SWP expulsions and squabbles

[butchersapron]

I think we do need to move away from Lenin but I don't know what the alternative is.

Trotsky.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Who's got the Trotksy Death Mask at this point in time? It's like the one ring, soon as Peter Taafee gets his hands on it he'll reign over a new era of darkness that will encompass the whole of Middle-Earth.

 

[frogwoman]

God I am completely conflicted now.

 

[butchersapron]

Who's got the Trotksy Death Mask at this point in time? It's like the one ring, soon as Peter Taafee gets his hands on it he'll reign over a new era of darkness that will encompass the whole of Middle-Earth.

Andy de la tour does, and he is to be buried wearing it.

 

[butchersapron]

There's been a whole host of minorly prominent people coming out of leninist or trot groups recently and arguing that what is needed is a regroupment around a broad pluralist party that allows free discussion, fractions and all that - yet most of them, as far as i can see anyway, have got no further in their re-appraisal than reading Lars Lih's Rediscovering Lenin then arguing that the bolsheviks pre-1917 are the best example of this wonderful new creature that's needed today, in fact the examplar.

Exhibit #1

 

[audiotech]

I think we do need to move away from Lenin but I don't know what the alternative is.

Move away from organising those workers into a party who want to overthrow the existing order of class rule and exploitation you mean? The only alternative I can see to that is reformist, or worse, some conspiratorial group, substituting itself for workers self-activity.

 

[brogdale]

I have been looking a lot into critiques of Leninism in the last few days and I agree with a lot of what I have read although I think that some of the authors of these criticisms underestimate the fact that leninist parties like the SP and SWP, because they are the most visible and most organised, are able to assist in struggles most effectively and help to organise people, a lot of their members also don't obey the principles of Leninism or suspend them in certain situations, not all (or even most!!) of the SPs members for example aim to take over a movement most of the time when I've been involved in stuff we have done so because we wanted to offer people practical assistance not because we wanted to convert people to trotskyism. I've come across some people in trotskyist organisations who are basically reformists who want to create a better version of capitalism, I do not say so to criticise them but I think they are often very clever and very intelligent people.I don't think it is a bad thing that they are there at all, since it may be that their experiences and things they learn in the party etc will lead them to think that capitalism should be abolished and to investigate further and make their own conclusions and even if they don't and they are still gaining confidence in how to help themselves/others in struggles etc thats still a good thing. Equally there are quite a few people in the party that would go a lot further than its current leadership in terms of their view of capitalism. The point is that many people in trotskyist organisations don't agree with Lenin and would not do things the way that Lenin did.

The problem with the whole thing is that democratic centralism as it's practiced by most (and probably all) trotskyist parties is clearly not a good basis for running a revolutionary organisation which aims to replace capitalism with socialism from the bottom up. However leninist parties at least in the UK have been the most successful form of organisation on the left and they have often achieved a lot of good things as well as bad, they help people get confident and organise in the workplace. I do think that the point about leninist parties sometimes seeming to hold back and go through "organised" channels such as trade unions, when people who supposedly just have a "trade unionist consciousness" want to go further, is a valid one. The thing is tho what do you do? And I don't know if I have an answer to that. I would also say that a lot of anarchist organisations also suffer from a similar problem to leninism in that they want to be a vanguard and there are some people who become self appointed leaders etc.

i have read some articles etc about lenin and the whole principle of democratic centralism tho and suffice to say that the facts are very different from anything i have heard from trotskyist organisations. I am probably not the first person to mention the K-word on the thread but I have been looking into that as well and I can say that what happened in 1921 was terrible. I would say that democratic centralism in its current form needs to be changed at the very least and also that trotsky and lenin are probably not adequate figures to base a frame of reference around or to copy the mode of organising of. But what is? In some ways leninism has worked quite well and I really really dont have an answer to this. To be honest I would think that if Lenin and Trotsky were alive today many of the people I know in the SP, perhaps most would oppose what they were doing. I think we do need to move away from Lenin but I don't know what the alternative is.

Don't the SPGB do things rather differently?

 

[Pickman's model]

Don't the SPGB do things rather differently?

out of contrariness.

 

[frogwoman]

Move away from organising those workers into a party who want to overthrow the existing order of class rule and exploitation you mean? The only alternative I can see to that is reformist, or worse, some conspiratorial group, substituting itself for workers self-activity.

yeah i'm not saying i've got an answer. i dunno.

 

[frogwoman]

Don't the SPGB do things rather differently?

Yeah but they've never won any gains, they've still been saying the same thing for 100 years or something, but leninist parties have, regardless of what you think of their internal structures.

 

[butchersapron]

Move away from organising those workers into a party who want to overthrow the existing order of class rule and exploitation you mean? The only alternative I can see to that is reformist, or worse, some conspiratorial group, substituting itself for workers self-activity.

Are you suggesting that there is only one method of organising - and that any form other than traditional democratic centralism necessarily leads to either substitutionism or reformism? If so, why does this happen? And how? if not, what exactly are you saying?

 

[Pickman's model]

Yeah but they've never won any gains, they've still been saying the same thing for 100 years or something, but leninist parties have, regardless of what you think of their internal structures.

what sort of gains have british leninist parties seen? seems to me they're rather fucked, pardon my french.

 

[brogdale]

out of contrariness.

I'm not totally clued up on their motivation(s), but Frogwoman did kind of ask if they might be another way.

Just a thought, that's all.

Who is your leader?
The World Socialist Movement doesn't have a leader, and nor do any of the Companion Parties, because leadership is undemocratic. If there are leaders, there must be followers: people who just do what they are told.
In the World Socialist Movement, every individual member has an equal say, and nobody tells the rest what to do. Decisions are made democratically by the whole membership, and by representatives or delegates. If the membership doesn't like the decisions of those it elects, those administrators can be removed from office and their decisions overridden.
Only when people have real, democratic control over their own lives will they have the freedom that is socialism.

Sounds quite nice to me.

 

[frogwoman]

what sort of gains have british leninist parties seen? seems to me they're rather fucked, pardon my french.

erm at risk of sounding like a hack there was liverpool council, and a few others especially overseas such as in places like Kazakhstan etc, most of them in the UK have probably been workplace gains made with the assistance/involvement of people in the party though rather than a "victory" for the party as a whole.

 

[Pickman's model]

erm at risk of sounding like a hack there was liverpool council, and a few others especially overseas such as in places like Kazakhstan etc, most of them in the UK have probably been workplace gains made with the assistance/involvement of people in the party though rather than a "victory" for the party as a whole.

at the risk of pointing out the bleeding obvious, didn't the entire liverpool thing end as something of a fiasco, delivering redundancy notices by cab. and auld degsy's not one of the comrades now, is he?

and what the bloody fuck have british leninists got to do with kazakhstan?

 

[brogdale]

erm at risk of sounding like a hack there was liverpool council, and a few others especially overseas such as in places like Kazakhstan etc, most of them in the UK have probably been workplace gains made with the assistance/involvement of people in the party though rather than a "victory" for the party as a whole.

Fine line between raising class consciousness and reformist gains, though?

 

[frogwoman]

I was looking at some stuff about "council communists" earlier and some of that looked quite interesting. But I don't know whether it would work or what that type of organisation has achieved in practice, especially in the last 50 years or so.

Dunno.

 

[frogwoman]

at the risk of pointing out the bleeding obvious, didn't the entire liverpool thing end as something of a fiasco, delivering redundancy notices by cab. and auld degsy's not one of the comrades now, is he?

I don't think they did issue redundancy notices by cab did they? iirc that was a myth

 

[brogdale]

Yeah but they've never won any gains, they've still been saying the same thing for 100 years or something, but leninist parties have, regardless of what you think of their internal structures.

I think they'd argue that for revolutionaries there can only be one (big) 'gain'. The rest is reformist.

 

[audiotech]

Are you suggesting that there is only one method of organising - and that any form other than traditional democratic centralism necessarily leads to either substitutionism or reformism? If so, why does this happen? And how? if not, what exactly are you saying?

No to the former. I do understand that workers councils have been set-up in the past. I'm open to suggestions?

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't think they did issue redundancy notices by cab did they? iirc that was a myth

not according to the guardian

The Guardian (London)
October 1, 1985

Walk-out foils attempt to issue 90-day notices / Nalgo members protest Liverpool City Council action on budget crisis

BYLINE: By ALAN DUNN

LENGTH: 412 words

Attempts by officers of Liverpool City Council to deliver 90-day redundancynotices to 31,000 staff were thwarted yesterday - mostly by white collar unions opposed to the action.
About 3,000 Nalgo members took the day off and marched through the city streets in a 'spontaneous demonstration of their strength of feeling,' according to Mr Graham Burgess, the branch chairman. Nalgo is advising its members not to accept or process the notices.




Labour leaders of the council believe that the notices had to be distributed yesterday to clear the way for the council to resume its borrowing powers to see out the year. Members of the main manual union, the General and Municipal, who have agreed to accept the notices, booed the marching Nalgo workers.
Council officers used a fleet of taxis to try to distribute notices to more than 5,000 teachers at about 300 schools. Head teachers had earlier refused to cross a picket line of teachers at University School, where they were due to be handed batches of the notices.
A spokesman for the National Union of Teachers said: 'In some cases the notices were thrown through windows and in others they have been left in playgrounds.
'It was a rather unorthodox method of delivering such important mail, but then things in Liverpool are rather unorthodox at the moment.'
The 2,500 Liverpool members of the NUT had been advised not to accept or sign any form indicating acceptance or refusal of the notices. Over 1,000 NUT members at a meeting last night voted unanimously to endorse their leaders' application in the High Court in London tomorrow for an injunction to restrain the council from issuing the notices.
Similar advice not to sign for anything has been given to the 2,500 members of the National Association of School-masters/Union of Women Teachers, while the union awaits legal advice. Head teachers have accepted the notices, noted their contents and sent them to the National Association of Head Teachers, which is also considering court action.
The only peace move of the day came when Mr Ian Lowes, chairman of the joint shop stewards' committee and a member of the General and Municipal, was allowed to address a meeting of Nalgo's local executive.
'I explained the stewards' position and pointed out that the notices were merely a tactic to win wages for three months,' he said. 'We will call a strike in December because we will never accept members being made redundant.'

 

[butchersapron]

No to the former. I do understand that workers councils have been set-up in the past. I'm open to suggestions?

Bu that's what you actually said.

You think the time has come for setting up workers councils?

 

[sihhi]

Yeah but they've never won any gains, they've still been saying the same thing for 100 years or something, but leninist parties have, regardless of what you think of their internal structures.

Working-class people have won gains not leninist parties - unless you count FIAT plants named after Lenin working-class gains.

 

[butchersapron]

I have found some #CreepingAutonomism in the lastest issue of ISJ: 3 laudatory passages on the the operaists use of workers inquiry in this article.

 

[audiotech]

Bu that's what you actually said.

You think the time has come for setting up workers councils?

Clearly not.

My question was meant as an open one.

 

[sihhi]

I have found some #CreepingAutonomism in the lastest issue of ISJ: 3 laudatory passages on the the operaists use of workers inquiry in this article.

I don't know what's wrong with me, life is getting to my brain, but when I see something with a subtitle:
'Militant intellectuality today' I want to start laughing like a hyena.

 

[sunnysidedown]

erm at risk of sounding like a hack there was liverpool council, and a few others especially overseas such as in places like Kazakhstan etc, most of them in the UK have probably been workplace gains made with the assistance/involvement of people in the party though rather than a "victory" for the party as a whole.

So fuck all then.

 

[butchersapron]

Cohen is pimping this around: Nice Guys of the SWP. Some long term posters might remember this: SWP/novelist- call for feedback.

 

[brogdale]

Cohen is pimping this around: Nice Guys of the SWP. Some long term posters might remember this: SWP/novelist- call for feedback.

Hmmm....but he's right about not being able to 'sell this brand' any more to the students currently at university.

 

[butchersapron]

Oh, i've not read it or anything like that.