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Macnair: End the cycle of splits
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004851
If the left is to build a serious political organisation it will have to facilitate internal dissent, writes Mike Macnair. And that will require both majorities and minorities to act responsibly
The CPGB has just experienced a slow-motion ‘split’, in the form of three resignations in succession by comrades who were recruited to CPGB in Manchester. In essence, the comrades share the view that the project of the Anti-Capitalist Initiative launched by the three fragments of Workers Power (WP itself, Permanent Revolution, and the new and as yet nameless youth split from WP) is more promising than the CPGB’s project.
It has been difficult for CPGB comrades to make out exactly what this split is about. The comrades who have departed did not form an organised faction or platform, and did not before they departed make any positive proposals about what the CPGB should do, though comrade Chris Strafford has over the last few years offered a variety of (inconsistent) negative criticisms of the slogans put forward by the CPGB in several elections and of the CPGB majority’s strategic, and tactical, approaches to the Labour Party. The comrades who have left us have complained that it is difficult for young and inexperienced comrades to argue and put forward proposals against the older and more experienced comrades in the majority; and that this explains both their failure to propose a clear alternative course, and their decision to leave.
Indeed, comrades have said informally that they will and do continue to defend in the ACI the politics of the CPGB’s Draft programme. Acceptance of the Draft programme as the basis of common action is a requirement of CPGB membership (together with paying dues, and work in a CPGB organisation). This makes the split appear on its face completely non-political.
This article is my personal response to this problem. It is not an agreed CPGB (or Provisional Central Committee) response, but merely my own view. I largely put on one side the debate over the merits of the ACI, which other comrades have addressed.
I simply do not believe in the inability of young and inexperienced comrades to argue against older or more experienced comrades or develop their own positive positions. If they are confident in their own ideas, very young and inexperienced people can stand up (or write) and contradict the old-timers. I have plenty of experience of this from the old International Marxist Group and International Socialist Group. By this I do not mean to refer to my own involvement in oppositional groupings (at any date after 1976); I mean the numerous other relatively new comrades who came up with one or another sort of oppositional idea and argued it with more or less success.
In my view the split is about a political difference, and an extremely fundamental political difference. The unclarity of the comrades’ criticisms of the CPGB, and their failure to fight for an alternative line before they left, are in fact expressions of this political difference. The difference is about the core of the problems of the British far left.
Unity in diversity
It is only possible to have a collective political organisation - as opposed to a series of top-down sects and a gravel of sects of one member (‘independents’) - if we have open disagreement within the organisation. Open political disagreement within the organisation depends on two elements: first, that majorities (or leaderships) do not kick the minorities or individual dissenters out, either for expressing disagreement or on factitious disciplinary charges of one sort or another; and, second, and equally important, that minorities do not walk out in search of fresh fields and pastures new. The latter is what the comrades who have recently resigned have done.
Of course, the presence of open disagreement within a common organisation is not a guarantee that splits will not occur. The problem is the inverse: the absence of open disagreement is a guarantee that splits will occur.
The comrades may have walked out of the CPGB due to their failure to understand this issue. But if so it is not because the CPGB has been keeping quiet about the two sides of the issue or not attempting to educate new comrades about it. On the contrary, we go on and on about it. We have quite recently publicly condemned both the Rees-German faction and Chris Bambery for effectively walking out of the Socialist Workers Party (under severe provocation, in contrast to the situation of the comrades who have resigned from the CPGB), even while we condemned the SWP majority for their anti-democratic practice. On a larger scale we have condemned the comrades of the Socialist Party in England and Wales who walked out of Unison in the (ludicrous) belief that Unite was a more democratic union, or the slightly less ludicrous belief that the Unite bureaucracy would not personally persecute them (in reality because, Unite being less democratic than Unison, trivial groups of Trots do not in any way threaten the Unite bureaucracy). Our very similar criticisms of Simon Hardy and his co-thinkers for walking out of Workers Power may have played a role in comrades’ decisions to resign themselves.
Why isn’t the simple point that to have a serious organisation we are going to have to facilitate internal dissent, and that this requires both majorities and minorities to act responsibly, utterly obvious to the British far left? After all, it is obvious to a substantial part of the continental far left.
Groundhog Day
The answer, I think, is that the British far left as a whole is caught in a self-reinforcing ‘Groundhog Day’ paradigm, which leads us (the far left as a whole) to do the same thing over and over again with decreasing effect. This is reflected in the fact that split groupings repeatedly promise more democratic functioning and a better approach to unity; but, somehow, never seem able to deliver. The paradigm involves three elements which reinforce each other.
The first is a practice in which party activity means mainly ‘activism’: ie, running round from one agitational initiative to the next. The effect of this ‘agitationism’ is to devalue both the long-term base-level activity of building trade unions, cooperatives, workers’ education initiatives and so on, and the production of party propaganda and party education. It also has the effect, central to our present concerns, that discussing internal disagreements appears as a waste of time, and as not doing ‘activism’, not ‘getting out there’. This perception, in turn, leads to both majorities chucking people out and minorities walking out - in both cases in order to ‘get on with the job’ or ‘stop wasting time’.
The second element is an ideology of this practice, which consists of the concept of the ‘party of a new type’ or ‘revolutionary party’ and Lukácsian, and similar, critiques of ‘Second International Marxism’ (which is actually also a critique of pre-1918 Bolshevism, including the Bolsheviks’ intense electoral activity during 1917). The ideology may take both more or less explicit, and more or less sectarian, forms. Cliff’s Lenin is one example. The Spartacists’ Joseph Seymour’s Lenin and the vanguard party is another; astonishingly for an ostensible Trotskyist, Seymour draws arguments from those of Stalin and his co-thinkers against the Trotskyists in the 1920s, and thus demonstrates on the face of the text its ideological-apologetic character. The Workers Power (majority) argument that a ‘fighting propaganda group’ must be more monolithic than a mass party is a third.
The third element is a concept of revolution which underlies both the practice and the ideology. According to this concept, the basic difference between ‘revolutionary politics’ and reformism is the difference between, on the one hand, strikes and street demonstrations (and ultimately barricades and fighting the police), identified as ‘revolutionary politics’ - Cliff’s ‘moderate demands and militant action’ - and, on the other hand, ‘passive propagandism’, electoral and parliamentary activity, identified as ‘reformist’. In this conception, as long as the way of ‘mass action’ is pursued, our side will come up against the state, and therefore be driven automatically to radicalise and pose a counter-power.
This concept of revolution is in substance left-economist, or ‘Luxemburgist’ in a negative sense. That is, it is in (unadmitted) continuity with the ideas of the semi-syndicalist left wing of the Second International before 1914, and of the left wing of Iskra’s ‘economist’ opponents in 1900-02, and those of Trotsky in Our political tasks (which he later disavowed) in 1904.
It is possible within the framework of this paradigm to be substantially more democratic than the SWP: as, for example, is the case with the Mandelites. But the drag back to the pattern of not wanting to ‘waste time’ on propaganda, education and internal discussion is persistent. The Mandelite version bases unity on common tactics, and makes unity both internally and externally depend on backstairs diplomacy between groups within the permanent leadership. The problems of this approach are visible in the oscillations of the International Socialist Group/Socialist Resistance in Respect between near silence on political differences, followed by an abrupt split; and on a larger scale in the very similar behaviour of the Sinistra Critica group in the Italian Rifondazione Comunista. Socialist Resistance’s split from Respect over the Scottish issue was merely silly, while Sinistra Critica’s split from Rifondazione concerned a real issue of principle: Italian troops in Afghanistan. But in both cases the prior history of diplomatic blocs was an obstacle to broader understanding.
CPGB
Against this combination the CPGB remains, regrettably, a voice crying in the wilderness; though it has to be said that the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain and SPEW are substantially less poisoned by the paradigm than the SWP and its offshoots (WP, etc) and the sad remnant of the British Mandelites in Socialist Resistance. We have been persistently arguing against all three elements.
Our practical priorities and choices - like the Weekly Worker and its character, like producing a Draft programme and writing our Theses on the Labour Party, like calling for critical votes for various dodgy semi-left politicians, and so on - reflect at root a fundamentally different conception of the revolution and the party. (Our ability to actually practise the alternative, beyond the character of the paper, is gravely limited by our very small forces.)
In the first place, proletarian revolution involves not only mass actions coming up against the state, but also and utterly indispensably the masses coming to imagine the possibility of a real alternative to the existing order.
Secondly, it follows that the function of a workers’ independent political party, as distinct from trade unions and other workers’ organisations, is not to ‘coordinate the struggles’ and ‘push them forward’ towards the general strike. Rather, it is to spread the idea that ‘another world is possible’ by concretising it as far as possible in propaganda, electoral manifestos and selected forms of agitational campaigning which promote socialism, as opposed to merely opposing this or that effect of capitalism. And, at the same time, the political party’s job is to back up the struggles, workers’ organisations and so on by delegitimising the state order through which the capitalist class rules - exposing its corrupt and anti-democratic character - and proposing another state order in which the working class rules.
Hence electoral and parliamentary interventions, together with our own workers’ press and media, really matter. Hence, also, clarity on political democracy, both in and against the state, and in the workers’ movement, really matter and are not subordinate to the question of mobilising forces for strikes, street actions, etc.
Thirdly, [b]if the job of the left really was to promote ‘moderate demands but militant action’, then, on the one hand, the dispersal of our forces would be unfortunate, but not disastrous: arguing for more head-banging militancy is something every individual in the movement can do without organisation. On the other hand, the obvious basis of unity would be to give up on fancy programmes, etc, and agree to unite on the basis of a little motherhood and apple pie - plus the promotion of more head-banging militancy. This is the policy of the ACI.
But if the jobs of a left political party are to pose and concretise the idea that ‘another world is possible’, and to back up the mass movement by delegitimising the state order, the dispersal of our forces is a complete disaster. We cannot expect either Labour, deeply committed to the ‘British national interest’ and the constitutional order, or trade union leaders who are left-Labourites in politics, to do these jobs for us. We need effective, independent workers’ media, and organised resources to support and distribute them, and electoral interventions, on the basis of clear (even if limited) programmatic commitments to the independent interests of the working class. Hence we need effective far-left unity on the basis of the open defence of working class political independence, radical democracy and proletarian internationalism.
It follows from this that the question of the unity of the existing organised left really matters. And it follows in turn that both, on the one hand, ideologically defending bureaucratic-centralist forms (the WP majority, the Spartacists and International Bolshevik Tendency) and kicking dissidents out (SWP), and, on the other hand, walking out of organisations, however small they may be, without a serious fight, are actual crimes against the working class.
Programme
The possible - not guaranteed - basis of a unitary party is a political programme. On this point Workers Power is right against its splitters. But its problem is a failure to understand that a programme for this purpose has to be primarily a statement of aims or goals, with only a limited element of strategic orientation, not an elaboration of precise theory or tactics.
From Trotsky’s efforts to save the inheritance of the first four congresses of the Communist International from the Stalinists, the ‘orthodox Trotskyists’ of one sort and another have developed the idea that a political programme has to include points of theory, like the ‘permanent revolution’ and the class character of the former Soviet-bloc regimes; and points of tactics, like the ‘united front’ and ‘transitional demands’. The orthodox Maoists came to similar results by a different ideological route: the construction of ‘anti-revisionist’ parties. The result is to ‘programmatise’ and make into split issues all sorts of secondary questions.
When comrades react against this false conception of programme and party, it is all to easy for them to slip, as the new WP split and Pham Binh in the United States seem to have done, into the opposite position: all that matters is a few elementary moral commitments and the commitment to ‘activism’. But on this basis organising independently of the SWP’s, SPEW’s and Counterfire’s fronts is sectarian: there is no political justification for yet another front based merely on the commitment to resist - even with ‘anti-capitalism’ added as a brand name.
It is in this context that the CPGB has insisted that the political basis of membership in CPGB, beyond paying dues and active participation in party organisations, is acceptance of our Draft programme as the basis for collective action. It is not agreement with the Draft programme.
Still less does eligibility for membership require a high level of understanding of the theoretical and historical judgments that inform the Draft programme (like the critique of ‘left economism’ discussed above). We endeavour to promote this understanding through our public press; we do not ask comrades to pass exams on it (or on Marxist political economy, as was rumoured, perhaps falsely, of the 1970s Revolutionary Communist Group) in order to join.
This is a right and necessary judgment. If we were to go down the path of demanding more theoretical agreement as part of the basis of membership, we would contradict our own aims. It is, however, a part of the context of the current split.
The resigners
The Manchester comrades were originally attracted to the CPGB because of our democratic internal practice and rejection of the system of competing sects - but without ever grasping that our democratic practice and rejection of the system of sects is inextricably linked to our rejection of the left’s ‘activist’ practice and our rejection of its left-economist concept of revolution. The comrades continued to work and think in the frame of the ‘activist’ practice. Hence (among other things) comrade Strafford’s very limited attendance at CPGB aggregates. Hence also the fact that from quite an early date he began to take political direction from Manchester Permanent Revolution comrades as the basis of criticisms of the line of the PCC and CPGB majority.
But this internal contradiction explains why the comrades have felt unable to actually argue their criticisms and work up an alternative within the framework of the CPGB.
The problem is that the logic of the Manchester comrades’ criticisms was to reject the whole CPGB project. But to argue for turning CPGB into something more like Permanent Revolution would contradict their own initial reasons for joining the CPGB (it would plainly be merely to create another Trot grouplet). So they could never work up a systematic alternative to the lines of the leadership majority or gain enough confidence to argue for such an alternative.
We have not driven comrades out for disagreeing on the issues discussed here. On the contrary, we have urged comrades to argue, develop and publish in this paper their views. Rather, their disagreement has led them to choose to leave us.
The ACI provides an apparent way out of this intolerable contradiction. It appears to escape the Trot-sect model, while preserving the ‘activist’ model. The reality, however, is that it is yet another piece of frontist fakery and will go nowhere. Hopefully, when they actually experience this, the comrades will be led to self-criticise on the question of the left-economist, ‘activist’ model which has led them out of the CPGB.
Last edited by Die Neue Zeit; 25th May 2012 at 04:18.
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
lol, so according to the CPGB, they actually rank the CPB and SPEW just below them, but above the SWP, in terms of 'Socialist purity' or whatever? I suppose this has nothing to do with internal jealousy at the CPGB that the SWP is the biggest sect on the left? How else can you support a Stalinist/tankie party and a Trotskyist-cum-Democratic Socialist party above a sort of formerly-Trotskyist, now vapid organisation?
The CPGB is a big mess. Mind you, so are the SWP, SPEW and any other silly acronym out there on the left. Which is just as well, cos i'd not trust any of them to organise a piss up in a brewery, let alone be part of/lead a revolution.
No, the CPGB ranks the CPB and SPEW above the SWP in terms of having, ironically, a more democratic culture than the SWP.
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
Indeed. Reading is apparently a somewhat hard job for some in their pursuit of quick jabs.
But on topic: A pretty good article I think. Although I do wonder (my spotterly self) what this means for their presence in Manchester.
As for the rest: I have little to comment. But I do wonder about:
I for one was kicked out from the Dutch SP (a party with a Maoist background) for being organised politically against the leadership. I do know of only a few political formations that would act otherwise in fact. Die Linke is one of those that are an exception. So, what "substantial part of the continental far left" is Macnair talking about?
I think, thus I disagree. | Chairperson of a Socialist Party branchMarxist Internet Archive | Communistisch Platform
Working class independence - Internationalism - Democracy
Educate - Agitate - Organise
The Fronte de gauche, the NPA, maybe the PCF (but this would require a stretch of the term "Official Communists"), definitely SYRIZA, and the Left Bloc in Portugal are the most obvious ones coming off the top of my head, comrade.
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
Doesn't surprise me, and probably accurate. Given the number of splits from and resignations by important elements of the SWP in the past 10 years, it's hard to think it very democratic. It's really fallen apart since Tony Cliff's death.
Though SPEW has the worst name ever. SCUM, at least, was intentional/
The worst part is that the culture of the offshoots from the SWP is probably just as undemocratic. That's what you get, really, from [hyper-]"activist" culture.
* Cue in the [hyper-]"activist" ad hominems... *
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
Whilst i'm in agreement about hyper-activism, paper-selling etc. being slightly pointless (thought not always, not generalised and there's a fine line), what do you advocate in its place?
Mike's article is dishonest and inaccurate. In a group of less than 30 I am not sure how hard it would be to know that one of the comrades who has resigned recently lives in London. I also can't quite get my head around how he came to the conclusion that Permanent Revolution had any role in my criticisms to the PCC. One of a number of lies the PCC is using both within the Weekly Worker and internally.
It is just untrue that comrades have left because of the ACI but have done over similar reasons to a handful of other comrades who have left over the last 12-months. On the basis that the political method and culture of the CPGB is not what they say it is. The CPGB rightly say that you can't re-build the left by going around it but must fight through it, yet the organisation is lethargic with a largely passive membership which is not organised in a fashion to intervene and participate within working class struggles and campaigns. The obvious places you would go if you were serious about a party project. In terms of democracy, the CPGB is better than most groups, but that is not saying much at all. For example, in February 2011 we won a motion at the organisations aggregate that instructed the leading body to prepare and organise a pamphlet on how to actually fight the cuts. A useful text that members could use when participating in anti-cuts actions. The PCC lost the vote but in the proceeding months no work was done on it and it was eventually dropped altogether by the time of the last Members Report of 2011 which contained a list of publications in production.
Lastly, this is not an organised split or even an unconscious one it is just the continuation of a slow stream of resignations by comrades who actually do work within the movement whether on campus or in their union etc.
Last edited by Serge's Fist; 27th May 2012 at 11:08.
The only school we learn at, is history; i.e. not the different representations of history that society may have produced, but the history made and lived by our class and by the exploited classes from the past – the history of their heroic, vital but also limited struggles that the proletariat will be finally capable of bringing to their ultimate term: communism. - Sylvia Pankhurst
As much as I agree with your views on those three parties, I think your being a tad too dismissive, respectfully.
The CPGB isn´t really a Stalinist/tankie party. I don´t know their history, but their theory seems to be a mixture of 2. international orthodox marxism and leninism. Someone more knowledgeable on them please correct me if I´m wrong.
I´m not particularly keen on CPGB or SPEW, but it is indeed true to my knowledge that they have a more democratic culture and leadership than SWP. You at least see more complaints about the SWP leadership and undemocratic practices within the party than than about the other two mentioned. Also you see much more expulsions going on from the SWP than from the other two.
"Give me a place to stand, and I will sit on your face."
- Trotsky in the opening speech to the third congress of the Fourth International.
Why, the SPD model, of course. Durable class activism takes the form of functionaries, bureaucracy-as-process, etc. The "propagandism" of less "active" but more theoretically developed comrades should also be taken into account, so long as they contribute to branch meetings by any name.
[Oh yeah, I haven't forgotten your ad hominems levelled against me.]
Comrade, every genuine class struggle is political, not economic. The "passive membership" with regards to "intervening" in typically tred-iunion disputes, Not-In-My-Backyard hacktivisms, student campaigns around tuition costs, other lesser economic "struggles," etc. is, in my view, a very good thing. However, perhaps the CPGB could have done more at, say, Occupy London, since that was a basic but nonetheless political struggle.
The only "dishonest and inaccurate" portions of his article, I think, are his musings on electoralism; sadly, they ignore the role of ballot spoilage and spoilage campaigns.
Last edited by Die Neue Zeit; 26th May 2012 at 19:04.
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
[Post deleted - post no longer relevant due to DNZ's editing of his post]
Last edited by Android; 26th May 2012 at 19:13.
“Marx says in order to create a new society we need new people. New people are created in activity and we need a revolution not only because the old ruling class can only be overthrown in a revolution, but you need a revolution in order to transform the people making it. So they become qualified to create a certain society. That’s clearly the reverse of what most Marxists think. Most Marxists think you have to change people. You have to convince them and then you make a revolution, but Marx says no. You make a revolution and that will change them.” - Martin Glaberman
all the groups should all unite under a coalition called "the workers' coalition."
But then surely you're satisfied with the CPGB? Bureaucracy, theory-over-activism? Again, what stops the process of bureaucracy and theory degenerating into a vicious cycle of bureaucracy to back up more theory, more dense, archaic theory to justify the bureaucratic tendencies and so on?
My real question is: what would your view of the party be, in terms of getting out there in the class? Because if you just sit in the pub having a beer ever week and discuss Kautsky, meanwhile shuffling some papers around back at the office, the working class isn't gonna come to you. You have to go to the working class, surely?
My ad hominems were levelled against you because i'm a believe in insisting on the impossible, not mere 'do as I say' preachers.
Come on! There's theory, and then there's "theory." The theory that makes the most connection to the class as a whole is that pertaining to principles, program, and strategy. The "theory" that makes the least connection is your strawman, things like "bureaucratic collectivism" or "state-capitalist" canards.
"Getting out there" should involve a long-term plan for Alternative Culture / mutual aid / social support institutions, but should start out with at least one aspect already. "Getting out there" should involve mass spoilage campaigns and, if decided upon, standing for elections. "Getting out there" would involve some individuals having beers each week and discussing the lessons of German Social Democracy for today.
The "Educate" in Wilhelm Liebknecht's slogan involves, whether you like it or not, secular "preaching" and secular "evangelism."
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
Marx had a less black and white view of economic struggles proceeding into political struggles:
The article is inaccurate as there has been no split, no "political direction" from Permanent Revolution, there has been critical articles, contributions etc. before leaving and the easiest one to get right would be for a PCC member to know where members are actually based.Originally Posted by Marx November 23 1871
The only school we learn at, is history; i.e. not the different representations of history that society may have produced, but the history made and lived by our class and by the exploited classes from the past – the history of their heroic, vital but also limited struggles that the proletariat will be finally capable of bringing to their ultimate term: communism. - Sylvia Pankhurst
We're not going to ever unite the left,or even the trotskyists, through theoretical innovation and restructuring alone. Whatever happens, even if the most perfect internally democratic party came into being there would still be splits and those splits will be felt.
The most important thing is practice and how we relate to the people. People are more likely to remain in a party if it can secure a solid base in nthe working class somewhere (that is, there are objective foundations for its being and its not just glued together by the liquified ghost-ego of tony cliff or whatever), or if they do split in those circumstances its not likely to make much difference .
Of course subjective elements of the aprty also have a big impact but im just saying people are more enthusiastic to rally around matter than ghost
Formerly zenga zenga !
Perhaps, but long-term historical development has vindicated Lassalle's "politicism" (and perhaps even anti-trade unionism), certainly over the notion of growing political struggles over economic ones, even "the struggle for socialism" itself (the maximum economic struggle).
Today, it is our task, comrade, to grow political struggles in and out of themselves, and also grow both genuine class struggle and radicalized economic struggles out of those earlier political struggles.
Re. the working day and the working week: emphasizing the need for political participation in such advocacy is the most political take, while emphasizing unemployment reduction or even individual leisure time is more economic. [In between would be reduction of carbon emissions if the call is for less working days per week.]
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
What if the wider working class don't ever give a shit about German Social Democracy? I'm not being funny, it's pretty fucking boring.
You don't seem to have a plan for translating your frankly dense and archaic theoretical musings (though admittedly, you're not the only one, and it's all relative, i'm sure I am dense and archaic at times too!) into actually engaging the wider working class.
Society is full of people who do not enjoy philosophy. You fail to understand that you need to be able to actually engage people at a normal level, rather than preaching to them about something as obscure and frankly un-interesting as the history of German Social Democracy.
I think that's why DNZ advocates the creation of alternative culture. I also think you fall into the opposite trap that you are accusing DNZ of and could be seen as equally condescending. To make any so of claim that people aren't interested in things that would be considered academic requires a pretty negative view of the working class as bunch uneducated people who aren't interested in anything outside of feeding themselves and sports.
The problem is that while these historical discussions are somewhat boring, when you are dealing with questions of organization and path for actions one needs to look back at what has been tried and what worked and didn't work. This isn't to say that the pre-war SPD model is the one we should start from, but your attitude seems to reject any amount of learning from the past.
COMMUNISM !