NDP to debate losing 'socialist' label [Canada]

[Salyut]

hey guys i hear theres a socialist party that got elected in cana-

New Democrats from across Canada have gathered in Vancouver for the party's 50th anniversary convention, where they'll debate whether to shed some history after capturing federal Official Opposition status.

Delegates will consider a proposed new preamble to the party constitution that would remove reference to the NDP as a "socialist" party, in an apparent bid to capitalize on the New Democrats' stunning performance in last month's election.



oops

http://i.imgur.com/h8nle.gif

[vyborg]

luckily not all in the NDP are in favour...quite the contrary.. (http://www.marxist.com/canada-how-we-almost-defeated-bob-rae.htm)

[Tommy4ever]

Why does it even matter?

If they aren't socialist in practise I don't care if they call themselves socialist or not.

Afterall, we do have the 'Socialist International' out there that continues to supply the world with neoliberalism, US backed tyrants and heads of the IMF. :rolleyes:

ps 500th post! W00t!

[Octavian]

Canada's political climate is weird when it comes to the word "socialism". Everyone basically think socialism=communism= the government kills everybody in a totalitarian regime. This first part isn't strange. What's strange is that despite being one of the more socialist countries in the world, nobody wants to admit that we are socialist but yet they take pride in things like our healthcare.

[Kiev Communard]

That was rather predictable for a left-liberal party based on trade union bureaucracy, it is even strange that they did not denounce "the utopian socialism" back in 1980s.

[ZeroNowhere]

Canada's political climate is weird when it comes to the word "socialism". Everyone basically think socialism=communism= the government kills everybody in a totalitarian regime. This first part isn't strange. What's strange is that despite being one of the more socialist countries in the world, nobody wants to admit that we are socialist but yet they take pride in things like our healthcare.You're no more socialist than Singapore is.

[Salyut]

Why does it even matter?

If they aren't socialist in practise I don't care if they call themselves socialist or not.

You get advocates for entryism and such in the Canadian left. Obviously it has been a successful tactic. :cool:

[Salyut]

luckily not all in the NDP are in favour...quite the contrary.. (http://www.marxist.com/canada-how-we-almost-defeated-bob-rae.htm)


Build Canada’s labour party!

We, the NDP, must lead the fight against Harper, McGuinty and Ford!


uh huh

The CPC and M-L's are more authentically Marxist then the NDP (inb4 revisionism), and I'm not even a Leninist. Sorry bro.

[JoeySteel]

luckily not all in the NDP are in favour...quite the contrary.. (http://www.marxist.com/canada-how-we-almost-defeated-bob-rae.htm)

Ah yes lol, te Toronto fightback sect will surely get the NDP in the right direction

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think the time is long overdue for a national institution with some participatory-socialist program and people in the workforce or among the pensioners as the only members.

[North Star]

I think it is an unfortunate development but in the end semantics aren't going to change the fact that I believe that the NDP is going to quickly find itself out of touch. The trade union bureaucracy is now to the left of the NDP. With the coming austerity and the NDP desire to become the governing party at the next election perhaps a split can be engineered to create an actual mass socialist party. Layton says he's not going to cut the union links but I think the unions will demand more than the party bureaucracy is willing to give them in order to remain "electable."

@JoeySteel

Ah yes lol, te Toronto fightback sect will surely get the NDP in the right direction

I'm not a Trot nor and I have my internal organizational differences with them but Fightback has done some great work outside of the NDP with solidarity to striking workers and organizing working class neighbourhoods on issues like police brutality. Haven't seen any Maoists at the picket lines yet. The only thing that reeks of anything about a "sect" is your willingness to dismiss them with no investigation despite the fact they are actually organizing among the working class.

[genstrike]

"Canada's labour party" - give me a break. I'm an officer in my union, and the NDP sure as shit doesn't represent me.

[JoeySteel]

I think it is an unfortunate development but in the end semantics aren't going to change the fact that I believe that the NDP is going to quickly find itself out of touch. The trade union bureaucracy is now to the left of the NDP. With the coming austerity and the NDP desire to become the governing party at the next election perhaps a split can be engineered to create an actual mass socialist party. Layton says he's not going to cut the union links but I think the unions will demand more than the party bureaucracy is willing to give them in order to remain "electable."

@JoeySteel


I'm not a Trot nor and I have my internal organizational differences with them but Fightback has done some great work outside of the NDP with solidarity to striking workers and organizing working class neighbourhoods on issues like police brutality. Haven't seen any Maoists at the picket lines yet. The only thing that reeks of anything about a "sect" is your willingness to dismiss them with no investigation despite the fact they are actually organizing among the working class.

Now, now... My point was that the supposed goal of Fightback is to take over the NDP and make it "socialist", and that goal is totally quixotic and improbable. Many people in Figthback seriously believe that they will only need a few months to take over the NDP (whereas I would have assumed a decades-long project necessary), relying on the anticipation of a situation in which they would be able to present superior arguments and have the membership support them against the right wing bureaucrats. I assume after this conference is over they will understand that these votes are all decided beforehand by the leadership and the room will not spontaneously change. The NDP organizes based on bullying, like most social democrats, and if they can pressure dedicated activists into voting against policies they agree with, such as free tuition, they can damn well make sure Fightback doesn't take over.

Regarding your other comments, well, I'm sorry Maoists haven't made themselves more visible to you or whatever. And I have investigated Figthback lots thank you, including having their own members explain the strategy to me, and speaking to Fightback and other delegates who were at the NDP convention. I remain convinced that despite the idealistic rhetoric of many of the members it is nothing but a classic entryist ploy to gain attention and members, as the leadership surely understands that it is not possible to take over an organization like the NDP, and not with some kids from Toronto for sure.

[Tabarnack]

In this election the NDP went from 37 to 103 seats, 58 of the new seats came from the Province of Quebec which had only one previously, this was a huge anti Harper vote from Quebec and nothing more. In Quebec the extremely neoliberal "Action Democratic" made a huge surge in 2007 almost taking power only to be decimated in the next election a year later, so this evolution in Canadian politics has little to do with ideology left or right but is more reflective of how the Quebec electorate is restless but still easily influenced by the medias. As a resident of Quebec I can attest to the critical role the corporate media played in recent elections in propping up and dismissing political parties.

[Die Rote Fahne]

They haven't been an actual socialist party in over 20 years. So yeah, let's stop caring what they do.

Though, if they do remove it, it will be quite a sell out.

[vyborg]

... Many people in Figthback seriously believe that they will only need a few months to take over the NDP ...The NDP organizes based on bullying, like most social democrats, and if they can pressure dedicated activists into voting against policies they agree with, such as free tuition, they can damn well make sure Fightback doesn't take over.

I dont know where someone can find the risible idea that the NDP can be won to the idea of marxism in a few months. For sure this is not Fightback kind of perspective anyway. The strategy is not a coup, as many outside the workers' parties and in the bureaucracy think. The strategy is to patiently explain why marxism is the only way out for the working class in Canada and elsewhere. You cannot win not even the most advanced layers of workers in some months.

Anyway, what is important here is that in Canada there is a traditional mass organization that workers see as their own, that is the NDP, and we must be there to fight against reformist leadership. that's the key point. if we agree on that, we can easily discuss other issue (that is how to fight this battle).

[ZeroNowhere]

They haven't been an actual socialist party in over 20 years. So yeah, let's stop caring what they do.

Though, if they do remove it, it will be quite a sell out.I'm not certain that they have anything further to sell out.

[danyboy27]

cancel this thread.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/06/19/ndp-postpone-decision-on-socialist_n_880006.html?ir=Canada

[genstrike]

Now, now... My point was that the supposed goal of Fightback is to take over the NDP and make it "socialist", and that goal is totally quixotic and improbable. Many people in Figthback seriously believe that they will only need a few months to take over the NDP (whereas I would have assumed a decades-long project necessary), relying on the anticipation of a situation in which they would be able to present superior arguments and have the membership support them against the right wing bureaucrats. I assume after this conference is over they will understand that these votes are all decided beforehand by the leadership and the room will not spontaneously change. The NDP organizes based on bullying, like most social democrats, and if they can pressure dedicated activists into voting against policies they agree with, such as free tuition, they can damn well make sure Fightback doesn't take over.

Regarding your other comments, well, I'm sorry Maoists haven't made themselves more visible to you or whatever. And I have investigated Figthback lots thank you, including having their own members explain the strategy to me, and speaking to Fightback and other delegates who were at the NDP convention. I remain convinced that despite the idealistic rhetoric of many of the members it is nothing but a classic entryist ploy to gain attention and members, as the leadership surely understands that it is not possible to take over an organization like the NDP, and not with some kids from Toronto for sure.

I don't think most entryist Trots are dumb enough to actually think they can take over the NDP and make it socialist (never mind proceed to phase II of their plan, having the socialist NDP win an election and magically implement socialism).

In fact, I find if you talk to them and they know you're some kind of radical who is overly critical of the NDP, they will take you aside and explain that they don't actually believe all this garbage about "winning the NDP to socialism," and that line is only used to bring in suckers who actually are dumb enough to believe it (I'm paraphrasing here). In short, entryism is little more than a cynical and opportunist recruiting ploy, and one which requires a certain level of liquidationism into the NDP.

Also, I don't think it is a coincidence that those who do practice entryism into the NDP, while accusing everyone else on the left of sectarianism for the sin of not being members of a party which is all too happy to implement austerity measures (thanks for the wage freeze, assholes!) and works to co-opt the labour movement, are some of the most doctrinaire, sectarian and abrasive people on the Canadian left.

Finally, I always get a chuckle out of their line that all the "advanced layers of the working class" are in the NDP. I guess I'm just not advanced enough for them.

As a sidenote, there is a good paper online about the clusterfuck that was the LSA's attempt at entryism into the New Brunswick NDP in the early 70s (http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/lh/article/viewFile/24904/23098).

[RevoTO]

Speaking on fightback's position tactically, the purpose of the work is not to "take over" the NDP and we hold no illusions that the NDP will bring socialism to Canada. The work in the NDP lets fightback intervene among the working class much more successfully. Recently on the CUPW and CAW picket lines our ideas struck a much stronger chord with workers coming from the NDP. More than we would have if we came from a small Marxist group that wasn't in the NDP.

From what i've heard from Vancouver convention is that the mood on the floor was generally against the resolution and it would have probably been turned down.

[Salyut]

cancel this thread.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/06/19/ndp-postpone-decision-on-socialist_n_880006.html?ir=Canada


In earlier voting Sunday, party delegates also rejected a resolution calling on the party to reject all future mergers with the Liberals — which leaves the door open to potential future talks between the two opposition parties.


Any merger is gonna see the same results as the rewording.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Any merger is gonna see the same results as the rewording.
To tell you the truth, a merger would open the doors for the BQ and the Green Party. Maybe even other parties to be elected or formed.

[danyboy27]

Any merger is gonna see the same results as the rewording.

Perhaps, but they didnt changed their stance on unions and worker rights, or even on buisness for that matter, i cant really say its a bad thing.

if they really wanted to attract liberal, all they had to do is to ram trought a softer stance on buisnesses, but they didnt.

[Revy]

So is there going to be an NDP-Liberal-BQ coalition, with Jack Layton become Prime Minister? I don't know much about how it works there.

Obviously NDP are social democrats...regardless of whether they use the word socialism...

[jake williams]

So is there going to be an NDP-Liberal-BQ coalition, with Jack Layton become Prime Minister? I don't know much about how it works there.
No, partly because the NDP's "support" has been consciously concocted to undermine the Liberals and solidify the Tories. I don't think the NDP is going to be able to repress its membership sufficiently to acquire the bourgeois support which would be necessary to win shy of a revolution, at least for some time. At any rate, the NDP could try to democratically win an election on an actual pro-working class platform that would be demonstrably beneficial to the vast majority of the population, but it would require an utter reorganization of the entire federal party's strategy and a purge of most of the senior leadership.

[Revy]

I read Wikipedia wrong anyway, I thought they would have had enough seats together to outnumber the Conservatives, but apparently BQ only has 4 seats and not the 47 I accidentally thought they had, which was from the previous election....

[Rocky Rococo]

I read Wikipedia wrong anyway, I thought they would have had enough seats together to outnumber the Conservatives, but apparently BQ only has 4 seats and not the 47 I accidentally thought they had, which was from the previous election....

It's also more generally true that it would be a political suicide for any of the "federalist" parties (Libs, NDP, ReformaTories, or Greens) to form a coaliton with the separatist Bloc. But these most recent results suggest the Bloc is finished now anyways, so it's now probably a moot point for good.

[genstrike]

Speaking on fightback's position tactically, the purpose of the work is not to "take over" the NDP and we hold no illusions that the NDP will bring socialism to Canada. The work in the NDP lets fightback intervene among the working class much more successfully. Recently on the CUPW and CAW picket lines our ideas struck a much stronger chord with workers coming from the NDP. More than we would have if we came from a small Marxist group that wasn't in the NDP.

So, let me get this straight: The goal of entryism is to use the NDP as a less embarassing facade for your actions?

Also, the fact of the matter is you don't have to be in the NDP to effectively "intervene among the working class"

[vyborg]

So, let me get this straight: The goal of entryism is to use the NDP as a less embarassing facade for your actions?

Also, the fact of the matter is you don't have to be in the NDP to effectively "intervene among the working class"

it all depends on what you consider to be "effective": building a group of some dozens or to win over decisive layers of workers to revolutionary ideas...

[genstrike]

it all depends on what you consider to be "effective": building a group of some dozens or to win over decisive layers of workers to revolutionary ideas...

So, has the Socialist Caucus or Fightback managed to "win over decisive layers of workers to revolutionary ideas" yet? Or are you folks still a group of some dozens?

[vyborg]

Fightback is a very young organization. The fact that we are discussing its positions shows how effective it has been so far.

My point however is that you cannot win over the vanguard of the working class if you do not connect to the existing labour movement organizations. does this connection mean you are part of these organizations? normally yes, but this is not the main point. the real point is to have room to explain your ideas in these organizationa without renouncing to build your tendency. thats' how you go from some very good comrade to build a serious revolutionary tendency of the canadian labour movement, and elsewhere.

NDP is ruled by bastard right wingers? Of course it is. As any other normal mass labour organization on the planet. so what? is the period that makes a difference. capitalism in crisis added to a very low authority of the reformist leadership is a very explosive mix...we must profit from it

[jake williams]

Fightback is a very young organization. The fact that we are discussing its positions shows how effective it has been so far.
No, it shows that they're basically the only folks in the country who still believe that the NDP is going to become a mass-based revolutionary socialist party. And they're basically all in their teens and twenties because if you're much older than that, you've probably already been expelled from the NDP for exactly that reason.

[ZeroNowhere]

Fightback is a very young organization. The fact that we are discussing its positions shows how effective it has been so far.First Revleft, then the world.

[vyborg]

No, it shows that they're basically the only folks in the country who still believe that the NDP is going to become a mass-based revolutionary socialist party. And they're basically all in their teens and twenties because if you're much older than that, you've probably already been expelled from the NDP for exactly that reason.

I hope the will stay the only one. Unfortunately, they will not be so lucky

[vyborg]

First Revleft, then the world.

I would say first, some strange guy, then the vanguard of the vanguard, then the vanguard, then the whole class.

[graymouser]

The whole tactic of entrism can be used by a small party to keep itself closer to the working class than it could otherwise be. Socialist Action has a modest sister party in Canada that has also been working in the NDP for years. It's not out of any illusions in the NDP but because there are few opportunities outside of it.

James P. Cannon described entrism quite well in The History of American Trotskyism, with his discussion of the entry into the Socialist Party. Quite a different time but it makes the fundamental points well.

[North Star]

I think I may have said something like this in a thread before but it bears repeating: The vast majority of revolutionary movements started in non-revolutionary mass movements. The Bolsheviks came out of the RSDLP and didn't expect to move beyond a "two-stage" revolution until Lenin unveiled the April Thesis. The Communist Party of China came out of the student movement and the broader labour movement and to this day still uphold Sun Yat Sen. The truly mass Communist Parties in the West like the PCI and PCF came out of the traditional mass labour movement as a result of splits in the socialist parties. These splits were not the kind of silly splits we have today like Stalin vs. Trotsky, when did China become revisionist, but over true questions of reform vs. revolution that were not simply being debated by a bunch of intellectuals but by the broader working class. There are certainly advanced workers outside of the NDP in all sorts of groups in Canada. The CPC and MLPC still have small ties inside the labour movement even. However the mass of workers are either in the NDP or look to the NDP. Building any kind of mass revolutionary socialist party will require winning them over. One part of it will be popularizing Marxism. Another element however is to have the NDP exhaust itself as some kind of alternative to the Tories and Liberals. This hasn't happened yet. The NDP is still to the Left of most European social-democratic parties. I doubt this will be the case for very much longer. I'd give it 5 maybe 10 years max before they begin to lose serious credibility among the Canadian working class. So I think writing off working inside and alongside it is a huge misunderstanding of how mass movements develop. Obviously one has to be careful not to liquidate itself into it and have its members become careerists. Then again smaller sects can also become ineffectual by becoming bureaucratic ultra left nightmares.
As far as the IMT in general goes, it truly believes it can win these mass labour parties to Marxism. Otherwise, why didn't Ted Grant go off with the majority of Militant? There is always going to be a split at some point. Either the revolutionaries will leave or the reformists will. History suggests it will be the revolutionaries since the reformist leadership can always perform bureaucratic maneuvering. That is not predetermined of course it will be dependent on how the movement goes. When the split comes and it is the revolutionaries initiating it, it better be able so sustain itself as a mass movement otherwise it will be opportunistic.


In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? 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.
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.

[Crux]

The whole tactic of entrism can be used by a small party to keep itself closer to the working class than it could otherwise be. Socialist Action has a modest sister party in Canada that has also been working in the NDP for years. It's not out of any illusions in the NDP but because there are few opportunities outside of it.

James P. Cannon described entrism quite well in The History of American Trotskyism, with his discussion of the entry into the Socialist Party. Quite a different time but it makes the fundamental points well.
To be frank, I think the SA (as is Fightback and IS) is wrong in this. It shouldn't be a tactic of entryism sui generis (as it is with the IMT largely). NDP has followed the same trajectory as other social democratic parties the world over.

[vyborg]

I dont think fightback is doing "entryism sui generis" whatever it means. anyway, it seems that the right wing failed...http://www.marxist.com/canada-federal-ndp-convention-2011.htm