SPGB

[Proper Tidy]

And dennisr?

Two, then

 

[Gravediggers]

I'm not sure if I qualify as a critic or just a guttersnipe, but if I can be certain about one thing: I'm not a Trotskyist.

Good for you. I appreciate such posts for its honesty on stating what your political affiliations are not.

 

[Gravediggers]

Two, then

If I took the trouble to go back over the postings and done a thorough search on their user profiles I suspect I would find a few more. But I'll take your word for it there are only two trots, at present on this thread.

 

[butchersapron]

You really really won't.

 

[Proper Tidy]

If I took the trouble to go back over the postings and done a thorough search on their user profiles I suspect I would find a few more. But I'll take your word for it there are only two trots, at present on this thread.

I don't think you will, you know. But feel free to have a look.

Trots are in short supply on this forum, and tbh at least one of them is a mentalist.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

If I took the trouble to go back over the postings and done a thorough search on their user profiles I suspect I would find a few more. But I'll take your word for it there are only two trots, at present on this thread.

I suspect you might find a few more; but you'd be wrong...again.

Louis MacNeice

 

[JWH]

If I took the trouble to go back over the postings and done a thorough search on their user profiles I suspect I would find a few more.

Joe McCarthy would be proud.

 

[Gravediggers]

Just had a look at the SPGB website and I have a couple of questions.

Quote:
It is dangerous and futile to follow those who support violence by workers against the armed force of the state. Violent revolution has sometimes meant different faces in the capitalist class, always meant dead workers, and never meant the liberation of the working class. Unless workers organize consciously and politically and take control over the state machinery, including its armed forces, the state will be ensured a bloody victory.

So when the state uses force to arrest workers, break up strikes, shoot demonsrators and crush all opposition,(as it will), how do you propose workers defend themselves?

The quote you cite is a reference to the use of violence to bring about socialism. Whereas your question refers to a totally different scenario. Going by what you describe I presume we are looking at a scenario where the workers are in the process of becoming a class for itself by using the ballot box and other means, strikes, demos, etc, to make their feelings known to the population?

And therefore gained reasonable support from wider society, but correct me if I'm wrong. This being the case we would expect this support to be reflected amongst the workers within the state machinery, who include the armed forces. However, IMO such a scenario as you describe is premature to say the least and unlikely to occur with a politically conscious working class who will take the route of the least amount of resistance.

So you envisage socialism as possible without a fight for state power? The workers organise politically and the state is expected to do what? Say "fair enough" and hand over power to the working class?

No we don't "envisage socialism as possible without a fight for state power" - that is exactly what using the ballot box means. It is impossible to isolate, or indeed separate the state from class society and when the workers decide to take the state under its control there is little the capitalist class can do about it. If some of the capitalist class tried to take back the state machinery by violent means they would soon find out that the working class are the strongest army in the world. Notice I say 'some of the capitalist class' in anticipation that on this issue there will be serious divisions amongst them.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

If some of the capitalist class tried to take back the state machinery by violent means they would soon find out that the working class are the strongest army in the world.

The firmness of the assertion doesn't make it any less just an assertion, or any less dangerous; even a 'trot' wouldn't encourage this sort of potentially lethal day dreaming.

Louis MacNeice

 

[Gravediggers]

Joe McCarthy would be proud.

Yes no doubt, but where the whitchfinder McCarthy tried to shut them up I want the trots to keep yakking away so they put their foot in it every time and without fail. And for a very good reason: The more they look the fools the more possibility of recruits for true socialism. urban75 you have got a fan for life - why pay for adverts when you have this tool at your disposal to spot the apologists for capitalism.

 

[Gravediggers]

I don't think you will, you know. But feel free to have a look.

Trots are in short supply on this forum, and tbh at least one of them is a mentalist.

Let me guess who that is?

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Yes no doubt, but where the whitchfinder McCarthy tried to shut them up I want the trots to keep yakking away so they put their foot in it every time and without fail. And for a very good reason: The more they look the fools the more possibility of recruits for true socialism. urban75 you have got a fan for life - why pay for adverts when you have this tool at your disposal to spot down the apologists for capitalism.

If it's Trotskyists you want, then U75 isn't you're best bet. If on the other hand you're trying to cover your embarrassment at not being able to judge posters' political leanings, then you're still wide of the mark.

Louis MacNeice

p.s. what is 'spotting down'?

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Let me guess who that [mentalist] is?

If there's any truth in the old adage, 'takes one to know one', then you should be able to spot them; or even 'spot them down'.

Louis MacNeice

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

This demonstrates exactly the point i was making. Instead of "critically examing the "political answers he was giving", telling us why you thought they were "totally out of touch and off the wall", you prefer instead to resort to self indulgent ad hominens and ridicule. The SPGB are summarily dismissed as a "bunch of nutters" when, by your own admission, you dont know much about them. Like we are really supposed to be persuaded by such hearsay. This is what I find so irritatingly arrogant. I wonder if you can even recall what the article was about which may have been highly relevant to the meeting in question for all I know.

It doesn't demonstrate your point at all, and this isn't about this blokes personality (odd though it was). It was the fact that he had no idea of how to put across the ideas of socialism. He either just repeated time after time that it was capitalisms fault, blamed workers and the audience for that fact, used totally out of date language and backed this up by reading an anti-war article from 1914 when asked about the Iraq and Afghan wars. It may well be that the article had valid points in it but it was written in such out of date language that any points were almost entirely lost. He then failed to relate this article at all to the present day and just sat back and said "see, nothings changed, it's capitalism". The room wasn't fall of trotskyists (although there may have been a few), it was just ordinary people and he totally failed to get anything across and made socialism look like an abstract and totally out of date philosophy.

As he was the SPGB election candidate, don't you think that is worrying? Am I not allowed to comment on how the SPGBs politics came across at this meeting, if that's the case, why bother let your election candidate turn up at all?

 

[Gravediggers]

The firmness of the assertion doesn't make it any less just an assertion, or any less dangerous; even a 'trot' wouldn't encourage this sort of potentially lethal day dreaming.

Louis MacNeice

Of course they wouldn't because they know its not day dreaming and has the potential to rebound on their prized muddle thinking that dictatorship equals democracy. That is assuming of course if the trots decided to join forces with a minority of capitalists and attempted to overcome by violent means a politically conscious working class. Who incidentally are in the majority.

Quite possible in my estimate, especially when you take a look at the history of Trotskyism who are well known for taking sides in many of the worlds conflicts and power struggles.

 

[dylans]

The quote you cite is a reference to the use of violence to bring about socialism. Whereas your question refers to a totally different scenario. Going by what you describe I presume we are looking at a scenario where the workers are in the process of becoming a class for itself by using the ballot box and other means, strikes, demos, etc, to make their feelings known to the population?

And therefore gained reasonable support from wider society, but correct me if I'm wrong. This being the case we would expect this support to be reflected amongst the workers within the state machinery, who include the armed forces. However, IMO such a scenario as you describe is premature to say the least and unlikely to occur with a politically conscious working class who will take the route of the least amount of resistance

I'm talking about a situation where class struggle has reached a point where the question "who rules" is being asked. In such a situation workers will have siezed or be fighting to sieze and control of the means and tools of production and the organisational institutions of the state. Democratic organisations created by the workers themselves will be fighting for control of industries and state institutions. Demonstrations and protests, strikes and occupations s will be widespread as workers use the most effective weapons available to them. Armed defence militias created of by and under the control of workers and created during the process of struggle, will be pitched against the armed might of the state. Demands will be made that simply can't be delivered without the ruling class giving up power. So the ruling classes will fight.

In this situation it is naive and utopian to expect the organs of the state to be passive or to simply fold and come over to the side of the workers. Sure, in such a situation whole sections of the police and military may come over or refuse to shoot etc but you can be damn sure that a significant section won't. And how do we know? Because there has never been a situation where the ruling class give up without a fight.

when the workers decide to take the state under its control there is little the capitalist class can do about it

That is absurdly naive. They can drown it in blood

No we don't "envisage socialism as possible without a fight for state power" - that is exactly what using the ballot box means.

No it is exactly what the ballot box doesn't mean. The electoral process is not a weapon that can be used for the siezure of state power. It is an mechanism to provide an escape valve for discontent and a tool to spin the illusion of democratic participation.

When electoral participation threatens to seriously challenge the interests of ruling elites the response is repression.
This is not abstract, turn on your TV and watch the news from Bangkok. There, the demands by the urban and rural poor for electoral transparency are being answered with bullets.

Let's say you were a Thai member of the SPGB right now, in Bangkok. What would you say to those on the streets. That they have no chance and should go away and preach abstract ideals of socialism to their friends until they are convinced? Or would you build barracades and handout weapons, send out delegates to workers calling for solidarity strikes, appeal to low ranking troops and police to rebel, call for uprisings in other parts of the country etc.

What would you say to them?

 

[Gravediggers]

If it's Trotskyists you want, then U75 isn't you're best bet. If on the other hand you're trying to cover your embarrassment at not being able to judge posters' political leanings, then you're still wide of the mark.

Louis MacNeice

p.s. what is 'spotting down'?

Just a typo and my attempt not to be too harsh on on them.

 

[dannysp]

I saw the SPGB at an election hustings, right bunch of nutters. The bloke from the platform was a classic. Started off by reading out a newspaper article from the SPGB paper from 1914 then went on to answer every question with the answer that it's all capitalism's fault. Which, of course, it is, but I think people were looking for something a tad more nuanced.

Came across as an utter crank to be honest. I see they are also ruining the p&p bulletin boards.

The hustings meeting You've referred to here was organised by the Stop the War Coalition, so it was thought appropriate to to read the SPGB's editorial on the outbreak of WW1, which illustrated the cause of that conflict and that workers were being encouraged to lay down their lives in the interests of their respective ruling classes. It called the war "the business war" and was not worth the sacrifice "of one drop of workers blood" At the end of piece the candidate said, referring to the present conflicts in Afghanistan etc, "same carnage, same reasons for carnage". Now I think that's a pretty reasonable method of making a point when addressing a meeting organised by those who seek to stop war, it also demonstrates the SPGB's consistent attitude towards war.
In a following post you called the SPGB approach "patronizing", it's unfortunate that you found it so, but for some it's unavoidable because the SPGB refuses to lead anyone therefor we have to treat workers as they must be if we are to emancipate ourselves, as adults, as grown up, capable of living and thinking for ourselves.
As for nuance, we do broad brushstroke, primary colours and leave it to the critical thinking and imagination of our fellow workers to bring their own nuances.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

The hustings meeting You've referred to here was organised by the Stop the War Coalition, so it was thought appropriate to to read the SPGB's editorial on the outbreak of WW1, which illustrated the cause of that conflict and that workers were being encouraged to lay down their lives in the interests of their respective ruling classes. It called the war "the business war" and was not worth the sacrifice "of one drop of workers blood" At the end of piece the candidate said, referring to the present conflicts in Afghanistan etc, "same carnage, same reasons for carnage". Now I think that's a pretty reasonable method of making a point when addressing a meeting organised by those who seek to stop war, it also demonstrates the SPGB's consistent attitude towards war.
In a following post you called the SPGB approach "patronizing", it's unfortunate that you found it so, but for some it's unavoidable because the SPGB refuses to lead anyone therefor we have to treat workers as they must be if we are to emancipate ourselves, as adults, as grown up, capable of living and thinking for ourselves.
As for nuance, we do broad brushstroke, primary colours and leave it to the critical thinking and imagination of our fellow workers to bring their own nuances.

Well done Danny; smug, lazy, ignorant and patronising all in one post. Do you do hustings?

Louis MacNeice

 

[butchersapron]

Third persons creeping in there as well. This is quality:

but for some it's unavoidable because the SPGB refuses to lead anyone therefor we have to treat workers as they must be if we are to emancipate ourselves,

treat 'em up real good boss.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Of course they wouldn't because they know its not day dreaming and has the potential to rebound on their prized muddle thinking that dictatorship equals democracy. That is assuming of course if the trots decided to join forces with a minority of capitalists and attempted to overcome by violent means a politically conscious working class. Who incidentally are in the majority.

Quite possible in my estimate, especially when you take a look at the history of Trotskyism who are well known for taking sides in many of the worlds conflicts and power struggles.

You're a complete fantasist aren't you?

 

[Proper Tidy]

The hustings meeting You've referred to here was organised by the Stop the War Coalition, so it was thought appropriate to to read the SPGB's editorial on the outbreak of WW1, which illustrated the cause of that conflict and that workers were being encouraged to lay down their lives in the interests of their respective ruling classes. It called the war "the business war" and was not worth the sacrifice "of one drop of workers blood" At the end of piece the candidate said, referring to the present conflicts in Afghanistan etc, "same carnage, same reasons for carnage". Now I think that's a pretty reasonable method of making a point when addressing a meeting organised by those who seek to stop war, it also demonstrates the SPGB's consistent attitude towards war.
In a following post you called the SPGB approach "patronizing", it's unfortunate that you found it so, but for some it's unavoidable because the SPGB refuses to lead anyone therefor we have to treat workers as they must be if we are to emancipate ourselves, as adults, as grown up, capable of living and thinking for ourselves.
As for nuance, we do broad brushstroke, primary colours and leave it to the critical thinking and imagination of our fellow workers to bring their own nuances.

Wow. Well done, I do believe you have set a new bench-mark.

 

[Gravediggers]

I'm talking about a situation where class struggle has reached a point where the question "who rules" is being asked. In such a situation workers will have siezed or be fighting to sieze and control of the means and tools of production and the organisational institutions of the state. Democratic organisations created by the workers themselves will be fighting for control of industries and state institutions. Demonstrations and protests, strikes and occupations s will be widespread as workers use the most effective weapons available to them. Armed defence militias created of by and under the control of workers and created during the process of struggle, will be pitched against the armed might of the state. Demands will be made that simply can't be delivered without the ruling class giving up power. So the ruling classes will fight.

It looks like than in effect you are talking about a violent revolution for there is no mention of the use of the ballot box to achieve socialism. If this is indeed the case the eventual outcome will be like we said in the original quote you cited i.e. the state machinery will be victorious. We have here taken a page from Engles who said, ' the days of the barricades were over', and rightly concluded that you can't have socialism without a majority of socialists.

I think I need to make it plain that the SPGB are not a pacifists organisation , however neither are we believers in the utopian suggestion that socialism can be imposed by violent means. History records that any society brought about by violence remains a violent society.

when the workers decide to take the state under its control there is little the capitalist class can do about it

by dylans:In this situation it is naive and utopian to expect the organs of the state to be passive or to simply fold and come over to the side of the workers. Sure, in such a situation whole sections of the police and military may come over or refuse to shoot etc but you can be damn sure that a significant section won't. And how do we know? Because there has never been a situation where the ruling class give up without a fight.

Nobody is suggesting the ruling class will give up without resorting to violence, there is always that possibility occurring. However, if as you suggest there will be a significant section of the workers prepared to take sides with the capitalist class to put down the revolutionary aspirations of the majority who have legitimately taken control of the state this majority will take action by using the state towards their self-emancipation. And the significant minority would have to suffer the consequences

No we don't "envisage socialism as possible without a fight for state power" - that is exactly what using the ballot box means.

by dylans: No it is exactly what the ballot box doesn't mean. The electoral process is not a weapon that can be used for the siezure of state power. It is an mechanism to provide an escape valve for discontent and a tool to spin the illusion of democratic participation.

When electoral participation threatens to seriously challenge the interests of ruling elites the response is repression.

So according to your reckoning democracy is a fraud, "an escape valve for discontent and a tool to spin the illusion of democratic participation". Whilst I would agree that capitalist democracy has its limitations it is far from a fraud when the working class understand these limitations and the power of the vote. If at any time the ruling class decided to ignore democracy and electoral participation and responded with repression against a majority of workers with a socialist understanding they would in my estimate be unleashing a fury they would be unable to withstand.

This is not abstract, turn on your TV and watch the news from Bangkok. There, the demands by the urban and rural poor for electoral transparency are being answered with bullets.

Let's say you were a Thai member of the SPGB right now, in Bangkok. What would you say to those on the streets. That they have no chance and should go away and preach abstract ideals of socialism to their friends until they are convinced? Or would you build barracades and handout weapons, send out delegates to workers calling for solidarity strikes, appeal to low ranking troops and police to rebel, call for uprisings in other parts of the country etc.

What would you say to them?

If I were in Bangkok I would appeal to my fellow workers to not take sides in the power struggles by different factions of the capitalist class. They need our support to win their battles but rarely do they take part in the actual fighting. Why should they when the workers are only to willing to spill their own blood in the interest of the capitalist ruling class?

Bangkok does not quite fit the picture on what we are discussing here for I see no sign of the socialist message being demonstrated at all.

 

[dannysp]

OK, the democratic route to revolution.
As I see it. Communism/ Socialism is the best idea that we humans have developed, as in knowing itself to be the solution to the riddle of history, the end of prehistory, the end of a working class conditioned to be servile.
So first, at the risk of coming over as patronizing, we should know where the power in society lies, it's something that the capitalists are well aware of, it's with the working class, workers do everything necessary to reproduce capitalism day to day, workers therefor are irreplaceable, indispensable.
For capitalism to hold sway it must be seen by workers to be legitimate, it gains this legitimacy by allowing for elections to take place where workers are persuaded to vote for politicians who support capitalism, and in doing so, during the electoral process it lays on its back revealing its soft underbelly. It seems obvious to me that if you need to attack an enemy, and we do, the best place to attack is where the opponent has weakness, not strenth. The state is the public power of coercion, the monopoly of violence, so if we were to confront the state using armed force we'd be on a hiding to nothing, and in general workers loath violence and would be likely to sympathise with the state if a minority made use of it.
So again at the risk, this time of being all Utopian, what if workers in the future organised themselves within a political party, dare I say like the SPGB, with its idea of socialism without leaders proposing peaceful, democratic transformation of society, and that they become a minority of a size large enough to challeng the states legitimacy, that the state had to confront? What could the state do? It couldn't corrupt or disappear any leaders because there wouldn't be any. If it started banging up workers or suspending the democracy it claims to affirm, it reveals itself as the violent servant of its parasitic pay masters, and so looses in the eyes of workers the essential legitimacy needed for the continuance of class rule. It's buggered if it does, buggered if it doesn't.
We don't need to resort to barricades and Molotov cocktails, of confrontation with the state on the streets, that's for those interested in a 1917 re-enactment event. It's purely means and ends, if we want to create a peaceful democratic society, we must use peaceful democratic means to do so.

In broad brushstroke.

 

[Gravediggers]

You're a complete fantasist aren't you?

Would you be satisfied if I listed the worlds conflicts and power struggles where Trotskyist's have taken sides with a section of the capitalist class. Can I have your permission to start with the great man himself or would you prefer a modern version?

 

[butchersapron]

Start with Marx sure.

 

[robbo203]

When electoral participation threatens to seriously challenge the interests of ruling elites the response is repression.

Dylans,

With respect, I think your argument is somewhat ahistorical. What I mean by this is that you are projecting into a hypothetical future situation in which there is a massive socialist movement of millions of members, the kind of circumstances and constraints that prevail today. You need to approach this question of capturing the state imaginatively and with an open mind.

There might well be some violence by the state in the twilight period of capitalism. As far as I know the SPGB doesnt not rule this out and GD or DannySP might like to confirm this. However, its one thing to concede the possibility of violence, its another to base a revolutionary strategy on the premiss that the revolution will be violent. If you start from that premiss then it is far more likely that the state will use violence against you. There is an element of a self fulfilling prophecy in what you say. And if it comes to violence what then? You talk about "Armed defence militias" of workers being pitched against the "armed might of the state" but , seriously, what chance does a workers milita have against a modern well equipped army? We are not talking about 19th century barricades when there was admittedly much more of a level playing field. To wilfully take on the state today is plainly suicidal.

I think we can all agree that it would be far better that a revolution be carried out peacefully than by violence. What are the odds that a socialist revolution will be largely peaceful. I actually think they are rather good myself. The overthrow or implosion of state capitalism in Eastern Europe was very largely a peaceful affair. The only possible exception was Romania if I remember correctly where one or two thousand people lost their lives. Why did these state capitalist dictatorships collapse so easily and with such little resistance? Quite simply becaue the regimes lost their authority to govern.
All governments, including dictatorships rely on the consent of the governed. When this goes their days are numbered.

It will be the same when capitalism nears its end. The cumulative build up of a socialist movement will irresistably alter the entire social climate of opinion. Democratic ideas and forms of behaviour will be immensely strengthened and by the same token, anti-democratic ideas will wither and die out. One cannot flourish in the same environment as the other. In fact capitalist governments themsleves will not be immune to this shift in outlook but will change in response to it and in the direction that society as a whole is evolving. Socialist ideas will seep everywhere including within the armed forces whose members will be more than likely to have friends or relatives who are socialists

This makes the prospect of violence less and less likely in my opinion as we approach the end of capitalism. If the capitalist state really wanted to stop the socialist movement in its tracks now would be the time to do it - when the movement is still pitifully weak and fragmented. When the movement is powerful and the writing is already on the wall it will simply be far too late to do anything about it

 

[Gravediggers]

Start with Marx sure.

Yes even Marx sided with the capitalist class on occasion. Most notably on Ireland and the American Civil War. But I was referring to Trotsky himself with a touch of irony when bestowing the honour of great man on him. Nothing great about ruthlessly murdering your fellow worker.

 

[butchersapron]

I know what you were doing - i was undermining it.

 

[Gravediggers]

I know what you were doing - i was undermining it.

No butchers you were trying to undermine and failed yet again.