Marxist world splits from CWI

[LeninistIthink]

I'll probably post this in the CWI section but I was wondering what revleft thinks on Marxist World leaving, and on the day when Kshama Sawant is re-elected too, link here: http://marxistworld.net/2015/11/split-from-the-socialist-partycwi-and-where-we-stand/ , anyone going to join?

[Sasha]

What i think? Trots going to trot i guess, so we are going to have another 25 member sect, its pathetic, but apperently inherent to trot organisations, im just glad im not in the party building buisness...

[The Feral Underclass]

Most splits seem to shrivel up and die eventually. I don't know why this is a particular phenomenon of splits, but it seems to be true.

[LeninistIthink]

What i think? Trots going to trot i guess, so we are going to have another 25 member sect, its pathetic, but apperently inherent to trot organisations, im just glad im not in the party building buisness...

We split from the Socialist Party/CWI partly with regret because of the history of “Trotskyism” and the seemingly endless history of splits and splits of splits. For example, in recent years the SWP has had two splits and Workers Power three. They seem to know about all the splitting, but then again so claims near every trotskyist group. I wonder what GMM's view on this is

[LeninistIthink]

Most splits seem to shrivel up and die eventually. I don't know why this is a particular phenomenon of splits, but it seems to be true.

Probably because it's really depressing and just soul crushing leaving a group you've been in for years and then faced with no one on earth hearing you, I suppose some just give up

[pax et aequalitas]

What is the use of 'uniting' in parties if people are splitting of when having a different opinion on a single small issue. A group barely noteworthy splitting into even smaller groups seems incredibly pointless to me. Do such people realise that their splitting is pretty much irrelevant to anything.

It's Monty Python's People's Front of Judea all over again.

[Sasha]

Think it is an interesting question though, what makes trot (and to a lesser extend ml and maoist) groups so prone to splitting? I have seen anarchist groups falling out but never split in the way trots do, is it the dissonance between centralism and democracy? dogmatism? making the personal ideological? Tradition? Wut?
Is there a inherent fault in trot organizing that can be avoided by a new praxis and theory?
There are many good people under trots and i would wish they wouldnt get burned up in this endless self destructive cycle...

[Lord Testicles]

I imagine a spit is something to do, something to make everyone involved feel like they're politically relevant for a couple of days. I mean, there has got to be a reason why none of us know how to encourage large sections of our class to organise and fight for an existence free from the drudgery and poverty of capitalism and maybe it's because Bob, Alice and Derrick don't follow the correct line on trade unions.

[Sasha]

are there useful articles on this phenomenon? i mean, anarchist are often self criticizing to the extreme on everything like tactics, violence, conflict resolution etc etc yet trots e.a. are always only pointing to idealogical stuff, the "correct line" while by now anyone (except the trots it seems) should be able to see this is about something completely else...

[Art Vandelay]

Splits aren't necessarily a bad thing, as they can serve the purpose of separating revolutionaries from social-democratic elements within the workers movement. The only basis for common political work, to a Marxist, is programmatic agreement; if that isn't there, then there is no real sense hanging around in an organization. As someone who is quite familiar with this group, given the fact that I was a member of the CWI when all this first went down and found myself in agreement with a lot of the criticisms of Wallace and the group of 11, I'm surprised that this didn't happen sooner.

In all honesty, I'd argue that despite having insightful economic analysis and some insight on the reformist tendencies of the CWI, MW isn't nearly hard enough on the group and stuck around for far too long. They failed to take away a correct understanding of the failure of the CWI approach to party building and stand in agreement with some of its most anti-worker positions (cops being workers in uniform, for example, or the absurd positions on China, etc).

I think some folks on here are being a bit hard on Wallace, Dobbs, and whoever else from the group of 11 is behind this new group, for splitting. What were they supposed to do? The CWI leadership effectively expelled these folks under a different name. I suppose they could have hung around the periphery of the CWI for years, but what would be the point of that, when they've come to the correct understanding that the organization has abandoned Marxist economic analysis?

[Emmett Till]

I'll probably post this in the CWI section but I was wondering what revleft thinks on Marxist World leaving, and on the day when Kshama Sawant is re-elected too, link here: http://marxistworld.net/2015/11/split-from-the-socialist-partycwi-and-where-we-stand/ , anyone going to join?

Read their statement, here's the key part.

"Furthermore, we reject the notion that the Labour Party is a bourgeois party, no different to the Conservatives. Whilst the direction of the Labour Party was certainly towards an American style Democratic Party, this process of bourgeoisification did not complete, and in fact is beginning to reverse under Corbyn at this time. We regard the Labour Party as a bourgeois-workers Party, and therefore regard the idea of building another reformist electoral Party, such as TUSC, as a mistake."

They've been a house opposition for a while, correctly IMHO if not very fundamentally defending classic Marxist economics vs. the underconsumptionism of the CWI. But the Corbyn phenom had had a big impact on the Brit left, with much of it wanting to jump on the bandwagon (the Workers Power group simply dissolved altogether to join the BLP).

It's tricky to jump on the Corbyn bandwagon if you think the Labour Party is a bourgeois party as the CWI does. Actually, the CWI is trying to jump on the bandwagon too, but has had to perform some weird contorsions. So these guys think it's time to leave what they think will soon be a sinking ship.

[Guardia Rossa]

Before the Bolshevik revolution most communist parties had various ideological trends within themselves. This proves that sectarianism is not "natural" to the marxist ideology (And neither dogmatism, cry anti-marxists). When the second international betrayed communism, almost all the communist remnants turned themselves to Bolchevism, and only when Lenin died did came the attempt to find and make universal the "Most Correct" version of Marxism. This resulted in dogmatism, wich led all other currents to become increasingly sectarian.

It is undoubtedly important to split if the party becomes increasingly revisionist, to purge revisionists once in a while, but if the Party GenericTrotskysm #338(Marxist-Bolshevik-Trotskyst-Internationalist-Cokeist though) declares war on the Party of GenericTrotskysm#356(Marxist-Bolshevik-Trotskyst-Internationalist-Pepsist though) because one party members drinks Coke and the other party members drinks Pepsi, it becomes stupid sectarianism.

Different ideas in a democratic confrontation can and will eventually result in better and stronger ideas. We need to unite all Marxists in a unified Communist Party and have democracy within this party. Only this way we can have voice as a unified group and can generate the much-needed new ideas.

I think the first step is to stand against the most foolish and damaging oppositions of all: the Stalin vs Trotsky one. It is the biggest causes of sectarianism. If we remediate this and manage to get "Stalinists" and "Trotskysts" together, we pretty much solve the problem.

[Comrade Jacob]

Think it is an interesting question though, what makes trot (and to a lesser extend ml and maoist) groups so prone to splitting? I have seen anarchist groups falling out but never split in the way trots do, is it the dissonance between centralism and democracy? dogmatism? making the personal ideological? Tradition? Wut?
Is there a inherent fault in trot organizing that can be avoided by a new praxis and theory?
There are many good people under trots and i would wish they wouldnt get burned up in this endless self destructive cycle...

Because Trotskyists can't agree on what permanent revolution is.

[Emmett Till]

Before the Bolshevik revolution most communist parties had various ideological trends within themselves. This proves that sectarianism is not "natural" to the marxist ideology (And neither dogmatism, cry anti-marxists). When the second international betrayed communism, almost all the communist remnants turned themselves to Bolchevism, and only when Lenin died did came the attempt to find and make universal the "Most Correct" version of Marxism. This resulted in dogmatism, wich led all other currents to become increasingly sectarian.

It is undoubtedly important to split if the party becomes increasingly revisionist, to purge revisionists once in a while, but if the Party GenericTrotskysm #338(Marxist-Bolshevik-Trotskyst-Internationalist-Cokeist though) declares war on the Party of GenericTrotskysm#356(Marxist-Bolshevik-Trotskyst-Internationalist-Pepsist though) because one party members drinks Coke and the other party members drinks Pepsi, it becomes stupid sectarianism.

Different ideas in a democratic confrontation can and will eventually result in better and stronger ideas. We need to unite all Marxists in a unified Communist Party and have democracy within this party. Only this way we can have voice as a unified group and can generate the much-needed new ideas.

I think the first step is to stand against the most foolish and damaging oppositions of all: the Stalin vs Trotsky one. It is the biggest causes of sectarianism. If we remediate this and manage to get "Stalinists" and "Trotskysts" together, we pretty much solve the problem.

The one example of Stalinists & Trotskyists in the same party, despite the hundreds of thousands of corpses in the way, that I can really think of is the American WWP/PSL. Who split over--er what was it they split over again? That split came about as close to splitting over Coke vs. Pepsi as any split I can think of.

Most splits among so called "trots," including the one that generated this thread, are over important issues. If you can't make up your mind whether the British Labour Party is a capitalist party or not, no group in England is ever going to get anywhere.

Anarchist organizations don't split as often, because "anarchist organization" is something of a contradiction in terms anyway, so why bother to split something that often barely exists. When they do split, it's usually over stupid personality bullshit.

In fact, the political differences between the ostensibly Trotskyist organizations are usually a lot bigger than the differences between, say, the Republican and Democratic Party in America. What is unnatural is attempts to hold people with completely different programs in actuality, despite "Trotskyist" official labels, together in one party, creating confusion and paralysis.

Which is why all attempts at left coalitionism anywhere result in either the most right wing group in the coalition essentially swallowing the others, SYRIZA being the most horrible example, or collapse after a while with the component parts ending up weaker and more demoralized than before the unity fiasco, as in the innumerable "left unity" stunts that have damaged the British left so badly.

[Sasha]

Its not that i disagree, i then just wonder why you hang on to the illusion you can form a mass party, by that logic a trotskyst party (of more than 50) is even more impossible than those anarchist organizations you laugh aside...

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Its not that i disagree, i then just wonder why you hang on to the illusion you can form a mass party

We don't. That's the neo-Kaut line, a "mass party of the entire class". Our line is - principled splits and principled fusions, so that a party (there is no Leninist-Trotskyist party anywhere, mind, just fighting propaganda groups) of committed cadre can act as a pole of attraction for militant workers during times of revolutionary upswing.

As for splits, they happen. What else do people expect? If you can't work together, then you must work separately - or not work at all, which is why all groups that refuse to split end up doing bugger all (Solidarity/US, for example).

[Sasha]

So you are essentially activists that waste most of your time splitting marx beard hairs for the greater good?
This makes no sense

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

So you are essentially activists that waste most of your time splitting marx beard hairs for the greater good?
This makes no sense

"For the greater good"? Um, no. The point is that we care about unity of our political line more than we care about the number of members we have. If we can't agree on a single line, we won't be able to attract workers when they start moving against capitalism. I don't understand what you find baffling about it.

[Emmett Till]

So you are essentially activists that waste most of your time splitting marx beard hairs for the greater good?
This makes no sense

Marx beard hairs? I don't think so.

OK, let's take a concrete example. A lot of leftists, including plenty ostensible Trotskyists, are supporting the Kurdish PKK/PYG vs. all its enemies domestic and foreign without exception, despite its current alliance with US imperialism.

Others, not as many, think that, to use that old Maoist phase, US imperialism is "the main enemy," and so don't.

Do you, Sasha, think that both sides should just get together happily in a united left wing organization, let bygones be bygones?

[LeninistIthink]

Seems the others got here before me but a good analogy would be trains on a line. Unless the line splits and one train goes in another direction you have unity for a few seconds, then a whole lot of paperwork and compensation to pay to grieving families, two trains going for a collision can't stick on the same damn line.

[Sasha]

Sure, but why then insist on keep building trains if you could also buildt a bycicle network in the sunshine?

I see why trots split and i commend them for not being a hive mind but i fail to see why then no one gets that they are pushing a square through a round hole if they try to keep building a mass party.
I mean, the catholic church is shit but a thousand gnostic sects are useless, even if their religious views are less reactionary...

[blake 3:17]

I always tended to think that splits were kind of stupid, and I did take part part in a couple of regroupment/unity things which had varying successes. Major fall outs used to be over the USSR and the relationship to social democratic parties and this or that movement controversy of the day. Some folks would elevate these to matters of absolute principle, and some of us would take a bit more of a pragmatic approach.

One of the intellectual appeals of Trotskyism has been its sharp debates, a lot of which I find very dull at this point, but in their own way are quite attractive. And those debates spill over into strategy. In the 90s I was branch secretary for one group and then I don't what I was for another (I picked up the mail and read and sorted it (in a not very organized way haha)) and it was amazing to be reading all this stuff from around the world - particularly the movements in Asia which you just didn't hear about at all, but also debates around struggles in the US, Europe, Latin America, and some from Africa, mostly South Africa and Egypt.

My own orientation was pretty 'movementist' and not so concerned with ideological purity & I'd mostly find myself in disputes with comrades who were IS type Leninists & getting on better with a lot of anarchists and feminists.

I'd pretty much detached myself from all that when the Martin Smith/ Comrade Delta crisis in the British SWP happened and I was a bit shocked at how hard that hit me. I thought the SWP were fucked, but it was like wow! they're really fucked and I can see these patterns all over the place. Not necessarily in the form of sexual assault but the spin doctoring and denial of reality.

Anyways...

[Art Vandelay]

Sure, but why then insist on keep building trains if you could also buildt a bycicle network in the sunshine?

I see why trots split and i commend them for not being a hive mind but i fail to see why then no one gets that they are pushing a square through a round hole if they try to keep building a mass party.
I mean, the catholic church is shit but a thousand gnostic sects are useless, even if their religious views are less reactionary...

The Trotskyist position isn't to build a mass organization. That's not what we're trying to do.

The fact that there are a handful of ostensibly Trotskyist organizations running around like chickens with their heads cut off attempting to build one, doesn't undercut what I stated above. That approach has nothing in common with the approach to party building advocated by Lenin and Trotsky. The most important lesson Lenin drew from the degeneration of the second international was that there is a material basis for opportunism in the worker's movement, which is precisely why we don't seek to build a mass party outside of revolutionary situations.

During historical periods characterized by a regression of class consciousness, like the one we currently find ourselves in, the best we can do is to form fighting propaganda groups, prioritize our resources, and focus on cadre development. Our task is to create a disciplined and minority political vanguard. Both Lenin and Trotsky understood quite well that if you seek to create a mass organization outside of revolutionary situations, there will be something inherently non-revolutionary about your program. The fact that groups like the CWI/IMT/IST/ fail to grasp this elementary point of Leninist thought, is due to their own inability or unwillingness to seriously grapple with the works of Lenin and Trotsky.

There is no shortcut to building a revolutionary organization and it is only when particular conditions arise - when people are acting in an objectively revolutionary fashion, regardless of where their sympathies lie on a subjective level - that the doors of the party are thrown open and membership swells.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Sure, but why then insist on keep building trains if you could also buildt a bycicle network in the sunshine?

Because we're trying to get somewhere you can't get to on bike.

Which doesn't stop some groups from trying this broad-church approach. The Workers' Power group in the UK (the US Workers' Power being a precursor to Solidarity, if I'm not mistaken) was pretty notorious for it. They still did't get anything done - how could they? They have to water down their message until it's palatable to the "anti-globalisation" milieu. Well if you're going to do that, why not be an honest social-democrat or even liberal? Turns out a lot of WP members asked themselves the same question because the group has been haemorraging members until they barely exist these days.


I see why trots split and i commend them for not being a hive mind but i fail to see why then no one gets that they are pushing a square through a round hole if they try to keep building a mass party.

Again, though, we're not. Not at this point. At this point the goal is to transform what are at best fighting propaganda groups into a nucleus of a vanguard party. When the revolutionary situation comes, that party will become a mass party, not because it will admit people of various tendencies but precisely because of its clearly-defined ideological position, with which it will be a pole of attraction to all workers who are moving in a revolutionary direction.

If you're interested in our position, Jim Cannon laid out the basics in his 1967 article (https://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1967/party.htm).

[Spectre of Spartacism]

Its not that i disagree, i then just wonder why you hang on to the illusion you can form a mass party


We don't. That's the neo-Kaut line, a "mass party of the entire class". Our line is - principled splits and principled fusions, so that a party (there is no Leninist-Trotskyist party anywhere, mind, just fighting propaganda groups) of committed cadre can act as a pole of attraction for militant workers during times of revolutionary upswing.


I see why trots split and i commend them for not being a hive mind but i fail to see why then no one gets that they are pushing a square through a round hole if they try to keep building a mass party.

I think it is clear from this sequence of posts that you keep misreading what the Trotskyist position is. Trotskyists don't create mass parties. The class struggle does. Trotskyists try to create a vanguard to lead the mass party when the class struggle makes it possible.


The fact that groups like the CWI/IMT/IST/ fail to grasp this elementary point of Leninist thought, is due to their own inability or unwillingness to seriously grapple with the works of Lenin and Trotsky

This over-intellectualizes the process. It's not as though he problem is purely intellectual. The groups do what they because they, too, are subject to the same pressures of monopoly capitalism and its material basis for opportunism that the rest of the working class is. But I guess if you wipe the material basis for these issues to one side, it's easier to personalize and demonize, not that this is what you are doing here.

[WideAwake]

Dear comrades, sorry for this very long post but the thing is that I get real real desperate of how USA will probably be the same thing, without any change, with Mcdonalds all the place, with a few celebrities living a life of parties and pleasures. While about 200 million humans in USA are literally punished and forced to live a life of working, working and zero happiness.

I really in my head cannot understand the real cause of the extreme, extreme extreme conformism and extreme extreme anti-politics mentality of the majority of people in America (who because of their life very low in living standards, very low or with zero possibility of reaching self-realization should be more radical, more angry, more communists than Che Guevara

Yeah you are right about how depressive and emotionally destructive is to know a lot about politics, communism, marxism, to be motivated toward a radical change, maybe for 2020 elections, but with very little comrade support because the left of US is very divided, and not only very divided, the internet leftists of Facebook and social networks have this tendency to only support famous leftist celebrities (Like Jill Stein, Chris Hedges, Amy Goodman). And outside of the internet is depressing as well, because the low-wage blue collar poor working classes (Mcdonalds workers, supermarket workers, delivery pizza workers, are too anti-politics, too quiet, too uncommunicative. You cannot strike a conversation with them. I am poor, that's why I am ultra-leftist, and I live in a poor neighborhood, and most people are either part of the lower-class or part of the lower layer of the middle class (which is a very depressive and sad class, because I've noticed that among them are nurses, some office workers etc. and they are ultra-eager to move to middle-middle class or upper-middle class, but they will never be able to move up from lower-middle class to upper middle class, because in the whole current oligarchical plutocratic neoliberal economic model we have right now it is totally impossible to move from lower-classes to a doctors and lawyers 150,000 dollars a year to 200,000 dollars per year upper-middle class. And that's why I've noticed the extreme avoidant behaviours in nurses, sad faces, many young people of that class letting themselves grow a beard as a mask to evade eye-contact and social-contact when they are doing their grocery shopping at supermarkets.

Yesterday I was at Wal Mart with my family and I saw this nurse, she was beautiful and nice looking but very sad, because under the capitalist current economic model nurses have to work 12 hours per day. Life for most workers in USA is a lot more painful than the life for the workers of poorer countries, because they work less. There is no happiness in America for most people even if they can own a BMW, and nice TVs because the daily lives of americans is a hell of work, work and work

Since most economically oppressed people of USA are so quiet (silence is a trait of mysanthropy, a trait of of anti-friendly mentality, and a trait of personal depression, personal frustration from working too much and living in a country that provides zero parties, zero pleasures, zero music concerts, zero beaches, zero fun to woirkers,), since they are sucking up their suffering in silence, in their muteness.

So all that excess of pain created by living in the USA, can even destroy revolutionary passions. The excess of sadness and depression is so big in America that even destroys motivation for people to even support Bernie Sanders. People have an amount of limited energies, and most americans just cannot cope with the hell of the life that they are forced to live in this super exhausting hell

So because the lower layer of the middle class is so angry, un-social and depressed (because they are forced to live in lower-class neighborhoods because of lower apartments, houses mortgatge and/or rent monthly bills, lower electricity bills etc. but since they consider themselves part of the doctors and lawyers middle class, they hate with a passion the lower-income class people (fast food workers etc) since lower middle class people cannot rise up toward upper middle class, and since they hate lower-class people that part of the middle class is very anti-communism and even anti-politics altogether. And then since the lower-income class is so physically tired, they are as well anti-politics. So both lower-class + lower-middle class by hating politics, by hating voting, by hating marxism, by hating socialism and by hating any political chat with people in their own neighboirhood, they will all support either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton for 4 more years of celebrities like Tom Cruise, George Clooney living a great life, the same USA, with Mcdonalds, Sonic, Taco Bells all over the place, in every corner of the country. Stupid Hollywood movies like more movies like Transformers, progressive liberals like David Pakman, Thom Hartmann, Michael Moore, Naomi Klein, Chris Hedges making cool anti-capitalism, anti-corporations TV shows and movies. Talking about climate change and all that blah blah blah. Cars getting real expensive (at 25,000 dollars, refrigerators at 1500 if new, at 600 if used, electricity at 250 dollars per month, red meat at 7 dollars per pound, regular cheddar cheese at 6 dollars per lb. Ham at 5 dollars per lb. eggs at 3 dollars per dozen. Police departments killing black people. And most of us here from revleft.com and other ultra-leftist sites and groups (who belong to the lower class and lower-middle class but who would like to rise to middle class full realized life, will have to wait 4 more years so that in 2020 Chelse Clinton, or Paul Ryan, or Taylor Swift or Daddy Yankee, or any other celebrity becomes our next president 2020-2024,


XJx9cQb_0U0
Ultra-leftists need an 100% worker's government as soon as possible

because we are a minority and we do want a dictatorship of the proletariat, a totally 100% worker's dictatorship, with nationalizations of corporations under worker's control, with free medical care, free college professions, cheap electricity, cheap apartments. And having the pleasure of observing the military of the worker's dictatorship government taking over the corporations of the Wal Mart owners (The Walton family), the corporations of Donald Trump, the corporations of Bill Gates and all the corporations of the upper classes of USA

But like i said, that is very hard to see because most poor people in USA, who by now should be leftists, at least supporters of The Green Party, or Bernie Sanders or any other anti-war third party. Are not even supporters of Donald Trump, of Jeb Bush and of Hillary Clinton. They are not even right-wingers. Most poor lower-class people in America are totally anti-politics. And by being away from politics they are really killing us all, killing all poor people, killing their own selves and killing their own family (What a suicidal society)

That's why Tony Gramsci hated people who were anti-politics

You will see at the end of the day that not even Bernie Sanders is going to be able to become president, because of the self-defeating personality disorders and the avoidant personality disorder of the left, of the working class and of the majority of people in America who are going down economically, but who are sucking up their low living standards in silence





Probably because it's really depressing and just soul crushing leaving a group you've been in for years and then faced with no one on earth hearing you, I suppose some just give up

[Sasha]

I think it is clear from this sequence of posts that you keep misreading what the Trotskyist position is. Trotskyists don't create mass parties. The class struggle does. Trotskyists try to create a vanguard to lead the mass party when the class struggle makes it possible.


i guess so, but from what i see from trot praxis is still seems you are making those thousand ineffective gnostic cults.
dont get me wrong, again i have no trust in the arch reactionary roman catholic (socdems) and russian orthodox churches (stalinists in this analogy) even while they at least get thing done but i completely fail to see how one or all off these bickering little sects will suddenly lead the people to paradise one day...
but then again, when it comes to marxism i'm far more partial to the autonomists (and to a certain extend the left-coms)

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

i guess so, but from what i see from trot praxis is still seems you are making those thousand ineffective gnostic cults.
dont get me wrong, again i have no trust in the arch reactionary roman catholic (socdems) and russian orthodox churches (stalinists in this analogy) even while they at least get thing done but i completely fail to see how one or all off these bickering little sects will suddenly lead the people to paradise one day...
but then again, when it comes to marxism i'm far more partial to the autonomists (and to a certain extend the left-coms)

Social-democrats and Stalinists get things done alright. Things we don't want to do. Joining with them makes about as much sense as joining the Church. (Although there have been attempts, bless'em. I think the German USEC section fused with the German Hoxhaist group at one point. )

And when there is a revolutionary situation, workers start moving to the left and they start joining the party whose line corresponds to the tasks of the revolution. This is obvious from e.g. the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks were not a sizable party before the revolution.

[OnFire]

Very sad news. What we need is a strong worker's party - not hundred weak parties not fighting the capitalists but each other.

[Sasha]

Social-democrats and Stalinists get things done alright. Things we don't want to do. Joining with them makes about as much sense as joining the Church. (Although there have been attempts, bless'em. I think the German USEC section fused with the German Hoxhaist group at one point. )

And when there is a revolutionary situation, workers start moving to the left and they start joining the party whose line corresponds to the tasks of the revolution. This is obvious from e.g. the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks were not a sizable party before the revolution.

i think its incredibly naive to think that in a modern revolutionary situation politicized workers will join any party, let alone some larp trot sect whose political output over the last decades consists of slagging off other sects.
shame so many good people keep wasting their time and energy with this crap.

[Spectre of Spartacism]

i think its incredibly naive to think that in a modern revolutionary situation politicized workers will join any party, let alone some larp trot sect whose political output over the last decades consists of slagging off other sects.

Why do you think workers will refuse to join any party? On what basis are you making that claim? During which revolutionary situation or mass radicalization in the past did workers not turn toward joining or forming or supporting a party organization through which to achieve their aims? (Even Anarchists have done so, though the organization they turned to in the most notorious example was a cross-class front. You can see similar behavior from "anarchists" and those sympathetic to them on this forum.)

This is why history is important, even if some want to pretend that invoking it is "larping." Past experience provides a basis on which to discern who is making an informed judgment about what is likely to happen in the future, and who is just moralizing and thinking wishfully (and all too often smuggling a whole host of bourgeois assumptions into their wishes).

[LeninistIthink]

Very sad news. What we need is a strong worker's party - not hundred weak parties not fighting the capitalists but each other.

Beware however of unity fetishism , often you can unite two parties into twenty .

[Emmett Till]

Because we're trying to get somewhere you can't get to on bike.

Which doesn't stop some groups from trying this broad-church approach. The Workers' Power group in the UK (the US Workers' Power being a precursor to Solidarity, if I'm not mistaken) was pretty notorious for it. They still did't get anything done - how could they? They have to water down their message until it's palatable to the "anti-globalisation" milieu. Well if you're going to do that, why not be an honest social-democrat or even liberal? Turns out a lot of WP members asked themselves the same question because the group has been haemorraging members until they barely exist these days.

And just now has dissolved altogether, and, excited by Corbyn, the remnants have joined the Labour Party.

Sic transit gloria mundi.



Again, though, we're not. Not at this point. At this point the goal is to transform what are at best fighting propaganda groups into a nucleus of a vanguard party. When the revolutionary situation comes, that party will become a mass party, not because it will admit people of various tendencies but precisely because of its clearly-defined ideological position, with which it will be a pole of attraction to all workers who are moving in a revolutionary direction.

If you're interested in our position, Jim Cannon laid out the basics in his 1967 article (https://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1967/party.htm).

Used to be all-encompassing parties at least had a basis, in mass working class parties held together by the belief that socialism was an unstoppable force of nature whose victory was inevitable. But that ended when the Second International, with Karl Kautsky as Pope, collapsed in WWI. With all too many of the workers of the world thinking that yes they did have fatherlands and that they therefore had something to lose other than their chains.

Nowadays, parties composed of diverse tendencies are a different notion, largely limited to "the west," where working people have been particularly demoralized in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR. Leading so many to believe that socialism might be a good idea in theory, but never works in practice.

So demoralized leftists seek to huddle together on their way out of politics, as they really don't care as much as they used to about their particular beliefs, including their previous belief that socialism is (a) a good thing and (b) possible to achieve.

When a revolutionary situation happens, they either collapse into their component parts, or disgrace themselves utterly. Like SYRIZA, which did a little of both.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Splits are often useful when there are a few parties, however the fact is that there are currently an absurd number of Trot sects, to the point that none of them are particularly notable.

Also, it makes me wonder how well the party tolerated internal debate. The fact is that the Bolsheviks had some serious internal disagreements despite their centralized line, and debating over these helped the party to decide on a course of action. I get the sense that many Trot sects are too centralized around one or a few theorists who largely already agree on everything, and those who disagree don't feel heard.

I think splits would be less damaging if the sects worked together more effectively to agitate politically. You shouldn't have to agree on whether or not China is a capitalist or a "worker's" state to organize a strike. If you actually think it's a worker's state, I'll tell you that that's nonsense, but at the end of the day I would rather work with such a person to achieve some tangible action over wallowing in ideological differences.


Why do you think workers will refuse to join any party? On what basis are you making that claim? During which revolutionary situation or mass radicalization in the past did workers not turn toward joining or forming or supporting a party organization through which to achieve their aims? (Even Anarchists have done so, though the organization they turned to in the most notorious example was a cross-class front. You can see similar behavior from "anarchists" and those sympathetic to them on this forum.)

I'm not sure if I agree with Sasha on this, but it's certainly true that alienated citizens these days have been leery of joining parties, aside from ideologically-vague "popular" parties like Podemos. It's also true that people aren't necessarily going to be crazy about joining a small sectarian party whose focused primarily on criticizing their fellow far left parties. People are justifiably skeptical of parties these days.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

"For the greater good"? Um, no. The point is that we care about unity of our political line more than we care about the number of members we have. If we can't agree on a single line, we won't be able to attract workers when they start moving against capitalism. I don't understand what you find baffling about it.

Isn't the fundamental problem here that if you prioritise unity to such narrow political lines over all else, you will become unstuck when you have to face the reality that even a politically conscious, pro-socialist working class would contain a myriad of 'political lines', many of which you may not fully agree with?

[Emmett Till]

Splits are often useful when there are a few parties, however the fact is that there are currently an absurd number of Trot sects, to the point that none of them are particularly notable.

Also, it makes me wonder how well the party tolerated internal debate. The fact is that the Bolsheviks had some serious internal disagreements despite their centralized line, and debating over these helped the party to decide on a course of action. I get the sense that many Trot sects are too centralized around one or a few theorists who largely already agree on everything, and those who disagree don't feel heard.

The Bolsheviks were a mass party, based in the working class. That in itself meant that it was possible for different points of view on subsidiary issues to coexist in the same party, as democratic centralism (a slogan devised originally by the Mensheviks, by the way) can work, as those outvoted would want to stay with the masses.

Small groups whose main function has to be propaganda cannot and should not stay together if you have any serious political disagreements, as arguing for their particular political line is basically what they do. Invariably, when the left is isolated as now, there will be many different organizations reflecting many different analyses and positions on a myriad questions.

When organizations begin to take root in the masses, it has a magnetic effect and the multiplicity of groups tends to resolve into the polarity of a mass reformist and a mass revolutionary party at war with each other, like the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and so many parallel situations.

Groups whose line is at variance with reality naturally tend to have dictatorial leaderships to prevent the rank & file from asking too many questions. The British SWP is a fine example of this. The fact that it was founded on the easily demonstratable fallacies of "state capitalism" led inevitably to a dictatorial internal regime culminating in the "comrade Delta" affair, just as, on a vastly larger scale, the theory of "socialism in one country" led naturally to the horrors of Stalinism.


I think splits would be less damaging if the sects worked together more effectively to agitate politically. You shouldn't have to agree on whether or not China is a capitalist or a "worker's" state to organize a strike. If you actually think it's a worker's state, I'll tell you that that's nonsense, but at the end of the day I would rather work with such a person to achieve some tangible action over wallowing in ideological differences.

Absolutely. Different political ideas ought not to prevent tactical unity in action. Indeed, what is a trade union, the usual organizer of strikes, but the very embodiment of a united front vs. the employer?

Same thing for defense campaigns for political prisoners and basically all concrete actions. Democratic centralism was originally devised by the Mensheviks as a trade union slogan. Strict discipline in action, democratic freedom of debate & discussion beforehand and afterwards!

The exact opposite, by the way, of the Occupy model, where you had the populist "one percent" political program enforced from top down by the manipulators of the mass meetings, but the anarchists calling for "diversity in tactics." Exactly backwards.


I'm not sure if I agree with Sasha on this, but it's certainly true that alienated citizens these days have been leery of joining parties, aside from ideologically-vague "popular" parties like Podemos. It's also true that people aren't necessarily going to be crazy about joining a small sectarian party whose focused primarily on criticizing their fellow far left parties. People are justifiably skeptical of parties these days.

Because of the experience of Stalinism. Which the world working class is only just beginning to wear off. However, the Occupy debacle, the Arab Spring debacle, and the SYRIZA debacle, with PODEMOS obviously up next, each demoralizing in themselves, may at least have the long term result of people realising again that political parties with clear programs are the only way to go.

Perhaps the Corbyn experience, as reformist as it is, could be the first sign of that realisation. Corbyn's program is merely parliamentary socialism, but at least he isn't a soggy SYRIZA-PODEMOS-Occupy style in the last analysis bourgeois populist. He wants a working class party committed to some sort of socialism at least.

[Spectre of Spartacism]

Splits are often useful when there are a few parties, however the fact is that there are currently an absurd number of Trot sects, to the point that none of them are particularly notable.

And most of them will be split along class lines when the struggle heats up, with the seasoned proletarian elements merging into the movement organically. You seem to think that each Trotskyist propaganda group that exists today envisions itself as being coronated the King of Communism. That is the view of some other posters on the forum, but it's not the Trotskyist view. Trotskyists seek to maximize the number of organized and steeled cadre in order to link up with the leadership that develops on its own with the workers' movement. Whether this leadership merges into a group called the Whatever Workers Independent League (40% off) or the Bugsy Malone Memorial Revolutionary Party is immaterial. Program informed by revolutionary theory, the guiding thread of the real movement, is paramount. When this program is undermined by principles that have been tested in practice to be betrayals or failures, splits are inevitable...and preferable to the alternative of sticking around.


Also, it makes me wonder how well the party tolerated internal debate. The fact is that the Bolsheviks had some serious internal disagreements despite their centralized line, and debating over these helped the party to decide on a course of action. I get the sense that many Trot sects are too centralized around one or a few theorists who largely already agree on everything, and those who disagree don't feel heard.Sometimes this is true. Other times it is not. Many of these groups are centrist, and can attract well meaning and actually very good people who for one reason or another are held back by questionable leadership in the group. The dissolving of these grouplets when the struggle heats up will take are of some of this.


I think splits would be less damaging if the sects worked together more effectively to agitate politically. You shouldn't have to agree on whether or not China is a capitalist or a "worker's" state to organize a strike. If you actually think it's a worker's state, I'll tell you that that's nonsense, but at the end of the day I would rather work with such a person to achieve some tangible action over wallowing in ideological differences.But these sects, for the most part, do "agitate politically." This is called the united front tactic. Trotskyists agitate with and work with working-class movements even if they aren't revolutionary and continue to have illusions in various bourgeois leaders.


I'm not sure if I agree with Sasha on this, but it's certainly true that alienated citizens these days have been leery of joining parties, aside from ideologically-vague "popular" parties like Podemos. It's also true that people aren't necessarily going to be crazy about joining a small sectarian party whose focused primarily on criticizing their fellow far left parties. People are justifiably skeptical of parties these days.And yet, as we speak, workers and young people in the UK are being drawn into the Labour Party. Workers and young people were drawn into Syriza, etc. There is simply no evidence for this idea that radicalizing workers and young people are averse to joining or supporting political parties. The claim that they do has all the trappings of a "theory" arrived at through wishful thinking, then imposed on reality.


Perhaps the Corbyn experience, as reformist as it is, could be the first sign of that realisation. Corbyn's program is merely parliamentary socialism, but at least he isn't a soggy SYRIZA-PODEMOS-Occupy style in the last analysis bourgeois populist. He wants a working class party committed to some sort of socialism at least.

Yet Corbyn will betray the British workers no less than the officials within SYRIZA. His election was not progress from a class struggle perspective, unless (as you seem to do) you conflate class struggle with voting for parliamentary bourgeois misleaders of bourgeois workers' parties who don't stand at the head of an independent class-struggle workers movement. Workers being wooed away from class struggle through politicians with (petty) bourgeois programs, standing astride the carcass of a workers' party, in order to placate workers and guide them back to the bourgeois parliamentary system is not any more politically progressive than (petty) bourgeois politicians with petty bourgeois programs, standing astride non-working-class parties, to do the exact same thing.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Groups whose line is at variance with reality naturally tend to have dictatorial leaderships to prevent the rank & file from asking too many questions. The British SWP is a fine example of this. The fact that it was founded on the easily demonstratable fallacies of "state capitalism" led inevitably to a dictatorial internal regime culminating in the "comrade Delta" affair, just as, on a vastly larger scale, the theory of "socialism in one country" led naturally to the horrors of Stalinism.

I don't really have the time to respond to the rest (and the prospect doesn't fill me with joy, shall we say; we've had this discussion many times on RL and one gets the impression that people are just going to say the same things a few months after this), but I think this is a very bad explanation. Never underestimate the ability of people to hold stupid positions, particularly if it enables you to get out of obligations you find distasteful (such as taking a correct side on the Korean war). Many groups developed or maintained a state-cap analysis independently of IS (including the apparently gone WP, which died on us just on the cusp of middle age). Was the IS/SWP a group with bad organisational practices? By all accounts it was but the same could have happened if they had been the most orthodox group in existence, and some groups share their awful politics without also sharing their internal regime.

[Emmett Till]

I don't really have the time to respond to the rest (and the prospect doesn't fill me with joy, shall we say; we've had this discussion many times on RL and one gets the impression that people are just going to say the same things a few months after this), but I think this is a very bad explanation. Never underestimate the ability of people to hold stupid positions, particularly if it enables you to get out of obligations you find distasteful (such as taking a correct side on the Korean war). Many groups developed or maintained a state-cap analysis independently of IS (including the apparently gone WP, which died on us just on the cusp of middle age). Was the IS/SWP a group with bad organisational practices? By all accounts it was but the same could have happened if they had been the most orthodox group in existence, and some groups share their awful politics without also sharing their internal regime.

"Bad line" and "line demonstrably wrong" are not the same thing. A group whose line is demonstrably out of line with reality, like those very "orthodox Trotskyist" Healyites with their many bizarre notions starting with Cuba as capitalist and profilerating, needs to have bad organizational practices to prevent the rank & file from asking too many questions.

A reformist organization does not automatically have to have a dictatorial internal regime, as reformism reflects the class interests of the upper layers of the working class.

I don't think we should ascribe the notoriously dictatorial British SWP regime to personal characteristics of the late Tony Cliff. The problems were that their oft radical rhetoric was wildly out of line with their actual program, and the "theoretical" edifice of state capitalism was out of line with reality.

This really hit home after the collapse of the USSR. If Cliff's theories were correct, that should have been, as they said at the time, a big lift to the workers of the world. The exact opposite was true, naturally. So the organization, very large then, started heading downhill and the regime got nastier and nastier.

State capitalism BTW has two varieties, the Social Democratic reformist variety pioneered by Karl Kautsky and adopted by the Cliffites, and ultraleftism like the Bordigaites and other "leftcoms," which we have a number of here on Revleft. They accept the Trotskyist analogy between the Soviet Union and the trade unions, which they consider bourgeois also. So leftcoms do not necessarily have to have a dictatorial internal regime, as they are at least politically consistent.

So in countries where the working class is suffering through deep social crises and unions are particularly bankrupt, like Russia and, I suspect, like Croatia,
the ultraleft variety of state capitalism is likely to have a certain appeal.

In Russia, where I have some familiarity, I've been there a couple times, there are plenty of state caps but the Cliffites never got off the ground, despite much effort.

[Emmett Till]

Isn't the fundamental problem here that if you prioritise unity to such narrow political lines over all else, you will become unstuck when you have to face the reality that even a politically conscious, pro-socialist working class would contain a myriad of 'political lines', many of which you may not fully agree with?

That's right, and pro socialist, politically conscious workers will be attracted to the particular organizations which embody the particular political lines out of myriad possibilities that they find valid.

Will they be attracted to an organization whose political line is unclear? Only if said organization can accomplish things in practice they find attractive, in which case many workers will consider that more important.

But an organization which does not have a clear political line will be thrown into confusion and paralysis when trying to do anything really important, as different people within the organization will want to do things differently, and without basic political agreement on the fundamentals, those who lose internal arguments be willing to do what those who win the votes insist on.

[WideAwake]

Guardia: you are right, humans tend to be group-narcissists. I think that's why there is sectarianism within the whole left of the world. Because humans tend to be group-narcissists.



Before the Bolshevik revolution most communist parties had various ideological trends within themselves. This proves that sectarianism is not "natural" to the marxist ideology (And neither dogmatism, cry anti-marxists). When the second international betrayed communism, almost all the communist remnants turned themselves to Bolchevism, and only when Lenin died did came the attempt to find and make universal the "Most Correct" version of Marxism. This resulted in dogmatism, wich led all other currents to become increasingly sectarian.

It is undoubtedly important to split if the party becomes increasingly revisionist, to purge revisionists once in a while, but if the Party GenericTrotskysm #338(Marxist-Bolshevik-Trotskyst-Internationalist-Cokeist though) declares war on the Party of GenericTrotskysm#356(Marxist-Bolshevik-Trotskyst-Internationalist-Pepsist though) because one party members drinks Coke and the other party members drinks Pepsi, it becomes stupid sectarianism.

Different ideas in a democratic confrontation can and will eventually result in better and stronger ideas. We need to unite all Marxists in a unified Communist Party and have democracy within this party. Only this way we can have voice as a unified group and can generate the much-needed new ideas.

I think the first step is to stand against the most foolish and damaging oppositions of all: the Stalin vs Trotsky one. It is the biggest causes of sectarianism. If we remediate this and manage to get "Stalinists" and "Trotskysts" together, we pretty much solve the problem.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

That's right, and pro socialist, politically conscious workers will be attracted to the particular organizations which embody the particular political lines out of myriad possibilities that they find valid.

Agreed.


Will they be attracted to an organization whose political line is unclear?

Nobody is saying that anybody would - this is a strawman.


Only if said organization can accomplish things in practice they find attractive, in which case many workers will consider that more important.

Perhaps, but this is the road to reformism, which is also the road to failure.


But an organization which does not have a clear political line will be thrown into confusion and paralysis when trying to do anything really important, as different people within the organization will want to do things differently, and without basic political agreement on the fundamentals, those who lose internal arguments be willing to do what those who win the votes insist on.

The point is not that a party/group should not have a clear political line. The point is that socialist democracy is enhanced by having a plurality of groups with a myriad of views on different topics. You can't tell me that a group of workers are defined as friends or enemies of socialism because of their view on the Labour Party, or on China, or on the USSR. Groups can come together as they wish, or not, but a healthy respect that each is of, by, and for the working class, despite some differences, is key to a thriving movement of politically conscious workers. I cannot, for example, as a white person represent black-British london kids in their fight against police brutality, nor be the spokesperson for LGBTQ rights. I can join forces with said groups when our combined economic and social positions are being threatened by the existence of capital and by austerity politics, but overall it is likely that our different social origins and different struggles will lead to some differences in political lines. That should not lead one group to claim the mantle of the 'true representatives of the workers' and to proclaim all other groups that even disagree on a minor detail are anti-socialist, reactionary, enemies of the workers etc.

[Emmett Till]

[QUOTE=Vladimir Innit Lenin;2856923
The point is not that a party/group should not have a clear political line. The point is that socialist democracy is enhanced by having a plurality of groups with a myriad of views on different topics. You can't tell me that a group of workers are defined as friends or enemies of socialism because of their view on the Labour Party, or on China, or on the USSR. Groups can come together as they wish, or not, but a healthy respect that each is of, by, and for the working class, despite some differences, is key to a thriving movement of politically conscious workers. I cannot, for example, as a white person represent black-British london kids in their fight against police brutality, nor be the spokesperson for LGBTQ rights. I can join forces with said groups when our combined economic and social positions are being threatened by the existence of capital and by austerity politics, but overall it is likely that our different social origins and different struggles will lead to some differences in political lines. That should not lead one group to claim the mantle of the 'true representatives of the workers' and to proclaim all other groups that even disagree on a minor detail are anti-socialist, reactionary, enemies of the workers etc.[/QUOTE]

Ah, you're changing the subject to a more interesting and more valid question. We were discussing plurality of political views *within* a revolutionary party. You instead want to discuss a more complicated question, namely should there be a plurality of revolutionary parties or just one?

Abstractly, plurality could be a good thing, especially *after* the revolution has finally completely succeeded. I have always assumed that in the future worldwide socialist federation, you would naturally tend to have a two party system, with one party wanting to focus primarily on cleaning up the environment and the other wanting to focus primarily on industrial development in order to put an end to poverty in the Third World ASAP, and if that means global warming, just deal with it.

But in the runup to a revolution, the natural polarity is between reformists and revolutionaries, and that kind of pluralism, though inevitable, is undesirable. Much better to only have a revolutionary party.

The kind of "multi-vanguardism" you advocate is wrong. Indeed, it is precisely the white workers who can be the most practically effective fighters against black oppression, and the straight workers who can be the most practically effective campaigners against repression of the sexually unconventional.

Unemployed, desperate black kids on London street corners should not be forced into the position of trying to be the vanguard in the struggle. That was the mistake of the Black Panther Party. I mean, look at the massive nonwhite youth rebellion in England a few years ago. How did that go? Not well.

Doubly oppressed *workers* are likely to be the vanguard of the Revolution. In America, the proletarianization of the black population after WWII means that black workers are liable to be the leading force in the American Revolution, but not as a separate black vanguard, which would make it harder for them to lead less conscious white workers in struggle. And the same applies to Latinos.

Not sure precisely how that concept would apply in England, but certainly immigrants all over Europe are more conscious of the oppressiveness of capitalist society than their European class brothers & sisters. But absolutely the last thing desirable is separate organization of the immigrants from the natives. That could only benefit both Islamophobic fascistoids and reactionary Islamic fanatics.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Ah, you're changing the subject to a more interesting and more valid question. We were discussing plurality of political views *within* a revolutionary party. You instead want to discuss a more complicated question, namely should there be a plurality of revolutionary parties or just one?

It's not complicated, and that's not my question. I'm not asking should there be, i'm asking will there be? And it looks likely that in a period of rupture with capitalism, the answer is yes.


Abstractly, plurality could be a good thing, especially *after* the revolution has finally completely succeeded.

But there won't be 'the' revolution. If there is to be a post-capitalist system, it will come about through many revolutions, since I know fuck all about the language and cultural details of many Middle Eastern countries, and vice versa. Our revolution will be different, potentially very different, to the revolutions that may be experienced in other parts of the world. I think to suggest otherwise consigns us to the fringes of society, dreaming up stories in our heads.


I have always assumed that in the future worldwide socialist federation, you would naturally tend to have a two party system, with one party wanting to focus primarily on cleaning up the environment and the other wanting to focus primarily on industrial development in order to put an end to poverty in the Third World ASAP, and if that means global warming, just deal with it.

I don't see any point in making assumptions. It's impossible to tell if they will ever be remotely true. Better to stick to evidence; for that, we need to look to the past.


But in the runup to a revolution, the natural polarity is between reformists and revolutionaries, and that kind of pluralism, though inevitable, is undesirable. Much better to only have a revolutionary party.

That's your opinion. You need to respect the views of others, though. Communism is about class struggle, not uniformity of opinion/belief on all subjects.


The kind of "multi-vanguardism" you advocate is wrong.

No. If we are going to talk about morality, then murder, rape, discrimination are 'wrong'. What i'm saying is not.


Indeed, it is precisely the white workers who can be the most practically effective fighters against black oppression, and the straight workers who can be the most practically effective campaigners against repression of the sexually unconventional.

Prove it. Where, ever in history, have you seen the privileged take the lead in the struggles of the oppressed and not royally fuck it up? Give me just one example, please.


Unemployed, desperate black kids on London street corners should not be forced into the position of trying to be the vanguard in the struggle.

This is borderline racist. Why do you think that all black kids in London are desperate, unemployed, and hang around on street corners? In fact this crosses the border and is straight up a racist caricature.


That was the mistake of the Black Panther Party.

Do you actually know why the BPP was formed? I'm just wondering because, if you did, then you would never make that comment.


I mean, look at the massive nonwhite youth rebellion in England a few years ago. How did that go? Not well.

You really hate non-white people, don't you?

[lutraphile]

Wonder what the name of the organization that splits from this group will be.

[OnFire]

I think one problem with trotskyist groups is that they encourage internal discussion, but do not accept plurality of opinion within them. This leads to groups being ostracized and fracture.

What I wish for is less sectarianism and more direct revolutionary action.

[Emmett Till]

...
But there won't be 'the' revolution. If there is to be a post-capitalist system, it will come about through many revolutions, since I know fuck all about the language and cultural details of many Middle Eastern countries, and vice versa. Our revolution will be different, potentially very different, to the revolutions that may be experienced in other parts of the world. I think to suggest otherwise consigns us to the fringes of society, dreaming up stories in our heads.

No doubt. But the polarity between revolution and reform is genuinely universal and timeless. That was true when Spartacus led the slaves of the Roman Empire in revolt, that was true when you had revolutions in Englqand in the 1640's and France in 1789 and Russia, China, and Cuba in the twentieth century, that will always be true when and where revolution and reform are on the agenda, i.e everywhere and everywhen until we achieve classless socialist society.


...
That's your opinion. You need to respect the views of others, though. Communism is about class struggle, not uniformity of opinion/belief on all subjects.

Perhaps you were thinking about the multivanguardism question discussed below, and were being a bit careless here, but in the immediate context, you are saying that we need to respect reformism, and accept a pluralism of both reformism and revolutionism. If that's what you mean, you are definitely wrong.


No. If we are going to talk about morality, then murder, rape, discrimination are 'wrong'. What i'm saying is not.

Hm? How did morality get in there? It is all too possible to be wrong about something without being a murderer or a rapist. Hey, I've been known to be wrong about stuff myself from time to time, I regret to say.


...
Prove it. Where, ever in history, have you seen the privileged take the lead in the struggles of the oppressed and not royally fuck it up? Give me just one example, please.

Sure. The Bolshevik Revolution. Was it the oppressed national minorities, the women, and the often desperately oppressed peasants who played the leading role? No, it was the Russian metalworkers of Petrograd, one of the better paid and most highly skilled workforces in Russia who played the leading role, leading the other, often considerably more oppressed sectors, behind them.

Which is not to say that they were labor aristocrats. The real labor aristocrats, paid much better than anyone else, were the printers, the only branch of the workforce where the Mensheviks dominated.


...
This is borderline racist. Why do you think that all black kids in London are desperate, unemployed, and hang around on street corners? In fact this crosses the border and is straight up a racist caricature.

Because of vicious racial oppression of course. What's your point?

Or do you think the minority youth rebellion in England was a smash success, something to be emulated? Despite its highly apolitical character, the absolute brick wall divide between it and the British working class, and the utter lack of any results except victimization of the rebels by the state?

Well, foolish as that is, I suppose that is better than the line of most of the Brit left, who basically supported the cops brutalizing black youth. The well named SPEW, which was parading cop "union leaders" on its platform, being the worst example, but most of the rest of the Brit left too.


...

Do you actually know why the BPP was formed? I'm just wondering because, if you did, then you would never make that comment.

You really hate non-white people, don't you?

Gah. What an ignorant comment.

Damn right I know all about how the BPP was formed. I live in Oakland, I know quite a few ex-Panthers, and I suspect I know vastly more about the BPP than you do.

The line of the BPP that the lumpenproletariat, i.e. desperate, jobless black kids in and out of jail, should be the vanguard of the revolution, was the downfall of the BPP, and you'd be hard pressed to find an ex-Panther who would disagree.

They can't be the vanguard of a revolution, the Panthers tried that and it absolutely didn't work. Indeed, if anything for a white radical of all people to try to push desperate black lumpenproletarians into the role of the vanguard of the revolution is what is borderline racist.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

No doubt. But the polarity between revolution and reform is genuinely universal and timeless. That was true when Spartacus led the slaves of the Roman Empire in revolt, that was true when you had revolutions in Englqand in the 1640's and France in 1789 and Russia, China, and Cuba in the twentieth century, that will always be true when and where revolution and reform are on the agenda, i.e everywhere and everywhen until we achieve classless socialist society.

This is a worldview that only holds if we accept that history is linear and determined. Looking at the world in the last 25 years, i'm not so sure that can be said to be the case any more.


Perhaps you were thinking about the multivanguardism question discussed below, and were being a bit careless here, but in the immediate context, you are saying that we need to respect reformism, and accept a pluralism of both reformism and revolutionism. If that's what you mean, you are definitely wrong.

That's not what i've said, at all.


Sure. The Bolshevik Revolution. Was it the oppressed national minorities, the women, and the often desperately oppressed peasants who played the leading role? No, it was the Russian metalworkers of Petrograd, one of the better paid and most highly skilled workforces in Russia who played the leading role, leading the other, often considerably more oppressed sectors, behind them.

The Bolshevik Revolution led to a deadly civil war, then to state-sponsored capitalism in the 1920s, and then to the brutality of the 'party dictatorship' and pact-signing with Hitler of the 1930s, before the slow restoration of capitalism from the 1950s onwards.

I'm not sure that's a model to aspire to.


Because of vicious racial oppression of course. What's your point?

Or do you think the minority youth rebellion in England was a smash success, something to be emulated? Despite its highly apolitical character, the absolute brick wall divide between it and the British working class, and the utter lack of any results except victimization of the rebels by the state?

I'm not sure how you can say that an uprising by the unemployed and the young during one of the deepest recessions and attacks on living standards of this generation, that was triggered by a protest against police brutality, had an 'apolitical character'. That only shows your contempt for the very people that your ideology is supposed to liberate; evidently your ideology is not underpinned by the liberation of working people, but of using Marxist terminology as a ploy to steal political power.

Gah. What an ignorant comment.


Damn right I know all about how the BPP was formed. I live in Oakland, I know quite a few ex-Panthers, and I suspect I know vastly more about the BPP than you do.

Well as long as that's what you suspect, who needs evidence?


The line of the BPP that the lumpenproletariat, i.e. desperate, jobless black kids in and out of jail, should be the vanguard of the revolution, was the downfall of the BPP, and you'd be hard pressed to find an ex-Panther who would disagree.

Who has said anything about the lumpenproletariat? The unemployed and the young who were on the streets in 2011 admittedly had elements of the lumpen attached to them, particularly in the copycat attacks around the country, but arguably the trigger of the protest was a deep-rooted political issue of racist policing in the UK.


They can't be the vanguard of a revolution, the Panthers tried that and it absolutely didn't work. Indeed, if anything for a white radical of all people to try to push desperate black lumpenproletarians into the role of the vanguard of the revolution is what is borderline racist.

You're creating a strawman that doesn't exist. Further, you're also utilising a false dichotomy, as if there is only a choice between creating a new Lenin or allowing lumpenproles to take power. Never mind the idea of actual workers liberating themselves! :glare:

[Comrade #138672]

"Workers of the world, unite, and then split!" - Karl Marx

[Emmett Till]

This is a worldview that only holds if we accept that history is linear and determined. Looking at the world in the last 25 years, i'm not so sure that can be said to be the case any more.

That's not what i've said, at all.

Two statements that neatly contradict each other diametically. Thanks for the self-refutation!




The Bolshevik Revolution led to a deadly civil war, then to state-sponsored capitalism in the 1920s, and then to the brutality of the 'party dictatorship' and pact-signing with Hitler of the 1930s, before the slow restoration of capitalism from the 1950s onwards.

I'm not sure that's a model to aspire to.

OK, now you have pegged yourself nicely, as an opponent of the only successful for more than a few months working class revolution in history.

I note particularly that you said the revolution led to a "deadly civil war." True! Started by the reformists with whom you think that fighting against serves a "linear deterministic" mentality, backed by 14 imperialist armies, with the Whites murdering Jews and workers right and left.

And you say this was the fault of the Bolsheviks? Not the reactionaries, the imperialists, and their reformist servants? Shame on you!



I'm not sure how you can say that an uprising by the unemployed and the young during one of the deepest recessions and attacks on living standards of this generation, that was triggered by a protest against police brutality, had an 'apolitical character'. That only shows your contempt for the very people that your ideology is supposed to liberate; evidently your ideology is not underpinned by the liberation of working people, but of using Marxist terminology as a ploy to steal political power.

Gah. What an ignorant comment.

Yes, it was triggered by oppression, and those who failed to solidarize themselves with it, like the majority of your Brit left with whom you want to unite in one party it seems, deserve thorough condemnation.

But saying it did not have a political character was simple fact, and any of the arrestees and other participants, if anyone ever bothered to ask their opinions instead of pontificating on their behalf without checking it out with them first, would have told you so I am quite sure. Tell me, Vladimir Imitation Lenin, have you ever talked to, or even laid eyes on, any of the youth rebels?

I'll do you the courtesy of assuming your answer is yes. So, just what was its political character? How was it expressed?

I'm pretty sure that, if you asked them, they would have denied the rebellion had a political character, that's what I've heard from British Spartacists I've asked.

After all, what form did it take? Attacks on police stations or city hall? No, simple property redistribution, taking stuff from department stores and such. I have nothing against that, they needed bikes and color TVs and laptops more than the regularly employed. But it's not a political program.



Well as long as that's what you suspect, who needs evidence?

Who has said anything about the lumpenproletariat? The unemployed and the young who were on the streets in 2011 admittedly had elements of the lumpen attached to them, particularly in the copycat attacks around the country, but arguably the trigger of the protest was a deep-rooted political issue of racist policing in the UK.

Well of course. Who faces police brutality more regularly and viciously than people on the wrong side of the law?

Who talks about the lumpenproletariat? The Black Panther Party, that's who! By Panther definitions, rather superior to yours I suspect, virtually all of the rebels were lumpens, and therefore according to the BPP line the vanguard of the revolution.

Since you seem to know less than nothing about the BPP, here's the website of the Panther survivors. I recommend that you study what the Panthers believed
before further attempts to take their name in vain.

http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/home/home.html



You're creating a strawman that doesn't exist. Further, you're also utilising a false dichotomy, as if there is only a choice between creating a new Lenin or allowing lumpenproles to take power. Never mind the idea of actual workers liberating themselves! :glare:

Actual workers liberating themselves was an idea the BPP, despite its many merits, simply did not believe in and saw as a white left delusion.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Two statements that neatly contradict each other diametically. Thanks for the self-refutation!

I said nothing of the sort, but thanks for the heads up that you're going to attempt to 'win' the argument with less-than-subtle tricks of logic.



OK, now you have pegged yourself nicely, as an opponent of the only successful for more than a few months working class revolution in history.

Opponent? The Soviet Union has been dead for 24 years.


I note particularly that you said the revolution led to a "deadly civil war."

I appreciate your particular noting, and your agreement.


True! Started by the reformists with whom you think that fighting against serves a "linear deterministic" mentality, backed by 14 imperialist armies, with the Whites murdering Jews and workers right and left.

And you say this was the fault of the Bolsheviks? Not the reactionaries, the imperialists, and their reformist servants? Shame on you!

I'm not sure how you've turned a reasonable quoting of my position into a frothing-at-the-mouth defence of Bolshevism at all costs. You may as well save typing 'shame' at me because this isn't an argument about morality and, as I have said, the USSR has been dead for a quarter of a century so i'm not sure 'shaming' me into holding a 'better' historical view is really a valid tactic here.


Yes, it was triggered by oppression, and those who failed to solidarize themselves with it, like the majority of your Brit left with whom you want to unite in one party it seems, deserve thorough condemnation.

I've never said I want anyone to unite in one party, just to be clear. Another inaccurate point made by you.


But saying it did not have a political character was simple fact, and any of the arrestees and other participants, if anyone ever bothered to ask their opinions instead of pontificating on their behalf without checking it out with them first, would have told you so I am quite sure.

You're assuming that someone only acts due to political factors if they have first read Marx, or Lenin, or already have political consciousness. If that was the case, how would anyone who is not already politically conscious ever achieve such consciousness? The specific actions taken by the rioters had no political content, but it's undeniable that the riots were caused by intensely political factors, namely the consequences of a terrible recession and the anticipated effects of austerity politics that led to extreme alienation for that part of society that ended up rioting.


Tell me, Vladimir Imitation Lenin, have you ever talked to, or even laid eyes on, any of the youth rebels?

I'm not sure if you're aware but this is a computer so nobody is telling each other anything. And fyi every day. And if you want to 'imagine' telling, imagine that your snide, condescending question received that answer in an equally snide, condescending way.


Who talks about the lumpenproletariat? The Black Panther Party, that's who! By Panther definitions, rather superior to yours I suspect, virtually all of the rebels were lumpens, and therefore according to the BPP line the vanguard of the revolution.

Since you seem to know less than nothing about the BPP, here's the website of the Panther survivors. I recommend that you study what the Panthers believed
before further attempts to take their name in vain.

http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/home/home.html

If you've even had the most cursory glance of the BPPs 10 point plan then you'll understand that these were not two-bit, thick-as-shit criminals from the lumpenproletariat that formed the intellectual basis of the BPP, but people who had a clear political consciousness and who understood that class was as important as race in liberating African-Americans.

[Emmett Till]

Iwrote,

"Tell me, Vladimir Imitation Lenin, have you ever talked to, or even laid eyes on, any of the youth rebels?"

You answered,



....I'm not sure if you're aware but this is a computer so nobody is telling each other anything. And fyi every day. And if you want to 'imagine' telling, imagine that your snide, condescending question received that answer in an equally snide, condescending way....


In other words, no.

Thanks for clearing that up!

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Iwrote,

"Tell me, Vladimir Imitation Lenin, have you ever talked to, or even laid eyes on, any of the youth rebels?"

You answered,



In other words, no.

Thanks for clearing that up!

If you want to continue to follow me around mis-quoting me and general showing yourself to be a little thick, then let me know so that I can block your posts. I suggest you make better use of your time, for example by getting your grammar and punctuation skills up to scratch. :rolleyes:

[Emmett Till]

If you want to continue to follow me around mis-quoting me and general showing yourself to be a little thick, then let me know so that I can block your posts. I suggest you make better use of your time, for example by getting your grammar and punctuation skills up to scratch. :rolleyes:

Yawn...

Oops, almost committed a cardinal Revleft sin there.

Do whatever you like, knock yourself out. Do try not to be boring.

[Fourth Internationalist]

I suggest you make better use of your time, for example by getting your grammar and punctuation skills up to scratch. :rolleyes:

How original.