In certain situations this seems to be the case. Lenin considered this class to be very flimsy and would often go where the wind takes them. Wonder if yall have read anything interesting on this from AES states.
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Mao wrote similarly, but it depends a bit on your exact definitions of petit bourgeoise, as well conditions of the country. I’ve cut some verbiage, but he basically split them into three groups: Those doing well, opportunists getting by, and those who are losing out. He very much saw the latter group as important allies. And the other two as potential allies down the line, but not to be relied on initially.
The petty bourgeoisie. Included in this category are the owner-peasants, [7] the master handicraftsmen, the lower levels of the intellectuals–students, primary and secondary school teachers, lower government functionaries, office clerks, small lawyers–and the small traders. Both because of its size and class character, this class deserves very close attention. … Although all strata of this class have the same petty-bourgeois economic status, they fall into three different sections.
The first section consists of those who have some surplus money or grain, that is, those who, by manual or mental labour, earn more each year than they consume for their own support. … People of this sort are timid, afraid of government officials, and also a little afraid of the revolution. Since they are quite close to the middle bourgeoisie in economic status, they have a lot of faith in its propaganda and are suspicious of the revolution. This section is a minority among the petty bourgeoisie and constitutes its right-wing.
The second section consists of those who in the main are economically self-supporting. … They also want to get rich, but Marshal Chao never lets them … they have become aware that the world is no longer what it was. … They become rather abusive, denouncing the foreigners as “foreign devils”, the warlords as “robber generals” and the local tyrants and evil gentry as “the heartless rich”. As for the movement against the imperialists and the warlords, they merely doubt whether it can succeed (on the ground that the foreigners and the warlords seem so powerful), hesitate to join it and prefer to be neutral, but they never oppose the revolution. This section is very numerous, making up about one-half of the petty bourgeoisie.
The third section consists of those whose standard of living is falling. Many in this section, who originally belonged to better-off families, are undergoing a gradual change from a position of being barely able to manage to one of living in more and more reduced circumstances. … Such people are quite important for the revolutionary movement; they form a mass of no small proportions and are the left-wing of the petty bourgeoisie. …in times of war, … when the tide of the revolution runs high and the dawn of victory is in sight, not only will the left-wing of the petty bourgeoisie join the revolution, but the middle section too may join, and even right-wingers, swept forward by the great revolutionary tide of the proletariat and of the left-wing of the petty bourgeoisie, will have to go along with the “evolution.” We can see from the experience of the May 30th Movement [9] of 1925 and the peasant movement in various places that this conclusion is correct.
Vijay Prashad has often spoken about the role of the petty boug in the context of Arab Nationalism and decolonization struggles. On the other hand, he’s often also landed at the conclusion that it was the petty bougs’ collaboration with the West that led to the failure of movements in the Arab Spring, for example.
IMO it’s just a matter of trying to fight the weaker enemy. Put the national petty bourgeoisie in power in a periphery country to replace the financial capitalists, because they are a weaker enemy. Don’t do the same in a core country because, while the petty bourgeoisie itself is a weaker enemy, their positions are those of the most chauvinistic, brutal finance capitalists that will enact fascism to crush leftists.
I sometimes wonder if the petite bourgeoisie in places like Catalonia or Basqueland might lead to something cool happening. I think having a different language from the imperial core country might give them a push in terms of revolutionary character. At the very least it seems somewhat true in the past, I don’t know about the present.
what makes me skeptical about the revolutionary character is that petite b class interests do not align with workers. a state in control of the petite b will most likely lead to a decrease in state capacity to tackle contradictions (by lowering taxes, deregulation etc.), which will just lead to international capital getting its way. i guess something like the baltics leaving the ussr? as a recent example of petite b gaining control of a small state.
Think about it like the internal contradictions between the bourgeoisie, artisans, and peasantry in the 18th century bourgeois revolutions. The primary contradiction was between the feudal lords and the Church vs the bourgeoisie et al; the fact that there were internal contradictions within the bourgeois camp is plain to see in the power struggles after the revolutions (the Jacobin factions, Montagnards, etc), but they were still a revolutionary class.
With the assumption that imperialism is the primary contradiction, it means that the national bourgeoisie can play a similar role. They’ll still be reactionary after decolonization, but they can help get you to that point.
Exactly what Fanon sketched out. This debate is why many communists argue that national liberation (NL) shouldn’t be done without a revolutionary proletarian party to push immediately after the successful NL to not allowed the PB to take over the state apparatus.
I argue, instead, that it’s still progressive even if the PB takes over, and that the next revolutionary step can be taken at a later date. So we should support PB and even some bourgeois revolution’s against imperialism in imperialized countries (determined by whether their interests are actually in contradiction to their country’s imperialized status). It sharpens the contradictions between prole and bourgeois when the Imperial one loses its sway on the imperialized society, and it sharpens the Imperial contradictions within the imperialist camp. Sometimes they just fall right back into imperialism after that (with new compradors), but it has contradiction sharpening as a result anyways. So I think the communists from my first paragraph are kinda too “ultra”
I think we need to Proletarianize the PB, a PPB operation of sorts.
More seriously though: I think currently I fall in the first camp, WRT my own country, because I think in our particular situation the petty bourgeoisie is simply too opportunistic and too enmeshed with American capital/national identity to be a genuine fighting force against colonialism.
But your point is that they aren’t useful in the fight against colonialism in your country. This just means it’s outside of the debate I was referring to. There are people who acknowledge that in some places the PB are also opposed to imperialism and willing to fight it (take Palestine), but that we shouldn’t support that because it’s not the workers party as the revolutionary party against imperialism.
The lower stratum of the petite bourgeoisie definitely have a lot of material benefit from the revolution. The ones that have no wage labour will probably instantly support the revolution since they constantly feel the weight of capitalism threaten their existence. The ones who do have a small amount of wage labour, from family businesses and even small businesses to a larger extent also have material gains by siding with the revolution eventually, though they will need a lot of convincing and depropagandizing to make them see that they will keep on losing as capitalism progresses.
The rest probably won’t be on our side for a long time, even if socialism could provide them with a life that is convenient enough without the constant stress of bourgeois competition, though some of them will be exceptions to the rule.
Subsets can certainly be, just don’t bet the farm on them rather than the large masses of more oppressed classes. The petty bourgeoos have less raw power as a revolutionary class and have less material incentive to join socialist revolution. But they also have cash and educations and the ability to traverse places and social contexts that others cannot.
I mean, as a lawyer, Lenin skirted between professional and petty bourgeois. And his family owned estates and such, being thoroughly petty bourgeois.
