how do you feel about de leonism?

[edwad]

I've been looking into it and from what I can tell it's an interesting ideology and I can get behind the impossiblism, but it seems contradictory to be anti-reform, but to try and get elected and promote unions (I could just be completely misunderstanding de leonism though).

i really just want to know how other revleftists feel about it. I know it goes against the ML tendency a bit, so I'm expecting some disagreement, but I'm interested in seeing those arguments too.

[blake 3:17]

Fine rhetoric, but a bunch of nonsense.

[SonofRage]

I considered myself a Marxist-DeLeonist at one point. I eventually dropped the electoral side and moved more in an anarcho-syndicalist direction. I just don't see the point in participating in bourgeois elections at this point in history.

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[Red Commissar]

I haven't really read up much about them. I can understand their reasoning with industrial democracy and using elections as a way to organize, but otherwise history seems to have favored other groups.

I'm more interested in how they (SLP I mean) managed to persist so long, albeit in a moribund state for the last few decades. Maybe an indication of committed older members?

[GiantMonkeyMan]

It was perfect for its time: combining the large and militant trade unions' struggles with the potential to form a workers' party as an alternative to the capitalist parties was perfect for the conditions of 1890-1920ish. But then the Red Scare happened, trade unions have been gutted and the possibilities of a workers' party emerging from the cracks become less and less possible. Essentially, I like DeLeon's writings but I don't really see it as relevant to my current struggle.

[Decolonize The Left]

It's not my cup of tea but then again I'm drinking coffee. As for other folks, if that tea is what brings them class consciousness and radicalizes them then I'm glad they drank it.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

One of the finer moments of American Marxism, but there was still a lot of problems with both DeLeon and the party. It's definitely worth some time reading some of his works and the old party newspapers if you have the time (they can be found on the SLP's website if I remember correctly).
A big problem is that self-criticism wasn't encouraged, so DeLeonism (and the SLP itself) was doomed to be isolated and irrelevant after a matter of time.

It is interesting to note that Lenin praised the SLP (along with the left-wing of the SPA). I forget when this was; it might of been somewhere between 1902-1906, before DeLeon had more syndicalist leanings.

[The Idler]

The only socialist groups I know of in the late 19th Century (and in both the First and Second International and in the activities of Marx and Engels) had electoral strategies where some suffrage existed. This was the norm and this was not regarded as contradictory.

The very act of organising workers at work for better conditions is non-conciliatory with employers (hence why employers don't encourage it where it doesn't already exist) even if such non-political action invariably ends in (temporary) settlements.

Although I recall De Leon varied the emphasis he placed on these approaches, I don't recall he ever dismissed one or the other.

At some point a distinction was made between having an electoral strategy and proposing abolition of the wages system. Socialism and 'socialist' parties has suffered lopsidedness ever since.

As for Deleonism, these ideas were standard socialist ideas in the time of De Leon. It was De Leon's successors who argued elevation of De Leon to a distinct ideology. There is a good article on this in Discussion Bulletin sometime between the 1980s and 2000s. I am working on scanning these in.

Then again, Lenin once said Daniel De Leon was “the only one who has added anything to Socialist thought since Marx.”

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Fine rhetoric, but a bunch of nonsense.

Could you explain further?

[Skyhilist]

It's important to place Marxist-DeLeonism in context.

It was conceived in the 1800s. At the time, electoral politics may very well have had a chance of becoming a viable revolutionary strategy. So it's not that De Leon was stupid or dimwitted or something when he came up with these ideas.

However, because such ideas were conceived in the 19th century, many of them, such as the whole relying on electoral politics are no longer viable political strategies for achieving revolution today. That's because to become president now you need to be filthy rich.

So yeah, that's basically it for my thoughts on DeLeonism.

[blake 3:17]

Could you explain further?


Daniel De Leon was a very brilliant man who told the truth about a lot of issues facing the American working class, that were applicable elsewhere. I see the first duty of a revolutionary as telling the truth, and he did that.

In terms of nonsense, I'd pin it less on him, than on some of the sectarians that have been 'deleonists'. Haven't amounted to much -- which doesn't mean he's not worth studying.

Most of my favourite thinkers -- Blake & Benjamin foremost -- never built an organization, but they also never intended to.

It could be well worth examining how and where he succeeded and failed.

I'm perhaps too quick to reduce to him to the guy who called the AFL 'the labor lieutetants of Capital', which was in some ways perfectly right. I'm often exposed to ultra lefts who see EVERY union official, of whatever rank or ideology or commitment, as one and the same.

[The Idler]

It's important to place Marxist-DeLeonism in context.

It was conceived in the 1800s. At the time, electoral politics may very well have had a chance of becoming a viable revolutionary strategy. So it's not that De Leon was stupid or dimwitted or something when he came up with these ideas.

However, because such ideas were conceived in the 19th century, many of them, such as the whole relying on electoral politics are no longer viable political strategies for achieving revolution today. That's because to become president now you need to be filthy rich.

So yeah, that's basically it for my thoughts on DeLeonism.
I think you'll find syndicalism 'was conceived in the 1800s' and it's heyday was the 19th Century and the IWW in the early 20th. No-ones relying on electoral politics but the electoral franchises have greatly improved (and presidential riches gone down) since the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Daniel De Leon was a very brilliant man who told the truth about a lot of issues facing the American working class, that were applicable elsewhere. I see the first duty of a revolutionary as telling the truth, and he did that.

In terms of nonsense, I'd pin it less on him, than on some of the sectarians that have been 'deleonists'. Haven't amounted to much -- which doesn't mean he's not worth studying.

Most of my favourite thinkers -- Blake & Benjamin foremost -- never built an organization, but they also never intended to.

It could be well worth examining how and where he succeeded and failed.

I'm perhaps too quick to reduce to him to the guy who called the AFL 'the labor lieutetants of Capital', which was in some ways perfectly right. I'm often exposed to ultra lefts who see EVERY union official, of whatever rank or ideology or commitment, as one and the same.The problem with some of the creators of 'Deleonism' has been their willingness to cosy up to all sorts of groups including the proposed deal with the Socialist Party of America if I remember rightly. I'm very careful about using the word sectarian however.

As for dismissing all working-class organisation at work, I can see little point in this.