… insurrection would have to start communising society… or it would have no communist content.

And what is this ‘communizing’? Radical collectivization or transition into communism?

… a revolution is only communist if it changes all social relationships into communist relationships… [A]ll of these have to be done away with, and not just be run by collectives or turned over to public ownership: they have to be replaced by communal, moneyless, profitless, Stateless, forms of life…

I do not see yet how this is distinct from basic anarchism in its revolutionary goals. But my biggest gripe, so far, is that this is an impossibility, given the class struggle remains post-revolution inside the country and outside it. This is such an easy observation to see, I wonder what the communizers’ response is.

When 1914 broke out, and even more so after 1917, communists said that mankind was entering the epoch of wars and revolutions. Since then, we have seen a lot more wars than revolutions, and no communist revolution.

Except… we did.

Further down, there’s a potential definition of communization:

The concept of communization… is to try and define the concrete process of a communist revolution.

And further down:

The idea of communization as a revolution that creates communism—and not the preconditions of communism… [R]evolution as a process that, from its very beginning, would start to undo what it wants to get rid of, and at the same time from its early days, start to create new ways of life (the completion of which would of course last a while).

This is as close to a definition I could find up until I had enough of reading this.

Continuing:

It is obvious that such a deep and all-encompassing transformation as communism will span decades, perhaps several generations before it takes over the world. Until then, it will be straddling two eras, and remain vulnerable to internal decay and/or destruction from outside, all the more so as various countries and continents will not be developing new relationships at the same pace. Some areas may lag behind for a long time. Others may go through temporary chaos. But the main point is that the communising process has to start as soon as possible. The closer to Day One the transformation begins and the deeper it goes from the beginning, the greater the likelihood of its success.

This is sorta the answer I was looking for to my earlier question on the class struggles, internal and external. Very interestingly, though, Dauve doesn’t talk once about the class struggle. He conceives of this transition period (as opposed to ‘society’, he says) as the consequence of the different lengths of time it will take for other countries to develop these ‘new relations’. For example, the “likelihood of [the revolution’s] success” is said to be determined, per Dauve, by “the closer to Day One the transformation begins”. The topic of war—an inevitability in the class struggle—isn’t even discussed. All talk is of developing new relations.

So there will a “transition” in the sense that communism will not be achieved overnight. But there will not be a “transition period” in what has become the traditional Marxist sense: a period that is no longer capitalist but not yet communist…

This is, of course, a critique of the Marxist-Leninist concept of ‘socialism’, which differs with the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist concept. The latter is actually sympathetic to this ‘left’-communist criticism of the ML concept, but entirely rejects what it offers in its place. Socialism is apprehended by Maoists as a road, a process, not as a separate mode of production, fit in between capitalism and communism. The Maoist concept is that of Marx’s, taking it as the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ (DotP), but bringing it to a higher understanding through the experience of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution—the event which really contains nearly all of Maoism’s theses. The DotP has been shown not to be solidified after the revolution, i.e. has revealed that the class struggle isn’t muted after the seizure of state-power by the proletariat, but is intensified and reifies within the communist party as the two-line struggle between the communists and revisionists, between the proletariat and bourgeoisie.

Fundamentally, communization saps counter-revolutionary forces by removing their support. Communisers’ propulsive force will not come from shooting capitalists, but by depriving them of their function and power. Communisers will not target enemies, but undermine and change social relations.

What the hell does this mean? These are all so vague descriptions.

A number of insurgents will have to remain organized and available as armed groupings. (Besides, nobody has talents or desires for everything.) But if these groupings functioned as bodies specialized in armed struggle, they would develop a monopoly of socially legitimate violence, soon we would have a “proletarian” police force, together with a “proletarian government”, a “people’s army”, etc. Revolution would be short-lived.

I’m offended Dauve says a people’s army is “specialized in armed struggle”, when the distinguishing characteristics of the people’s army is its integration with the masses, its working and help in towns and cities, its philosophizing, its leadership also within the party, etc. I’m fucking tired of anti-MLs making anti-ML claims thinking they also all apply for MLM. It’s lazy.

Communist revolution does not separate its means from its ends. Consequently, it will not firstly take over (or dispense with) political power, and then only secondly change society. Both will proceed at the same time and reinforce each other, or both will be doomed.

Except Dauve doesn’t explain why this is the case at all. In fact, most of his declarations in this work are unsubstantiated.

John Holloway declared: “the problem is not to abolish capitalism, but to stop creating it”… [O]ur purpose is not so much to make as to be the revolution. Quite.

Holy shit, like what do these even mean?? There is absolutely no use of relatable terms employed here, but philosophical-like statements that change a single word to show a different meaning—so, I’d guess the audience of this paper isn’t working-class folk, but whichever intellectual wishes to read this. It’s fine and all to make catchy statements like this, but follow it up with an elaboration!!

Some are more apt than others to initiate the change, which does not mean that they would be the “leaders” of the revolution. On the contrary, they would succeed only in so far as they would gradually lose their specificity.

This statement is clearly made to contrast this ‘communization’ theory with a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist approach to a vanguard, but really has no understanding of the latter. “To get rid of the gun”, Mao says, “we must pick up the gun”. I say this as an example of the Maoist recognition and usage of a thing turning into its opposite. War is the means to peace; communists must learn from the masses; the bourgeoisie produces its gravediggers; and so on. No Maoist believes things are static, that the communists want to forever be communists. Just as much as the proletariat wishes to not be the proletariat, so the communists do not wish to forever be communists.

… labour is no ruling class and has no possibility of becoming one, now or then.

Wow… here’s something. Given classes are not abolished post-revolution, then the proletariat does become a ruling-class—that’s what the dictatorship of the proletariat means!

I stopped reading after this–I see no point in it.