Question on the Russian and Ukrainian CWI

[GracchusBabeuf]

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[KC]

Sounds like partisan quackery to me.

[Q]

The Ukranian swindle played before I became a member. If I'm not mistaken they got expelled back in 2003. As for collaboration with the nazbols, I hear about that for a first time and the reason why no one else has brought it up in the years I've been here tells me this is not to be taken very seriously.

[graymouser]

You know, a group like the Sparts could actually be useful in keeping other left groups honest if it were able to just stick to the facts and not make bizarre distortions and suppositions. (There was one article that sticks out in my mind where they basically twisted everybody's position on the Venezuela constitutional reform vote; if you believed their portrayal the Internationalist Group which called for spoiled ballots would've seemed like Alan Woods.) They seem pretty desperate in their attempts to tar the CWI with absolutely anything that'll stick. Their recent article defending their bizarre new policy against running for executive offices in capitalism went after CWI and the old Militant tendency pretty hard...I guess they're sort of "official targets" now.

On the Ukraine scam, it seems likely to me that the CWI were just the first people that these bizarre folks hooked up with. I'm not clear on the Nazbols, I remember Taaffe implying something similar about the CMI/IMT's Russian section in one of his anti-CMI polemics years ago, but this is the first time I've heard of the connection. Unfortunately since the Sparts exaggerate or lie about too many things I just don't trust their account.

[GreenCommunism]

:rolleyes: the nazbol aren't fascist, they just reject trotsky's refusal of socialism in one country. if the nazbol are fascist what about china and socialism with chinese characteristics? the nazbol are less of a pain in the ass than china's communist movement, i'm not sure about it but i think they are fine with multiple parties and i'm certain about their respect of freedom of speech.

their old programs may not be, but it is pretty old and outdated. that is, the NBF is full of shit. but limonov party is much more rational.

[Saorsa]

the nazbol aren't fascist, they just reject trotsky's refusal of socialism in one country. if the nazbol are fascist what about china and socialism with chinese characteristics?

Wtf?

[Red Conall]

:rolleyes: the nazbol aren't fascist, they just reject trotsky's refusal of socialism in one country. if the nazbol are fascist what about china and socialism with chinese characteristics? the nazbol are less of a pain in the ass than china's communist movement, i'm not sure about it but i think they are fine with multiple parties and i'm certain about their respect of freedom of speech.

their old programs may not be, but it is pretty old and outdated. that is, the NBF is full of shit. but limonov party is much more rational.

You should be banned.

[Nolan]

Um...isn't Limonov the leader of the blatantly racist faction?

[Crux]

We already had nazbol thread. Oh and for the record, I don't take the sparts seriously.

[The Vegan Marxist]

:rolleyes: the nazbol aren't fascist, they just reject trotsky's refusal of socialism in one country. if the nazbol are fascist what about china and socialism with chinese characteristics? the nazbol are less of a pain in the ass than china's communist movement, i'm not sure about it but i think they are fine with multiple parties and i'm certain about their respect of freedom of speech.

their old programs may not be, but it is pretty old and outdated. that is, the NBF is full of shit. but limonov party is much more rational.

:confused:

[Crux]

I'm not a Trot, but that sounds like a cop out to me.Did the russian section write an article on the nazbol, which also contai ned an appeal for left-leaning nazbols to stop being nazbols? I haven't seen it, it was apparently before my time but it's not impossible and the sparts have their lunacy spin on everything. I've read their views on he CWI's view on china. Gave me a good laugh.

[Lyev]

Ok, well I am not going to try and justify our Russian and Ukrainian sections collaboration with a blatantly fascist organisation, that are all the more worse for trying to mask their reactionary views with leftist symbols and rhetoric. Having said that, this "collaboration" seems to have been misinterpreted, skewed and exaggerated by the article. And there are a few points in the article I would like to address. Firstly, I have searched for the original articles, where "pity" is expressed. The quotes in that second paragraph (1) seem to be taken largely out of context and (2) don't actually show that the CWI explcitly and unconditionally gets "in bed with fascists". I have googled the names of the articles, and the only result was this thread, and the same happened with their reference and article number that's in brackets. I think the original articles need to be consulted first. The source of the article from the anarchist Vladimir Sirogin is proving somewhat elusive too. The only result in google is this post here from Revleft - not even the original ICL-FI article.

But having questioned the sources of this article, which at the moment seem doubtful, tenuous and even non-existent, we now need to inquire into their actual content. First of all, why on earth does simply printing an article about fascists make the Russian or Ukrainian CWI make them fascist, or pseudo-fascists or whatever we are being accused of, in the first place? Why does asking this: “why are you still not with us?” make the CWI fascist? What on earth does the quote prove? For the article to simply throw at the reader a selection of seemingly arbitrary or random quotes, without any further explanation does not actually prove anything. If anything, it could be argued that it's an admirable thing to do for the CWI, to go out and try and have a dialogue with the Nazbols, to see if they can be won over to a leftist position. Although, having thought about it, for Taaffe to go out and approach the fascists like that is stupid and basically just a waste of time. I don't why he did it. He would have been better spending his time (along with the resources of the CWI) talking with other left groups. I am not prepared to approach the BNP, EDL or NF to try and persuade them over to a socialist perspective.

Also, in the third to last paragraph ( which starts with "The May 1998 meeting was not an isolated...") the writer of the article tries to insinuate that the CWI are yet again "in bed with facists" because they have said "We are not about to start up any wars" with the Nazbols, which I actually think is a reasonable and understandable position to take considering some of the other information that the article mentions. I think it mentions twice, on two separate occasions, incidents where leftists, along with CWI members, were attacked by bonehead or Nazbol thugs, and then it mentions an incident where a dormitory at Moscow’s Lumumba University "erupted into flames" killing some 40 people. If you were attacked by fascists in this manner, would you really want to start a fight with them, whilst simultaneously trying to be a new workers' party in the former USSR? The job is hard enough without trying to "start up any wars" with fascist boneheads. And hey, if we want to throw around half-assed sectarian accusations, didn't Stalin say to some rather infamous fascists, ""We are not about to start up any wars", in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? So by the ICL's logic, Molotov and Stalin are now clear-cut fascists, or have been "in bed with fascists".

My finally point as regards the credibility and biased nature of the article, is the last paragraph that purports that the Ukrainian CWI has "collaborated openly" with fascists. I fail to comprehend why signing a petition that the "Ukrainian Brotherhood" has also signed makes the CWI fascist, or sympathetic to far-right ideology. I'm fairly sure that fascists and organisations like the Ukrainian Brotherhood, espouse the "third positionist" ideology which, as most people will probably know, rejects Soviet Communism and capitalism. Opposing capitalism also entails opposing capitalist leaders and their wars, like Bush and the Iraq war. Anti-capitalism is a position that these people share with us, but obviously their ideology is full of utterly racist, hateful, violent and demagogic shit. So, we do share a position of anti-capitalism with them, but for totally different reasons, and they're also anti-communist. To agree with one point of theirs, whilst vehemently disagreeing with pretty much everything else that they say, does not make the CWI fascist. I assume that a lot of liberals, anti-war campaigners or greens signed the petition against the Iraq war, that the article mentions. So just because the CWI signs a petition that other parties happen to sign, it suddenly means they share every single same view as the others people that signed said petition? So if social-democrats signed the same petition as I did, does that make me a social-democrat? If I sign a petition against global warming that a conservative has signed (some rightists are environmentalists too, you know) does that suddenly make me a conservative?

Anyway, having taken the time to type all that up in defence of the CWI, I am finding myself having to really rethink my position in the organisation. There are several very big theoretical miscalculations and contradictions in the CWI's writing, activity, propaganda, interviews etc.; examples include the whole "workers in uniform" bullshit with Caton and POA. Also our history within the Labour party, and misuse of the transitional program. I have done reading and research and a lot of our conclusions add up as petit-bourgeois or reformist or social-democratic. SPEW's position on a workers' government is fundamentally flawed and actually reformist. I think this quote of Trotsky's can apply to prison officers too: "the worker who becomes a policeman in the service of the capitalist state, is a bourgeois cop, not a worker". But, taking everything into account, mostly every other SP member in Britain is against Caton's position in the party. The man is a capitalist stooge.

Also, there needs to be a clear Marxist distinction between "government" and "state", which I think SPEW certainly (not sure about the CWI as whole) fails to make. This quote is a bit off putting: "A socialist government could only defend itself if it mobilised the active support of the working class. And it would only be by demonstrating its power in practice that the working class could successfully defend its democratically elected socialist government." (emphasis added) Worker's power comes from smashing the state and building a new one, as emphatically repeated by Lenin in the State and Revolution. It most certainly does not come from occupying an existing capitalist government. That doesn't change any social relation -- it's actually socialism "from above". There is then a contradiction within SPEW's writings, with this claim: "The basic attitude of Marxism to the capitalist state is summed up by Lenin in the above mentioned 'State and Revolution'. Lenin points out that Marxist revolutionaries, as opposed to reformists, say that the existing Bourgeois state cannot be seized ready-made and used in the interests of the working class. It must be broken up, smashed, and replaced by a new workers' state." There is no consistency here. But, I am not planning to quit the organisation altogether, and I'm sure anyone can pick apart a few holes in other parties' programmes, but I don't really feel as comfortable as I used to in the Socialist Party. Having said that, I could always try and challenge these issues; it might not get that far though.

[Q]

I'm not a Trot, but that sounds like a cop out to me.

This dirt comes from an organisation that had no problems with imperialists occupying Haiti until recently. That does kinda undermine their authority...

[Crux]

Lyev: Well, we are not in a double-power position are we? If we were I would agree that we would raise different slogans (all power to the soviets come to mind). Our work within Labour (and other socdem parties) did not mean we were tied up to the leadership of those organizations, quite the opposite. Fighting for a socialist government, well it's for the same reason why we might, in some instances, defend say Morales or Chavez, now neither of their governments are consistently socialist, and even if they were we would still need, as the part you quoted points out, the mobilization of the working class, the working class seizing control, now this might very well bring us into a double-power position, then the government in question would have to either give in or come into conflict with the working class.
So no I don't think there is a contradiction at all, and I don't feel like digging through old issues of the Militant to prove my point.

As for the POA, they are acting like a militant union, they are fighting for the right to strike, they are in conflict with their employers. It's is for those reasons we let Brian Caton join, and the fact that he's a socialist. If you've seen his speeches you would see that quite clearly, some of our detractors even admit as much. It is not a clear cut issue of for or against prison officers, in fact I think it opens up some opportunities, what is clear though is that this issue must be debated more within the sp.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Um...isn't Limonov the leader of the blatantly racist faction?

No, that's Dugin of the NBF.


We already had nazbol thread. Oh and for the record, I don't take the sparts seriously.

What's with the upsurge in Spart gossip? They're talking of the CWI of the 1990s and the more unified Nazbols of that time.

[Crux]

GracchusBabeuf just dug up an article from 03.

[Lyev]

Yeah, this article isn't very credible. The Russian and Ukrainian sections have been kicked out since. What's the point in digging something up from 2003? It's childish and petty. The weakness of the accusations highlight that the Sparts will dig up old articles just to try and make the CWI look bad, for the sake of sectarianism, rather than criticizing us for an actually legitimate reason, on something that's happening right now.

And to Majakovskij: I think I should try and formulate my position a bit more clearly, and do some proper research on this, before I bring up points of contention simply in passing. The position of the CWI on the state and then on "workers in uniform" (although the subjects can overlap) is really for another thread. Hand-picking quotes from articles critical of the CWI doesn't really constitute a proper argument, but equally if there is something that I feel needs to be questioned and debated over, then I will bring it up; that's simply democracy.

Also, the contention is not really over Caton's legitimacy as a socialist, but over where his class interests really lie. If push came to shove, would he side with labour or capital? For me, that's the bottom line. Hopefully we can discern his position not only from the speeches he has made, but some of his actions too. Yet, on the other hand, I believe winning the support of soldiers, policemen, prison officers, "stooges" of the state etc. is an important job for socialists; just as the Bolsheviks did in 1917, with the soldiers and sailors strikes and/or mutinies.

[robbo203]

There is something about the Ukrainian scam here

http://www.bolshevik.org/ukrscandal/statements.htm

If I remember correctly I think it was the SPGB who blew the whistle on this bunch of scammers and alerted other organisations of this. See the link to the EC meeting of the SPGB on 26 July 2003 which is on the top of the list of links