tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post3986585574658121334..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Blogging Language and CriticismPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-88704788960250017732011-01-30T10:23:59.259+00:002011-01-30T10:23:59.259+00:00I agree that the best option for socialists is to ...I agree that the best option for socialists is to work within the anti worker New Labour party. Politically I can see no other choice. Marx and Engels were active in a period of real political dynamism, where we are in a period of relative stagnation. Frankly if we use history to learn lessons I think you could make an argument for either position, the one of Boffy and the one of Mark P. The problem with Mark P’s position is that the left is so utterly divided.<br /><br />The current problem with the argument that by being in New Labour we get the ear of the worker, is that we simply don’t. Things were differnt in the dynamic period of 1848. The workers are not active in the anti worker New Labour, they barely know the names of all but more of the ‘famous’ of the New Labour leadership, so the idea they will be tuned into the ‘radical’ wing of the party is laughable. If you want to get the ear of the workers get off to Stoke City on Saturday and hang out in the shopping districts. And start forming the kinds of organisations that Marx and Engels formed, e.g. the International. I think that is where the sects are actually more pro-active, I remember Chris Harman died while in Egypt. Doing more valuable work I should imagine than the ‘radical’ wing of the LP are.Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-59873291902187199252011-01-29T21:07:55.196+00:002011-01-29T21:07:55.196+00:00Mark,
One final quote, this time not from Marx or...Mark,<br /><br />One final quote, this time not from Marx or Engels, but from much later, from the decisions of the First Four Congresses of the Communist International, the documents that Trotskyists claim to base themselves upon.<br /><br />“As the experiences of the Russian Revolution teach us – remember this in England and America! – the most important thing of all is to stay in the midst of the masses of workers. You will often go wrong with them, but never leave the mass organisations of the working class, <b>however reactionary they may be at any given moment”</b> (emphasis added).<br /><br />(Zinoviev’s closing speech at the 15th Session of the Second Congress of the Comintern)<br /><br />I could also give all of those quotes from Trotsky insisting that Marxists have to "stick with the workers", even to the extent he argued of "sticking with" those workers within the already bureaucratised Stalinist Parties in the late 1920's and early 1930's.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-17859645215664548072011-01-29T20:55:50.594+00:002011-01-29T20:55:50.594+00:00Mark,
Just to emphasise the above points made by ...Mark,<br /><br />Just to emphasise the above points made by Engels cited above consider his further advice to the US Socialists.<br /><br />"“…To bring about this result, the unification of the various independent bodies into one national Labor Army, with no matter how inadequate a provisional platform, provided it be a truly working-class platform — that is the next great step to be accomplished in America. To effect this, and to make that platform worthy of the cause, the Socialist Labor Party can contribute a great deal, if they will only act in the same way as the European Socialists have acted at the time when they were but a small minority of the working class. That line of action was first laid down in the “Communist Manifesto” of 1847 in the following words:<br /><br />“The Communists” — that was the name we took at the time and which even now we are far from repudiating — “the Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties.”<br /><br />“They have no interests separate and apart from the interests of the whole working class.<br /><br />“They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and model the proletarian movement…..”<br /><br />“…That is the line of action which the great founder of Modern Socialism, Karl Marx, and with him, I and the Socialists of all nations who worked along with us, have followed for more than forty years, with the result that it has led to victory everywhere, and that at this moment the mass of European Socialists, in Germany and in France, in Belgium, Holland and Switzerland, in Denmark and Sweden as well as in Spain and Portugal, are fighting as one common army under one and the same flag.”<br /><br /><a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1887/01/26.htm" rel="nofollow">Preface To The 1887 US edition Of The Condition Of The Working Class</a><br /><br />I've set out these and other arguments in my blog <a href="http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/marxists-and-workers-party.html" rel="nofollow">Marxists And The Workers Party</a>Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-20781051908954599242011-01-29T20:44:30.486+00:002011-01-29T20:44:30.486+00:00Mark,
You might want to consider these views expr...Mark,<br /><br />You might want to consider these views expressed by Engels towards the end of his life about how revolutionary socialists should conduct themselves in respect of their attitude to the workers parties. This is the same Engels who at around the same time advised the British Marxists such as Eleanor Marx, and Edward Aveling and Tom Mann, to avoid the existing sects like the SF and ILP like the plague, and instead to join the existing Liberal Clubs, which is where they could talk to the mass of workers directly.<br /><br />In advice to the US Socialists Engels wrote,<br /><br />"”When we returned to Germany, in spring 1848, we joined the Democratic Party as the only possible means of getting the ear of the working class; we were the most advanced wing of that party, but still a wing of it. When Marx founded the International, he drew up the General Rules in such a way that all working-class socialists of that period could join it -- Proudhonists, Pierre Lerouxists and even the more advanced section of the English Trades Unions; and it was only through this latitude that the International became what it was, the means of gradually dissolving and absorbing all these minor sects, with the exception of the Anarchists, whose sudden appearance in various countries was but the effect of the violent bourgeois reaction after the Commune and could therefore safely be left by us to die out of itself, as it did. Had we from 1864, to 1873 insisted on working together only with those who openly adopted our platform where should we be to-day? I think that all our practice has shown that it is possible to work along with the general movement of the working class at every one of its stages without giving up or hiding our own distinct position and even organisation, and I am afraid that if the German Americans choose a different line they will commit a great mistake.”<br /><br /><a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1887/letters/87_01_27.htm" rel="nofollow">Letter To Florence Kelley Wischnewetsky 1887</a><br /><br />And he also wrote,<br /><br />"“…What the Germans ought to do is to act up to their own theory --if they understand it, as we did in 1845 and 1848--to go in for any real general working-class movement, accept its faktische starting points as such and work it gradually up to the theoretical level by pointing out how every mistake made, every reverse suffered, was a necessary consequence of mistaken theoretical views in the original programme; they ought, in the words of The Communist Manifesto, to represent the movement of the future in the movement of the present. But above all give the movement time to consolidate, do not make the inevitable confusion of the first start worse confounded by forcing down people's throats things which at present they cannot properly understand, but which they soon will learn. A million or two of workingmen's votes next November for a bona fide workingmen's party is worth infinitely more at present than a hundred thousand votes for a doctrinally perfect platform.”<br /><br />In the preface to the US edition of his Condition of the Working Class.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-89072134145845655242011-01-29T15:30:04.394+00:002011-01-29T15:30:04.394+00:00Is that around the time they were forming the Comm...Is that around the time they were forming the Communist league?<br /><br />You are comparing a revolutionary period in Germany with Britain in the 21st century. You are claiming that because Marx and Engels supported a bourgeois revolution in 1848 Germany that translates into supporting the anti worker New Labour in 2011. Sorry but that doesn’t work and what is more because the conditions are so markedly different, the divine blessings of Marx and Engels are not required to justify your position.Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-81398263579490872762011-01-29T11:31:28.276+00:002011-01-29T11:31:28.276+00:00Is that around the time they were forming the Comm...Is that around the time they were forming the Communist league?<br /><br />You are comparing a revolutionary period in Germany with Britain in the 21st century. You are claiming that because Marx and Engels supported a bourgeois revolution in 1848 Germany that translates into supporting the anti worker New Labour in 2011. Sorry but that doesn’t work and what is more because the conditions are so markedly different, the divine blessings of Marx and Engels are not required to justify your position. You would have been better to use the 1880's and 1890's as a comparison and even that would have been inappropriate.<br /><br />Now you routinely distort Marx and Engels, and someone needs to point that out. You should not be allowed to get away with such brazen behaviour! They need to invent a new word to describe what you do, Trolling would not be enough!<br />For example the following passage from a letter by Engels to Bebel in 1891 shows his vision of the path to socialism is not the long road of building co-ops that you claim it is:<br /><br /><b>“In order to take possession of and set in motion the means of production, we need people with technical training, and masses of them. These we have not got, and up till now we have even been rather glad that we have been largely spared the "educated" people. Now things are different. Now we are strong enough to stand any quantity of educated Quarcks and to digest them, and I foresee that in the next eight or ten years we shall recruit enough young technicians, doctors, lawyers and schoolmasters to enable us to have the factories and big estates administered on behalf of the nation by Party comrades. Then, therefore, our entry into power will be quite natural and will be settled up quickly – relatively, if, on the other hand, a war brings us to power prematurely, the technicians will be our chief enemies; they will deceive and betray us wherever they can and we shall have to use terror against them but shall get cheated all the same. It is what always happened, on a small scale, to the French revolutionaries; even in the ordinary administration they had to leave the subordinate posts, where real work is done, in the possession of old reactionaries who obstructed and paralysed everything. Therefore I hope and desire that our splendid and secure development, which is advancing with the calm and inevitability of a process of nature, may remain on its natural lines.”</b><br /><br />the link is here:<br /><br />http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1891/letters/91_10_24.htm<br /><br />And there are many many more examples to choose from. I just thought this tied in nicely with your upcoming military article. I will be watching!Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-48239502713693437412011-01-28T22:50:08.231+00:002011-01-28T22:50:08.231+00:00I have no intention of engaging in debate with a n...I have no intention of engaging in debate with a nasty troll, whether they pose as some kind of socialist or a BNP'er, especially one who clearly does not even know who the German Democrats were, and whose grasp of history is so bad that they can be out by a matter of 50 years!!!!Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-22791323942121760102011-01-28T17:27:43.647+00:002011-01-28T17:27:43.647+00:00It never ceases to amuse me that Boffy sees the ne...It never ceases to amuse me that Boffy sees the need to sanctify all his comments with the divine blessings of messrs Marx and Engels, even when he doesn’t have to! In this case he has felt the need to distort Engels, even though telling the truth would in no way undermine his argument! I understand why he has to distort Engels view on co-ops because to sanctify his own position Boffy has to distort Engels but in this case?<br /><br />So Boffy said, <b>“It was not what marx and Engels viewed as revolutionary politics. They saw their involvement in the German Democrats not in that vein, or even in the vein of transforming what was a bourgeois party to socialism, but merely that they needed to be there in order to be able to speak to the mass of workers”</b><br /><br />But Engels did regard it as a socialist party and what’s more he regarded it more than some vehicle to influence workers. When talking about the party he said we gained so many seats etc.<br /><br />A couple of examples can be seen in quotes here:<br /><br /><b>Question to Engels by a journalist: “Mr. Engels on one important matter: the chances of the German socialists at the next elections.”<br /><br />Enegls reply: "I am convinced," he replied to this question, "that we will gain between 700,000 and one million votes more than in 1890.”<br /><br />Further question: "Will the socialist party have candidates in all the constituencies?" <br /><br />Engels reply: "Yes, we shall have candidates in all 400 constituencies. It is important to us that we should muster our forces."<br /><br />Another question: "And what is your final goal as German socialists?"<br /><br />Engels reply: "Why, we have no final goal. We are evolutionaries, we have no intention of dictating definitive laws to mankind. Prejudices instead of detailed organisation of the society of the future? You will find no trace of that amongst us. We shall be satisfied when we have placed the means of production in the hands of the community, and we fully realise that this is quite impossible with the present monarchist and federalist government."</b><br /><br />Further links to illustrate this point can be found here:<br /><br />http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/media/engels/93_05_13.htm<br />http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/media/engels/93_05_13.htm<br /><br />But of course Marx and Engels lived in a dynamic phase for socialism, it was new and growing. We live in a stagnant and declining phase, so the conditions are entirely different. We don’t need to distort Engels to make the point that working in the anti worker New Labour is the best way to advance socialism. This is a very sorry state for socialists, we should make no bones about that. We are in a reformist’s party, being reformist they have to pander to the city and anti worker forces. If you are a reformist there is no other way open to you, in capitalism bosses have all the real power, therefore in a capitalist system they are the guys you have to pander to. Globalisation has made that situation even more pronounced. One argument for not taxing the rich to pay for the crisis is that they can just leave and take their ill gotten gains to somewhere that will tax them lower!<br /><br />Workers of the World unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!<br /><br />Though today the revolutionary cry seems to be “Workers fight for reforms, there is no other way!”Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-59870478023338920142011-01-28T13:02:21.546+00:002011-01-28T13:02:21.546+00:00Before you can claim that Marxists in the Lp are n...Before you can claim that Marxists in the Lp are not acting as revolutionary socialists, you first have to define what actingas revolutionary socialists means! The only definition you seem to have is that they should proclaim a revolutionary programme that even you admit the workers are not even bothering to read, and certainly do not agree with. In otehr words what Marx described as "revolutionary phrasemongering", setting up a Heinz variety of anti-cuts (or whatever other campaign is the flavour of the month from which they think they might recruit) where they basically - at best talk to each other, and at worst soon break away from if they see no gain from - which of course, they have a high representation in, because no one doubts that the members of these organisations are conscientious - that's why they tend to get elected as militants in whatever organisation they join - but, which are usually politically limited because of their Economistic programme, and which usually have absolutely no lasting effect in terms of promoting the self-activity of the class, or raising its level of consciousness. And, finally a commitment to denouncing the leaders of the Labour Movement - though as PCS showed, doing pretty much the same job of capitulation themselves.<br /><br />You claim that the rank and file of the LP is to the right of the majority of the working-class on a whole range of issues. Can you provide factual evidence for that? I'd suggest that the number of workers who voted Tory, Lib-Dem, UKIP and BNP, suggests otherwise. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/13/social-attitudes-survey-british-data#data" rel="nofollow">The Social Trends Survey</a>, also suggests otherwise with large numbers of people having right-wing views in respect of Welfare recipients, for instance. A talk with most ordinary workers demonstrates ingrained reactionary views on race, gender and sexual orientation. I'm not suggesting you do not find those views represented in the views of ordinary workers in the rank and file of the LP either, but I think your claim that they are to the Right of the workers outside the LP does not at all stand up. In fact, one local TU leader told me recently that many of the ordinary workers on his union Executive had views that were to the Right of the BNP!Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-60901077681500928082011-01-27T17:16:14.144+00:002011-01-27T17:16:14.144+00:00Actually Loz, I have no particular objection to yo...Actually Loz, I have no particular objection to your line of argument as expressed in your last couple of posts here, at least as far as it concerns your own work.<br /><br />You aren't acting as a revolutionary in the Labour Party, aren't pretending to and aren't presenting yourself as anything other than a relatively militant reformist doing appropriate work from that sort of perspective.<br /><br />I still disagree with you - both in the general political terms and more specifically on the value of work in Labour even from a reformist point of view - but that's another question.<br /><br />Mike F:<br /><br />Actually I have no problem in confronting the reality of what most workers actually think. <br /><br />Which is one of the reasons why I see no more basis for supporting Labour, still less working in it, in the platitude that most workers vote for it than I see a basis for supporting Fianna Fail or the Democrats in the same line of argument.<br /><br />I'm not under the impression that the workers are bursting at the seams with incipient revolutionary sentiment. It's just that hiding in a neo-liberal party and adapting to the politics of Ed Balls and Tristram Hunt doesn't strike me as a useful response to that assessment.<br /><br />What I find interesting (and I use the word out of politeness) in the arguments of the scattered and bewildered bands of left Labourites is their near complete unwillingness to turn the same kind of sneering assessment they habitually apply to the extra-Labour left on their own efforts and on Labour more generally. <br /><br />It's one thing to say that "the workers" don't want socialism at the moment. That's self evidently true. But the reality is that on a whole range of political questions, the rank and file of the Labour Party is to the right of the population as a whole. What does that tell us about the likely benefits for small groups of socialists of hiding in Labour?<br /><br />It's one thing to say that the extra-Labour left is smaller than it was 20 years ago, and few people would argue with that. But what does the far more devestating and complete collapse of the Labour left tell us? Why is it that an extra-Labour left which you apparently feel is worthy of such scorn can mobilise many, many more activists than the Labour left can? Why is that the LRC's attempt at a youth wing would have been regarded as embarrassingly small by runts of the litter like Workers Power? Why do LRC conferences attract so many less people than conferences put on by the extra-Labour left? Why are campaigns on just about every issue dominated by the extra-Labour left while Labour lefts are a much smaller presence?<br /><br />What does all of this tell you about the functionality of hiding in New Labour as a response to the setbacks of the last 25 years? It's one thing to want to draw lessons from the failures of the extra-Labour left, but you people are completely incapable of honestly assessing the lessons of the far greater failures of the Labour left.Mark Pnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-23488146499916630192011-01-27T14:15:16.009+00:002011-01-27T14:15:16.009+00:00Too true Boffy.
I remember a meeting at which a s...Too true Boffy.<br /><br />I remember a meeting at which a senior and long-serving SPer actually said he thought it was time for new "red" trade unions to be formed on the basis of something or other to do with Unite that had annoyed him and made him reach the conclusion the existing unions were worthless.<br /><br />As you say Boffy - if that's the solution, let them go for it. The IWW might be a good place to start such a project with its estimated 200 members in the UK.<br /><br />Interestingly it's also what the BNP have tried to do with their laughable "Solidarity" outfit. <br /><br />They, of course, do it on the basis that the unions are TOO left-wing and Marxist in character as opposed to the other end.<br /><br />Guess you can't win!Alex Dawsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14197211489381075789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-26774692417494182372011-01-27T12:05:27.445+00:002011-01-27T12:05:27.445+00:00Mike,
You stole the reply I was going to make to ...Mike,<br /><br />You stole the reply I was going to make to Mark. My only differene would be that I actually WOULD criticise the leadership of PCS for their collapse over the Pension fight, and their agreement to a two tier workforce in the process. Even a decent left reformist militant should have stood firm against that. But, the reason they didn't was that in reality although they had been elected, they had not been elected by a majority of PCS members, and had built only an electoral support not a real political support for the ideas they proclaim to support - even those Left Reformist Economistic ideas on pay, pensions and conditions, let alone any revolutionary ideas -and so they were left in the position Engels describes of such leaders in his "The Peasant War in Germany". So, they had to face the reality and cave in in order to remain in their positions. Where such people have been told to toe the line by their organisation they have in many cases simply resigned from their organisations.<br /><br />If they were true to their principles they would follow the path trod by Galicia and the other sectarians I have describe above, or those attacked by Lenin in Left-Wing Communism. They would protect themselves against the danger of being dragged to the Right by reformist workers and their organisations like the Trades Unions. They would leave those unions and establish their own "pure" revolutionary unions.<br /><br />From the votes the sectarian are able to garner from workers for their ideas in elections, we know how succesful such unions would be. But, I tend to agree with Engels in this matter. I wonder why Marxists bother with them. Let them go off and create their own "pure" Labour Movement that meets their requirements. Let them sink into oblivion.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-85119068614595635512011-01-27T11:15:55.300+00:002011-01-27T11:15:55.300+00:00Marks arguments are theoretically valid and intell...Marks arguments are theoretically valid and intellectually understandable, but completely purist in nature and detached from the objective reality on the ground as Mike correctly points out.<br /><br />Mark - I never started out as a "revolutionary socialist" and to correct you, I would never have described myself as this, even at the height of my activism in the Socialist Party. <br /><br />My experience of looking to revolutionary socialism were as a union rep annoyed with low pay when working for a very rich employer - a pretty classic Marxist route - at a time when the traditional workers political voice was busily in office waging illegal wars abroad and privatising things at home and being "intensely relaxed" about bankers raping everyone for money.<br /><br />Today, I remain a trade unionist committed to making things better for members at work in whatever way is possible, and also ultimately wanting to challenge and replacing the system of profit and exploitation with one that is fair and humane.<br /><br />As I have said many times, IF a new and serious political formation were to come into being, I would reconsider my position. I actively sought to build one for a time and would actually be glad if the left managed to get over itself and build an alternative as it would help shift the wider political discourse back to the left - as evidenced in Germany.<br /><br />However, I believe that politically it isn't possible to do this at the current time.<br /><br />You can call me a "social democrat" in some kind of bizarre Third Period insult if you like, but my position as regards what I believe in has never changed.<br /><br />We can carry on pretending we're in the political situation we were 10 years ago if we want - a dominant and disgraceful New Labour government enacting the worst excesses of Blairs quasi-religious bidding while an insignificant Tory rump appeared to be withering and dying, meaning an urgent need to form a political alternative on the left for working people.<br /><br />Or we can realise we are in an entirely different situation with a resurgent Tory government and with workers once again looking to the Labour party for a fighting route - as evidenced, yet again today, by a poll that gives Labour 43 points - therefore a clear indication that the bulk of the public wanting opposition against cuts have politically homed in on Labour again.<br /><br />I'm sure you're going to come back with a load more stuff about us moving to the right and being "comfortably ensconced" in some bourgeois bubble while you and the other prolier-than-thous battle on pure of heart and mind safe in the knowledge that, even if you make no difference to anything at all, you can say on your deathbed that you were right all along.<br /><br />And to be honest that would confirm to me exactly why I left the SP.Alex Dawsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14197211489381075789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-50951089267968646702011-01-27T05:23:04.658+00:002011-01-27T05:23:04.658+00:00Mark P
Tell us, what is 'distinctively revolu...Mark P<br /><br />Tell us, what is 'distinctively revolutionary' about the political practice of the leadership of PCS?<br /><br />Many of the union leadership are members of the SP or are politically very close to the SP. Does PCS as a union support the CNWP? No. Does the union presently hold any policies which could be described as 'distinctively revolutionary'? No. <br /><br />In terms of the day-to-day work of industrial politics, what distinguishes PCS from, say, the RMT or NUJ? Not much.<br /><br />This is not to criticise the PCS leadership. Because they deal with workers as they really are, they understand that pursuing socialist politics under present conditions requires a step-by-step approach. That means, as a first step, building collective self confidence around defending jobs, pay, services and so on. At some future point, under different political conditions, opportunities to adopt a more explicitly socialist approach may arise.<br /><br />What exactly is the point of developing a ‘revolutionary programme’ when there is no constituency of any significance that is willing to support it? You, and those like you, appear incapable of confronting the reality of what most workers actually think. <br /><br />How many more appallingly low votes for TUSC candidates does there have to be before you begin to realise that the conditions for building Leninist parties of any size are simply not present?<br /><br />The task for socialists is to come to terms with the extremely difficult political conditions they confront and work out ways of moving whatever union or party they are members of in a direction that will prepare the way for a possible revival of socialist politics.<br /><br />Alternatively, you can always substitute anger and frustration for analysis and argument – and become a political zombie in the process. You appear to have chosen the latter course.Mike Fnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-34616831435031167942011-01-26T17:15:47.873+00:002011-01-26T17:15:47.873+00:00Finally a note on the Labour Representation Commit...Finally a note on the Labour Representation Committee. Firstly, it is of note as an organisation precisely because it is the last remaining institution of the Labour left, reflecting the obliteration of the Labour left as a social force. Secondly, and this fact is notoriously absent from the remarks of ex-revolutionaries now nestling at Labour's bosom, it is a reformist organisation with inadequate politics from a Marxist perspective. <br /><br />Thirdly, I did not at all exaggerate its impotence when I pointed out that it gathers markedly less people than the larger organisations of the extra Labour left; that it's failed attempt at a youth wing would be regarded as embarrassingly small by the likes of Workers Power; that it does little between talking shop conferences. These are all rather easily verifiable facts. Now these facts do not make work in the LRC inherently worthless, but we should expect revolutionaries to acknowledge and adapt to these facts if they were actually serious about doing revolutionary work. That instead they bridle at these rather mild criticisms of their reformist political focus tells us just how serious they are about their "revolutionary socialism".Mark Pnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-66339600886108349932011-01-26T17:14:59.460+00:002011-01-26T17:14:59.460+00:00And there we go:
There's a whole load of self...And there we go:<br /><br />There's a whole load of self-pitying bluster from Phil and Loz about how they are being demonized and when it comes to describing their political practice in New Labour...<br /><br />Well it's exactly the sort of practice we might expect from a good, solid, honest social democrat trying to shift his local Labour Party branch away from neo-liberalism and back towards good old fashioned social democracy. And if I were a good solid social democrat, I might even be impressed. Well, if I was a good solid social democrat and inclined to take Phil and Loz's self assessments at face value I might be impressed, but let's do just that for the purposes of this discussion.<br /><br />What exactly differentiates Phil and Loz's practice as self described socialist revolutionaries from the practice of a solid, sincere, thoroughly anti-revolutionary, social democrat? The answer is nothing at all.<br /><br />That leads to a second question: Is revolutionary socialist political work in a mass organisation distinct in important ways from the work that a social democrat would carry out? <br /><br />Let me suggest to you that the answer is yes, that there should in fact be some difference between Phil the social democrat and Phil the revolutionary socialist which is detectable to the naked eye and goes beyond interspersing an occasional article about Gramsci in amongst his panegyrics to the wonders of Ed Balls and his critical but friendly remarks on Tristram Hunt on his blog.<br /><br />Even when Labour actually was a social democratic party, far to the left of what it is now, it exercised an extremely strong pull to the right on the politics of revolutionary socialists within it. British left wing history consists in very large part of the story of well meaning revolutionaries "going native" in the reformist swamp. Some of the ways in which revolutionaries attempted to combat this drift were through political clarity and argument and revolutionary organisation.<br /><br />The work of people like Phil and Loz involves none of this. They are not seeking to win people over to revolutionary (as opposed to reformist) politics. They are not trying to work out a revolutionary programme. They are not putting forward a coherent strategy for revolutionaries to follow within Labour. They are not organising for revolutionary socialism (and despite Phil deliberately misrepresenting my point by talking about "cadre organisations", I mean by this that they are not organising in any form or way).<br /><br />There is nothing at all distinctively revolutionary about their practice. From the point of view of someone who did not happen to know that the two of them were once members of a Marxist organisation, there is absolutely no reason why anybody would take them for anything but solid, honest, social democrats. <br /><br />Now it's possible that Phil or Loz might come back and tell me that in fact revolutionary work today is simply the work of solid old fashioned reformism, that there should be and is in fact nothing to differentiate the two. That's an argument I'm willing to go into, but let's be clear it is certainly not an argument that is compatible with the claims of people like Phil that his politics haven't changed and that he just has a different tactical analysis of the possibilities open to work in New Labour.<br /><br />Phil's politics are adapting to the milieu he finds himself - a small, scattered and bewildered milieu of reformists trying to shift a neo-liberal party back towards reformism. The evolution of his opinions makes perfect sense in this context.Mark Pnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-44779861721203905232011-01-26T17:07:41.778+00:002011-01-26T17:07:41.778+00:00Phil,
Being in the LP always has a danger from th...Phil,<br /><br />Being in the LP always has a danger from the lure of Labourism. I think this is over played by Leninists. After all the basis of Labourism i.e. reformism does not reside within the LP. It resides within the Trades Unions who created the LP, and upon which it continues to rest. Trades Unions are THE definitive reformist organisation as every Marxist learns from day one. However, the Trades Unions and their reformist nature are themselves only a reflection of the material conditions of the working-class, and the Capital-Labour relation itself, i.e. the fact that workers have to sell Labour Power, and in doing so reproduce themselves and capital, and existing social relations.<br /><br />If you are worried about the lure of Labourism then logically, not only is it necessary to stand aside from the labourist/reformist Trades Unions, but also from the Capital-Labour relation itself i.e. to become a drop out. Now various sectarians at times - like Garcia in Mexico I've referred to above have drawn the logical conclusion and refused to work in reformist TU's, but its the same kind of attitude that has led the sects to effectively isolate themselves from the real working-class for fear of contagion, and that is why they are irrelevant, why they are left making pointless denunciations rather like Garcia's posting of his "Manifesto" on the wall.<br /><br />Of course, you are right about material conditions determining consciousness, and for the working class as a whole, as opposed to the few who periodically break out of the domination of bourgeois ideology, the only possible means of transforming consciousness IS by transforming material conditions i.e. breaking the Capital-Labour nexus in the way Marx describes in numerous places by the workers themselves becoming the bosses through the establishment of workers Co-operatives.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-90741712514337602282011-01-26T16:42:49.994+00:002011-01-26T16:42:49.994+00:00Trotsky in other words is proposing the same kind ...Trotsky in other words is proposing the same kind of strategy as that proposed by Lenin in 1920 when he attempted to get large, western Capitalist countries to invest in Russia. Its interesting that the same kind of strategy today adopted by the Stalinists in China and Cuba, or by New Labour in the form of PFI can only provoke the ire of the sectarians. But, Trotsky had to deal with the same kind of sectarianism himself from the Mexican sectarians, and their co-thinkers such as the Oehlerites in the US. The sectarians not only attacked Cardenas for failing to nationalise the oil companies without compensation, but attacked Trotsky for not himself criticising Cardenas for that failure. One of the main leaders of the Mexican section, Luciano Galicia, to pose the problem in these terms:<br /><br />“Comrade Trotsky turns his back on his own principles when it comes to Mexico [by giving unconditional support to the law expropriating foreign oil—AB] because his foremost concern is to preserve his right to political asylum in Mexico.”<br /><br />In response, Trotsky wrote a reply in which he says, that they were applying his Theory of permanent Revolution mechanically, and as a consequence attempting to “jump over stages” of the historical process in order to arrive directly at the proletarian revolution, rather than taking the working-class in Mexico as they were, and working with them. Describing Galicia and the sectarians in terms that equally apply to today's sects he says,<br /><br />“Petty-bourgeois windbags restrict themselves to criticism, protests, and conversations.”<br /><br />(Problems of the Mexican Section – Writings 1938-9)<br /><br />And in “For The Reorganisation of the Mexican Section” (writings 1937-8), Trotsky ridiculed this kind of sectarianism when he wrote, of the action of Galicia and his group to post their criticisms of Cardenas not to nationalise without compensation on the way of the left-wing Bakers Union.<br /><br />“This is the 'policy' of these people.”<br /><br />In <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/xx/mexico03.htm" rel="nofollow">Nationalized Industry<br />and Workers’ Management</a>, Trotsky says, <br /><br />“What should be the policy of the workers’ party in this case? It would of course be a disastrous error, an outright deception, to assert that the road to socialism passes, not through the proletarian revolution, but through nationalization by the bourgeois state of various branches of industry and their transfer into the hands of the workers’ organizations.”<br /><br />Which is something the current defenders of State capitalism should bear in mind. He goes on, to argue that where as in Mexico the State is forced by economic conditions to invite the workers to participate in the management, revolutionaries cannot refuse to do so, because the workers would not understand such a position, but he goes on to illustrate exactly what the problems with such participation are. Its a useful document to read.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-15466186739260084732011-01-26T16:42:08.386+00:002011-01-26T16:42:08.386+00:00In 1938, the Mexican Government produced its Secon...In 1938, the Mexican Government produced its Second Six Year Plan. At the time Mexico was ruled by a bourgeois Bonapartist regime under Cardenas, which has some resemblance to the regime under Chavez in Venezuela today. Trotsky was at this time in exile in Mexico, and Stalin was trying to get him thrown out of the country, as he had done elsewhere. When the Cardenas' regime nationalised the British oil companies, the bourgeoisie probably with the support of Stalin, attempted to portray this as the work of Trotsky. There are two important documents written by Trotsky at the time which are relevant to the discussion over how to go about revolutionary criticism and politics.<br /><br />Firstly, Trotsky wrote directly about the Second Six Year Plan. In one section he writes about the problems of Governments and State's which seek to bring about economic growth, and transformation through investment without the necessary resources.<br /><br />“Considerable international capital is seeking areas of investment at the present time, even where only a modest (but sure) return is possible. Turning one’s back on foreign capital and speaking of collectivisation and industrialisation is mere intoxication with words...<br /><br />“The reactionaries are wrong when they say that the expropriation of the oil companies has made the influx of new capital impossible. The government defends the vital resources of the country, but at the same time it can grant industrial concessions, above all in the form of mixed corporations, i.e. enterprises in which the government participates (holding 10 percent, 25 percent, 51 percent of the stock, according to the circumstances) and writes into the contracts the option of buying out the rest of the stock after a certain period of time. This government participationwould have the advantage of educating native technical and administrative personnel in collaboration with the best engineers and organisers of other countries. The period fixed in the contract before the optional buying out of the enterprise would create the necessary confidence among capital investors. The rate of industrialisation would be accelerated...<br /><br />“The authors of the program wish to completely construct state capitalism within a period of six years. But nationalising existing enterprises is one thing; creating new ones with limited means on virgin soil is another.<br /><br />History knows only one example of an industry created under state supervision – the USSR. But,<br /><br />a) a socialist revolution was necessary;<br />b) the industrial heritage of the past played an important role<br />c) the public debt was cancelled (1.5 billion pesos a year).<br /><br />Despite all these advantages the industrial reconstruction of the country was begun with the granting of concessions. Lenin accorded great importance to these concessions for the economic development of the country and for the technical and administrative education of Soviet personnel. There has been no socialist revolution in Mexico. The international situation does not even allow for the cancellation of the public debt. The country we repeat is poor. Under such conditions it would be almost suicidal to close the doors to foreign capital. To construct state capitalism, capital is necessary.”Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-3870739412856055082011-01-26T15:54:06.301+00:002011-01-26T15:54:06.301+00:00Mod, what Boffy said.Mod, what Boffy said.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-24761986029755795692011-01-26T15:44:23.526+00:002011-01-26T15:44:23.526+00:00DB, there is always going to be the 'lure'...DB, there is always going to be the 'lure' of Labourism when you're a member of the Labour party. There is no escaping it. You can, for instance, see the degree to which Militant adapted itself to Labourism - and this is despite its schooling in Trotskyism and the ground breaking theories of Ted Grant.<br /><br />Social being conditions consciousness and being inside the party will always be a challenge to revolutionary socialists. I found it quite difficult at first because the culture was extremely different. In the SP our branch had a fairly democratic culture, though it was very much absent at a wider level, but nevertheless the culture of comradeship was there. In Labour it was anything but. That said I did join as a pretty vicious local factional battle reached its climax.<br /><br />Since then I sought out positions Id find most comfortable - the Political Education Officer and Trade Union Liaison. This allowed me to carry on doing pretty much the kind of stuff I was used to. Also I joined around the same time as a gaggle of ex-SP comrades - having a collection of comrades from similar backgrounds and views has an insulating effect, as well as providing sounding boards for thinking about what to do. <br /><br />If you haven't got that, I'd recommend you keep a leg out of the party and carry on with the protesting and trade union stuff and get involved with the LRC and/or any other grouping that takes your fancy.<br /><br />Lastly in my case carrying on with the blogging has been very useful for keeping my politics and actions on the straight and narrow. As much as I disagree with Mark's criticisms, I'd rather he makes them than didn't.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-77487463547636240062011-01-26T15:30:36.418+00:002011-01-26T15:30:36.418+00:00"Tbh Mod I didn't think it was necessary ...<i>"Tbh Mod I didn't think it was necessary to flag up Ed Balls reputation because I took it as read that readers would be aware I didn't approve of his less than ideal politics and behaviour (did you see what I did there?) "</i><br /><br />Sorry Phil, it has NOTHING to do with reputation, it has everything to do with history and what people *do*, what Ed Balls did.<br /><br />Politicians and politicos have a long history of airbrushing, conveniently forgetting, taking "as read" certain items, the net result is the downplaying of the *certain* issues.<br /><br />And that is happening on **three blogs**, not just yours.<br /><br />Coincidentally, blogs which are playing down criticism of the useless Labour Party leaders strangely enough belong to LP members.<br /><br />So in the end, it is just a form of "particularism". Pity.modernitynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-74536940695783447202011-01-26T15:25:39.367+00:002011-01-26T15:25:39.367+00:00Mark, your argument encapsulates precisely why the...Mark, your argument encapsulates precisely why the SP will never get anywhere. To ascribe people like me and Loz who you apparently see as "mistaken comrades" "foolish bordering on demented" isn't a way of winning friends and influencing people. Having been cast as an outsider who is fair game since daring to analyse and criticise the poor performance of the far left as a whole in the general election, I can now see why many comrades on the outside regard the SP and its tradition as intolerant, bristly and brittle.<br /><br />Re: the Labour left, it is a bit rich to be lectured on what is and isn't possible in a party you and your tradition have had no direct experience of for nearly 20 years. Conditions change, and that is precisely what has happened. I have argued at length on here that the space to Labour's left has more or less closed and the opportunity for socialists has opened out. For you because what was and wasn't possible during the Blair years has been frozen into a dogma applicable for all time. You don't need to take my word for it. The pronouncements in your press about Labour will only consider it worthy of joining again if it adopts a a left reformist programme and stands up for working class interests. You know that's never going to happen, and you also know - despite the mythology your propaganda has spun - that Labour has never been like this.<br /><br />Therefore your pronouncements on the LRC, while true a few years ago, are totally out of date now. Because it is embedded in the one party the organised working class looks to it has an incipient mass character TUSC or whatever electoral lash up you come up with will always lack. The LRC is far better placed to influence trade unions and the tens of thousands of new members than the SP and, what is more, its recent conference actually laid out a strategy for broadening its influence.<br /><br />As for the stuff about disciplined cadre organisation, sorry, I don't buy it. Time and again they have proven entirely unsuited to advanced capitalist societies. You can only go so long blaming the 'balance of forces' before you realise there is something fundamentally unsound about its appeal to even class conscious workers. So yes, it is a matter of principle. It's one that turns around a realistic assessment of the opportunities for pushing the labour movement in a socialist direction versus nearly five decades of repetitive dogmatism with very little to show for it. <br /><br />I will carry on doing the stuff Loz describes, pushing the envelope here, introducing a bit of socialist argument there, encouraging people to get involved in trade unions, protest activity and so on. That might not be to your taste - fine. But all I'm doing is pretty much exactly the same stuff I did in your organisation, except without having to convince people to part with 70p for a deadly dull newspaper.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-70915365020288373032011-01-26T14:53:24.762+00:002011-01-26T14:53:24.762+00:00Tbh Mod I didn't think it was necessary to fla...Tbh Mod I didn't think it was necessary to flag up Ed Balls reputation because I took it as read that readers would be aware I didn't approve of his less than ideal politics and behaviour (did you see what I did there?)<br /><br />The point of the piece was to welcome his appointment as someone who can harry the Tories' hapless record on the economy and who would push Labour policy in a better direction. That's all.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-73781831636805657672011-01-26T14:39:42.895+00:002011-01-26T14:39:42.895+00:00Loz,
Pretty spot on. Who says that revolutionary...Loz,<br /><br />Pretty spot on. Who says that revolutionary socialist activity in the LP means the very narrow definition of winning the odd person to revolutionary socialism? That is certainly the role that the sects have set for themselves, and it has been pretty useless as a strategy. It was not what marx and Engels viewed as revolutionary politics. They saw their involvement in the German Democrats not in that vein, or even in the vein of transforming what was a bourgeois party to socialism, but merely that they needed to be there in order to be able to speak to the mass of workers, because it was to the Democrats that the German workers turned.<br /><br />It was also the strategy that Engels described to US socialists towards the end of his life, saying bluntly that it was far more important to mobilise a few million people on an inadequate platform than to mobilise a few thousand on a perfect one. Trotsky took a similar line in the 1930's. He made no fetish of making day to day work impossible by insisting on tokenistic attacks on the Party leaders. Actually there is a good article by him I'll look up attacking the Mexican sectarians for that approach.<br /><br />The problem is that the sects think that "attacking the leadership" is the essence of revoluiotnary political activity as opposed to actually getting on with working with real workers - many of whom would actually be put off here and now by such attacks. I know lots of Labour left worker militants who were very critical of Blair, and before that Callaghan, but would out of Party loyalty defend them to the hilt against anyone outside who attacked them. That kind of criticism is much better done inside the tent than out. Its easier to criticise the inadequate reformist nature of Ed Balls Keynesianism, if you do it from the inside, and in a calm way that locates what he gets right as against the Tories with what is wrong or limited with it, than if you simply denounce him.<br /><br />Moreover, in response to Mod I'd say that your question "Why?" is a bit of a "Have you stopped beating your wife question?" isn;t it, ebcause to provide an answer to why would require accepting the premise of your argument, which is that those comrades have failed to make criticisms of the Labour leaders.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.com