Time for a new Left party in UK?

[spirit of che]

Less then a year to the next General Election in the UK and the Labour Party has still yet to show the electorate that it is the party for the working class and poorest in society. While the Left is screaming at the leadership to show some Socialist commitments they continue to sit on the fence by condemning the ConDem government while stating they will continue with austerity if elected to power.Is it not time that the parties of the Left now organise to unite as one party as a serious alternative to Labour in 5 years tine?

[Q]

Moved from /intro to /politics.

There are several initiatives. Left Unity (http://leftunity.org/) is currently the most vibrant one which has several platforms. One of the more critical ones is the Communist Platform (http://communistplatform.org.uk/), which is supported by the CPGB (http://cpgb.org.uk/) and offers its fair share of criticism (http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/categories/left-unity/).

[Die Neue Zeit]

I second comrade Q's reference to Left Unity with upper-case letters.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Anarchy in the UK?

[The Feral Underclass]

Less then a year to the next General Election in the UK and the Labour Party has still yet to show the electorate that it is the party for the working class and poorest in society. While the Left is screaming at the leadership to show some Socialist commitments they continue to sit on the fence by condemning the ConDem government while stating they will continue with austerity if elected to power.Is it not time that the parties of the Left now organise to unite as one party as a serious alternative to Labour in 5 years tine?

There's a new left party every year.

[Luís Henrique]

Hm.

Should that be a New (Left Party)...

or a (New Left) Party?

Presto, your NLP can now start its first internal tendency war, even before it manages to assemble for the first time.

Luís Henrique

[Red Son]

I third Q and DNZs comments

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

Then I second TAT's comment. The UK left seems to be proficient at generating new parties and projects, there's no doubt about that - yet it has remained impotent. Could it be that the problem has little to do with whether there's a 'new party of the left' and more to do with the attitudes and practices of much of the contemporary UK left?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Then I second TAT's comment. The UK left seems to be proficient at generating new parties and projects, there's no doubt about that - yet it has remained impotent. Could it be that the problem has little to do with whether there's a 'new party of the left' and more to do with the attitudes and practices of much of the contemporary UK left?

Or perhaps with the entire notion of a "united" "Left" party.

[The Idler]

The parties of the left are not a serious alternative, whether united or divided.

[The Idler]

There's a new left party every year.
Whereas 'Libertarian Communist Initiative' was formed with your help out of a two year-old organisation, but then it's only an aspiring party not a proper one.

[The Feral Underclass]

Whereas 'Libertarian Communist Initiative' was formed with your help out of a two year-old organisation, but then it's only an aspiring party not a proper one.

We don't aspire to be a party at all. Our aspirations aren't limited to what form we take. But then again, why would I expect someone like you to understand the nuances of revolutionary politics, since you're a massive liberal.


The parties of the left are not a serious alternative, whether united or divided.

The irony.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

STFU used the L word. Naughty :(

As it is, Left Unity is probably the biggest left-of-labour 'project' to have come to fruition recently, though aside from being the likes of Owen Jones and Ken Loach walking around with a few awkward squad Labour MPs moaning about this and that, I don't really see what it has or is going to achieve.

The problem with the party as an organisational form is that parties are born out of the need for an organised apparatus to fight elections in bourgeois democracies, hence why party organisation in Britain, for example, only became much more serious when the franchise became more and more extended in the 19th century, securing Parliament's place as the main organ from which political power is derived in this country.

If we allow our organisations and movements to subscribe to the party organisational form, then that is essentially saying that no matter what the ideology and programme of our party, it is ultimately a form of organisation that is geared towards being incredibly organised and fighting elections.

The idea that when left parties fight elections it's not for the votes but for the 'education' and 'propaganda' is nonsense, since every left party from the Bolsheviks to the KKE in Greece has at some point adapted themselves towards winning bourgeois elections and in the KKEs case even taking part in bourgeois governments.

I think that the time came a while ago - but also that we are really overdue a theoretical breakthrough that nails this - to abandon the party model. If we are serious about creating a society without imposed authority, a society based on form of democracy where ordinary people have control over the direction of their own lives, then we have to forget about trying to win power with organisations that take the party form. Parties, in the modern world that is incredibly global thanks to the internet/social media, relative ease of travel and 24 hour news, are increasingly being left behind because their bias towards tight organisation and top-down decision making means that it is impossible for them to both act as democratic organs that give voice to people who otherwise wouldn't be heard, and react to changing events in anything like an acceptable or worthwhile timeframe.

[TheEmancipator]

We should focus on campaigns in the workplace and on the grassroots. The problem is these days you have to be a highly trained lawyer to be able to fight for someone's rights, and with education costs rising and rising its becoming less and less likely that we have people in the courtrooms taking big corporations to the cleaners.

Any attempt to convince the British public to vote for a left of Labour party will be futile. People aren't stupid, they know that with first past the post they would rather vote tactically to save their (sometimes oversized) public pension or cut their tax rate depending on which populist liar on TV their prefer. You've got to build your party from the ground up. The recent parties advocating preservation of the NHS for example have done well because these are people who have proved their credentials by fighting non-stop privatisation.

Respect has basically become a party for Muslim conservatives.
CPGB are a joke. Reminds me of the Hoxhaists on here. Based solely on caricature.
The other leftist parties are just ignored by MSM or shouted down on LBC.
You might as well vote Green in places where they can do well.

[The Idler]

We don't aspire to be a party at all. Our aspirations aren't limited to what form we take. But then again, why would I expect someone like you to understand the nuances of revolutionary politics, since you're a massive liberal.
No-one's saying you are limiting your aspirations to what form you take but the statement of intent says '11. The Libertarian Communist Initiative is a medium term, pre-party formation ... The Initiative intends to grow into a Libertarian Communist Party.'
I guess calling people massive liberals is understanding the nuances of revolutionary politics.


The irony.
Quite.

[Mather]

The parties of the left are not a serious alternative, whether united or divided.

Fair enough, but do you also include your own party (SPGB) in this?

If not, why not?

[Q]

CPGB are a joke. Reminds me of the Hoxhaists on here. Based solely on caricature.
And what caricature would that be? Because if you think it is Hoxhaist, you might be confused with the CPGB-ML, which are indeed a little wacko (http://redyouthuk.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/479445_10151654918509813_1560111007_o.jpg).

[The Feral Underclass]

No-one's saying you are limiting your aspirations to what form you take but the statement of intent says '11. The Libertarian Communist Initiative is a medium term, pre-party formation ... The Initiative intends to grow into a Libertarian Communist Party.'

And your point is what? That a libertarian communist party would be one of these New Left Parties that spring up every year?...Because if it is then you're an idiot.


I guess calling people massive liberals is understanding the nuances of revolutionary politics.

No, I'm just stating a fact. You are a massive liberal.


Quite.

I'm glad you're able to accept your shortcomings.

[Lord Testicles]

And your point is what? That a libertarian communist party would be one of these New Left Parties that spring up every year?...Because if it is then you're an idiot.


What would make a libertarian communist party any different to the multitude of leftist parties that spring up every election? Is it purely because they are libertarian communists and the others generally tend not to be? Or have libertarian communists found some secret tactic or approach that others on the left have overlooked?

[The Feral Underclass]

What would make a libertarian communist party any different to the multitude of leftist parties that spring up every election? Is it purely because they are libertarian communists and the others generally tend not to be? Or have libertarian communists found some secret tactic or approach that others on the left have overlooked?

The invariable problem with people's interventions in discussions like this is it always follows a pattern of form fetishisation. My criticism of yearly formulations of Unity Left Parties isn't because they're a party. My critisism is because they follow the same strategies and practices that have typified leftism for the past forty years. Namely, "unifying" the fucking "left", mass organisations, entryism, parliamentarianism, reformism, populism and opportunism.

So my first response to you would be that a libertarian communist party wouldn't be leftist. It also wouldn't matter whether it was called a party or not, that is just the moniker LCI have chosen to use to indicate a specific transition from one set of objectives to another. Specifically from an organisation whose role is to elucidate ideas and initiate campaigns to one that has built a base radical and confident enough to establish institutions of dual power.

Is that a secret tactic? No, it's not a secret. We're perfectly open about it. Is it an approach that others on the "left" have overlooked? I don't know whether they have overlooked it, but they certainly don't practice minority organisation, or see the class as being an organisation of itself, and they certainly don't see the riot communities as a terrain for building counter-power.

[The Idler]

It sounds like a sect with the worst aspects of leftism (cadre, partyism and substitutionism) combined with the worst aspects of anarchism (riot fetishisation, violence, aggression and minority organisation).

[Lord Testicles]

Okay, just a few questions:

1) What do you mean by an institution of dual power?

2) By minority organisation do you mean the opposite of a "mass organisation" or the organisation of minorities?

3) What are riot communities?

[Ismail]

CPGB are a joke. Reminds me of the Hoxhaists on here. Based solely on caricature.The CPGB-ML claims that modern-day China is a great example of socialism. The UK's foremost expert on Socialist Albania, Bill Bland, was expelled from the Stalin Society in the early 90s because of a number of disputes with Brezhnevites and Maoists within it, including Harpal Brar.

I'm not really sure what "caricature" means in this instance, at least when applied to "Hoxhaists."

[Martin Luther]

Why are there Hoxhaists? Are there Honeckerists too?

[The Feral Underclass]

It sounds like a sect with the worst aspects of leftism (cadre, partyism and substitutionism) combined with the worst aspects of anarchism (riot fetishisation, violence, aggression and minority organisation).

Fuck off, Idler. If you want to have an honest debate then participate in one, otherwise shut the fuck up and stop talking to me.

[The Idler]

Fair enough, but do you also include your own party (SPGB) in this?

If not, why not?
Generally, no. The general understanding of 'left-wing' is not common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

[Q]

Why are there Hoxhaists? Are there Honeckerists too?
No doubt.

[The Feral Underclass]

1) What do you mean by an institution of dual power?

An institution of proletarian power than can compete with institutions of bourgeois power.


2) By minority organisation do you mean the opposite of a "mass organisation" or the organisation of minorities?

The former. The class don't need to be in an organisation, they don't even need to participate in an organisation. The class is an organisation of itself, it simply requires the weapons to succeed in conflict and those weapons can only be consolidated in struggle. We call it social insertion, or in other words, from the political level to the social level.


3) What are riot communities?

Precarious communities of hyper-exploited and oppressed workers that have antagonistic relationships with the political system. This usually includes deeply deprived working class communities, usually consisting of minorities, immigrants, the unemployed and otherwise disaffected, un-unionised, precarious workers.

[Ismail]

Why are there Hoxhaists? Are there Honeckerists too?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Albanian_split
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Albanian_split

"There is nothing unknown about what socialism is, what it represents and what it brings about, how it is achieved and how socialist society is built. A theory and practice of scientific socialism exists. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin teach us this theory. We find the practice of it in that rich experience of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union in the time of Lenin and Stalin, and we find it today in Albania, where the new society is being built according to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism." (Enver Hoxha, Report to the 8th Congress of the PLA, 1981, p. 259.)

"The whole development of the political, economic and ideological life in socialist Albania has been carried out on the basis of the general laws of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Because the PLA adheres to these laws, Albania is the only country in which genuine socialism is being built today." (Luan Omari, The People's Revolution in Albania and the Question of State Power, 1986, p. 163.)

That's a pretty distinct line, wouldn't you say?


No doubt.I've certainly never heard of any.

[Lord Testicles]

I'm having some trouble conceptualising some of this, so apologies if I'm being a pest.


An institution of proletarian power than can compete with institutions of bourgeois power.

Do you call it an institution of dual power then to signify that both institutions of proletarian power and institutions of bourgeois power occupy the same period of time but compete to destroy each other? Is the institutions of proletarian power like a party or group that is powerful enough to challenge the hegemony of capitalism? Or is it more like a state within a state (maybe a culture within a culture would be more apt?)?


The former. The class don't need to be in an organisation, they don't even need to participate in an organisation. The class is an organisation of itself, it simply requires the weapons to succeed in conflict and those weapons can only be consolidated in struggle. We call it social insertion, or in other words from the political level to the social level.

This makes sense to me. Do you know anything I can read to get a better grasp of this idea and how it would work?


Precarious communities of hyper-exploited and oppressed workers.

Are they called riot communities because they have a tendency to riot? Would the summer riots in Britain be an example of or an indication of the presence of riot communities? (Not necessarily because they were rioting but because they seemed to be made of people who have trouble finding permanent employment or are living hand to mouth)

EDIT: I see you've expanded on that last point, which has answered my question regarding that.

[Martin Luther]

"There is nothing unknown about what socialism is, what it represents and what it brings about, how it is achieved and how socialist society is built. A theory and practice of scientific socialism exists. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin teach us this theory. We find the practice of it in that rich experience of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union in the time of Lenin and Stalin, and we find it today in Albania, where the new society is being built according to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism." (Enver Hoxha, Report to the 8th Congress of the PLA, 1981, p. 259.)

"The whole development of the political, economic and ideological life in socialist Albania has been carried out on the basis of the general laws of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Because the PLA adheres to these laws, Albania is the only country in which genuine socialism is being built today." (Luan Omari, The People's Revolution in Albania and the Question of State Power, 1986, p. 163.)

That's a pretty distinct line, wouldn't you say?

I've certainly never heard of any.

So how was Albania socially different from East Germany? (or any other Warsaw Pact state)

I know they were all Marxist Leninist, and I thought they all considered themselves dictatorships of the proletariat.

[The Feral Underclass]

Do you call it an institution of dual power then to signify that both institutions of proletarian power and institutions of bourgeois power occupy the same period of time but compete to destroy each other?

If you were to think of a chronology of a revolutionary struggle, dual power is almost the penultimate stage before a full blown revolution occurrs (i.e. the class defending its gains militarily). The most advanced example of dual power would be like the situation between February and October of 1917, when the Bolsheviks established a network of Soviets that organised and consolidated the class, while the provisional government still exercised state power.

A less advanced form of dual power could be a community defence council, for example, where workers organised to defend themselves against police repression and defended their own communities, or established a housing committee that had appropriated property and distributed it, or was appropriating products of labour such as food and distributing that. These minor examples would then seek to escalate their power in competition with the state (for example establishing workers' militas) until real gains had been made (seizing railways, factories etcetera) and a strong hold established. At that point the state would escalate their response and a military conflict would likely ensue.

This of course would be during a period of advanced class struggle leading up until the point of revolution, and not immediate objectives in-and-of themselves.


Is the institutions of proletarian power like a party or group that is powerful enough to challenge the hegemony of capitalism? Or is it more like a state within a state (maybe a culture within a culture would be more apt?)?

It would simply be the the class organised against the state in such a way that it had begun exercising its authority in competition with the state. It's not a party or a state, so much as the class organised.


This makes sense to me. Do you know anything I can read to get a better grasp of this idea and how it would work?

Specifism explained: the social and political level, organisational dualism and the anarchist organisation (https://libcom.org/blog/specifism-explained-social-political-level-organisational-dualism-anarchist-organisation-09) might be of use to understand the idea of the political and social levels.

On the question of the class being an organisation of itself you might want to look at some communisation stuff. This is a brilliant article: The feral underclass hits the streets: On the English riots and other ordeals. (http://sic.communisation.net/en/the-feral-underclass-hits-the-streets)


Are they called riot communities because they have a tendency to riot? Would the summer riots in Britain be an example of or an indication of the presence of riot communities? (Not necessarily because they were rioting but because they seemed to be made of people who have trouble finding permanent employment or are living hand to mouth)

These communities do have a tendency to riot so yes it is a reference to that, but it also references the idea that they are the sections of the class that are most antagonistic, have the least to loose and are far more radical in their expressions of frustration to their conditions. Precarious, unemployed, immigrants and minorities are the most exploited and oppressed sections of the class and they are becoming more and more aware of that fact with a stronger desire to respond through escalatable conflict.

The August riots of 2011 were a perfect example of those communities responding politically to their conditions. The fundamental failure of the left to respond to that crisis was a profound misjudgement. But the left in general is just a quagmire of cowardice and realpolitik opportunism.

[Lord Testicles]

Specifism explained: the social and political level, organisational dualism and the anarchist organisation (https://libcom.org/blog/specifism-explained-social-political-level-organisational-dualism-anarchist-organisation-09) might be of use to understand the idea of the political and social levels.

On the question of the class being an organisation of itself you might want to look at some communisation stuff. This is a brilliant article: The feral underclass hits the streets: On the English riots and other ordeals. (http://sic.communisation.net/en/the-feral-underclass-hits-the-streets)


Thanks.


The fundamental failure of the left to respond to that crisis was a profound misjudgement.

Or any crisis really.


But the left in general is just a quagmire of cowardice and realpolitik opportunism.

I couldn't agree more, sections of the left are literally cowards. I once watched a coach full of "antifascists" activists turn into a gaggle of bed-wetting children in the blink of an eye when faced with the prospect of actually having to have to fight fascists. It was understandable but I thought, if you're not prepared for the possibility of having to have to fight and immediately turn tail and run then why are we here?

[The Feral Underclass]

Also, if you wonna go back to the classics on stuff like minority organisation (which is a Bakuninist idea) then you can read, The Program of the International Brotherhood (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1869/program.htm), if you've not already.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The invariable problem with people's interventions in discussions like this is it always follows a pattern of form fetishisation. My criticism of yearly formulations of Unity Left Parties isn't because they're a party.


Do you think it is form fetishisation to reject the notion of the 'party' form altogether?

Don't you think it's curious that parties in their modern form (That leftist parties also tend to mimick) were a response to the needs of electioneering under bourgeois democracy, post- the advent of the capitalist state?

Don't you also think it's curious that in seeking to make a revolutionary break with capitalism, we time and again choose a vehicle whose specific purpose in historical context has been to fight bourgeois elections/win power in bourgeois institutions?

[TheEmancipator]

And what caricature would that be? Because if you think it is Hoxhaist, you might be confused with the CPGB-ML, which are indeed a little wacko (http://redyouthuk.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/479445_10151654918509813_1560111007_o.jpg).

Yeah sorry, my mistake, I thought we were talking about them.



I'm not really sure what "caricature" means in this instance, at least when applied to "Hoxhaists."

Contrarian for the sake of it, obsessively defending anything Stalin does, and accepting Enver Hoxha's diaries as unbiased fact.

It certainly something you only see in cartoons, or on the internet.

[Црвена]

We don't need any more pseudo-socialist bourgeois parties, really. What the socialist movement needs to do is integrate itself in labour struggles and establish itself as a movement of the exploited masses that will truly fight for the freedom and rights of workers (and do this without turning the liberation of the proletariat into an emotive matter and spouting the kind of heartstring-tugging "99%," crap that Occupy and other leftish movements come out with). The public are feeling very disconnected with politics and politicians right now and the left should be using this to its advantage, not becoming part of the system people are so disenchanted with.

[Ismail]

So how was Albania socially different from East Germany? (or any other Warsaw Pact state)

I know they were all Marxist Leninist, and I thought they all considered themselves dictatorships of the proletariat.The modern-day Chinese government claims it is fulfilling the tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat as well, as does Cuba and the DPRK. Obviously this isn't the case in practice.

The Eastern European countries (except Albania, obviously, and Yugoslavia which blazed the trail of capitalist restoration when Stalin was alive) all followed the Soviet revisionist course from Khrushchev onwards, halting the construction of socialism and establishing state-capitalism in their countries. In fact each Eastern European country had its own quirks in this direction, so that in Poland there was mass decollectivization in which 80% of the countryside was in private hands by the end of the 50s, while Hungary had "goulash socialism" and the GDR had "consumer socialism."

One work noting the economic changes in the USSR: http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html


Contrarian for the sake of it,Give examples. Lenin was quite the "contrarian" as well, as his polemics against opportunism, social-chauvinism and whatnot show.


obsessively defending anything Stalin does,In reality you mean to say "defending anything Stalin does."


and accepting Enver Hoxha's diaries as unbiased fact.In the words of Jon Halliday (co-author of Mao: The Unknown Story and thus not someone who is expected to hold a high opinion of Hoxha): "Hoxha is extremely observant. He is also highly intelligent. He is suspicious, too - but this suspiciousness is often a plus, since there was plenty to be suspicious about... Hoxha, although self-righteous, also has some ability to be self-critical." (The Artful Albanian: The Memoirs of Enver Hoxha, 1986, p. 2.) And on the two-volume Reflections on China (i.e. actual excerpts from his diaries as opposed to his memoirs), "there are many interesting revelations... in certain areas he is both acute and correct." (Ibid. p. 254.)

Halliday unsurprisingly accuses him of "thinking in black and white" and so on, but considers his memoirs and diaries fascinating and valuable.


It certainly something you only see in cartoons, or on the internet.Pro-Albanian parties were quite notable in a number of countries. The PCdoB in Brazil was second to the pro-Soviet PCB in strength, MAP-ML in Nicaragua had seats in the legislature, ditto the PCMLE in Ecuador through an electoral alliance, while in Mali, Benin and Suriname pro-Albanian forces played important roles in opposing military regimes. There was a pro-Albanian minister in Thomas Sankara's cabinet. More examples could be given.

[The Feral Underclass]

Someone who uses the word 'whatnot' more than once in a post should be immediately shot.

[Ismail]

True to my STALINISM, I took the opportunity to replace the second instance with "and so on."

[TheEmancipator]

The Eastern European countries (except Albania, obviously, and Yugoslavia which blazed the trail of capitalist restoration when Stalin was alive) all followed the Soviet revisionist course from Khrushchev onwards, halting the construction of socialism and establishing state-capitalism in their countries. In fact each Eastern European country had its own quirks in this direction, so that in Poland there was mass decollectivization in which 80% of the countryside was in private hands by the end of the 50s, while Hungary had "goulash socialism" and the GDR had "consumer socialism."

This is funny because at the end of WW2 Hoxha was actually in favour of joining Tito's Yugoslavia before denouncing him as a fascist.


Give examples. Lenin was quite the "contrarian" as well, as his polemics against opportunism, social-chauvinism and whatnot show.

I meant the way Hoxhaists and Stalinists walk about thinking they are ''edgy'' because they waves portraits of Stalin and support a now-defunct socialist country in the Balkans when they have strictly no idea what life in Albania was like.


Halliday unsurprisingly accuses him of "thinking in black and white" and so on, but considers his memoirs and diaries fascinating and valuable.

Doesn't make them a credible source, particularly when analysing Albania's brand of socialism, which led to deterioration of living standards while Yugoslavia boomed in the 60s and 70s, blatant nepotism and tribalism within the worker's party of Albania and of course some pointless bunkers being built.


Pro-Albanian parties were quite notable in a number of countries. The PCdoB in Brazil was second to the pro-Soviet PCB in strength, MAP-ML in Nicaragua had seats in the legislature, ditto the PCMLE in Ecuador through an electoral alliance, while in Mali, Benin and Suriname pro-Albanian forces played important roles in opposing military regimes. There was a pro-Albanian minister in Thomas Sankara's cabinet. More examples could be given.

You are stuck in the past, these are all examples of people who accepted the Tiranian Radio Network's party lines on the radio (because the press in Albania was non existent). Now we know the real result of Hoxha's farcical project, and Albania is now one of the most underdeveloped regions in Europe, which absolutely zero objective proof that dictatorship of the proleteriat existed either in Stalinist Russia or Albania.

[Ismail]

This is funny because at the end of WW2 Hoxha was actually in favour of joining Tito's Yugoslavia before denouncing him as a fascist.Do you actually have a source for this? Bourgeois accounts note that Hoxha resented the Yugoslav domination of Albania and its attempts to turn the country into a neo-colony. Milovan Đilas' own Conversations with Stalin shows that the Yugoslavs were denigrating Hoxha as an "intellectual" and praising Koçi Xoxe (a "proletarian") in conversations with Stalin, while his later memoir Rise and Fall notes that Hoxha strongly distrusted Yugoslav intentions during the immediate postwar period. As early as the Berat Plenum in 1944 Hoxha was under fire from pro-Yugoslav elements.


I meant the way Hoxhaists and Stalinists walk about thinking they are ''edgy'' because they waves portraits of Stalin and support a now-defunct socialist country in the Balkans when they have strictly no idea what life in Albania was like.Life in Albania improved significantly in the four decades following liberation.

As for "edginess," if I wanted that I could be praising Tito's various friends such as Kim Il Sung or Ceaușescu.


Doesn't make them a credible source, particularly when analysing Albania's brand of socialism,Apparently memoirs like The Khrushchevites and the excerpts from his diary which constitute Reflections on China are actually really long analyses of Albania, I never noticed that while reading them.


which led to deterioration of living standards while Yugoslavia boomed in the 60s and 70s,Yugoslavia "boomed" the same way Romania did: through generous loans from the West. When both countries were unable to repay these loans in the 80s Romania and the homeland of "workers' self-management" carried out austerity measures. Yugoslav "socialism" also ensured inequality between its republics, so that while blood feuds and illiteracy were extinguished in Albania, they continued to exist in neighboring Kosovo according to Yugoslav sources.


blatant nepotism and tribalism within the worker's party of AlbaniaYou'll have to provide evidence for this. The only example of "nepotism" I've seen was a Soviet revisionist propaganda broadcast circa 1961 which contained inaccurate details. As for "tribalism," besides the Party of Labour actively combating such a mentality, the "Tosk" (southern Albanian) Hoxha explicitly had a "Gheg" (northern Albanian) succeed him.


and of course some pointless bunkers being built.In the context of a mountainous country where the defense doctrine was based on an armed populace rather than a professional army, and in light of the international situation of that time, the building of bunkers and other measures were not surprising.


You are stuck in the past, these are all examples of people who accepted the Tiranian Radio Network's party lines on the radioYou were the one who claimed that pro-Albanian parties had no influence. It's particularly silly since Titoist parties never gained a following anywhere, while "workers' self-management" only helped inspire the economic policies of various bourgeois-nationalist regimes, like those of Ben Bella in Algeria and Gaddafi in Libya.


(because the press in Albania was non existent).In order to confirm this shocking (and never-before-seen) claim, I consulted one of many bourgeois works I own: "By 1976, there were twenty-five newspapers in the country, with a total annual circulation of about 47 million copies. This figure marked a fourfold increase over the total of six newspapers published in prewar Albania." (Prifti, Socialist Albania since 1944, 1978, p. 131.)


Now we know the real result of Hoxha's farcical project, and Albania is now one of the most underdeveloped regions in Europe,I have no idea why people make this argument. Albania didn't even have a University before 1957. The life expectancy before the war was 38, its literacy rate was about 15%, industrial output was pathetic and Western observers noted that it was Europe's most backward country.

"With the fall of Communism schoolhouses were often see as symbols of the regime and therefore destroyed. The virulent revival of blood feuds, which a hapless central authority can do little to remedy, requires thousands of school-age children to stay at home. The economic disaster that is Albania has little funding left for education. The population of Tirana grew from approximately 300,000 in 1991 to almost one million in 2003, but not one new high school was built during that twelve-year period. The mass exodus of the best and the brightest — in the first ten years following the collapse of Communism possibly 20% of the population fled what they considered a hopeless situation — has resulted in an unprecedented brain-drain. Albanian education is in crisis with no quick fix in sight. Women's rights, another of Hoxha's achievements, have been severely set back with the explosion of human trafficking which has seen thousands of Albanian girls and women transported abroad for prostitution and thousands more kept home from school by their parents for fear of such forcible abduction... with patriotic intellectuals openly suggesting that the only way out of the morass may be for Albania to become a ward of the United Nations or an Italian condominium."
(Bernd J. Fischer (ed). Balkan Strongmen. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. 2007. pp. 266-267.)


which absolutely zero objective proof that dictatorship of the proleteriat existed either in Stalinist Russia or Albania.Apparently the dictatorship of the proletariat can be gauged by living standards.

[TheEmancipator]

del

[TheEmancipator]

Do you actually have a source for this? Bourgeois accounts note that Hoxha resented the Yugoslav domination of Albania and its attempts to turn the country into a neo-colony. Milovan Đilas' own Conversations with Stalin shows that the Yugoslavs were denigrating Hoxha as an "intellectual" and praising Koçi Xoxe (a "proletarian") in conversations with Stalin, while his later memoir Rise and Fall notes that Hoxha strongly distrusted Yugoslav intentions during the immediate postwar period. As early as the Berat Plenum in 1944 Hoxha was under fire from pro-Yugoslav elements.

Misha Glenny's work on the Balkans.

While the tensions between the two leaderships were evident, Albania was up for joining as a 7th Republic

This was an interesting read : http://www.historystudies.net/Makaleler/133241118_10_-1_Albina_Drankqoli.pdf

The course of events seem to suggest that the moment Stalin said ''no'' to idea of a West Balkans Federation was the moment Hoxha changed his mind.



Life in Albania improved significantly in the four decades following liberation.

As for "edginess," if I wanted that I could be praising Tito's various friends such as Kim Il Sung or Ceaușescu.

International diplomacy at the time was complex, and I agree Tito made an error of judgment supporting Ceausescu and Kim Il Sung. Still, Tito managed to maintain cordial yet at the same time distant relations with both bourgeois and deformed workers' states precisely so he could start up the Non-Aligned Movement which guaranteed Yugoslav sovereignty.

Hoxha was an embarrassement on the international scene, flip-flopping between supporting Mao, The post-Kruschevite USSR, etc... Nobody took him seriously.


Apparently memoirs like The Khrushchevites and the excerpts from his diary which constitute Reflections on China are actually really long analyses of Albania, I never noticed that while reading them.

They are his interpretation of events. How on earth is the man who started such an abysmal project a credible, critical source for what actually happen.

Come on, man, I picked this up in 4th year. You're going to have to use sources other than Hoxha's memoirs to justify his brand of Socialism.


Yugoslavia "boomed" the same way Romania did: through generous loans from the West. When both countries were unable to repay these loans in the 80s Romania and the homeland of "workers' self-management" carried out austerity measures.

Post-Titoist Yugoslavia is where most of the borrowing was done. Once Kardelj and Tito were dead, a weak leadership was eroded by CIA-funded economic interest groups who managed to convince the public that hte solution to solving the ''crisis'' was the two things that have always destroyed South Slav unity : more centralisation and more dependence on outside ''Great Powers''.



Yugoslav "socialism" also ensured inequality between its republics, so that while blood feuds and illiteracy were extinguished in Albania, they continued to exist in neighboring Kosovo according to Yugoslav sources.

What exactly was stopping a Kosovar Albanian from doing what every other impoverished person did in the Balkans, and you know, move to the City? Chavinism on both sides, most likely.

Seriously man, have you seen Kosovo? It is a horrendously underdeveloped region but the Yugoslav government wasn't going to favour it over other regions just because there was an ethnic minority there. In the end, Kosovar voices were heard and they were given autonomous powers with a full vote at the Yugoslav federal council when it came to important decisions. For a region with very little population it was given the same voting power as Serbia.

I think you're too eager to adopt the Balkan inferiority complex promoted by nationalist politicians. According to every nationalist, they got the shit end of the stick during the Yugoslav years.

Also, when shit hit the fan in the early 90s, Kosovo Albanians were actually in favour (much like the Bosniak position) of staying in a Yugoslav state : (skip to the 23 minute mark when Azem Villasi gives his speech)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNK0fBa789Y

It was the Kosovo Serbs that felt the most oppressed in the area by the end of the Yugoslav regime. Of course, we know the KLA, trained and backed by a foreign power, much like the Ustashe, came in and changed the rhetoric.


You'll have to provide evidence for this. The only example of "nepotism" I've seen was a Soviet revisionist propaganda broadcast circa 1961 which contained inaccurate details. As for "tribalism," besides the Party of Labour actively combating such a mentality, the "Tosk" (southern Albanian) Hoxha explicitly had a "Gheg" (northern Albanian) succeed him.

Didn't he give his wife a high-ranking position as well as the wife of his second-in-command? Again I read it in Mish Glenny's book which I do not have on me right now but I'll find the quote detailing just how much of a ''family business'' the Labour Party of Albania' is.


In the context of a mountainous country where the defense doctrine was based on an armed populace rather than a professional army, and in light of the international situation of that time, the building of bunkers and other measures were not surprising.

Nobody wanted to invade Albania. Nobody gave a shit about Albania as it wasn't of strategicc importance unless you were Italian. So the idea of an invasion by the USSR or even Yugoslavia is surreal. Yugoslavia did not want Albania because Albania was a still heavily reactionary society and they simply couldn't spend resources on a country which had just started to develop nationalist aspirations anyway.

So you'll have to explain to me why Hoxha blew his budget on bunkers that wouldn't survive a month of sundays against a non-existent threat of NATO, Yugoslav or Russian military action. That money could have gone to schools, factories etc...


In order to confirm this shocking (and never-before-seen) claim, I consulted one of many bourgeois works I own: "By 1976, there were twenty-five newspapers in the country, with a total annual circulation of about 47 million copies. This figure marked a fourfold increase over the total of six newspapers published in prewar Albania." (Prifti, Socialist Albania since 1944, 1978, p. 131.)

It wasn't a dig at Albanian press infrastructure, it was a dig at the quality of the press in question.


I have no idea why people make this argument. Albania didn't even have a University before 1957. The life expectancy before the war was 38, its literacy rate was about 15%, industrial output was pathetic and Western observers noted that it was Europe's most backward country.

But surely under Hoxha's leadership, Albania should have overtaken fascist corporatist states like Yugoslavia and their restoration of capital. After all, places like central Bosnia were no different to Albania in terms of infrastructure in 1945.


Apparently the dictatorship of the proletariat can be gauged by living standards.

http://thesciencedog.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/strawman-full.jpg

[Ismail]

Misha Glenny's work on the Balkans. While the tensions between the two leaderships were evident, Albania was up for joining as a 7th RepublicI have two of his works. I consulted both.

The Balkans, 2001, p. 561: "Hoxha's xenophobia had a sound historical footing - the Ottoman Empire, the European great powers and Albania's neighbours, Serbia and Greece, had sought to deny the country its independence ever since the League of Prizren first raised the idea in 1878. And after Hoxha came to power, foreign states did indeed try to bring him down. In 1948, Stalin had told Milovan Djilas that Yugoslavia should swallow up Albania. A year later, the British and American intelligence services concocted a plan to destabilize Albania by infiltrating supporters of King Zog into the country."

The Rebirth of History, 1993, p. 146: "Marshal Tito had hoped to integrate Albania into his Yugoslav federation after the war, a plan greeted with much suspicion in Tirana."


This was an interesting read : http://www.historystudies.net/Makaleler/133241118_10_-1_Albina_Drankqoli.pdfThe only relevant part is the bit about a May 27, 1946 meeting: "Stalin asked Tito if Enver Hoxha agrees with the integration of Albania into Yugoslavia. After the positive reply of Tito, Stalin advised him to treat the issue of mutual and friendship aid, to find a formula for this treaty and to bring Albania and Yugoslavia together as close as possible." It goes on to say on that page and the next that the Yugoslavs sought to dominate Albania and that it sped up the process as soon as possible due to fears that the USSR would interfere before long, something confirmed by Dedijer in one of his works. I'm not quite sure why you bring this up unless you think Tito is a great source for Hoxha's thoughts, especially when the Yugoslavs were belittling him during other meetings with Stalin.


The course of events seem to suggest that the moment Stalin said ''no'' to idea of a West Balkans Federation was the moment Hoxha changed his mind.I already noted (and even your own ostensible sources show) that the Albanians were apprehensive at best to the idea of Albania joining Yugoslavia. The idea of a Balkan Socialist Federation originated with the Comintern, Hoxha himself spoke of efforts to achieve it during the war, the issue was how this federation was to be achieved, and Yugoslav domination was not a good way to do this.


International diplomacy at the time was complex, and I agree Tito made an error of judgment supporting Ceausescu and Kim Il Sung. Still, Tito managed to maintain cordial yet at the same time distant relations with both bourgeois and deformed workers' states precisely so he could start up the Non-Aligned Movement which guaranteed Yugoslav sovereignty.I wouldn't call those relations "distant," particularly with the West where Tito took out extensive loans and sent so many workers abroad to gain hard currency and to alleviate unemployment at home.

Furthermore, "The slogan of 'non-aligned countries' gives the false impression that a group of states which have the possibility of 'opposing' the superpower blocs is being created. It gives the impression that these countries, all of them, are anti-imperialist, opposed to war, opposed to the dictate of others, that they are 'democratic', and even 'socialist'. This helps to strengthen the pseudo-democratic and anti-popular positions of the leading groups of some states which are participating among the 'non-aligned', and creates the impression among the peoples of these countries that when their chiefs establish or dissolve relations of any kind and nature, with the imperialists and the social-imperialists, openly or in secret, they do this not only in the capacity of 'popular governments', but also in the capacity of a group of states 'with which even the superpowers must reckon'." - Report Submitted to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania, 1977, p. 175.

The "non-aligned movement" had such "non-aligned" figures as Castro and Kim Il Sung. Its other two ofounders, Nasser and Nehru, were both anti-communists and denounced in Soviet analyses up until the revisionists took power.


Hoxha was an embarrassement on the international scene, flip-flopping between supporting Mao, The post-Kruschevite USSR, etc... Nobody took him seriously.When did Hoxha ever support the post-Khrushchev USSR? In fact he wrote an article at the time of Khrushchev's downfall saying that Khrushchevism had not been overthrown, only the person of Khrushchev, and noting that Brezhnev and Co. were his loyal allies in the struggle against Marxism-Leninism. You could pick any Hoxha speech at random between 1965 and his death to see this. It was the Chinese who vacillated on the question of Brezhnev, not the Albanians.


They are his interpretation of events. How on earth is the man who started such an abysmal project a credible, critical source for what actually happen.Because he witnessed those events. He visited the USSR and a number of Eastern European countries multiple times, he obviously had some (but not much since the Chinese were often tight-lipped) insight into China that others could not have, by virtue of China and Albania having been seen as common allies in the struggle against modern revisionism in the years 1960-1976. These aren't works about Albania, they're his observations of foreign countries and leaderships.


Post-Titoist Yugoslavia is where most of the borrowing was done."In just the first 5 months of this year the deficit was 2 billion dollars. At the 11th Congress of the League of 'Communists' of Yugoslavia, Tito declared, 'the deficit with the Western market has become almost intolerable'. Nearly three months after this congress, he declared again in Slovenia, 'We have especially great difficulties in trade exchanges with the European Common Market member countries. There the imbalance to our disadvantage is very great and constantly increasing. We must talk with them very seriously about this. Many of them promise us that these things will be put in order, that imports from Yugoslavia will increase, but up to now we have had very little benefit from all this. Each is putting the blame on the other'. And the deficit in foreign trade, which Tito does not mention in this speech of his, exceeded 4 billion dollars in 1977. This is a catastrophe for Yugoslavia."
(Enver Hoxha. Yugoslav "Self-Administration": A Capitalist Theory and Practice. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1978. pp. 39-40.)


What exactly was stopping a Kosovar Albanian from doing what every other impoverished person did in the Balkans, and you know, move to the City? Chavinism on both sides, most likely.An exodus from the countryside by masses of peasants who cannot find employment is a typical characteristic of capitalism in underdeveloped countries. A visitor to Albania noted that the Albanians did something else: "industrialization will not mean that the country will be divided up into urban aggregations and the countryside depopulated. The present geographical distribution of the population is to be retained. 'According to one capitalist calculation, this isn't economic,' said Perikas Pikuli, a member of the planning commission, 'but Albania is a socialist country. Therefore the question is how people want the country to be built up, what kind of environment they want. We see developments in capitalist and revisionist countries. We do not want Albania to look like that. The problem of depopulated areas of the countryside in your countries, in Italy, Yugoslavia, Sweden and the Soviet Union, are the result of an antipopular policy.'" (Jan Myrdal, Albania Defiant, 1976.)


Seriously man, have you seen Kosovo? It is a horrendously underdeveloped region but the Yugoslav government wasn't going to favour it over other regions just because there was an ethnic minority there.The issue was not one of favoritism but discrimination, which was inherent in the capitalist system in the country, which built up a divide between richer republics (Croatia, Slovenia) and poorer ones, with Kosovo remaining particularly backwards in many respects. The Kosovar Albanians struggled throughout the postwar period for an equal status among the republics, for Kosovo to become a republic within Yugoslavia, and the authorities reacted by sending in tanks to suppress striking workers and students. What few gains did exist in Kosovo by the 80s were the result of such struggles.


I think you're too eager to adopt the Balkan inferiority complex promoted by nationalist politicians. According to every nationalist, they got the shit end of the stick during the Yugoslav years.What bourgeois politicians think is unimportant, what the situation actually was on the ground is what counts. And the situation on the ground was that Kosovar Albanians faced discrimination, had their national rights ignored, and in the end were subjected to attempts at genocide and ethnic displacement, starting in the Yugoslav period (e.g. when a great many Kosovar Albanians were proclaimed "Turks" and deported to Turkey in the 40s-50s), and obviously culminating in a far worse situation in the 90s.


Also, when shit hit the fan in the early 90s, Kosovo Albanians were actually in favour (much like the Bosniak position) of staying in a Yugoslav state : (skip to the 23 minute mark when Azem Villasi gives his speech)Yes, but they wanted genuine equality within it, a position they were denied first under Titoism and then obviously under Milošević.

"If the present Yugoslav leadership proceeds on the course it has chosen and is pursuing, the opposition of the Albanians will continue, will grow and become even more acute. Only a solution of the national question which is well considered by the two sides without passion, a solution which is accepted and approved by the people of Kosova, can eliminate this very complicated situation which has been created not by the people of Kosova, but by Great-Serb chauvinism. The people of Kosova proposed the fairest and most suitable solution in this situation, which is difficult for Yugoslavia and for themselves. The demand to raise Kosova to the status of a Republic within the Federation is a just demand. It does not threaten the existence of the Federation." And, "Albania has never made territorial claims against Yugoslavia, and no demand for border re-adjustments can be found in its documents." (Enver Hoxha, Report to the 8th Congress of the PLA, 1981, pp. 213, 215.)

"The Albanians in Yugoslavia... are demanding no more rights than the Serbs, the Slovenians, the Croatians, or the Macedonians. However, they will not accept anything less. They want to be equal subjects with all the other nations Yugoslavia is composed of. The Albanians are demanding recognition of their right to self-determination. They want to live in a Yugoslav federation or confederation if the other nations stand for these forms of government." (Ramiz Alia, Albania - An Active Participant in World Democratic Processes, 1990, pp. 14-15.)


It was the Kosovo Serbs that felt the most oppressed in the area by the end of the Yugoslav regime.You can find similar feelings by many older Boers who say they lost "their country" to the blacks. This doesn't mean that Serbs in Kosovo can't be discriminated against or that innocent Serbs should be killed in "revenge" for what other Serbs did to Albanians, but it is pretty silly to act as if the situation facing Serbs in Kosovo today is akin to the situation facing Albanians in Kosovo in prior decades.


Didn't he give his wife a high-ranking position as well as the wife of his second-in-command? Again I read it in Mish Glenny's book which I do not have on me right now but I'll find the quote detailing just how much of a ''family business'' the Labour Party of Albania' is.Hoxha's wife was a member of the Central Committee (which comprised hundreds of persons) and headed its Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies.

This might seem slightly nepotistic until one realizes what positions she held before then. To quote one bourgeois work (Albania by Stavro Skendi, 1956, pp. 327-328) in 1941 she "joined the Albanian Communist Party upon its formation in November, and became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth of Albania during the same month." During the national liberation war she held a number of other notable positions. She was already politically prominent before she married Enver in January 1945.


Nobody wanted to invade Albania. Nobody gave a shit about Albania as it wasn't of strategicc importance unless you were Italian. So the idea of an invasion by the USSR or even Yugoslavia is surreal. Yugoslavia did not want Albania because Albania was a still heavily reactionary society and they simply couldn't spend resources on a country which had just started to develop nationalist aspirations anyway."Quite apart from the symbolic implications of Hoxha's [split with the USSR], Khrushchev had always regarded Albania as a key member of the Warsaw Pact because of 'its superb strategic location on the Mediterranean Sea.' The rift with Yugoslavia in 1948 had eliminated the only other possible outlet for the Soviet navy in the region. To ensure that Albania could serve as a full-fledged 'military base on the Mediterranean Sea for all the socialist countries,' the Soviet Union had been providing extensive equipment and training to the Albanian army and navy. In particular, the Albanian navy had received a fleet of twelve modern attack submarines, which initially were under Soviet control but were gradually being transferred to Albanian jurisdiction. Khrushchev believed that the submarines would allow Albania to pose a 'serious threat to the operation of the NATO military bloc on the Mediterranean Sea,' and thus he was dismayed to find that Soviet efforts to establish a naval bulwark on the Mediterranean might all have been for naught.

As soon as the rift with Albania emerged, the Soviet Union imposed strict economic sanctions, withdrew all Soviet technicians and military advisers, took back eight of the twelve submarines, dismantled Soviet naval facilities at the Albanian port of Vlona, and engaged in bitter polemical exchanges with the Albanian leadership. Khrushchev also ordered Soviet warships to conduct maneuvers along the Albanian coast, and he secretly encouraged pro-Moscow rivals of Hoxha to carry out a coup. The coup attempt was rebuffed, and the other means of coercion proved insufficient to get rid of Hoxha or to bring about a change of policy. In December 1961, Khrushchev broke diplomatic relations with Albania and excluded it from both the Warsaw Pact and CMEA. However, he was unwilling to undertake a full-scale invasion to bring Albania back within the Soviet orbit, not least because of the logistical problems and the likelihood of confronting stiff armed resistance."
(Carole Fink, Philipp Gassert & Detlef Junker (Ed.). 1968: The World Transformed. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1998. pp. 117-119.)


That money could have gone to schools, factories etc...Plenty of money went to them. Industrial development continued throughout the 70s while the bunkers were being built. Schools continued to be built.


It wasn't a dig at Albanian press infrastructure, it was a dig at the quality of the press in question.Well considering that most time spent in Radio Tirana broadcasts consisted of excerpts from the press, this now means that whole portion of your post was dumb.


But surely under Hoxha's leadership, Albania should have overtaken fascist corporatist states like Yugoslavia and their restoration of capital. After all, places like central Bosnia were no different to Albania in terms of infrastructure in 1945.Would you have expected that Mongolia should have been as developed as the European portions of the Soviet Union (let alone France or the United States) by, say, 1953? What's important were the massive strides made in a short period of time. Using your logic "bureaucratic socialism" (as the Yugoslav revisionists described the economy of the Soviet revisionists) was superior to "workers' self-management" because the USSR obviously produced far more than Yugoslavia.

Not to mention that Albania did not have to impose austerity measures, price hikes, or other features of life in Eastern Europe under the Yugoslav, Polish, Romanian and other revisionists.


*image*It was you who kept on bringing up the supposed prosperity of Yugoslavia vis-à-vis Albania, and then saying there was no evidence that the "Stalinist" USSR or Albania were under the DOTP.

[jmlima]

We don't need any more pseudo-socialist bourgeois parties, really. What the socialist movement needs to do is integrate itself in labour struggles and establish itself as a movement of the exploited masses that will truly fight for the freedom and rights of workers (and do this without turning the liberation of the proletariat into an emotive matter and spouting the kind of heartstring-tugging "99%," crap that Occupy and other leftish movements come out with). The public are feeling very disconnected with politics and politicians right now and the left should be using this to its advantage, not becoming part of the system people are so disenchanted with.

This.

Plus not getting lost in pseudo-intellectual discussions about concepts that are completely removed from everyday reality and that just serve to alienate people. There's a lot to be said about clear messages and plain English. Populism is not just bad, it also teaches that a simple message is better heard than wholesale conceptualizations about revolutionary stages.

And also losing this fetish that left wing parties in Britain have with Palestine. They seem not to grasp the concept that its utter irrelevant if you're a long term unemployed in the Midlands or the Lothians. Which form your target audience to a large extent.

And answering the original post, its not a new party that its needed its new ideas and actions. Its organizing that is needed. Under whatever form it takes.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Plus not getting lost in pseudo-intellectual discussions about concepts that are completely removed from everyday reality and that just serve to alienate people.

You're right in a sense that academia, if it doesn't originate through struggle, is abstract and alienating. But where do you think ideas actually come from? They don't come just from struggle. Go to any protest/demo today. Marching from A to B, breaking a few shop windows and then standing in a police kettle for half an evening isn't the best breeding ground for non-emotive, sound ideas. Practical situations may provide the experiences upon which we can reflect in order to come up with sound ideas, but in order to then formulate these initial ideas into watertight theories and strategies that can be disseminated amongst other individuals in our class, we need to embrace our intellectual side as well as our emotional side.


There's a lot to be said about clear messages and plain English.

Clear messages and plan English are not mutually exclusive to intellectual thinking.


Populism is not just bad, it also teaches that a simple message is better heard than wholesale conceptualizations about revolutionary stages.

If you don't have a revolutionary strategy, then how can your 'simple messages' (in other words, slogans) have any meaning? If I go to a protest with a placard saying 'NO MORE POVERTY', and somebody then engages me on that slogan, and it turns out I have no intellectual basis for wishing to eradicate poverty, then the slogan itself is useless.


And also losing this fetish that left wing parties in Britain have with Palestine.

The middle east is the most important foreign policy area in the world at the moment. I think that so many of us are engaged with a relevant area of struggle is much better than what the left normally does, namely engaging in irrelevant historical debates about the USSR, Lenin, Trotsky etc.


They seem not to grasp the concept that its utter irrelevant if you're a long term unemployed in the Midlands or the Lothians. Which form your target audience to a large extent.

Once again, the struggles of the Palestinian people and the unemployed in the regions of Britain are not mutually exclusive but interrelated. Both sides are being dealt a (different type of) injustice. It takes a different form but its aim is the same: to subjugate the oppressed and exploited and maintain the current social order.

Without solidarity there is no way to connect our diverse struggles and form a coherent, forceful political movement.

[jmlima]

...
...Once again, the struggles of the Palestinian people and the unemployed in the regions of Britain are not mutually exclusive but interrelated. Both sides are being dealt a (different type of) injustice. It takes a different form but its aim is the same: to subjugate the oppressed and exploited and maintain the current social order. ...

The relevant bit is 'different'.

That is exactly what they are, different situations. And to say that the woes of a population manipulated by fundamentalists into violence, thrown against a population manipulated by fear into violence, are the same or relevant, to the woes of a working class family in Britain, suppressed by a government favouring the rule of the corporation, are in any way similar is erroneous in the extreme.

I remembered in the midst of the 2009 when, with Britain's economy imploding and the opportunity rife to present to the masses a left wing alternative model, receiving planflets from the local socialist party inviting me for a discussion on the palestinian troubles. Living in an area that was affected by unemployment in a large way back then I can only imagine that most people's reactions were the same as mine.

Also, solidarity is not done any justice by taking sides. In fact, by taking sides you are only favouring the top of the pecking order, by perpetuating a status quo that only serves them.

[Lord Testicles]

Also, solidarity is not done any justice by taking sides. In fact, by taking sides you are only favouring the top of the pecking order, by perpetuating a status quo that only serves them.

Taking sides regarding what?

[DOOM]

Doesn't make them a credible source, particularly when analysing Albania's brand of socialism, which led to deterioration of living standards while Yugoslavia boomed in the 60s and 70s, blatant nepotism and tribalism within the worker's party of Albania and of course some pointless bunkers being built.


Well isn't it a bit inconsistent to talk about blatant albanian nepotism, while defending Yugoslavia? Corruption and nepotism were pretty normal in Yugoslavia, especially within the party-elite and the industrial sector. And the living standard is in no way an indicator to decide whether a country is socialist or not. Let's not forget the huge IMF credits Yugoslavia was basically dependent on and the consequent economical decline during the late 70s and 80s (oil crisis), resulting in mass privatisation, shortage on basic stuff (coffee, bulbs, cigarettes) and eventually in war.
I'm not trying to prove Ismail's point, as I'm not interested in Marxism-Leninism. However, I'm just pointing out that you aren't really being consistent.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The relevant bit is 'different'.

Difference, or diversity, is key to empathising with other people and developing solidarity. If your beef is with diversity, then logically speaking struggles should only ever be localised and then, why should I give a shit about the unemployed people of the north, and why should they give a shit about me?


That is exactly what they are, different situations. And to say that the woes of a population manipulated by fundamentalists into violence, thrown against a population manipulated by fear into violence, are the same or relevant, to the woes of a working class family in Britain, suppressed by a government favouring the rule of the corporation, are in any way similar is erroneous in the extreme.

A population manipulated by fundamentalists into violence? You do realise that the latest conflict in Gaza has been characterised by Hamas firing rockets and Israel killing hundreds of kids, not by ordinary palestinians going out and killing anybody, right?


I remembered in the midst of the 2009 when, with Britain's economy imploding and the opportunity rife to present to the masses a left wing alternative model, receiving planflets from the local socialist party inviting me for a discussion on the palestinian troubles. Living in an area that was affected by unemployment in a large way back then I can only imagine that most people's reactions were the same as mine.

If you don't give a shit about other struggles then don't expect me to give a shit about your unemployment. See, I don't actually believe what I just said, but it is the logical conclusion to your argument.


Also, solidarity is not done any justice by taking sides. In fact, by taking sides you are only favouring the top of the pecking order, by perpetuating a status quo that only serves them.

What are you talking about? Taking sides? So we shouldn't have opinions in case we offend somebody? I don't really see how the status quo benefits ordinary palestinians at all. Please, enlighten me.

And, fyi, when one side has a billions-of-dollars army and is targeting and killing hundreds of innocent children, and the other side is a population living with 2 hours of electricity per day with no dignity, i'll take the latter side all day of the week thank you.

[Ismail]

Corruption and nepotism were pretty normal in Yugoslavia,IMO nepotism in this case is if brothers and sisters or sons and daughters are getting positions, which wasn't the case in Albania, I'm not sure if that applies to Yugoslavia as well.

I say this because the wives of prominent party leaders took an active part in the affairs of the Communist Party and the National Liberation War before they were married to their husbands. In no bourgeois work I've read was Hoxha's wife ever considered a potential successor (ditto other leaders' families.)

Furthermore the wives in question had positions which were important but were also appropriate for them. Vito Kapo for instance headed the Women's Union of Albania, while Fiqrete Shehu headed the V.I. Lenin Party School. Both had been tasked with organizational and ideological work during the war, so it's not surprising that they'd continue with such work afterwards. But as for the most important leadership body (the Politburo), they were never in it.

To compare that with Romania: Elena Ceaușescu was a Politburo member, Nicolae's brother Ilie had de facto control over much of the military, his other brother Ion was a member of the Council of Ministers (i.e. cabinet), and Nicolae's son Nicu was seen as a probable successor alongside Elena.

[TheEmancipator]

IMO nepotism in this case is if brothers and sisters or sons and daughters are getting positions, which wasn't the case in Albania, I'm not sure if that applies to Yugoslavia as well.

I say this because the wives of prominent party leaders took an active part in the affairs of the Communist Party and the National Liberation War before they were married to their husbands. In no bourgeois work I've read was Hoxha's wife ever considered a potential successor (ditto other leaders' families.)

Furthermore the wives in question had positions which were important but were also appropriate for them. Vito Kapo for instance headed the Women's Union of Albania, while Fiqrete Shehu headed the V.I. Lenin Party School. Both had been tasked with organizational and ideological work during the war, so it's not surprising that they'd continue with such work afterwards. But as for the most important leadership body (the Politburo), they were never in it.

To compare that with Romania: Elena Ceaușescu was a Politburo member, Nicolae's brother Ilie had de facto control over much of the military, his other brother Ion was a member of the Council of Ministers (i.e. cabinet), and Nicolae's son Nicu was seen as a probable successor alongside Elena.

In terms of nepotism in Yugoslavia, there wasn't that much on the federal level, but what you did have is in multiethnic republics is a tit-for-tat system. So for example if a Bosnian Serb was fired, then a Bosniak would probably have to be demoted to appease fears of favouritism. Personally I think this held those republic back and only made matters worse as it helped develop the seperate ethno-religious identities that came to the fray during the fall of Yugoslavia. At the time, it probably made sense though

Also, in isolationist places like Western Bosnia where polygamy lasted well into the Tito years, there was a lot of nepotism due to a clan system, but this applies to a great deal of Balkan societies, ALbania still had its ''pyramid system'' with Enver Hoxha in the ultimate paternal role, whereas Tito was merely a figurehead for ''Brotherhood and Unity'' who had strong executive power while the Yugoslav federal system worked its magic behind him.

[jmlima]

...

If you don't give a shit about other struggles then don't expect me to give a shit about your unemployment. See, I don't actually believe what I just said, but it is the logical conclusion to your argument.

....

Which is why comments removed from the main discussion make for such good reading.

Going back, my comment was on the basis that in my view, left wing parties should prioritize local issues as being more relevant to the people at hand. And his was with the view to attract people to them.

But hey, I got to hand it to whoever devises the semblance of strategy for current left wing parties and movements, if its working really well for them it must be what people are looking for in them. Not sure what are all those texts written about re-inventing the left about.

[vijaya]

I'm in the process of getting the Green Left division of GPEW in my area fired up. The Green Party is, to me, the most popular and amplifying left wing political party of current. The leadership and current platform, it's true, are catering to the centre-left, but the policy and membership are increasingly leftist. I know a lot of people won't agree, but if you want to use your vote then, if the Greens are standing, they're your best bet.

I can't post links yet, but check out the Independent article from yesterday Election 2015: Green Party want to give disgruntled left-wing voters a new voice

[Ismail]

Also, in isolationist places like Western Bosnia where polygamy lasted well into the Tito years, there was a lot of nepotism due to a clan system, but this applies to a great deal of Balkan societies, ALbania still had its ''pyramid system'' with Enver Hoxha in the ultimate paternal role, whereas Tito was merely a figurehead for ''Brotherhood and Unity'' who had strong executive power while the Yugoslav federal system worked its magic behind him.I don't see how Hoxha had a "paternal role" for Albanians but Tito didn't for Yugoslavs. Furthermore Tito was proclaimed "President for life."

I think the difference in leadership style between Hoxha and Tito was more due to the fact that Yugoslavia, like the USSR and Eastern Europe ('cept Albania) after the 50s, was not a revolutionary society. When one denounces the doctrine that the class struggle is carried on under socialism (as the Yugoslav and Soviet revisionists did) and reduces the construction of communism to an increase in the number of personal cars and refrigerators and emulating the consumer culture of the West, then there's no real reason for a leader to be anything more than an arbiter between competing factions of a new bourgeoisie, as Tito, Brezhnev, etc. were.

And as an aside, in Albania the clan system only existed in the north. Hoxha and most other Party leaders were from the south.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Going back, my comment was on the basis that in my view, left wing parties should prioritize local issues as being more relevant to the people at hand. And his was with the view to attract people to them.

This assumes that any party will be local in nature. A party that is national or even regional will have to grapple with diverse struggles.


But hey, I got to hand it to whoever devises the semblance of strategy for current left wing parties and movements, if its working really well for them it must be what people are looking for in them. Not sure what are all those texts written about re-inventing the left about.

You're attempts to attribute the failure of the left over the past few decades as a consequence of international solidarity bear no relation to reality.

What you're arguing for (some sort of hyper-localism) is essentially predicated on the same logic as right-wing nationalism. Communists, however, recognise that we are united by class, not by geography, nation, race or whatever.

The greater solidarity we can have with other members of our class, be they an unemployed man from the Midlands in the UK or an orphaned girl living in Gaza (or whatever...), the more chance we have of being able to forge a united strategy as a class.

Whereas you just want to ignore the political aspect of class struggle and focus on attempting to improve isolated injustices.

[The Feral Underclass]

Do you think it is form fetishisation to reject the notion of the 'party' form altogether?

Don't you think it's curious that parties in their modern form (That leftist parties also tend to mimick) were a response to the needs of electioneering under bourgeois democracy, post- the advent of the capitalist state?

Don't you also think it's curious that in seeking to make a revolutionary break with capitalism, we time and again choose a vehicle whose specific purpose in historical context has been to fight bourgeois elections/win power in bourgeois institutions?

I'm not really sure I've followed what you're saying, but if I have I would say that it doesn't really matter what the word is you use to describe the organisation, it's the content, right? The form fetishisation only comes about when you priorities the party's organisational requirements, or attempt to incorporate them within your work within the class. That's why mass parties are such a counter-productive mode of organising and fails to understand what the class is as a social phenomenon and relationship. The notion that the class has to be in a party to be coherent and organised is form fetishism taken to its most obscene and dangerous conclusion.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The notion that the class has to be in a party to be coherent and organised is form fetishism taken to its most obscene and dangerous conclusion.

This is exactly what I was getting at. Is there a need for a party at all? Isn't the party a form of organisation that is, in its historical context of fighting elections and trying to gain state power, the complete antithesis to what communists actually want to achieve?

[The Feral Underclass]

But communists need an infrastructure in which to organise themselves.


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[Proteus2]

A new UK left party will not include Scotland. Scotland will vote to leave the UK on the 18th. All the energy and will is here in Scotland right now for a new mass workers party. Hopefully that party can work closely with others in the rUK. Amazing things are happening in Scotland right now. A new movement is being born.

[Zukunftsmusik]

A new UK left party will not include Scotland.

Why should a political organisation restrict itself to national borders?


Scotland will vote to leave the UK on the 18th. All the energy and will is here in Scotland right now for a new mass workers party. Hopefully that party can work closely with others in the rUK. Amazing things are happening in Scotland right now. A new movement is being born.

Ahahahaha

[Ismail]

Why should a political organisation restrict itself to national borders?It doesn't necessarily have to do so, but national tasks are often different in each country. A truly "international party" run from a single center and operating simultaneously in Senegal and Sudan, let alone Somalia and Sweden, would face numerous difficulties. The only ostensibly Leninist party I know of that claims to do such a thing is the Progressive Labor Party, which is based in the USA but has sections of itself in El Salvador and elsewhere.

Having a single party encompassing the working-class of England and Scotland (and Wales) is probably doable though and certainly desirable.

[Q]

A new UK left party will not include Scotland. Scotland will vote to leave the UK on the 18th. All the energy and will is here in Scotland right now for a new mass workers party. Hopefully that party can work closely with others in the rUK. Amazing things are happening in Scotland right now. A new movement is being born.
It would be a complete disaster for the Scottish working class if Scotland were to go independent. But hey, enjoy your fantasy land for a little while longer.