What is your definition of "sectarian?"

[The Hong Se Sun]

I've heard this word thrown around way too much and in thousands of ways. So I wanna know what people on revleft mean when they say sectarian.

[Smoochy The Rhino]

Sectarian, as in 'Sectarian Violence'? That's just a polite way of saying civil war. I hadn't noticed anyone here using it (being a noob and all), but when military and political big wigs say it (such as 'the sectarian violence in Iraq....') all they mean is that the place is in a civil war, and they don't want to admit it. If they admitted that Iraq was in a civil war during their occupation of the country then they'd have to admit they screwed the pooch quite a bit.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I consider a leftist sectarian to be someone who puts the interests of their own political group or ideological tendency or whatever else above the overall interests of the working class or a movement specifically. It's fine to compete if you think that organizing a coalition is better for a movement than individual actions or that this kind of protest is more effective than that,than having a teach-in. But if competition becomes trying to destroy a coalition rather than win people over to your position either through argument or a parallel organizing effort, then it's sectarian.

[ZeroNowhere]

"The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

"They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

"They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement."

Sectarianism involves setting down various 'eternal principles' which the working class movement must follow. It's fairly common among less mechanical Marxisms centered around consciousness raising, especially where socialism is seen as the result of a mass winning of hearts and minds rather than the ultimate end of the workers' movement.


“The working class must not constitute itself a political party; it must not, under any pretext, engage in political action, for to combat the state is to recognize the state: and this is contrary to eternal principles. Workers must not go on strike; for to struggle to increase one's wages or to prevent their decrease is like recognizing wages: and this is contrary to the eternal principles of the emancipation of the working class!

“If in the political struggle against the bourgeois state the workers succeed only in extracting concessions, then they are guilty of compromise; and this is contrary to eternal principles. All peaceful movements, such as those in which English and American workers have the bad habit of engaging, are therefore to be despised. Workers must not struggle to establish a legal limit to the working day, because this is to compromise with the masters, who can then only exploit them for ten or twelve hours, instead of fourteen or sixteen. They must not even exert themselves in order legally to prohibit the employment in factories of children under the age of ten, because by such means they do not bring to an end the exploitation of children over ten: they thus commit a new compromise, which stains the purity of the eternal principles.

“Workers should even less desire that, as happens in the United States of America, the state whose budget is swollen by what is taken from the working class should be obliged to give primary education to the workers' children; for primary education is not complete education. It is better that working men and working women should not be able to read or write or do sums than that they should receive education from a teacher in a school run by the state. It is far better that ignorance and a working day of sixteen hours should debase the working classes than that eternal principles should be violated.

“If the political struggle of the working class assumes violent forms and if the workers replace the dictatorship of the bourgeois class with their own revolutionary dictatorship, then they are guilty of the terrible crime of lèse-principe; for, in order to satisfy their miserable profane daily needs and to crush the resistance of the bourgeois class, they, instead of laying down their arms and abolishing the state, give to the state a revolutionary and transitory form. Workers must not even form single unions for every trade, for by so doing they perpetuate the social division of labour as they find it in bourgeois society; this division, which fragments the working class, is the true basis of their present enslavement.

“In a word, the workers should cross their arms and stop wasting time in political and economic movements. These movements can never produce anything more than short-term results. As truly religious men they should scorn daily needs and cry out with voices full of faith: "May our class be crucified, may our race perish, but let the eternal principles remain immaculate! As pious Christians they must believe the words of their pastor, despise the good things of this world and think only of going to Paradise. In place of Paradise read the social liquidation which is going to take place one day in some or other corner of the globe, no one knows how, or through whom, and the mystification is identical in all respects.

“In expectation, therefore, of this famous social liquidation, the working class must behave itself in a respectable manner, like a flock of well-fed sheep; it must leave the government in peace, fear the police, respect the law and offer itself up uncomplaining as cannon-fodder.

“In the practical life of every day, workers must be the most obedient servants of the state; but in their hearts they must protest energetically against its very existence, and give proof of their profound theoretical contempt for it by acquiring and reading literary treatises on its abolition; they must further scrupulously refrain from putting up any resistance to the capitalist regime apart from declamations on the society of the future, when this hated regime will have ceased to exist!'
-Marx, from the parody 'Political Indifferentism'.

[Zanthorus]

To add to what ZeroNowhere said, far from Marx and Engels dismissal of 'sectarianism' being the same as understood on Revleft by the various advocates of 'left unity', they supported and even engineered numerous splits with other so-called socialist groups who they saw as derailing the struggle.


One must not allow oneself to be misled by the cry for "unity." Those who have this word most often on their lips are those who sow the most dissension, just as at present the Jura Bakuninists in Switzerland, who have provoked all the splits, scream for nothing so much as for unity. Those unity fanatics are either the people of limited intelligence who want to stir everything up together into one nondescript brew, which, the moment it is left to settle, throws up the differences again in much more acute opposition because they are now all together in one pot (you have a fine example of this in Germany with the people who preach the reconciliation of the workers and the petty bourgeoisie)--or else they are people who consciously or unconsciously (like Mühlberger, for instance) want to adulterate the movement. For this reason the greatest sectarians and the biggest brawlers and rogues are at certain moments the loudest shouters for unity. Nobody in our lifetime has given us more trouble and been more treacherous than the unity shouters.- Engels to Bebel, 20th June 1873


In France the long expected split has taken place. The original conjunction of Guesde and Lafargue with Malon and Brousse was no doubt unavoidable when the party was founded, but Marx and I never had any illusions that it could last. The issue is purely one of principle: is the struggle to be conducted as a class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, or is it to be permitted that in good opportunist (or as it is called in the Socialist translation: possibilist) style the class character of the movement, together with the programme, are everywhere to be dropped where there is a chance of winning more votes, more adherents, by this means. Malon and Brousse, by declaring themselves in favour of the latter alternative, have sacrificed the proletarian class character of the movement and made separation inevitable. All the better. The development of the proletariat proceeds everywhere amidst internal struggles and France, which is now forming a workers' party for the first time, is no exception. We in Germany have got beyond the first phase of the internal struggle, other phases still lie before us. Unity is quite a good thing so long as it is possible, but there are things which stand higher than unity. And when, like Marx and myself, one has fought harder all one's life long against the alleged Socialists than against anyone else (for we only regarded the bourgeoisie as a class and hardly ever involved ourselves in conflicts with individual bourgeois), one cannot greatly grieve that the inevitable struggle has broken out.- Engels to Bebel, 28th October 1882

[RGacky3]

I consider a leftist sectarian to be someone who puts the interests of their own political group or ideological tendency or whatever else above the overall interests of the working class or a movement specifically. It's fine to compete if you think that organizing a coalition is better for a movement than individual actions or that this kind of protest is more effective than that,than having a teach-in. But if competition becomes trying to destroy a coalition rather than win people over to your position either through argument or a parallel organizing effort, then it's sectarian.

I was gonna say its just a useless term thrown around, then I saw this post and yeah, absolutely right.

Its a problem on the radical left, its not so much on the soft left though.

For example I'm a wobbly, but I still support AFL-CIO fights, I'll support progressives or social democrats, but even more so real socialists.

Leninist parties, maoists, trotskyites and so on, LOVE being sectarian, maoists number one enemy is trots, which is wierd, I've been accused of being a trot by maoists, I don't get why ... but its just because thats who they are supposed to hate, its almost like a sports team. But I have nothing against leninist sectarianism, that ideology is dying out and rightfully so, and they are still fighting over who was right stalin or trotsky.

[Viet Minh]

I always understood sectarian to have religious connotations, particularly in conflict between 'sects' of one religion. So in N.I sectarian means Catholic versus Protestant, in Iraq Sunni versus Shia. In this context the term wouldn't be applied to (for instance) Jews versus Muslims, or Hindus versus Sikhs.

[ComradeMan]

I was gonna say its just a useless term thrown around, then I saw this post and yeah, absolutely right.

Its a problem on the radical left, its not so much on the soft left though.


WTF is the soft-left?:lol:

[Thug Lessons]

Sectarianism is when those Trot buttlords try to pull their entryism shit on my post-Maoist national liberation support organization.

[Thug Lessons]

WTF is the soft-left?:lol:

My peener *waggles*

[ComradeMan]

Maoist Third Worldists are pretty damn sectarian.

The trouble with the left is generally everyone believes to be the "prophet" all the time and damns all the other "infidels"- like the fucking Sendero Luminoso attacking peasants, Trostkyites and union reps etc in Peru....

[Blake's Baby]

Oh, well, answered many times over. But still...

... 'sectarian' as in, relating to sects, is the root of both of these, the religious and political. I really don't think the OP meant the conflicts between Shia and Sunni or Catholic and Protestant, much more likely the sniping between People's Front of Judea and the Popular Front of Judea. Splitters.

If my organisation refuses to co-operate with your organisation, that's because we have principles (and aren't opportunists). If your organisation refuses to co-operate with my organisation, that's because you're sectarians.

[Thug Lessons]

Maoist Third Worldists are pretty damn sectarian.

I'm not a Maoist-Third Worldist, I'm a cat.

[ComradeMan]

It's just my opinion, but I think Italian has a good term for many of these various "-ists" of leftwing versions of the Society for Creative Anachronism---- "passatistas" WTF people still hating each other for Kronstadt.

Capitalists hate the fuck out of each other at times- but that never gets in the way of business....:crying:

[Viet Minh]

Oh, well, answered many times over. But still...

... 'sectarian' as in, relating to sects, is the root of both of these, the religious and political. I really don't think the OP meant the conflicts between Shia and Sunni or Catholic and Protestant, much more likely the sniping between People's Front of Judea and the Popular Front of Judea. Splitters.

If my organisation refuses to co-operate with your organisation, that's because we have principles (and aren't opportunists). If your organisation refuses to co-operate with my organisation, that's because you're sectarians.

The PFJ started that and well you know it!! :cursing:
Otherwise agreed!

[zimmerwald1915]

The PFJ started that and well you know it!! :cursing:
Otherwise agreed!
Which is the PFJ though?

[Viet Minh]

Which is the PFJ though?

Peoples Front. The Popular Front don't deserve that honourable acronym! :D

[RGacky3]

WTF is the soft-left?:lol:

Democratic socialists, social democrats, progressives, liberals and so on.

[The Hong Se Sun]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I tend to see it as a Higgins put it. I think all to often some people are seen as sectarian when they are really just criticizing or doing polemics on other groups. When I write about other groups I do it in hope one of the members will read it and thus try to fix it with in the group so that group can advance.

I have a member of a group jump all over me because of something I wrote about their ORG. They called me names and a Stalinist, a opportunist and lastly a sofarevolutionary sectarian. Well after the person finished with their temper tantrum I wrote down a link to something I wrote and told him to look it up. In that link I praised his group for have the correct line on a certain issue and he wrote me an E-mail apologizing. Said that he didn't understand why after two or three things I had written why I would write something praising them. I simply replied "because I'm an opportunist sectarian you silly trot" (we are cool now and he is a regular reader of my blog)