Ernest Mandel
Ernest Mandel
Ernest Ezra Mandel, was a revolutionary Marxist theorist...
NationalityBelgian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth5 April 1923
CountryBelgium
economic fight higher workers
If the workers do not fight for higher wages, if they do not fight for a shorter workday, if they do not fight for, let us say it in a provocative way, day-to-day economic issues, they become demoralized slaves.
self organization people
Only under conditions of revolutionary crises do you have the highest level of self-organization; this is the Soviet type of organization, which is to say, workers' councils, people's councils, call them what you want, popular committees.
years important world
There has been hardly a single year since 1917, and in a certain sense since 1905, without a revolution somewhere in the world in which the workers participated in a rather important way.
capitalist-economy way impossible
Workers do not strike every day, they cannot do that the way they function in the capitalist economy. The way they have to live by selling their labor power makes that impossible.
party illness factions
Factions are a sign of illness in a party.
leader revolution groups
And you cannot have a socialist revolution commandeered from the top, ordered around by some omniscient leader or group of leaders
party believe self
I do not believe in self-proclaimed parties.
mistake
Mistakes in themselves are unavoidable.
party revolution instruments
Revolution is an instrument, like a party is an instrument.
mass vanguard
Furthermore, there is absolutely no contradiction between the separate organizations of revolutionary vanguard militants and their participation in the mass organizations of the working class.
activity class conclusion consciousness draw
The conclusion you can draw from these characteristics is that you have an uneven development of class activity and an uneven development of class consciousness in the working class.
build exploited fulfil historical oppressed otherwise role track
Otherwise we get off the track and we do not fulfil the historical role which we want to fulfil: to help the masses, the exploited and the oppressed of the world, build a classless society, a world socialist federation.
actual believe class closed continuity definitely embodies experience fifty hundred last marxist
We do not believe that the Marxist program, which embodies the continuity of the experience of the actual class struggle and real revolutions of the last one hundred and fifty years, is a definitely closed book.
including marxism open scientific
For us, Marxism is always open because there are always new xperiences, there are always new facts, including facts about the past, which have to be incorporated in the corpus of scientific socialism.