SPGB vs CWO - 1984 debate

[Red Enemy]

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/can-majority-workers-develop-socialist-conciousness-under-capitalism

What does everyone think?

I think the CWO did very well, and the SPGB has proven itself a utopian socialist party.

[The Idler]

I think Coleman summed it up best at the opening of Part 3

Let me try and summarise in two sentences what this debate is really about. The Socialist Party states that we cannot have socialism ... until a majority of workers understand and want socialism and our opponents the CWO state that the majority of workers will never understand and want socialism under the conditions of capitalism because most workers are incapable of developing such a degree of understanding

The CWO say that workers will be socialist at the end of the process. This for me, is utopian to suggest there is an end of the process.

Incidentally I have just posted a pamphlet from 1949 on the subject entitled SPGB-Utopian or Scientific.
SPGB: Utopian or Scientific, Walsby (1949) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=7288)

[Red Enemy]

I think Coleman summed it up best at the opening of Part 3


The CWO say that workers will be socialist at the end of the process. This for me, is utopian to suggest there is an end of the process.

Incidentally I have just posted a pamphlet from 1949 on the subject entitled SPGB-Utopian or Scientific.
SPGB: Utopian or Scientific, Walsby (1949) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=7288)
John of the CWO goes ahead and debunks that strawman, one of many the angry SPGBer, Coleman, laid forth. He was very clear when he said that BEFORE socialism is established, there will be mass consciousness. That this mass consciousness "will be more than 50% +1", it will be "much more than that". What the CWO delegate did say was that the revolution, the struggle, will create this mass consciousness. Not parliamentary cretinism of the SPGB.

[The Idler]

John of the CWO goes ahead and debunks that strawman, one of many the angry SPGBer, Coleman, laid forth. He was very clear when he said that BEFORE socialism is established, there will be mass consciousness. That this mass consciousness "will be more than 50% +1", it will be "much more than that". What the CWO delegate did say was that the revolution, the struggle, will create this mass consciousness. Not parliamentary cretinism of the SPGB.
So workers will start a revolution for socialism without knowing what they're doing it for?

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

So workers will start a revolution for socialism without knowing what they're doing it for?

Because "socialist" consciousness is such a poor term. What is "socialist consciousness"? Is that when the majority of people vote for the labour party? Should we wait for the working class to finish all three volumes of Das Kapital? To expect the working class to educate themselves on every aspect of Marxist thought is idealist because this has never been nessecary in any previous revolution. What is nessecary is class consciousness, and you don't need a fancy membership to the "correct" party to have that. At the end of the day, such an immaterial term is nothing more than sloganeering and serves only to justify the SPGB's parlimentarianism.

And a revolution should commence when the working class has the power to overthrow the state, we should not delay it for any other reason and to do so is either utopianism or opportunism. To quote Bordiga:

"The revolution requires a dictatorship, because it would be ridiculous to subordinate the revolution to a 100 % acceptance or a 51 % majority. Wherever these figures are displayed, it means that the revolution has been betrayed."(Proletarian Dictatorship and Class Party)

And if a socialist majority is really necessary, then how on earth did bourgeois revolutions ever happen? The bourgeois weren't even the numerical majority in these situations, and even "bourgeois ideology" wasn't even a consensus amoungst that class. So then why do proletarians need "socialist conciousness" when they are a numerical majority, as opposed to the bourgeois?

[Hit The North]

At the end of the day, such an immaterial term is nothing more than sloganeering and serves only to justify the SPGB's parlimentarianism.


So divorced are the SPGB from praxis that even their Parliamentarianism is a mere abstraction. They never stand anything but token numbers of candidates in general elections (a pitiful one last time) and so do not even seriously contest elections.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

So divorced are the SPGB from praxis that even their Parliamentarianism is a mere abstraction. They never stand anything but token numbers of candidates in general elections (a pitiful one last time) and so do not even seriously contest elections.

Really? That is absolutely pathetic.

I know a decent amount about this history of British Trotskyism, but I don't know much about the history of the SPGB, all I know is that they are really old. The SWP has managed to elect consolors despite not being an electoral party (by that I mean they don't have the same view of parlimentarianism as the SPGB does, obviously they aren't abstentionist). So why is it that a party with a line as bad as the SWP can get elected while the SPGB fails at this task despite the fact that elections are the primary focus of their organization. So what is the history of this party?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Because "socialist" consciousness is such a poor term. What is "socialist consciousness"? Is that when the majority of people vote for the labour party? Should we wait for the working class to finish all three volumes of Das Kapital? To expect the working class to educate themselves on every aspect of Marxist thought is idealist because this has never been nessecary in any previous revolution. What is nessecary is class consciousness, and you don't need a fancy membership to the "correct" party to have that. At the end of the day, such an immaterial term is nothing more than sloganeering and serves only to justify the SPGB's parlimentarianism.

And a revolution should commence when the working class has the power to overthrow the state, we should not delay it for any other reason and to do so is either utopianism or opportunism. To quote Bordiga:

"The revolution requires a dictatorship, because it would be ridiculous to subordinate the revolution to a 100 % acceptance or a 51 % majority. Wherever these figures are displayed, it means that the revolution has been betrayed."(Proletarian Dictatorship and Class Party)

And if a socialist majority is really necessary, then how on earth did bourgeois revolutions ever happen? The bourgeois weren't even the numerical majority in these situations, and even "bourgeois ideology" wasn't even a consensus amoungst that class. So then why do proletarians need "socialist conciousness" when they are a numerical majority, as opposed to the bourgeois?
Because the gentlemen that espouse such tripe are, when push comes to shove, against revolution. As Marxists, we value democracy a great deal. But bourgeois democracy holds no magic for us. Class comes first. Bordiga had it right in the above quote. All the nincompoops that wring their hands at the Bolsheviks dispersal of the Constituent Assembly are taking a counterrevolutionary stance. Anyone that speaks of "democracy" in the abstract means bourgeois democracy. They will consistently wind up on the wrong side of the class line.

[Thirsty Crow]

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/can-majority-workers-develop-socialist-conciousness-under-capitalism

I need some speakers ASAP.

Is there a written version anywhere online?

[Red Enemy]

I need some speakers ASAP.

Is there a written version anywhere online?
I am quite unsure if there is a transcript available. Perhaps you can email the SPGB and ask?

[Blake's Baby]

Or perhaps email the CWO, as you're probably in touch with them more often. They might be able to supply you with a transcript.

[Red Enemy]

Or perhaps email the CWO, as you're probably in touch with them more often. They might be able to supply you with a transcript.
On a similar note, this was only 1 of 4 or 5 debates the CWO has had with the SPGB.

If you could find the audio of the others, I'd appreciate it.

[The Idler]

The SPGB don't fetishise parliamentarianism listen to Part 4 about 18:30 in.

"there's another myth going round the critics of the Socialist Party this evening, that all we say that workers should do or all that will happen at the time of the socialist revolution is that people will put an X on a ballot box and watch the result on television. Thats not it at all. For us, voting and parliament and so on, are merely a means. What is important is the vast majority of workers have come to want and understand socialism, firstly. Second point that they've organised themselves to establish socialism."or Part 5 about 2:00 in

"They talk about parliament. Its nonsense. If you notice, parliament has only been mentioned by that side in the debate. The Socialist Party hasn't mentioned it, we're not interested in talking about parliament in different parts of the world. Actually if the CWO would read the pamphlets produced by the Socialist Party of Great Britain ... at the back on the declaration of principles explain. In there it says the Socialist Party favour the use of parliament where necessary, soviets where necessary, any revolutionary bodies that work. You see, we are not parliamentary fetishists, we're not interested in this. The trouble with the CWO and these other odd people that come out of something tradition of the Italian left in the past is that they are anti-parliamentary fetishists. They've got a hang up about Parliament. The reason they've got a hang up about Parliament is that because of the motion tonight which the CWO speakers didn't address themselves to. They don't think workers can ever understand socialism under capitalist conditions. And therefore its understandable that they oppose ballots, its understandable that they oppose workers having to show that they are in a majority in favour of something, because they don't think they will be."As for majoritarianism vs minoritarianism, you only need turn to Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto

"All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property


All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air. "or Engels preface to Class Struggles in France (1850)

"All revolutions up to the present day have resulted in the displacement of one definite class rule by another; all ruling classes up till now have been only minorities as against the ruled mass of the people. A ruling minority was thus overthrown; another minority seized the helm of state and remodeled the state apparatus in accordance with its own interests. This was on every occasion the minority group, able and called to rule by the degree of economic development, and just for that reason, and only for that reason, it happened that the ruled majority either participated in the revolution on the side of the former or else passively acquiesced in it. But if we disregard the concrete content of each occasion, the common form of all these revolutions was that they were minority revolutions. Even where the majority took part, it did so—whether wittingly or not—only in the service of a minority; but because of this, or simply because of the passive, unresisting attitude of the majority, this minority acquired the appearance of being the representative of the whole people."which also contains the unambiguous statement

The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of masses lacking consciousness is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in on it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are fighting for, body and soul.I don't think there is a SPGB transcript, but I'll ask about the other debates but they weren't necessarily all recorded by the SPGB. I should be in head office on Saturday. Anyone here is welcome to turn up.
We're also considering standing in all constituencies for the next European Parliament elections.

[Hit The North]

which also contains the unambiguous statement

The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of masses lacking consciousness is past.

But no one is arguing that the masses will not be active or lack consciousness. The question is what kind of consciousness is necessary for them to be active and what kind of activity will create that consciousness, as has been so ably pointed out by Yet Another Boring Marxis[t].

We're also considering standing in all constituencies for the next European Parliament elections. That would be a significant step-up in activity and a very welcome turn to praxis on behalf of the SPGB.

[Blake's Baby]

...
That would be a significant step-up in activity and a very welcome turn to praxis on behalf of the CPGB.

You mean the SPGB.

Really, don't get them confused. For all their faults (as I see them at least), the SPGB can't be compared to the CPGB (historically, or currently in -PCC or -ML guise).

[Red Enemy]

The SPGB don't fetishise parliamentarianism listen to Part 4 about 18:30 in.
or Part 5 about 2:00 in
As for majoritarianism vs minoritarianism, you only need turn to Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto
or Engels preface to Class Struggles in France (1850)
which also contains the unambiguous statement
I don't think there is a SPGB transcript, but I'll ask about the other debates but they weren't necessarily all recorded by the SPGB. I should be in head office on Saturday. Anyone here is welcome to turn up.
We're also considering standing in all constituencies for the next European Parliament elections.
Thanks for all the strawman argumentation...seems to be a common theme with the SPGB.

The CWO, and myself, view the revolution to be a process. Not just the seizure of state power. The revolution is not over until communism has been achieved.

Therefore, the revolution WILL be the act of the class itself.

[Blake's Baby]

Thanks for all the strawman argumentation...seems to be a common theme with the SPGB...

Honestly Red Enemy, I think it's not so much a strawman as a different conception which results in mutual incomprehension. It's something I've been trying to tease out with the SPGB and has to do with consciousness and process. I don't think the Idler or other SPGBers are being deliberately obtuse or manipulative here, I think we really don't understand each other because we're using different words for the same thing and the same words for different things.

You know what that's like, when one person says 'socialism' and you decide one has to be an idiot who has never read Lenin or Marx not to realise that 'socialism' doesn't come between 'capitalism' and 'communism' and then someone comes along and says actually that's exactly how they understood it? Sometimes, confusions are honest.


...The CWO, and myself, view the revolution to be a process. Not just the seizure of state power. The revolution is not over until communism has been achieved.

Therefore, the revolution WILL be the act of the class itself.

But that isn't the SPGB's argument, as I understand it. Honest mistake on your part, I think, not a straw man, though obviously it's up to the SPGB to call that one.

The SPGB's argument as I understand it is that the working class must understand the case for and indeed want socialism before the revolution. Enough workers wanting socialism 'is' the revolution, they just express it it in various ways (through parliament or other necessary means).

The 'Leninist' case (I put that in quotes because there isn't a name for it; the 'non-SPGB' case I suppose) is that the working class will begin the process that becomes the revolution without a clear idea before where it's leading, and consciousness will develop through action.

It seems to me that the SPGB method is an abstract and idealistic one; consciousness (as learning) results in workers struggling to change their material conditions. The second method is a materialist one, where workers learn through doing - they make a revolution and discover what it is and can do through the process of creating it. But, I'm sure the SPGB would disagree.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

The 'Leninist' case (I put that in quotes because there isn't a name for it; the 'non-SPGB' case I suppose) is that the working class will begin the process that becomes the revolution without a clear idea before where it's leading, and consciousness will develop through action.

It seems to me that the SPGB method is an abstract and idealistic one; consciousness (as learning) results in workers struggling to change their material conditions. The second method is a materialist one, where workers learn through doing - they make a revolution and discover what it is and can do through the process of creating it. But, I'm sure the SPGB would disagree.

And with this in mind I'd like to add one more thing to my critique of the SPGB. The idea of "socialist consciousness" implies that there is a specific outline of what "socialism" is that is the defining characteristic of socialism; as if the working class must follow outline X Y Z to create a socialist society. The idea that there is a "right" socialist society is simply utopian. As Lenin explained:


Marx did not indulge in utopias; he expected the experience of the mass movement to provide the reply to the question as to the specific forms this organisation of the proletariat as the ruling class would assume and as to the exact manner in which this organisation would be combined with the most complete, most consistent "winning of the battle of democracy."....

...There is no trace of utopianism in Marx, in the sense that he made up or invented a “new” society. No, he studied the birth of the new society out of the old, and the forms of transition from the latter to the former, as a mass proletarian movement and tried to draw practical lessons from it. He “Learned” from the Commune, just as all the great revolutionary thinkers learned unhesitatingly from the experience of great movements of the oppressed classes, and never addressed them with pedantic “homilies” (such as Plekhanov's: "They should not have taken up arms" or Tsereteli's: "A class must limit itself").

-State and Revolution


Now, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to understand what a socialist society should look like. I would say that debate over Labor Vouchers or the "Calcuation in Kind" of Borgida is extremly productive; however the system put in place will not be the difference between socialism or capitalism. For as Mao said "The defining characteristic of socialism is the rule of the proletariat".

So, with this in mind, class consciousness, is the correct term because it expresses the sort of consciousness that is needed for the class to realize it's self and seize power. "Socialist consciousness" is Utopian because it suggests that we need to suggest some grandiose scheme and only when the working class buy into that will we have socialism.

[The Idler]

I think Blake's Baby might be onto something about communication.
I asked about tapes and got the following

about other tapes I'm afraid there aren't any
that I know of. A damn shame, if true. None of the various tapes'
lists I've seen mention another debate with the CWO, although I gather
we did engage them on other occasions.
I think there was some pre-existing needle ahead of that debate, hence
Steve Coleman's 'clowning around'. About ten days before this, he'd
done a talk on the Miners Strike, and there's some
intervention/comments in that discussion from the CWO. I think it's
pt.2 at http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/miners-strike-marxist-analysis
The CWO on Occupy


The Occupy Movement – Just Another Diversion?

Revolutionary Perspectives 60 - Winter 2012
You are probably more likely to stumble across the inter-faith prayer tent than encounter a coherent discussion on the possibility of communism. In short just about anything (within the boundaries of political correctness) goes at these Occupy camps, which in truth have more of the feel of Haight Ashbury, (the San Francisco hippy Mecca of the late 1960s) rather than Petrograd in 1917.

On a political level, the ‘anti-capitalism’ of Occupy, like the Occupy movement itself, has no coherency or substance. When questioned about the meaning of anti-capitalism most Occupy protesters would say they are against the banks and multinational corporations. But there is no economic critique of capitalism and no understanding of why capitalism will inevitably create these hated institutions.
...
However because of the lack of any clearly articulated class politics, the Occupy movement, if it survives the onslaught of the courts and the police, will remain at the level of irrelevant gesture politics dominated by the diversionary tactics of liberals and the left. Occupy may contain within it some potential for revolutionary development but for this to be realised militants have to articulate clear class politics, and this would inevitably mean going way beyond Occupy’s confused and limited vision.The SPGB on Occupy


Power to the 99 Percent

Socialist Standard September 2012
Like the World Socialist Movement, Occupy does not seek to impose its object on unwilling participants. It aims rather at facilitating the diversely ideological 99 percent to freely arrive at ideas. The above controversy demonstrated the need for a space to develop those sometimes conflicting ideas. This is where Tidal Magazine (OccupyTheory.org) comes in. In depth but plain-speaking and free from jargon, Tidal argue, “We believe we can’t have radical action without radical thought”.Occupy is important since it is rare to arrive at an analysis of the class composition of society close to that of the World Socialist Movement but popularised independently. ...
For us, socialism is the best system for the interests of the 99 percent. For Occupy as well as for those who want socialism, the twin dangers are of treading the path of reformist demands (which would undermine the 99 percent core message), or the path of inevitably doomed insurrection, which was the fate of the Paris Commune of 1871.
Politics has come a long way since the era of the reforms demanded by the Chartists in the 19th century. The manifestos of Real Democracy Now and the Global Occupy Manifesto demonstrate that these have chosen the reformist path. If the iterative Initial Statement of Occupy London continues “veering away from the language of ‘demands’” they may be able to avoid this mistake.
Remind me which group supports class consciousness and class struggle?