Great Essay on organizing a new revolutionary socialist movement.

[North Star]

http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/DiMaggio.pdf

Much of what Di Maggio is saying has been touched upon by Lih and others like Louis Proyect, Solidarity and a number of regroup the left types. Nevertheless, it's worth a read from someone who has learned a lot from being in the existing radical left, but also has new ideas on how to move forward.

[Kadir Ateş]

Much of what Di Maggio is saying has been touched upon by Lih and others like Louis Proyect, Solidarity and a number of regroup the left types. Nevertheless, it's worth a read from someone who has learned a lot from being in the existing radical left, but also has new ideas on how to move forward.

Same mentality, just bottled in a different can.

[RedTrackWorker]

Summary: Re-create the second international! ...because that worked so well the first time.

[citizen of industry]

I posted a thread similar to this yesterday, but nobody replied: http://www.revleft.com/vb/ponderings-factionalism-t166528/index.html?t=166528

Not a bad essay [Di Maggio's], something to think about.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Summary: Re-create the second international! ...because that worked so well the first time.

The original Socialist International was about way more than just principled "left unity." Institutional organization was and is something needed by the working class.

[citizen of industry]

Summary: Re-create the second international! ...because that worked so well the first time.

It's not 1889 though, it's 2012. We have the benefit of a century of practice and theory to draw on, and the world is reorganized on different lines than at that time.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Of course not. Such necessary, institution-based reorganization of the worker-class movement (http://www.revleft.com/vb/needed-revived-second-t128934/index.html) should take modern conditions into account. Those modern conditions are heavily weighted against "ad hoc"-isms, apolitical and anti-political nihilism, etc.

Critically speaking, I think that Di Maggio really needs to re-read Chapter 1 of Lars Lih's book on Lenin's WITBD. He doesn't seem to appreciate the fact that the pre-war SPD was beyond what he himself perceives to be a "mass party."

[North Star]

Summary: Re-create the second international! ...because that worked so well the first time.

Ha Ha Ha, and the 4th is working so well too! :lol:

[A Marxist Historian]

Ha Ha Ha, and the 4th is working so well too! :lol:

The Fourth, which basically died as early as the early 1950s, never had the chance to show its stuff, never got real mass support. Between Nazism, Stalinism and world dominion by American imperialism after WWII, it never really got off the ground. So its best organizer, Michel Pablo, essentially gave up on the Trotskyist project and decided the thing to do was tail and join other non-Trotskyist movements and put the Trotskyist program in the closet, and everything has gone downhill from there ever since. The Spartacists are really the only group with any real continuity with the heritage of Trotsky and Lenin and Marx.

The Second most certainly did have the chance to show what it was. We really, really don't want to go back to that, any more than we want to go back to Stalin and his Third. Training the next generation of murderers for the next generation of Rosa Luxemburg's...

The ideas of the Fourth International, and its quite heroic history in the 1940s, are a precious revolutionary heritage, and a perfectly good basis to recreate a workers revolutionary movement. After all, you have to start with something, it's too late in history to try to reinvent the wheel.

-M.H.-

[bcbm]

isn't there an essay about how to 'organize a new revolutionary movement' published once a week that just regurgitates a bunch of the same old snooze button shit?

[Q]

The Fourth, which basically died as early as the early 1950s, never had the chance to show its stuff, never got real mass support.

Let's be honest here, it never really got off the ground in 1938. It organised, at best, about 10 000 Trotskyists around the globe and the "biggest section" - the USSR - was just a bunch of NKVD agents.

As for the piece mentioned in the OP, I saved it and intend to read it while going to work or somesuch.

[citizen of industry]

isn't there an essay about how to 'organize a new revolutionary movement' published once a week

Which would seem to indicate the present movement isn't exactly growing by leaps and bounds.

[Kadir Ateş]

Ha Ha Ha, and the 4th is working so well too! :lol:

Didn't you just post an article by a member of Socialist Action?

[bcbm]

Which would seem to indicate the present movement isn't exactly growing by leaps and bounds.

there is much growth in the last year, it just isn't among leftist troglodyte sects who only measure 'progress' by the growth of said troglodyte sects

[Crux]

I was sad to hear that Dan had left us, that is the CWI and must say I, unsuprisingly, profundly disagree with his new perspectives.

[Q]

It is unfitting, comrade, to call the soviet section of the 4th international NKVDagents

Well, it was true, wasn't it?

Also, please learn me your speedreading skills. I too want to read 50 A4 pages in half a day.

[Rowan Duffy]

The primary tactical approaches of the left being so focused on the short term (getting the next paper published, showing up at the next protest) seem to militate for the sectist approach. Long term projects of building real working class institutions would require more cooperation. The period of union strength probably has a lot to do with why mass parties were so much more successful than they are now. Now that unions are marginalised and weak there is less in terms of resources and institutional power and fewer obviously useful long term projects in which to be involved.

Now that we have this chicken-egg scenario the question presents itself of what type of institutions would best be supported by and support a non-sectist approach to politics.

I think the idea of pooling resources for the purpose of media makes sense. It's crazy for sects to be publishing their own papers independently. There can be disagreement and debate only if there is difference of opinion. The left is rarely very clear on what their opponents say, and that tends to reinforce a lack of clarity about what they themselves think! More (comradely) engagement would be healthier for everyone.

There are probably other places in which it would be useful to cooperate. For instance, education and face-to-face debate around strategic and economic issues as well as cooperation in practical endeavours such as militant trade union circles, social centres and cooperatives.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The primary tactical approaches of the left being so focused on the short term (getting the next paper published, showing up at the next protest) seem to militate for the sectist approach. Long term projects of building real working class institutions would require more cooperation. The period of union strength probably has a lot to do with why mass parties were so much more successful than they are now. Now that unions are marginalised and weak there is less in terms of resources and institutional power and fewer obviously useful long term projects in which to be involved.

Now that we have this chicken-egg scenario the question presents itself of what type of institutions would best be supported by and support a non-sectist approach to politics.

I don't think, comrade, that there's a chicken-egg scenario. The German worker-class movement emerged on the political end long before the tred iunion movement boarded and hijacked the bandwagon.

Lassalle's ADAV spearheaded the worker-class movement on a very anti-union note; the real reason behind the "Iron Law of Wages" rhetoric was an anti-union stance coupled with political partyism (i.e., tendencies of wages to fall can't be countered by union action, but only politically).

Bebel's and Liebknecht's SAPD followed suit even though the anti-union rhetoric wasn't there. By 1875, the SAPD swallowed the ADAV, even though the Gotha Program was quite a compromise made by the Eisenachers towards the struggling Lassalleans. Again, only after more the 20 years did the tred-iunionisty hop in.

The rest of continental Europe followed the German model to some extent. Only in the UK have we seen the Labourite phenomenon you describe.

[And, of course, as Mike Macnair commented upon, the American movement itself, contrary to "exceptionalism" rhetoric, was more successful when the German model was followed.]



Contemporarily speaking, look to Occupy, and not even the most aggressive of union militancy, as being closer to where genuine class struggle will erupt.

[Crux]

Well, it was true, wasn't it?

Also, please learn me your speedreading skills. I too want to read 50 A4 pages in half a day.
No.

Excuse me, comrade, but this is not the first time this article has come up. Besides I am not sure if speed-reading is a skill that can be taught.

[A Marxist Historian]

Let's be honest here, it never really got off the ground in 1938. It organised, at best, about 10 000 Trotskyists around the globe and the "biggest section" - the USSR - was just a bunch of NKVD agents.

As for the piece mentioned in the OP, I saved it and intend to read it while going to work or somesuch.

You're very, very wrong about its USSR section. It got wiped out almost to the last, and no, infiltration by NKVD agents was far from the biggest of its problems. Its real problem with the NKVD was, shall we say, more direct than infiltration?

Actually, you had a fair number of Trotskyists within the NKVD, and they got shot first of course, like Blumkin. Though Beloborodov, one of the last prominent Trotskyists to capitulate, was actually the head of the Russian (as opposed to Soviet) NKVD in 1927 when he was expelled. (Actually the 1927 NKVD was in charge of prisons and local police in Russia, not Chekists who were in the GPU, a separate organization at the time).

The old Left Opposition had tens of thousands of members and lots of support in the working class, which was why it was crushed so vigorously. In the late '20s and early '30s, non-capitulatory Trotskyist groups in the underground led strikes, fought for control of various unions with the party, etc. etc. Had it not been extirpated, it would have been a serious menace to Stalinist control of the USSR. And nobody knew that better than Stalin and Yezhov, which is why they put such allout efforts into destroying it root and branch.

By the time of the founding of the FI, just about every one of them were in Soivet prison camps, and were being shot by the thousand. Had they not been exterminated to the last, they would have become a serious political factor when the Stalinist edifice started to break down when Stalin died. Instead of a Hungarian Revolution in '56, you'd have had another Russian Revolution.

That the FI was fairly small in 1938 was certainly a problem, but not decisive. The Zimmerwald Movement founded in 1916, which the Comintern came out of, was smaller. The reason that the Trotskyists couldn't take the lead in the post-WWII revolutionary outbreaks all over the world was because the Stalinists, who had gained great credibility with the world working class through the Soviet Union defeating Hitler, were in the way.

Just as it was Social Democracy, the traditional mass party of the working class, who were in the way which prevented world revolution after WWI.

Had the FI not bit the dust in the 1950s, it would have become a mass force all over the world during the '60s, possibly even leading a revolution in France in 1968. Instead, you had the rise of New Leftism, Maoism, etc. etc.

Now that's all alternative history of course, but if you are trying to evaluate whether the FI of the 1930s and '40s mattered or not, that like it or not is where you have to go.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

No.

Excuse me, comrade, but this is not the first time this article has come up. Besides I am not sure if speed-reading is a skill that can be taught.

I'm not sure either, but there are in fact various commercial programs, taped lectures with exercises etc., that do purport to teach speedreading. Don't know if they work or not

-M.H.-.

[ckaihatsu]

The primary tactical approaches of the left being so focused on the short term (getting the next paper published, showing up at the next protest) seem to militate for the sectist approach. Long term projects of building real working class institutions would require more cooperation.


Certainly we'd like to see a "generalization" / "centralization" of the vanguard-of-the-sects, but at the same time I *don't* get the sense that our attentions are getting frayed as a result of organizational turf-building. Rather, various revolutionary organizations are able to cover various ground internationally and are more *constructive* than interfering.

Ultimately the struggle has to transcend the meat-and-potatos sect approach, anyway, as we've seen to some degree from the Occupy movement, morphing all over the world and defining the revolutionary zeitgeist of the new decade.





The period of union strength probably has a lot to do with why mass parties were so much more successful than they are now. Now that unions are marginalised and weak there is less in terms of resources and institutional power and fewer obviously useful long term projects in which to be involved.


We could also look at this phenomenon in a "glass-half-full" way and note that economistic local struggles just aren't enough anymore. Global financial capitalist rapaciousness *requires* a like kind of worldwide political solidarity, one that transcends the constraints of conventional trade union mentalities and geography.





Now that we have this chicken-egg scenario the question presents itself of what type of institutions would best be supported by and support a non-sectist approach to politics.


The only problem with this call is that it borders on dismissiveness of the actual political *work* (journalism) being done by those dedicated revolutionaries in the various sects. Certainly we'd all like an ideal vanguard that rivals Mt. Olympus, but in the meantime we shouldn't just shit all over the actualities of real political labor.





I think the idea of pooling resources for the purpose of media makes sense. It's crazy for sects to be publishing their own papers independently.


No, it's *not* "crazy" -- you're practically ultra-left with this line of yours.





There can be disagreement and debate only if there is difference of opinion. The left is rarely very clear on what their opponents say, and that tends to reinforce a lack of clarity about what they themselves think! More (comradely) engagement would be healthier for everyone.


You're seeing sectarianism in a wholly negative light here, and I think it's unwarranted. Why not just chalk it up to the inevitable vagaries of revolutionary organizing in our present capitalist environment -- ?!





There are probably other places in which it would be useful to cooperate. For instance, education and face-to-face debate around strategic and economic issues as well as cooperation in practical endeavours such as militant trade union circles, social centres and cooperatives.


So you're arguing for a pan-sect political generalization and organization.... Yeah, it's called 'RevLeft'...(!)

[Rowan Duffy]

Certainly we'd like to see a "generalization" / "centralization" of the vanguard-of-the-sects, but at the same time I *don't* get the sense that our attentions are getting frayed as a result of organizational turf-building. Rather, various revolutionary organizations are able to cover various ground internationally and are more *constructive* than interfering.

This I find impossible to believe. Firstly, the fact of the huge number of socialist media sources for the tiny number involved and the fact that they go around every demonstration like flies competing for attention looks totally insane. It looks that way because it is. The bourgeois often have only a single paper with vastly larger distribution which contains opinions ranging from the liberal to the deeply reactionary.

In addition, the organisation of demonstrations which are not coordinated, but are meant to cut out turf absolutely affects the left negatively. Small demonstrations are demonstrations of weakness. We should be loath to be involved in demonstrating exaggerations of our already feeble state.

Lots of people I talk to can't figure out why there are a bazillion socialist parties and only one green party, or one or two liberal parties etc. despite the tiny number of people involved. Again, that's because there is nothing sane to figure out. It's straight up madness.



We could also look at this phenomenon in a "glass-half-full" way and note that economistic local struggles just aren't enough anymore. Global financial capitalist rapaciousness *requires* a like kind of worldwide political solidarity, one that transcends the constraints of conventional trade union mentalities and geography.

Yeah, that would be great except it isn't transcending anything. It's simply stagnating. We need to be thinking hard about what could allow us to get a back-bone like we saw with the trade unions.



The only problem with this call is that it borders on dismissiveness of the actual political *work* (journalism) being done by those dedicated revolutionaries in the various sects.

Far from it. It's actually the opposite. It's a completely insane denigration of the work of these people and an absurdity to have smart socialists writing periodicals for circulations of 100 to 1000 people. It would be vastly more sensible to have those people spend their valuable political experience and knowledge on something with greater impact.




Certainly we'd all like an ideal vanguard that rivals Mt. Olympus, but in the meantime we shouldn't just shit all over the actualities of real political labor.

That's part of the problem. The identification of micro-sects with the vanguard is lunacy. The vanguard are the most developed aspects of the working class, not some tiny trot, maoist or anarchist formation.



No, it's *not* "crazy" -- you're practically ultra-left with this line of yours.

There is nothing ultraleft in suggesting that socialists work in efficient ways to have influence. In fact, I have no idea what this charge is suppose to mean.



You're seeing sectarianism in a wholly negative light here, and I think it's unwarranted.

In fact I don't see differences of opinion in a wholly negative light, and again, I think this idea that we are celebrating difference is actually the opposite of what really occurs.

I suggest that the development of differences in isolation is deeply negative. Imagine if scientists would regularly refrain from discussing their various different experimental apparatuses and theoretical models because they believed one to be better than the others. It would lead to a deep stagnation of science. If we want socialism to develop a science of transformation, then our theories and approaches are going to have to be hashed out not just in isolation, but in conversation and comparison. This can't happen with the current ultra-sectarian attitudes that people promote. Instead you get ossified orthodoxy. If anything has failed spectacularly and for a long time, it has been the extreme sectarianism of the left.



Why not just chalk it up to the inevitable vagaries of revolutionary organizing in our present capitalist environment -- ?!

You could also bang your head against the ground and blame it on the ground. If something fails to work repeatedly, it's time to change it up. If anything has failed consistently for such a long time it's been the extreme sectarianism of the left.



So you're arguing for a pan-sect political generalization and organization.... Yeah, it's called 'RevLeft'...(!)

And I think revleft is a good example of the importance of having discussion with different tendencies. There is a much richer arena for the possibility of cross-polinisation and the subject material is much more interesting than if the same orthodox correct line is repeated ad nauseum.

[ckaihatsu]

And I think revleft is a good example of the importance of having discussion with different tendencies. There is a much richer arena for the possibility of cross-polinisation and the subject material is much more interesting than if the same orthodox correct line is repeated ad nauseum.


Yes, agreed -- perhaps this is the qualitative development within revolutionary politics that we've been looking for -- it *has* been that for me.





This I find impossible to believe. Firstly, the fact of the huge number of socialist media sources for the tiny number involved and the fact that they go around every demonstration like flies competing for attention looks totally insane. It looks that way because it is. The bourgeois often have only a single paper with vastly larger distribution which contains opinions ranging from the liberal to the deeply reactionary.




Lots of people I talk to can't figure out why there are a bazillion socialist parties and only one green party, or one or two liberal parties etc. despite the tiny number of people involved. Again, that's because there is nothing sane to figure out. It's straight up madness.


I don't agree with your characterization that a number of competing socialist media sources looks "insane" -- you're exaggerating. People are used to seeing competition in the marketplace, and especially in the marketplace of ideas. There's no reason why a similar kind of competition should look strange on the landscape of (revolutionary) politics, even if it may be counterintuitive relative to the *content* of the politics. Again, we are currently in an anarchic / chaotic *capitalist* environment -- not in a world of what our political vision describes. (Another example of counterintuitive, though understandable, activity is having to pay for copies of a socialist publication, and/or paying dues -- again, there are still bills to pay, etc.)

Revolutionary politics is the "Wild West" compared to all other kinds of politics, meaning that the others are establishment-oriented and so are encompassed by the dynamics of 'palace politics', like corporatist consolidation into media oligarchies. The revolutionary left should *not* be comparing itself to the internal turf of the corporatist mainstream.





In addition, the organisation of demonstrations which are not coordinated, but are meant to cut out turf absolutely affects the left negatively. Small demonstrations are demonstrations of weakness. We should be loath to be involved in demonstrating exaggerations of our already feeble state.


First of all, many critical and popular-issue demonstrations *are* coordinated across leftist organizations, exhibiting a 'united front' strategy where appropriate.

I can't speak to the point about any "small demonstrations" -- you may want to clarify this point.

I'd say, though, that you may be unappreciative of the *diversity* of issues and turf around the revolutionary left -- there's no need to have a form of consolidation for its own sake if a number of (competing) organizations are covering appropriate political ground regardless.





Yeah, that would be great except it isn't transcending anything. It's simply stagnating. We need to be thinking hard about what could allow us to get a back-bone like we saw with the trade unions.


You're being unclear here, too -- there *is* a certain limit to the corpus of revolutionary politics since it deals with 'the next step', which hasn't happened yet. Practice has to catch up to theory, so in the meantime the "stagnation" is more aptly termed 'anticipation'.

You may want to clarify what you mean by "backbone" here.





Far from it. It's actually the opposite. It's a completely insane denigration of the work of these people and an absurdity to have smart socialists writing periodicals for circulations of 100 to 1000 people. It would be vastly more sensible to have those people spend their valuable political experience and knowledge on something with greater impact.


Looks like you just volunteered.





That's part of the problem. The identification of micro-sects with the vanguard is lunacy. The vanguard are the most developed aspects of the working class, not some tiny trot, maoist or anarchist formation.


Well, if they happen to be putting forth the most appropriate, correct revolutionary line for the ground they're covering, then, by definition, they're the 'vanguard' regardless of size or impact.





I think the idea of pooling resources for the purpose of media makes sense. It's crazy for sects to be publishing their own papers independently.





No, it's *not* "crazy" -- you're practically ultra-left with this line of yours.





There is nothing ultraleft in suggesting that socialists work in efficient ways to have influence. In fact, I have no idea what this charge is suppose to mean.


'Ultraleft' means an overly-demanding, unrealistic, infeasible political line. Part of the reason why there's such a diversity of vanguard-type organizations is because they each developed independently and have their own organizational histories, not to mention various differing tendencies within each overall political camp.





In fact I don't see differences of opinion in a wholly negative light, and again, I think this idea that we are celebrating difference is actually the opposite of what really occurs.

I suggest that the development of differences in isolation is deeply negative. Imagine if scientists would regularly refrain from discussing their various different experimental apparatuses and theoretical models because they believed one to be better than the others. It would lead to a deep stagnation of science. If we want socialism to develop a science of transformation, then our theories and approaches are going to have to be hashed out not just in isolation, but in conversation and comparison. This can't happen with the current ultra-sectarian attitudes that people promote. Instead you get ossified orthodoxy. If anything has failed spectacularly and for a long time, it has been the extreme sectarianism of the left.


Politics -- even the most forward-looking revolutionary politics -- isn't *synonymous* with 'science' in the sense of 'investigating and making proofs of fact'. Politics is about *effecting* transformation in the realm of power relations, though it may use a scientific approach to undergird this activity.





You could also bang your head against the ground and blame it on the ground. If something fails to work repeatedly, it's time to change it up. If anything has failed consistently for such a long time it's been the extreme sectarianism of the left.


Yes, there *is* inter-organization friction, but it's hardly as draining and distracting as you're making it out to be. The upside is that you get to "shop around" before committing yourself organizationally.