alanjjohnstone
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This economic debate is also taking place within SPEW as reported by Weekly Workerhttp://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/969/socialist-partycwi-rudeness-and-revolution The Scottish protagonist of the underconsumptionist theory prevalent within SPEW being argued in various posts here http://69.195.124.91/~brucieba/
On Debs i qualified my remark with the caveat that it was my personal attitude. You are perfectly right that Debs was a reformist. Not everybody is perfect!!He explains "There is but one issue that appeals to this army the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class. To be sure this cannot be achieved in a day and in the meantime the party enforces to the extent of its power its immediate demands and presses steadily onward toward the goal. It has its constructive program by means of which it develops its power and its capacity, step by step, seizing upon every bit of vantage to advance and strengthen its position, but never for a moment mistaking reform for revolution and never losing sight of the ultimate goal. Socialist reform must not be confounded with so-called capitalist reform. The latter is shrewdly designed to buttress capitalism; the former to overthrow it. Socialist reform vitalizes and promotes the social revolution." http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1912/1912-appeal.htm Very different purpose from the aim of Trotsky's transitional demands that are frequently unachievable which of course is the purpose of them. Our attitude is that we do not oppose particular reforms that possibly produce benefits but we do not advocate a policy of pursuing them preferring instead to concentrate on publicising socialism as the immediate objective However he was not quite the pacifist you believe him to be. He was more in line with our own approach…"peacefully if possible, forcefully if necessary" See this Debs articlehttp://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1906/arouse.htm In regards to Russia he was sympathetic and supportive of it but he wisely did not consider the Bolshevik tactics could be transferred to American conditions nor should they be replicated in the US. See this Debs arrticlehttp://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1922/0622-debs-theunitedfront.pdf
I just noticed your latest comment. State and Revolution was written pre-October 1917. Judge Lenin on his actions after he took politiical power . I recommend you read a 4 – part article on this bloghttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2013/06/lenin-and-russian-revolution-part-1.htmlhttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2013/06/lenin-and-russian-revolution-part-2.htmlhttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2013/06/lenin-and-russian-revolution-part-3.htmlhttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2013/06/lenin-and-russian-revolution-part-4.html And this blog post specifically on Trotsky http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2013/06/trotting-after-trotsky.html I think we can justifiably accuse Trotsky of hypocrisy when he could still describe Stalin's Russia as a "workers state" – albeit degenerate – when workers possessed no control or power or influence whatsoever, a process originally begun with himself when he attempted to deprive the trade unions of their independence much to the displeasure of the Workers Opposition of Kollontai and others.
celticnachos wrote:"Can you elaborate on, a much earlier tradition?"The SPGB was formed in 1904 from a breakaway from the Socialist Democratic Federation. Its founding members were influenced greatly by the Socialist League which had William Morris and Marx's daughter, Eleanor, as members. The main issue that led to the split was one that you touched upon in your video, raising demands for reforms. The SDF had a programme of immediate reforms, as Trotskyists do these days. The SPGB argue that this places the demand for socialism on to the back-burner because those who wished reforms would dominate the party and make reforms the priority which would mean standing for election and becoming the government on a platform of reforms and relegating the socialist objective to the far-off future while running capitalism in the meantime and growing more and more pro-capitalist because of that. A look at history seems to prove our case, doesn't it? It was not a matter of leaders betrayal that Trotsky often blames it upon but a consequence of their principles, similar policies to Trotsky's own. The SPGB ideas spread first to Canada and then on to the USA during World War One and the WSPUS formed before any Trotskyist party or a distinct tendency had emerged , they still being part of the general Bolsheviks. The WSPUS did not support the Socialist Labor Party position on industrial unionism but many of their other ideas now over-lap with our own. The Proletarian Party of America was another organisation that agreed much with the WSPUS but differences over the interpretation of the Russian Revolution led to a parting of ways. Personally, i am also a great admirer of the Socialist Party of America Eugene Debs speeches and articles, as you can see from my posts sign-off . This is what i mean by an earlier tradition…the SPGB roots go back to a strand of 19th century Marxism, Trotskyism sprung from the events of the 20th century Russian Revolution.
Having watched your video, which is certainly well made and presented, being from Ohio, you should contact our companion party in America. Further details athttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Socialist_Party_of_the_United_StatesYou will however find that we will have to discuss and debate our differing perspectives. The WSPUS is not a Trotskyist organisation but comes from a much earlier tradition.
Jon advises "Given your age, you can bring along an adult or friends and we can show you round our head office if you arrive early."Just to clarify, the SPGB has no youth wing nor a minimum age for membership. If you can demonstrate an understanding of the socialist case as argued by the Socialist Party , you join as a full member, with the exact same democratic standing as a 60 or 70 yr old who has been a member for numerous years.
James M. McPherson from his essay “The War of Southern Aggression” in The New York Review of Books (Jan. 19, 1989): “Whether or not they owned productive property, all southern whites owned the most important property of all—a white skin. This enabled them to stand above the mudsill of black slavery and prevented them from sinking into the morass of inequality, as did wage workers and poor men in the North.” Poor, uneducated with bad schools, under-served by public services, insurance-less white southerners continue to cast votes for candidates whose agendas clearly conflict with their own self interest. Why do white Southerners ally themselves with the party that treats them contemptuously. Southerners year after year, decade after decade, support policies that don’t help them. Whites in the South overwhelmingly support right-to-work laws. According to a 2009 survey by Grand Valley State University, annual salaries for autoworkers in Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina averaged about $55,400, while their counterparts in Michigan averaged $74,500. Thompson notes that Southern blue-collar workers also have “inferior health and pension plans, less job security, higher risk of being fired for trivial reasons, and diminished safety precautions. … ” http://www.alternet.org/south-dragging-rest-nation-down?paging=off
i like the idea of the photo. May attract a caller or two when they recognise it in the street. Perhaps next time they will accept a V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masked candidate. That should raise our profile…who is that masked candidate – Hi-Ho the Lone Socialist . The website new design is excellent. Our others are in need of a much needed freshening up too but we await a volunteer. One nit-pick, why include a link to a blog that for all purposes is now defunct. i suggest it is deleted, the last post being over two years ago and since it is Canadian i don't think we will suffer much loss unless Tulse Hill has a teeming canuck population.
An extra thought comparing Turkey and Egypt . Morsi is pretty much a nonentity, his future irrelevant . The Muslim Brotherhood isn't leader-dependent. There is probably a host of aspiring Morsi's to choose from if it is decided to dispense with this one. The Muslim Brotherhood will no doubt rebound later if it suffers a set-back now. Erdogan is more a charismatic with a much bigger personal following. I'm not sure if Egypt is an actual uprising with military support, or an actual army coup….we'll have to wait and see what transpires. If elections are held soon. It seems a reverse of the original situation in Syria…a secular uprising there that the military refused to recognise as legitimate and Assad maintained control of the state despite the present exiles and mercenaries with sectarian motives now creating civil war. Without outside powers assistance and involving themselves militarily, a civil war is unlikely as in the Syrian situation. I don't see America rubber-stamping Saudi or Qatar interference when they are getting what they always wanted , a strong Egyptian Army influence.
I wonder if this link may be of interest to this thread http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/07/should-we-fear-the-end-of-work.html
Listening to the BBC World Service sometimes offers a different perspective. It appears that the army intervention is being looked upon favourably by the "liberals" and anti-Morsi protestors. They expect new elections to be held which is their primary demand and something Morsi is refusing to carry out. Morsi having gleaned much of his support from those who had no-where else to go in the last election has lost a lot of their confidence and the Muslim Brotherhood is forecast to lose votes. They got 23% of the electorate last time so nor was that a unquestioning endorsement. Who the alternative will be has not been made clear in most reports i have seen. A similar point has been made about Turkey. Erdogan has won several elections from the same power-base, conservative minded country folk rather than the more secular-inclined city urban dweller. I suppose for ourselves the question is that we can envisage social ideas changing surprisingly rapidly but what happens when a newly elected government loses popular support but the next election is some years away. Can we expect workers to sit idly by twiddling their thumbs waiting for the next election while other workers in other countries are engaged in great changes. Shall the factory worker acquiesce to the peasant? In the past i have thought of countries such as China and India as being so diverse that the driving force for them, the main power centres is just the narrow coastal strip, not the vast interior…it is there socialist ideas will develop and the uneven development theory argued by the trotskyists does have some validity but does not possess a vital role. As capitalism by-passed certain feudal societies, socialism need not include or involve 100% of the world…they can catch up later which can be expected to be very sooner than later.
"We have no freedom left. We had it when the rebels first took over in Aleppo but now we have nothing. What we have instead are countless [Sharia] committees, each following its own interprettion of religion" "We did not hope for what we have come to today. The names of [rebel] brigades tell you how people think now – names like 'Lovers of the Prophet Brigade' and so on. It is not necessary to throw religion into every corner of your life. This is killing our revolution." the influence of relatively secular activists like Lyas Kadouni, always marginal, is waning still further. Almost two years after peaceful protest became a civil war, they are still painting murals and handing out leaflets. Others, meanwhile, are taking power at the point of a gun. Even as government forces sweep into previously opposition-held towns, the rebels are fighting amongst themselves, hardline jihadis against the relatively secular FSA, a civil war within the civil war. The battle, though sporadic, seems just as bitter as that against the regime. Its outcome will determine what kind of state Syria will become if the rebels win. In the meantime, though, Sharia justice is the only kind available in many parts of Syria.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23139784
SWP do a 180 degree turn…or is it spinning in circles.http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/33754/Egypts+Revolutionary+Socialists+call+for+general+strike+until+the+fall+of+the+regime Having initially supported Mursi to avoid a possible military coup as they said in the earlier article…now when faced with that possible coup, they no longer support Mursi. Follow the party line?
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/foreign-media-portrayals-of-the-conflict-in-syria-are-dangerously-inaccurate-8679937.html “…how different the situation is on the ground from the way it is pictured in the outside world. The foreign media reporting of the Syrian conflict is surely as inaccurate and misleading as anything we have seen since the start of the First World War… A result of these distortions is that politicians and casual newspaper or television viewers alike have never had a clear idea over the last two years of what is happening inside Syria. Worse, long-term plans are based on these misconceptions…Slogans replace policies: the rebels are pictured as white hats and the government supporters as black hats…It is difficult to prove the truth or falsehood of any generalisation about Syria…it is possible to show how far media reports differ markedly what is really happening…all sides in a war pretend that no position is lost without a heroic defence against overwhelming numbers of the enemy. But obscured in the media’s accounts of what happened in Tal Kalakh was an important point: the opposition in Syria is fluid in its allegiances…The fundamentalists pay more and, given the total impoverishment of so many Syrian families, the rebels will always be able to win more recruits. “Money counts for more than ideology,”…But the government’s obsessive secrecy means that the opposition will always run rings around it when it comes to making a convincing case… …The plan of the CIA and the Friends of Syria to somehow seek an end to the war by increasing the flow of weapons is equally absurd. War will only produce more war. John Milton’s sonnet, written during the English civil war in 1648 in praise of the Parliamentary General Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had just stormed Colchester, shows a much deeper understanding of what civil wars are really like than anything said by David Cameron or William Hague. He wrote: For what can war but endless war still breed?Till truth and right from violence be freed,And public faith clear’d from the shameful brandOf public fraud. In vain doth valour bleedWhile avarice and rapine share the land. One perhaps nit-picking thing i have with the article is the assumption that the politicians are determining policy solely on media reports and in doing so are acting from ignorance…it is a slight variation of the Iraq WMD and faulty intelligence alibi. I am sure Hague and Cameron are getting accurate intel from their spies in all camps and simply write out the unpalatable truths to further political objectives.
