Lenin: Yes! Leninism: No?
Ian Birchall •A discussion article by Ian Birchall, historian and author of Tony Cliff: a Marxist for his time
It is currently a commonplace on the left and not-so-left to announce that Leninism is dead. Indeed, one might wonder why it is necessary to keep repeating the point. Nobody is writing articles to explain that alchemy or social credit are dead. The enthusiasm to bury Leninism tells us that this is something that people want to be dead.
In most cases what they really want to commit to the grave is the experience of 1917 and its aftermath. In the years following 1917 a revolutionary wave swept across Europe. The Russian Revolution, whatever its limitations, offered tremendous hope to working people that the system that had produced the slaughter of 1914-1918 could be replaced by a world based on cooperation and planning in the common interest.
Those of us who, today, want to replace the market economy with a society where working people run the world for themselves, will echo Lenin’s words from 1917:
At all costs, we must break the old, absurd, savage, despicable and disgusting prejudice that only the so-called “upper classes”, only the rich, and those who have gone through the school of the rich, are capable of administering the state and directing the organisational development of socialist society.
If we get into an argument about whether workers can run the world, we may cite the Paris Commune, Spain 1936-37, Hungary 1956 or Portugal 1974-75. But pretty soon we shall come back to October 1917.
And for the Revolution’s friends and enemies alike, the name Lenin serves as a symbol of the achievements of the Russian Revolution. Without the Revolution Lenin would have been a nobody, perhaps the subject of an obscure PhD on organisational debates in Russian Marxism, but certainly not a guide, authority and “great teacher”.
It is fascinating, if ultimately futile, to ask what would have happened in Russia in 1917 if Lenin had not been there. Three points in particular can be emphasised:
- Lenin’s ability to grasp the new conjuncture created by the February Revolution and the fact that, as he argued in the April Theses, it was possible to move directly to working-class power.
- The fact that, because of consistent activity over the previous twenty years, there was a party, in which he could argue for the new perspective. Without a party, Lenin’s words would have been wasted.
- And finally, Lenin’s political self-confidence was such that he welcomed into the party leadership people who were prepared to stand up to him, notably his old adversary Trotsky. Lenin thought that the party itself should call the insurrection. Trotsky, who had greater experience than Lenin of the soviets, had to persuade him that the party’s support alone was not broad enough, and that the call should come from the soviets.
But for Lenin the Revolution was made by the working class; he vigorously rejected any suggestion that any political force could replace it:
To be successful, revolutionary insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must rely upon that turning point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy, and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point. And these three conditions for raising the question of insurrection distinguish Marxism from Blanquism.
The phrase “and not upon a party” may be a bit perplexing to those who have been brought up to think of “Leninism” and “party-building” as synonymous.
Freedom versus the state
What distinguished Lenin as a revolutionary above all was his theory of the state. His State and Revolution, written when insurrection was just weeks away, is his most important work. Not only did it make clear than the transfer of power could not be contained within the existing institutions of the society, it also made clear that socialism cannot be equated with state control of the economy. Lenin summed up his position with the words: “So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state.”
To understand the originality and significance of Lenin’s view of the state, it is useful to see how he was perceived by his contemporaries, some of whom had come to support the Russian Revolution from very different political traditions.
Victor Serge had been a hardline anarchist before 1914, taking positions that were elitist and even anti-working class; then he had been active with Spanish syndicalists at the time of the Barcelona insurrection. On arriving in Russia he rallied to the Bolsheviks, who, though they represented an alien political current, were at the very heart of the action. In 1924, just after Lenin’s death, he wrote a pamphlet Lenin In 1917 in which the former anarchist summarised Lenin’s view of the state as follows:
… there is only a difference between the Bolsheviks and the Anarchists over the means, and not over the end; … it is necessary to smash the bourgeois state; … it is necessary to create a profoundly new revolutionary state, the first glimpse of which was given to us by the Paris Commune.
Alfred Rosmer was a syndicalist journalist; he met Trotsky in Paris during the First World War, but had no contact with the Bolsheviks until he arrived in Russia in 1920. He described the impact of the newly published State and Revolution on the European socialist movement:
Some copies of a book by Lenin called State and Revolution had arrived in France early in 1919. It was an extraordinary book and it had a strange destiny. Lenin, a Marxist and a Social Democrat, was treated as an outcast by the theoreticians of the socialist parties which claimed to be Marxist. “It isn’t Marxism,” they shrieked, “it’s a mixture of anarchism and Blanquism”. One of them even found a witty turn of phrase and called it “Blanquism with sauce tartare”. On the other hand, for revolutionaries situated outside the mainstream of orthodox Marxism, for the syndicalists and anarchists, this Blanquism, sauce and all, was a pleasant revelation. They had never heard such language from the Marxists they knew.
Leadership, mistakes, splits
Rosmer and Serge also give us a fascinating picture of Lenin’s leadership style. Rosmer recounts his first meeting with Lenin:
One remark he made suddenly revealed to me the secret of the exceptional position he held in his party, and of the predominant influence he had got there. As we were talking about the Zimmerwaldian minority in the French Socialist Party, he said to me, “It’s time for them to leave the Party now to form the French Communist Party; they’ve waited too long already.” I replied that this was not the view of the leaders of the minority. Previously they had sometimes been impatient to leave the Party en bloc, but the recent Strasbourg conference had been so favourable that they were now opposed to the idea of leaving. They had hopes of becoming the majority quite soon. “If that’s the case,” he said, “I must have written something stupid in my theses. Ask for a copy of them at the secretariat of the Communist International and send me the corrections you are proposing.”
This willingness to learn, the readiness to accept that he had been mistaken and to change his mind, were an essential part of what made Lenin such an exceptional leader. Serge testifies to Lenin’s ability to work collectively, to learn from his comrades:
Lenin, Trotsky, Karl Radek, and Bukharin had, beyond any doubt, become the brains of the Revolution. They spoke the same Marxist language, and had the same background of experience with the socialism of Europe and America. Consequently they understood one another so well, by the merest hints, that they seemed to think collectively. (And it is a fact that the party drew its strength from collective thinking.)
Another witness to Lenin’s leadership skills was Clara Zetkin, the veteran German socialist. In 1921 the German Communist Party launched an adventurist insurrectionary strike which led to disaster and massive loss of membership. One of the Party’s leaders, Paul Levi, publicly attacked his own party and was disciplined. The question, naturally, was central to the Third Congress of the Communist International three months later.
Zetkin, who agreed with Levi’s analysis, but had stayed with the party framework, recorded her discussions with Lenin, and his insistence on the need for compromise; he told her:
As far as the probable attitude of the Congress to the “March action” is concerned, you must realize that it is essential to have a basis for compromise. You will have to be content with the lion’s share of the Congress spoils. The principles of your policy will triumph, triumph brilliantly. And that will prevent a repetition of the “March action.” …
The Congress will utterly destroy the famous “theory of the offensive”, will adopt the tactics which correspond to your ideas. But for that very reason it must also distribute some crumbs of consolation to the adherents of that theory. If in criticising the “March action” we emphasise the fact that the workers fought under provocation from the lackeys of the bourgeoisie, and if, in general, we show a somewhat fatherly “historical” leniency, that will be possible. You, Clara, will condemn that as hushing it up and so on. But that won’t help you. If the tactics to be decided upon by the Congress are agreed upon as quickly as possible, and with no great friction, becoming the guiding principle for the activity of the Communist Parties, our dear leftists will go back not too mortified and not too embittered. We must also – and indeed first and before all – consider the feelings of the real revolutionary workers both within and outside the Party …
“Well, we shan’t deal roughly with the leftists, we shall put some balm on their wounds instead. Then they will soon be working happily and energetically with you in carrying out the policy of the Third Congress of our International.
Lenin had organised a number of splits in his time, but here he realised that the important thing was to hold the German Communist Party and the Comintern together. Splitting is a lot easier than pulling together, which is why his self-styled followers have usually found it easier to imitate him by splitting.
Was Lenin a Leninist?
Like the rest of us, Lenin was a complex human being with weaknesses and limitations. He had an underdeveloped aesthetic sense and was given to telling mother-in-law jokes that were in bad taste if not sexist. As CLR James put it, Lenin was “neither God nor Stalin“.
That Lenin was an important revolutionary leader, and that his life and work repay study, are scarcely in doubt. But what of “Leninism”? Marx famously protested that he was not a Marxist; would Lenin have proclaimed himself a Leninist? There is good reason to think he would not.
Serge quotes Kamenev, who edited the first edition of Lenin’s Collected Works, as saying that Lenin was opposed to the project, believing there was no point collecting obscure writings from many years earlier. And in 1922, the last time he spoke to the Communist International, Lenin told delegates that the resolution on organisation “is too Russian, it reflects the Russian experience. That is why it is quite unintelligible to foreigners, and they cannot be content with hanging it in a corner like an icon and praying to it.” He was applauded with great affection; whether anyone was listening is a different matter.
After Lenin’s death the term “Leninism” was rapidly promoted by both Zinoviev, at a speech at the Fifth Congress of the Comintern, and by Stalin, in a series of lectures called Foundations of Leninism (1924). In the plodding banal style which makes his work virtually unreadable, Stalin informed the world:
And so, what is Leninism? Some say that Leninism is the application of Marxism to the conditions that are peculiar to the situation in Russia. This definition contains a particle of truth, but not the whole truth by any means. Lenin, indeed, applied Marxism to Russian conditions, and applied it in a masterly way. But if Leninism were only the application of Marxism to the conditions that are peculiar to Russia it would be a purely national and only a national, a purely Russian and only a Russian, phenomenon. We know, however, that Leninism is not merely a Russian, but an international phenomenon rooted in the whole of international development.
It was indeed central to Stalinism to claim the legacy of Lenin, in order to legitimise the new ruling class that emerged by 1928 as the sole true heir of October 1917. But for Stalin’s opponents the claim to be the heirs of Lenin was equally pressing, and far more legitimate.
When a supporter said to Trotsky “If only Lenin had lived! You would be with him to this day in Moscow!” Trotsky reputedly replied: “Not at all, he would be with me in Mexico.” In the mid-1930s the early British Trotskyists called themselves “the British Bolshevik-Leninists” – a bit like calling oneself an “agricultural farmer”. The Trotskyists were on the defensive, faced with a massive wave of Stalinist lies and slanders. Their insistence that they represented the true continuity with the politics of Lenin was a necessary and legitimate response.
At the time of the split between Russia and China in the early 1960s something similar happened. The Maoists again claimed legitimacy by calling themselves “Marxist-Leninists”. Maoism proved itself to be just as prone to splintering as Trotskyism, but usually the Communist Party of Ruritania Marxist-Leninist would be the group in Ruritania that was most Stalinist and most loyal to Beijing. As recently as the 1980s an oppositional group in the British Communist Party, forerunner of today’s Weekly Worker, published a paper called The Leninist.
It is commonly said that in 1968 the International Socialists, forerunners of the SWP, turned from Luxemburgism to Leninism. This is an oversimplification – “Luxemburgism” is an even more slippery concept that Leninism. What did happen is that IS made efforts to turn itself into an interventionist organisation – a decision amply justified by the events of the following few years (Saltley pickets, Pentonville Five, miners’ strike bringing down the Heath government, Chilean coup, Portuguese revolution). If Cliff and the rest of us were inspired and guided by Lenin, so much the better – though as I recall in those days we talked a lot about Lenin and not much about “Leninism”. (However, to claim that an organisational form chosen in 1968 remains appropriate for 2014 strikes me as distinctly “unLeninist”. But that is another story.)
Organisational truisms; tasks ahead
So there are many claimants to the label “Leninism”, and many arguments about who can claim it most legitimately. But is there a coherent body of thought that can be defined as “Leninism”? As Tony Cliff pointed out, “Authority by quotation is nowhere less justified than in the case of Lenin. If he is cited on any tactical or organizational question, the concrete issues that the movement was facing at the time must be made absolutely clear.” (Whether Cliff always heeded his own warning is not so certain.)
That Lenin made the question of organisation central is undeniable. But to reduce “Leninism” to the truism “we’ve got to get organised” is a bit thin. And on the question of how we should be organised he was extremely flexible. The whole of Cliff’s study of Lenin is a sustained polemic against the myth of “the Leninist party”. There is no such thing; Lenin’s party varied enormously in form according to circumstances.
Since the end of the Cold War a great deal of historical work has enabled us to refresh our understanding of Lenin, and get away from traditional stereotypes. Whatever reservations one may have about the work of Lars T Lih (in my view Lih overstates the continuities in Lenin, and does not bring out sufficiently his ability to learn from the class), he has undoubtedly enriched our understanding of Lenin. Pierre Broué‘s history of the Comintern and John Riddell‘s carefully edited recordings of the proceedings of its first four congresses mean that many of the old clichés must be abandoned or rethought. A recent study by Eric Blanc challenges the view of Lenin as the source of all wisdom on support for national liberation.
I would argue therefore that the term “Leninism” may be a positive obstacle to developing the kind of political strategy and organisation we need for the coming decades.
Being a revolutionary socialist in the 21st century rests on some essential propositions: (a) if the structures of society are not radically transformed in the direction of cooperation and equality we face barbarism; (b) any such change requires the active participation of a substantial proportion of the exploited and oppressed; (c) the process of change will overspill andeventually destroy the existing political structures of society.
Nothing there that Lenin would disagree with (though he died too soon to see the full potential for barbarism). But it leaves a great many questions unanswered. History does not repeat itself and all revolutions are surprises. The future is not scripted in advance so that all the revolutionary party needs to do is learn its lines and make sure it turns up on stage at the right moment.
Among the many open questions facing those trying to develop a revolutionary organisation in the present period, I would mention three:
- How do we combine the maximum democracy (so that the organisation can draw on its members’ experience) with the structures that permit a rapid and coordinated response to events?
- How do we liberate the initiative and imagination of new comrades while enabling the organisation to educate them by drawing on the knowledge and experience of long-standing members?
- How do we build united fronts that combine the broadest possible unity with the maximum political clarity about the objectives of the campaign?
There are many more. They are questions of balance, of art not science, which cannot be resolved by a neat formulation or a quote from the classic texts. A study of Lenin – as part of a much broader historical study – will undoubtedly be of value, but will provide no readymade solutions.
At some point in the future we shall undoubtedly need centralised political organisation to focus all the different forms of struggle against the most concentrated form of capitalist power, the state. But it is hardly the problem at present. Our first task is much more basic, to rebuild the revolutionary left in a difficult period. So I shall end with a quote, not from Lenin, but from William Morris (who had a lot more in common with Lenin than admirers of his wallpaper might imagine): “We believe then, that it should be our special aim to make Socialists.”
This article was first published in the Summer 2014 edition of rs21 magazine
91 comments
Some interesting points regarding historical debates and observations. The problem however is the much harder issue of today. Ian seems to want an organisation which is able to intervene inside the various struggles and do so most effectively etc..but then says we don’t need a centralised organisation and best leave that until we are on the verge of state power..think history shows this is more than a bit problematic. Whatever weaknesses there are in the SWP I think it’s able to have an impact much more significant if it was just a collection of individuals. I have been struck how it has been very good on both the issue of Palestine as one would expect but also on the possibility of a higher level of strikes, with all the qualifications re tu officials etc,. To fight over a range of issues is a credit to them. If Ian wants to reject that type of organisation then he really needs to be clear on what alternative he is proposing.
I think that type of organisation is effective in the short-term to facilitate activism, but at the expense of engaging its members and the people its members talk to & work with in developing and updating their thinking to catch up with a changed world. In this respect I think there’s a strong parallel with the post-war CP. If you wanted to be in the most effective group of activists you’d have joined the CP, not the IS/SWP. Thankfully, a minority of people saw politics as key and were prepared to break from the CP before it collapsed.
Even Alex Callinicos now says “the economic class struggle during the present crisis has nowhere been sustained on a sufficient scale or assumed the offensive form required to break with the pattern of fragmentation and defeat that has defined the condition of the workers’ movement since the 1980s. Explaining why this is so is the most important single task facing revolutionary Marxists today.”
I think that’s one of several key questions the left has neglected. I think in the current period it’s worth sacrificing a bit of “operational effectiveness” to enable us to do better on the key tasks facing us, rather than keeping repeating the same stuff with ever diminishing results.
James argues that in his article Ian Birchall ‘says we don’t need a centralised organisation’ at least not until the verge of the revolution. I would suggest that if James were to reread Ian’s article he will not find such an assertion in it’s arguments but he will find a rejection not of centralism but of commandism as a political principle.
As far as I know all those we describe as Classical Marxists argued, following the Second International, that a politically centralised party of the working class was a necessity if the social revolution were to take place successfully. The point being that such parties were built on the basis of a commonly agreed set of politics, call it a programme if you will, that all members adhered too. The degree to which the party was organisationally centralised differed greatly depending on the circumstances.
Looking to more recent experience the forerunner organisations of the SWP, the tiny Socialist Review Group and then the International Socialists, were also built on the basis of an agreed political basis. The degree to which the group was organisationally centralised however varied considerably. In the middle of the 1950’s one would be hard put to discover any kind of centralisation in what was a very loose organisation and there was no need for it in any case. This changed after 1968, as events dictated and as the formal adoption of democratic centralism simply underlined, but until the end of the 1970s and the failed transformation of IS into a party branches and fractions had considerable autonomy in deciding policy.
Today even when the leadership of the SWP is correct on any given question the organisational centralisation of the group which dictates that all political decisions are made by a small closed body guarantees that this body cannot develop a feel for struggle as happened in the past. By developing a political monopoly in this way the leadership becomes increasingly isolated from the class and indeed from the party itself. This has little or nothing in common with the practice of Lenin or the Bolsheviks but does reflect what many comrades refer to as Zinovievism. Fpor which see Joel Geiers recent essay on this site.
“If Ian wants to reject that type of organisation then he really needs to be clear on what alternative he is proposing.” – this statement sounds pretty innocuous but think about its logic for a moment. It amounts to saying that criticism of the Leninist party is verboten unless you can “be clear” about any alternative proposal. But of course nobody will ever formulate a “clear” alternative if criticism of existing structures is ruled out in advance. This “be clear on the alternative” mantra leads directly to a hyperconservative position on all organisational changes.
Ian B might not be clear on the alternatives but he asks clear questions and makes a clear statement of the problems. That is a single step in the right direction.
Just asking bat020 , you always seem to reply to any question in such a haughty manner…lighten up! From what I have seen being effective politically is not totally separate from organisational issues.So the impact the SWP is having re building the movement re Gaza and linking it with wider questions both domestic and international is to me at least a vindication of the continuing need of a revolutionary organisation.The SWP where I live is very much at the centre of events and if it was a loose collection etc it simply could not do that to the same extent. Ian seems to be questioning the arguements he would have held for years and of course the faction denied any such desire last year but it’s now in the open, which is fine but all I wanted to say was it would be useful to know what his initial thoughts were in terms of the alternative since his rejection of revolutionary parties? I am just interested!
Ian B doesn’t reject revolutionary parties or revolutionary organisation, James. Try reading his piece rather than guessing blindly as to its contents. His beef is with the notion that what is generally understood as “Leninism” is the best answer to the question of how revolutionaries should organise, pointing out that Lenin himself subscribed to an extreme tactical fluidity on this issue.
specifically: “That Lenin made the question of organisation central is undeniable. But to reduce “Leninism” to the truism “we’ve got to get organised” is a bit thin. And on the question of how we should be organised he was extremely flexible. The whole of Cliff’s study of Lenin is a sustained polemic against the myth of “the Leninist party”. There is no such thing; Lenin’s party varied enormously in form according to circumstances.”
‘Ian seems to be questioning the arguments he would have held for years and of course the faction denied any such desire last year but it’s now in the open’…Ah the much awaited heresy that the faction kept hidden. This really wont do, the problems with the internal organisation of the SWP which manifested themselves in the faction fight…at their most extreme in the bizarre stitch ups leading up to the emergency conference- led to the questioning of a certain dogmatic version of ‘THE Leninist Party’ when that version failed a fairly straightforward test, and led to the fragmentation of the organisation. Ian is not rejecting revolutionary organisation, but as any good revolutionary should has reviewed the wreckage, and said does ‘this’ notion of a Leninist Party fit in today’s world. The alternative? to begin to formulate that you have to ask the questions…rather than just repeat a mantra.
What form of organisation is being suggested here then? That question isn’t addressed in Ian’s otherwise interesting article unlike in the one Callinicos wrote for the latest ISJ. It’s all well and good claiming that the organisational structures of the SWP are holding it back but the size of the SWP has to be understood in the context of the state of the rest of the left and the effect of a sustained neoliberal offensive in the UK. In contrast, the size and popularity of Syriza reflects the level of organised class struggle in Greece. Without that kind of analysis, something that both Marx and Lenin understood to be essential to “fluid” intervention in struggle, then pronouncements about organisation are simply empty generalisations. And generalisations, this lack of precision, invariably leads to mistaken strategies that involve the development of canards and dogmas to justify them.
Regardless of the alleged “organisational problems” with the SWP I’m not seeing an alternative solution here. The problem for revolutionaries hoping the wider movement will offer a solution to low levels of class struggle is that it glosses over the highly contested political currents that are already entrenched in these movements that have been shaped by historical antecedents we are already very familiar with that did not spring from new and novel forms. Any revolutionary strategy that aims to build class struggle rather than just regenerate the broad left or react to the ebb and flow of autonomous movements needs to address and to offer an alternative to all those political currents otherwise it will disappear like the Cheshire cat until only a disembodied grin remains. And, as Ian’s states, many on the established left and among the autonomous movements, long before the SWP crisis, would not mourn the fading away of a revolutionary alternative.
The arguments Comrades make about a lack of debate and the secretive nature of the CC in the SWP are very relevant. Rather than learning from the Class, the line becomes anyone who disagrees with the leadership are not “Leninist”.
The crisis in the organisation is so large, because the biggest problem is not form but politics.
A new pamphlet by Ian Taylor, ” 1984, the Miners and the Strike that could have Won ” shows how the SWP has moved away from the centrality of the working class arguments that dominated in the Tony Cliff period.
Because the line has changed to one arguing that left leaders want to fight but lack confidence some of the history has to be forgotten. So Saltley Gates in 1972 gets mentioned when 20,000 striking engineers forced the closure of the Coke Depot, but not that Arthur Scargill was instrumental in getting that solidarity as a rank and file miner. He fought bravely as a trade union leader in 1984-85 but was unable to criticise other union leaders or the TUC because he was now a member of the trade union bureaucracy.
No mention of the rank and file victory of the electricians against BESNA and the likes of Balfour Beatty gets any space, because this sort of victory is not supposed to be possible in the current period.
Getting Union positions, elections and acting as a pressure group to the Trade Union leaders is now seen as the only realistic way forward currently.
The failure of this strategy is best shown by Billy Hayes of the UCW. After coming to the Unite the Resistance Conference he called off the Postal Workers strike (despite a 90% vote for action) and forced through a no strike agreement on his members.
Cliff understood reformists are very poor fighters when the system is in crisis. Elections and taking positions are only important when they raise the ability of the rank and file to fight.
Paul Le Blanc replies to Ian Birchall on Lenin and Leninism: http://buff.ly/1tWGapT
In reply to Pat Stack , it surely is not out of order to question what alternative is being proposed? Just saying your lot are rubbish and we know how to do it better but then cannot outline what in its broadest terms is that better way is a legitimate issue. Let’s have the debate, but to do so one has to talk about the positives of ones case and not just the proposed negatives of the other side. Its absolutely true that Lenin was very flexible in regards to organisational structures etc but always in reference to the objective circumstance..ie revolution, counter revolution, illegal and legal work, surely if one thinks the old method of the SWP no longer fits then it would be useful in relating that to the objective situation. Lastly the SWP ever the since the late 60’s has changed it structure on quite a number of occasions..not always for the better! Remember abolishing the branches!..come on Pat just repeating the mantra we want something new has a limited shelf life..at some point this organisation will need to put its cards on the table .
Oh not sure if a pamphlet on the miners strike really proves the SWP no longer thinks the working loom olhihi
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What you do or don’t say in written publications is quite revealing James. Talking today about the miners it can seem just a history lesson, but they were the most advanced working class unit at the time. They brought down the Tory government in 1974.
What political lessons you learn from this history is very important.
A lot of people from a revolutionary socialist tradition today argue that we are not going to see a rank and file movement in this country today because the militancy of the 1970’s was built up over decades in the do-it-yourself reformism era.
It is true the rank and file did grow in that manner at the time, but just quoting this period ignores that the fact that most militant periods of struggle in history have come in sudden bursts. If you look at 1889, 1910-14, 1919, 1934-36 in the USA, 1968, mass working class resistance came seemingly from nowhere.
Ironically, Martin Smith, today a big fan of looking to left union leaders, used to make the exact same point I am making here.
Joel Gieirs article is an excellent thought provoking piece.
I have never considered whether the expelling of the American Comrades was a mistake before, I thought it was correct at the time.
I don’t remember arguments about whether other International Socialist Tendencies should be allowed to make and learn from their own mistakes. This doesn’t mean there wasn’t such arguments, but I was a new and not a very well read SWP member at the time.
Zinoviev and his bureaucratic ways of working harmed the new Communist Party in Britain as well. Unfortunately, the dominant politics in this country at the time on the trade unions for the revolutionary left was to completely abstain or syndicalism.
The Comintern both encouraged working in the unions and sometimes “red breakaway” unions by the forming of the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU).
The inexperience of British Communists and the lack of understanding of British conditions by the Bolsheviks led to complete confusion on how socialists should deal with the Trade Union Bureaucracy. The politics of Zinoviev and Stalin led to the “All Power to the General Council” line during the 1926 General Strike.
Although the Bolsheviks could give fantastic advice on how you make a revolution to new parties internationally, they had no experience on dealing with reformism. The slogan of “Eight hours and a gun!” in the 1905 Petrograd Soviet showed they were working in conditions where reform was not possible.
Neither the British Communist Party or Zinoviev were just tools of Stalin but historical circumstances were unkind to both.
Central to the opening rally at this years Marxism were striking rank and file workers speaking about their campaign and thanking socialists, including the SWP, for their support. According to some ex-members the SWP is ignoring the rank and file and pandering to bureaucrats while others claim it’s too workerist and doesn’t take NSM’s seriously. Despite evidence to the contrary!
Yes Ray B, the SWP does give good support to striking workers and has committed activists. It is true that I have also heard the argument on the “hard left” that workers are bought off (though I am not expecting a big idealogical argument on its way for this in a Capitalist crisis where workers are paying for the bosses and bankers!).
But none of this changes the fact that it is disarming to the working class movement to create this theory that the trade union leaders want to fight but lack confidence. By there nature trade unions are very sectional. As Cliff says of the lessons of 1926, the reformist bureaucracies can never be expected to provide the catalyst for the vital self-activity of the working class. We always have to tell the truth to the class.
We have to exploit differences between left and right union leaders and be prepared to have temporary alliances with such people, but we should always expect them to sell-out at some point.
We need a revolutionary party who wishes to move from bureaucratic general strike, to mass strike and onto the Socialist transformation. We cannot have any Centrist dreams of winning control of the leading positions in the Unions. Building at the rank and file is always the most important.
The ruling class are much clearer on the nature of the Bureaucracy, gratefully giving a Knighthood to Brendan Barber, until recently General Secretary of the TUC.
Sparky…any chance of any evidence that the SWP argues the working class has been brought off!
You are too defensive James, (maybe a guilty conscience).
I never said the SWP said, I said someone on the hard left. I think it was a young RS21 member. The problem is when you say the trade union leaders are going to fight and they don’t, some will come to the conclusion that there is not much point bothering with the trade unions at all. That you need to look for another saviour of the downtrodden masses.
I have not forgotten the teachings of Tony Cliff, so I am not downhearted about betrayals I expected to happen.
Many of the young SWP members at Marxism seemed to have very little knowledge of the role of the trade union bureaucracy. You can’t really blame the young for making mistakes if the political education that I received is no longer passed on.
Workers generally lack the confidence to act independently of the union leadership. But sometimes the anger can be greater than the fear (like the sparks).
There is a difference between the workers being crushed and being held back by the trade union bureaucracy.
With their one day strikes the bureaucracy acts like a safety valve on a boiler. If pressure builds up too much it opens and the necessary steam is released. But the purpose of a safety valve is not the release of steam, but the prevention of the boiler from exploding.
Sparky, you cite 1 new member of the RS21 and from this proceed to a claim the SWP is somehow going against Cliff etc..this is weekly worker style madness.Surely you can do better!
abuckland – I have given a number of examples from a socialist worker pamphlet of how the SWP has gone against Cliff. I find it interesting that no-one actually tries to defend the party line about trade union bureaucrats wanting to fight. But it is a difficult one to defend.
You should not be surprised that there is an enormous variation on the views of RS21 members. We came out of a faction fighting for democracy and the need to take women’s liberation seriously.
There was no general agreement why this crisis in the Party had occurred.
Your position is too mechanical Sparky. A couple of articles in the latest ISJ address how we relate to reformism and the TU bureaucracy. One of the ongoing arguments made by Callinicos et al is that we need to avoid cosying up to McCluskey as some ex-members have done precisely because this inoculates against a revolutionary perspective. But on the other hand we don’t disregard those in the bureaucracy who want to fight. We argue that they should turn words into deeds. If they do then that can offer a lead but if they don’t then it exposes the weakness of their position. All the while we continue to organise among the rank and file. I joined in the late ’80’s and heard Cliff argue exactly this strategy many times so if you’re going to quote him then do so accurately. I was a new member back then but it didn’t take me long to grasp that principle and I doubt that this has changed for new members over the years either. How we implement that strategy is, of course, open to debate.
Sparky, the SWP argues that we should work with officials when they express a desire to see some resistance to austerity. Now, what level of resistance and how it is build will differ and yes the trade union officials will vacillate and look to compromise and when they give a lead it’s often half hearted and weak etc…if you could show where the SWP has avoided criticism of the trade union officials that would be useful. Not sure if the RS21 came out of a fight for democracy,let’s be honest, you didn’t win the vote and felt you couldn’t stay. Yesterday’s demo in London summed it up on why we need a revolutionary party which is part of the movement in this case for Palestine as the SWP certainly is and arguing for a wider set of revolutionary politics within it. I thought the response of the SWP to the current onslaught by Israel has been very good. Certainly, bringing new layers around the SWP and of course having a socialist newspaper on the occasions is really central. To see a few old members of RS21 giving out a scrappy leaflet in the line next to the various weird sects was sad to see. Whilst internet land can make one feel important and having an impact etc etc in the real world of mass demonstrations etc the extremely limited impact of RS21 is all too clear. Of course the SWP has been weakened by the splits but there are tentative signs of it being able to recover and have an impact. It’s a shame many of the members of RS21 are not with us as a few who I have spoken to really do continue to share the politics of the SWP. Some obviously have moved onto different type of socialist politics and that’s fair enough, time will see if it’s able to build anything effective, I think the signs are not good for RS21.
Ray B, lets get Cliff’s opinion on this:
“A mechanical faith in progress is a necessary assumption for those who tail left bureaucrats in unions or reformist parties. If they made a concrete analysis of events or remembered past betrayals too well they would be forced to recognise the weakness of their position.”
Was it a victory for our side that Billy Hayes came to UTR and then sold out the postal workers?
If rhetoric tells us they “want to fight” then really you should be a fan of McCluskey as well.
My first quote was from the book Marxism and Trade Union Struggle, The General Strike of 1926. (Cliff/Gluckstein).
Another quote from the book:
“Through using divisions (between left and right leaders) the independence, initiative and self-confidence of the rank and file may be strengthened, on the one condition : the Party make clear that the rank and file cannot trust the left officials or put their faith in radical rhetoric. The Party must always remind trade unionists that even if bureaucrats but themselves at the head of a movement of insurgent workers, they do so in order better to control that movement”.
The leaders can never “offer a lead” or spark the masses.
One problem sparky which you may not have noticed…at present we don’t have an insurgent workers movement..this I am afraid does slightly effect the concrete way wework as revolutionaries within the trade unions…if you think there can be never be a lead given by the officials this of course is contrary to what cliff argued.
James, an example of where the SWP tails the bureaucracy is in the UNITE union around the electricians fantastic rank and file victory against the like of multi-national companies such as Balfour Beatty.
As far as I can see Ian Bradley played an exemplary role in the dispute but now puts the key task as winning positions in the union.
He argues : “The example in construction of rank and file activists working with the union leadership to deliver official and unofficial action was the key to our success”. (A leaflet for standing for the UNITE Executive Committee a couple of years ago).
The victory of the Sparks was entirely due to Ian and the rank and file workers, not the Trade Union Bureaucracy. They originally argued that the campaign against 35% pay cuts should wait until they were due to be imposed! A local official called the rank and file committees a “cancer”. The independent action and solidarity the electricians received forced the UNITE leadership to take action in order to have some control over the campaign.
“A rank and file movement is not based on damning all officials, but in supporting them just so long as they rightly represent the workers, and acting independently immediately they misrepresent them”, as the Clyde Workers Committee put it. That is what the electricians did.
What we should learn from that victory, is the need for workers to follow the Sparks, not to paper over the role of the bureaucracy and look to winning positions in the higher echelons of the unions.
RS21 members were very reluctant to leave the SWP and spent a couple of years trying to reform the organisation. Only when they realised honest debate was not possible in the SWP did the majority leave.
It is difficult to predict what will happen in the future, but the emphasis on real debate gives a chance for a revival of revolutionary politics (if the workers struggle increases to provide something to learn from).
Niether Cliff or myself says that Union bureaucrats never give a lead James. But they give that lead so they can control the movement.
As Cliff says : “Objectively rank and file workers – whether reformist, centrists or revolutionaries – have a common interest in opposing and overthrowing the system (whether they are aware of it or not!). In contrast Union bureaucrats – reformist, centrist or verbally revolutionary – have a common group interest which means they must confine workers struggle within the system*.
Of course there is no point in pretending we are in a workplace upturn, but it is also no use making out it is all doom and gloom and the only hope is that the union leaders will change their spots after a few hundred years. Dave Prentis of UNISON for example has called action to “let off some steam*, but he is not going to give up his new job as governor of the Bank of England and call for revolution!
Oh Prentis is a non-executive director,sorry. Perhaps he plans to bring down Capitalism from the inside!
“Dave Prentis of UNISON for example has called action to “let off some steam*, but he is not going to give up his new job as governor of the Bank of England and call for revolution! ”
Thanks Sparky I didnt realise this before you posted !
In what way do the Cliff quotes contradict the outline of the strategy I gave? If a TU leader calls for strikes do we simply label them as sell-outs or do we assess the subjective conditions and base our strategy on those? Even TU leaders have been known to back strikes you know! Inevitably they will negotiate but even then if this offers significant gains for a section of workers then this is a step forward not back. It’s not all or nothing! This strategy in no way compromises our involvement in building rank and file organisation because we have no illusions in the bureaucracy and are openly critical of them. Your characterisation of the SWP’s relationship to the TU bureaucracy is completely untrue and misleading. Your attempt to co-opt Cliff for your own sectarian ends is not appreciated either.
This is not appreciated – is it not Ray B.
I suppose it wouldn’t be as the SWP are trying to bury the ideas Cliff held on the bureaucracy. With an economic crisis and massive attacks on workers by the ruling class you would think it would be a priority to reprint his teachings on the 1926 General Strike. Instead, it is called out of date.
First I was supposedly arguing something different to Cliff, then when I quote Cliff directly it is sectarian!
When the ruling class attack all workers (like now or 1926) it is not sufficient for a section of workers to fight, we all have to fight back.
Workers cannot be used as a stage army, their willingness to fight is perishable. Sell-outs like over the pensions strike smash the confidence of many workers to fight. I have not argued trade union leaders never want to fight.
The latest edition of Socialist Worker says “Now the union leaders must lay out a strategy of sustained action that can win a decent pay rise and beat back the Tories”. Obviously this would be a good idea, but the problem is not that they are a bit thick, that they have not been paying attention to Charlie Kimber and Michael Bradley.
The problem is that they worry the fightback can get out of hand. A victory over pay can lead to workers generalising and fighting to stop redundancies and refusing to accept they should pay for the bosses crisis at all.
Before you can say Rosa Luxemboug and the Mass Strike the separation between economic and political issues could be broken. The spectre of revolutionary change is a nightmare to the trade union bureaucracy.
It is no good just criticising the leaders once they have sold out, the paper needs to argue for a rank and file now, because we know the leadership cannot be trusted.
Of course with a low level of struggle this does not guarantee success, but as Tony Cliff said about 1926, if the CP had been clear about the role of the Trade Union Bureaucracy then lessons could have been learned (even if the struggle was defeated) by significant groups of workers. You can sometimes learn more from defeats than victories. The CP line of “All Power to the General Council” meant workers suffered decades of defeats, mass unemployment and open class collaboration by the Trade Union leaders.
Think Sparky is getting more and more abstract. Now SW gets criticised for demanding the union leaders escalate the action! in fact Sparky thinks the only thing socialists should say is The union leaders will sell out..which of course is very much part of the picture but if that is all you say it is totally abstract and leads to passivity. When has it been wrong for revolutionaries to palce demands on the Union leaders? Lets look at RS21 by comparision. In the build up to July 10th, it ran hardly any article at all. RS21 has leading members who argue not to bother with public sector trade unions and that unorganised workers is where it is at! indeed how could one expect private sector workers to support teachers and lecturers with all their priveledges has been argued by a number of RS21 members. So I am sorry Sparky if you think Cliff would have had any truck with the Renton drivel then please say so. Sparky the idea that RS21 with their ongoing love affair with priveldege theory would have been sommething Cliff would have supported if we both know not tenable. So if you want to quote Cliff do so by all means but be honest RS21 are moving away from the core arguements of Cliff.
Sparky you neglect to mention the many SW articles each week about rank and file workers fighting back and the support they’ve received from socialists, not just in the SWP, but across the left. Strikers spoke at the opening rally at Marxism. If you are claiming that Cliff, who I listened to at meetings many times, did not believe we should call on the bureaucracy to act, then you have never heard him speak. Your Cliff quotes do not contradict the strategy I have have outlined, they, in fact, confirm it! Your method of argumentation seems to be that if an SWP member says white you will say black no matter if you were arguing exactly the same thing earlier. You selectively quote out of context and misrepresent Cliff and the SWP. You appear to vacillate between whether we should call on the bureaucracy to act and the sectarian position of denouncing them all. Cliff proposed a fairly simple strategy that any member could grasp – that was one of his strengths. How this strategy is implemented at any given time is open to debate so perhaps you should explain how your interpretation differs from the SWP (and others on the left) in an RS21 article because this is not coming across coherently in your numerous posts.
If RS21 are moving away from the core arguments of Cliff then the CC of the SWP can take a fair amount of blame for that art. If the Cliff TU Struggle and 1926 book had been reprinted at the start of the economic crisis with its fantastically clear and concise arguments then the looking to above and elections strategy would most likely have been thrown away as a complete failure by now.
I have not really studied Comrade Renton, so I don’t know about that. But as I said before RS21 has a very wide spectrum of ideas and Cliff would certainly not be against debate.
At no point did I criticise the SWP for arguing for an escalation of the action. I agreed that it was a very sensible demand. I did criticise the fact the SW paper did not say the union leaders are likely to sell-out and therefore it was vital we tried to build a rank and file now.
Even if by some miracle the bureaucracy hold firm in fighting for decent pay we would still need a rank and file movement to have any chance of holding on to gains. To get a Socialist society rather than Capitalist barbarism
it has to be through the training for revolution that a rank and file movement will bring. The emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class.
This thread has moved away from discussion of Leninism whatever it might be to an pretty daft series of attacks on RS21 for moving away from the thought of Tony Cliff. There is a major problem with this in that it is all very much a matter of opinion what Cliff thought and how his ideas should be interpreted. It is also pretty distasteful as Cliff was by no means the most important theorist of the rank and file position which was and is not unique to IS in any case.
All of which is besides the point if it were not for the fact that rank and fileism was important to IS because that organisation, as distinct from the tendency bearing that name, based its conception of the party on a particular interpretation of the working class in Britain during the 20th century. In brief it was argued that because of the importance of shop stewards in the workplaces a revolutionary party could be built from the raw human material the ship stewards movement provided if revolutionaries placed their emphasis on generalising struggles and politicising them. It should be noted that the reason why shop stewards held power was because they were directly answerable to their members and had some responsibility for pay rates and conditions. That power was above all sectional and defined by the relations of production in manual industry.
All of this is history and has been for decades other among a small number of occupational groups. The groups I’m thinking off are among the few groups to wage successful sectional struggles in the last few years and their success has been rooted in the direct relation of workplace representatives with the rank and file for example the sparks dispute. In general however and as a result of the decline of the workplace based strength of shop stewards the rank and file strategy of the 1970s is inoperative and was in practice long since abandoned by the SWP. What remains is a more generalised idea that the rank and file of the unions, in practice this means in the public sector, have radically different interests to the trade union bureaucracy.
This is true in my opinion but it is not the rank and file strategy of the 1970s and has no direct relationship to the construction of a revolutionary party. It also and correctly incorporates the idea that the trade union bureaucracy is differentiated and some parts of it will be more combative than others. however this has led to certain compromises shall we say with sections of the trade union bureaucracy that have been documented elsewhere. To its credit the SWP has tried in the past to move past this theoretical impasse in its union work and began some years ago to develop the idea of political unionism only to abandon it when what were perceived by some as better opportunities to grow appeared.
The point is that today the old rank and file strategy, call it Cliffs strategy if it makes you feel more secure, is dead and cannot be revived. Given the catastrophic decline of union numbers and density in the private sector and the attacks on public sector unions a new way forward is needed. A way forward that links the isights that IS developed as to the importance of workplace organisation with the need for a revolutionary organisation. Discussion of rank and fileism and Leninism that takes place as if the circumstances that led to a particular interpretation of those ideas in the 1970s and 1980s were still present in purblind. The fact is that we failed and we need to rethink or become a parody of what we once were or rather of what we aspired to become.
It is then positive that comrades like Ian Birchall and the comrades in RS21 are prepared to begin a process of rethinking. Given that we know more today about Lenin and the circumstances that led t his ideas and practice are we not in a better position than ever before to incorporate his insights in our work today? In which case does it matter that RS21 did not run an article on a particular dispute or demonstration or that the SWP has done good positive work in the campaign in solidarity with Gaza? RS21 has few resources and of course the SWP did good work as I would expect it to do. But this does not mean that a top down commandist indeed Zinovievite interpretation of Leninism is appropriate in todays circumstances and as yet I see little evidence of a rethinking of the former or latter other than in the abstract from the SWP. From contributions from SWP supporters on this thread I cannot even see any real understanding of rank and fileism let alone Leninism was in the past and those that do not learn from history….
At no point can you point to me making an argument Ray B for just denouncing Trade Union leaders. If that was my position then I would have wasted my 30 years active in UNISON/NALGO.
If it was the case I am just muddled, you would have no problems answering my questions about the actions of Billy Hayes in UCW and the new orientation of the SWP in UNITE on elections. (Originally Ian Bradley expressed how open electricians were to a rank and file strategy, quoting how they had to be calmed down to prevent them from trying to smash up Parliament!).
Do you really believe if Cliff were alive today he would have supported a pamphlet on the miners strike that didn’t argue for the need of a rank and file movement and the 70’s slogan “the workers united will never be defeated?”
I think it is you who have forgotten or are not clear what Cliff argued.
neprimerimye, I would be interested to know who you consider to be the prime theorist on the rank and file?
I know that at the time I joined the SWP in 1984 the Cliff theories on the bureaucracy and the rank and file were considered to be extremely important. I can remember enormous concern about Comrades who took TU positions like Branch Secretary because of the risk of bureaucratisation and removal from the shop floor where workers face the day to day bullying of the bosses. The problem the Party had was not wanting to abstain from the arguments about giving a lead to the class whilst waiting for an upturn in struggle that never came. I believe
there was definitely an underestimation of the power of the bureaucracy to hold things back, along with the affect the defeat of the miners had.
The working class in terms of industry and types of work and how it is organised is constantly changing it is true. But Cliffs theories were not just based on the 1970’s. The book on 1926 I spoke about talked about the enormous enthusiasm of workers to fight which can be awakened. The General Strike was supported solidly by the workers and in some cases non-union workers came out in solidarity. Socialists organised workers in the US in conditions far more unfavourable than in this country in 1934-36.
I agree that a re-run of the 1970’s is not possible, but the problem of the hold of reformism in that period is no longer here. At the time, the CP and Labour Party activists had considerable influence, these activists on the shop floor have now disappeared. There is a vacuum waiting to be filled. But if you are saying that the rank and file is finished period you are wrong. In many great periods of struggle a sudden flood of workers join the unions and previously poorly organised groups come to the fore.
Whilst there is nothing wrong with a theory of political trade unionism, and no reason why it should be dropped, there was a tendency to down play the role of the Trade Union Bureaucracy and ignore the fact that in an economic crisis sometimes workers anger can overcome individuals conservatism or lack of confidence.
Things are definitely different, the last great rank and file movement came in a period of boom. The next one will probably be in a period of slump. Do not forget how last year Social Workers in Glasgow took successful un-official action, workers who are not normally seen as leading militants. The bosses are also pretty weak, look how Cameron backed away from proposing to go to war.
In the darkest days of the downturn a number of SWP militants were victimised, (sometimes with the active help of the union bureaucracy). The continued low level of workplace struggle has led to massive disorientation and a top down way of working. Nowadays, rather than all SWP members as leaders, the leading members are often seen as the ones in bureaucratic union positions, “the experts”.
We cannot just look at the unattractive surface and say union membership down, strikes down, so we don’t need to discuss the workplace. The electricians actually argued that the reason they were singled out by the bosses was because they had “let organisation go in recent years’.
The last sparky tract is a good example of setting up a false arguement. Assert that the rank and file orientation fits not just the 1970’s but also the general strike! Yes and where does SW at all argue any different. The key difference between rank and file and the officials rather than the left and right in the bureaucracy is something the SWP continues to argue as forcefully as ever. So Sparky, there is no need to make it up. How in the precise context of today we organise and what position we are in re rank and file vs the officials is not a static question.
Interestingly when it comes to his own leading member Renton arguing to ditch public sector unions he does a football manger style ” I haven’t seen the incident” response ! I would suggest you have a look at what he writes and you may find that leading rs21 members are spouting drivel. Also sparky, do yo u really think Cliff would be into privilege theory!
The SWP have raised workplace collections for Gaza, Lambeth college, care uk etc etc so the idea of building in the workplace is well alive. Of course if like Rs21 members you argue that private sector workers will not support teachers and lecturers then I guess you won’t really be building solidarity with public sector strikes. This was argued as Renton believes they are privileged workers. Perhaps Sparky you need to look in your own organisation first and take on an arguement about the basics.
So James, “how in the precise context of today we organise is not static”.
That’s alright then, principles and theory can just be dropped without explanation. On the one hand the SWP leadership claim to stand in the tradition of Cliff, whilst at the same time claiming that one of his major revolutionary contributions, his theory on the rank and file and the trade union bureaucracy is out of date.
Of course I understand you want complete flexibility and to move in a Centrist direction. To do this it would be complete suicide to allow the publication of “Marxism and Trade Union Struggle – The General Strike of 1926” by Tony Cliff and Donny Gluckstein.
Tony Cliff would be horrified to see a ginger group to the Trade Union leaders strategy if he was still alive.
It is the fantastic rank and file victory of the electricians in UNITE which should be seen as a guide to action and the way forward for the class.
After the way the Party drove out hundreds of good young militants in the last few years, I can understand, (though believe it mistaken) how some would come to the conclusion “if this is Cliffite politics – then I want nothing to do with it”.
I think this obsession with Dave Renton is due to you loosing the argument, so wanting to move onto something else.
I did look up the writings of Dave Renton and found that he was one of those who took a principled stand on the question of women’s liberation and democracy in the SWP.
I suspect this is what really makes him a bogey man for you. I could not find his views on the public sector, but if they are what you say, then on this issue he is wrong.
I can only assume then that you think the precise way in which we organise is static and is not therefore in relation to the relative weight of the rank and file confidence and organisation which is of course ever changing. If you think the SWP can say have a rank and file organisation such as it did n part of the 1970’s ( not without complications). then by all means say so. I would have thought that the statement that what revolutionaries can do and how we operate needs to be based on objective factors as well as subjective was not controversial but it seems it is to you. This is strange as the battle cry of the faction was “New, New New”.
The issue of Renton is that he argued that public sector unions should be ignored. Or in relation to women’s oppression take j Neale and N Lindesfarne article in which they want to junk Engels and move away from the classical marxist understanding of the family etc. again this is not debated in RS21 because far from there being great debate it’s a view that any new idea is fine and dandy.
Now if you think Cliff would have just stayed quiet on this stuff then I think you are wrong.
There is of course one way for you to proceed. If you think the possibility is there to build independent rank and file organisation which can act independently of the officials at this stage then of course you can go ahead and prove it.
To date you have not given one iota of any link to socialist worker where it fudges on the officials. The idea that we kept quiet over the pension sell out is of course nonsense. It terms of the present situation I saw on u tube that it was a rs21 member at Marxism who stated he could see no way in which the fight over pay could involve more people. But then many in your organisation seem to believe that young non public sector workers will not support teachers and lecturers. I presume this is on the basis that they have a higher wage than the call centre worker. All the evidence is that the public sector strikes receive very large support across the working class so rs21 stands on the right on this issue. Go into a public sector workplace and say you won’t get support if you strike from private sector workers and you will align yourself with the right wing who want to pull back.
Sparky, I would suggest that you look at your own organisation and what trajectory it is taking and that is sharply away from the IS tradition.
Neprimerimye in what way was organising among the rank and file in the 70’s different from how the Bolsheviks organised among workers in Petrograd? The strategy was the same. The subjective conditions different. The composition of the working class in Russia at that time was different to that of the UK in the ’70’s. Capitalism, specifically the means of production, had change significantly over that period. Your conclusion that “Leninism” was the correct strategy in the 1970’s appears to contradict your “new times, new strategy” theory now.
You appear to be arguing that during periods of low class combativity in parts of the West revolutionaries must then reject the lessons learned in the past and reinvent the wheel. This seems a very parochial understanding of international capitalism that is more an accommodation to prevailing intellectual fashion than a strategy based on the collective experience of class struggle and the actual subjective conditions at the moment. Marx, Lenin (and Cliff) warned against such accommodations for obvious reasons.
As I suggested earlier, I think the move away from the IS tradition is a general trend James.
Unfortunately I think neo-liberalism, Thatcherism and long downturn in workplace struggle has disorientated the whole left. I do not think many in RS21 pretend to have all the answers. Though it would be better if we did have most of the answers, there is some honest accounting by many that we have to re-assess what has gone wrong with the revolutionary tradition. There is a danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water, and losing that tradition completely. Whichever tendency you come from a lot of the hard left have lost faith in the working class being the agency for change. That is why some look towards the Trade Union Bureaucracy and some look to new movements as an alternative. The emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class, so the danger of those that want to go too far down these two alternative roads is that they will give up on Socialism altogether.
Both through my own experience at work and especially the experience of the text book victory of the ‘Sparks’, I am very hopeful that a rank and file workers struggle can break through. The electricians victory shows both the current positive and the negative influence of SWP politics. The anger of the workers pushed them into activity in their thousands, and the rank and file tradition that Ian Bradley was part of meant he could help steer them to success. But because the CC line is looking to the the Trade Union leaders, rather than looking to spread the rank and file revolt, you prioritise UNITE National Executive elections, and an attempt to replace the reclaim Labour man, McCluskey. So Ian Bradley has to change his line that it was a rank and file victory to saying it was a “hybrid”, that the UNITE leadership wanted a victory, despite all the evidence showing this was not the case. Of course is was a good thing that the workers forced official action, but the UNITE leadership only gave a lead to win some control over the dispute.
The politics of Tony Cliff always demanded that you tell the truth to the class. Revolutionaries should not give left cover to Trade Union leaders. An official declared the rank and file committees as a “cancer”.
Towards the end of the dispute McCluskey announced his full support for the electricians, but this was only because they were prepared to act independently of him if the union was not acting in their interests.
The rank and file are always more important than elections. (This does not mean that I think McCluskey shouldn’t be challenged – but election victories are massively secondary in importance).
In the run-up to the pensions dispute I was told that I was “ultra-left” for arguing the Trade Union leaders could not be trusted. Comrades told me the union leaders had to fight because the Tories were not offering them anything. It is obvious to most the pensions fight was sold out.
This does not mean we just stand there with folded arms, and say don’t bother doing anything, a sell-out is coming. We have to welcome even limited action and yes put our demands on union leaders.
A fight over low pay by potentially millions of workers is clearly a good thing. But we have to worn workers that the leaders cannot be trusted, we need a rank and file. To argue that the Trade Union Bureaucracy want to fight sows dangerous illusions in them. We don’t know exactly when they will sell-out, but they will. Unless we attempt to prepare workers for the worst we just assist in demoralising them.
The battle will not just be a re-run of the seventies, because that movement was built in a boom period over decades. We are starting in a much more defensive, slump period. It is both harder and easier to give a lead to the class. Harder, because as part of the working class we cannot help but reflect to some extent the general lack of confidence. Easier because belief in Capitalism is weakening. Cameron was forced to back off from his war mongering. Ian Bradley was able to have considerable influence with the Sparks because the reformist activists of the CP and Labour Party do not exist in the way they did in the seventies. This makes the potential for sudden explosions more likely.
Just saying I am right and you are wrong because my Party is the biggest on the left, and I’m a “Lenninist” will not help. A clear revolutionary strategy has to be formulated, there is no such thing as half a revolution.
Ray B says “its not all or nothing”. But there is no deal we can do with the Bureaucracy. Look at Greece, a much greater level of struggle, but still held back by union leaders, and an open fascist Party with 19 MP’s in Parliament. It”s Socialism or Barbarism.
.
Not sure I agree with “Sparky” when he says “But there is no deal we can do with the Bureaucracy.”. If we replace deal with the word compromise then Sparky articulates classic ultra leftism. Socialists should build the Oct strike on Local Govt and the NHS. Do we think 1 day is enough or in the case of the NHS 4 hours! of course not, should we be arguing to escalate and bring in wider forces.. absolutely! But are we for building the strike despite these limitations..again Yes so there is a compromise or in Sparky words a deal. I think a certain person from yester year wrote a very good pamphlet on Sparky’s type of politics!
Brief replies to Sparky and Ray B.
Sparky asked me who I consider to be the prime theorist of rank and file organisation and I assume by extension its relationship to building a revolutionary party. I can only reply by saying that the development of R&F theory and practice was always a collective project. In fact part of the rediscovery of the R&F by IS saw the reprinting of important works by the likes of J T Murphy. Rather than bore comrades with a long list of those documents I consider important it might be a better idea to simply post a link to an article by Ralph Darlington that discusses R&F theory with some special reference to IS https://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/8447/1/FinalC%26CDarlingtonUpchurch%5B1%5D.pdf
My opinion is that looking at forms of workers self organisation, shop stewards and a R&F movement being two different expressions of it, grew directly from the IS emphasis on socialism from below. This can be seen even in the mid-1950s particularly with regard to the work of Mike Kidron in Socialist Review. Curiously it can also be observed in the work of the Healyite ‘Orthodox Trotskyist’ group the SLL particularly with regard to their 1958 R&F Conference the largest such gathering since the 1930s. True to form the leadership of the SLL placed all their wagers on building the revolutionary party, see here for an article by Duncan Hallas http://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1969/xx/building.htm, and did not place workers self activity at the centre of their project. In part this led to scores of SLL cadre leaving that sect to join IS to mutual benefit.
Ray B asserts that the strategy of the Bolsheviks in 1917 and that of IS in the 1970s was the same. At least I think this is his meaning but would be happy to be corrected. However if this is the meaning of Ray Bs remarks then his comments are simply ignorant. A reading of any history of the Russian Revolution will in fact reveal that the Bolsheviks were weak in the trade unions and remained a minority in many unions long into 1918. It seems pointless discussing this silly assertion of Rays further it is so wrong.
This thread has mutated and some of the contributions are made, in my opinion, in bad faith with ill will so I’ll not comment further except to point out that contrary to assertions above the SWP has in recent years compromised its own conception of R&Fism. A rather under theorised article documenting some of these compromises can be found here http://sovietgoonboy.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/a-note-concerning-the-swp-and-rank-and-fileism-principles-and-recent-experiences/
the minority movement was not a rank and file group
the best worker bolsheviks were fighting a civil war against the white armies by 1918
some good examples of sell-outs – the problem is not the rank and file, but the search for leading positions regardless of whether it helps or hinders building below
Billy,
Nowhere do I argue calling for escalation is wrong.
But to pretend that the attacks are sectional issues and that we can compromise when the bosses are sacking workers and massively attacking our conditions as the bureaucracy do is completely mad.
If they only make 70 instead of 80 redundant after negotiations this is not a victory for the class.
You might want negotiation, but the bosses want to smash us to pay for their crisis.
At best sparky doesn’t understand Billy’s point. Are we for building the limited strikes the officials have called? No where is it stated we should go along with the cuts etc. the problem with Sparky is that he has an all or nothing ultra left politics which in this case leads to total passivity. It is an opportunity to build resistance and in the process argue for escalation, simply denouncing without building puts you outside the real debates which are taking place. Rs21 showed little interest in the public sector strikes and Sparky’s view may be an indicator of the reason why.
I was referring to the strategy of taking a non-sectarian approach to reformists in response to Sparky and in response to neprimerimye’s assertion that “new times = new strategy.” I pointed out that the difference in subjective conditions when Lenin and the IS were organising does not negate that principle now. The strategies Sparky and neprimerimye are proposing are two sides of the same coin which is a top down approach to organising. Sectarians cultivate elitism at the expense of organising a wider struggle while left reformists opportunistically favour leadership through the bureaucratic structures over rank and file organisation. Which leads us to the rather mechanical linked article. There is no contradiction between organising among the rank and file now and working with left reformists. A strategy used by the Bolsheviks which in practice was proved correct precisely because they rejected the opportunistic path of writing off the potential for workers to organise themselves in their own interests.
http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=953
Neo-Liberalism has had a crushing effect on IS tendency politics. We cannot despair of seeing the working class as the agency for change.
The SWP, on the one hand claim to stand in the Cliff tradition and on the other hand reject arguably his most significant theory, the rank and file and the trade union bureaucracy. Nobody has explained the role of the bureaucracy and how socialists should relate to the working class better than in his book with Gluckstein, The General Strike of 1926.
Some claim like me, to be big fans of the book, but have little understanding of the politics of it. This is not really surprising because the leadership of the SWP claim the books politics not relevant to the current period. You can see selected “experts” with the book at Marxism but you could not buy it at Bookmarks.
Following the Trade Union Bureaucracies betrayal in 1926, the unions were dominated by an openly class-collaborationist right wing for the next quarter of a century.
Simon Basketter said I don’t need to worry a new James Connolly could appear. I am not convinced, even if it was the case we would still need a rank and file movement.
If the line “the trade union leaders want to fight” of the CP in the 1920’s is taken by todays Marxists then we face the same sort of attacks and mass unemployment that our predecessors faced in the 1930’s. Maybe worse.
Leon Trotsky also had a strong understanding of Trade Union struggle.
” If there were not a bureaucracy of the trade unions, then the police, the army, the courts, the lords, the monarchy would appear before the proletarian masses as nothing but pitiful ridiculous playthings. The bureaucracy of the trade unions is the backbone of British imperialism.
It is by means of this bureaucracy that the bourgeoisie exists….
The Marxist will say to the British workers: The Trade union bureaucracy is the chief instrument for your oppression by the bourgeois state. Power must be wrested from the hands of the bourgeoisie and for that its principal agent, the trade union bureaucracy, must be overthrown.”
Without a rise in class struggle in the UK then left reformism is just as limited potentially as rebuilding rank and file organisation. In Greece, Syriza has grown out of the fight back not in spite of it. Unless there’s a revolutionary alternative to reformist ideas when there is a rise in struggle then its much easier for the bureaucracy to drag the movement (that includes left reformists) towards accommodation with the state. On the hand, simply denouncing reformists will cut revolutionaries off from those who want to fight but have not yet embraced a revolutionary solution. That is particularly self-defeating during a rise in struggle when left ideas are growing in a volatile situation.
That is true Ray B, but arguing that the trade union leaders want to fight, rather than at times they are forced to fight, is following the tragic line of the CP in 1926. It wasn’t that the CP were not brave fighters, they were, the problem was the Centrist direction of their politics. Of course if you believe the main task is to act as a ginger group or broad left then building the rank and file is not central. The tragic consequences of this political position was demonstrated in 1926.
To restate, there’s no contradiction in calling on the bureaucracy to fight and building rank and file organisation. Claiming that all of the TU leadership are sell-outs is completely sectarian and a false simplification of a much more complex set of circumstances. You’re confusing the objective tendency for the labour aristocracy to accommodate to the state with the subjective behaviour of individual parts of that bureaucracy who vacillate during periods of escalating struggle (should that develop.) To not take advantage of that indecisiveness is to squander the opportunity to influence the subjective conditions and pull workers towards more radical solutions. How this strategy is used in any given situation is open to debate but I doubt anyone on the left will take seriously your comparison between the SWP now and the influence of Stalinism on the CP’s strategy in 1926. It smacks of throwing any kind of denunciation in the hope that something might stick!
The point is Ray B that there is nothing new in using left wing language to claim we are in “new times”, that the bureaucracy are compelled to fight with or without pressure from below.
As the General Strike 1926 book says, it was wrong then, and is wrong now.
As Cliff/Gluckstein say:
“Of course the bureaucracy is not homogeneous. Union officials in different industries find themselves under varying pressures from below and above. Again, ideologically, union officials are not the same. The division between left and right-wing union officials is significant. Splits in the bureaucracy – between unions or within a union – can weaken its conservative influence.
The fundamental fact, however, overriding all differences between bureaucrats, is that they belong to a conservative social stratum, which, especially at times of radical crisis – as in the 1926 General Strike – makes the differences between left and right-wing bureaucrats secondary. At such times all sections of the bureaucracy seek to curb and control workers’ militancy.”
It is the same built in cowardice that Billy Hayes of the CWU showed when calling off the postal workers strike against Privatisation, as that shown by Purcell, Hicks, Swales (and to a lesser extent AJ Cook).
Whichever era you look at, in a crisis, left wing “firebrands” back down, you can see the same process with Jones and Scanlon in the 1970’s.
Stalinism is thankfully gone, but we cannot replace it with a more leftwing Centrism.
“Stalinism is thankfully gone, but we cannot replace it with a more leftwing Centrism.”
It seems pretty obvious to point out that we’re not in an upturn in struggle like the General Strike. Regarding the demise of Stalinism, the campist positions taken by some on the left over Ukraine leaves that open to question sadly.
The SWP and many on the rev left, including I assume RS21, have condemned the decision to call off strikes where this has occurred. The evidence of this position is clearly outlined in a variety of SWP publications not least, SW. If you want to claim that these published condemnations are concealing reformist practice then what is the evidence? Simply quoting Cliff does not prove this especially when one of the authors of the book you quoted has an article in the latest ISJ concerning this subject. The way the SWP implements this strategy is open to debate but to claim that it no longer supports it is completely misleading.
We could be in an upturn of struggle if your Unite the Resistance man Comrade Hayes had fought instead of selling a no strike agreement to the postal workers instead. Around the same time the PCS, NUT and FBU called off action, (though the fire-fighters forced the re-instatement of action).
The line that the bureaucrats lack confidence is a sick joke, it is the workers who face pay cuts, pension cuts, job losses and loosing their homes, not the trade union leaders.
Sparky cliff. Book on Marxist internet archive and advertised as such on the latest socialist review..calling it one of the sharpest books on the trade union officials..so you will need to get some other “evidence”!
Historians, CP-watchers and ‘Leninists’ may be interested in how this argument played out in 1957 in the CPGB with Christopher Hill leading the criticism. We should perhaps remember that whenever this matter is argued, our predecessors have argued about it too. People with a small appetite for this may want to scroll down to the last part… http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/how-did-british-communist-party-of-1957.html
The debate about how revolutionary socialists should organise had been going on long before 1957 which was specifically precipitated by Stalinist foreign policy. There are historical examples that are much more relevant to contemporary debates that occurred among revolutionaries during the period that Lenin developed his concept of the party. No one on the rev left is now arguing for a Stalinist organisation despite some on the left falling into campist positions over the Ukraine.
Ray B., if you read what Christopher Hill et al were writing about, I think you’ll see that the wordl ‘precipitated by Stalinist foreign policy’ doesn’t fit the bill. To take my own parents as an example, they were in favour of ‘Stalinist foreign policy’ but opposed to the way democratic centralism was run in the party. The key features to emerge from the 1957 discussion was a) the ‘slate’ method of choosing several members to the executive as a package b) a secret ‘political committee’ which wasn’t elected which determined the ‘line’ and c) the weighting of full-timers both on the EC and the very committee that was supposed to be looking into the question of ‘inner party democracy’. None of this has anything to do with Hungary etc. so I’m not sure why, Ray B., you should want to brush it away like that.
To my mind, those discussions then are particularly relevant to anyone or any group trying to figure out the best ways to organise on the radical left. So far, we haven’t cracked it, have we? If we’d’ve cracked it, the radical left wouldn’t have been made up of a handful of groupuscules for the last 50 years, none of which has succeeded in retaining its members. If we’re serious about facing up to why that might be, then part of the answer should be to investigate why that might be. I regard the usual one of blaming the ‘conditions’ or the ‘balance of class forces’ as a cop out.
Michael, the problem with your theory is that you separate the Stalinist policies of the CP from the way it was organised and proceed from there to generalise about the left over the last 50 years. This ahistorical approach to political organisation has more in common with Stalinism than you are willing to recognise.
When you state as a question that “we haven’t cracked it” I assume you are referring to some holy grail of organisation that exists outside of subjective conditions. Perhaps that’s why you view them as a “cop out”. Your inference is that there are those on the rev left who believe they have already “cracked it.” I’d like to know who they are because I certainly haven’t met them yet.
The only places where the left has grown has been in conjunction with workers fighting back for example in Greece. Throughout the West, reformist currents have shrunk as social democratic parties have embraced the market. The various non-aligned movements have dissipated despite some on the left heralding them as forms of organisation that might revive the left. In that context it’s surprising that you view the lack of growth as a case of poor organisation. Where is the class analysis?
My experience is different: virtually all leaders of ‘radical left’ organisations have said they had figured out the right form of organisation.
Michael’s contribution is very dissapointing in that it reeks of a lofty and rather pompous dismissal of those trying to build revolutionary organisation. It isn’t a cop out to cite how the world has changed and the impact on the left of social democracies embracement of neo liberalism and connected impact of 1989 and the fall of the Berlin wall etc. Alongside that in the UK the long shadow of the miners defeat still has an impact years after many of us thought it would. To say these dont matter and its irrelevant how militant and confident workers are to fight their own bosses and this has no connection to how succesful a radical and revolutionary left can be is of course a variant of idealism. How many times has one heard in campaigns etc that if only we did something new and different everyone would come flocking to the struggle when in reality it is the prospect of winning that can turn large numbers of workers and students into an audience for radical ideas. Michael unfortunately gives no alternative which he says can suddenly transform the propects of the revolutionary and radical left. His organisation left unity is mired in its internal world and with a deep sectarianism towards working with others on the left. Perhaps Michael should look at his own organisation before sniping at others.
hi art. As I’m lofty and pompous I’ll shuttup. Cheers.
Alternatively, you could respond politically to the points raised!
James, I’m not a masochist. Ray B argues with me point by point. He clearly disagrees with me but doesn’t go in for personal abuse. That’s why I’ve replied to him and I hope we go on talking. He might convince me. I’m thinking about what he’s saying. art has a personal agenda and I really don’t have to join that one, do I? Thanks for asking though.
It’s important to have this debate in as fraternal a way as possible not least because of the still recent conflict in the SWP. But this debate didn’t happen in a vacuum and that’s what is so frustrating about blanket condemnations of democratic centralism. There is a tendency to separate the issue of organisation from political activity in these debates. Especially among those who are proposing a reformist strategy. For example, Ed Rooksby’s opposition to those on the left critical of left reformism is based on characterising Stalinism as the logic of “Leninism” when, as Paul Blackledge explains, it has a lot in common with those who believe the capitalist state can be reformed whether along more democratic lines or in its state capitalist bureaucratic form.
In many ways this debate is the healthy consequence of the search for solutions to building a new movement by those who are recent to activism. But there is also the very unhealthy opportunism of those who have old scores to settle with revolutionary socialists. In either case, this is an ideological struggle over how to organise. Which is why, at times, the debate has become very antagonistic just as it did in the past. And while the struggle in the CP in ’57 is an example of this conflict it’s not the most useful one now unless the intention is to characterise the leadership of contemporary democratic centralist organisations as inherently Stalinist. In which case such generalisations will invariably encourage equally unhelpful and dismissive responses.
Ok lets remove the first sentence and the last and see if Michael would respond to the points raised by a previous post?
It isn’t a cop out to cite how the world has changed and the impact on the left of social democracies embracement of neo liberalism and connected impact of 1989 and the fall of the Berlin wall etc. Alongside that in the UK the long shadow of the miners defeat still has an impact years after many of us thought it would. To say these dont matter and its irrelevant how militant and confident workers are to fight their own bosses and this has no connection to how succesful a radical and revolutionary left can be is of course a variant of idealism. How many times has one heard in campaigns etc that if only we did something new and different everyone would come flocking to the struggle when in reality it is the prospect of winning that can turn large numbers of workers and students into an audience for radical ideas. Michael unfortunately gives no alternative which he says can suddenly transform the propects of the revolutionary and radical left.
I think that the ‘radical left’ (not my term but it was the one that Alex C. used in his article in ISJ about where we are) find it very difficult to deal with oppression in its own organisations. Our own analysis of how oppression comes out of capitalism should tell us that none of us is immune. Even as we resist it, we might ourselves reproduce it. Linked to this is the matter of how we view what we call ‘political activity’. In anthropological terms, it is analogous to other kinds of ‘comings together’ and production of artefacts. So, our meetings and conferences and benefits are in that sense not different from other people’s equivalents. Our leaflets, papers, and speeches are analogous to equivalents too. So, the radical left – no matter what kinds of sense it makes through the activisms themselves, is perceived and judged in an anthropological way too. If it looks as if we do not address the whole of lived life, that we are engaged with the ‘everyday’ (in the marxist sense – Lefebvre etc) then we are judged on that matter too.
Apols this is so brief.
todd/art/Janet – we don’t mind you posting under pseudonym on these threads but please pick one handle and stick with it. changing your username to make it look as if there’s more than one of you is a pretty shabby tactic. if you persist we’ll just ban you.
Based on what you’ve argued here and on your blog, Michael, your CP example comes from the perspective that democratic centralism is intrinsically Stalinist. Even among the highly contested theories of anthropology that kind of ahistorical generalisation is untenable. This line of argument existed long before the internet came along and, while the internet may have allowed wider access to information more generally which has resulted in some interesting studies, it has also cultivated a tendency among activists in search of new (perhaps modish) ideas to connect disparate theories in a superficial way that gloss over or ignore the contradictions in their ideas. I don’t think the cut and paste approach, accelerated by the internet, to contemporary academic writing especially among cultural theorists helps clarify our understanding of how to rebuild the left. When an organisation and its members are being held to account it’s equally important to understand the perspective of that account which in your case I do not agree with.
Thanks for that, Ray B. First up, you seem to have a problem with the ‘cut and paste’ culture. I’m not sure why this is any worse (or any better) than the practice we are all guilty (or innocent of) which is combing through texts for evidence for our arguments. If it was an argument with me, then can I assure you that a) the documents from 1957 are not on the internet. The Minority Report (Christopher Hill et al) is, as far as I’ve been able to find out, only available in very few libraries and perhaps in some private collections. I was able to get a photocopy from (from memory) the Working Class Movement Library. b) all my comments about the WRP in this context come from long conversations with ex-WRP members c) re Militant – conversations with people who had been ‘close’ to Militant d) re SWP – talking with present and ex-members, reading articles in print and online. I’m not sure why you think I would think about this sort of thing ahistorically. There hasn’t been room or time here to tease out the differences between each of these episodes. Likewise, the history of democratic centralism. In fact, this was indeed a subject tackled by the CP in those days, where the argument against the Minority Report was that d.c. was rooted in the ‘British’ trade union movement. Of course I know and understand that there have been various forms to this and will go on being so.
Now to the argument about ‘oppression’. I would suggest that any of us who call ourselves marxists would benefit from a bit of humility in this field. Many advances in thinking about how and why people oppress each other have been made by people who do not call themselves marxists. What’s more, if we tie oppression to exploitation and class in every instance, I suggest that we will find this unsustainable when we put such a template over millions of people’s everyday experience. So, to take one example: teachers in schools at the moment are experiencing bullying from school ‘management’. This bullying can come from men to women, women to men, men to men, women to women. It can be from white to black, black to white, white to white, black to black. It’s clear that in the present context of the hegemony of ‘management’ ideas, in the context of neoliberal ideology about competition etc, then within the public sector, these forms of oppression are going on. People who were last week our colleagues become managerial ogres. They take up various form of oppression and harassment etc. What also takes place in some instances are classic consequences of oppression namely ‘self-blame’ where the victim ‘internalises’ the values of the oppressor. These insights were achieved more often than not by people who were not classic marxists, people who did indeed look at the particular historical nature of these processes (e.g. within slavery and post-slavery) and we can see forms (not the same ones) in operation e.g. within a single school. My argument is that left organisations are not immune from this as evidenced by the examples I’ve given. By no means am I suggesting that these should be considered ahstorically. In fact, like you, I would argue that in order to understand the particular kinds of oppression going on, we would get to grips with it all the more if we did consider them in their respective conditions. And, as it happens, that’s what I see as lacking in any of the analyses I’ve seen to do with what happened e.g. in the SWP. It just ‘happened’. Processes have been put in place which will prevent it happening again, without us knowing why they did, or indeed how was it possible for people who knew all the arguments for why it was wrong, could indeed do what they did. But that’s not a discussion to have with me, Better to have that with the people who left and who are still scratching their heads on this matter. If you think that there is nothing that anthropologists or such people as Foucault or Freud can offer, so be it. If you think that all the answers are within the texts of classic marxists and only in those texts, then can I suggest to you that, for example, many of the texts enjoyed and loved by e.g. Marx (we happen to call them ‘fiction’) are not ‘classic marxist’ texts, but offer insights into how and why people behave towards each other (in specific historic instances) in oppressive ways.
Whether or not you have undertaken exhaustive research into the history of democratic centralist organisations on the left is not the point. You still make false comparisons and jump to wrong conclusions about this subject because you claim that subjective conditions are a “cop out”.
If you attended any recent Marxisms or read any recent SWP literature such as the ISJ then you would be aware that your claim that the SWP is dismissive of non-marxists who have contributed to an understanding of oppression is patently false. You refer to a text by Alex Callinicos in one of your posts. He has published over the years many books that are rich in critical analysis of other marxist and non-marxist theories about identity, morality, cultural theory, history and numerous other subjects. Just one example of SWP members treating these subjects seriously. There have been debates about reproduction theory, transgender rights and the origins of women’s oppression in the ISJ in the past and more recently. Yet you claim that the SWP doesn’t engage with any of these issues.
If you insist on misrepresenting the SWP in this way then it comes as no surprise that you can’t or won’t distinguish the difference between a poorly handled disputes case involving a leading SWP member and Stalinism. Having been involved in the LGBT movement since the early ’80’s when we would get jeered at on Pride marches and more recently working with the Occupy movement and the Bank of Ideas organising an art show with other students at Chelsea College of Art I won’t take any lectures from you about the nuances of oppression and cultural theory. When someone disagrees with you Michael be aware that they don’t always do so from a position of ignorance.
Whoaa, Ray, where does it say in my last post that it was the SWP that wasn’t looking at what non-marxists were saying? I have read a good deal of Alex’s work. I read ISJ. I read Socialist Review. I read Socialist Worker. My argument was with you – (I didn’t if you’re in the SWP or not) – and with what you said in reply to what I said about oppression. What I said about the SWP was specifically about how it had dealt with (or not dealt with) the events of the previous few years which indeed were in part about oppressive behaviour. So you’ve conflated several things in order to make another point.
My point about what you call ‘my researches’ was a reply to your accusation that I had done a ‘cut and paste’ job. If you think I draw the wrong conclusions from the different episodes I refer to, that’s fine. As it happens I didn’t think I had really begun to draw any conclusions… As I said, the historical specifics of these different organisations haven’t been teased out yet.
I know it’s hell for members of one marxist groupuscule to be ever compared to the behaviour of another marxist groupuscule. I have a clear memory of an interesting conversation at an SWP meeting about why and how the events in France of 1968 failed because there wasn’t, said the member, the ‘right’ revolutionary leadership. I posited that there were at least five organisations offering what they said at the time was the ‘right’ revolutionary leadership including at least one which members of IS had ‘approved of’ at the time…so what wasn’t ‘right’ about the leadership being offered in 1968? I’m still thinking about this one too…
As for ‘ignorance’…perhaps you should look back at what I was saying and not make big leaps from what I was saying to what you would like me to be saying – so that you can make a completely different point.
As I said before, your argument with people arguing with the SWP is not really with me. There’s a much more serious one: with the young members who left and with the old longstanding members with decades of experience, reading and knowledge who left. What they’ve said in private and in public is much more serious than anything I think or have said.
ps my last missed out the word ‘know’…as in ‘I didn’t know whether you were in the SWP or not’….
I’ve based my replies on the explicit and implicit meaning in your comments. The fact that your CP example leads on to your condemnation of the SWP’s position on oppression confirms that. I think you’re now trying to move the goal posts because I’ve pointed out the fallacy in your argument rather than admit that you haven’t got a case to make. What I object to is others using (my) oppression as a sectarian stick to beat socialists with. My only responsibility in this case is to challenge the cold war canards about “Leninism” that your comparison raises.
On that basis, Ray, none of us would ever make any comparisons of anything in case it might be inferred by people like you that we were making ‘implicit’ and ‘ahistorical’ analogies….even when we say quite explicitly, several times, that the historical differences are yet to be teased out. So, really, that way of arguing is just a means of silencing people.
I sense that your phrase ‘I’ve pointed out the fallacy of your argument’ needs to be taken up with members of the exodus from the SWP not with me. I’ve been around the left so long that most of the people who’ve said to me from left groups that they’ve ‘pointed out the fallacy of my arguments’ that they’ve given up on left groups and gone off to be experts on lawns or beer or hard discs. They’re not even here for you to argue with them. Excuse me then, if I take that kind of rhetoric with a pinch of salt.
To repeat, to date, neither you or anyone else in the SWP seem to be able to explain in marxist terms why or how a group of people thoroughly versed in all the marxist arguments about oppression could end up acting in oppressive ways. It really is that simple. If they are ‘mistakes’, why or how could they have been made? You presumably think that the particular form of democratic centralism within the SWP is in no way responsible. So what was? The betrayal of social democracy? The defeat of the miners? Or what? I may well be miles offbeam on this matter. But then it wasn’t me doing it, was it? In the meantime, part of the raison d’être of your organisation is to come to people outside of the organisation and recruit them…in part because you have the ‘right’ line on oppression. But if there isn’t an analysis of the oppression in your own backyard, why should we potential recruits believe you?
I suggest again that classical marxism does not have a ready answer on all matters of oppression. You’ll remember that Trotsky invented the concept of ‘relative autonomy’ in order to wrestle the ‘arts’ free of economic or material determinism. Some might argue that this was ‘ahistorical’ or that it let subjectivism in through the back door having kicked it out the front and yet I’ve heard marxists explain why this description had explanatory power. I suspect that the fact it was Trotsky saying this and not a suspect marxisant professor from the Sorbonne made it much more palatable. Who knows, this kind of flexibility might be possible with ‘oppression’ and people might find some explanations that work. Mind you, if no explanation is hazarded, then there’s no progress is there?
By the way, on the matter of the worth of democratic centralism, on a scale of 1-5, how well do you think it’s done since it was first invented? How well has the theory turned out in practice? How well has the practice proved the theory right?
On a more conciliatory note, one of the greatest problems with the internet is that it encourages a cut and paste approach to research and debate. The credence that is now given to comments of 140 characters illustrates that tendency. It’s a tendency that influences everyone including myself. Even though I sometimes feel compelled to engage in threads like this on different left blogs I’m regularly reminded during the course of these debates how limited they are in actually facilitating fraternal debate.
This isn’t helped by an ongoing ideological struggle by the state and the market to influence and control information, especially the internet. I think the atomised engagement of individuals with the internet facilitates this phenomenon. On that basis I believe organising collectively and having these debates in person has become even more important not less. So a blog debate about the relevance of “Leninism” holds a certain irony.
You seem to be determined to drag this thread about “Leninism” into a shouting match reminiscent of your other haunt, socialist unity. When people disagree with each other that doesn’t mean they are closing down debate. I can’t help it if you feel indignant that I called your comparison fallacious. I call it how I see it. If you want to “tease this out” and win people to your point of view (you definitely have one despite asserting the importance of impartiality) then do a more convincing job.
I’ve been addressing your analogy between the CP in 1957 and the dispute in the SWP which I think trivialises what was at stake for socialists fighting against Stalinist hegemony of the left during that period and repeats some of the Cold War canards trotted out by liberals who have their own axe to grind. Your attempts to manoeuvre this debate into a condemnation of the SWP only reinforces that conclusion. I don’t believe the narrative of the dispute or the conclusions you have promoted. If you don’t accept the conclusions reached by the majority of SWP members concerning the dispute, the way it was handled and how to prevent mistakes in the future then that’s up to you but please don’t hide behind the comrades who left to disguise grinding your own axe.
Yes, I was under the mistaken impression we were having a conversation but your last post shows how easy it is to not answer anything that the other person has raised. Nor need you.
No, my last post shows that I don’t have to conduct this debate by your rules which appear to be do as I say not as I do. If you want to conduct a debate about the kind of organisation we need please don’t pretend you don’t have a stake in this or that you’re not presenting a thought through position. If you can’t cope when someone picks holes in your argument then perhaps you need to stick to debating with those who reaffirm your own narrative?
Yes, Ray. I imagine your method of arguing and your position on this matter as displayed here have recruited hundreds to your way of thinking and ex-members are flocking back even as we write. It’s the way you’ve addressed the …er….’narrative of the dispute’….that will have impressed them.
Is that the best you can do Michael?
Anonymous bloke hangs around website being irritated that people on the website resigned from his club, gets even even more irritated when someone argues with him, doesn’t answer loads of stuff that he is asked, and ends up being insulting.
winding back a bit to this, Michael >> “Classical marxism does not have a ready answer on all matters of oppression. You’ll remember that Trotsky invented the concept of ‘relative autonomy’ in order to wrestle the ‘arts’ free of economic or material determinism… Who knows, this kind of flexibility might be possible with ‘oppression’.”
I’m not 100% sure what you’re getting at here but my inclination has been the kinda the opposite – one lesson I’ve drawn from the past couple of years is that the synthesis of Marxism and anti-oppression politics needs to be a lot *tighter* and a lot more *rigorous*. The problem with the current state of the theory is not that it’s too determinist but that it offers far too much wiggle room. So for instance, one can agree that in general sexism is a very bad thing, but come up with all sorts of excuses and exceptions for why sexism happens not to be the key issue right here right now in our own organisations or campaigns.
I am optimistic however that a synthesis is nonetheless possible, provided we’re willing to spell out in a bit more detail what the base/superstructure metaphor typically elides. In particular anti-oppression politics has difficulty moving beyond the descriptive or discursive sphere and connecting its analyses to class and economics. Conversely Marxists have difficulty specifying the precise mechanisms by which oppressive structures feed into political economy (so we tend to fall back on generalities like “X-ism is bad because it divides the working class”, which is true enough but doesn’t get you very far). My instinct is that a serious collective effort to think through how social reproduction functions today might be the key to unlocking this puzzle.
I like what you’re doing here, Bat. What I was trying to get at is on the matter of how we have these two means of understanding how capitalism works – oppression and exploitation – and, yes, we see oppression in terms of its outcomes i.e. that it’s one of the means by which exploitation is made easier (through e.g. divide and rule, but also through diminishing people, rendering them passive, creating self-blame etc). My concern with this is that in reality it pans out as being too watertight. That’s to say, it is quite possible for oppression to be one or two steps away from exploitation. Let’s be specific: (I’ve been reading about Wilde plus pals and the Dreyfus Case…so this is why this example surfaces: Oscar Wilde was clearly ‘oppressed’ by the effects of the prevailing ideology surrounding ‘homosexuality’. He had consensual relationships with men.He was oppressed by prevailing attitudes to this and, as we know, ended up in prison and died prematurely as a result. However, he was a successful and rich person which enabled him to involve himself in the market economy of ‘rent boys’. How should we typify that? Was he both oppressed and oppressor? How does this connect with exploitation – on the macro and micro level? Do we express this as ‘contradiction’? Or as one of many kinds of janus-existences that many (all?) lead under capitalism?
Apart for the anonymous bit you could be talking about yourself, Michael. I imagine that if you were washed up on a desert island you’d find a way to argue with yourself, lecture the seagulls on how to catch fish, berate your hut for not withstanding a hurricane and demand that the crew of the rescue ship join you on the island.