Inner Party personal politicsand the clique

[Prometeo liberado]

Maybe this should be in chit-chat. I was turned off to joining a Left Party for many years outside of joining the Peace and Freedom party. I attended CPUSA meetings, met with Spartacus people, Trotskyist from whatever party was around at the time and so on without joining any. Ideology played a part in some decisions. Levels of activism also was a major factor. But the one overriding concern that always made me shy away from participating with some groups and paying dues is the cliquishness of some of the leadership and their friends. By this I am not talking about ideological issues but more along the lines of petty high school "we are the cool people" office politics and the St.Louis branch-is-way-more-down-than-the-Chicago branch-so-dont-call-us-when-your-in-town type of bullshit. And the worst part is the undercurrent of ageism. I have seen it drive to many good people away.It manifests itself into the very vision, actions and attitude of the local branch. It fosters disharmony, factionalism and organizational indifference and uses party unity as an escape clause. So how is it that cliques of "coolness" all to often are left alone to destroy any momentum for good party work. In fact it often inhibits work when this work is not the favored march of the clique or will pull support if their friends aren't gonna support it. These acts are to often based on personalities and not ideological differences. I have seen and been put off by it in several organizations and am beginning to see the start of it in my own. Thoughts?

[Obs]

I attended CPUSA meetings, met with Spartacus people,
well there's your problem

[Rusty Shackleford]

i dont think anywhere in any left organization will you find an absence of local level cliques of friends. that being said, party discipline must come first before personal friendships when operating as party members doing party work.

[citizen of industry]

This isn't unique to parties, it's a trait common to all human organizations. There are various "factions" if you want to call them that in every organization. In my experience, though, they often do boil down to political/ideological differences, but might appear as personal cliquishness at first site, simply because the people in a particular faction tend to have similar ideology, or at least agree on a particular issue of importance that another faction doesn't agree with, which is a basis for close cooperation and from that friendship, which leads to easier and closer future cooperation among the same friends on other issues.

I guess my own feeling on it is if you have a correct theory and analysis you can come to a correct decision on some issue, so the faction you would be in would be in the right. Experience would then bear out whether you were in fact correct or not.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This isn't unique to parties, it's a trait common to all human organizations. There are various "factions" if you want to call them that in every organization. In my experience, though, they often do boil down to political/ideological differences, but might appear as personal cliquishness at first site, simply because the people in a particular faction tend to have similar ideology, or at least agree on a particular issue of importance that another faction doesn't agree with, which is a basis for close cooperation and from that friendship, which leads to easier and closer future cooperation among the same friends on other issues.

I guess my own feeling on it is if you have a correct theory and analysis you can come to a correct decision on some issue, so the faction you would be in would be in the right. Experience would then bear out whether you were in fact correct or not.

I think there are cliques around political agreement and so on, but there are also cliques that are just based on familiarity or doing the same areas of work. If a party has some people involved in the same union, they may be 100% in political agreement with people outside that union-work, but they may also become clique-ish because they are working together, they have to discuss and assess their work together anyway and so they start to talk about other political issues or just personal issues etc.

I think it's the smallishness of the revolutionary Left that amplifies this effect too. Local activists all start to know eachother if there aren't big dynamic movements involving lots of people. Even parties that might be toy-Leninist groups that talk about party discipline will develop some local inertia and informal practices. I think it's worse in "leaderless" situations too because there's no transparency for how things function - this is a big problem in the occupy movement where if you know the informal channels in which things happen and you know the right people in the movement you can get a lot of organizing done whereas new people coming from the outside are totally mystified about who to go to for this or that issue they want to raise.

I think on a certain level that clicishness is organic and happens in any group of people - you can't talk to everyone all the time, so people develop their informal networks. As our movements grow, it will be increasingly important to try and counteract this by having established and accountable methods for disseminating information within revolutionary groups, how to handle debates, how to raise issues and concerns. In small movements and groups it's less of an issue because it's just harder to keep secrets anyway. Failing to create ways to avoid cliques in much larger movements would mean creating passivity in the membership and possibly divisiveness.

[Prometeo liberado]

As far as the political/ideological differences go I can understand that. But cliques based on ageism or what part of the city you live in does nothing but foster disunity, more so when its part of the decision making process. And if it is a clique of the political/ideological nature then I would think that within a party setting comrades would engage rather dismiss other comrades. Shutting off the lines of communication is destructive and runs contrary to party discipline. Again I see the indifference of the leadership as a main culprit in this. If one group within an organization feels that they dont need the support from another group of comrades or won't communicate with them then the the branch leadership has a duty to stamp this out. Its counterproductive and does not look inviting to new members.

[Mr. Natural]

My experiences from the late '60s on have been universally "personalities over politics." The absence of any effective politics has exacerbated this woeful situation, of course.

Look to the RevLeft purge fiasco and much of the conversation on these left forums: personalities over politics. In this, capitalist system-manufactured personalities and character structures are barring the way to the development of socialist politics. We are acting as the isolated, atomized individual egos capitalism creates.

It isn't just the capitalist system that is the problem, though. Human consciousness creates a picture of separate individuals and living things, whereas all living systems exist in dynamically interdependent, "communist" relations.

We are natural beings who must learn to live naturally as communists. To get there, we will have to combat both capitalist systemic mindfuck and our immediate consciousness. We must learn to see, honor, and practice the unseen organizational relations of life. Are we not life?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I would want to make a clear distinction between factions and cliques. A clique is a group of people that cohere on a personal basis, be it friendship, common perceived grievances or proximity. A faction, on the other hand, forms (or should form) over political disagreements within a party. That is one of the many reasons that programmatic clarity is so important. Keep on course with program, and you don't get caught up in cliques. I guess the example that comes to mind is the Abern group in the SWP. Apparently Marty Abern was a really warm sweet guy, who genuinely believe that he was not a cliquist. He was warm where the leadership under James Cannon was cold. And he was one of the founders of the LO in the US. Unfortunately, this sent him on a course to make common cause with Shachtman and Burnham when they split the SWP over the issue of defense of the USSR. Someone noted that Abern was so effective as a cliquist because he never realized that he was one.

[Ozymandias]

My experiences from the late '60s on have been universally "personalities over politics." The absence of any effective politics has exacerbated this woeful situation, of course.

Look to the RevLeft purge fiasco and much of the conversation on these left forums: personalities over politics. In this, capitalist system-manufactured personalities and character structures are barring the way to the development of socialist politics. We are acting as the isolated, atomized individual egos capitalism creates.

It isn't just the capitalist system that is the problem, though. Human consciousness creates a picture of separate individuals and living things, whereas all living systems exist in dynamically interdependent, "communist" relations.

We are natural beings who must learn to live naturally as communists. To get there, we will have to combat both capitalist systemic mindfuck and our immediate consciousness. We must learn to see, honor, and practice the unseen organizational relations of life. Are we not life?

I definitely agree with the first two paragraphs! But I'm a little hesitant with the final two. The natural world has hardly left upon me the impression of communism.

Hierarchies exist throughout; countless species compete with one another, and even amongst themselves; some species have gone so far as to establish boundaries to separate themselves, and quarrel amongst themselves for the preservation or expansion of those boundaries. It is clearly a capitalist construct in my book. Although, if left uninfringed by the extremes of nature or by the introduction of other external variables, they effectively create harmonies within, where all the species, if evolved suitably, prosper to some extent.

I don't interpret the political or economic associations of the natural world as determinate of the fate of human beings.

I am left with the impression that as the sole species upon this planet who possess the means of abstract and critical thought, we are no longer bound by the inherent repressions and toils imposed by the natural world.

If anything, I have come to understand that the foremost reason that we have evolved this unique trait is to overcome the oppression of nature upon
our being. To transcend the pseudo-capitalist world and evolve into communism.

No longer should we accept our enslavement by the scarcity so rampant in the natural world, as we have come to wield the awesome power of our intellect. We are the masters of this world, so long as the world continues to yield, and continues to remain habitable--One should not interpret this phrase as an attempt to justify our oppression, exploitation or slaughter of the other species upon this planet, it is merely a observation that we are identifiably superior to the other species.

[blake 3:17]

Anybody who votes no on this one is deeply deluded or dishonest.

[DaringMehring]

I would want to make a clear distinction between factions and cliques. A clique is a group of people that cohere on a personal basis, be it friendship, common perceived grievances or proximity. A faction, on the other hand, forms (or should form) over political disagreements within a party. That is one of the many reasons that programmatic clarity is so important. Keep on course with program, and you don't get caught up in cliques. I guess the example that comes to mind is the Abern group in the SWP. Apparently Marty Abern was a really warm sweet guy, who genuinely believe that he was not a cliquist. He was warm where the leadership under James Cannon was cold. And he was one of the founders of the LO in the US. Unfortunately, this sent him on a course to make common cause with Shachtman and Burnham when they split the SWP over the issue of defense of the USSR. Someone noted that Abern was so effective as a cliquist because he never realized that he was one.

I don't know what the LO in the US is, and Abern according to Wiki didn't "make common cause" with Schachtman or deny the unconditional defense of the USSR.

[workersadvocate]

Middle class left people are going to think and act like middle class people generally.
Rinse and repeat. Regardless of their ostensible ideologies. Until they are essentially forced (coerced by desparate conditions of proletarianization under capitalism)to wholly side with and serve and self-identify with the working class (and no other class but ours which has "nothing to lose but its chains"), you can trust middle class people on the left---no matter how radical they might pose---to think and act like middle class people generally do. It's in the nature of the beast in exploitative class society for have-somes to fuck over have-nots. Until they truly share our objective class interests because they are inescapably one of us, they are not one of us and are in fact ultimately hostile to our interests out of the logic of seeking for their own middle class interests (and their own individual standing within the middle class).

So middle class leftists use ageism, sexism, racism, posession of higher education cred, and a million other divisive elitist tools to prop themselves up while shutting out or putting down have-nots. They're fundamentally no different from the middle class people you see in society and the economy generally. Their behaviors, outlooks, methods are perfectly at home in modern capitalism...it is their "best of all possible worlds", their frontier to go forth and conquer, sucking surplus value from us and spilling our blood, so long as they don't step on the toes of the ruling class. They are the millions of mini-monsters of "competitive free enterprise". Look at the middle class left, and recognize it is these same sort of middle class creatures we working people deal with and suffer under daily in all of exploitative society's social and economic institutions! What's so different between them and your managers at work? What so different between the top leaders of middle class left groups and the owners of small businesses? It's the same class at
bottom. It's just a different business niche in a political business marketplace.
It's "Left Inc.", whether they offer Brand X, Brand Y or Brand Z.

For now, let me just encourage you to try and imagine an entirely exclusively proletarian Left.
How would it be distinct from the historally existing middle class dominated and heavily middle class composed Left we've been familiar with for ages? I'm not saying that working people are all communist angels, of course. But, at the least, we share the same objective class interests in burying class society and building a better classless world for all.

[Prometeo liberado]

I would want to make a clear distinction between factions and cliques. A clique is a group of people that cohere on a personal basis, be it friendship, common perceived grievances or proximity. A faction, on the other hand, forms (or should form) over political disagreements within a party. That is one of the many reasons that programmatic clarity is so important. Keep on course with program, and you don't get caught up in cliques. I guess the example that comes to mind is the Abern group in the SWP. Apparently Marty Abern was a really warm sweet guy, who genuinely believe that he was not a cliquist. He was warm where the leadership under James Cannon was cold. And he was one of the founders of the LO in the US. Unfortunately, this sent him on a course to make common cause with Shachtman and Burnham when they split the SWP over the issue of defense of the USSR. Someone noted that Abern was so effective as a cliquist because he never realized that he was one.

1. I would want to make a clear distinction between factions and cliques. A clique is a group of people that cohere on a personal basis, be it friendship, common perceived grievances or proximity.
I agree and is why I chose to use the word clique as opposed to faction. Furhter though is that these cliques are based solely on some kind of high schoolish popularity baramoeters and on theoretical criteria. As all to often becomes the case,these cliques hold influence of thoought over weaker minded or theoreticaly infant cadres.

2.That is one of the many reasons that programmatic clarity is so important. Keep on course with program, and you don't get caught up in cliques.
I see it as a sort of catch 22. Does elite leadership cultivate a culture of cliques a lack accountability as to the program? Or does the presence of cliques make the program not as important in the lfe of the organization?

All to often the term Democratic Centralism is used to mask the laziness of the organization to confront what is becoming a party building hinderence. And I am a firm believer in dem. centralism.
Again I have to stress that I am just seeing it in it's infancy in my organization but have seen it kill others at this stage leaving just a corpse where the party was. By no means was this what Lenin would remotely put up with as far as personalities creating a wedge between cadres and the working class and cadres isolating from each other. When I hear people ask why one organization didn't or aren't going to a certain event and the answer is "well the comrades in that city didn't invite us" it's embarressing. The whole left looks like fools!

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I don't know what the LO in the US is, and Abern according to Wiki didn't "make common cause" with Schachtman or deny the unconditional defense of the USSR.

LO = Left Opposition (aka Trotskyist) beginning in 1928. And Abern's group was part of the 1941 split in the SWP that abandoned military defense of the USSR over the invasion of Finland. He along with Shachtman and Burnham led the opposition that became the Workers Party. See Trotsky's "In Defense of Marxism" for details. Now he may have personally remained defensist -- Shachtman's Party never was defensist regarding the USSR.

[DaringMehring]

LO = Left Opposition (aka Trotskyist) beginning in 1928. And Abern's group was part of the 1941 split in the SWP that abandoned military defense of the USSR over the invasion of Finland. He along with Shachtman and Burnham led the opposition that became the Workers Party. See Trotsky's "In Defense of Marxism" for details.

I have read it and remembered he was in opposition to Cannon & Trotsky, but I thought that opposition itself was fractured and didn't all end up in the same place. Like, Burnham became an anti-communist, Schachtman became a state-department "socialist," and Abern.... well, didn't know about him but I thought he remained more of a socialist up to his death in '49?

[Martin Blank]

I think it's important to look at the reasons why cliques form:

1) Organization size -- Any organization that is not a mass phenomenon has the tendency toward cliquism built in. This is especially the case when these organizations, whether on a local, regional or national scale, have had more or less the same membership for an extended period of time. Being a small organization alone is not a guarantee that cliques will form, but it does increase the risk.

2) Class-based divisions of labor -- When you have an organization where elements from one class always do one type of work and those from another class do another type (e.g., the petty-bourgeois elements are the theoreticians and leaders, while the working-class elements are the "activists", paper sellers or mules), the development of a clique is almost inevitable. Again, not a 100-percent guarantee that cliques will develop, but a much greater likelihood than just organization size alone.

3) Internalism -- This, more than anything else, can cause cliques and cliquism to take hold in an organization. In this case, the cliques develop out of informal "gossip circles". The members will socialize and hang out, with the conversation drifting from one topic to another until it focuses on perceived negative attributes about a member or group of members. Eventually, the gossip becomes the reason for these members to come together, and may or may not draw in other like-minded people. Unlike the first two reasons mentioned above, internalism is a virtual guarantee that cliquism will develop.

It's also important to keep in mind that there are political and apolitical cliques. A political clique is close to a tendency or faction in its reason for existence; they have a common political difference with the organization, but choose to not go public, preferring instead to build support for their views through socializing and deepening friendships. It is relatively easy to deal with the problem of a political clique; the organization has a right to bring the differences into the open, whether the clique likes it or not.

An apolitical clique, on the other hand, is little more than a cancer in the organization. Because it has no political basis, it is solely a focal point for personal animosities and pettiness. Of course, that also means dealing with it organizationally is a challenge. Even though it is not a political formation, an organization cannot simply impose an administrative solution (e.g., suspensions), since the members have not violated any of the organization's rules (unless, of course, your organization has a rule against apolitical cliquism). The best method for fighting an apolitical clique is to isolate its reach and work to turn the organization in their area toward public activity that undermines the basis for their clique.

In the end, the best ways to demolish cliquism are a conscious turning outward (i.e., not mindless "activism", but a planned-out organizing campaign), drawing new workers into the organization, and developing working-class members as theoretical and organizational leaders (thus breaking down the class-based divisions of labor).

I hope you find all this helpful.

[Prometeo liberado]

I think it's important to look at the reasons why cliques form:

1) Organization size -- Any organization that is not a mass phenomenon has the tendency toward cliquism built in. This is especially the case when these organizations, whether on a local, regional or national scale, have had more or less the same membership for an extended period of time. Being a small organization alone is not a guarantee that cliques will form, but it does increase the risk.

2) Class-based divisions of labor -- When you have an organization where elements from one class always do one type of work and those from another class do another type (e.g., the petty-bourgeois elements are the theoreticians and leaders, while the working-class elements are the "activists", paper sellers or mules), the development of a clique is almost inevitable. Again, not a 100-percent guarantee that cliques will develop, but a much greater likelihood than just organization size alone.

3) Internalism -- This, more than anything else, can cause cliques and cliquism to take hold in an organization. In this case, the cliques develop out of informal "gossip circles". The members will socialize and hang out, with the conversation drifting from one topic to another until it focuses on perceived negative attributes about a member or group of members. Eventually, the gossip becomes the reason for these members to come together, and may or may not draw in other like-minded people. Unlike the first two reasons mentioned above, internalism is a virtual guarantee that cliquism will develop.

It's also important to keep in mind that there are political and apolitical cliques. A political clique is close to a tendency or faction in its reason for existence; they have a common political difference with the organization, but choose to not go public, preferring instead to build support for their views through socializing and deepening friendships. It is relatively easy to deal with the problem of a political clique; the organization has a right to bring the differences into the open, whether the clique likes it or not.

An apolitical clique, on the other hand, is little more than a cancer in the organization. Because it has no political basis, it is solely a focal point for personal animosities and pettiness. Of course, that also means dealing with it organizationally is a challenge. Even though it is not a political formation, an organization cannot simply impose an administrative solution (e.g., suspensions), since the members have not violated any of the organization's rules (unless, of course, your organization has a rule against apolitical cliquism). The best method for fighting an apolitical clique is to isolate its reach and work to turn the organization in their area toward public activity that undermines the basis for their clique.

In the end, the best ways to demolish cliquism are a conscious turning outward (i.e., not mindless "activism", but a planned-out organizing campaign), drawing new workers into the organization, and developing working-class members as theoretical and organizational leaders (thus breaking down the class-based divisions of labor).

I hope you find all this helpful.

Thank you for that. I have seen all of these in one form or another but point three is more along the lines of what I was going for. I have had to walk away from many conversations because of this kind of petty nonsense. One of the biggest obstacles I have found to drawing in new members is the elitism they see when confronted by this unchecked clique. I have even heard it from some in the Occupy Movement. People spouting crap like "you weren't there as long as I was so your not as down". What?!

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Abern remained in Shachtman's Worker's Party until his death in '49. Burnham, who was newer to the Trotskyist movement in the US, very quickly became an anticommunist of the worst order. I actually do not know much about Abern's functioning in the Worker's Party -- if he was in opposition to old Max, I have never heard it, but it could be true. The key to the split though was the sudden sharp shift in the US of intellectual/rad lib circles against the USSR because they made a pact with Hitler and invaded Finland. Trotsky and Cannon were clear that these things in no way changed the class nature of the USSR and argued that it was vital to continue a program of unconditional military defense of it.

Of course, Shachtman and Abern had warred with Cannon earlier (31 to 33 I think) Trotsky basically told them to stop it, they were beating each others brains out, with no major political differences. in '39, the political differences began to become much clearer. Trotsky urged the US leadership of the SWP to take a very gentle approach to the minority faction (it was a BIG minority, about 40%) -- they would be allowed full factional rights, proportional representation on all governing bodies, etc. The only condition was that they abide by majority decisions of the party. The minority refused quite fiercely and was expelled.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think it's important to look at the reasons why cliques form:

1) Organization size -- Any organization that is not a mass phenomenon has the tendency toward cliquism built in. This is especially the case when these organizations, whether on a local, regional or national scale, have had more or less the same membership for an extended period of time. Being a small organization alone is not a guarantee that cliques will form, but it does increase the risk.

Comrade, cliques can develop quite easily within mass organizations, particularly those without much of an accountability process.


2) Class-based divisions of labor -- When you have an organization where elements from one class always do one type of work and those from another class do another type (e.g., the petty-bourgeois elements are the theoreticians and leaders, while the working-class elements are the "activists", paper sellers or mules), the development of a clique is almost inevitable. Again, not a 100-percent guarantee that cliques will develop, but a much greater likelihood than just organization size alone.

Political clique, or apolitical?


3) Internalism -- This, more than anything else, can cause cliques and cliquism to take hold in an organization. In this case, the cliques develop out of informal "gossip circles". The members will socialize and hang out, with the conversation drifting from one topic to another until it focuses on perceived negative attributes about a member or group of members. Eventually, the gossip becomes the reason for these members to come together, and may or may not draw in other like-minded people. Unlike the first two reasons mentioned above, internalism is a virtual guarantee that cliquism will develop.

[...]

In the end, the best ways to demolish cliquism are a conscious turning outward (i.e., not mindless "activism", but a planned-out organizing campaign), drawing new workers into the organization, and developing working-class members as theoretical and organizational leaders (thus breaking down the class-based divisions of labor).

How does this address the problem of internalism?


It's also important to keep in mind that there are political and apolitical cliques. A political clique is close to a tendency or faction in its reason for existence; they have a common political difference with the organization, but choose to not go public, preferring instead to build support for their views through socializing and deepening friendships. It is relatively easy to deal with the problem of a political clique; the organization has a right to bring the differences into the open, whether the clique likes it or not.

Interestingly enough, Marx called this kind of group a "faction," predating today's negative spin on factions and factionalism even in more mainstream political circles.


An apolitical clique, on the other hand, is little more than a cancer in the organization. Because it has no political basis, it is solely a focal point for personal animosities and pettiness. Of course, that also means dealing with it organizationally is a challenge. Even though it is not a political formation, an organization cannot simply impose an administrative solution (e.g., suspensions), since the members have not violated any of the organization's rules (unless, of course, your organization has a rule against apolitical cliquism). The best method for fighting an apolitical clique is to isolate its reach and work to turn the organization in their area toward public activity that undermines the basis for their clique.

Rules against apolitical cliquism? Ironically, the "CPSU" had precisely this in its peculiar interpretation of Lenin's ban on factions:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=_JdMHJ0v_twC&pg=PA86&dq=andropov+gorbachev+dinner&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3XEnT6vuM4qciQLrvZmzAQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=andropov%20gorbachev%20dinner&f=false


Given Lenin's abolition of factions in the party, the groups in the party apparatus had to be very informal. Strict, if unwritten, rules had been established forbidding social ties among Politburo and Secretariat members. As Nikolai Ryzhkov said, socializing among Politburo members and Central Committees secretaries was prohibited "so that there wouldn't be any 'blocs' or 'groups.'" When Gorbachev became a Central Committee secretary in 1978, he was given a government dacha next to Andropov. Thinking to continue the friendly ties they had in Stavropol, he invited Andropov and his wife to dinner, but was quickly rebuffed. "I must refuse the invitation... [Otherwise] the gossip will begin tomorrow: who? where? why? what did they discuss? We will still be on the road, and they will begin to report to Leonid Il'ich. I say this, first of all, Mikhail, for your benefit.

Everyone has remarked on Gorbachev's lack of friends on the Politburo, but Ryzhkov noted that the old rule against Politburo socializing generally continued to be observed after 1985. None of the Politburo members visited each other's homes. Even an old college friend, Anatoly Luk'ianov, was never invited to Gorbachev's home during the perestroika period.

The paradoxical consequence of this practice was to promote the creation of groupings along career lines. When officials were young, they had been able to develop personal ties and mutual trust. In the absence of personal contact, they tended to trust those who had appointed them or whom they had appointed.

[workersadvocate]

Middle class leftists excel at painting a political and intellectual appearance to their elitist personality cults and cliques.
They hate us working people and think they're better than us. I hate them back and think they represent even in their persons everything communism will abolish and replace. In competition between the factions and cliques of the middle class left, I hope for mutual assured destruction.

[blake 3:17]

Rules against apolitical cliquism?

Good effin luck.

[Prometeo liberado]

Good effin luck.

There is no easy answer. What do propose.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Good effin luck.

Like I remarked, comrade, the "CPSU" actually had rules against one form of apolitical cliquism.

[blake 3:17]

There is no easy answer. What do propose.

Accept them as inevitable. It's gonna happen. I've seen some bizarre factional stuff happen, due to falling in or out of love, being housemates, getting personally competitive, pissing each other off for dumb stuff.

The idea that revolutionaries are some how immune to this because of theory or program, or class origins is just BS. Democratic organizations tend to ease these pains. A commitment to socialist morality helps too.

Organizations which try to control their members lives in excessive ways just turn in to horrible cults.

[Prometeo liberado]

Accept them as inevitable. It's gonna happen. I've seen some bizarre factional stuff happen, due to falling in or out of love, being housemates, getting personally competitive, pissing each other off for dumb stuff.

The idea that revolutionaries are some how immune to this because of theory or program, or class origins is just BS. Democratic organizations tend to ease these pains. A commitment to socialist morality helps too.

Organizations which try to control their members lives in excessive ways just turn in to horrible cults.
In any other circumstance I would blow it off, but this a group of people doing the very things that we purport to be against. Ageism, Sexism and a subtle form of racism. Or even the real petty shit like the roommate or the ex-boy/girl friend. If it drives members away and the attitude is still whatever then why are we showing up. More importantly why do they show up? If someone is not serious about it or if the feel that since they are cool with the admins and branch head then they don't have to sell papers then dont you think that maybe asking them to move on would send a message to the new cadres? Not talkin cult status here just demanding a certain seriousness would suffice. This isn't a party, it's a goddamn revolutionary movement. Fuck! you want team building exercises?(me venting)

[blake 3:17]

(me venting)

I would ask the people involved.

[Kotze]

The idea that revolutionaries are some how immune to this because of theory or program, or class origins is just BS.Nobody is 100% immune, but class has something to do with the degree of resistance to that:
Unlike most worker-revolutionaries, these professional revolutionaries have joined, or have been recruited into the socialist movement (by-and-large) as a result either of (1) their own personal commitment to the revolution, (2) their rebellious personality, (3) their individual alienation from the system, or (4) other contingent psychological reasons --, but, significantly, not as a direct result of the class war.

That is, they become revolutionaries through their own individual efforts, or those of some other individual (such as a parent, partner or friend) and not (in general) through participation in collective action, or in strikes (etc.) at their own place of work -- if they work.

This means that from the beginning (again, by-and-large), because of their class position and non-working class upbringing, such comrades act and think like individuals. This (a) affects the ideas they form, (b) colours their attitude toward such ideas, (c) affects their activity inside the movement/party, and (d) slants the relationships they form with other revolutionaries.

(...)

In stark contrast, workers involved in collective labour have unity forced on them by well-known, external material forces. These compel workers to combine; they do not persuade them to unite as a result of some theory or other. Workers are thus forced to combine with unity externally-imposed upon them, since this unifying force is a material, not an Ideal force.

In contrast, once more, while history confirms that the class war forces workers to unite, it also shows that it drives these petty-bourgeois revolutionaries apart. In that case, dialectical theory has to replace collective struggle as their sole unifying principle; petty-bourgeois/de-classé Marxists are thus 'united' by a set of ideas. The forces that operate on them are thus quintessentially individualistic, unquestionably ideal and dangerously centrifugal (as Lenin noted earlier, and as we will soon see). But, without this 'theory', the rationale underlying the romantic idea that these comrades stand right at the philosophical centre of the dialectical universe would evaporate.

(...)

Collective discipline is paramount inside Bolshevik-style parties. But, the strong-willed, petty-bourgeois militant that this style of politics attracts is not used to this form of externally-imposed regimentation (since, as Lenin noted, these comrades are attracted by internally-processed and self-certifying ideas), and so fights soon break out, often over minor, even personal issues.

Since childhood, these comrades have been socialised think like social atoms, but in a revolutionary party they have to act like social molecules (which is a psychological feat that lies way beyond their 'pay grade'). Hence, personal disputes quickly break out and are soon re-configured as political differences -- once more, these are differences over ideas --, which require, and are soon given, a theoretical 'justification'.

(...)

Again, as Lenin points out, ruling-class theorists and 'intellectuals' have always endeavoured to make a name for themselves by developing their own ideas, and thus by criticising the ideas of other, rival theorists. That is, after all, part of their establishing a reputation for themselves, which is an essential component in advancing their careers -- or, indeed, for defending a patron or some other beneficent section of the ruling-class. Petty-bourgeois capitalists have to rely on their individual skills in order to survive in the face of Big Capital. In like manner, these unfortunate characters have to ply their trade in the revolutionary movement as individual theorists, armed only with ideas. Petty-bourgeois dialecticians ply their trade in similarly poisoned waters, and so it is that they have brought with them (into Marxism) this divisive trait. In the market for 'Marxist' ideas, those with the most sharply-honed critical skills often float to the top.

The fact that such individuals have very strong characters (otherwise they'd not survive in Capitalist society) merely compounds the problem. In order to make their name, and advance their 'revolutionary careers', it becomes important for them to disagree with every other theorist, which they then almost invariably proceed to do. [In fact, the expectation is that every single comrade should argue his/her corner.]

Sectarianism is caused, therefore, by such petty-bourgeois social 'atoms'.source (http://www.anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm)

[Mr. Natural]

Ozymandias, Thanks for your comments. The objections you raised to my last two paragraphs probably represent the sentiments of 95% of the comrades on these left forums, but you are separating humanity from nature, a position Marx and Engels opposed. So does science.

You wrote: "The natural world has hardly left upon me the impression of communism..." You add, "Hierarchies exist throughout [nature]; countless species compete with each other ..." Then you conclude, interestingly, that these species "effect and create harmonies within [nature] where all the species, if evolved suitably, prosper to some extent."

Well, let's look at those comments. Doesn't that last observation suggest that nature has "communist relations"--that the individual species prosper together? That is, indeed, what happens in nature's ecologies, and that is what needs to happen in communism. Doesn't nature consist of various forms of community, from the internal/external relations of a cell to your body to an ecosystem? Aren't all of these relations "communist"?

As for hierarchies and competition, nature's hierarchies are integrative levels of organization, and Tennyson's "nature red in tooth and claw" becomes a natural world in which its species are dynamically interrelated and interdependent. The parts and whole of the natural world are dynamically, interdependently, seamlessly organized into the dance of life, and what we see as bloody warfare and predator/prey relations are simply the manner in which species interrelate to generate the energy and relations necessary to maintain their being and the life process.

In contrast, human consciousness perceives in terms of individuals and things, and in doing so loses much of the "social" of human social individuality and community. Our consciousness developed from the same pattern of organization of matter as did the rest of life (the brain is a self-organized material system), but the brain is so complex that its organization reflects back on itself to provide our sense of a self that is separate from other selves and things of life. Our thus "isolated selves" cannot see the organizational relations that create us nor the social-organizational relations that generate our human being as social individuals. Human consciousness sees things and is largely blind to the organization of those things.

The "purpose" of human consciousness is to provide the means for integration into life. We produce and create our lives and must develop ecological relations as does the rest of life. Other living beings, though, have what I call "ecological mind," developed through evolution, that automatically integrates non-human life into the life process. Humans must consciously do this and do not yet know how.

I don't agree that we are masters of life or superior to other life forms. I do believe we are potentially privileged to live as life with awareness of itself. This would be a realization of our human nature. As Marx remarked somewhere, "We must become the gods we have created." Or we could embrace Bacon's counsel: "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

Your post pointed to the deep divide between current Marxism and the new sciences of organizational relations, a division Marx and Engels would have bridged long ago. I'm a passionate Marxist, but the most important book I have ever read is THE WEB OF LIFE (1996), by the theoretical physicist, Fritjof Capra. This masterwork brings the new science(s) of organizational relations down to Earth for the rest of us to comprehend and bring into practice. These new sciences illuminate and affirm Marx's and Engels' concept of communism and the categories/laws of the materialist dialectic.

Marx and Engels eagerly sought out and applied the scientific advances of their day, yet modern Marxists eschew modern science. This is both un-Marxian and unscientific.

My red-green best.

[Ozymandias]

[QUOTE]Ozymandias, Thanks for your comments. The objections you raised to my last two paragraphs probably represent the sentiments of 95% of the comrades on these left forums, but you are separating humanity from nature, a position Marx and Engels opposed. So does science.I am separating humanity from nature only so far as that we are the only entities in nature capable of complex thought. I won't dare deny the seemingly endless simialarties humanity shares with the natural world, obviously we are a part of nature, despite how much we struggle to detach ourselves from it.

I then continue to place a great deal of faith in this trait that humans possess--To the extent that I believe we can employ this unique ability to create a communist existence, despite the naturally capitalist condition that exists throughout.


You wrote: "The natural world has hardly left upon me the impression of communism..." You add, "Hierarchies exist throughout [nature]; countless species compete with each other ..." Then you conclude, interestingly, that these species "effect and create harmonies within [nature] where all the species, if evolved suitably, prosper to some extent."

Well, let's look at those comments. Doesn't that last observation suggest that nature has "communist relations"--that the individual species prosper together? That is, indeed, what happens in nature's ecologies, and that is what needs to happen in communism. Doesn't nature consist of various forms of community, from the internal/external relations of a cell to your body to an ecosystem? Aren't all of these relations "communist"?Yes! But you fail to consider the source of that prosperity! A tiger might prosper because it has consumed an antelope--Not through its individual consent, but, obviously, against its will. The two species have not signed a pact granting the tiger the freedom to consume an antelope a week so the herd may live in peace for the remaining time--Establishing some sense of peaceful harmony.

The harmony in nature arises ultimately from the grand complexity of the greater web. The individual strands and relations are hardly ever harmonious, egalitarian, peaceful or cooperative. Should nature have consisted only of antelopes and tigers, then this would have been an imperialistic incursion on the part of the tigers---Which would, needless to say, lead to the demise of both the antelopes and the tigers.

Should we view the greater web of human activity, could we not argue that humanity has definitely prospered over the span of the past few centuries? Our life spans have improved; we have developed means of instant global communication; literacy has expanded to nearly every crevice of the planet; generally speaking, humanity is far more peaceful. We have made these leaps under, mostly, the vicious exploitative propensities of capitalism.

Now imagine the Antelope-Tiger relation under a truly communist existence (bear with me as this is a bit far-fetched): The antelopes would sign a pact with the tigers, that they may consume the eldest or most immobile antelope should the tigers then grant them the liberty of grazing at their discretion for the remaining time. This would not disrupt the greater harmony of the natural world, but would grant both species the luxury of living peacefully. Following a million years of unprecedented ease in acquiring food, the Tigers would very likely lose the once critical and synonymous trait of dashing at high speeds; redirecting the energy instead to, possibly, the expansion of their mental facilities. The same could be said in reference to the Antelopes who might lose their trademark leap as it would no longer be necessary. Both would prosper directly from the conscious actions of the other. Rather than indirectly. I could go so far as to say that the herbivorous antelope is really just displaying its exploitative habits over the prairies from which it consumes.

Ultimately, every life form must consume another to survive. And considering that we are the only life forms capable of abstract thought, we are the only one's capable of comprehending the moral ramifications of consuming other life forms. Whereas the Antelope grazing upon the field; and the Tiger grazing upon the Antelope do not think twice over the consequences of their actions--They seek only to survive, and nothing more.

One must analyze the manner in which those relations are exercised, not only the ends. For if one studies only the outcome, one could dare to interpret our globalized capitalist economy as one where all people prosper. Whereas people desperately lacked manufactured goods in the third world prior to our transgressions, soon thereafter, millions have the luxury of purchasing those goods (assuming they have the money)--Therefore our globalized economy has generated a sort of harmony where everyone prospers. This is a gross simplification, indeed...and perhaps not even the best example to provide.


As for hierarchies and competition, nature's hierarchies are integrative levels of organization, and Tennyson's "nature red in tooth and claw" becomes a natural world in which its species are dynamically interrelated and interdependent. The parts and whole of the natural world are dynamically, interdependently, seamlessly organized into the dance of life, and what we see as bloody warfare and predator/prey relations are simply the manner in which species interrelate to generate the energy and relations necessary to maintain their being and the life process.Yes, this cannot be denied. In fact I believe I alluded to the interdependence of the individual variables of nature myself. For the sake of preventing us from circular reasoning, and preserving clarity I will take the liberty of noting that I am viewing individual cases within nature, and labeling them capitalist; whereas you view nature as a whole, and have labeled it communist—To which I mostly disagree.



For, although I recognize the connection that you’re making between the features of nature and communism; this dynamism and interdependence of which you speak exists in capitalist economies as well. In fact, I believe it exists to a much more profound extent. Should a corporation reach a sufficiently great mass, its termination could prove destructive for society; whereas in a communist society, the removal of a single factory would hardly be consequential. The removal of a worker in a capitalist factory would be more consequential; as the corporation would have to invest money to re-hire and train a new worker. Whereas a communist factory would could hire anyone at no monetary consequence. But I could not dare to argue that capitalism is seamless.



You also state that animals are not conscious of the nature of their violent conduct—One consuming another is an act driven for the sole purpose of self-preservation; they do not understand the moral consequences of their actions. Which I assume is true.



But which compels me to ask the question: “If they do not know that they harm one another, and act purely out of a biological program to survive, how do they know that they exist as a part of a greater web of life? For them to value it, and consciously partake in it? –See, the point I’m trying to make is that if they do not recognize their role in nature then that romantic interdependent harmony of nature is nothing more than a coincidence and, if we really are subject to predetermination by nature, than our exploitation of countless species, and even of one another, is no more a flaw in our human quality than the Tiger’s consumption of the Antelope. We do only that which we must to survive and to survive well—For this reason we oppress, murder, and deceive. For we are also nature, a derivation of nature, and we have every reason to believe that had any other species possessed our advanced ability of thought, they would have acted in much the same way.




In contrast, human consciousness perceives in terms of individuals and things, and in doing so loses much of the "social" of human social individuality and community. Our consciousness developed from the same pattern of organization of matter as did the rest of life (the brain is a self-organized material system), but the brain is so complex that its organization reflects back on itself to provide our sense of a self that is separate from other selves and things of life. Our thus "isolated selves" cannot see the organizational relations that create us nor the social-organizational relations that generate our human being as social individuals. Human consciousness sees things and is largely blind to the organization of those things.
Ah, so you do believe that the animal world is conscious of the dynamic? I think we could very well have developed a far greater appreciation of this interdependence of nature if we had merely been raised in a society that displayed some appreciation to that effect. The majority of Native American tribes, if not all of them, held the natural world at great esteem, and recognized very well this interdependence of which we speak. I don’t think people are unable to see these organizational relations. I suspect language also plays a major role in determining the profundity of our relation with these underlying relationships between people and nature.


The "purpose" of human consciousness is to provide the means for integration into life. We produce and create our lives and must develop ecological relations as does the rest of life. Other living beings, though, have what I call "ecological mind," developed through evolution, that automatically integrates non-human life into the life process. Humans must consciously do this and do not yet know how.
Now that first line really confused me. So you believe humans have lost their connection with nature, as a consequence of having developed consciousness? I don’t think one necessitates the other, quite a few divisions of people have lived with nature very harmoniously.




I don't agree that we are masters of life or superior to other life forms. I do believe we are potentially privileged to live as life with awareness of itself. This would be a realization of our human nature. As Marx remarked somewhere, "We must become the gods we have created." Or we could embrace Bacon's counsel: "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
Superior only in the sense that we can think abstractly. I agree.




Your post pointed to the deep divide between current Marxism and the new sciences of organizational relations, a division Marx and Engels would have bridged long ago. I'm a passionate Marxist, but the most important book I have ever read is THE WEB OF LIFE (1996), by the theoretical physicist, Fritjof Capra. This masterwork brings the new science(s) of organizational relations down to Earth for the rest of us to comprehend and bring into practice. These new sciences illuminate and affirm Marx's and Engels' concept of communism and the categories/laws of the materialist dialectic.
Yes, I’m familiar with that book.




Marx and Engels eagerly sought out and applied the scientific advances of their day, yet modern Marxists eschew modern science. This is both un-Marxian and unscientific.
It hope that none of the remarks I’ve made have broken established scientific precedents. I certainly don’t think that I have.

[Mr. Natural]

Ozymandias, Whoooeee, you're giving me a workout. Thanks. And here's payback.

I'll begin with the thread's theme of cliques and factions in left groups. I see this common, ugly reality as arising from both the capitalist "human" relations we all acquire as a consequence of living in advanced capitalist society, and from a human consciousness that can deduce but cannot see the social ties that bind us to one another. We are thus set up to ignore or trash our social relations, and the antidote to this would include conscious organizational opposition to clique formation and, most important, an action or program around which all could rally.

Now I'll work my way through the "consciousness problem." I, too, place great faith in the potential for human consciousness to re-integrate humanity with nature and natural relations. I cannot see this happening, though, unless we come to understand the organizational relations of life, thus of the brain and its emergent mind/consciousness.

I'll get to some of your comments, but first I want to discuss Capra's Web of Life. I'm intrigued that you are familiar with it, although I'll guess you didn't deeply engage. I did. I followed Capra's suggestion and applied the scientific concepts introduced to human social systems, and they fit. This showed me how life is organized and, therefore, how to organize revolutionary processes and communism. The Web of Life is my "green" Communist Manifesto.

Did you engage the sections on Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, and their concept of autopoiesis and its radical significance as regards consciousness? I immersed myself in this and mentally work with this on a daily basis. In this I was greatly aided by purchasing Maturana and Varela's Tree of Knowledge (1987) and John Mingers' Self-Producing Systems (1995), which investigates and positively evaluates Maturana and Varela's autopoiesis and its effect on consciousness (and cost $140!). This is cutting-edge stuff, but it all comes down to the self-organization of matter into living systems on Earth. It all comes down to life's universal pattern of organization, which is "communist."

Ozy, this will appear to be way over the top, but Capra actually presents the universal pattern of organization of life, community, and revolution in Chapter 7 of Web, "A New Synthesis." It is that conceptual triad of Pattern/Matter/Structure he presents. This conceptual triangle models life's universal pattern of organization and potentially enables all of us to envision revolutionary processes and bring them into praxis.

I have been following the tracks of this triangle for a dozen years and have made two abortive attempts to introduce it on left forums (once at RevLeft). The problem is that people cannot "see" the triangle's organizational relations and are highly resistant to new ideas. Worse yet: my experience is that seeing hidden organizational relations constitutes some sort of paradigm shift for the human species. Comrades simply do not see what I know is there, and I'm floundering around trying to find ways to make this happen.

Capra's triangle is the materialist dialectic brought to potential popular awareness and practice. Capra's triangle is the means by which bottom-up, grassroots revolutionary processes can birth themselves and grow.

Now to some of your comments. You wrote, "The harmony in nature arises ultimately from the grand complexity of the greater web." Yes, and this complexity emerges from the self-organized organizational relations of life.

You noted, "The individual strands and relations are hardly ever harmonious..." Actually, they are harmonious: they maintain that "grand complexity of the greater web." Human consciousness anthropocentrically sees these relations as hostile, but they aren't. They are the life process maintaining its being. We humans with our unique consciousness value individuality, but nature emphasizes species and "sacrifices" its individuals to overall organization.

I see humanity as generally gained material ground in the past few centuries, but this has come at the expense of human relations and community.

As for tigers and antelopes, life consists of self-organizing (autopoietic: self-making) material systems that generate relations that maintain their being and the life process. Nature doesn't give a damn about tigers "preying" on antelopes, other than that these relations are strands in the web of life. These predator/prey relations are "communal," although humans misperceive the deep nature of these interactions. Your suggestions as to ways in which tigers and antelopes might re-organize their relations into communism actually represents the manner in which humans would approach communist organization. Animals, though, are already communist: they have "ecological mind" and automatically enjoy and employ communist organization.

Our human misperception of natural relations sees them as capitalist. "Nature red in tooth and claw" is a capitalist Mother Nature. Capitalism produces for profit and destroys community; life generates a sustainable, ecological profit to create community.

I have long esteemed Native American communal, ecological relations, which tended to be much more human than modern societies. The Tollowa, the Native American group where I live, probably lived as well or better than Europeans prior to the invasion of Europeans and their diseases. However, the Tollowa were enveloped by nature's relations and ecologies--its cycles, seasons, rhythms. They naturally lived more naturally, albeit without consciousness of natural organizational laws. Native American lived as nature told them to live; modern Americans are imprisoned, usually without consciousness, within the laws of capitalism.

And alienation, fragmentation, atomization, runaway egos, cliques, and factions are the inevitable result.

[Ozymandias]

@Mr. Natural

Ahhh...I see! The source of our conflict is our identification of life itself. Whereas you view life as a single all encompassing entity, indifferent to the individuality of species or the units within the species; I, and most of the people on this planet I suspect, have bogged ourselves with the individual instances.

Therefore we continue to view the tiger consuming the antelope as an act of violence, as an act of capitalism; whereas the tiger and antelope have actually established a harmony and do not view the act as violent at all.

But this then begs the awfully simple question: Why does the antelope attempt to escape? If the antelope does recognize the necessity of the tiger to consume it to preserve harmony, then why run away as it must certainly understand that if every antelope effectively ran away from every tiger then the species would perish? Perhaps I still don't understand.

[Mr. Natural]

Ozymandias, The problem we're having would be resolved if you would return to Capra's Web of Life and review life's deep organization and apply it to human social systems.

I'm viewing all of the life process as being composed of and created by self-organizing material systems in company with physical environmental forces. This is scientifically accurate. The great complexity of the human brain then develops from this physical organization of matter to reflect back on our being and create the perception of individuality. Our consciousnesses see and feel this individuality, but lose much of life's critical social relations.

There is no separate life, and human social-individuality can be expressed as "Not one, not two." Life is a bootstrap of self-organizing material living systems that keep themselves and the life process going. These relations include the antelope desperately trying to escape the tiger. Predators and prey constitute an abstract living system--a food web. For that matter, electrons continually try to "escape" the nucleus of an atom, but, like the tiger/antelope relation, are actually exhibiting the bootstrapped dynamic interrelations of life and the universe.

Life is a self-organized, dynamically interdependent systemic process, as is communism. The materialist dialectic recognizes life and a healthy society as organic, systemic processes--as "communist," and that the material relations of life and the cosmos are communist should be of the greatest significance to a left that is stuck in a very bad place within the capitalist system.

The organization of life is the organization of communism, and life goes to revolution all the time. So what is this organization? See Capra's Web of Life.

[Prometeo liberado]

Middle class leftists excel at painting a political and intellectual appearance to their elitist personality cults and cliques.
They hate us working people and think they're better than us. I hate them back and think they represent even in their persons everything communism will abolish and replace. In competition between the factions and cliques of the middle class left, I hope for mutual assured destruction.


I have to agree with much of what said there. Until middle class leftist fully leave all their baggage and high school "dress like a commie" stupidity behind then all you are doing is WASTING OUR TIME!