Your opinion on the CPGB(PCC)?

[RedWorker]

I tried using the search function and it seems that not much has been said about this party on RevLeft.
So I wonder: What is your opinion on the CPGB(PCC) and its political positions?

[The Feral Underclass]

Their SWP baiting is excellent, which is all the do, right?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The only positive thing I could say about the PCC is that they're not half as bad as some of their sympathisers (some of which you might run into here). As for the rest - they have the usual Lihite creepy obsession with Kautsky, the bizarre notion that a "part of the entire class" is even possible in the epoch of imperialism, let alone desirable, their analysis of the Soviet Union is pretty much to stop their ears and yell "I can't hear you!" (is it "bureaucratic socialist", whatever that means? a "non-mode of production" whatever that means? all of the above? neither?), they have the usual liberal obsession with bourgeois democracy, they're a part of Left Unity... need I go on? At this point, you've either placed them together with other liberal "socialist" groups, or you're thinking this is the greatest thing since sliced Jell-O and that my implicit disagreement proves I'm a "sectarian" in RevLeft parlance.

Their central organ can be pretty hilarious at times. Reportedly they printed a wrong picture of Mumia once.

[Q]

870 actually gives a reasonably good summary, be it that he sees it as negative points and, in his negative opinion, distorts the standpoints of this group somewhat.

They'll soon have a summerschool which would be a good event to learn to know them, if you like. So, if you're anywhere close to London I can very much recommend it to make up your own mind and, if you like, vehemently disagree with any of the speakers on it, which is kinda the point of the school

[Zoroaster]

The only positive thing I could say about the PCC is that they're not half as bad as some of their sympathisers (some of which you might run into here). As for the rest - they have the usual Lihite creepy obsession with Kautsky, the bizarre notion that a "part of the entire class" is even possible in the epoch of imperialism, let alone desirable, their analysis of the Soviet Union is pretty much to stop their ears and yell "I can't hear you!" (is it "bureaucratic socialist", whatever that means? a "non-mode of production" whatever that means? all of the above? neither?), they have the usual liberal obsession with bourgeois democracy, they're a part of Left Unity... need I go on? At this point, you've either placed them together with other liberal "socialist" groups, or you're thinking this is the greatest thing since sliced Jell-O and that my implicit disagreement proves I'm a "sectarian" in RevLeft parlance.

Their central organ can be pretty hilarious at times. Reportedly they printed a wrong picture of Mumia once.

Liberal obsession? Could you expand on that, please?

[Alexios]

They have a higher quality of analysis than most sects, and I can respect their willingness to challenge some of leftism's sacred cows. Politically, I think the party is a joke, and their incessant gossip about radical politics is beyond ridiculous.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Liberal obsession? Could you expand on that, please?

I think the articles I had in mind were titled "On the bourgeois republic" and "Why 33% of votes equals 55% of seats" (oh the horror). Unfortunately, the site seems to be having difficulties, so I can't find the articles, I keep getting a 500 error.

[Five Year Plan]

I think the articles I had in mind were titled "On the bourgeois republic" and "Why 33% of votes equals 55% of seats" (oh the horror). Unfortunately, the site seems to be having difficulties, so I can't find the articles, I keep getting a 500 error.

Yeah, their website is messed up. The article about the bourgeois republic you're looking for is at http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/319...eois-republic/

[Zoroaster]

Yeah, their website is messed up. The article about the bourgeois republic you're looking for is at http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/319...eois-republic/

Ok, thanks. Besides a few things, such as that, I like what they advocate.

Edit: my views have changed since then.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

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.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

If the democratic republic is supposed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat in CPGB-speak (what's next, democratic proletocracy?), that says a lot about their conception of the DotP. But as is clear from several articles they have published, this is not the case.

[Q]

... and they publish lotsa things of non-members. Would be better if people actually engaged with their actual politics, much more honest.

But as is clear from several articles they have published, this is not the case.

... And both articles were writting by Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group, an organisation the CPGB has criticized on many occasions. I know this concept of publishing what your opponents state is an alien concept to you (it would only "confuse" normal workers, right? Such disdainful view...), but please, do at least pay a little attention when you're trying to make a point.

Oh and do try to cite something more recent than a twelve year old article. That could possibly help make your case too.

[Five Year Plan]

That's the fun with the CPGB folks on this forum. You can offer a damning and substantive criticism of a position printed in their organ, and they can always disavow it by saying it doesn't represent the organization as a whole, or that it was written by a person not affiliated with the organization. That's the benefit of being a diffuse broad-left grouping that is bound only by the most minimal of demands. They can deflect any attempt at criticizing their, aherm, propaganda into a silly game of whack-a-mole. That benefit for them comes at a cost though. It's why the masses that CPGB supporters are hoping to accumulate under the umbrella of their program will be an unwieldy and amorphous mass with no clear class content or direction.

[Five Year Plan]

... And both articles were writting by Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group, an organisation the CPGB has criticized on many occasions. I know this concept of publishing what your opponents state is an alien concept to you (it would only "confuse" normal workers, right? Such disdainful view...), but please, do at least pay a little attention when you're trying to make a point.

Oh and do try to cite something more recent than a twelve year old article. That could possibly help make your case too.

This is a silly statement. Even the most centralized and bureaucratized groups print the positions of their opponents, but they usually tend to do so with a response articulating their own position and why they disagree with that voiced by their opponents.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

... And both articles were writting by Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group, an organisation the CPGB has criticized on many occasions. I know this concept of publishing what your opponents state is an alien concept to you (it would only "confuse" normal workers, right? Such disdainful view...), but please, do at least pay a little attention when you're trying to make a point.

Oh and do try to cite something more recent than a twelve year old article. That could possibly help make your case too.

The debate in the Socialist Alliance on the monarchy, which saw the CPGB and the RDG accuse the SWP of "monarchism", was twelve years ago (twelve to eleven would be a more accurate description as far as I know), so the most damning articles come from that period. And yes, if you publish articles outside the letters or polemic sections - and Craig's articles were not published in these sections - this means that you are in broad (if not necessarily complete) agreement with them. This has nothing to do with "confusing normal workers", it has to do with basic editorial integrity.

In any case - Craig specifically states that the RDG and the CPGB have an extremely similar view of the bourgeois republic:

'Sean then explains what he thinks is the theory behind the CPGB (and RDG) view. He says: "I suspect that your strange vision of Britain here can only be understood in terms of the old Stalinist dogmas about a two-stage revolution, even in advanced countries - see below - and some background, or subconscious, notion that because the monarchy and other pseudo-feudal relics have survived - through three and a half centuries of bourgeois rule! - the 'bourgeois democratic revolution' has yet to be completed in Britain. This strange notion is less of an eccentric rarity than it should be. It was in circulation outside Stalinist ranks, amongst the New Left Review people, in the mid-60s. EP Thompson debated it with them, and they later shamefacedly admitted that Thompson had been right."� This quote goes straight to the heart of the matter. The irreconcilable attitude of the RDG (and CPGB) seems to originate with a peculiar theory of revolution - namely the theory of bourgeois democratic revolution. I notice that Sean says that he "suspects"� this. His suspicion, even if understandable, is completely wrong. The RDG does not have a theory of bourgeois democratic revolution. On the contrary our view is based on a complete rejection of this theory. If the CPGB were the only advocates of revolutionary republicanism, then the hypothesis that this was left over from Stalinism might seem to hold water. But the RDG comes from the state capitalist tradition and our agitation for a federal republic goes back to 1980. We got our republicanism from state capitalism, not from the CPGB. This should warn us against any idea that Stalinism explains revolutionary republicanism. On the contrary I would argue that revolutionary republicanism is an important measure of the current CPGB's successful break from the Stalinist tradition.'

And the CPGB not only carried this article in the WW, they did not correct Craig on the matter. So it seems they were in agreement - which was demonstrated in practice by their shared attitude to the SA, the SWP and so on.

All of this was twelve to eleven years ago, but as far as I know the CPGB has never rejected their line at the time. Nor have they denounced their participation in the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. Or their blatant calls to tweak the bourgeois state's procedures to make them "more democratic". Or the call for socialist candidates to step down in favour of Labour ones. And so on, and so on.

[Q]

Ok, so let's move a step back:

If the democratic republic is supposed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat in CPGB-speak (what's next, democratic proletocracy?), that says a lot about their conception of the DotP. But as is clear from several articles they have published, this is not the case.

"If the democratic republic is supposed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat in CPGB-speak (what's next, democratic proletocracy?)..."

I'm not entirely sure what the fuss is all about. As Engels put it in his critique on a draft of the Erfurt Programme:

If one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat

(Sadly, this is no longer online. If you like, I can share you a local copy which I downloaded last April, before this was removed).

The "democratic republic" then is not your typical bourgeois construct. Putting it this way is a misunderstanding of viewpoints.

"... that says a lot about their conception of the DotP."

Which is what?

"But as is clear from several articles they have published, this is not the case."

A reasonably easy search in Google gives another image. We note 163 results of articles or letters which both have the mention of "dictatorship of the proletariat" and "democratic republic". Some of the immediate results are coming from this seven part series of Jack Conrad at the same time you're sourcing your articles from, four of which mention and explain one or both terms. Later there have been other articles, like this one from 2010.

This all seems to directly contradict to your statement that "the democratic republic is supposed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat [...] but this is not the case". Therefore, your positioning of the 'democratic republic' as having "the usual liberal obsession with bourgeois democracy" is not only fundamentally mistaken (dare I say, deliberately slanderous?), but it actually anti-Marxist in the sense that Marx and Engels used the very same terminology. If you were aware of these original meanings, which I think you do, it also dishonest in portraying things this way.

[Five Year Plan]

Ok, so let's move a step back:


"If the democratic republic is supposed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat in CPGB-speak (what's next, democratic proletocracy?)..."

I'm not entirely sure what the fuss is all about. As Engels put it in his critique on a draft of the Erfurt Programme:

(Sadly, this is no longer online. If you like, I can share you a local copy which I downloaded last April, before this was removed).

The "democratic republic" then is not your typical bourgeois construct. Putting it this way is a misunderstanding of viewpoints.

"... that says a lot about their conception of the DotP."

Which is what?

"But as is clear from several articles they have published, this is not the case."

A reasonably easy search in Google gives another image. We note 163 results of articles or letters which both have the mention of "dictatorship of the proletariat" and "democratic republic". Some of the immediate results are coming from this seven part series of Jack Conrad at the same time you're sourcing your articles from, four of which mention and explain one or both terms. Later there have been other articles, like this one from 2010.

This all seems to directly contradict to your statement that "the democratic republic is supposed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat [...] but this is not the case". Therefore, your positioning of the 'democratic republic' as having "the usual liberal obsession with bourgeois democracy" is not only fundamentally mistaken (dare I say, deliberately slanderous?), but it actually anti-Marxist in the sense that Marx and Engels used the very same terminology. If you were aware of these original meanings, which I think you do, it also dishonest in portraying things this way.

Engels in the quote from his comments on the Erfurt Program was referring to the governmental form under which the proletariat can take power. The content of a government with a democratic form can be either bourgeois or proletarian. His point was to criticize those people, some of whom have found their way onto the forum, who think that democracy is antithetical or unrelated to socialism, and therefore should not be addressed. His point was to reinforce the exact opposite of the conclusion that the CPGB takes away: that the the struggle for democratic demands should be incorporated and must be incorporated into a struggle for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, not act as a programmatic substitute for the overthrow of capitalism in some revival of Stalin's two-stage social-democratic theory. It's no wonder the Third-World Caesareans are attracted to the CPGB-PCC like moths to a flame. They also have the two-stage fetish for putting off proletarian revolution, only their first stage isn't so palatable.

[Q]

Engels in the quote from his comments on the Erfurt Program was referring to the governmental form under which the proletariat can take power. The content of a government with a democratic form can be either bourgeois or proletarian. His point was to criticize those people, some of whom have found their way onto the forum, who think that democracy is antithetical or unrelated to socialism, and therefore should not be addressed. His point was to reinforce the exact opposite of the conclusion that the CPGB takes away: that the the struggle for democratic demands should be incorporated and must be incorporated into a struggle for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, not act as a programmatic substitute for the overthrow of capitalism in some revival of Stalin's two-stage social-democratic theory.

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

It's no wonder the Third-World Caesareans are attracted to the CPGB-PCC like moths to a flame. They also have the two-stage fetish for putting off proletarian revolution, only their first stage isn't so palatable.

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

[Devrim]

I was in the pub with two ex-members of the CPGB a couple of weeks ago. We were talkng about their origins in Yeni Yol, and I said they were Stalinsts. One of their ex-members said yes, but "left Stalinists". The whole table sort of cracked up.

Today though I don't think they are Stalinists. While I disagree with their politics, I do think that they seem to know what they are doing, and that producing a weekly paper with that few people is really impressive.

Unfortunately for them, even on their own terms I think that there are deep problems with their strategy. Basically they believe that they can unite the left, and act as its new leadership. What though separates them from the myriad of other groups that want to unite the left behind them?

If we believe that there will be an increase in the levels of class struggle, and if we don't we may as well give up now, then we will also see an increase in the size of the left. This sort of period enables small left groups to grow, and tiny groups can go from a handful of people to being the main political force on the left*. I don't think that the CPGB's strategy is something that will be able to take advantage of this situation. Basically they use all of their energy commenting on the machinations of other left groups. If you produce a weekly paper with so few people you don't have much time for much else. They don't have any actually intervention in class struggle themselves, and from what I can see don't think it is necessary.

I think a new wave of struggle will sweep away many of the organisations, like the SWP, that the CPGB focuses its attention on. They will be left as a tiny marginalised group (as they are now) commenting on groups that are becoming more and more marginal.

Also they are great adherents to the ideas of Lenin on the revolutionary newspaper as expressed in stuff like WITBD. In a period where the newspaper is being technologically superseded this seems to be a bit of a loser.

Devrim

*An example would be the Tony Cliff group, which went from being eight people to one of the two biggest left groups in the UK.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Ok, so let's move a step back:

"If the democratic republic is supposed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat in CPGB-speak (what's next, democratic proletocracy?)..."

I'm not entirely sure what the fuss is all about. As Engels put it in his critique on a draft of the Erfurt Programme:

(Sadly, this is no longer online. If you like, I can share you a local copy which I downloaded last April, before this was removed).

The "democratic republic" then is not your typical bourgeois construct. Putting it this way is a misunderstanding of viewpoints.

"... that says a lot about their conception of the DotP."

Which is what?

"But as is clear from several articles they have published, this is not the case."

A reasonably easy search in Google gives another image. We note 163 results of articles or letters which both have the mention of "dictatorship of the proletariat" and "democratic republic". Some of the immediate results are coming from this seven part series of Jack Conrad at the same time you're sourcing your articles from, four of which mention and explain one or both terms. Later there have been other articles, like this one from 2010.

This all seems to directly contradict to your statement that "the democratic republic is supposed to be the dictatorship of the proletariat [...] but this is not the case". Therefore, your positioning of the 'democratic republic' as having "the usual liberal obsession with bourgeois democracy" is not only fundamentally mistaken (dare I say, deliberately slanderous?), but it actually anti-Marxist in the sense that Marx and Engels used the very same terminology. If you were aware of these original meanings, which I think you do, it also dishonest in portraying things this way.

Q dearest, I don't think you are in any position to accuse other people of dishonestly ignoring how certain terms are used in Marxist analysis. By the way, how goes your crusade to convince people that terms like "centrist", "sectarian", "orthodox Marxist" etc. mean what you want them to mean?

As for the democratic republic and the dictatorship of the proletariat, you might want to read Engels's sentence again. Here it is in its immediate context:

"If one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the Great French Revolution has already shown. It would be inconceivable for our best people to become ministers under an emperor, as Miquel. It would seem that from a legal point of view it is inadvisable to include the demand for a republic directly in the programme, although this was possible even under Louis Phillippe in France, and is now in Italy. But the fact that in Germany it is not permitted to advance even a republican party programme openly, proves how totally mistaken is the belief that a republic, and not only a republic, but also communist society, can be established in a cosy, peaceful way."

Once again: this is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat. So the dictatorship of the proletariat will be a democratic republic (in abstract, of course: monarchy is of no use to us but circumstances might dictate a greater or lesser dose of democracy in the transitional period). But it does not follow - this is elementary logic - that the democratic republic is the dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact Marx and Engels never said something so thoroughly stupid.

Here is how Marx put it:

'Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
Now the program does not deal with this nor with the future state of communist society.

Its political demands contain nothing beyond the old democratic litany familiar to all: universal suffrage, direct legislation, popular rights, a people's militia, etc. They are a mere echo of the bourgeois People's Party, of the League of Peace and Freedom. They are all demands which, insofar as they are not exaggerated in fantastic presentation, have already been realized. Only the state to which they belong does not lie within the borders of the German Empire, but in Switzerland, the United States, etc. This sort of "state of the future" is a present-day state, although existing outside the "framework" of the German Empire.

But one thing has been forgotten. Since the German Workers' party expressly declares that it acts within "the present-day national state", hence within its own state, the Prusso-German Empire — its demands would indeed be otherwise largely meaningless, since one only demands what one has not got — it should not have forgotten the chief thing, namely, that all those pretty little gewgaws rest on the recognition of the so-called sovereignty of the people and hence are appropriate only in a democratic republic.

Since one has not the courage — and wisely so, for the circumstances demand caution — to demand the democratic republic, as the French workers' programs under Louis Philippe and under Louis Napoleon did, one should not have resorted, either, to the subterfuge, neither "honest" nor decent, of demanding things which have meaning only in a democratic republic from a state which is nothing but a police-guarded military despotism, embellished with parliamentary forms, alloyed with a feudal admixture, already influenced by the bourgeoisie, and bureaucratically carpentered, and then to assure this state into the bargain that one imagines one will be able to force such things upon it "by legal means".

Even vulgar democracy, which sees the millennium in the democratic republic, and has no suspicion that it is precisely in this last form of state of bourgeois society that the class struggle has to be fought out to a conclusion — even it towers mountains above this kind of democratism, which keeps within the limits of what is permitted by the police and not permitted by logic.'


There it is, as clear as it can be: the Gotha Programme, by demanding the democratic republic, which is "the last form of state of bourgeois society", "did not deal with this [the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat or the future state of the communist society]".


And furthermore, the German socialists, by limiting themselves to bourgeois-democratic demands, and not advancing clearly the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat, are merely echoing the People's Party. Which is to say, they are echoing the liberals by obsessing over the bourgeois democratic republic.


Given that you work in IT, I would have thought you would know better than to use the number of search results as an argument. Just for fun, and because I have to revise and I really don't want to, I searched for "dictatorship of the proletariat" and "fascism" - this gave ~195 results, more than your search. So are we to assume the CPGB think that the dictatorship of the proletariat is fascism? No, I don't think so.

The series by Conrad is the only real piece of evidence you have. However, it is contradicted by later pieces, such as the one by the WW editor, Manson:

"I argued from the floor that what really ought to cause outrage was not so much the wasted millions - in reality petty cash compared to the state budget as a whole - but the monarchical notion that we workers are held to be mere ‘subjects’ within the ‘one nation’ British order. We should prioritise amongst our immediate demands not only the abolition of the monarchy, but the dismantling of the whole constitutional monarchy system: get rid of the second chamber, no monarchical president (or presidential prime minister), accountable and recallable MPs on a worker’s wage, the replacement of the standing army by a people’s militia - in short, a democratic republic."

So at most you have demonstrated that one segment of the CPGB, in blatant contradiction to both the historical experience of the socialist movement and any hitherto existing Marxist analysis, holds that the democratic republic is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Obviously these people have no class-based analysis of the problem - they ritually chant "economism" as the CPGB does in order to deflect criticism about their complete erasure of class, instead of abstract "democracy", as the determining factor of history.