How to break with "Labourism"?

[Lyev]

Firstly what is it? I remember watching a CPGB video with Moshe Machover and Mike Macnair) called simply "democracy", where, at the end, Macnair says - bear in my mind I am paraphrasing because I can't fully remember - that real left unity won't come from mashing together the usual left parties (SPEW, SWP) as they are, which was basically TUSC. This is because parties like CPGB are excluded, important decisions are subordinated to bureaucrats (not sure about this one) and SPEW don't report SWP election news and vice versa. But also that such a coalition as TUSC will pander to existing political structures, be stuck in legalism, etc. So the question is, if we do really think that the British left won't progress as the SWP or SPEW, then how do we bring ourselves out of this "Labourist" mindset?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Did you get the chance to read my Politics thread comparing "Labourism" with "Linke-ism"?

[Lyev]

Did you get the chance to read my Politics thread comparing "Labourism" with "Linke-ism"?No, I'll get onto it. I didn't even see it. After I've read it I'll come back to this. Thank you.

[Q]

Labour is has traditionally been the project of the trade union bureaucracy and in many senses still is. Labourism then is the politics in which Marxists try to pose themselves as the "best trade unionists", not as communists. Labourism is economistic, nationalistic and reformist and for those reasons a dead end on the path to building a confident working class collectivity that could take over power in its fight for democracy.

The CPGB's critique is that TUSC was yet another attempt to build, what they call, a "half-way house" project or "Labour Party mark 2" as Labourism forms the basis on which it was established. To somewhat of an embarrassment the Weekly Worker quoted Clive Heemskerk, SPEW member and organiser for TUSC, as wanting to build a bourgeois-workers party (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1003995):


He [Clive Heemskerk] thought that we were not actually interested in a campaign for a new mass workers’ party in general. I corrected him - we most certainly are. At its core, this is precisely what our organisation was in many ways. The difference is that we are clear the only genuine workers’ party is a Marxist party. Ah, he came back, but he and the Socialist Party in England and Wales were campaigning through initiatives like Tusc for a “new bourgeois workers’ party” (a remarkable admission). So, other than opportunities for mischief-making, why our continued interest?
At that point I went a little http://www.giveupalready.com/images/smilies/picard-facepalm.jpg

[Die Neue Zeit]

What's needed is a proletarian (PNNC) party, not another bourgeois worker party (or at least another bourgeois worker party that isn't as leftist as Die Linke, that has already broken from Labourism).

[Q]

What's needed is a proletarian (PNNC) party, not another bourgeois worker party (or at least another bourgeois worker party that isn't as leftist as Die Linke, that has already broken from Labourism).

I view bourgeois-worker parties as an historical outcome, not as a desirable goal (although you could argue it is a desirable goal to avoid becoming it) as a bourgeois-workers party is a party with a corrupted leadership that accepts the status quo and is a break on class independence, democracy and internationalism.

I would say Labourism and the bourgeois-worker party phenomenon are closely linked and Die Linke certainly has Labouristic aspects (trade union bureaucrats, old SPD leaders, PDS careerists from the East), so I wouldn't cut the two without more explanation.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Don't diss the PDS careerists in this aspect. For all their coalitionist prostitution and backstabbing, they don't fit with the "Labourist" ideology much (close relationship with trade union bureaucracies).

Klaus Ernst is the most "Labourist" figure in mind. Didn't I already mention his bloated salary, and the need to shove this bad-looking old geezer aside? :glare:

And don't diss too many "old SPD leaders," either. Except for controversial ones like Klaus Ernst, at least some of them, and you know who I'm referring to here, don't have a "Labourist" orientation (and probably never did even while in the SPD). ;)

[Q]

Don't diss the PDS careerists. They don't fit with the "Labourist" ideology much (close relationship with trade union bureaucracies). ;)

Klaus Ernst is the most "Labourist" figure in mind. Didn't I already mention his bloated salary, and the need to shove this bad-looking old geezer aside? :glare:

And don't diss too many "old SPD leaders," either. At least some of them, and you know who I'm referring to here, don't have a "Labourist" orientation. ;)

Onkel Oskar is somewhat of an exception. I view him as a bit akin to Tony Benn. Both became increasingly leftwing as time progressed.
But Die Linke's fate cannot be dependent on one person (especially given his health).

[Die Neue Zeit]

If only Andrea Ypsilanti can fill the shoes of the "radicalized old SPD leader" gap that exists now (and not-so-radicalized Klaus Ernst wasn't that high up the SPD pecking order back in the day). Her stints at her Institut Solidarische Moderne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Ypsilanti) (left-wing think tank co-founded with Green Party member Sven Giegold and Die Linke vice chair Katja Kipping) do her political career injustice.

Imagine if soon she too turned around and said "We want to overthrow capitalism!" There would be charisma, headlines, ooh-la-las, and all that stuff (including the odd teenage fantasy).

[Q]

If only Andrea Ypsilanti can fill the shoes of the "radicalized old SPD leader" gap that exists now (and not-so-radicalized Klaus Ernst wasn't that high up the SPD pecking order back in the day). Her stints at her Institut Solidarische Moderne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Ypsilanti) (left-wing think tank co-founded with Green Party member Sven Giegold and Die Linke vice chair Katja Kipping) do her political career injustice.

Imagine if soon she too turned around and said "We want to overthrow capitalism!" There would be charisma, headlines, ooh-la-las, and all that stuff (including the odd teenage fantasy).

My point being: A workers party cannot be reliant on one charismatic leftist person. Look at what happened to the SPD post-Bebel.

Anyway, this is getting off topic.

The problem with Labourism is not so much that it exists, it inevitably does given the different layers of political awareness in the class and traditions. The problem of Labourism is specific to Marxists: posing oneself as merely a political extension to trade unionism, we get ourselves trapped in reformist, nationalist and economistic logic. And as most traditional CP's showed well, this road eventually also makes you into a nationalist, reformist and economist at which point you can just as well cease to exist (hello Eurocommies!).

We don't get a mass revolutionary party by tailing behind the trade union bureaucracy and spontanious action of the class. We need to start showing ourselves for what we are: communists, with a clear allrounded alternative vision to society. Only on this road can we also let the class overcome its Labouristic illusions.

That's my take on it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

My point being: A workers party cannot be reliant on one charismatic leftist person. Look at what happened to the SPD post-Bebel.

The ADAV post-Lassalle is what I had more in mind, and I agree with you. Several charismatic leftists should fill the role of multiple agitators (instead of dull and boring figures that traditional Communist parties had), but leave it to "the experts" to "educate" and to proper praktiki (with heads attached to themselves) to "organize."


We don't get a mass revolutionary party by tailing behind the trade union bureaucracy and spontanious action of the class. We need to start showing ourselves for what we are: communists, with a clear allrounded alternative vision to society. Only on this road can we also let the class overcome its Labouristic illusions.

That's my take on it.

Very much back on topic, then, what is your personal opinion on "organic links with the working class" vs. a workers-only voting membership policy?

[Q]

The ADAV post-Lassalle is what I had more in mind, and I agree with you. Several charismatic leftists should fill the role of multiple agitators (instead of dull and boring figures that traditional Communist parties had), but leave it to "the experts" to "educate" and to proper praktiki (with heads attached to themselves) to "organize."
Agreed. A communist party worthy of the name has developed organs for such tasks (an education program, a programming committee, supportive networks for activities, etc.).


Very much back on topic, then, what is your personal opinion on "organic links with the working class" vs. a workers-only voting membership policy?
I explained my position towards this in the latest IMT discussion thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/imt-turning-spontaneismi-t142034/index.html?p=1872976#post1872976):




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.
A workers-only voting policy always sounded somewhat artificial and forced to me. I think building a dialectical link between party and class is much more vital in building a real vanguard-party.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm pretty sure we'll agree to disagree there, not being a dialectician and such. [Ouch!]

Sure there is tension between emphasizing ideology and emphasizing social support base, but let me rephrase what you quoted (in light of real parties being real movements and vice versa):

"these debates matter for the class. And because the [organized movement] forms the crystallisation point of these debates - the [organized movement] being the expression of the most politically aware workers - the [organized movement] will grow confidence and rise to a position of political leadership of the class, which in turn deepens the organic and dialectical link between [organized movement] and class"

That actually sounds more weird. If such a movement were stacked with non-worker elements, the tred-iunionisty, no matter how many fat cats they have among them or no matter sellout shit, could easily say, "Hey look: We're the labour movement! They ain't!"

I see this as problematic in Die Linke, for example. Sahra Wagenknecht is married to a businessman, while Diether Dehm is a well-off petit-bourgeois musician. Of course, Gregor Gysi himself is [unsurprisingly] a lawyer.

Surely you know that I'm emphasizing both and not pitting a workers-only voting membership policy against debates, ideology, etc.