A Return to Kautsky and Liebknecht for the SPD?
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As we proudly proclaim, no individual or group, holds undue influence over the Party. We have demonstrated this time and time again.
We have expelled whole branches for going against the democracy of the Party and along with them some outstanding contributors to the Party but personality is not suffice defence. As we always say it is the case not the face, nor the number of times one has wrote or spoken on behalf of the Party. The will of the majority democratically prevails within the SPGB.
When we grow in numbers, of course, there will be new issues arising on expressing the views of the Party and how they are put into practice, but we have in place the democratic rules which can be built upon and adapted whenever new circumstances appear.
When the Party does grow to be a mass socialist party, as we strive to be, there will be relationships with other working-class organisations to be formed such as with trade-unions and the many one-issue reform lobby groups.
We do endeavour to become a class party (in a sense, we already are by reflecting the interests of our class), where our members are active in every aspect of social and civil life. They shall participate foremost as ordinary members of the working class but equally as extraordinary class-conscious workers who are socialists.
This will inevitably differentiate ourselves from other fellow-workers (emphasis on the fellow) and result in contending positions within the politics and strategies of working-class in combatting our masters. Once again our democratic principles safeguards the democracy LBird values so much.
Our foundation is that we are a majoritarian Party, who hold by majority decision-making whether a chess-club or community council. Unlike vanguardists, we wish to win the battle of ideas by argument and not by imposition of will upon the unwilling.
Even on this forum, to give an example, we have demonstrated these facts with LBird in person by permitting his views to be voiced without constraint or censor and we have shown its democratic process by suspending him when he has broken agreed rules as has also been done innumerable times with actual members of the Party and then lifting suspensions when the need for sanctions has passed for a fresh start once more.
How we treat LBird is how we treat all disagreements. But for sure, when numbers grow into the tens of thousands and hundred of thousands and millions, we will need to adjust the process but without breaking the democratic essence. I can’t foresee what rule changes there will be. But one thing is very clear – workers democracy (SOCIAL DEMOCRACY) is fully integrated and incorporated within the SPGB. We shouldn’t shy away from saying so. It as separated us from all other political parties.
If we are not a democratic organization why he has not been expelled from the forum ?
alanjjohnstone wrote: “Once again our democratic principles safeguards the democracy LBird values so much”
The turn this discussion (about the SPD and its lack of workers’ democracy, and the roots of that lack) has taken, shows how sensitive this issue is. Regarding the SPGB, I’ve never criticised its internal party democracy, and indeed I’ve often favourably contrasted that to the Trotskyist parties, like the SWP, of which I was a member. So, this issue isn’t about institutional democracy within the SPGB.
The problem is, whenever I’ve asked the political and philosophical question (which also bears upon our analysis of the problems of the SPD and the Second International) about ‘democratic production of our world’, the answer by the members and supporters of the SPGB has consistently been that the social production of ‘physical reality’ is an issue for an elite of ‘Specialists’ (that’s the term that has been used by posters here, not by me). This elite of ‘Specialists’ are claimed to have an elite method of ‘Science’, which is not amenable to ‘democratic controls’ by the mass of humanity (who are labelled ‘Generalists’ by the SPGB).
Thus, whenever there is a clash between ‘democracy’ and ‘science’, the SPGB takes the side of ‘science’.
The ideological seeds of this political stance were sown well before the SPGB was formed in 1904, and those seeds were present when the SPD and the Second International were formed. This ideological belief (indeed, it’s a faith) in a ‘something that precedes its social production‘, and that an elite minority only can know this ‘something that precedes its social production‘, means that the mass of humanity is forever excluded from the control of the production of this ‘something‘. If it already ‘exists‘, then it can’t be changed by producers, who must simply deal with it, ‘as it is’.
Whatever position one takes on this political and philosophical issue, it’s clearly not the position of Marx. Thus, one must account for the emergence of this anti-democratic tendency within the movement of ‘Marxism’ which emerged in the mid-19th century. Marx himself disassociated himself from this movement.
The SPD and the Second International had their roots in this anti-democratic ideology, and so it’s not a surprise to find that they never argued for the democratic control of all social production by workers, and never built a movement which had this as its aim. The thinkers of those organisations never aimed to place themselves under the control of social producers who would democratically control the production of their universe. Kautsky was open about this.
If ‘The Universe’ already ‘Exists’, and can’t be changed, then Marx was wrong, the Second International was right, and workers will never develop the ability to self-determine their ‘Universe-for-them’, their ‘Nature-for-us’. However, Marx thought otherwise. He regarded a ‘nature’ not socially produced by us humans, as a ‘nothing for us’. Marx argued in favour of ‘change’, not ‘interpretation’.
Of course, these political issues, about democratic controls over social production of any ‘nature’ that we know, are still a live issue in the 21st century.
It’s much wider than a simple discussion about ‘SPGB internal democracy’, which I’ve always praised for what it is.
The Socialist Standard also commented on the German elections of 1912 and 1919. The first, while conceding that there would have been some socialists among the members and voters of the SPD was scathing about the party as such. This was repeated in the second:
“For years we have pointed out that the Social Democratic Party of Germany – now called the “Majority Socialists” – was not a Socialist party. Its persistent support of the capitalist parties at elections, coupled with its advocacy of capitalist reforms, marked it off as merely a reform party similar to the Labour Party in this country, though it carried a Socialist name.”
It went on to say that any socialists would be found among the members and voters of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which had broken away from the SPD over its support for the war (and included Kautsky and of all people, Bernstein and, before they split to form the Spartakist League, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg). It also clearly identified Karl Liebknecht as a socialist, though critical of his attempt to seize political power for socialism without majority working-class support (though unaware that the week before the issue appeared he had been murdered).
The USPD later split, with some (including Kautsky and Bernstein) going back to the SPD and others joining the KPD, or Communist Party of Germany as the Spartacist League had become (a few, including Liebknecht’s brother Theodor, refused to join either and kept the party going for a while) That was the problem: many of those who could be considered socialists were led astray by the Bolsheviks (including for a while Pannekoek before he realised that Bolshevik Russia was heading for state capitalism not socialism) and the trend towards the growth of socialist ideas halted and reversed. The Bolshevik seizure of power put the clock back as far as the growth of socialist ideas was concerned, as those who supported them absorbed ideas that meant that they were no longer recognisably socialists.
Goodness me, another Liebknecht, one who I think very, very few ever knew existed. Next, you’ll be telling us Rosa Luxemburg had a wee sister called Nellie.
LBird, perhaps there is a sensitivity within the SPGB, and more often than not it is about not receiving the credit where credit is due. We are forever forced to correct mistakes and misinformation about ourselves, sometimes out of ignorance, many times out of malfeasance.
The Left does it best to ignore it when the SPGB says “we told you so” and ascribes its analysis to dogma and sectarianism rather than the application of Marxist materialist conception of history. That is the real “scientific” credentials of the SPGB. The left criticizes the SPGB of elitism, “the armchair revolutionaries who deign from dirtying their hands with the work of reform.”
Rarely if ever does their critique go any deeper to understand why a section of the working class refuses to engage in the political process for palliatives.
Nor did we ever subscribe to “state socialism” (disguising the intention of retention of capitalism under that oxymoronic term) as so many participants in the Left have done, and yes its roots are in the 19th C with Bismarck and Lassalle and the Erfurt Programme of the SPD.
I was a teenager when I was told by comrade that socialism was the science of generalization, not of specifics.
It was the Party who helped me to understand that we do not support sectional ownership like the syndicalists or proponents of workers councils but that our aim was to have society as a whole make decisions and that we would not impose any blueprint upon how this was to be done as the SLP and industrial unionists did, busy designing their diagrams and wheels but the SPGB insisted all of society must engage in directing production and distribution, not just the direct producers.
I was constantly reminded that it was not workers control we sought but the abolition of classes and the development of social democracy and common ownership as the means to liberate ourselves as individuals.
But it was not to us to go beyond setting out general prescriptive principles. It was not for the Party to substitute itself for the class and decide. The Party had one role, the tool of the working class for it to acquire political control by taking the State away from the ruling class. After which there was no longer any function for the Party. It wasn’t to act as an administrative body like the Bolsheviks. The SPGB dissolves itself.
I can think of nothing less elitist than that approach and nothing more based upon “workers” democracy. You can continue to place your concerns and reservations about the “Engelsian” SPGB as a reason for remaining outside of it, but i’ll be blunt – it is in no way contributing to any workers’ democracy nor the emancipation of labour from wage-slavery. The few SPGB members might not be doing much, but it is a helluva lot more than yourself. Once more, as I have done in the past, I suggest you join and start pissing out of the tent instead of pissing into it. Where you fully accept and agree with the SPGB case, then advocate and call for its recognition from your fellow-workers. We’re heading towards extinction if we can not garner more support and gather more members. Where shall we be then as workers? Any better off?
alanjjohnstone wrote: “I was constantly reminded that it was not workers control we sought but the abolition of classes and the development of social democracy and common ownership as the means to liberate ourselves as individuals.”
Perhaps this statement illustrates the differences in our understandings about both ‘socialism’ and ‘Marx’s ideas’.
You seem to equate political ‘control’ with ‘individuals’. I equate political ‘control’ with ‘democracy’.
Thus, when I ask you ‘who is to produce our universe?’, this is probably a meaningless question, as individuals just do as individuals do, according to their own lights, whereas for me, following in the footsteps of Marx, I regard this question as a social question, and thus a political question. So, the question follows – who will create ‘individuals’ and how, according to whose social plan, whose social aims, whose purposes?
alanjjohnstone wrote: “You can continue to place your concerns and reservations about the “Engelsian” SPGB as a reason for remaining outside of it, but i’ll be blunt – it is in no way contributing to any workers’ democracy nor the emancipation of labour from wage-slavery. The few SPGB members might not be doing much, but it is a helluva lot more than yourself.”
This is a fundamental disagreement we have here, alan. I’d argue that the building of a movement which has as its aim ‘democratic socialism’ must from the start ask questions about, and provide answers to them, about ‘democratic social production’. That is, ‘socialism’ isn’t about ‘free/liberated individuals’, but about ‘social production’. Marx argues that ‘social production’ is a task eternally imposed upon humanity, and I agree with him.
So, to me, whatever it is at present that ‘the few SPGB members might be doing’, it isn’t ‘a helluva lot more than’ myself (which is little enough), but is failing to ask questions about socio-historical production, the ideas that it has produced in the past, where we (including the SPD and Second International, Luxemburg and Liebknecht) went wrong.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “We’re heading towards extinction if we can not garner more support and gather more members. Where shall we be then as workers? Any better off?”
I certainly don’t think that starting from telling workers that they will not democratically control all social production (including our universe, nature-for-us, science, physics, maths, logic, universities, etc.) is the way forward. In fact, I think that this political and ideological approach is the very source of our weakness. It’s a disastrous political strategy to tell the exploited that their exploiters already have a special, ahistoric, apolitical, elite social activity called ‘Science’ which should be left in the hands of an elite, who are our betters.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. 😉
What I was saying is that socialism aspires to as Marx said “we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”…(or vice versa as I seemed to have phrased.)
Perhaps it was badly expressed
I should have been clearer and pointed out socialism ends the alienation of the individual thus liberates her or him.
I don’t know how many times in the last few posts on this thread I have emphasized the “social” nature of our case, purposefully explaining it meant all of society against those who suggest democracy was to be exercised by just the actual producers as other socialistic groups have advocated and not by everybody in the community, at all levels of decision-making. What I did not do is lay down any preconceived rules on the matter, leaving it instead to members of society to work out for themselves.
That is your answer to your question, “who will create ‘individuals’ and how, according to whose social plan, whose social aims, whose purposes?” The SPGB since it was formed has had that position. Not that the Party decides, not even this present socialists living still under capitalism but the future generation who engaged in the revolutionary transformation of society and now have the responsibility of applying its principles, depending on a great number of variables such as history, tradition, geography. Socialism is not a one-size fits-all system.
You have often said we should be “telling” workers, well, LBird, our problem is that regardless of the content of what we tell them, we have no audience to tell and despite the internet, that audience is diminishing. One reason for that decline is some refuse to add their voices to our own – You, for example.
There is no rule that as a member that you cannot have an internal debate within the Party about your position. Take another look at the membership questions. Convince more than just yourself and there is a process to make something the Party policy.
There is no rule that as a member that you cannot have an internal debate within the Party about your position.
Well yes. But with some of these interminable discussions I find it convenient to make my self scarce, while I’ve still got hair to wash.
What happened after WW1? Well, as this article from the June 1962 Socialist Standard put it, Russia put the clock back. The great majority of socialists and potential socialists were side-tracked into supporting Bolshevism, a doctrine that originated in any economically and politically backward country and took critics of capitalism back to a pre-Marxian stage and worse:
“Before 1914 Socialism had a definite meaning, understood by all who claimed to be Socialist. It meant the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution. This was accepted by the Social Democratic Parties that were developing in different parts of the world, most of whom gave allegiance to Marxism.
In these parties there were writers who made first class theoretical contributions to Marxism. Writers such as Plechanov, Kautsky, Labriola, Lafargue, Bauer, Boudin, Luxemburg, and many others. All of these people were in the Second International along with Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolsheviks. In fact, in those days, Lenin had a great respect for Plechanov, from whom he had learnt much, and he described Kautsky as one of the best theoreticians in the Socialist movement.
Where, however, they all came to grief was on the question of reformism. In theory they were sound, but on the practical side they were weak. Whilst advocating and writing about Socialism they also felt it incumbent upon them to take steps to try and ameliorate the conditions of the workers by having a lengthy platform of reforms. They also looked upon state ownership as a stepping stone to Socialism. This attitude attracted to the ranks of the Social Democratic Parties large numbers of people who were only interested in particular reforms, and had no real understanding of the class division in society or the Socialist objective. They gave lip service to the ideas without understanding them, or even being interested in them.
Had this been all that had happened, it might have been possible to rescue something out of the confusion, and spread sound Socialist understanding, after the 1914-1918 war. Particularly as workers everywhere, feeling that they had been betrayed, were in a ferment of discontent. But the Bolsheviks, by corruption, distortion, betrayal and mud slinging, destroyed this possibility, setting out by lies, trickery and distortion to politically, and sometimes physically, destroy all the parties and individuals who were not prepared to be abject tools of the Bolshevik dictatorship.”
alanjjohnstone wrote: “I don’t know how many times in the last few posts on this thread I have emphasized the “social” nature of our case, purposefully explaining it meant all of society … at all levels of decision-making. What I did not do is lay down any preconceived rules on the matter, leaving it instead to members of society to work out for themselves.
That is your answer to your question, “who will create ‘individuals’ and how, according to whose social plan, whose social aims, whose purposes?” The SPGB since it was formed has had that position.”
So, according to your answer, alan, when it is asked of the SPGB ‘who shall elect either ‘matter’ or an alternative?’ or ‘who controls science?’ or ‘how shall we create our universe?’, the SPGB answers ‘all of society’.
That is, not ‘individuals’, not ‘science’, not ‘physicists’, not an elite of ‘Specialists’, but ‘all of society’.
But that’s not the answer that I’ve been given over the last few years of asking that political question. ‘Materialists’ (who do not agree with your position) have argued that ‘matter’ simply ‘exists’, just ‘as it is’, and that we can’t deselect this concept, and replace it with other concepts, by means of a democratic vote, by ‘all of society’ deciding for itself. The ‘materialists’ insist an elite ‘knows matter’, and they can’t be argued with. ‘Materialism’ is nothing to do with ‘democratic socialism’.
ALB wrote: “…Bolshevism, a doctrine that originated in any economically and politically backward country and took critics of capitalism back to a pre-Marxian stage and worse“.
This is incorrect, ALB. Bolshevism, the notion of an elite (party) dictating to workers, the political belief that a select minority know what ‘socialism’ is, prior to democratically consulting workers, pre-dates 1917, and pre-dates Lenin.
The core of Lenin’s ideology was ‘materialism’, which he learned from Plekhanov, Kautsky and Engels. ‘Materialism’ at its core is an anti-democratic ideology (as Marx said), and it laid the basis for Lenin’s ‘elite party’ ideology, ie. Bolshevism.
And you’re right about it taking us ‘back to a pre-Marxian stage and worse’ – it took us back to 18th century bourgeois ideas, which not only pre-dated Marx, but which Marx specifically fought against, when he put humans at the centre of their creative activity. Marx argued that humanity, not god, produced their world. The ‘materialists’ of course deny this. In fact, it could be said that ‘materialism’ is simply ‘Bolshevism in Physics’.
One caveat I would place on the analysis is that the SPD’s reformism that the SPGB had warned about came to dominate in Germany, allying itself with the right to do so. Hypotheticals aren’t the most fruitful ways of discussing history but there is a BIG IF.
I’m not confident of possessing a full and proper understanding of events, i’m not sure anyone has having read a few books on the topic, but I do believe the abortive German Revolution is crucial to having an understanding. It was the perhaps a crossroads and cannot be separated from other, for the want of a better words, “revolutionary moments.” that were occurring around the world during 1918-19.
One thing though is certain, workers were not fully educated or aware of what they wanted or were seeking. A sign was how Noske, the butcher, actually got himself voted as chairman of the workers council in Hamburg/Kiel (?) demonstrating how little political consciousness existed among the ordinary participants. Another was how the declaration of the Republic was actually a slip of the tongue with Ebert a little bit worse of wear having overindulged at meal went to the balcony to announce it.
Who knows how history may have turned out if by some miracle the Spartacists had prevailed and Luxemburg survived. Something for the sci-fi writers to speculate about in alternative histories.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “One thing though is certain, workers were not fully educated or aware of what they wanted or were seeking. A sign was how Noske, the butcher, actually got himself voted as chairman of the workers council in Hamburg/Kiel (?) demonstrating how little political consciousness existed among the ordinary participants. …
Who knows how history may have turned out if by some miracle the Spartacists had prevailed and Luxemburg survived.”
I agree completely with you here, alan. In contrast to Rosa’s claim we saw earlier, workers were not fighting for ‘democratic socialism’, their own control of all social production.
But, we know exactly how the Spartacists and Luxemburg would have prevailed – in a minority being in control, because, as you say, “workers were not fully educated or aware of what they wanted or were seeking.”
Even today, ‘materialists’ do not seek ‘fully educated, aware workers’, who will be able to outvote the ‘materialists’. There is no route to ‘democratic socialism’ through an elite minority, but only through a ‘fully educated aware’ majority. Bourgeois ‘science’ denies this political belief, or the need for a ‘democratic method’ within our science.
Luxemburg was not seeking to engage in a minority revolution, LBird, and specifically warned against such. Nor would I suggest were the Spartacist League sought to seize power.
I can cite chapter and verse of her expressing her opposition to a too early challenge against the ruling SPD and her criticism of the Revolutionary Shop Stewards and even of Liebknecht for taking the bait in the trap and resisting the government and the FrieKorps.
She fully understood any attempt to take power was premature but when her fellow-workers responded to the provocations, she reluctantly but loyally took part, knowing full well it would end in failure.
But reasonable minds can disagree even when faced with the same facts.
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