Permanent Revolution

Wladek on Thu 03, July 2008 @ 11:31

Wladek — 2008-07-03 11:31:27

Thanks for posting the interview!

Could you add a link to REVOLUTION (http://www.onesolutionrevolution.org) ?

Arthur Bough on Thu 03, July 2008 @ 16:58

Arthur Bough — 2008-07-03 16:58:25

A very interesting report. It would be good to get PR's take on Cirino's comments. My own view is that Cirino's position is sectarian. Throughout the dialogue here he talks about the PSUV not being a revoluitonary Party, not being a Leninist Party and so on. But the first task for a Marxist is to establish a WORKERS PARTY where none exists. Setting constraints on the programme of such a Workers Party requiring it to be revolutionary, or Leninist or whatever is sectarian. As Engels pointed out the job of Marxists is to bring together the forces of a Workers party, and then to raise its level.

Counterposing the PRS to the PSUV also to me seems sectarian. The PSUV has won the support of around 5 million workers, whereas the PRS is better known outside Venezuela than it is inside. Clearly, workers have to be conscious of the dangers arising from the role of Chavez in this development. It is necessary to oppose any moves to incorporate the PSUV, and more importantly the Trade Unions into the State. But given the large number of workers already in the PSUV that is precisely why socialists must be in their to help organise and warn the workers against such developments, to bring together the much larger forces if possible that can be the basis of an independent Workers Party.

In the meantime a report in Venezuelanalysis suggests that workers at a grass roots level are being able to utlise the emchanisms of the PSUV to further their objectives. It appears that the attacks on the workers at SIDOR were instigated by the Governor Rangel Gomez, who was slate for the elections by the PSUV, but workers from SIDOR and other factories were able to organise to get him removed.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3494

Union Militants challenge and remove right-wing candidates from PSUV lists for upcoming elections.

“Sayago, a worker from the ALCASA aluminum plant and pre-candidate for Mayor of Caroní, said the demand for Rangel Gómez’s disqualification has been endorsed by a “good part” of the workers in basic industry and especially by the workers at the SIDOR steel plant.”

I would make just a few other comments. Venezula is still a capitalist economy. I think that we should be careful about supporting statist measures such as price controls. The experiecne in Russia after 1917, even with a Workers State was not good in trying to impose such restrictions. The following account suggests that one result could already be the development of food shortages. This does not have to be deliberate attempts by Capitalists to sabotage the economy simply a normal response of capitalists and peasants to only invest Capital if the prices recieved ensure them a profit.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/26/business/control.php

International Herald Tribune article on food shortages

On the other hand it could be that anoter cause of food shortages is the fact that wages for the low paid were raised by 30% according to this article in Venezuelanalysis bringing about a sharp increase in demand that outstripped supply.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3407

Wages increased 30%

Wladek Flakin on Thu 03, July 2008 @ 18:38

Wladek Flakin — 2008-07-03 18:38:05

While I agree with your (and Engel's) comments about the central importance of the working class organizing its own political party, I don't think it's accurate to call the PSUV a workers' party.

"Throughout history, Marxists have been at the forefront when the working class has formed its own political movements and parties, even when these formations have not had a revolutionary orientation. It is for these reasons that a number of Trotskyist activists in Venezuela and internationally advocate joining the PSUV. But is the PSUV even a “workers’ party”?

Doubtless many of its members are proletarian. But the class character of a party is not primarily dependent on its members, even if the large majority are workers and peasants. The ruling classes in capitalist society are numerically insignificant, so even the most thoroughly bourgeois party will count a majority of workers and peasants amongst its members and voters.

Trotsky explained that the class nature of a party isn’t defined by 99% of the members, but rather by the party’s leadership and the class interests the party defends. As was explained above, the “Bolivarian revolution” and the PSUV serve a section of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie who want a stronger position relative to US imperialism – they need to mobilise and organise the masses to implement this project. In this sense the PSUV isn’t a workers’ party. It wasn’t initiated by the activity of the working class, but rather by Chávez and the state bureaucracy. The PSUV is a plebeian-populist party."

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1969

PR webby on Thu 03, July 2008 @ 18:51

PR webby — 2008-07-03 18:51:05

You can read more about our position on Venezuela in the latest issue PR 9.

Arthur Bough on Sun 06, July 2008 @ 15:48

Arthur Bough — 2008-07-06 15:48:02

Wladek,

I don't think you can define what is and what is not a Workers Party in such formalistic manner. It is necessay to analyse things dialectically. A Workers Party is not soemthing static, it is historically determined, and arises and develops as part of a process. Personally, I think TRotsky and before him Lenin are wrong, but wrong for understandable reasons.

Marx and Engels even after they had decided, in fact largely because they had decided, that the working class was the revolutionary class, joined the German Democrats. In terms of its ideology, and in terms of its leadership, and indeed in large part its membership, the Democrats were a bouregois Party. Some leninists argue that Marx and Engels later thought this had been a mistake. That is a fallacy. Even towards the end of his life Engels was writing to the US socialists explaining why they did that, and advocating a similar methodology. They did it because the German workers looked to the democrats as being their Party in terms of looking for solutions to their problems. They joined, therefore, in order to be able to talk to those workers, to gain their ear and stick with them. That is th antithesis of the attitude of most "Marxists" since which has been one of unreconstructed sectarianism.

The whole point as Marx and Engels set out was to act as the organised left-Wing of such a Party explaining through routine work alongside the workers why every mistake arose from the iandequacy of Programme. They should operate openly if possible, covertly if necessary to avoid being expelled or appearing as a separate Party. Trotsky himself in the 1930's in recommending joining the SFIO made the same point, and in relation to the Charleroi group even accepted that the group should keep its distance from the movement and call for the Fourth International if that facilitated that work.

It is understandable why first Lenin, and than Trotsky developed the idea of a Workers Party as effectively being nothing different from a Marxist Party. By the beginning of the twentieth century all the mass workers parties had developed as parties which adopted, at least nominally, a Marxist Programme. In fact, as Draper argues, these parties in reality owed far more to Lassalleanism and Fabianism than to genuine Marxism, and Leninism itself and its inheritors is absolutely wracked with Lassallean statist conceptions. Of course, if what you have by that time is mass Marxist workers parties why would you advocate going backwards, why would you argue for liquidating that programme in order to simply recruit a few more workers, rather the task would be to convince the remaining workers of the correctness of that programme.

But, that is precisely the point that you can't view the Workers Party statically, you can only evaluatre things from a historical perspective, from a perspective of analysing where the workers are, and in what direction is class conscioussness moving. The fact is that those conditions that existed at the beginning of the twentieth century do not exist - largely because Marxists screwed up sa a result of Leninism. Not even the situation that existed in the 1930's which could at a stretch cause Trotsky to believe that with the correct Programme and tactics the vast reservoir of working class militancy, and of class conscioussness that still existed in the leftward moving socialist parties, and centrist parties liike the ILP, and even to some extent in the decomposing and rightward moving CP's, could provide the basis for rapidly rebuilding large Workers parties with a revoluitonary Marxist politics. No one that looks at the world honestly can believe that we are in such a situation or that we are going to be in such a situation any time soon. That is what makes the calls for some new Workers party in Britain so adventurist and divorced from reality.

Iddeed, Lenin could only look to create revoluitonary parties, and Trotsky could only hope for a similar development, because of the whole history and development that had proceeded them i.e. the work of Marx and Engels and others through the First International, and of Kautsky and others in the Second International. You cannot run before you learn to walk, and unfortunately the working class again has to learn to walk, not just in Britain and Eastern Europe, but in Venzuela and elsewhere too. As Engels said the first priority is not the development of some pure Programme, but the bringing together of workers into a party they can recognise as their own. That is the precondition for making further progress.

You are absolutely, correct in terms of Programme the PSUV is not a Marxist Party. The leadership of that party has ties to sections of Venezuelan Capital, but that is true of most social-democratic parties too, given the nature of the Venezuelan regime workers have to be extremely careful about being incorporated into the State, but workers have to be wary of that with every social-democratic party too - just remember the Social Contract in Britain during the 1970's. Moreover, if you are not careful you can end up boycotting your own politics. If workers create their own Party are they to always refuse to become the Government, because that would automatically mean that workers were members of the Governing Party, that Trade Unions were linked to the Governing Party??? But yes, the natural dialectic will mean that at some point a crucnh will arise whereby the mass of the workers in the party - or else outside the party who formerly looked to it for their answers, but who now are mobilied to go beyond it - will come into conflict with the bouregois elements within that Party. Either those bourgeois elements will split, or else they will utilise their leadership position and control of he apparatus to begin to expel its left-Wing. That provides the natural basis for the establishment of a Workers Party that is not only based on the Workers and in the working class, but which increasingly develops a proletarian programme and leadership.

The fact is that neither in Britain nor Venezuela are we anywhere near that. It is necessary to stick with the workers and go through that basic work tht Marx and Engels did in establishing the basis of the First International, but today in the context of already existing bourgeois Workers Parties. To concentrate not so much on the need for purity of Programme of such Parties - though the Marxists should within their own ranks obviously seek the greatest clarity of ideas - but on the organisation, unification, and mobilisation of the broad proletarian masses. As Marx put it, one step forward of real progress is worth a dozen programmes. Or as Engels put it in relation to the US socialists,

"”….It is far more important that the movement should spread, proceed harmoniously, take root and embrace as much as possible the whole American proletariat, than that it should start and proceed from the beginning on theoretically perfectly correct lines. There is no better road to theoretical clearness of comprehension than "durch Schaden klug tererden" [to learn by one's own mistakes]. And for a whole large class, there is no other road, especially for a nation so eminently practical as the Americans. The great thing is to get the working class to move as a class; that once obtained, they will soon find the right direction, and all who resist, H.G. or Powderly, will be left out in the cold with small sects of their own.”

and,

“…What the Germans ought to do is to act up to their own theory --if they understand it, as we did in 1845 and 1848--to go in for any real general working-class movement, accept its faktische starting points as such and work it gradually up to the theoretical level by pointing out how every mistake made, every reverse suffered, was a necessary consequence of mistaken theoretical views in the original programme; they ought, in the words of The Communist Manifesto, to represent the movement of the future in the movement of the present. But above all give the movement time to consolidate, do not make the inevitable confusion of the first start worse confounded by forcing down people's throats things which at present they cannot properly understand, but which they soon will learn. A million or two of workingmen's votes next November for a bona fide workingmen's party is worth infinitely more at present than a hundred thousand votes for a doctrinally perfect platform.”

“…But anything that might delay or prevent that national consolidation of the workingmen's party--no matter what platform--I should consider a great mistake…”

Source

Engels. The Condition of the Working Class in England, Preface to the American Edition

Herein lies the difference between marx and Engels, and Lenin and Trotsky. Marxists have to recognise that we are living in times and conditions more akin to those faced by the former than the latter, and it is necessary to follow the advice they gave in such circumstances. That is the precondiiotn ofr developing a Workers Party more akin to that envisaged by the latter.

Wladek Flakin on Sun 06, July 2008 @ 20:07

Wladek Flakin — 2008-07-06 20:07:56

Thank you for the long answer, Arthur. Unfortunately, I can't answer it with an equally long reply. But I think you are ignoring a key element which ruins the whole analogy: in 1848 the bourgeoisie represented a progressive historical force. Surely the key mark of the age of imperialism is that the bourgeoisie no longer has any progressive historical role to play?

Arthur Bough on Tue 08, July 2008 @ 13:03

Arthur Bough — 2008-07-08 13:03:40

But, in 1848 Marx and Engels already saw the working class as the progressive class no the bourgeoisie. They didn't join the Democrats in order to be with the bouregoisie, but to be with the the workers. Had there been a Party that more reflected theworkers interests, and to which the workers gave their affiliation they would have joined that. That is the whole point of the section of the Communist Manifesto cited once again at the end of the 19th century by Engels, "The Communists do not estabolish their own party separate from the Workers Parties." In that context it is clear that Engels interpretation of "Workers Party" is not that settled on lateby Lenin, but that cocnept of the mass parties that at any historical juncture the workers give their support to.

How could a Marxist view that any differently? Conscioussness derives from being. The working class remains dominated by bourgeois ideas until such time as its being changes i.e. until it begins to transform the material relations of production via co-operative enterprise as Marx outlined. Until that material change is affected workers must continue to be dominated by bourgeois ideas, and those ideas must be reflected in its Party. That is why Workers initially give their support to bourgeois parties. But, the material changes that develop in society, the class struggle, the role of Marxists in explaining to workers their own development raise that conscioussness, until workers see the need for their own Party separate from those of the bourgeoisie to which they have formally been attached. The SDP arises in germany, other workers parties in otehr European countries, the Labour Party out of the Liberal Party etc. But, that same dominance of bouregois ideology still infects these parties. As Draper says, the SPD, seen as the best example, the most pure Marxist Party, itself was as much influenced by Lassalleanism and Fabianism as Marxism.

Given what I have said above I don't think that is surprising. The role of ideas and education can go only so far in trasnforming workers conscioussness. Ultimately, it is only through workers transforming the means of production - establishing co-operatives, learning to run their own lives and enterprises under capitalism that their class conscioussnes can be adequately transformed to go beyond capitalism. Trade Union struggle cannot do that ebcause as lenin himself said, it can only develop a sectional Trade Union conscioussness, not a class conscioussness. This I think is lenin's main mistake and that which later Leninists have continued. He recognised the problem of conscioussness, but resolved it in a different manner to Marx and Engels. They, recognising that being determines conscioussness, saw it as a relatively slow process, whereby social relations had to be changed in order that conscioussness changed. They believed as Engels puts it that you cannot force down workers throats that which they are not yet ready to understand. Lenin on the other hand is impatient for change, and believes that simply discontent amongst the masses is enough, provided that there is a sufficiently large, and disciplined enough vanguard. That way the issue is resolved by transforming the workers conscioussness after a transformation of their being, but the being is actually transformed, not by the workers themselves, but by a conscious vanguard that has control of the State. It is the manifestation of that same top down, statist Lassalleanism if not the Fabianism that poisoned Marxism.

Dimitris on Tue 15, July 2008 @ 03:25

Dimitris — 2008-07-15 03:25:44

comrade Arthur Bough your comments are very interesting. You advocate that the only criterion for a party characterised as a workers party is its working class base, regardless of its leadership and its policy, in the current period. So do you think that the Democratic Party in the US is such a party, because the majority of the more or less politicaly active workers vote for it and the unions support it? Secondly. Do you think that the concioussnes of the proletariat changes in a slow, progressive, linear way en masse? There is uneven concioussnes among the workers, depending in a variety of factors (education, political background or lack of it and most important experiences of strugle). Don't you think that the workers vanguard must organize in order to most effectively influence the mass of workers to adopt a winning orientation in the class strugle, and through theese victories a magority of the proletariat reach a higher level of class concioussnes? I am not saying that the vanguard organize itself in order to full the workers to support it in order to gain control of the state. Just that the vanguard has (and plays) a special role in the class strugle.

About the PSUV. I don't think we can characterize it a workers party in any sence. Until now it is a class alliance between those classes that support Chavez: workers, poor middle layers, unemployed and semi employed, poor farmers and a section of the bourgoisie and the state beraucracy. Each of these elements has its own class interests and tries to find policies to best advance those intersts. I don't think that the proletariat is or can be hegemonic in the PSUV. But the majority of the workers and poor people from the barios see this party as their party and try to express themselves from within it. Before the class strugle in Venezuela advances in a way that the workers loose their confidence in Chavez and Chavez himself and his goverment position itself in a more open way against the proletariat and the poor people, in favor of the bourgoisie, I don't think we will see masses of workers break away from this party and from Chavez. So I thing as long as there is even a small space for the marxists to try to advance a marxist programme and people who support this programme they should be doing this but they should not spread illusions that this party as a all could become a workers party.

The problem with Chirino is that by his tactics during the referendum and regarding the PSUV, he alienated the vast majority of the workers and poor people who still identify themselves with Chavez. This is not a strategy to built an independent marxist party.

Wladek Flakin on Tue 15, July 2008 @ 20:14

Wladek Flakin — 2008-07-15 20:14:13

i agree with everything you wrote, Dmitris - except for the last few sentences. the PSUV is a multi-class party, but it's not like every class fights for its particular interests in the form of motions to the party congress. the very nature of class society assures the bourgeoisie, and the Bonapartist state bureaucracy that represents its long-term interests, will remain dominant within the party.

for this reason, I disagree that there is "even a small space" for Marxists in the PSUV. all members were required to support the Bonapartist constitutional reform, accept the undemocratic structures, refrain from forming tendencies etc. - i don't think it's a coincidence that all Marxists (and "Marxists") who have joined have capitulated politically to Chavismo.

in this sense i think Chirino's positions about the PSUV and the referendum were correct and also very brave: he was willing to defend the class interests of the proletariat even when most proletarians were enthralled with Chavismo. the outcome of the referendum showed beyond all doubt that there are millions of workers who weren't alienated by his positions, but agreed with him.

i think taking up Chavista positions in order to "be with the masses" is opportunism plain and simple - what good is an independent marxist party if it adopts the same tactics as the PSUV?!? (and to make the obvious analogy: Lenin's opposition to the war in April 1917 alienated plenty of workers, but the masses came around eventually, didn't they?)

in case you missed it, here's another plug for my article on the PSUV: http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1969

Anonymous on Wed 16, July 2008 @ 00:39

2008-07-16 00:39:25

comrade Wladek I am not saying that there is a chance that the proletariat could become dominant in the PSUV by fighting for a marxist programme or by any other way, I' m just saying that the majority of workers and poor people recognise this party as their party and Chavez as their leader. Politics is always concrete, revolutionaries must advance tactics that begin from where the people is and try to bring them one or two steps closer to their programme, relating of course to their own experiences of class strugle. Organizing inside the PSUV with a clear analysis about the limitations of this party and a clear perspective to win as many workers as they can to a marxist programme is not the same as capitulating to imperialsm during ww1. Remeber Trotsky urged his followers to join socialdemocratic parties during the thirties in some countries. Chavez hasn't turned against the workers and poor people in such a way that the most important fight facing the workers now is against him and his goverment. Remember he nationalised SIDOR and fired the hateful labour minister. Maby this is astrategy on his part to present himself as a champion of the people against some corrupted and inefficient elements in his goverment, maby he is sincere, I don't know and it's not important. The important thing is that by his policies he satisfies some of the workers demands and surely he has not alienated them. The best position in such circumstances is a critical support and the fight for an independent workers movement. But in Venezuela we only have a few hundred marxists that do not have illusions for a "socialism of 21st socialism". I don't think they should establish a small sect and call the workers to join them.

Furthermore the principal strugle in Venezuela remains the fight against the big bourgoisie, the right and their western supporters. Although the strugle against the bolibourgoisie and the state beraucracy gains momentum. It was because of this fact that Chirino was wrong. The proposed constitutional reforms had many faults (I don't think that if they were adopted they would make Venezuela an authoritarian regime, but that's another matter), but the political fight during the referendum took the form of a clear strugle between Chavez and his supporters (with illusions or not)on one side, and the right and its imperialist backers on the other. The victory for the NO united the opposition, gave it a new momentum and put severe pressures to Chavez to turn to the right in order to appease them. Chirino not only did not understand that but during the campaign, he shared a platform with the leadership of the reactionary CTV, and gave quite a few interviews to media of the right against the proposed reforms, in essence boosting their position. That's why I think he alienated a lot of workers and poor people. As you know the class strugle is not waged only in the factories, by the unions, even more in a country that has more of 50% of the population working in the informal sector.

Finaly I don't think that the three million who did not vote in the referendum were against the proposed reforms, if they were they would vote for the NO. It had more to do with the top down procedure (not consulting the people as in the last constitutional reform in 1999), the furious campaign of the right through the media and the sabotage in the economy, the all or nothing aproach etc. Of course those articles that gave Chavez all those powers did't help.

Dimitris on Wed 16, July 2008 @ 00:41

Dimitris — 2008-07-16 00:41:13

the previous comment was mine, just pushed the wrong buttons and my name was erased.

Wladek on Wed 16, July 2008 @ 15:39

Wladek — 2008-07-16 15:39:02

Comrade Dimitris, I understand the idea of doing entryism in the PSUV, but I see a number of problems. It's true that "Trotsky urged his followers to join socialdemocratic parties during the thirties in some countries", but not as a long-term perspective as Grant and Woods would have us believe. Trotsky proposed a tactic at a time when these social-democratic parties had large and radical left wings that contained hundreds of thousands of workers searching for a revolutionary programme. So concretely, the French Trotskyists joined the Socialist Party as a revolutionary faction (with the agreement of the party leadership!) and has tripled their numbers by the time they were expelled seven years later. The contrasts to the PSUV are obvious: it's not just that it is prohibited to form a faction. Where is the centrist left wing? Where are the hundreds of thousands or workers trying to express their revolutionary desires through the PSUV? Let's not forget, the two semi-Trotskyist groups that joined the PSUV won a total of 8 (of 1600+!) delegates at the founding congress.

You write about the "fight for an independent workers movement", but how will that work when Marxists unite organizationally with the state bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie?

As for the content of the constitutional reform and Chirino's position towards it, I encourage you to read the interview right above your comments. It also responds to the accusations about the CTV.

While I agree that some of Chavez' policies deserve critical support, and also that his government must be defended against counterrevolution, I don't think this leads to a necessity to be in the Chavista party. That step could alienate important sectors of the vanguard (like Sanitarios Maracay and the workers of that city) who have already had enough negative experiences with Chavez.

Dimitris on Wed 16, July 2008 @ 17:49

Dimitris — 2008-07-16 17:49:40

Comrade Wladek, although you are right about the situation in the thirties and how Trotsky develepod the entryist perspective, I think it would be a mistake to limit this tactic as only apropriate for such circumstances (as in the thirties). After WW2 all the trotskyist groups in Britain entered the Labour Party and for many years, with remarkable results more or less. Surely there was not a revoloUtionary situation in the UK during the fifties or the sixties, but the mass of the workers, and the vanguard were inside the LP or voted for it. And today there is a case for revolutionaries being in Dei Linke or Rifondazzione a few years ago (I am not examining here what politics should one have inside these parties). It all depends on the state of the movement, the level of class concioussnes and of course the strength of the marxists. I understand that is much more difficult to operate in a party as the PSUV were tendencies are not permited. As for the only eight delegates, I think that's pretty much the real influence they have.

I had red the interview before starting comenting here. It is very informative. But the questions remain. It's not that it is wrong to try to unite the workers movement, so you for that purpose you may be forced to talk to reactionary people, like the leadership of the CTV. Chirino did not do just that. He shared a platform with those people during the campaign for the referendum, about the referndum, when they were openly allied with the right. Surely the political symbolism of that move, in these circumstances was not an agony about the unity of the workers movement. He does not say anything about that, or the interviews he gave to reactionary media during the campaign. I am certainly not saying that he is an agent of the right, just that he had bad politics. I think that even he is able to realise that the defeat of the constitutional reform signaled a major victory for the right.

Finaly I m not saying that it is an absolute necessity to be in the PSUV, in order to fight the right, just that it might be more productive given the circumstances. But even if you choose not to be there you must be very careful not alienate all those who are and of course not to give unexpected help to the right. In this case (and only this) the Comunist Party was more cautious about how it handled it's denial to join the PSUV.

Dimitris on Wed 16, July 2008 @ 17:50

Dimitris — 2008-07-16 17:50:29

Wladek Flakin on Fri 18, July 2008 @ 01:31

Wladek Flakin — 2008-07-18 01:31:52

Comrade Dimitris, it seems like we'll have to discuss the whole history of post-war Trotskyism and the experiences with entryism in reformist parties. I'm not aware of any truly "remarkable results" - I think Trotskyist groups were able to grow in the Labour Party, for example, but by adapting to the reformist consciousness of the workers and the bureaucratic structure of the party. So Militant had 8,000 members - hurrah, right? - but they could hardly get any of them out of the Labour Party and into an independent revolutionary organization! And I personally can't imagine what revolutionaries would be doing in "Die Linke" right now, with its membership with an average age above 60!

But as for Chirino, it's important to realize how much information about him gets distorted by the Chavistas and Trotskochavistas on the way to the English-language internet. For example, the IMT claims, among other things, that he is responsible for Sanitarios de Maracay not being nationalized! So I'd be careful with the impression that he conducted a joint campaign with the right against the referendum – just see the statement here: http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1811

UIT comrades pointed out that he can debate on a platform with a CTV representative - as a trade union leader he has to "share a platform" with capitalists all the time!

Finally, I think the CCURA was more than careful about the PSUV: "we need to stay open to the possibility of participating, comrades can make their own experiences, etc. etc." In fact, I think they tended towards spreading illusions in this bourgeois-nationalist party!

Dimitris on Sat 19, July 2008 @ 13:28

Dimitris — 2008-07-19 13:28:18

" And I personally can't imagine what revolutionaries would be doing in "Die Linke" right now, with its membership with an average age above 60!" This is the best situation one can imagine. The young and disciplaned cadres of a trotskyist organization in a party like this could gain the leadersip by simpy waiting and letting nature take its course!!!

I' m joking of course. About the entryism, I was not refering particularily to the Militant. They had a pabloist interpretation of a "sui generis entryism". they actualy believed that they could gain the leadersip of the LP and by nationalising the "200 monopolies" would abolish capitalism in Britain.

Anyway every tactics has its dangers. I personaly don't feel very comfortable to point to the venezuelan revolutionaries what to do, but I would like to find out more about the situation there, so if you have more information...

Arthur Bough on Sat 19, July 2008 @ 19:55

Arthur Bough — 2008-07-19 19:55:21

Comrade Dimitris,

“You advocate that the only criterion for a party characterised as a workers party is its working class base, regardless of its leadership and its policy, in the current period.”

If you read carefully, you will see this is not EXACTLY what I said. What I said was that you can only understand the term “Workers Party” dialectically, and not formalistically. What the Workers Party is changes over time, precisely because its development is a process. Take the Labour Party and the Liberal Party at the point at which the Labour party was being created. The Liberal Party still attracted more votes than the infant LP, I’m not sure about actual membership. But, a marxist views this dialectically. At the time it was clear that the working class was moving TOWARDS the LP, TOWARDS recognition of the need for a Party which was more exclusively ITS party than was the Liberal Party. Under those conditions I would have no difficulty in recognising the inevitability of that process, and recognising the LP not the Liberals as the Workers Party. The point is that at the present time we see no such process of development away from the LP, and towards a new Workers Party. But, in large part and for the purpose of elaboration I will go along with your statement.

“So do you think that the Democratic Party in the US is such a party, because the majority of the more or less politicaly active workers vote for it and the unions support it?”

In the context of what I have set out above, yes. For the same reasons that marx and Engels joined the German Democrats, I would currently join the US Democrats, and seek within it to mobilise rank and file workers both within the Party, and by using its authority, structures and resources, more importantly in the workers communities, and workplaces. I would seek to mobilise them not on the basis of electoralism, but on the basis of their own colelctive self-activity as Marx advised in the Critique of the Gotha Programme.

“Secondly. Do you think that the concioussnes of the proletariat changes in a slow, progressive, linear way en masse?”

No, I do not believe that. As Engels said in his letter to Bloch the process is far more individualistic and complex. However, what I do believe, along with Marx and Engels, is that Socialism can only be achieved through the “Winning of the Battle of Democracy”, and that again as Engels said, it is vital that the class moves as a class. I think the concept of vanguardism contained within Leninism is elitist, and dangerous. I do not deny or decry the existence or role of a vanguard, I simply believe that Marxists have to be wary of attempts to substitute the vanguard for the class, and thereby have to differentiate between a revoluitonary conscioussness within the class (i.e. a recognition that things can’t continue in the old way), for a socialist class conscioussness (i.e. the recognition not just that things need to change, but what they need to change to, and the ability to know how to achieve that).

Lenin and Trotsky both argued that in order to make a succesful revolution it was not necessary to have the majority behind you, only that the majority did not oppose you. That was the case in Russia. What they said was true, but carrying through a successful revoluiton to destroy the old is not the same as creating the condiitons for building the new. That does require the active involvement of the vast majority. The absence of that, and the absence of the material conditions for that in Russia was the major cause of the revolution being deformed from the beginning, for the ability of the burueaucracy to rise up as a Bonapartist clique, and for the ultimate defeat of the Revolution.

“Don't you think that the workers vanguard must organize in order to most effectively influence the mass of workers to adopt a winning orientation in the class strugle, and through theese victories a magority of the proletariat reach a higher level of class concioussnes? I am not saying that the vanguard organize itself in order to full the workers to support it in order to gain control of the state. Just that the vanguard has (and plays) a special role in the class strugle.”

Absolutely, but in order for the vanguard to do that it must remain in contact with the mass of the class, not arbitrarily separate itself from them. That is my whole point.

On the PSUV. I have no doubt that this Party contains other class elements. So does, and always has the LP in Britain, and pretty much all the Social Democratic Parties that grew up at the end of the 19th century. They are bouregois workers parties. That is no reason for Marxists not to recognise them as the parties that the class currently affiliates to, and consequently to which the marxists must direct their efforts. Engels once said that workers representation in Parliament was an index of the level of workers class conscioussness. I’m not sure with experience we can say that is correct. Rather I would say that the degree to which the Workers Party tends towards a more adequate Marxist Programme is an index of such development – PROVIDED THAT this party really is a Workers Party i.e. is the Party to which the mass of workers give their affiliation, their votes etc. But, what that means is that the material conditions on which those class ideas rest also has to be sufficiently developed – i.e. that is why Marx and Engels argued not for waiting for the revoluiton, but for workers establishing ownership of the means of production NOW, through the establishment of Co-operatives, not as some isolated utopian schemas, but as joined up, integrated elements of workers power, and class struggle. Without that change in the material base the working class can never go beyond that revoluiotnary conscioussness I spoke of earlier – which is merely a negative conscioussness – and the necessary batlle of democracy can never be won, making socialism impossible. The process is dialectical. Marxists help workers organise, workers learn the need for workers ownership of the means of production and establish co-operatives, this change in the material base itself acts back on workers conscioussness, and so on. At a certain point quantity turns into quality.

There are clearly dangers with the PSUV, but the example I have quoted elsewhere about the ability of the SIDOR workers to intevene in the PSUV slate formation to deselect Rangel Gomez shows precisely why Marxists have to be participating in this process. At some point workers probably will have to split from the PSUV to create an indpendent Workers Party, but the route to that for now runs through the PSUV not outside it.

Arthur Bough on Sat 19, July 2008 @ 20:08

Arthur Bough — 2008-07-19 20:08:06

Reply to Wladek,

Of course you are right that Marxists should not simply liquidate their positions in order to be members of the PSUV. But, I do not believe they have to. Incidentally, I don't think many Venezuelan workers have even heard of Cirino, let alone agreed with him over the referendum. Trotsky, argued that the Belgian section did not have to proclaim the idea of the Fourth International, because it would compromise them in the Socialist Party. Both Lenin and Trotsky argued that it was necessary to act accordingly within such parties so as to be able to carry out work. Lenin and the other Marxists at the end of the 19th century wrote even theoretical works in a form of code avoiding marx's name, and the term Marxism in order to get around the problem of censorship. Engels said that he and Marx and their followers had found that it was possible to work in the workers parties openly, and even as an openly organised group. But, the implication of what he was saying was that if necessary you operate not so openly.

Why make a fetish of wearing your heart on your sleeve in these matters. It is not a matter of principle. The point is to work with the masses, to remain with them, and to find ways around any form of control and censorship in order to do so. Moreoever, as I have said previously the example of the SIDOR workers shows that it is possible for workers to exercise their influence from the rank and file of the Party. It is certainly the case that if workers are to form a separate party the road to it will run through the PSUV, and a recognition by the mass of workers currently attracted to it, of the need for such a Party.

Arthur Bough on Sat 19, July 2008 @ 20:34

Arthur Bough — 2008-07-19 20:34:57

Comrade Wladek,

You are right that Trotsky advised the Entrist tactic as precisely that a tactic. Personally, I think that was wrong, and for the same reason that I think Lenin’s decision to split the Workers Movement was wrong. However, let us look at the facts and examine the situation dialectically rather than formally. As Trotsky put it the essence of dialectics is the recognition that the truth is always concrete. When Lenin split the Workers Movement there had been a catastrophic event. Literally, millions of workers who had been organised in Parties that nominally adhered to a Marxist programme had capitulated to bourgeois nationalism in WWI. A revolution had succeeded in Russia, led by Marxists that rejected that had stood against that capitulation, and had dissected the fundamental cause of that capitulation in the ideology of those Parties. Lenin and the other revolutionaries – indeed all Marxists at the time believed that capitalism had come to the end of its rope and socialism was imminent.

On the basis of that was his decision understandable even if wrong? In my opinion absolutely. The fact that daily tens of thousands, indeed millions, of workers were coming over to the banner of the Third International – even though in fact they did not in the most part change their ideas – must have made that decision look to be the correct one. Had the world actually gone through a period of revolution rather than reaction in the following two decades it probably would have been right. It didn’t largely for the reasons I have set out above.

What then of Trotsky. In the 1930’s there remained large – indeed compared with today huge – Parties which even in their Socialist guise were nominally Marxist, not to mention millions more in the Communist Parties. Still convinced that capitalism could no longer expand, Trotsky was still of the opinion that this was a revolutionary epoch, and that the working class would create revolutionary parties. If we look at the organisations of the Trotskyists of the time, they were far more substantial than those of today, there implantation in the class far more established than today. It is just about still credible at that time to see things from Trotsky’s Leninist perspective, and see a process which leads to these parties having the same kind of development that the Communist Parties did in 1920.

But, no one can realistically see such a process unfolding at the present time. The large workers parties no longer call themselves Marxist even, those parties are a shadow of their former selves, the Communist parties have simply disappeared, and the Trotskyist organisations amount themselves to perhaps no more than one hundredth of their past size. At the same time the workers movement itself has regressed terribly. In the 1930’s there were workers reading groups and so on, and still a thirst for knowledge amongst many ordinary workers. None of that exists today.

For those reasons trying to apply the ideas and methods of Lenin and Trotsky to today are meaningless in this respect. Rather we are at a point in history far more like that which Marx and Engels faced around 1860. The task that faces Marxists is to do that basic work that Marx and Engels did back them of building workers unity, of forging again the basic units of class struggle, and as they put it to set up no separate parties from the workers parties, not to try to force workers to accept ideas they cannot yet understand.

Arthur Bough on Sat 19, July 2008 @ 20:58

Arthur Bough — 2008-07-19 20:58:44

The problem with the Militant was not the Entrist tactic, but its politics, which were a mixture of sectarianism, opportunism, bouregois nationalism, and statism.

On the one hand they were sectarian because they saw their role as being simply to build their own organisation. They acted like a leach on the LP - but in that they were little different than any other Entrist group. Had they followed the advice of Marx and Engels, and seen their role not as a separate Party, but as the organised left-Wing of the Party they would have been more succesful, the LP would have developed more to the left, and it would have been much more difficult for the burueacracy to expel them.

As for they couldn't get the majority of their members out, I am led to say "so what". As the experience sicne has shown all those groups which stood aside from the LP have gone downhill. The only point in getting your members out is if there has arisen such a situation in which the working class is clamouring for a new Party. If only that were the case!

The Militant were sectarian in relation to other things as well in particular to struggles over racism, sexism, Ireland etc. positing an ultimatist "The answer is Socialism" to everything - on the other hand other TRotskyist groups at the time actually bent the stick the other way collapsing into bouregois nationalism, feminism etc. and largely removed the class struggle from their politics on these issues.

I suppose it all also comes down to your view of what constitutes workingc lass politics. Given my analysis of the state of the working class and the Labour Mvoement at the present time, and particularly given my view that the original views of Marx and Engels which relied on the development of a self-active class, have been distorted by Lassaleanism and Leninism into an elitist statism, my view is that the job of Marxists is to concentrate not on that "real politics" that leninists counterpose to routine activity, but is rather to integrate themselves and their activity into that very rutine, daily life and activity of the class. It is not to worry too much about the ability to produce a paper that nobody reads, or to hold student style debates with reformist and careerist politicians or union bureaucrats which make those with the intellect to score highly and feel good, but usually achieve nothing positive for real life workers, but is rather to become directly involved in working class commmunities, addressing ourselves to the problems of workers within them and encouraging those workers to organise themselves to provide the solutions based on workers ownership and control, to concentrate on workplace activity to build small cells of activists in each workplace that can encourage the activity of their workmates and so on.

Without that activity to rebuild the bedrock of the class and the labour mvoement, you can hold as many conferences and debates as you like, they won't mean a thing.

PR webby on Sun 20, July 2008 @ 11:33

PR webby — 2008-07-20 11:33:56

hi Arthur

thanks for your contributions, but can you try to limit them to one at a time, so its more conversational? It helps the flow of the discussion. Obviously this isn't a rule only a request.

yours

PR Webby

Arthur Bough on Tue 22, July 2008 @ 16:35

Arthur Bough — 2008-07-22 16:35:22

Webby,

Sure. I had missed a number of posts by Dimitris and Wladek so there were several separate posts to reply to. It was just easier to take those posts one at a time for replying, and it meant that it wasn't one huge reply.

Arthur Bough on Tue 22, July 2008 @ 16:50

Arthur Bough — 2008-07-22 16:50:46

Webby,

Just as an aside, it would be useful if it were possible to edit your own comments, because if I forget something, or realise I have missed something, it means a separate post as is the case in fact now. Just a thought.

Also.

For more on this discussion above see my blog here:http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/dialectics-at-work.html