Why Can't We Unify?

[jdneel]

Never mind the thought of a broad left coalition, we Trotskyists can't even seem to cooperate within our various parties and organizations. SAlt, ISO, SEP and others I may have missed have much more in common with each other than they have differences but try to get them together for a common goal. Constant squabbling amongst ourselves is not conducive to the overthrow of capitalism. Workers of the world unite!


Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[Raul Castro]

it is because these parties are headed by people in their 70s, they are from the ear when stalin was actually alive, and communism actually was a real political movement, we should use this site for us young people to start uniting the parties, I am a member of the SWP that doesn't call itself that but we basically are do you know any parties we should unify with make sure they are rlly similar

[jdneel]

As I understand it, the SWP has pretty much abandoned Trotskyism. Correct me if I am wrong. As far as I can tell, it it the only Castroist party in the US.
I'm not being disrespectful. Castro achieved the near impossible in throwing off the yoke of US imperialism and who doesn't appreciate the example set by Che Guevara?
I just don't believe Cuba's revolutionary model has any relevance to the US or Western Europe for example. Cuba's revolution was achieved by
small bands of dedicated guerillas striking from their mountain strongholds. Castro also was primarily a nationalist.
Answering your question - Socialist Alternative, the Socialist Equality Party and International Socialist Organization are all very similar in message. Their main differences appear to be in execution.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[(A)]

Book smart socialists argue over theory. I bet you if we all met on the street; Armed and across the pitch from some fascists; we would all see eye to eye at least for the skirmish.

[jdneel]

True, but we'd be much better off if we had a plan to deal with those fascists. That's where vanguardism comes in. The more knowledgeable Comrades train the newer recruits on how to deal with these situations.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[jdneel]

Side note to Raul Castro. On matters of agreement we should indeed work together. I appreciate your enthusiasm. Yes, the youth are the future of Socialism.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[GiantMonkeyMan]

There are a lot of legitimate theoretic and practical differences and more than a few petty personal ones that lead to the Trotskyist movement being divided. Some believed, as Trotsky himself did, that the Soviet Union was a workers state that had degenerated but ultimately still had the characteristics of a workers state and held the potential for workers to overcome the bureaucracy and re-establish themselves as the real power and so this meant that Trotskyists with these opinions would still offer 'support' for the Soviet Union as a workers state even as they offered criticism to the Stalinist bureaucracy. Some believed that the Soviet Union had degenerated into a form of state capitalism and so the Soviet Union was nothing more than another imperialist capitalist entity operating on the global level and so shouldn't receive the 'support' of Trotskyists.

Perhaps these sorts of stances mattered more during a period when the Soviet Union still existed but I always felt when I was a part of the CWI that it was almost an irrelevance. I was a member of the Socialist Party of England and Wales and we worked together in campaigns with the UK SWP. There was often a lot of petty disagreements that frustrated me and, I feel, turned off outsiders who wanted to get involved. There's not an easy solution to this.

[jdneel]

Is it really so hard to work together on issues we all agree on? Let's work toward the International Socialist Ideal and leave theoretical discussions of minute detail to internet forums and committee meetings where they belong.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Is it really so hard to work together on issues we all agree on? Let's work toward the International Socialist Ideal and leave theoretical discussions of minute detail to internet forums and committee meetings where they belong.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk
Many socialist groups do unify on basic principles and work together on campaigns. However, theory informs practice.

[jdneel]

Whether or not the former Soviet Union was a deformed worker's state or state capitalism informs most of us precious little. These are the type of issues that divide us.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think the real question ought to be around what this unity might look like, in practical terms. Are we talking about coalitions? If so, on what basis, for what duration? Are we talking about a singular party? If so, with autonomy for organizations/collectives within it, or with organizations dissolving themselves into a single body? Etc.

[jdneel]

All good questions. Good questions that must be explored. I have never seen so much interest in Socialism in my entire life. Polls are showing that young people in the US now have a more positive view of Socialism than Capitalism. Strike while the iron is hot!



Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[ckaihatsu]

Whether or not the former Soviet Union was a deformed worker's state or state capitalism informs most of us precious little. These are the type of issues that divide us.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk


Either way it's socialism-in-one-country, which is *backsliding* from the necessary initial 'workers of the world unite'.

We should see this issue as being *internal* to the revolutionary left and act appropriately to that.





I think the real question ought to be around what this unity might look like, in practical terms. Are we talking about coalitions? If so, on what basis, for what duration? Are we talking about a singular party? If so, with autonomy for organizations/collectives within it, or with organizations dissolving themselves into a single body? Etc.


I've come to see all of this on-the-ground stuff in terms of 'platform (policies) - strategies - tactics'.

If the relative politics-in-common is cohesive enough to support a certain platform-in-common, supported from below by a certain expanse / segment of the political spectrum, then various 'strategies' can be moved into place on top of that platform, with various take-it-or-leave-it 'tactics' around those strategies.


[3] Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals



http://s6.postimg.org/6omx9zh81/3_Ideologies_Operations_Fundamentals.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/cpkm723u5/full/)


[21] Ideologies & Operations



http://s6.postimg.org/7bv0qzsvl/21_Ideologies_Operations.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/x7era6up9/full/)

[The Idler]

Why should we follow any particular leader?

[jdneel]

Anarchists are the guys who break the windows at a protest. Then the cops go beat up the Green Peace guys.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[The Intransigent Faction]

All good questions. Good questions that must be explored. I have never seen so much interest in Socialism in my entire life. Polls are showing that young people in the US now have a more positive view of Socialism than Capitalism. Strike while the iron is hot!

1. Polls can be misleading.

2. See above, but not just in terms of exact figures. The notion of "socialism" most respondents had likely has little to do with socialism as the revolutionary left knows it. It's more akin to social democracy, or even Keynesian public works projects.

As for left unity, several important questions were already raised.

What I would add:

Legitimate differences make it not really possible, nor desirable, to form some kind of broad anarcho-Stalinist anti-capitalist coalition. However that "internal" conflict of the radical left works out, it's not avoidable. That's different, of course, from any petty procedural disputes over how a Communist Party elects a leader, for example. The latter sort of issue seems avoidable.

That said, we need to somehow unify politically (meaning also geographically) disjointed struggles. Gone are the days of both storming the Winter Palace and fighting for a Free Territory of Ukraine. Of course, logistically speaking, on-the-ground organization will happen in our own "neighbourhoods", but we cannot win isolated and disjointed struggles for either "socialism in one country" or autonomous regions of anarchists surrounded by capitalist states. Even post-revolution, we'd need a way to know which people and what resources are most needed, and where. If isolated, "spontaneous", haphazardly-planned action was crushed historically, it would be even more easily crushed today.

[jdneel]

The interest is there. Organize, recruit and educate!

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[IbelieveInanarchy]

Why should we follow any particular leader?

[jdneel]

Perhaps you could manage through a committee but wouldn't the committee members collectively be leaders?

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Anarchists are the guys who break the windows at a protest. Then the cops go beat up the Green Peace guys.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

What are you trying to say here?

[General Winter]

A united left movement does not exist and cannot exist, since the leftists by themselves are very diverse, and this diversity has an objective reason."Capitalism would not be capitalism if the "pure" proletariat were not surrounded by a large number of exceedingly motley types intermediate between the proletariat and the semi-proletarian ..., between the semi-proletarian ...and petty artisan, handicraft worker and small master in general..." wich ,as a rule,is a mass social base of the majority of leftist's organizations.That is, in short, the main reason is not in personal ambitions or in historical but in social-class differences. So a temporary tactical alliance is possible,but not the united leftist's organization.

[TomLeftist]

Good question. From my own point of view, my personal theory about why can't radical leftists unite into 1 big marxist united front in each country of the world, it is because humans tend to be group-narcissists.

Take a look the definition of group narcissism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_narcissism

Collective narcissism (or group narcissism) is a type of narcissism where an individual has an inflated self-love of his or her own ingroup, where an "ingroup" is a group in which an individual is personally involved. While the classic definition of narcissism focuses on the individual, collective narcissism asserts that one can have a similar excessively high opinion of a group, and that a group can function as a narcissistic entity. Collective narcissism is related to ethnocentrism; however, ethnocentrism primarily focuses on self-centeredness at an ethnic or cultural level, while collective narcissism is extended to any type of ingroup, beyond just cultures and ethnicities. Some theorists believe group-level narcissism to be an extension of individual narcissism, though others believe the two to be independent of each other.



Never mind the thought of a broad left coalition, we Trotskyists can't even seem to cooperate within our various parties and organizations. SAlt, ISO, SEP and others I may have missed have much more in common with each other than they have differences but try to get them together for a common goal. Constant squabbling amongst ourselves is not conducive to the overthrow of capitalism. Workers of the world unite!


Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[ckaihatsu]

The point isn't to 'unify' -- it's to go *leftwards*, so that revolutionary-type policies actually *prevail* and become the social norms everywhere.


Leftism -- Want, Get



http://s6.postimg.org/ck1nuep69/2270260350046342459jii_Kc_V_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/kpjpskdf1/full/)

[jdneel]

Just quoting Marx.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[ckaihatsu]

Just quoting Marx.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk


Yeah, but many people -- *non*-revolutionary leftists -- take this to mean that some period of politicking and horse-trading is required, to try to wrangle-together a tentative leftist unity, with everyone becoming politically commodified as a result.

This 'groupthink' mentality means that *principles* of politics give-way to an electioneering-type frenzy over *personnel*, as though what's needed is to assemble a 'dream team' and then all external obstacles will just automatically give-way.

I'll remind that what the revolutionary left needs is *numbers*, people who grasp what the interests of the working class are, and who can argue-for and advance these interests appropriately.

'Unity', from the *revolutionary* standpoint, means a rightwards drift and *dilution* of revolutionary politics.

[jdneel]

I'm not a faux left Democrat and have no illusions of reforming the system. "Change will not come from above."
I've watched the reforms which
were earned by the shed blood of the workers taken back by the Capitalists. Workers have virtually no rights in present day America.
The people which need to know most of the Socialist alternative are the workers. How do we best present to them the idea of necessary class struggle.They won't get it from the Capitalist controlled and owned media. We need some way of forcing the media's hand. I believe an excellent tactic is political entryism.
Kshama Sawant through election to the Seattle city council, was given an excellent pulpit to propound the plight of the working class. Even Bernie Sanders, who I'll concede is no revolutionary, brought the idea of Socialism into the American conciousness. Before the revolution, Lenin and Trotsky used entryism as a tactic in Czarist Russia.
I know it's just a start. I know that capitalism cannot be reformed and must be overthrown. But only the workers themselves can cause their liberation. And before that happens they must be made aware of the possibilities available to them.





Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk

[ckaihatsu]

I'm not a faux left Democrat and have no illusions of reforming the system. "Change will not come from above."
I've watched the reforms which
were earned by the shed blood of the workers taken back by the Capitalists. Workers have virtually no rights in present day America.
The people which need to know most of the Socialist alternative are the workers. How do we best present to them the idea of necessary class struggle.They won't get it from the Capitalist controlled and owned media. We need some way of forcing the media's hand. I believe an excellent tactic is political entryism.
Kshama Sawant through election to the Seattle city council, was given an excellent pulpit to propound the plight of the working class. Even Bernie Sanders, who I'll concede is no revolutionary, brought the idea of Socialism into the American conciousness. Before the revolution, Lenin and Trotsky used entryism as a tactic in Czarist Russia.
I know it's just a start. I know that capitalism cannot be reformed and must be overthrown. But only the workers themselves can cause their liberation. And before that happens they must be made aware of the possibilities available to them.





Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk


I'd say start with the question of foreign policy -- the J20 protests were impressive, but before then there had been all kinds of imperialist warfare going on, against Syria, Yemen, etc., and there's a *deafening silence* from the soft-left on all of this.

[ComradeAllende]

See above, but not just in terms of exact figures. The notion of "socialism" most respondents had likely has little to do with socialism as the revolutionary left knows it. It's more akin to social democracy, or even Keynesian public works projects.

To be fair, that's a step up than where we were a generation ago. Back then it was all about "democratizing capitalism" and "ditching the dogmas of the past". Nowadays people are beginning to question the policies of the ruling class, if not the ruling class itself. THAT is our opening; to offer a compelling message about how capitalists exploit people and how we can end it. We even have modern-day proof of exploitation: just look at any sweatshop factory or child labor scandal in the Third World. Those stories prove how oppressive capitalism can be when you let it run amok. I may be a revolutionary leftist, but I'll take plain old social democracy over neoliberalism any day of the week.

[jdneel]

Amen. The Republicans tell us they're gonna screw us and screw us. The Democrats tell us they're our friends and then screw us. Neo-liberal economic policy has been disastrous for the American working class. The only class that has benefitted are the Capitalists.

Sent from my SM-S920L using Tapatalk