Your opinion on the CPGB(PCC)?

[Five Year Plan]

Ok, I'm just going to use your own argument: That's just what you think and you are wrong.

My argument consists of an interpretation of the Engels quote you presented but didn't even bother trying to interpret.

As far as I know there is only one "Third-World Caesarean" in existance...

If you think that, you aren't paying attention. There are at least two on this forum, DNZ and Rafiq, with a larger penumbra of people (Brutus, who incidentally has popped up to give you a thanks for your valuable non-contribution, comes to mind) with a misguided personal loyalty to one or the other of these posters that leads them either to try to shield them from criticism or even parrot their bullshit from time to time.

[The Idler]

How come Weekly Worker is so widely read?

[Five Year Plan]

How come Weekly Worker is so widely read?

I don't know. Have you done a survey? The National Enquirer is also widely read, as is the New York Times.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

How come Weekly Worker is so widely read?

It isn't. A lot of people will read it from time to time, just as they read other socialist newspapers, but the CPGB crowd consistently inflate the number of their readers (counting each visit to their site as a reader for example).

[Tower of Bebel]

From my point of view, the CPGB is sectarian. Arguably as sectarian as the rest of the British left. It's not necessarily their 'fault', and it's not necessarily their attitude that should be pointed out as the cause; I regard the sectarianism of the British left, of which the CPGB is a genuine part, a product of the bureaucratism that has infected the labour movement and society as a whole. Capitalists, their state, Labour and the trade union bureaucracy have pushed the radicals into the margins of society, and as long as that situation exists, the radicals will fight among each other a bit of air and light.

The CPGB doesn't seem to have a real strategy (though its paper contains a lot of discussion on this topic). What it has in common with its Trotskyist and Maoist counterparts, is its striving to keep its own version of socialism alive in a bloody see of neoliberal onslaught. This organisation seems to be bend on keeping the history of the old CPGB alive in the form of a small nucleus - and from what I was able to read this has been the main focus of the paper for some years. I think that's why, though it claims to fight for democratic centralism, it has developed a 'draft programme' and some sort of a symbolic leadership claim (its name 'the PCC'), claims which are promoted as pretty much the ideal (method) we should aim for.

The existance of the Weekly Worker and its own method of polemic is not the solution to the problem: the way I see it, it represents the other side of the same (sectarian) medallion. The Weekly Worker does not solve the problems that have arisen with the lack of unity nor with the lack of democracy in the labour movement. Though it claims to promote openess and democracy, and it spend a fair amount of coverage on congresses and discussions in other parties, I've never read anything about an congresses or elections within the CPGB.

Some CPGB-members compare their paper to Iskra. But much of the British left has done so as well (though from a different perspective) and whatever the merits of the Weekly Worker, it is not the (underground) paper that has had a unifying and educational impact on the radicals and the organised layers of the working class. The Weekly Worker is neither Iskra nor Der Sozialdemokrat. However, that does not mean that nothing can be learned from the pages of the Weekly Worker nor from CPGB members.

Their method of polemic, though it contains a tendency towards self-isolation, has produced some interesting debates. I must admit that some contributions, whether from CPGB-members or not, have had an impact on me. And I must admit as well that I'm in favour of a frank and open debate rather than spreading socialist ideas through billboard journalism. I mean, many papers on the left don't even have genuine debates! The attempts of the latter to spur debate with their counterparts are seeds on rocky ground while their attempts to debate with wider layers of the working class - though they portray it as very, very fruitful - are most like seeds sown among the thorns.

[Tim Cornelis]

Im not too familiar with the specifics. I read a bit of their material today. Nothing particuaularly wrong in my opinion. Theyre a tat too leninist theycobflate socialism and dotp and i dont like the minimum demands and how they are poaited

[Brutus]

If you think that, you aren't paying attention. There are at least two on this forum, DNZ and Rafiq, with a larger penumbra of people (Brutus, who incidentally has popped up to give you a thanks for your valuable non-contribution, comes to mind) with a misguided personal loyalty to one or the other of these posters that leads them either to try to shield them from criticism or even parrot their bullshit from time to time.

You must have a low opinion of me if you seriously think I subscribe to DNZ's, uh... contributions... to Marxist theory. I will not, have never, and never will parrot the bullshit of the moonbat which came up with TWCS.

And now I've been dragged into this thread, I may as well contribute something to it. The CPGB produce a good paper, and unlike most leftist sects have open debate amongst their ranks. They also have semi-decent politics, if you ignore the whole Lih crap in which he tells the reader another situation in which Lenin kept true to Kautsky-the-Marxist and the glorious tradition of democracy, and some other shit that fetishises democracy and raises it to a principle.

Their programme is far too long and contains many unrealistic and unnecessary demands, as well as an approach to Stalin and the USSR that is similar to that naughty kid that the parents wash their hands off, don't really talk about and then get flustered and angry when they're mentioned.

Erm... What I actually mean is... Uh... What the left needs is a strong, charismatic leader like Rush Limbaugh with a Chavismo ideology!

Edit: apologies if that's horribly written. A caffeine deficiency, semi-permanent headache, cabin fever, isolation and what I'm worried is the onset of insomnia are to blame for that. I'm working on it.

[Five Year Plan]

You must have a low opinion of me if you seriously think I subscribe to DNZ's, uh... contributions... to Marxist theory. I will not, have never, and never will parrot the bullshit of the moonbat which came up with TWCS.

I didn't say you parrot the theory, but that I have seen you defend and parrot some of the implications of that position espoused by Rafiq (who also accepts the basic tenets of TWCS). It seems you are an unwitting victim.

And now I've been dragged into this thread, I may as well contribute something to it. The CPGB produce a good paper, and unlike most leftist sects have open debate amongst their ranks. They also have semi-decent politics, if you ignore the whole Lih crap in which he tells the reader another situation in which Lenin kept true to Kautsky-the-Marxist and the glorious tradition of democracy, and some other shit that fetishises democracy and raises it to a principle.

Thanking a post is an expression of agreement with its content and effectively is a way to interject yourself into a discussion, even if by proxy, so I wouldn't characterize my referencing you as "dragging" you into a discussion. You were already paying attention and openly taking sides.

You claim that the CPGB is remarkable for "having open debate amongst their ranks." How do you know that these non-CPGB "leftist sects" don't have open debate among their own ranks? In my experience, they do. They also debate openly with people outside of their ranks. The difference is that they commit their press to publishing agitation and propaganda in line with their own political positions, once they have been democratically debated within the organization. What they generally, as a rule, don't do (though there are exceptions) is publicly debate their internal decisions on matters of political line. The CPGB, since it subscribes in practice to a party-of-the-entire-class model of organizing, and since it organizes around a loosely knit set of minimum demands, has no "line" to debate internally and democratically.

As for the quality of the paper, it's a mixed bag. Sometimes it reads like the National Inquirer of the left, replete with gossip about this or that scandal afflicting this or that "leftist sect." Other times, it contains some articles that make high-quality, finely constructed arguments. Still other times, it contains articles written as though their authors have minimal knowledge of the subjects they are explicating , or may be deliberately trying to misrepresent. The case of Lih's misrepresentation of the Trotsky quote from an earlier thread comes quickly to mind. Because the CPGB wants to attract all the multifarious elements of the working class, with all its attendant levels of political consciousness, into the same political organization, it is only to be expected that their weekly organ be uneven.

[Brutus]

You claim that the CPGB is remarkable for "having open debate amongst their ranks." How do you know that these non-CPGB "leftist sects" don't have open debate among their own ranks? In my experience, they do. They also debate openly with people outside of their ranks. The difference is that they commit their press to publishing agitation and propaganda in line with their own political positions, once they have been democratically debated within the organization. What they generally, as a rule, don't do (though there are exceptions) is publicly debate their internal decisions on matters of political line. The CPGB, since it subscribes in practice to a party-of-the-entire-class model of organizing, and since it organizes around a loosely knit set of minimum demands, has no "line" to debate internally and democratically.

What often happens in these sects is the central leadership of over-60s decide the "line" and the others simply follow and sell papers (SWP and Healyites come to mind). Maybe it's different across the pond, but it's true for all the Leninist parties here- which are, ironically, neither Leninist nor parties. There should be a line, but internal debate should be publicised and frequent rather than kept secret. The supposed party of the proletariat should at least show the proletariat what is going on inside the ranks of its class conscious strata.

[Five Year Plan]

What often happens in these sects is the central leadership of over-60s decide the "line" and the others simply follow and sell papers (SWP and Healyites come to mind).

How do you know this? For what it's worth, I don't claim to "know" what you're saying is true, but I have heard similar stories. If it's true, I would argue that their bureaucratization is due to the extent to which they are actually mirroring the CPGB's broad-net approach to party buildling, where the focus isn't on developing confident, articulate cadre, but on mass-movementist fetishisation of numbers.

Maybe it's different across the pond, but it's true for all the Leninist parties here- which are, ironically, neither Leninist nor parties. There should be a line, but internal debate should be publicised and frequent rather than kept secret. The supposed party of the proletariat should at least show the proletariat what is going on inside the ranks of its class conscious strata.

I am skeptical about claims a person makes about what he knows goes on inside all Leninist parties, particularly when his initial complaint is that they are not public enough in their internal debates.

On the question of the general rule of keeping internal discussions private, do you know why Leninist parties do this? Do you have an argument about why they shouldn't do it, rather than just a declaration that they shouldn't?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Hardly an opinion of the organisation as a whole that article. For one it mentions permanent revolution which is something Mike Macnair, for example, has spent a lot of time arguing against. It's actually the first time I've seen someone argue for a bourgeois republic. They usually argue for a democratic republic, which makes a lot of leftists shout "HERESY!" but in CPGB language (as they have explained in many articles) democratic republic means the dictatorship of the proletariat (one can argue against naming it DR but it would be unfair to act as if they mean anything else by it). Seems to me like it's just searching for things to disprove of in the weekly worker archives, I mean the article is from 2000 and they publish lotsa things of non-members. Would be better if people actually engaged with their actual politics, much more honest.

Comrade, what comrade Q said: Dave Craig used to belong to another left organization which theorized "democratic permanent revolution." I'm sure he's speaking his own opinion here.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I am skeptical about claims a person makes about what he knows goes on inside all Leninist parties, particularly when his initial complaint is that they are not public enough in their internal debates.

On the question of the general rule of keeping internal discussions private, do you know why Leninist parties do this? Do you have an argument about why they shouldn't do it, rather than just a declaration that they shouldn't?

There was an ole' chap named Marx who once fought against another ole' chap named Bakunin on the subject of secret factionalism. Multi-tendency debate and cooperation is something that the left sects aren't good at or keen on reproducing, but when the chips were down Marx came down harder on Bakunin's secret factionalism than the Bolsheviks and even the "Marxist-Leninists" ever did. Factionalism thrives on the absence of transparency.

How do you know this? For what it's worth, I don't claim to "know" what you're saying is true, but I have heard similar stories. If it's true, I would argue that their bureaucratization is due to the extent to which they are actually mirroring the CPGB's broad-net approach to party buildling, where the focus isn't on developing confident, articulate cadre, but on mass-movementist fetishisation of numbers.

You've got the wrong group. The CPGB does not have a loose definition of "member" or "cadre" like the SWP. If anything else, recent arguments by comrade Macnair on levels of political support before a revolutionary period for the working class seem to indicate that they might not be emphasizing the numbers game enough (while keeping to traditional definitions of "voting members").

[Five Year Plan]

There was an ole' chap named Marx who once fought against another ole' chap named Bakunin on the subject of secret factionalism. Multi-tendency debate and cooperation is something that the left sects aren't good at or keen on reproducing, but when the chips were down Marx came down harder on Bakunin's secret factionalism than the Bolsheviks and even the "Marxist-Leninists" ever did. Factionalism thrives on the absence of transparency.

Secret factionalism within an organization has literally no bearing on the discussion you excerpted. The discussion is not about whether people within an organization can organize factions secretly from other members, but about whether as a general rule it is a good idea for political combat parties to make their internal debates known to the general public.

You've got the wrong group. The CPGB does not have a loose definition of "member" or "cadre" like the SWP. If anything else, recent arguments by comrade Macnair on levels of political support before a revolutionary period for the working class seem to indicate that they might not be emphasizing the numbers game enough (while keeping to traditional definitions of "voting members").

I am not talking about the CPGB's "definitions" or its endless disquisitions about economism. I'm talking about its practice. If you want to tell me the rules actually governing admission to the CPGB-PCC, and show me how my operating premises are wrong, I am of course open to hearing that.

[Brutus]

On the question of the general rule of keeping internal discussions private, do you know why Leninist parties do this? Do you have an argument about why they shouldn't do it, rather than just a declaration that they shouldn't?

Why shouldn't they do this? Because they claim to be Leninists, that's why.

We Social-Democrats resort to secrecy from the tsar and his blood hounds, while taking pains that the people should know every thing about our Party, about the shades of opinion within it, about the development of its programme and policy, that they should even know what this or that Party congress delegate said at the congress in question.

Lenin was obviously an advocate of publicising internal debate, rather than keeping it behind closed doors; the Leninist parties are not.

[Five Year Plan]

Why shouldn't they do this? Because they claim to be Leninists, that's why.


Lenin was obviously an advocate of publicising internal debate, rather than keeping it behind closed doors; the Leninist parties are not.

Setting aside the fact that the Lenin quote was from 1905, back when Lenin was still in the same "party" as the Mensheviks (so that making known shades of opinion within the party was basically the Bolsheviks making known how opportunist the Mensheviks were), I was expecting a bit more substantive of an answer to my question than, "Look at what Lenin said in 1905." Your quote-dropping just raises the issue: "Why do you think Lenin was right back then?"

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Even in the cited paragraph - one that the CPGB and Proyect like to quote - Lenin talks about resorting to secrecy from "the Tsar and his bloodhounds". That was only possible by means of an illegal press, since anything legal would have to pass through the censor's office (in Croatia, where a similar arrangement was in place, one issue of the central organ of the social-democrats left the censor's office... as a sheet of ten or so completely blank pages). Most parties today do not have an illegal press.

Furthermore, that very same year Lenin would write:

"Keeping international Social-Democracy informed of our Party affairs is one of the most important duties of all Social-Democrats. living abroad. We remind the comrades of this and appeal for the most energetic agitation in defence of the stand taken by the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. This agitation must be conducted indefatigably, on any pretext, on any suitable occasion, and in positively all study circles of workers abroad, as well as with individual members of foreign Social-Democratic parties. This agitation must be conducted in ways that are worthy of conscious Social-Democrats and members of a workers’ party. It must be based on the principle of lull information concerning the documentary aspect of the matter. Priority should be given to the circulation of the Third Congress resolutions published in the French language (the supplement to the newspaper Le Socialiste of June 25, 1905. Address of Le Socialiste, central organ of the French socialists: Rue de la Corderie 16, Paris) as well as in the German language (the pamphlet Bericht über den 3. Parteitag; publisher’s address: Birk et Co., Buchdruckerei und Verlagsanstalt, München, Vittelsbacherplatz 2. Preis 20 pf.). Both the French and the German translations are also available from the Party office.

In addition to this basic material, the most important documents and articles from our literature should also be translated. In doing so we must constantly expose the indecency of the Khlestakov-like new Iskra. The latter has not published, either in French or in German, the full text of its Conference resolutions (which reveals its usurping - arrogation of the title of Central Organ). Iskra has published in the European Social-Democratic press such “statistics” about organised labour that evoke nothing but laughter (suffice it to say that the new Iskra has not yet made so bold as to make these “statistics” public in Russian, for fear of disgracing itself, but we have printed these statistics in full in No. 9 of Proletary). Iskra is now circulating among all colonies abroad a letter over the Editorial Board’s signature containing the same brand of amusing Khlestakovian claims regarding the Minority’s forces, claims which have been shamefacedly withheld from Russian readers of our Social-Democratic newspapers. Publicity-mongers should be fought against to the utmost, but that struggle should be conducted in a dignified way, so as to get the public fully informed, and make matters as clear as possible, without the least boasting and literary bombast, without falling into gossip and private allusions which cannot stand the light of publicity."

(Emphases mine.)

[Tower of Bebel]

Russian social democracy was way more than the sum of Bolshevism and Menshevism. Every shade of opinion meant as well that contributions to the various local and national social-democratic papers came from the emigrés abroad and from the activists in the Russian empire, from the workers and from the intelligentsia, from local and from international social democracy, from a Lenin and from an Axselrod, from Poland and from Russia, from workers and from wistle blowers from other classes, ...

Whether Lenin or other social democrats prioritised the struggle with this or that opposing current inside our outside social democracy, does matter indeed (a paper has room for a limited amount of contributions only, especially when the political police continuously tries to disrupt the publication and distribution of social-democratic literature). But it does not alter the principle of a free press. The only check on social democratic literature were the programme and the congress.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Yet in the paragraphs I have quoted above, Lenin clearly asks every Russian social-democratic emigre to defend the line of the central committee, regardless of their agreement with that line. Furthermore, the Bolshevik press did not print anything regardless of programmatic agreement with the authors - that would be political suicide. And Lenin and the Bolsheviks attacked the August Bloc precisely for revealing too much about the internal life of the illegal organisation.

[Црвена]

Aside from their being part of Left Unity, I do agree with the pan-leftist approach they meant to have...but it just seems to have dissolved into social democracy and the same divisions that every left movement has these days.

[Tower of Bebel]

870, concerning my view of the social democratic free press, I see nothing that contradicts my views. The programme was indeed key. No programme meant no unity, no independent social democratic press. (Only a bunch of leaflets claiming to be more social democratic than the other.)

To risk the party by giving away the art of secrecy (konspiratsia) was in Russian social democracy (and in other underground, Russian organisations) considered something like heresy. Publicity mongers who either lie to the public or form a hazard for the safety of party members and structures were to be fought against. However, I see no mention of a central committee and the defence thereof. I only read that the press should defend the conclusions of the congress, which is as evident as the defence of the programme.

For further discussion on the meaning of this quote, I suggest we split the thread.