Why are the Trotskyists so obsessed with Islam?

[SmirkerOfTheWorld]

Does seem to me that the Trots have a wee bit of an obsession with Islam and the Muslim world - even leading the likes of the SWP to 'critically' supporting bourgeouis neoliberals like the Muslim Brotherhood...

Not meaning to bash any particular Trots, just interested....

[Fionnagáin]

A lot of Trots have got it into their heads that Islamism is the new Black Power. They think this, because the Trots sects are zombified relics of the 1970s, and can only see in those terms. The fact that in the 1970s, young militant Asians actively rejected the authority of imam, patriarch and "community leader" is apparently unknown to them.

[goalkeeper]

In the UK it seems that in the early-to-mid 2000s Trotskyist groups like the SWP felt it easier to appeal to Asian Muslim youth on issues stemming from identity like the Iraq war, Palestine, and Kashmir than all that class stuff. This lead to the ridiculous Respect alliance.

I think this whole weird state of affairs is coming to an end though, with the secular "anti-imperialist" forces of the Middle East in open conflict with Sunni Muslims and Islamists, which has really fucked a lot of peoples world-views.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Does seem to me that the Trots have a wee bit of an obsession with Islam and the Muslim world - even leading the likes of the SWP to 'critically' supporting bourgeouis neoliberals like the Muslim Brotherhood...

Not meaning to bash any particular Trots, just interested....

Why are leftists "obsessed" with anti-racism or anti-sexism, with immigrants? Why was the left of the 1980s "obsessed" with Latin America?

It's not as though the left decided that Islam was the flavor of the month; US imperialism has focused on the region, there have been two occupations by the US and attempts at diverting North African uprisings with the underlying implication that "Muslims are too irrational for Democracy". In the US arab muslims have been the target of xenophobia and the excuse for crackdowns; in Europe anti-Islamic sentiment has been the organizing focus for both scapegoating from the top and far-right organizing in the streets.

We should be "obsessed" with trying to organize and defend people who are being scapegoated as the basis for the state creating a degree of support in the population either for blaming systemic problems on "alien" groups or as the basis for demonizing a population that is the target for imperial conquest.

As for the specific example of the Muslim Brotherhood, for all it's political failings of late, the SWP, from my understanding and reading their paper in 2011 did not "critically support" the Muslim Brotherhood, which their paper describes as "contradictory" and wanting to be the moderates who can balance the popular movement and the demands of the ruling class at the same time. I think their argument was that the Brotherhood's membership had contesting views and younger members are much more drawn to the movement than to the politics of the party which makes the party somewhat vunerable to pressures from the movment compared to the military. From what I understand they argued that continued military rule and the election of the Muslim Brotherhood were not equally bad options as many on the left argued, with good cause because the Brotherhood isn't progressive let alone a working class party. Essentially I think their argument was that continued military-rule would be a defeat outright whereas a Brotherhood election victory would be still a problem, but more contested in how people responded to it. From what I remember my main problem with how they presented it was that it seemed a little too "the enemy of my enemy" and underestimated the US's ability to adapt to new players in their attempts to maintain their political/imperial influence in Egypt.

Never the less, the Muslim Brotherhood is not "Muslims" it's a political organization with middle class politics, so I don't see how it directly relates. I can refuse to say anything good about the Brotherhood while at the same time "obsessing" over pushing back against the Islamophobia being proped up to justify US imperialism abroad and repression here.

[Sasha]

The idea of entryism probably plays a part, esp for groups like the SWP who made it their core.
Back aound seatle and genua it was all tophopping, now they want to be the western Arab spring, but while Arab trots and real trots in the west are actually linking up with the real revolutionaries the swp is going to swp, and gravitate towards the counter revolution.

[Tim Cornelis]

now they want to be the western Arab spring

I don't know about the rest of what you wrote but this so much! desperately almost. Almost any polemic or appeal written by the Dutch SWP involves using the Egyptian revolution (or any other Arab Spring country) as an example, as if they want to replicate a general revolutionary enthusiasm in the Netherlands.

[ed miliband]

the theoretical basis for supporting islamist movements arguably goes back to tony cliff's theory of 'deflected permanent revolution', via chris harman. cliff said that in parts of the world were the proles were small and weak, the "bourgeois intelligentsia" could carry out a bourgeois revolution. harman:


subsequently extended the argument in an important article on political Islam. Although Cliff’s category was originally used with reference to “Stalinism, Maoism and Castroism”, Harman now claimed that it was equally applicable to “the Islamist intelligentsia around Khomeini in Iran”, who “undertook a revolutionary reorganisation of ownership and control of capital within Iran while leaving capitalist relations of production intact”.

so... political islam can play a progressive role, for swappies (swp supporters).

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

The idea of entryism probably plays a part, esp for groups like the SWP who made it their core.
Back aound seatle and genua it was all tophopping, now they want to be the western Arab spring, but while Arab trots and real trots in the west are actually linking up with the real revolutionaries the swp is going to swp, and gravitate towards the counter revolution.

I've yet to fully understand the criticism reserved for the SWP/Trotskyist organisations. Could you PM me your thoughts on them (to avoid a tendency war)?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I guess it depends on who you think is actually Trotskyist. I certainly don't think the SWP in Britain is or ever was. There is a history of much of the left tailing the "Arab Revolution" dating back to the late 60s and early 70s. The most extreme case was the Healyite groupings (WRP in Britain, WL in the US, nowadays called the SEP), who actually took money from Qadaffi and Saddam Hussein and acted as press agents for these bonapartist, bourgeois regimes. Then there was the fall of the Shah in Iran -- most of the left, including Maoists, CPers, many ostensibly Trotskyist groups supported Khomeini. Defying the simple logic that those that view the 7th Century as the golden age of the world are not about to become allies in the fight for socialism, these groups had their supporters in Iran actually work for the government in some cases. The comrades that did this were later killed for their troubles. The International Spartacist Tendency was one of the only groups at the time that correctly pointed out the reactionary nature of Khomeini -- and the perils of the working class giving him any kind of support -- a simple enough conclusion for Marxists to arrive at, but missing from most left analysis. There may have been some smaller groups with a similar line -- for example, I don't know what the LRP had to say about it and I am sure there might be some groups outside the US that also gave no support to Khomeini and his ilk.

My point is that real Trotskyists give no support to Islamic reaction -- period. Of course we defend the rights of Muslims, etc. but to point out a clear class line in places like Egypt and Tunisia -- not supporting any wing of the petite bourgeois groupings that might be vying for power -- insistence on the political independence for the working class. These are the ABCs of Marxism/Leninism/Trostkyism.

[Martin Blank]

Most self-identified Trotskyists subscribe to the ridiculous and anti-Marxian view that anyone who wags their finger (or other body part) at the imperialist Great Powers is some kind of "anti-imperialist" and worth defending -- even inventing the thoroughly anti-revolutionary concept of "objectively anti-imperialist" (an offshoot of the "objectively revolutionary" mantra made popular by virtually all of the various factions of world Trotskyism after the Second World War). It was a wholesale abandoning of the working class in favor of "new mass vanguards" and seemingly "left-wing" elements of "really existing socialism" (e.g., Cuba).

With the New Left and "new mass vanguards" (thankfully) dead, the "people's democracies" and ex-USSR gone for over a generation, and Cuba and its stepchild, Venezuela, on their way back into the good graces of American imperialism, the pickings are slim for those who need to latch onto something other than the working class to justify their existence. So, for the petty-bourgeois socialists, the Islamists are all they have.

Certainly, it is completely principled and justified to defend Muslims against religious persecution and attacks, just as it is principled and justified to defend Jews, Buddhists and other people who have such beliefs. But that is quite different from burying one's principles and program in order to make room for anti-working-class reactionaries, which is what most ostensible Trotskyists do these days.

[Sam_b]

gravitate towards the counter revolution.

Does this buzz-phrase actually mean anything?

Anyway, as Jimmie says, there is no 'obsession', only recognising the large amount of Islamophobia in today's society, which includes large parts of the left.


Most self-identified Trotskyists subscribe to the ridiculous and anti-Marxian view that anyone who wags their finger (or other body part) at the imperialist Great Powers is some kind of "anti-imperialist"

Oh great, you're back. So much for never returning, for what the fifth time?

[Martin Blank]

Oh great, you're back. So much for never returning, for what the fifth time?

Actually, it's the third time, not the fifth. And blame some of your pals in the BA. They're the ones who repeatedly asked me to return. And looking at the clock, the shard maintenance at STO is done. So I'll be heading over there. When you decide you want to make a political comment, instead of just acting like a dick, have someone let me know.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Most self-identified Trotskyists subscribe to the ridiculous and anti-Marxian view that anyone who wags their finger (or other body part) at the imperialist Great Powers is some kind of "anti-imperialist" and worth defending -- even inventing the thoroughly anti-revolutionary concept of "objectively anti-imperialist" (an offshoot of the "objectively revolutionary" mantra made popular by virtually all of the various factions of world Trotskyism after the Second World War). It was a wholesale abandoning of the working class in favor of "new mass vanguards" and seemingly "left-wing" elements of "really existing socialism" (e.g., Cuba).

With the New Left and "new mass vanguards" (thankfully) dead, the "people's democracies" and ex-USSR gone for over a generation, and Cuba and its stepchild, Venezuela, on their way back into the good graces of American imperialism, the pickings are slim for those who need to latch onto something other than the working class to justify their existence. So, for the petty-bourgeois socialists, the Islamists are all they have.

Certainly, it is completely principled and justified to defend Muslims against religious persecution and attacks, just as it is principled and justified to defend Jews, Buddhists and other people who have such beliefs. But that is quite different from burying one's principles and program in order to make room for anti-working-class reactionaries, which is what most ostensible Trotskyists do these days.
Agree with the second and third paragraphs, but the first is bs. Anointing anything that moves as "anti-imperialist" is a hallmark of opportunism, yes, but has nothing to do with Trotskyism. Don't know where your historical forbears stood on the issues, comrade, but defending the USSR as historically progressive in a qualitative material way has always been the program of Trotskyism. You may disagree, but a planned collectivized society represents an advancement over capitalism. This has NOTHING to do with the opportunist tailing of all kinds of alien class "vanguards" that so many on the left have been guilty of -- including social dems, Stalinists, and fake-Trotskyists. So I heartily agree that this is anti-Marxist, but would hasten to add that it is anti-Leninist and anti-Trotskyist.

[Martin Blank]

Agree with the second and third paragraphs, but the first is bs. Anointing anything that moves as "anti-imperialist" is a hallmark of opportunism, yes, but has nothing to do with Trotskyism. Don't know where your historical forbears stood on the issues, comrade, but defending the USSR as historically progressive in a qualitative material way has always been the program of Trotskyism. You may disagree, but a planned collectivized society represents an advancement over capitalism. This has NOTHING to do with the opportunist tailing of all kinds of alien class "vanguards" that so many on the left have been guilty of -- including social dems, Stalinists, and fake-Trotskyists. So I heartily agree that this is anti-Marxist, but would hasten to add that it is anti-Leninist and anti-Trotskyist.

You're welcome to make the argument about who is and is not The Genuine Trotskyist™. I stopped playing that game years ago. I intentionally used the phrase "self-identified Trotskyist" precisely because I'm not going to get into that pissing contest. I figured that qualifier was enough to allow any one of you Trots to thump your chest and lay claim to being TGT™.

As for my historical forbears, they were expelled from the Bolshevik Party, scattered to the far reaches of the Soviet Republic, and ultimately imprisoned (and, in some cases, exiled) by Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky. My historical comrades were foolish enough to believe the Bolshevik leadership when they said "All Power to the Soviets", "Workers' Control" and "Down with Capitalist Ministers". And they paid for it with their lives.

As for what I think about the USSR, that is a topic for another thread.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

You're welcome to make the argument about who is and is not The Genuine Trotskyist™. I stopped playing that game years ago. I intentionally used the phrase "self-identified Trotskyist" precisely because I'm not going to get into that pissing contest. I figured that qualifier was enough to allow any one of you Trots to thump your chest and lay claim to being TGT™.

As for my historical forbears, they were expelled from the Bolshevik Party, scattered to the far reaches of the Soviet Republic, and ultimately imprisoned (and, in some cases, exiled) by Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky. My historical comrades were foolish enough to believe the Bolshevik leadership when they said "All Power to the Soviets", "Workers' Control" and "Down with Capitalist Ministers". And they paid for it with their lives.

As for what I think about the USSR, that is a topic for another thread.
No, comrade, you can't have it both ways. The large majority of folks on this forum are "self-identified" Marxists. To most of the world, there would be little distinction between you and a Maoist. But we know better -- these are critical distinctions when it comes to leading proletarian revolution.

I'm still not sure who your historical comrades were. The Workers Opposition? The Decemists? Please clarify. Your self-description as "non-doctrinaire communist" is dubious. Reminds me of folks I ran into long ago in college when I was distributing communist propaganda who would say, "I don't have an ideology, man."

As for "all power to the Soviets" that was a strategic demand, not a principle. And "workers control" actually means something different than the term implies in English. And Lenin and Trotsky only punished those engage in actual counterrevolutionary activities. With Stalin, all you had to do was disagree to get sent to Siberia, or shot (plus your family, your friends and everyone that you ever spoke to. Shame on you for tarring them with the Stalin brush. It is not true that the LO were simply getting a dose of their own medicine -- they were the ones that bore the brunt of the leading edge of Stalinist repression.

[Devrim]

The International Spartacist Tendency was one of the only groups at the time that correctly pointed out the reactionary nature of Khomeini -- and the perils of the working class giving him any kind of support -- a simple enough conclusion for Marxists to arrive at, but missing from most left analysis. There may have been some smaller groups with a similar line -- for example, I don't know what the LRP had to say about it and I am sure there might be some groups outside the US that also gave no support to Khomeini and his ilk.

I'd imagine that if you looked outside of the little insular world of Trotskyism for a second, you might find that there were lots of organisations that didn't support Khomeini. You could start with the anarchists. Left communists didn't support them either. In Iran itself, the Hekmatist UCM opposed any support for the regime.


The most extreme case was the Healyite groupings (WRP in Britain, WL in the US, nowadays called the SEP), who actually took money from Qadaffi and Saddam Hussein and acted as press agents for these bonapartist, bourgeois regimes.

In addition they spied on left-wing militants from Iraq in the UK, and reported on them to the Iraqi state. This resulted in executions for some people returning to Iraq.

Devrim

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I'd imagine that if you looked outside of the little insular world of Trotskyism for a second, you might find that there were lots of organisations that didn't support Khomeini. You could start with the anarchists. Left communists didn't support them either. In Iran itself, the Hekmatist UCM opposed any support for the regime.



In addition they spied on left-wing militants from Iraq in the UK, and reported on them to the Iraqi state. This resulted in executions for some people returning to Iraq.

Devrim
That's why I was not categorical, comrade. Any documentation online? At the time, Anarchist currents were miniscule, and Left comms were nowhere to be found in the US. To the extent that they exist now I have only run into them online (I know, the aggregate left is pretty damn small).

And yes -- the Healyites probably did finger Iraqi communists to the Hussein regime -- a crime against the proletariat.

[Jimmie Higgins]

the theoretical basis for supporting islamist movements arguably goes back to tony cliff's theory of 'deflected permanent revolution', via chris harman. cliff said that in parts of the world were the proles were small and weak, the "bourgeois intelligentsia" could carry out a bourgeois revolution. harman:

so... political islam can play a progressive role, for swappies (swp supporters).

A progressive role? What direction is indicated by the word "progress"? What does "deflected" imply about a trajectory? So would deflected permanent revolution seem to be a term that describes forward progress?

You are conflating different ideas and assumptions in these politics. What the idea of deflected permanent revolution attempts to describe is basically why colonial struggles after WWII were not organized by the bourgeoisie or workers, but the intelligentsia instead. It's the "national" revolution that can play a progressive role - if workers take the lead, creating a "permanent revolution" as Trotsky argued. In the vacuum of a united and strong bourgeois or a united and revolutionary working class, something else will come in and that's what deflected permanent revolution attempts to describe.

Using this idea to somehow argue that it advocates supporting "the deflectors" essentially, as something to advocate as a requisite for revolution or whatever is like arguing that if I said "the Cuban Revolutionaries all had beards" that I was implying that we should all grow beards and that will cause a revolution in Cuba.

[Devrim]

That's why I was not categorical, comrade. Any documentation online? At the time, Anarchist currents were miniscule, and Left comms were nowhere to be found in the US. To the extent that they exist now I have only run into them online (I know, the aggregate left is pretty damn small).

As I have to point out reasonably frequently on this forum, the world is not the USA though. If you look internationally, the biggest single section of the anarcho-syndicalist international, the IWA at the time would probably have had hundreds of times more members than the entire Spartacist international organization. I think the IWA had a small US section at the time, the Workers' Solidarity Alliance. As for left communists in the US itself they have always been tiny, but I believe that the ICC had a group in New York then.

It is difficult to find that much stuff online from those pre internet days, but the ICC would probably have a piece if you look at their site.


And yes -- the Healyites probably did finger Iraqi communists to the Hussein regime -- a crime against the proletariat.

Not probably. It was definitely and it is documented from their own files.

Devrim

[Rafiq]

A lot of Trots have got it into their heads that Islamism is the new Black Power. They think this, because the Trots sects are zombified relics of the 1970s, and can only see in those terms. The fact that in the 1970s, young militant Asians actively rejected the authority of imam, patriarch and "community leader" is apparently unknown to them.

Many Arab left bourgeois nationalists spilled blood fighting Islamists. The likes of the SWP spit on their memory.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[Akshay!]

an obsession with Islam and the Muslim world

1) We are (and should be) obsessed with standing for the oppressed (and against Imperialism).
2) The Muslims in various parts of the world - Palestine, Kashmir, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bahrain, people living under other US backed dictators, etc.., are oppressed.
3) Therefore, it logically follows that we must be obsessed with them.

I don't understand what's the problem? :confused:

[Tim Cornelis]

2) The Muslims in various parts of the world - Palestine, Kashmir, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bahrain, people living under other US backed dictators,

The same goes for Christians, non-religious. I don't see why Muslims in that regard stand out. Additionally, Christians in Pakistan, Egypt, are persecuted minorities facing much social and/or state-backed discrimination. And muslims in Afghanistan face oppression from Islamists themselves

[GerrardWinstanley]

As for the specific example of the Muslim Brotherhood, for all it's political failings of late, the SWP, from my understanding and reading their paper in 2011 did not "critically support" the Muslim Brotherhood, which their paper describes as "contradictory" and wanting to be the moderates who can balance the popular movement and the demands of the ruling class at the same time. I think their argument was that the Brotherhood's membership had contesting views and younger members are much more drawn to the movement than to the politics of the party which makes the party somewhat vunerable to pressures from the movment compared to the military. From what I understand they argued that continued military rule and the election of the Muslim Brotherhood were not equally bad options as many on the left argued, with good cause because the Brotherhood isn't progressive let alone a working class party. Essentially I think their argument was that continued military-rule would be a defeat outright whereas a Brotherhood election victory would be still a problem, but more contested in how people responded to it. From what I remember my main problem with how they presented it was that it seemed a little too "the enemy of my enemy" and underestimated the US's ability to adapt to new players in their attempts to maintain their political/imperial influence in Egypt.It wasn't just that the International Socialist Tendency decided the Muslim Brotherhood was the lesser of two evils. They recommended Egyptians vote for the Muslim Brotherhood in the elections, despite the expected boycott by 60% of those eligible to vote, which doesn't say a lot for their solidarity. I'm at a loss to explain why this seemed such a good idea to them when the outcome was a foregone conclusion anyway and the whole purpose of the election was to preserve the status quo and commence a counterrevolutionary struggle by adopting the facade of a democratic mandate. I take your point that the SWP's official line on the Egyptian uprising did not amount to out-and-out support Muslim Brotherhood, but they did claim they were making the Americans nervous over its position on Palestine and that their election would be a watershed moment in the eventual defeat of the Israeli blockade of Gaza (nonsense).

The truth is the Muslim Brotherhood pose no actual threat to US imperialism and they are not moderate in any sense of the word. From their inception until very recently, their methods have been strictly extra-parliamentary for one (textbook fascism). The very reason for their initiation by the British was to execute an armed coup against the Wafd system installed in Egypt in the 1919-1920 revolution. Their ideas are based on the scholarship of Rashid Rida which is wahhabist politicial Islam (bad enough in itself) in its most obscurantist, Salafist incarnation.

Of course, the British radical left is absolutely in the right for opposing Islamophobia and it's not just Trotskyists either (STW Coalition leader Andrew Murray is an old style communist, for which he has been vilified by the respectable liberal press). But in my opinion, political Islam is partly responsible for Islamophobia. For Islamophobes, it stands as a real world example to us all for the inherent intolerance and obscurantism of Islam and the correctness of their essentialist arguments, (all of it imagine).

I see nothing Islamophobic in rejecting all forms of political Islam and yet its critics have still been labelled in such a way by more opportunist sections of the left. This is deeply unfair and reminiscent of the 'anti-semitism' red herring Zionists use against critics of Israel (and it's no coincidence antisemitism is one of the unintended consequences of Zionist project too). Political Islam has been nothing but harmful to Islam and muslims since it was first developed in the 19th Century Islamic renaissance.

[Akshay!]

The same goes for Christians, non-religious.

Who said that standing for one group of oppressed people prevents us from doing so for the others?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Who said that standing for one group of oppressed people prevents us from doing so for the others?
Right, does anyone say, "Why were leftists 'obsessed' with Copts or women's rights during the Egyptian revolution?"

[Akshay!]

Right, does anyone say, "Why were leftists 'obsessed' with Copts or women's rights during the Egyptian revolution?"

Yeah, exactly. Isn't it a little weird how suddenly (after 9/11) women's rights in the Muslim world became THE most important thing in the world? Doesn't matter if we have to kill a couple million Afghan and Iraqi women in order to 'liberate' them. And how suddenly everybody starts talking about antisemitism whenever any discussion of anti-Zionism takes place?

I think it's all a farce! It's not that they care so much about Afghan women or Copts or any other oppressed group, it's just a subconscious anti-Arab racism. In fact, not just anti-Arab. Anyone who looks a little different than "normal" westerners.

(PS - I'm saying this in general, not talking about anyone specific here.)

[Martin Blank]

No, comrade, you can't have it both ways. The large majority of folks on this forum are "self-identified" Marxists. To most of the world, there would be little distinction between you and a Maoist. But we know better -- these are critical distinctions when it comes to leading proletarian revolution.

Actually, in this narrow instance, I can have it both ways. From my perspective, all Trotskyists are adherents to a petty-bourgeois socialist doctrine ... and revel in such a rarefied existence. The fact that you regard these doctrinaire differences -- these articles of faith, these "litmus tests" -- and not actual work in the class struggle to be "critical distinctions" proves my point. It's not what you say that demonstrates whether or not you're a communist, it's what you do.


I'm still not sure who your historical comrades were. The Workers Opposition? The Decemists? Please clarify.

The Workers' Group of the Russian Communist Party, later the Revolutionary Communist Party -- the Myasnikovists.


Your self-description as "non-doctrinaire communist" is dubious. Reminds me of folks I ran into long ago in college when I was distributing communist propaganda who would say, "I don't have an ideology, man."

That's because you (like some others here) are misinterpreting the meaning of "non-doctrinaire". When I created the NDC group, "non-doctrinaire" simply meant that we are communists who do not adhere to a doctrine (e.g., Trotskyism, Maoism, etc.), not that we are unprincipled or all soft-and-squishy. On the contrary, I would say that the communist principles to which I subscribe are as solid as titanium-reinforced carbon fibers.

The key difference between you and me is that I see the historical questions you still cling to as already being answered. Only other leftists think that the "Russian Question" is still open to interpretation, or that there is still some validity to arguing about the importance of organization. These are issues that history itself has resolved. Clinging to articles of faith that had an expiration date of December 31, 1991, and refusing to learn the lessons and move forward, is why a discussion such as this can often be trying.


As for "all power to the Soviets" that was a strategic demand, not a principle. And "workers control" actually means something different than the term implies in English.

I'm aware that Lenin and the rest of the Bolshevik leadership had their reasons for supporting those slogans at a given time. But the Russian working class did not subscribe to Lenin's peculiar interpretation. They believed that "all power to the soviets" actually meant that all power -- political, economic, cultural and social -- would rest in the hands of the soviets themselves, not in a "Soviet state" composed mostly of ex-tsarist bureaucrats and burnt-out Bolsheviks. The believed that "workers' control" actually meant that workers would control production through the factory-shop committees meeting in regional, industrial and all-Russian congresses. Silly Russian workers!


And Lenin and Trotsky only punished those engage in actual counterrevolutionary activities. With Stalin, all you had to do was disagree to get sent to Siberia, or shot (plus your family, your friends and everyone that you ever spoke to. Shame on you for tarring them with the Stalin brush. It is not true that the LO were simply getting a dose of their own medicine -- they were the ones that bore the brunt of the leading edge of Stalinist repression.

If you really believe that, then explain why Myasnikov was expelled from the RCP in 1922. What were his "actual counterrevolutionary activities"? I'll wait to respond to the rest of your comment until after you answer my question.

[Fionnagáin]

Right, does anyone say, "Why were leftists 'obsessed' with Copts or women's rights during the Egyptian revolution?"
Did leftist groups orientate themselves towards Coptic or feminist bourgeois during the Egyptian revolution, as the SWP and their associations did towards Muslim bourgeois during the Iraq War?

[Lucretia]

It wasn't just that the International Socialist Tendency decided the Muslim Brotherhood was the lesser of two evils. They recommended Egyptians vote for the Muslim Brotherhood in the elections, despite the expected boycott by 60% of those eligible to vote, which doesn't say a lot for their solidarity. I'm at a loss to explain why this seemed such a good idea to them when the outcome was a foregone conclusion anyway and the whole purpose of the election was to preserve the status quo and commence a counterrevolutionary struggle by adopting the facade of a democratic mandate. I take your point that the SWP's official line on the Egyptian uprising did not amount to out-and-out support Muslim Brotherhood, but they did claim they were making the Americans nervous over its position on Palestine and that their election would be a watershed moment in the eventual defeat of the Israeli blockade of Gaza (nonsense).

The truth is the Muslim Brotherhood pose no actual threat to US imperialism and they are not moderate in any sense of the word. From their inception until very recently, their methods have been strictly extra-parliamentary for one (textbook fascism). The very reason for their initiation by the British was to execute an armed coup against the Wafd system installed in Egypt in the 1919-1920 revolution. Their ideas are based on the scholarship of Rashid Rida which is wahhabist politicial Islam (bad enough in itself) in its most obscurantist, Salafist incarnation.

Of course, the British radical left is absolutely in the right for opposing Islamophobia and it's not just Trotskyists either (STW Coalition leader Andrew Murray is an old style communist, for which he has been vilified by the respectable liberal press). But in my opinion, political Islam is partly responsible for Islamophobia. For Islamophobes, it stands as a real world example to us all for the inherent intolerance and obscurantism of Islam and the correctness of their essentialist arguments, (all of it imagine).

I see nothing Islamophobic in rejecting all forms of political Islam and yet its critics have still been labelled in such a way by more opportunist sections of the left. This is deeply unfair and reminiscent of the 'anti-semitism' red herring Zionists use against critics of Israel (and it's no coincidence antisemitism is one of the unintended consequences of Zionist project too). Political Islam has been nothing but harmful to Islam and muslims since it was first developed in the 19th Century Islamic renaissance.

None of this is surprising. The IST has a proven track record of placing the building of a "broad left" and "getting the masses in motion" over the principle (not just alongside the principle) of the political independence of the working class. The ISO's endorsement of the Greens in 2000 is another example of this betrayal.

If you want to see the rationalization that is given, there's a video of Alex Callinicos somewhere on youtube giving a talk on the politics of Leninism, and he uses as a justification for this sort of thing the fact that after campaigning and public participation for the Duma had already ended, and already selected electors were engaged in a kind of second-ballot horse-trading process in which the various parties were not interacting with the public generally or the working class in particular, in order to determine who would be seated in the Duma, Lenin advocated for elected members of the RSDLP to forge coalitions during that process with certain petty bourgeois or liberal groupings like the Cadets when it was determined that they could not win themselves.

This, of course, is entirely different than calling on the Egyptian working class to cast their lot with the Muslim Brotherhood because, as Callinicos claimed in the video, the MB was the "functional equivalent" of a working-class labor party.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Myasnikov? Well, he was calling for freedom of the press, including for monarchists and other counterrevolutionary elements in 1922. He not only did it within the party, but published his dissent for non-party members to read. And he was expelled with the right to appeal for reinstatement after one year. He was not asked to recant, he was not thrown in jail. Certainly he probably was in violation on the ban of factions. He wrote to Lenin and Lenin wrote back asking him to cease and desist with this agitation.

Now you can argue that this was heavy handed, or ill advised. But to say this was the beginning of Stalinist repression is absurd. It places you above the Stalinist/Trotskyist fight, and preserves your "purity."

And this, "non-doctrinaire" shit is infantile. Of course you believe in doctrine -- you would agree that you adhere to Marxist Doctrine, right? Too kewl for school, dude. What revolutions have you been involved in lately?

[Martin Blank]

Myasnikov? Well, he was calling for freedom of the press, including for monarchists and other counterrevolutionary elements in 1922.

Myasnikov actually dropped this position prior to the 11th Congress. In fact, in the Manifesto of the Workers Group, published in February 1923, he argues against freedom of the press for counterrevolutionary elements:


At this time must the proletariat proclaim the slogan of freedom of the press, of speech, of association, of coalition? Could it allow these gentlemen, from monarchists to Mensheviks and SRs, to advocate civil war? More than that, could it, as a ruling class, grant freedom of speech and press to someone in this milieu who would advocate civil war? No and again no!

Any organized propaganda for civil war against the proletarian power would be a counter-revolutionary act in favor of the exploiters, the oppressors. The more “socialist” this propaganda was, the more harm it could have done. And for this reason, it was necessary to proceed with “the most severe, pitiless elimination of these propagandists of the same proletarian family.”...

The long civil war that mobilized the attention of the proletariat towards the goals of destruction, of resistance to the oppressors, has postponed, erased all the other tasks and — without the proletariat noticing it — changed its organization, the councils. The councils of workers’ deputies in the factories are dead. Long live the councils of workers’ deputies!

And is it not the same thing with the proletarian democracy in general? Do we need a similar attitude to the freedom of speech and press for the proletariat as at the time of the fierce civil war, of the revolt of the slave drivers? Is the proletariat, which took power, which was able to defend itself against a thousand terrible enemies, not to be allowed to express its thoughts now, on organizing itself to overcome immense difficulties in production, on directing this production and the whole country?

The bourgeois are reduced to silence, certainly, but who will dare dispute the right of free speech for a proletarian who has defended his power without sparing his blood?...

Before 1917, freedom of speech and press for all citizens was our programmatic demand. In 1917, we conquered these freedoms and used them for propaganda and the organization of the proletariat and its fellow travelers, including the intellectuals and the peasants. After organizing a force capable of defeating the bourgeoisie, we, the proletarians, went to war and took power. In order to prevent the bourgeoisie from using freedom of speech and press to conduct the civil war against us, we denied freedom of speech and press not only to enemy classes, but also to a part of the proletariat and its fellow travelers — until the moment when the resistance of the bourgeoisie was broken in Russia.

But with the support of the majority of workers, we have ended the resistance of the bourgeoisie; can we now allow ourselves to talk amongst ourselves, the proletarians?

Does this sound like the language of counterrevolution to you? Of course it doesn't. But let's go back and talk about the original statement.

Was Myasnikov's original call a counterrevolutionary act? No. At no time did he favor the overthrow of the soviets or the Soviet Republic. At no time did he call for the removal of the Bolsheviks from power. Indeed, what Myasnikov was advocating in internal letters to the Bolshevik leadership was the end of the aforementioned restrictions imposed due to the Civil War (a war that had ended over a year before). Yes, his initial call was wrong, but was it really counterrevolutionary? Did his argument with Lenin warrant expulsion? For that matter, after he changed his position and wrote the passages above, was there a basis for keeping him out of the Bolsheviks? Vexing questions.


He not only did it within the party, but published his dissent for non-party members to read.

Actually, the person responsible for "publish[ing] his dissent for non-party members to read" was Lenin. He ordered Myasnikov's letter and his reply to be circulated among the Motovilikha factory workers in an attempt to win them away. It backfired.

Up to that point, Myasnikov's criticisms were only circulated internally. (More on this point below.)


And he was expelled with the right to appeal for reinstatement after one year. He was not asked to recant, he was not thrown in jail.

Actually, he was. The single condition for his re-admittance to the RCP was that he recant his dissenting positions. Obviously, he refused to do so. Moreover, he was thrown into the Lubyanka in 1922 for "counterrevolutionary activity". While in prison, he staged a very public hunger strike (something he did when held in the tsar's prisons); Lenin ordered that he be quietly released in order to avoid the embarrassment and avoid inviting the obvious parallels.


Certainly he probably was in violation on the ban of factions. He wrote to Lenin and Lenin wrote back asking him to cease and desist with this agitation.

That's the funny thing. He wasn't. Myasnikov was not involved in any of the factions that emerged in 1920-1921. He communicated with the Workers Opposition, "Workers' Truth" and Decists, but was not a member of either. Moreover, he did not, at any time during his dispute with Lenin, attempt to create a faction. It was not until he was expelled that Myasnikov began to organize the Workers Group.

As for "Lenin wrote back asking him to cease and desist with this agitation", it would be more accurate to say Lenin wrote back asking him to cease and desist with agitating him! Virtually all of Myasnikov's "factionalism" was conducted in a one-on-one exchange with Lenin. Sure, he never hid his personal views when asked (a common practice among RCP members), but Myasnikov spent his time attempting to influence Lenin to change his mind. It wasn't until Lenin took the fight public with the Motovilikha debacle that Myasnikov began to organize openly.


Now you can argue that this was heavy handed, or ill advised. But to say this was the beginning of Stalinist repression is absurd. It places you above the Stalinist/Trotskyist fight, and preserves your "purity."

I don't think it's absurd at all. Stalinite repression had a genesis, and you're looking at it. It wasn't in full bloom, but the seed was growing thanks to the ... fertilizer laid down by Lenin and Trotsky. It was Lenin who demanded that Myasnikov be expelled for raising political differences in a sharp manner. It was Lenin who ordered that Myasnikov be placed under surveillance by the Vecheka, which resulted in his imprisonment. It was Trotsky who led the charge against Myasnikov's re-admittance to the party and ratted out members of the Workers Group who were also involved in the Left Opposition. This is not about "purity"; this is about facts.


And this, "non-doctrinaire" shit is infantile. Of course you believe in doctrine -- you would agree that you adhere to Marxist Doctrine, right? Too kewl for school, dude. What revolutions have you been involved in lately?

If you want to call communism a doctrine, so be it. I think you cheapen it by doing so, but whatever floats your boat. As for what revolutions I've been involved in, that depends on your definition of "involvement". If advising working-class comrades in Egypt about how to intersect people in Tahrir Square and win them to communism is "involvement", then....

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Well, it is interesting, comrade. I still strongly disagree that Lenin and Trotsky were "fertilizing" the ground for Stalin's depredations. However, the source I used to describe the fate of Myasnikov was E.H. Carr. He was a pretty decent historian, and while sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, no Leninist. So what is the documentation that backs up your claims here? I would be interested in reading it.

The reason I made the snarky comment about your participation is that you made one about my involvement. I am semi-retired from active politics, but I did put in a couple of decades -- so I don't appreciate that stuff. I wish you the best with your activity.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

In any case, Myanikov does advocate freedom of speech and press for the counterrevolutionary elements in the quoted paragraphs - he retroactively (!) justifies the suppression of such elements during the civil war, but claims that with the end of the civil war, there is no further need to control statements by "proletarian" elements.

Who were these "proletarian" elements? Myasnikov never mentions the peasantry, just the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, so his "proletariat" probably includes the peasant strata as well. And what peasant and nominally proletarian groups existed outside the RKP(b)? The anarchists, Mensheviks, various Eser groups and so on.

Were these elements harmless to the Russian Republic? Far from it. Most of them actively agitated against the NEP policies, unfortunately necessary in the period. Others - including Myasnikov's own Workers' Group - put forward syndicalist schemes that included peasants as equals to the proletariat. Others simply spread demoralisation.

Concerning the political trajectory of this Workers' Group, they seem to have adopted a theory of the Soviet Union as a society ruled by "a new class" no later than the fall of the Left Opposition. Given that this theory implies that the Soviet Union should have been overthrown in a social revolution, was treating them as enemies of the republic really an overreaction?

And if everyone who annoyed Lenin was imprisoned, most of the Bolshevik leadership would have ended behind bars.

Concerning the attitude of the British SWP to Islamist groups and to their enthusiastic supporters like Galloway, I think most of the causes have already been mentioned. The Cliffite theory of the "deflected" permanent revolution implies that the intelligentsia, tending to obscurantism and to harebrained theories about golden ages when divorced from an active workers' or democratic movement, can play the role of a revolutionary force. And the SWP treats every criticism of political Islamism as criticism of Islam, and it treats every criticism of Islam (which should surely form a part of communist propaganda alongside criticism of other forms of religion) as an orientalist, racist attack on Muslim communities.

[Martin Blank]

Well, it is interesting, comrade. I still strongly disagree that Lenin and Trotsky were "fertilizing" the ground for Stalin's depredations. However, the source I used to describe the fate of Myasnikov was E.H. Carr. He was a pretty decent historian, and while sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, no Leninist. So what is the documentation that backs up your claims here? I would be interested in reading it.

First and foremost, the surviving writings of Myasnikov (few though they are) and the Workers Group (mostly in Russian, some in French with English as hand-written notes and passages). Second, a "dossier" published in French about him and the WG (which, again, only exists in English as hand-written notes and passages). Third, a well-researched article by Paul Avrich published in the 1980s (with an afterword written around 2000, IIRC, after he was able to gain access to the Bolshevik Party and NKVD archives). Fourth, some articles from various Left Communist organizations, including the ICC and ICG. Fifth, some of my own inquiries and investigations into the history.

Later this year (fingers crossed!), we are going to be publishing the Manifesto of the Workers Group as a book. We're planning to include other writings my Myasnikov and the WG as appendices. It's been a pain in the ass wading through the translations and cross-checking text across three languages. But we're getting there.


The reason I made the snarky comment about your participation is that you made one about my involvement. I am semi-retired from active politics, but I did put in a couple of decades -- so I don't appreciate that stuff. I wish you the best with your activity.

Actually, I didn't and never meant to do so. If something I wrote came off that way, I apologize; that was not my intention. I'm sort of semi-retired these days, too, due to disability. So I understand the concerns.


In any case, Myanikov does advocate freedom of speech and press for the counterrevolutionary elements in the quoted paragraphs - he retroactively (!) justifies the suppression of such elements during the civil war, but claims that with the end of the civil war, there is no further need to control statements by "proletarian" elements.

In other words, Myasnikov and the Workers Group fought for precisely what the Bolshevik leadership kept promising during the Civil War: that after the counterrevolution was crushed, proletarian democracy would be restored and strengthened.


Who were these "proletarian" elements? Myasnikov never mentions the peasantry, just the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, so his "proletariat" probably includes the peasant strata as well. And what peasant and nominally proletarian groups existed outside the RKP(b)? The anarchists, Mensheviks, various Eser groups and so on.

You shouldn't assume things. I'll just leave it at that.

As for the anarchists, Mensheviks, SRs, etc., most of them had already went over to the side of the Whites (arms in hand) during the Civil War, so those organizations would not have seen freedom of the press extended to them. Indeed, from a practical standpoint, the "proletarian elements" Myasnikov fought for were, first and foremost, his fellow worker-Bolsheviks. A close second were the class-conscious non-party workers who supported soviet power and fought against counterrevolution. Were these groups counterrevolutionary?


Were these elements harmless to the Russian Republic? Far from it. Most of them actively agitated against the NEP policies, unfortunately necessary in the period. Others - including Myasnikov's own Workers' Group - put forward syndicalist schemes that included peasants as equals to the proletariat. Others simply spread demoralisation.

Actually, the NEP wasn't necessary. There was no need to rehabilitate the ex-tsarist bureaucrats and managers as "specialists". There was no need to impose one-person management on the shopfloor and break the power of the factory-shop committees.

Well, perhaps "no need" is all a matter of perspective. After all, if your goal was to entrench state capitalism in the Soviet Republic, then these actions were thoroughly necessary. On the other hand, if your goal was to advance the transition from the capitalist to the communist mode of production, then these actions could be nothing more than a counterrevolution.

I always get a little smile when the "syndicalist" canard comes up. That's because I know what was really behind it. What were the Workers Group's "syndicalist schemes"? First, to abolish the state-run Rabkrin and transform the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Trade Unions into the workers' and peasants' inspectorate. (This is where the whole myth of the WG advocating "consumers' soviets" comes from.) Second, to abolish the state-run Gosplan and turn its powers over to the congresses of the revived factory-shop committees. Third, to abolish the hitherto existing structure of the Commissariats and adopt organizational principles more in line with the working-group concept seen in the Paris Commune and advocated by Marx.

Do you sense a theme running through these points? Each of these steps was designed to wrest power from the hands of the petty-bourgeois adminstrators, managers and "specialists" who came to control the Soviet Republic, and return that power to the working class itself. For that, the WG was tarred as "syndicalist" by the petty-bourgeois politicians in the Bolshevik Party ... including Lenin and Trotsky.


Concerning the political trajectory of this Workers' Group, they seem to have adopted a theory of the Soviet Union as a society ruled by "a new class" no later than the fall of the Left Opposition. Given that this theory implies that the Soviet Union should have been overthrown in a social revolution, was treating them as enemies of the republic really an overreaction?

In the very late 1920s and 1930s, the CWP did adopt a "state capitalist" position similar to that put forward by the German and Dutch Left Communists. For the record, I don't agree with the standard "state capitalist" and "new class" theories. However, I will argue that by 1931 it was necessary to fight for a social revolution to oust the petty-bourgeoisie and restore both workers' power and workers' control of production.


And if everyone who annoyed Lenin was imprisoned, most of the Bolshevik leadership would have ended [up] behind bars.

No comment.

P.S.: Gotta say, I'm loving your organization name! Got a good laugh out of it. What's next, the Red Avengers? :D

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'll reply to the rest later, but as for the Yuri Andropov Brigade - it's sort of a tendency in-joke. See, the Spartacists (that I sympathise, along with the IG and RR) once sent a bus of activists to an anti-KKK rally (I think) under the name "Yuri Andropov Brigade", because Sparts have a dark sense of humour. Then, years later, one outfit that split from the Spartacists - I think it was the IBT - used that and the Spartacist support for the Soviet intervention in favour of the Afghan government to spin a tale about an alleged "Yuri Andropov Brigade" that the Spartacists were planning to raise to fight alongside the Soviet Army in Afghanistan.

[TheEmancipator]

Can we please establish that being against western imperialism does not equate to supporting islamist movements, and that anybody who thinks supporting islamist fundamentalism against Western imperialism is in any way remotely leftist is an arse hair short of being a retard? If I have the choice between two reactionary, imperialist, dissgusting regimes I shoot myself first, instead of choosing the lesser of two evils (which is probably the US anyway).

This is not just a question of West vs Islam as many have pointed out. The Islamic world is going through the same historical tranistions many other nations, communities, etc have. The escalation of Western interventionism has only been fuelled by islamist fundementalism and vice versa.

[Paul Cockshott]

1) We are (and should be) obsessed with standing for the oppressed (and against Imperialism).
2) The Muslims in various parts of the world - Palestine, Kashmir, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bahrain, people living under other US backed dictators, etc.., are oppressed.
3) Therefore, it logically follows that we must be obsessed with them.

I don't understand what's the problem? :confused:

Islam is an idelological / political movement and a reactionary one at that, if you side with people who are objectively oppressed on the basis that they are 'muslims' you are siding with a reactionary ideology.
In the SWP case you end up supporting the reactionary Islamists in Syria and in effect following Foreign Office policy just as you did in Libya.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Islam is an idelological / political movement and a reactionary one at that, if you side with people who are objectively oppressed on the basis that they are 'muslims' you are siding with a reactionary ideology.
In the SWP case you end up supporting the reactionary Islamists in Syria and in effect following Foreign Office policy just as you did in Libya.

No, Islam is a religion. Being a Muslim does not automatically make you reactionary. How many Muslims do you actually know? Because I know plenty and they would take exception to that idea.
To side with fundamentalists in Syria is one thing, but to understand the struggle faced by Palestinians, Egyptians, Bahrainis, and others against imperialism is quite another. No I'm not saying that being attacked by imperialists automatically makes these cases of class war, but you have to realize the connection between radicalization and imperialism and its implications for these countries, rather than making a blanket statement and idealist condemnation of a large group of religious people.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

In my experience with certain Trotskyist groups, they often have a significant Arab and ex-/Muslim membership. So is it surprising that they are drawn to struggles with which they may have a very personal connection? Not at all.
A more pressing question, for me or the OP, might concern, "Why do anarchist/antiauthoritarian groups fail to do work that appeals to or engages the Arab diaspora?"
Of course, partially, this may just reflect the presence of Marxist groups within their struggles, but I still think it's a question worth asking.

As regards Trotskyist groups that are full of white folk . . . no clue. Trend hopping? Probably. Whatever.

[Paul Cockshott]

You say Islam is a religion not a ideological/political movement. Well what is a religion? It is a state idelological apparatus whose function is to support the dominant forms of class rule. So by saying it is a religion you are admitting that it is reactionary ideological system.

[Bardo]

Sigh.

Islam is a religion.

Islamism is a political ideology.

[Fionnagáin]

The Amish as the shock-troops of the counter-revolution? There's an image for you.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Did the SWP really do this?

It's funny because there were actually large leftist movements active in Egypt then and they instead chose to support the muslim equivalent of the tea party.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Did leftist groups orientate themselves towards Coptic or feminist bourgeois during the Egyptian revolution, as the SWP and their associations did towards Muslim bourgeois during the Iraq War?

Yes, the Revolutionary Socialists (the IS party that the SWP took their cues from basically - and have been hit with oppression from the MB's Freedom and Justice group as well as from the military council) did.

[Martin Blank]

I'll reply to the rest later, but as for the Yuri Andropov Brigade - it's sort of a tendency in-joke. See, the Spartacists (that I sympathise, along with the IG and RR) once sent a bus of activists to an anti-KKK rally (I think) under the name "Yuri Andropov Brigade", because Sparts have a dark sense of humour. Then, years later, one outfit that split from the Spartacists - I think it was the IBT - used that and the Spartacist support for the Soviet intervention in favour of the Afghan government to spin a tale about an alleged "Yuri Andropov Brigade" that the Spartacists were planning to raise to fight alongside the Soviet Army in Afghanistan.

I know the the history. That's why I thought it epic that you used it.

[barbelo]

Does seem to me that the Trots have a wee bit of an obsession with Islam and the Muslim world - even leading the likes of the SWP to 'critically' supporting bourgeouis neoliberals like the Muslim Brotherhood...

Not meaning to bash any particular Trots, just interested....

My 2 cents that doesn't particularly apply to trotskysts:
The plutocracy that rules Europe, seeing an ever aging population with low birth rate and an ever shrinking capitalistic economy with a low supply of unskilled people for low jobs, decided to import its own workforce, veiling this act with a humanistic discourse but at the same time never fully integrating these immigrants, never considering them as equal; they created a new form of slavery.
As with any plutocratic government, the cost and benefit of this immigration falls on different classes of the society. By portraying most of these immigrants- that is, muslims- as noble savages, as "the new jews", the class who benefits forever doomed the class who pays to be framed as extremist, reactionary or even fascist if they refuse to pay.
Ally this with the very prejudiced notion of a "islamic world", the notion that someone in Afghanistan is telepathic connected with someone in Morrocos only because they were born in the same religion, and that Nato is hurting this "islamic world" even tough they actually killed secularism in middle east together with Hussein, Mubarak and Assad, and ta da, you have the perfect cause for such a forgotten and rusty group as trotkysts.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Actually, the NEP wasn't necessary. There was no need to rehabilitate the ex-tsarist bureaucrats and managers as "specialists". There was no need to impose one-person management on the shopfloor and break the power of the factory-shop committees.

Well, perhaps "no need" is all a matter of perspective. After all, if your goal was to entrench state capitalism in the Soviet Republic, then these actions were thoroughly necessary. On the other hand, if your goal was to advance the transition from the capitalist to the communist mode of production, then these actions could be nothing more than a counterrevolution.

I always get a little smile when the "syndicalist" canard comes up. That's because I know what was really behind it. What were the Workers Group's "syndicalist schemes"? First, to abolish the state-run Rabkrin and transform the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Trade Unions into the workers' and peasants' inspectorate. (This is where the whole myth of the WG advocating "consumers' soviets" comes from.) Second, to abolish the state-run Gosplan and turn its powers over to the congresses of the revived factory-shop committees. Third, to abolish the hitherto existing structure of the Commissariats and adopt organizational principles more in line with the working-group concept seen in the Paris Commune and advocated by Marx.

Do you sense a theme running through these points? Each of these steps was designed to wrest power from the hands of the petty-bourgeois adminstrators, managers and "specialists" who came to control the Soviet Republic, and return that power to the working class itself. For that, the WG was tarred as "syndicalist" by the petty-bourgeois politicians in the Bolshevik Party ... including Lenin and Trotsky.
Comrade Blank, the idea that the NEP was unnecessary is of a piece with the assumption that since the civil war was over, freedom of the press could be extended globally in the USSR. See, the Bolsheviks were fighting for world revolution, not just in the USSR. And it turns out, in an overwhelmingly peasant country, with a tiny and almost disintegrated proletariat, it was necessary to make concessions to that reality or just surrender to the fucking Whites and the imperialists. The wheels were coming off the Soviet economy when the NEP was instituted. Really I strongly recommend you read E.H. Carrs' excellent books on the revolution and the period that followed. If you want the details of why the NEP was needed.

Of course, it was not meant to be followed ad infinitum as Bukharin, Tomsky, and Rykov wanted (I don't think Stalin gave a shit one way of the other, really). To object to the use of specialists, to object to doing what had to be done to stabilize an economy on the verge of collapse is dunderheaded at best. Of course it was a problem that the technicians and engineers and bureaucrats from the Tsarist period had to be employed to keep things running -- but in a country where technical knowledge and managerial know-how was scarce, what do you do? You simply turn over the factories to the workers? Who decides which factories get scarce raw materials? Who decides how the workers get compensated? And who can fix the machines or oversee production. There is no magic in being proletarian, comrade. It doesn't make you smarter, or more capable. The thing about being proletarian is that it means you belong to the class that has the power to overthrow capitalism and self interest to do it; nothing more and nothing less.

[MarxSchmarx]

Okay people, let's bring this back to what self-identified Trotskyists today, i.e., May/June 2013 CE, have to say about Islam...

Any further OT stuff about precisely what happened by whom when where will be split and replaced in the history forum, and take it there if your post doesn't want to talk about contemporary Trotskyism.

[Revy]

The Muslim Brotherhood defines itself as a free-market right-wing conservative party. And of course they are socially conservative and reactionary.

The Muslim Brotherhood is not synonymous with Islam or the Islamic world. They do not represent all Muslims. So the title of the thread shouldn't say "Islam".

There are socialist parties in Egypt that fought for the revolution against Mubarak and are currently fighting against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood's rule.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

It should be simple. Any current that gives one iota of political support to an islamic movement, party, grouping, etc. is hopeless and has either abandoned Marxism/Leninism/Trotskyism or never adhered to it in the first place. So much of the left gives some kind of support to class alien forces -- because they have given up on the proletariat as the only force for socialist revolution. Sadly, opportunism comes in lots of flavors.

[Paul Cockshott]

Sigh.

Islam is a religion.

Islamism is a political ideology.

So you think religions are non-political and non-ideological? What planet do you live on?

[Lucretia]

So you think religions are non-political and non-ideological? What planet do you live on?

This is a pretty terrible logical fallacy that makes a huge mess of the concepts "religion" and "politics." They intersect in many places, but cannot be reduced to one another. A religion is not the same as a political ideology, and in fact many political ideologies can co-exist within the same religion (Islam, Christianity, etc.). Similarly, there are many aspects to religion that do not have direct political relevance and can therefore be changed dramatically without affecting the way that some members of that religion relate to different political ideologies.

[Paul Cockshott]

This is a pretty terrible logical fallacy that makes a huge mess of the concepts "religion" and "politics." They intersect in many places, but cannot be reduced to one another. A religion is not the same as a political ideology, and in fact many political ideologies can co-exist within the same religion (Islam, Christianity, etc.). Similarly, there are many aspects to religion that do not have direct political relevance and can therefore be changed dramatically without affecting the way that some members of that religion relate to different political ideologies.

What do you think a religion is then?

I say that it is a state ideological apparatus whose function is to maintain class rule, it therefore necessarily interpenetrates closely with state power and always has. Religious ideologies arose with class states and exist for the same purpose.

[Lucretia]

What do you think a religion is then?

I say that it is a state ideological apparatus whose function is to maintain class rule, it therefore necessarily interpenetrates closely with state power and always has. Religious ideologies arose with class states and exist for the same purpose.

A religion is a set of doctrines and practices pertaining to the belief in a supernatural, transcendental entity. Some of these doctrines and practices are tied in with a "state ideological apparatus" (e.g., capitalism's long-time use of the sexual codes/teachings within the Bible). Others, like the pre-Vatican-II idea that Catholics cannot eat meat on Friday, or that people will go to purgatory after they die rather than straight into Heaven or Hell, do not have any tie-in to the state's "ideological apparatus."

Your attempt to equate religion with politics, reducing one into the other, is shockingly simple-minded and actually plays into the ludicrous ideas of religious crusaders.

[Paul Cockshott]

You take an entirely idealist approach to religion when you say : "A religion is a set of doctrines and practices pertaining to the belief in a supernatural, transcendental entity."
It is not a set of doctrines, it is a state machine comprising special bodies of trained men, buildings, ideological equipment, property and forms of exploitative income.

And what are the gods but projections of kings and emperors?
It was standard practice for kings to become divine, we have the sworn testimony of members of the Senate that Augustus was seen being transported to the heavens by winged victories. The nazarene cult borrowed all this imagary from the pre-existing imperial roman state ideology when Constantine established it as the official state ideology.
So you think that the idea of Heaven and Hell are non-political?
They are surely there to enforce an obedience to the existing order so that people will hesitate to do something illegal even if they think they could get away with it, for fear that god will punish them.
What is the function of the ideology of life after death? It functions to terrorise the disobedient whilst motivating 'martyrs' to be willing to fight and die for what political leaders tell them to do.

[Martin Blank]

Okay people, let's bring this back to what self-identified Trotskyists today, i.e., May/June 2013 CE, have to say about Islam...

Any further OT stuff about precisely what happened by whom when where will be split and replaced in the history forum, and take it there if your post doesn't want to talk about contemporary Trotskyism.

Honestly, this might not be a bad idea. I'm in favor of it.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

You take an entirely idealist approach to religion when you say : "A religion is a set of doctrines and practices pertaining to the belief in a supernatural, transcendental entity."
It is not a set of doctrines, it is a state machine comprising special bodies of trained men, buildings, ideological equipment, property and forms of exploitative income.

And what are the gods but projections of kings and emperors?
It was standard practice for kings to become divine, we have the sworn testimony of members of the Senate that Augustus was seen being transported to the heavens by winged victories. The nazarene cult borrowed all this imagary from the pre-existing imperial roman state ideology when Constantine established it as the official state ideology.
So you think that the idea of Heaven and Hell are non-political?
They are surely there to enforce an obedience to the existing order so that people will hesitate to do something illegal even if they think they could get away with it, for fear that god will punish them.
What is the function of the ideology of life after death? It functions to terrorise the disobedient whilst motivating 'martyrs' to be willing to fight and die for what political leaders tell them to do.

Sorry, who's being idealist here?
In reality, all religion can't be neatly collapsed in to a single overarching and universally applicable narrative. There are real contradictions (with significant class content) within religions (just as within ideologies). Just as there have been both bourgeois and proletarian Marxisms (and spare me the "no true Scotsman"s), equating, for example, the insurgent peasant protestantisms of Europe's peasant wars with the reactionary racist misogynist Southern Evangelicalism of the contemporary US is wildly unmaterialist.
So, is Islam Islamism? Of course not. That said, obviously first world white radicals shouldn't be cozying up with petit-/bourgeois Muslim "leaders" on the basis of shallow "anti-imperialism". On the other hand, the question of building real links with Muslim proletarians shouldn't be answered with a shallow "They're reactionaries! Fuck 'em!".

Nuance, yo. Nuance.

[Bardo]

So you think religions are non-political and non-ideological? What planet do you live on?

Religion in itself isn't a singular political ideology, this is a reactionary point of view. Religion in itself isn't a state either, I don't understand how you're drawing this conclusion. Not in the "nation state" sense of the word, and not in the Marxist sense of the word. Every religion crosses all state boundaries, all classes and all political orientations.

Just as there are bourgeois christians and proletarian christians there are bourgeois muslims and proletarian muslims. Liberal, conservative and leftist christians, liberal, conservative and leftist muslims. The difference between Islam and Islamism is that Islamism is a politicized ideology. Not all muslims are Islamists.

[Paul Cockshott]

Religion in itself isn't a singular political ideology, this is a reactionary point of view. Religion in itself isn't a state either, I don't understand how you're drawing this conclusion. Not in the "nation state" sense of the word, and not in the Marxist sense of the word. Every religion crosses all state boundaries, all classes and all political orientations.

Just as there are bourgeois christians and proletarian christians there are bourgeois muslims and proletarian muslims. Liberal, conservative and leftist christians, liberal, conservative and leftist muslims. The difference between Islam and Islamism is that Islamism is a politicized ideology. Not all muslims are Islamists.

This is not a historical materialist analysis. Yes religious boundaries do not correspond to the boundaries of current states, but that is because the nation state is a modern invention. Religions are the ideological state apparattuses of slave and feudal society. These state apparatuses were created to serve particular historical states: Catholicism for the Western Roman Empire, Orthodox christianity for the Byzantine Empire, Islam for the Arab Empire. The state apparatuses of these states acquired material supports: property in land, sources of income, property in buildings, ideological machinery in the form of books, images, artworks etc. These material supports, and thus the machinery, persist beyond the change of state boundaries that occured with the fall of the historical states that originally gave rise to the ideological machines.

Subsequent states that rested on similar social relations made use of the machinery of social control bequethed to them by earlier ones. So the ideological state machinery of the catholic church could later be appropriated and put to use by the nascent Spanish Hapsburg empire as it conquered much of the Americas. The Russian Czarist empire similarly inherited the ideological state machinery of Byzantium, the Ottoman Mughal empires inherited and extended the state machinery of the arab empire . Each of these successive empires provided additional material support in the form of buildings, property, personel etc.

Today the Kingdom of Arabia is building up the machinery of Islam in the form of buildings, colleges, schools, etc as part of the ideological apparattus of that state. The incorporation of Judaism and Shia Islam as the ideological state machinery of the current Israeli and Iranian states is obvious.

A new social order, including the bourgeois social order, can only be established by a ruthless struggle against the ideological apparatuses of the old mode of production that was what the bloody 30 years war that devastated Europe was all about. The early bourgeois state could not tolerate the survival of the catholic ideological state apparatus hence its nationalisation by the English and Scottish states in the 16th century. The key point in the extirpation of the old ideological machine was the seizure of the land and property of the old apparatus and the sytematic destruction of its buildings. The bloody suppression of the Hugenots by the forces of feudal reaction meant that in France the anti-clerical struggle had to attend the first and second republics. In Spain it awaited the 1930s, was defeated then, and has not yet won. In Russia the power of the orthodox church was broken by the revolution, but following the counter revolution the new bourgeois state in Russsia has gone to great lengths to rebuild it.

[human strike]

They obsess over anything that's in the news in a desperate effort to appear relevant.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

They obsess over anything that's in the news in a desperate effort to appear relevant.

Is this meant to be criticism?

[Lucretia]

You take an entirely idealist approach to religion when you say : "A religion is a set of doctrines and practices pertaining to the belief in a supernatural, transcendental entity."
It is not a set of doctrines, it is a state machine comprising special bodies of trained men, buildings, ideological equipment, property and forms of exploitative income.

And what are the gods but projections of kings and emperors?
It was standard practice for kings to become divine, we have the sworn testimony of members of the Senate that Augustus was seen being transported to the heavens by winged victories. The nazarene cult borrowed all this imagary from the pre-existing imperial roman state ideology when Constantine established it as the official state ideology.
So you think that the idea of Heaven and Hell are non-political?
They are surely there to enforce an obedience to the existing order so that people will hesitate to do something illegal even if they think they could get away with it, for fear that god will punish them.
What is the function of the ideology of life after death? It functions to terrorise the disobedient whilst motivating 'martyrs' to be willing to fight and die for what political leaders tell them to do.

So the president of the united states orders people not to eat meat on Friday? Your thinking on this is so simplistic that you think I am taking an opposite simplistic approach, as though I am saying that religion and politics are mutually exclusive categories. I'm not. Of course religion is an institution used by the ruling class and will tend to reflect the dominance of the ruling class in terms of doctrinal teachings and practices. But this is different than saying that religion and politics are the same thing. For as I reiterated in my last post there are aspects to religion that cannot be reduced to the interests of a ruling class or to any political interests. Certainly those aspects coexist uneasily with the aspects that do, and are permitted to exist only insofar as they do not threaten those aspects that do. But to claim that religion is just politics is to be unbelievably reductionist and, for lack of a better description, dunder-headed. It actually has more in common with a kind of Feuerbachian idealism than anything I have said here.

I mean, we can actually expand your logic. Sexuality (which, like "religion," obviously predates class societies) is used by the ruling class to entrench its position, or at the very least, to neutralize potential threats (e.g., how it is marketed as a commodity, channeled into the bourgeois family framework). So when we talk about any aspect of sexuality in any context -- masturbation habits and the like -- we're really just talking about politics. As is the case with religion, evidently. Your idea of politics seems so capacious that nothing is excluded, and it swallows every other category of social existence. Two words, Paul: differentiated totality.

[Paul Cockshott]

You are mistaking the special circumstances of the USA where there is a constitutional ( but not real ) separation of church from state from the generality of class societies. In which religion is always part of the juridico political superstructure, and through history there has in general been a direct link between the legislative and tax raising powers of the state on the one hand and the ideological apparatus of the state on the other.

Consider the fact that the bishops have since the middle ages been members of right of the House of Lords, the fact that European countries levied specific church taxes, and many still do. In Germany tithes for the church are deducted from peoples wage packets before they get them. Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Greece, Italy all support the church through taxes. In Scotland the Church had a lawful right to feudal dues until the Abolition of Feudal Tenure act in 2000.

Look at the procedure in Britain for the appointment of the head of state, the coronation oath:

Madam, is your Majesty willing to take the Oath?

And the Queen answering,

I am willing.

The Archbishop shall minister these questions; and The Queen, having a book in her hands, shall answer each question severally as follows:

Archbishop. Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon, and of your Possessions and the other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs?

Queen. I solemnly promise so to do.

Archbishop. Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?

Queen. I will.

Archbishop. Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?

Queen. All this I promise to do.

Then the Queen arising out of her Chair, supported as before, the Sword of State being carried before her, shall go to the Altar, and make her solemn Oath in the sight of all the people to observe the premisses: laying her right hand upon the Holy Gospel in the great Bible (which was before carried in the procession and is now brought from the Altar by the Arch-bishop, and tendered to her as she kneels upon the steps), and saying these words:

The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God.

Before getting to this point the Queen/King has to swear accession oaths:

And further Her Majesty with Advice aforesaid expressly declares and statutes that none of the Subjects of this Kingdom [Scotland] shall be liable to but all and every one of them for ever free of any Oath Test or Subscription within this Kingdom contrary to or inconsistent with the foresaid true Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government Worship and Discipline as above established and that the same within the Bounds of this Church and Kingdom shall never be imposed upon or required of them in any sort And lastly that after the decease of Her present Majesty (whom God long preserve) the Soveraign succeeding to Her in the Royal Government of the Kingdom of Great Britain shall in all time coming at His or Her Accession to the Crown swear and subscribe that they shall inviolably maintain and preserve the foresaid Settlement of the true Protestant Religion with the Government Worship Discipline right and Privileges of this Church as above established by the Laws of this Kingdom in Prosecution of the Claim of Right[1]


I, Elizabeth, do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God, profess, testify and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments to secure the Protestant Succession to the Throne of my realm, uphold and maintain such enactments to the best of my power.

I, Elizabeth, profess, testify, and declare, that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever: and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous. And I do solemnly in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I do make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words read unto me, as they are commonly understood by English Protestants, without any such dispensation from any person or authority or person whatsoever, or without thinking that I am or can be acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this declaration or any part thereof, although the Pope, or any other person or persons, or power whatsoever, should dispense with or annul the same or declare that it was null and void from the beginning.

[Lucretia]

You are mistaking the special circumstances of the USA where there is a constitutional ( but not real ) separation of church from state from the generality of class societies. In which religion is always part of the juridico political superstructure, and through history there has in general been a direct link between the legislative and tax raising powers of the state on the one hand and the ideological apparatus of the state on the other.

Consider the fact that the bishops have since the middle ages been members of right of the House of Lords, the fact that European countries levied specific church taxes, and many still do. In Germany tithes for the church are deducted from peoples wage packets before they get them. Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Greece, Italy all support the church through taxes. In Scotland the Church had a lawful right to feudal dues until the Abolition of Feudal Tenure act in 2000.

Look at the procedure in Britain for the appointment of the head of state, the coronation oath:


Before getting to this point the Queen/King has to swear accession oaths:

Paleolithic hunter-gatherers practiced religion, but I guess in your view that is just another "exception" -- one that lasted over half a million years.

What's idealist about your formulations is that, because you view religion as coextensive with politics, you grant to it a kind of authority it simply didn't and doesn't have. And what is worse, you view the political aspects of religion as entirely one-sided, as entirely benefiting the ruling classes. When in reality, religion contained inchoate expressions of resistance to the ruling class. If you go back and actually read Marx on religion, rather than glossing Feuerbach and pretending it's Marx, you'll see very clearly that Marx had this much more subtle, contradictory take on religion.

Marxists use the phrase "dominant ideology thesis" to describe the view of which you are expressing an extreme version: that the exploited in every pre-capitalist class society -- but particularly the manorial societies of Medieval Western Europe -- were hoodwinked into accepting their exploited role by virtue of buying into religious ideas. The problem with this view is that historians have exploded it quite some time ago. It is now widely recognized that anything remotely called "orthodox Christianity" was virtually confined to monasteries. The vast majority of people continued to practice pagan and folk religion, perhaps inflected rhetorically in some ways by Christianity. Hell, folk religious practices were widespread even in Puritan New England. Peasants, workers, and other exploited or oppressed groups abided by the authority of these institutions not because they firmly believed in them, but because they understood that they were backed by coercive power. (Where capitalism is an exception, it is interesting to note, is that it is perhaps the one class society that, by virtue of not resting directly on violence or the immediate threat of violence as a mechanism of surplus extraction, actually does depend on a level of accepting the dominant ideology.)

Not only were religious views and practices varied, so too were their relationship to politics. Sometimes unorthodox religious practices were expressions of political resistance to the ruling class, in which case it would make sense to speak of their religions as political, but not in any kind of straightforwardly pro-ruling class way, as you would seem to understand it. To repeat once more, other aspects of their religion simply did not touch on politics. It therefore makes no sense to claim that religion is "nothing more" than politics, or to ask "What do you think a religion is if not a political ideology?" even in the context of a religion practiced within a class society.

I don't know how many more holes I can point to in your "arguments" about this issue. Quite frankly, I am somewhat embarrassed to have read them and responded to them at all.

[Rafiq]

Within modern context religion is nothing more than a very weak form of ideology

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[human strike]

Is this meant to be criticism?

Possibly. Mostly just observation.

[Tolstoy]

The arab spring of the past few years also may tie in. These revolutions tieing into other revolutions ties into the whole concept of Revolution, with multiple revolutions happening across the Middle East.

Additionally,Trotskyists tend to be pretty compassionate which is partially why they are so disgusted with Stalinism. As such, they naturally find the struggle in Palestine to be of interest. :trotski:

[Paul Cockshott]

Paleolithic hunter-gatherers practiced religion, but I guess in your view that is just another "exception" -- one that lasted over half a million years.

.

And how do you know that? How on earth can you deduce the structure of ideology 40,000 years ago?

Your other point is that opponents of the dominant class expressed ideas in religious form. Well if you are going to replace the power of one class with another you need a new ideological state apparattus. In the period before the existence of communist parties, the only ideological state machine was what you call a religion, I suppose freemansonry in the French Revolution can be viewed as a transition between religious and party forms of state ideological machine.

You also completely ignore all the evidence I cited for the tie in between the religious and other state apparattuses in European states.

[Lucretia]

And how do you know that? How on earth can you deduce the structure of ideology 40,000 years ago?

Wow. You just have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, do you? Yet you persist in thinking you have something to say on this topic. For starters, try purchasing (or checking out) and reading these books. Look at the evidence that his harnessed. Look at the disciplinary methods used to make inferences, challenge them where necessary, then come back to me, instead of just parroting stupid cliches.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dawn-Belief-Paleolithic-Southwestern/dp/0816513368

http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Paleolithic-Origins-Religious-Consciousness/dp/1929569416

Marx clearly believed that religion was a product of alienation, but alienation does not simply begin with class society. The earliest form of alienation, and indeed the foundation of class society, is natural scarcity and the alienation of man from nature -- the power of nature over man as an overwhelming and incomprehensible force. Religion far transcends your reductionist understanding of ruling-class ideology.

[Paul Cockshott]

Well the blurb of the first book describes it as an intriguing speculation. Any attempt to reconstruct dead ideological systems in the absence of written records can only be speculation. Any credibility that such an argument can build up has to be in terms of analogy with contemporary societies which have been studied and for which written reports exist. You would do better to try and demonstrate that the attributes of what we now call religions: belief in gods, special bodies of men to propagate such beliefs, special buildings to inculcate the beliefs, behavioural prescriptions justified in terms of these beliefs exist in contemporary hunter-gatherer societies.
If you are simply saying that ideologies existed before classes, then that is one thing, but to label pre class ideological systems as religions is to eternalise the institutions of class society in an manner similar to contemporary neo-classical economists treating the means of production in pre capitalist societies as 'capital'.

I dont think I am the one glossing Feuerbach, since Feuerbachs book is based on the idea of alienation of 'man' not on specific class relationships. I am not applying the notion of alienation at all. I am saying that the gods are ideological generalisations of kingly or imperial power. You are right that in his youth Marx was a Feuerbachian and used ideas of alienation, but I am unaware of him using this in any analysis of religion in his mature work.

I am basing myself on Althusser not Feuerbach.

[Lucretia]

Well the blurb of the first book describes it as an intriguing speculation. Any attempt to reconstruct dead ideological systems in the absence of written records can only be speculation. Any credibility that such an argument can build up has to be in terms of analogy with contemporary societies which have been studied and for which written reports exist. You would do better to try and demonstrate that the attributes of what we now call religions: belief in gods, special bodies of men to propagate such beliefs, special buildings to inculcate the beliefs, behavioural prescriptions justified in terms of these beliefs exist in contemporary hunter-gatherer societies.

One of the books had a review that used the word "speculation," which you then use as a basis for dismissing the entire book. One expects this sort of cheap intellectual laziness from religious fanatics, not Marxists who are purportedly interested in actually learning about and understanding the world around them. The "speculation" mentioned in the review is not "speculation" over whether there was religion in the paleolithic period -- in fact, there is virtual unanimity on this in the discipline -- but speculation on the precise nature of those religious beliefs.

So if your point was to use a single word mentioned in a single review of a single book to dismiss an entire body of accumulated anthropological knowledge derived from hundreds of years of careful study, you fail miserably. Which seems to be par for the course for you, at least from what I have seen from your pathetic contributions in this thread.


If you are simply saying that ideologies existed before classes, then that is one thing, but to label pre class ideological systems as religions is to eternalise the institutions of class society in an manner similar to contemporary neo-classical economists treating the means of production in pre capitalist societies as 'capital'.I don't think I've been equivocal about what my point was two posts ago: religion is not "merely a political ideology" because religion predated class society and therefore what any Marxist would call "politics." Religion obviously is rooted in, and functions within a context, that is far broader than "politics" and cannot be reduced to politics. Though, of course, under class society, many aspects of religion are inflected by politics and used politically. But to say that religion under class society is incomprehensible without class analysis, which I would most certainly agree with (and which makes your comment about "eternalising religion" as though its social role never changes), is completely different than saying that religion is little more than a political ideology. The role of religion does change with the development of classes, but not from being independent of political ideology to being reducible to it.

[LoveNotIndustry]

Most trotskyists are passionate about standing with Islam, because it parallels their own struggle to defeat the intolerance and oppression of opposing ideologies. Regardless of religion, all revolutionarily acting individuals should generally be accepted and befriended by trotskyist politics. Even in Syria, there is Trotskyist (Russian, German, Polish) influence on the ongoing sociopolitical conflict. The revolutionary Peoples Army in Syria shares many of the same liberating goals of the section of the left that centers around Trotsky. It's always good to stir up the powers, too. Anything that might give the rising people of the world some music to overthrow their corrupt leaders.

[Paul Cockshott]

One of the books had a review that used the word "speculation," which you then use as a basis for dismissing the entire book. One expects this sort of cheap intellectual laziness from religious fanatics, not Marxists who are purportedly interested in actually learning about and understanding the world around them. The "speculation" mentioned in the review is not "speculation" over whether there was religion in the paleolithic period -- in fact, there is virtual unanimity on this in the discipline -- but speculation on the precise nature of those religious beliefs.

It is not a matter of lazyness, but a matter of cost.
Point me at a free source to read defending your position then, not one where I have to fork out money just to check your claims, or else try and summarise them and try and meet my points. Can you cite academic articles online that evidence belief in gods, and special bodies of trained men to propagate religious ideas, and fixed symbolic installations in hunter gathering societies?

When we speak of religions today: Catholicism, Russian Orthodox, Sunni or Shia Islam, Hinduism we are speaking of all those three things.

[Luís Henrique]

Never saw Trotskyist militants giving a rat's ass about Islam.

Probably is a European phenomenon. If you are active in places where 10% of the population is Muslism - and where most if not all of them are among the poorest layers of the population - it makes sence to pay some attention to the religion, and the ways it is used to discriminate against this demographic, and consequently to plot workers against each others. Whether such concern results in correct politics or not is a different issue, of course.

Luís Henrique

[Paul Cockshott]

Even in Syria, there is Trotskyist (Russian, German, Polish) influence on the ongoing sociopolitical conflict. The revolutionary Peoples Army in Syria shares many of the same liberating goals of the section of the left that centers around Trotsky. .

What Revolutionary Peoples Army? Which of the groups listed in the Who's Who in Syria's Rebellion thread are you thinking of.

I tend to believe that the accusations of old CPers that the Trots used to ally with Fascism were far fetched, seeing what some of them have been doing around Libya and Syria you could almost take them seriously.

[Lucretia]

It is not a matter of lazyness, but a matter of cost.
Point me at a free source to read defending your position then, not one where I have to fork out money just to check your claims, or else try and summarise them and try and meet my points. Can you cite academic articles online that evidence belief in gods, and special bodies of trained men to propagate religious ideas, and fixed symbolic installations in hunter gathering societies?

When we speak of religions today: Catholicism, Russian Orthodox, Sunni or Shia Islam, Hinduism we are speaking of all those three things.

You not buying the book isn't a matter of laziness. You misquoting a blurb on the Amazon page as a justification for dismissing the book is the matter of intellectual laziness.

And you're not going to find an article that talks about "special bodies of trained men to propagate religious ideas" in the paleolithic era, because there were no "special bodies of trained men" (states) during the paleolithic era. What will you find, however, are belief in gods and the use of symbols to designate religious practices and beliefs. To claim this isn't "religion," you're forced to conflate religion in general with the use of religion in a particular context by a particular type of institution. In other words, you're -- how is it that you phrased it? -- "eternalising" your understanding of religion by taking its incarnation at a particular point in history, after the development of sedentary agriculture and classes, and trying to judge whether religion existed by looking for that particular incarnation in the earliest periods of human existence.

[Paul Cockshott]

You not buying the book isn't a matter of laziness. You misquoting a blurb on the Amazon page as a justification for dismissing the book is the matter of intellectual laziness.

And you're not going to find an article that talks about "special bodies of trained men to propagate religious ideas" in the paleolithic era, because there were no "special bodies of trained men" (states) during the paleolithic era. What will you find, however, are belief in gods and the use of symbols to designate religious practices and beliefs. To claim this isn't "religion," you're forced to conflate religion in general with the use of religion in a particular context by a particular type of institution. In other words, you're -- how is it that you phrased it? -- "eternalising" your understanding of religion by taking its incarnation at a particular point in history, after the development of sedentary agriculture and classes, and trying to judge whether religion existed by looking for that particular incarnation in the earliest periods of human existence.

Well you are backing off on the key features of religions, without their bodies of men trained, without their buildings they do not amount to much, you are now saying that religions are reduced to belief in gods.

What you are describing as religion is not recognisable in terms of what religions are now, or have been in the historical record where the belief in gods has gone along with priests/priestesses and religious buildings.

In saying that there was belief in gods in the paleolithic you are setting up a non falsifiable proposition - something that religious folk are keen on. I asked you for something more specific: academic articles available online that report on belief in gods in contemporary hunter gatherer society. There may be a belief in spirits or ghosts, but is there a belief in Gods?

You say that I am attributing to religion a power it does not have. Well we live in a world where women are sentenced to be stoned to death for breaking religious prescriptions, where Pussy Riot are jailed for offending religious sensibilities. There are thousands of women still alive who were imprisoned as slave labourers in the Magdalene launderies in Ireland for offending against Catholic morality. In a world where priests have been abusing children for decades untouched by the law because the religious machinery of the state is effectively above the law. And you say I am attributing excessive power to religion?

[Lucretia]

Well you are backing off on the key features of religions, without their bodies of men trained, without their buildings they do not amount to much, you are now saying that religions are reduced to belief in gods.

What you are describing as religion is not recognisable in terms of what religions are now, or have been in the historical record where the belief in gods has gone along with priests/priestesses and religious buildings.

In saying that there was belief in gods in the paleolithic you are setting up a non falsifiable proposition - something that religious folk are keen on. I asked you for something more specific: academic articles available online that report on belief in gods in contemporary hunter gatherer society. There may be a belief in spirits or ghosts, but is there a belief in Gods?

You say that I am attributing to religion a power it does not have. Well we live in a world where women are sentenced to be stoned to death for breaking religious prescriptions, where Pussy Riot are jailed for offending religious sensibilities. There are thousands of women still alive who were imprisoned as slave labourers in the Magdalene launderies in Ireland for offending against Catholic morality. In a world where priests have been abusing children for decades untouched by the law because the religious machinery of the state is effectively above the law. And you say I am attributing excessive power to religion?

I am saying that humans have believed in supernatural entities, have performed ceremonies and rites to honor and recognize those entities, from a time well before the first class societies were established. If you want to call this something other than religion, fine. I suppose we can relabel Marxism "blahblahism" if it makes you happy. Semantic relabeling doesn't alter my point one iota.

That point is that when such beliefs occur in institutionalized forms under class society, that one cannot justifiably assert that a religion is nothing more than a political ideology. For there are religions that encompass a multitude of political ideologies. There are fundamentalist, quasi-fascist Evangelical Christians, just as there are religious liberal Christians, just as there are actually Marxists who identify as Christians (Andrew Collier, for example).

Now I happen to think that belief in god is heavily flawed, but I am not reductionist enough to think that such theoretical flaws place every single person who makes it into the same political ideology.

To claim that a religion is JUST a political ideology is to make a non-sensical mess of both religion and ideology. There are anti-capitalist Muslims, and pro-capitalist Muslims, just as there are anti-capitalist Christians and pro-capitalist Christians. If we accept your reduction of religion to politics, we would have to say that both the anti-capitalist Christian and the anti-capitalist Muslim practice the same religion because they share the same ideological aversion to capitalism. Religion and politics overlap and intermix in varied and unexpected ways, such that a particular religion can encompass a variety of political ideologies and a particular ideology can encompass practitioners of a variety of religions. Sometimes religious views have an ideological content that express resistance to a ruling class. Other times they express support.

Claiming that religion isn't religion just because the religion isn't being practiced in the context of a class society is just the ultimate absurd extension of your reductionist logic that it is just a tool for the ruling class in any society to hoodwink the oppressed masses. But this view of a ruling clique inventing gods to fool the exploited becomes much more problematic when you are forced to acknowledge that there were beliefs in gods well before there were ruling cliques to engage in such conspiring.

[Paul Cockshott]

Since the issues here go beyond the position of the Trots on Islam, I have started a thread on the struggle for secularism to continue this discussion.

[Lucretia]

Since the issues here go beyond the position of the Trots on Islam, I have started a thread on the struggle for secularism to continue this discussion.

Struggle for secularism??? And the person who coins this phrase accuses me of philosophical idealism. No, thanks comrade. I'll pass on that discussion, and continue my struggle for socialist revolution. In your mistaken view that religion and support for class exploitation are the same thing, you can join your fellow strugglers for secularism (the late Chris Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, etc.) in their tacit support for "secular" American imperialism and American capitalism, as they wield their mighty sword against the Muslim theocrats.