SPGB

[dennisr]

Of course Proper Tidy is in no way responsible for the the murders directly after 1917 in the SU, but he affirms the ideas of a man that was.

I'm sure he will feel better for knowing that.

Do you really think the idea of claiming some association between the yourself, the SPGB and oppositionists to the soviet union in 1917 is going to increase your relevance or the relevance of your arguments? (Especially whe nit is really not much more than a fantasy association in your head...)

I think you will find most of us have moved on a bit. I mean the anarchists here don't spend their time shouting 'never forget kronstadt' every time I raise political differences with them over particular questions in the here and now. I may be wrong but I am guessing most folk would think "what is this plonker going on about?"

 

[butchersapron]

Thank you. That doesn't really say anything like "communists like us in the SPGB" does it? It just says workers who would been allowed in the SPGB. Them's two very different things.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Alopogies, post 232 2nd para fom end, save you reading it all.

'..when workers in their thousands many of whom would have found an open door, a seat at the table of the SPGB and referred to as Comrades..'

It's pretty low to try and boost your membership with dead people who can't say no. Are you really so incapable of convincing living workers?

Louis MacNeice

 

[belboid]

inaugurating the dead into the party? truly the SPGB are the mormons of socialism

 

[Louis MacNeice]

inaugurating the dead into the party? truly the SPGB are the mormons of socialism

To be fair he didn't quite do it (call it comedic license), but he was posthumously claiming them for the tradition; which isn't exactly a principled act.

Louis MacNeice

 

[butchersapron]

inaugurating the dead into the party? truly the SPGB are the mormons of socialism

I know i shouldn't, but I'm going to try and be fair here. I think we've just got a perfect storm here. Most of the SPGB aren't like this in my experience.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Why stop at the dead though? Why not claim all workers as subconscious party members? I await the SPGB's Freudian turn and subsequent exponential growth.

Louis MacNeice

 

[Louis MacNeice]

I know i shouldn't, but I'm going to try and be fair here. I think we've just got a perfect storm here. Most of the SPGB aren't like this in my experience.

Can't some of them (who I agree aren't like this at all) have a quiet word; I've got work to do.

Louis MacNeice

 

[butchersapron]

It's a weird dialectic at work here isn't it - most workers aren't good enough to join when they're alive but once dead, well...

To make a serious point, beyond the anarchists, most the communists killed when trotsky was still in power were bolsheviks - miasniikov and those of that ilk were proud bolsheviks attempting to put the train back on the tracks.

 

[Gravediggers]

Just out of interest - why does anyone ever bother to discuss anything with the SPGB members on these threads? I don't inhabit this forum constantly but I pop in every now and again, and over the years I don't think I have ever seen an SPGB person concede a point or even make a point in an insightful or humorous way. Their sheer dogged tenacity at banging away at the same point constantly and unfailingly in order to be the last man standing and score a point is almost impressive in a WTF way, but otherwise they're just headbangers. Idee fixe doesn't even cover it.

Is it just the SPGB who fail to, "concede a point or even make a point in an insightful or humorous way" ? I do not see anything on that score from our opponents except that is insults, swearing, sarcasm, etc, when they start head butting the wall by failing to reply to the arguments.

In fact on the previous thread, 'The unreported revolution in Wales by George Monbiot' and also on this thread there are several examples where we have conceded a point to the posters. Not always humorous I agree, but insightful and serious very much so. In regards to humour I thought the posting on the 'Love Party' was full of satire to make a point that is relevant to the discussions.

 

[dylans]

It's a weird dialectic at work here isn't it - most workers aren't good enough to join when they're alive but once dead, well...

To make a serious point, beyond the anarchists, most the communists killed when trotsky was still in power were bolsheviks - miasniikov and those of that ilk were proud bolsheviks attempting to put the train back on the tracks.

Indeed and it's not a question of yelling "remember kronstadt" It's about seriously questioning if the nature of leninist party and state models inevitably lead to execution squads and party purges which seems to be the case with every lenin inspired revolution. I want a revolution. I don't want to get shot for disagreeing with the party line

 

[discokermit]

To make a serious point, beyond the anarchists, most the communists killed when trotsky was still in power were bolsheviks - miasniikov and those of that ilk were proud bolsheviks attempting to put the train back on the tracks.

the workers opposition? miasnikov-'45, medvedev-'37, shliapnikov-'37

 

[butchersapron]

the workers opposition? miasnikov-'45, medvedev-'37, shliapnikov-'37

Fair enough, sloppy language - point was, the communists being oppressed weren't, on the whole, the anti-Bolshevik SPGB fellow-travelers as claimed above but committed bolsheviks (aside from the anarchist-communists of course).

 

[Gravediggers]

I like jokes that are repeated time and time again; many of the SPGB contributors are past masters at this comic tradition.

Louis MacNeice

Surely, Louis you are including your good self in this example for every time you post its a repetitive example of sarcasm that's meant to be a joke but fortunately went quite stale 10 years ago. Try a bit of satire and you might, just might get a job with Private Eye.

 

[robbo203]

Errrr


So what I had been saying then, eh Robbo. Still, at least you had the good grace to acknowledge this and your own repeated misunderstandings
.

Sigh. I havent done any such thing. I understand well enough what is meant by a so called transitional demand and the theory behind. My point is simply that the theory is crap. There is no way that calling for full employment can lead to a society (socialism) in which the very notion of employment itself becomes redundant. Still waiting to hear how you imagine this will work but then I then I guess I will forever to get answer from you on that score.

 

[Gravediggers]

Indeed and it's not a question of yelling "remember kronstadt" It's about seriously questioning if the nature of leninist party and state models inevitably lead to execution squads and party purges which seems to be the case with every lenin inspired revolution. I want a revolution. I don't want to get shot for disagreeing with the party line

Could not agree with you more. Its the main reason why the SPGB have consistently stated why they are a vehicle for the working class to use in gaining political power. Once the workers have gained political power our role in the class struggle comes to an end and we as a political organisation will promptly disband. Can't wait.

For those political parties and organisations who think that once the workers have gained political power they will still have a function to perform, even if its laying down the party line they are in for a rude awaking. With an entirely different set of social relationships and the workers thinking for themselves - without resorting to leaders - the 'political system' will be defunct and obsolete. Indeed party politics will give way to social cooperation.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Its the main reason why the SPGB have consistently stated why we are the vehicle for the working class to use in gaining political power.

Surely this is closer to the unpalatable truth; although I can see why you might want to spin it.

Louis MacNeice

 

[Gravediggers]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gravediggers View Post
Its the main reason why the SPGB have consistently stated why we are the vehicle for the working class to use in gaining political power.

Surely this is closer to the unpalatable truth; although I can see why you might want to spin it.

Louis MacNeice

Its only unpalatable to the likes of you Louis. For the truth is when the workers gain political power you and your kind would be redundant with no threads like this one to massage your egoistic style.

 

[Jean-Luc]

Fair enough, sloppy language - point was, the communists being oppressed weren't, on the whole, the anti-Bolshevik SPGB fellow-travelers as claimed above but committed bolsheviks (aside from the anarchist-communists of course).

Do you think these people that the then Trotskyist Anton Ciliga met in the early 1930s in a concentration camp for political prisoners (called a "political isolator"), where they had been sent at a time when Trotsky was still a leading member of the Russian government and one-party State, might have qualified as kindred souls of the SPGB:

As to our political conversations, I opened them by asking an exceedingly serious question in a light-hearted way."I can understand the attitude of the social-democrats in Europe; they do not like to go to prison, they do not want to risk a revolution, they have already secured a few good places in bourgeois society and are unwilling to lose them. But you, the Russian social-democrats, what do you want? For the last ten years you have drifted from prison to prison. Is it to restore capitalism and the parliamentary republic n Russia? It surely isn't worth while? I cannot understand you."

They were very much taken aback at first by the way in which I stated the problem; then one of them answered, "It would indeed be perfectly futile to wish to restore capitalism in Russia, for the good reason that capitalism, though in a modified form, exists there and has never ceased to exist. What we desire, what has led us into prison, is workers' democracy, the workers' right of freely organizing themselves" That set the debate going. Rosa Luxemburg was quoted and her discussions with Lenin in 1903 and 1918 on the respective parts played by masses and leaders in the workers' movement. We were shown with abundant detail that the present system in Russia had preserved all the essential characteristics of capitalism : production of commodities, wages, exchange markets, money, profits and even partial sharing out of profits among bureaucrats in the form of high salaries, privileges and so on.(The Russian Enigma, p.194. See also here)

 

[butchersapron]

I put that text on line (and the other one at that link), i don't need pointing to it thanks. You said when Trotsky was still in power in the USSR, so we're talking pre-1298 at the very latest. The book that it's chapter on, if you read it, confirms that most of the political prisoners in the isolaters were indeed bolsheviki of one stripe or another - even smirnov who developed his state-capitalist theory whilst there.

 

[Jean-Luc]

I put that text on line (and the other one at that link), i don't need pointing to it thanks. You said when Trotsky was still in power in the USSR, so we're talking pre-1928 at the very latest.

No, I didn't say that the discussion took place when Trotsky was still a leading member of the Russian government (ie till 1925/6) but that they had been imprisoned while Trotsky was still a leading member. The conversation took place in the early 1930s and, on the previous page, Ciliga says that "our new social-democratic neighbours had from eight to ten years' persecution behind them", ie they had been persecuted since the early 20s -- when Trotsky was a leading figure in the Russian regime. In any event, they weren't Bolsheviks or in the Bolshevik tradition. And they were persecuted and imprisoned.

 

[butchersapron]

No, I didn't say that the discussion took place when Trotsky was still a leading member of the Russian government (ie till 1925/6) but that they had been imprisoned while Trotsky was still a leading member. The conversation took place in the early 1930s and, on the previous page, Ciliga says that "our new social-democratic neighbours had from eight to ten years' persecution behind them", ie they had been persecuted since the early 20s -- when Trotsky was a leading figure in the Russian regime. In any event, they weren't Bolsheviks or in the Bolshevik tradition. And they were persecuted and imprisoned.

So the SPGB are now social-democratic in the sense that Ciliga meant i.e classical European social-democrats - is that right? These are the people you're saying who share the same platform as you? Despite 100 years of your party specifically and sharply differentiating yourself from just that tradition. Genius, not only dead Bolsheviks are now enrolled, but in some jehovian manouvere, dead social democrats are now press-ganged!

So i'm still waiting to learn who these SPGB style communists were.

 

[Gravediggers]

I put that text on line (and the other one at that link), i don't need pointing to it thanks. You said when Trotsky was still in power in the USSR, so we're talking pre-1298 at the very latest. The book that it's chapter on, if you read it, confirms that most of the political prisoners in the isolaters were indeed bolsheviki of one stripe or another - even smirnov who developed his state-capitalist theory whilst there.

Butchers you are to be commended that on times you are capable of doing something of a serious nature. Pity is that most of the time you express a load of twaddle.

 

[dannysp]

I'm sure he will feel better for knowing that.

Do you really think the idea of claiming some association between the yourself, the SPGB and oppositionists to the soviet union in 1917 is going to increase your relevance or the relevance of your arguments? (Especially whe nit is really not much more than a fantasy association in your head...)

I think you will find most of us have moved on a bit. I mean the anarchists here don't spend their time shouting 'never forget kronstadt' every time I raise political differences with them over particular questions in the here and now. I may be wrong but I am guessing most folk would think "what is this plonker going on about?"

I would have thought that the politically motivated murder of Russian sailors for demanding democracy, was something to bare in mind when examining Trotsky's political theories.

 

[JWH]

Is it just the SPGB who fail to, "concede a point or even make a point in an insightful or humorous way" ? I do not see anything on that score from our opponents except that is insults, swearing, sarcasm, etc, when they start head butting the wall by failing to reply to the arguments.

In fact on the previous thread, 'The unreported revolution in Wales by George Monbiot' and also on this thread there are several examples where we have conceded a point to the posters. Not always humorous I agree, but insightful and serious very much so. In regards to humour I thought the posting on the 'Love Party' was full of satire to make a point that is relevant to the discussions.

I am not offering analysis based on scientific observation or double blind tests, I am afraid - just cheap shots from the peanut gallery based on my inconsistent and not particularly attentive forays in this forum over a few years.

 

[Gravediggers]

I am not offering analysis based on scientific observation or double blind tests, I am afraid - just cheap shots from the peanut gallery based on my inconsistent and not particularly attentive forays in this forum over a few years.

That being the case I respect your honest admission that you are not particularly interested in a serious discussion.

 

[Jean-Luc]

using the slogan as a transitional governmental formula corresponding to the organizational conditions and consciousness of the masses at a given moment, and not as a synonym for the dictatorship of the proletariat. A program without the perspective of a government of the working masses to carry out anti-capitalist measures, is not a transitional program.

And this really rather contradicts your oft-repeated but as yet wholly unsubstantiated claim that it is "another way of running capitalism blah blah".

I'm afraid it doesn't. What Frank was saying is that a "Workers Government" is not the same as "the dictatorship of the proletariat" but something less than this. What in fact it meant was a Social Democrat/Communist Party coalition government such as the Communist International had started calling for from 1921 as the immediate aim. In the British context it would have been a Leftwing Labour government (with the Communist Party affiliated to Labour) such as Trotsky called for in his 1926 pamphlet Where is Britain Going?.

Inevitably, given "the organizational conditions and consciousness of the masses" (trade unionism, reformism, Labourism) who would have voted in such a government, it would be a government that would seek improvements within the context of capitalism (so-called "anti-capitalist measures"). Which couldn't go any further precisely because of the low level of "consciousness of the masses". So, it would end up governing capitalism, while taking some steps towards state capitalism.

This is still the general Trotskyist perspective. It's the logic behind them calling for a "New Workers Party" (to form such a government) rather than for socialism as such.

 

[JWH]

That being the case I respect your honest admission that you are not particularly interested in a serious discussion.

I am certainly not interested in a serious discussion about whether SPGB members are funny or not. I'm not sure I could handle the footnotes, for a start.

 

[Proper Tidy]

I'm afraid it doesn't. What Frank was saying is that a "Workers Government" is not the same as "the dictatorship of the proletariat" but something less than this. What in fact it meant was a Social Democrat/Communist Party coalition government such as the Communist International had started calling for from 1921 as the immediate aim. In the British context it would have been a Leftwing Labour government (with the Communist Party affiliated to Labour) such as Trotsky called for in his 1926 pamphlet Where is Britain Going?.

Inevitably, given "the organizational conditions and consciousness of the masses" (trade unionism, reformism, Labourism) who would have voted in such a government, it would be a government that would seek improvements within the context of capitalism (so-called "anti-capitalist measures"). Which couldn't go any further precisely because of the low level of "consciousness of the masses". So, it would end up governing capitalism, while taking some steps towards state capitalism.

This is still the general Trotskyist perspective. It's the logic behind them calling for a "New Workers Party" (to form such a government) rather than for socialism as such.

You're extrapolating there.

It seems clearer to me that the article suggests that transitional demands are not a programme for a dictatorship of the proletariat, but agitational demands designed to tap into contemporary consciousness. In fact, it explicitly states that.

It is its most important part politically in the sense that on the basis of the totality of teachings contained in the fundamental program, it formulates a political program aimed at mobilizing the masses into actions which correspond to their level of consciousness at a given moment, in order to lead them, through the education they receive in the course of these actions, to the highest level of consciousness, which will carry them to the conquest of power....

...a series of slogans linked to national and international conjunctural conditions which in combination have the objective of raising the masses to the highest political level during the process of their struggles...

...With the validity of each slogan being determined by its correspondence with the internal logic of the mass movement, the key piece in the program is precisely the culminating slogan of the whole chain – the slogan for a workers’ and farmers’ government or for a workers’ government. Here again the Fourth International has both revived and enriched the teachings of the third and fourth congresses of the Communist International by using the slogan as a transitional governmental formula corresponding to the organizational conditions and consciousness of the masses at a given moment, and not as a synonym for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Out of interest - given SPGB seemingly reject in its entirety any notion of a dictatorship of the proletariat or indeed any form of intermediary period, despite the obvious dangers to a vulnerable revolution in the face of an inevitable onslaught from hostile forces - what is your view on how a transformation can be undertaken? Perhaps I have missed something but the SPGB case seems to jump from now to a global socialist nirvana with very little substance in between. I appreciate you are of the impossibilist tradition but even so; gaining mass support for socialism on an international scale via the ballot box then abolishing capitalism then living happily ever after in a world of super-abundance, without any resistance along the way, seems a little far fetched. Perhaps you think my characterisation is a little flippant but this is pretty much how it appears.

 

[Jean-Luc]

You're extrapolating there.
It seems clearer to me that the article suggests that transitional demands are not a programme for a dictatorship of the proletariat, but agitational demands designed to tap into contemporary consciousness. In fact, it explicitly states that.

It is its most important part politically in the sense that on the basis of the totality of teachings contained in the fundamental program, it formulates a political program aimed at mobilizing the masses into actions which correspond to their level of consciousness at a given moment, in order to lead them, through the education they receive in the course of these actions, to the highest level of consciousness, which will carry them to the conquest of power....

.

I agree that the aim is "to tap into contemporary consciousness" (which is assumed to be trade unionist/reformist) but look at why and how:

in order to lead them, through the education they receive in the course of these actions

I take this to mean that the Trotskyist vanguard is to put forward slogans designed to appeal to the reformist consciousness of "the masses" in order to "lead" them in reformist struggles (which the vanguard know can't succeed) so as "educate" them that capitalism can't be reformed. I imagine that it was this that led Robbo to describe this approach as "elitist".

It is still the Trotskyist perspective and why Trotskyist groups all try to assume the leadership of and direct any more or less spontaneous protest movements that arise rather than letting these self-organise themselves without outside political interference.

As to the "dictatorship of the proletariat", this was a slogan Marx picked up in Paris when he was there in the 1840s and never used publicly afterwards. For him it meant little more than the exercise of political power by the working class which he couldn't envisage as being anything other than through full and complete political democracy. But to Lenin and Trotsky it meant the exclusive exercise of political power by the self-appointed vanguard of the working class, ie by them and their highly centralised and disciplined party. A quite different concept which in post-1917 Russia meant in practice the dictatorship (in the literal sense) of the vanguard Bolshevik party over the proletariat and the rest of the population.