European Communist Party

[Tim Cornelis]

Would a European Communist Party be preferable and viable?

I'm not talking about ideological content, but the concept in itself.

What would its advantages and disadvantages be?

[Prometeo liberado]

How could an umbrella communist party do for all of Europe what the individual countries CP's have thus far failed to do? If you can not organize a country how can you organize a continent?

[Tim Cornelis]

How could an umbrella communist party do for all of Europe what the individual countries CP's have thus far failed to do? If you can not organize a country how can you organize a continent?

Valid question. What is the reason we organise internationally at all? Virtually every organisation has some international affiliation. Political integration and linking class struggles beyond borders is obviously advantageous.

I suppose if you had a European socialist party you would seem more relevant and more attractive. Should such a party arise (which it won't, but let's assume for the sake of argument) it should be a multi-tendency socialist party. Perhaps two parties: a Marxist-Leninist one and a Trotskyist, democratic socialist, and libertarian socialist coalition.

This would in part overcome the problem you mentioned by directing the limited resources we possess towards a common goal.

If a party under the same name achieves some sort of success in, say, Italy, news may reach the Netherlands and the Dutch chapter may reap from this some success as well.

[Manic Impressive]

A world party is the eventual goal of every internationalist. I see no reason to stop with just Europe.

[Tim Cornelis]

A world party is the eventual goal of every internationalist. I see no reason to stop with just Europe.

Which raises another question, why hasn't this happened? What is obstructing socialists from forming a European party, let alone a world party?

[Prometeo liberado]

Valid question. What is the reason we organize internationally at all?
By this criteria then the job has already been undertaken, not once or twice but several times. How many Internationals are there right now? Who is to say which tendency would have X amount as representatives?
As it stands news already reaches the world with lightening speed and this is done from a bottom up standpoint. Organic representation ultimately will supplant the organizational methods of the past. Another International this or conglomerate of that perpetuates the old bureaucracies that seemed to have failed the working class time and time again.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

The EU is on the verge of collapse, though, is it not? I'm pretty familiar with European politics and that seems to be the case. In any case, revolution in one European country would most likely spread fairly rapidly, though.

And although a world party would be theoretically fantastic - we have to keep one thing in mind. Assuming a revolution does not spread globally, immediately, parties in the capitalist world would suffer from infiltrationism, which would then serve as a threat to the global movement.

[Manic Impressive]

Which raises another question, why hasn't this happened? What is obstructing socialists from forming a European party, let alone a world party?
Time will tell which theory is correct as class consciousness rises. Most of us who are in parties or even anarchist orgs are in internationally linked groups. I think in terms of different tendencies cooperating I believe this can happen with certain groups but not with all, obviously not with reformists or state capitalists. But there is currently no reason to work together even with the most similar groups as we are not in a stage of heightened class consciousness and until that time the goal of every organization should be to reach that stage as quickly as possible. The only way to speed up that process is by teaching the rest of the proletariat about capitalism and why it needs to go.

[Ostrinski]

The broader our organizations the better. As it stands now, there are a few orgs that are affiliated with internationals, but they are all incompetent as far as use for the working class movement goes.

What we need is a party run by workers and for workers. If, say, European workers are able to build a quality party-movement in a couple countries, then spreading it could only be a good thing because it opens up opportunities for increased class and political consciousness across Europe.

The larger the front we face the capitalist class on, the better. This is why I disagree with comrade jbeard. He says that creating a larger regional organization is not practical because it would fail to do what smaller, nationally based organizations are already failing to do. But the function of a communist party is as an apparatus of working class political goals (i.e. socialism). But we know now from history that such a society cannot exist isolated from the world for reasons that have been exhaustively discussed. From a national arena, the working class faces down the international bourgeoisie with odds extremely unfavorable to them. If they can build a larger, internationally basedorganization, however, they stand a much better chance against international capital.

Also, MustCrushCapitalism states that since the EU is in the midst of crisis, the building of an pan-Euro party would be futile. I say just the opposite. As the EU continues to crumble, more and more people from more and more nations will be affected. It seems to me that communists would be foolish not to try and build something to reach as many people as possible?

[Grenzer]

With all due respect to Jbeard, I think he is missing out on a crucial dimension of the question; that of internationalism.

Internationalism cannot be an abstract principle or ideal for communists, but something that is regarded as just as real and necessary as the seizure of power on a more local level.

Suppose a nationally based organization does succeed in bringing the proletariat to power. Then what? Without an extant framework to coordinate its actions with that of the international proletariat on a global scale, and to fully exploit the windows that a successful revolution creates, the proletarian dictatorship confined to a single national unit will fail and fall prey to the same issues we have already seen in the 20th century.

It probably doesn't help any that the left has its head buried in the sand and focuses its worldview exclusively around the opinions of men that have been dead for like 88 years. If communism is the movement which aspires to abolish the present state of things, then why are we adopting the views of the movement to abolish the state of things in 1917 when it's 2012? As a materialist and a Marxist, I am not a big believer in eternal, unchanging political principles.

The establishment of a pan-European revolutionary proletarian organization that is more than a hollow and empty sect would be a tremendous step forward as compared to the current state of affairs, but why stop there?

[Igor]

i'm all for internationalism but that kind of development would have to be international. i see little point in having an european party, as i don't really think there is any clear european identity. it's important to have national operations, but europe really doesn't have that much in common. we have the colonial heritage, the social democratic liberal democracy and so on, but i don't why that should mean we would have to organize at an European level.

european communist party wouldn't really be internationalist, as it still excludes non-europe. we need an international party, and we need local branches of that.

[Fruit of Ulysses]

the idea of a european communist party reminds me of something crypto-fascist, at first it seems slightly contrary to the marxist-lenninst principle of self-determiniation and reminds me a little bit of mosleys "europe a nation" idea but then again how the hel is it very different from yugoslavia or the soviet union or the indochinese communist party which encompassed Kampuchea, Laos, and Vietnam. My only real gripe is that I think the idea of a pan-european communist party would attract covert revisionist elements such as national bolsheviks, third positionists, or so called "eurocommunists". I believe it might be prone to a right deviationist trend.

[Ostrinski]

i'm all for internationalism but that kind of development would have to be international. i see little point in having an european party, as i don't really think there is any clear european identity. it's important to have national operations, but europe really doesn't have that much in common. we have the colonial heritage, the social democratic liberal democracy and so on, but i don't why that should mean we would have to organize at an European level.Well, it's not really a matter of national identity as it is about building the biggest, broadest, and most effective movement possible. A Eurasian movement would be even better, for instance. That's not to say that there aren't cultural differences within this large hypothetical movement, but if all the workers of Europe and Asia are developing class consciousness then it would be practically best to channel it into one broad political struggle that encompasses all the class conscious workers.

We're for the tearing down of national boundaries after all, and if cultural and national issues are an obstacle for the socialist movement, then I'd say that's a problem.


european communist party wouldn't really be internationalist, as it still excludes non-europe. we need an international party, and we need local branches of that.An international party would ideally be best, but that's not necessarily applicable as it would require an extraordinary amount of class consciousness and sense of solidarity among the global proletariat. Hell, the whole European communist party thing isn't necessarily applicable either (as Tim Cornelis noted this is just a hypothetical scenario).

However, I'd imagine that a Euro-wide communist party would become practical before an international because the European Union creates some sense of unity, as the Euro crisis affects peoples of many different nations in a similar if not identical way.

[Ostrinski]

the idea of a european communist party reminds me of something crypto-fascist, at first it seems slightly contrary to the marxist-lenninst principle of self-determiniation and reminds me a little bit of mosleys "europe a nation" idea but then again how the hel is it very different from yugoslavia or the soviet union or the indochinese communist party which encompassed Kampuchea, Laos, and Vietnam. My only real gripe is that I think the idea of a pan-european communist party would attract covert revisionist elements such as national bolsheviks, third positionists, or so called "eurocommunists". I believe it might be prone to a right deviationist trend.How is it "crypto-fascist"? If anything I'd imagine the existence of something like a pan-national party would strike fear into the hearts of the fascists and the broader right, because it would imply a departure and abandonment of nationalism and adherence to national identity, which have been great obstacles for the forces of internationalism. Fascists thrive off of the national ideology, in fact their central thesis is a promise of a rebirth of the nation in accordance with its former glory. It is the true epitome of nationalism and its logically drawn natural conclusion.

"The Marxist-Leninist principle of self-determination" is a capitulation to the bourgeoisie that depend on the ideology of nationhood to fundamentally divide the global proletariat.

Not sure how it would attract the disagreeable characters you mentioned. If anything it would kick them out of the labor movement once and for all, with a solidified political program decided upon by, and what would encompass, the workers of Europe. Something like that would effectively marginalize and isolate the pests in question.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I think it really depends what the Party would be utilised for. Would it be a reformist party working within the EU to defend and instigate policies that improve the lives of workers or would it organise outside the confines of the bourgeois structures to do the same? The former might be far easier to have popular success, to be honest, but the latter is far more preferable to me.

[Mather]

Would a European Communist Party be preferable and viable?


Being an anarchist I would not really be in favour of a party in the leninist tradition. However, a Europe wide anarchist federation would in my view be both preferable and viable. At a bare minimum, the ideology of such a federation would have to include; materialism, class struggle, communism, anti-reformism, anti-imperialism and internationalism.



What would its advantages and disadvantages be?


The main advantage is also one of necessity. In the 21st century, no revolution is able to survive in isolation. Larger countries may be able to prolong their revolutions against capitalist restoration, but if they remain isolated and cut off from the rest of the global working class, then capitalist restoration becomes all but inevitable. As an internationalist, I would like to see a worldwide anarchist/communist movement and I would consider the formation of a Europe wide organisation to be a good first step. This concept need not just be about Europe either. The formation of continent and sub-continent wide working class organisations should be encouraged globally.

In the past the main disadvantages were transport, communications and sheer distance. Modern technologies and means of communication (mobile phones and the internet) have changed that. The only other issue I can see that would be unique to a Europe wide organisation would be that of language.

[Grenzer]

anti-imperialism

Being an anarchist, I assume you mean genuine anti-imperialism as opposed to the typical Leninist "YAY, Assad!" or "YAY, Atatürk!" crap. Be careful with that term because a lot of people will associate anti-imperialism with the pro-bourgeois politics you see from mainstream Trotskyist and Stalinist parties. Personally, I think it's a loaded term so I don't like it much.

[Mather]

Being an anarchist, I assume you mean genuine anti-imperialism as opposed to the typical Leninist "YAY, Assad!" or "YAY, Atatürk!" crap. Be careful with that term because a lot of people will associate anti-imperialism with the pro-bourgeois politics you see from mainstream Trotskyist and Stalinist parties. Personally, I think it's a loaded term so I don't like it much.

Lol, in hindsight I should have made that one clearer.

I take the view that imperialism is a stage of global capitalism, therefore all the capitalist states in the contemporary world are a part of imperialism, Syria included. But I still call myself an anti-imperialist on the basis that I oppose all bourgeois wars, even when they try and cloak their intentions with 'humanitarian' rhetoric as they did in the Second World War, the former Yugoslavia and more recetly in Libya.

[Mather]

However, I'd imagine that a Euro-wide communist party would become practical before an international because the European Union creates some sense of unity, as the Euro crisis affects peoples of many different nations in a similar if not identical way.


Indeed. The ruling classes across Europe are imposing a regime of austerity, cuts and attacks on workers. These policies are applied at the continental level so it can only make sense for the working class to fight back at the continental level.

[Rocky Rococo]

It seems to me that from a working-class perspective, the key transborder issues and connections are with Africa and the Middle East. The greatest threat of fascism is the use by the bourgeoisie of xenophobia to pit local national European workers against immigrant/migrant workers from the global south. Building a party/alliance/network that organizes and includes workers from both sides of that divide seems to me an absolute necessity if the crisis of our times is to result in a turn to the left rather than to the far right.

[Tim Cornelis]

the idea of a european communist party reminds me of something crypto-fascist, at first it seems slightly contrary to the marxist-lenninst principle of self-determiniation and reminds me a little bit of mosleys "europe a nation" idea but then again how the hel is it very different from yugoslavia or the soviet union or the indochinese communist party which encompassed Kampuchea, Laos, and Vietnam. My only real gripe is that I think the idea of a pan-european communist party would attract covert revisionist elements such as national bolsheviks, third positionists, or so called "eurocommunists". I believe it might be prone to a right deviationist trend.

National self-determination is nationalistic in itself. Communism, by extension of your logic, violates the "Marxist-Leninist principle of self-determination" and is therefore unjustified.


By this criteria then the job has already been undertaken, not once or twice but several times. How many Internationals are there right now? Who is to say which tendency would have X amount as representatives?
As it stands news already reaches the world with lightening speed and this is done from a bottom up standpoint. Organic representation ultimately will supplant the organizational methods of the past. Another International this or conglomerate of that perpetuates the old bureaucracies that seemed to have failed the working class time and time again.

I suppose a party-movement would be different from an international in that an international conjoins several independent parties all carrying different names. In contrast, a European party would have each national chapter carry the same name. It would be called the European Anticapitalist Left (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Anti-Capitalist_Left) (which currently exists, but is defunct) in Portugal, in Scotland, and Italy, as opposed to Scottish Socialist Party, Left Bloc, and the Critical Left.

I imagine a European party, as opposed to an international, would be more interconnected and coordinated. But I also suppose this difference may be trivial in practice.


Being an anarchist I would not really be in favour of a party in the leninist tradition. However, a Europe wide anarchist federation would in my view be both preferable and viable. At a bare minimum, the ideology of such a federation would have to include; materialism, class struggle, communism, anti-reformism, anti-imperialism and internationalism.

The anarchist federation I'm a member of (Vrije Bond) is observing member of the International of Anarchist Federations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_of_Anarchist_Federations), which is indeed anti-reformist, communist, and based on direct action and class struggle. It is mainly based in Europe but there are anarchist federations being set up in Latin America, including Peru and Venezuela.

There is a triennial congress of the IFA and a mandated, recallable secretariat meets every six months (if I'm not mistaken).

But I suppose a European Communist Party would need to be multi-tendency and have a Trotskyist (or several) wing(s), a libertarian socialist wing, etc. in order to be relevant at all.


The EU is on the verge of collapse, though, is it not?

The EU will only collapse if there is an incredible surge of far-left and far-right politics, and neither seems likely. Another scenario is when the Conservative Party in the UK align themselves with UKIP, and as such issues a referendum on EU-membership with the outcome being a majority in favour of quitting the EU. This could set a precedent for other countries. But other than that I don't see the EU collapsing, so it certainly isn't on the verge of collapse.

[Paul Cockshott]

How could an umbrella communist party do for all of Europe what the individual countries CP's have thus far failed to do? If you can not organize a country how can you organize a continent?

Politics is class struggle around state power. Political parties have thus been structured around the boundaries of state powers. In Europe a significant portion of state power now exists at the EU level, which is thus the level at which a struggle to take power has to be posed.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Valid question. What is the reason we organise internationally at all? Virtually every organisation has some international affiliation. Political integration and linking class struggles beyond borders is obviously advantageous.

I suppose if you had a European socialist party you would seem more relevant and more attractive. Should such a party arise (which it won't, but let's assume for the sake of argument) it should be a multi-tendency socialist party. Perhaps two parties: a Marxist-Leninist one and a Trotskyist, democratic socialist, and libertarian socialist coalition.

This would in part overcome the problem you mentioned by directing the limited resources we possess towards a common goal.

If a party under the same name achieves some sort of success in, say, Italy, news may reach the Netherlands and the Dutch chapter may reap from this some success as well.

1. Why do M-Ls get their own party?

2. I don't think it's the actual form of the party that's hugely the problem, it's the lack of engagement, the poor politics of most of the left and their general irrelevance, which dis-engages them from actual workers' struggles on a day-to-day basis. I think the question of continent-wide organisation is of negligible importance in this context.

[Fruit of Ulysses]

damn my comment about self-determiniation! i didnt explain myself properly. i know the goal is a global workers state and thusly a continental party would be a stepping to that, but i think its a little too soon for a continental european party. I grew up in an Irish Republican family so, odd as it may seem, I'd like to see a free Ulster and free Basque country before the formation of a continental party. I know that sounds like going backward before going forward to internationalism but Europe must be cleansed of its imperialism before such an endeavor is undertaken I believe. But this is all just wine tinged speculation.

[sanpal]

In the past the main disadvantages were transport, communications and sheer distance. Modern technologies and means of communication (mobile phones and the internet) have changed that. The only other issue I can see that would be unique to a Europe wide organisation would be that of language.

I do not think, that the unique problem is language. It's not a problem at all if you can understand me who are not knowing English well enough. The main problem consists in correct interpretation of the marxist theory as the science which has / will have the unique (not utopian) practical realization. Tens different left tendencies speak us, that there are many various "correct" interpretations of one marxist theory that is an absurd thing. In a result in minds of working class there is a mess and scepticism instead of revolutionary consciousness. Modern technologies and a communication facility (portable phones and the Internet) give us a unique opportunity to find a consensus in the theory at an international level (for example in a forum RevLeft "Theory"). In case of the positive decision of this problem(task) the question put in this thread, will disappear by itself for national Communist Parties will merge in international (EU, global) Communist Party naturally.

[Mather]

2. I don't think it's the actual form of the party that's hugely the problem, it's the lack of engagement, the poor politics of most of the left and their general irrelevance, which dis-engages them from actual workers' struggles on a day-to-day basis. I think the question of continent-wide organisation is of negligible importance in this context.

To some extent your right, the contemporary revolutionary left have had many problems concerning their inability to reach out to the wider working class and relating to the everyday concerns and issues that affect the working class. This is a problem but it is one that goes far beyond the topic being discussed in this thread as it is a problem that is true for most national based parties and organisation as well.

Saying that however, the question of the working class organising beyond their narrow national borders is an important one. If a country in Europe approaches a pre-revolutionary situation, then questions concerning the possibility of the revolution being isolated and cut off from the rest of the working class in Europe become both necessary and urgent.

[Mather]

damn my comment about self-determiniation! i didnt explain myself properly. i know the goal is a global workers state and thusly a continental party would be a stepping to that, but i think its a little too soon for a continental european party.

Why?

What are the material conditions in Europe that prohibit the organisation of the working class on a continental scale?


I grew up in an Irish Republican family so, odd as it may seem, I'd like to see a free Ulster and free Basque country before the formation of a continental party.

How does dividing Europe up into ever more numerous and smaller countries help the working class in it's task of social revolution? Even if a revolution took place in one of the larger countries, say France or Germany, the revolution would face inevitable defeat if it remains isolated. How then can we expect smaller countries like Catalonia or Flanders to do what larger countries couldn't do on their own?


I know that sounds like going backward before going forward to internationalism but Europe must be cleansed of its imperialism before such an endeavor is undertaken I believe. But this is all just wine tinged speculation.

Are all the regions in Europe currently seeking independence victims of imperialism? Can this be said for example of Flanders or South Tyrol?

I would say that contemporary European imperialism targets and exploits those markets in the global south. Thats does not negate the fact that the rule of capital in Europe is exploitative and can hit certain regions and countries harder than others but that is different to the specific economic mechanisms of imperialism itself. I lean towards the view that imperialism is a stage of global capitalism and that is more than just a case of contries invading and occupying other countries. There are those capitalist countries that today have no colonies or occupied regions (nor had they historically) yet they are still imperialist by the way in which their economy operates within the context of a global capitalist one. South Korea, Australia and Canada are good contemporary examples.

On the issue of the right to self-determination, I support the right of all peoples, regions and countries to self-determination. I oppose all violent and coercive measures that states take to crush the desire for self-determination. While I support the right to self-determination I do believe that the working class can only gain if they organise on the largest scale possible. If I use my own country as an example, I support the rights of Scots, Irish, Welsh and Cornish to self-determination but I would argue that the working class is stronger when it is united. If the ruling class are stronger when they are united, then the same rule applies to the working class.

[Mather]

I do not think, that the unique problem is language. It's not a problem at all if you can understand me who are not knowing English well enough.


The original question asked about problems that would be specific to a multi-national Europe wide organisation. Given that Europe has many different languages and that not everyone is fluent in another major language means that it could be an issue to some extent. I don't see it as a major issue though, as modern technology has made translation and communication a lot easier.



The main problem consists in correct interpretation of the marxist theory as the science which has / will have the unique (not utopian) practical realization. Tens different left tendencies speak us, that there are many various "correct" interpretations of one marxist theory that is an absurd thing. In a result in minds of working class there is a mess and scepticism instead of revolutionary consciousness.


These are all real problems but they can also be applied to all the existing national parties and organisations. There are many parties and organisations that already have problems concerning theory, their stance on certain issues, lack of debate and democracy within the party/organisation and their tactics and strategy. All this does need dealing with but it does not preclude the possibility of the working class being able to organise on scales that go beyond their national borders. The only thing that could stand in the way of this would be material conditions that act as an obstacle and currently I cannot see any with regards to the working class organising on continental scale.



In case of the positive decision of this problem(task) the question put in this thread, will disappear by itself for national Communist Parties will merge in international (EU, global) Communist Party naturally.


If a Europe wide party or organisation were to be formed, I think it would come from the mass of the working class itself rather than all the current small groups that make up the contemporary revolutionary left. They may be involved in such a formation but I am sceptical that they would play any leading or significant role and if we go on how most of them have performed and behaved up until now, maybe that is a good thing.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Internationalism is bankrupt. There's only the compatible roads of transnationalism and workers pan-nationalism. The latter would apply to EU organizing.


I think it really depends what the Party would be utilised for. Would it be a reformist party working within the EU to defend and instigate policies that improve the lives of workers or would it organise outside the confines of the bourgeois structures to do the same? The former might be far easier to have popular success, to be honest, but the latter is far more preferable to me.

Even on the level of reforms, it would suit workers best if the GUE-NGL become a proper Europe-wide political party.

[Grenzer]

Internationalism is bankrupt. There's only the compatible roads of transnationalism and workers pan-nationalism. The latter would apply to EU organizing.

Well I think what a lot of people mean when they say internationalism is actually transnationalism, but they need to be more clear on that.

In a way you are actually correct: historically, all movements that have claimed the mantle of "international" have done so merely to obscure the fact that they tend to revolve around a single nationally based unit. The Third International wasn't Intenational or Transnational; it was wholly based around Russia from its inception. The International Communist Party wasn't really international; it revolved around Italy.

This suggests the need for a radically new direction as opposed to emulating the models of the past "Internationals". What this new direction should be though, I am not sure. Pan-national organization, such as a Pan-European party, would be a great step in the right direction and devoid of the pretenses and illusions that come with a self-described international project.

I think you've written on this some in the past, but it's a topic that could definitely use more exploration. An exploration of the failures of the past, and a model to use today. Most Leninists today, even the Trotskyists, cling to the initial conception of the Third International as being the thing to emulate. It's important to point out the flaws that were inherent in it from the beginning and strip away this dogmatic affection for all things Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well I think what a lot of people mean when they say internationalism is actually transnationalism, but they need to be more clear on that.

On the contrary, comrade, the two are fundamentally different. Inter-nationalism just hops across borders. Trans-nationalism goes beyond borders.

It's nice symbolism that the French worker-class movement once had the French Section of the Workers International, but in practice there was no French Section of the Workers International. There wasn't any national section of an International until Bordiga's short-lived Italian party-building in the 1920s.

Just how bankrupt is inter-nationalism? Sufficed to say, the Little England peculiarities, methinks, requires today a British Section of the GUE-NGL, and that's again on the level of reforms!


In a way you are actually correct: historically, all movements that have claimed the mantle of "international" have done so merely to obscure the fact that they tend to revolve around a single nationally based unit. The Third International wasn't Intenational or Transnational; it was wholly based around Russia from its inception. The International Communist Party wasn't really international; it revolved around Italy.

In some ways the International Communist Party of Bordiga's later years was actually an improvement, in some ways only.


This suggests the need for a radically new direction as opposed to emulating the models of the past "Internationals". What this new direction should be though, I am not sure.

Did you read Louis Proyect's blogs on the Internationals, the series whose last blog was on Chavez's attempt?


Pan-national organization, such as a Pan-European party, would be a great step in the right direction and devoid of the pretenses and illusions that come with a self-described international project.

I have some controversial-for-left-standards views on the subject, sufficed to say.


I think you've written on this some in the past, but it's a topic that could definitely use more exploration.

Yes, my earlier completed pamphlet's final chapter.


An exploration of the failures of the past, and a model to use today. Most Leninists today, even the Trotskyists, cling to the initial conception of the Third International as being the thing to emulate. It's important to point out the flaws that were inherent in it from the beginning and strip away this dogmatic affection for all things Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.

Russian fan clubs actually have less to offer workers today than the "Two and a Half" International Working Union of Socialist Parties.

[Mather]

Internationalism is bankrupt.


As a concept, I would argue that it never was really applied. So it never even got to the stage where we can decide either way on that point.

There are key Internationalist positions that do still hold true. That workers have no country, only their class; that nationalism is false consciousness; Imperialism is global and tied to capitalism, to defeat it means you treat your national ruling class as the main class enemy.

The numerous organisations that went by the name International are a different matter. They all had their problems and they all failed for a number of different reasons. This could have something to do with the general failure of the working class revolutions and revolts we have had so far.



There's only the compatible roads of transnationalism and workers pan-nationalism.


Isn't this just a pedantic play on words? How do these two concepts differ from internationalism?



Even on the level of reforms, it would suit workers best if the GUE-NGL become a proper Europe-wide political party.


The GUE-NGL is not what I would have gone for as an example. They are a loose coalition of reformists, social democrats and the old pro-Soviet CPs. Besides, the European Parliament is as much of a political dead end for the working class as their respective national parliaments are. I support the working class organising beyond their national borders by their own means and through their own efforts, as a class. It would be futile to waste such efforts by foregoing the class struggle in favour of reformism.

The struggles of the working class are a daily concern and occurrence for all workers. A working class organisation would be there and amongst the class on a daily basis. Unlike the bourgeois parties, a working class organisation would not just show up on election day asking you for your vote. A working class organisation would be there, daily. It can only do this if it is genuinely part of the working class. In Europe at least, there are few if any examples of such organisations.

[Rocky Rococo]

The only International that ever lived up to its promise is the one we sing.

[Mather]

I would also like to ask that when we talk of internationalism, are we not starting to confuse the concept from the numerous organisations that went by that name?

I would support a Europe wide organisation of the working class and my support is based on practicle concerns, not ones of principle. The current economic crisis has hit Europe badly and the ruling classes have united in their imposition of austerity and their attacks on the working class across Europe. There is also rising discontent and anger along with rising social unrest, across Europe. These two points make the possibility of the working class organising on a European level plausible. If this is something that can be done now then I will take that over the current situation of each country having their own lot of numerous and small far-left groups.

However I have no objection to a Europe wide working class organisation going beyond the borders of Europe and merging with the working class in Africa and Asia. If revolutions and material conditions allow for working class to unite on levels beyond continents, good. I see continental organisations as a step towards the final goal, worldwide communism.

I am also having some trouble in trying to figure out what Die Neue Zeit is trying to get at. Are you advocating continental nationalism? Do you see the continental level as an end in itself for a working class organisation or as a step towards a global working class organisation?

[l'Enfermé]

Regarding DNZ's preference of transnationalism over internationalism:

The Latin prefix inter means between.
The Latin prefix trans means beyond, or across.
Internationalism is between nations, and transnationalism is beyond/across nations.

[Die Neue Zeit]

As a concept, I would argue that it never was really applied. So it never even got to the stage where we can decide either way on that point.

Of course it was applied. The original Socialist International was a worker-class international.


There are key Internationalist positions that do still hold true. That workers have no country, only their class; that nationalism is false consciousness; Imperialism is global and tied to capitalism, to defeat it means you treat your national ruling class as the main class enemy.

[...]

Isn't this just a pedantic play on words? How do these two concepts differ from internationalism?

Solidarity across nations is different from realizing that organizing nationally is still a dead end. Trans-nationalism would be manifested in a mass party-movement version of Bordiga's International Communist Party. Workers pan-nationalism has its limits, like continental boundaries, but within those boundaries an "identity" would be reinforced.


I am also having some trouble in trying to figure out what Die Neue Zeit is trying to get at. Are you advocating continental nationalism? Do you see the continental level as an end in itself for a working class organisation or as a step towards a global working class organisation?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/mapping-alternative-europe-t161873/index.html?p=2247808

"An EU focus would be better served by Pan-Nationalism and a combined indigenous and self-declared 'Euro-Worker' identity."


The GUE-NGL is not what I would have gone for as an example. They are a loose coalition of reformists, social democrats and the old pro-Soviet CPs. Besides, the European Parliament is as much of a political dead end for the working class as their respective national parliaments are. I support the working class organising beyond their national borders by their own means and through their own efforts, as a class. It would be futile to waste such efforts by foregoing the class struggle in favour of reformism.

Genuine class struggle is political, not economic. By becoming a proper continental party, the GUE-NGL could achieve way more than the constituent "reformists, social-democrats, and old pro-Soviet CPs" could accomplish individually within their own borders, as Die Linke, Front de gauche, SYRIZA, etc.

As comrade Cockshott noted above, the EU has provided a political level for workers to organize at.

[The Borg]

Well, there is the party of the European left
/watch?v=mkDA9Pa9SkQ

Before you go all dogmatic on me and stuff, I would like to remind that the party of the European left contains a shitload of authentic marxist communist parties, and that it is openly anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-EU and pro-socialist. Even the parties that are not called communist parties are descendants of communist parties and anti-capitalist.

[Mather]

Regarding DNZ's preference of transnationalism over internationalism:

The Latin prefix inter means between.
The Latin prefix trans means beyond, or across.
Internationalism is between nations, and transnationalism is beyond/across nations.

Thanks.

The point I am trying to make on this, is that I support the organisation of the working class on a Europe wide scale as it is now a practical and plausible possibility. I am not advocating some type of European nationalism or that the working class should identify themselves as Europeans, over their own class identity.

A worker in Europe has more in common with his fellow workers in the US and South Africa for example, than they have with members of the bourgeoisie in Europe.

[Ostrinski]

Thanks.

The point I am trying to make on this, is that I support the organisation of the working class on a Europe wide scale as it is now a practical and plausible possibility. I am not advocating some type of European nationalism or that the working class should identify themselves as Europeans, over their own class identity.

A worker in Europe has more in common with his fellow workers in the US and South Africa for example, than they have with members of the bourgeoisie in Europe.No one is saying this

[Mather]

Of course it was applied. The original Socialist International was a worker-class international.

The Second International failed becaused it abandoned internationalism in favour of nationalism and imperialism, when it's constituent parties voted in favour of war credits upon the outbreak of the First World War. Supporting your own state and bourgeoisie during times of war is not internationalism, it is the very opposite.

That, along the rotten reformism and parliamentarism of the Second International sealed it's fate as a political dead end for the working class.


Workers pan-nationalism has its limits, like continental boundaries, but within those boundaries an "identity" would be reinforced.

What do you mean by "continental boundaries" being limits?

Are you referring to geopraphical and cultural boundries or concrete material conditions which would prove an obstacle to working class organisation going beyond continental boundries?


"An EU focus would be better served by Pan-Nationalism and a combined indigenous and self-declared 'Euro-Worker' identity."

How is a "Euro-Worker" identity different to the actual class identity of workers?

Is there something especially unique about the identity of a worker in Europe which separates him/her from workers outside of Europe?



Genuine class struggle is political, not economic.


It is both, as the economic is political.

Yes, some parties and organisations have given up on the political questions to focus purely on economic issues (economism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economism)). The GUE-NGL is a good example of an organisation that restricts itself to economism, all it has to offer are failed social democratic policies and heavy doses of keynesianism. The GUE-NGL totally fails to address politics. They have no plans or ideas when it comes to the working class seizing the means of production and social revolution. Likewise they are nowhere to be seen in the day to day struggles of the working class, they only appear for your vote on election day, just like all the other bourgeois parties. The class war occurs on a daily basis and if a party or organisation cannot be there, day to day, then it is not worth bothering about.


By becoming a proper continental party, the GUE-NGL could achieve way more than the constituent "reformists, social-democrats, and old pro-Soviet CPs" could accomplish individually within their own borders, as Die Linke, Front de gauche, SYRIZA, etc.

The problems (and there are many) with all the parties in the GUE-NGL have little to do with whether they are united at a Europe wide level or not. Their piss poor programmes and their reformism are far greater problems, ones that will guarantee that the likes of the GUE-NGL will play little (if any) role in a working class revolution in Europe.

[Mather]

Well, there is the party of the European left
/watch?v=mkDA9Pa9SkQ

Before you go all dogmatic on me and stuff, I would like to remind that the party of the European left contains a shitload of authentic marxist communist parties, and that it is openly anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-EU and pro-socialist. Even the parties that are not called communist parties are descendants of communist parties and anti-capitalist.

They appear to be just another GUE-NGL type grouping in the European Parliament. Only that they seem to have more of the old pro-Soviet CPs in them. There are also a lot of national parties in this group that are also members of the GUE-NGL, such as Die Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_(Germany)).

Not much to get excited about in my opinion.

[Mather]

No one is saying this


At some point, it did feel as if Die Neue Zeit was saying that.

Hopefully he can clarify this, as I am having some problems with whatever point he is trying to make.

[Paul Cockshott]

At the very minimum such a party would stand openly in elections as the European Socialist or Communist party on a common platform in all nation states, both when standing for the EU parliament and when standing in local or regional elections. It would combat all attempts to pose political questions in terms of the national interest as opposed to the common interest of the working people of Europe.
It would have a programme for resolving the crisis that could only be achieved by the working people of the continent asserting political power at a continental level.
This sort of organisation is a material necessity because it is the structure of the EU and the monetary union that conditions the crisis in living conditions accross the whole continent.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The Second International failed becaused it abandoned internationalism in favour of nationalism and imperialism, when it's constituent parties voted in favour of war credits upon the outbreak of the First World War. Supporting your own state and bourgeoisie during times of war is not internationalism, it is the very opposite.

That, along the rotten reformism and parliamentarism of the Second International sealed it's fate as a political dead end for the working class.

It alone organized things like the Alternative Culture that was far ahead of today's left agitational bent.


What do you mean by "continental boundaries" being limits?

Euro-Workers would organize on a continental basis, but "solidarity" and "brotherhood of the peoples" would be expressed with comrades in Latin America, India, or in far east Asia. That's what I mean by Euro-Worker Pan-Nationalism.

As I said above, besides this alternative there's simply combining the best of the original Socialist International and Bordiga's International Communist Party.


How is a "Euro-Worker" identity different to the actual class identity of workers?

Is there something especially unique about the identity of a worker in Europe which separates him/her from workers outside of Europe?

Because Europe is more politically integrated.


At some point, it did feel as if Die Neue Zeit was saying that.

Hopefully he can clarify this, as I am having some problems with whatever point he is trying to make.

I said identifying as "Euro-Workers" and organizing as "Euro-Workers," certainly not as "Europeans" or the wordy "working-class Europeans" or "European workers."


It is both, as the economic is political.

Big mistake there.


Yes, some parties and organisations have given up on the political questions to focus purely on economic issues (economism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economism)). The GUE-NGL is a good example of an organisation that restricts itself to economism, all it has to offer are failed social democratic policies and heavy doses of keynesianism. The GUE-NGL totally fails to address politics.

If you mean that the GUE-NGL has no concrete program for democratizing the EU, then I agree with you. It's too accommodating towards euro-skeptics. My bigger beef is that it refuses to become a political party proper, learning from SYRIZA's Alternative Culture, centralizing its organization in Brussels, etc.


They have no plans or ideas when it comes to the working class seizing the means of production and social revolution. Likewise they are nowhere to be seen in the day to day struggles of the working class

Being focused on the latter is narrow economism.


they only appear for your vote on election day, just like all the other bourgeois parties. The class war occurs on a daily basis and if a party or organisation cannot be there, day to day, then it is not worth bothering about.

I wrote elsewhere on this board that voting, dues-paying membership is a more concrete measure of political support than votes at the ballot box. Tied to learning from SYRIZA's Alternative Culture and becoming a political party proper is the need to have principled but aggressive recruitment campaigns.


The problems (and there are many) with all the parties in the GUE-NGL have little to do with whether they are united at a Europe wide level or not. Their piss poor programmes and their reformism are far greater problems, ones that will guarantee that the likes of the GUE-NGL will play little (if any) role in a working class revolution in Europe.

Like I said here and elsewhere, GUE-NGL integration is a start for workers in Europe.

[Die Neue Zeit]

At the very minimum such a party would stand openly in elections as the European Socialist or Communist party on a common platform in all nation states, both when standing for the EU parliament and when standing in local or regional elections. It would combat all attempts to pose political questions in terms of the national interest as opposed to the common interest of the working people of Europe.
It would have a programme for resolving the crisis that could only be achieved by the working people of the continent asserting political power at a continental level.
This sort of organisation is a material necessity because it is the structure of the EU and the monetary union that conditions the crisis in living conditions accross the whole continent.

To complement this comradely post, the European Socialist or Communist party would implement a continent-wide version of SYRIZA's venture into Alternative Culture, thus also adapting lessons from the pre-WWI SPD model to modern and continental circumstances. Going hand in hand with this would be principled but aggressive recruitment campaigns for dues-paying members.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

To complement this comradely post, the European Socialist or Communist party would implement a continent-wide version of SYRIZA's venture into Alternative Culture, thus also adapting lessons from the pre-WWI SPD model to modern and continental circumstances. Going hand in hand with this would be principled but aggressive recruitment campaigns for dues-paying members.

The workers have decided this, have they? :rolleyes:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

This thread is full of intellectual dick-swinging. As a worker, I can tell you the last thing I really want right now is to hear latin prefixes being thrown around as if they're the solution to the crisis.

The solution to the crisis, as always for a Marxist, should be the assertion of workers' power on a political level. To do this, we need not blue-sky blueprints for Euro this or trans that, but actually more localised solutions - how can we bring workers together on a parish and town level? How can we organise, not only as 'protesters' in the economic struggle, but as part of a wider workers' movement that realises its own class position, and understands the solution for its own class interest: revolution.

I keep banging on with these quite vague, simplistic questions, only because a lot of people seem to keep coming up with answers to the wrong questions. The question isn't: oh, how can we organise a European party? That ship has sailed. The question should be: how can workers in Greeece, in Spain, in Portugal and the rest of Europe organise themselves best to defeat capitalism in crisis right now? And how can we do our bit to help, to agitate within, to provide education and propaganda materials?

[Die Neue Zeit]

This thread is full of intellectual dick-swinging. As a worker, I can tell you the last thing I really want right now is to hear latin prefixes being thrown around as if they're the solution to the crisis.

[...]

And how can we do our bit to help, to agitate within, to provide education and propaganda materials?

Education comes before agitation, I'm afraid.


The solution to the crisis, as always for a Marxist, should be the assertion of workers' power on a political level. To do this, we need not blue-sky blueprints for Euro this or trans that, but actually more localised solutions - how can we bring workers together on a parish and town level?

In other words, pandering to Not-In-My-Backyard politics and grow bigger struggles from those? Yeah, that really worked before. :rolleyes:

[Sheepy]

DNZ, you know that wasn't what he meant. All he said was that we need to bring the working class people together, instead of spreading them apart with all this tendency and prefix bullshit.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[QUOTE=Die Neue Zeit;2521760]Education comes before agitation, I'm afraid.

Yeah, because we all have to get the right party line (i.e yours!) before we take our politics to the wider working class, right? Get real! You're so afraid of genuine participation within the working class, and of subjugating your own ideological whimsy to the need for actual class struggle, it's so obvious mate!

Besides, how can you have education without agitation? Or by 'education', do you really mean excluding the 'proles' and you know, just submitting a weekly comment to that CPGB rag along with a few other bone idle members of the 'theoretically advanced' layer of the working class. The only way to educate the working class is

1) if they become class-conscious as a mass. Otherwise, all this obscene intellectual-ism is just pointless, and
2) by actually meshing-in with the wider working class as a whole, instead of preaching from up on high (or from down low as the British left pretty much does).



In other words, pandying to Not-In-My-Backyard politics and grow bigger struggles from those? Yeah, that really worked before. :rolleyes:

I literally have no idea what you're talking about. You don't seem to understand that talking to a working person doesn't make you some backwards 'little Englander'.

Seriously, you should try this working class engagement thing, you might learn a thing or two. ;)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

DNZ, you know that wasn't what he meant. All he said was that we need to bring the working class people together, instead of spreading them apart with all this tendency and prefix bullshit.

Half correct. I don't really care about sectarianism and tendencies so much. I hate Marxist-Leninists, I don't really feel much common ground with Trotskyists and i'm sure they feel the same, and that's all fine. The problem comes when parts of the left (and this certainly isn't limited to the Marxist-Leninists/Trotskyists) decide that instead of really engaging with the working class, they'd rather dominate the pre-existing left and adopt hostile tactics along with a gradual withdrawal from the wider working class.

That is the problem. A sort of pathetically irrelevant sub-caste of Socialists who think they really are the theoretical pinnacle of modern Socialist thought. Yet society laughs at them/doesn't know who they are, and people like me are then lumped together with them by association of name. And that pisses me off.

[Mather]

It alone organized things like the Alternative Culture that was far ahead of today's left agitational bent.

Yet it failed. If you cannot even recognise the causes of it's failure and you just keep parroting the same dogma repeatedly, why should anyone bother listening to what you have to say?


Euro-Workers would organize on a continental basis, but "solidarity" and "brotherhood of the peoples" would be expressed with comrades in Latin America, India, or in far east Asia. That's what I mean by Euro-Worker Pan-Nationalism.

All of the historical Internationals made platitudes about "solidarity" and the "brotherhood of the peoples". Without elaborating on specific concerete proposals about what those concepts mean and how they would be applied in the real world, your just repeating the mistakes many in the past have made before you.


As I said above, besides this alternative there's simply combining the best of the original Socialist International and Bordiga's International Communist Party.

Like I said before, the examples you use are also failed examples. When you use historical examples you have to look at their failures as much as their successes.


Because Europe is more politically integrated.

Capital and the productive forces are becoming more intergrated globally as well. There is a process of intergration in Asia and the Americas, so intergration is not something that is just unique to Europe.


I said identifying as "Euro-Workers" and organizing as "Euro-Workers," certainly not as "Europeans" or the wordy "working-class Europeans" or "European workers."

What is wrong with just identifying as working class? Class identity is the only identity that matters. Any attempt at creating a European indentity is nothing more than an attempt at building false consciousness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness).

You make the mistake of confusing class identity with national identity.


Big mistake there.

So what, your saying that politics and economics exist in a vacuum to one another?

If that is the case, then your just flat out wrong!


If you mean that the GUE-NGL has no concrete program for democratizing the EU, then I agree with you.

To hell with that. The can be no genuine democratisation of the EU, just as with any other state. The state is an instrument of the dictatorship of capital and if the EU were to become a fully fledged state, then the same would apply.

Our task is to destroy the EU and to overthrow the class it serves, not to try and change it or reform it.


It's too accommodating towards euro-skeptics.

Thats the least of it's problems.


My bigger beef is that it refuses to become a political party proper, learning from SYRIZA's Alternative Culture, centralizing its organization in Brussels, etc.

You have missed the point I was trying to make entirely.

I don't support the GUE-NGL because it is a reformist and social democratic outfit. It has no plan nor any desire for revolution and the overthrow of capitalism. It wastes it's time and energy in the dead end world bourgeois parliaments and it's 'solutions' to the global economic crisis are either vague platitudes or keynesian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics). Yet you foolishly claim that this piss poor example is some type of model to emulate.

So far you have avoided any attempt at a response to any of my criticisms of the GUE-NGL.


Being focused on the latter is narrow economism.

Thats right, dismiss the genuine struggles and hardships of the working class with some crappy one liner.

Are workers supposed to just forget their miserable situation under capitalism? An for what, so we can 'democratise' the European Parliament with the GUE-NGL or some other bullshit? This may comes as a big surprise to you but workers have no choice but to cope with the horrors of capitalism on a daily basis. When workers struggle and fight back, economic and political issues are raised and they are raised in an environment of class struggle. They don't have the luxury of sitting back and spewing out sophistry or developing an unhealthy obsession about Karl Kaustky and the 19th century, as you seem to do.

I am going to have to ask this of you as your posts leave me with little choice; are you even working class yourself? Because the way in which you dismiss the concerns and struggles of workers (in such a cavalier manner as well) leaves me with the feeling that you know fuck all about what workers want or their day to day struggles.

Again, you only responded to my second point and have avoided (deliberately?) my first point about the GUE-NGL. Your silence on their reformism and social democratic politics is telling.



Like I said here and elsewhere, GUE-NGL integration is a start for workers in Europe.


No it isn't.

The politics of the GEU-NGL are a proven failure. That you insist on emulating them speaks volumes about your own politics.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yet it failed. If you cannot even recognise the causes of it's failure and you just keep parroting the same dogma repeatedly, why should anyone bother listening to what you have to say?

The problem is that the wrong "causes" have been identified and parroted before recent times.


What is wrong with just identifying as working class? Class identity is the only identity that matters. Any attempt at creating a European indentity is nothing more than an attempt at building false consciousness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness).

You make the mistake of confusing class identity with national identity.

Did you read Marx and Engels on the working class "becoming the nation" or something like that in the Communist Manifesto?


So what, your saying that politics and economics exist in a vacuum to one another?

If that is the case, then your just flat out wrong!

Of course they don't, but to relate the two too closely to one another has proven to be a dead end time and again.


To hell with that. The can be no genuine democratisation of the EU, just as with any other state. The state is an instrument of the dictatorship of capital and if the EU were to become a fully fledged state, then the same would apply.

Our task is to destroy the EU and to overthrow the class it serves, not to try and change it or reform it.

By all means, but most leftists today prefer withdrawing from the EU and then launching "socialist revolution" in their respective countries. That's two steps backwards.


Thats right, dismiss the genuine struggles and hardships of the working class with some crappy one liner.

[...]

I am going to have to ask this of you as your posts leave me with little choice; are you even working class yourself?

Yes, actually. :)


This may comes as a big surprise to you but workers have no choice but to cope with the horrors of capitalism on a daily basis. When workers struggle and fight back, economic and political issues are raised and they are raised in an environment of class struggle. They don't have the luxury of sitting back and spewing out sophistry or developing an unhealthy obsession about Karl Kautsky and the 19th century, as you seem to do.

Specifically, a number of us comrades here are older "proletarians who stand out due to their intellectual development, and these then bring [modern socialism] into the class struggle of the proletariat where conditions allow."

Note to The Boss: This quote of mine is my response to your response on education vs. agitation.


Because the way in which you dismiss the concerns and struggles of workers (in such a cavalier manner as well) leaves me with the feeling that you know fuck all about what workers want or their day to day struggles.

Non-unionized workers who are more politicized may not necessarily care about the goings-on of mere labour disputes.


Again, you only responded to my second point and have avoided (deliberately?) my first point about the GUE-NGL. Your silence on their reformism and social democratic politics is telling.

The CPGB-PCC calls for a Communist Party of the European Union. I support this.

Anyway, being where you are, I was discussing the GUE-NGL because there are two models of workers politics: tied to trade unions like in the UK, and not tied to trade unions on the Continent.

[Mather]

The solution to the crisis, as always for a Marxist, should be the assertion of workers' power on a political level. To do this, we need not blue-sky blueprints for Euro this or trans that, but actually more localised solutions - how can we bring workers together on a parish and town level?

Local level organising is vital, as any mass organisation of the working class would have to have genuine links with the working class and be of the class (not above or leading it) in it's local communities and workplaces. However there is always the danger that the focus is restricted solely to the local level and becomes a series of campaigns rather than a class wide movement for revolution. This is something that has happened a lot in the anarchist movement, with many local groups either becoming reformist single issue campaigns or turning towards lifestylist activism.


How can we organise, not only as 'protesters' in the economic struggle, but as part of a wider workers' movement that realises its own class position, and understands the solution for its own class interest: revolution.

+1


The question isn't: oh, how can we organise a European party? That ship has sailed.

Why?

Also, these issues need not revolve around just one question. The far left is in a poor state and if any progress is to be made then all the old assumptions and dogmas will have to be questioned. There will be a lot of questions on politics, theory, tactics and strategy. There is also the issue of contemporary capitalism and how the far left have failed to grasp and understand it. While some things still hold true from Marx's time, a lot has changed with capitalism. Such changes have affected the working class as well. So far, the far left have not really begun to approach any of these tasks. It does kind of reinforce my view that the contemporary far left will play little to no role in any future working class organisation.


The question should be: how can workers in Greeece, in Spain, in Portugal and the rest of Europe organise themselves best to defeat capitalism in crisis right now? And how can we do our bit to help, to agitate within, to provide education and propaganda materials?

Thats kind of how I would see a working class movement arising in Europe. It would not be from above or through the merger of this or that party from the contemporary far left. Any genuine working class movement would come from the class and it's struggles and would hopefully be made up of workers rather than degenerating into a sect dominated by professional theorists and intellectuals. If there was a working class movement in Europe it would have to be open, democratic, decentralised and responsive to all concerns from the European level down to the local level.

No revolution can survive in isolation. A revolution in Britain could not survive in isolation and if it did there would be two outcomes:

1.) The revolution is crushed by outside capitalist aggression.

2.) The revolution remains isolated in a capitalist world. Isolation leads to low living standards, authoritarianism and bureaucratism as some vanguard steps in to 'protect' the revolution from outside threats. This new ruling class ends up betraying the original revolution.

It is this fact which makes me support the working class organising on the largest scale possible. Unlike Die Neue Ziet I don't have this insistence for Europe alone. If the working class can only be organised to a level below that of Europe, fine. If they can organise at the European level, fine. If they can organise above and beyond the European level, then that is fine too. I agree with you in that the priority should be on the working class organising themselves and how we can be a part of that.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Specifically, a number of us comrades here are older "proletarians who stand out due to their intellectual development, and these then bring [modern socialism] into the class struggle of the proletariat where conditions allow."

Note to The Boss: This quote of mine is my response to your response on education vs. agitation.



But, to be blunt, you're not intellectually developed. I mean, you obviously have some intellectual ability, but not coherence. You're (As far as i'm aware) not published aside from in the letters section of the Weekly Worker, and for all your 'theorising', nobody here aside from maybe one or two other CPGB people take you at all seriously.

Seriously mate, I think you're delusional. As far as i'm aware, you've not contributed anything serious to the academic field of radical economics/politics, or traditional Marxian economics/politics; if your angle is a contribution towards something like Institutional or Post-Keynesian economics then you've also contributed nothing compared to those like Kalecki, for example.

You're not published, you don't lead/hold leadership positions in any left party and you are pretty clear in your disdain for genuine agitation amongst the working class.

So we're left to come to the conclusion that you're little more beyond a Socialist sympathiser whose combination of unspectacular intellect and fairly whimsical political ideas do not exist beyond the vacuum that we call the internet.

And, to be honest, your original quote did nothing to address the question of education v agitation, beyond some meaningless platitude that does not suffice as a replacement for argument. :thumbup1:

(This is not a personal attack, I am defending myself and my politics from the systemic attack of DNZ, who wishes to turn the politics I believe in, into some cult-led, bureaucracy-obsessed pipe-dream of his).

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Also, i'm calling you out on some ridiculous ageism. Nobody gives a flying fuck how old you are, age and wisdom certainly do not go hand in hand necessarily.:rolleyes:

[Devrim]

Also, i'm calling you out on some ridiculous ageism. Nobody gives a flying fuck how old you are, age and wisdom certainly do not go hand in hand necessarily.:rolleyes:

I always assumed he was about 15.

Devrim

[Die Neue Zeit]

Also, these issues need not revolve around just one question. The far left is in a poor state and if any progress is to be made then all the old assumptions and dogmas will have to be questioned. There will be a lot of questions on politics, theory, tactics and strategy.

Isn't that what this board's comrades have been doing here? :confused:


So far, the far left have not really begun to approach any of these tasks. It does kind of reinforce my view that the contemporary far left will play little to no role in any future working class organisation.

[...]

Thats kind of how I would see a working class movement arising in Europe. It would not be from above or through the merger of this or that party from the contemporary far left.

So how come the CPGB-PCC states day in and day out that a class movement will be based on the activity of the existing left? There's a reason why revolutionary strategy is being posed against the pervasive economism, and it isn't "gossip" intended to keep away radicalized workers.


It is this fact which makes me support the working class organising on the largest scale possible. Unlike Die Neue Zeit I don't have this insistence for Europe alone. If the working class can only be organised to a level below that of Europe, fine. If they can organise at the European level, fine. If they can organise above and beyond the European level, then that is fine too. I agree with you in that the priority should be on the working class organising themselves and how we can be a part of that.

The question is a matter of cans and musts. The Euro-Worker identity scenario isn't an "insistence for Europe alone," but rather based on the peculiarities of European history, such that European workers, northern African workers, and Middle Eastern workers together cannot "rise to be the leading class of the [Pan-]Nation, must constitute itself the [Pan-]Nation" (Marx and Engels). Only the Euro-Worker identity with a common language and a pro-immigrant but Euro-Worker assimilationist bent can do this for European workers.

[Kotze]

To do this, we need not blue-sky blueprints for Euro this or trans that, but actually more localised solutions - how can we bring workers together on a parish and town level?Racism.

EDIT: Sorry, but you are not making any sense here.

Say you work at a corporation that has several branches in the country you're in, and in other countries as well. When we have one of our lame-o union meetings nobody seriously proposes to act as locally as possible, nobody is that daft. You're probably not that daft either, but what the fuck do you mean then? What on earth is the local solution to global warming, the local solution to anything that matters? Maybe you want to throw in some spontaneity as well? Do you want that people see themselves first as something like Hessians or ich bin ein Opelaner or wut? Barf.

Do you want ultra-local currencies? What is it that you want? Right now, a big question for everybody in the eurozone is whether it will be changed on that level or break apart. Do you really believe a return to national currency regimes would help strengthen international coordination and solidarity; or are you maybe agnostic on that matter, you know, because it's all blueprints after all, right?

I'm fairly certain about which type of change is preferable though, and it's not socialism in one parish.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Racism.

EDIT: Sorry, but you are not making any sense here.

Say you work at a corporation that has several branches in the country you're in, and in other countries as well. When we have one of our lame-o union meetings nobody seriously proposes to act as locally as possible, nobody is that daft. You're probably not that daft either, but what the fuck do you mean then? What on earth is the local solution to global warming, the local solution to anything that matters? Maybe you want to throw in some spontaneity as well? Do you want that people see themselves first as something like Hessians or ich bin ein Opelaner or wut? Barf.

Do you want ultra-local currencies? What is it that you want? Right now, a big question for everybody in the eurozone is whether it will be changed on that level or break apart. Do you really believe a return to national currency regimes would help strengthen international coordination and solidarity; or are you maybe agnostic on that matter, you know, because it's all blueprints after all, right?

I'm fairly certain about which type of change is preferable though, and it's not socialism in one parish.

I think you're missing my point here.

I'm not saying we need national-level and local-level Socialism, i'm not saying we should abandon international solidarity, or European-wide solidarity in the specific case of the Eurozone and its troubled currency and fiscal system.

I'm saying that DNZs grandiose theoretical blueprint on how to 'solve' the crisis is an affront to democracy and a pipe-dream, with zero probability of coming into action since it's never been put before the workers and he has not the capability to put it before the workers, nor the interest, I might add.

My point, on its most basic level, is that without interaction with the working class (yes, on a local and national level, and beyond), all this theorising is just pointless silly bollocks.

[Paul Cockshott]

Do you want ultra-local currencies? What is it that you want? Right now, a big question for everybody in the eurozone is whether it will be changed on that level or break apart. Do you really believe a return to national currency regimes would help strengthen international coordination and solidarity; or are you maybe agnostic on that matter, you know, because it's all blueprints after all, right?

I'm fairly certain about which type of change is preferable though, and it's not socialism in one parish.

The topic of local or EU currencies is complicated. The current structure of the monetary Union is one that was dictated by the rentier interest at the moment of the formation of the Eurozone. It is a structure that is economically toxic to the economies that have a lower growth of hourly labour productivity and one which it systematically destroying the social gains made by the workingclasses of Europe.

The question is then what is to replace it. It would almost certainly be in the immdediate short term interests of the working classes of Spain and Greece for these countries to withdraw from the Euro and return to national currencies which could be allowed to allowed to depreciate against the Euro. Some Greek Marxist economists have done some good work using I/O tables to estimate the likely effects of this, and Klaus Haggendorf has a good analysis of the similarity between the current Greek financial crisis and the problem of German debt and reparation payments during the 20s.

There are 3 paths that can be followed on the currency question
1. The exit of certain states with lower growth of labour productivity.

2. The current austerity programme, which will force a much deeper recession and may well break down.

3. A move to full tax union - not the nonsense that Merkel is proposing, which is just a veto power for the Commission on national budgets, but instead a shift of the main tax raising power from nation states to the EU. This would require the EU to have the power to levy a uniform rate of income and poperty tax accross the Union and to have the power to fund a uniform system of pensions and health care from that taxation. This would remove both the immediate financial pressures on southern states and remove the grievance of the German voters that their state was having to pay for deficits in Greece and Spain. The availability of a uniform health, pension and social security system accross the continent would clearly be of benefit to the working class.

All of these are structural alternatives within capitalism, but there is little doubt in my mind that it is the third that lays the best basis for the development of unified working class politics on the continental level. It is much easier in this context to advocate higher tax rates on companies, and to advocate a move towards a non exploitative labour account economy by means of a set of concrete transition measures that could be put into pratice by a strong EU center.

[Die Neue Zeit]

There are 3 paths that can be followed on the currency question
1. The exit of certain states with lower growth of labour productivity.

2. The current austerity programme, which will force a much deeper recession and may well break down.

3. A move to full tax union - not the nonsense that Merkel is proposing, which is just a veto power for the Commission on national budgets, but instead a shift of the main tax raising power from nation states to the EU. This would require the EU to have the power to levy a uniform rate of income and poperty tax accross the Union and to have the power to fund a uniform system of pensions and health care from that taxation. This would remove both the immediate financial pressures on southern states and remove the grievance of the German voters that their state was having to pay for deficits in Greece and Spain. The availability of a uniform health, pension and social security system accross the continent would clearly be of benefit to the working class.

All of these are structural alternatives within capitalism, but there is little doubt in my mind that it is the third that lays the best basis for the development of unified working class politics on the continental level. It is much easier in this context to advocate higher tax rates on companies, and to advocate a move towards a non exploitative labour account economy by means of a set of concrete transition measures that could be put into practice by a strong EU center.

Indeed, but certain posters here have already screamed "Reformist!" at board comrades for being supportive of the third point, but really are not willing to admit their opportunist nationalism.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

DNZ decrying people actually calling out reformism for reformism. What is more opportunist than that?

I mean sure, Paul's 3rd point would probably lead to a 'better' politics than we currently have of austerity and cuts, but it's nothing to do with Socialism, so I don't know why it's being raised on this board. I don't know what on earth a 'non exploitative capitalist economy' would look like, I don't think - nay, I am certain - that it cannot really exist. I don't know how higher tax rates and tax union would really 'lay the ground for the development of unified working class politics'. It seems as though the last thing working people want is greater EU integration without appropriate representation or delegation, i.e. democracy. I think this is the key point. For all the petty nationalism that is part of the anti-EU movement, I think their basic point is actually fairly strong: the EU itself is an un-democratic behemoth wielding all sorts of political and macro-economic powers.

Some people surely are getting a hard on for this monster because it has the potential to be an organisation that can change all of Europe's economies in a heartbeat, with the economic and political power it wields. But it is highly un-democratic, and is not suited at all to working class politics because it is out-of-touch not only with current working class opinion (which isn't all that advanced admittedly), but any possibility of future working class opinion.

Further integration is not the way to solve the crisis. Indeed, unlike some, there are Socialists among us who do not want to solve the crisis to save capitalism, but actually see the crisis as a potential to develop Socialism. Thus, our solutions are different because they are not focused on solving the crisis (which is difficult due to the scatty and unpredictable nature of capitalism), but developing Socialist alternatives to capitalism, given current material conditions. I don't think the EU is best placed to do this, as it's a thoroughly corrupted, capitalist organisation and, let's face it, the only way you'll get to affect the levers of power in the EU is if you're elected (that's tough) as some sort of 'respectable' party of the left, that accepts capitalism and is working to solve the crisis from a pro-EU point of view.

The key for Socialists is not to fall into this trap. Our aim should be to be anti-EU as an institution of capitalism, but continental and even inter-continental in our outlook. I will never accept that being anti-EU means being even slightly nationalist. Doubtless, the solution will always be international. But in order to find an international solution, we need working class solidary within nations themselves. We need grand unions (not necessarily Trades Unions) of workers, leading to a general/mass strike to bring down successive European governments. We need the politically advanced sections of the working class to show real leadership in and amongst the working class. Sad to say, Golden Dawn in Greece is doing a better job of leadership in and amongst their target population than the left are, and that is hugely dangerous for, it seems to me, the left (and the non-fascist centre-right) are committing themselves to repeating the mistakes of the 1920s/30s, and that must not happen.

I'm not overly optimistic about the medium-term prospects for left politics, but I think there is a path ahead and it rests in some sort of slogan like, 'local integration, international solidarity'. We need unions of workers to begin at local and city-wide workers, based around a politics that is firmly international in its overall aims and culture. Sadly, I just don't see many people on the already-existing left who have the skills or the resources to do this. This is why I maintain my belief that, if Socialism does come about around the corner, it will be at the behest of 'new Socialists', not the current crop of useless irrelevants.

[Kotze]

I don't know what on earth a 'non exploitative capitalist economy' would look likeMe neither, but I think I have a pretty good idea what your posts usually look like when you actually pay some attention :P

Cockshott was referring to a non-capitalist economy that uses labour vouchers.

[Paul Cockshott]

I don't know what on earth a 'non exploitative capitalist economy' would look like, I don't think - nay, I am certain - that it cannot really exist. I don't know how higher tax rates and tax union would really 'lay the ground for the development of unified working class politics'. It seems as though the last thing working people want is greater EU integration without appropriate representation or delegation, i.e. democracy. I think this is the key point. For all the petty nationalism that is part of the anti-EU movement, I think their basic point is actually fairly strong: the EU itself is an un-democratic behemoth wielding all sorts of political and macro-economic powers.
In point 3 I am giving a very condensed version of this proposal http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/Berlinpaper.pdf.
As you quite correctly point out general tax raising powers for the EU require a radical democratic change in European institutions which can probably only be achieved by a constituent assembly of EU citezens drawn by lot.
I would advocate that in such a democratised Union the parliament it self should be partly or wholly drawn by lot, and there should be union wide plebiscites on tax and expenditure decisions.
I believe that such consistent democracy constitutes the best state form for the working class to engage in political struggle against capital. This is just to recapitulate classic Leninist arguments from the early 19th century but with a a more radical vision of democracy than that advocated by the RSDLP.

However even if such a radical democracy could not be won, the existence of a central tax raising power and uniform social benefits would be beneficial to the working class.

It would undermine the politics of national division which play off allegedly lazy Greeks against 'industrious' northerners.
It would undermine the pressure for social dumping by individual nation states who are under pressure to lower the rates of company taxation in order to attract investment. This would be one less argument that the right could use for lowering taxes on property.
It would re-create at the Union level the sort of balance of state power vis a vis company power that operated within nation states when the European social model was established. That is a model of capitalism but still one much influenced by what Marx refered to as the political economy of Labour.

[Q]

And to add to comrade Cockshott's useful posts, I'd like to come full circle and re-raise the point about a Communist Party of the European Union (or whatever the name will be) as it can exactly raise a common political banner for all workers in the EU, define a common political continuum, much like the original Marxist Social-Democracy pioneered in Germany and elsewhere in the late 19th century.

But since the old turd of "reformism" comes back again and again, the question should be posed (and probably deserves its own thread). Does "reformism" still exist in reality? That is, are there still movements that actually want to transcend capitalism "bit by bit"? I think not. Most "Social Democratic" parties have turned left-liberal or worse. So, posed like this, it is a non-issue. Maybe its only real use is as some sort of "purity test" for revolutionaries. Again, a non-starter.

Furthermore, it is completely valid to strengthen the position of the working class and/or weaken the power of the state within the confines of capitalism. As comrade Cockshott described for example, his proposal for a common tax union would objectively strengthen our class and make the conditions ripe for a class solution on a continental scale.

So, since the revolutionism-reformism dichotomy is a false one, what should we then look for? Proletarian politics cannot exist without three basic principles: democracy, internationalism (shut up DNZ ;) ) and the independent position of the working class cut loose from the state or any other classes. A more proper set of dichotomies would therefore be found in these three (closely interconnected) principles. Like bureaucracy versus democracy, nationalism versus internationalism and coalitionism versus principled and permanent opposition.

If any of these lines are crossed, you switch class sides. Let the "reformism" canard rest as it explains nothing and in fact disarms us of practical politics.

[Ostrinski]

No reformism and social democracy do not exist anymore in their traditional form i.e. as strictly electoral and gradualistic means of transforming a capitalist society into a socialist one. Nowadays there isn't really a distinction between progressive-liberalism and the former. I think even Bill Clinton once considered himself a social democrat.

Therefore since to my knowledge there is no party or organization trying to revive social democracy or reformism I think we should let the terms rot in our conventional political language.

However, it also needs to be said that I see a lot of people using the terms without understanding their historical meanings.

[Q]

No reformism and social democracy do not exist anymore in their traditional form i.e. as strictly electoral and gradualistic means of transforming a capitalist society into a socialist one.

...

However, it also needs to be said that I see a lot of people using the terms without understanding their historical meanings.

Comrade, you are aware that the original (very much revolutionary) meaning of "social democracy" was in the fact that the Marxist movement fought the "battle of democracy" (to bring to power the proletariat), therefore this fight for democracy had a social content, right? ;) (I believe Engels privately hated the term though).

[Ostrinski]

Yes my mistake for conflating the two I was just trying to communicate how their traditional meanings have long been lost. To try and reclaim them I think would be futile. It's like trying to reclaim communism from cold war mythology, it would provide a very hard task.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

There are 3 paths that can be followed on the currency question
1. The exit of certain states with lower growth of labour productivity.

2. The current austerity programme, which will force a much deeper recession and may well break down.

3. A move to full tax union - not the nonsense that Merkel is proposing, which is just a veto power for the Commission on national budgets, but instead a shift of the main tax raising power from nation states to the EU. This would require the EU to have the power to levy a uniform rate of income and poperty tax accross the Union and to have the power to fund a uniform system of pensions and health care from that taxation. This would remove both the immediate financial pressures on southern states and remove the grievance of the German voters that their state was having to pay for deficits in Greece and Spain. The availability of a uniform health, pension and social security system accross the continent would clearly be of benefit to the working class.

All of these are structural alternatives within capitalism, but there is little doubt in my mind that it is the third that lays the best basis for the development of unified working class politics on the continental level. It is much easier in this context to advocate higher tax rates on companies, and to advocate a move towards a non exploitative labour account economy by means of a set of concrete transition measures that could be put into practice by a strong EU center.

Haha! Yes, good you mentioned that last part. I would disagree that there are only these three points, i think there are 4 Capitalist ways to go because there could always be a change back to uniformed policy making (which would be too late now). But besides this,

On point number 1. I would like to add that in an exit from the Euro, introduction of a currency with a low exchange rate, the new currency would become toilet paper (*), capital flight would occur for people to spend their last Euros.

2. If this path continues, we will most likely see either a "left" or a fascist party in Greece and other countries soon, either way, it will mean increasing violence.

3. Yes, but it would never happen because consent would be needed from all member countries and there would need to be a "political European Union" which the people do not want now.

*Regarding the point about a country like Greece getting rid of the Euro, there is, i think, a way to hinder a further crash: If a Leftist party like Syriza wins normal elections in Greece, it could make a plan to Continue to use the Euro and prepare through a non-public emergency plan that would have to: 1) default on as much existing debt as possible and 2) make a pledge to stay in the Euro, as to ease lenders. 3) It would then have to bring together all the heads of major Greek Businesses, "socialise" the economy and promise the Capitalists growth through a national plan with immediate "respect to their private property" and capital dividends. 5) Within the socialised economy, then introduce a labor credit currency and say goodbye to the Euro.

All stores in Greece would only accept this currency and workers would only get paid in non-circulatory credits. There would be no crisis as in Cockshott's Point #3. Of course, don't forget that this would not be viable without an actual revolution/ destruction of bourgeois State, but it would be very alarming for German/US Imperialism and the Greek bourgeoisie if a party gets elected that has armed worker cadres. So if i would be a revolutionary Syriza politician now, i would prepare a secret proposal to KKE (which have so fittingly been sectarian) and tell them to invest all their resources to forming revolutionary State cadres. As well as a proposition to later create a unified Communist Party once Syriza gets elected, has successfully centralised the economy and KKE cadres have overthrow the bourgeois State.

[Die Neue Zeit]

So, since the revolutionism-reformism dichotomy is a false one, what should we then look for? Proletarian politics cannot exist without three basic principles: democracy, internationalism (shut up DNZ ;) ) and the independent position of the working class cut loose from the state or any other classes. A more proper set of dichotomies would therefore be found in these three (closely interconnected) principles. Like bureaucracy versus democracy, nationalism versus internationalism and coalitionism versus principled and permanent opposition.

If any of these lines are crossed, you switch class sides. Let the "reformism" canard rest as it explains nothing and in fact disarms us of practical politics.

"Shut up," comrade? :D

I'll leave aside the "internationalism" issue for just this post, but bureaucracy is a process that the worker class must master. It isn't supposed to be a swear-word to contrast with "democracy."


Yes my mistake for conflating the two I was just trying to communicate how their traditional meanings have long been lost. To try and reclaim them I think would be futile. It's like trying to reclaim communism from cold war mythology, it would provide a very hard task.

Hence social proletocracy?

[Die Neue Zeit]

*Regarding the point about a country like Greece getting rid of the Euro, there is, i think, a way to hinder a further crash: If a Leftist party like Syriza wins normal elections in Greece, it could make a plan to Continue to use the Euro and prepare through a non-public emergency plan that would have to: 1) default on as much existing debt as possible and 2) make a pledge to stay in the Euro, as to ease lenders. 3) It would then have to bring together all the heads of major Greek Businesses, "socialise" the economy and promise the Capitalists growth through a national plan with immediate "respect to their private property" and capital dividends. 5) Within the socialised economy, then introduce a labor credit currency and say goodbye to the Euro.

Why appease them when tax-to-nationalize schemes or "Fiscally Conservative Socialism" should be introduced?

BTW, I'd like comrade Cockshott to comment on my proposal as applied to a full tax union:

http://revleft.com/vb/fiscally-responsible-conservative-t174896/index.html

Even after addressing the rentier and tax dodger problems, this policy would still go against Chartalist monetary logic.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Why appease them when tax-to-nationalize schemes or "Fiscally Conservative Socialism" should be introduced?

BTW, I'd like comrade Cockshott to comment on my proposal as applied to a full tax union:

http://revleft.com/vb/fiscally-responsible-conservative-t174896/index.html

Even after addressing the rentier and tax dodger problems, this policy would still go against Chartalist monetary logic.

Ever since the Soviet Union and 20th century Socialism was overthrown, Imperialism has been very rogue. Iraq; Saddam Hussein tries to bargain too much with the US Oil Bourgeoisie. Venezuela; Hugo Chavez who didn't even propose any kinds of serious reforms is kidnapped by CIA financed military. Who knows, maybe the Bourgeoisie do not even look at actual policies so much, but rather if the person acts like a bourgeois and does not use class rhetoric?

My point with "respecting property rights" was to sound radical-left bourgeois, New-Deal-esque to the bourgeoisie and not outright "we will bury you" when in privat rooms with the bourgeoisie (publicly we would of course be open about being Marxists). But I do not even see a reason as to why the State should actively pursue bourgeois means to present the revolution as a "legal" and "orderly" process instead of a mass popular upheaval of the oppressed against their oppressors. Once the Bourgeois State would become a complete Worker's State, then Revolutionary expropriation could be demonstrated for the world to see, for the international communist movement and sympathizers to get a large needed boost in morale. Once the State is replaced, then all workers in worker parties would be armed, expropriation could be orchestrated demonstratively, a sign could be set for World Revolution.

Anyway, taxing the Corporations through a "slow" process is an idea that seeks to ease conflict between the Big Bourgeoisie and Workers, it is a reformist idea. Counter-revolution, invasion, sabotage is inevitable, and the less resources the Bourgeoisie has the better. Nationally we have the power to dispossess and eliminate bourgeois influence, this needs to be used. Once the big Bourgeoisie lose their hereditary power over the State, they become frenzied and will use rash means to eliminate workers power. I say Revolutionary Expropriation on all fronts (unless 192 countries are Socialist and 1 Capitalist, then i guess we could afford to be more kind..).

[Mather]

The problem is that the wrong "causes" have been identified and parroted before recent times.

What causes do you think have been mistakenly identified and what causes do you think we should be looking at instead?


Did you read Marx and Engels on the working class "becoming the nation" or something like that in the Communist Manifesto?

Whilst I'm a materialist and agree with Marx and Engles on a lot of things, I don't take every single word they uttered as gospel. I am also aware that while a lot of what they have said still holds true today, a lot has changed so some of the points they made back then do not necessarily apply today.

So if Marx did say this and he wasn't speaking metaphorically, I will have to disagree with him on that one.


Of course they don't, but to relate the two too closely to one another has proven to be a dead end time and again.

Well part of the problem is that your making a lot of assumptions about what other posters are saying and what they believe in.

As an anarcho-communist, I know that trade unionism on it's own will not lead to revolution and that any economic demands need to be tied to the wider questions of working class organisation and power. Despite the unrevolutionary character of the trade unions, I oppose all attacks against them by the state and the private sector. Attacks against trade unions and the right to strike are always aimed at the workers, not the trade union leadership and bureaucracy. I also think that capitalism (especially in the industrialised countries) has long lost it's progressive character and is now running our of steam. As such, I don't think that the current material conditions will allow for a return to social democracy or the ruling class giving the workers any more big concessions like they did with public healthcare and the welfare state.

I think we can both agree on the need for a workers movement organised beyond the national level that deals with economic and political concerns. My differences with you have more to do with the questions concerning reformism and your choice of parties as examples for us to emulate, despite their obvious failings.


By all means, but most leftists today prefer withdrawing from the EU and then launching "socialist revolution" in their respective countries. That's two steps backwards.

All those questions concerning the EU are meaningless.

If a revolution were to take place in a country, then as soon as it happens that country would find itself outside of the EU. All the other countries of the EU would take moves to expel it. What matters is how worker organise across Europe, not the relationship between a country and the EU.


Yes, actually.

Then surely you can see my point in that your approach of dismissing the day to day grievances of workers is counterproductive. Whether it is wages, food prices, police brutality and racism, people getting their meagre benefits cut, homelessness etc... These are issues that workers care about for the simple reason that these issues affect them. They have no choice but to think about these isssues. If you dismiss this and insist on imposing your idealised version of how everything should be, then don't be surprised if your proposals never get anywhere.


Specifically, a number of us comrades here are older "proletarians who stand out due to their intellectual development, and these then bring [modern socialism] into the class struggle of the proletariat where conditions allow."

And this is where your elitism starts to show through, not to mention ageism. Given your politics though this is hardly surprising. Intellectual snobs who come along and talk down at workers are the last thing we need. In most cases they don't even share the same interests as the working class.

So far you have failed to provide a proper answer to my original point.


Non-unionized workers who are more politicized may not necessarily care about the goings-on of mere labour disputes.

You keep implying that I care only for unionised labour when that is not the case. I support the organisation of all sectors of the working class from unionised labour, non-unioinised labour, immigrant labour, the unemployed and those who rely on the welfare state. Unionised labour is not as dominant as it once was and we must take this fact into account.

Also, when I talk of day to day struggles I am not just talking about trade unions and labour disputes. Those are but a few.


Anyway, being where you are, I was discussing the GUE-NGL because there are two models of workers politics: tied to trade unions like in the UK, and not tied to trade unions on the Continent.

Given that both the social democratic and labour parties are now so throughly bourgeois and right wing, does such a distinction even matter? I don't think it does and why would anyone in their right mind even give the social democratic and labour parties the time of day? There is nothing good to be learnt from them in any shape or form.

PS: Apart from agreeing that the organisation of the working class can and should go beyond national borders, we agree on little else. Your approach towards the working class reeks of elitism and the type of organisation you propose seems to be both reformist and bureaucratic. Unlike you, I wish to see national borders transcended from below and not from up high.

[Mather]

Isn't that what this board's comrades have been doing here?

I meant in a much wider sense than that, amongst the whole class. This forum is nowhere near sufficient for that task.


So how come the CPGB-PCC states day in and day out that a class movement will be based on the activity of the existing left?

Has it ever crossed your mind that they may be wrong. If their theory was correct then it would have already happened. BTW, I also have a lot of disagreements with the CPGB, so it might be best if you use your own arguements rather than those of the CPGB/Weekly Worker.


There's a reason why revolutionary strategy is being posed against the pervasive economism, and it isn't "gossip" intended to keep away radicalized workers.

You keep assuming my points are ones of economism, they are not. Just because I don't agree with your very specific and peculiar brand of politics does not mean I neglect the political. I pay attention to both. You on the other hand seem to be wholly fixated on the political, made even worse by your reformist and bureaucratic approach to politics.


The question is a matter of cans and musts. The Euro-Worker identity scenario isn't an "insistence for Europe alone," but rather based on the peculiarities of European history, such that European workers, northern African workers, and Middle Eastern workers together cannot "rise to be the leading class of the [Pan-]Nation, must constitute itself the [Pan-]Nation" (Marx and Engels). Only the Euro-Worker identity with a common language and a pro-immigrant but Euro-Worker assimilationist bent can do this for European workers.

Your views have little to do with Marxism or materialism and have lot more in common with European national romanticism. The only common European identity (in terms of culture etc) is that which has been formed by capitalism. I strongly disagree with you on the point that there is something uniquely special that forms a European identity that needs to either exclude or assimilate other cultures or immigrants. Your line of thinking stinks of reaction and nationalism, the only difference between your nationalism and those of nation states is that yours is bigger. Otherwise is has all the poison that comes with the smaller nationalisms in that it gives people false consciousness and pits humans against one another in futile wars based on idealised and mythical national identities.

If your any kind of Marxist then you must realise that the only identity that counts is class and nothing else.

I also noticed that you propose a single language for Europe, once again you display your top-down approach to politics with your belief that things in the real world are going to play out the way you want them to. Issues like that are for the working class to decide, not any one individual.

[Mather]

And to add to comrade Cockshott's useful posts, I'd like to come full circle and re-raise the point about a Communist Party of the European Union (or whatever the name will be) as it can exactly raise a common political banner for all workers in the EU, define a common political continuum, much like the original Marxist Social-Democracy pioneered in Germany and elsewhere in the late 19th century.

But why would anyone in their right minds want to emulate the pre-WW1 social democrats?

A lot has changed since WW1 and the world is a very different place to what is was back then. So your approach of going back in time to relive the politics of pre-WW1 social democracy makes no sense in the contemporary world. We are in urgent need of new approaches to a whole host of things from political organising to theory. However, your uncritical promotion of pre-WW1 social democracy is not what is needed as history has proven that such an approach failed. To repeat such mistakes is madness.


But since the old turd of "reformism" comes back again and again, the question should be posed (and probably deserves its own thread).

I will keep bringing up issue of reformism as long as other posters keep advocating it as a solution for working class politics.


Does "reformism" still exist in reality?

Sadly yes and eradicating it from working class politics needs to be one of our top priorities. How many more defeats (sometimes bloody ones) must the working class suffer because they were fooled into thinking that reformism offered them something?


That is, are there still movements that actually want to transcend capitalism "bit by bit"? I think not. Most "Social Democratic" parties have turned left-liberal or worse. So, posed like this, it is a non-issue.

I would argue that your distinction is both dated and irrelevant.

Even if such a distinction could be applied in the past to those who wished to "transcend capitalism bit by bit" against left-liberalism, given the reformist nature of their politics and organisation, the end result was the same. That is because both social democrats and left-liberals advocate the same reformist methods, so when social democrats from the past tried to "transcend capitalism" they simply ended up reforming and managing it, not overthrowing it.

I define reformism as any trend that seeks to tie working class politics to the bourgeois state and seeks to work within the confines of bourgeois politics. This includes all calls for workers to participate in bourgeois elections and parliamentarianism.


Maybe its only real use is as some sort of "purity test" for revolutionaries. Again, a non-starter.

No. Its not about "purity tests" but about what works and what doesn't work. So far, I have not seen any evidence that reformism of any type has ever worked for the working class. By this I mean that reformism has never brought the working class anywhere near it's task of revolution.

As you seem to be advocating reformism, the onus is on you to provide us with some evidence (historical examples) on the merits of reformism.


Furthermore, it is completely valid to strengthen the position of the working class and/or weaken the power of the state within the confines of capitalism.

You then contradict yourself with this:


Proletarian politics cannot exist without three basic principles: democracy, internationalism (shut up DNZ) and the independent position of the working class cut loose from the state or any other classes.

Every attempt at working within the confines of capitalism has resulted in it being co-opted into the capitalist system. Like I said before, if every historical example of reformism has failed, why do you then look at these failures and then urge that we repeat them?

If you insist on working within the confines of the capitalist system despite all the evidence that shows it doesn't work, then that makes you a dogmatist. For some reason you have choosen to hold on to your reformist theories rather than admit that they all failed when they were put into practice.


So, since the revolutionism-reformism dichotomy is a false one, what should we then look for?

Only in your mind is the dichotomy false. That dichotomy is a very real one and the issue of reformism needs to be addressed, not dismissed.

Do workers organise for revolution or do they waste their time and efforts with bourgeois politics and reformism? I know I stand for the former as the latter has only ever brought us defeat.


If any of these lines are crossed, you switch class sides. Let the "reformism" canard rest as it explains nothing and in fact disarms us of practical politics.

As long as reformism remains a problem within working class politics (and it does), to ignore this important issue means we will end up repeating all of the mistakes and defeats of the last century.

[Mather]

I'll leave aside the "internationalism" issue for just this post, but bureaucracy is a process that the worker class must master. It isn't supposed to be a swear-word to contrast with "democracy."

Since when did the working class ever need bureaucracy?

It seems that with each new post, the rotten state of your politics becomes ever more apparent.

[Q]

However, your uncritical promotion of pre-WW1 social democracy is not what is needed as history has proven that such an approach failed.
I'm not uncritical. The SPD had some serious deficiencies. However, I do not take your approach of throwing away the baby with the bathwater.


I would argue that your distinction is both dated and irrelevant.
Which is exactly confirming my whole point. Thank you.


I define reformism as any trend that seeks to tie working class politics to the bourgeois state and seeks to work within the confines of bourgeois politics. This includes all calls for workers to participate in bourgeois elections and parliamentarianism.
You mix up two distinct things here. Yes, we need to keep an independent position of the state and yes, we need to oppose parliamentarism. But, obviously, as long as the bourgeois system exists, we work within its confines until we can overthrow it. All tactics are valid to this revolutionary goal, even parliamentary opposition.


No. Its not about "purity tests" but about what works and what doesn't work. So far, I have not seen any evidence that reformism of any type has ever worked for the working class. By this I mean that reformism has never brought the working class anywhere near it's task of revolution.
In the sense that reformism actually existed in the past, agreed. In the sense of contemporary left-liberalism, again agreed.


As you seem to be advocating reformism, the onus is on you to provide us with some evidence (historical examples) on the merits of reformism.
I'm not advocating reformism, mister Strawman.


You then contradict yourself with this:
Only in your mind this is a contradiction (see, I can do that too). Weakening the state and/or strengthening the position of the working class as a class-collective surely implies that you need proletarian politics which are independent, internationalist and democratic.


Every attempt at working within the confines of capitalism has resulted in it being co-opted into the capitalist system.
It seems to me we hold a different meaning of the word "confines". You seem to think that I'm urging comrades to "play by the bourgeois rulebook". I'm not. When I say "confines" I'm merely acknowledging the reality of capitalist society. Can we ignore these confines, these chains that lock us? No. This is the whole raison d'être for communist revolutionary self-emancipation of the proletariat.


Like I said before, if every historical example of reformism has failed, why do you then look at these failures and then urge that we repeat them?
I'm not urging people to repeat (historical) reformism, nor left liberalism. Claiming that I do is clearly an indicator that you didn't read or understand anything I've posted this last year or so.


Do workers organise for revolution or do they waste their time and efforts with bourgeois politics and reformism? I know I stand for the former as the latter has only ever brought us defeat.
So, what do you do in the mean time? Before the revolution that is. Given that revolution is not nearly on our immediate agenda, so "organising workers for the revolution" thereby becomes a rather hollow phrase. What do you actually do? Pamphleteer? Agitate how cool it is to wage a strike? Be a rebel and live in a squatted place?

Your ultra-left and maximalist non-strategy leads us nowhere.


As long as reformism remains a problem within working class politics (and it does), to ignore this important issue means we will end up repeating all of the mistakes and defeats of the last century.
Reformism is a thing of the past and rightly so. Left-liberalism is indeed a real foe and I have no intention to ignore it. My point in my previous post is to make the distinction clear and attack our enemy with clear sight. You do not do that by creating one big pile of shit that you call "reformism".

[l'Enfermé]

Reformism is the notion that gradual reform enacted by the capitalist state could bring about a socialist social order eventually. Participating in elections is not reformism. Participating in "bourgeois politics" isn't either. Class struggle is political(says Herr Marx [edit: Herr Engels says so too since he's a co-author of the Communist Manifesto]) and since we live in bourgeois society, politics can only be "bourgeoisie politics", to abandon this politics is to abandon the class struggle.

[sanpal]

These are all real problems but they can also be applied to all the existing national parties and organisations. There are many parties and organisations that already have problems concerning theory, their stance on certain issues, lack of debate and democracy within the party/organisation and their tactics and strategy. All this does need dealing with but it does not preclude the possibility of the working class being able to organise on scales that go beyond their national borders.


Is there any guarantee that this new European Communist Party will not have a problems concerning the theory as many of the existing national communist parties?
What tendency could be chosen as theoretical base?

[Q]

Is there any guarantee that this new European Communist Party will not have a problems concerning the theory as many of the existing national communist parties?
What tendency could be chosen as theoretical base?


Since no one replied to this million dollar question yet, I'll give it a go. This question indeed hits the core of what we should aim for.

The short answer is that a European Communist Party as a fusion of, for example, Die Linke, Parti du Gauche, Syriza, and others is actually more likely than a fusion of the various far left sects within one country.

Why? These parties are by themselves less sectarian and have a more open culture of debate. Within this climate communists could argue for a programmatic change towards a CPEU.

In contrast, arguing for the national unification of the diverse left groups in, for example, Britain is a far more uphill fight as you need to overcome the sectarian nature of these groups first, putting a far greater emphasis on education and putting the fight for a communist programme more on a backburner.

So, asking the question "what tendency should dominate?" is the wrong type of question, as it implies a continuation of sectarian politics. The fight for democracy - that is, the right to disagree openly, an anti-sectarian struggle - and the fight for a united communist programme that we all accept (not necessarily agree with) is what we need for any kind of viable unification.

As one comrade recently put it:

Anyway, as I've said many times before this "unite for unity" stuff isn't necessarily that helpful either. There will always be real differences, both tactical and ideological. Just meshing together all the far-left does not necessarily bring us any way closer to a new worker's party.
While I strongly disagree that tactical and "ideological" differences should be a basis for disunity, the comrade has a point. We can't ignore our differences on the one side, but can't pretend we are the "only real socialists" on the other side either. What is needed is programmatic and democratic unity.

Unity indeed can't exist on the undemocratic and "ideological" basis that we have today. Indeed, no working class unity can exist on this basis.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Reformism is the notion that gradual reform enacted by the capitalist state could bring about a socialist social order eventually. Participating in elections is not reformism. Participating in "bourgeois politics" isn't either.

Then why participate? What's the point? As soon as your party gains any significance, you'll be attacked out of existence. And even if you do get in, what then? All you can do is reform; a capitalist political system relies on co-operation with the ruling class, so being in government won't get you very far either.

Why not have a party that doesn't participate? You don't have to be a capitalist to be popular.


Class struggle is political

Politics meaning anything relating to authority in society, not capitalist entrapments. Just because somebody does not participate in elections for the very political system they wish to usurp, does not make them utopian nor economist.

[sanpal]

Since no one replied to this million dollar question yet, I'll give it a go. This question indeed hits the core of what we should aim for.

The short answer is that a European Communist Party as a fusion of, for example, Die Linke, Parti du Gauche, Syriza, and others is actually more likely than a fusion of the various far left sects within one country.

Why? These parties are by themselves less sectarian and have a more open culture of debate. Within this climate communists could argue for a programmatic change towards a CPEU.

In contrast, arguing for the national unification of the diverse left groups in, for example, Britain is a far more uphill fight as you need to overcome the sectarian nature of these groups first, putting a far greater emphasis on education and putting the fight for a communist programme more on a backburner.


No doubt the whole spectrum of all left groups is too various to develop the general platform. The result could be the same as in the fable of I.A.Krylov: "Swan, Pike and Crawfish" http://web.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Demo/texts/swan_pike_crawfish.htm


So I don't talk of it.
And I agree with your statement that the CPEU could be a fusion of national communist parties or workers' parties with communist perspective in theirs programmes.
Necessary condition for possibility of such fusion should be the certain identity of program materials of these organizations on questions of principle.




In the previous post #25 of this thread I tried to express an idea that the first step must be not to organize CPEU on the base of not clear party programme materials "to catch up with started train" of increased protesting movement of working class in the Europe now-a-days or not to merge national CPs into a new European Party only for they have something similar.

The first step has to be in my opinion as broad discussion on the international scale of the general conception on clue points i.e. model of society including political, economic and maybe ideologic questions of principle character. I mean under "principle character" the questions which make party with definitely communist perspective and give to it an unutopian (scientific) mechanism of realization of the aim: creating of communist society.

Proceeding from the general universal program of CP every national CP is building its own tactic and strategy which hasn't to differ from tactic and strategy of another national CP in principle but only in nuances. In that case any Central Coordinating Committee could carry out role of CPEU, coordinating tactics and strategy of various national Communist Parties


So, asking the question "what tendency should dominate?" is the wrong type of question, as it implies a continuation of sectarian politics.

I have asked it ironically and I am against sectarianism as well. Sectarianism is an ignorance in marxism. Scientific model should be the only. The merge of local or national CPs into continental or global CP should be as
"addition of the numerals having one general denominator".



The fight for democracy - that is, the right to disagree openly, an anti-sectarian struggle - and the fight for a united communist programme that we all accept (not necessarily agree with) is what we need for any kind of viable unification.

As one comrade recently put it:

Quote:
Anyway, as I've said many times before this "unite for unity" stuff isn't necessarily that helpful either. There will always be real differences, both tactical and ideological. Just meshing together all the far-left does not necessarily bring us any way closer to a new worker's party.
While I strongly disagree that tactical and "ideological" differences should be a basis for disunity, the comrade has a point. We can't ignore our differences on the one side, but can't pretend we are the "only real socialists" on the other side either. What is needed is programmatic and democratic unity.

Unity indeed can't exist on the undemocratic and "ideological" basis that we have today. Indeed, no working class unity can exist on this basis.

Internet area is perfect place to overcome the undemocratic and "ideological" basis.

First - model, then - unity!

[Paul Cockshott]

Proceeding from the general universal program of CP every national CP is building its own tactic and strategy which hasn't to differ from tactic and strategy of another national CP in principle but only in nuances. In that case any Central Coordinating Committee could carry out role of CPEU, coordinating tactics and strategy of various national Communist Parties

No I think this is wrong, the aim should be a Europe wide democratic revolution which involves an unceasing struggle against nationalist illusions. What we need is a constitutional convention of the people drawn by lot to draft the constitution for a new European Republic, some leftists show less ambition thatn the revolutionary bourgeoisie did in Germany in 1848

[Mather]

I apologise for my absence from this thread of late as I have been really ill and unable to post anything. I'm finally getting better so I will be posting and replying in the coming days.

[sanpal]

No I think this is wrong, the aim should be a Europe wide democratic revolution which involves an unceasing struggle against nationalist illusions. What we need is a constitutional convention of the people drawn by lot to draft the constitution for a new European Republic, some leftists show less ambition thatn the revolutionary bourgeoisie did in Germany in 1848


I agree. Really European wide democratic revolution is better than a national narrow democratic revolution.


Well. The party motivates people to draw draft of the constitution for a new European Republic, but on what theoretical base? If the party takes a role of vanguard, it already should have the completed program as theoretical base.


But the party is not created yet, it still only should be created from a zero mark. What should be made first of all: creation of a party or a creating of the program of a party? (What should be ahead: a cart or the horse?) I think that the creating of the program of a party should be made first of all.. Not to result a society in the next political or economic crash, the program of a party should be written from the scientific point of view. There is a scientific marxism. What we need is correct interpretation of scientific marxism. Such (correct) program which is having not utopian model of transition from capitalism to communism and has dialectical correct working economic mechanism of its realization will be that theoretical base for formation of new CPEU or (as the general(common) denominator) for merging of national parties into one Continental or Global party but I don't see another way.

I understand that "the train is already going" and European workers protest movement in increasing and there is no time for theoretical discussions on programm of party but I am afraid that CPEU which would be created for political struggle only will soon turn to the usual bureaucratic organization.

[sanpal]

Very interesting article has appeared today in forum MSK "To a question on the modern proletarian organization". Some thoughts there are quite similar to those I tried to say in posts of this thread. Unfortunately in russian language only:
http://forum-msk.org/material/politic/9620475.html

[Die Neue Zeit]

‘Official communists’ welcome Miliband’s conversion to austerity (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/937/official-communists-welcome-milibands-conversion-to-austerity)



Europhobes of all political hues have tasted blood following the coalition government’s defeat over the EU budget, writes Eddie Ford

The parliamentary defeat suffered by David Cameron over the European Union budget on October 31 provided us with another glimpse of the Tories’ internal contradictions. Fifty-three Conservative MPs joined forces with Labour to defeat the government by 307 votes to 294. The successful amendment demanded that the next EU budget, for 2014-20, which as currently proposed will exceed €1 trillion, should be “reduced in real terms”. Ed Miliband and Ed Balls imposed a three-line whip on Labour MPs to vote with the Tory Eurosceptics led by Mark Reckless, many of whom are committed to total withdrawal from the EU.

In a hurried damage-limitation exercise, foreign secretary William Hague said the government would “take note” of the non-binding vote. Senior Tory MPs, who stopped short of joining the 53 Eurosceptics in the division lobbies, warned they too will rebel if spending is not frozen (cut in real terms) at the November 23 EU summit. But for the moment they are keeping their powder dry, given that that any eventual deal agreed by EU leaders would have to be approved by parliament.

Cameron’s bargaining position, insofar as you can call it that, is to insist on retaining the full annual UK rebate first negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, whilst threatening to veto any budget increase that exceeds inflation - as opposed to the 5% or more envisaged by some in the European Commission. Cameron, of course, argues that any freeze is effectively a reduction. His Tory and now Labour critics, however, say that this does not go far enough, as it would still cost British taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds in a time of domestic austerity. If we have to cut at home, then we should cut in Europe.

Reckless told MPs during the debate that Cameron’s plan would increase the UK’s net contribution to the EU from £9.2 billion last year to £13.6 billion in 2020 - “we simply cannot afford that,” he said. Mark Pritchard, another Tory rebel, portrayed himself as the noble defender of ordinary, cash-strapped, British families - “Are we going to continue to ask families up and down this country to stop putting new shoes on their children’s feet, while we fill the very large Mercedes fleet of Brussels?” As for Peter Bone, the Tory MP for Wellingborough, he triumphantly declared that on October 31 parliament - for once - “spoke for the people” and that MPs can now “face their constituents” without shame. Patriotically united against the Brussels bureaucrats.

Naturally, Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, was also cock-a-hoop. Perhaps Ukip’s time has come. He thundered in Churchillian style that the house had “voted with the country rather than with the government whips”, adding it was “outrageous” that Cameron was prepared to go to Brussels later in the month and “argue for what he would call a freeze” but what “the rest of us would call an increase in the amount of money removed from British taxpayers to be spent by the distant EU bureaucrats”.

Squabbling

Within the EU itself, squabbling over the draft budget is intensifying. Germany, in particular, is unhappy with the latest proposal by Cyprus - which holds the EU’s current rotating presidency - to reduce spending by €50 billion. This suggestion, sternly noted a prominent German official, “falls markedly short of those that are necessary”. Indeed, the figures named in the budget proposals are “still very far” from the targets being sought by Germany and the other net contributors in the EU - ie, those countries that pay more into the EU’s coffers than they get in return. Germany and other net contributors want to limit the EU’s budget to one percent of the member-states’ GDP - meaning that the EC’s proposed budget would have to be slashed by as much as €130 billion.

But the European parliament, on the other hand, has criticised the EC’s spending plans as being too meagre. And, hardly surprisingly, the putative budget is also backed by the net receivers, which are primarily eastern European countries. They want more Brussels gold, not less. Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, is adamant that that the current budget proposals should remain in force - and will continue trying to persuade Britain that a “smart compromise” would end up being a much “cheaper” option. Otherwise, if no compromise is reached, there will be an automatic 2% increase each year for inflation.

Apart from Britain, Denmark and France have also been talking of vetoing a deal unless their priorities are met, while Hungary - which would be one of the biggest losers if the budget was actually slashed - could also balk. Diplomats in Brussels involved in the pre-summit negotiations expect that the scheduled two days will have to be extended, with the odds against securing an agreement - in which case, the European leaders will have to return to the fraught topic early next year.

Talking tough and Eurosceptical, Cameron is promising to draw a “red line” at the EU summit. Speaking in Abu Dhabi on November 6 - in between defending the “legitimate” right of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to “self-defence” - he explained how he would make a “robust” argument for limiting the budget, lambasting the “completely ludicrous” €100 billion increase wanted by some. The next day Angela Merkel met Cameron in Downing Street for further discussions on the matter. Germany has indicated that it is “sympathetic” to the UK’s concerns, but is extremely keen that Cameron shows some “flexibility” at the summit. Only last week, Merkel warned that “veto threats” would not help the EU’s budget negotiations - expecting or hoping that Cameron will back down.

Yet the Eurosceptics have tasted blood - again. Last October they mounted a backbench rebellion, with 81 Tory MPs voting for a motion calling for a referendum on Britain’s relationship with the EU - despite the fact that Cameron had ordered his party to oppose it. Two months later, in a bid to placate “the bastards” (as John Major memorably called them), Cameron went like St George to slay the Brussels dragon, vetoing an EU treaty change to enforce stricter fiscal rules in the euro zone - even though the UK would have been totally unaffected by the changes. Courageous. In the end, all the other member-states except the Czech Republic signed a separate treaty instead to get round Cameron’s pathetic manoeuvre, but he returned to Britain like a conquering hero anyway.

Now there is talk once more of an ‘in-out’ referendum on the EU. For the Tory Europhobes, morale is rising and undoubtedly they intend to step up the fight for the ultimate prize - British withdrawal from the hated EU.

Labour hypocrisy

Exchanging parliamentary insults on October 31, Ed Balls pontificated about how “weak and out of touch” David Cameron had become - apparently, he was “failing to convince other European leaders”. A curious assertion, when you consider that only hours later he would vote for an amendment effectively calling upon Cameron to give the finger to other EU leaders - ie, veto the budget and then stomp off into the sunset waving the union jack. How would that, apart from pleasing the Daily Mail readership, help to “convince” European leaders as to the legitimacy of Britain’s position?

The plain truth of the matter is that Ed Miliband is guilty of total hypocrisy. It was the previous Labour government, after all, which agreed a big increase in Britain’s net contribution from £3 billion in 2008 to more than £7 billion last year. For once, Cameron was quite right when he condemned Labour for its “rank opportunism”. Labour is guilty of “rank opportunism” and a lot worse besides - putting cynical expediency before anything even vaguely resembling a principled or consistent position on the EU. Just for the sake of enjoying a schoolboy smirk at Cameron’s discomfort, Labour was prepared to align itself with the most reactionary forces inside the Tory Party.

Inevitably, there were immediate grumblings of bitter discontent - a backlash even - from Blairites, Brownites and others, who could not help but agree with Cameron’s assessment of the Labour leadership’s tactics on October 31. For instance, Margaret Hodge - the Blairite former minister who chairs the parliamentary public accounts committee - was heard to describe the Labour vote as “hateful” as she prepared for a meeting of her committee. One former Labour cabinet minister, wanting to remain unnamed for obvious reasons, expressed the worry that Miliband and Balls - whatever their exact intentions on the day - were “stroking a dangerous underbelly of Euroscepticism”.

And what was that about Labour standing for slower, shallower cuts than the Tories? Airports, highways, bridges, railway tracks and other infrastructure projects account for about 35% of the EU budget, according to Reuters. The very sort of spending that Labour is demanding should be protected in the UK in order to create jobs and boost demand. But that is only for good old Blighty, it appears, not Johnny Foreigner. In that sense, and on this particular occasion, Labour - for its own opportunistic reasons - was actually pushing for ‘quicker, deeper’ cuts than those advocated by David Cameron or George Osborne.

Overlap

Responding to the vote, Nick Clegg said that in an “ideal world” he would prefer a reduction in the EU budget. But regrettably the government could not wave a “magic wand” and get everything it wants. A “grand, unilateral repatriation of powers might sound appealing”, Clegg remarked, but in reality it is a “false promise wrapped in a union jack” - one that could possibly trigger a British exit from the EU with “catastrophic” results.

Clegg’s warning about a “false promise wrapped in a union jack” could equally apply to the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain. Not for the first time, nor sadly for the last, the Tories’ Europhobia has overlapped with the CPB’s left nationalism - or national socialism - as shown by the November 2 edition of the Morning Star. Needless to say, it thoroughly approves of the Labour decision to support the Tory rebels’ ‘anti-EU’ amendment.

Hence in an article entitled, ‘Pressure rises for in-out vote on EU’, we read a typically bland piece of Morning Star reportage. Yawn and move on, you could say. But, of course, what is really being presented to the readership is the CPB ‘line’ on the EU and the European question in general. So Roger Bagley approvingly writes how Labour’s “changed stance” was “welcomed by campaigners for an in-out referendum” on Britain’s EU membership. We further read that People’s Pledge spokesman Mark Seddon declared that the “tectonic plates are shifting” and how wonderful it is that Ed Miliband is “moving with them”. Good old ‘Red’ Ed. We also discover that Seddon thinks the global economic crisis caused by the “greed and stupidity of unfettered market forces” has been “compounded by the response” of the EC - determined as it is, according to comrade Bagley, to “heap insult on injury by demanding substantial budget increases”. Presumably we are meant to be heartened that this outrageous slight upon the British nation “was too much for Labour”, which thus did the honourable thing by voting with rightwing Tory Euroscpetics against Cameron.

The article continues by quoting Brian Denny, the convenor of No2EU, fulminating against the “admission” by “arch-Europhile” Nick Clegg that there is “no hope” of reducing the EU budget - which only reveals, says Denny, “how undemocratic it all is”. For Denny, notes the Morning Star, it shows the “need for a complete reassessment of Britain’s relationship to the EU by the labour movement in order to bring down this Con-Dem government”.

The Star’s editorial in the same issue (‘Double-speak over the EU’) makes its myopic nationalist stance even clearer: “Despite rhetoric about fighting for the best deal for Britain and hinting at a veto,” it laments, David Cameron has “already sold the pass” to the Brussels bureaucrats. As for the “Eurocentralist” Clegg, his rejection of “any possibility of a real contributions freeze” to the EU budget means he is “suggesting that the government cannot wave a ‘magic wand’ and that denying the unelected commission its way could result in annual budgets that Britain would have no alternative but to accept.” This indicates, the “contempt” Clegg has for democracy and “why he has gone cold on his previous support” for an in-out EU referendum. He would have this country “locked into the euro zone” and on the “way to the European superstate that dare not speak its name, but continues to solidify”.

Anticipating some of the objections to its left nationalism, the editorial rhetorically asks: “Critics of the Morning Star line on the EU ask: why concentrate on the role of the EU, when Britain’s conservative coalition is committed to a similar agenda, dictated by the City of London?” An excellent question, it does have to be said. Unfortunately, the answer is less admirable: “It’s because voters in Britain still have the power - albeit hitherto unused - to vote out this bunch of bankers’ valets and elect a government committed to public ownership of the banks, rail and public utilities, support for manufacturing and public services, decent pensions and transferring the onus of taxation from working people to big business and wealthy tax dodgers. The finance-sector stranglehold is institutionalised within the euro zone, making any such programme unrealisable under the iron grip of the ECB, EU Commission and European Court of Justice. The labour movement should welcome this parliamentary defeat for the coalition and resist all efforts to impose continent-wide austerity”.

That’s a new one - you resist austerity by demanding cuts. Of course, we in the CPGB are unequivocally opposed to austerity - whether in the UK or the EU. However, our answer to the capitalist crisis gripping Europe is proletarian internationalism on a continent-wide basis, not the CPB’s “magic wand” of left nationalism and isolationism. The 20th century was scarred by the disastrous and barbaric Stalinist experiment of socialism in one country, which must not be repeated - that would be a real catastrophe for the working class. Unlike the CPB and Tory Eurosceptics - an unholy alliance if ever there was one - genuine communists do not want to ‘pull out’ of the EU any more than we want to withdraw from the UK. And go where - the moon? Instead, insofar as the EU represents a ‘superstate’ and to the extent that it objectively creates a single European working class, we want to organise, educate and agitate within and across it.