Most firefighters think the SWP/ruc (Wespec') is a load of ole bollocks

[emanymton]

Marx did actually play a role in the 1848 revolution in Germany, and Engels served as a military advisor to one of the rebel armies - so it is factually inaccurate as well as being tendencious anyway.

Interestingly, when the revolution broke out, Marx declared he was not going to spend the time 'preaching Communism in a small sect' but play a part in the mass movement and struggles, even though it was dominated at the time by the liberals and nationalist bourgeoisie.
A lesson there for Workers Power comrades perhaps?

Why has a revolution started?
Always new I’d sleep in and miss it.

 

[rebel warrior]

Why has a revolution started?
Always new I’d sleep in and miss it.

Yep, am off to join the barricades and block off the M1 now. Good job, you read Urban 75 eh? Vive la resistance!

 

[butchersapron]

Marx did actually play a role in the 1848 revolution in Germany, and Engels served as a military advisor to one of the rebel armies - so it is factually inaccurate as well as being tendencious anyway.

Interestingly, when the revolution broke out, Marx declared he was not going to spend the time 'preaching Communism in a small sect' but play a part in the mass movement and struggles, even though it was dominated at the time by the liberals and nationalist bourgeoisie.
A lesson there for Workers Power comrades perhaps?

That depends if you call turning up a few months late participating doesn't it? And Engels was not "a military advisor to one of the rebel armies" he was a simple soldier.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Marx did actually play a role in the 1848 revolution in Germany, and Engels served as a military advisor to one of the rebel armies - so it is factually inaccurate as well as being tendencious anyway.

Tendencious logic or not, what was actually said was that Marx hadn't ever "led a revolution". Which is not the same as "Marx did actually play a role in the 1848 revolution in Germany".

As for lessons for Workers Power, sorry I forgot the SWP had such a good record of getting stuck in. Workers Power members from the miner's strike, to AFA to Genoa and the Socialist Alliance/STWC have a very good record of actually getting involved. Shafting the Socialist Alliance and then setting up RESPECT (dominated by the tiny sect that is the SWP) is not the same as playing a part in the mass movement and struggles is it. And shows exactly why the SWP is a sect.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Whe I posted this as one of the key chracteristics of leninism:

up holding the essential leading role of the vanguard party preceeding and during the revoltionary dictatorship of the proleteriat​

I thought some of the fourth internationalist and state capitalist bods onnhere might come back...does their silence mean they agree with it? Or didn't they read it?

Cheers - Louis Mac

 

[butchersapron]

Or understand it?

 

[rebel warrior]

Whe I posted this as one of the key chracteristics of leninism:

up holding the essential leading role of the vanguard party preceeding and during the revoltionary dictatorship of the proleteriat​

I thought some of the fourth internationalist and state capitalist bods onnhere might come back...does their silence mean they agree with it? Or didn't they read it?

Cheers - Louis Mac

I don't agree with your spelling of 'when', 'characteristics', 'revolutionary', 'proletariat' and 'on here' - thats for sure.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't agree with your spelling of 'when', 'characteristics', 'revolutionary', 'proletariat' and 'on here' - thats for sure.

in yr new pedanticism, you seem to have forgotten that "that's" should contain an apostrophe.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Of course, in SWPland 'the East German workers pulling down the wall' was simply 'Great!' As somebody once pointed out on another forum, in SWPland everything is always 'Great!'

Two million marching against the war in Iraq was 'Great!' The launch of the Socialist Alliance was 'Great!' The recruitment of Galloway to the RESPECT experiment was 'Great!' The European Social Forum was 'Great!'

Life is 'Great!' and we are always moving towards 'real socialism' even when it looks like we're going in the opposite direction.

Downturn theory?

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Or understand it?

Don't be cheeky, some of us cliffites don't feel the need to identify ourselves as 'libertarian leninists'.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

I don't agree with your spelling of 'when', 'characteristics', 'revolutionary', 'proletariat' and 'on here' - thats for sure.

Mate, all joking aside, what the fuck is a libertarian leninist? The very phrase is a concession to the council communists/anarchists and I had you down as the uber-swper

My fave memory of the labour party conference on telly (well i did live in ireland) was the delegate who got up and said "i'm not going to say i'm a denmocratic socialist because that's a waste of time, scoialism without democracy isn't worth the name, and if you say 'democratic socialist' you're just an SDPer'. And that's the way I feel about Leninists who need to qualify it for an audience.

 

[fanciful]

agreed.
i think its simpler all round to say marxism = leninism = trotskyism.
i find the idea that Leninism is NOT a legitimate extension of Marxism something of a joke.
after all which other extension of Marxism has overthrown capitalism and established a workers state?
which from what i gather of reading marx was basically the point.

 

[rebel warrior]

Mate, all joking aside, what the fuck is a libertarian leninist? The very phrase is a concession to the council communists/anarchists and I had you down as the uber-swper

I suppose it is more a response to the dogmatic Leninists on here like fanciful above whose simple mantra 'build a new mass workers party','build a new International' is a little tiresome and a little intellectually impoverished. Of course Leninism is about building a mass revolutionary socialist party, without which no workers revolution can succeed, but it is also about not being afraid of new ideas, new methods of working, new ways of relating Marxism to the modern world.

Lenin added more that was new to Marxism than any other thinker - and he would have despaired of those orthodox Trotskyists who insist on remaining tied to a Transitional Programme written in 1938 when the year is 2005. People should pay attention to the historical experience of 'Leninism under Lenin', as Marcel Liebman put it, and from which book the phrase 'libertarian Leninism' comes from. I don't see it as a concession to anarchism - I see the task before us as about exploring the real democratic tradition of Leninism, and so making Leninism relevant in new ways to the modern world.

 

[butchersapron]

I suppose it is more a response to the dogmatic Leninists on here

Gotta laugh at this

<snip>

'Leninism under Lenin', as Marcel Liebman put it, and from which book the phrase 'libertarian Leninism' comes from

Nope, it comes from Victor Serges attempts at justifying his activities in the 1920s to his libertarian ex-comrades.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

That may be the origin of the phrase but Rebel's quite right about Liebman and if that's where he's drawing the phrase from then fair enough. It is a great book that does a good job of uncovering Lenin "history's hidden democrat". The only thing I would say is that the remarkable thing about State and Revolution - the manifesto of libertarian leninism - is how lilttle mention there is of the party, just months before the Bolsheviks would be leading a revolution. And obviously very little discussion of the relationship between state and party after a revolution. Stick bending I'm sure it was on VI's part but taken on it's own the book could be pure council communism. Which is why I'm wary of ever taking one aspect of Lenin's politics and identifying with that.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Lenin Historys Hidden Democrat 31m - 2003 - Pete Jackson 2nd part 12m

Frats Rmp3

 

[fanciful]

of course being called intellectually impoverished by a Swappie is never a bad thing! it usually means you lack the intellectual flexibility to be firmly convinced of two mutually incompatible ideas. Like the struggle for a socialist future can be furthered by promoting the populist soup called Respect for example.
I once went to a talk by bambery where he too asserted that Lenin was no dogmatist, but of course this again was merely a cover for junking everything Lenin ever believed in to justify whatever outrageous affront to Socialism he was proposing at the time. There have been so many - I forget which one it was.
as for the Liebman book, i really don't think its much good, a sort of rehash of the sorry refrain Lenin was a mindless vanguardist who never wanted a mass party from what I remember.
vis the transitional programme being old. you can count and you've discovered it was written more than a few years ago. So what?
like all your ilk, you've discovered that Marxism, or Trotskyism in this case, is "out of date", and for you maybe it is. What a sorry reflection on your own disorientation and disillusionment.
Bet's on how long it is before Rebel discovers his true heart lies with the anarchos?

 

[rebel warrior]

Bet's on how long it is before Rebel discovers his true heart lies with the anarchos?

That is what I mean by 'intellectually impoverished' - a sort of understanding of Lenin's thought that starts and ends with 'What is to be done?' alone and out of context. Anyone looking a little deeper at Lenin's work and life, and suddenly it is 'anarchism'.

 

[butchersapron]

What?

 

[butchersapron]

That may be the origin of the phrase but Rebel's quite right about Liebman and if that's where he's drawing the phrase from then fair enough. It is a great book that does a good job of uncovering Lenin "history's hidden democrat". The only thing I would say is that the remarkable thing about State and Revolution - the manifesto of libertarian leninism - is how lilttle mention there is of the party, just months before the Bolsheviks would be leading a revolution. And obviously very little discussion of the relationship between state and party after a revolution. Stick bending I'm sure it was on VI's part but taken on it's own the book could be pure council communism. Which is why I'm wary of ever taking one aspect of Lenin's politics and identifying with that.

Hoe recent was your last reading of State and Revolution? Compared with clasical Council Communism it is still markedly authoritarian and party centred. And surely, we don't have to remind a Marxist to look at people's actions, at what they did in concrete terms rather than what they said.

Almost none of the libertarian elements of State and Revolution were ever put into practice by the bolsheviks - in fact, they actively opposed and oppressed any attempts outside of their own organs to do so. This is now a matter of simple historical record. Fine words etc

 

[rebel warrior]

Basically orthodox Trotskyists always talk of the SWP and the notion of 'socialism from below' as almost 'anarchist'. It is because, in my opinion, they tend to fetishise a certain reading of Lenin's What is to be done? - which talks of the need for a strong disciplined party of professional revolutionaries to bring 'socialist' ideas to the working class from outside.

Yet a look at why Lenin wrote that work that way (the influence of Kautsky etc) and a look at Lenin's writings post 1914, and life in the Bolshevik party under Lenin in general, suggest that a truer reading of Lenin would see that his life and work is far more 'libertarian' and democratic than orthodox Trotskyists realise.

 

[butchersapron]

Basically orthodox Trotskyists always talk of the SWP and the notion of 'socialism from below' as almost 'anarchist'. It is because, in my opinion, they tend to fetishise a certain reading of Lenin's What is to be done? - which talks of the need for a strong disciplined party of professional revolutionaries to bring 'socialist' ideas to the working class from outside.

Yet a look at why Lenin wrote that work that way (the influence of Kautsky etc) and a look at Lenin's writings post 1914, and life in the Bolshevik party under Lenin in general, suggest that a truer reading of Lenin would see that his life and work is far more 'libertarian' and democratic than orthodox Trotskyists realise.

No, one pamphlet out of tens of millions of words does not equal a red thread of libertarianism i'm afraid - esp when measured against his actual concrete actions.

Odd how you've now came round to agreeing with me that Kautsky was the formal influence on the content of WITBD - when last year you were denying that he had ever at any point had any influence on Lenin whatsoever, even to the extent of denying that he was even quoted in WITBD. Clearly you hadn't read it at that point. Keep digging and maybe you'll even mange to work yourself 'through' Lenin and Leninsim.

 

[fanciful]

I agree i think it's odd. coming from the other side of course! Not only did Lenin explicitly defend the pamphlet in 1908, see a piece called "seven years" if you read the comintern's theses on party's its pretty clear they were entirely based on the method of WITBD.
of course its true the trotskyist criticism of socialism from below is basically that its anarchist. Trotsky himself said that socialism would come from both above and below, otherwise there's no point in seizing power. What is the workers state for if not to impose socialism from above? supported of course from below.
plus if you read SWP writings on Leninism e.g. Molyneux they basically agree with the anarchist critique of Leninism, that if the working class needed a vanguard party then there is "precious little left of Marx's notion that the working class shall emancipate itself" (to paraphrase), in other words Leninism does lead to stalinism - also paradoxically the view of the stalinists! of course from the point of view of a leninist that's crap, because it is the working class who carries out the revolution, not the party on its behalf. just as happened in 1917. (btw I accept not everyone will agree with this point of view - not least of course the anarchistically inclined members of the swp!)

 

[rebel warrior]

It may well be 'odd', but I am happy enough to be criticised by both anarchists and orthodox Trotskyists.

Almost none of the libertarian elements of State and Revolution were ever put into practice by the bolsheviks - in fact, they actively opposed and oppressed any attempts outside of their own organs to do so. This is now a matter of simple historical record. Fine words etc

But it is no good looking at words and actions of Lenin outside their concrete historical context. I am sure you can find an 'authoritarian Leninism' as well - but if you forget the conditions of Russia - Tsarist police state, then Civil war, famine, etc etc then it tells us little.

What is the workers state for if not to impose socialism from above? supported of course from below.

What is a workers state? Armed workers. Should they be 'imposing socialism from above'? No - their role should be simply to defend the new order from armed attacks from the old order.

 

[butchersapron]

It may well be 'odd', but I am happy enough to be criticised by both anarchists and orthodox Trotskyists.

I meant 'odd' in the sense that you were then arguing the exact opposte of what you now profess - you were equally sure then as well, but were also equally wrong.

But it is no good looking at words and actions of Lenin outside their concrete historical context. I am sure you can find an 'authoritarian Leninism' as well - but if you forget the conditions of Russia - Tsarist police state, then Civil war, famine, etc etc then it tells us little.

I'm on about his concrete actions in Bolshevik Russia, the Russia of Lenin, not Tsarist Russia, none of which ever came close to the semi-libertarian ideas outlined in State and Revolution.

And just where am i looking at Lenin outside of any concrete historical context - i'm doing the exact opposite. I'm arguing that the semi-libertarian Lenin of S&R was a resuly of the pressure imposed on him by the self-activity of the Russian working class, by their spontaneous expropriations, their forced collectivisations, their myriad forms of self-organisation etc. He argued so himself, he accepted that he and the other Bolsheviks were forced to go with this great movement which so contradicated the previous bases of bolshevism or be swept away by the more radical forces (chief of which, as was noted at the time, was the rapidly growing anarchists).

But when the Bolsheviks took power, they immediately acted to curb these forms and processes, in fact anysign of initiative from below, anything that couldn't be controlled by the new party-state was crushed. The very things that Lenin had claimed to support in S&R were stamped down upon - which suggests rather clearly that the libertarian elements of that pamphlet were simply part of a wider tactical move on Lenins part - nothing Lenin wrote before or after, or did before or after contradicts that claim, in fact he himself admitted as such - and other bolsheviks made the same comments on his motivations.

This is concrete - you can't simply remove the bolsheviks from the events that really occured and argue that they were simply determined by other events - if the bolsheviks had no influence on events then you must also wave goodbye to your claims that the success of the revolution was in large measure dependent on their actions, their program and their willingness to take power. You either accept that the bolsheviks and their ideolgy were a key component of the events at that time and then take responbility for them and their outcomes or you stop using the 15 armies, peasants uprsings etc excuse - you cannot have your cake and eat it.

edit: and don't bother writing a long reply. I'm just not interested enough in this, and we've been over it so many times already.

 

[mk12]

or you stop using the 15 armies, peasants uprsings etc excuse
Anarchists always get annoyed when we bring up these points, as if they are not important. 15 armies! Think about that. Anarchists underestimate the affect the civil war had. But it's your programme and purity that matters!

result of the pressure imposed on him by the self-activity of the Russian working class
The old 'coup d'etat' theory. I think the best way to see how popular the Bolsheviks were is to look at the delegates to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Of the 649 delegates elected to the Congress of Soviets, 390 were Bolshevik, 160 Socialist-Revolutionaries (about 100 were Left SRs), 72 Mensheviks, 14 Menshevik Internationalists, and 13 of various groups. (Anarchists, about 4 of them, go into 'various groups' category).

And months before the revolution, Bolshevism was hugely popular. On 31 August the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd Soviet. Trotsky became its president. On 5 September the Moscow Soviet, the second strongest in the country, passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, and a vote of no confidence in the provisional government was passed. Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, followed suit a few days later, and so did Kazan, Baku, Nikolaev and a host of other industrial towns. Finnish Soviets gave even more wholehearted support to the Bolsheviks.

Also, the April Thesis called for all power to rest in the hands of the Soviets. If your claim is correct (that the Bolsheviks simply changed their policies according the the masses to gain power), then why didn't the workers support this thesis when it came out? Lenin and the Bolsheviks argued that there should be no support for the provisional government (a libertarian demand). Yet this view didn't have popular support (Congress of Soviets in June returned Mensheviks/SR's). Instead of changing its politics, the Bolsheviks stuck with this view, and eventually won people round through actions (July days, anti-Kornilov).

 

[LLETSA]

Has it ever entered the heads of any of the 'Leninists' on here to ask themselves why attempts to 'build a Leninist party' in this country or any other western country (and arguably any country outside of Russia) have ended in abject failure?

 

[butchersapron]

or you stop using the 15 armies, peasants uprsings etc excuse
Anarchists always get annoyed when we bring up these points, as if they are not important. 15 armies! Think about that. Anarchists underestimate the affect the civil war had. But it's your programme and purity that matters!

No, try and answer the point being made, namely that Bolshevik ideology itself acted as a material force in that situation - it wasn't just the whites or the civl war etc. it seems that you have misunderstood entirely my argument and in fact only further strengthened it by the unthinking application of the crude 'concrete conditions' bleat that i was attacking.

result of the pressure imposed on him by the self-activity of the Russian working class
The old 'coup d'etat' theory. I think the best way to see how popular the Bolsheviks were is to look at the delegates to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Of the 649 delegates elected to the Congress of Soviets, 390 were Bolshevik, 160 Socialist-Revolutionaries (about 100 were Left SRs), 72 Mensheviks, 14 Menshevik Internationalists, and 13 of various groups. (Anarchists, about 4 of them, go into 'various groups' category).

No, that's not a coup d'etat argument at all. Again, you seem a trifle confused as to what i was saying and have inadvertently managed to back up my argument - which is that Lenin and the bolsheviks used libertarian arguments as a temporary tactical manouvere designed to maintain their contact and influence within the working class.

That this was a tactical decision is made blindingly clear to all by two factors. Firstly, State and Revolution and the ideas expressed therein went direcly against nearly all the previous bolshevik positions. And secondly, by the concrete actions of the bolsheviks once in power - not one of which ever embodied or even attempted to enact the semi-libertarian aspects of S&R.

The claim this was a fleeting tactical turn could be argued against by providing examples of prior libertarian arguments and approaches by Lenin or the bolsheviks as a whole - not by by simply showing that these tactical swerve was succesful for them - that's absurd. But that's precsisely waht you try and do. Evidence of the boilsheviks high votes in the elections to the soviets backs up the success of this tactic - it in no way undermines the fact that it was tactic though. Nice choice to use the results of a series of elections that took place after the events we are discussing though.

And months before the revolution, Bolshevism was hugely popular. On 31 August the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd Soviet. Trotsky became its president. On 5 September the Moscow Soviet, the second strongest in the country, passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, and a vote of no confidence in the provisional government was passed. Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, followed suit a few days later, and so did Kazan, Baku, Nikolaev and a host of other industrial towns. Finnish Soviets gave even more wholehearted support to the Bolsheviks.

Again - the same point as above. This can in no way be seen as evidence that S&R and the turn suggsted in it was not an opportunist or tactical document (as agreed by Lenin himself). How could it be?

Also, the April Thesis called for all power to rest in the hands of the Soviets. If your claim is correct (that the Bolsheviks simply changed their policies according the the masses to gain power), then why didn't the workers support this thesis when it came out? Lenin and the Bolsheviks argued that there should be no support for the provisional government (a libertarian demand). Yet this view didn't have popular support (Congress of Soviets in June returned Mensheviks/SR's). Instead of changing its politics, the Bolsheviks stuck with this view, and eventually won people round through actions (July days, anti-Kornilov).

Well, there is ample evidence that the working class did actually support the sort of argument put forward in the April Theses - what do you think the July Days and the taking of power in Kronstad prior to the revolution was all about? (Note also the bolsheviks attempts to stop the working class taking power in those same July days, despite the April Theses) Are you really going to argue that Russia in April 1917 was not in a pre-revolutionary situation?

Can you tell me then, why there were no libertarian aspects of bolshevik ideology as it appeared in S&R prior to or after 1917, and why the concrete actions of the bolsheviks after taking power had precisly nothing to do with the libertarian perspectives outlined in that pamphlet(the authoritarian aspects were taken up almost immediately though)? Explain that to me. Though i suspect that i can already guess your answer.

edit: and i'll say the same to you as to RW. Don't waste your time writing a long reply as i'm not that interested. I've already crawled out of the wreckage of 1917, and i hope that you too manage it some day.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

So what?
like all your ilk, you've discovered that Marxism, or Trotskyism in this case, is "out of date", and for you maybe it is. What a sorry reflection on your own disorientation and disillusionment.

Who are you talking to? Nobody in the last couple of posts has admitted anything of the sort.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Shit, I've just realised fanciful is a WPer. Christ, what a confused lot they are. Bring back cockney at least he makes sense.