Is the IMT turning to spontaneism?

[nideaquinidealli]

Looking for info about the last French general strike, I found a valuable article by Greg Oxley, a veteran IMT leader, and the current leader of the French section of the IMT.

http://www.marxist.com/france-massive-protests-against-pension-reform.htm

In this article, Oxley states that general strikes are not enough to stop the Sarkozy’s government policies. In general terms, one-day general strikes, like the seven ones organized by the Greek unions in this year, or the Spanish unions call for a general strike on September 29, are useless.

So, instead of supporting the union’s fights, Oxley’s analysis is:

“The union leaders will probably call yet another “day of action”, and another, and another, until the willingness of workers to turn out for such events falls away. And so things will continue, cutting down one by one all the conquests of the past struggles of the working class, until the ranks of the labour movement – and perhaps, to begin with, just one powerful section of the workers such as workers in transport, in electricity, in communications, or banking – decide that enough is enough, and successfully call upon the rest of the working class to stay out on strike and begin a serious and determined struggle.”

And his conclusion is: “This will happen sooner or later. It is just a matter of time.”

In my view, this means a clear turn towards spontaneism, hardly compatible with the classical orientation of the IMT towards the traditional organizations of the working class. So, I read the last Alan Wood’s articles, and, in my view, the article published in IDOM on September 3 confirms that the Oxley perspective is the IMT perspective:

http://www.marxist.com/crisis-of-capitalism-perspectives-for-class-struggle.htm


“So serious is the present crisis that strikes, in and of themselves, do not solve the question. Just look at Greece, where the union leaders can repeatedly call general strikes in order to tire the workers out. These strikes will not force Papandreou to abandon his programme of cuts. On a capitalist basis he has no alternative but to continue. Therefore, inevitably the strikes will begin to fall off in Greece.
But the important thing is that the advanced layers of workers and youth will draw political conclusions. The Marxists must tell the truth to workers, and the truth is, as Trotsky explained to the Spanish Communists in 1931, that even the stormiest strikes settle nothing fundamental. Through strikes the workers will learn lessons. We must explain that there is no solution to the fundamental problems while capitalism exists. The only solution is for working class to take power.”


Could be this turn a collateral effect of the split of the Spanish and Venezuelan IMT sections, two sections with a strong workers and unionist membership?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Conning the masses to taking power via waves of mass strikes and the resulting "all power to the soviets"? How new.

[graymouser]

Conning the masses to taking power via waves of mass strikes and the resulting "all power to the soviets"? How new.
As opposed to what, precisely? What method of taking power other than putting it into the streets by strike waves, and then putting said power into the organized form of the working class as a class (soviets), has ever been shown to succeed?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Build something before revolutionary periods that acknowledges the time-honoured fact of real parties being real movements and vice versa, replete with alternative culture.

Such was the strategy of the informal tendency around Bebel, supported by the likes of Kautsky, Guesde, and even the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks with Iskra origins themselves:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=205

[bricolage]

'Alternative culture' died a long time ago. The fact that its practitioners had cuddled up to imperialist war efforts and sent Freikorps into the streets might have had something to do with it.


Larissa Reissner, a Russian communist journalist who witnessed the Hamburg fighting, described a socialist signers’ festival two weeks later. Through her prose, dripping with irony, we can see how the old rituals of 1905 looked to the lost generation. ‘A vast, half-empty, cavern-like hall. Several hundred unusually oppressed, taciturn and motionless workers... The round, jauntily upturned lid of a beer mug cannot be seen on a single table...’ First there is a socialist speech; then a workers’ choir singing ‘exultations of pastoral bliss and pure love’.

Not a stammer or a wrong note. Clearly the mean have been practising ensemble performance for at least two months despite hunger, unemployment, the howling of unfed children and the fascists’ preparations for war. No, nothing can divert the SPD from peaceful cultural and educational exercises.

This passage was written as a venomous attack on social democracy, yet, unwittingly, it captures the essence of how the majority of German workers felt by October 1923. Surrounded by a world of chaos they would fall back on what they had themselves created: the world within a world of social democracy, no matter how bleak it looked to the revolutionary outsider.

[Devrim]

'Alternative culture' died a long time ago. The fact that its practitioners had cuddled up to imperialist war efforts and sent Freikorps into the streets might have had something to do with it.

Bricolage clearly see the obvious flaw with Jacob's grand theory, which is that it failed. It failed not because of bad leaders or mistaken theories, but because of the impossibility of having mass organisations defending class interests outside of periods of high level class struggle.

I would suggest that people ignore his trolling and respond to the topic of the thread:


In my view, this means a clear turn towards spontaneism, hardly compatible with the classical orientation of the IMT towards the traditional organizations of the working class.

I think that it is sort of inevitable that organisations will adopt more 'left' positions as the class struggle intensifies as it is doing slowly. Other organisations, without naming any names, who have virtually forgotten that the working class existed as they wrapped themselves up in campaign politics, will make a move towards an 'orientation to workers struggles.

These shifts in policy will invariably result in splits.

Devrim

[Palingenisis]

Conning the masses to taking power via waves of mass strikes and the resulting "all power to the soviets"? How new.

Along with that view usually goes the belief that all socio-cultural and political struggles will be magically through partcipation in economic struggles along with the dismissal of all other conflicts and contradictions in society outside of the economic. The lessons of "May 68" dont seem to have been learned by those who still fetish the "mass strike".

[vyborg]

I cannot understand the issue. Greg states that workers will move sooner or later. If this is spontaneism, any marxist, communist, socialist, left wing people is spontaneist...

[graymouser]

I'm really not sure where the fundamental break with Trotskyist strategy is here - Oxley and Woods are pointing out that one-day general strikes are a tactic with severe limitations, which any leftist should be able to tell you. It's not spontaneism so much as simply understanding that the class struggle needs to seek different forms and ultimately state power.

[black magick hustla]

Build something before revolutionary periods that acknowledges the time-honoured fact of real parties being real movements and vice versa, replete with alternative culture.

Such was the strategy of the informal tendency around Bebel, supported by the likes of Kautsky, Guesde, and even the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks with Iskra origins htemselves:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=205


civil society has been swallowed by the state. I dont think it is possible to build an alternative culture without mass militancy which invariably have very little to do with tiny groups "building" culture. In the 19th century, there was a time where such things as social security, education, etcetera could be left to the trade unions and the socialdem parties. all those aspects have been swallowed today by the state though.

[Q]

I cannot understand the issue. Greg states that workers will move sooner or later. If this is spontaneism, any marxist, communist, socialist, left wing people is spontaneist...


I'm really not sure where the fundamental break with Trotskyist strategy is here - Oxley and Woods are pointing out that one-day general strikes are a tactic with severe limitations, which any leftist should be able to tell you. It's not spontaneism so much as simply understanding that the class struggle needs to seek different forms and ultimately state power.

The central problem with "workers will take political conclusions seeing as the current general strikes don't work" - eg, a spontaneist position - is that it essentially negates any constructive role of a revolutionary party. It reduces the role of communists to mere agitators: "strike! fight! struggle!".

Centuries of such fights more often than not prove that struggle by itself does not automatically lead to political conclusions, but to disillusions and a sense of defeat and disorganisation. This is exactly the state the Dutch working class is in today after about 30 years of "polder model" class collaboration.

The role of communists, in my opinion, is to also educate and organise the working class as a class in its own right. It has to be educated into becoming a new ruling class. I agree here with DNZ in the need for alternative culture, etc.

And as for Devrim:

Bricolage clearly see the obvious flaw with Jacob's grand theory, which is that it failed. It failed not because of bad leaders or mistaken theories, but because of the impossibility of having mass organisations defending class interests outside of periods of high level class struggle.
I would rather argue that the current predicament of the far left in its irrelevant, inwardlooking, splintered state - a result of countless effords to create a "pure vanguard" - is a much better measure in failure.

[nideaquinidealli]

The central problem with "workers will take political conclusions seeing as the current general strikes don't work" - eg, a spontaneist position - is that it essentially negates any constructive role of a revolutionary party. It reduces the role of communists to mere agitators: "strike! fight! struggle!".

Yes, this is the central point. Let's read carefully what Oxley says:

"Not only the more conservative and more openly class collaborationist leaderships, such as those of the CFTC, the CFDT or Force Ouvrière, but also the CGT leaders, dread the prospect that workers will take matters into their own hands and launch all-out indefinite strike action. This will happen sooner or later. It is just a matter of time."

An indefinite strike (and remember Alan Woods words in his last article: "an indefinite general strike poses the question of power – it is a revolutionary action") AGAINST the unions leadership... this means, in my opinion, a main turn in the IMT perspectives. Perhaps is the strategy more fitted for these times, where there are no traces of "left-wings" in the workers mass organizations, just the opposite, but is a clear 180º turn.

[Devrim]

And as for Devrim:

I would rather argue that the current predicament of the far left in its irrelevant, inwardlooking, splintered state - a result of countless effords to create a "pure vanguard" - is a much better measure in failure.

Efforts to build a mass party outside of struggle can obviously also lead to failure. That was not my point though. If setting up this sort of organisation were to be successful, and there are no reasons that it should as it would be just one more of the tiny 'parties' amongst many calling for a 'mass party', but if it were to be successful, in would invariably end up being intergrated into the state, and act not as a force for the working class but against it.

The betrayals of social democracy were not down to bad leaders, 'revisionism', or any other such nonsense. They were down to the impossibility of having a mass revolutionary workers movement outside of times of large scale class struggle.

How can it be possible for a party such as this to be revolutionary when the mass of the working class isn't?

You are right though that the left can not 'in its irrelevant, inwardlooking, splintered state...create a 'pure vanguard'". Of course it can't. All it can do is create smaller or bigger, more or less pure, political groups.

What you miss is the point that the party is not created by left groups, but by the working class itself through its struggle. Regardless of their claims none of the leftist groups today are a class party, nor are they capable of even approaching being one. The more intelligent ones are the one that realise this and see their task as working towards the creation of such a party. The more foolish ones are the one that believe they are that party now.

This used to be something that was understood on the left. The word party is not just a name one chooses at will after a load of adjectives including words like 'workers, revolutionary, communist...', and as a more serious sounding alternative to a word like 'Tendency' or 'League'. However, it has long since been forgotten.

It once represented in Marxist theory a definite stage in the development of working class political organisation. If we go back to the point when Cliff turned the IS into the SWP, he didn't just do it because he fancied a new name and image. He did it because he thought that the situation was right to transform the IS into a party. Cliff knew enough about Marxism to understand that there was a difference. The problem lay in his understanding of the period being wrong.

Building the party is not something that can be done in a voluntaristic manner, but is something that is directly linked to the level of class struggle.

Only a deepening of class struggle can lay the objective base for building the party., not a lot of nonsense about how we need to build a working class culture, which is itself something that can only be created by the struggle itself, not by small groups of political militants.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I'm really not sure where the fundamental break with Trotskyist strategy is here - Oxley and Woods are pointing out that one-day general strikes are a tactic with severe limitations, which any leftist should be able to tell you. It's not spontaneism so much as simply understanding that the class struggle needs to seek different forms and ultimately state power.

I don't think it is a ' fundamental break with Trotskyist strategy', which is a term which includes a wide variation of positions anyway. It does seem to me to be, without having detailed information, a move to the left for the IMT.

Devrim

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The central problem with "workers will take political conclusions seeing as the current general strikes don't work" - eg, a spontaneist position - is that it essentially negates any constructive role of a revolutionary party.

So your biggest problem with it is that it doesn't leave a leadership role for people like you?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm really not sure where the fundamental break with Trotskyist strategy is here - Oxley and Woods are pointing out that one-day general strikes are a tactic with severe limitations, which any leftist should be able to tell you. It's not spontaneism so much as simply understanding that the class struggle needs to seek different forms and ultimately state power.

It's not a fundamental break with the common strategy of Bakunin and Sorel, Pannekoek and Luxemburg, all the way down to Trotsky.

It is, however, a fundamental break from Marxist strategy.

[Palingenisis]

Bricolage clearly see the obvious flaw with Jacob's grand theory, which is that it failed. It failed not because of bad leaders or mistaken theories, but because of the impossibility of having mass organisations defending class interests outside of periods of high level class struggle.


For all its faults and limitations the autonomist movement in western Europe during the 70s and 80s before its degeneration during the 90s did build up what DNZ refers to as "alternative culture" in societies that were not on the edge of revolution (Italy possibly accepted). There are also good examples of it amid the more progressive, urban and working class parts of the Irish Republican movement that arose during the "Troubles". If the working class is to actually sieze power it has to build up organs of counter-power first other wise no matter how actute the economic struggles become they will collapse into almost nothing as the "winter of discontent" did.

[Palingenisis]

civil society has been swallowed by the state. I dont think it is possible to build an alternative culture without mass militancy which invariably have very little to do with tiny groups "building" culture. In the 19th century, there was a time where such things as social security, education, etcetera could be left to the trade unions and the socialdem parties. all those aspects have been swallowed today by the state though.

The demand for communism/socialism isnt just a nice idea that falls from the sky but arises "naturally" out of the real life conditions of proletarians and the oppressed. It is through relating to people's actual needs and desires within the limited context of our present existence and showing how they are ultimately related to communism through struggling along side people to fufill rather than presenting people with just a nice idea that revolution becomes possible. The battle should be to reclaim every inch of life and not just scrap over wages and conditions at work and hope out of those scraps communism will somehow magically just happen.

[Palingenisis]

It's not a fundamental break with the common strategy of Bakunin and Sorel, Pannekoek and Luxemburg, all the way down to Trotsky.

It is, however, a fundamental break from Marxist strategy.

Was Trotsky a semi-syndicalist of some sort?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I was stretching things polemically.

The actual Macnair quote was, "On the other hand, Bakunin - and from Bakunin's ideas we get the syndicalists and Sorel, and Sorel's ideas are profoundly influential on Rosa Luxemburg and somewhat less influential on Trotsky, and certainly influential on Bogdanov and a whole lot of people... Herman Gorter, Korsch, the people who were the left wing of the Second International..."

Some post-Trot comrades here have acknowledged that Trotsky simply, simply was a pathetic "party-builder."

[Palingenisis]

I do think though parlimentary participation is pointless over most of the globe now...And whatever benefits it might have are outwayed by the dangers that go along with (of creating an elite that is given every circumstance and temptation ultimately to "sell out"....The history of both the Workers' Party and Provisional Sinn Fein in Ireland illustrate this very well).

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I argued in my CSR pamphlet personal abstentionism from parliamentary participation plus mass spoilage campaigns. I still think there needs to be a role for mass spoilage campaigns: a mixture of "get out the party votes" plus mass spoilage campaigns.

As I said on personal parliamentary participation, though:

“Comrade Mike Lepore (the DeLeonist on this board) advocated a ‘Socialist’ parliamentary strategy, whereby instead of abstentions those elected would talk just about socialism and nothing else… I would say that a mixture of talking about socialism and nothing else, complete ‘abstentionist’ dedication to office work in electoral districts, and populist ‘anti-‘ rhetoric (anti-capitalist and anti-Government) by appropriate parliamentary reps would be nice.”

A simple formula would be Daniel DeLeon + Independent MP + Oskar Lafontaine to personalize the three tolerable kinds of parliamentary work above. This, along with party-dominated PR regimes, would prevent the age-old problem of "ministerialism" from the days of the Second International.

[vyborg]

Everything in this debate is frankly comical or farcical.

Anyway it is ABC for marxists that workers will move against their leadership. Oterwhise how you can overthrow the reformist grip on the labour movement? It is so obvious I cannot see any point in the discussion.

[Q]

Everything in this debate is frankly comical or farcical.

Anyway it is ABC for marxists that workers will move against their leadership. Oterwhise how you can overthrow the reformist grip on the labour movement? It is so obvious I cannot see any point in the discussion.

Paraphrasing the IMT line of yesteryear: "Anyway it is ABC for marxists that workers will continue to support the traditional mass organisations and their leaderships move to the left under the hammerblows of the march of events. Any independent activity of two workers and their dog is utterly sectarian. It is so obvious I cannot see any point in the discussion."

You prove to be very flexible indeed.

[vyborg]

Try to find a line of the IMT that state this...it is a bit to simple to make someone say something you want he to say...this is not the case...

The discussion is ridicolous indeed. Is anyone denying the workers will move? If this is so we can go home and not bother us with class struggle. The point is how they will move. This is what differentiate the IMT from the sects...

[Q]

Try to find a line of the IMT that state this...it is a bit to simple to make someone say something you want he to say...this is not the case...
I'm sorry, not bothered enough to point out the obvious. Have fun denying.


The discussion is ridicolous indeed. Is anyone denying the workers will move? If this is so we can go home and not bother us with class struggle. The point is how they will move.

No one here is saying workers won't move. Class struggle is an endemic feature of capitalism. This discussion is about whether workers will take political conclusions from this, suddenly wake up one day and say "hey, this ain't working" and then conclude that we have to take power. This is what the OP pointed out as the new IMT line and is indeed a spontaneist position.

But you're too busy taking down strawmen to respond to this it seems.


This is what differentiate the IMT from the sects...
Humble as always :lol:

[vyborg]

Again, the statement is absolutely obvious. If workers do not take political conclusions fron life we can go playing cards or chess. They will move politically, they will try to use their organization and they will find their leaders are useless to this end. This is how revolutionart tendencies always has been created in history.

As Q cannot find any IMT statement on his line, we can conclude the line is his own

[Q]

Again, the statement is absolutely obvious. If workers do not take political conclusions fron life we can go playing cards or chess. They will move politically, they will try to use their organization and they will find their leaders are useless to this end.
If this was indeed correct, we could as well play cards or chess. What's the point of being a communist if workers will get to their historic conclusions all by themselves after all? There is no need for a communist party or any kind of workers party as all we need is class struggle and the workers will go from there.

I'm sure the anarcho-syndicalists will like you much better now.


This is how revolutionart tendencies always has been created in history.
If only.

[vyborg]

Drawing conclusions is not something black or white, it is a process. But denying that this process unfolds starting from workers themselves means denying any possibility to revolution. Workers will search for a tool to change society, not clearly, not straightforwardly, but they will. Marxist do not create this process, they only intervene in it. This is not even ABC this is marxism for dummies

[Devrim]

For all its faults and limitations the autonomist movement in western Europe during the 70s and 80s before its degeneration during the 90s did build up what DNZ refers to as "alternative culture" in societies that were not on the edge of revolution (Italy possibly accepted).

What 'alternative culture' did the autonomists build up? Really I have no idea what you are talking about here.


If the working class is to actually sieze power it has to build up organs of counter-power first other wise no matter how actute the economic struggles become they will collapse into almost nothing as the "winter of discontent" did.

It sounds good in theory, but I don't think that there is much substance to this argument. What organs of counter-power? The problem is that building organs of workers' power is completely linked to the economic struggle. You can't just set them up first. Mass meetings, strike committies, and ultimately Workers' councils/soviets develop frol the struggle of the class. You can't just set them up first.

Devrim

[Devrim]

The actual Macnair quote was, "On the other hand, Bakunin - and from Bakunin's ideas we get the syndicalists and Sorel, and Sorel's ideas are profoundly influential on Rosa Luxemburg and somewhat less influential on Trotsky, and certainly influential on Bogdanov and a whole lot of people... Herman Gorter, Korsch, the people who were the left wing of the Second International..."

And it is just utter rubbish. If you read Gorter and Luxembourg, not only do they explicitly reject syndicalism and anarchism, but provide some of the best arguments that the Marxism has made against these currents.

Basically this argument is a long standing slander, which has been used against the German left to discredit its ideas without confronting them. Macnair does himself no favours at all by repeating it.


I argued in my CSR pamphlet personal abstentionism from parliamentary participation plus mass spoilage campaigns.

Which pamphlet? Do you mean that somebody actually published something you wrote? Where can we buy a copy?

Devrim

Devrim

[Devrim]

This is what differentiate the IMT from the sects...
Humble as always :lol:

In the UK when the forerunners of the IMT were a large organisation in the Labour Party, this just came across as a completely unprincipled way to dismiss other smaller groups. Now that the IMT are smaller than many of those groups who they call 'sects', it has the added disadvantage of making them look completely ridiculous.

Devrim

[vyborg]

Sect is a scientific term not something used to insult. You can have a sect of 20 thousands or 20.

[Palingenisis]

What 'alternative culture' did the autonomists build up? Really I have no idea what you are talking about here.


The squats, social centres, community run creches/child care, restaurants, etc.

[Devrim]

Sect is a scientific term not something used to insult. You can have a sect of 20 thousands or 20.

Really I thought the IMT just used it as an insult. Please explain exactly what you mean by it, and why these other small groups are sects and you are not.

Devrim

[Devrim]

The squats, social centres, community run creches/child care, restaurants, etc.

OK, I see what you mean now. It was never a very strong movement though, and what there was was very much a youth subculture, not a mass working class culture as Jacob talks about.

Devrim

[Palingenisis]

Really I thought the IMT just used it as an insult. Please explain exactly what you mean by it, and why these other small groups are sects and you are not.

Devrim

By sect they mean any Party or group that seperates itself from what they see as the mass "Party of the working class" (which in England still counts as Labour ;)). Its a postition that effectively condemns the Third International for rupturing with Social Democracy.

[nideaquinidealli]

Everything in this debate is frankly comical or farcical.

Anyway it is ABC for marxists that workers will move against their leadership. Oterwhise how you can overthrow the reformist grip on the labour movement? It is so obvious I cannot see any point in the discussion.

I started this thread trying to understand the content of a article written by Greg Oxley, which, in my opinion, has very important differences with the IMT's perspectives about mass organizations.

In your document "The Marxists and the workers' parties - Thesis on work in the mass organizations" (IS draft document for 2010 World Congress) you state in the first paragraph of Conclusions:

"What sets us apart from all the other tendencies that claim to be Trotskyists is, on the one hand, our painstaking attitude to theory, on the other, our approach towards the mass organisations. As opposed to all the other groups we take as our starting point the well-established fact that when the workers move into action, they will not go towards some small grouping on the fringes of the Labour movement. They will inevitably express themselves through their traditional mass organisations. "

This is the opposite of what Greg Oxley has written, isn't it? So we can choose between two explanations:
- IMT has changed their mind on the future of mass organizations.
- Greg Oxley doesn't agree with the IMT line.

You are on your right to be in silence about internal differences inside the IMT. But, please don't try to mislead us.

[Q]

I started this thread trying to understand the content of a article written by Greg Oxley, which, in my opinion, has very important differences with the IMT's perspectives about mass organizations.

In your document "The Marxists and the workers' parties - Thesis on work in the mass organizations" (IS draft document for 2010 World Congress) you state in the first paragraph of Conclusions:

"What sets us apart from all the other tendencies that claim to be Trotskyists is, on the one hand, our painstaking attitude to theory, on the other, our approach towards the mass organisations. As opposed to all the other groups we take as our starting point the well-established fact that when the workers move into action, they will not go towards some small grouping on the fringes of the Labour movement. They will inevitably express themselves through their traditional mass organisations. "

This is the opposite of what Greg Oxley has written, isn't it? So we can choose between two explanations:
- IMT has changed their mind on the future of mass organizations.
- Greg Oxley doesn't agree with the IMT line.

You are on your right to be in silence about internal differences inside the IMT. But, please don't try to mislead us.

Thanks for providing a nice up to date quote that underlines my paraphrase of post 24. Apparently it wasn't a line of yesteryear though, so this does seem to be contradicting.

[Q]

The central problem with "workers will take political conclusions seeing as the current general strikes don't work" - eg, a spontaneist position - is that it essentially negates any constructive role of a revolutionary party.So your biggest problem with it is that it doesn't leave a leadership role for people like you?

I wasn't going to respond to this as I thought you were just trolling, but as you left me a visitor message asking to reply to it, I will.

The hint is in the part you didn't quote:


It reduces the role of communists to mere agitators: "strike! fight! struggle!".

Centuries of such fights more often than not prove that struggle by itself does not automatically lead to political conclusions, but to disillusions and a sense of defeat and disorganisation. This is exactly the state the Dutch working class is in today after about 30 years of "polder model" class collaboration.

The role of communists, in my opinion, is to also educate and organise the working class as a class in its own right. It has to be educated into becoming a new ruling class. I agree here with DNZ in the need for alternative culture, etc.

The revolutionary party isn't some alien body that assumes a leadership role and forces its view upon the class. To keep inline with the thread topic: that would be a classic sect. It is instead the most politically conscious part of the class that strives to build the class as its own politically aware entity that can take over power as a collective. Earlier I called this the "coaching function" of the revolutionary party within the class movement.

So, in a sense vyborg is correct when he says that "[workers] will move politically, they will try to use their organization and they will find their leaders are useless to this end". This "politically moving" is indeed expressed in the existance of the revolutionary class party, ABC as vyborg would say. But vyborg is muddled in thinking that Labour represents the type of class party we need. Labour has always been, and still is for that matter, a project of the trade union bureaucracy. It does not represent our class interests, although I'm willing to accept that it is an impotant area for communists to fight in. But that is another debate entirely.

In what sense do I view political leadership then? I view it as a dialectical relationship between party and class. There are many aspects to this, such as DNZ's "alternative culture", but I'll focus here on the political education of the class. Being a class party, there will inevitably be disagreements on many subjects as individual workers, or layers of workers, have many different ideas, experiences, etc. Such differences are and should be reflected in the public debates of the party, be they in an individual sense of a single member or in an organised fashion (tendencies, platforms, factions, etc.). Why public? Because these debates reflect concrete developments and ideas of the wider class - be it on the level of tactics, strategy, programme or theory - these debates matter for the class. And because the party forms the crystallisation point of these debates - the party being the expression of the most politically aware workers - the party will grow confidense and rise to a position of political leadership of the class, which in turn deepens the organic and dialectical link between party and class.

So, to answer your question: Yes, that is my biggest problem and I hope you understand now why I think so.

[vyborg]

let's try to make the best of out this discussion, even if it started so badly.

How workers move, what is the relationship between the class and the party? these are two of the most important and difficult issues we face as revolutionary.
i will try to be brief. so pardon me for be apodictic.

workers consciousness always lags behind material conditions. somehow, during certain circumstances, it catchs up and this is when they move (i mean they as a class, in their million not only vanguards). what they do? they look around and try to use what exists to their ends: workers' party, unions etc. do they, I repeat, in their million, consider small organization? no they do not. do they know how degenerated is the party or the parties? not necessarily. anyway they put a lot of pressures on their existing organization. this can lead to splits, leaders moving to the left etc. you can also have the development of big sects (in Italy in the 70s the sect counted, taken together, on 100-150 thousands members, not bad at all!).

so there is ferment and everything moves, then you have the development of left tendencies inside the official labour movement. the final role of these areas is to control the masses, but the workers will try to use these to their ends. it is hopelessly sectarian to "warn" the workers against the opportunism of their "left" leaders. they will find it for themselves. the problem is to fight in these left tendencies to propose marxist outlook and methods. the masses will try to push the official organization to the left, if they find a marxist tendency that help them, they can go on and win.
this is the general sketch.

What is a sect? a group that takes a shortcut and tell to workers: the leaders are all bourgeois traitors (that is absolutely true) so join our revolutionary party. Of course they always fail. Lenin already explained very well why in his book on the subject in 1920. Does it mean the sect cannot do a very good political job or not having influence or not have a growth? of course not. they can do a very good job, they can grow etc. what they cannot do is fighting for taking the control of the labour movement from reformist. and this is exactly our goal: to squeeze opportunist out from the leadership of the working class.

Does Greg state something different? Not at all to me.

[Devrim]

What is a sect? a group that takes a shortcut and tell to workers: the leaders are all bourgeois traitors (that is absolutely true) so join our revolutionary party.

So you tell workers the leaders are bourgeois traitors, and I presume tell them to join your organisation.

So what exactly is the difference?

Devrim

[vyborg]

The idea that the workers (not a single worker or an advanced layer of workers but the millions of ordinary workers) can be convinced by propaganda is the essence of the sectarian way of doing politics. And cannot work...of course you always try to recruit the best class fighters but this is not the point...

[bricolage]

In the 19th century, there was a time where such things as social security, education, etcetera could be left to the trade unions and the socialdem parties. all those aspects have been swallowed today by the state though.
I think this is a good point, the SPD 'world within a world' existed prior to the mass welfare states could provide creches, funeral services, swimming pools, before mass subcultures left singing clubs irrelevant (and who wants a singing club nowadays anyway!), before pubs etc became accesible for all (although I suppose workingmens clubs still exist so you have them). Also if you look at the logistics of this the SPD had things like workers swimming pools, the logistics of this today would be impossible ie, getting enough to money to run a pool, having to bring up to scratch with safety regulations, necessitating money, time and personnel that just isn't available.

I can understand the attraction of these kind of things because it is a way to bring politics into the everyday lives experiences of individuals but the problem is the state is just a lot better at it than we could ever be. Instead what the state can't offer is a challenge to capital, a challenge to itself. Like the 'alternative culture' this is an everday lived experience, but unlike alternative culture it is both a pathway to societal emancipation and a concrete possibility. Although if I were to lean the other way a bit I would say there probably are practical benefits to some elements of 'counter-power', for example social centres were mentioned earlier which provide good places for storage or for holding meetings, as well as areas that interaction can take place. Beyond this though I don't think they offer an alternative to actual struggle.

[Palingenisis]

So you tell workers the leaders are bourgeois traitors, and I presume tell them to join your organisation.

So what exactly is the difference?

Devrim

The problemn facing revolutionaries at least in western Europe is not people's faith in the Social Democratic and Euro-Communist parties...Most people particularly among the working class are incredibly cynical about politicians in general but people's defeatism, the general feeling that change is impossible. The other thing that a lot of these parties that the IMT is involved with are nakedly and shamelessly Imperialist.

The world has changed a lot since Lenin wrote his pamphlet on "Left wing Communism". Trots though cant seem to see that.

[Devrim]

The idea that the workers (not a single worker or an advanced layer of workers but the millions of ordinary workers) can be convinced by propaganda is the essence of the sectarian way of doing politics. And cannot work...of course you always try to recruit the best class fighters but this is not the point...

I don't think anybody believes this.

Devrim

[vyborg]

I don't think anybody believes this.

Devrim

Very good, this clears the path from a very distorted way of thinking...

[Devrim]

Very good, this clears the path from a very distorted way of thinking...

but you still haven't explained that differentiates you from the 'sects'.

Devrim

[Red Monroy]

workers consciousness always lags behind material conditions. somehow, during certain circumstances, it catchs up and this is when they move (i mean they as a class, in their million not only vanguards). what they do? they look around and try to use what exists to their ends: workers' party, unions etc. do they, I repeat, in their million, consider small organization? no they do not. do they know how degenerated is the party or the parties? not necessarily. anyway they put a lot of pressures on their existing organization. this can lead to splits, leaders moving to the left etc. you can also have the development of big sects (in Italy in the 70s the sect counted, taken together, on 100-150 thousands members, not bad at all!)
I agree with this part. The working class movement indeed won't consider small organisations ranging in their hundreds or perhaps thousands (IMT included). This is why we need to unite the left into a single party on a clear Marxist programme.

I think Robbie Rix put it quite well in this week's Weely Worker. I'll quote his whole column as I can't link yet, but I'm specifically refering to his first and second paragraphs:


Rumours flying around

Honesty has won us readers and loyalty, says Robbie Rix

George Osborne’s budget will entail savage cuts. He has spoken of an age of austerity. Millions face unemployment, pay freezes, loss of benefits and a sharp decline in living standards. Huge demonstrations and protests will happen this year and the next. The Manchester TUC gave a useful green light. And doubtless the entire left will expend every effort to mobilise people. But what then? We have seen Greece, Spain, Ireland and France. The working class resists with commendable discipline but is unable to take the fight to the enemy. Bankers, establishment politicians and the entire capitalist system are now widely despised. A larger and larger minority want an alternative, socialist, society. But the instrument is clearly absent. Nowhere is there a mass Communist Party worthy of the name.

Of course, this is where the Weekly Worker comes in. Our aim is to unite the existing, often bitterly divided, left into a single Communist Party. Not only those outside the Labour Party but those inside too. Only through such a strategy is it possible to seriously envisage drawing masses of so-called ordinary people to the kind of party needed if we are going to see an end to capitalism. That is why bringing out into the open all the shades, factions and significant arguments on the existing left matters. An approach which has won this paper a widely envied circulation. But as the reader will doubtless will be full aware, we practice openness when it comes to shades, faction and significant arguments in our own ranks too.

To be honest I was expecting a sudden spike in readership numbers. Especially as rumours are flying about of an imminent split in the CPGB. However, as it turns out, over the last seven days (we count from Wednesday to Tuesday) there were 9,576 electronic readers. No change in other words. Either way we will be publishing articles dealing with our internal differences over the coming weeks. Such an approach is the surest way to guard against irresponsible splits and should serve as a model of good practice for the rest of the left. Certainly the best class militants, the critically minded, people with real revolutionary spirit will not touch a party which hides differences and treats them as something shameful. Arguments are inevitable, healthy and wonderfully educational.

Honesty has won us not only readers, but loyalty, not least as shown by this week’s list of donors: TW (£150), MM (£70), MC (£10), RP (£10), SK (£230), AP (£15) and GD (£5). Which, if my arithmetic is correct adds up to £490. Together with our £577 running total we now have £1,067. With another week to go before the end of the month that takes us within reach of the £1,250 target.

[vyborg]

but you still haven't explained that differentiates you from the 'sects'.

Devrim

a sect goes to a worker and tell him join us as your leaders are a bunch of corrupt gangsters.
marxists since Marx himself know that this correct idea is not enough to win workers. if you accept it, if you accept that you must work where workers actually are that is in the union in the traditional reformist workers parties, whatever, you are a bit over the simplistic solution that sects give to the problem of the leadership of the working class.

you must build a revolutionary party working inside the labour movement

[Devrim]

a sect goes to a worker and tell him join us as your leaders are a bunch of corrupt gangsters.

Which as we have seen is what you do too.

[QUOTE=vyborg;1873406]marxists since Marx himself know that this correct idea is not enough to win workers. if you accept it, if you accept that you must work where workers actually are that is in the union in the traditional reformist workers parties,

There is no actual connection between the the protasis and the apodosis here. I accept the former, but not the later.

I think what you are trying to say is sects are groups that don't work in bourgeois parties.

Devrim

[vyborg]

there are a lot of sect that tried to work inside workers' parties and still are. on the other side, sometimes marxist built independent organization also at the start (for instance, now the in the US). so the problem is not the abstract orientation but how you work inside the party

[Devrim]

there are a lot of sect that tried to work inside workers' parties and still are. on the other side, sometimes marxist built independent organization also at the start (for instance, now the in the US). so the problem is not the abstract orientation but how you work inside the party

Ah, so what you mean actual is that sect is a 'scientific' term to describe leftist groups that are members of the IMT.

Devrim

[vyborg]

It is completly comprehensible the difference. Is it sufficient to analyze the facts.
Maybe for me its' easier because in my party for 15 years we had no less than 3 or 4 different trots sects working besides us, if you read their documents of all these years (go for example in their sites Sinistra Critica, Pcl, Pdac, etc) you can assess it for yourself.

[Devrim]

It is completly comprehensible the difference.

If that is the case why does it seem that it is so difficult for you to explain it. Please explain what the difference between your own group and a 'sect' is.

Devrim

[vyborg]

It is not difficult to me to explain. I did it many times and comrades such as Ted Grant or Lenin already did. Maybe it is difficult for you to accept it.
Did you read the book of Lenin about ultraleftism? Do you agree with it? If it is so, not much I have to add.

[Devrim]

It is not difficult to me to explain.

Well please explain it then.


Did you read the book of Lenin about ultraleftism? Do you agree with it?

Yes, I did and no I don't. I think it was partly responsible for fostering counter revolutionary tactics on the communist parties of Europe.

That is not the point though. It doesn't explain why you view other Trotskyist parties, who would agree with you on Lenin's book, as 'sects' and claim that you are different from them.

Devrim

[el_chavista]

Ye old question: Should the mountain (the masses) go to ("their" distinctively proletarian class party) Mohamed? Or should the vanguards look for the masses where they are in their reformist or populist organizations and parties? I think Trotsky once wrote that for him Mohamed got to go to the mountain.

[graymouser]

Ye old question: Should the mountain (the masses) go to ("their" distinctively proletarian class party) Mohamed? Or should the vanguards look for the masses where they are in their reformist or populist organizations and parties? I think Trotsky once wrote that for him Mohamed got to go to the mountain.
The IMT's concept of entrism is based on a particular tactic that Trotskyists have used repeatedly in the past, with mixed results. There are times when the masses really are going through a traditional social-democratic or labor party, and Marxists must be there to connect with them. However, it isn't meant to be a strategy. The IMT's focus on these "traditional parties" creates a blind spot for other tactical openings, and can be rather tone-deaf in a country like Britain or Greece today. The important thing is that these should be tactical considerations based on a close reading of the situation and not using one tactic elevated to a "law of history" as the IMT has done with the traditional parties.

[el_chavista]

The IMT's concept of entrism is based on a particular tactic that Trotskyists have used repeatedly in the past, with mixed results. There are times when the masses really are going through a traditional social-democratic or labor party, and Marxists must be there to connect with them. However, it isn't meant to be a strategy. The IMT's focus on these "traditional parties" creates a blind spot for other tactical openings, and can be rather tone-deaf in a country like Britain or Greece today. The important thing is that these should be tactical considerations based on a close reading of the situation and not using one tactic elevated to a "law of history" as the IMT has done with the traditional parties.
However, I have learned from my PSUV/IMT fellows comrades' pamphlets that entryism is deeply rooted in all the Marxist historiography. You may find Engels', Lenin's and Trotsky's quotations on entryism. I wonder if a left populist party would function as a mass front that would be useful for the unity of the left and at the same time a shelter for keeping from the overwhelming hegemony of the capitalist media and bourgeois ideological dictatorship.

[graymouser]

However, I have learned from my PSUV/IMT fellows comrades' pamphlets that entryism is deeply rooted in all the Marxist historiography. You may find Engels', Lenin's and Trotsky's quotations on entryism. I wonder if a left populist party would function as a mass front that would be useful for the unity of the left and at the same time a shelter for keeping from the overwhelming hegemony of the capitalist media and bourgeois ideological dictatorship.
It's all tactics - Lenin told the British section to go into Labour because the communists were weak and Labour genuinely had the confidence of the British working class. Different countries, at different times, have such parties that gain or lose this confidence - the important thing is not to enter or avoid them per se but to understand when to do which. The IMT's error is the opposite of what they call "the sects" - they always enter when genuine sectarians always stay outside. The correct approach is to seize the precise moments to go in, and to come out.

Is a broader left party - a sort of institutional united front - a possible form in which a communist party can grow? Sure, in some circumstances. For instance, our French comrades support the NPA. But it's not the final form, it's not the party that can be relied upon in a revolutionary crisis.

[vyborg]

this last comment is very interesting. Broadly speaking I agree, you can have many different situations. But look at the NPA, in order to grow they are diluiting more and more their revolutionary rethoric.

Anyway the fusion of any left organization can be a good thing of course. It depends how it happens, how it relates to the traditional mass workers party etc etc.

The united front tactic created by Lenin and Trotsky can be applied in a number of ways.

[graymouser]

this last comment is very interesting. Broadly speaking I agree, you can have many different situations. But look at the NPA, in order to grow they are diluiting more and more their revolutionary rethoric.
That's correct - and the French L5I supporters, and the League in general, have been pretty clear that we think the NPA needs to become a genuine revolutionary party. Still, this doesn't change the orientation - until the NPA either has a left split, is put to the test, or is generally deserted, revolutionaries should work to convince the workers gathered around it of the correctness of a Leninist program.


Anyway the fusion of any left organization can be a good thing of course. It depends how it happens, how it relates to the traditional mass workers party etc etc.
Well, in some cases the vanguard of workers is nowhere near the traditional mass workers party - take PASOK in Greece, how much further could radical workers get from the "traditional" party? And there is no cry in the movement there to "reclaim PASOK." The workers simply moved beyond it.


The united front tactic created by Lenin and Trotsky can be applied in a number of ways.
Yes, but as I've talked to the IMT the members have a one-sided view of it; that the united front will primarily be enacted through the old "traditional" mass parties. I think this may be true in some cases but to elevate it to a law - which Ted Grant and Alan Woods have - is fundamentally false. It's a shame, I actually like the IMT members I've met and think Woods is a very good writer but I can't be on board with those perspectives.

[vyborg]

Well in Greece you dont have one but three mass workers party. Thats' why in the Pasok you dont have much left tendencies...there are alternatives.

But look at Britain. The Labour Party governed for more than a decade with a very right wing politics, and yet no mass alternative emerged (Respect never was one and exploded anyway). Was this result sure? No, for instance if 3 or 4 big union had decided to reclaim the LP or to create a new mass workers party, this would have changed the situation. In politics you also have the subjective factor, etc.

What Ted Grant "discovered" as a law is exactly what Lenin and Trotsky discovered as a law when they created the united front tactic or Trotsky discovered with entrism. Only he adapted this law to the situation of the 50s and the 60s. It is true that you can do mistakes in orientation, you can be late to change sometimes etc. All these issues have their importance, but the foundamental ideas are the same since 1920 I would say.

[Antid Oto]

In my view, this means a clear turn towards spontaneism, hardly compatible with the classical orientation of the IMT towards the traditional organizations of the working classWell, I know this article by Greg Oxley as I translated it into spanish for our webs, but I did not see anything "spontaneist" in it whatsoever, neither any change in our orientation towards the traditional organizations of the working class. Just don't know what this is all about.

[nideaquinidealli]

Well, I know this article by Greg Oxley as I translated it into spanish for our webs, but I did not see anything "spontaneist" in it whatsoever, neither any change in our orientation towards the traditional organizations of the working class. Just don't know what this is all about.
French workers "taking matters into their own hands and launching all-out indefinite strike action" AGAINST CFDT, FO and CGT... this is spontaneism, isn't it?
The classical IMT perspective was workers taking the leadership of CFDT, FO and CGT, and then, and ONLY THEN, calling for a revolutionary action.
By the way, I cannot find the Spanish translation of Oxley's article. What is the URL?

[vyborg]

French workers "taking matters into their own hands and launching all-out indefinite strike action" AGAINST CFDT, FO and CGT... this is spontaneism, isn't it?
The classical IMT perspective was workers taking the leadership of CFDT, FO and CGT, and then, and ONLY THEN, calling for a revolutionary action.
By the way, I cannot find the Spanish translation of Oxley's article. What is the URL?

This is not the IMT classical perspective, not even close to it. The life is far more complicated than this farcical sequence.

In 1968 or 1969 what happened in France and in Italy? The workers mobilized with or without their parties and unions? At the very start they did almost alone. But the bureaucracy very rapidly changed its tactic and rushed to the left to regain the control. In Italy the unions were immensely strenghtened by this movement, as was the PCI. Workers considered the PCI as their party, the PCI had thousands of factory branches, and yet the movement started (STARTED please note) outside it.

You dont work in the parties like the PCI because the movement will start there, you work inside these parties because without a marxist alternative in the party, the movement will surely will be ended by these parties.

[nideaquinidealli]

This is not the IMT classical perspective, not even close to it. The life is far more complicated than this farcical sequence.

In 1968 or 1969 what happened in France and in Italy? The workers mobilized with or without their parties and unions? At the very start they did almost alone. But the bureaucracy very rapidly changed its tactic and rushed to the left to regain the control. In Italy the unions were immensely strenghtened by this movement, as was the PCI. Workers considered the PCI as their party, the PCI had thousands of factory branches, and yet the movement started (STARTED please note) outside it.

You dont work in the parties like the PCI because the movement will start there, you work inside these parties because without a marxist alternative in the party, the movement will surely will be ended by these parties.
Perhaps I haven’t understood the IMT perspectives, but your posts aren’t a help at all.

What are your perspectives for France now, in 2010 (not in 1968)? How does your work inside the PCF fit with the perspective described in Oxley’s articles? Are you thinking of overriding the unions leadership from a PCF’s Marxist wing?

[vyborg]

The PCF is a workers party, small but influent, also because of its links with the biggest union in France (the Cgt).

The role of the marxists is to present a revolutionary alternative to the liquidation of the Pcf (that is the majority tendency inside it). I think we can all agree that this is a foundamental battle for the french workers, as if the bureaucracy succeded in destroing the Pcf, the step back would be enormous.

Marxists received an incredible good response from the rank and file of the Pcf (for instance in the last L'Humanitè festival), still, they are a small minority tendency inside the Pcf. They are growing handsomely but the road is still very long...

Are the workers "passing through" the Pcf in their struggle, of course many are, others are not as the party is so degenerated and weak. But the Pcf is the best alternative anyway as the Psf is even more degenerated and NPA is by far smaller (not electorally but in the real life)

[Antid Oto]

By the way, I cannot find the Spanish translation of Oxley's article. What is the URL?

Sorry but I can´t give you the link as I need 3 more posts to do so (strange system, isn't it?)

[Jolly Red Giant]

What Ted Grant "discovered" as a law is exactly what Lenin and Trotsky discovered as a law when they created the united front tactic or Trotsky discovered with entrism. Only he adapted this law to the situation of the 50s and the 60s.
Yes he did - and when the situation changed in the late 1980's and 1990's (particularly in relation to the composition of the LP) Grant was still living in the 1960's and proved incapable of adapting (and it was not just with entrism that he was stuck in a timewarp).

[graymouser]

Yes he did - and when the situation changed in the late 1980's and 1990's (particularly in relation to the composition of the LP) Grant was still living in the 1960's and proved incapable of adapting (and it was not just with entrism that he was stuck in a timewarp).
Well, to be fair, this is one of those debates historically where everybody was wrong, just in different ways. Taaffe's hard swing away from the "traditional parties" had all the same lack of nuance and contextual understanding of these tactical questions that Grant's did, except in the opposite direction - Taaffe was writing them off while Grant was unwilling to give up the "40 years of work" in the parties. It's not surprising that the Grantites in the UK have remained tiny; also not surprising that Taaffe, even if more optimistic estimates are to be believed, has maybe a quarter of what Militant did in its heyday.

[Lolshevik]

Well, to be fair, this is one of those debates historically where everybody was wrong, just in different ways. Taaffe's hard swing away from the "traditional parties" had all the same lack of nuance and contextual understanding of these tactical questions that Grant's did, except in the opposite direction - Taaffe was writing them off while Grant was unwilling to give up the "40 years of work" in the parties. It's not surprising that the Grantites in the UK have remained tiny; also not surprising that Taaffe, even if more optimistic estimates are to be believed, has maybe a quarter of what Militant did in its heyday.

Does the L5I consider these parties (PCF, Labour, SP of France etc) to be straight-up capitalist formations or bourgeois workers' parties?

[Jolly Red Giant]

Well, to be fair, this is one of those debates historically where everybody was wrong, just in different ways.
Not what I was actually talking about - Grant was stuck in a serious timewarp in 1990/91. To demonstrate

At one public meeting in the run up to Iraq War 1 Grant (using the slogans of WW2) declared that the Britain introduced conscription then Marxist youth should join the army to agitate from within. Grant was greeted with a storm of protest from the members of the Militant present at the meeting.

When the attempted coup was taking place against Gorbachev, Grant was adamant that it would be successful and even as the coup disintegrated before his eyes on TV he declared that it was bourgeois propaganda.

Grant was unrelenting in his claim that Black Monday 1987 would lead to a worldwide economic depression on the scale of the 1930's (and continued to claim this for years afterwards).

Grant also adopted a timewarped attitude towards developments in South Africa where he argued that Mandela's release would push the ANC to the left (rather than the obvious intent of pushing it to the right) and that the apartheid regime would make no concessions to the ANC. As a result Grant was partly responsible for the disintegration of a large CWI organisation in South Africa.

Incidentally - Grant initially supported the 'open turn' in Scotland.


Taaffe's hard swing away from the "traditional parties" had all the same lack of nuance and contextual understanding of these tactical questions that Grant's did, except in the opposite direction
Maybe you can demonstrate this assertion.


It's not surprising that the Grantites in the UK have remained tiny; also not surprising that Taaffe, even if more optimistic estimates are to be believed, has maybe a quarter of what Militant did in its heyday.
I notice your association with Workers Power - and WP have exactly how many members in Britain these days? I even remember when Workers Power had a group in Ireland (I knew the entire membership - they were commonly know on the left as the Irish Workers Quartet).

[Antid Oto]

Yes he did - and when the situation changed in the late 1980's and 1990's (particularly in relation to the composition of the LP) Grant was still living in the 1960's and proved incapable of adapting (and it was not just with entrism that he was stuck in a timewarp).

OK, that's a view, but let's say then that former comrade Peter Taaffe did manage to adapt...where are the results of the open party tactic then?

[Antid Oto]

Not what I was actually talking about - Grant was stuck in a serious timewarp in 1990/91. To demonstrate

At one public meeting in the run up to Iraq War 1 Grant (using the slogans of WW2) declared that the Britain introduced conscription then Marxist youth should join the army to agitate from within. Grant was greeted with a storm of protest from the members of the Militant present at the meeting.

When the attempted coup was taking place against Gorbachev, Grant was adamant that it would be successful and even as the coup disintegrated before his eyes on TV he declared that it was bourgeois propaganda.

Grant was unrelenting in his claim that Black Monday 1987 would lead to a worldwide economic depression on the scale of the 1930's (and continued to claim this for years afterwards).

.

What does that just mean? That Ted Grant could be wrong on some issues? A great discovery indeed!

[graymouser]

Does the L5I consider these parties (PCF, Labour, SP of France etc) to be straight-up capitalist formations or bourgeois workers' parties?
Bourgeois workers' parties (not sure about the PCF, but definitely for Labour and PS). But we are much more flexible than either wing of the CWI/IMT split on what to work in and when.

[Jolly Red Giant]

What does that just mean? That Ted Grant could be wrong on some issues? A great discovery indeed!
Nothing to do with being wrong - Grant was unable to adapt to the changing circumstances of the late 1980's and early 1990's - he dogmatically stuck to his old views even when the evidence was staring him straight in the face, constantly dishing out slogans applicable to a bygone age. By doing so he contributed to the splitting of the biggest and most influential international Marxist organisation of the 1980's. Any Marxist worth his salt is able to understand and acknowledge his mistakes - Grant couldn't and couldn't understand why it was necessary that he should.

[Jolly Red Giant]

But we are much more flexible than either wing of the CWI/IMT split on what to work in and when.
Or is it more of a case of being so small that no one notices anyway :thumbup1:

[Antid Oto]

The PCF is a workers party, small but influent, also because of its links with the biggest union in France (the Cgt).Vyborg

I'm no even sure that the PCF in itself is really smaller than the PS, but smaller is its electoral support.

Our views about the PCF can be read in the document Renforcer le PCF, renouer avec le marxisme, (there is also a spanish translation to it), in fact the ground for the spreading of marxist ideas is better there than in the socialist party, a conclusion that we also drawed in spain with the United Left (IU, the left front set by the PCE), the socialist parties (socialdemocrats) are, at the moment, rather useless. Except in cases like Britain or Belgium, where there is nothing significant at the left of Labour and SP/PS

[graymouser]

Maybe you can demonstrate this assertion.
Well, I basically think in some circumstances where the tactical situation means a tactical vote for Labour is necessary to break remaining illusions in that party - and I agree with WP/Britain that the last election was one, although in the preceding elections it wasn't - Taaffe is up the creek without a paddle, calling for relatively ineffective things like "TUSC," because they had to invest too heavily in the idea that the masses would never go back to Labour or the other bourgeois workers' parties again. It's two sides of the same coin.


I notice your association with Workers Power - and WP have exactly how many members in Britain these days? I even remember when Workers Power had a group in Ireland (I knew the entire membership - they were commonly know on the left as the Irish Workers Quartet).
I'm not sure, from what I'm told they're back up to what they were before Permanent Revolution broke off a few years back. But this is a sub-political point, as correct approaches aren't based on your numbers. I was merely remarking that Militant had been much larger than the SPEW is today.

[The Grey Blur]

Well, I know this article by Greg Oxley as I translated it into spanish for our webs, but I did not see anything "spontaneist" in it whatsoever, neither any change in our orientation towards the traditional organizations of the working class. Just don't know what this is all about.
This is exactly it. As an IMT fellow traveller (but more as someone with an ounce of common sense) this debate is a non-starter. There is no contradiction in saying that general strikes on their own are unable to defeat these laws- as the article states the right-wing governments in Greece and France have adopted their tactics to bypass these protests. The IMT is not saying to abandon the mass organisations (unions or parties) but that workers have to move beyond mere protests and also take offensive actions- this by necessity means taking on the reformist leadership.

vyborg, antid, and i have now cleared this up for the more simple-minded of you. Any other inane debates I can quash while I'm here? Jeez. What a laughable thread...

[Jolly Red Giant]

Well, I basically think in some circumstances where the tactical situation means a tactical vote for Labour is necessary to break remaining illusions in that party - and I agree with WP/Britain that the last election was one, although in the preceding elections it wasn't -
So your assessment is based on the fact that WP called for a tactical vote for the LP in order to break any illusions in the LP. In case you haven't noticed, the LP was in power for over 12 years - there is no part of the working class that has any illusions in New Labour.


Taaffe is up the creek without a paddle, calling for relatively ineffective things like "TUSC," because they had to invest too heavily in the idea that the masses would never go back to Labour or the other bourgeois workers' parties again. It's two sides of the same coin.
Can you demonstrate any tiny piece of evidence that the masses have any intention of engaging with New Labour?

And by the way - New Labour is not a bourgeois workers party - it is an out and out right-wing neo-liberal party.


I was merely remarking that Militant had been much larger than the SPEW is today.
As are the vast majority of other far-left groups. Interestingly enough the CWI in England and Scotland has a more influential base within the trade union movement than during the 1980's.

[graymouser]

So your assessment is based on the fact that WP called for a tactical vote for the LP in order to break any illusions in the LP. In case you haven't noticed, the LP was in power for over 12 years - there is no part of the working class that has any illusions in New Labour.
My assessment is based on my agreement with WP/Britain's call in the last election - which I see as having been tactically correct, given that the workers saw voting for Labour as the only way to avoid the Conservative cuts. We thought that this needed to be dispelled through practice.


Can you demonstrate any tiny piece of evidence that the masses have any intention of engaging with New Labour?
The failures of the Socialist Alliance, RESPECT, CNWP, TUSC, you name it to build a new alternative to Labour - you can cite certain tactical failings but there's simply no traction. Workers still vote Labour, as shitty as Labour is.


And by the way - New Labour is not a bourgeois workers party - it is an out and out right-wing neo-liberal party.
This is based on a misunderstanding of what a bourgeois workers' party is. It's not like a Marxist party but with a weaker program; it's a party that is linked organically to the trade union movement. Labour has not actually disconnected from the unions, despite how hideous its politics have become. It's not (yet) like the Democratic Party in the US.

[vyborg]

When we assess how degenerated are the leadership of the reformist parties now, and they are very degenerated, it is useful to study what they did in the past.

I will only give an example. The SPD in the 20s and 30s. was it a workers' party? I think we all agree on that. What was its politcs? Horrible. Authoritarian. It had for many years the control of the police and used it against the communists. they even infiltrated communist meeting as an excuse to create incidents and call the police. They helped the nazi to take the power.

Some years before it they had killed the two biggest communist leaders (Rosa and Karl Liebknecht). Still they were a workers party.

Is the present leader of the LP corrupt and completely pro-capitalists? Of course it is. They now even pretend to give reforms to the masses nowadays.

Unfortunately neither Taaffe (that is the best out there in the "parties" of the left in Britain) nor any other succeded in building such an alternative. Was it because of their subjective faults? I don't think so. I think their idea of building a new workers party out of the blue is incorrect.

A small comment about Ted Grant "miskates". It is so easy to write after 20 years about mistakes of a dead comrade...but it only reveals the pettiness of these people that lived for decades in the shadow of Ted and never dared to confront him theoretically and politically. They were in silence there and speak loudly now. This reveals what a kind of small people are these ones. The ideas of Ted will be studied even in 2050 and 2100 as a great contribution to marxism. these people's ideas are not worth to be deepened even now.

[Jolly Red Giant]

My assessment is based on my agreement with WP/Britain's call in the last election - which I see as having been tactically correct, given that the workers saw voting for Labour as the only way to avoid the Conservative cuts. We thought that this needed to be dispelled through practice.
This would only have had some validity of there was any prospect of New Labour actually winning the election - which there wasn't - and even at that it was based on a misunderstanding of the current nature of British society. The logical extention of the position of WP is to call for a vote for New Labour at the next election as well.



The failures of the Socialist Alliance, RESPECT, CNWP, TUSC, you name it to build a new alternative to Labour - you can cite certain tactical failings but there's simply no traction. Workers still vote Labour, as shitty as Labour is.
The key factor that will drive a new mass party of the working class is not any alliance/ group being established from existing left forces, but directly as a result of the working class moving into struggle - something that has not happened in Britain or Ireland, but is being reflected in France, Germany, Greece etc.



This is based on a misunderstanding of what a bourgeois workers' party is. It's not like a Marxist party but with a weaker program; it's a party that is linked organically to the trade union movement. Labour has not actually disconnected from the unions, despite how hideous its politics have become. It's not (yet) like the Democratic Party in the US.
I know exactly what a bourgeois workers party is and New Labour are no different from the US Democrats, with the sole exception of some unions being affiliated without having any actual power - in effect the affilitation of the unions is re-inforcing the neo-liberal element of New Labour by virtue of the nature of the leadership of the unions.