Sectarianism

[Sir Aunty Christ]

What is the point of it? From what I can glean, the majority of Socialist and Communist organisations in the UK (to use the example I know the best) are Trotskyist - so why so many?

If we all claim to want the same thing via the same methods, why do groups fragment?

(by the way, I've posted this topic on another forum in an aim to get as many views as possible.)

[rebelworker]

When you have a minority running an organization(central comittee,chairman or whatever) you are bound to have disagreements. instead of having a group open to move direction from the membership most trotskyist groups end up having seperate tendancies develope internally because the views of the minority or sometimes even majority can not be properly adressed.

Leadership and development of ideas get stagnant and the only way to have change iss through a power struggle. this often leads to splits, soetime it even hapens just over personality conflicts.

If you look at trotskyism world wide each tendancy has a major split in about another country every year or so, its ridiculous.

This is very similar to what happenbed to the Black Panthers here, leadership divisions developed between east coast factions and the central leadership in oakland, this was played on by the FBI to exagerate it(fake letters being sent in other peoples names) instead of being able to work it out Huey newton falsely accused some of his detractors in LA and NYC of being cops and ordered their termination, at this point panthers actually started killing each other which lead to the formation of the BLA in NYC and the total collapse of the Party in LA.

Defenders of centralisation claim that it is more efficient and more resiliant to state repression and internal conflict, in fact I think that histroy has often show the oposite is ture, I have a friend who was a Communist Guerrilla in Iran who said he founfd the same to be true, the leadership gets out of touch with the rank and file and there is no way to reconsile the diferences. A cult of personality takes over and any constructive criticism is seen as instead of strenghthening the org, an attack on it.

Decentralised groups tend to survive internal criticism growth and differnces better because all the membership can be p[art of a give and take kind of growth that keeps them constantly evolving and learning from each others experience.

IN Solidarity,
rebelworker

[romanm]

Trotsky is the king idealist and sectarian. Trotskyism is based on idealism, not materialsm - so, it makes perfect sense that there are endless varients of Trotskyism, as there are endless varients of Christianity.

[LSD]

Romanm, don't look know, but there's sectarianism within Maoism too.

You happen to represent one of the more lunatic Maoist sects in fact! :lol:

[h&s]

What is the point of it? From what I can glean, the majority of Socialist and Communist organisations in the UK (to use the example I know the best) are Trotskyist - so why so many?
On the Tortskyist point, there are only two main parties - the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party.
There are two because the SWP supports the Iraqi resistance, sets up stupid reformist parties, and other things we completely disagree with (and they disagree with us).
Its just a matter of fundamental belief of what is right and wrong that we differ on.
There are other smaller Trotskyist parties, but they are just opportunistic sects.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Sir Aunty [email protected] 25 2005, 09:36 AM
What is the point of it? From what I can glean, the majority of Socialist and Communist organisations in the UK (to use the example I know the best) are Trotskyist - so why so many?

If we all claim to want the same thing via the same methods, why do groups fragment?

(by the way, I've posted this topic on another forum in an aim to get as many views as possible.)
I agree there are more left groups than are justified by real political disagreements.

Really there are only a few main underlying trends among those who consider themselves socialist or communist. And no, those aren't "Trotskyism", "Maoism", etc....those self-applied labels don't necessarily reflect any real agreement among those who use them, or major fundamental difference with those who don't.

Rather the main trends are reformism, revolutionary communism, centrism vacillating between the two....in the past Stalinism as a reformist trend with a significant difference, in social basis, from social democracy because of its links to certain regimes.

But there are many groups which are fundamentally similar, but maintain separate existences. Especially a great many centrist groups.

Why? I think it's especially common under conditions where far-left groups are politically isolated from the masses of working people and the day-to-day living class struggle. Which is a lot of the time, especially in countries like the UK and USA; anytime there isn't a major upsurge of mass struggle and radicalisation going on.

Groups under those conditions tend to adapt to that isolation by becoming more self-contained and sectarian. Even the best of groups, which resist the tendency to become more sectarian, are forced to lead a semi-sectarian existence under adverse conditions.

Facing a hostile or indifferent outside world, many groups turn inward, become prone to groupthink, escalate their ultraleft rhetoric, or develop pointless factional divisions or rivalries with other groups.

***

Incidentally, a lot of people don't realize what it means to be sectarian. It doesn't just mean hostility to other groups or pointless splits; or even putting the petty organizational interests of a group ahead of the interests of a class - that's factionalism. Nor does small size make a sect...larger groups can act in just as sectarian a fashion as the small ones they dismissively refer to as sects.

As Marx explained in his letter to Schweitzer (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_10_13-abs.htm), the head of the very large Lassalean sect, a sectarian puts a particular ideological fetish ahead of the general interests of the working-class movement. The sect defines itself by this special ideological point.

You yourself know the difference between a sect movement and a class movement from personal experience. The sect seeks its raison d'être and its point d'honneur not in what it has in common with the class movement, but in the particular shibboleth distinguishing it from that movement. Thus when, in Hamburg, you proposed convening a congress to found trades unions, you could only suppress the opposition of the sectarians by threatening to resign as president. You were also forced to assume a dual personality, to state that, in one case, you were acting as the leader of the sect and, in the other, as the representative of the class movement.

The dissolution of the General Association of German Workers provided you with an opportunity to take a big step forward and to declare, to prove s'il le fallait [if necessary], that a new stage of development had been reached and the sect movement was now ripe to merge into the class movement and end all ‘eanisms’. With regard to the true content of the sect, it would, like all former workers’ sects, carry this as an enriching element into the general movement. Yet instead you, in fact, demanded that the class movement subordinate itself to a particular sect movement. Your non-friends concluded from this that you wished to conserve your ‘own workers’ movement’ under all circumstances.

For the Lassaleans, the "particular shibboleth" was their panacea of state aid to workers' cooperatives as a road to socialism. A reformist mechanical sectarian fantasy. The Militant Tendency, traditionally, defined itself by its insistence on working within the Labour Party; I don't know about the SP today now that it's reversed that stand. The SWP defines itself partly by "socialism from below" - a redudant phrase, part of the general heritage of socialism...but the SWP chooses to turn it into a special doctrine to separate itself from everyone else. For Trotskyists generally, it's the "theory of permanent revolution", not so much the little-understood and less-applied content, but as a catchphrase.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
...a sectarian puts a particular ideological fetish ahead of the general interests of the working-class movement. The sect defines itself by this special ideological point.

Quite so...this is what Marx thought and said, more than once.

But why couldn't his definition be turned on himself? He may have claimed that he personally was "without sin" (had no sectarian "fetishes")...but any reformist could clearly point out otherwise.

Why are Marxists always babbling about their so-called revolution when what we need to do is reform capitalism?

Most workers today are opposed to revolution -- until Marxists stop fetishizing that crap, they can never really be part of the workers' movement.

In other words, let's suppose that one wants to "not be sectarian"...how is this accomplished other than by conducting regular polls of "the working class" and adapting one's views accordingly?

Lassalle's particular gimmick was indeed a foolish one...but he and his fetish did have a large working class following in the 1870s and 1880s -- would it not have been "sectarian" to refuse to "accept it"?

But Marx himself did exactly that; he refused to be publicly associated with the Gotha Programme of 1875 -- a hopeless muddle of Lassallean and Marxist clichés.

When he thought important matters of principle were involved, he was just as "stiff-necked" as any Lassallean.

Thus the real problem of "sectarianism" -- my principles are your fetishes.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Solidarnosc]

Originally posted by h&[email protected] 26 2005, 01:36 PM
There are other smaller Trotskyist parties, but they are just opportunistic sects.
Nice. No reasoning behind it at all!

From the tone of your post I'm assuming you're an SP member. The SP is based on oppertunism! It refuses to raise a consistently revolutionary programme, they call for the nationalisation of the 250 leading companies as a key demand (one must assume they wish the capitalist state to nationalise them, great! Cos that'll empower the workers!) and they went from calling the Labour Party a workers party while they were in it to an outright capitalist party - neither of which are Leninist... I could go on.

Whereas Workers Power, one of those "oppertunistic sects" acts in a consistently revolutionary method. See our website - www.workerspower.com - and see how "oppertunistic" we really are (i.e. not at all).

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28 2005, 09:18 AM
When he thought important matters of principle were involved, he was just as "stiff-necked" as any Lassallean.

Thus the real problem of "sectarianism" -- my principles are your fetishes.
The distinction between general revolutionary principles and special sectarian principles is not that hard to make. The basic criterion's laid out at the beginning of the second section of the Manifesto (http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian)

Even more, it's what you do with your principles; as I pointed out before the British SWP took a general revolutionary principle and turned it into a sectarian shibboleth that separates it from everyone else.

Anytime you say, "We're different from everyone else because of X," you're in danger of setting up a sectarian shibboleth. It's easy to do, yes.

It's not something Marx was in the habit of doing, though: he didn't set up his principles as an obstacle to unity, or demand others abandon theirs before joining the First International....on the contrary, he drafted a program based on those points everyone agreed on. Or that the Lassalleans abandon their panacea before merging with the Eisenachers into the German Social-Democratic Party...he just objected when sectarians attempted to impose their dogmas onto the united organizations.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by The Communist Manifesto
In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mold the proletarian movement.

The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only:

(1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.

(2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

Excellent rhetoric...but weak in practical terms.

Are we to take the second sentence literally? That trashes all versions of Leninism -- which do form "separate parties" which are opposed to other working class parties.

Lenin's opposition to the working-class social democratic parties was so intransigent that he started a new international!

All Leninist parties are "sectarian" by Marx's definition.

The other recommendations are equally problematic. If we "bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, regardless of nationality", then will we not be accused of "sectarianism" by any workers' party motivated by nationalist priorities?

In fact, will we not be accused of treason?

And if we seek to "represent the interests of the movement as a whole" (assuming we can determine that), then those parts of the movement who feel neglected by us are going to accuse us of, what else, "sectarianism".

The accusation may be false (and known to be false)...but it's not likely to inhibit the accusers.


Anytime you say, "We're different from everyone else because of X," you're in danger of setting up a sectarian shibboleth. It's easy to do, yes.

But everyone is different "because of X"...or at least X1, X2, X3...Xn.

How do we reliably and consistently distinguish between real differences of principle and "shibboleths"?

For example, I think, as you know, that communists in our era have a duty to consistently attack the entire charade of bourgeois electoral politics across the board.

I know that you think this is a "shibboleth" on my part...and therefore inherently "sectarian".

Now how is a third party -- someone who wants to follow Marx's advice and "not be sectarian" -- supposed to decide between us?

Many, many more workers agree with you than with me -- although a substantial number of workers do what I recommend on a spontaneous basis. They don't vote, they don't register, and they simply ignore bourgeois "elections" as irrelevant to their lives.

Such is the situation at the present time.

Of course, this third party could read and evaluate our respective arguments -- but if the over-riding priority is "not to be sectarian", then how can principled decisions ever be made?

I think Marx and Engels inadvertently contradicted themselves here -- perhaps it was simply unclear in their era that one could not be both principled and "non-sectarian".

As annoying and distressing as "unjustified" sectarianism is, I think the main danger faced by all leftist groups is opportunism and lack of principle.

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[anomaly]

Sectarianism is the result of differences in our personal means and ends. An anarchist may suggest armed revolution, but a Leninist then suggests a political party and a 'transitional' state of socialism. While both claim to want (in the end) communism, they diverge into 'sects' because of diffecrences in means.

Some 'revolutionary' leftists do not even want communism, so obviously a reformist (as we call them) is going to be in a different 'sect' than a communist. This particular point is what will make Leninists form different parties, since one may be committed to someday achieving communism, while the other is fine with socialism.

This is all extremely basic and ideologically based, but sometimes sectarianism occurs because of practical differences. Take the old Communist Party of the US and the US socialist party. The Communist party was known to be propped up by the USSR, and thus a 'Soviet' (tyrannical) system was logically its goal. The socialist party was not tyrannical, so different sects were formed.

There are simple a huge number of ways that this 'sectarianism' can occur. I mean, I haven't even mentioned actually interpreting Marx's writing differently... (or rejecting Marx all together)

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28 2005, 08:08 PM

Are we to take the second sentence literally? That trashes all versions of Leninism -- which do form "separate parties" which are opposed to other working class parties.
Since this is the Manifesto of the Communist League, which did exist as a separate organization, obviously this isn't meant in organizational terms.


If we "bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, regardless of nationality", then will we not be accused of "sectarianism" by any workers' party motivated by nationalist priorities?

In fact, will we not be accused of treason?

Yes. Who cares?


I know that you think this is a "shibboleth" on my part...and therefore inherently "sectarian".

Now how is a third party -- someone who wants to follow Marx's advice and "not be sectarian" -- supposed to decide between us?

Uh...decide which policy is based on the interests of the working class, and which one is putting a rigid ideological criterion ahead of those interests?

Sectarianism does not equal factionalism, and opposition to sectarianism is not about "uniting the left" or glomming a bunch of little sects together into a somewhat bigger sect or hodgepodge federation of sects.

It is about uniting the working class, and involves putting class interests first, not necessarily organizational unity first.

As Engels once pointed out, the biggest sectarians are sometimes the biggest unity shouters....

[anomaly]

That's an interesting thought. Isn't it true that those that call for 'unification' of the left are simply sectarianists themselves? By calling for something different, radically different, by today's standards, they are further splitting the left. There is simply no way to avoid sectarianism, so I think it may be best to embrace our differences rather than call for this 'unity'.

[DJFreiheit]

Interesting debate.
Socialist Party? Socialist Workers Party? Workers Power?
Why is it that the proleteriat in the UK completely ignore you?
Answer that question and you answer the question of secterianism.
I am still waiting for the day when I can see these groups get out of the colleges and get into the real workplace and start organising. Then Trade Unionists like myself can get a bit of support. :rolleyes:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Secondly, Trotskyism is distrust of the Bolshevik Party principle, of the monolithic character of the Party, of its hostility towards opportunist elements. In the sphere of organisation, Trotskyism is the theory that revolutionaries and opportunists can co-exist and form groups and coteries within a single party. You are, no doubt, familiar with the history of Trotsky's August bloc, in which the Martovites and Otzovists, the Liquidators and Trotskyites, happily co-operated, pretending that they were a "real" party. It is well known that this patchwork "party" pursued the aim of destroying the Bolshevik Party. What was the nature of "our disagreements" at that time? It was that Leninism regarded the destruction of the August bloc as a guarantee of the development of the proletarian party, whereas Trotskyism regarded that bloc as the basis for building a "real" party.

Again, as you see, we have two opposite lines.

Thirdly. Trotskyism is distrust of the leaders of Bolshevism, an attempt to discredit, to defame them. I do not know of a single trend in the Party that could compare with Trotskyism in the matter of discrediting the leaders of Leninism or the central institutions of the Party. For example, what should be said of Trotsky's "polite" opinion of Lenin, whom he described as "a professional exploiter of every kind of backwardness in the Russian working-class movement"? (ibid.) And this is far from being the most "polite" of the "polite" opinions Trotsky has expressed.

How could it happen that Trotsky, who carried such a nasty stock-in-trade on his back, found himself, after all, in the ranks of the Bolsheviks during the October movement? It happened because at that time Trotsky abandoned (actually did abandon) that stock-in-trade; he hid it in the cupboard. Had he not performed that "operation," real co-operation with him would have been impossible. The theory of the August bloc, i.e., the theory of unity with the Mensheviks, had already been shattered and thrown overboard by the revolution, for how could there be any talk about unity when an armed struggle was raging between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks? Trotsky had no alternative but to admit that this theory was useless.

The only part of Stalin's Trotskyism or Leninism? worth reading :(



Fortunately, a genuinely Leninist website does exist out there to condemn both Trotskyism and Stalinism as REACTIONARY ideologies: An outline of Trotskyism's anti-Marxist theories (http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/35cTrotsky.html)


Trotskyism is one of the main trends claiming to be Leninist that is encountered by activists in the anti-war movements and other struggles. It presents itself as the alternate to Stalinism. But in fact Trotskyism and Stalinism represent twin revisionist opponents of Marxism-Leninism.

Earlier in this series I showed that Trotsky's theories on factions were one aspect of his disregard of party-building. He held that factions and factionalism were the only way to carry out inner-party discussion and debate on important issues. He didn't just note that factions were inevitable, and even necessary, under certain situations, but he held that they were always the only alternative to inner-party stagnation and decay. This was the flip side of his blindness to the need for attention to party-building as a sphere of activity in his own right.

Trotsky thus regarded factionalism as the only way to oppose wrong views and bad practices inside an organization. He had a similar attitude to the workers' movement as a whole. He tended to replace the Leninist conception of involving the masses in a conscious struggle against opportunism with factional struggle against bad leaders and schemes for bringing workers to revolutionary action automatically, without their conscious adoption of socialist consciousness. This was the basis for that peculiar combination of sectarianism and conciliation of reformism that has characterize the Trotskyist movement to this day.

...

But take a look at Trotsky's polemics. He repeatedly descended to character assassination against a wide variety of opponents, including his own followers.

...

Thus Trotsky's example had great influence among his supporters and allies. His extravagant personal attacks were one of the sources of the notorious sectarianism that remains one aspect of Trotskyist practice to this day. This can be seen dramatically in some left-Trotskyist groups such as the Spartacist League, who make a practice of finding reasons to use the ugliest language to denounce many mass movements and demonstrations. It's also reflected in the internal organizational practices of Trotskyism: the Trotskyist movement is well-known for the harsh internal life of most of its groups.

...

When Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks, it might seem as if he had put his factional past behind him. But the factional methods he used in his fourteen years of opposition to the Bolsheviks resurfaced as he dealt with the struggle inside the Bolshevik Party, and he formed one shifting faction after another within the Party leadership. A good part of Trotskyist writing on Soviet history is justifying each of Trotsky's factional alliances, and arguing that it is the fault of his factional partners that these alliances didn't work.

...

Overall, Trotskyism is an obstacle to the development of a Marxist-Leninist analysis of the world situation, and to the development of independent working class movements around the world. It poses as anti-Stalinist, but it is not an anti-revisionist theory. The restoration of the revolutionary content of Marxism-Leninism, its rescue from the distortions of the past and its adaptation to the new conditions of the present, requires a struggle against Trotskyism as well as Stalinism.