Unity-Criticism-Unity

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Almost all of our threads end up as tendency wars and while I do think that there are significant differences that should be respected I also think that these debates aren't rigorous and are lacking in the scientific dialectical method that charctherizes Marxism. So I think we should try something a bit different. In the Chinese Communist Party it was assumed that everything was governed by dialectical materialism including political discourse so the Unity-Criticism-Unity model was invented to reflect this. This model entails that everyone makes their position known and that everyone makes the assumption that regardless of political line, that ever comrade is genuinely trying to promote the best line possible. Therefore since there is a unity in abstract goals there can also be unity in differing political positions and the logic that creates them. So before the debate begins everyone attempts to establish unity with the opposing view before engaging that view. So I will go ahead and try to establish some unity between my tendency and other tendencies and ask questions of other tendencies so I can understand their political line for myself and engage it on it's own terms.

To my Left Communist Comrades: I find that your views most often coincide with mine, expecually in your rejection of electoral politics, participation in reformist collations, and collaboration with bourgeois legalism. I also think that the Tinquinist tendency is perhaps one of the most theoretically innovative theoretical breaks in our time.

So my question to you is this, I often hear that your rejection of MLM is based on it's voluntarism, what do you mean by voluntarism and why do you oppose it? Thank you comrades

To my Anarchist comrades: The emphasis on direct action and militancy makes your tendency the most objectively revolutionary in the west (that is, in making physical revolution) your militancy and direct action make you the most admirable group of leftists out there and there is a good level of unity in action that MLM folk have with you. After all, there is good reason why the RCP Canada was able to merge with the Anarchist Social Revolution Party, and that one of our most prominent theorists in the west (JMP) is a former anarchist.

It is unfortunate then, that our goals do not coincide. I understand anarchist thought in the most part but may I ask you why you put so much emphasis on anti-authoritarianism? I understand you believe that the state is a part of the bourgeois class and that therefore it's class nature can not be changed, but it seems like so much of your praxis, from your organizational style to your lifestyle is based on rejecting authority, why is this?

To my Trotskyist comrades: I believe strongly that the Trotskyist narrative is inherently compatible with Anti-Revisionism. However for you I have two questions

Why is it that Trotskyism never makes note of the Sino-Soviet split? Most of the Communist left at that time and to a extent today believes that capitalism was restored under Khrushchev, however I have never seen Trotskyism engage this period at all. In my opinion it is a bit flawed to say that the USSR was a deformed worker's state all the way up till it's fall.

Secondly, your tendency supports the overthrow of deformed worker's states by the working class, and yet I have never heard any Trotskyists defend the cultural revolution in this regard. Why is this? To me it seems like the Cultural Revolution fits this aspect of Trotskyism perfectly. If you have any questions or misconceptions of the cultural revolution I would love to clear them up.

To my Marxist Leninist comrades: It is somewhat ironic that I agree with you the least of all and yet I find myself associating and defending you the most. At least we can agree that Khrushchev was a dirty, dirty revisionist.

I am aware that you have a concept of class struggle under socialism in Stalin's USSR. How did this manifest it's self concretely? I admit that I need to learn more about this period.

To my Borgidist comrades: "The Theses of the Abstentionist Faction Italian Socialist Party" is considered a classic amoungst Maoists and for that I wish to commend you for upholding the principles established in this work.

My question to you is this, I notice that your minoritarian views are based on incorporating the most advanced section of the working class into your party, what do you view concretely as the most advanced section of the working class?

Thank you comrades, and if you have any questions about my tendency please ask and please keep something similar to this format in posts below

[vanukar]

To my Left Communist Comrades: I find that your views most often coincide with mine, expecually in your rejection of electoral politics, participation in reformist collations, and collaboration with bourgeois legalism. I also think that the Tinquinist tendency is perhaps one of the most theoretically innovative theoretical breaks in our time. So my question to you is this, I often hear that your rejection of MLM is based on it's voluntarism, what do you mean by voluntarism and why do you oppose it? Thank you comrades

Left-Communists oppose Stalinism/Maoism because of Socialism in One Country more than anything else, I'd say. We can't get behind socialism under a national flag in any circumstance.

Sorry to sound harsh, but I'm honestly not sure why you care about unity. It will only ever go as far as simple discussion and won't have much use in actual struggle (let's not forget that it's the working class itself revolting, not leftists).

[MP5]

To my Anarchist comrades: The emphasis on direct action and militancy makes your tendency the most objectively revolutionary in the west (that is, in making physical revolution) your militancy and direct action make you the most admirable group of leftists out there and there is a good level of unity in action that MLM folk have with you. After all, there is good reason why the RCP Canada was able to merge with the Anarchist Social Revolution Party, and that one of our most prominent theorists in the west (JMP) is a former anarchist.

It is unfortunate then, that our goals do not coincide. I understand anarchist thought in the most part but may I ask you why you put so much emphasis on anti-authoritarianism? I understand you believe that the state is a part of the bourgeois class and that therefore it's class nature can not be changed, but it seems like so much of your praxis, from your organizational style to your lifestyle is based on rejecting authority, why is this?

Well i guess that i fit into the Anarchist Communist tendency although i am pragmatic as well and do not believe in sticking to all the concepts of 1 ideology rigidly. It must also be said that i do believe in national liberation so my left wing nationalist tendencies would put me at odds with every Anarchist on the planet more or less.

However i do believe that our goals do coincide with Marxism it's just that we believe in getting to the goal in different ways. My main objections towards Marxism-Leninism and most Marxists is that i do not believe in democratic centralism or the need for authoritarianism. I don't think that the system can be changed from within as this will just result in another ruling class just with a different name. This is essentially what happened with the Soviet union as well as China.

Basically i don't think that authoritarianism leads to anything good so no man should have more power then the other. Power corrupts even the most dedicated revolutionaries and even if say the chairman of the Communist party manages to not become a power hungry tyrant there is no guarantee at all that the next leader will have as pure intentions as the last. This is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union. Power always corrupts people and leads people who where otherwise dedicated revolutionaries to see enemies to the cause of Communism as anyone who might challenge their power. The very building blocks of the bourgeois class system is consolidated power thus we must tear down the building. The only way to make sure that we abolish the class system forever is to abolish authority over other men in the first place. Capitalism cannot be destroyed unless the state is destroyed as well.

Now since i am very new here i would like to hear what your tendencies are :)

[o well this is ok I guess]

Why do we need unity on all political matters? So long as there's unity on the right side of the police line, why coordinate actions together?

[Fourth Internationalist]

Already I am irritated by this thread *cough* MP5 *cough* :grin:

[MP5]

Already I am irritated by this thread *cough* MP5 *cough* :grin:

Anything in particular you find irritating? :D

[Jimmie Higgins]

To my Anarchist comrades: The emphasis on direct action and militancy makes your tendency the most objectively revolutionary in the west (that is, in making physical revolution) your militancy and direct action make you the most admirable group of leftists out there and there is a good level of unity in action that MLM folk have with you. After all, there is good reason why the RCP Canada was able to merge with the Anarchist Social Revolution Party, and that one of our most prominent theorists in the west (JMP) is a former anarchist.

I disagree that militancy necissarily means "objectivly most revolutionary" because there can be and often have been very militant reformists and liberals. Additionally, I think an empasis on tactics that place the actions of revolutionaries themselves over the role of revolutionaries in trying to aid workers going into motion and struggle as workers as problematic.

In US history, I think because of the absense of established reformist institutions like in Europe or parts of South America, often when people begin to radicalize it can tend to take this sort of form. In the 1970s it was the New Communist movement that drew support from the frustration between a growing radical minority and larger class passivity (at least in direct struggles against capital, there were obviously many social struggles with major class ramifications going on). But while they were able to gain supporters through a sense of "the revolution is around the corner" this also caused the movement to implode and go a little looney when political impasses happened and the mass movements didn't continue to grow. I think the current general anarchist trend is a good one overall in that more people are becoming radicalized and since I think we are at the begining of a time of more struggle, there is still time for induviduals and political trends to develop.

The problem with some of the action-only oriented anarchism and the action-oriented Maoists in the 1970s IMO is that it can actually lead to radicals alienating themselves from the class and missing opportunties to actually begin to link revolutionary struggle and ideas to the wider class. It can also burn induvidual activists out because tactics become a moral imperative (what revolutionaries are doing the most radical thing at a given time) rather than a political consideration (what action will help forward the class at a given time). In my view, the work done by black Marxists in organizing anti-racist struggle in auto-plants in the 1970s was "more revolutionary" in potential, than the direct attacks on cops by the Weathermen Underground.


It is unfortunate then, that our goals do not coincide. I understand anarchist thought in the most part but may I ask you why you put so much emphasis on anti-authoritarianism? I understand you believe that the state is a part of the bourgeois class and that therefore it's class nature can not be changed, but it seems like so much of your praxis, from your organizational style to your lifestyle is based on rejecting authority, why is this?While I disagree with some anarchists who do have a kind of abstract view of authority, many anarchists share my view of "organic class authority" though they will reject the terminology and some of the ideological assumtions I have. But in regards to the anarchist critique of so-called socialist countries for "authoritarianism" I side with them, even though I reject their terminology in this case. I see socialism as being a bottom-up project of reorganizing society and on this I side with anarchists - and I think it's the actual Marxist traddition as well.

Anyway, I don't mean to discount the bravery of induvidual Maoists or Anarchist and I hope my answer didn't sound too sectarian towards either group, but I just think that tactics always need to be judged based on the impact in helping workers build class-struggle, not if small groups are attacking capital or not.



To my Trotskyist comrades: I believe strongly that the Trotskyist narrative is inherently compatible with Anti-Revisionism. However for you I have two questions

Why is it that Trotskyism never makes note of the Sino-Soviet split? Most of the Communist left at that time and to a extent today believes that capitalism was restored under Khrushchev, however I have never seen Trotskyism engage this period at all. In my opinion it is a bit flawed to say that the USSR was a deformed worker's state all the way up till it's fall.
I may not be the best representative of "trotskyism" to answer this, because I don't share the tradditional "deformed worker-state view", but I will give it a shot. First, historically, that period of history was probably one of the more disorienting for the Troskyist movment which was still small and largely inactive in many places. A lot of debate in this period was due to some pre-war assumptions by Trotskyists that did not pan-out, so I am frankly not sure what an "orthodox Trotskyist" position is specifically about Khrushchev.

I will say in general though that the Trotskyist critique of the USSR and the countries that followed that model is not one of "policy" specifically but of who had power in society. For Ortho-Trots, (and someone who is of that traddition should correct me if I'm misrepresenting their argument) these are "deformed" not because of some bad laws or policies but because they are "worker states" in form (the organization set-up after the revolution to try and organize worker's power over society) but in content it had been divorced from worker's power and controlled by a beurocracy.

So while significant structural changes may have happened at various points within Russia, or differences in models from Russia to Cuba to China, the fundamental issue is that there was no proletarian democracy or worker's power. The origin of this isn't in any specific policy, but in the decline of worker's power in Russia coupled with the failure of international revolution to spread. We tend to see "Socialism in One Country" as an expression of this shift away from a regime that was still trying to hold things together for better conditions for workers power (a new revolution in a country with a much larger and more developed working class) to one that had moved away from the revolutionary project and was now based around how to build up the Russian economy to defend against the West.


Secondly, your tendency supports the overthrow of deformed worker's states by the working class, and yet I have never heard any Trotskyists defend the cultural revolution in this regard. Why is this? To me it seems like the Cultural Revolution fits this aspect of Trotskyism perfectly. If you have any questions or misconceptions of the cultural revolution I would love to clear them up.I see this as a grassroots mobilization though intiated from above for the purposes of a faction fight within the leadership of China. But this is an area and I history that frankly I have not read a lot about - just some articles and a few sections in books that were more generally about that time period or China, so I'd like to hear your view of how it was a revolutionary movement.