The Revolutionary Socialist Network, Workers
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2AC -- AT: Eco-LeninismAlt fails – their author misquotes Lenin and replacement isn’t possible (Dean and Heron)Woody 20 [Gus Woody, 12-18-2020, "Revolutionary Reflections," rs21, https://www.rs21.org.uk/2020/12/18/revolutionary-reflections-moving-towards-an-ecological-leninism/, SMarx, JTong] The diversity of perspectives on Lenin found among these authors necessarily poses a question – what exactly is ecological Leninism? By looking at each of their accounts, it becomes clear that each writer finds something different within the corpus of Leninism. Furthermore, there is much to still be developed if ecological Leninism is to grow into a distinct approach to planetary breakdown. Given the development of such a system of thought will require more than one author or piece, this article aims to reflect on several concerns which may become the bedrock of an ecological Leninism: the state, the party and movements, imperialism, and the philosophical underpinnings of Leninist materialism. The arrival of an ecological Leninism ultimately presents an opportunity to build on the analysis of ecological Marxists concerned with metabolisms and similar accounts of capitalism, and to concern ourselves with organising for revolutionary change. The state of the party – Dean and Heron Starting with Dean and Heron’s account, ecological Leninism is crucial to challenging dead ends in the environmental movement’s strategies. To do this, they attempt to disentangle the contradictions present within the variety of contemporary Green New Deal (GND) proposals. In general terms, these aim through state-led investment to repurpose national economies towards decarbonisation and redistributive policies. Surveying plans from either side of the Atlantic, Dean and Heron point out that many GNDs still refuse to nationalise the industries necessary for large-scale decarbonisation. Furthermore, they point out that many retain a nationalist politics of growth, focused on creating new industries which may provide opportunities for employment, ignoring the continued extraction from the global majority such proposals seem to require. Many GND organisers recognise these contradictions but adopted an attitude of critical support, particularly while the Sanders and Corbyn movements were seeking election on GND platforms. Dean and Heron don’t advocate complete rejection, nor a falling in line with a social-democratic GND. Instead they argue we need to organise for revolutionary socialism whilst recognising the necessity of seizing control of the state for decarbonisation implicit within many left-wing GNDs. Or as they phrase it – ‘stripping the policy’s reformist content away from its revolutionary form.’ In their view, the GND’s image of the state being used to finally confront the global emissions crisis requires a revolutionary leap which takes it away from its often-limited policy content. By thinking through these issues around the GND, Dean and Heron affirm the need for environmentalists to abandon ‘state phobia’ and seriously engage with the possibility of a ‘state-led, centrally planned, and global response’ to the climate crisis—the ‘old’ Leninist revolutionary seizure of state power. They end by arguing for the need to build a revolutionary Leninist party, which is willing to seize the state for the working class and to use this apparatus to tackle climate breakdown. For Dean and Heron then, ecological Leninism centres on party building and the seizure of the state. There is much to disagree with in their interpretation. Most notably, in their argument for the importance of the state, they point to an extract where Lenin states the ‘apparatus must not, and should not, be smashed’, [4] using this to suggest the importance of seizing the state for a top down centralized response to climate change. As Gareth Dale has pointed out, their use of Lenin’s argument against wrecking the state is a serious misquoting. [5] If one reviews the quotation, the apparatus in question which Lenin is talking about is the particular ‘accounting apparatus’ in the form of the state bank and similar bodies. Despite the use of this quote to side-line wrecking, there is still the issue of smashing the rest of the state apparatus and its replacement. What is left underexplored in this article by Dean and Heron, though they certainly believe in it, is this difficult task of replacing the bourgeois state with the dictatorship of the proletariat. Herein we encounter a conundrum of ecological Leninism – how do we square the need for rapid changes to tackle climate change with the simultaneous need to smash the state and replace it with organs of workers’ control? Download 2.09 Mb. Share with your friends:
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