Left unity and forms of criticism: including diplomatic, critical, and professional

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/962/letters



Real pro

In light of Jack Conrad’s article on Left Unity, I would like to revisit something from Mike Macnair’s article on Riddell’s Comintern translation and from past articles: the false dichotomy of unity with diplomatic or no criticism, and of criticism without unity.

On April 2, there was an Open Democracy article, ‘Young and good-looking: the saviours of Europe’s left’ (http://www.revleft.com/vb/young-and-good-t180035/index.html). Part of this article that really interested me as a professional worker was mixed, that part about being “well-spoken”, having “media-friendly manners”, “middle class [language] based on references to justice and fairness rather than class”, “terms that combine social indignation with the language of justice and democracy” and “packaged in a more middle-class-friendly language”.

In the course of professional self-development, I have come to realise that, surely, there has to be a spectrum of criticism that includes forms that facilitate longer-term unity and forms that don’t. I agree that diplomatic criticism isn’t enough, but surely we should be capable of offering professional criticism - and neither criticism for the sake of criticism nor more amateurish forms (like polemical slurs that only drive people away)! How can there be unity with critical critics or those whose polemical bread and butter are ad hominems? It may have worked in Lenin’s day, but it doesn’t work in ours.

Professional criticism can be worded in ways like informed concerns, or alarms over another group’s lack of due diligence. Surely this is the case in the time-tested and failed reform coalitionism strategy! We should be the ones internalising the political equivalent of due diligence as part of offering professional criticism.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

This is not a revolutionary perspective. One can talk about justice and fairness and, to a greater or lesser extent, achieve these ends in a round-about sort of way, without overthrowing the mode of production; that is, capitalism.

When you talk of 'polemical slurs that only drive people away', are you forgetting that, for their faults, the likes of Marx, Engels (Engels in particular, actually), Lenin and various revolutionaries who won the workers over to their side precisely because they resisted the urge to formalise, professionalise and ultimately subsume themselves to the formal political process (that is, the establishment) and actually worked for revolutionary ends in Lenin's case. Whether one agrees with Lenin's ultimate ends (and I do not), there is no doubt that a huge positive of Lenin the political actor was his ability to write and orally deliver works and speeches of a polemical and radical nature. You're (or the letter is) mistaking cause and consequence. Saying 'it may have worked in Lenin's day, but it doesn't work in ours' is an assertion, and a rather ignorant one at that. Perhaps the reason it worked in Lenin's day is because it was done; today the left is not capable of such polemic because it has reduced itself to a form wayyyyyy below that level.

It probably doesn't matter for the 'left's' popularity whether it offers polemics or 'professional criticism', for the simple and hard truth is that the left is a total dead end today; it doesn't really affect anything inside political structures, nor inside the organised working class to a great extent, nor does it organised the hitherto unorganised working class and poor. So really, to argue for 'professional criticism' seems a totally irrelevant point, because it's quite clear that 'polemical slurs' are not the reason the left is dead today.

I also don't see what the point is here. 'Offering professional criticism' - in what context? Is this - in plainspeak - justification for the CPGB continuing to sit around and occupy the 'gossip' position on the still existing but slowly dying British left?

[Professional Revolution]

I do agree, comrade Die Neue Zeit, that revolutionaries need to be more professional. After all, Lenin did teach us that socialist consciousness can only arise from without, through the actions of professional revolutionaries who dedicate their lives to advancing the cause of communism. However, I must take issue with your assertion that theoretical rigidity and aggressive criticism will not solve anything. We must stick to our principles if we are to prevent reactionary and liberal forces from being adopted by the working class. Thanks for posting.

[Die Neue Zeit]

When you talk of 'polemical slurs that only drive people away', are you forgetting that, for their faults, the likes of Marx, Engels (Engels in particular, actually), Lenin and various revolutionaries who won the workers over to their side precisely because they resisted the urge to formalise, professionalise and ultimately subsume themselves to the formal political process (that is, the establishment) and actually worked for revolutionary ends in Lenin's case.

I said "in Lenin's day." I didn't imply that he was a culprit. Whether he was is for readers to decide.

I had more in mind the likes of that worker-class leader August Bebel, who didn't resort to polemical slurs that only drive people away.


there is no doubt that a huge positive of Lenin the political actor was his ability to write and orally deliver works and speeches of a polemical and radical nature

Of course.


It probably doesn't matter for the 'left's' popularity whether it offers polemics or 'professional criticism', for the simple and hard truth is that the left is a total dead end today; it doesn't really affect anything inside political structures, nor inside the organised working class to a great extent, nor does it organised the hitherto unorganised working class and poor. So really, to argue for 'professional criticism' seems a totally irrelevant point, because it's quite clear that 'polemical slurs' are not the reason the left is dead today.

I also don't see what the point is here. 'Offering professional criticism' - in what context? Is this - in plainspeak - justification for the CPGB continuing to sit around and occupy the 'gossip' position on the still existing but slowly dying British left?

Polemical slurs tend to feed left sectarianism, not left unity, the lower-case theme of this discussion. The Weekly Worker has articles criticizing "diplomatic criticism" and the dichotomy of unity without criticism vs. criticism resulting only in splits. I have offered an alternative.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I think there is a difference between being critical and employing "polemical slurs".

First of all, I am a part of a tendency. This is because I think that my tendency has the theory necessary to produce the communist praxis we need. Others disagree with me, others have their own tendency which they think has the theory which produces the communist praxis we need. There's no "peaceful coexistence". Some theories are flat out wrong and some are right, some are half right and some are half wrong. The only way we will be able to uncover which strains of thought are correct and which ones are incorrect is through engaging these theories on their own merit; and the only methology that we can use to engage these theories based on the concrete praxis they will produce is the Marxist methodology. No one cares about "fairness". "fairness" is nothing but idealist abstraction, "fairness" is nothing but the result of a lingering altruism produced by pre-capitalist formations, moral arguments like these aren't relevant to the working class in the post modern era of late capitalism. If you base your argument on abstract notions that have no basis in the actual realities of the working class then your arguments are irrelevant and have no merit on their own. It is only when argumentation engages the concrete realities of the world that it is of value, and therefore we can not use liberal platitudes. Because let's face it, other than the whole Christian ethic of "lets be nice to everyone!(except for brown people)" there really is no solid philosophical argument for alturism. Heck the only thing that I'll give Ayn Rand credit for is that her work is pretty effective in demolishing this form of liberal morality that Marxism should have nothing to do with.

Still, ignoring the actual content of your post, I am going to assume a kernel of truth that is worth mentioning. We have alot of words in the Marxist vocabulary that substitute for arguments based on concrete conditions. Whenever I hear debates about SiOC, the word "nationalism" is thrown around without a good explination of why SiOC is nationalist. Now I'm aware of the nationalistic actions of the USSR, and I'm aware of the fact that you can't discuss a theory outside of it's context, but the USSR doesn't exist anymore so to talk about it in an outdated context is only engaging in a strawman of the theory. In the abstract, socialism in one country is an internationalist strategy for revolution that recognizes the uneven nature of capitalist crisis and the need for the creation of "base areas" to launch offensives on the bourgeois. This isn't to say that there aren't good arguments against it. Why, I remember Tim brought up a very good point about natural resources and the need for market mechanisms to import these resources; this is a good argument because it is based in the concrete realities of the world that we live in today and therefore is employing the Marxist method. What isn't a valid Marxist criticism of SIOC is that it is "nationalist". By ignoring the actual content of the theory of SiOC and deliberating ignoring the internationalist aspect of it, these people are taking the very un-marxist root of critiquing their "ideal" conception of what that theory is and attacking that idea of SIOC as the "actual" conception of what SIOC means while refusing to acknowledge that the real version as presented by it's proponents is actually arguing something quite different. This example goes with alot of polemical slurs. Alot of the times the word "subsitutionism" is thrown around without engaging content. For example, there are some who say that direct action is substiutionism because it involves radicals engaging in radical actions instead of the working class. Isn't that a bit of an abstraction though? What is exactly wrong with that? What does it mean for "the working class" to engage in a radical action? Do you need 10% of the working class to engage in it? 25%? 100%? Aren't radicals themselves a part of the working class? After all it would be pretty silly to say that radicals are abstracted from society and do not represent any social class. Again this isn't to say that you can't critique direct action; but that the basis of this critique must be in what this action actually produces and whether it is desirable or not, not on an unmarxist phrasemongering.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I had more in mind the likes of that worker-class leader August Bebel, who didn't resort to polemical slurs that only drive people away.

Hahaha, sorry what what August Bebel have you been reading? I mean, have you actually read Women and Socialism? Bebel absolutely DESTROYS the Malthusians in true polemical style in the population chapter. To quote but a small fraction:


The conditions that caused Malthus to utter his cry of warning and to set forth his brutal doctrines – they were addressed to the working class, which meant adding insult to injury, – have since expanded with every decade. They have expanded, not only in the native land of Malthus, Great Britain, but in all countries of the world that have a capitalistic method of production, which implies robbery of the soil and subjugation of the masses by means of the machine and the factory.


Polemical slurs tend to feed left sectarianism, not left unity, the lower-case theme of this discussion.

But as i've already said, left 'unity' is both a sham (due to the heterogeneity of the already existing left) and not a desirable outcome (due to the poor performance of the already existing left, and it's extremely limited capability to achieve anything of substance for, by, of, or within the working class).

[Die Neue Zeit]

In the abstract, socialism in one country is an internationalist strategy for revolution that recognizes the uneven nature of capitalist crisis and the need for the creation of "base areas" to launch offensives on the bourgeois. This isn't to say that there aren't good arguments against it. Why, I remember Tim brought up a very good point about natural resources and the need for market mechanisms to import these resources; this is a good argument because it is based in the concrete realities of the world that we live in today and therefore is employing the Marxist method. What isn't a valid Marxist criticism of SIOC is that it is "nationalist". By ignoring the actual content of the theory of SiOC and deliberating ignoring the internationalist aspect of it, these people are taking the very un-marxist root of critiquing their "ideal" conception of what that theory is and attacking that idea of SIOC as the "actual" conception of what SIOC means while refusing to acknowledge that the real version as presented by it's proponents is actually arguing something quite different. This example goes with alot of polemical slurs. Alot of the times the word "subsitutionism" is thrown around without engaging content. For example, there are some who say that direct action is substiutionism because it involves radicals engaging in radical actions instead of the working class. Isn't that a bit of an abstraction though? What is exactly wrong with that? What does it mean for "the working class" to engage in a radical action? Do you need 10% of the working class to engage in it? 25%? 100%? Aren't radicals themselves a part of the working class? After all it would be pretty silly to say that radicals are abstracted from society and do not represent any social class. Again this isn't to say that you can't critique direct action; but that the basis of this critique must be in what this action actually produces and whether it is desirable or not, not on an unmarxist phrasemongering.

Turning to your examples on criticism vs. "polemical slurs": The "substitutionism" problem depends on the action taken and the underlying strategy. Most non-Stalinist SIOC advocates tend to substitute "continent" for "country." From this vantage point, it's harder to criticize this for being nationalistic, and easier to criticize openly "internationalist" positions for being defeatist (i.e., we can't at least construct SIOC re. a large continent).


Hahaha, sorry what what August Bebel have you been reading? I mean, have you actually read Women and Socialism? Bebel absolutely DESTROYS the Malthusians in true polemical style in the population chapter. To quote but a small fraction

That's not a polemical slur. That is political oratory. There is a difference between the two that the non-charismatic part of the left doesn't get.


But as i've already said, left 'unity' is both a sham (due to the heterogeneity of the already existing left) and not a desirable outcome (due to the poor performance of the already existing left, and it's extremely limited capability to achieve anything of substance for, by, of, or within the working class).

Unity is strength. I suggest you go look up the term synergy to see where I come from strategically.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[QUOTE=Die Neue Zeit;2619476]
That's not a polemical slur. That is political oratory. There is a difference between the two that the non-charismatic part of the left doesn't get.

If you say so. We'll leave you to your delusions of grandeur, as per.




Unity is strength.

Real unity might = more strength. A forced/fake/deceptive unity is not. The working class needs only to be united against the ruling class, that is the only unity we need. We don't need some middle class artisans and bureaucrats to be united, they are largely irrelevant to the plight and struggles of the working class.


I suggest you go look up the term synergy to see where I come from strategically.

Pointless buzzword.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Real unity might = more strength. A forced/fake/deceptive unity is not. The working class needs only to be united against the ruling class, that is the only unity we need. We don't need some middle class artisans and bureaucrats to be united, they are largely irrelevant to the plight and struggles of the working class.

I agree with you there, but by "left unity" I was referring to a specific part of the left: those with working-class profiles.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Would you say that is much of the existing left, though? That's the point. The existing left seems to exist in a vacuum - in prosperity and in depression. Its fortunes don't seem to rise or fall with that of the working class and, along with actually knowing some of the ins and outs of the left, leads me to believe that much of the existing left is filled with non-workers.