SWP's internal regime: Email thought crimes and the Left Platform

[Q]

In this article in the Weekly Worker this week (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/798/emailthought.php) an analysis is made on pre-conference bulletin IB3. It shows the thoroughly bureaucratic regime in which the SWP operates. I couldn't help but see many parallels with my experiences in the Dutch SP, with the key difference that the SWP is supposedly revolutionary :rolleyes:


Email thought crimes and the Left Platform

The SWP central committee has made its intentions regarding the opposition Left Platform crystal-clear, writes Peter Manson. John Rees, Lindsey German, Chris Nineham and their supporters now look set to be charged with ‘factionalism’ and expelled

In the third and last of the Socialist Workers Party’s 2009 Pre-conference Bulletin (also known as the Internal Bulletin - IB No3), which has just been published, the final contribution to this 96-page document is that of the CC itself, entitled ‘With democracy comes responsibility and accountability’.

The article attempts to justify the recent expulsions of two Left Platform comrades and the disciplining of a third by reproducing emails that allegedly incriminate them. They purport to show that a group of members have been engaged in political cooperation outside official SWP structures and outside the three-month period before conference when temporary factions are permitted.

The CC statement reads: “... it became clear to a very large number of comrades that, far from putting last year’s arguments to one side and helping implement the perspectives that the vast majority of the party had agreed to, a small group of comrades were involved in secret, and in some cases not so secret, factional activities.”

The reproduced emails all predate the current pre-conference period when temporary factions like the Reesite Left Platform are allowed - the SWP annual conference is to be held over the weekend of January 8-10 - but, says the CC, “permanent factions are not permitted in our organisation”. This “ensures that the party is not paralysed”, the membership is informed.

There is a bitter dispute about how the CC got hold of the three emails it reproduces. While the leadership claims they were leaked by a “concerned member”, disciplined Left Platform supporter James Meadway insists that an SWP leader used the password of expelled comrade Claire Solomon to hack into them. However, the CC, while denying this, dismisses it as irrelevant - the emails exist and they prove factionalism. And, since one of them was sent to comrades Rees, German and Nineham, it is pretty clear that these three factional leaders (and former leaders of the SWP itself, of course) are also in the firing line.

The email sent to Rees, German and Nineham (amongst other Left Platform members) was written in August by comrade Meadway. Addresses beginning “[email protected]”, “[email protected]” and “[email protected]” (the rest has been blacked out in every case) are shown in the ‘CC’ box. The fact that a group of comrades has exchanged emails is, in itself, a disciplinary offence, it seems, since these emails provide the sole basis of the charge of factionalism against the members concerned (although no action has, of yet, been taken against comrades Rees, German and Nineham).

Comrade Meadway’s email discussed the number of visitors to the Stop the War Coalition website. As the three faction leaders are all key STWC workers, it is hardly surprising that he should copy them in. This email was also sent to Elaine Graham-Leigh, another STWC worker and Left Platform member. Meadway states that a good number of ‘visits by source’ to the STWC site come from Facebook and Twitter, and there are also a large number linked from ARSSE, the unofficial soldiers’ bulletin board. However, only 17 visits in a month came from the Socialist Worker website, which comrade Meadway said was “an indication of how much coverage SW is giving to Stop the War” (the Left Platform contends that the CC is deliberately downplaying the importance of the coalition).

Meadway also gave statistics for the Counterfire site, run by fellow Left Platform comrade Ady Cousins, who was later instructed by the CC to close it down, and commented: “Facebook, Youtube and Twitter are serving us well.” All this is supposed to show that Counterfire and presumably the STWC are regarded by the Reesites as factional.

Comrade Snowdon’s email was sent to Claire Solomon and copied to Left Platform supporters, including German, Meadway and Tony Dowling, who has been publicly reprimanded by the Tyneside district of the SWP for “bureaucratic conduct” in his role as secretary of the National Shop Stewards Network in the north-east. Snowdon advises Solomon how to behave at the meeting she has been summoned to attend with CC members Hannah Dee and (the late) Chris Harman. He points out that the ‘Mutiny’ event she had organised, about which the CC was expressing paranoiac suspicions, involved “various non-members” of the SWP and was not a “factional initiative”. He also advised her to “delay, delay, delay” - she would be safer once the official pre-conference period had begun. This email was considered sufficient grounds for comrade Snowdon to be expelled.

Solomon’s own ‘incriminating’ email - to the same group of comrades - merely expressed nervousness at having to face the CC - the clearest indication that her ‘crime’ lay exclusively in the sending of it. This email was the only evidence needed to secure her expulsion.

Meadway points out in a separate contribution in the same issue of the Pre-conference Bulletin that “Our existing rules on factions do not fit a world of instant group communication.” As he says, all you have to do is click on ‘cc’ and - hey presto - you have a faction. Indeed any two comrades who discuss SWP business and agree on a joint approach on any question can be accused of factionalising. It must be particularly difficult for activists like comrades Rees and German, who happen to be partners, to avoid mentioning ‘the party’ in their private conversations.

Excluded

IB No3 is totally dominated by the CC-LP faction fight, with both sides slugging it out in numerous contributions. Most of the others are coloured by it too. Although all LP submissions have clearly been published, the comrades complain that in other respects the CC is refusing to enter into democratic debate and has done its utmost to ensure that LP delegates elected to conference are kept to a minimum.

A group of Left Platform comrades, including Lindsey German, have written ‘Is this what democracy looks like? (part 2)’ - part 1 was in IB No2. Here it is alleged that “District committees (often only a handful of comrades) have been instructed to draw up a ‘recommended list’ which excludes all LP members, whatever their record. So people elected virtually every year have been excluded from the list, apparently for putting their names on a piece of paper.

“... in Norwich it was argued that only eight delegates instead of the entitled nine should go in order to exclude a longstanding and active member who supports LP ... Now, of course, people are entitled to vote against LP in a contested election. But it is completely outside our tradition to refuse to allow someone to go even where there is no competition for delegates.”

What is more, a good number of SWP full-timers and national committee members (the latter being entitled to attend as observers) have been elected as delegates. This, say the LP comrades, creates a conflict of interest and is part of the CC plan to marginalise them.

The leadership denies none of this. In ‘With democracy comes responsibility and accountability’ the CC explains: “... in the run-up to conference, when a faction has been declared, it is no surprise that many comrades vote according to their views on the different perspectives outlined. It is not serious to suggest ... that comrades should automatically go to conference because they have ‘decades of experience’.”

What is more, “It is up to comrades in each district to decide who they elect to conference. They can vote to send their full entitlement or just one person if they wish. If they do not wish to send someone to conference because they do not represent the views of the district, that is comrades’ right.”

So let me get this straight. Comrades should deliberately seek to exclude from the organisation’s sovereign body dedicated, experienced activists merely because they are proposing a different perspective (and it has to be said that the real differences are actually those of nuance - although both sides have attempted to blow them up out of all proportion to cover up a split based largely on personal clashes). And it is perfectly all right to send “just one person” instead of nine, even if those excluded have something pertinent to say?

Democracy

If the SWP leadership was really concerned with democracy, it would strive to ensure that all minority views were represented at conference roughly in proportion to their influence. That way, the arguments can be thrashed out and the most appropriate decisions are more likely to be made.

But the leadership is not concerned with democracy. It believes that important decisions are best left to the CC itself. After all, SWP membership is open to anyone who fills in an application form and if such people, as opposed to wise, experienced comrades like Martin Smith and Alex Callinicos, were allowed collective control over the whole organisation, inevitably huge errors would be made. But comrades like Smith and Callinicos are also capable of huge errors. The best means of trying to prevent them is precisely through democracy and the accountability of the few to the many.

As for the allegation that conference is being stacked in the CC’s favour by electing full-timers, the CC has been looking through the records: “... in 1999 16 full-timers went to conference as delegates and in 2006 eight full-timers were delegates.” But no member of the CC at that time thought there was anything wrong with that.

This, of course, is the problem for comrades Rees, German and Nineham. The current CC is merely carrying on the good old SWP tradition of bureaucratic control-freakery, of which Rees himself was an expert. As if they themselves would not try to exclude minorities and rivals - we in the CPGB know from our experience in the Socialist Alliance and especially Respect that minorities were frozen out as conference delegates using exactly the same methods as are now being employed against the Left Platform.

It is the same with the LP contention that, “In aggregate after aggregate there has been a concerted operation to stop every supporter of the Left Platform from getting delegated. This is justified on the extraordinary grounds that our conference is ‘not a debating society’ and ‘not a place where we want to go over these arguments’.” That too has been the argument used by the likes of Rees in the past.

And it is parroted by a naive SWPer, “Richard (Coventry)”, who writes: “I don’t think it’s crucial whether or not any Left Platform supporters get to conference, precisely because the debate has been had at the aggregates.” But that is not the experience of John from South London, who is clearly not a supporter of any SWP grouping: “I had my hand up right at the start of our aggregate and at times throughout ... but was not called during the 90-odd minutes.”

However, the CC argument is that, “It is vital that we all come to conference united and every member has to do their best to implement the perspective that has been democratically agreed. That is the basis of democratic centralism. We cannot afford to have another year where a small number of comrades continue to fight last year’s battles.”

Note that the CC demands a united conference from the beginning. Not after the debates have been had. Mind you, discussion at SWP conferences does not take the form of motions being proposed, supported and opposed and then put to the vote. There are instead CC-controlled ‘commissions’, which channel what little debate there is along the required lines.

But even this can be jeopardised by the presence of too many awkward oppositionists - controversy and the clear articulation of rival perspectives is the last thing the leadership wants. That would only confuse the naive rookies, whose role it is to be inspired by clear, uncomplicated calls to action. And that too was how comrade Rees saw it when he was the SWP number one.

But now Left Platform comrades complain bitterly when the tables are turned. “Neil (St Albans)” - who is identified by the CC in a separate contribution as LP member Neil Faulkner - claims that “At least three articles submitted to the ISJ [the International Socialism quarterly SWP journal] by members of Left Platform have been rejected” - including a paper submitted by himself.

He goes on: “Despite this the arguments it contains have been caricatured and attacked, both in meetings and in documents ... This is a thoroughly undemocratic procedure, since ordinary comrades are in no position to judge for themselves ... The same method was employed by the Stalinists against Trotsky in the mid-20s. They refused to publish his work and then denounced him by caricaturing his arguments. It is the method of an apparatus, not that of a revolutionary party.”

It is also the method of John Rees, who, now that he finds himself in a minority, has suddenly discovered that minority rights are a good idea after all. So his Left Platform writes: “If there is a disagreement with the leadership’s perspective, it is not just the right, but the responsibility, of comrades to put their argument. This view was supported at the democracy commission conference ... Factions allow comrades to develop alternative positions so that the party as a whole can decide the way forward.

“The central committee have responded to the faction not by facilitating debate, but by personalised attacks, centralising the election process of candidates to conference and campaigning to exclude Left Platform supporters from conference.”

Is this really the same John Rees who previously presided over the SWP’s bureaucratic regime? The John Rees who ludicrously condemned the CC’s democracy commission sop as a “House of Lords”? The John Rees who opposed factions, but now seems to imply that they are a normal healthy component of party life? The (correct) argument above surely applies to permanent, all-year-round factions, not just the three-monthly pre-conference entities that are allowed to exist by kind permission of the leadership.

Intolerance

But pro-leadership comrades have reacted with varying degrees of intolerance. So Raymond, who identifies himself as the Unite fraction convenor, writes: “Comrades in the Left Platform ... harbour a fetish for a caricature of democratic centralism, nostalgia for a bygone age of ... decisive leadership, where comrades know their place and simply obey the latest commands from the centre.”

John (Home Counties) argues that “this is not a faction at all” because it is a coalition of conservatism and ultra-leftism, while Ged, Adam and Paris from Leeds refer to “John Rees and the renegades and charlatans of the Left Platform”.

Eight pro-leadership comrades from Newcastle allege: “The way that the north-east supporters of John Rees have behaved over the entirety of the past year (not just in the pre-conference period)” has been to avoid debate and operate “independently of the decisions taken in the district”. They have been engaged in “persistent factional activity”. “The Left Platform meeting in Sunderland had the stench of those who had already burnt their bridges with the party.” This is a call for their expulsion if ever there was one.

And surely that is the veiled threat contained in the CC assertion that “We cannot afford to have another year where a small number of comrades continue to fight last year’s battles.” But who is it who determines which battles are those of last year? It is ludicrous to pretend that once conference has taken a decision (especially a conference so lacking in genuine democratic debate as that of the SWP) it cannot be revisited. What if the original decision was wrong? What if circumstances have changed?

Then there is the implication that debate and action cannot coexist. For most of the year the job of the members, no matter how politically experienced, is to unquestioningly follow the leadership’s instructions. In fact all decisions should be constantly revisited and open to challenge, with the sole proviso that this does not actually interfere with the successful prosecution of an action.

What the SWP needs is a totally different regime - a regime based on genuine democratic centralism.

We say:


For the right of all comrades to come together in loose networks or disciplined factions at any time of the year.
For the right to speak and publish openly in order to facilitate thorough debate and considered decisions.
For the representation of contesting viewpoints in all forums, including conference, to be encouraged.
Reinstate Claire Solomon and Alex Snowdon. Lift the disciplinary restrictions on James Meadway.
Defend John Rees and the Left Platform against central committee gerrymandering.

IB No 3 can be downloaded from the CPGB’s website here (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/documents/SWP%20preconf%20bulletin%203%202009.pdf).

[bailey_187]

Really interesting, would read again.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Now I wonder it's feasible for someone to fabricate that entire IB3 document. :rolleyes:

[Sam_b]

In this article in the Weekly Worker this week (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/798/emailthought.php)

Well there's a fucking surprise. Do you do anything apart from post Weekly Worker articles about the SWP? They are a group which will be miniscule, and will always stay miniscule, unless they start considering their own party's failures to engage with the working class, and keep their nose out of business which is being dealt with fairly by the relevant committees within the SWP, contrary to the CPGB's sensationalist claims.

Maybe, before posting 'rolling eyes' smilies about groups supposedly being quasi-revolutionary, maybe you should think about your own international tendency that thinks its fine to recruit screws and has threatened to 'grass-up' workers in the past. Or indeed would have continued Britain's imperialist efforts 'along socialist lines' in the 1980s.

[Led Zeppelin]

Do you do anything apart from post Weekly Worker articles about the SWP?

Yeah, that's a good question. I was wondering the same thing.

Gossip is what sects thrive on though so you shouldn't be surprised about this. The SWP is seen as an enemy that needs to be taken down, even more so than any capitalist institution or capitalism as a socio-economic system itself. Why? Because the sect doesn't live to fight capitalism, it doesn't gain anything by that. It lives by attacking others and trying to get recruits from them. In this way it resembles a parasite, or leech, which sucks the blood out of something else in order to sustain its own existence.

A good way to counter such gossip is to just ignore it. No one really cares about such stuff anyway, unless it's people who are already convinced followers of The Faith. And let's not kid ourselves; they're just as irrelevant as the people they follow.

Just smile and move on, like nothing happened. Do you care if you step on an ant in the street? No, of course not. You just move on. Now too, just move on.

[h0m0revolutionary]

A good way to counter such gossip is to just ignore it. No one really cares about such stuff anyway, unless it's people who are already convinced followers of The Faith. And let's not kid ourselves; they're just as irrelevant as the people they follow.

Just smile and move on, like nothing happened. Do you care if you step on an ant in the street? No, of course not. You just move on. Now too, just move on.

Seriously, if the left want to get anywhere then they have to expose the lack of democracy within the left and provide an alternative based around mass participation in the orginisation and enshrined rights for factions and ideological debate and diversity. All of the weekly worker article is true, Sam might be quick to dismiss it as 'sensational', but his lack of rebuttal speaks volumes. I know it to be true, because I know Claire well, I know she was expelled for nothing more than being part of the left platform.

Any leftist group that wishes to offer anything to the class needs to be well versed in democracy. Not allowing factions for another other than several weeks before conference and the way the 'left platform' (incidentally the right wing of the party) have been treated, shows a complete lack of democracy within the organisation.

I don't think democratic centralism means anything, and thank god the SWP are here to offer a perfect example of why it doesn't.

[Sam_b]

Sam might be quick to dismiss it as 'sensational', but his lack of rebuttal speaks volume

Why should I start openly discussing affairs that should be between the SWP membership, and that membership alone?

[Led Zeppelin]

Seriously, if the left want to get anywhere then they have to expose the lack of democracy within the left and provide an alternative based around mass participation in the orginisation and enshrined rights for factions and ideological debate and diversity. All of the weekly worker article is true, Sam might be quick to dismiss it as 'sensational', but his lack of rebuttal speaks volumes. I know it to be true, because I know Claire well, I know she was expelled for nothing more than being part of the left platform.

Any leftist group that wishes to offer anything to the class needs to be well versed in democracy. Not allowing factions for another other than several weeks before conference and the way the 'left platform' (incidentally the right wing of the party) have been treated, shows a complete lack of democracy within the organisation.

I don't think democratic centralism means anything, and thank god the SWP are here to offer a perfect example of why it doesn't.

I think you are committing an error in thinking that the Weekly Wanker is interested in anything other than causing disruption in the ranks of other parties. The story may be true, of course, I'm not denying that. But I'm saying that the entire intention behind the story put forward by the Weekly Wanker is not what you think it is. They aren't doing this to promote democracy or anything like that; their main intention is gossip and the disruption it may cause. Why else would they cry "split" so many times before, when none have happened?

It's like the boy who cried wolf; at some point you gotta stop burning that torch and leave that pitchfork standing. Now in this case you say the story is true because you know the person in question personally. That's fair enough. It is most likely true then. Did you know that it is also true that several sections of the CWI don't even know the most basic idea of democracy, let alone practice it? Does the Weekly Wanker ever spend time on that? I'm sure they do.

Has it changed either the CWI or SWP's stances on democracy over the years? Not one bit. All it has done is create disruption. You have to agree that this whole project is a failure, and something else needs to be taught up. I think that a great movement towards democracy could have been the SWP's attempt to start a forum for unification talks with the other major socialist parties. It is too bad the organizations that happened to be on the upswing didn't feel like going for that. Something like that, that is, real left unity, can give a power impetus to democracy and actually change the organizations and how they function.

Writing sensationalist articles about them though? Nah. That'll only cause the leadership at the top of those parties to be more conservative and weary of any and all movements for change, internally and externally. It's helping a cycle that doesn't bring the movement in general together, but rather helps tear it apart. You should know not to expect much more from neo-Kautskyites, though.

[Hit The North]

I'm so glad the SWP has a political pulse and isn't just some editorial team with a grandiloquent title like the CPGB.

[KC]

Edit

[Pogue]

I think I speak for us all when I say that I sleep easier at night knowing that the CPGB have the SWP covered. Keep up the good work boys!

[Yehuda Stern]

I agree with LZ that there's a big problem with the CPGB's criticism being on the level of rumors and not on the level of politics. Marxists only use organizational criticisms to illustrate political criticisms, otherwise they are meaningless. But really, I get the feeling that all this "the CPGB are a sect, don't listen to them" attitude does more to serve the refusal of SWP members to address their organization's quite obvious lack of democracy, and has very little to do with a principled refusal to discuss internal dirty laundry, which frankly it spilled all over the appropriate media when it is comfortable for some faction of the leadership.

[Revy]

Just because the CPGB is small doesn't mean it acts like a sect. Being large doesn't mean you don't have failed ideas or that your structure is not unwelcoming to dissent and internal criticism. A lack of sectarianism isn't just caused by a heartfelt and warm feeling shared between groups. No. A lack of sectarianism is caused by an open and democratic internal party structure. The majority of the left are not splitters by nature. It's the regimes that pop up that cause people to separate from those groups.

Was it "sectarian" for Trotsky to speak honestly about Stalin? After all, why would we listen to some meek expat somewhere in Mexico, when we can listen to the man of steel behind the wheel of an emerging "socialist" superpower? And certainly, the Purges were just "rumour", reports of people being denounced and threatened on the pages of Pravda were just "gossip", and the situation in the USSR, above all, an "internal matter" for the CPSU.

That's not to compare the brutality of the Stalinist era to the SWP but merely to provide a comparison that shows that the fight for democracy is not sectarian. Furthermore, you cannot act with all this hegemony and expect people to lie down and be quiet when they are expelled by a bureaucracy. The SWP acts sectarian against its own membership. Regardless of how the SWP prefers to ignore the Weekly Worker, the attitude of the leadership toward the party's own opposing factions puts anything said about the CPGB here to shame.

I do not have time to read the SWP's internal bulletins. But I got the picture. The SWP apparently hacked into, or through some other clever means, got ahold of emails between key leaders of the Left Platform and published them for the whole party to see. So really, all I can think about is Stalin's Pravda. The violent element is removed here, but the harassment of dissent, the hunt for subversives, those that think differently, it's very real.

The SWP will split. Or implode. Or become more democratic. Who knows.....but this stalemate can't continue like this forever. It will end, quickly.

[bailey_187]

Was it "sectarian" for Trotsky to speak honestly about Stalin? After all, why would we listen to some meek expat somewhere in Mexico, when we can listen to the man of steel behind the wheel of an emerging "socialist" superpower? And certainly, the Purges were just "rumour", reports of people being denounced and threatened on the pages of Pravda were just "gossip", and the situation in the USSR, above all, an "internal matter" for the CPSU..

The thing is, the goings on inside the CPSU were actually interesting and relevent....(im not endorsing yours of Trotskys WRONG view on the purges and Stalin btw). And before anyone says, Trotsky was not killed for writing on the purges, but for trying to overthrow the Soviet leadership. If Mike Macnair trys to overthrow Callincos, Callinicos can sharpen up his ice pick in my view.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

This thread is like the film Groundhog Day, we have seen it all before: the same old rumours, the same old gossip, the same old sectarian sniping.

No wonder us Trotskyists are a joke.

If Q and others are going to keep posting unsubstantiated rumours (against the SWP, IMT..., whoever), can we change the title of this section from "Politics" to "RevLeft's Gossip Column"?

[Q]

This thread is like the film Groundhog Day, we have seen it all before: the same old rumours, the same old gossip, the same old sectarian sniping.

No wonder us Trotskyists are a joke.

If Q and others are going to keep posting unsubstantiated rumours (against the SWP, IMT..., whoever), can we change the title of this section from "Politics" to "RevLeft's Gossip Column"?

Groundhog Day indeed... This is actually way more substantiated, by your standards, than the IMT thread was. There you called for an official statement. Well, how much more official then IB3 do you want it to get?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


This is actually way more substantiated, by your standards, than the IMT thread was. There you called for an official statement. Well, how much more official then IB3 do you want it to get?

No it isn't; all the Weekly Fabulator did was string together gossip, quotations ripped out of context, rumour and inuendo, and then add 2 and 2 to get 104.

What are you, a Trotskyist, doing quoting a CP rag as if it had come straight off the mountain?

[Q]

Q:



No it isn't; all the Weekly Fabulator did was string together gossip, quotations ripped out of context, rumour and inuendo, and then add 2 and 2 to get 104.

What are you, a Trotskyist, doing quoting a CP rag as if it had come straight off the mountain?

I'm a Trotskyist, concerned about the democratic level of the biggest self-proclaimed revolutionary organisation in the UK. The only facts to base myself on is however the Weekly Worker, sadly. I'm perfectly happy to accept that there is another side of the story aswell, but hey I don't have the time to go through and digest 86 pages of internal bulletin and officially there supposedly don't exist any problems.

The Weekly Worker, for the shortcomings it has as pointed out by KC for example, does a commendable job. That your only defense against it is consisting off the infinitely repeated line "it's all a bunch of gossip!" places you out of the debate and becomes rather spam'ish. That SWP members like Sam_b act as if the issues of the SWP are purely internal and of no concern to the working class is downright sectarian.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


I'm a Trotskyist, concerned about the democratic level of the biggest self-proclaimed revolutionary organisation in the UK. The only facts to base myself on is however the Weekly Worker, sadly. I'm perfectly happy to accept that there is another side of the story aswell, but hey I don't have the time to go through and digest 86 pages of internal bulletin and officially there supposedly don't exist any problems.

1) Then why do you pay heed to this rag?

2) If you 'don't have time' to go through the IB, then you are in no position to pass an informed comment -- so don't.


The Weekly Worker, for the shortcomings it has as pointed out by KC for example, does a commendable job. That your only defense against it is consisting off the infinitely repeated line "it's all a bunch of gossip!" places you out of the debate and becomes rather spam'ish. That SWP members like Sam_b act as if the issues of the SWP are purely internal and of no concern to the working class is downright sectarian.

This 'commendable job' amounts to little other than running regular speculative and gossip-filled articles on the SWP.

And we'll stop calling this "gossip" when you stop posting these troll articles.

[Saorsa]

Lol at Q talking about democracy when he and his admin buddies just dissolved the democratic administrative body of this forum.

[Revy]

Lol at Q talking about democracy when he and his admin buddies just dissolved the democratic administrative body of this forum.

Maybe the situation of political parties matters a lot more than a simple discussion forum.

[Ismail]

Maybe the situation of political parties matters a lot more than a simple discussion forum.Lies. Only through the glories of Marxism-Anarchism shining throughout RevLeft will be international proletariat rise up, imbued with the glorious knowledge of drama and neon avatars.

[Saorsa]

Marxism-anarchism?

[Ismail]

Marxism-anarchism?It is the revolutionary new synthesis of RevLeft's userbase. Not even Avakian could top it.

[Sam_b]

That SWP members like Sam_b act as if the issues of the SWP are purely internal and of no concern to the working class is downright sectarian.

What a load of bullshit, as usual. I guess you don't see the hypocrisy when your section has attacked the class time and time again, in such ways as threatening to call the police on working class demonstrators during the poll tax riots?

As a member of the CWI (sorr,y I mean as a member of the CPGB) you should not see documents that are for the eyes of SWP members only. If you really gave two shits about the democratic processes of the SWP, then why don't you join rather than shouting from the sidelines? Surely its better to work within such organisations - like your Dutch section tries to do within the SP. So why don't you go into the Dutch IST section if you really care?

Of course you don't, like the rest of the CPBG brigade you're merely a hack.

[h0m0revolutionary]

As a member of the CWI.. you should not see documents that are for the eyes of SWP members only.

Yeah, nothing worse than open democratic debates to help engage working class people.

Especially heavily significant faction battles of ideas and where to take the Party.

[Sam_b]

Yeah, nothing worse than open democratic debates to help engage working class people.


Good shout. When am I going to be allowed a vote on AFed's office bearers?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Well it's good to see that pithy, tit-for-tat is not being advanced in this thread.

Do you lot know how absolutely pathetic you are making the rest of us Socialists look, with your internal politics based on factionalism and struggles for power.

When you want to participate in intellectual debate on the core programmatic questions of Socialism, come back. Until then, you can set up as many socialist parties as you want, with subtly different names and ideological differences, but you won't be advancing the cause of revolution, imbibing the working class with any class consciousness or indeed be of use to the left in any way.

[bricolage]

lol at q talking about democracy when he and his admin buddies just dissolved the democratic administrative body of this forum.

lol!

[Sam_b]

Do you lot know how absolutely pathetic you are making the rest of us Socialists look, with your internal politics based on factionalism and struggles for power.


FYI, factionalism is only permitted in the SWP leading up to conference, if I'm interpreting your vague post correctly.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DemSoc:


Well it's good to see that pithy, tit-for-tat is not being advanced in this thread.

Do you lot know how absolutely pathetic you are making the rest of us Socialists look, with your internal politics based on factionalism and struggles for power.

When you want to participate in intellectual debate on the core programmatic questions of Socialism, come back. Until then, you can set up as many socialist parties as you want, with subtly different names and ideological differences, but you won't be advancing the cause of revolution, imbibing the working class with any class consciousness or indeed be of use to the left in any way.

I hope you noticed who it is that is regularly spreading rumours here, and from where most of them originate (i.e., the Weekly Fabulist).

[bailey_187]

Do you lot know how absolutely pathetic you are making the rest of us Socialists look, with your internal politics based on factionalism and struggles for power.


Its not making anyone look pathetic to anyone because no one really cares.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^Perhaps you don't, but us genuine Marxists do.

[bricolage]

^^Perhaps you don't, but us genuine Marxists do.

Genuine Marxists care about what the CPGB has to say about the SWP?

Genuine Marxists need to start caring about more important things.

[Patchd]

Good shout. When am I going to be allowed a vote on AFed's office bearers?
Wow strawman. Having a vote is different to open democratic debate.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You should know not to expect much more from neo-Kautskyites, though.

Here I am on this board, never having used the insulting word "Trotskyite" like historian Lars Lih (http://vimeo.com/6188759) did (in a slip-up at the CPGB's Communist University 2009), but it's good to know you're not above such slander when it comes to those interested in, to quote same historian, a "Kautsky revival." :rolleyes:


This thread is like the film Groundhog Day, we have seen it all before: the same old rumours, the same old gossip, the same old sectarian sniping.

No wonder us Trotskyists are a joke.

You heard from LZ, though: the CPGB isn't (thank God) Trotskyist.

[Pogue]

I think I speak for us all when I say that I sleep easier at night knowing that the CPGB have the SWP covered. Keep up the good work boys!

I think the people who thanked this post can be divided between people who realised I was trying to be ironic and those who didn't realise this.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

I think i'm the first to say, lol swp drama.

[Pogue]

Wow strawman. Having a vote is different to open democratic debate.

He has a point, though. If there was a big split in AFed, would you really expect people to publish the details of it for all the Trotskyists to argue on? And why do you think the SWP weren't invited to the Anarchist Conference?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:


You heard from LZ, though: the CPGB isn't (thank God) Trotskyist.

Indeed, and that is why it is an irrelevant group.

And I note you have to thank 'god' for this -- very fitting.

[Pogue]

JR:



Indeed, and that is why it is an irrelevant group.

And I note you have to thank 'god' for this -- very fitting.

I do hope your not implying that any non-Trotskyist group is irrelevant?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Barabbas:


Genuine Marxists care about what the CPGB has to say about the SWP?

Genuine Marxists care about slander, lies and gossip spread about other Marxists.

Why do you need me to tell you this!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Pogue:


I do hope your not implying that any non-Trotskyist group is irrelevant?

Not at all -- but the CPGB is.

[Pogue]

Pogue:



Not at all -- but the CPGB is.

Yeh thats true then.

[Revy]

JR:



Indeed, and that is why it is an irrelevant group.

And I note you have to thank 'god' for this -- very fitting.

Hilarious. So a group has to be Trotskyist to be relevant.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

HC:


So a group has to be Trotskyist to be relevant.

Sure; what's the problem with that?


Hilarious.

You're easily amused.

[bricolage]

Barabbas:



Genuine Marxists care about slander, lies and gossip spread about other Marxists.

Why do you need me to tell you this!

In principle yes but as you've admitted the CPGB are irrelevant so you should care about this the same way you'd care about a drunk guy shouting 'slander, lies and gossip' on a street corner somewhere. Gossip only becomes gossip because people gossip about it, ya get me? Now aside from this I actually think a lot of what they are saying about the SWP is probably true but the fact remains the CPGB going on about it is still irrelevant, if the SWP will implodes in on itself, it will do it whether the Weekly Worker is covering the story or not.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Barabbas:


In principle yes but as you've admitted the CPGB are irrelevant so you should care about this the same way you'd care about a drunk guy shouting 'slander, lies and gossip' on a street corner somewhere. Gossip only becomes gossip because people gossip about it, ya get me? Now aside from this I actually think a lot of what they are saying about the SWP is probably true but the fact remains the CPGB going on about it is still irrelevant, if the SWP will implodes in on itself, it will do it whether the Weekly Worker is covering the story or not.

If this 'drunk's' comments were reported in the leftist press as if they hadn't come from a 'drunk' it does matter -- and the same goes for them being retailed here, which is the most widely read board on the far left.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Both the SWP and CPGB are pretty irrelevant, in all fairness. Mostly because the majority of workers know comparatively little about either, as it seems both are more concerned with self-indulgence within the existing Socialist movement in this country, which is tiny, rather than getting the message out there and educating the workers.

[Sam_b]

Mostly because the majority of workers know comparatively little about either, as it seems both are more concerned with self-indulgence within the existing Socialist movement in this country, which is tiny, rather than getting the message out there and educating the workers.

What nonsense. I don't see the SWP rising to the CPGB's pish in this because we're a more outward-looking party making attempts to engage further with the working class. Right now our priority is starting up our 'right to work' campaign with a conference in January for all workers interested in defending Trade Unionism and worker's rights. Do you fancy explaining how the SWP has 'indulgence within the existing socialist movement' then, which I assume is about back-and-forths between other socialist tendencies rather than trying to appeal to the class? If so, quote me evidence rather than a simplistic and naive one-liner.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DemSoc:


Both the SWP and CPGB are pretty irrelevant, in all fairness. Mostly because the majority of workers know comparatively little about either, as it seems both are more concerned with self-indulgence within the existing Socialist movement in this country, which is tiny, rather than getting the message out there and educating the workers.

In addtion to Sam's reply, it is worth adding that the SWP was the main motivating force behind the biggest (by far) anti-war demonstration (and biggest demonstration full stop) in UK history (Feb 15, 2003), followed by the biggest and longest series of demonstrations in UK history over the next three years.

You might want to point out that these failed; well that is debatable, but your point wasn't about success, but about relevance, and the above shows the SWP isn't irrelevant.

[bricolage]

If this 'drunk's' comments were reported in the leftist press as if they hadn't come from a 'drunk' it does matter -- and the same goes for them being retailed here, which is the most widely read board on the far left.

So ignore them then. Look lets by honest here in my opinion the internal dynamics of the SWP are a load of shite and I have no real time for them but at the same time all the CPGB lives for is to chat shit about other parties and try and force overly explicitly Marxist programs into non-Marxist movements. So even if I agree with some of what the CPGB is saying I don't really care because I know that nothing productive can come out of them saying it. So as I said ignore them, they are in every sense of the word irrelevant, and that's not because of their numbers, you can be small and relevant, but they are both small AND irrelevant. If I was in the SWP I'd be worried about the democratic functionings of my party yes but not because the CPGB decided to write a story about it.

[Spawn of Stalin]

In addtion to Sam's reply, it is worth adding that the SWP was the main motivating force behind the biggest (by far) anti-war demonstration (and biggest demonstration full stop) in UK history (Feb 15, 2003), followed by the biggest and longest series of demonstrations in UK history over the next three years.

You might want to point out that these failed; well that is debatable, but your point wasn't about success, but about relevance, and the above shows the SWP isn't irrelevant.
Don't kid yourself, the main motivating force in the anti-war movement in this country always has been and always will be the war itself, don't try to give some party the credit for it. People will always be against war and they will always take to the streets to protest it, if the SWP didn't take a leading role in anti-war action then some other party would, maybe the SP, maybe the CPB, maybe someone else, it doesn't make them any more relevant. The fact that these parties have to be so outspoken against the war to even gain a shred of support from the population, to me that says a everything I or any other worker needs to know about how relevant these parties are.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Barabbas:


So ignore them then. Look lets by honest here in my opinion the internal dynamics of the SWP are a load of shite and I have no real time for them but at the same time all the CPGB lives for is to chat shit about other parties and try and force overly explicitly Marxist programs into non-Marxist movements. So even if I agree with some of what the CPGB is saying I don't really care because I know that nothing productive can come out of them saying it. So as I said ignore them, they are in every sense of the word irrelevant, and that's not because of their numbers, you can be small and relevant, but they are both small AND irrelevant. If I was in the SWP I'd be worried about the democratic functionings of my party yes but not because the CPGB decided to write a story about it.

So many words from someone who 'says' he/she doesn't care...:rolleyes:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Motionless:


Don't kid yourself, the main motivating force in the anti-war movement in this country always has been and always will be the war itself, don't try to give some party the credit for it. People will always be against war and they will always take to the streets to protest it, if the SWP didn't take a leading role in anti-war action then some other party would, maybe the SP, maybe the CPB, maybe someone else, it doesn't make them any more relevant. The fact that these parties have to be so outspoken against the war to even gain a shred of support from the population, to me that says a everything I or any other worker needs to know about how relevant these parties are.

In that case, the marches should have remained the same size, or grown as the war intensified. They didn't, so the war itself cannot have been the main motivating force, as you allege.

And, we'll never know if your claim that other parties would have taken a leading role had the SWP not done so, but in view of the fact that they didn't, the presumption is that they wouldn't have.

But, my point was that the SWP aren't irrelevant, so even if you are right, the SWP would still be highly relevant.

And I am a worker too...

[bricolage]

Barabbas:



So many words from someone who 'says' he/she doesn't care...:rolleyes:

Well I appear to care that you think we should care... to be honest that's about as sad as you caring in the first place...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Barabbas:


Well I appear to care that you think we should care... to be honest that's about as sad as you caring in the first place...

I expressed no opinion about whether you or anyone else should care; nor do I care to.

[Q]

Someone made this (http://grayee.blogspot.com/2009/12/swp-central-committee-response-to-left.html):

SWP CC response to the left platform:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAZZIMEesko

:lol:

[Sam_b]

The Politics forum is for serious discussion, please do not disregard it by posting troll videos. AFAIK you supported other admins when pictures, 'lol' images or whatever were forbidden in these forums so please practice what you preach.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


SWP CC response to the left platform:

Not content with spreading gossip and rumour about the IMT, you now peddle a spoof video about another set of comrades.

What a shining example of an admin you are...

[Q]

The Politics forum is for serious discussion, please do not disregard it by posting troll videos. AFAIK you supported other admins when pictures, 'lol' images or whatever were forbidden in these forums so please practice what you preach.
See how much you know.


Q:

Not content with spreading gossip and rumour about the IMT, you now peddle a spoof video about another set of comrades.

What a shining example of an admin you are...
The low level of this thread has been primarily caused by you and Sam_b. I thought the little - ontopic I might add - satire would soften up the mood a little.

[Patchd]

He has a point, though. If there was a big split in AFed, would you really expect people to publish the details of it for all the Trotskyists to argue on? And why do you think the SWP weren't invited to the Anarchist Conference?
No, probably not for all the trotskyists to argue on, but if this situation arose, and something was published then I see no reason why we shouldn't, or wouldn't engage in discussion with those who are interested. Fact is that when a faction intends to split, others will know about it, either from those within the faction, or not, it should be expected that others will know of matters like this whether people like it or not, and it should be noted that a democratic organisation should not be scared in engaging with others on this issue. Obviously, I couldn't care for shit really if the SWP split, or didn't, I still wouldn't support them in any way as statist socialists, but some people are interested in things like this, and this is a revolutionary leftist discussion board, so I don't see why people are getting so surprised when gossip about the left comes out. Yes, Weekly Worker is merely a gossip rag, yes, it doesn't provide anything substantial to the workers' movement, yes the CPGB is a 30 member organisation that's incredibly petty, sectarian and useless at doing actual class-related stuff, but this doesn't wipe away their criticisms or what they are saying.

Also your second point is unrelated, the Anarchist conference was something which attempted to bring in groups and individuals within the Anarchist movement, not a single organisation debating or discussing something internally.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


The low level of this thread has been primarily caused by you and Sam_b. I thought the little - ontopic I might add - satire would soften up the mood a little.

Not so; the 'low level', as you put it, is a direct result of comrades like you who seem not to be able to tell the difference between fact and speculation.

But, even if you are right, is it part of your duties as an admin to sink to our alleged level?

[Sam_b]

The low level of this thread has been primarily caused by you and Sam_b. I thought the little - ontopic I might add - satire would soften up the mood a little.

I apologise for defending my party against CPGB hack reporting, and thinking spoof videos are not appropriate for serious political forums. Your response is telling, Q, as is your fundamental change of attitude over the past few months. The forums are not your personal playground, you can't just do what you want, so please refrain from trying to divert away from your hack article by posting such nonsense.

Again, maybe have a look at the shameful actions of your own tendency in Britain before spouting pish.

[Saorsa]

Q the prison guard socialist

[The Feral Underclass]

Why should I start openly discussing affairs that should be between the SWP membership, and that membership alone?

Don't your Central Committee call it "democracy and accountability"? Don't the working class, irrespective of their ideological affinity, have an interest in knowing about the chaotic inner turmoil of a political party that seeks to lead them? Not that they do, obviously.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

TAT:


Don't the working class, irrespective of their ideological affinity, have an interest in knowing about the chaotic inner turmoil of a political party that seeks to lead them? Not that they do, obviously.

What "chaotic inner turmoil" is this? If you know about it, it can't be hidden from the working class. On the other hand, if they do not know about it, how come you do?

Unless, of course, you have been listening to gossip and rumour...

[Lenny Nista]

The CPGB are a disgrace for not respecting the right to internal confidentiality of political organizations. It is not a question of the "working class' right to know", as Lenin said, allowing public factions to exist which don't represent any real tendency in the class struggle, is not democracy, but engaging in intrigue.

The Left Platform from the accounts I have heard is tiny and represents no social force just a tiny group of deluded intellectuals, so publicizing this crap in the left press does nothing to "open debate", rather just makes a left paper a swamp for gossip and intrigue - as the Weekly Wanker is, in fact.

However, I have no sympathy for any of the SWP leadership, given that the current CC was complicit, to say the least, in the popular frontist RESPECT fiasco, while the Left Platform wants to take the SWP down a liquidationist route similair to the shameful path taken by the LCR in France, which liquidated itself and renounced the dictatorship of the proletariat to create an openly class collaborationist party.

Hopefully the many honest IS comrades will see this and open up a deeper debate on the political method of their organization.

[The Feral Underclass]

TAT:



What "chaotic inner turmoil" is this? If you know about it, it can't be hidden from the working class. On the other hand, if they do not know about it, how come you do?

Unless, of course, you have been listening to gossip and rumour...

I think you can safely say a split constitutes chaotic inner turmoil, whatever level that is on.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


The Left Platform from the accounts I have heard is tiny and represents no social force just a tiny group of deluded intellectuals, so publicizing this crap in the left press does nothing to "open debate", rather just makes a left paper a swamp for gossip and intrigue - as the Weekly Wanker is, in fact.

Much as I appreciate your defence of fellow comrades, I don't think it appropriate to attack others in this way, especially since it based on yet more speculation.

There is no way you can have done a sociological analysis of the 'Left Platform' to justify the allegations you advance, so why do it?


However, I have no sympathy for any of the SWP leadership, given that the current CC was complicit, to say the least, in the popular frontist RESPECT fiasco, while the Left Platform wants to take the SWP down a liquidationist route similair to the shameful path taken by the LCR in France, which liquidated itself and renounced the dictatorship of the proletariat to create an openly class collaborationist party.

In what way was Respect a 'popular front'? And, it was only 'fiasco' when certain elements of Respect decided to court community interests at the expence of the unity of Respect. This was in no way the fault of the SWP CC.

And what is the factual basis for this wild allegation:


while the Left Platform wants to take the SWP down a liquidationist route

Or is this just more of the same: rumour, speculation and fantasy?


Hopefully the many honest IS comrades will see this and open up a deeper debate on the political method of their organization.

Not if they emulate your fabulation they won't.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

TAT:


I think you can safely say a split constitutes chaotic inner turmoil, whatever level that is on.

Indeed, we could if there was one. But have you any evidence there is? Or are you content just to believe what the CPGB says?

So, we now have two admns here who prefer fantasy over fact.

[Lenny Nista]

There is no way you can have done a sociological analysis of the 'Left Platform' to justify the allegations you advance, so why do it?

Comrade, for better or worse, we all know from the SWP's own mouths who is in the Left Platform. I do not doubt it has some working class supporters and members, but what does this prove? This doesn't mean it represents any real tendency in the working class.

I also agree with the SWP CC's analysis that their 'complaints' are more than anything personal gripes and do not represent any real tendency arising from the class struggle either in the student or workers vanguard. On this point I agree with the CC in denying them the right to form as a public faction.


In what way was Respect a 'popular front'? And, it was only 'fiasco' when certain elements of Respect decided to court community interests at the expence of the unity of Respect. This was in no way the fault of the SWP CC.

It was a popular front because it formed a cross-class alliance with sections of the petit bourgeosie (and even the odd millionaire) of oppressed communities and with bourgeois politicians proposing an openly bourgeois ideology - reformism - and divorced from any organic link to the working class (Galloway).



And what is the factual basis for this wild allegation:



Or is this just more of the same: rumour, speculation and fantasy?

What could be more liquidationist than arguing that the SWP was too sectarian in RESPECT and should have ceded more political ground to the right wing of the coallition?

But time will tell...I know some IS comrades who agree with me too.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


Comrade, for better or worse, we all know from the SWP's own mouths who is in the Left Platform. I do not doubt it has some working class supporters and members, but what does this prove? This doesn't mean it represents any real tendency in the working class.

Well, you think you know who they are, but you still do not possess a detailed sociological analysis of this 'faction', and so can safely conclude nothing about them. Neither can I, which is why I do not.



It was a popular front because it formed a cross-class alliance with sections of the petit bourgeosie (and even the odd millionaire) of oppressed communities and with bourgeois politicians proposing an openly bourgeois ideology - reformism - and divorced from any organic link to the working class (Galloway).

There were certainly some petit-bourgerois elements in it, but then parts of the leadership of the SWP are the same, so I do not see why this makes it a 'popular' front -- what openly bourgeois party were they 'united' with?

As far as Galloway is concerned, in what way was he bourgeois? And united fronts have often contained reformists.


What could be more liquidationist than arguing that the SWP was too sectarian in RESPECT and should have ceded more political ground to the right wing of the coallition?

And who was, or is, arguing for that?


I know some IS comrades who agree with me too.

And I know many SWP comrades who do not.

Byt, even if you are 100% correct, the hostile environment here is no place for you to be knifing the SWP, if you are in the IS.

[Lenny Nista]

I'm not in the IS and never was comrade.

Galloway is a bourgeois politician, with bourgeois ideology, who defends bourgeois demcoracy, the bourgeois state (and especially semi-colonial bourgeois regimes from Mujica in Uruguay, whose victory he hailed, to Chavez and Morales, not to mention his defence of the Iranian regime). The same goes for all Labour politicians, regardless of the parties organic links to the working class.

Regarding United Fronts: yes, united fronts can be made with reformists, but when did the Trotskyist conception of the UF change to include giving political support and presenting common electoral platforms to reformists?

I don't think parts of the leadership of the IS coming from a petty bourgeois background is the same as RESPECT being a party formed with community leaders and businessmen in the leadership, with politics adapted to their interests.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


I'm not in the IS and never was comrade.

Well, to tell you the truth, that was rather obvious.


Galloway is a bourgeois politician, with bourgeois ideology, who defends bourgeois demcoracy, the bourgeois state (and especially semi-colonial bourgeois regimes from Mujica in Uruguay, whose victory he hailed, to Chavez and Morales, not to mention his defence of the Iranian regime).

He is a reformist, sure -- but, as I said, when has a united front ever turned away reformists just because they were reformists? But he wasn't bourgeois in the sense that George W Bush is.


I don't think parts of the leadership of the IS coming from a petty bourgeois background is the same as RESPECT being a party formed with community leaders and businessmen in the leadership, with politics adapted to their interests.

As I said, Respect did indeed contain such elements, but, Engels was a businessman too.

And Respect contained many others who were not as you describe.

[Lenny Nista]

Maybe you replied before my edit crade. I'll repeat this bit:

Regarding United Fronts: yes, united fronts can be made with reformists, but when did the Trotskyist conception of the UF change to include giving political support and presenting common electoral platforms to reformists?

Engels was a capitalist yes, though at a time when the bourgeosie still performed a progressive role in society, and besides, he also explicitly called for, agitated for, and funded organizations fighting for, the destruction of his class, as well as subordinating himself to their politics. Is this true of any of the elements in RESPECT that I'm refering to?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


Regarding United Fronts: yes, united fronts can be made with reformists, but when did the Trotskyist conception of the UF change to include giving political support and presenting common electoral platforms to reformists?

It happens all the time with entryists in labour parties all over the world; the difference here is that in this case the SWP set much of the agenda.


Engels was a capitalist yes, though at a time when the bourgeosie still performed a progressive role in society, and besides, he also explicitly called for, agitated for, and funded organizations fighting for, the destruction of his class, as well as subordinating himself to their politics. Is this true of any of the elements in RESPECT that I'm refering to?

You can't be serious; the bourgeoisie progressive up until the late 1880s!?

But, even if you are right, Engels did not represent the interests of the bourgeois class; same with those in Respect.

[Lenny Nista]

It happens all the time with entryists in labour parties all over the world; the difference here is that in this case the SWP set much of the agenda.

Well I think Trotskyist entryism has nothing in common with entryism sui generis. It is a short term tactic applied to break the working class from reformist parties.

Regarding the tactical critical vote for social democratic parties; as Lenin and Trotsky viewed it and applied it, this has nothing in common with the "united front of a special kind"; it involves calling for no confidence at all in the bourgeois reformist politicians and calling for complete organizational independence. It applies because the social democratic parties are the parties of the trade union leaderships and therefore the necessity to break this link.

Where is the comparison with RESPECT where the SWP set up a reformist party with petit bourgeois forces and bourgeois politicians with no organic links to the class, as well as publicly abstaining from criticism of their allies?


But, even if you are right, Engels did not represent the interests of the bourgeois class; same with those in Respect

Really? They don't seem to be aware of this...I would say they were defending their sectional interests. How about we ask them if they were cosciously fighting for the desctruction of the class they had come from as Engels was? In which case, why was it necessarry to leave this out of RESPECT's politics?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


Well I think Trotskyist entryism has nothing in common with entryism sui generis. It is a short term tactic applied to break the working class from reformist parties.

Except they have been doing this since the 1940s -- so it can't be 'temporary'.


Regarding the tactical critical vote for social democratic parties; as Lenin and Trotsky viewed it and applied it, this has nothing in common with the "united front of a special kind"; it involves calling for no confidence at all in the bourgeois reformist politicians and calling for complete organizational independence. It applies because the social democratic parties are the parties of the trade union leaderships and therefore the necessity to break this link.

But the SWP did maintain their complete independence.


Where is the comparison with RESPECT where the SWP set up a reformist party with petit bourgeois forces and bourgeois politicians with no organic links to the class, as well as publicly abstaining from criticism of their allies?

It was set up partly to fill a gap left on the left by the rightward drift of labour (and thus break workers away from labour) and partly to engage the muslim working class.

And, once more, Respect wasn't petit-bourgeois -- unless, of course, you have to hand the results of the detailed sociological analysis/survey upon which this claim of yours is, I am sure, based.


Really? They don't seem to be aware of this...I would say they were defending their sectional interests. How about we ask them if they were cosciously fighting for the desctruction of the class they had come from as Engels was? In which case, why was it necessarry to leave this out of RESPECT's politics?

This wasn't the point I made; I suggest you re-read what I did say.

[Lenny Nista]

Except they have been doing this since the 1940s -- so it can't be 'temporary'.

Who?



But the SWP did maintain their complete independence.

But they called on the working class to join a cross-class alliance, this is the opposite of the Trotskyist principle of fighting for the organizational independence of the working class


And, once more, Respect wasn't petit-bourgeois -- unless, of course, you have to hand the results of the detailed sociological analysis/survey upon which this claim of yours is, I am sure, based.

But comrade, we aren't talking about the sociological make-up of its membership and support, but the class character of the party. RESPECT wasn't borne out of workers struggles but out of an alliance between the SWP and the Muslim petit-bourgeoisie to fight for a bourgeois democratic set of demands. It rested on bourgeois sectors and not on the organizations of the working class, regardless of its membership or support.

Or maybe you think that any party with a workling class membership and support can't be bourgeois or petit-bourgeois? I prefer to take a Marxist approach and not a "sociological" one.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


Who?

The IMT and earlier versions of it (such as the Militant Tendency), for example.


But they called on the working class to join a cross-class alliance, this is the opposite of the Trotskyist principle of fighting for the organizational independence of the working class

Where and when did they make this alleged 'call'?


But comrade, we aren't talking about the sociological make-up of its membership and support, but the class character of the party. RESPECT wasn't borne out of workers struggles but out of an alliance between the SWP and the Muslim petit-bourgeoisie to fight for a bourgeois democratic set of demands. It rested on bourgeois sectors and not on the organizations of the working class, regardless of its membership or support.

And yet you are making substantive claims about the class composition of Respect, and that requires evidential support -- so let's see it.


Or maybe you think that any party with a workling class membership and support can't be bourgeois or petit-bourgeois? I prefer to take a Marxist approach and not a "sociological" one.

In other words, you associate "Marxist" with "lack of evidence".

Or maybe you think that a working class party can't have petit-bourgeois members?

No Lenin, no Trotsky, no Marx, no Engels...?

[Lenny Nista]

Yes, the IMT practices entryism sui generis, an anti-Trotksyist dogma. I don't see your point, frankly...



And yet you are making substantive claims about the class composition of Respect, and that requires evidential support -- so let's see it.
In other words, you associate "Marxist" with "lack of evidence".

Or maybe you think that a working class party can't have petit-bourgeois members?

No Lenin, no Trotsky, no Marx, no Engels...?


What I am saying is that a working class party must be based on the organizations of the working class such as mass Soviets and trade unions.

Regarding Lenin, Trotsky and Engels, you seem to be forgetting that they were not petit bourgeois regardless of their background, but were part of the proletariat by virtue of dedicating themselves full-time to its liberation and subordinating themselves to the discipline of the working class through the Internationals and parties they formed/fought to form. (Again this is the difference between a Marxist and a "sociological" analysis, the latter doesn't offer space for this view, and would elad us to conclude that Lenin, Marx and Engels and Trotsky were petit-bourgeois or bourgeois just the same as the petit-bourgeois in RESPECT).

What does this have in common with Mosque leaders and East End bussinessmen who support a coallition based on the fact that it (rightfully) fights against the racism and poverty that their oppressed community suffers (for their own interests of course)?

In any case even if weren't true that RESPECT had mosque leaders, businessmen and bourgeois politicians in its leadership (and not as members subordinated to proletarian demcoratic centralism), we could still tell its bourgeois character simply from its political content, which was explicitly reformist. Didn't Marx call reformism "bourgeois socialism" as early as 1848 and didn't all the revolutionaries who the SWP claim to stand in the tradition of agree with this (in fact the SWP itself still upholds this line).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


Yes, the IMT practices entryism sui generis, an anti-Trotskyist dogma. I don't see your point, frankly...

Well, you asked for an example of Trotskyists who have advocated and practiced entryism since the 1940s, and I did just that. Now you might not want to call then Trotskyists, but then that is not what they call themselves, but I count them as fellow Trotskyists.


What I am saying is that a working class party must be based on the organizations of the working class such as mass Soviets and trade unions.

The Bolshevik party wasn't like this when it was set up; are you saying that it wasn't a working class party? The parties in the fourth international weren't either. You seem to have a rather narrow view of what a working class party is.


Regarding Lenin, Trotsky and Engels, you seem to be forgetting that they were not petit bourgeois regardless of their background, but were part of the proletariat by virtue of dedicating themselves full-time to its liberation and subordinating themselves to the discipline of the working class through the Internationals and parties they formed/fought to form. (Again this is the difference between a Marxist and a "sociological" analysis, the latter doesn't offer space for this view, and would lead us to conclude that Lenin, Marx and Engels and Trotsky were petit-bourgeois or bourgeois just the same as the petit-bourgeois in RESPECT).

The reason I quoted Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky was to counter your rather sweeping statement that working class parties do not contain petit-bourgeois elements. Clearly they do.

Now, you claim that you do not need a sociological analysis, but that is because you are laying down rather strict criteria as to what should count as a working class party.

But, you also want to go further and claim that Respect was a petit-bourgeois party, which is a substantive claim in relation to which you need to produce evidence in support. Now if you lack that evidence, as it now seems you do, then you need to stop advancing such wild allegations.


What does this have in common with Mosque leaders and East End businessmen who support a coalition based on the fact that it (rightfully) fights against the racism and poverty that their oppressed community suffers (for their own interests of course)?

We have been over this several times. The individuals you mention certainly belonged to Respect, but so did many others who do not fit this prejudicial description. The fact that you keep concentrating on the former, while ignoring the latter, suggests you are only out to create mischief.


In any case even if weren't true that RESPECT had mosque leaders, businessmen and bourgeois politicians in its leadership (and not as members subordinated to proletarian democratic centralism), we could still tell its bourgeois character simply from its political content, which was explicitly reformist. Didn't Marx call reformism "bourgeois socialism" as early as 1848 and didn't all the revolutionaries who the SWP claim to stand in the tradition of agree with this (in fact the SWP itself still upholds this line).

As I noted earlier, Respect was a (temporary) tactical move to try (1) to break workers away from labour politics and (2) to connect with radicalised muslims, and was thus no more a concession to reformism than entryism is. Not one single SWP member of Respect imagined for one minute that they could reform capitalism. As the Comintern of 1921 put it:


The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie.

Same with Respect.

[Lenny Nista]

Crade: Whether the IMT want to call thesmelves Trotskyists is up to them. What is clear is that their concept of entryism sui generis has nothing to do with the the Trotskyist concept of entryism.

Regarding the question of what constitutes a workign class party - the Bolsheviks were, indeed not a working class party for much of their history, but a tendency for the creation of a working class party.

I won't patronize you as I am sure you know your history as well as anyone, but it's funny how you become conveniently forgetful

Regarding RESPECT therefore, it was neither a working class party (either a revolutionary one or one with bureaucratic or bourgeois leadership), nor a a revolutionary tendency, but a reformist organizaiton with no organic links to the class. Whatsmore calling it petit bourgeois is not a "wild allegation", the word isn't an insult I remind you...

Calling RESPECT petit bourgeois is simply a description of its content - a bourgeois democratic platform which sought to unite workers and muslim "community leaders" and businessmen - which to a Trotskyist can only mean a lowest common denominator platform, i.e. a platform which does not go beyond the sectional interests of the petit bourgeois elements

This has nothing in common with revolutionary tendencies or parties accepting petit bourgeois elements who subordinate themselves to proletarian demcoratic centralism amd specifically supprot the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Regarding the UF, it is indeed what the quote described, but not only that. I am sure you've read Trotsky on the UF with social democrats: "no common banners, no common slogans". He was clear that the United Front meant fighting for very specific demands and not giving any political support to bourgeois elements.

This is a different issue to tactical electoral support for bourgeois-workers parties. The latter tactic does not cosntitute setting up reformist electoral alternatives, but recognizing the existing organic links to the class of such parties as part of a programme to break the working class from them. Whatsmore it is a tactic which Lenin and Trotksy explained should be combined with a denunciation of the bourgeois nature of the party leaders. What does this have in common with asking workers to join the party of someone like Galloway, and sowing illusions in him rather than denouncing him as the bourgeois politician he is and always was?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Engels the capitalist called for a workers-only party. That is why he was only an honorary member of the SPD in his dying years.

RESPECT was and is a thoroughly class-collaborationist, "unpopular popular front" party.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:


Engels the capitalist called for a workers-only party.

In which case, neither he, Marx nor Kautsky would have been allowed to join it.


That is why he was only an honorary member of the SPD in his dying years.

He didn't live in Germany, that's why.


RESPECT was and is a thoroughly class-collaborationist, "unpopular popular front" party.

Which is a bit rich coming from someone who eulogises that class traitor, Kautsky.:lol:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


Whether the IMT want to call thesmelves Trotskyists is up to them. What is clear is that their concept of entryism sui generis has nothing to do with the the Trotskyist concept of entryism.

And Trotsky would have been among the first to inform you that no strategy is cast in stone, eternally unchanged.


Regarding the question of what constitutes a workign class party - the Bolsheviks were, indeed not a working class party for much of their history, but a tendency for the creation of a working class party.

Same with the SWP.


I won't patronize you as I am sure you know your history as well as anyone, but it's funny how you become conveniently forgetful

Not forgetful enough to fail to recall your mendacious posts in this thread.


Regarding RESPECT therefore, it was neither a working class party (either a revolutionary one or one with bureaucratic or bourgeois leadership), nor a a revolutionary tendency, but a reformist organizaiton with no organic links to the class. Whatsmore calling it petit bourgeois is not a "wild allegation", the word isn't an insult I remind you...

So you say, but a united front is not going to exclude petit-bourgeois elements just because you seem not to like them. And I have already responded to the baseless accusation the Respect was reformist.


Calling RESPECT petit bourgeois is simply a description of its content - a bourgeois democratic platform which sought to unite workers and muslim "community leaders" and businessmen - which to a Trotskyist can only mean a lowest common denominator platform, i.e. a platform which does not go beyond the sectional interests of the petit bourgeois elements.

This has nothing in common with revolutionary tendencies or parties accepting petit bourgeois elements who subordinate themselves to proletarian demcoratic centralism and specifically support the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

On the contrary, calling Respect "petit-bourgeois" is a sectarian slur, in support of which you offer no evidence.

Which united front has ever been as you describe above?


Regarding the UF, it is indeed what the quote described, but not only that. I am sure you've read Trotsky on the UF with social democrats: "no common banners, no common slogans". He was clear that the United Front meant fighting for very specific demands and not giving any political support to bourgeois elements.

And the SWP maintianed this independence, and had its own slogans.

And which 'bourgeois elements' was Respect aimed at 'supporting'?

[For a change, please make some attempt to be specific -- so we can see just how empty your sweeping statements are.]


This is a different issue to tactical electoral support for bourgeois-workers parties. The latter tactic does not cosntitute setting up reformist electoral alternatives, but recognizing the existing organic links to the class of such parties as part of a programme to break the working class from them. Whatsmore it is a tactic which Lenin and Trotksy explained should be combined with a denunciation of the bourgeois nature of the party leaders. What does this have in common with asking workers to join the party of someone like Galloway, and sowing illusions in him rather than denouncing him as the bourgeois politician he is and always was?

You're increasingly sounding like a Spart!

What's the betting that you belong to a tiny sect, isolated in all its 'revolutionary' purity?

[Lenny Nista]

And Trotsky would have been among the first to inform you that no strategy is cast in stone, eternally unchanged.


Trotsky was also very clear on what his concept of entryism meant - and it was the opposite of the IMT's. By your logic we can call any policy "Trotskyist".



Same with the SWP.

Very well, but we were talking about whether RESPECT was either a revolutionary tendency - which it explicitly wasn't as Lindsey German admitted - or a mass party with a working class base, as we can empirically see it wasn't, as it didn't have the support of any mass working class organizations.



So you say, but a united front is not going to exclude petit-bourgeois elements just because you seem not to like them.

It is nothing to do with me not "liking" them. A United Front doesn't stand in elections or imply revolutionaries giving political support to petit bourgeois elements.

I agree with making a United Front with the elements involved in RESPECT on a specific anti-war or anti-fascist platform provided they stick to a principled line, but this has nothing in common with forming a common electoral coalition.

I assume you have heard of the Anti-Imperialist United Front? Why do you think for Trotsky it was a question of principle - not strategy - that this should never entail giving political support to those same petit-bourgeois nationalist forces?



And I have already responded to the baseless accusation the Respect was reformist.



No you haven't. Everyone knows it was reformist; we only need to look at its program. Lindsey German told us it wouldn't be explicitly socialist. So what the hell was it? Clearly not revolutionary as the SWP admitted...so...what was it? Centrist? Or some nebulous formation that defies classification...not "revolutionary", but don't you dare ever call it anything else!...?

Seriously what does such a wooly approach have to do with revolutionary marxism? Either its program is for the overthrow of capitalism by the working class and calls ont he working class to organize independently for this aim, or it stops short of this, remains within the bounds of capitalist liberal democracy, and is reformist, Cde.


On the contrary, calling Respect "petit-bourgeois" is a sectarian slur, in support of which you offer no evidence.

Except for its attempt to introduce social justice through parliamentary demcoracy, alliance with rpoperty owning sectors with no call for the independence of the working class from them or for their destruction as a class, and uncritical support for an explicitly and proudly bourgeois reformist politician - and - above all - its programme which did not go beyond the sectional interests of the muslim petit bourgeoisie. but this is not a Marxist analysis...you're asking for stats on the earnings of the RESPECT leadership is pedantry.

I would bet that 95% of people reading this thread realize that the fact that RESPECT was borne out of an alliance between the SWP and a propertied class and a clerical caste, comes after the fact that it advanced a political platform of petit bourgeois content - i.e. a broad, progressive electoral alliance with no basis on workers organizations, no democratic centralism, no explicit class delimitation or call for working class independence, no "workers wage and immediate recallability" of its parliamentarian allies", and which sowed illusions in the bourgeois parliament.

Therefore, even if the SWP had failed in its quest for petit bourgeois and bourgeois professional politicians as allies -which it didn't totally - RESPECT would still have been petit bourgeois due to its political content.

I'm sure you can see that Cde, I think anyone reading this thread can to be honest.



And the SWP maintained this independence, and had its own slogans.


The SWP called to build a political alliance with petit bourgeois sectors, it liquidated the class differences between the Muslim working class and the Muslim "community leaders", and it called to give political support to a bourgeois politician! That, Cde, isn't what Trotsky meant by revolutionaries marching with their own slogans.


And which 'bourgeois elements' was Respect aimed at 'supporting'?


[For a change, please make some attempt to be specific -- so we can see just how empty your sweeping statements are.]

Muslim "community leaders", an unrecallable bourgeois politicians on non-workers wages. It called for workers to build a common political alliance with such sectors. In whose interest is that?


What's the betting that you belong to a tiny sect, isolated in all its 'revolutionary' purity?

"Isolated" from who? From bourgeois politicians, clerics, landlords, and Bengali millionaires?

[Die Neue Zeit]

In which case, neither he, Marx nor Kautsky would have been allowed to join it.

Kautsky had to sell Die Neue Zeit in 1901, which further reinforced the workers-only stance he himself argued in the 1890s against Vollmar and even party chairman Bebel himself.


Which is a bit rich coming from someone who eulogises that class traitor, Kautsky.:lol:

Yes, because the complete ignorance of his earlier contributions (all up to just before WWI) are a huge reason why the left is so dysfunctional today.

While I'm not a dialectician, I'll admit his "dialectic" regarding strategy and tactics taking into account the difference between non-revolutionary and revolutionary periods is far superior to the dialectics employed by leftist dialecticians today.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


Trotsky was also very clear on what his concept of entryism meant - and it was the opposite of the IMT's. By your logic we can call any policy "Trotskyist".

Well, you have a problem: either you agree that we have to adapt Trotsky's ideas to the changing nature of the class war, or we ossify then in all their theoretical purity, forever, no mater what (even though Trotsky often changed his mind!). This is an odd stance for any revolutionary to take.


Very well, but we were talking about whether RESPECT was either a revolutionary tendency - which it explicitly wasn't as Lindsey German admitted - or a mass party with a working class base, as we can empirically see it wasn't, as it didn't have the support of any mass working class organizations.

It is if it's aim was to break workers from labourism and muslim from the grip of tradition.

Sure, Respect failed to gain the support of the mass of the Trade Union bureaucracy, but then it was only two years old before it folded. But, not even the fourth international has been able to do this, even after nearly 70 years.


It is nothing to do with me not "liking" them. A United Front doesn't stand in elections or imply revolutionaries giving political support to petit bourgeois elements.

I used that word since it seemed to fit your inconsistent approach here; on the one hand you acknowledge the legitimate presence of petit-bourgeois elements (like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky,...) in revolutionary parties/tendencies, and then in the next you use this to criticise the SWP and Respect. I think you need to make your mind up.


I agree with making a United Front with the elements involved in RESPECT on a specific anti-war or anti-fascist platform provided they stick to a principled line, but this has nothing in common with forming a common electoral coalition.

I assume you have heard of the Anti-Imperialist United Front? Why do you think for Trotsky it was a question of principle - not strategy - that this should never entail giving political support to those same petit-bourgeois nationalist forces?

Well, I have explained the purpose of the Respect strategy; all this tells me is that you disagree. So what?

And, once more you allege this:


that this should never entail giving political support to those same petit-bourgeois nationalist forces

How does this apply to Respect?


No you haven't. Everyone knows it was reformist; we only need to look at its program. Lindsey German told us it wouldn't be explicitly socialist. So what the hell was it? Clearly not revolutionary as the SWP admitted...so...what was it? Centrist? Or some nebulous formation that defies classification...not "revolutionary", but don't you dare ever call it anything else!...?

Perhaps you can provide the source of this allegation (about Lindsey)?


Seriously what does such a woolly approach have to do with revolutionary marxism? Either its program is for the overthrow of capitalism by the working class and calls on the working class to organize independently for this aim, or it stops short of this, remains within the bounds of capitalist liberal democracy, and is reformist, Cde.

The only 'wooliness' it seems to me lies in your ultra-left posturing. You seem to think that spouting radical sounding slogans at workers Is enough to prove you are 'leading' them, and enough to think you'll win any over.



Except for its attempt to introduce social justice through parliamentary democracy, alliance with property owning sectors with no call for the independence of the working class from them or for their destruction as a class, and uncritical support for an explicitly and proudly bourgeois reformist politician - and - above all - its programme which did not go beyond the sectional interests of the muslim petit bourgeoisie. but this is not a Marxist analysis...you're asking for stats on the earnings of the RESPECT leadership is pedantry.

I asked for evidence, not more wild and baseless allegations.


I would bet that 95% of people reading this thread realize that the fact that RESPECT was borne out of an alliance between the SWP and a propertied class and a clerical caste, comes after the fact that it advanced a political platform of petit bourgeois content - i.e. a broad, progressive electoral alliance with no basis on workers organizations, no democratic centralism, no explicit class delimitation or call for working class independence, no "workers wage and immediate recallability" of its parliamentarian allies", and which sowed illusions in the bourgeois parliament.

Indeed they might, but then they'd be as confused as you are; where is your evidence for this latest slur, for example:


RESPECT was borne out of an alliance between the SWP and a propertied class and a clerical caste,

Perhaps you think that if you repeat it enough times, it will miraculously become true?



Therefore, even if the SWP had failed in its quest for petit bourgeois and bourgeois professional politicians as allies -which it didn't totally - RESPECT would still have been petit bourgeois due to its political content.

I'm sure you can see that Cde, I think anyone reading this thread can to be honest.

All they can see in this thread is rumour, sectarian speculation and now your rapidly burgeoning fabulations.


The SWP called to build a political alliance with petit bourgeois sectors, it liquidated the class differences between the Muslim working class and the Muslim "community leaders", and it called to give political support to a bourgeois politician! That, Cde, isn't what Trotsky meant by revolutionaries marching with their own slogans.

But, and once more, it maintained its political and organisational independence -- or perhaps you dreamt otherwise (which for you, it seems, constitutes hard evidence).



"Isolated" from who? From bourgeois politicians, clerics, landlords, and Bengali millionaires?

Ah, I was right -- you are a spart.

Isolated from the working class, of course.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:


Kautsky had to sell Die Neue Zeit in 1901, which further reinforced the workers-only stance he himself argued in the 1890s against Vollmar and even party chairman Bebel himself.

So? Did he resign from the party?


Yes, because the complete ignorance of his earlier contributions (all up to just before WWI) are a huge reason why the left is so dysfunctional today.

While I'm not a dialectician, I'll admit his "dialectic" regarding strategy and tactics taking into account the difference between non-revolutionary and revolutionary periods is far superior to the dialectics employed by leftist dialecticians today.

Indeed, and as soon as we take this class traitor seriously, we too can become class traitors.

That should work...:rolleyes:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Resorting to labelling the CPGB as class traitors now, are we?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:


Resorting to labelling the CPGB as class traitors now, are we?

Well, are you?

I'm just content to label Kautsky a class traitor -- care to deny it?

[Die Neue Zeit]

The Kautskyan "strategy of patience" is by no means class-traitorous. It was his misapplication of it during a revolutionary period that led him to eventually become a class traitor.

[Lenny Nista should learn something from this, too.]

The Socialist Workers Party isn't really either a "socialist" party or a "workers" party, considering its Student Left demographics.

[Lenny Nista]

Well, you have a problem: either you agree that we have to adapt Trotsky's ideas to the changing nature of the class war, or we ossify then in all their theoretical purity, forever, no mater what (even though Trotsky often changed his mind!). This is an odd stance for any revolutionary to take.

Applying Trotsky's "ideas" (programme) to current conditions is necessarry, yes. This means applying the short term tactic (not strategy as you earlier said) of entryism, in concrete conditions. Turning it into entryism sui generis is the exact opposite of that.

Though I'm confused, are you saying that the IMT's line one ntryism is the correct Trotskyist one? If so then surely you would argue for the IS to take it up? Or are boththe IS and IMT approaches, which contradict each other, simultaneously correct and Trotskyist (i.e. revolutionary marxist). Considering the IS stood against the Militant approach for decades this would be quite a laughable thing to propose, and I don't think anyone in the SWP leadership would agree with you on this.





Sure, Respect failed to gain the support of the mass of the Trade Union bureaucracy, but then it was only two years old before it folded. But, not even the fourth international has been able to do this, even after nearly 70 years.

But the 4th International had a revolutionary proletarian programme, ran along the basis of proletarian democratic centralism, and had a strict class delimitation! It was a revolutionay tendency within the international communist movement fighting for the creation of a mass international party of socialist revolution! It never claimed to be a mass working class party.

RESPECT has neither a proletarian social base (i.e. resting upon the mass organizations of the class for its existence as social demcoracy does) nor a revolutionary programme.




I used that word since it seemed to fit your inconsistent approach here; on the one hand you acknowledge the legitimate presence of petit-bourgeois elements (like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky,...) in revolutionary parties/tendencies, and then in the next you use this to criticise the SWP and Respect. I think you need to make your mind up.


I think our difference is that you reject the Marxist approach that ideologies have a class nature . Marx and Engels, by adopting the ideolgoy of proletarian revolution, fighting explicitly for the destruction of their class and all tis institutions, and subordinating themselves to the demcoracy of proletarian organizations, broke defintiively with their class.

This is completely different to businessmen, clerics, landlords and proffessional poltiicians in RESPECT, who stand for the defence of private property and for bourgeois liberal democracy, ideas which the SWP left unchallenged within RESPECT.

Really you are just making a crude argument about peoples background which has nothing to do with a marxist analysis of the class nature of an organization.



Well, I have explained the purpose of the Respect strategy; all this tells me is that you disagree. So what?

It tells you it is an untrotskyist (i.e. non revolutioanry marxist) strategy. Whether I agree or not is secondary.



Perhaps you can provide the source of this allegation (about Lindsey)?

Every left paper in Britain, pretty much. Jsut google the phrase Lindsey German "explicitly socialist". Or else we could just look at RESPECT itself which was, clearly, not explicitly (or at all) socialist.



The only 'wooliness' it seems to me lies in your ultra-left posturing. You seem to think that spouting radical sounding slogans at workers Is enough to prove you are 'leading' them, and enough to think you'll win any over.


Again, it's you who is making completely unfounded assumptions to draw attention away from the issue.

I ask again, if RESPECT wasn't based on a revolutionary program (which even the SWP admits it wasn't), then what was it?



But, and once more, it maintained its political and organisational independence -- or perhaps you dreamt otherwise


So do Stalinist parties when they enter into popular fronts. This was never the question. We were talking about the organizational and political independence of the working class, something the SWP rejected when it called on them to enter a lowest common denominator electoral and political alliance on a platform which didn't go beyond the bounds of the sectional interests of the Muslim petit bourgeoisie and led by an unrecallable, explicitly bourgeois politician on a bourgeois wage , facts which the SWP abstained from criticizing.


Ah, I was right -- you are a spart.

:rolleyes:


Isolated from the working class, of course.

So if the SWP is so "connected" to the working class, why did it so badly misjudge the RESPECT fiasco, and end up with nothing?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:


The Kautskyan "strategy of patience" is by no means class-traitorous. It was his misapplication of it during a revolutionary period that led him to eventually become a class traitor.

So, he misapplied his own 'strategy' -- that's certainly a recommendation.


The Socialist Workers Party isn't really either a "socialist" party or a "workers" party, considering its Student Left demographics.

So, you have the exact figures and/or percentages, do you?

[Q]

Indeed, and as soon as we take this class traitor seriously, we too can become class traitors.

That should work...:rolleyes:

So, because Kautsky betrayed Marxism in 1914, that means all his previous is inherently class treacherous? A rather simplistic view and something of which Lenin would disagree for example.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


Applying Trotsky's "ideas" (programme) to current conditions is necessary, yes. This means applying the short term tactic (not strategy as you earlier said) of entryism, in concrete conditions. Turning it into entryism sui generis is the exact opposite of that.

I thought you lot believed in a 'unity of opposites'?


Though I'm confused, are you saying that the IMT's line one entryism is the correct Trotskyist one? If so then surely you would argue for the IS to take it up? Or are both the IS and IMT approaches, which contradict each other, simultaneously correct and Trotskyist (i.e. revolutionary marxist). Considering the IS stood against the Militant approach for decades this would be quite a laughable thing to propose, and I don't think anyone in the SWP leadership would agree with you on this.

I'm not defending the IMT, I am just saying that laying down a priori criteria that not even Trotsky observed, as to what constitutes a Trotskyist is, if anything, un-Trotskyist.

Once more, you asked for an example of a Trotskyist group that argued for entryism, from the late 1940s, and I gave you one. I wasn't defending them, just responding to your challenge.


But the 4th International had a revolutionary proletarian programme, ran along the basis of proletarian democratic centralism, and had a strict class delimitation! It was a revolutionary tendency within the international communist movement fighting for the creation of a mass international party of socialist revolution! It never claimed to be a mass working class party.

You questioned the organic link between Respect and the working class, and I responded that the Fourth International lacked such a link. So, lack of such a link does not prevent one from being a revolutionary tendency.


RESPECT has neither a proletarian social base (i.e. resting upon the mass organizations of the class for its existence as social democracy does) nor a revolutionary programme.

That is because it was a united front.


I think our difference is that you reject the Marxist approach that ideologies have a class nature . Marx and Engels, by adopting the ideology of proletarian revolution, fighting explicitly for the destruction of their class and all its institutions, and subordinating themselves to the democracy of proletarian organizations, broke definitively with their class.

On the contrary, I accept Marx's approach to class ideology.

But, you seem to think that a 'pure ideology' will guarantee all the rest. As we can see, that is not the case.


This is completely different to businessmen, clerics, landlords and professional politicians in RESPECT, who stand for the defence of private property and for bourgeois liberal democracy, ideas which the SWP left unchallenged within RESPECT.

And what is your evidence for this? You keep saying these things, and despite being asked to provide the evidence to back it up, you just repeat the same slurs.

As I noted, you appear to think mere repetition is proof.


Really you are just making a crude argument about peoples background which has nothing to do with a marxist analysis of the class nature of an organization.

Not so; I am asking you to put your evidence where you mouth is.

After all I could say things like this: "Lenny here is a Nazi, and eats babies for breakfast" -- and then when asked to produce the evidence, I cry foul and blame you for having the cheek to ask me for proof.


It tells you it is an untrotskyist (i.e. non revolutionary marxist) strategy. Whether I agree or not is secondary.

I beg to differ.

From your pure-as-the-driven-snow approach to Trotskyism, with its unchanging, eternal principles (an odd stance for a dialectician to adopt, anyway!), even Trotsky would fail to be a Trotskyist!


Every left paper in Britain, pretty much. Just google the phrase Lindsey German "explicitly socialist". Or else we could just look at RESPECT itself which was, clearly, not explicitly (or at all) socialist.

In other words, you can only allude to (and not even quote!) the enemies of the SWP and not Lindsey herself.

Why does that not surprise me...?


Again, it's you who is making completely unfounded assumptions to draw attention away from the issue.

I ask again, if RESPECT wasn't based on a revolutionary program (which even the SWP admits it wasn't), then what was it?

Not even the SWP has a revolutionary programme!


So do Stalinist parties when they enter into popular fronts. This was never the question. We were talking about the organizational and political independence of the working class, something the SWP rejected when it called on them to enter a lowest common denominator electoral and political alliance on a platform which didn't go beyond the bounds of the sectional interests of the Muslim petit bourgeoisie and led by an unrecallable, explicitly bourgeois politician on a bourgeois wage , facts which the SWP abstained from criticizing.

Again, and I know it's foolish of me to ask(!!), but can we have the proof of this latest slur?


Ah, I was right -- you are a spart :rolleyes:

Thought so.


So if the SWP is so "connected" to the working class, why did it so badly misjudge the RESPECT fiasco, and end up with nothing?

The SWP may or may not be connected with the working class, but that wasn't the point: you lot are isolated from the class, and that's the point.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


So, because Kautsky betrayed Marxism in 1914, that means all his previous is inherently class treacherous? A rather simplistic view and something of which Lenin would disagree for example.

Where did I say that?

[Q]

Q:
Where did I say that?

If you didn't imply it, you may want to be more specific in what you write, because that's how I read it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


If you didn't imply it, you may want to be more specific in what you write, because that's how I read it.

Coming from someone who prefers gossip, inuendo and speculation to evidence and facts (when it comes to the IMT and the SWP), this concern of yours for precision is, to say the least, highly amusing.

[Q]

Q:

Coming from someone who prefers gossip, inuendo and speculation to fact (when it comes to the IMT and the SWP), this concern of yours for precision is, to say the least, highly amusing.

Stop repeating lies. It gets, to say the least, highly boring.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


Stop repeating lies. It gets, to say the least, highly boring.

Where did I repeat what you said?

[Die Neue Zeit]

For the record, Die Neue Zeit had its fair share of "gossip" and "rumour" when it came to criticisms of the British (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/07/unions.htm) and American (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1895/05/sorge-de-leon.htm) left. :)

[Lenny Nista]

I thought you lot believed in a 'unity of opposites'?

:confused:



I'm not defending the IMT, I am just saying that laying down a priori criteria that not even Trotsky observed, as to what constitutes a Trotskyist is, if anything, un-Trotskyist.

Once more, you asked for an example of a Trotskyist group that argued for entryism, from the late 1940s, and I gave you one. I wasn't defending them, just responding to your challenge.


But the example only works if we accept that the IMT's entryist practice derives from Trotsky, when in fact he clearly argued that entryism was a short term and temporary tactic.

What next, the IMT's (long-term) political support of bourgeois regimes, (long term) entryism into bourgeois parties (like the PSUV or PPP - comparable to the equalluy disgraceful IS entryism into the MDC in Zimbabwe actually) or 2nd International-style chauvinism (check their position during the Malvinas War - even worse than the SWP's treacherous "defeat to both sides" position which the latter at least had the decency to subsequently revise even if they never apolgoized for their capitulation to British national chauvinism) are Trotskyist too?


That is because it was a united front.

Only by the SWP's own definition which has nothing in common with the Trotskyist (Leninist) use of the term.


But, you seem to think that a 'pure ideology' will guarantee all the rest. As we can see, that is not the case.

I don't think that at all.



After all I could say things like this: "Lenny here is a Nazi, and eats babies for breakfast" -- and then when asked to produce the evidence, I cry foul and blame you for having the cheek to ask me for proof.


What is it you want proof of? That RESPECT had a programme of petit bourgeois reformism upon which it built an alliance with community leaders, landlords and businessmen? That Galloway is a bourgeois parliamentarian? Or that the SWP called on the working class to support and unite organizationally with such people? Is any of this actually in doubt?


From your pure-as-the-driven-snow approach to Trotskyism, with its unchanging, eternal principles (an odd stance for a dialectician to adopt, anyway!), even Trotsky would fail to be a Trotskyist!

This is quite an odd approach. It's like saying that unless we accept stageism, then we can't say that Stalinists reject Leninism, because the Bolsheviks were stageist until 1917.

Obviously all the great Marxists develoepd their ideas htroughout their life. Trotsky reached the Transitional Programme through a process of struggle. But the programmatic advances of the 4th International are the greatest the world proletariat has reached to date. When we talk about defending Trotskyism it isn't some metaphysical "defence of the spirit of Trotsky" but defence of the programme he lived and eventually died for.



In other words, you can only allude to (and not even quote!) the enemies of the SWP and not Lindsey herself.

Why does that not surprise me...?


Enemies of the SWP? Not everyone who dares to criticize you is an "enemy" comrade. I suppose Lenin was "enemy" of most Bolsheviks then?

But in any case I am pretty sure that SWP comrades have quoted her as saying this in the IB's too but I can't remember. Do you really want me to look? (in any case they have made much worse accusations than this as we both know).


Not even the SWP has a revolutionary programme!

Quite so...part of the reason it has a non-Leninist method.


Thought so.

This "accusation" that I am a Spart is quite silly and reminiscent of the methods of Stalinism btw...



The SWP may or may not be connected with the working class, but that wasn't the point: you lot are isolated from the class, and that's the point.


Actually the point was whether we should adopt "tactics" (strategies) like the "UF of a special kind" RESPECT to overcome our supposed "isolation" (which I find odd as the great majority of comrades I have known in my time are working class, and by far the most aristocratic tendency I have known in any country is the British SWP).

In any case I humbly beg to differ with your "remedy", and can point at the disastrous results of this unprincipled rendevouz to support my disagreement.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


But the example only works if we accept that the IMT's entryist practice derives from Trotsky, when in fact he clearly argued that entryism was a short term and temporary tactic.

But it does. They have just modified it. So what?


What next, the IMT's (long-term) political support of bourgeois regimes, (long term) entryism into bourgeois parties (like the PSUV or PPP - comparable to the equally disgraceful IS entryism into the MDC in Zimbabwe actually) or 2nd International-style chauvinism (check their position during the Malvinas War - even worse than the SWP's treacherous "defeat to both sides" position which the latter at least had the decency to subsequently revise even if they never apologized for their capitulation to British national chauvinism) are Trotskyist too?

Well, it's all a matter of judgement how far you stretch any principle since none of them are self-interpreting.

And you seem to have swallowed a jargon-dictionary, and then coughed it up under the illusion that it constitutes a political argument.

Moreover, I note you now compound your errors by adding yet more allegations about the SWP which you fail to support with any evidence. You should get a job writing Iraq dossiers for Tony Blair.


Only by the SWP's own definition which has nothing in common with the Trotskyist (Leninist) use of the term.

Not so. I quoted you their meaning in an earlier post.


I don't think that at all.

Unfortunately for you, your words suggest otherwise.


What is it you want proof of? That RESPECT had a programme of petit bourgeois reformism upon which it built an alliance with community leaders, landlords and businessmen? That Galloway is a bourgeois parliamentarian? Or that the SWP called on the working class to support and unite organizationally with such people? Is any of this actually in doubt?

Don't act the innocent; you keep making allegations about the SWP and Respect which you back up with no evidence at all, just more allegations -- like the above.


This is quite an odd approach. It's like saying that unless we accept stageism, then we can't say that Stalinists reject Leninism, because the Bolsheviks were stageist until 1917

Eh?:confused:


Obviously all the great Marxists developed their ideas throughout their life. Trotsky reached the Transitional Programme through a process of struggle. But the programmatic advances of the 4th International are the greatest the world proletariat has reached to date. When we talk about defending Trotskyism it isn't some metaphysical "defence of the spirit of Trotsky" but defence of the programme he lived and eventually died for.

Except the proletariat were left totally in the dark, and had no hand at all in formulating this 'wonderful' programme.


Enemies of the SWP? Not everyone who dares to criticize you is an "enemy" comrade. I suppose Lenin was "enemy" of most Bolsheviks then?

Ok, quote the 'friends' of the SWP who made this criticism. Go on, I double dog dare you.


But in any case I am pretty sure that SWP comrades have quoted her as saying this in the IB's too but I can't remember. Do you really want me to look? (in any case they have made much worse accusations than this as we both know).

'Pretty sure.' Yes that's proof alright...:lol:


Quite so...part of the reason it has a non-Leninist method.

You seem to think that Leninism is an unchanging formula or a set of rules that are eternally true, and which apply in every conceivable set of circumstances.


This "accusation" that I am a Spart is quite silly and reminiscent of the methods of Stalinism btw...

Which you have yet to deny.


Actually the point was whether we should adopt "tactics" (strategies) like the "UF of a special kind" RESPECT to overcome our supposed "isolation" (which I find odd as the great majority of comrades I have known in my time are working class, and by far the most aristocratic tendency I have known in any country is the British SWP).

Not so; I alleged you lot were isolated from the working class, and that was the point.

Anything else you have dragged in to deflect attention from that fact.


In any case I humbly beg to differ with your "remedy", and can point at the disastrous results of this unprincipled rendevouz to support my disagreement.

Coming from a representative of a microscopic, irrelevant sect of uber-Trotskyists, this is a bit rich.

[Lenny Nista]

But it does. They have just modified it. So what?

Modified it so that it's the opposite of what Trotsky argued for, yes.



Moreover, I note you now compound your errors by adding yet more allegations about the SWP which you fail to support with any evidence. You should get a job writing Iraq dossiers for Tony Blair.


What that the IS supported a dual defeatist position during the Malvinas War or is in the MDC, a popular front with Zimbabwean landowners?

These are widely known facts that the IS argues/argued in favor of.


Not so. I quoted you their meaning in an earlier post.

No, you used one short out of context quote. The Trotskyist approach to the UF has always been that it means giving no political support to petit bourgeois, bourgeois or reformist elements (and please do not again conflate this with critical electoral support for social democratic parties, which is a different tactic and not comparable to "revolutionaries" calling for the creation of reformist parties!)


Unfortunately for you, your words suggest otherwise.

Not at all Cde, it's just your attempt to slander me to draw attention away from the incoherence of your argument.


Eh?:confused:

Lenin used to be a stageist pre-1917. Does this mean that stageism is no less Leninsit than Permanent Revolution?


Except the proletariat were left totally in the dark, and had no hand at all in formulating this 'wonderful' programme.

This isn't at all true, the most advanced workers leaders in the world were involved in forumlating the TP, but at least you're honest about your contempt for Trotskyism - I just wish the rest of your tendency's leadership were so open about their revisionism!



Ok, quote the 'friends' of the SWP who made this criticism. Go on, I double dog dare you.

Ok, some time I'll trawl through the insult after insult that the SWP CC and membership throw at the Left Platform, and post it up here. Right now I cannot be bothered to be honest. Everyone has read it all anyway.


You seem to think that Leninism is an unchanging formula or a set of rules that are eternally true, and which apply in every conceivable set of circumstances.

Not at all Comrade, but you seem to think that Leninism is anything you want it to be.

Now tell me, what changed that we no longer need an international party built on a revolutionary program? The historical epoch? Are we in a post-imperialist epoch? Because the need for such a party was determined by the nature of the epoch Cde, at least according to Lenin and Trotsky. So how does breaking with this fundamental principle, still fit within the bounds of "Leninism"...?




Which you have yet to deny.


I assure you I am not a member of the ICL and never was, in fact you are showing your ignorance as they would denounce many of my arguments here...

[Die Neue Zeit]

If you didn't imply it, you may want to be more specific in what you write, because that's how I read it.

Her refusal to read Lih's article in the Weekly Worker is quite hypocritical when combined with her having read Lenin Rediscovered or at least a review of it.

Then of course there's Macnair's Revolutionary Strategy and my stuff. ;)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


Modified it so that it's the opposite of what Trotsky argued for, yes.

No, the opposite is no entryism at all.


What that the IS supported a dual defeatist position during the Malvinas War or is in the MDC, a popular front with Zimbabwean landowners?

These are widely known facts that the IS argues/argued in favor of.

Are you now confusing the IS with the SWP?


No, you used one short out of context quote. The Trotskyist approach to the UF has always been that it means giving no political support to petit bourgeois, bourgeois or reformist elements (and please do not again conflate this with critical electoral support for social democratic parties, which is a different tactic and not comparable to "revolutionaries" calling for the creation of reformist parties!)

And, that is the case here: no support for such parties.


Not at all Cde, it's just your attempt to slander me to draw attention away from the incoherence of your argument.

Well I am the novice here learning from you, the master of slander and diversionary tactics. You need to be patient with me while I try to catch up.


Lenin used to be a stageist pre-1917. Does this mean that stageism is no less Leninist than Permanent Revolution?

Well, I was puzzled last time you said this, and still am. What has this got to do with anything I have said?


This isn't at all true, the most advanced workers leaders in the world were involved in formulating the TP, but at least you're honest about your contempt for Trotskyism - I just wish the rest of your tendency's leadership were so open about their revisionism!

Well, that is what the Fourth International official brochure might tell you, but hundreds of millions of workers around the world knew nothing of it, and even more today have never heard of it. So, in what way was this a 'proletarian' document -- written by a gaggle of petit-bourgeois failures?


Ok, some time I'll trawl through the insult after insult that the SWP CC and membership throw at the Left Platform, and post it up here. Right now I cannot be bothered to be honest. Everyone has read it all anyway.

"Sometime" = "never" I reckon. No wonder you 'can't be bothered'.:rolleyes:


Not at all Comrade, but you seem to think that Leninism is anything you want it to be.

Where did you get that idea from? Just because I said that Leninism is not cast in stone does not imply I meant it was infinitely plastic.


Now tell me, what changed that we no longer need an international party built on a revolutionary program? The historical epoch? Are we in a post-imperialist epoch? Because the need for such a party was determined by the nature of the epoch Cde, at least according to Lenin and Trotsky. So how does breaking with this fundamental principle, still fit within the bounds of "Leninism"...?

Er..., the international situation has changed a bit since 1917, and even 1939.


I assure you I am not a member of the ICL and never was

An honest answer at last! Next worst tendency then: WSWS/ICFI, or one of its microscopic splinter groups...?


in fact you are showing your ignorance as they would denounce many of my arguments here

They denounce everything they haven't written, so that is no help.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:


Her refusal to read Lih's article in the Weekly Worker is quite hypocritical when combined with her having read Lenin Rediscovered or at least a review of it.

'Hypocritical' in what way? Where have I said that I have read everything ever written by a marxist, and where have I said I'd ever again read anything printed in that gossip rag?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Rosa, do you prefer the videos themselves? They're not "printed in a gossip rag."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

What videos?

[Martin Blank]

Bag of Popcorn: $1.69

Stick of Butter: $0.99

2-Liter of Soda Pop: $1.89 plus 10-cent deposit

Bag of Ice: $1.49

Pack of Smokes: $2.00

...

Watching the petty-bourgeois left haplessly tear itself apart, knowing full well that the working class doesn't give a shit: Priceless.

There are some things money can't buy....

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Miles-as-was:


Watching the petty-bourgeois left haplessly tear itself apart, knowing full well that the working class doesn't give a shit: Priceless.

There are some things money can't buy....

And, they seem not to care much about your microscopic party's recent self-destruction either...

[Martin Blank]

And, they seem not to care much about your microscopic party's recent self-destruction either...

I must have missed that event.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Miles-as-was:


I must have missed that event.

So did the vast bulk of the US working class.

[Martin Blank]

So did the vast bulk of the US working class.

I would imagine so. Not much time for imaginary faction fights concocted by bitter leftists these days. Got more important things to deal with.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And yet you find time to post a sectarian comment here!

[KC]

Edit

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Now, now, KC, no more sectarian remarks please...!

[Q]

Are you now confusing the IS with the SWP?

Isn't that supposed to be one organisation anyway? (Be it that the IST has no democratic structures and the whole "international" is really treated as SWP branches, but that's a slightly different point, although related as the opinion on Zimbabwe for example really is being made up in the London office).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


Isn't that supposed to be one organisation anyway? (Be it that the IST has no democratic structures and the whole "international" is really treated as SWP branches, but that's a slightly different point, although related as the opinion on Zimbabwe for example really is being made up in the London office).

No, they are separate organisations. And, can we have the evidence that supports this baseless assertion:


the IST has no democratic structures

Or are we supposed to accept your ex cathedra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility) pronouncements as incontestable truths these days, now you are an admin?

[Die Neue Zeit]

What videos?

http://vimeo.com/6191002 (Lenin and Kautsky)
http://vimeo.com/6185755 ("Obtain without fail and re-read" re. The Road to Power)
http://vimeo.com/6183931 (Lenin and Kautsky - Summary of the discussion)
http://vimeo.com/6188759 (Lenin and the wagers of 1917)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks, I'll check them out.

[Lenny Nista]

No, the opposite is no entryism at all.

They turned a temporary tactic depending on the ebbs and flows of the class struggle, into a strategy they have employed for decades. So in what way is their degeneration rooted in Trotsky's very clear arguments?



Are you now confusing the IS with the SWP?

Well the fact you accept the unrpincipled way the IS leadership can say two different things in different countries speaks volumes, I thought at least you'd try not to draw attention to this fact!...

But yes, the SWP in Britain defended a dual defeatist position on the Malvinas War at the time...I'm not sure if it explicitly defends the IS popular front strategy in Zimbabwe, but if not what does this tell us except that its leadership is not only popular frontist, but dishonest about it?



Well, that is what the Fourth International official brochure might tell you, but hundreds of millions of workers around the world knew nothing of it, and even more today have never heard of it. So, in what way was this a 'proletarian' document -- written by a gaggle of petit-bourgeois failures?

Again, I wish the rest of the IS leadership were so explicit about their contempt for a basic Trotskyist (Leninist) principle: the need for the vanguard to formulate a coherent and comprehensive program for the revolutionary transformation of society, without which the working class will not be able to successfully take state power.


"Sometime" = "never" I reckon. No wonder you 'can't be bothered'.:rolleyes:

I just recognize fillibustering when I see it.



Where did you get that idea from? Just because I said that Leninism is not cast in stone does not imply I meant it was infinitely plastic.

But yet you sacrifice principles that Lenin was prepared to split from parties and Internationals for!



Er..., the international situation has changed a bit since 1917, and even 1939.

But the rationale behind the need for a democratic centralist international party of global revolution with a programme for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism (later articulated as the TP by Trotsky) was the essential nature of the imperialist epoch. Has this changed? Or, have we entered a new epoch...or, what?



An honest answer at last! Next worst tendency then: WSWS/ICFI, or one of its microscopic splinter groups...?

Again, you're showing you're ignorance of those whose names you throw around as "insults" - the sect calling itself the ICFI today doesn't consider trade unions mass organizations of the class or argue that Labour is a bourgeois-workers party.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


They turned a temporary tactic depending on the ebbs and flows of the class struggle, into a strategy they have employed for decades. So in what way is their degeneration rooted in Trotsky's very clear arguments?

Well, I am not trying to defend them, nor explain them to you. My point is that your rigid 'Trotskyism' is the very antithesis of Trotskyism, which is, as you say, sensitive to the ebb and flow of the class war.


Well the fact you accept the unprincipled way the IS leadership can say two different things in different countries speaks volumes, I thought at least you'd try not to draw attention to this fact!...

Well, you keep saying such things, but refuse to post the evidence. Until you do, I shall continue to regard you as a mendacious fantasist.


But yes, the SWP in Britain defended a dual defeatist position on the Malvinas War at the time...I'm not sure if it explicitly defends the IS popular front strategy in Zimbabwe, but if not what does this tell us except that its leadership is not only popular frontist, but dishonest about it?

Well, and once more, we can all do this: invent sectarian 'reasons' to malign fellow comrades. As I said, you seem to think mere repetition (1) is evidence, and (2) will convince me.

Others here may be impressed with the ability of comrades like you to substitute wild allegation for fact, but not me. So, much of what you keep posting in this thread is a waste of time and energy.

Why do you keep doing it? Are you so far removed from reality that you think I am going to accept your fabulations just because you keep repeating them?

In view of the fact that I have had to tell you this several times, I fear you are indeed such a sad character.


Again, I wish the rest of the IS leadership were so explicit about their contempt for a basic Trotskyist (Leninist) principle: the need for the vanguard to formulate a coherent and comprehensive program for the revolutionary transformation of society, without which the working class will not be able to successfully take state power.

Fortunately, not all Trotskyists are super-glued to a rigid programme, recognising that the world changes, requiring we adapt accordingly.

On the other hand, those, like you, who have adopted this rigid form of 'Trotskyism' are legendary in their capacity to ignore the long-term failure history has inflicted upon them.

What was that about theory being tested in practice...?


I just recognize filibustering when I see it

Your repeated refusal to produce evidence suggests that you should look in the mirror, then.


But yet you sacrifice principles that Lenin was prepared to split from parties and Internationals for!

And Lenin would be the first to admit he made mistakes. Unlike you, he was prepared to change and adapt. No wonder he was far more successful than you rigid 'Trotskyists'.


But the rationale behind the need for a democratic centralist international party of global revolution with a programme for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism (later articulated as the TP by Trotsky) was the essential nature of the imperialist epoch. Has this changed? Or, have we entered a new epoch...or, what?

Why the fetishistic need for a rigid programme? The imperialist period has changed. Is there anything that remains the same? I thought Trotsky had argued as follows:


all bodies change uninterruptedly in size, weight, colour etc. They are never equal to themselves. A sophist will respond that a pound of sugar is equal to itself at 'any given moment'…. How should we really conceive the word 'moment'? If it is an infinitesimal interval of time, then a pound of sugar is subjected during the course of that 'moment' to inevitable changes. Or is the 'moment' a purely mathematical abstraction, that is, a zero of time? But everything exists in time; and existence itself is an uninterrupted process of transformation; time is consequently a fundamental element of existence. Thus the axiom 'A' is equal to 'A' signifies that a thing is equal to itself if it does not change, that is if it does not exist.

So, according to you, the only thing in the entire universe that does not change is imperialism.

Interesting...


Again, you're showing you're ignorance of those whose names you throw around as "insults" - the sect calling itself the ICFI today doesn't consider trade unions mass organizations of the class or argue that Labour is a bourgeois-workers party.

Ok, so you belong to an even more irrelevant group than the ICFI, one so microscopic that not even I have heard of it, let alone the working class.

2 or 3 of you in a one bedroom cabin in the Ozarks issuing demands on behalf of the 'international proletariat', eh?

Yes, I am happy to admit I am ignorant of such atom-sized 'Trotskyist' groups, which are as expert at spouting Trotsky-esque jargon as they are at failing to see that this has much to do with their impotence.

[Lenny Nista]

Well, I am not trying to defend them, nor explain them to you. My point is that your rigid 'Trotskyism' is the very antithesis of Trotskyism, which is, as you say, sensitive to the ebb and flow of the class war.

Rigid because I don't accept a line on entryism that you don't even accept yourself?:confused:

You're just indulging in demagogy, trying to present yourself as "tolerant" towards positions, like that of the IMT on entryism which you know to be worthless (as the SWP are at least clear on).


Fortunately, not all Trotskyists are super-glued to a rigid programme, recognising that the world changes, requiring we adapt accordingly.

Cde, the essence of the Transitional Program is that it is not rigid, but explains the objective situation to the working class while allowing room for transitional demnds to bridge the gap between the existing subjectivity of the proletariat and the necessities of the situation.

In reality the SWP by reneging from the TP doesn't allow itself to "apply Trotskyism in a flexible way to the realities of the class struggle" as you claim, but to avoid having to tell the working class the truth about the objective situation - tailism in other words. This approach is nothing but cover for sacrificing basic principles which only Trotskyism kept alive.

This was Trotsky's greatest acheivement and his most important work as he explained in a letter to Isaac Deustcher (who much like you though Trotsky, who he valued as a great revolutionary, thinker and military leader - was wasting time arguing with 'tiny petit bourgeois sectcs' - my paraphrasing). To which Trotsky replied that if he hadn't led the Red Army somebody else would have, but that without his work at grouping an international revolutionary opposition to Stalinism around a revolutionary program nobody would save the heritage of revolutionary Marxism in the face of Stalinist counter-revolution.

This was the improtance of the Transitional Program to Trotsky. You can say what you like about it but to dismiss its relevance while claiming a continuation with Trotsky, is the height of dishonesty and slandering of his memory.



So, according to you, the only thing in the entire universe that does not change is imperialism.

Of course imperialism is constantly changing, but its essence - the global dominance of imperialist monopoly capitalism and all this entails -is the premise underlying the need for a global party of revolution. Has this changed?


Ok, so you belong to an even more irrelevant group than the ICFI, one so microscopic that not even I have heard of it, let alone the working class.

If you say so Cde.:rolleyes:


2 or 3 of you in a one bedroom cabin in the Ozarks issuing demands

Haven't you got me confused with John Rees, Lindsey German and Chris Nineham?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Since the discussion has veered off-topic, I should add that Trotsky's Transitional Program is based on the broad-economistic slippery slope advocated by the same Boris Krichevskii who was criticized in WITBD:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/transitional-program-updated-t99491/index.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


Rigid because I don't accept a line on entryism that you don't even accept yourself?

No, because you seem to think Leninism involves the acceptance of unchanging dogmas.


You're just indulging in demagogy, trying to present yourself as "tolerant" towards positions, like that of the IMT on entryism which you know to be worthless (as the SWP are at least clear on).

Demagogy? I think you exaggerate more than anyone in the entire universe...


Cde, the essence of the Transitional Program is that it is not rigid, but explains the objective situation to the working class while allowing room for transitional demands to bridge the gap between the existing subjectivity of the proletariat and the necessities of the situation.

In reality the SWP by reneging from the TP doesn't allow itself to "apply Trotskyism in a flexible way to the realities of the class struggle" as you claim, but to avoid having to tell the working class the truth about the objective situation - tailism in other words. This approach is nothing but cover for sacrificing basic principles which only Trotskyism kept alive.

This was Trotsky's greatest achievement and his most important work as he explained in a letter to Isaac Deutscher (who much like you though Trotsky, who he valued as a great revolutionary, thinker and military leader - was wasting time arguing with 'tiny petit bourgeois sects' - my paraphrasing). To which Trotsky replied that if he hadn't led the Red Army somebody else would have, but that without his work at grouping an international revolutionary opposition to Stalinism around a revolutionary program nobody would save the heritage of revolutionary Marxism in the face of Stalinist counter-revolution.

This was the importance of the Transitional Program to Trotsky. You can say what you like about it but to dismiss its relevance while claiming a continuation with Trotsky, is the height of dishonesty and slandering of his memory.

Of course imperialism is constantly changing, but its essence - the global dominance of imperialist monopoly capitalism and all this entails -is the premise underlying the need for a global party of revolution. Has this changed?

Does imperialism have an 'essence'? In that case, I was wrong, the only two things in the entire universe that do not change are (1) the essence of imperialism and (2) the Transitional Programme. But, in that case, they can't exist -- if Trotsky is to be believed:


everything exists in time; and existence itself is an uninterrupted process of transformation; time is consequently a fundamental element of existence. Thus the axiom 'A' is equal to 'A' signifies that a thing is equal to itself if it does not change, that is if it does not exist.

Bold added.

And I recognise the crucially important role Trotsky played in preserving revolutionary socialism (which is why I am a Trotskyist), but why the need for a Fourth International, when it had no base in the working class, unlike the previous three?


If you say so Cde.

In fact, I was hoping you'd deny it.


Haven't you got me confused with John Rees, Lindsey German and Chris Nineham?

Only if you are suffering from a multiple personality disorder.

[Lenny Nista]

No, because you seem to think Leninism involves the acceptance of unchanging dogmas.

No, I recognize it is founded on certain principles is all.


Does imperialism have an 'essence'? In that case, I was wrong, the only two things in the entire universe that do not change are (1) the essence of imperialism and (2) the Transitional Programme. But, in that case, they can't exist -- if Trotsky is to be believed:

But I've recognized imperialism has changed...of course your argument is evry easy if you refuse to get into specifics...this is because you don't want to come out and say we've entered another epoch, but neither do you like the implications of defining imperialism...because the latter would force you to admit that the conditions which led communists to fight for the creation of a global party of world revolution based on democratic centralism and a revolutionary program, still exist.


And I recognise the crucially important role Trotsky played in preserving revolutionary socialism (which is why I am a Trotskyist), but why the need for a Fourth International, when it had no base in the working class, unlike the previous three?

Because the 2nd had been destroyed by reformism and the 3rd by stalinist counterrevolution, whilst the objective situation called for a new program...how could there not be a need for 4th International? What would you suggest?

Also you're speaking as if the 4th was some sectarian adventure that proclaimed itself the leadership of the international working class, when it hadn't: it recognized the need to orientate continually towards the Comintern and split it (and to social demcoracy), but simply recognized that it was impossible to fight for revolutionary politics in it as internal democracy had been abolished and it had been turned into a tool for the Stalinist bureaucracy - while still acknowledging tis hold over the subjectively revolutionary masses.

And while you're right that it wasn't a mass working class party, it did group the best of the workers vanguard internationally, with the US SWP having led some of the most advanced expressions of class struggle in their country for example. To rebuild the 4th today on such a basis would be a revolutionary step forward comrade.

Your argument is similar to someone saying to the SWP - "why the need for a revolutionary party not based on the working class" - with the obvious answer being that you set up a party precisely in order to have something to win people to.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


No, I recognize it is founded on certain principles is all.

Eternally true ones, it seems.


But I've recognized imperialism has changed...of course your argument is very easy if you refuse to get into specifics...this is because you don't want to come out and say we've entered another epoch, but neither do you like the implications of defining imperialism...because the latter would force you to admit that the conditions which led communists to fight for the creation of a global party of world revolution based on democratic centralism and a revolutionary program, still exist.

Which is why I used your word "essence", when I said:


Does imperialism have an 'essence'? In that case, I was wrong, the only two things in the entire universe that do not change are (1) the essence of imperialism and

You might tell us that imperialism has changed, but, according to you, it's alleged "essence " hasn't. If so, according to Trotsky, it can't exist.

On the other hand, if the "essence" of imperialism has changed, as surely it must if Trotsky is to be believed, the TP cannot remain the same, in which case why have one?


Because the 2nd had been destroyed by reformism and the 3rd by stalinist counterrevolution, whilst the objective situation called for a new program...how could there not be a need for 4th International? What would you suggest?

Well, the reason why they failed has nothing to do with the circumstances under which they were formed, and on what basis -- that is, they were based on the working class. The fourth international wasn't, and still isn't, 70 years later!


how could there not be a need for 4th International? What would you suggest?

Unless there is a basis in the working class, responding to a vague sort of 'need' is pure idealism -- triumph of the will, and all that.

Why do we need an international just for the sake of it?


Also you're speaking as if the 4th was some sectarian adventure that proclaimed itself the leadership of the international working class, when it hadn't: it recognized the need to orientate continually towards the Comintern and split it (and to social democracy), but simply recognized that it was impossible to fight for revolutionary politics in it as internal democracy had been abolished and it had been turned into a tool for the Stalinist bureaucracy - while still acknowledging its hold over the subjectively revolutionary masses.

This could have been done without forming the fourth international -- it is only possible to have a workers international on the back of an international workers movement -- this was absent.


And while you're right that it wasn't a mass working class party, it did group the best of the workers vanguard internationally, with the US SWP having led some of the most advanced expressions of class struggle in their country for example. To rebuild the 4th today on such a basis would be a revolutionary step forward comrade.

Indeed, but this still does not imply that a fourth international was required.


Your argument is similar to someone saying to the SWP - "why the need for a revolutionary party not based on the working class" - with the obvious answer being that you set up a party precisely in order to have something to win people to.

Setting up a revolutionary party is not the same as setting up a new international.

As Duncan Hallas pointed out:


To return to the starting point. Unfavourable circumstances played a part in the decline of the Fourth Internationalist movement. More important were the fundamental weaknesses of the 1938 programme, especially its quite wrong analysis if Stalinism. In addition the very pretensions of an “international” without any real working class base were themselves an added handicap. The ludicrous notion that an “international leadership” could be constructed from people who had no serious practical experience of leadership in national organisations was another of Trotsky’s errors which had a most harmful effect on the movement. As long as Trotsky lived he could substitute for such a leadership. Without him, the “World Party of the Socialist. Revolution” was even weaker in the head than it was in the arm.

You can read his full argument here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1973/xx/fidecline.htm

And


First, the proclamation of the Fourth International in 1938, proclamation rather than foundation since nothing was changed. No new forces were brought in nor could any reasonably be hoped for in that time of extreme ebb. It simply gave a new and excessively grandiose title to the existing and very weak international Trotskyist current. In itself, this might not seem to be of great importance, yet it helped to generate delusions of grandeur in the ‘International Leadership’ that managed to establish itself in the middle forties and hindered their ability to make realistic assessments of the new post-war situation.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1988/xx/fourthint.htm

Delusions of grandeur that still abound.

[Lenny Nista]

You might tell us that imperialism has changed, but, according to you, it's alleged "essence " hasn't. If so, according to Trotsky, it can't exist.

On the other hand, if the "essence" of imperialism has changed, as surely it must if Trotsky is to be believed, the TP cannot remain the same, in which case why have one?


I don't know why you use scare quotes for "essence". :confused: The essence of imperialism is the domination of a handful financial-industrial monopolies tied to imperialist state blocs, over their own coutnries and their semicolonies. This was the situation when the Third and Fourth Internationals were founded, it's the situation today, and it's the reason why political struggle purely on the "national" plane is insufficient.



Well, the reason why they failed has nothing to do with the circumstances under which they were formed, and on what basis -- that is, they were based on the working class. The fourth international wasn't, and still isn't, 70 years later!

It was based on the most advanced of the working class vanguard and most importantly on a proletarian program and democratic centralism. It was necessarry to provide an alternative international basis to Stalinism on this basis as only on this basis could you win the leadership of the class from counterrevolutionary leaders who relied on national chauvinism to tie the working class to various popular fronts.


Unless there is a basis in the working class, responding to a vague sort of 'need' is pure idealism -- triumph of the will, and all that.

Why do we need an international just for the sake of it?

How is it voluntarism? A tendency sets out a program that outlines the objective situation, in order to win workers to it - this is the method of Bolshevism Cde, not "idealism". You're of course using a spontaneist Cliffite logic that is the antithesis of the Leninist method - tailism at best, demagogy at worst.

I remember a Trotsky quote, which I can't find, from a letter, where, to paraphrase him, he states that "the working class know full well the extent of their day to day misery, what they may demand of revolutionary tendencies however is a coherent program". In other words if you jsut limit yourself to synthesising the overall existing state of struggle and consciousness and then spew it back to the workers as a "party line", you're adding nothing, you're just a leech on them seeking political advantage for your own sect as populists do.

If you aren't prepared to brign a program which raises the colelctive consciousness of the the class (via transitional demands which link the struggles of today to the goal of overthrowing capitalism) then you might as well stay at home.



This could have been done without forming the fourth international -- it is only possible to have a workers international on the back of an international workers movement -- this was absent.

It's also only possible to have a mass party on the back of a mass workers movement, yet the SWP calls itself a Party. In other words - let's not engage in semantics. The 4th International was, and was understood to be by its leaders, and international tendency within the communist movement, fighting to win it to its revolutionary program. I really don't see your objection to this.



Indeed, but this still does not imply that a fourth international was required.


No, it just refutes your characterization of it. What made the 4th International necessarry was the objective situation.


Setting up a revolutionary party is not the same as setting up a new international.

Essentially it's part of the same task. Just as there is no rule syaing that we must first construct mass parties in every country and then group them in an international. This is a silly proposition if you think about it: Trotsky was able to guide his followers internationally into correct positions and use his experience and the overall experience of the strongest sections like the Americans to help weaker sections like the Americans and Spanish. And more fundamentally, the class struggle takes place on an international scale.

The SWP rightly opposed the "British Jobs for British Workers" strikes: but how do you aim to win the vanguard away from national chauvinism against Portguese and Italian workers without an international program? If we can't present a practical program for internationalism and the overthrow of capitalism globally, why expect the working class to abandon their illusions in the national state and reformism/protectionism? These dangers can only be overcome through winning the working class to an international party with a common program and democratic centralism - the alternative is a collapse into "national" sects unable to really counterpose anything to national chauvinism, and usually ending up capitulating to it (as the Militant, WSL, SWP and the now fully first-campist AWL did in the Malvinas War for example).



You can read his full argument here:


I am reading somehting else now but I've saved the link, thanks.

[ls]

What a load of bullshit, as usual. I guess you don't see the hypocrisy when your section has attacked the class time and time again, in such ways as threatening to call the police on working class demonstrators during the poll tax riots?

As a member of the CWI (sorr,y I mean as a member of the CPGB) you should not see documents that are for the eyes of SWP members only. If you really gave two shits about the democratic processes of the SWP, then why don't you join rather than shouting from the sidelines? Surely its better to work within such organisations - like your Dutch section tries to do within the SP. So why don't you go into the Dutch IST section if you really care?

Of course you don't, like the rest of the CPBG brigade you're merely a hack.

Wow, proof for this?

[Sam_b]

Wow, proof for this?

Sure. I'm almost certain there's a video out there somewhere, so i'm going to look for it when i've got a moment. Its briefly mentioned here -http://libcom.org/history/1990-accounts-poll-tax-riot; and numerous other articles on libcom. I assumed it was just common knowledge. Its certainly true, if you don't think my backup is good enough though feel free to discredit it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny:


I don't know why you use scare quotes for "essence". The essence of imperialism is the domination of a handful financial-industrial monopolies tied to imperialist state blocs, over their own countries and their semicolonies. This was the situation when the Third and Fourth Internationals were founded, it's the situation today, and it's the reason why political struggle purely on the "national" plane is insufficient.

'Scare quotes' are single quotes; I used ordinary quotes. [Anyway, I am an anti-essentialist.]

But, whether we use 'scare quotes' or ordinary quotes, if the 'essence' or "essence" or even essence of imperialism is changeless then, according to Trotsky, it can't exist. If so, no TP will be required.

On the other hand, if the 'essence' or "essence" or even essence of imperialism is not changeless, then the TP will need to change, which means that no TP is required.

Either way, no TP is called for.


It was based on the most advanced of the working class vanguard and most importantly on a proletarian program and democratic centralism. It was necessary to provide an alternative international basis to Stalinism on this basis as only on this basis could you win the leadership of the class from counterrevolutionary leaders who relied on national chauvinism to tie the working class to various popular fronts.

In fact, it was based on isolated and fragmented Trotskyist groups, as Hallas pointed out, and not on the working class as the second and third internationals were.

And you are right, it was essential to oppose Stalinism, but not with a fourth international, and for reasons Hallas also spelt-out.


How is it voluntarism? A tendency sets out a program that outlines the objective situation, in order to win workers to it - this is the method of Bolshevism Cde, not "idealism". You're of course using a spontaneist Cliffite logic that is the antithesis of the Leninist method - tailism at best, demagogy at worst.

Nothing 'Cliffite' about it; you expressed yourself thus:


how could there not be a need for 4th International?

And this need was a desire to oppose Stalinism, as if calling a gaggle of small Trotskyist groups, with few workers in them, an 'international' would solve anything, except Trotsky hoped it would do so -- pure voluntarism.


demagogy at worst.

Why do you keep using this word; it implies I am capable of addressing and motivating thousands of listeners in a public arena. Much as I am touched by your faith in my public speaking skills, even if you have never heard me speak in public, I am mystified by your continued use of this word.


I remember a Trotsky quote, which I can't find, from a letter, where, to paraphrase him, he states that "the working class know full well the extent of their day to day misery, what they may demand of revolutionary tendencies however is a coherent program". In other words if you just limit yourself to synthesising the overall existing state of struggle and consciousness and then spew it back to the workers as a "party line", you're adding nothing, you're just a leech on them seeking political advantage for your own sect as populists do.

And upon what evidence did Trotsky base this rather bold claim? Did he survey the downtrodden masses the world over? No. Did he get a minion to do it for him? No. Did he base it on someone else's survey? No. So on what basis could he make this hyper-bold claim?

And, such 'programmes' have been around now for over 70 years. Have the downtrodden masses thanked you programme sellers for them? No. Are they even aware of them? Less so now than ever!

And worse, the Fourth International has split, many times -- into warring sects each with the 'correct programme'!

You lot are going backwards with your love of abstract programmes and out-dated jargon!


If you aren't prepared to bring a program which raises the collective consciousness of the class (via transitional demands which link the struggles of today to the goal of overthrowing capitalism) then you might as well stay at home.

The exigencies of the class war, not an abstract understanding of the "essence of imperialism" decides how and when revolutionaries should intervene in workers' struggles.


It's also only possible to have a mass party on the back of a mass workers movement, yet the SWP calls itself a Party. In other words - let's not engage in semantics. The 4th International was, and was understood to be by its leaders, and international tendency within the communist movement, fighting to win it to its revolutionary program. I really don't see your objection to this.

Except, as Hallas points out, it led to, and still leads you lot into, a false impression of your own importance, and significance -- you can see this here with your grandiose claims.


No, it just refutes your characterization of it. What made the 4th International necessary was the objective situation.

But the 'objective' conditions were totally different from those that motivated the formation of the first three internationals -- hence, the fourth was an example of unmitigated voluntarism.


Essentially it's part of the same task. Just as there is no rule saying that we must first construct mass parties in every country and then group them in an international. This is a silly proposition if you think about it: Trotsky was able to guide his followers internationally into correct positions and use his experience and the overall experience of the strongest sections like the Americans to help weaker sections like the Americans and Spanish. And more fundamentally, the class struggle takes place on an international scale.

Even though they were all microscopically small and largely worker-free zones.


The SWP rightly opposed the "British Jobs for British Workers" strikes: but how do you aim to win the vanguard away from national chauvinism against Portuguese and Italian workers without an international program? If we can't present a practical program for internationalism and the overthrow of capitalism globally, why expect the working class to abandon their illusions in the national state and reformism/protectionism? These dangers can only be overcome through winning the working class to an international party with a common program and democratic centralism - the alternative is a collapse into "national" sects unable to really counterpose anything to national chauvinism, and usually ending up capitulating to it (as the Militant, WSL, SWP and the now fully first-campist AWL did in the Malvinas War for example).

These issues can all be raised in each country in which one has a presence. Now, these may or may not succeed, but I do not see how using the grandiose term "Fourth International" helps in any way at all.

And you keep advancing baseless allegations about the SWP -- once more, can we see your evidence, or are you determined to remain a fantasist?

[ls]

Sure. I'm almost certain there's a video out there somewhere, so i'm going to look for it when i've got a moment. Its briefly mentioned here -http://libcom.org/history/1990-accounts-poll-tax-riot; and numerous other articles on libcom. I assumed it was just common knowledge. Its certainly true, if you don't think my backup is good enough though feel free to discredit it.

Thanks for that. I've never really picked up on that before but it does indeed seem to be true, don't get me wrong, I've seen militant/spew have done many things wrong, from cllrs proposing job cuts through to practically everything, but that really is quite shocking, not only that but their absolute denial that protests or any radical activism other than their idiotic anti-poll tax federation would be "acceptable" opposition to the poll tax. Absolutely shocking vile parasitical crudely anti-worker bullshit.

The SWP doesn't escape any criticism on that article as well:
In a recent issue of their paper, ’Socialist Worker' (12th May), this was written: "Anti-Poll Tax campaigners in Haringey found overwhelming opposition to the Poll Tax when they went round with petitions, but time and again found they had to argue hard to convince working class people it was worth voting".

While certainly much better than Militant's positions at the time, that is quite funny.

[Lenny Nista]

But, whether we use 'scare quotes' or ordinary quotes, if the 'essence' or "essence" or even essence of imperialism is changeless then, according to Trotsky, it can't exist. If so, no TP will be required.

On the other hand, if the 'essence' or "essence" or even essence of imperialism is not changeless, then the TP will need to change, which means that no TP is required.

Either way, no TP is called for.


Are you trying to be funny?

In any case, if you don't like the term essence, for the sake of maintaining comradely discussion I'll make a concession, and we can talk about "phenomena" with certain observable features which allow us to distinguish them, if you like; or we can use in fact any term you like, as it's really not the point (apparently you're much more "rigid" on minor semantic issues than me, it's only on principles and theory that you're an eclectic):

So let's say "imperialism" is a phenomenon and certain of its features allow us to define it, and that the call for an international party of global revolution based on democratic centralism and a common program is a conscious human response to said defining characteristics and considered by their intellectual authors to be fundamental principles shaping strategy and tactics. In that case either you explain why those definign characteristics have changed (i.e. you tell us why we are no longer int he epoch of imperialism) or you admit that you've broken theoretically with Lenin and Trotsky.

In short, the reason you want to play silly games instead of define what imperialism is, is because Cliffism breaks with fundamental principles of Leninism and trotskysim, but neither has the courage to claim we have entered a new epoch - which it knows it could not prove - nor to claim to have proved Lenin and Trotsky wrong.



And this need was a desire to oppose Stalinism, as if calling a gaggle of small Trotskyist groups, with few workers in them, an 'international' would solve anything, except Trotsky hoped it would do so -- pure voluntarism.


You're just making the same silly argument as before. Why this stageist fetishism that an "international" has to come after we've built mass workers parties in every country. Coming from someone who calls other people "rigid", this is even more surprising.

And you still can't answer how you expect to win workers away from a national framework if you can't present them with a practical and coherent international program for socialist revolution. How can you argue against "socialism in one country" - and therefore eventual capitulation to the national bourgeoisie - if you only present the masses with national sects? As I said earlier, the proof is in the pudding - all the main "national Trotskyist" currents, from Cliff to Woods to Taaffe to Lambert to Moreno - ended up degenerating into different levels of adaption to "their own" national bourgeoisie.




Why do you keep using this word; it implies I am capable of addressing and motivating thousands of listeners in a public arena. Much as I am touched by your faith in my public speaking skills, even if you have never heard me speak in public, I am mystified by your continued use of this word.

This isn't how Marxists have traditionally used the term demagogy, Cde. It just means pandering to the existing consciousness of the political backwardness of your intended audience for your own gain/the gain of your sect.


And upon what evidence did Trotsky base this rather bold claim? Did he survey the downtrodden masses the world over? No. Did he get a minion to do it for him? No. Did he base it on someone else's survey? No. So on what basis could he make this hyper-bold claim?

When he said "demand", I think most everyone can tell, except apparently you, that he meant "what the masses could rightfully demand" rather than "are explicitly demanding", i.e. he is identifying the masses subjective demands for improved living conditions, democratic rights, peace, national independence, etc., and explaining that the only way to achieve this is through the overthrow of capitalism.

I don't really mind your bad faith in arguing with me but projecting this vulgarity onto Trotsky on the basis of one quote is pretty shameful. But just in case it wasn't clear enough, what he meant - or the point I was trying to make by providing his quote to you which I assumed you would understand in the way that almost everyone else would, but apparently you understood in the worst faith possible - was this:


We must give a scientific explanation of society, and clearly explain it to the masses. That is the difference between Marxism and reformism.


Discussions on the Transitional Program (http://www.revleft.com/vb/1938/tp/tpdiscuss.htm) (1938)


And, such 'programmes' have been around now for over 70 years. Have the downtrodden masses thanked you programme sellers for them? No. Are they even aware of them? Less so now than ever!

Well, have the masses thanked the tailists and "co-coordinators" of the IS tradition?

We have an example of a successful revolution led by a party built on the Leninist model - Russia 1917. we can point to the Transitional Programme and say that it preserved the essence of revolutionary Marxism at a time when no other tendency was able to, and that it set out a practical, comprehensive and flexible blueprint for the transformation of society which revolutionaries can adapt to the realities of class struggle.

Can we thank Cliffism for anything?



You lot are going backwards with your love of abstract programmes and out-dated jargon!

The left in general has suffered eyars of retreat, true. The euro communists haven't done much better, neither have the post-Marxists, or the autonomists, or the anarchists, or the Cliffites - whose internal crisis this thread was discussing!

So I'd ask you, don't indulge in some kind of "appeal to efficiency" when you actually have nothing but decades of failure to point to from your own tendency - and let's instead look at defining what is objectively necessary, and how to explain this to the working class through both propaganda to the vanguard and intervention into the class struggle. The beauty of the Transitional Programme is that it provides exactly such a framework to a left that seems intent on destroying itself - and I guarantee you it will outlive Cliffism.


The exigencies of the class war, not an abstract understanding of the "essence of imperialism" decides how and when revolutionaries should intervene in workers' struggles.

There's ntohing abstract about defining imperialism and the consequences of this. What is abstract is your above truism about "the exigencies of the class war" - well yes, but what they are and how they negate the Transitional Program, you've never told us, nor shown any interest to.


Except, as Hallas points out, it led to, and still leads you lot into, a false impression of your own importance, and significance -- you can see this here with your grandiose claims.

I challenge you to find one grandiose claim I've made here. I'm jsut a revolutionary worker who will tell the truth to my class and intervene into the class struggle in order to illustrate htis in practice. We really do have no need for flabby academics winning themselves electoral posts on the back of pandering to the existing prejudices of the vanguard - workers are quite capable of co-ordinating their own struggles themselves, thanks, they really don't need some opportunist chancers riding their coat-tails to build a sect and win electoral posts (and then defect to the Tories or Labour as your ex-"comrades" in Tower Hamlets did, or line up with the union tops as Jane Loftus did). If you have nothing new to add to the existing subjectivity of the vanguard then get out of the way.


But the 'objective' conditions were totally different from those that motivated the formation of the first three internationals -- hence, the fourth was an example of unmitigated voluntarism.

Sorry, in what way?



Even though they were all microscopically small and largely worker-free zones.

Ironically though the RCP psot-WW2, as part of the 4th International and with its international program, with all its shortcomings, was the closest that Trotskyism in Britain ever came to a fusion with the workers vangurd. Certainly much closer than Cliffism ever came.


These issues can all be raised in each country in which one has a presence. Now, these may or may not succeed, but I do not see how using the grandiose term "Fourth International" helps in any way at all.

Waht the way that the SWP, Militants, WSL, AWL et al "raised in each country" the issue of defence of semi-colonial Argentina against imperialist Britain...oh wait, they didn't! Why? Because they were/are "national trotskyist" sects, the antithesis of revolutionary internationalism - a cocnept you seem to have real trouble with.


And you keep advancing baseless allegations about the SWP -- once more, can we see your evidence, or are you determined to remain a fantasist

Are you denying that the SWP had a dual-defeatist position during the Malvinas War? This is pathetic comrade, why would you wish to make a fool of yourself by claiming ignorance of your own party's stance on one of the most-important imperialist adventures since WW2? (because of its poltiical implications for the whole semic-olonial world and in Britain and the US, I mean, not militarily or economically).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenny, I'll reply in a day or two; I'm away for a while.

[RebelDog]

The SWP shall lead the ignorant working-class to socialism.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I think I speak for us all when I say that I sleep easier at night knowing that the CPGB have the SWP covered. Keep up the good work boys!
It is at least a handy resource for SWP members, you can't deny that.

Anyway, this thread = :(. Infinite amounts of :(. I would give a more detailed critique, but it really doesn't deserve one. Just having looked at it makes me a worse person.

[Lenny Nista]

Lenny, I'll reply in a day or two; I'm away for a while.

ok, good luck with whatever you're doing and thanks for the tip.