Trots and liberalism

[The Machine]

Why is it that trotsyskists so often lean towards reformism, social democracy, and liberalism? I've always noticed the accusation from pretty much every other leftist tendency: stalinists, anarchists, left coms and anyone else who isn't a trot. I didn't think much of it until I started reading the Edge of Sports. For those of you who aren't familiar with Dave Zirin, he's a sportswriter who sometimes claims to be a socialist. However, if you read his blog, the edge of sports, if you didn't know he was a member of the ISO you'd think you were on the democratic underground sports page. From hopping onto any populist movement (most notably calling a moderate islamist Egyptian soccer player a "Jock for Justice") to apologism for the democrats to going so far as to applaud sports franchises because they have black CEOs and managers, the dudes pretty shamelessly liberal. Now this is just one guy, but its a pretty good representation of trotskyists in general.
The idea of fighting for socialism through reform is almost exclusively a trot one, and trots seem to fetishize unions and parties more than any other tendency. I guess when you're so entrenched in the left wing of capital, both ideologically and in your tactics, it becomes hard to escape.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Why is it that trotsyskists so often lean towards reformism, social democracy, and liberalism? I've always noticed the accusation from pretty much every other leftist tendency: stalinists, anarchists, left coms and anyone else who isn't a trot. I didn't think much of it until I started reading the Edge of Sports. For those of you who aren't familiar with Dave Zirin, he's a sportswriter who sometimes claims to be a socialist. However, if you read his blog, the edge of sports, if you didn't know he was a member of the ISO you'd think you were on the democratic underground sports page. From hopping onto any populist movement (most notably calling a moderate islamist Egyptian soccer player a "Jock for Justice") to apologism for the democrats to going so far as to applaud sports franchises because they have black CEOs and managers, the dudes pretty shamelessly liberal. Now this is just one guy, but its a pretty good representation of trotskyists in general.
The idea of fighting for socialism through reform is almost exclusively a trot one, and trots seem to fetishize unions and parties more than any other tendency. I guess when you're so entrenched in the left wing of capital, both ideologically and in your tactics, it becomes hard to escape.

When they started obsessing over united fronts, they started acting like some of their "comrades" in those fronts.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Dave Zirin was spied on by the government for his activities. I know him personally, he's a revolutionary. Sportswriting is also his career and given the current political state, that he's been able to do this professional work and bring his politics into it is an accomplishment. If you don't like his attempts to bring a sports audience to politics, then start your own blog and best of luck.

As for the rest of your trolling: fighting for reforms that can potentially help working people learn how to fight, develop their independent politics, and self-organize. Not all reforms will do this, not all ways of going about reforms will do this, so it's not "supporting reforms" in the abstract, it's engaging in struggles that will help improve the balance of class forces. Engaging workers who are in these struggles is a way we can try and connect revolutionary politcs with the daily struggles that already exist and try and unite working struggles with rev. politics.

What are the alternative strategies out there? Stand on the sideline and tell workers you know best and they should just trust you? Try and appeal idealistically to workers through the soundness of your arguments alone? Look all edgy while yelling about revolution at a bunch of workers?

[Jimmie Higgins]

When they started obsessing over united fronts, they started acting like some of their "comrades" in those fronts.So popular-front = unite workers into the whole movement.

United front = march separately, strike together. No doubt some united fronts turned into popular fronts with the radicals "going with the flow" but in the popular front that's by design, not some misuse of the concept!

[The Machine]

Dave Zirin was spied on by the government for his activities. I know him personally, he's a revolutionary. Sportswriting is also his career and given the current political state, that he's been able to do this professional work and bring his politics into it is an accomplishment. If you don't like his attempts to bring a sports audience to politics, then start your own blog and best of luck.

I guess I have to take your word for it, since I don't know the guy personally. And I don't doubt that he's personally a revolutionary, or that he was spied on but it would be interesting to know the specifics. I'm surprised the government still sees the left wing as a threat, so I guess that's sort of a good thing.
If his livelihood was threatened by the government for his politics I can respect him just going full on apolitical or just occasionally mentioning politics. I still think he's a good writer and read his blod I don't think he's doing some great service to the class struggle by bringing radical liberalism into sportswriting.


As for the rest of your trolling: fighting for reforms that can potentially help working people learn how to fight, develop their independent politics, and self-organize. Not all reforms will do this, not all ways of going about reforms will do this, so it's not "supporting reforms" in the abstract, it's engaging in struggles that will help improve the balance of class forces. Engaging workers who are in these struggles is a way we can try and connect revolutionary politcs with the daily struggles that already exist and try and unite working struggles with rev. politics.

What is one reformist campaign that will help improve the balance of class forces?


What are the alternative strategies out there? Stand on the sideline and tell workers you know best and they should just trust you? Try and appeal idealistically to workers through the soundness of your arguments alone? Look all edgy while yelling about revolution at a bunch of workers?

Well my personal strategy is to keep smoking weed, skateboarding and listening to hip hop, and hopefully become a succesful petit bourgeois businessman because the odds of a communist revolution happening at this point are pretty slim and being working class sucks. I don't think your average communist can do a whole lot to change anything, and activism has never changed shit anyways. If the class struggle escalates to the point where a communist revolution is possible maybe communists will become relevant again and if not, barbarism.

[Art Vandelay]

What is one reformist campaign that will help improve the balance of class forces?

Taking over an abandoned building and turning it into a social center of some sorts.


Well my personal strategy is to keep smoking weed, skateboarding and listening to hip hop, and hopefully become a succesful petit bourgeois businessman because the odds of a communist revolution happening at this point are pretty slim and being working class sucks. I don't think your average communist can do a whole lot to change anything, and activism has never changed shit anyways. If the class struggle escalates to the point where a communist revolution is possible maybe communists will become relevant again and if not, barbarism.

The apathy resonates with me and alot of days I still feel like that, but let me tell you this: the road of apathy is long and culminates with a dead end (I know cause I am on it).

[The Machine]

Taking over an abandoned building and turning it into a social center of some sorts.

thats not really reformist tho


The apathy resonates with me and alot of days I still feel like that, but let me tell you this: the road of apathy is long and culminates with a dead end (I know cause I am on it).

what else is there to do? im not gonna try to convert friends and family to communism like some sort of dumb missionary and i burnt out on the protest scene a long time ago

[Ocean Seal]

Here are the sins of the tendencies.

I am here to make a claim that there exists in each tendency a group of people that make the majority of that tendency ashamed.

Anarchists-The Classical Liberal They despise the liberal caricature of anarchism as demanding nothing more than freedom. This manifests itself into two forms. The first is in the kid who just wants to make total destroy without actually understanding what comes afterwards or why he's doing it. At the more intellectual level this manifests itself in classical liberal sympathizers like Chomsky and NGM85.

Left-Communists-The Bourgeois Academic The weirdo who no one understands and has picked an obscure figure in history to study. Uses the word state capitalist liberally without actually producing anything useful. Rather they go on about theory and sound a lot like academic liberals.

Trotskyists-The Social Liberal, the one who calls himself Trotskyist while praising liberals. They go on to praise figures like FDR, Gandhi, Chavez, among others (to the point of elevating them to grandeur).These types usually describe themselves as democratic while representing a bourgeois democratic social democratic point of view.


Stalinists-The Tankie, the kid who is overjoyed at the military might of the Soviet Union and only likes communism because the Soviet Union give the United States a run for its money. They generally applaud any military adventure that the Soviet Union had, and think it would have been cool if the two went to war.

[cb9's_unity]

The idea of fighting for socialism through reform is almost exclusively a trot one

This is just plainly false. There have been numerous reformist socialist movements that have absolutely no connection to Trotskyism. Look up Bernstein and the entirety of Social-Democracy after 1914 just to start. It is concerning to see that you have such little knowledge of the history of socialism.

In absolutely no way am I a Trotskyist. I can't say I have a great knowledge of Trotskyism either. What I really don't understand though is this need for instant hyper-sectarianism. It seems like your just trying to score points against a fairly broad group of socialists. Using one example to characterize all Trotskyists as liberals is petty and lazy.

There is no problem with a debate about tactics, but there is no sense in equating our allies with our enemies. Try using substance over name calling.

[Art Vandelay]

thats not really reformist tho

Its not exactly revolutionary....


what else is there to do? im not gonna try to convert friends and family to communism like some sort of dumb missionary and i burnt out on the protest scene a long time ago


I don't know unfortunately.....but apathy has led me to some shitty places in life.

[Hit The North]

The idea of fighting for socialism through reform is almost exclusively a trot one

I've never heard a Trot argue that socialism can be won through reforms and I've known lots of Trotsyists for many years. Any groups or individuals who have argued this have already been heading for the exit door from Marxism and so could not legitimately be described as Trotskyists.


and trots seem to fetishize unions and parties more than any other tendency. Trots argue that revolutionaries should work inside organised labour but this is far from a fetish for unions. In fact most Trotskyists argue for rank and file organisation and are deeply suspicious, if not outright hostile, to the trade union bureaucrats. I don't know where your brand of politics place your activity because I don't know what you stand for. As for Trots fetishising parties, this has more truth about it, but do you really think they do this more than Maoists or Stalinists?


I guess when you're so entrenched in the left wing of capital, both ideologically and in your tactics, it becomes hard to escape.Well we can't all be as radically revolutionary as you obviously consider yourself to be.

But maybe you'd like to educate Trots on this site by informing them what your recommendations for strategy and tactics are?

EDIT: My bad, you've already outlined your program of action:


Well my personal strategy is to keep smoking weed, skateboarding and listening to hip hop, and hopefully become a succesful petit bourgeois businessman because the odds of a communist revolution happening at this point are pretty slim and being working class sucks. I don't think your average communist can do a whole lot to change anything, and activism has never changed shit anyways. If the class struggle escalates to the point where a communist revolution is possible maybe communists will become relevant again and if not, barbarism.

Wow. Why did you even start this thread?

[The Machine]

Its not exactly revolutionary....

No but it's not as bad as organizing campaigns with/in support of bourgeois parties and reforms.


I don't know unfortunately.....but apathy has led me to some shitty places in life.

im pretty much only apathetic about the state of communism atm and it hasnt really affected my life

[Die Neue Zeit]

Here are the sins of the tendencies.

I am here to make a claim that there exists in each tendency a group of people that make the majority of that tendency ashamed.

Anarchists-The Classical Liberal They despise the liberal caricature of anarchism as demanding nothing more than freedom. This manifests itself into two forms. The first is in the kid who just wants to make total destroy without actually understanding what comes afterwards or why he's doing it. At the more intellectual level this manifests itself in classical liberal sympathizers like Chomsky and NGM85.

Actually, there is also the street anarcho-liberal, someone who's got quite a progressive platform at best, but who wishes to dress this up in radical "chic."


Left-Communists-The Bourgeois Academic The weirdo who no one understands and has picked an obscure figure in history to study. Uses the word state capitalist liberally without actually producing anything useful. Rather they go on about theory and sound a lot like academic liberals.

Post-Modernism comes to mind.


Trotskyists-The Social Liberal, the one who calls himself Trotskyist while praising liberals. They go on to praise figures like FDR, Gandhi, Chavez, among others (to the point of elevating them to grandeur).These types usually describe themselves as democratic while representing a bourgeois democratic social democratic point of view.

I believe this is called the New Left, Identity Politics, and so on, but why mention the Social Liberal when this is closer to the Left-Com "sin," and why mention this instead of the closer-to-home "sin" of Neo-Conservatism?


Stalinists-The Tankie, the kid who is overjoyed at the military might of the Soviet Union and only likes communism because the Soviet Union give the United States a run for its money. They generally applaud any military adventure that the Soviet Union had, and think it would have been cool if the two went to war.

This isn't really much of a "sin" on their part as opposed to uncritical Third World nationalism.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Stalinists-The Tankie, the kid who is overjoyed at the military might of the Soviet Union and only likes communism because the Soviet Union give the United States a run for its money. They generally applaud any military adventure that the Soviet Union had, and think it would have been cool if the two went to war.

This is so fucking stupid that it hurts to even read.

First of all, a lot of real Marxist-Leninists don't even know anything about military stuff, especially the Soviet military. For example, if you ask me to a name a military gun, I would only be able to say RPG. If you ask me what it does, I would not be able to tell you. I know more about collectivization and Albanian cultural policies under Hoxha than I do about Soviet tanks (which I don't know anything about).

Second of all, Soviet military might is not what impresses me about the Stalin era, it is the Soviet construction of socialism that impresses me. Again, I know almost nothing about the Soviet military.

Thirdly, we love communism (we believe in Marxism) because . . . we come to believe in it through learning. We don't look at pictures of Soviet tanks and go, " Ohhhh, let me become a communist for Stalin!!!!!" There are many American and Nazi tanks for people who like that, stupid.

Fourthly, we don't care about the Soviet Union giving Ameica "a run for its money". Brezhnevites and other related revisionists do. A Brezhnevite: "Yeah!!! Soviet mines blowing up a few Afghan children!!!! That is standing against American imperialism!!!!!!" A "Stalinist": "Ummm, that's social imperialism and is still bad." And this ties in with this other stupid statement you made:
They generally applaud any military adventure that the Soviet Union had

Marxism-Leninism isn't about the Soviet Union going against the United States and we would have opposed any war between the two states. Proletarian revolution was the only way to bring down the American ruling class, not war with the Soviet Union.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What is one reformist campaign that will help improve the balance of class forces?In the US historically? Should we start with the fight for the 8 hour day or earlier? Unless you count winning less hours of exploitation as non-reformist, or alternately think that May Day is meaningless and reformist.

Oh do economic struggles not count to you? What about ending Jim Crow? This creates much better conditions for blacks to enter the workforce and have the same rights as whites which also means we can organize a mulch-racial fight-back... and it's a reform - OMG, tricking black people into thinking that they can get a square deal under liberal capitalism.

No, there's a "reformIST" way to fight for reforms and there's a revolutionary way. Reformists fight for reforms as an end to themselves, revolutionaries fight for reforms as a means to greater organization, confidence, and experience by the working class. Of course in the ends and means equation, any means aren't equal, so not all reforms and not all methods of organizing those campaigns are worth it for revolutionaries because, for example, most lobbying efforts or whatnot won't help workers organize or develop consciousness.

[Veovis]

No but it's not as bad as organizing campaigns with/in support of bourgeois parties and reforms.

"Bourgeois reforms" can mean the difference between someone getting medical care, an education, or even employment, and outright destitution. What are we supposed to do? Sit around and wait for things to become unbearable and then hope for the revolution?

Reforms in the short term build confidence and organization in preparation for the revolution in the long term.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why hasn't anybody yet brought into this discussion the nature and extent of reform policies around which to organize or not organize grassroots political struggle?

[Agathor]

The idea of fighting for socialism through reform is almost exclusively a trot one

Rosa Luxemburg says hey.

[Obs]

*reads thread title*

Oh, boy.

But yeah, Trots say some weird shit every once in a while. Personally, I think it has to do with the entryist methods used by some Trotskyist groups. Since the idea is to enter any and all progressive movements and hijack members from there, they tend to adapt their rhetoric a little every time they enter another movement. When that strategy works, however, that also means they can't really ever change their line back on risk of losing the members they just gained. And so they pander, pander, and keep pandering until they're basically using the "revolutionary," or indeed, "Trotskyist" brand for kicks more than anything else.

[Khalid]

When you get interested in Communism in the first place it's easy to buy all the liberal bullshit about USSR, Stalin, Mao and all the Black Book fairytales. But that's not a problem. You can always choose Trotskyism and join the choir of liberalism.

[Catma]

stuff


Here are the sins of the tendencies.

I am here to make a claim that there exists in each tendency a group of people that make the majority of that tendency ashamed.

Easy there.

[Ocean Seal]

This is so fucking stupid that it hurts to even read.

First of all, a lot of real Marxist-Leninists don't even know anything about military stuff, especially the Soviet military. For example, if you ask me to a name a military gun, I would only be able to say RPG. If you ask me what it does, I would not be able to tell you. I know more about collectivization and Albanian cultural policies under Hoxha than I do about Soviet tanks (which I don't know anything about).

Second of all, Soviet military might is not what impresses me about the Stalin era, it is the Soviet construction of socialism that impresses me. Again, I know almost nothing about the Soviet military.

Thirdly, we love communism (we believe in Marxism) because . . . we come to believe in it through learning. We don't look at pictures of Soviet tanks and go, " Ohhhh, let me become a communist for Stalin!!!!!" There are many American and Nazi tanks for people who like that, stupid.

Fourthly, we don't care about the Soviet Union giving Ameica "a run for its money". Brezhnevites and other related revisionists do. A Brezhnevite: "Yeah!!! Soviet mines blowing up a few Afghan children!!!! That is standing against American imperialism!!!!!!" A "Stalinist": "Ummm, that's social imperialism and is still bad." And this ties in with this other stupid statement you made:

Marxism-Leninism isn't about the Soviet Union going against the United States and we would have opposed any war between the two states. Proletarian revolution was the only way to bring down the American ruling class, not war with the Soviet Union.
I don't genuinely think you understood my post. I was saying that a subsection of people within each tendency represented what I posted above and that the rest of a given tendency genuinely despised those who held said views.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

When you get interested in Communism in the first place it's easy to buy all the liberal bullshit about USSR, Stalin, Mao and all the Black Book fairytales. But that's not a problem. You can always choose Trotskyism and join the choir of liberalism.
I read most of the accusations against Trotskyism on this thread with a certain level of amusement, if not horror. Have any of you guys read Trotsky on the United Front? Do you know what it is? It is a tactic for taking joint action with other working class groups around specific events. It is not an ongoing coalition -- and it does not involve bourgeois parties/groupings. There is complete freedom of criticism for the groups involved. A simple but apt slogan describing it is "march separately, strike together." I have been involved in some united front demonstrations that prevented Klansmen or Nazis from holding demonstrations. Does that sound reformist?

Some of you might be confusing the United Front with the Popular Front. The popular front is a policy used by Stalinists and reformist leftists whereby they enter into governments that administer capitalism in blocs with other reformist left parties and some liberal bourgeois elements. There are many examples in history -- none of them leading to anything but the defeat of the working class. A central tenet of Trotskyism is complete opposition to Popular Fronts.

Now I would agree that there are some nominally Trotskyist groupings that are reformist (e.g., ISO, SWP (Britain), Solidarity, USEC). But the orthodox Trotskyist groups, ICL, IBT, IG and RG are usually criticized for being ultra-left sectarians.

And my Marxist-Leninist Comrades are standing on awfully thin ice when accusing Trotskyists of being reformists. For example, the CPUSA was Red White and Blue for Roosevelt after Germany invaded the USSR, including helping to enforce no-strike pledges in heavy industry. And they cheered the incineration of masses of Japanese citizens from A-bombings by US imperialism. And these are a couple of a multitude of social patriotic crimes that Stalinist have been committing all over the globe since the end of Third-Period Stalinism in 1935.

So, defending the USSR against capitalist restoration, opposing the reactionaries in Polish Solidarnosc, opposing capitalist restoration in China, Cuba and Viet Nam, Supporting the military efforts of North Vietnam, calling for political revolution in all the East Bloc countries to fight for real workers democracy and against capitalist restoration -- to name just a few positions -- these are positions that makes liberals cringe and pee their pants. Real Trotskyists, above all, are internationalists, intransigent revolutionaries, that follow the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. Where the fuck do you find liberal reformism there?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

In the US historically? Should we start with the fight for the 8 hour day or earlier? Unless you count winning less hours of exploitation as non-reformist, or alternately think that May Day is meaningless and reformist.

Oh do economic struggles not count to you? What about ending Jim Crow? This creates much better conditions for blacks to enter the workforce and have the same rights as whites which also means we can organize a mulch-racial fight-back... and it's a reform - OMG, tricking black people into thinking that they can get a square deal under liberal capitalism.

No, there's a "reformIST" way to fight for reforms and there's a revolutionary way. Reformists fight for reforms as an end to themselves, revolutionaries fight for reforms as a means to greater organization, confidence, and experience by the working class. Of course in the ends and means equation, any means aren't equal, so not all reforms and not all methods of organizing those campaigns are worth it for revolutionaries because, for example, most lobbying efforts or whatnot won't help workers organize or develop consciousness.
Agreed. But it is a very fine line to walk and one that many organizations cross into abject reformism. The list is very long, comrade. Trotskyists are fine with reforms, but never limit their program or propaganda to this. Let's face it, comrades, gains, like the 8 hour day are important. Fighting for them and winning them is great. But it simply is not enough and if you focus on making incremental gains AT THE EXPENSE of revolution, then you are Bernstein, Browder, Breznhev. Let's not kid ourselves that this is a very easy trap to fall into.

[Jimmie Higgins]

mulch-racial fight-backOops, I think my auto-correct must be a crypto-racist.

[Althusser]

Now that daft punk is banned, everyone's coming out of the closet on their hatred for trots. They're all liberals and REFORMISTS derpp. They praise Ghandi!

[Ocean Seal]

Now that daft punk is banned, everyone's coming out of the closet on their hatred for trots. They're all liberals and REFORMISTS derpp. They praise Ghandi!
So daft punk is what held you guys together? If anything his ban should make Trots more respectable.

[Althusser]

So daft punk is what held you guys together? If anything his ban should make Trots more respectable.

No, not what held us together, but what held everyone else from overtly labeling trotskyists social democrats and counter-revolutionaries. It's ridiculous.

Also, what exactly did daft punk say that made his arguments fallacious? It seemed as if every time he posted in a thread, Stalinists would just mock without refuting or disproving anything.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

I miss daft punk with all my Stalinist heart.

[Zulu]

Stalinists-The Tankie, the kid who is overjoyed at the military might of the Soviet Union and only likes communism because the Soviet Union give the United States a run for its money. They generally applaud any military adventure that the Soviet Union had, and think it would have been cool if the two went to war.

Lol!

I know what you mean! (http://www.redavantgarde.com/i/content/269/1/big_4008.jpg)

[Hit The North]

Now I would agree that there are some nominally Trotskyist groupings that are reformist (e.g., ISO, SWP (Britain), Solidarity, USEC). But the orthodox Trotskyist groups, ICL, IBT, IG and RG are usually criticized for being ultra-left sectarians.


Really? I'd like to know what evidence you have for calling the SWP(UK) reformist or are you just parroting something you've heard?

Either provide evidence that the SWP has ever argued that reformism can deliver socialism or retract your statement.

My guess is you'll do neither because you don't have a fucking clue what you're on about.

[Offbeat]

This is so fucking stupid that it hurts to even read.

Did you even read all of his post? Sounds like it touched a nerve.

[Per Levy]

No, not what held us together, but what held everyone else from overtly labeling trotskyists social democrats and counter-revolutionaries. It's ridiculous.

Also, what exactly did daft punk say that made his arguments fallacious? It seemed as if every time he posted in a thread, Stalinists would just mock without refuting or disproving anything.

daft punk was a pain in the arse, and not to the stalinists but to all who didnt share his "passion" for the cwi and trotskyism. he was a spammer he degenerated threads with trotsky/stalin shit(he posted stuff like this even in threads that had nothing to do with trotsky/stalin) and really you can take just so much of trotsky/stalin discussions and i was sick of those pretty much a month after i joined here.

[Krano]

I don't genuinely think you understood my post. I was saying that a subsection of people within each tendency represented what I posted above and that the rest of a given tendency genuinely despised those who held said views.
What is your point? every political ideology has these type of people.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Really? I'd like to know what evidence you have for calling the SWP(UK) reformist or are you just parroting something you've heard?

Either provide evidence that the SWP has ever argued that reformism can deliver socialism or retract your statement.

My guess is you'll do neither because you don't have a fucking clue what you're on about.
Oh, I'll definitely get back to you on this one soon. I am not sure I can find official sanction for reformism in the SWP in such a literal way. I am fairly certain I can find it in deeds and implication. And you for gosh sake's you sure have a thin skin, comrade. Did you actually disagree with the rest of the post, or did I simply hurt your feelings with my comment on the SWP so that you gave me demerits?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Daft Punk seems a little unstable. I often agree with his posts, but he is overbearing and overly sensitive. A little self-righteous indignation goes a long way.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Stop talking about daft punk . . . you make me remember of the day . . . the day that we lost him. I DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER! :crying:

[L.A.P.]

Post-Modernism comes to mind.

Even though postmodernism is a lot more influenced by Maoism than any other tendency in communism.

[Tim Finnegan]

Really? I'd like to know what evidence you have for calling the SWP(UK) reformist or are you just parroting something you've heard?

Either provide evidence that the SWP has ever argued that reformism can deliver socialism or retract your statement.
I wasn't aware that we were in the habit of privileging words over actions.


Post-Modernism comes to mind.
Why's that? In my experience, the over-theoretical leftcom is an unrepentant modernism, and spends more time than is healthy venting about the postmodern folly of the over-theoretical autonomist in the office-slash-blog next to his.

[Grenzer]

Even though postmodernism is a lot more influenced by Maoism than any other tendency in communism.

Despite postmodernism having been around long before anyone had even heard of Mao.

[Grenzer]

Really? I'd like to know what evidence you have for calling the SWP(UK) reformist or are you just parroting something you've heard?

Either provide evidence that the SWP has ever argued that reformism can deliver socialism or retract your statement.

My guess is you'll do neither because you don't have a fucking clue what you're on about.

Don't take it too personally mate.

I think Lev is just going for a cheap opportunist shot here. He usually feels the need to shit over any Trotskyists that don't buy into the anti-Marxist, antiquated "theory" of degenerated/deformed workers state(notice how all the organizations he listed as "reformist" view the USSR as state capitalist, that's no coincidence).

The so-called "orthodox" Trotskyist organizations tend to have a bizarre mixture of tankie politics, liberalism, and some ultra-left policies. So, in short, you are correct; he has no idea what he's going on about.

[∞]

Yes because Marxist-Leninists never revert to trying to get votes in parliament and trying to establish communist ideals in a bourgeoisie democracy... :glare:

[Tim Finnegan]

Despite postmodernism having been around long before anyone had even heard of Mao.
I am given to understand that philosophical movements, especially ones as nebulous as postmodernism, are capable of changing over time.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Okay -- here's a start, from the SWP website --


Fury from the polling booths

Across Europe voters have used elections to show their bitter and angry rejection of austerity. It’s clearest in Greece where what were previously the two main parties won less than a third of the vote between them and the anti-austerity coalition Syriza came a very close second behind the right wing New Democracy.

But you can also see the same pattern in the French presidential elections, the German and Italian elections, and in Britain. Across Europe these results point to struggle and political turmoil.

The local elections here will not produce a political crisis of the same intensity as Greece. But they are a massive rebuff for the Coalition, and David Cameron in particular. The low turnout (less than one in three voted) was also a sign of the disengagement from traditional politics.

In some places left of Labour candidates did well, with Michael Lavalette’s success in Preston a real highlight. Thanks to everyone who campaigned for Michael.

Sounds strikingly like the ISO, no surprise. Instead of focusing on the incredible problems posed by a large movement of workers led by Syriza, or the PSF, you point out how cool this is. And then bring it around to Britain, where the Labor Party has made gains, doo dah. Labor is a thoroughly discredited entity with the most militant workers. And in other sections of the website, the focus is on these liberal friendly "campaigns" against the war in Afghanistan or racism or some such thing.

The membership section was almost amusing to this old time Leninist:


The SWP is an activist organisation, involved in a broad range of campaigns, including the Stop the War Coalition and Unite Against Fascism. If you agree with the things that we stand for then please join us by filling in the form below.

More information If you are not sure you want to join yet we can send you more information and tell you what the SWP is doing in your area. » more information

Join the SWP Unlike most organisations we are funded by our members alone. Your regular membership subscription will enable us to continue our proud tradition of building a socialist organisation within the movement.

We prefer people to pay by direct debit which gives us regular payments to organise. If you can pay by direct debit please fill in the form at the bottom of this page.

I mean shouldn't the first thing you say about your organization be that you are for Socialist Revolution? But no, you say we "in a broad range of campaigns."

In the US, the ISO mucks around in the rad-lib milieu, and USUALLY does not give active support to bourgeois candidates, and does not openly say that reform leads to revolution, but it is where their focus is. Seems the same in Britain.

Oh, and seems like a real Leninist organization, send in your money and you are in baby. I'm deeply impressed:rolleyes:

[Brosip Tito]

Rosa Luxemburg says hey.
Indeed.

Did you read Reform or Revolution after?

Back on-topic, I've never come across incidents of Trots supporting "reformism", or "social democracy".

[Tim Finnegan]

Not familiar with Militant Tendency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militant_Tendency), I take it?

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Yes because Marxist-Leninists never revert to trying to get votes in parliament and trying to establish communist ideal in a bourgeoisie democracy... :glare:

Too bad people like that aren't real Marxist-Leninists.

[Tim Finnegan]

Too bad people like that aren't real Marxist-Leninists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

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

Like if I give two shits.

[The Machine]

this fuckin thread man...no bueno :/

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Don't take it too personally mate.

I think Lev is just going for a cheap opportunist shot here. He usually feels the need to shit over any Trotskyists that don't buy into the anti-Marxist, antiquated "theory" of degenerated/deformed workers state(notice how all the organizations he listed as "reformist" view the USSR as state capitalist, that's no coincidence).

The so-called "orthodox" Trotskyist organizations tend to have a bizarre mixture of tankie politics, liberalism, and some ultra-left policies. So, in short, you are correct; he has no idea what he's going on about.

Comrade, calling your politics reformist is not shitting on you. We really should start another thread on this -- we are getting way off topic. And yes, when those tendencies, particularly Cliff's and Shachtman's abandoned Soviet Defensism, they abandoned Trotskyism. Trotsky's last major fight was around this issue -- so it is not an accident. you guys seem unfamiliar with In Defense of Marxism.

Yeah, degenerated/deformed workers state is an old theory, but then so is Marxism in general. Besides, then we don't wind up supporting cut throat Afghan "freedom fighters" skinning teachers alive for teaching women to read, because they are fighting "Soviet Imperialism."

And your comment about the groups I mention is both vague and fallacious. Maybe I should give you some demerits for that one?

Haven't there already been copious threads about the reformism of the SWP/ISO? Certainly Comrades Higgins and Olentzero got highly incensed with me and "called me out." At least they argued their points without resorting to name calling (well, mostly). Please refer to that thread. And stop with the name calling.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Really? I'd like to know what evidence you have for calling the SWP(UK) reformist or are you just parroting something you've heard?

Either provide evidence that the SWP has ever argued that reformism can deliver socialism or retract your statement.

My guess is you'll do neither because you don't have a fucking clue what you're on about.

This is what they argue about reforms:


The fight for reforms gives revolutionaries their muscle

Colin Barker concludes his series on 'Where We Stand', the Socialist Workers Party's statement of principles

We can only achieve socialism by means of a revolution, in which millions of working people collectively take control of society, with new democratic institutions. Most of the time, that key revolutionary socialist idea is the property of a minority. It contradicts everyday experience. The predominant form of oppositional ideas is reformist.

In elections, most workers' votes-when they can see any point in voting-go to social democratic and liberal parties. Reformist parties feed off workers' need and hope for change. But they don't set out to mobilise workers to change the world. Rather, they work to channel aspirations for change into the narrow confines of parliamentary politics.
...
However, such general [revolutionary] propaganda can only win over a minority in normal times. That minority, won to socialist ideas, plays a vital part in wider movements. But they cannot win socialism by themselves. That requires the collective action of millions.

Where, then, does the solution lie? In practice there is no reinforced concrete wall between reform and revolution. Fighting for reforms is not the same as reformism. The struggle for reforms can tip over into revolution. Battles for reforms are vital preparation for social revolution. They are how the working class movement develops and tests its own strengths and weaknesses. They are also where socialist militants learn their strategy and tactics. One thing Rosa Luxemburg ignored about the "labour of Sisyphus" is that the mythological king must have developed very strong muscles!

Socialists seek to play a leading part in every struggle, large or small, in which workers develop their own collective strength and organisation. We don't stand aside, preaching abstract revolution from the sidelines, but act as the most determined fighters for reforms, at the same time arguing that the movement must go further.

There is always more than one way to conduct a battle. Reformist leaders seek to set limits to mass struggle. We argue, always, for involving the largest numbers, and for expanding rank and file control over the conduct of the fight. The real proof of the necessity of revolution doesn't arise as an abstract question within a mass movement, but always as a particular, real issue. It does not arise directly in every struggle.

But situations do arise in which the possibility of social revolution appears. They are the moments for which everything else is but preparation and training. At such moments, reform and revolution intertwine.

But these arguments usually go like this:

"They're reformist"
"No, this is what they argue about the relationship between fighting for reforms and revolution"
"Sure that's what they say, but not how they act"
"So they are fighting for reforms as a end in of itself? What's your evidence"
"Well... look at all these reform struggles they are a part of"
"...Um, but they argue that this is the way workers can begin to learn how to struggle which can possibly lead to revolution"
"No, they fight for reforms."


I have issues with the SWP, but of course I share the overall basic political framework and think it's sound. I fully agree with the argument put forward in the article which is used in introductory packets before people join. This charge of reformist, or "mucking around with reformist" is just guilt by association and is excellent for making arguments because it's easy to point out the difference between a reform measure and a revolutionary action, but it's much harder to prove the intentions of the actors engaging in this. So it's any easy charge to make and you don't really have to prove it, but the person who has the charge made against them also can't easily prove otherwise and so it becomes a he-said/she-said argument. Yeah! Nu-uh!

I think it's a lazy argument that gets thrown around and has no truth to it in my experience. In a period of low struggle - reformists are easy to spot because they actually argue that this reform or that reform is all that it will take to fix this or that issue... they don't need to pretend to be something less-popular and more marginal in order to accomplish what can be done more easily as open reformists!

No doubt when the shit hits the fan some revolutionaries who had been sincere (or maybe had drifted in a way that was unnoticeable) will flip or side against revolution; when there are massive working class movements, no doubt there will be opportunists and what not. But to talk about these things now as if it's Revolutionary Russia is just detached from reality. To argue that the SWP makes mistakes, or goes about things in a way you don't agree with or think is harmful to building independent working class politics is one thing, but to call them reformists is just empty name-calling.

[Hit The North]

Okay -- here's a start, from the SWP website --


Fury from the polling booths

Across Europe voters have used elections to show their bitter and angry rejection of austerity. It’s clearest in Greece where what were previously the two main parties won less than a third of the vote between them and the anti-austerity coalition Syriza came a very close second behind the right wing New Democracy.

But you can also see the same pattern in the French presidential elections, the German and Italian elections, and in Britain. Across Europe these results point to struggle and political turmoil.

The local elections here will not produce a political crisis of the same intensity as Greece. But they are a massive rebuff for the Coalition, and David Cameron in particular. The low turnout (less than one in three voted) was also a sign of the disengagement from traditional politics.

In some places left of Labour candidates did well, with Michael Lavalette’s success in Preston a real highlight. Thanks to everyone who campaigned for Michael.


Ha ha. So now writing commentaries on election results is evidence of reformism?

But I guess if you are in the habit of misreading, then anything can say anything. So you argue that the article ends up pandering to the Labour Party when, in fact, the article doesn't even mention Labour except in terms of congratulating a left-of-Labour candidate polling decently in a certain ward.

Another underhand tactic for discrediting one's opponents is to read selectively. So Lev posts a section from the membership section, claiming this as evidence that the SWP hide their revolutionary aims in their literature. But he neglects to read the formal Where We Stand statement of the party which I link to below so that other posters can make up their minds about this:

http://www.swp.org.uk/where-we-stand

But to take one selection from the statement and the one that best pertains to the issue of the SWP's attitude to elections and reforms:


The present system cannot be patched up — it has to be completely transformed. The structures of the parliament, army, police and judiciary cannot be taken over and used by the working people. Elections can be used to agitate for real improvements in people’s lives and to expose the system we live under, but only the mass action of workers themselves can change the system.You need to work harder to prove your case, comrade.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Ha ha. So now writing commentaries on election results is evidence of reformism?

But I guess if you are in the habit of misreading, then anything can say anything. So you argue that the article ends up pandering to the Labour Party when, in fact, the article doesn't even mention Labour except in terms of congratulating a left-of-Labour candidate polling decently in a certain ward.

Another underhand tactic for discrediting one's opponents is to read selectively. So Lev posts a section from the membership section, claiming this as evidence that the SWP hide their revolutionary aims in their literature. But he neglects to read the formal Where We Stand statement of the party which I link to below so that other posters can make up their minds about this:

http://www.swp.org.uk/where-we-stand

But to take one selection from the statement and the one that best pertains to the issue of the SWP's attitude to elections and reforms:

You need to work harder to prove your case, comrade.

Oh, give me just a little more time. . . But I will point out that even that sterling bit of communist verbiage doesn't use the word "revolution" or "Socialism" or "communism" -- you just kind of choke on it. You wouldn't want to scare anybody off with those words.

History is full of left groups that have formally had programs that were revolutionary while the groups were not. And groups that focus on activism in reformist "campaigns" almost always blow with the political winds. For example, the ISO in the US fulsomely supported Khomeni when he came to power- see, it was a mass movement that was against imperialism. Only problem, it opposed it from the right. The IST (predecessor of the ICL), said "down with the Shah, down with the Mullahs, for worker's revolution in Iran." If I recall the SWP said the same thing as the ISO, (cheerleading the Iranian "revolution") but if I'm wrong, please show evidence.

Finally, the op was asking about Trotskyism. You guys have nothing to say about that -- I put up a post defending Trotskyism against the charge of revisionism and reformism -- explaining the difference between United Fronts and Popular Fronts -- you would think you might even agree with some of that. However, you are more interested in defending the SWP against a charge of reformism than defending Trotskyism. Is that because you agree that you are not, after all, Trotskyists?

[Tim Finnegan]

But these arguments usually go like this:

"They're reformist"
"No, this is what they argue about the relationship between fighting for reforms and revolution"
"Sure that's what they say, but not how they act"
"So they are fighting for reforms as a end in of itself? What's your evidence"
"Well... look at all these reform struggles they are a part of"
"...Um, but they argue that this is the way workers can begin to learn how to struggle which can possibly lead to revolution"
"No, they fight for reforms."
Not all reforms are equal, though. It's one thing to organise a union drive or a rent strike, entirely another to campaign for electoral reform or cross-class anti-fascism. They can't all be folded under a general heading of "reform" and excused as a prelude to revolution.

[The Machine]

all this shit about "teaching workers how to organize" or w/e is paternalistic as fuck

also I just got done reading "When Skateboards Will Be Free" turns out the SWP is pretty much a cult that used to brush child molestation under the table pretty hard

[Jimmie Higgins]

Not all reforms are equal, though. It's one thing to organise a union drive or a rent strike, entirely another to campaign for electoral reform or cross-class anti-fascism. They can't all be folded under a general heading of "reform" and excused as a prelude to revolution.I'd disagree about anti-fascism in most cases, but other than that yeah, I thought that was self-evident from the SWP article I posted where they talk about how most reforms seek to limit independant working class action and confine it to the system. I also cut out some paragraphs where they go into Lenin and Luxemburg talking about this since the charge wasn't that the SWP was supporting reforms that wouldn't go anywhere but that they were reformIST.

Like I said, I think the charge of refomism is sloppy at best, but I think debates about the reforms they engage in or if the way they go about trying to do this is correct or not are totally fair. I don't know enough about the SWP's current activities to knowledgeably argue one way or another if the reform struggles they engage in, or how they are engaging in them, would actually help push things forward towards revolutionary ends or not. In fact I don't know enough about class conditions in the UK to make much more than general observations about politics there.

[Jimmie Higgins]

all this shit about "teaching workers how to organize" or w/e is paternalistic as fuckLol, it's the struggle that "teaches workers how to struggle" that's the whole idea behind engaging in struggles that might be initially be limited in scope but could develop and radicalize further. Struggle teaches people how to organize, teaches people which side other forces are on and gives people confidence to demand and fight for more. But people are influenced both by their own experiences and the ideas out there and so it's important that radicals IMO are arguing in and alongside some movements. At the begining of Occupy Oakland, only the radical left thought that the police couldn't be trusted - that changed not because anarchists had "FTP" banners or socialists had pamphlets about the police alone, but because people experienced the police lieing to them and misrepresenting them and attacking them and then the arguments of anarchists and socialists were useful to people because our explanation made more sense than the liberal "bad apples" arguments.

Sure then radicals in movements try and argue what they see as the best way forward - how is that more paternalistic than an independent activist arguing his/her viewpoint or a liberal arguing there's? Workers aren't pre-programed with some inherent "proletarian logic" everyone makes their decisions based on their own experience and the information they have at hand - it's strangely fetishistic to argue that a worker who has an idea is legitimate unless he came to that idea from reading the argument by a radical or if that worker becomes a radical and organizes with other workers, suddenly his/her ideas are illegitimate and paternalistic.

[Hit The North]

also I just got done reading "When Skateboards Will Be Free" turns out the SWP is pretty much a cult that used to brush child molestation under the table pretty hard

Boy, you read some trash. Here's from the blurb on Amazon:


Poised perfectly between tragedy and farce, here is a story by a brilliant young writer struggling to break away from the powerful mythologies of his upbringing and create a life—and a voice—of his own.

A lovely bourgeois tale of individual struggle against the evil commies.

Nevertheless, whether your accusations about the SWP are true or not, this is the SWP(US) which is quite a distance from the SWP(UK), being completely different organisations. Thought you might like to acknowledge that.

[Hit The North]

Oh, give me just a little more time. . . But I will point out that even that sterling bit of communist verbiage doesn't use the word "revolution" or "Socialism" or "communism" -- you just kind of choke on it. You wouldn't want to scare anybody off with those words.


Again with your poor reading ability! The words 'revolution' and 'socialism' are clearly in the text, along with phrases such as
A revolutionary party is necessary to strengthen the movement, organise people within it and aid them in developing the ideas and strategies that can overthrow capitalism entirely.You might want to check what deals your local optician is doing right now.


History is full of left groups that have formally had programs that were revolutionary while the groups were not. And groups that focus on activism in reformist "campaigns" almost always blow with the political winds.
Your first point has some validity. But in what sense do you think that a political organisation can act in a revolutionary way in the absence of a revolutionary situation without it ending in empty abstract phrase mongering?


For example, the ISO in the US fulsomely supported Khomeni when he came to power- see, it was a mass movement that was against imperialism. Only problem, it opposed it from the right. The IST (predecessor of the ICL), said "down with the Shah, down with the Mullahs, for worker's revolution in Iran." I would guess the SWP said the same thing, but if I'm wrong, please show evidence.I'm not sure what you're asking for here. The SWP(UK) supported the Iranian workers and opposed the mullahs and continues to do so.


Finally, the op was asking about Trotskyism. You guys have nothing to say about that -- I put up a post defending Trotskyism against the charge of revisionism and reformism -- explaining the difference between United Fronts and Popular Fronts -- you would think you might even agree with some of that. I do agree and I also made a post defending Trotskyism against the accusation of reformism (not as good or detailed as yours). But then you felt the need to accuse the SWP of reformism and I had to respond to that. And it was important to do so because, as Jimmie Higgins points out, there is a difference between fighting for reforms and being reformist, and this relationship needs to be clarified. As others have pointed out, this is done par excellence by Rosa Luxemburg.


However, you are more interested in defending the SWP against a charge of reformism than defending Trotskyism. Is that because you agree that you are not, after all, Trotskyists?And since you made the charge you have only been interested in prosecuting it. As to whether I self-describe as a Trotskyist, I do not; and anyone with any knowledge of the SWP would know that it does not describe itself as orthodox Trotskyist. But this not, as you appear to suggest, because the SWP is reformist when orthodox Trotskyism is not.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Lol, it's the struggle that "teaches workers how to struggle" that's the whole idea behind engaging in struggles that might be initially be limited in scope but could develop and radicalize further. Struggle teaches people how to organize, teaches people which side other forces are on and gives people confidence to demand and fight for more. But people are influenced both by their own experiences and the ideas out there and so it's important that radicals IMO are arguing in and alongside some movements. At the begining of Occupy Oakland, only the radical left thought that the police couldn't be trusted - that changed not because anarchists had "FTP" banners or socialists had pamphlets about the police alone, but because people experienced the police lieing to them and misrepresenting them and attacking them and then the arguments of anarchists and socialists were useful to people because our explanation made more sense than the liberal "bad apples" arguments.


Comrade, I am more skeptical than you about learning to struggle. Yes success begets success -- and winning a strike is always a good thing. But not trusting the police is very far from fighting for the overthrow of capitalism. The concept of incrementally moving people towards communism seems stilted, at best and self-defeating.

And Trotskyists don't always present maximal, dichotomous demands, but we saw so much focus on "the movement" in the sixties and it lead to shit. The SWP (US) was deeply involved in the peace movement "bring our boys home" (begging the question of whose boys the US armed forces were) -- they recruited a bunch, but ultimately they became an uninfluential pressure group on the Democratic Party. And they abandoned revolutionary politics in the process. Formally, on paper, they had a Trotskyist program (with some major deviations), but what they were really about was mucking around in the rad-lib milieu, tailing whatever was going on.

[Brosip Tito]

Comrade, I am more skeptical than you about learning to struggle. Yes success begets success -- and winning a strike is always a good thing. But not trusting the police is very far from fighting for the overthrow of capitalism. The concept of incrementally moving people towards communism seems stilted, at best and self-defeating.

And Trotskyists don't always present maximal, dichotomous demands, but we saw so much focus on "the movement" in the sixties and it lead to shit. The SWP (US) was deeply involved in the peace movement "bring our boys home" (begging the question of whose boys the US armed forces were) -- they recruited a bunch, but ultimately they became an uninfluential pressure group on the Democratic Party. And they abandoned revolutionary politics in the process. Formally, on paper, they had a Trotskyist program (with some major deviations), but what they were really about was mucking around in the rad-lib milieu, tailing whatever was going on.It seems to me that you're suggesting that Marxists should not be involved in these movements, because non-Marxists are involved. How does that make sense?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I'm not sure what you're asking for here. The SWP(UK) supported the Iranian workers and opposed the mullahs and continues to do so.
You document that at the time of the Mullahs taking power in Iran (dating from late 1978), the SWP was not cheerleading the "Iranian Revolution" -- quote from the paper -- better yet, show us the headlines. I'm sure you can find some mealy-mouthed criticism of the mullahs.

And to clarify, I was commenting on the invitation to join section of the paper. Yes, they do manage to write about overthrowing capitalism in other parts --
Here it is, from the JOIN THE SWP tab on their website:


We want you to join the SWP
The SWP is an activist organisation, involved in a broad range of campaigns, including the Stop the War Coalition and Unite Against Fascism. If you agree with the things that we stand for then please join us by filling in the form below.
More information If you are not sure you want to join yet we can send you more information and tell you what the SWP is doing in your area.



Join the SWP Unlike most organisations we are funded by our members alone. Your regular membership subscription will enable us to continue our proud tradition of building a socialist organisation within the movement.


Sounds like the movement stands above the party. And even in other sections where they do get around to talking about overthrowing capitalism, it sounds like they want be advisors to, and this is a repeating theme, the movement.



A revolutionary party is necessary to strengthen the movement, organise people within it and aid them in developing the ideas and strategies that can overthrow capitalism entirely.
(emphasis added)

A revolutionary party is necessary to make a revolution comrade. Not to strengthen a movement and "help" them in developing ideas which might somehow lead to overthrowing capitalism. What the heck is that besides a statement that the movement is the primary thing -- movements not LED by Leninst Parties don't succeed at overthrowing capitalism --that is the point.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

It seems to me that you're suggesting that Marxists should not be involved in these movements, because non-Marxists are involved. How does that make sense?

No, the difference is that Marxists should participate in movements with the idea of leading them. Sure, if you can be involved and do some linear recruiting, fine. No one is born a Marxist. But when this becomes the main agenda -- being left-advisors to reform movements, it goes nowhere, ever. Marxists recruit on the program of Revolutionary Socialism and focus on building the leadership for the proletarian revolution. Although the SWPers would adamantly deny it, I do not think they bring the program of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky into these movements. I grew up with this shit in the US. Reformist left groups tailing the peace movement in the US. The war ended and so did the peace movement and very little if anything was gained.

[Hit The North]

mealy-mouthed criticism


You said it, buster. "Mealy-mouthed criticism" perfectly sums up your interpretation of the SWP texts.


Sounds like the movement stands above the party. Well, perhaps they are a little more circumspect about their role than many other and much smaller revolutionary "parties". But of course, the movement is the class and the class does stand above the party.


A revolutionary party is necessary to make a revolution comrade.
Necessary but not sufficient. As Marx remarks, the revolution must be the act of the working class, imposing itself as a class. But I note that in your casting of the relationship between the party and the class, you sound like some kind of Stalinoid.

That aside, how about you stop guffing and get to proving that the SWP is a reformist organisation. I know you want to, but it seems that you can't.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

You said it, buster. "Mealy-mouthed criticism" perfectly sums up your interpretation of the SWP texts.

Well, perhaps they are a little more circumspect about their role than many other and much smaller revolutionary "parties". But of course, the movement is the class and the class does stand above the party.

Necessary but not sufficient. As Marx remarks, the revolution must be the act of the working class, imposing itself as a class. But I note that in your casting of the relationship between the party and the class, you sound like some kind of Stalinoid.

That aside, how about you stop guffing and get to proving that the SWP is a reformist organisation. I know you want to, but it seems that you can't.

Circumspect, yeah that's it.

Which movement is the class, comrade?

I am wounded that you extract 3 word quotes and make snarky comments. No where will it be written in the documents of the SWP "We are a reformist organization" -- Duh. They behave like one. Their co-thinkers in the US, with whom I am more intimately familiar, have supported pro-capitalist politicians such as Ralph Nader. I don't suppose the SWP UK ever does anything like that. Also, it would appear from your press that you support striking prison guards -- boy is that the wrong side of the class line, comrade. If I can stomach it I will dredge up more stuff. Of course, we read the same thing and view it differently.

Prove that the SWP is revolutionary comrade. Show me where they swim against the rad-lib milieu they muck around in. And risk alienating liberals and social dems.

I asked you for evidence that the SWP did not support Khomeni's ascent to power. Wait, I tell you what, I'll find something the proves that they did, since you won't.

BTW, it is the party that makes it possible for the proletariat to expresses it self as a class by making a revolution.

"In this period, the crisis of mankind can be reduced to the crisis of revolutionary leadership." Leon Trotsky

[Tim Finnegan]

That aside, how about you stop guffing and get to proving that the SWP is a reformist organisation. I know you want to, but it seems that you can't.
Is that something that one can prove one way or the other, as if it was something that can actually be demonstrated as a material fact? Seems to me that one can only present an interpretation of greater or lesser coherence, and given that both you and Lev have made it fairly clearly that you're avowed partisans of two contrary interpretations, I'm not really sure what you expect from each other.

[Rafiq]

This is so fucking stupid that it hurts to even read.

First of all, a lot of real Marxist-Leninists don't even know anything about military stuff, especially the Soviet military. For example, if you ask me to a name a military gun, I would only be able to say RPG. If you ask me what it does, I would not be able to tell you. I know more about collectivization and Albanian cultural policies under Hoxha than I do about Soviet tanks (which I don't know anything about).

My! You're so structured in your Marxist theoretical base (If any), since, instead of having excessive knowledge over one useless, and nonMarxian fetish, you adhere to another (Hoxha)!


Second of all, Soviet military might is not what impresses me about the Stalin era, it is the Soviet construction of socialism that impresses me.

Is this what you believe unconsciously? I doubt it. I can predict, you do indeed, deep down, adhere to this great man nonsense. The fact you would attribute Stalin, as a hero in Bourgeois terms is beyond evidence of your AntiMarxism.


Again, I know almost nothing about the Soviet military.


Oh, how theoretically distinguished you are! You pay no attention to tankie nonsense, you're an expert about the ways in which Hoxha wiped his ass!



Thirdly, we love communism (we believe in Marxism)

Mega facepalm.

To love communism is Utopianism. No one should "Love" communism, Communism is shit, it's just less shit then capitalism, perhaps. And then you continue with "We believe in Marxism". You cannot "Believe" in Marxism. It's not the same as Hoxhaist faith. Marxism and Communism are two, very different things. You cannot form some kind of re assuring Ideological bond between them, throw them into the dumpster, to the side, and whenever the subject comes up go "Well, besides all of my Nationalist rhetoric, I still like that Marxism/Communism whatever stuff". It's ludicrous.


because . . . we come to believe in it through learning. We don't look at pictures of Soviet tanks and go, " Ohhhh, let me become a communist for Stalin!!!!!" There are many American and Nazi tanks for people who like that, stupid.

But the difference, in your case, is that "Communism sounds cool", so of course, it would be vital for you to look at the "Communist tanks" and have an orgasm.



Fourthly, we don't care about the Soviet Union giving Ameica "a run for its money". Brezhnevites and other related revisionists do. A Brezhnevite: "Yeah!!! Soviet mines blowing up a few Afghan children!!!! That is standing against American imperialism!!!!!!"

You sound like TVM, it's laughable. As if you're any better. I supposed a Hoxhaite would say "Yeah!!! Afghan Muj scum marrying off little girls to old men, and prostituting young children!!!! That is standing against Social Imperialism!!!!!!!"


A "Stalinist": "Ummm, that's social imperialism and is still bad." And this ties in with this other stupid statement you made:


You mean a "Hoxhaist": "Umm, Enver hoxha didn't agree, therefore it's bad".


Marxism-Leninism isn't about the Soviet Union going against the United States and we would have opposed any war between the two states.

Before 1953, of course (More inconsistency).


Proletarian revolution was the only way to bring down the American ruling class, not war with the Soviet Union.


Proletarian revolution, so long as those proletarians are doing it in the interests of Hoxha and the opportunists.

[Rafiq]

Honestly, the maturity of a lot of users..

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

My! You're so structured in your Marxist theoretical base (If any), since, instead of having excessive knowledge over one useless, and nonMarxian fetish, you adhere to another (Hoxha)!



Is this what you believe unconsciously? I doubt it. I can predict, you do indeed, deep down, adhere to this great man nonsense. The fact you would attribute Stalin, as a hero in Bourgeois terms is beyond evidence of your AntiMarxism.



Oh, how theoretically distinguished you are! You pay no attention to tankie nonsense, you're an expert about the ways in which Hoxha wiped his ass!




Mega facepalm.

To love communism is Utopianism. No one should "Love" communism, Communism is shit, it's just less shit then capitalism, perhaps. And then you continue with "We believe in Marxism". You cannot "Believe" in Marxism. It's not the same as Hoxhaist faith. Marxism and Communism are two, very different things. You cannot form some kind of re assuring Ideological bond between them, throw them into the dumpster, to the side, and whenever the subject comes up go "Well, besides all of my Nationalist rhetoric, I still like that Marxism/Communism whatever stuff". It's ludicrous.



But the difference, in your case, is that "Communism sounds cool", so of course, it would be vital for you to look at the "Communist tanks" and have an orgasm.




You sound like TVM, it's laughable. As if you're any better. I supposed a Hoxhaite would say "Yeah!!! Afghan Muj scum marrying off little girls to old men, and prostituting young children!!!! That is standing against Social Imperialism!!!!!!!"



You mean a "Hoxhaist": "Umm, Enver hoxha didn't agree, therefore it's bad".



Before 1953, of course (More inconsistency).



Proletarian revolution, so long as those proletarians are doing it in the interests of Hoxha and the opportunists.

LOL. Thanks for the laughs.

P.S. I wrote the word love by accident. I don't love communism. Oops.

[Rafiq]

LOL. Thanks for the laughs.

P.S. I wrote the word love by accident. I don't love communism. Oops.

An accident? I beg to differ. I'd hardly consider it a typo, at the very least.

Perhaps it's just a clear demonstration of your blindly motivated ramblings. Not even the most self righteous of Hoxhaists here on this forum display such obscure and bizarre tactics in regards to a discussion. When you've been shown it's ridiculousness, then, of course, it becomes an 'accident'.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

An accident? I beg to differ. I'd hardly consider it a typo, at the very least.

Perhaps it's just a clear demonstration of your blindly motivated ramblings. Not even the most self righteous of Hoxhaists here on this forum display such obscure and bizarre tactics in regards to a discussion. When you've been shown it's ridiculousness, then, of course, it becomes an 'accident'.

It's all because I believe in this:
http://images1.makefive.com/images/experiences/other/most-disgusting-kinds-of-poop/bird-poop-7.jpg

So this is what happens to me:
http://www.guzer.com/pictures/bird_poop_kid.jpg

[Lucretia]

No, the difference is that Marxists should participate in movements with the idea of leading them.

Ok, so then what do you do when your group of 40 ultra-educated Trotskyist purists can't lead the 50,000 strong peace movement? Do you literally just show up and tell them that the peace movement is a waste of time, and to embrace Marxism instead? Or do you work alongside these ghastly reformist liberals by fighting to end the war?

[The Machine]

Boy, you read some trash. Here's from the blurb on Amazon:



A lovely bourgeois tale of individual struggle against the evil commies.

hahaha yeah dude this is why moonbats shouldn't read or talk about books that arent written by dead communists. the book really isn't very political or about bourgeois individualism or whatever, it's mainly about how Sayrafiezadeh got abandoned by his dad and his relationship with his mom growing up. the policies of the SWP, including sweeping his rape under the rug because "In capitalism everyone has problems", the "Turn to Industry" which is an effective vow of poverty for his single mother, and as well his mothers loneliness due to devoting her life to the party, are only really touched on when it comes to how it affected his personal life. the only comment he makes on actual communist politics in the book is that he feels inadequate because he can't keep up with his fathers politics.
of course, you wouldn't know any of that because you're an ideologue who bases your opinion on entire books on a 3 line blurb on amazon.com

[The Machine]

Lol, it's the struggle that "teaches workers how to struggle" that's the whole idea behind engaging in struggles that might be initially be limited in scope but could develop and radicalize further. Struggle teaches people how to organize, teaches people which side other forces are on and gives people confidence to demand and fight for more. But people are influenced both by their own experiences and the ideas out there and so it's important that radicals IMO are arguing in and alongside some movements. At the begining of Occupy Oakland, only the radical left thought that the police couldn't be trusted - that changed not because anarchists had "FTP" banners or socialists had pamphlets about the police alone, but because people experienced the police lieing to them and misrepresenting them and attacking them and then the arguments of anarchists and socialists were useful to people because our explanation made more sense than the liberal "bad apples" arguments.

Sure then radicals in movements try and argue what they see as the best way forward - how is that more paternalistic than an independent activist arguing his/her viewpoint or a liberal arguing there's? Workers aren't pre-programed with some inherent "proletarian logic" everyone makes their decisions based on their own experience and the information they have at hand - it's strangely fetishistic to argue that a worker who has an idea is legitimate unless he came to that idea from reading the argument by a radical or if that worker becomes a radical and organizes with other workers, suddenly his/her ideas are illegitimate and paternalistic.

it's paternalistic because trots are vanguardists. the whole idea of fighting for reforms as sort of a revolutionary scrimmage is kind of lame and at best opportunistic, but when you add in the a vanguard it becomes straight up patronizing. basically it's up to the self appointed enlightened few to guide the rest of the ignorant masses in the theoretically correct direction or some shit.
to address your other point, i don't think we're much closer to communism now than we were 100 years ago. obviously you cant really oppose the 8 hour workday or the civil rights act, but just because they were progressive reforms doesn't mean that they struck a blow against capitalism.

[Lucretia]

it's paternalistic because trots are vanguardists. the whole idea of fighting for reforms as sort of a revolutionary scrimmage is kind of lame and at best opportunistic, but when you add in the a vanguard it becomes straight up patronizing. basically it's up to the self appointed enlightened few to guide the rest of the ignorant masses in the theoretically correct direction or some shit.
to address your other point, i don't think we're much closer to communism now than we were 100 years ago. obviously you cant really oppose the 8 hour workday or the civil rights act, but just because they were progressive reforms doesn't mean that they struck a blow against capitalism.

What do you have against the concept of a vanguard -- a group who are more forward thinking than others? You do accept that some people have a better conception of how to improve society than others, right? Or are you one of those postmodern anarchist types who think that all truth claims, including science, are just institutions through which power operates?

[Jimmie Higgins]

it's paternalistic because trots are vanguardists.It's elitist because labels make reality conform to your conception of these labels?


the whole idea of fighting for reforms as sort of a revolutionary scrimmage is kind of lame and at best opportunistic, but when you add in the a vanguard it becomes straight up patronizing. basically it's up to the self appointed enlightened few to guide the rest of the ignorant masses in the theoretically correct direction or some shit.But why should I listen to you, the enlightened one who thinks they know what is best for me and the class and the movement?

In other words, we all have ideas and opinions and thoughts about what will help our class win liberation for themselves and ultimately humanity... a vanguard-party in it's most basic form only suggests that the people who are thinking about these things and engaged in the class struggle should organize together to focus their actions and pool their knowledge. Have there been top-down and elitist so-called vanguardist parties? Hell yes, and most of that has to do with a sort of cold-war politics that had nothing to do with trying to organize organic fighters in the class struggle for self-liberation, rather to serve as defenders of this or that "socialist" country.

Then again, almost all mass-parties are top-down with passive memberships and even decentralized affinity groups can be political cults around some charismatic activist.

There's a fetisization of organization and the concept of the vanguard that's equal to both supporters and detractors of this form of organizing. Some Leninist group of a dozen people might call themselves a vanguard, some large party might declare itself a vanguard as somehow proof of the "purity" of their theory or whatnot, but that's giving this word and concept more power than it actually has. Detractors sometimes believe that any "vanguard" is inherently some illegitimate CP-like top-down elitists, and again, this is fetishizing a term and kind of organizing. But really this is just a mode of organizing and idea about how revolutionaries can organize themselves to best relate to the class struggle.


to address your other point, i don't think we're much closer to communism now than we were 100 years ago. obviously you cant really oppose the 8 hour workday or the civil rights act, but just because they were progressive reforms doesn't mean that they struck a blow against capitalism.History is not some straight line. Struggle has a dynamic to it and the point of reforms that are valuable IMO is not to "strike a blow" because, hell, something Chinese capital does could "strike a blow" to European or US capital. The point is what helps create more favorable conditions for working class fight-back and independent organizing. As I said, ending Jim-Crow allows us now to potentially have an easier time breaking the grip of racism on white workers (and the effects on) black workers in the US south - a place where workers have no trade-union protections like in the north (a result of past struggles). Jim Crow would be a double-weight on the class struggle, with even weak legal protections, it makes it much easier for workers to fight against racist and anti-worker policies at the job or in society in general. Of course bourgeois rights for workers are only as strong as the last battle and as strong as the class is able to defend these rights - but to say it makes absolutely no difference to class forces is just crazy IMO.

Struggle and revolutionary periods come in waves - if workers fail to make fundamental change, then any gains are pushed back, but it's this process of struggle that radicalizes workers and makes revolutionary ideas and poltics relevant - and without these struggles, without the working class learning how to flex it's own mussels, there can be no conscious working class revolution. Also the fact that struggle goes in waves is an argument in favor of revolutionary parties - dedicated revolutionaries who are organized to always advocate revolution while navigating the ups and downs of struggles - this way potentially lessons learned in the last movement can be carried forward and picked up by the next movement (if these ideas make sense and are useful to them).

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

...who sometimes claims to be a socialist.

See, that's the thing, Trotskyists are Socialists, while most people here are communists or anarchists.

[Jimmie Higgins]

See, that's the thing, Trotskyists are Socialists, while most people here are communists or anarchists.Well then if M-L's call themselves communists and say that the USSR was heading towards communism or was communism, then I guess they must be right since their name says so. Since anarchists call themselves anarchists, they must be opposed to communism since they don't call themselves communists.:rolleyes:

Yes I am a socialist - I think that workers need to expropriate the expropriators, destroy the capitalist state and institute their own democratic rule over society (Socialism) so that communism can be achieved.

Don't get caught up in names and labels.

[Tim Finnegan]

What do you have against the concept of a vanguard -- a group who are more forward thinking than others?
Yes, the idea of someone's "forward-thinking" being at all relevant to the struggle of the working class is exactly what he have against the concept of a vanguard.

If you want to argue that some workers are going to be better organised, than in some regions or sectors the working class is going to be more strongly recomposed, is going to have a better sense of itself, then I would agree entirely, that's just good sense, but when the jump is made to arguing that some specific gaggle of intellectuals are entitled to occupy a position of leadership because they are uniquely possessed of The Correct Line, you're going to lose a lot of people.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Ok, so then what do you do when your group of 40 ultra-educated Trotskyist purists can't lead the 50,000 strong peace movement? Do you literally just show up and tell them that the peace movement is a waste of time, and to embrace Marxism instead? Or do you work alongside these ghastly reformist liberals by fighting to end the war?

Not exactly. You do say that the way to meaningful peace is socialist revolution, that the Democratic party is historically the party of war in the US. I saw it work reasonably well during the tail end of the antiwar movement in the US -- You use the opportunity to meet and propagandize people that might be interested in drawing a class line. You carry banners with your forthright positions. In other words, you don't ignore the peace marches, but you don't form endless coalitions and front groups with liberal positions on various issues. And you NEVER bury you communist politics pandering to liberals.

And face it comrade, peace marches do not end wars. This was true of the Viet Nam war and every other war.


"I would gladly trade all of the peace marches for one docker's strike against the war."
Isaac Deutscher, 1965

If there was an organization like SDS, circa 1967, revolutionary youth would be in it -- major work should be done there. PL squandered a large number of subjectively revolutionary youths after their somewhat successful entry into SDS.

It is frustrating -- the miniscule size of the revolutionary left. And I don't have a great deal of optimism going forward. But I do think the best chance is to build strong revolutionary organizations that can grow and develop when the political winds begin to change.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Well then if M-L's call themselves communists and say that the USSR was heading towards communism or was communism, then I guess they must be right since their name says so. Since anarchists call themselves anarchists, they must be opposed to communism since they don't call themselves communists.:rolleyes:

Yes I am a socialist - I think that workers need to expropriate the expropriators, destroy the capitalist state and institute their own democratic rule over society (Socialism) so that communism can be achieved.

Don't get caught up in names and labels.
Okay but let's go one better -- I am not about to abandon the term "communist" to Stalinists any more than I am inclined to abandon the word socialist to any number of reformist Socialist parties. Trotskyists ARE communists. We follow Marx, Lenin, Trotsky. Of course I part ways with Comrade Higgins over the class nature of the Soviet Union. But that is a discussion for another thread at another time

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Yes, the idea of someone's "forward-thinking" being at all relevant to the struggle of the working class is exactly what he have against the concept of a vanguard.

If you want to argue that some workers are going to be better organised, than in some regions or sectors the working class is going to be more strongly recomposed, is going to have a better sense of itself, then I would agree entirely, that's just good sense, but when the jump is made to arguing that some specific gaggle of intellectuals are entitled to occupy a position of leadership because they are uniquely possessed of The Correct Line, you're going to lose a lot of people.
No one is "entitled" to anything. If you study the history of the left, it becomes fairly clear that the lack of a well organized vanguard party leads to defeat. The only country where a large, well organized vanguard emerged was Russia. It is the reason the Russian Revolution was able to overthrow capitalism/feudalism. So we look to the successful models and try to extrapolate. Certainly there are almost infinite examples of situations where there was not vanguard party to lead (or the vanguard was so small it could not) -- they all turned out badly.

So it is not paternalistic -- it is not entitled. It is a necessary tool to overthrow capitalism. Sadly, there seems to be no short-cut.

[Jimmie Higgins]

If you want to argue that some workers are going to be better organised, than in some regions or sectors the working class is going to be more strongly recomposed, is going to have a better sense of itself, then I would agree entirely, that's just good sense, but when the jump is made to arguing that some specific gaggle of intellectuals are entitled to occupy a position of leadership because they are uniquely possessed of The Correct Line, you're going to lose a lot of people.

Yes if some group of workers or intellectuals declared themselves or felt that their ideas made them the vanguard of the class, then that would be elitist - and also a gross misunderstanding and misuse of the concept. This is a straw-man form of "vanguard" - but unfortunately a straw man that has actually existed too often on the Left.

[Lucretia]

Yes, the idea of someone's "forward-thinking" being at all relevant to the struggle of the working class is exactly what he have against the concept of a vanguard.

If you want to argue that some workers are going to be better organised, than in some regions or sectors the working class is going to be more strongly recomposed, is going to have a better sense of itself, then I would agree entirely, that's just good sense, but when the jump is made to arguing that some specific gaggle of intellectuals are entitled to occupy a position of leadership because they are uniquely possessed of The Correct Line, you're going to lose a lot of people.

If the people who are the better organizers and the more visionary thinkers aren't "entitled" to leadership, then who is? The laziest and dumbest? As Occupy shows, every movement has leaders whether it likes or not. So the question really isn't whether to have a leadership or not, the question is, who should lead?

[Tim Finnegan]

The leadership, as Luxemburg observed, is only an authentic leadership if it emerges organically from the class-in-struggle, it can't be helicoptered in from outside and dropped onto the class fully-formed. Given that the greater majority of leftist sects are at best peripheral to the class struggle, are fabricated outside of it by intellectuals and entering into it in a concious, ideological act, it seems nothing short of wholly misguided to imagine that they are capable, let alone suitable, to occupy a position of leadership. (Even if, I'll concede by way of diplomacy, some members of those organisations might prove to be "leadership material" in the context of an authentic working class organisation.)

[Lucretia]

The leadership, as Luxemburg observed, is only an authentic leadership if it emerges organically from the class-in-struggle, it can't be helicoptered in from outside and dropped onto the class fully-formed. Given that the greater majority of leftist sects are at best peripheral to the class struggle, are fabricated outside of it by intellectuals and entering into it in a concious, ideological act, it seems nothing short of wholly misguided to imagine that they are capable, let alone suitable, to occupy a position of leadership. (Even if, I'll concede by way of diplomacy, some members of those organisations might prove to be "leadership material" in the context of an authentic working class organisation.)

Now you're talking about how it becomes clear a particular group are the most visionary, effective, etc. That is a separate question to the one we were originally discussing, which is whether or not certain people in a movement are entitled to leadership by virtue of their abilities and dedication. I agree that a vanguard doesn't simply proclaim itself into existence. It happens through struggle.

[L.A.P.]

Despite postmodernism having been around long before anyone had even heard of Mao.

Ummm, yeah. That's utter bullshit.

Nice try, though

[Tim Finnegan]

Now you're talking about how it becomes clear a particular group are the most visionary, effective, etc. That is a separate question to the one we were originally discussing, which is whether or not certain people in a movement are entitled to leadership by virtue of their abilities and dedication. I agree that a vanguard doesn't simply proclaim itself into existence. It happens through struggle.
I don't even think that it's a case of having to demonstrate that a given group is "most visionary" or "most effective", because that still rests on the assumption that there is a right to leadership, that there will be some group or groups that the proletariat is obliged to chose to lead it, and that it's simply a case of deciding who possesses that right. To me, that is ridiculous. "Leadership" is a purely functional category, it has no special qualities apart from the working class. It simply represents whoever or whatever is most capable of providing some sort of coherent programmatic direction, and that can and will change as circumstances demand it. It has no particular qualifications, it implies no particular form, and those fulfilling that role have nothing in themselves which makes them a "leadership" beyond their concrete relationship to the class-for-itself. The class struggle isn't necessary because it serves as a proving ground for whatever enlightened sects want to joust for the crown, it's necessary because only through the class struggle can a class-for-itself actually emerge, and only with the emergence of a class-for-itself can the coherent programs which are the actual content of the "leadership" be developed.

[Lucretia]

I don't even think that it's a case of having to demonstrate that a given group is "most visionary" or "most effective", because that still rests on the assumption that there is a right to leadership, that there will be some group or groups that the proletariat is obliged to chose to lead it, and that it's simply a case of deciding who possesses that right. To me, that is ridiculous. "Leadership" is a purely functional category, it has no special qualities apart from the working class. It simply represents whoever or whatever is most capable of providing some sort of coherent programmatic direction, and that can and will change as circumstances demand it. It has no particular qualifications, it implies no particular form, and those fulfilling that role have nothing in themselves which makes them a "leadership" beyond their concrete relationship to the class-for-itself. The class struggle isn't necessary because it serves as a proving ground for whatever enlightened sects want to joust for the crown, it's necessary because only through the class struggle can a class-for-itself actually emerge, and only with the emergence of a class-for-itself can the coherent programs which are the actual content of the "leadership" be developed.

I think you are confusing "right" with "divine right" or some other bizarre transcendental metaphysical conception of rights. People who have the clearest vision of socialist liberation and how to bring it about, and are the most effective at bringing that about, should lead. Of course, if present leaders begin to dawdle or not keep up with the masses, then they shouldn't be in a leadership position any longer. Leadership is clearly not a birthright.You can, however, call these "rights," "normative judgments," statements about "entitlement," or whatever else in order to create as much semantic space between you and a *gasp* Leninist. But when it comes down to it, it really is just a matter of common sense. Who else should lead besides these people? The lazy, the least inspiring, or those who don't understand the obstacles to socialism? To argue against this requires a philosophical commitment against leadership which itself presupposes a view of human nature that makes socialism an impossibility in the first place.

[Tim Finnegan]

Well, the problem we're running into here is that you seem to think that social revolution is an act of wilful construction, something in which "vision" plays any significant role, and as I said previously I reject that quite entirely. Revolution is class struggle in its terminal phase, an explosion (and exploding) of the antagonisms of class society, it isn't an intellectual project for which those antagonisms simply serve as an opportunity. The leadership must be born from struggle because it cannot exist outside of struggle, so it doesn't matter how energetic, visionary or inspired you may be, how much of Lenin you may have read or how many paper's you've sold, if you do not actually express the self-organisation of the working class as a class-for-itself.

[Lucretia]

Well, the problem we're running into here is that you seem to think that social revolution is an act of wilful construction, something in which "vision" plays any significant role, and as I said previously I reject that quite entirely. Revolution is class struggle in its terminal phase, an explosion (and exploding) of the antagonisms of class society, it isn't an intellectual project for which those antagonisms simply serve as an opportunity. The leadership must be born from struggle because it cannot exist outside of struggle, so it doesn't matter how energetic, visionary or inspired you may be, how much of Lenin you may have read or how many paper's you've sold, if you do not actually express the self-organisation of the working class as a class-for-itself.

Yes, I do believe agency plays a significant role in making a revolution, and that revolutions don't just happen on their own. Revolutionary opportunities might, but not revolutions. The rest of your post is just a cliche about how workers need to be active participants in the revolution. No kidding -- activity and agency are important after all. As for your poopooing of ideas, I don't really know how to respond. Perhaps I should burn my copy of Das Kapital since good ideas seem to be irrelevant in your formulation? A socialist revolution requires the right actions being undertaken by the great majority of the people, which requires people to be convinced to take those actions. It seems far fetched to believe that the vast majority of people will wake up as socialists one morning without a highly active and persuasive group trying to convince them that this is the case. But according to you, these are "intellectual standing outside of the movement." Spontaneity, actions stripped of carefully formulated theoretical conceptions about how to understand what is going on, will only get you so far, as the occupy movement is demonstrating quite clearly.

[Tim Finnegan]

Yes, I do believe agency plays a significant role in making a revolution, and that revolutions don't just happen on their own. Revolutionary opportunities might, but not revolutions. The rest of your post is just a cliche about how workers need to be active participants in the revolution. No kidding -- activity and agency are important after all. As for your poopooing of ideas, I don't really know how to respond. Perhaps I should burn my copy of Das Kapital since good ideas seem to be irrelevant in your formulation? A socialist revolution requires the right actions being undertaken by the great majority of the people, which requires people to be convinced to take those actions. It seems far fetched to believe that the vast majority of people will wake up as socialists one morning without a highly active and persuasive group trying to convince them that this is the case. But according to you, these are "intellectual standing outside of the movement." Spontaneity, actions stripped of carefully formulated theoretical conceptions about how to understand what is going on, will only get you so far, as the occupy movement is demonstrating quite clearly.
You're misunderstanding me pretty completely. I'm not saying that agency, theory or ideas aren't important- they are, crucially so- I'm saying that they aren't what drives social conflict. The working class doesn't struggle against the bourgeoisie because it actively desires socialism, but because it is compelled to do so by its material circumstances, because the alternative to struggle is suffering, exploitation and degradation. Theory can aid in that, yes, can provide effective critiques of the bourgeois order and some clarity of thought in formulating programs, but it does not drive the exploding of class struggle, it is not the engine of revolution any more than a car is propelled by a road atlas. Germany 1914 proved that no matter how many people are avowed socialists, it doesn't mean a damn thing if they aren't actually engaged in militant class struggle, and France 1968 proved that no how feeble socialist dogmas may be, the working class has the potential to, at the very least, lay a blow squarely on the nose of capital.

Certainly, it's pretty feeble analysis of the Occupy movement that identifies its shortcomings as a lack of theory. Never mind the fact that the American working class is profoundly decomposed, never mind that this is the first time bourgeois hegemony is being coherently challenged in decades, never mind the fact that an authentic movement of the working class hasn't existed in the United States since the 1930s, no, they just need to Read Some Lenin, and the problem of organisation shall part before them like the Red Sea, precisely as it has, uh, completely failed to do for every leftist organisation of the past sixty years.

There are, to put it simply, different levels of abstract that you need to work at, and proclaiming the dawn of socialism to be the day on which 50%+1 of the population becomes convinced that socialism would be a desirable thing is just as reductionistic as proclaiming it to be a simple product of impersonal economic and technological forces. Agency makes no sense without structure, and structure makes no sense without agency; both are crucial to understanding the other, and both are crucial to understanding class struggle and revolution.

[Lucretia]

You're misunderstanding me pretty completely. I'm not saying that agency, theory or ideas aren't important- they are, crucially so- I'm saying that they aren't what drives social conflict. The working class doesn't struggle against the bourgeoisie because it actively desires socialism, but because it is compelled to do so by its material circumstances, because the alternative to struggle is suffering, exploitation and degradation. Theory can aid in that, yes, can provide effective critiques of the bourgeois order and some clarity of thought in formulating programs, but it does not drive the exploding of class struggle, it is not the engine of revolution any more than a car is propelled by a road atlas. Germany 1914 proved that no matter how many people are avowed socialists, it doesn't mean a damn thing if they aren't actually engaged in militant class struggle, and France 1968 proved that no how feeble socialist dogmas may be, the working class has the potential to, at the very least, lay a blow squarely on the nose of capital.

Certainly, it's pretty feeble analysis of the Occupy movement that identifies its shortcomings as a lack of theory. Never mind the fact that the American working class is profoundly decomposed, never mind that this is the first time bourgeois hegemony is being coherently challenged in decades, never mind the fact that an authentic movement of the working class hasn't existed in the United States since the 1930s, no, they just need to Read Some Lenin, and the problem of organisation shall part before them like the Red Sea, precisely as it has, uh, completely failed to do for every leftist organisation of the past sixty years.

There are, to put it simply, different levels of abstract that you need to work at, and proclaiming the dawn of socialism to be the day on which 50%+1 of the population becomes convinced that socialism would be a desirable thing is just as reductionistic as proclaiming it to be a simple product of impersonal economic and technological forces. Agency makes no sense without structure, and structure makes no sense without agency; both are crucial to understanding the other, and both are crucial to understanding class struggle and revolution.

I am not really sure I see where there is an area of disagreement between us, so maybe you can clarify. We both agree that there is going to be a vanguard in the revolutionary struggle for socialism, and that this vanguard doesn't simply call itself a vanguard, but actually proves it through its deeds, by which it wins the confidence of its class. We both agree that this vanguard is necessary because consciousness is uneven within classes, and because otherwise the leadership vacuum will be filled by people who will retard the revolutionary process. So again, where is the point of contention here? I get the sense that we're pretty much talking past each other.

Having said that, I do think it is important to point out something you should keep in mind regarding your statement, "The working class doesn't struggle against the bourgeoisie because it actively desires socialism, but because it is compelled to do so by its material circumstances, because the alternative to struggle is suffering, exploitation and degradation." At one level of abstraction, your point is true. The class struggle takes place whether people are class consciousness, whether they know what their long-term class interests are, whether they are a part of a class-for-itself, or not. It takes place because people, as individuals, feel the pinch of exploitation and logically work to make their lives better in the face of it.

But there is another level of abstraction here, which is exactly how workers choose to struggle. And this is where consciousness, revolutionary agitation, and a vanguard come into play in shaping the working class's response to the class struggle. Without a revolutionary consciousness, most workers -- the nonvanguard without the most clearly formed sense of class consciousness -- will be content to struggle for reforms within the existing system, and not necessarily connect those reforms to the root of what is causing their grievances -- class society. This struggle for reforms is certainly a form of class struggle, but it's not a form of revolutionary struggle. For the struggle for reforms does not magically or spontaneously transform itself into the struggle for state power, and capitalism is eminently flexible in the types of reforms it will accommodate so long as its basic functions remain intact.

And this is where, ironically enough in light of your allegiance to her, the writings of Luxemburg come into play. Particularly her Reform or Revolution. The struggle for reforms is not necessarily anti-thetical to the struggle for revolution. It's the subjective element -- how those reforms are interpreted, perceived, and fought for -- which decides their relationship to any revolutionary project. This is where ideas are important. And it's also what makes ever so important the leadership of a vanguard that is capable of presenting the clearest and most effective vision on the link between reforms and socialist revolution.