Against sectarianism

[nvm]

Under the influence of the betrayal by the historical organizations of the proletariat, certain sectarian moods and groupings of various kinds arise or are regenerated . At their base lies a refusal to struggle for partial and transitional demands, i.e., for the elementary interests and needs of the working masses, as they are today. Preparing for the revolution means to the sectarians, convincing themselves of the superiority of socialism. They propose turning their backs on the “old” trade unions, i.e., to tens of millions of organized workers – as if the masses could somehow live outside of the conditions of the actual class struggle!
They remain indifferent to the inner struggle within reformist organizations – as if one could win the masses without intervening in their daily strife! They refuse to draw a distinction between the bourgeois democracy and fascism – as if the masses could help but feel the difference on every hand!
Sectarians are capable of differentiating between but two colors: red and black. So as not to tempt themselves, they simplify reality. Incapable of finding access to the masses, they therefore zealously accuse the masses of inability to raise themselves to revolutionary ideas.
These sterile politicians generally have no need of a bridge in the form of transitional demands because they do not intend to cross over to the other shore. They simply dawdle in one place, satisfying themselves with a repetition of the same meager abstractions. Political events are for them an occasion for comment but not for action. Since sectarians as in general every kind of blunderer and miracle-man, are toppled by reality at each step, they live in a state of perpetual exasperation, complaining about the “regime” and the “methods” and ceaselessly wallowing in small intrigues. In their own circles they customarily carry on a regime of despotism. The political prostration of sectarianism serves to complement, shadow-like, the prostration of opportunism, revealing no revolutionary vistas. In practical politics, sectarians unite with opportunists, particularly with centrists, every time in the struggle against Marxism.
Most of the sectarian groups and cliques, nourished on accidental crumbs lead an “independent” organizational existence, with great pretensions but without the least chance for success. Bolshevik-Leninists, without waste of time, calmly leave these groups to their own fate. However, sectarian tendencies are a ruinous influence on the work of the individual sections. It is impossible to make any further compromise with them even for a single day. He who does not seek and does not find the road to the masses is not a fighter but a dead weight to the vanguard party. A program is formulated not for the editorial board or for the leaders of discussion clubs, but for the revolutionary action of millions. The cleansing of the ranks of the Vanguard of sectarianism and incurable sectarians is a primary condition for revolutionary success.









Taken from Trotsky's :The Transitional Program.

(Modified by me)

[mikelepore]

At their base lies a refusal to struggle for partial and transitional demands, i.e., for the elementary interests and needs of the working masses, as they are today.

It sounds untestable to me. How do you know the problem isn't with the people with the "partial and transitional demands" being people who merely have their own pet peeves about the real world and project them onto others? Maybe the people who don't share their goals are the realistic and practical ones.

[Dros]

Sounds like Trotsky forgot everything that happened in October!

When was this written?

[Wanted Man]

Lord knows when he wrote it, but it serves as absolute truth to the most isolated dogmatists among his followers. Even after having been a proven failure time and again (oh, wait, they got some local councillors in Liverpool during the 80s before being kicked out, I forgot).

[nvm]

It sounds untestable to me. How do you know the problem isn't with the people with the "partial and transitional demands" being people who merely have their own pet peeves about the real world and project them onto others? Maybe the people who don't share their goals are the realistic and practical ones.


How are you going to approach workers without having a minimum program of transitional demands? Go talk to theworkers with you only slogan being revolution, they are going to laugh at your face.


Sounds like Trotsky forgot everything that happened in October!

When was this written?


This was written after the October revolution. The October revolution period had different objective conditions. There was a fever of revolution everywhere! Plus th Bolsheviks had transitional demands even in June-July when they cried to the Mensheviks and the SR's to break with the bourgeois cadets and take power, which of course they (Mensheviks and SR's) could not do because they were reformist bastards. So that transitional demand strengthened the Bolsheviks.



Lord knows when he wrote it, but it serves as absolute truth to the most isolated dogmatists among his followers. Even after having been a proven failure time and again (oh, wait, they got some local councillors in Liverpool during the 80s before being kicked out, I forgot).


Oh yes because by this time you made a revolution in Britain with your own correct methods, how could I forget, Im so sorry.
Btw the IMT still works in the Labour .

[Zurdito]

yes, every IMT comrade I have ever met has lectured me on "sectarianism". the trouble is they start from the assumption that their line is the correct one, and therefore all deviation from that is sectarianism.

now when you advocate "deep entryism" into New Labour and call for a vote for even the most right-wing Labour MP's against even groups like Socialist Alliance, then I don't think you can talk about "sectarianism" with any authority. I have seen IMT comrades go to PCS meetings - the civil service union which has historically never been affiliated to any party, and which currently has the most left-wing union leader in Britain, which is not saying much as he is a complete sellout, but hey - meetings discussing what to do about New Labour's attacks on pensions and laying off of 60, 000 workers, and stand up and tell the union members that the reason they had noinfluence was due tonot being in Labour, and that if they would demand to join - i.e. demand of their leadership that it give their subs money to the very party which was sacking them and annulling their pensions - then they could hope to fight for better conditions as part of a mass movement. I felt sorry for the poor guy when I saw the amount of visceral abuse he got, but, he did deserve it, frankly.

Now I mean this respectfully as I personally get on with many IMT comrades online and IRL, in fact I count one as a good friend, but, in my experience the word "sectarian" in such conversations is so overused as to be stripped of all meaning.

[Wanted Man]

Oh yes because by this time you made a revolution in Britain with your own correct methods, how could I forget, Im so sorry.
Btw the IMT still works in the Labour .
Don't be silly. What I do or don't has nothing to do with the failure of the IMT. Congratulations, you've just made a cliched non-argument. I'm not claiming that I've invented the wheel or anything, but that doesn't mean that the IMT's analysis and methods aren't wrong.


Now I mean this respectfully as I personally get on with many IMT comrades online and IRL, in fact I count one as a good friend, but, in my experience the word "sectarian" in such conversations is so overused as to be stripped of all meaning.
You and I both know that, but this is a fundamental issue of their politics. They believe that Labour is still THE party of the working class. Sectarianism means putting your own party's interests over those of the working class, so anyone who doesn't work within Labour must logically be a sectarian. The only way to challenge the 'sectarian' slur is to fundamentally challenge their politics.

Their talk about the "traditional organizations of the proletariat" also leads me to believe that they do not understand the difference between political parties and trade unions.

[Zurdito]

You and I both know that, but this is a fundamental issue of their politics. They believe that Labour is still THE party of the working class. Sectarianism means putting your own party's interests over those of the working class, so anyone who doesn't work within Labour must logically be a sectarian. The only way to challenge the 'sectarian' slur is to fundamentally challenge their politics.

this is true. tbh though the SWP are pretty much the same,in that anyone who deviates from the SWP is sectarian, because the SWP is also supposedly the party.

my analysis and the group in my sigs analysis is that in fact the workers movement is fragmented at a global level and sufferring a crisis of leadership. I believe you can apply Trotsky's TP to solving this leadership crisis - this bypasses the question of sectarianism, because transitional demands by their nature are placed on the existing leadership of the class, alongside clearly stating the need for a new international revolutionary workers party truly capable of fulfilling those demands - and in the mean-time, we intervene in the struggles of those workers who have not yet seen through existing reformist and bureaucratic leaderships, in order to test illusions and break them.

this was quite clearly Lenin and Trotsky's position, so why it should be seen as sectarian to be honest with workers about the nature of their current leadership whilst agreeing to work beside them in testing it, is beyond me. Lenin called on British communists to canvass for Labour in order to get a hearing for workers to join the communsit party,for example. nothing to the "ultra left" of that (for example Labour leaders like Arthur Henderson hadserved int he WW1 coalition, and he had branded the social chauvinists, but he didn't take the line that "social fascists" were qualitatively no different to tories, let alone fascists), neither anything to the "deep entryist right" of that - I don't remember Lenin arguing either that talk of building a communist party must be shunned in favour of long term recruitment for Labour - aparty which he clearly and correctly identified as enemy of the working class.

also, no, neither I nor my group - League for the Fifth International - considers that we are the leadership in waiting of the class, instead, we are a fighting propaganda group that produces literature for the movement in order to persuade as many leftists as possible ont he need to form a new mass party based on all of us, and, we fight for these politics in our work and colleges, alongside and within the existing organs of struggle.

So I fail to see how I am a sectarian. Likewise, I don't consider all comrades who currently have not joined the movement for a new international, to be inherently sectarian as a result.they may simply have adifferent analysis, of which it is necessarry to debate them. Sectarian is a question of specific attitudes and actions - like backing New Labour against the Socialist Alliance for example. However as a result of this deviation, I wouldn't classiffy the IMT asinherently sectarian in all its positions.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Well, first off, the mass party will have to, at least initially, include reformists (albeit of the real, "democratic-socialist" type, while keeping out "social-democratic" welfarists), as well as reject parliamentarianism. Repeating Lenin's "party of a new type" in 1912 is impossible under current circumstances. On the other hand, the IMT is practicing the same BS as the Belgian experience of Social Democracy. There is, however, a middle-of-the-road experience that is suitable for organization in advanced capitalist countries: the early SPD.

[Zurdito]

I agree on accepting reformists.

[AGITprop]

There is absolutely no point arguing over this, on Revleft.


What matters is results.

What matters is proper organizational methods.

We can argue for hours who is correct and incorrect, and whether Trotskyism is reformist revisionist sectarianism or whether the Marxist-Leninists are completely out of touch with reality.

Personally I don't care. What I do care about is results. And history will show us who in the end has the correct position. Over the course of history we may win over other communists to Trotskyism by leading a good example and showing the superiority of our ideas, but more likely than not, they will criticize our every move and denounce our every action as revisionsm, and create the most convoluted excuses when we actually make serious gains. I personally don't care, because I don't go around bothering Marxist-Leninists about they're work.

RevLeft is a good place for discussion, I just don't think getting into this argument is worth it. It just doesn't go anywhere. Concentrate on increasing your theoretical level and teaching newer comrades about Marxism. Other than that, forget the petty arguments, they will bring you only a headache and waste your time.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Then why isn't your organization taking into heart the lessons of organizing SPD-style (but outside the NDP), working with other Marxist currents, non-Marxist revolutionary-socialist currents, and with even real-reformist currents ("democratic socialists," pareconists, market socialists, etc.) - all WITHIN the same organization?

[Obrero Rebelde]

There is absolutely no point arguing over this, on Revleft.


What matters is results.

What matters is proper organizational methods.

We can argue for hours who is correct and incorrect, and whether Trotskyism is reformist revisionist sectarianism or whether the Marxist-Leninists are completely out of touch with reality.

Personally I don't care. What I do care about is results. And history will show us who in the end has the correct position. Over the course of history we may win over other communists to Trotskyism by leading a good example and showing the superiority of our ideas, but more likely than not, they will criticize our every move and denounce our every action as revisionsm, and create the most convoluted excuses when we actually make serious gains. I personally don't care, because I don't go around bothering Marxist-Leninists about they're work.

RevLeft is a good place for discussion, I just don't think getting into this argument is worth it. It just doesn't go anywhere. Concentrate on increasing your theoretical level and teaching newer comrades about Marxism. Other than that, forget the petty arguments, they will bring you only a headache and waste your time.

RevLeft for discussion, for diverse Leftist analyses of events, for networking -- all this is grrrrrrrrrrrrr8!

You favor pragmatism -- results. We can sure use some good results from Leftists educating and organizing the agitated. Gawd knows the masses are agitated right now.

[Q]

Was there a reason you digged up this old thread specifically?