The Cult

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I've been musing recently about how widespread the existence of 'cult-ism' is within the many left sects.

Was just (out of sheer boredom, I promise!) reading the Weekly Worker online and came across the following:

Resignation
CPGB national organiser comrade Mark Fischer opened a session devoted to discussing the causes and consequences of the recent departure of Chris Strafford and what this means for the CPGB.

The comrade began by noting that comrade Strafford was a hard-working and quietly charismatic comrade who seems to have left because, despite his membership of the CPGB, he had never quite ‘got’ our politics. Comrade Fischer suggested that this may have something to do with his background as an anarcho-syndicalist who has recently appeared enamoured with movementism and Occupy. He said that despite the attempts by the PCC to draw out comrades Strafford’s political differences with the majority, and the plentiful opportunities afforded him to do this, including in the pages of the Weekly Worker, the comrade had never set out in detail what his political differences were, though they found expression in, for example, his opposition to the majority view of the Labour Party. This and the comrade’s enthusiasm for ‘movements’ were seen as probably borne of political frustration with the period we are living in.

The continued political and practical disintegration of the left, said comrade Fischer, most certainly affects the CPGB, which remains small, although it exercises disproportionate influence thanks to the Weekly Worker. We suffer from the absence of a firm national infrastructure and an unequal attitude to the duties of members - with some comrades fulfilling many and others very few. It was perhaps far too easy for frustrated comrades to simply blame the leadership, which is already swamped with competing priorities. The comrade concluded by stressing the importance of party organisation: all members must prioritise important CPGB events, ensure they pay dues and take the need for education seriously.

The comrade also stated that he was now convinced that the CPGB needs a more thorough induction process to ensure that prospective members understand our political principles, not to mention their own rights and duties. For example, although Chris Strafford had been a member for four years, he had not really engaged with the organisation, rarely attending party events or aggregates and failing to pay regular dues. Mike Macnair noted that, in the absence of any significant left regroupment into which the CPGB could throw itself, there seemed to be nothing capable of holding comrade Strafford as a member.

http://cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004826

Now, i'm not making the accusation, necessarily, that the CPGB itself is an orthodox cult. However, there do seem to be some overlaps between 'cult-ism' and parties of the left who base their organisation either on traditional democratic-centralism practiced 'correctly', or a deformed kind of democratic-centralism that you see in Bob Avakian's party or the CPGB-ML, for example, where you have some very strange goings on.

Personally i've never been a big fan of party-ism for various reasons, but I would like other opinions as to whether, as a party moves closer to ideological homogeneity, does it so also move closer towards cult-ism? If you look at the parties of the left, all very tightly based around their left-wing 'ism', be it Trotskyism, Marxism-Leninism or whatever, they all seem to have this overlapping issue, whereas the 'broad church' parties of the Capitalist world - for all their own idiosyncracies and problems - do not seem to have such a problem.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Don't many maoist groups have some cult-ish aspects?

[Tim Cornelis]

Don't many maoist groups have some cult-ish aspects?

Yes. In another thread I noted that the former Dutch KEN-ML was basically a cult. But I recently found another ridiculous Maoist party in Greece.

It's the Organization for the Reconstruction of the Communist Party of Greece. They believe in a grand Russian conspiracy for world domination based on the three-world-theory and thus see Russia as the most imminent threat and believe the Russian government perpetrated 9/11.

They also believe the KKE is supported by Nazis or something. They believe that Russia, China, and Iran form a contemporary Nazi-Axis. They are just batshit insane.


The Organization for the Reconstruction of the Communist Party of Greece (Greek: Οργάνωση για την Ανασυγκρότηση του Κομουνιστικού Κόμματος Ελλάδας, Orgánosi yia tin Anasigkrótisi tou Komounistikoú Kómmatos Elládas), mostly known by its acronym OAKKE, is a minor Greek political party known for its strong anti-Russian positions.

OAKKE was established in 1985 and is part of the Greek far left, and it stems from the multiple splits of the Greek Maoist movement. It is best known for its pro-industrialisation views, as it considers industrial growth a prerequisite for the development of the working class, which is required for the socialist revolution.[1]

Another political feature of OAKKE is its views regarding an alleged Russian conspiracy to corrupt the left and install its own world regime. They support that Russian imperialism is today the main threat for all humanity, just like Hitler was in the 1930s and 1940s.[1][2]

OAKKE supports the Chechnya independence from Russia, which OAKKE sees as the organizer of the September 11, 2001 attacks[3]

Since 1985, OAKKE have participated in all national elections and euro-elections. The party says that fights "against the red-brown political current", the political parties that support "Russian imperialism". In the 2004 elections for the European Parliament, OAKKE took part obtaining 5,090 votes (0.08% of the total Greek vote). OAKKE in the 1996 elections formed an alliance with the Macedonian Slavs activist party, Rainbow.[4]

The Organization for the Reconstruction of the Communist Party of Greece (OAKKE) is a Greek political organization of Marxist - Leninist - Maoist ideology. It was founded on July 20, 1985, by former members of EKKE – MLKKE party (EKKE was the “Revolutionary Communist Movement of Greece” and MLKKE was the “Marxist – Leninist Communist Party of Greece”, both of maoist orientation), who left the party in June of that year. In the formation of OAKKE took part namely the whole Party Organisation of Piraeus of EKKE – MLKKE, all the members of EKKE - MLKKE who, before the unification of the two parties in 1982 were members of EKKE except for two, and some other members and cadres of EKKE - MLKKE emanating from the pre-1982 MLKKE from the rest of the country.

The political strategy of OAKKE is the reconstruction of the old revolutionary Communist Party of Greece (KKE) of the period 1918-1956 (as the currently named KKE party is considered by OAKKE as a non-communist, social-fascist party), but under the new conditions an d enriched with the experience the last 50 years and Maoism. The revolution in Greece, according to OAKKE, will be socialist in nature and anti-imperialist in form and will establish the political status of the dictatorship of the proletariat, while the broader front through which the proletariat would lead to broad democratic anti-fascist movement will be the Anti-Russian Democratic and Patriotic Front (ADIPAM). The basis of this analysis is the political line of the Third Communist International on the Antifascist Front and the Theory of Three Worlds of the Communist Party of China in the 1970s. It should be noted that OAKKE places great emphasis in their writing to the defense of the political heritage of the Secretary of the KKE between 1931 - 1956 Nikos Zachariadis, whom he considers, in line with the contradictory information received by Russian authorities between 1973 and 1990, but mainly based on political analysis, murdered by the leaders of the CPSU. It is also the only organization in Greece nowadays, which maintains next to the forefront of its publications the five heads of Marx - Engels - Lenin - Stalin - Mao.

According to the positions of OAKKE, which describes itself as a proletarian revolutionary and anti-imperialist organization, it conducts a struggle mainly against “Russian social imperialism”, which is currently considered by it the biggest threat to world peace, as was the pre-war Nazi Germany, based, as said before, on the Maoist strategy of the three worlds.[citation needed] The Russian social imperialism, according to OAKKE, from 1991 on, enters a new phase because the perestroika and reform "were the most profound attempts of social-fascist Russia to become autonomous from the USSR to try from that moment onwards to coil again around her a neo-tsarist empire from the ruins of the USSR. This is the era of the "dead bug" which ends today with the creation of Russian-Chinese war axis.[citation needed]

Furthermore, according to the positions of the organization, there is an allied axis which consists of Russia - China - Iran, under the overall guidance of the first, which is, in its essence, neo-Nazi. Despite its opposition to the expansionist policy of the most chauvinistic aspects of the Israeli bourgeoisie and its support for the struggle of the Palestinian people and to gain this right to an independent state, OAKKE, unlike all the other organizations and parties in Greece with reference to the left, defends the right of Israel to defend itself against attacks received from forces such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and believes these two organizations are Islamo-Nazi and hidden arms of the neo-Nazi axis.

So, OAKKE took -in the main- the side of Israel in the battle that the latter gave in the summer of 2006 against Hezbollah, as OAKKE believes that anti-Semitism, today expressed by the request for the destruction of the state of Israel and the theory of "stateless Jewish capitalist" and "the Jewish conspiracy for world domination," will be one of the flags of the Axis in a possible global war waged against first and foremost the peoples of the world, but also against the rivals of Russia, China, and Iran, thus the western imperialists [5].

OAKKE also condemns several protests in Greece, especially those which are guided by the "KKE" (pseudoKKE in the texts of the organization) and “Coalition of the Left, the Movements and Ecology” - SYN, and believes that, after 1990, many of these protests do not reflect the moods of the broad mass of workers, especially the proletariat, but mostly parts of the state bureaucracy, the worst, most corrupt and destructive ones, which are created and promoted mainly by the neo-Nazi Axis and its friends in our country,[citation needed] a position which also differs from the positions of other leftist parties that openly support every single action.

A key role in the analysis of the organization is played by the concept of "productive sabotage." This is defined by OAKKE as the destruction of the productive capital in Greece, through either the breaking down and closure of existing production units, often with “left” arguments (ecological, supposedly anti-capitalist, archaeological, etc.) or by preventing the investments by the local and western bourgeoisie. This attributed -by OAKKE- to the relationship of the leaders of the so-called "KKE" and SYN from 1956 on, and of the prime ministers Andreas Papandreou and Costas Simitis, Kostas Karamanlis and George Papandreou with Russian social-imperialism. According to OAKKE, Andreas Papandreou, the father of the current prime minister and founder of the governing PASOK party, was one of the best Russian agents of all time.

In the OAKKE analysis, the Russians and their allies or agents in Greece do this because Russia -as an imperialist country- is economically much weaker from western imperialism, and so, whatever productive capital cannot be controlled by it, must be damaged in order to economically and politically weaken a country, so as to subdue it. Direct or indirect relations with Russian social imperialism, based on the start of their business or other information from their business process, are attributed by OAKKE to large Greek businessmen, among them Sokratis Kokkalis, George Bobolas, Panos Germanos, Andreas Vgenopoulos etc.[citation needed]

A frequent criticism made by other organizations who refer to Marxism towards OAKKE is the one of "productivism,” a theory which gives priority to the development of productive forces and not to the change of the relations of production, which was characteristic of the Mensheviks in the Russian social democracy before the Revolution of 1917 and a point of friction with the Bolsheviks. OAKKE, beyond its founding declaration of 1985, in which it refers critically to this Menshevik productivist theory, most recently has answered that the fight that it gives and that it calls people to give is not mainly for the development of the productive forces, but in the opposite for the breaking of the productive relations of the country's dependence from Russian social imperialism, ultimately from any imperialism as part of the revolutionary destruction of all capitalist relations of production and their replacement by revolutionary means with socialist relations, in the way for a world classless communist society.[citation needed]

Finally, another difference with the other parties of the left is that OAKKE supports strategically (since November 1995 and its 2nd Conference) the participation of Greece in the EU, on the grounds that it is a union of bourgeois states made by consensus and not with violence, that in the main the internal relations are not based on imperialist imposition of the large state to the small one but on the bourgeois democratic consensus of the 27 States, and that through this process the European proletariat is objectively released to a certain degree by the nationalism and the chauvinism of the bourgeoisie of each country. Most importantly, since 1990 and its 1st Congress, OAKKE was supporting -in terms of tactics- the eve of Greece in the then EEC (as opposed to the founding position of OAKKE in 1985, which was a direct exit from the EEC) with the notion that United Europe constitutes a mound to the two superpowers, Russia and the USA, especially to the Russians, who according to Mao Zedong, have as their first geo-strategic goal the military conquest of Western Europe.

In accordance to its position on the need to strengthen the political unification of Europe, left behind by economic integration, the organization was in favor of the Euro-constitution, unlike all the other organizations listed on the left.[citation needed]

On the question of reconstruction of the world communist movement, the OAKKE, condensing its position, notes that "the new revolutionary workers parties will now have a big mandate from their members and followers: Not to become the major new rulers of society and their executives and their members not to become the new exploiters.

This means that even from now, even the smaller new workers' parties and the most industrious young revolutionary nuclei should be applied two or three basic principles: never “liberate” the masses against their will but to respect their own moods, never allow their members to convert their knowledge and their previous fight in authoritarianism, arrogance and material benefits but always to come under the criticism of the masses and to live like them, not to divide the workers to “ours” and “not ours” but to unite them by an open and honest policy, even against the current and not telling everyone what he wants to hear, and above all never put any specific class interests over the general class interests and national interests over global interests of the working class.[citation needed]

Since 1989 OAKKE has participated in all national elections and European elections. In national elections in 1996 it collaborated with the “Rainbow”. In the elections of 2004 it received 5090 votes (0.08%) in the parliamentary elections of 2007, 2473 (0.03%) and the 2009 European elections 2808 (0.05).

It publishes the monthly newspaper "New East", and wall newspapers which are posted at key points in many cities across the country by its members and friends.

Trade Union wing of OAKKE, acting mainly in the ship repair zone in Perama, is ERGAS.

Secretary of the Central Committee of OAKKE is Elias Zafiropoulos.Contents [hide]
1 Electoral results
2 Organizations close to OAKKE
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit]
Electoral resultsResults since 1993
(year links to election page)
Year Type of Election Votes % Mandates
1993 Parliament 709 0.01 -
1994 European Parliament 5,956 0.09 -
1996 Parliament 3,4851 0.05 -
1999 European Parliament 4,600 0.07 -
2000 Parliament 1,126 0.02 -
2004 Parliament 2,099 0.03 -
2004 European Parliament 5,090 0.08 -
2007 Parliament 2,504 0.03 -
2009 European Parliament 2,807 0.05 -
2009 Parliament 1,652 0.02 -


1 Participated in coalition with Rainbow.
[edit]
Organizations close to OAKKE

Although as a party it never "broke" the parliament's electoral barriers, it has enough autonomous political and ideological influence of its own. OAKKE publishes its own newspaper, New East (in Greek "Νέα Ανατολή"). Also the leading members Elias Zafiropoulos, Anna Stae and other personalities of the Greek left founded the Non Governmental Organization, Antinazi Initiative. Antinazi Initiative, corresponds to the British antifascist Searchlight.

[Left Leanings]

Outlines the problem with political parties and leadership, really.

I was close to the SWP at uni. I attended one of their branch meetings. Frankly, it was like being at school. There were all the 'lesser' comrades, sat in rows of seats, whilst some party official (from outside of the branch, I might add), had come down especially to talk on some topic or another. He played the role of 'teacher', and was stood at the front.

All the very passive. And all very 'top-down' and spoon-fed.

What the fuck he even spoke about now, I can't remember. It was years ago, after all. But I do know I was glad to go to the bar downstairs afterwards, and have a few beers with my peers.

I was also told, the party wasn't into 'super-activism', as one comrade put it, as it can tend to wear people out. But I was told by another, if you aren't attending party activities "cos you're watching Eastenders (a British soap opera) on television, then we might have an argument with you".

I did a lot of work with them around the Poll Tax. But I also received lots of phone calls saying come to this meet, come to this factory and stand outside the gates, we're running a paper sale etc etc.

Did seem a bit controlling, I have to say.

Can't say I'm too keen on bureaucratic party structures.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

To be fair, if you replace the word 'Russian' with 'US', that article is a blueprint for the practical raison d'etre of the more reactionary Marxist-Leninist parties around the world.

[Hit The North]

Well, when someone leaves the room it is usually commented upon; and the CPGB sit in a very small room. :lol:

[Jimmie Higgins]

I've been musing recently about how widespread the existence of 'cult-ism' is within the many left sects.

Was just (out of sheer boredom, I promise!) reading the Weekly Worker online and came across the following:
...

Now, i'm not making the accusation, necessarily, that the CPGB itself is an orthodox cult. However, there do seem to be some overlaps between 'cult-ism' and parties of the left who base their organisation either on traditional democratic-centralism practiced 'correctly', or a deformed kind of democratic-centralism that you see in Bob Avakian's party or the CPGB-ML, for example, where you have some very strange goings on.

Personally i've never been a big fan of party-ism for various reasons, but I would like other opinions as to whether, as a party moves closer to ideological homogeneity, does it so also move closer towards cult-ism? If you look at the parties of the left, all very tightly based around their left-wing 'ism', be it Trotskyism, Marxism-Leninism or whatever, they all seem to have this overlapping issue, whereas the 'broad church' parties of the Capitalist world - for all their own idiosyncracies and problems - do not seem to have such a problem.

Large-tent parties have their own issues but usually aren't as insular or micromanaging as the worst examples of "ideological" groups. But also large-tent parties don't need every member to be active in building the group and figuring out a unified strategy, they just need followers or people who will support the decisions made by the top leadership.

But for activist parties that want organizers, not supporters, this means that there is much more arguing and factionalism and so on potentially. It's the same with "affinity groups" and it stems from the fact that you have to actively support and act on what the group decides whereas if you are just a supporter, then if the group decides something you don't agree with most people just get a little alienated and say "oh well, I didn't like that they did that".

Of course if you want united action you either have to convince people that it makes sense to do this vs. some other strategy... or you can try and crush dissent and democracy. In a small group where "agreement" is really the only incentive for people to do things, this can sometimes lead to more controlling behavior than just trying to enforce top-down decisions... if people aren't confident in their own arguments and ideas, it's easier to convince them.

Frankly I don't see much actual "radical-group" cult-ism in the US. First of all, "followers" can find any number of conspiracy groups or strange religious groups if they just want a network and to surrender personal autonomy :lol:. But also I think a lot of the cult-ness in the US was a result of cold-war poltics. Maoist groups of the New Left have the worst reputation for controlling behavior on the US left and I think that has to do both with the legacy of CP-era top-down/no-dissent ideas as well as US Maoist groups trying to deal with the quick and seemingly illogical twists and turns of China-USSR-US relations at that time. If you're a Maoist party and you have to go from saying that the USSR is an ally to then the USSR is worse than the US, it might be hard in a group with a health democratic tradition of discussion.

But I think for the purposes of trying to have working class-self emancipation, the "organization of organizers" model with unity in action and full discussion in coming to political agreements is much more favorable than the broad-party model. Radicals shouldn't aim just for passive support from people but should aim to aid the self-organization and self-leadership of the working class - and I think groups of organizers and activists are much better for those ends.

I think people tend to fetishize parties - from both sides of the argument. As if calling yourself "the vanguard" makes it so; calling your small network a "party" or "international tendency" doesn't mean anything. On the other side people tend to think that parties have some supernatural evil power of corruption. In reality there's not too much difference in real content between most anarchist affinity groups and most small Leninist groups in our current situation. They are both suseptable to manipulation or behind-the-scenes cliquishness, factional fights, slander, alienating people, and so on. The main difference is one kind of group has their ugly arguments through blogs and newspapers and the other does it on list-serves.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I should be clear, I wasn't making an argument for a broad-party model, either in absolute terms, or as any improvement upon the Leninist-style party. And, whilst I highlighted the example of the CPGB, neither was it my intention to highlight any particular party/sect as a particularly cult-ish, though you are of course right to recognise the trend in Maoist New-Left parties in the US from the 70s onwards to be particularly prone to cult-ism.

My main point is this: whilst there are many equally bad, sometimes worse options, is it not the case that, over the past 40-50 years it has been demonstrated that the Leninist parties that follow - correctly or in some degenerated form - the tenets of revolutionary unity, democratic centralism and so on, have an inevitability of descending either into cult or, in less strong terms, into some sort of top-down diktat-ordering organisation?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I should be clear, I wasn't making an argument for a broad-party model, either in absolute terms, or as any improvement upon the Leninist-style party. And, whilst I highlighted the example of the CPGB, neither was it my intention to highlight any particular party/sect as a particularly cult-ish, though you are of course right to recognise the trend in Maoist New-Left parties in the US from the 70s onwards to be particularly prone to cult-ism.

My main point is this: whilst there are many equally bad, sometimes worse options, is it not the case that, over the past 40-50 years it has been demonstrated that the Leninist parties that follow - correctly or in some degenerated form - the tenets of revolutionary unity, democratic centralism and so on, have an inevitability of descending either into cult or, in less strong terms, into some sort of top-down diktat-ordering organisation?

I think there are two things. 1) the CPs were highly sectarian and top-down because their focus was not on how to relate Marxist politics to the local conditions and learned experience of the working class, it was how to relate Marxist politics to a defense of the USSR. Obviously that makes a kind of sense if you actually believe that the USSR is a beacon of real socialism. But it also meant that the Comintern, not conditions in the local class struggle are what they based their positions on and this is counter to a kind of organic relationship between party and class. Like the broad-tent parties it meant that the working class supporters were passive supporters, not agents.

The second thing is that after the 1970s did not produce a revolution, but produced defeat and a 30 year attack by the ruling class, a generation of radicalized people were basically isolated with not much (positive) class struggle to engage with. So the demoralization of a working class that you were more or less marginal to in the first place (and when you probably radicalized in the early 70s under the impression that "Revolution is around the corner") took a big toll on all radicals. The collapse of the USSR further drove the USSR-steadfasts into confusion and demoralization.

So I think "insular-ism" is a much bigger problem on the current left than cult-ism but both are symptoms IMO of this marginalization and decline in working class struggle. I think, to put it crudely and stereotype, that in general it turned small trotskyist groups into "ideological cults" where having the correct analysis was the focus and small anarchist groups and tendencies into "tactic-cults" where to be a real revolutionary meant using certain tactics. I don't think either are true cults, I just think that without class struggle to provide a way forward, radicals turned inward, became more sectarian, and looked to some kind of tactical or ideological purity to distinguish themselves from all the other marginalized radicals.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Since the OP posted something from the Weekly Worker, a response is needed, whether one disagrees with it or not:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=913



Denigration

Whilst flattered to be a topic of the CPGB’s last aggregate, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed that the personal denigration that was usually reserved for e-lists, meetings and whispers of the gossips has spilled over into public (‘Perspectives for the left’, May 3).

I will answer the two charges of lack of commitment and not understanding the CPGB method here and deal with the political issues elsewhere. Firstly the amount of money I have put into the CPGB, Communist Students and Hands Off the People of Iran in Manchester far exceeded regular dues and in an email to the Provisional Central Committee on March 27 I noted that I could not afford this and regular dues. Funnily enough, I was asked to continue shelling out for rooms, printing, stalls, etc instead of paying dues. But this is now something to denigrate and attack me? In terms of active involvement in the group you only have to look at the quantitative and qualitative difference of the work I have had the pleasure to be involved in through Manchester Communist Students to know who has been doing what.

Secondly, it is frankly nonsense that I did not understand the CPGB’s politics or approach. Problems arise because the approach is exceptionally hollow and often has no practical direction for comrades. Hence the slow, drip-drip-dropping out and resignations from comrades involved in trade unions or the broad movement. It is also a typical response within the left to claim those who leave failed to understand this or that: it is a self-preservation mechanism, usually the reserve of sect apparatchiks.

Strangely these kind of attacks only undermine the assertion that the CPGB is an open and democratic organisation.

Chris Strafford



Get serious

Ben Lewis’s criticism of the new Anti-Capitalist Initiative exposes not the weakness of our new project, but the problems of his own sect and its approach to politics (‘Ditch sects and fronts’, May 3).

Firstly, deriding the meeting as small is petty and misleading. The meeting was initially planned as a small get-together of people who were interested in the project. Indeed, it was an organising meeting and was never intended to be a ‘conference’. It was only after it captured some momentum on Facebook and over 100 people were down as ‘attending’, with a further thousand invited, that it became a de facto open event. Even then, not a single leaflet was given out for it - it was only advertised through Facebook - but we still got 80 people along. They were all activists, in one way or another involved in building the movement, who wanted to organise a new kind of left, people who wanted to get stuck in, not just talk.

And even though it was just an organising meeting, it was still bigger than anything the Campaign for a Marxist Party - the CPGB’s one-time ‘baby’ - was ever able to pull off, and was it as big as the initial meetings for the London Socialist Alliance back in the late 90s, an initiative which at the time the CPGB heralded as the “start of a real fightback”.

We believe, like the CPGB once did, that “what characterises the left throughout the country is a fatal lack of ambition, a timid paralysis in the face of the task of challenging Labour and bourgeois politics in general for the allegiance of our class. Organised on a militant platform of independent working class politics, the left has the possibility to start to exercise hegemony over far wider sections of society than simply itself.” Today that possibility could be realised with the Anti-Capitalist Initiative, yet the CPGB seem too bitter to take part and have absented themselves from this struggle.

Lewis goes on to bemoan that the meeting dared discuss the situation in the unions and how to organise a genuine rank-and-file initiative. No-one at the meeting claimed that “80 people are going to go off and build” such an initiative, but those involved in the conference can be part of the steps that are being taken to rebuild basic working class organisation. There is nothing “delusional” in wanting to link up existing forces fighting for this, such as Grass Roots Left or the rank-and-file committees in the building industry. This task is an immediate necessity for the working class and any revolutionary organisation of any worth or relevance would see it as a priority.

On the charge of liquidationism - let’s get real. It is true that some of us involved in the project have recently left small, narrowly defined propaganda groups to build something larger and more plural. No-one has renounced Marxist politics, but we are realistic that we cannot simply slap down a Marxist programme and rally thousands to our banner. We need to convince and be prepared to be convinced over political questions, and recognise we do not have all the answers, although we have some ideas and principles on how to proceed.

Of course, Lewis is right that liquidationism can be the reverse side of the coin to sectarianism, but he does not realise that in his accusation of us as liquidators he is simply revealing himself to be a sectarian of the highest order. The ex-Workers Power members did not want to form a new Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist micro-grouping with their own website and regular publication. That would have been sect-building. Instead they are trying a different approach. However, the Weekly Worker has accused the ex-WP grouping of both building a sect and liquidating themselves, all within the space of a week. Our heads are spinning - we can barely keep up with the polemic!

What we defend in this new initiative is that we are launching a process of discussion, debate and united action, with the aim of launching a revolutionary organisation in the future - one which is more united and brings in wider forces of the left. Have we achieved that now? No, which is why we are taking it slowly and carefully, despite the demands of various sects that we must adopt a programme and policies and all sorts of slogans straightaway. Our answer to all the sprinters is that this is a marathon: you are welcome to come with us on this journey, but you will have to slow down your pace a little. Be more cautious and pragmatic about which political battles you pick and how you fight them.

It is a curious situation that the CPGB can find a problem with an attempt to engage the widest range of those on the left in serious discussion. Yet in almost every issue of your paper, stitched-up conferences that end up with Labourite platforms are condemned. Arguing for an open process of unity and then dismissing such a process is hypocrisy and demonstrates a lack of seriousness in approach. Amongst the British left, there is a common approach that each and every group believes and thinks it has all of the answers. In their isolation, they comfort themselves with the idea that the objective situation is awful, or the other groups are the problem, but ultimately what most left groups have in common is the belief that they are fighting for unity, but having to wait for everyone else to agree with their particular method and programme. We believe that this is a failed, self-replicating dead end and that, as communists, we need engage in a wide-ranging rethink to clarify what a revolutionary programme looks like today. That takes time, not one afternoon in London.

But for all of Lewis’s bluff and bluster, the CPGB did not submit a single resolution to the conference, let alone their much fabled Marxist programme. He urged us to adopt a Marxist programme “right away”, calling for workers’ control of production and internationalism. Yes, Lewis says the meeting was disappointingly small, implying it had no basis to really do anything. Do we really want another small left meeting declaring a revolutionary programme and party? Isn’t this what we should try and get away from? Aren’t we sick of the latest sect declaring itself, bells and all, with a new international programme without first going through the essential task of discussing and debating out what should be done with activists from across the unions and social movements? The CPGB is fond of Marxists working within the NPA in France - but that party took nine months of pre-founding meetings and discussions over policies to decide on an initial programme before it was launched. How come our French cousins have almost a year to organise their party but we have less than an afternoon before we are written off as liquidators? This is not a serious criticism.

In his previous article about the split in Workers Power, we find a similarly unserious piece of advice for us. Lewis’s suggestion to the ex-Workers Power members was that they should have stayed in our group and carried on a protracted faction fight and broken discipline in public. If they had followed his advice, it would have resulted in a demoralising year of internal struggle, as well as bitter acrimony from their former comrades, for flouting the group’s rules on public debate.

What appalling advice! If you disagree with a group’s method or line, then you have to follow the organisational principles your group lives by to try and change them; if you disagree with them fundamentally and there is no hope of reform, then you leave. Advocating breaking party rules just because you don’t agree with them strikes the ex-WP members as unprincipled. Furthermore, we are not talking about large organisations, let alone a mass party. It can sometimes be the case that the fight for unity can be better served by having the debate openly, not just within the confines of narrow Trotskyist grouping.

Finally, by cutting through the tone and ferocity of the CPGB’s criticism, we arrive at a stark truth. The CPGB is going nowhere fast, its various attempts to unite the left on their version of Marxism have failed and now they have collapsed into the Labour Representation Committee. It is not us that is moving right, comrades: it is you. We have supporters in the new initiative who are active in the anti-cuts movement and playing an important role in student struggles. We do not want to build a sterile sect fixated on reliving the glory days of Kautsky and Plekhanov. We are looking to the future and want to build a revolutionary organisation that is suited to the conditions and tasks we face today.

Those of you who want to come with us are more than welcome; to the rest, we wish you luck in the Labour Party. You are going to need it.

Simon Hardy and Chris Strafford

[Die Neue Zeit]

Disclaimer: I hope to post a published opinion on this writing fest next week.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Pecking off (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=914)



What a series of exchanges the past couple of weeks! From economistic overtones on the part of Chris Strafford to responses by Pham Binh, I’ll try to respond to each as concisely as I can.

First, Chris Strafford’s move to the Anti-Capitalist Initiative seems to be a move with economistic and especially trade unionist overtones, yet I don’t know what to make of his concerning statement of “collapsing into the Labour Representation Committee” in light of polemics for working inside and outside the Labour Party. I have made my case in past letters that three kinds of parties need to exist on the British left to supplant Labourism: communist worker parties, proletocratic or proletarian-not-necessarily-communist parties, and continental ‘bourgeois worker’ parties. Strafford’s concerns about CPGB relations with some left Labourites are at least somewhat valid, because of the Weekly Worker’s straw man of equating all left-reformist projects in the UK with ‘Labour mark two’. Continental ‘bourgeois worker’ parties didn’t start out as somewhat political projects by a country’s trade unions, but were formed independently of trade union activity.

Second, in all the exchanges between Lars Lih, Paul Le Blanc, Pham Binh and Mike Macnair on ‘liquidationism’, for some reason nobody mentioned the German precedent historically or currently (the four participants I just mentioned). Even if the liquidationists succeeded, their amateurism would have been less damaging than, say, the SAPD of Germany liquidating its illegal underground during the anti-socialist laws - the illegal underground apparatus of the Gotha programme party was simply much larger. Contemporarily speaking, if a mass party organisation had a wing for legal activity and a wing for mass civil disobedience campaigns and other ‘extra-legal’ but not bomb-throwing-style illegal activity, trying to wrap up the latter through party mechanisms would be tantamount to liquidationism.

Third, Pham Binh’s concluding remarks are mixed, in my opinion. There’s too much attachment to unions; the main problem isn’t that they’re reformist (which most of them certainly are), but that they’re rarely political in the first place. The comrade mentions the Eisenacher-Lassallean unity of 1875, but the Lassalleans pointed to problems with union activism more accurately than any left communist ever did (which almost circles back to my statement above on Strafford).

Also, conflated as one are programme, strategy and ‘theory’. Programmatic unity is paramount, for without a revolutionary programme there can be no revolutionary movement. Next in line is strategic unity, around the revolutionary strategy that adapts orthodox Marxism to modern circumstances (alternative culture and an independent but nonetheless institutional approach, refusal of non-proletocratic coalitions, of strike and council fetishes, of popular and other fronts that aren’t both communitarian and populist, etc). Way, way down the pecking order is ‘theory’ (whether historical à la state capitalism vs bureaucratic collectivism vs degenerated/deformed workers’ state, or contemporary à la inclusive democracy, power theory of value, etc).

[blake 3:17]

Would comrades make a distinction between a cult and a sect? And what would the difference be?

I tend to think ALL social organizations have some sort of charismatic leadership. Within movements which are isolated and repressed, these leaderships have a tendency towards deformity which more moderate or mainstream groups don't have (they have their own other problems).

Given that outside of a number of key struggles around the world, socialist politics is primarily an ethical and intellectual position rather than a pragmatic political one, leaderships have an ability to wander rather aimlessly...

Edited to add: This is a link to an article by John Molyneux, a leader in the British SWP, on hierarchy, taking into account Robert Michels' thought. Michels was a socialist who became a fascist. His ideas are worth considering. http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=586

[Prometeo liberado]

I would hope that some kind of honorable mention could go to the RCP and its cult of Bob Avakian. Even their internal "cell" structure keeps it so that the general membership can receive orders but not collectively give back critique'. Leader worship,a strsnge incoherent theory(The New Synthesis) and a lack of bottom up discussion has created the classic leftist cult. Get back to me in 5 years so that I can repeat this sans Avakian and RCP, sub with Beckers/laRiva and PSL.

[El Oso Rojo]

Outlines the problem with political parties and leadership, really.

if you aren't attending party activities "cos you're watching Eastenders (a British soap opera) .


I think some people in the US might be familar with it, because it used to play on BBC America.

[El Oso Rojo]

Get back to me in 5 years so that I can repeat this sans Avakian and RCP, sub with Beckers/laRiva and PSL.


What on Earth did we do to you? More likely it's not going to happen because we are very iffy about cultism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Edited to add: This is a link to an article by John Molyneux, a leader in the British SWP, on hierarchy, taking into account Robert Michels' thought. Michels was a socialist who became a fascist. His ideas are worth considering. http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=586

WTF??? :scared:

Look, comrade, Michels' book was written from the perspective of a syndicalist who downplayed political struggle. He became a fascist because his line demanded that, unless workers "moved in action," they weren't conscious. The "action" was offered by the fascist movement.

[blake 3:17]

WTF??? :scared:

Look, comrade, Michels' book was written from the perspective of a syndicalist who downplayed political struggle. He became a fascist because his line demanded that, unless workers "moved in action," they weren't conscious. The "action" was offered by the fascist movement.


I'm really only familiar with Michels via Tom Bottomore's Elites and Society. The main issue is Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy.

From the wikipedia entry on it:
Robert Michels found that, paradoxically, the socialist parties of Europe, despite their democratic ideology and provisions for mass participation, seemed to be dominated by their leaders, just like traditional conservative parties.

Michels' conclusion was that the problem lay in the very nature of organizations. The more liberal and democratic modern era allowed the formation of organizations with innovative and revolutionary goals, but as such organizations become more complex, they became less and less democratic and revolutionary. Michels formulated the "Iron Law of Oligarchy": "Who says organization, says oligarchy."[6][7]

At the time Michels formulated his Law, he was an anarcho-syndicalist.[7] He later gave up his socialist convictions and became an important ideologue of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy, teaching economics at the University of Perugia.[8][9]

...

The "iron law of oligarchy" states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations. The relative structural fluidity in a small-scale democracy succumbs to "social viscosity" in a large-scale organization. According to the "iron law," democracy and large-scale organization are incompatible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy

Many revolutionary socialists are too quick to dismiss this critique.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Actually, what I said was a paraphrase of CPGB comrade Mike Macnair's beef with Michels' book being a must-read in Political Science classes.

The real issue for mass party-movements is the need to master bureaucracy-as-process. That cannot be avoided by shortcut ad hoc-isms.

[blake 3:17]

Back to the OP --

You've really raised a huge series of questions that the revolutionary Left has to deal with. I'm quite impressed by the honesty of the CPGB.


However, there do seem to be some overlaps between 'cult-ism' and parties of the left who base their organisation either on traditional democratic-centralism practiced 'correctly', or a deformed kind of democratic-centralism that you see in Bob Avakian's party or the CPGB-ML, for example, where you have some very strange goings on.

There are groups on the Left that are fairly obviously cultish or just plain weird. While usually not admitting it, they are plainly sectarian, harping on slight differences between The Real Revolutionary Party (them) and every other radical group or movement. I once attended a meeting of the Communist Party of Canada Marxist Leninist, where the leader was speaking on the relationship of thought and action (it was basically, you think about things, make a decision, and act on it (big whoop, right?)). The members appeared enthralled.

Some of the problem is around questions of organization and leadership. The other aspect has more to do with why people join Left groups. Outside of periods of social crisis and conflict, where the radical Left has the potential to rise to prominence, the rewards are small and costs can be heavy. Finding an identity and sense of belonging through group membership, alongside a commitment to social justice, are often the main rewards.

On the question of democratic centralism -- that may be part of the problem, but I'm unconvinced. There are many movement and anarchist organizations run on varied principles that have the same practical problems. They're just less likely to advertise them!


If you look at the parties of the left, all very tightly based around their left-wing 'ism', be it Trotskyism, Marxism-Leninism or whatever, they all seem to have this overlapping issue, whereas the 'broad church' parties of the Capitalist world - for all their own idiosyncracies and problems - do not seem to have such a problem.

Do you mean social democratic and centre left parties? They all have their own factions, sects and gurus within them. The bigger pond makes the big fish less visible.

[Sea]

OP, I think you're thinking too far into this. In any movement, there are bound to be those unfortunate people who start to base their beliefs and ideas around their movement instead of aligning with a movement based on their ideas and beliefs. The former gives rise to occultism.

This has happened many times over with religions. It happens in the US with both the Republicans and Democrats as well as with political parties around the world. And, it would certainly be foolish to think that one develops an immunity as they move further left (or right).

Goes to show the importance of keeping an open mind. Not a gaping mind, an open one.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

OP, I think you're thinking too far into this. In any movement, there are bound to be those unfortunate people who start to base their beliefs and ideas around their movement instead of aligning with a movement based on their ideas and beliefs. The former gives rise to occultism.

This has happened many times over with religions. It happens in the US with both the Republicans and Democrats as well as with political parties around the world. And, it would certainly be foolish to think that one develops an immunity as they move further left (or right).

Goes to show the importance of keeping an open mind. Not a gaping mind, an open one.
I disagree, it´s not that clear cut. There are many far- left groups, past and present, who consciously use psychological violence and manipulations to dominate their members. I´m not taking about the normal practices of your standard leftist sect; demands for attending party activities, taking part in activism, donating money etc. Organizations who demand certain level of activity from their members or have a rigid structure of hierarchy are not cults in my opinion. Claiming CPGB or SWP to be cults I think is far-fetched at best. But there are organizations who demand their members dedicate their lives to it, effectively isolate their members socially while dictating their lives and they are a different beast altogether. You can find a lot of narratives of such organizational practices and many are very disturbing.

[Prometeo liberado]

What on Earth did we do to you? More likely it's not going to happen because we are very iffy about cultism.

I used to think you may be dim. But now I'm quite sure your just off the hook funny! You and the PSL are only "iffy" about cultism? Well now isn't that reassuring. Iffy, my oh my.:lol:

[El Oso Rojo]

I used to think you may be dim. But now I'm quite sure your just off the hook funny! You and the PSL are only "iffy" about cultism? Well now isn't that reassuring. Iffy, my oh my.:lol:

Boy, your quite a defination of a jerk.

[Prometeo liberado]

Boy, your quite a defination of a jerk.

Right?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I disagree, it´s not that clear cut. There are many far- left groups, past and present, who consciously use psychological violence and manipulations to dominate their members. I´m not taking about the normal practices of your standard leftist sect; demands for attending party activities, taking part in activism, donating money etc. Organizations who demand certain level of activity from their members or have a rigid structure of hierarchy are not cults in my opinion. Claiming CPGB or SWP to be cults I think is far-fetched at best. But there are organizations who demand their members dedicate their lives to it, effectively isolate their members socially while dictating their lives and they are a different beast altogether. You can find a lot of narratives of such organizational practices and many are very disturbing.

To clarify, I was not calling the CPGB or SWP cults per se, but merely stating that some aspects of them (as with many far-left parties based upon democratic centralism) are based towards cultism, on a general spectrum of general cultism vs general freedom/whatever the opposite of cultism is.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Back to the OP --

You've really raised a huge series of questions that the revolutionary Left has to deal with. I'm quite impressed by the honesty of the CPGB.

The CPGB has always been honest about its internal disputes, comrade, but that ties into its orientation which prioritizes "propagandism" over [hyper-]"activism." That was noted in comrade Macnair's article which I posted.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Back to the OP --

You've really raised a huge series of questions that the revolutionary Left has to deal with. I'm quite impressed by the honesty of the CPGB.



There are groups on the Left that are fairly obviously cultish or just plain weird. While usually not admitting it, they are plainly sectarian, harping on slight differences between The Real Revolutionary Party (them) and every other radical group or movement. I once attended a meeting of the Communist Party of Canada Marxist Leninist, where the leader was speaking on the relationship of thought and action (it was basically, you think about things, make a decision, and act on it (big whoop, right?)). The members appeared enthralled.

Some of the problem is around questions of organization and leadership. The other aspect has more to do with why people join Left groups. Outside of periods of social crisis and conflict, where the radical Left has the potential to rise to prominence, the rewards are small and costs can be heavy. Finding an identity and sense of belonging through group membership, alongside a commitment to social justice, are often the main rewards.

On the question of democratic centralism -- that may be part of the problem, but I'm unconvinced. There are many movement and anarchist organizations run on varied principles that have the same practical problems. They're just less likely to advertise them!



Do you mean social democratic and centre left parties? They all have their own factions, sects and gurus within them. The bigger pond makes the big fish less visible.

1. The problem I find with the CPGB is that, whilst they're right to perhaps criticise the hyper-activism and lack of democracy of, say, the SWP, they don't seem to offer any alternative. It's almost as though they're content to just drift further and further from the working class into benign irrelevance, just as long as they can comment on the failures of the rest of the irrelevant left.

2. I'm really talking about all broad-church parties, of which I guess (if we are talking about Europe) Social Democracy/Labourism might be the best example, since logically they were the first 'mass parties', whereas supporters of the centre and centre-right parties don't really have the idea of a mass party, since they never had the idea of being tagged to the Unions or being 'for the working class', even in name only. Whilst yeah, soft-left parties certainly do have their own tendencies, that's kind of the point. Within one party, you can have a range of opinions. When I was in the Labour Party a couple of years ago for a little bit (mix of entryism/anger and shock at the election result/curiousity....it didn't last long) I first noticed this. Whilst I became fed up very quickly because there was little to no real democracy, the lack of democracy didn't really manifest in cult-ism or sectarianism in any shape or form, because as a broad church party of power, the Labour Party doesn't really get caught up in ideology or long-term ideas, this is what i'm kinda getting at...

Democratic Centralism, when combined with a far-left party, is for me almost a perfect concoction for cult-ism (or cult-ish ideas let us say, i'm not accusing every M-L party of being a cult!). To establish a cult, you surely need an idea, a promised land that, if your 'disciples' follow you and do exactly as you say, crossing their T's and dotting their I's, then one day their hard work will pay off and the utopian goal will be reached. As someone rightly pointed out earlier, this originated mainly in the Maoist/New Left of the 60s, when they believed revolution was around the corner. But, thinking about it, it must also have been built into the psyche of other far-left parties that existed during the cold war, particularly pre-detente, when it seemed as though 'Communism' may very well have come to dominate the world. It would not be unreasonable (though I do recognise i'm making a massive jump in logic, and this would need to be fleshed out a lot, I just don't have the time/desire right now) to assume that this attitude continues today, as a hangover of cold-war thought. I mean, on a basic level that would make sense, given that many far-left parties, especially those of a Marxist-Leninist orientation in the developed world, seem particularly pre-occupied with the past, defending Leninism's 'legacy', as it were.

I realise i've just spewed out my thoughts as they came to me and written them down, so hopefully someone will be able to make sense of the above and perhaps reply constructively. I'm sure there are additions/corrections that can be made to my idea, but I really think it's an important area to examine because, if we're really going to be honest and frank with ourselves/each other, the activity of the far-left (in Britain, let us say) is very much disconnected from the working class. If there were to be a heightened period of class consciousness in Britain and class struggle were to take us close to, or actually to, revolution, we have to be very honest and say that there's simply no way these parties of the left would have anything meaningful to do with any such action taken by the working class/for the working class.

[Die Neue Zeit]

1. The problem I find with the CPGB is that, whilst they're right to perhaps criticise the hyper-activism and lack of democracy of, say, the SWP, they don't seem to offer any alternative.

Um, they do: they seek for the existing left to pursue the SPD model.


If there were to be a heightened period of class consciousness in Britain and class struggle were to take us close to, or actually to, revolution, we have to be very honest and say that there's simply no way these parties of the left would have anything meaningful to do with any such action taken by the working class/for the working class.

Again, getting there won't be spontaneous. The best way to get there is the answer I provided above.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Um, they do: they seek for the existing left to pursue the SPD model.



You're missing the point, again. It matters not what the 'left' does, it's massively, massively irrelevant. It won't become relevant by engaging in more dense theory and employing more bureaucrats.

What do you think will happen when the working class starts to become class conscious in the UK? Do you think they'll suddenly join and embrace the various sects on the left (including the CPGB)? Of course not, they'll form their own, updated, contemporary, accessible and appropriate institutions. Really, there is no reason for any of the left sects to exist. Their politics are shite and they are out of touch. They'd be better off assimilating themselves into the working class, or at least taking their arguments to the working class in a positive fashion if they do have to insist on keeping up this ' the only real revolutionary party' facade, rather than becoming gradually more insular and irrelevant (and thereby becoming more vulnerable to the worst aspects of orthodoxy, dogma... and ergo cult-ism).

[Die Neue Zeit]

The Social-Democratic Workers Party was a small party, but the unity with the Lassalleans produced a mass party. How did the German working class become class conscious? Through the efforts of both parties.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

But their politics was bogus, so it didn't matter. Look what happened to the SPD, it imploded into a bunch of parliamentary, war-mongering charlatans as soon as shit hit the fan.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Class independence was something that German Social Democracy, with its then-revolutionary strategy, achieved - and the spontaneism and non-strategy of May 1968 didn't.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm really only familiar with Michels via Tom Bottomore's Elites and Society. The main issue is Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy.

From the wikipedia entry on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy

Many revolutionary socialists are too quick to dismiss this critique.

Interesting, I wasn't familiar with these arguments and ideas. I thought the Hallas argument in the SWP article you linked was a good rebuttal:


The equation “centralised organisation equals bureaucracy equals degeneration”...leads to profoundly reactionary conclusions. For what is really being implied is that working people are incapable of collective democratic control of their own organisations. [This] is to argue that socialism is impossible because democracy, in the literal sense, is impossible. This is precisely the conclusion that was drawn by the “neo-Machiavellian” social theorists of the early 20th century [eg Michels] and which is deeply embedded in modern academic sociology.17 (http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=586#124Molyneux_17)

Personally I think the real cause for some of this has been more like what you suggested in your previous post. That most of these groups have been separated from the practical class struggle for various reasons which causes a kind of detachment and a fetisization of theories or tactics as dogma. It also causes some insularism whereas a vehicle for actually relating to broader sections of the class in a period of class struggle would need a much more outward-focus and tactical flexibility in order to stay relevant and play a positive role in class struggle. In periods of defeat or low struggle, working class formations tend to drift towards accommodation to the system (reformism or bureaucratic trade-unionism etc) or try and become an island of "pure" class politics which causes some of the rigidness and dogmatism.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Class independence was something that German Social Democracy, with its then-revolutionary strategy, achieved - and the spontaneism and non-strategy of May 1968 didn't.

Only to then vote for war credits. Brilliant.

How are you defining class independence, btw?

[Per Levy]

Only to then vote for war credits. Brilliant.

minor detail for dnz


Class independence was something that German Social Democracy, with its then-revolutionary strategy, achieved

actually it didnt, it achieved that a bunch of beaurocrats were seen as the representants of the working class, while sending the working class to the battlefields to die for their bourgeois masters, and after that the spd did everything it could to exterminate class independence and exterminating actual revolutionarys. not to mention that the part of the working class that stuck with the spd hardly did anything independently.

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=916



Charisma veto

In relation to comrade Ben Lewis’s remark about Trotsky breaking the rules, that action was unacceptable, I’m afraid (Letters, May 24). Breaking unity in action by calling for a separate demonstration after ‘freedom of discussion’ resolved upon some party-organised demonstration is amateurism. This is far different from airing out publicly various differences in opinion after a resolution (as long as no activity snitching is involved). This incident, comrade Mike Macnair noted, led directly to Trotsky’s justified expulsion. I believe I wrote many months back for the Russian left to unify around a posthumous apology from Russian Trotskyists for this specific historical act, and also around a commitment from the rest against Popular Fronts (implying a posthumous apology from Russian "anti-revisionists" for this sellout).

Second, this is more of an update on comrade Tina Becker's article: the charismatic Oskar Lafontaine has backed down, and there is some momentum for Katja Kipping and Katharina Schwabedissen to co-chair the party. The former is the charismatic one, the basic income crusader (I disagree with this policy from a jobs guarantee POV), and a bit of a coalitionist when it comes to the Greens, and the latter is a radical anti-capitalist. This might be the bureaucratic solution, going along with the suggestion of Dietmar Bartsch becoming the federal secretary once more and Lafontaine becoming parliamentary (co-)chair again.

Third, I wrote in past letters about a left revival of party presidencies, which would go hand in hand with Liquid Democracy, Handivote (Paul Cockshott's own e-democracy take re. cell phones), etc. I believe it is possible and imperative for worker-class movements to revive this position on the basis of the veteran voting membership as a whole, whether elected or randomly selected. A National committee should also have appropriate size (at least two dozen members, which would facilitate representative random sampling), and it should also have internal working groups of five or six excluding the preferrably communication-savvy ("charismatic") president, like secretariats and political sub-committees - precisely in order to facilitate national committee teamwork with the presidency and, more importantly, the working groups' all-in-one combination of simple majority, two-thirds majority, and communication-savvy ("charismatic") presidential veto power. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/value-electing-certain-t144804/index.html)

[Art Vandelay]

I have been very intrigued by the CPGB, more so than any other party, but the insistence on bureaucracy turns me off as well as the fact that I just don't see the tangible benefit that comes from reading what some sellout said in the early 20th century; or frankly what some guy said in a backwards feudal state almost a 100 years ago. Truthfully what seems to have the most positive affect for my community, is me and my comrades getting together and trying to decide what we think we can improve in our communities.

[Tim Finnegan]

Class independence was something that German Social Democracy, with its then-revolutionary strategy, achieved - and the spontaneism and non-strategy of May 1968 didn't.
When the institutions of the French working class where monopolised as thoroughly by class-collaborationists as there were, what option for independent action did French workers have beyond spontaneity? You can argue that X, Y and Z and are all necessary for achieving practically effective working class organisation, but unless you can actually explain why history didn't unfold in this declaredly preferable manner, it doesn't amount to much more than moralising.

[blake 3:17]

Personally I think the real cause for some of this has been more like what you suggested in your previous post. That most of these groups have been separated from the practical class struggle for various reasons which causes a kind of detachment and a fetisization of theories or tactics as dogma. It also causes some insularism whereas a vehicle for actually relating to broader sections of the class in a period of class struggle would need a much more outward-focus and tactical flexibility in order to stay relevant and play a positive role in class struggle. In periods of defeat or low struggle, working class formations tend to drift towards accommodation to the system (reformism or bureaucratic trade-unionism etc) or try and become an island of "pure" class politics which causes some of the rigidness and dogmatism.

That's my general take and has been for many years. People in our tradition with an orientation to the movements tend to think of social change in a slightly odd cyclical way. There are material-ideological constraints being imposed all the time.

I think it'd be worthwhile to explore Michel's* thinking on the role of elite leaderships and the lessening of democracy in mass organization. I've been involved with many different types of democratic collectives, and most either faded away or became undemocratic. Ones with longer lives have fluctuated.

*I have learnt a decent third from rightwingers attacking the Left as I have from the Left itself. I agree with Ernest Mandel that we have nothing to fear from their ideas.

[Die Neue Zeit]

When the institutions of the French working class where monopolised as thoroughly by class-collaborationists as there were, what option for independent action did French workers have beyond spontaneity? You can argue that X, Y and Z and are all necessary for achieving practically effective working class organisation, but unless you can actually explain why history didn't unfold in this declaredly preferable manner, it doesn't amount to much more than moralising.

Hey, I did say that 1968 had the potential for mere regime change. That's quite different from a proper revolutionary period for the working class.


I think it'd be worthwhile to explore Michel's* thinking on the role of elite leaderships and the lessening of democracy in mass organization. I've been involved with many different types of democratic collectives, and most either faded away or became undemocratic. Ones with longer lives have fluctuated.

*I have learnt a decent third from rightwingers attacking the Left as I have from the Left itself. I agree with Ernest Mandel that we have nothing to fear from their ideas.

Comrade, I think Aristotle, despite his era, had a far more advanced philosophical take that could be applied to this problem than Michel's observations. Aristotle wrote about "democracy," "aristocracy" (rule by the best), and "monarchy" (non-hereditary rule of one, or strongman-ism), which then became the basis of bourgeois-liberal "republicanism"/mixed government. However, a mixed government of sorts could be very useful to worker-class movements.

I have already written about each of these in sufficient detail such that we don't need to go far into Michel's thinking:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/practical-issues-and-t150582/index.html ("democracy")
http://www.revleft.com/vb/educate-educate-agitate-t143439/index.html ("aristocracy")
http://www.revleft.com/vb/value-electing-certain-t144804/index.html ("monarchy")

[blake 3:17]

Hey, I did say that 1968 had the potential for mere regime change. That's quite different from a proper revolutionary period for the working class.


So teleological!

[Die Neue Zeit]

I posted in reply to you above, but re. that remark, I go by the definition of a revolutionary period in The Road to Power. 1968 fails on two of the four criteria.

[DasFapital]

Not to be too sectarian but I recently visited a local chapter of the RCP owned "Revolution Books" chain and I got a creepy Scientology-esque vibe. I hope they can turn things around a bit.

[Art Vandelay]

Not to be too sectarian but I recently visited a local chapter of the RCP owned "Revolution Books" chain and I got a creepy Scientology-esque vibe. I hope they can turn things around a bit.

Don't hold your breath.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not to be too sectarian but I recently visited a local chapter of the RCP owned "Revolution Books" chain and I got a creepy Scientology-esque vibe. I hope they can turn things around a bit.

Um, you're understating the Avakian cult's problems, but this thread isn't about the Avakian cult by any stretch.