began
with (and takes its name from) the People’s Charter of 1838 which focused on voting
rights. The movement lasted up to around 1850, and during that period it held numerous
mass meetings and demonstrations. The movement fell apart, however, principally because
it did not develop a steady and solid revolutionary leadership and because it lacked a
clear-cut programme.