SPGB Euroelection broadcast for Wales

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I recall you posting that article before. So what? What's the point in posting it, particularly without commentary? Are we supposed to be impressed by the vague, liberal phrase "nucleus of peace"? I imagine Dimitrov said similar things about "anti-fascist" imperialists.

[Dave B]

Lenin 1917

Today we must point out that the programme of the Menshevik Minister Skobelev goes even further than Bolshevism. Here is the programme, as reported in the ministerial paper, Rech:

“The Minister [Skobelev] declared that ’... the country’s economy is on the brink of disaster. We must intervene in all fields of economic life, as there is no money in the Treasury. We must improve the condition of the working masses, and to do that we must take the profits from the tills of the businessmen and bankers’. (Voice in the audience: ‘How?’) ’By ruthless taxation of property,’ replied the Minister of Labour, Skobelev. ’It is a method known to the science of finance. The rate of taxation on the propertied classes must be increased to one hundred per cent of their profits.’ (Voice in the audience: ’That means everything.’) ‘Unfortunately,’ declared Skobelev, ’many corporations have already distributed their dividends among the share holders, and we must therefore levy a progressive personal tax on the propertied classes. We will go even further, and, if the capitalists wish to preserve the bourgeois method of business, let them work without interest, so as not to lose their clients.... We must introduce compulsory labour service for the shareholders, bankers and factory owners, who are in a rather slack mood because the incentive that formerly stimulated them to work is now lacking.... We must force the shareholders to submit to the state; they, too, must be subject to labour service.’”

We advise the workers to read and reread this programme, to discuss it and go into the matter of its practicability.



The important thing is the conditions necessary for its fulfilment, and the taking of immediate steps towards its fulfilment.



This programme in itself is an excellent one and coincides with the Bolshevik programme, except that in one particular it goes even further than our programme, namely, it promises to take the profits from the tills of the bankers “to the extent of one hundred per cent”.



Our Party is much more moderate. Its resolution demands much less than this, namely, the mere establishment of control over the banks and the “gradual [just listen, the Bolsheviks are for gradualness!] introduction of a more just progressive tax on incomes and properties”.
Our Party is more moderate than Skobelev.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/len...17/may/16b.htm

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Dave B, if you want to say something, say it. Simply posting articles without commentary will not do - particularly since you've posted those same articles before (now I wonder if you have a big text file full of those somewhere).

[Dave B]

Oh I am sorry I didn’t think it needed an explanation; it is about lying Leninist historians.

Where is your evidence that the evil Mensheviks were Kadet loving white-guardist capitalist lickspittles?

Or is it just of slandering people who opposed;

When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party and, as you have heard, a united socialist front is proposed, we say, "Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position because it is the party that has won,

https://www.marxists.org/archive/len...919/aug/05.htm

Like the homophobic, Menshevik, gaybashing and ‘token black woman’ SPGB.

[Dave B]

It might seem like just Banter now but we know what accusations of Menshevism means when it comes to Leninist in power;

“For the public manifestations of Menshevism our revolutionary courts must pass the death sentence, otherwise they are not our courts, but God knows what.”

http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...922/mar/27.htm

[Hrafn]

Dave B, do you use that letter size to intentionally make your posts harder to read, or is it by ignorant accident?

[whichfinder]

The black woman isn't 'token', I think she's quite high up in the party. At least I remember her being in charge of proceedings when I went to a talk on Rosa Luxemburg at the SPGB headquarters.

You're quite correct to say that she wasn't "token", she just happened to be one of the six comrades featured in the video who was available on the day of the shoot. Nothing more.

However, she's no more "quite high up in the party" than anyone else. Speakers, literature sellers, writers and those who look after the party's premises occupy precisely the same position. That's what you'd expect of a fully democratic, leaderless organisation.

[The Idler]

Yes, they did, and don't pretend otherwise. If printing articles against the war means taking a stand against the British state - and it does - then printing Menshevik-whiteguard articles against the Bolshevik state means siding with the Mensheviks, with the Whites, with Kolchak and with the British.



And in 1903, Trotsky was a scoundrel. But nonetheless, there is quite a difference between the Menshevik group in 1903 and in 1918. Originally, the Mensheviks were merely an opportunist group in Russian social-democracy. Sometimes they were better than that - there were a lot of Menshevik-directed sailour uprisings in 1905 and in the aftermath. By 1918, however, the best elements had left the Menshevik group, including Larin, Uritsky etc. What remained was a whiteguard organisation.



It places Stalin on the correct side of the class line? You appear to have confused Trotskyism for some sort of petty opposition to Stalin personally. In 1918, Stalin and Trotsky were on the same side - the side of the proletariat - whereas the Mensheviks and the SPGB were not.



"On the eve of the Bolshevik coup" apparently means in the Pre-Parliament. In any case, yes, the Bolsheviks supported the convocation of the Constituent Assembly (and Sverdlov presided at several of the sessions, a task that he apparently found immensely boring). Two things need to be kept in mind, though.

First, the Bolsheviks did not count on the PSR-PLSR split not being recorded by the voting lists. I have already gone into this at length: most people (as seen from the results in the peasants' soviets) supported the PLSR, but the elections returned a PSR majority.

Second, the Bolsheviks did not support the Constituent Assembly for the Constituent Assembly's sake, but as a possible organ of proletarian power. In fact the Bolshevik group was flexible when it came to institutions, alternately supporting and opposing the assembly, factory committees, soviets, unions etc. To the vulgar democrat this means inconsistency - but to socialists it is the only correct strategy. The proletarian party can't support any sort of institution mindlessly, but recognise the potential for revolutionary action in all of them.
[/SIZE]

Every issue of the Socialist Standard has stated 'The Socialist Party of Great Britain enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist.'

• The Bolsheviks asserted “Soviets are the perfect form of State. They are the magic wand by which all inequalities, all misery, may be suppressed” (p. 14). Martov ridiculed the Bolsheviks for their belief that revolutions were ready to break out everywhere, for their belief that workers and peasants, by embracing Soviets (a world merely meaning Council), could establish Socialism. He held the Marxian view that no political form can enable Socialism to be won, unless the material conditions are ripe. The SPGB thought similarly.
• In 1917, Lenin urged that the Russian workers would shatter the old bureaucratic and oppressive features of the State. Martov observed '“Reality has cruelly shattered all these illusions. The ‘Soviet State’ has not established in any instance electiveness and recall of public officials and the commanding staff. It has not suppressed the professional police . . . It has not done away with social hierarchy in production . . . On the contrary, in proportion to its evolution, the Soviet State shows a tendency in the opposite direction. It shows a tendency toward the utmost possible strengthening of the principles of hierarchy and compulsion. It shows a tendency toward the development of a more specialised apparatus of repression than before . . . It shows a tendency toward the total freedom of the executive organisms from the tutelage of the electors”'. The SPGB thought similarly.
• The Bolsheviks, however, thought it possible for an active minority, representing the vague aspirations of the workers, to gain political power before the capitalist revolution itself had been completed.

Whatever side you think the Bolsheviks were on, it wasn't socialism.

[Red Deathy]

The context was the SPGB rejecting the slogan of an end to the discrimination of lesbians. And in fact, the SPGB has never written on the gay question (good old Idler, trying to demonstrate the opposite could only link to a... theatre review), even when gay people made up the second most numerous group in the prisons of the British state. The SPGB can piously claim that gay people will not be discriminated against in socialism, but then again, everyone thinks that gay people, women etc. would not be discriminated against in their "ideal" society. The point is not to utter platitudes, any idiot can do that (and most idiots do), but to put forward a revolutionary programme that addresses the oppression (not simply "discrimination") of gay people. The SPGB have not done this - in fact they refuse to. Why, on this thread we have robbo, openly admitting that the execrable SPGB propaganda doesn't address gay liberation because they want to attract bigots (and in fact he compares gay liberation to points of economic theory that, while elementary to us, are beyond arcane to most people). I would say "fuck them, then", but this laughable remnant of a bygone era doesn't deserve even that.

We don't want to attract bigots, that's nonsense. In fact, I can't see anywhere where Robbo said that, I'm afraid, unless you can provide a quote (which I may be missing) I'll have to say that you are grossly mistaken on that point, and ask you to retract.

What you're doing is like going up to an 19th Century abo0litionist and asking them "What about the gay slaves" "Er, we'll emancipate them too?" They'd reply. Likewise, we'd reply that we want the LGBTQ Wages Slaves to emancipate themselves too. As has been proven by history, Gay Liberation is perfectly compatible with the continued existence of capitalism and the wages system (The UK now has laws to prevent discrimination in the workplace, and full gay marriage laws, unless I'm missing something, there remains no statutory discriminations against gay people).

The SP is a specialist tool, for the abolition of the wages system, it exists for no other purpose. You'd be as well off railing against the RSPCA or the Society for Preservation of Historic Buildings for not publishing articles on LGBTQ rights.

[Dave B]

I am a factory worker working for a large multinational capitalist corporation. Like most of them they know what is important and what is not when it comes to getting most out of their workers.

And as far as they are concerned discrimination and hostility between their employees based on antiquated “ism’s” isn’t one of them.

All the factory floor workers have been taken off the job and given extensive ‘equality and diversity’ training.

Including the full range of sexual orientations and gender preferences as well as obviously ‘race’ and religion.

[robbo203]

. Why, on this thread we have robbo, openly admitting that the execrable SPGB propaganda doesn't address gay liberation because they want to attract bigots (and in fact he compares gay liberation to points of economic theory that, while elementary to us, are beyond arcane to most people). I would say "fuck them, then", but this laughable remnant of a bygone era doesn't deserve even that.

You are being dishonest here and this is not the first time you've been caught out. Here is what I actually said

How do you "smash" the bourgeois family and how do you convey that in the space of 2 mins 40 secs? I think the overwhelming majority of workers on hearing a slogan like that would immediately be turned off and simply dismiss you as a nutjob on a par with the Monster Raving Looney Party or whatever. You have to start on a positive note and with the big picture first and foremost. The more nuanced and detailed analyses comes with greater understanding. The Left is too fond of talking to itself and navel gazing, as it is. It needs to get out there and talk more in terms that most workers can relate to. Which is why I think the SPGB video is a bit of a mould breaker, frankly.

I did not mention gay liberation. I was referring to Queervanguard's suggestion that the SPGB video should have said something about "smashing the bourgeois family". Its a crackpot suggestion not because doing away with (I dont like the stupid term "smashing" in this context) the bourgeois family is not a good idea but because it will almost certainly prove counterproductive in a very short video in which you simply do not have the time available to explain what you mean by this. People could and almost certainly will get completely the wrong idea and react negatively. Which is precisely why I said "The more nuanced and detailed analyses comes with greater understanding". You simply cannot convey a nuanced and detailed analysis in under 2 mins 40 secs but presumably such an analysis will be found elsewhere in the literature of the SPGB for instance should people feel inclined to make contact with the SPGB

As for the suggestion that the SPGB wants to "attract bigots" I think this is just idiotic frankly

[robbo203]

Yes, they did, and don't pretend otherwise. If printing articles against the war means taking a stand against the British state - and it does - then printing Menshevik-whiteguard articles against the Bolshevik state means siding with the Mensheviks, with the Whites, with Kolchak and with the British.

In the fantasy world of left wing conspiracy theorists, anything goes. This illogical and ridiculous claim of yours illustrates the point nicely. Firstly what articles are you talking about? Please provide the evidence to back up your claim. You have a reputation for being economical with the truth to put it mildly and it is about time you should be called out on this Apart from Martov's critique of the Bolsheviks I'm not aware of any other article that the SPGB published from the Mensheviks so do enlighten us all. Anyway, by no stretch of the imagination could you call Martov a whiteguardist. He actually supported the red army against the whites and was critical of those Mensheviks who joined the Kerensky government towards which incidentally the SPGB was equally scathing calling Kerensky an "agent of the master class" http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/s...where-it-fails

Even if it were true that the SPGB did print articles from the Mensheviks - and with the exception of Martov , I think it is untrue - how on earth do you jump from that to the conclusion that "printing Menshevik-whiteguard articles against the Bolshevik state means siding with the Mensheviks, with the Whites, with Kolchak and with the British." The SPGB incidentally was highly critical of the Russian government's agreement in 1920 to repay foreign property-owners their losses and allied Governments their “debts.” - those same governments. like the British, whose armies had invaded Russia . For the SPGB this meant "continued exploitation of Russian workers to pay foreign exploiters" http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/s...shevist-policy). Would such a sentiment be possible if the SPGB had sided with the British as you stupidly claim?

Yes of course there were some commonalities between the SPGB and the Mensheviks just as there were some commonalities between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. But that does not mean the SPGB supported the Mensheviks. Its ridiculous to suggest otherwise. I was reading recently of a UKIP politician who put forward a view on the nature of taxation that was to all intents and purposes exactly the same view that Marx held - namely that taxation in reality is a burden on the capitalist class alone , not the workers, even if there appear to be tax deductions being made on our pay slips . By your warped logic if one were to publish this article by a UKIP politician this must mean one supported UKIP


Yes the SPGB argued that it was simply not possible for the Bolshevik revolution to have delivered "socialism" as did the Mensheviks. Such a view stemmed from a common orthodox marxist position on the prerequisites of a socialist revolution which even Lenin had at one time adhered to. Neverthless the SPGB's attitude towards the Mensheviks was rather like its attitude to Second International as a whole which was that it was irredeemably reformist and lost to socialism. That included the Mensheviks too. I believe the SPGB had published some pamhlets by Kautsky too even though it pretty early on had sussed out that Kautsky had gone reformist. Nevertheless, the pamphlets were published becuase what Kautsky had to say in them seemed relevant and useful.

As for the SPGB attacking the Bolshevik state yes of course it did and rightly so. Bolshevik style state capitalism - Lenin had fulsomely admired German state capitalism under Bismarck as well as Scientific Taylorism (meaning how to efficiently screw your workforce) - could not BUT be opposed by any socialist claiming to be a socialist. This viciously anti working class regime - even before Stalin came to power - destroyed any kind of autonomous expression of working class power like the Factory Committees and imposed one man management from above while centralising political power in the hands of an emerging state capitalist class and banning political opposition both inside and outside the pseudo-communist party as it sought to establish its brutal dictatorship over the working class.

It places Stalin on the correct side of the class line? You appear to have confused Trotskyism for some sort of petty opposition to Stalin personally. In 1918, Stalin and Trotsky were on the same side - the side of the proletariat - whereas the Mensheviks and the SPGB were not.

Oddly enough the SPGB was one of the few organisations that praised the Bolsheviks at the time for taking Russia out of the capitalist First World War. Its initial attutude towards the Bolsheviks was a lot more circumspect than you seem to imagine. See this chapter from Dave Perrin's book on the SPGB (http://wspus.org/in-depth/russia-len...te-capitalism/). Its opinion on the Bolsheviks only hardened as the evidence came in. It had never at any time believewd that the revolution could deliver socialism and the passing of time more and more proved this judgement to be absolutely correct.

As for Stalin and Trotsky being on the side of the proletariat the hell they were. Just saying you are on the side of the proletariat doesnt make you so. The proof of the pudding in in the eating. We all know about Stalin but Trotsky's own viciously anti working class record is perhaps less well known. It was under his leadership that the militarisation of labour programme was advanced. In his speech 30. March 1920 at the 9th party congress he declared:

"If we seriously speak of planned economy, which is to acquire its unity of purpose from the center, when labor forces are assigned in accordance with the economic plan at the given stage of developement, the working masses cannot be left wandering all over Russia. They must be thrown here and there, appointed, commanded, just like soldiers". In the same speech, he says "Deserters from labour ought to to be formed into punitive battalions or put into concentration camps".

If that is not a thoroughly anti working class perspective I dont know what is...

[QueerVanguard]

I did not mention gay liberation.

Of course not. You clowns never do because you either don't give a shit about liberating LGBTQs or don't want to offend the sensibilities of the moralist petite bourgeois.

I was referring to Queervanguard's suggestion that the SPGB video should have said something about "smashing the bourgeois family". Its a crackpot suggestion not because doing away with (I dont like the stupid term "smashing" in this context) the bourgeois family is not a good idea but because it will almost certainly prove counterproductive in a very short video in which you simply do not have the time available to explain what you mean by this.

Why do we need to explain it? The family came w/ property and will end w/ property. Simple. If the family continues to exist after the SPGB have their World Socialism take root --which a shit ton of them are probably hoping), it will be a sign we're nowhere near Socialism. Non-moralist workers --y'know, the huge majority of workers- welcome the end of the family so there's no need to spend minutes explaining it. They could have said "A world without oppression of LGBTQs, without gender, without the family", simple as that. They didn't and that's really fucking suspect.

[Lord Testicles]

Non-moralist workers --y'know, the huge majority of workers- welcome the end of the family so there's no need to spend minutes explaining it.

This is nonsense. If a huge majority of workers wanted the end of the family then they'd stop organising themselves into family units.

[QueerVanguard]

This is nonsense. If a huge majority of workers wanted the end of the family then they'd stop organising themselves into family units.

They can't yet because the material conditions aren't ready, you're putting the cart before the horse. Most workers yearn for the end of the family but for now it makes the most sense to continue to live in isolated semi-monogamous units for financial reasons. They also fear being judged for stepping outside the gender binary and becoming polyamorous because they fear being ethically condemned by the moralist bourgeois who they depend on for the means of survival.

[robbo203]

Of course not. You clowns never do because you either don't give a shit about liberating LGBTQs or don't want to offend the sensibilities of the moralist petite bourgeois.



Why do we need to explain it? The family came w/ property and will end w/ property. Simple. If the family continues to exist after the SPGB have their World Socialism take root --which a shit ton of them are probably hoping), it will be a sign we're nowhere near Socialism. Non-moralist workers --y'know, the huge majority of workers- welcome the end of the family so there's no need to spend minutes explaining it. They could have said "A world without oppression of LGBTQs, without gender, without the family", simple as that. They didn't and that's really fucking suspect.

You are talking complete bollocks now. Youve got your head in the clouds frankly. I invite you to test your claim that the "huge majority of workers" would currently "welcome the end of the family". I think you would find the exact opposite is the case. Tell them in your party political broadcast that you bluntly intend to "get rid of the family" and you will be overwhemingly regarded as some kind of weird religious sect with a bee in its bonnet about enforced communisation of peoples' living arrangements or whatever. Alternatively, I suppose, you might be seen as wanting to further promote the bourgeois atomisation of society into a collection of free floating individuals. At any rate, your simplistic attack on that institution you call the "family" will be interpreted by them as a direct assault on, and a devaluation of, the affective ties they have with their own family members

Your reasoning is laughably inept:

"The family came w/ property and will end w/ property. Simple"

Bullshit. You dont even understand what the family is yourself yet you pretend that it would "simple" to explain what it is about. In traditional hunter gatherer societies predating the emergence of private property, the organising principle of social organisation was kinship. Here just at random I picked out something after a quick websearch, for your edification

The fundamental social organization in foraging societies is-based on family, marriage, kinship, gender, and age. The two basic elements of social organization for foraging populations are the nuclear family and the band. The nuclear family is the small family unit associated with procreation: parents and offspring. The nuclear family appears to be most adaptive for hunting-gathering societies because of the flexibility needed for the location and easy distribution and exchange of food resources, and the other exigencies of hunting (Fox, 1967; Pasternak, 1976).

The most common type of band is made up of a related cluster of nuclear families ranging in size from twenty to one hundred individuals. At times, in societies such as the desert-dwelling Shoshone Indians, the bands may break up into nuclear families to locate food and other resources. Under other circumstances, several families may cooperate in hunting and other foraging activities. In some instances, bands may contain up to four or five (sometimes more) extended families, in which married children and their offspring reside with their parents. These multifamily bands provide the webs of kinship for foraging societies, enabling them to cooperate in subsistence and economic exchanges.
(http://iitg.vlab.co.in/?sub=72&brch=173&sim=881&cnt=1)


See , its not quite so "simple" as you make out, is it? No doubt in socialism there will be considerable variability and fluidity in living arrangements and affective ties but to dogmatically rule out altogether the possibility of people living in what are clearly consanguineal family units and emotionally identifying with other members of that family is just dumb. And it comes across as authoritarian and overly prescriptive It makes you sound like some kind of social engineer who will tell people how to live their lives down to the intimate details. Workers would be quite right to spurn what you have to say as they would overwhelmingly


Finally as has already been explained to you by Reddeathy, the SPGB is just a specialist tool, for the abolition of the wages system, it exists for no other purpose. Though I am not a member of the SPGB myself, I think he is correct in his assessment and I note you did not respond to his point:

What you're doing is like going up to an 19th Century abo0litionist and asking them "What about the gay slaves" "Er, we'll emancipate them too?" They'd reply. Likewise, we'd reply that we want the LGBTQ Wages Slaves to emancipate themselves too. As has been proven by history, Gay Liberation is perfectly compatible with the continued existence of capitalism and the wages system (The UK now has laws to prevent discrimination in the workplace, and full gay marriage laws, unless I'm missing something, there remains no statutory discriminations against gay people).



It seems to me that if anything it is you whose standpoint is that of the "moralist petite bourgeois" which you claim to so vehemently oppose

[bricolage]

They can't yet because the material conditions aren't ready, you're putting the cart before the horse. Most workers yearn for the end of the family but for now it makes the most sense to continue to live in isolated semi-monogamous units for financial reasons. They also fear being judged for stepping outside the gender binary and becoming polyamorous because they fear being ethically condemned by the moralist bourgeois who they depend on for the means of survival.

What's your basis for this? From what I can see most workers (and most other people) are actually very supportive of monogamous relationships and families. Not that I'm saying that is good but this argument seems more like you trying to project what you'd like to be the case rather than actually what is the case.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It really says something about the quality of discussion on RevLeft that the only time I can be bothered to post is when I'm off my face on painkillers.

Oh I am sorry I didn’t think it needed an explanation; it is about lying Leninist historians.

Oh, and who exactly are those lying historians? What are they lying about? Is it not rather you who is lying, or more precisely, implying something that is completely untrue?

Take the second article. It is clear to anyone that has read the article in question that Lenin is mocking Skobelev, who had no intention of carrying out the programme he put forward, blaming of course the group then known as the "bourgeois ministers" of the Provisional Government (as if Chernov, Peshekhonov, Skobelev etc. were any less bourgeois than Lvov and Konovalov and so on).

The Bolshevik programme was more moderate on paper, because the Bolsheviks had every intention of carrying it out. Of course, if you know that your programme will never be put into practice, you can write whatever you want in it. Why stop at a tax rate of 100%? Why not 120% or 500%? Why not proclaim that you want to immediately abolish money and all forms of finance? Why not proclaim yourself the king of the unicorns?

And because the Bolsheviks had every intention of carrying their programme out, they had to take the objective economic circumstances - those of a near-collapse - into account. A decree to the effect that the entire industry was to be nationalised immediately would be nothing more than empty posturing. The situation was such that, in May 1917 (and indeed in October as well), immediate and complete nationalisation was not possible. The chief thing was to smash the bourgeois state - which October accomplished. Following the seizure of power there necessarily exists a transitional period in which the relations of production change.

As for the first article, what of it? Again, are we supposed to be impressed that one Fyodor Dan, who has mysteriously become a Theodore, could write hypocritical eulogies of Bolshevik revolutionaries? Suffice it to say that not one member of the Left Opposition, excepting the former member and future Nazi Ciliga, wanted anything to do with Dan, the whiteguard.

On that note:

Where is your evidence that the evil Mensheviks were Kadet loving white-guardist capitalist lickspittles?

I presented the evidence several times, and in fact I am copying this from my earlier posts.

Several prominent members of VIKZhel, the (then) central executive of the railways' union, a proto-white organisation that tried to force the Bolsheviks into a coalition with Mensheviks, Esers and Popular Socialists (who even the Mensheviks derided as Social-Kadets), were Mensheviks. (Source: Brovkin, "The Mensheviks after October".)

To quote Martov:

"All this caused a great turmoil in the Party. At first, our Right elements …took the next step and openly identified themselves with the foreign occupation… and with the struggle against the Bolsheviks as part of a ‘coalition’. They proclaimed it to be a ‘national task’ to restore capitalist order. Headed by Liber, they organised the Committee for Active Struggle for the Regeneration of Russia.

This created a de facto split in the Party, which did not become de jure only because terror put such pressure on all of us that any public debate… or convocation of a conference or congress to judge any rebellious elements became impossible…."

(Source: Brovkin, "Dear Comrades: Menshevik Reports on the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War".)

Unfortunately, Martov's excuse doesn't really stand up to scrutiny: not only was the Menshevik organisation legal in the period, they had the time and the resources for a struggle with the Bolsheviks within the trade unions. But apparently not for expelling Liber and so on.

The whiteguard Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia contained two Menshevik members, Kobolov and Yudin. (Source: Pereia, "White Siberia".)

The whiteguard Ufa Directorate contained the Menshevik Maysky, and the Menshevik Preobrazhensky was appointed the Directorate's Plenipotentiary in Samara. The Mensheviks organised a special branch for the KomUch territory (KomUch being a predecessor of the Ufa government), which empowered its members to assist the KomUch and its successors "as long as they were defending the accomplishments of the February Revolution" (such as capitalist industry being "removed from the tutelage of the state"). (Source: Smith, "Captives of the Revolution".)

One of the major White governments, "Democratic" Georgia, was almost entirely staffed by Mensheviks, including the once-minister of the post, Tsereteli.

Or is it just of slandering people who opposed;

When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party and, as you have heard, a united socialist front is proposed, we say, "Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position because it is the party that has won,

Hardly, given how prominent the Mensheviks were in the White movement - much more than their microscopic size warranted. But yes, Leninists, and everyone whose brain hasn't gone soft from decades of parliamentarianism, oppose, oppose in all circumstances, a coalition with reformists and bourgeois "workers'" parties.

It might seem like just Banter now but we know what accusations of Menshevism means when it comes to Leninist in power;

When the revolutionary party has seized political power, it will of course crush all those who act to undermine this power, whether they call themselves Mensheviks, Bolsheviks (quite a few modern reformist groups consider themselves to be Bolsheviks, and I would hardly expect much mercy for the "Bolshevik" Tudeh if there was a proletarian revolution in Iran). The Mensheviks have only themselves to blame - if they did not act to undermine the morale and the logistics of the proletarian power as it was struggling with the Whites - many of who were Mensheviks themselves - no one would talk about shooting them. In fact Lenin makes it clear that the Mensheviks were not to be shot for being Mensheviks, but for undermining the war effort.

Unfortunately very few Mensheviks were actually shot.

Every issue of the Socialist Standard has stated 'The Socialist Party of Great Britain enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist.'

Well that's nice. And the British SWP describes itself as a mass party (the "smallest mass party in the world", but, you know, a mass party nonetheless). And the WRP described themselves as, well, a workers', revolutionary group. And the central organ of the US RCP doesn't carry the warning "WE ARE ACTUALLY CRAZY BIGOTS".

If political groups are to be judged by what they say, instead of what they do, we must be living in some sort of utopia. Why, just a few days ago a "workers' party" was founded here.

In practice, of course, the SPGB does not even fight openly capitalist parties, let alone "socialist" reactionaries like the Mensheviks. Like all anti-communists the SPGB takes the side of these reactionaries against the Bolsheviks.

The Bolsheviks asserted “Soviets are the perfect form of State. They are the magic wand by which all inequalities, all misery, may be suppressed” (p. 14).

And where did the Bolsheviks assert that? In one of Martov's horrifyingly boring pamphlets. So we're off to a good start - the first statement in your little list is false.

In 1917, Lenin urged that the Russian workers would shatter the old bureaucratic and oppressive features of the State. Martov observed '“Reality has cruelly shattered all these illusions. The ‘Soviet State’ has not established in any instance electiveness and recall of public officials and the commanding staff. It has not suppressed the professional police . . . It has not done away with social hierarchy in production . . . On the contrary, in proportion to its evolution, the Soviet State shows a tendency in the opposite direction. It shows a tendency toward the utmost possible strengthening of the principles of hierarchy and compulsion. It shows a tendency toward the development of a more specialised apparatus of repression than before . . . It shows a tendency toward the total freedom of the executive organisms from the tutelage of the electors”'. The SPGB thought similarly.

Why, if Martov said so, it must be true. Martov, after all, was noted as an objective and insightful observer of the political situation. Just recall his incisive articles against the social-democratic persecution of the Communists while he was living in Germany.

(Here is a hint: no such articles are to be found in Martov's collected works. Like all anti-communists, Martov had no problem accommodating himself to the bourgeois SPD government in Germany, all the while criticising the Bolsheviks from a feigned "left" standpoint. It reminds me of those Kronstadters - those poor "anarchist" martyrs - who found White Finland so pleasant.)

The Bolsheviks, however, thought it possible for an active minority, representing the vague aspirations of the workers, to gain political power before the capitalist revolution itself had been completed.

And here we come to the most perplexing point in this portray of the spamgbot as a Menshevik, the point where the adherent of the One, True, Catholic and Orthodox Socialist Party actually departs from the SPGB doctrine and adopts the doctrine of the Organising Committee. Because as I recall it the SPGB was founded on the assumption that the conditions for socialism have been attained - that there was no need for any "capitalist revolution" in any part of the world. That - the notion of a "capitalist revolution" that needs to precede the socialist revolution in today's world - is undiluted Menshevism.

We don't want to attract bigots, that's nonsense. In fact, I can't see anywhere where Robbo said that, I'm afraid, unless you can provide a quote (which I may be missing) I'll have to say that you are grossly mistaken on that point, and ask you to retract.

Or what, you'll draw up a bill of attainder? Don't be ridiculous. You're in no position to ask anything, and the sheer arrogance is astounding. Here is what robbotnik said:

How do you "smash" the bourgeois family and how do you convey that in the space of 2 mins 40 secs? I think the overwhelming majority of workers on hearing a slogan like that would immediately be turned off and simply dismiss you as a nutjob on a par with the Monster Raving Looney Party or whatever.

And who opposes slogans like that? Family-values bigots. It is absolutely hilarious, by the way, that robbo thinks the workers (or rather electors - he doesn't distinguish between the two as per the SPGB's bizarre view on the class composition of modern societies) will "dismiss... as a nutjob" someone who talks about smashing the bourgeois family, but not someone who talks about the socialisation of the means of production.

What you're doing is like going up to an 19th Century abo0litionist and asking them "What about the gay slaves" "Er, we'll emancipate them too?" They'd reply.

I imagine that the actual response would be that they are to be hanged or imprisoned, which was probably what the average SPGB member would have said as well, when the organisation was founded in 1904, and the SPGB have not updated their analysis of the question of gay liberation - in fact they have not addressed the question at all.

Likewise, we'd reply that we want the LGBTQ Wages Slaves to emancipate themselves too.

Except, of course, it is more than possible for someone to "want the LGBTQ Wages Slaves [sic] to emancipate themselves" as workers, and for the oppression of LGBT people to continue. It isn't doable - because the oppression of gay people is intimately connected to the conditions of the reproduction of the proletariat - but the SPGB has never analysed this question.

Now compare this abstract, bigoted and workerist attitude to that expressed by Marx, by no means a particularly enlightened individual, to the question of women's liberation. Did Marx confine himself to abstract pronouncements about how "women wage slaves are to be emancipated as well"? No, that would be laughable. Instead he - and after him Engels, Bebel, Zetkin, etc. - analysed the oppression of women, its roots in class society, and raised particular slogans concerning the oppression of women - the same thing the SPGB refuses to do when it comes to women, gay people, national minorities etc.

I am a factory worker working for a large multinational capitalist corporation. Like most of them they know what is important and what is not when it comes to getting most out of their workers.

And as far as they are concerned discrimination and hostility between their employees based on antiquated “ism’s” isn’t one of them.

All the factory floor workers have been taken off the job and given extensive ‘equality and diversity’ training.

Including the full range of sexual orientations and gender preferences as well as obviously ‘race’ and religion.

Oh, you dear, how difficult that must have been for you. Just so we're clear, are you claiming that the oppression of gay people doesn't exist in modern Britain?

You simply cannot convey a nuanced and detailed analysis in under 2 mins 40 secs but presumably such an analysis will be found elsewhere in the literature of the SPGB for instance should people feel inclined to make contact with the SPGB

"Presumably". So, where is this "nuanced and detailed analysis" of the gay question by the SPGB? Are you going to link to a theatre review again? It's those rare moments when your opponent completely fucks up that make this site borderline-tolerable.

Firstly what articles are you talking about? Please provide the evidence to back up your claim. You have a reputation for being economical with the truth to put it mildly and it is about time you should be called out on this Apart from Martov's critique of the Bolsheviks I'm not aware of any other article that the SPGB published from the Mensheviks so do enlighten us all.

The article from Martov is more than enough! You know your site is borked in several ways, and the search function has gone to keep the company of Martov in the afterlife. But as you yourself said, you published another article by the honorary Menshevik, the late (in both meanings) Kautsky. Another article cites Dan, the Menshevik leader, who has again become Theodore (why the fy - th switch? it doesn't even make sense as a translation convention - Russians don't go to the fyeatr).

Anyway, by no stretch of the imagination could you call Martov a whiteguardist. He actually supported the red army against the whites and was critical of those Mensheviks who joined the Kerensky government [...]

In fact it doesn't take much imagination to call Martov a whiteguard - simply an appreciation of the facts. Martov was always in the highest organs of the Organising Committee. Every action I have mentioned previously - Menshevik participation in White governments, forming a separate KomUch branch etc. - all of these happened with his acquiescence. He was instrumental - being one of the few Mensheviks of the Organising Committee (the United Internationalists and former-Menshevik members of the Mezhrayonka having gone over to the Bolsheviks) with a positive public image - in spreading disruptive propaganda while the Bolshevik authorities were fighting a war against the very White movement that contained numerous Mensheviks in its rank.

The only reason people do not usually think of Martov as a whiteguard is that he had cultivated the image of a wide-eyed idealist. But, as I said, when has that wide-eyed idealist ever criticised the Whites, the SPD in Germany, the LSI that the Mensheviks were close to? He called for Mensheviks to join the Red Army, true, but one conciliatory note (made while he was in Bolshevik territory, naturally) doesn't change the character of his actions.

Even if it were true that the SPGB did print articles from the Mensheviks - and with the exception of Martov , I think it is untrue - how on earth do you jump from that to the conclusion that "printing Menshevik-whiteguard articles against the Bolshevik state means siding with the Mensheviks, with the Whites, with Kolchak and with the British." The SPGB incidentally was highly critical of the Russian government's agreement in 1920 to repay foreign property-owners their losses and allied Governments their “debts.” - those same governments. like the British, whose armies had invaded Russia . For the SPGB this meant "continued exploitation of Russian workers to pay foreign exploiters" http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/s...shevist-policy). Would such a sentiment be possible if the SPGB had sided with the British as you stupidly claim?

Yes, it would. In fact it was the only way for the SPGB to support the British. Of course the reparations meant extracting money from the Russian workers (and peasants, but as I said many times, we are not the party of the peasantry) to pay the British bourgeoisie. But it was not something the Bolsheviks decided to do because of their kind feelings for the British bourgeoisie. It was a decision, a hard decision but a necessary one, made after the landing in Arkhangelsk, after British attacks in the Caucasus, after numerous threats. Agitating against these unpopular but necessary measures objectively meant agitating for actions that would give the British state a pretext for further intervention - undoubtedly on the behalf of your beloved Mensheviks, as in Baku etc.

Yes of course there were some commonalities between the SPGB and the Mensheviks just as there were some commonalities between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. But that does not mean the SPGB supported the Mensheviks. Its ridiculous to suggest otherwise. I was reading recently of a UKIP politician who put forward a view on the nature of taxation that was to all intents and purposes exactly the same view that Marx held - namely that taxation in reality is a burden on the capitalist class alone , not the workers, even if there appear to be tax deductions being made on our pay slips . By your warped logic if one were to publish this article by a UKIP politician this must mean one supported UKIP

...yes? With the exception of polemic articles, one doesn't print articles that one does not politically agree with.

As for Stalin and Trotsky being on the side of the proletariat the hell they were. Just saying you are on the side of the proletariat doesnt make you so. The proof of the pudding in in the eating. We all know about Stalin[...]

Do we now? What do we know? Don't for a moment imagine that your view of Stalin is the same as that of the Trotskyists. Did "Stalin" (who has come to symbolise the entire state apparatus, apparently) limit sacred democratic liberties? Good for him. He should have done more of that. In fact his removal of restrictions on whiteguards and priests is one of his many mistakes (I am adopting here the convention of talking about "Stalin", mind you). Did he collectivise the economy? He should have done so earlier. Etc.

[Dave B]

On Skobelev quote.

As the Mensheviks are described by lying Leninists as white-guardist capitalist lickspittles.

Sometimes it is best just left to letting the Mensheviks speak for themselves and to let people see for themselves their political orientation.

And who better than the arch rightwing Menshevik Skobelev (soon to become a Bolshevik); as often portrayed by lying Leninists as the paradigm of Menshevik pro capitalist lickspittles?

People can judge for themselves whether or not the content of Skobelev’s political programme of a 100% taxation and compulsory labour of the capitalist etc is in anyway conceivably consistent with the modern Bolshevik story.

Any opinion I may have on what Skobelev said or how Lenin responded to it is beyond that point.

However as to

A decree to the effect that the entire industry was to be nationalised immediately would be nothing more than empty posturing. The situation was such that, in May 1917 (and indeed in October as well), immediate and complete nationalisation was not possible.

There was no mention for what it matters of nationalisation; that had to wait until September 1917 where Lenin proposed his state capitalism.

http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/IC17.html


Fyodor is the Russian spelling of Theodore I believe.

Far from the Mensheviks being ‘legal’ in mid 1918 and therefore able to control renegade members on the right, on pages 127-9 immediately following on from your quote, on page 126, from;

Dear Comrades: Menshevik Reports on the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War; edited by Vladimir N. Brovkin.

Martov goes on to give a long list Mensheviks in prison and a few who had been shot.

And;

The prisons are overflowing with party members. Still in prison in Moscow are members of the central committee; Iugov, Iakhontov, …..


Among those arrested with Abromovitch………… etc

Again perhaps we can let these people speak for themselves?

Re Abromovitch;

The imaginary dictatorship of the proletariat has definitely turned into the dictatorship of the Bolshevik party, which attracted all sorts of adventurers and suspicious characters and is supported only by the naked force of hired bayonets. Their sham socialism resulted in the complete destruction of Russian industry, in the country's enslavement to foreign capital, in the destruction of all class organisations of the proletariat, in the suppression of all democratic liberty and of all organs of democratic State life, thus preparing the ground for a bourgeois counter-revolution of the worst and most brutal kind.

The Bolsheviks are unable to solve the food problem, and their attempt to bribe the proletariat by organising expeditions into the villages in order to seize supplies of bread drives the peasantry into the arms of the counter-revolution and threatens to rouse its hatred towards the town in general, and the proletariat in particular, for a long time to come. . . . In continuing the struggle against the Bolshevik tyranny which dishonours the Russian revolution, social democracy pursues the following aims :

(1) To make it impossible for the working class to have to shed its blood for the sake of maintaining the sham dictatorship of the toiling masses or of the sham socialistic order, both of which are bound to perish and are meanwhile killing the soul and body of the proletariat ;

(2) To organise the working class into a force which, in union with other democratic forces of the country, will be able to throw off the yoke of the Bolshevik regime, to defend the democratic conquests of the revolution and to oppose any reactionary force which would attempt to hang a millstone around the neck of the Russian democracy. . . . Forty delegates elected by workmen of various towns, to a con- ference, for the purpose of making arrangements for the convocation of a Labour Congress, have been arrested and committed for trial by the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal, created to pass death sentences without the ordinary guarantees of a fair trial.

They are falsely and calumniously accused of organising a counter-revolutionary plot. Among the arrested are the most prominent workers of the Social Democratic Labour movement, as, for instance, Abramovitch, member of the Central Executive Committees of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and of the " Bund," who is personally well known to many foreign comrades ; Alter, member of the Executive Committee of the " Bund " ; Smirnov, member of last year's Soviet Delegation to the Western Countries ; Vezkalin, member of the Executive Com- mittee of the Lettish Social Democratic Party ; Volkov, chairman of the Petrograd Union of Workmen's Co-operative Societies ; Zakharov, secretary of the Petrograd Union of Workmen of Chemical Factories ; and other prominent workers of the trade union and co-operative movement. We demand immediate intervention of all Socialist parties to avert the shameful and criminal proceeding. (Protest of the Social Democratic Labour Party and of the Jewish Socialist Party sent to the Executive Committees of all Socialist Parties of Europe and America, August, 1918.)

The position of the Mensheviks re the anti Bolshevik rebellion is covered by Brovkin in his Mensheviks After October.



And in detail on Maiskii and the ‘white- guardist’ Dan.

On page 266-7

‘The Rift between the Right and Centre-Left Mensheviks’

It discusses the Menshevik Cental Committee resolution forbidding Menshevik participation in anti Bolshevik uprisings.


For the right Mensheviks there was no question about supporting in anyway the ‘counter- revolutionary monarchists’;or in other words the whites.

It was a matter of whether or not to support spontaneous peasant and worker armed insurrections against the Bolsheviks that were occurring.

Page 267

“Dan vehemently objected, brushing aside the SR’s actions as mere adventure”

But for our Bolshevik ‘historians’ all anti Bolsheviks were whites including self described Marxists and Socialist Revolutionary peasants whose long standing main programme was to dispossess the aristocracy of its land etc.

Again we can get a flavour, for which people can judge for themselves, of the white-guardist character of these SR’s from the political cv’s from the 12 who were executed in the Bolshevik show trial of 1921.

1. Abraham Gotz; entered the Revolutionary Movement in 1900; beginning with the year 1904 one of the most active members of the fighting brigade of the Socialist Revolutionists, the organization so terrifying to the Czarist Government. Under his direct participation were organized attempts) at assassination upon Minister of the Interior Durnovo, the suppressor of the Moscow rebellion in 1905, General Min and
Colonel Riman, Minister of Justice Akimoff, the Mayor of Moscow Schuwaloff and the head of the Czarist Secret Service and Assistant Director of the Department of Police, Rachkovsky; his record is imprisonment in the fortress of St. Peter and Paul, in ejtpectation of execution, trial by court martial,eight years of hard labor and exile to Siberia, where the Revolution of 1917 found him.

2. Eugene Timofeyeff; entered the revolutionary movement in 1900; sentenced by a Czarist court in 1905 to five years of hard labor and resentenced, shortly before the conclusion of his term, to 10 years; liberated from prison by the Revolution.

3. Gendelman, entered the revolutionary movement in 1898; in 1901 sent into the army as a private for participation in student disturbances; spent about 3 years in Czarist prisons.

4. Donskoy; entered the revolutionary movement in 1897; sent into the army as a private for participation in student disturbances; exiled thrice; spent 6 years in Czarist
prisons.

5. Eugenia Ratner; joined the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists in 1903; arrested eight times under the Czarist regime; spent more than 6 years in Czarist prisons.

6. Gerstein; self-educated workman; in the revolutionary movement since 1898; previus record: four and half years' imprisonment and five years exile.

7. Nicolai Ivanoff; entered the revolutionary movement in 1906; member of the fighting brigade of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists; participated in the reparation for and the assassination of the Chief of the Prison Administration Maximoff, sentenced to death by the party for cruel treatment of political prisoners; also participated in the plot to blow up the Imperial Council in 1907; spent ten years at hard labor; was arrested by Kolchak but escaped death by flight.

8. Lichatch; entered revolutionary movement in 1903; spent two years in jail and six years in Siberian exile under the Czar.

9. Sergei Morozoff; member of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists since 1905; sentenced twice to hard labor; spent seven years athard labor in various prisons.

10. Nicolai Artemieff ; entered the revolutionary movement in 1903; in exile four times, spending part of it in the Tiirchansk district of the Polar region.

11. Helen Ivanova; entered the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists in 1905; member of the fighting brigade of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists; cooperated in the assasi
sination of the Prison-Chief Goodim and the Police Chief of the Ochtinsk section Rodziersky, who was guilty of severe tortures of workmen in cells under his supervision; she also organized the assassination of the chief of the Petrograd prison „Kresty", and participated in the assassination of the Chief of the Prison Administration Maximovsky; condemned to death in 1908, the sentence being commuted to hard labor for life; regained her liberty with the revolution.

12. Vladimir Agapoff, the youngest of the condemned; entered the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists in 1909; exiled to Siberia under the Czar.

And thus the Twelve Who Are To Die have a total record of 240 years' service to the Revolution and the cause of the emancipation of Russia and a total record of 70 years' imprisonment.

From a book prefaced by the white-guardist Kautsky.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/kaut.../xx/twelve.htm

On which from Lenin;


http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/l...22/feb/20c.htm





Also;



Speech by Rafail Abramovich (Rein) to a rally in Berlin, organised by the SPD in protest against both Italian Fascism and the "Menshevik Trial" in Moscow, 2 March 1931.

Against Fascism and Bolshevik Slander!

We have always categorically rejected the methods of armed uprising, sabotage and intervention. Not only have we rejected them but, as the Bolsheviks know full well, have always waged an active struggle against such methods. Permit me to recall that during the civil war, despite our rejection of the Bolshevik dictatorship in principle, in order to save the revolution from White Guard reaction and foreign intervention we voluntarily mobilised members of our party to fight in the ranks of the Red Army against counterrevolution.

http://www.korolevperevody.co.uk/kor...ramovich01.htm

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

On Skobelev quote.

As the Mensheviks are described by lying Leninists as white-guardist capitalist lickspittles.

Sometimes it is best just left to letting the Mensheviks speak for themselves and to let people see for themselves their political orientation.

Indeed. But as they say, actions speak louder than words. The minister Skobelev had done nothing to carry out his programme. In fact he never had the intention of doing so. And this was widely understood - the programme did not impress, not just the Bolsheviks, but the entire left of Russian socialism - the Bolsheviks, the Internationalists, the Mezhrayonka, the Maximists or the left Esers. And it did not draw any protest from the bourgeoisie, allegedly threatened with a tax rate of 100% and compulsory labour.

People can judge for themselves whether or not the content of Skobelev’s political programme of a 100% taxation and compulsory labour of the capitalist etc is in anyway conceivably consistent with the modern Bolshevik story.

Of course it is. Bourgeois and petit-bourgeois parties will often adopt wildly r-r-revolutionary programmes, statements and so on. That is besides the point, however. What matters are their actions.

There was no mention for what it matters of nationalisation

I was making a broader point.

Far from the Mensheviks being ‘legal’ in mid 1918 and therefore able to control renegade members on the right, on pages 127-9 immediately following on from your quote, on page 126, from;

Dear Comrades: Menshevik Reports on the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War; edited by Vladimir N. Brovkin.

Martov goes on to give a long list Mensheviks in prison and a few who had been shot.

Yet interestingly enough, the Organising Committee was more than able to control renegade members on the left, who supported the Bolsheviks in the trade union debates. And yes, of course individual Mensheviks would find themselves in prisons or shot. So did individual Bolsheviks. But the Menshevik organisation - I can't recall if they were still formally called the Organising Committee by that point - carried out political work openly.

Re Abromovitch;

And again you simply post a paragraph without any commentary. I mean, alright, the paragraph says what it says. So what. Are we supposed to be impressed by d-d-democratic sloganeering? Most of us are not that naive (of course I can't speak for everyone).

And, of course, the resolution, which was a resolution of the Menshevik central committee if I recall correctly, openly mentions organising for the "throwing off the yoke of the Bolshevik regime". Fine. But then don't cry when the proletarian authorities shoot you because you tried to unite with "forces of democracy" like the dumas, the Czechs, etc., and "throw off" the revolution.

And by the way, the assertion that "all sorts of adventurers and suspicious characters" were attracted to the Bolsheviks is hilarious. Just recall - the Mensheviks lost Uritsky, the elder Ezhov, Bazarov, Sukhanov, Larin, and the rest of their actual left wing to the Bolsheviks, despite the best efforts of these people to remain outside the Bolshevik group. The Bolsheviks were also joined by Trotsky, the rest of the Mezhrayonka, a lot of Maximists and former PLSR members - all of the consistent internationalists. Who did the Mensheviks attract? No one of note. Not even the Kadets, Octobrists and Progressists, who were doing their best to appear as "left" as possible. They were passed over in favour of the Esers.

It discusses the Menshevik Cental Committee resolution forbidding Menshevik participation in anti Bolshevik uprisings.

Again, resolutions and statements and programmes are simply wasting paper if they are not put into practice. And this resolution was not put into practice. And every violation of the resolution happened with the acquiescence of Martov, Dan etc., who people try to portray as the "good", the "left" Mensheviks.

“Dan vehemently objected, brushing aside the SR’s actions as mere adventure”

Which they were. But being a cautious whiteguard doesn't make one any less of a whiteguard.

It was a matter of whether or not to support spontaneous peasant and worker armed insurrections against the Bolsheviks that were occurring.

Yes, peasant uprisings against proletarian power, triggered by the food dictatorship. Again, your own claims condemn the Mensheviks. But what was "spontaneous" about the KomUch, the Samara government, the various Siberian White governments?

But for our Bolshevik ‘historians’ all anti Bolsheviks were whites including self described Marxists and Socialist Revolutionary peasants whose long standing main programme was to dispossess the aristocracy of its land etc.

"Self-described Marxists" can be found in bourgeois movements, bourgeois governments, even in fascist bourgeois governments (Bombacci). As for the "long standing programme", apparently it stood for a bit too long because the KomUch government, and other Menshevik-SR-Kadet governments failed to implement it. Leading to the defection of most of the People's Army of the KomUch to the Bolsheviks, by the way.

Again we can get a flavour, for which people can judge for themselves, of the white-guardist character of these SR’s from the political cv’s from the 12 who were executed in the Bolshevik show trial of 1921.

Similar things could be said of Plekhanov, of Chernov, Kerensky, and indeed - of de Ambris, of Lagardelle, of Mussolini. Having been a revolutionary in the past means little when one is acting as a reactionary.

Speech by Rafail Abramovich (Rein) to a rally in Berlin, organised by the SPD in protest against both Italian Fascism and the "Menshevik Trial" in Moscow, 2 March 1931.

Again, you make my argument for me - much obliged! Associating with the rotten, reformist SPD, murderers of communists, in opposition to Bolsheviks, is hardly the course of action a Marxist revolutionary would take.