Mass Party vs Vanguard party [Archive]

Peoples' War

13th September 2012, 00:01

I have been engaged in discourse with a comrade on the issue of what sort of party should we communists, the class conscious proletariat, be looking to form for the participation in the class struggle.

As a Leninist, and after reading up on the histories of these "mass labour" parties, the SPD, RSDLP, New Labour, NDP of Canada, etc. I can safely say I am 100% only for the unification of class conscious communist workers under a vanguard party. I refuse, at any point, to participate in a party with those who would capitulate to capital, the social revolution. It's abhorrent, to think that a working class can be "won over" to communism, by simply "allying" with the petty bourgeois, and reformist characters of these "labour" parties.

Time and time again, these parties have proven to hinder the growth of communist workers class consciousness, and replace it with belief in the possibility of peacefully changing the system through parliamentary law.

Only through a party of class conscious communist workers can the revolution be guided and led. Not by some mash-up of communists, reformists and others opposed to social revolution. This point also brings me to another idea, that should the reformists not be won over at the point of a revolutionary situation, we communists can just split off and form our own USPD, just like the renegade Kautsky! We seen how that worked out, utter failure, and utter disaster especially considering the revisionism of Kautsky and his USPD capitulation to the SPD and allowing of the rise of fascists in Germany.

Can you imagine Russia, had the RSDLP maintained itself as a mass party, as the Kautskyites would have? There would never have been a February, let alone October!

Never, I say, never should the class conscious worker, the communist vanguard work with reformists and revisionists. Never will we allow a revolution to be stymied or hindered by those who wish to capitulate to capital.

No to the Kautskyite mass party!

leftistman

13th September 2012, 01:37

Something else that must be known about these social-democratic parties is their dishonesty. During the 2011 Canadian federal election, a crucial aspect of the NDP's campaign was their promise to end Canada's involvement in the Afghanistan War, yet Jack Layton(party leader at the time) voted to extend Canada's involvement to 2014. That was just one example.

I disagree with you, however, on how I believe the revolution should be carried out. I'm against the creation of a single-party state afterwards. Giving that much power to such a small group of people is just dangerous and it will just create bureaucracies that are only interested in extended their wealth and power to the greatest achievable extend. The Soviet Union and their imperialism is all the evidence I need. You can look at other countries such as North Korea and China for more evidence.

Yuppie Grinder

13th September 2012, 01:57

Those things are not necessarily at odds with each other at all.

leftistman

13th September 2012, 02:13

Those things are not necessarily at odds with each other at all.
Elaborate.

Brosa Luxemburg

13th September 2012, 02:19

The vanguard party can contain a majority of the proletariat and be a mass party or contain a minority of the proletariat and be a minority party. The vanguard party is simply a restrictive party meant only for the most class conscious and revolutionary. Taking this into consideration, in times of high class consciousness and revolutionary vigor the party will be a mass party while in times of low class consciousness and revolutionary vigor the party will be a minority party.

Yuppie Grinder

13th September 2012, 02:31

Elaborate.

I'm to tired to dig for quotes right now but assuming you haven't already you really should do yourself a favor and read State and Revolution. It's on Marxist Internet Archive.

MustCrushCapitalism

13th September 2012, 03:22

Revoltorb

13th September 2012, 03:33

So instead you support a party of petty-bourgeois intelligentsia who will work against their class interests and bring about socialism? Only a class conscious act of the proletariat will bring about socialism.

I'm not sure where you get this from. A vanguard party, in my understanding, is one wherein the most class conscious proletariat organise and act to try to raise awareness in the "less advanced" workers. All this means is that the vanguard will be a minority until such time as there is a revolutionary situation and the majority support a socialist revolution. Further, a true communist (vanguard) party should be one where all decisions are made by the proletariat members. Individual (petty-)bourgeois people should be able to support and act in solidarity with the party if they believe it to be right regardless of their class interests but should not be allowed part of the decision making process. A worker-only party and a vanguard party are not only not mutually exclusive but in fact one and the same.

ckaihatsu

13th September 2012, 03:49

I'm not sure where you get this from. A vanguard party, in my understanding, is one wherein the most class conscious proletariat organise and act to try to raise awareness in the "less advanced" workers. All this means is that the vanguard will be a minority until such time as there is a revolutionary situation and the majority support a socialist revolution. Further, a true communist (vanguard) party should be one where all decisions are made by the proletariat members. Individual (petty-)bourgeois people should be able to support and act in solidarity with the party if they believe it to be right regardless of their class interests but should not be allowed part of the decision making process. A worker-only party and a vanguard party are not only not mutually exclusive but in fact one and the same.

Now if only that could be accomplished using a kind-of global networked communications medium where such people could interact around these political issues in an ongoing basis, as on a website, maybe....

(8 p

= )

helot

13th September 2012, 03:59

Individual (petty-)bourgeois people should be able to support and act in solidarity with the party if they believe it to be right regardless of their class interests but should not be allowed part of the decision making process. A worker-only party and a vanguard party are not only not mutually exclusive but in fact one and the same.

This i'm quite interested in. Of course i don't support members of the bourgeoisie having any say in a revolutionary organisation (in fact i'd be opposed to welcoming their support) but i don't think any would actually be able to support such an organisation while still being part of the bourgeoisie. I wouldn't have problems with someone who has ceased to be part of the bourgeoisie being active within a revolutionary organisation but i would place a far higher burden of proof for their sincerity than i would if they were always working class.

Revoltorb

13th September 2012, 04:06

This i'm quite interested in. Of course i don't support members of the bourgeoisie having any say in a revolutionary organisation (in fact i'd be opposed to welcoming their support) but i don't think any would actually be able to support such an organisation while still being part of the bourgeoisie. I wouldn't have problems with someone who has ceased to be part of the bourgeoisie being active within a revolutionary organisation but i would place a far higher burden of proof for their sincerity than i would if they were always working class.

I think the best example of this is Marx/Engels who supported communist organising activity and helped in theorising socialist revolution but declined being leaders of a party (I forget which, someone else more knowledgeable than I would have to answer that one). So it is possible but highly unlikely that it will happen.

Workers-Control-Over-Prod

13th September 2012, 04:11

Hailtothethief:
"mass labour" parties, the SPD, RSDLP, New Labour, NDP of Canada, etc.

Comparing bourgeois parties like NDP or New Labor to pre-WW1 SPD or any other anti-class-coalitionist reformist mass party is misleading. Parties like the NDP or New Labor do not (give lip service to) have a Marxist program or build Socialism.

ckaihatsu

13th September 2012, 04:28

This i'm quite interested in. Of course i don't support members of the bourgeoisie having any say in a revolutionary organisation (in fact i'd be opposed to welcoming their support) but i don't think any would actually be able to support such an organisation while still being part of the bourgeoisie. I wouldn't have problems with someone who has ceased to be part of the bourgeoisie being active within a revolutionary organisation but i would place a far higher burden of proof for their sincerity than i would if they were always working class.

This isn't nearly as worrisome as it may initially seem -- given enough revolutionaries in the grouping it would be *very* apparent what political lines and policies were being supported for the most part....

Prometeo liberado

13th September 2012, 04:36

I'm not sure where you get this from. A vanguard party, in my understanding, is one wherein the most class conscious proletariat organize and act to try to raise awareness in the "less advanced" workers. All this means is that the vanguard will be a minority until such time as there is a revolutionary situation and the majority support a socialist revolution. Further, a true communist (vanguard) party should be one where all decisions are made by the proletariat members. Individual (petty-)bourgeois people should be able to support and act in solidarity with the party if they believe it to be right regardless of their class interests but should not be allowed part of the decision making process. A worker-only party and a vanguard party are not only not mutually exclusive but in fact one and the same.

I would only add that if one understands the nature of how the word "vanguard" is used in the Leninist sense it is to be envisioned as a political/military tactic. As in any battle the most seasoned and experienced soldiers, the Vanguard, are placed in the front positions. Shock troops as it were. Meant to soften-up the opposition in preparation for the larger body of troops. In using this analogy one sees more clearly that the Vanguard as simultaneous leaders and part of the larger scheme.

Die Neue Zeit

13th September 2012, 04:52

I won't bother to address the OP, since the poster doesn't know much about the history of mass movements in Germany.

The vanguard party can contain a majority of the proletariat and be a mass party or contain a minority of the proletariat and be a minority party. The vanguard party is simply a restrictive party meant only for the most class conscious and revolutionary. Taking this into consideration, in times of high class consciousness and revolutionary vigor the party will be a mass party while in times of low class consciousness and revolutionary vigor the party will be a minority party.

ll this means is that the vanguard will be a minority until such time as there is a revolutionary situation and the majority support a socialist revolution.

Again, Bordigist folks, that's a chicken-and-egg scenario which is problematic. There will be the temptation for the minority "party" to remain a minority "party" and then "spontaneously" swell in ranks, and history has shown that to be a dead end.

An actual revolutionary period for the working class already presupposes a mass party with an independent, class-strugglist program that commands majority political support from the working class.

Comparing bourgeois parties like NDP or New Labor to pre-WW1 SPD or any other anti-class-coalitionist reformist mass party is misleading. Parties like the NDP or New Labor do not (give lip service to) have a Marxist program or build Socialism.

OK, that time I think I really fed you too much a mouthful. :p ;)

The pre-WWI SPD was in the main an anti-class-coalitionist party up until the late 1900s, with the influx of tred-iunionisty. The reformist part cropped up later.

A more accurate example of "anti-class-coalitionist reformist mass party" would be the JCP or the PCI, neither of which partnered up with bourgeois parties.

Of course, I'm discounting here the problem of municipalism and the left's own ignorance of this...

I think the best example of this is Marx/Engels who supported communist organising activity and helped in theorising socialist revolution but declined being leaders of a party (I forget which, someone else more knowledgeable than I would have to answer that one). So it is possible but highly unlikely that it will happen.

That would be Engels and the pre-war SPD.

Revoltorb

13th September 2012, 05:23

Again, Bordigist folks, that's a chicken-and-egg scenario which is problematic. There will be the temptation for the minority "party" to remain a minority "party" and then "spontaneously" swell in ranks, and history has shown that to be a dead end.

An actual revolutionary period for the working class already presupposes a mass party with an independent, class-strugglist program that commands majority political support from the working class.

I should have phrased that better. By increasing the class consciousness of the other workers, the vanguard party helps precipitate a revolutionary situation thereby allowing a revolution to occur via the mass (previously vanguard) party's actions. I think the party should strive to grow as large as possible and that is one of the main problems facing communists today: growth in membership while maintaining a correct strategic and theoretical line.

That would be Engels and the pre-war SPD.

Thanks, I knew it was one of them just not sure which.

Die Neue Zeit

13th September 2012, 05:38

I should have phrased that better. By increasing the class consciousness of the other workers, the vanguard party helps precipitate a revolutionary situation thereby allowing a revolution to occur via the mass (previously vanguard) party's actions. I think the party should strive to grow as large as possible and that is one of the main problems facing communists today: growth in membership while maintaining a correct strategic and theoretical line.

Therein lies a sectarian problem, too. You should have said "strategic and programmatic line," not "strategic and theoretical line." "Theory" is only good for workers insofar as it relates to political program. The rest ("STATE KAPITALIZM! MATRIARCHAL PRIMITIVE KOMMUNIZM!") is superfluous at best and garbage at worst.

Grenzer

13th September 2012, 06:00

A more accurate example of "anti-class-coalitionist reformist mass party" would be the JCP or the PCI, neither of which partnered up with bourgeois parties.

But, but, but, but the PCI was anti-fascist and according to Bordiga opposing fascism is a pro-bourgeois, counter-revolutionary act!

Therein lies a sectarian problem, too. You should have said "strategic and programmatic line," not "strategic and theoretical line." "Theory" is only good for workers insofar as it relates to political program. The rest ("STATE KAPITALIZM! MATRIARCHAL PRIMITIVE KOMMUNIZM!") is superfluous at best and garbage at worst.

This is a good way of putting it. What is the practical difference between one who believes that the Soviet Union was a "workers' state" and someone who believes that it was not, but that it's defeat would be harmful to the working class? In terms of actual program(what the party is actually going to DO), there is no program. Theory by itself is useless, since the only thing that really matters is what political actions it causes one to adopt.

As an example for people, if there is an elaborate theory which states that involving oneself in the electoral process at all is inherently corruptive and leads to reformism, and that the ramifications of this theory consigns one to political irrelevancy by default; then it's not a theory that is worth paying attention to.

jookyle

13th September 2012, 06:12

I don't really see why the terms are at odds. Kautsky may have had different ideas on the party than Lenin did, but that does not mean the vanguard party is not a mass party.

Lenin

"Now it is this dialectic which the traitors, numbskulls, and pedants of the Second International could never grasp: the proletariat cannot conquer without winning over to its side the majority of the population. But to limit this winning over of the population to, or to make it conditional on, 'acquiring' a majority of votes in an election, while the bourgeoisie is in power is impracticable imbecility, or simply cheating the workers. In order to win over the majority of the population to its side the proletariat must first overthrow the bourgeoisie, and seize state power into its own hands; secondly it must introduce Soviet power, having smashed to bits the old state apparatus, whereby it immediately undermines the dominion, authority, and influence of the bourgeoisie and of the petty bourgeois compromisers among the non-proletarian labouring masses. It must, thirdly, complete the destruction of the influence of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeois compromisers among the majority of the non-proletarian labouring masses by the revolutionary fulfillment of their economic needs, at the expense of the exploiters."

Die Neue Zeit

13th September 2012, 06:20

Sorry, but that quote is so wrong on so many levels. Neither side got it, really.

The class movement cannot expropriate ruling-class political power without winning over to its side the majority of the working-class demographic majority (the situation in First World countries). Because of this class dynamic, and because of various non-political motives for electoral support, the "majority of votes" isn't a solid measure of political support (even assuming the best-case "rule of law" scenario, without any Pinochets in the wings). Council fetishes or hiding behind them won't do, either.

13th September 2012, 10:53

As a Leninist, and after reading up on the histories of these "mass labour" parties, the SPD, RSDLP, New Labour, NDP of Canada, etc...
Herein lies the first problem, as others have pointed out: The SPD and RSDLP were radically different beasts compared to New (and Old!) Labour, let alone the NDP. Not seeing a difference is ignoring a century of development and the different bases on which these parties were founded.

... I can safely say I am 100% only for the unification of class conscious communist workers under a vanguard party. I refuse, at any point, to participate in a party with those who would capitulate to capital, the social revolution. It's abhorrent, to think that a working class can be "won over" to communism, by simply "allying" with the petty bourgeois, and reformist characters of these "labour" parties.
Worthy aims. Why not make it more concrete by saying communists stand for unity on the principles of democracy, internationalism and independence of our class against the state and other classes? And unity on the basis of acceptance (not agreement) of a common communist programme?

Time and time again, these parties have proven to hinder the growth of communist workers class consciousness, and replace it with belief in the possibility of peacefully changing the system through parliamentary law.
This has notably been the case there where the trade union bureaucracy entered the party (as was the case in the SPD in the early 20th century) or there were the trade union bureaucracy was always the foundation of the party (Labour). Such formations are constitutional, nationalistic and bureaucratic and, thus, anti-communist.

Only through a party of class conscious communist workers can the revolution be guided and led. Not by some mash-up of communists, reformists and others opposed to social revolution.
How do you define "class conscious communist workers" though? Who will check that? By what standards?

I'm asking because in most "Leninist" parties we see a bureaucratic clique trying to remain "pure" by imposing an iron grip on the party. Ironically, this is exactly anti-communist.

This point also brings me to another idea, that should the reformists not be won over at the point of a revolutionary situation, we communists can just split off and form our own USPD, just like the renegade Kautsky! We seen how that worked out, utter failure, and utter disaster especially considering the revisionism of Kautsky and his USPD capitulation to the SPD and allowing of the rise of fascists in Germany.
Ever heard of the Halle congress? You know, there where the USPD splitted and where a majority formed the KPD?

Can you imagine Russia, had the RSDLP maintained itself as a mass party, as the Kautskyites would have? There would never have been a February, let alone October!
You're clearly not aware of the history of the RSDLP. It was very much a mass party! However, most of the time it had to operate under police state conditions. Yet even then, it had many thousands of members. When police state conditions were lifted a few times between 1905 and 1917, you consistently saw the party rose to hundreds of thousands of members in no time. This cannot be compared to, for example, the SWP in the UK that only has about 1500 to 2000 active members, operating in "proper daylight" (legally speaking).

Never, I say, never should the class conscious worker, the communist vanguard work with reformists and revisionists. Never will we allow a revolution to be stymied or hindered by those who wish to capitulate to capital.

No to the Kautskyite mass party!
Shocker for you: Lenin was a "Kautskyite" to his death. Please get yourself a little more read. Lenin Rediscovered - "What is to be done?" in context is a good place to start. In it you'll find, among other things, the proper context Lenin was working and living in, see how he was trying to implement the SPD model under Russian conditions.

The vanguard party is simply a restrictive party meant only for the most class conscious and revolutionary. Taking this into consideration, in times of high class consciousness and revolutionary vigor the party will be a mass party while in times of low class consciousness and revolutionary vigor the party will be a minority party.
This is the classic "propaganda group" definition. But besides from the fact that it'll only lead to a tiny group, irrelevant to the class in revolutionary times, you still have the problem of what exactly constitutes a "class conscious communist worker". As I put earlier, the common 'solution' of imposing a "pure" leadership is no solution at all.

Peoples' War

13th September 2012, 12:33

So instead you support a party of petty-bourgeois intelligentsia who will work against their class interests and bring about socialism? Only a class conscious act of the proletariat will bring about socialism.Yes. This is 100% exactly, verbatim, no straw man, what I said. Thank you! Ass.

Comparing bourgeois parties like NDP or New Labor to pre-WW1 SPD or any other anti-class-coalitionist reformist mass party is misleading. Parties like the NDP or New Labor do not (give lip service to) have a Marxist program or build Socialism.The SPD had,had being a key word, a Marxist programme. It deteriorated with the rise of Bernsteinism and Kautskyism. You don't honestly believe there was no deterioration over time of the party? You honestly believe that the downfall of the SPD was only in 1914, with the support of war credits? There was nothing within the party leading to that?

In our private dialogue I brought up New Labour, and other reformist parties, and you didn't decide to mention how you don't view them as reformist. In fact, while you glorified working with reformists, you abhorred working with the rank and file of trade unions.

So, where are the masses of reformists you wish to make a new "mass party" out of?

I won't bother to address the OP, since the poster doesn't know much about the history of mass movements in Germany.Do educate me! Though, considering you are a Kautskyite, we can safely say the education will be worthy of a "theoretician of the swamp".

An actual revolutionary period for the working class already presupposes a mass party with an independent, class-strugglist program that commands majority political support from the working class.Yes, because reformists who prove to be capitulators to capital, and oppose social revolution, are certainly our greatest allies!

The pre-WWI SPD was in the main an anti-class-coalitionist party up until the late 1900s, with the influx of tred-iunionisty. The reformist part cropped up later.Yes, and the reformism did come, and what happened was the end of the SPD as a marxist workers party. You suggest taht we start at that point, not of being a Marxist party, but of being a party of reformists, revisionists, communists, etc. You wish, not to create a revamp of the original SPD, but to create the SPD at it's decline.

A more accurate example of "anti-class-coalitionist reformist mass party" would be the JCP or the PCI, neither of which partnered up with bourgeois parties.Are we talking Italian PCI or French? Which JCP?

Hit The North

13th September 2012, 12:54

An actual revolutionary period for the working class already presupposes a mass party with an independent, class-strugglist program that commands majority political support from the working class.

So what represented the mass party "with an independent, class-strugglist program that commands majority political support from the working class" during the February 1917 revolution in Russia and how did they behave? What was this party in October? Which party in Germany 1918?

I'd suggest that in the two latter cases, the driving political forces were not parties that match your ideal of the mass worker's party. In fact, in the case of Germany the "mass party of the working class" took a counter-revolutionary position.

13th September 2012, 13:24

In fact, in the case of Germany the "mass party of the working class" took a counter-revolutionary position.

That just drives home the point how the trade union bureaucracy couped the party under the guise of "realism", for which Bernstein gave a theoretical cover in his Evolutionary socialism. Communists need to fight against any and all bureaucratism (which disempowers workers), constitutionalism (subjecting our class the the "greater good") and nationalism and, conversely, for democracy, an independent position of our class (implacable opposition to the state) and internationalism.

The SPD is indeed a good example of how that fight was lost, but the RSDLP proved that this is not because the model is wrong. It is a balance of forces and we need to be clear where we stand.

Ironically, the far left today often cozies up with that very same trade union bureaucracy in order to effect some influence... Thus placing these comrades to the right of Kautsky pre-1909.

Revoltorb

13th September 2012, 13:40

Peoples' War

13th September 2012, 13:58

Herein lies the first problem, as others have pointed out: The SPD and RSDLP were radically different beasts compared to New (and Old!) Labour, let alone the NDP. Not seeing a difference is ignoring a century of development and the different bases on which these parties were founded.Yes, but my point is that these parties were founded and built upon Marxist socialism, and over time became bastions of reformism. You suggest, not the makeup of the pre-reform, but the makeup of mid reform, by allying with the reformists in the very beginning.

Worthy aims. Why not make it more concrete by saying communists stand for unity on the principles of democracy, internationalism and independence of our class against the state and other classes? And unity on the basis of acceptance (not agreement) of a common communist programme?Communists stand for unit on the principle of social revolution and socialism, not "radical democracy" as Kautsky wanted.

This has notably been the case there where the trade union bureaucracy entered the party (as was the case in the SPD in the early 20th century) or there were the trade union bureaucracy was always the foundation of the party (Labour). Such formations are constitutional, nationalistic and bureaucratic and, thus, anti-communist.Your ilk suggest we merge with reformists to make a mass party, yet when the reformists, or "trade union bureacracy" enters the party, that is the issue...

How do you define "class conscious communist workers" though? Who will check that? By what standards?By supporting the idea of social revolution, the goal of communism, and to oppose counter revolutionary reformists.

I'm asking because in most "Leninist" parties we see a bureaucratic clique trying to remain "pure" by imposing an iron grip on the party. Ironically, this is exactly anti-communist.Such as?

Ever heard of the Halle congress? You know, there where the USPD splitted and where a majority formed the KPD?Yes, your point?

You're clearly not aware of the history of the RSDLP. It was very much a mass party!Never really said it wasn't a "mass party". Though, I fail to see where they sought alliance with reformists, as opposed to reformists causing the gradual end of the RSDLP.

However, most of the time it had to operate under police state conditions.Okay.

Yet even then, it had many thousands of members. When police state conditions were lifted a few times between 1905 and 1917, you consistently saw the party rose to hundreds of thousands of members in no time. Okay.

This cannot be compared to, for example, the SWP in the UK that only has about 1500 to 2000 active members, operating in "proper daylight" (legally speaking).Okay.

Shocker for you: Lenin was a "Kautskyite" to his death. Please get yourself a little more read. Lenin Rediscovered - "What is to be done?" in context is a good place to start. In it you'll find, among other things, the proper context Lenin was working and living in, see how he was trying to implement the SPD model under Russian conditions.Yes, most Marxists were influenced by Kautsky prior to his support for war, and his being exposed as an opportunist.

I forgot how Lenin sought to ally the Bolsheviks with reformists and revisionists to create a mass party. Slipped my mind, really.

This is the classic "propaganda group" definition. But besides from the fact that it'll only lead to a tiny group, irrelevant to the class in revolutionary times, you still have the problem of what exactly constitutes a "class conscious communist worker". As I put earlier, the common 'solution' of imposing a "pure" leadership is no solution at all.The Bolsheviks became a mass party.

Your idea of a non-pure leadership is one that allows those opposed to social revolution to lead the party.

Die Neue Zeit

13th September 2012, 14:58

In our private dialogue I brought up New Labour, and other reformist parties, and you didn't decide to mention how you don't view them as reformist. In fact, while you glorified working with reformists, you abhorred working with the rank and file of trade unions.

He meant to say that they aren't reformist in the sense of backing their left rhetoric.

You wish, not to create a revamp of the original SPD, but to create the SPD at it's decline.

I wish to contribute to a revamp of the SPD prior to the Jena and Mannheim Congresses (http://www.revleft.com/vb/pre-war-spd-t154872/index.html?p=2117422).

Are we talking Italian PCI or French? Which JCP?

The official CPs in Italy and Japan were never coalition partners (well, the former was criminally during the immediate post-WWII era, but never afterward).

So what represented the mass party "with an independent, class-strugglist program that commands majority political support from the working class" during the February 1917 revolution in Russia and how did they behave? What was this party in October? Which party in Germany 1918?

You deliberately missed out the period when the "outstanding role model for left politics today" that was the USPD was formed.

Hit The North

13th September 2012, 18:02

You deliberately missed out the period when the "outstanding role model for left politics today" that was the USPD was formed.

It wasn't deliberate, but while we're on the subject what makes you think that the centrist USPD is the "outstanding role model"? Formed from a split in 1915, the USPD is an example of a party that emerged from the pressure of events and grew very quickly as a consequence of those events, similar to the Bolsheviks in 1917, but unlike the Bolsheviks it was never an adequate revolutionary force, joining back up with the SPD in government the first chance it got. But it certainly doesn't match the model you propound of patiently building institutions within the working class.

Hit The North

13th September 2012, 18:43

That just drives home the point how the trade union bureaucracy couped the party under the guise of "realism", for which Bernstein gave a theoretical cover in his Evolutionary socialism.

But we have to ask why the bureaucracy and reformist ideas managed to hold the whip hand in the SPD and part of the answer must lie within the political and organisational practices of the party. In that respect, we find commonality with other social democratic and labourist mass movements, all of whom, despite different histories, arrived at the same position vis a vis the bourgeois state and the class struggle. We need to understand the roots of reformism and also recognise that the large social democratic parties also drew their mass from the same roots.

Communists need to fight against any and all bureaucratism (which disempowers workers), constitutionalism (subjecting our class the the "greater good") and nationalism and, conversely, for democracy, an independent position of our class (implacable opposition to the state) and internationalism.Forgive me, but to argue for this principled stand but also within the context of calling for a mass party, this sounds like a recipe for entryism - a tactic that has not been very successful for communists. The alternative is that we build an independent, clear and principled party of communists within the class, on the tacit acceptance that this will provide us with a necessarily minority platform among the class.

The SPD is indeed a good example of how that fight was lost, but the RSDLP proved that this is not because the model is wrong. It is a balance of forces and we need to be clear where we stand.Did the RSDLP really represent the same model as the SDP? In real terms, taking the "balance of forces" into account, particularly the political, economic and social differences between Russia and Germany which meant that Russian socialists operated in a state of illegality unlike their legal comrades in Germany, means that talk of models is a bit abstract. Isn't it the case that the schism in the RSDLP which haunted it throughout its existence and became a decisive factor in 1917 was a result of the contradiction peculiar to Russia? Not forgetting that the Menshevik half of that schism became counter-revolutionary when the question of proletarian power was posed.

Ironically, the far left today often cozies up with that very same trade union bureaucracy in order to effect some influence... Thus placing these comrades to the right of Kautsky pre-1909.As Marxists we are often in the business of irony and paradox:). In the UK, the main socialist current that attempted to cosy up with the TU bureaucrats was the Militiant Tendency - a habit they learned inside the Labour Party no doubt. The SWP, which argues for an independent revolutionary party, has not done this, preferring to address the rank and file.

MustCrushCapitalism

13th September 2012, 21:50

I'm not sure where you get this from. A vanguard party, in my understanding, is one wherein the most class conscious proletariat organise and act to try to raise awareness in the "less advanced" workers. All this means is that the vanguard will be a minority until such time as there is a revolutionary situation and the majority support a socialist revolution. Further, a true communist (vanguard) party should be one where all decisions are made by the proletariat members. Individual (petty-)bourgeois people should be able to support and act in solidarity with the party if they believe it to be right regardless of their class interests but should not be allowed part of the decision making process. A worker-only party and a vanguard party are not only not mutually exclusive but in fact one and the same.

OP was directly contrasting the concepts of a "mass party" and a "vanguard party". I personally wouldn't do so. I'm absolutely in favor of a vanguard party if it's to mean that - I'm sure most Marxists are. A minority party can't remain as such if it's to be successful in a revolutionary situation.

Revoltorb

13th September 2012, 22:11

Zanthorus

13th September 2012, 23:47

Therein lies a sectarian problem, too. You should have said "strategic and programmatic line," not "strategic and theoretical line." "Theory" is only good for workers insofar as it relates to political program. The rest ("STATE KAPITALIZM! MATRIARCHAL PRIMITIVE KOMMUNIZM!") is superfluous at best and garbage at worst.

As an example for people, if there is an elaborate theory which states that involving oneself in the electoral process at all is inherently corruptive and leads to reformism, and that the ramifications of this theory consigns one to political irrelevancy by default; then it's not a theory that is worth paying attention to.

If by default you refuse to consider the possibility that writing elaborate programmes and building parties accordingly is not the business of those who adhere to Marxism, and refuse to believe that there could be any other relation between theory and practice than 'political relevancy = theoretical relevancy', then you are the ones who have dogmatically cut yourself off from the possibility of enquiring into the truth, not the mythical Bordigists you swing your invisible swords at.

Peoples' War

14th September 2012, 00:23

OP was directly contrasting the concepts of a "mass party" and a "vanguard party". I personally wouldn't do so. I'm absolutely in favor of a vanguard party if it's to mean that - I'm sure most Marxists are. A minority party can't remain as such if it's to be successful in a revolutionary situation.
That's not true. Though, I can see how it can be mistaken.

My opposition was of the Kautskyite mass party, of collaborating with those who oppose social revolution, and ultimately capitulate to capital and become the counter revolution.

A mass party in the sense that the Bolsheviks became a mass party, that is what I support.

Geiseric

14th September 2012, 01:18

That's not true. Though, I can see how it can be mistaken.

My opposition was of the Kautskyite mass party, of collaborating with those who oppose social revolution, and ultimately capitulate to capital and become the counter revolution.

A mass party in the sense that the Bolsheviks became a mass party, that is what I support.

Well the bolsheviks were allowed to exist because the RSDLP, a kautskyist party, developed the bolsheviks and truly made communism a mass ideology. This will not happen unless we utilize what we have, i.e. Trade and Industrial unions. Otherwise we'll end up fighting for non political demands, which isn't how a party works.

I hate to say it guys, but we don't have shit to work with, so we need to build a mass workers party from the ground up. It worked in Russia, so it can work today. It is important beyond belief, and the left will stay as petit bourgeois NGOs, "communist sects," like the sparts, or dominated by Trumkas unless we do it, and expose the bureaucracy.

EXPOSING THE UNION BUREAUCRACY IS OUR FIRST STEP. They subordinate the class struggle to bourgeois parties, and the political independence of the working class is the first step, before a revolutionary party can be made.

Die Neue Zeit

14th September 2012, 03:49

Well the bolsheviks were allowed to exist because the RSDLP, a kautskyist party, developed the bolsheviks and truly made communism a mass ideology. This will not happen unless we utilize what we have, i.e. Trade and Industrial unions. Otherwise we'll end up fighting for non political demands, which isn't how a party works.

In the same paragraph you shot yourself in the foot. Neither the pre-Jena SPD nor the RSDLP "utilized what they had" regarding labour unions. In fact, many German comrades before the Jena congress wanted to maintain trade union neutrality on political topics, letting trade unionists in only as individual workers.

EXPOSING THE UNION BUREAUCRACY IS OUR FIRST STEP. They subordinate the class struggle to bourgeois parties, and the political independence of the working class is the first step, before a revolutionary party can be made.

Comrades should expose the union bureaucracy precisely by insisting that trade unions remain politically neutral. Political independence is achieved by the actions of multiple workers as individuals coming together.

It wasn't deliberate, but while we're on the subject what makes you think that the centrist USPD is the "outstanding role model"?

Because Dietmar Bartsch said so! :D

http://www.revleft.com/vb/uspd-vs-kpd-t103415/index.html

More seriously:

Formed from a split in 1915

If only you were correct. Sorry, but the USPD only formed in 1917.

the USPD is an example of a party that emerged from the pressure of events and grew very quickly as a consequence of those events, similar to the Bolsheviks in 1917, but unlike the Bolsheviks it was never an adequate revolutionary force, joining back up with the SPD in government the first chance it got. But it certainly doesn't match the model you propound of patiently building institutions within the working class.

The USPD certainly matches the model I propound. Over half the Alternative Culture institutions were taken during the 1917 split, and just before Halle the USPD had more members than the MSPD. It was criminal for the ultra-left KPD to have formed and contributed to the breakdown of the Alternative Culture institutions throughout the class.

The German Revolution showed the bankruptcy of council fetishes, because the MSPD was able to co-opt those bodies. "All Power to Independent Social Democracy" was the only realistic pro-worker option. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-power-independent-t155105/index.html)

Die Neue Zeit

14th September 2012, 04:02

If by default you refuse to consider the possibility that writing elaborate programmes and building parties accordingly is not the business of those who adhere to Marxism

Without a revolutionary program there can be no revolutionary movement. Without a class-oriented program there can be no class movement, either. This the likes of the Lassallean and Eisenacher "volunteers" understood all too well, against the tide of economic determinism and other vulgar "materialisms."

and refuse to believe that there could be any other relation between theory and practice than 'political relevancy = theoretical relevancy', then you are the ones who have dogmatically cut yourself off from the possibility of enquiring into the truth

On the contrary, digging for the truth is necessary for appropriate public policymaking approaches oriented towards the working class.

Le Socialiste

14th September 2012, 06:25

A mass party can only ever reflect the broader views of the working-class. A party of the whole working-class cannot help but reflect the ideological diversity of its membership; thus conservative, even reactionary views find themselves alongside radical, revolutionary ideas. The mass party becomes a brake on struggle, weighed down by the mixed consciousness of its rank-and-file. A clear distinction must be made between the party, which incorporates within it the most radical sections of the proletariat while simultaneously working within mass organizations, and the class from which it is built. The party doesn't divorce itself from class activity however, nor does it substitute itself for the workers themselves; rather, it builds up through its own active involvement and participation support for the self-emancipative and revolutionary activity of the working-class as the agent of revolution. Its membership is comprised of those who readily accept Marxism and the need for socialist revolution. A situation develops, then, where the spontaneous movement(s) of the proletariat and the organized line of the party converge (Gramsci put it more eloquently than I, but whatever).

In order to prevent an exclusive view of the party membership, it becomes necessary to raise the understanding and experience of the newest members to that of its oldest. Sometimes it becomes necessary also to "open the gates" during periods of mass activity and revolutionary sentiment in order for newly radicalized workers to join, as Lenin said. At the same time however, this shouldn't be interpreted as somehow barring people from joining if they so wish. Instead, it becomes a matter of whether these people intend to become active members taking part in the goings-on of the organization, or just a passive rank-and-file following wherever the leadership takes them. We should want the former: devoted, radicalized Marxists prepared to engage the working-class within its own forms and organizations in the hopes of winning it over to the idea of revolutionary mass struggle, not a party burdened by the weight of an entire mixture and diversity of ideologies and thought. A party's membership must be active participants both inside and outside its boundaries, rooting themselves in the Marxist tradition while simultaneously learning to link up and apply theory through practice. The vanguard is not some monolithic, omniscient entity, subordinating its members (indeed, the working-class itself) to its "leadership". The party plays the role of a guiding organization in relation to the self-emancipatory activity of the masses. As Trotsky noted: "Without a guiding organization, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston box. But nevertheless, what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam."

A mass party can only weigh down workers' self-activity through the inertia of its own "mass" membership and, indeed, the leadership itself.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

14th September 2012, 09:39

Without a revolutionary program there can be no revolutionary movement. Without a class-oriented program there can be no class movement, either. This the likes of the Lassallean and Eisenacher "volunteers" understood all too well, against the tide of economic determinism and other vulgar "materialisms."

On the contrary, digging for the truth is necessary for appropriate public policymaking approaches oriented towards the working class.

So how does your elaborate theorising relate to reality, then?

Because, and I mean this in the least offensive way - merely as an observation of fact -, your theory seems to be wholly irrelevant to reality now and in the future.

I'm hugely sceptical that theoretical masturbation really advances the movement. Rather, Marxism is our philosophical base - we have to recognise Marxism as an exception in intellectual thought in history, as even many Capitalists do, - and base our organisation, agitation and other propaganda on classical Marxism. Of course, recognising other contributions is all good and well, but there has to be an appropriate balance struck between theorising and action.

I fear that I have to make the obvious point that when you go too far in the theory direction, you lose all your relevance and people stop taking you seriously, DNZ. Again, no offence meant.

Hit The North

14th September 2012, 10:30

If only you were correct. Sorry, but the USPD only formed in 1917.

I stand corrected (I was tracing their lineage back to those in the SPD who voted against war credits and were then expelled in 1916). But your correction only emphasises how brief was the existence of this so-called "outstanding role model" given that it was a busted flush by 1922. By the way, who do you support in the split, the minority that merged into the KPD or the majority that turned its back on revolutionary politics and embraced parliamentary cretinism and ended up dissolving back into the SPD? But I guess your answer is found below:

The USPD certainly matches the model I propound. Over half the Alternative Culture institutions were taken during the 1917 split, and just before Halle the USPD had more members than the MSPD. It was criminal for the ultra-left KPD to have formed and contributed to the breakdown of the Alternative Culture institutions throughout the class. So once again we find you turning your face against the revolutionaries in favour of the petite-bourgeois functionaries.

The German Revolution showed the bankruptcy of council fetishes, because the MSPD was able to co-opt those bodies. "All Power to Independent Social Democracy" was the only realistic pro-worker option. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-power-independent-t155105/index.html)Except the war and its aftermath had already proved that an "independent social democracy" was an illusion, that, in fact, it was tied to the coat tails of German capital.

Let's face it, your so-called "outstanding role model", the USPD, proved to be nothing more than a cul de sac - leading workers to the dead end of bourgeois representative politics.

human strike

14th September 2012, 10:41

The Mass Party or the Vanguard Party? The Imaginary Party, comrade.

Die Neue Zeit

14th September 2012, 15:12

I stand corrected (I was tracing their lineage back to those in the SPD who voted against war credits and were then expelled in 1916). But your correction only emphasises how brief was the existence of this so-called "outstanding role model" given that it was a busted flush by 1922. By the way, who do you support in the split, the minority that merged into the KPD or the majority that turned its back on revolutionary politics and embraced parliamentary cretinism and ended up dissolving back into the SPD?

What was left of the USPD center refused to merge back into the SPD, and instead merged into this in 1931: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers%27_Party_of_Germany

Though the USPD should have been formed much earlier, it was sectarianism to see the ultra-left KPD form, and it was a big mistake to give this sectarianism legitimacy at Halle.

So once again we find you turning your face against the revolutionaries in favour of the petite-bourgeois functionaries.

Bureaucracy is a process. Real mass parties and real mass movements require functionaries (though not tied to trade unions and other organizations specializing in non-political issues).

RevoTO

14th September 2012, 15:21

Never, I say, never should the class conscious worker, the communist vanguard work with reformists and revisionists. Never will we allow a revolution to be stymied or hindered by those who wish to capitulate to capital.

Hailtothethief,

What are the implications of this? Currently in most parts of the world the majority of the working class are not revolutionary. In fact most workers would openly support reformist parties or quite often even capitalist parties. A class conscious workers finds himself surrounded in the work place or his union/labour party with reformist ideas and workers. To say that the communist vanguard should not work with reformist or those that wish "to capitulate capital" literally means not being active in your workplace, union, labour party and basically not interacting with the working class at all.

It is our job as Marxist to be involved in the struggles of working class people and to patiently explain the failures of capitalism and the need to fight for socialism. Working class people will move, the only question is when they do will the Marxist vanguard be a voice and an alternative or will we be so far removed from the working class struggle that our voice will be lost in the wind.

Die Neue Zeit

14th September 2012, 15:24

It is our job as Marxist to be involved in the struggles of working class people and to patiently explain the failures of capitalism and the need to fight for socialism. Working class people will move, the only question is when they do will the Marxist vanguard be a voice and an alternative or will we be so far removed from the working class struggle that our voice will be lost in the wind.

Now I have to bend the stick in the other direction. How, exactly, does your organization and line promote class independence at all? :confused:

RevoTO

14th September 2012, 15:45

I am not so familiar with the term "class independence" so I am going to assume you mean working class independence from reformism. If I am correct in this assumption, I dont think it is correct for a Marxist who understands the need for class independence to not be involved in working class organizations because of its reformist ties. It is exactly the need for class indepence that we orient ourselves to where the working class is. Take the NDP for example, a labour party that is moving more and more to liberal politics. When the working class moves in Canada it will most likely mean a resurgence of real politics in the NDP. We already see signs of this with certain sections of the labour bureaucracy clashing with the Ontario NDP bureaucracy. The labour struggles will happen in the unions and labour parties. Whats the point of preaching class independence when your not actually oriented to where the working class is.

Working class people will not magically be move to revolutionary politics from reformism. The crisis of capitalism will mean widespread attacks on working class people and it will provoke a response. Due to the capitulations of the working class leaders many of them will become disillusioned and defeated. Unless there is a Marxist vanguard with the correct orientation and right ideas to provide them will and alternative.

This Marxist force will not be a group that is far removed from working class struggles and politics.

Also I wouldn't mind a link expanding on your ideas of class independence, would be appreciated.

Peoples' War

14th September 2012, 17:47

Hailtothethief,

What are the implications of this? Currently in most parts of the world the majority of the working class are not revolutionary.Yes, and the solution is not to join those reformist parties, or to invite the reformist parties to merge with us.

As a member of the IMT, presumably you support entrism, but not the creation of a party of reformists and others opposed to the social revolution. Although I oppose entrism as a method, it's goal is working with the rank and file of these "labour" parties, to convince them to become revolutionaries, and leave the party....not to leave them in their current state of ideas, and urge them to merge with your own party.

In fact most workers would openly support reformist parties or quite often even capitalist parties.The ruling ideas are those of the ruling class.

A class conscious workers finds himself surrounded in the work place or his union/labour party with reformist ideas and workers.Yes, and as a class conscious worker, his goal is to change their minds, to bring them to class consciousness.

To say that the communist vanguard should not work with reformist or those that wish "to capitulate capital" literally means not being active in your workplace, union, labour party and basically not interacting with the working class at all. Not what I said at all.

It is our job as Marxist to be involved in the struggles of working class people and to patiently explain the failures of capitalism and the need to fight for socialism.Yes.

RevoTO

14th September 2012, 18:02

Entrism is first and foremost used to be actively involved with the working class. To interact with the most revolutionary elements in the labour movement and bring them to real working class ideas, marxism. Your correct we do not want to "merge" with any labour party.

I dont think you properly answered my question..

I
Never, I say, never should the class conscious worker, the communist vanguard work with reformists and revisionists. Never will we allow a revolution to be stymied or hindered by those who wish to capitulate to capital.

Do you mean by this that we should not be working with unions as well as labour parties?

Peoples' War

15th September 2012, 17:06

Do you mean by this that we should not be working with unions as well as labour parties?That is not what I mean.

I am supportive of working with the rank-and-file of unions and other movements, with the purpose of radicalizing them, and supporting their struggles.

I do not believe that joining, and forming a branch within a modern "labour" party, if such a thing exists, will produce results.

RevoTO

16th September 2012, 05:35

I dont see what is so fundamentally different between unions and labour parties. Both have similar bureaucracies with strong ties each other, the leadership of both are reformist and play a very similar role in that respect. The similarities are also clear, they are avenues were the working class are present and where they will most likely struggle and fight against capitalism.

Abandoning any activity with the labour party means abandoning workers to reformism. It is difficult to wage a powerful ideological battle against reformism without actually being involved with working class struggles in unions and the labour party. A labour party is a political party with historical and current links to working class unions.

Peoples' War

17th September 2012, 01:18

I dont see what is so fundamentally different between unions and labour parties.The rank-and-file of unions are purely working class. The so-called "labour" parties, although having a pretty big worker support, consists mostly of petty-bourgeois today.

Both have similar bureaucracies with strong ties each other, the leadership of both are reformist and play a very similar role in that respect.Yes, I agree.

The similarities are also clear, they are avenues were the working class are present and where they will most likely struggle and fight against capitalism. So long as they are members of the "labour" party, they are subject to being baffled into the illusion of reform. All Labour parties capitulate to capital in times of crisis.

Abandoning any activity with the labour party means abandoning workers to reformism.Only if you truly believe these "labour" parties consist of a majority working class base, which they do not.

It is difficult to wage a powerful ideological battle against reformism without actually being involved with working class struggles in unions and the labour party. A labour party is a political party with historical and current links to working class unions.Yes, I support work within unions, because the class composition of their rank-and-file is proletariat. The class composition of the membership of these "labour" parties, are petty-bourgeois.

ComradeOm

22nd September 2012, 19:34

Can you imagine Russia, had the RSDLP maintained itself as a mass party, as the Kautskyites would have? There would never have been a February, let alone October!In 1917 the RSDLP(b) was a mass party (http://www.revleft.com/vb/russian-revolution-bolshevik-t105275/index.html). It was also a vanguard party. Shocking, no?

Peoples' War

23rd September 2012, 19:48

In 1917 the RSDLP(b) was a mass party (http://www.revleft.com/vb/russian-revolution-bolshevik-t105275/index.html). It was also a vanguard party. Shocking, no?
I'm fairly certain I mentioned, earlier in this thread, that I was referring to the "Kautskite mass party". This mass party being one which includes those who oppose social revolution (reformists). I'm making it clear now; a vanguard party of communist workers is what I support, and if the vanguard party doesn't become a mass party, it can not in any sense legitimately represent the working class taking power.

Yes, the Bolsheviks became a mass party...of communist workers... not of communist, reformist, etc. workers.

My apologies, Comrade Pretentious, I mean Om, if I failed to mention that earlier.

ComradeOm

23rd September 2012, 20:40

My apologies, Comrade Pretentious, I mean Om, if I failed to mention that earlier.No need to apologise for failing to mention that; just for getting your terminology hopelessly mixed up

Just to be clear: you're all for mass parties once they're the right sort of mass parties. And you're entirely against that other sort of mass party. The one that has the people you don't like in it. Got it. Now don't let me distract you further from this pressing crusade against the Kautskites... I hear they might vote for war credits any day now!

Peoples' War

23rd September 2012, 21:17

No need to apologise for failing to mention that; just for getting your terminology hopelessly mixed up

Just to be clear: you're all for mass parties once they're the right sort of mass parties. And you're entirely against that other sort of mass party. The one that has the people you don't like in it. Got it. Now don't let me distract you further from this pressing crusade against the Kautskites... I hear they might vote for war credits any day now!
Oh sorry, I'll integrate all the anti-revolutionaries immediately. it can only serve to aid the party and revolution. I mean, look at the SDP when a large reformist presence came; THEY BECAME THE MOST GLORIOUS AND REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATION WHO LED THE WORKERS TO COMMUNISM IN GERMANY -- after they (re)converted the reformists, of course!

Geiseric

24th September 2012, 05:56

Grenzer

24th September 2012, 06:33

Revolution isn't at the forefront 99.99999% of the working class's concerns, so I don't know where this mass party of communist revolutionaries would come from. We need to worry about the offensive against the working class being done by the bourgeoisie in the form of austerity worldwide, which means that we need to work with reformist elements.

What reformist elements? Reformism is dead, my friend(unless one counts the various Trotskyist and Stalinist groups which also favor liquidationism and Keynesian politics, but they're just liberals too). By reformism, what you really mean is liberalism. There is no reason to work with liberal parties, as their class nature is inimical to our goals.

Anti-Austerity politics is at its core liberal; there is no reason to opportunistically leach on these things. We must build a revolutionary party, not UK Labour Party version 1.1. We must fight for the accession of the proletariat to state power, not over measly scraps the bourgeoisie sees fit to toss to the proletariat. This is what distinguishes a liberal from a communist.

Of course workers won't come to revolution instantly, but what you suggest is just right-wing liberal opportunism. Since your strategy favors liquidation into bourgeois liberalism, it automatically precludes the possibility of building a revolutionary force.

Workers-Control-Over-Prod

24th September 2012, 06:36

Geiseric

24th September 2012, 06:58

What reformist elements? Reformism is dead, my friend(unless one counts the various Trotskyist and Stalinist groups which also favor liquidationism and Keynesian politics, but they're just liberals too). By reformism, what you really mean is liberalism. There is no reason to work with liberal parties, as their class nature is inimical to our goals.

Anti-Austerity politics is at its core liberal; there is no reason to opportunistically leach on these things. We must build a revolutionary party, not UK Labour Party version 1.1. We must fight for the accession of the proletariat to state power, not over measly scraps the bourgeoisie sees fit to toss to the proletariat. This is what distinguishes a liberal from a communist.

Of course workers won't come to revolution instantly, but what you suggest is just right-wing liberal opportunism. Since your strategy favors liquidation into bourgeois liberalism, it automatically precludes the possibility of building a revolutionary force.

You seem to like throwing labels like "Liberal," around but it's clear that your definition of "Liberal," is different than I suppose the correct definition.

Liberals are doing what they can to make capitalism work, and that means imposing austerity on the working class. Opposing austerity in no way means one is supporting capitalism, on the contrary, it means one is opposing capital's most blatant attacks on the working class!

Basically all I hear on this forum is empty fucking rhetoric, and I'm sick of it. The working class doesn't give a fuck about communism, it cares about its pensions, wages, and sending its kids to become educated, obviously things that the ultra lefts on this forum don't see worth struggling for. Once those things are secured, the working class will revolutionize, since it sees that struggle and victory is possible. Untill then, revolution is a pipe dream, something that only exists in the self masturbatory words of the so called "Left wing."

How would you even convince the working class that Communism is a good thing anyways? Have you talked to any normal people about socialism in the U.S? The only way communists can win their trust, first of all, is being at the forefront of struggles they see as important. It doesn't take a Marx to figure that out.

Mass Grave Aesthetics

24th September 2012, 11:40

Basically all I hear on this forum is empty fucking rhetoric, and I'm sick of it. The working class doesn't give a fuck about communism, it cares about its pensions, wages, and sending its kids to become educated, obviously things that the ultra lefts on this forum don't see worth struggling for. Once those things are secured, the working class will revolutionize, since it sees that struggle and victory is possible. Untill then, revolution is a pipe dream, something that only exists in the self masturbatory words of the so called "Left wing."

I think you are right that workers generally don´t give a shit about communism, but aside from that I think you got it all backwards. I think today the working class will become revolutionary when they experience the inability of capitalism to satisfy those needs and wants you mentioned and they see no other way than seizing power for themselves.

Hit The North

24th September 2012, 13:14

I think you are right that workers generally don´t give a shit about communism, but aside from that I think you got it all backwards. I think today the working class will become revolutionary when they experience the inability of capitalism to satisfy those needs and wants you mentioned and they see no other way than seizing power for themselves.

There is no contradiction between the two. The working class needs to fight for its demands in order to realise that the current system cannot deliver, and it needs to flex its muscles in order to have the confidence to take on the system. I think class consciousness can develop pretty quickly under the right circumstances, but it does not come out of thin air but emerges as workers reflect on their experience of class struggle. Now, because it is capitalism and not socialists who create class struggle, it will happen whether there are socialist participating or not. But if socialists are not standing alongside their fellow workers in struggle, then why would we expect the struggle to bring the workers to socialism? The real point of the revolutionary party is to act as a beacon in the class struggle that can win workers to revolutionary ideas and away from the bankruptcy of reformism, the ruling ideas of the bourgeoisie and the disastrous ideas of the far right.

Jimmie Higgins

24th September 2012, 13:18

You seem to like throwing labels like "Liberal," around but it's clear that your definition of "Liberal," is different than I suppose the correct definition.

Liberals are doing what they can to make capitalism work, and that means imposing austerity on the working class. Opposing austerity in no way means one is supporting capitalism, on the contrary, it means one is opposing capital's most blatant attacks on the working class!

Basically all I hear on this forum is empty fucking rhetoric, and I'm sick of it. The working class doesn't give a fuck about communism, it cares about its pensions, wages, and sending its kids to become educated, obviously things that the ultra lefts on this forum don't see worth struggling for. Once those things are secured, the working class will revolutionize, since it sees that struggle and victory is possible. Untill then, revolution is a pipe dream, something that only exists in the self masturbatory words of the so called "Left wing."

How would you even convince the working class that Communism is a good thing anyways? Have you talked to any normal people about socialism in the U.S? The only way communists can win their trust, first of all, is being at the forefront of struggles they see as important. It doesn't take a Marx to figure that out.

I generally agree with what you are saying. IMO any fight-back against the attacks on workers is a pre-requisite for workers questioning the handed-down assumptions of capitalist society. Since there hasn't been much of a revolutioinary movement with real links to the working class in a general sense, of course people are going to have a pretty low poltical starting point. But by attempting to organize to fight for their own interests there is an inherent need for people to then question the validity of the current order of things and the possibility for folks to also realize they can put forward their own interests and fight which in turn opens up wider questions about who should rule society altogether.

None of this is automatic and somone can come to radical ideas during a struggle and then just as quickly become demoralized and beat back down if a struggle fails. IMO this is why permanent organizations of revolutionary workers are needed.

Where I think I disagree with what you were arguing - and maybe you don't mean this but I'm just inferring it from the way it was written - is that workers only care about the daily things on the job like pensions and whatnot. This is true, but I think Occupy and social movements show that workers are also willing and need to take on social issues as well. So to me it isn't a question of first this and then that, but a need to tie the daily fight against both economic and social repression to a larger project and view of the world - we probably won't convince most people right off, but the combination of the dynamics of struggle and "spontanious" radicalization along with more permanent pro-revolutionary groups will allow people to act apon the lessons learned through struggle.

So as an analogy, if you argue that the Police System is racist on a street conrner then people who've already come to that conclusions will be receptive, but people who think cops are a neutral (even if flawed and corrupt) institution will likely not be argued out of that view, even if you win them on specific points and examples. To them that's one person's view verses a lifetime of movies and TV and polticians and relatives and peers saying, "well we gotta have the police or there'll be choas". But if that same person was on a strike and the cops were blatantly on the bosses side, if that person was in Occupy and got attacked by the cops, then they spontaniously may think, hey ACAB! But that thought's probably not going to go far unless then there is a new counter-explaination for why this is the case and ways to act on these ideas.

To get back to the main question, either mass parties or groups of organic vanguard organizers can potentially do this. However, the problem of organizing a party based just on class is that through the ups and downs of struggle and as consiousness goes up and down in the class in general, this can have more of an impact on a party that may want to maintain it's "mass" character even as mass consiousness is demoralized and adapts to more conservative ideas.

I dont see what is so fundamentally different between unions and labour parties. Both have similar bureaucracies with strong ties each other, the leadership of both are reformist and play a very similar role in that respect. The similarities are also clear, they are avenues were the working class are present and where they will most likely struggle and fight against capitalism.Well I think there is a difference in that unions are defensive class organizations - this causes both the inherent conservativism in the leadership at most times (since the union leaders need both class struggle - to some degree - as well as capitalism in order to exist) and the potential militancy of the rank and file.

As we have seen over the last generation, without rank and file organization, unions can float along and maybe negotiate as long as the bosses are OK with that, but if the bosses attack, a top-down accomodationist union can't really advance. But a reformist party like the UK Labor party can move to the right and actually gain MORE power in the eclectoral sphere. So it's the direct connection to workers in the workplace and potential for rank and file action (even if, and often necissarily, this also means battling the union beurocrats as well as the bosses) that seperates unions and socialist reform parties.

Abandoning any activity with the labour party means abandoning workers to reformism. It is difficult to wage a powerful ideological battle against reformism without actually being involved with working class struggles in unions and the labour party. A labour party is a political party with historical and current links to working class unions. Like I said I think there is a difference, but I also think that our relationship to any sort of party like this shouldn't be considered in a dogmatic way, but in a stratigic way based on the conditions of the party itself and the conditions of the class struggle and class consiousness. Somtimes such a party could be a step forward in workers organizing their own poltical independance, while at other times it can be a weight on the advancement of our class struggle.

Peoples' War

24th September 2012, 14:15

Die Neue Zeit

24th September 2012, 16:01

I am by no means against working with workers who have yet to achieve class conscious, or still believe in rubbish like "Democratic Socialism" i.e. reformism.

I have no problems with joining hands in an anti-war demonstration, pro-gay rights demonstration, working in unions, etc. However, they have no place in the party. That is my point.

By your definition, you would exclude the likes of DeLeonists, even those who can distinguish between "peaceful" constitutional overhaul as a tactic and "peaceful" constitutional overhaul as a strategy.

We must build a revolutionary party, not UK Labour Party version 1.1. We must fight for the accession of the proletariat to state power, not over measly scraps the bourgeoisie sees fit to toss to the proletariat. This is what distinguishes a liberal from a communist.

What about a proletarian but not necessarily communist party, though? :confused:

[Again, it's not the same as some of the vulgar perceptions of "mass parties" here.]

Geiseric

24th September 2012, 17:24

Mass Grave Aesthetics

24th September 2012, 19:07

Capitalism is unable to provide for 75% of people in the world, usually in imperialised countries. Starvation doesn't make people worry about capitalism, it makes them worry about starvation. It's a misconception that the more poor means more communist.
That is not what I was saying. In your earlier post you stated that workers had first to have basic economic security before they would become revolutionary. Sort of an "first food and shelter before science and philosophy" argument. I doubt that´s how it works at all times.The more affluent a capitalist is the more he is able to give concessions. The capitalist class can better meet such demands for the majority of the working class in wealthy countries or perhaps in times of relative prosperity. It can just as well lead to the conclusion among the workers that their needs and interests can be secured within the capitalist system. I think the workers become revolutionary when they experience the system itself as a threat to their livelihood and wellbeing. When they see no other solution but to take power for themselves away from the ruling class. However, there is no absolute measurement for can be considered unbearable and different people have different standards. I think it generally takes less to "revolutionize" the workers of Europe than Africa.

Grenzer

24th September 2012, 19:47

You seem to like throwing labels like "Liberal," around but it's clear that your definition of "Liberal," is different than I suppose the correct definition.

You seem to be throwing around the word "reformist" and "social-democrat" a lot without really understanding what they mean. A reformist is someone who believes that capitalism can be transformed into socialism through electoral victory. The people you constantly shill for and advocate suboordination to do not believe in socialism, through bourgeois electoralism or otherwise. The organizations you are shilling for, such as Syriza, advocate a wellfare state and other measures intended to alleviate the conditions of capitalism; not to abolish them. This is liberalism. There is no qualitative difference between them and the Democrats.

I mean, you can keep pulling things out of your ass and claiming how glorious it is to work with liberals, but don't pretend it makes you revolutionary. You talk about how bad capitalism is, yet the only measures you solidly advocate are measures designed to alleviate capitalism, not abolish it. That's why you defend unions, which in reality are an extension of the capitalist apparatus. It's also why you advocate the creation of a mass party based on the unions, which really is the same fucking thing as the UK Labour Party. To be fair, most Trotskyists advocate this as well, such as the big organizations of the IMT and CWI(probably the ISO as well). They believe that creating a mass liberal labour party will somehow be a stepping stone to building a leninist vanguard party. It's complete nonsense; it's liquidationism and menshevism; it's liberalism.

This is what is meant by the label of "left of capital". You use superficial revolutionary rhetoric(and even then, only on occasion), while in practice capitulating entirely to capital. It provides a useful social function to capital; fooling people who might otherwise become revolutionary into fulfilling a role that really just reinforces capital.

Honestly, I get the impression that the only reason you are such a rabid anti-Stalinist is to cover up for how crap your politics actually are.

Grenzer

24th September 2012, 19:56

What about a proletarian but not necessarily communist party, though? :confused:

[Again, it's not the same as some of the vulgar perceptions of "mass parties" here.]

Good point in bringing this up. I assume you are defining this as a party whose class makeup and leadership are proletarian in nature rather then the definition the Trotskyists like Syd use which is any party which has rank and file proletarian members(like Syriza and the Democratic Party). It's worth working with such a party(genuinely proletarian, but not revolutionary) to some degree. The problem is that this requires a degree of analysis and consideration that most communists are apparently incapable of making, as demonstrated by the Trotskyists and other liberal opportunists who hitch their bandwagon to any bourgeois demagogue who advocates raising the minimum wage $.50 an hour.

In practice, such a genuinely proletarian but not revolutionary party would be extremely rare. Is it really worth pursuing this sort of chimera if so many are going to fall down the path of right-wing, counter-revolutionary opportunism along the way?

Drosophila

24th September 2012, 21:43

It's also why you advocate the creation of a mass party based on the unions, which really is the same fucking thing as the UK Labour Party. To be fair, most Trotskyists advocate this as well, such as the big organizations of the IMT and CWI(probably the ISO as well). They believe that creating a mass liberal labour party will somehow be a stepping stone to building a leninist vanguard party. It's complete nonsense; it's liquidationism and menshevism; it's liberalism.

The IMT (at least in the USA) advocates a party built from unions and other labor organizations, right. However, they also believe that this party can only be built once unions adopt revolutionary Marxist platforms. Then they are all merged into the mass labor party.

I'm not saying I fully agree with it. I'm just correcting the notion that they seek to build a party like the UK Labour Party.

Geiseric

25th September 2012, 00:20

If a national labor party forms now, it will be despite the attempts of the bureaucracy and the actual liberals to coopt the anti austerity movement. However there's nothing liberal about SYRIZA, in fact their interests are opposed to what creates the most profits for the capitalists.

Die Neue Zeit

25th September 2012, 03:10

Good point in bringing this up. I assume you are defining this as a party whose class makeup and leadership are proletarian in nature rather then the definition the Trotskyists like Syd use which is any party which has rank and file proletarian members(like Syriza and the Democratic Party). It's worth working with such a party(genuinely proletarian, but not revolutionary) to some degree. The problem is that this requires a degree of analysis and consideration that most communists are apparently incapable of making, as demonstrated by the Trotskyists and other liberal opportunists who hitch their bandwagon to any bourgeois demagogue who advocates raising the minimum wage $.50 an hour.

In practice, such a genuinely proletarian but not revolutionary party would be extremely rare. Is it really worth pursuing this sort of chimera if so many are going to fall down the path of right-wing, counter-revolutionary opportunism along the way?

I should remind you, comrade, that my term includes a programmatic element: it is politically revolutionary to the extent that it aspires to a DOTP (Marx-Engels minimum program), but it may not be socially revolutionary or supportive of the communist mode of production (maximum program).

I take it that with regards to your last question you were citing the pre-Jena SPD itself as the unfortunate precedent?

Grenzer

25th September 2012, 05:50

The IMT (at least in the USA) advocates a party built from unions and other labor organizations, right. However, they also believe that this party can only be built once unions adopt revolutionary Marxist platforms. Then they are all merged into the mass labor party.

I'm not saying I fully agree with it. I'm just correcting the notion that they seek to build a party like the UK Labour Party.

Thanks for the information, but the fundamental error with this is that the unions themselves are an apparatus of the bourgeois state. As Lenin said, we cannot lay our hands on the ready-made bourgeois apparatus; but destroy it utterly. I concur with him in this regard.

25th September 2012, 05:58

Grenzer

25th September 2012, 06:03

I should remind you, comrade, that my term includes a programmatic element: it is politically revolutionary to the extent that it aspires to a DOTP (Marx-Engels minimum program), but it may not be socially revolutionary or supportive of the communist mode of production (maximum program).

I take it that with regards to your last question you were citing the pre-Jena SPD itself as the unfortunate precedent?

Well that may be, but the target of my criticism was the union based party that these Trotskyo-Labourites propose. Any party based on the unions will be Labour 1.0 at best, the Democratic Party at worst. It's basically already what Syd(and many other Trotskyists) has advocated in the past.

In regards to the latter, I was expressing my skepticism regarding comrades' ability to demonstrate that they are able to distinguish between what constitutes a genuinely proletarian organization and that which is controlled by the bourgeoisie. Obviously they are incapable(or perhaps they really are capable, in which case they are nothing but wretched counter-revolutionaries) of understanding that simply because an organization may have rank and file proletarian members, this is in no way indicative of the class nature of that party's politics. By their own standards, the Nazis(which statistically did have a fair bit of proletarian support) and the Democrats must be considered "workers' parties". Then it becomes clear how ridiculous and opportunistic their political line really is. I find your label of such entities as Syriza as "bourgeois workers parties" much more honest and consistent with what the reality really is.

Virtually all Trotskyist parties save those committed to small sect politics(such as the Spartacist Leauge) have adopted a de facto labourite programme. Their concern lies not with the accession of the proletariat to political power, but the slight alleviation of the conditions imposed by capitalism. We can see this displayed clearly by the Trotskyist organizations, and the very Trotskyists here on revleft time and time again. In fact their opportunism very much echoes the statements put forth by the Chairman of the CPUSA, Samuel Webb.

I just don't see any potential or future in a labour party; at least Die Linke and the SPUSA have that going for them. The same cannot be said of the Trotskyists of the CWI, IMT, SWP(both of them), and many others who fetishize the labourite model as some kind "stepping stone to a vanguard party" and "point of production" struggles.

Jimmie Higgins

25th September 2012, 08:17

Thanks for the information, but the fundamental error with this is that the unions themselves are an apparatus of the bourgeois state. As Lenin said, we cannot lay our hands on the ready-made bourgeois apparatus; but destroy it utterly. I concur with him in this regard.

This is a pretty mechanical analysis of trade unions and a misrepresentation of Lenin's arguments. Lenin also argued for radicals in countries without revolutionary movements but where there were existing mass trade unions for a kind of battle against the reformist leadership in order to both agitate among workers already in the trade unions:

We are waging a struggle against the "labour aristocracy" in the name of the masses of the workers and in order to win them over to our side; we are waging the struggle against the opportunist and social-chauvinist leaders in order to win the working class over to our side. It would be absurd to forget this most elementary and most self-evident truth. Yet it is this very absurdity that the German "Left" Communists perpetrate when, because of the reactionary and counter-revolutionary character of the trade union top leadership, they jump to the conclusion that ... we must withdraw from the trade unions, refuse to work in them, and create new and artificial forms of labour organisation! This is so unpardonable a blunder that it is tantamount to the greatest service Communists could render the bourgeoisie. Like all the opportunist, social-chauvinist, and Kautskyite trade union leaders, our Mensheviks are nothing but "agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement" (as we have always said the Mensheviks are), or "labour lieutenants of the capitalist class", to use the splendid and profoundly true expression of the followers of Daniel De Leon in America. To refuse to work in the reactionary trade unions means leaving the insufficiently developed or backward masses of workers under the influence of the reactionary leaders, the agents of the bourgeoisie, the labour aristocrats, or "workers who have become completely bourgeois" (cf. Engels’s letter to Marx in 1858 about the British workers [26] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch06.htm#26)).

This ridiculous "theory" that Communists should not work in reactionary trade unions reveals with the utmost clarity the frivolous attitude of the "Left" Communists towards the question of influencing the "masses", and their misuse of clamour about the "masses". If you want to help the "masses" and win the sympathy and support of the "masses", you should not fear difficulties, or pinpricks, chicanery, insults and persecution from the "leaders" (who, being opportunists and social-chauvinists, are in most cases directly or indirectly connected with the bourgeoisie and the police), but must absolutely work wherever the masses are to be found. Youmust be capable of any sacrifice, of overcoming the greatest obstacles, in order to carry on agitation and propaganda systematically, perseveringly, persistently and patiently in those institutions, societies and associations -- even the most reactionary—in which proletarian or semi-proletarian masses are to be found. The trade unions and the workers’ co-operatives (the latter sometimes, at least) are the very organisations in which the masses are to be found. According to figures quoted in the Swedish paperFolkets Dagblad Politiken of March 10, 1920, the trade union membership in Great Britain increased from 5,500,000 at the end of 1917 to 6,600,000 at the end of 1918, an increase of 19 per cent. Towards the close of 1919, the membership was estimated at 7,500,000. I have not got the corresponding figures for France and Germany to hand, but absolutely incontestable and generally known facts testify to a rapid rise in the trade union membership in these countries too.

These facts make crystal clear something that is confirmed by thousands of other symptoms, namely, that class-consciousness and the desire for organisation are growing among the proletarian masses, among the rank and file, among the backward elements. Millions of workers in Great Britain, France and Germany are for the first time passing from a complete lack of organisation to the elementary, lowest, simplest, and (to those still thoroughly imbued with bourgeois-democratic prejudices) most easily comprehensible form of organisation, namely, the trade unions; yet the revolutionary but imprudent Left Communists stand by, crying out "the masses", "the masses!" but refusing to work within the trade unions, on the pretext that they are "reactionary", and invent a brand-new, immaculate little "Workers’ Union", which is guiltless of bourgeois-democratic prejudices and innocent of craft or narrow-minded craft-union sins, a union which, they claim, will be (!) a broad organisation. "Recognition of the Soviet system and the dictatorship" will be the only (!) condition of membership.

So Lenin was arguing that in places where there is increased class struggle but no revolutionary worker's movement that unions, because they are directly connected to class struggle and the defense of workers and because as institutions of the system there is a tendency of the leadership to be reformist, unions are sort of a contested space: workers join because they want to defend their direct economic interestes, but the organization and definately leadership will tend to be reformist in nature and so the conflict between these aspects makes it a place where radicals can directly engage WITH WORKERS and try and win people to revolutionary ideas and strategy.

The X factor is not the form of organization, it's the relationship to the balence of things in the class struggle and who is being organized and attracted to these formations.

Unions are inherently defensive class organizations and because of this the will always tend to be conservative. There are times when radical unions can and are organically formed, but this is dependant on the larger class struggle and a layer of workers who have already come to certain militant conclusions about the world we live in: that you have to struggle and that the whole system must be overcome. So we can't "Will" mass radical formations, they come from a development - but defensive organizations like unions more or less only require the basic conditions of capitalism, not any specific advanced consiousness. And so as Lenin argued above, these are contested spaces because any worker might initially want to defend themselves at work but if the only strategies offered are concessionary and passive, this creates a space for other options to be advocated and organized for. I think history shows that in periods of struggle there are regularly battles within unions between the rank and file and the leadership and for this reason alone, where it is possible radicals should actually try and side with the militants and try and help rank and file workers and advocate the kinds of politcs and strategies necissary both to win today but ultimately how to run things ourselves.

EDIT: the ISO doesn't advocate that radicals make a goal or fetish of building a worker's party, I think this is a mechanical approach from the position opposite of yours. But if one organically came out of arising militancy I could see supporting this depending on the circumstances because it would be a step towards more independance for the class - an organization, though reformist, that has rallied the left unionists around (probably low-level) working class demands and clearly sees itself as an opposition to the Democrat's and the union's focus on Democrats would signify a pretty big initial step for the US working class. Ultimately this formation would split and dissolve or go the way of other refomist partis (blowing with the wind of larger social trends and adapting to the system rather than actually reforming it) but the initial break would open up political possibilities far beyond the narrow range of "official poltics" today. So again, I think at this stage of the game, the importance is not in the form, but in the social content of such formations: who's being organized, why are they attracted, what is the relationship of this formation to the larger stuggles going on.

Die Neue Zeit

25th September 2012, 14:56

I actually agree with Ghost Bebel in that fighting for a PNNC is chasing a chimera. It might exist at certain junctions in the development of the workers movement, but it can only be a temporary formation.

I suppose, since my programmatic unity work already has some form of maximum program going beyond the DOTP anyway.

This is because the programmatic aim of a DOTP can only logically extent with the aim of communism or it becomes an obstacle for the realo wing in their aim for maintaining capitalism and for that reason hollows out the minimum programme, where the DOTP goes ever more beyond the horizon. This development we saw in the SPD in the 1890's and 1900's.

So, a PNNC can ever only be a snapshot of the development of a proletarian party as it would express a tie in the balance of forces between the revolutionary center and the realo wing (not to mention the mass strike wing that tends to commit the opposite mistake of emphasizing the maximum programme).

But wouldn't the "realo" wing for a PNNC be the likes of non-planning cooperativists/mutualists and such? Certainly they don't like the bourgeoisie, but whether they like it or not, their program maintains generalized commodity production (GCD).

Perhaps by "capitalism" you mistakenly conflated it with GCD in general?

Anyway, yes there is that danger of making sure everyone is on board and that no one is trying to hollow out the minimum program.

Well that may be, but the target of my criticism was the union based party that these Trotskyo-Labourites propose. Any party based on the unions will be Labour 1.0 at best, the Democratic Party at worst. It's basically already what Syd(and many other Trotskyists) has advocated in the past.

[...]

I find your label of such entities as Syriza as "bourgeois workers parties" much more honest and consistent with what the reality really is.

[...]

I just don't see any potential or future in a labour party; at least Die Linke and the SPUSA have that going for them. The same cannot be said of the Trotskyists of the CWI, IMT, SWP(both of them), and many others who fetishize the labourite model as some kind "stepping stone to a vanguard party" and "point of production" struggles.

Indeed. Continental bourgeois worker parties are better than Labourite bourgeois worker parties.

Hit The North

25th September 2012, 15:16

Ostrinski

25th September 2012, 16:26

Peoples' War

25th September 2012, 17:06

By your definition, you would exclude the likes of DeLeonists, even those who can distinguish between "peaceful" constitutional overhaul as a tactic and "peaceful" constitutional overhaul as a strategy.Do they believe in the abolition of capitalism via revolution (be it peaceful -- which is, frankly, impossible -- or violent)?

I don't know a lot about DeLeonism, except it believes in a syndicalist structure to form a proletariat state, or something like that.

25th September 2012, 17:27

But wouldn't the "realo" wing for a PNNC be the likes of non-planning cooperativists and such? Certainly they don't like the bourgeoisie, but whether they like it or not, their program maintains generalized commodity production (GCD).

Perhaps by "capitalism" you mistakenly conflated it with GCD in general?
No, we were talking of two different realo wings. I don't see a cooperativist realo wing happening really (nor something we should encourage). Much more obvious would be a trade unionist (influenced) realo wing.

But I think we agree with the bottom line.

Except that in countries like the UK, the unions are a voluntary body reliant on workers' subscriptions and workers' self-activity and not properly a part of the bourgeois state. There have been times when attempts have been made to incorporate the trade unions in state sanctioned relations (such as Labour's approach in the 1960s and 70s) but there have also been times when the trade unions have been under attack by the state and need to mobilise in defence of its members (the Miners Strike 84/85 springs to mind).
I think you're taking matters a little to formal, but Ghost Bebel's formulation arguably didn't clear that up. What we see in the west is that, sure, the unions are formally independent bodies. But they're often a de facto part of the state. This relationship has various forms.

In the Netherlands for example, the trade union leadership has been tied to the "Poldermodel" for decades; a tripartite semi-state organ where the government, unions and bosses have a seat. For obvious reasons this has meant that the workers movement has been tied to neoliberal attacks for all this time and as a result has tremendously hollowed out.

In the UK we see a somewhat different relationship. Here the TUC leadership has, at the best of times, a big say in the political course of Labour. More often than not we rather see the reverse. But either way, Labour remains an expression of the interests of the trade union bureaucracy.

In both situations, the union bureaucracy is by all means part of the state or at least expresses an interest in being part of that apparatus. The reason for this lies in the fact that the bureaucracy has a material interest in maintaining the status quo as that gives ground to their status and makes them thrive even.

It is this relationship, the state in all its social and formal institutions that we must destroy or radically reform. Not just parliament and bureaucratic dictatorship (in all its forms) in the workers movement, but also the "rule of law", the army & police, the mass media, the international financial markets and the international hierarchy of states.

If Bebel means something rather different, I of course stand corrected as I can't speak for him but would then present this as my view on this.

RevoTO

25th September 2012, 17:34

We must link bread and butter demands to revolutionary politics. This must be our orientation. Comrade Broody makes an important point, working class people for the most part care about concrete things that affect their own lives. We have to connect the struggles they are facing to the contradictions and inability of capitalism to provide and finally to the need for a socialism.

Well I think there is a difference in that unions are defensive class organizations - this causes both the inherent conservativism in the leadership at most times (since the union leaders need both class struggle - to some degree - as well as capitalism in order to exist) and the potential militancy of the rank and file.

As we have seen over the last generation, without rank and file organization, unions can float along and maybe negotiate as long as the bosses are OK with that, but if the bosses attack, a top-down accomodationist union can't really advance. But a reformist party like the UK Labor party can move to the right and actually gain MORE power in the eclectoral sphere. So it's the direct connection to workers in the workplace and potential for rank and file action (even if, and often necissarily, this also means battling the union beurocrats as well as the bosses) that seperates unions and socialist reform parties.

There is the same potential for rank in file action in the labour parties. When workers are under attack and class consciousness is rising workers very often flood into the labour parties. The PSUV in Venezuela is good examples of this, where the working class uses the labour party as an avenue for struggle. This is the similarity between unions and labour parties they are both mass organizations and avenues for struggle.

There is no qualitative difference between them and the Democrats.

There is no qualitative difference between the Liberal party of Canada and the New Democratic Party?

I mean, you can keep pulling things out of your ass and claiming how glorious it is to work with liberals, but don't pretend it makes you revolutionary. You talk about how bad capitalism is, yet the only measures you solidly advocate are measures designed to alleviate capitalism, not abolish it. That's why you defend unions, which in reality are an extension of the capitalist apparatus. It's also why you advocate the creation of a mass party based on the unions, which really is the same fucking thing as the UK Labour Party. To be fair, most Trotskyists advocate this as well, such as the big organizations of the IMT and CWI(probably the ISO as well). They believe that creating a mass liberal labour party will somehow be a stepping stone to building a leninist vanguard party. It's complete nonsense; it's liquidationism and menshevism; it's liberalism.

This is what is meant by the label of "left of capital". You use superficial revolutionary rhetoric(and even then, only on occasion), while in practice capitulating entirely to capital. It provides a useful social function to capital; fooling people who might otherwise become revolutionary into fulfilling a role that really just reinforces capital.

Complete butchering of the ideas of work in the mass organization. We do not believe that a mass labour party will spontaneously lead to a Leninist vanguard party. We understand that whether we like it or not working class people have illusions in reformism and there mass organizations and will use them as avenues to fightback and get organized. Which is why we orient to the mass organizations. We are doing the same revolutionary work that many groups outside of the mass organizations are doing. The only thing nonsense is your understanding of what our orientation is. Advocating the need for a revolutionary party and staying firm on principles in a labour party is a much more effective and relevant way of building a Marxist force. I think you need to actually read some of the articles IMT publishes which are the same ones that are distributed in the labour parties and unions instead of talking out of your ass.

Advocating revolutionary politics in mass organizations is not capitulating to reformism.

RevoTO

25th September 2012, 17:38

Hit The North

25th September 2012, 18:37

I think you're taking matters a little to formal, but Ghost Bebel's formulation arguably didn't clear that up.

Too formal? Well either the trade unions are part of the capitalist state, like GB argues, or they're not.

I don't for a second disallow the fact that the union bureaucracy have a vested interest in the status quo and that this will often put them on the wrong side of the class struggle, but GB does not seem to want to make the distinction between the union as a bureaucracy and the union as rank and file workers.

Beyond that, his description of the "Trotskyist" strategy is so unrecognisable and clueless, it is almost funny.

Geiseric

25th September 2012, 18:46

Syriza is a liberal party fool. Not seeking to abolish capitalism=liberal

So by your logic fascists are liberals too. Liberal means one vies to strengthen capitalism, in a specific way, which today means cutting things the working class needs in terms of welfare. Also unions are also liberal by your left communist logic, despite the fact they form out of conflict with capital.

Die Neue Zeit

26th September 2012, 03:18

Do they believe in the abolition of capitalism via revolution (be it peaceful -- which is, frankly, impossible -- or violent)?

I don't know a lot about DeLeonism, except it believes in a syndicalist structure to form a proletariat state, or something like that.

At least some activists believe in the idea of implementing the program via constitutional amendment. There are issues, but this is more than ordinary "democratic socialism" because there can be grassroots pressure all around for such change.

Die Neue Zeit

26th September 2012, 03:26

No, we were talking of two different realo wings. I don't see a cooperativist realo wing happening really (nor something we should encourage). Much more obvious would be a trade unionist (influenced) realo wing.

The Paris Commune was more cooperativist/mutualist than "state-socialist" (example: failure to seize the national bank). But yeah, that other wing is something to keep four or more eyes on.

But I think we agree with the bottom line.

To a certain extent there is already a merger of some form of "socialism" with the worker-class movement in the PNNC, because economic overhaul was on the agenda of even the likes of the Paris Commune.

As for trade union influence:

Thanks for the information, but the fundamental error with this is that the unions themselves are an apparatus of the bourgeois state. As Lenin said, we cannot lay our hands on the ready-made bourgeois apparatus; but destroy it utterly. I concur with him in this regard.

He didn't say we should smash unions. However, do consider my proposal re. a public monopoly on private-sector collective bargaining representation. That would achieve "universal unionization without forced association."

In both situations, the union bureaucracy is by all means part of the state or at least expresses an interest in being part of that apparatus. The reason for this lies in the fact that the bureaucracy has a material interest in maintaining the status quo as that gives ground to their status and makes them thrive even.

It is this relationship, the state in all its social and formal institutions that we must destroy or radically reform. Not just parliament and bureaucratic dictatorship (in all its forms) in the workers movement, but also the "rule of law", the army & police, the mass media, the international financial markets and the international hierarchy of states.

If Bebel means something rather different, I of course stand corrected as I can't speak for him but would then present this as my view on this.

Did you re-examine my programmatic commentary regarding "universal unionization without forced association"?