| Theory |
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Leninist Sects and Parliamentary Cretinism May 10, 2003 by RedStar2000 |
This is an argument with British Trotskyists about the Labour Party, bourgeois electoral politics, and something about the whole "mind-set" implied by the way these so-called "marxists" look at things.
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Did you ever hear the story of "the cargo cults"?
During World War II, many primitive Pacific islanders had their first contact with western "civilization" and were, of course, enormously impressed by the material wealth these newcomers possessed and casually discarded.
After the war was over, the rich newcomers left...and were greatly missed. So, according to the proper rules of magic, the islanders constructed replicas of radios, control towers, landing strips, etc....in order that the rich westerners might be "drawn back" to the islands, bringing their wealth with them. Hence, "cargo cults."
I tell this story to ground a comment of one comrade I know: he says that all of the modern "communist" parties, especially in the west, are "Leninist cargo cults." They think that what you have to do is set up an apparatus that's as faithful as possible to the Bolshevik model, carefully repeat Lenin's formulas for all occasions, and communist revolution will return.
My comrade also suggests that communism is in a "theoretical crisis"...we've never learned how to use Marxism as analysis, much less been able to devise new models for revolutionary movements.
He's got a point.
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 18, 2003
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Historically, that is quite right; it would take pages to list all the various Trotskyist splinter groups since 1930 or thereabouts.
Nor do I see any point in working within the British Labour Party--if that's what Trotsky advised. First of all, the BLP now is hardly what it was 60 years ago...it is now a capitalist party, pure and simple!
Secondly, at some point we must learn the futility of trying to "use" the capitalist electoral system as a "means" of "struggle." That is like trying to raise your rent money in a casino...except that in a casino, you sometimes win. No genuine socialist/communist party is ever going to win a majority in a capitalist election...it will simply not be permitted.
Working within existing trade unions is very complicated and often very frustrating work...but it is one of the crucial things that communists must do to succeed. But, if I were to just take a wild stab, my bet would be on the future of communism in new unions that organize workers that the old unions have ignored. I know that is an enormously daunting challenge...but if it worked as a strategy, the "payoff" would be like a casino jackpot. A large and growing sector of the working class imbued with communist ideas would radically change the "balance of power" and possibly even "tip the balance" our way.
Something to think about, anyway.
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 20, 2003
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Ah, you've fallen into that old Leninist trap...that all it takes is revolutionary leadership and the rest is all "smooth sailing."
No. A union with communist "leadership" will be better than a union without communist leadership...no argument there. But go back to what I actually said: "...a large and growing sector of the working class imbued with communist ideas..."
If the working class votes for us in the same way that they vote for capitalist politicians, little has been really achieved. In the USSR, China, etc., communists "won" all the "elections"...and it turned out not to mean squat.
The working class must grasp the necessity of communism; in the absence of that, communist "leadership" is little more than a blip on the radar screen of capitalism...an inconvenience to be temporarily endured until "normal" conditions of exploitation can be restored.
To tell people that the way you get communism is to "vote" for it (in a union election or in a regular capitalist election) is not only useless, it's misleading and just plain wrong. That's not how it happens...ever.
And who says "we can't make new structures"? Actually, the young American Communist Party did have a degree of success in organizing new unions in the late 1920s and early 1930s...and precisely in the sectors of the working class that the old craft unions of that era completely ignored.
Forgive me if my estimate (guess) is wrong...but to "purge" Tony Blair from the BLP would probably mean purging 75% of the membership as well...hardly realistic.
Re: splitting--come now, without knowing any details whatsoever, I'll bet those "opportunists" that you speak of actually consider themselves to be the "real Trotskyists" and consider the group(s) that you support to be "opportunists". And I'll also bet that someone outside the Trotskyist spectrum would have great difficulty in telling one from another.
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 21, 2003
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I'm willing to yield to your estimate of Blair's support in the British Labour Party (10%)...if you can explain to me how it is that Blair is still Prime Minister. Obviously, you are far better informed than I am on the details of British politics...but I would think that if Blair had really lost the confidence of 90% of the Labour Party, he would be removed...like Margaret Thatcher was removed by the Conservatives.
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First posted at Che-Lives on February 22, 2003
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There's absolutely no question that bourgeois parties shift "leftwards" or "rightwards" depending on objective conditions, especially the amount of heat in the class struggle and the always pressing demands of imperialism itself (the fall in the rate of profit must be postponed another decade.).
The unanswered question is: are communists needed to assist/retard that process?
I don't think that's the case; I think the process would take place even if communists didn't exist.
It seems to me that communists have two distinct roles to play. (1) where possible, to directly participate in the class struggle with the goal of radicalizing the rank-and-file as much as possible (not just winning "leadership" positions in the unions); (2) to spread communist ideas as widely as possible in the working class and among potential allies of the working class.
Neither of those roles really has much of anything to do with bourgeois electoral politics...which is, after all is said and done, a distraction from what is real.
The alternative strategy, "taking over the Labour Party" (or any bourgeois party), leads to a dead end. Even if you do it and even if you "win" a majority in parliament, you have no clear mandate to introduce communism and the capitalists will "go on strike" against you--call it "the general lock-out"--until they bring you down. Or, they'll buy a couple of generals and stage a military coup.
On the other hand, a communist uprising--with strikes, occupations, massive demonstrations, etc.--is a mandate for communism. You have the "authority" to simply ignore the old state apparatus...even large portions of the military establishment simply abandon the sinking ship (especially the younger officers and enlisted men...who also move leftwards).
Seems like a no-brainer to me.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 11, 2003
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quote:
History has shown us that the working class has ALWAYS turned to [the Labour Party] (when it is left) in its times of struggle.
Gee, that's not very bright of them, is it?
Regardless, why should we communists tail after what is clearly a bad move?
Why shouldn't we simply tell the working class, over and over and over again if necessary, that the Labour Party is a capitalist party and will never put power in the hands of the working class?
That may be an "unpopular" message for a long time...so be it. Our role is not to be "popular"; our role is to tell the truth to our class.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 12, 2003
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quote:
...in Britain, the workers will take power through the Labour Party...
and pigs will fly!
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 12, 2003
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Why "blind" ? I don't contest your knowledge of the details of British politics.
I'm talking about a basic and fundamental understanding of the capitalist system and how it works.
You are arguing that you can take a capitalist political party and "use" it as a vehicle to attain state power for the working class.
That makes no fucking sense!
As to all the odd grouplets in Britain that might agree with me about this point, I'm hardly responsible for whatever else they might think. People can have a correct view of one thing and still go nutball on some other thing...or a lot of other things.
But on this question, if they are right, then they are right!
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 13, 2003
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That's an interesting link for the History forum...but has no relevance to this discussion.
You could, with equal relevance, discuss the links between Marx and Engels and the German Social-Democracy of 1880...that would say nothing of interest regarding the German Social Democratic Party of 2003.
There was a time, no doubt, when "labour" was an accurate description of that group. No doubt some historian is hard at work even as we speak tracing the events that made that term irrelevant.
But it is irrelevant and will stay that way. I know of no case in recorded history where a bourgeois political party was "captured" by the working class. Without being dogmatic about it, I don't think it can ever happen.
It seems to me that your attachment to this perspective comes more from historical associations than from a realistic analysis of the Labour Party now. Perhaps Trotsky's analysis was valid in 1930 or 1940...it's totally irrelevant now.
Sometimes, we simply have to "give up" political nostalgia.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 14, 2003
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In the case of a trade union that actually engages in class struggle, your perspective of "stay and fight" may or may not make sense...it would depend on the details.
That has nothing to do with a capitalist political party.
And your comparison between taking over an entire society and taking over the "Labour" Party is clearly not valid. Taking over an entire society is called revolution and does not require any conformity to the legal norms of capitalist society.
Taking over a capitalist political party requires a legal procedure that will always, in fact, be rigged against you.
It is, in fact, a "small" version of trying to achieve communism by "winning" a bourgeois election. That is not permitted by the capitalist class. You will never be permitted to "take over" the "Labour" Party for the same reason. Whatever legal measures that need to be taken to stop you will be taken. And they will work...they always do.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 15, 2003
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So how can you explain the emergence of new lefts in the unions [if?] the bourgeoisie had the power to prevent it [them?]?
Because unions are not parties.
Unions are on the "front lines" of class struggle and naturally respond to changes in the "balance of power" with more or less rapidity. A union leadership that fails to engage in vigorous struggle for its members will create its own opposition both within and outside the union. When this opposition becomes significant, the dinosaurs bestir themselves into action...or at least the appearance of action.
The influence of the capitalist class within a union is usually indirect and ideological--though one can never rule out the bribe or even the legal prohibition of radical leadership.
In the United States, for example, a union that democratically elected a member of the Communist Party to its leadership would lose its collective bargaining rights under the National Labor Relations Act.
That law has not been tested in many decades and it's hard to say what a court would decide now...not to mention the existence of communists who think the old CP is a toothless and senile lion.
It's an entirely different situation with a major capitalist party. The bourgeoisie run it more or less directly and openly.
To paraphrase Ralph Nader, the only difference between George W. Bush and Tony Blair "is the speed with which their knees hit the floor when a corporate CEO enters the room." No significant political figure in your country or mine has any doubt as to who is master...and they have no problem with that.
You may as well attempt to remove a chunk of meat from the jaws of a hungry tiger as try to take a political party away from the bourgeoisie. It won't happen.
And why should it? What would be the point in we communists dressing ourselves in the tattered rags of bourgeois "legitimacy"? As I said in an earlier post, we are never going to create socialism by majority vote in the House of Commons or the U.S. House of Representatives. Even if you could "recapture" the Labour Party, what would you have but a discredited and corrupt machine that can't do what you want it to do anyway?
Well, you'd have a job. Somehow, I think you want a little more than that. At least I hope so!
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 17, 2003
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I wasn't there, of course, but two reasons immediately suggest themselves.
The first is that they weren't actually as "revolutionary" as their words might have led folks to believe. I think if there had actually been a "Liverpool Commune", I would have heard something about it. It used to be the case that "communists" were often allowed to "run" municipal governments in the advanced capitalist world because cities have no effective power to actually do anything of substance regarding the class structure of capitalist society.
But I said "used to be". You're talking about something that happened in England two or three decades ago. I do not think it would be permitted to happen now. "Red Ken" (mayor of London) is really, I think you would agree, an extremely pale shade of pink.
Only the most domesticated of social democrats are allowed to be elected now...politicians who can be counted on to "know their place"...and ours.
I'm surprised that you, as a Trotskyist, would argue the contrary position at such length. You have to be aware of the conclusions drawn by Marx and Engels after the Paris Commune...the working class cannot take over the old bourgeois state machinery but must smash it and set up a new "state" apparatus completely dominated by the working class.
The "dictatorship of the proletariat", remember?
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 20, 2003
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It is a sad fact of life that when people are determined to follow a foolish plan, there doesn't seem to be any possible form of rational argument that makes any difference.
If those guys want to dick around in the Labour Party, I can't stop them.
But that doesn't mean I have to join them...and I flatly refuse to do so. It is no part of communist obligation to imitate the mistakes or follies of other communists out of misplaced "solidarity", much less mindless Leninist discipline.
So, guys, you have in my opinion a really dumb idea...but go ahead if that's what you want. But no one who has read and understood the discussion in this thread will follow you.
Nor should they!
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 24, 2003
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Why do you bring this petty sectarian squabbling into a theoretical discussion?
I thought what we were arguing was the class nature of the Labour Party and whether communists should have anything to do with it.
Apparently, your "point" is that one group of Trotskyists "agreed with me" and went on to run their outfit into the ground. Well, Trotskyists have been running their groups into the ground since before I was born. A split in a Trotskyist group with or without a series of practical blunders (usually with) is as inevitable as the "money shot" in a porn film. (The problem with a Leninist Party is that it's almost impossible for it to correct the blunders of its leadership.)
To repeat what I said earlier, I am not responsible for the nutball views or actions that a group might have/take besides the one issue on which we agree. Whatever "stupid" things this other group you're talking about may have done, the one stupid thing they did not do was dick around with the bourgeois Labour Party.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 25, 2003
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...the masses ALWAYS move through the unions and the Labour Party...
Gee, what did the masses do before those formations existed? Or do you suggest that Marx was wrong and only in the recent past have the masses moved onto the stage of history?
In other words, your approach to matters is a-historical. Essentially, you are saying that since the Labour Party was at one time in the past a party of the working class, it is now and will always remain so. Whatever you call that kind of analysis, it's not Marxism.
If you want to pin the responsibility for the rise of Tony Blair on a rival trotskyist group...that's up to you. Personally, I think the capitalist class might have had a little more effect on the outcome, myself. Just a wee bit.
The forms of class struggle have changed a lot over the past couple of centuries. Here is some more "heresy" for you to be outraged about: they may change even more.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 25, 2003
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What's interesting is that whenever one finds oneself criticizing some Leninist nonsense, one of the stock responses is that "you have a bad attitude."
Funny, all my bosses felt the same way.
Next thing you know, I'll be informed in lofty tones that "I fail to grasp the dialectic."
Bollocks! (Did I spell that one right?)
As I recall, Marx had a rather high opinion of the Chartists and some of them were later involved in the First International. But what did he know?
I notice that both of you guys find it difficult to separate the unions from the Labour Party in your own minds. Why is that? We're not arguing about whether or not communists should be in the unions...why do you keep bringing that up?
The fact that a majority of working class people vote for the Labour Party has nothing to do with the class nature of that party. To suggest it does is moronic.
Who really runs the damn thing? Who makes the decisions? Who determines its real polices?
It ain't the workers and it ain't even the union leaders, and you know it...or ought to.
And what is this crap about how I don't live in England and therefore should shut up about something I don't know about? What the hell kind of weird definition of proletarian internationalism is that?
If you look at the posts I've made in this thread, you will see that I clearly refrained from commenting on the details of British politics...it would be out of place for me to do so.
But Tony Blair is a "world figure" and the thrust of "Labour" Party policies is reported regularly and with increasing approval in the pages of The Economist. One would have to lack all fluency in the English language not to be aware of what Blair's "Labour" Party really is: a capitalist party.
If I were to apply your absurd logic to American politics, I'd have to conclude that "communists should work inside the Democratic Party because that's where the workers are...we know that because that's who they vote for."
Nonsense, like Marxism, is international.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 26, 2003
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A rather scatter-shot and incoherent post, not up to your usual standards.
Probably because you've run out of substantive arguments...and can only reply with baseless assertions and appeals to scripture (that link on the history of British Trotskyism is something that I would only read if you were pointing a gun at my head!).
In what fashion or manner have I "underestimated" the working class or "overestimated" the ruling class?
And the British Labour Party is obviously a capitalist party. Why do you deny the obvious?
The presence of a few "openly revolutionary MPs" (if that's what they really were) prior to the Thatcher era is hardly relevant now.
And even if it were, so what? Were you really suggesting that some off-hand remark by Marx towards the end of his life (he was in pretty bad shape, you know), as a justification for the "parliamentary path to socialism"?
How about the totality of the man's work?
And then you offer that handful of "Marxists" in the Pakistani Parliament...break out the champagne! Er, except for the fact that the Pakistani Parliament can't take a shit without getting permission from the U.S.-supported military dictator there (sorry, I've forgotten his name; quislings come and go so quickly these days).
Having read a little bit about Pakistani politics, I suspect that those guys were elected with the support of their extended families and clans...that remains a very important part of politics in that part of the world; it's pre-capitalist in many important respects.
"The unions could take over the Labour Party in a second." But they won't. Not because of some rival Trotskyist group. And certainly not because of me.
They won't do it because they can't...whatever shreds of formal power they might retain in the Labour Party are meaningless compared to real (capitalist) power.
Don't you even glimpse the fact that political power in a capitalist society is not a matter of votes? The whole point of bourgeois democracy is to give the appearance of popular sovereignity while keeping real power in the hands of the ruling class.
What would I do if I lived in the UK or what should communists do in the UK after they once and for all quit dicking around with parliamentary cretinism?
I know you intend that as a "trick question" in the hopes that I will make a real "blunder" and say something so ignorant that everyone on the board who is British will have a big laugh at my expense.
So I will cleverly evade your trap by saying this: wherever real struggle is taking place against the ruling class, that is where communists are needed. Look for those who are alienated, pissed off, royally fucked over...and who are struggling to fight back. Deepen their hatred for the prevailing social order and teach them something of the tools of Marxism...give them the gift of revolutionary hope.
Quit looking for followers (much less voters); start looking for potential revolutionaries.
They're out there. Trust me on that.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 27, 2003
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Good premise, bad conclusion.
Yes, class struggle continues. Yes, periods of defeat and even despair are followed by fresh rebellion. Yes, trade union leadership that tries to control or even stop workers from fighting back simply guarantee an ultimately more explosive outbreak of class rebellion.
Dubious: replacing existing union leadership with "leftists". It seems to me that we have more to gain from "unofficial" strikes, slow-downs, and even occupations...that such tentative steps "outside" the formal rituals of "labor-management relations" are more likely to lead to the radicalization of the working class than trying to substitute ourselves for the existing bureaucracy.
See, what we want (or should want) is for the class to act directly in its own interests. This doesn't happen by "picking the right leaders"...it happens only when the class itself perceives the need for direct action and takes it!
The rest of the document is simply fortune-telling; and I can do that too. For example, even if there is a "flood" of leftists into the "Labour" Party, the Blair-types will simply bring in a "flood" of their class supporters...middle class types who see that the Conservatives are dinosaurs and that the Liberals will never win a parliamentary majority again; people whose own class interests include a career in or strategic connections with a Blair-type regime.
Both views are speculative; but I don't see why my speculation is any less valid on its face.
Waffling: "Now whether at this point the [Labour] party has the ability to carry through anything drastic in parliament, whether it has the power to set us on the way to revolution - we will never know."
Yes, they do know...if they've read Marx or even just Lenin and Trotsky. They know that bourgeois parliaments have never set anyone "on the way to revolution." And never will!
So what's the point of their strategy, even were it to succeed? A higher caliber of rhetoric in the House of Commons? Making May Day a national holiday? What would a "left" version of the "Labour" Party actually do that hasn't already been done by German and French social democrats? The answer is: not a damn thing!
I had no idea there were as many as 40 vanguard-wannabes in the UK...I'm pretty sure that exceeds the number in the US by a wide margin. But you'd think by this time that some more intelligent people there would be ready for a fresh approach.
Not yet, I guess, but hopefully soon.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 28, 2003
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Are you deliberately pretending to mis-understand what I'm saying?
"If the unions act as an obstacle, there will be a wave of unofficial strikes..." -- thus speaks the document that was posted. What I am suggesting is that we support and encourage the "unofficial" and let the "official" take care of itself. What we want is for the class to move outside of the realm of capitalist legality...in a small way at first, in bigger ways later.
"How does the class perceive [that] it should take action?" How do you perceive when action is necessary? Are you of the opinion that any worker of normal intelligence cannot see things as clearly as yourself?
Consciousness arises from class realities, does it not? If Marxism suddenly disappeared from human memory, how long would it take to be completely re-invented? I think a couple of decades would do it, if not less.
I know, you think if you or some other trustworthy vanguardist is not present, giving orders, the working class will just fuck off, or briefly rebel and then submit, blah, blah, blah. You have the standard bourgeois-idealist conception of history that permeates Leninism...the "right" people have to be in the "right" positions of authority, or nothing "good" can happen at all.
One might call it the "Burke's Peerage" theory of "revolutionary" politics.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 28, 2003
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I sure hope someone is reading this thread besides just us three...because I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to convince you two, and I'm certain that you're not going to convince me...at least not with the kinds of tired arguments that you're making now.
One of you thinks that "only marxist leaders" can start unofficial strikes...which is simply ludicrous. There's probably been tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of unofficial strikes with nary a "marxist leader" in sight.
The other doesn't even "like" unofficial strikes...he thinks they lead to demoralization and even court appearances (horrors!).
What a pair!
One thinks that "without left-wing leaders", a union can't have an unofficial strike. Gee, maybe they'd have to do it without the leader's permission. Ohmygod, that's positively anarchistic! Quick, somebody call the cops!!!
The other "likes" ritual. A two-hour "general strike against the war" is, in his view, a great victory for the international working class.
I think it's a joke, myself. (Ultra-leftist bastard.)
What you "vanguardists" apparently find it impossible to grasp is the strategy of the capitalist class. They know (better than you!) that class struggle is omnipresent...and they seek to contain it within legal and ritualistic channels.
And you guys want to help them do exactly that!
Trotsky's remarks about a "crisis of leadership" constitute an amusing footnote; he meant people liked Stalin more than him...and Roosevelt more than both of them put together.
His thesis that people "turn to their traditional reformist organizations" in periods of crisis is actually a plain-spoken repudiation of even the "possibility" of proletarian revolution.
What he's really saying is that the working class is "naturally reformist", perhaps even incurably so, and thus must be "tricked" into revolution by having Trotskyists in leading positions in the reformist groups.
This is such a gross travesty of "Marxism" that I'm surprised you even bother to (mis)use the name. What place in your scenario for Marx's conception of a class-conscious proletariat acting in its own class interests to overthrow class society for once and for all?
I'm beginning to think that what you guys really want are jobs...either in a union bureaucracy or maybe in the "Labour" party itself.
I hope you get them; you'll drop all your "revolutionary" verbosity and stop confusing people.
And, most important of all (to you!): you'll feel right at home.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 29, 2003
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It's a funny thing, but the Maoists in their way are far more consistent than the Trotskyists...at least judging by the samples on this board.
The Maoists are in the peasant revolution end of things and pretty much say so; they have no perspective for advanced capitalist countries and think that proletarian revolution is something that will happen in the very distant future here (if ever?).
Our resident Trotskyists believe, really believe, that the "Labour" Party under Trotskyist leadership will win a majority in the House of Commons and then...well, it gets kind of hazy after that.
Do you think they might have their eyes on one of those plush seats in the House of Lords?
Or to paraphrase an earlier contribution to this thread: scratch a Trotskyist, find a social democrat???
Some remarks suggest that it is better to submit (that is, "fight" through the official channels that guarantee defeat) than it is to really fight and maybe lose.
Guess what? The oppressed nearly always lose. That's why we call them the oppressed.
Shall we then give up? Or confine ourselves to pro forma efforts to alleviate suffering through ritual engagements with the capitalist class?
Gee, fellows, I thought we were supposed to be revolutionaries. You guys sound more like insurance salesmen.
Note that the other, in particular, dismisses the May 1968 uprising of the French working class as a "joke."
The closest thing we've seen to real proletarian revolution in an advanced capitalist country since...hell, since the Paris Commune is a "joke."
But a few Trotskyists in Pakistan's supine parliament...that's "real progress" on the "road to revolution".
The remarks about me "standing on the sidelines" are really not worth responding to except insofar as they are a kind of "ideological blackmail" that they both probably use all too often. In other words, if you don't follow our line, then you will be "irrelevant" to the "revolution".
Here's my response: I would rather be irrelevant than do harm to the revolution by knowingly telling lies to my class about the "usefulness" of bourgeois political parties and bourgeois parliaments.
"First, do no harm" is not just good advice for doctors...real revolutionaries should consider it as well.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 30, 2003
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Well, perhaps there are some real differences between you and your comrade that were not clear to me from your earlier posts. You, I take it, do not believe in a Trotskyist-led "Labour" Party majority in the House of Commons leading to "socialism".
Good.
If I understand your perspective correctly, your strategy is to "attempt" a left "takeover" of the "Labour" Party knowing in advance that it will fail...but then leading whatever lefties you have recruited for this effort out of the "Labour" Party and into your own "party" or perhaps a somewhat larger grouping...thus achieving a degree of growth in a relatively short period of time that the other Trotskyist groups can only envy.
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe that's known in Trotskyist circles as a "deep entry" strategy and was first implemented by the American Trotskyist James P. Cannon in the late 1930s.
It did "work" for them and it might "work" for you. What's wrong with it is that it's a strategy for party-building. Success is measured in numbers of recruits.
You're still thinking inside the Leninist "box"...that the road to revolution "requires" a tightly-organized elite, in the absence of which the revolution is doomed.
History should have taught you by now that the working classes in the advanced capitalist countries will not accept a Leninist-party dictatorship. Whether you have 900 members or 900,000 members makes no real difference.
To May of 1968, yes, the "Communist" Party of France utterly betrayed the French working class...on a scale perhaps even worse than the French Socialists in 1914. It wasn't the first betrayal, by far, but it was certainly the most contemptable.
And where is the CPF today?
I note that your attitude regarding trade union work appears to differ dramatically from your comrade's. You seem to have a better understanding of the need to break through the carefully-constructed barriers to real class struggle that the ruling class has spent so much effort to construct. I can only repeat what I said earlier: you don't have to be "an official leader" to do that...and it is probably better if you're not.
"...an opportunist and a Stalinist" -- I'm still waiting for some documentation on my alledged "opportunism". Beyond that, you must have gathered by now that I am not "intimidated" by the juvenile name-calling that passes for political analysis in the old Leninist left.
I do not really care if you call me a "menshevik", a "stalinist", a "maoist", a this or a that.
I just care about getting it right.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 30, 2003
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Leninism is not a word I use for anything I don't like; it has a specific political meaning and I use the word in its proper meaning at all times.
It specifically means that the working class can only attain and exercise state power through the agency of a "vanguard party" organized according to the principles of democratic centralism.
In practice, of course, it is quasi-military in its internal atmosphere with obedience to authority its primary characteristic...thus making any theoretical clarity or strategic competence a matter of sheer chance.
The Leninist conception of proletarian revolution most closely resembles a well-organized blitzkrieg planned by the German General Staff...in theory. In practice, it's more like "The Three Stooges Organize Insurrection."
And in the west, it must be added, the Leninist practice has been almost uniformly reformist. There may be some exceptions to that rule, but if you actually look at the Stalinist/Trotskyist/Maoist parties, once they recruit a few hundred members, the first thing they want to do is run for office in a bourgeois election. If that's not reformism, then the word has no meaning.
By all means start a thread on Leninism; you will find yourself in the unhappy situation of that legendary one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest.
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First posted at Che-Lives on May 2, 2003
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