Jonny K.
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So… sadly, I think I was the most left-communist person there (well, I'm left-communist or anarchist on some things, Leninist on others, actually)… just the usual suspects, mostly; which, in Birmingham, is CPGB-ML and their associates. No anarchists or guardian readers (despite Martin Rowson publicizing the meeting on his twitter feed)…. no impossibilists (despite me publicizing the meeting in their forum, albeit with very short notice
)… so it was inevitably somewhat one-sided.But I read some Kropotkin out (without saying in advance who the author was), and the Stalinists happily approved it. So that was nice. 
Er… and, well, what I ended up saying (and I only really reached this position *as* I said it, as I was thoroughly ill-prepared) was that I thought that perhaps part of the difference over the state between ultraleft-communists/anarchists and not-so-left-communists *was* down to mutually unintelligible jargons, but part of the difference was rather more substantial.So, the – I contend – insubstantial, semantic part first. When a Marxist Leninist, say (so, a Trot, a Stalinist, a Hoxhaite, a what-you-will), says 'state', they mean 'the mechanisms by which one class suppresses by force the interests of another class'. Expressed in these minimal terms, I find it difficult to see how any revolutionary communist, howsoever left- they may be, would not agree that, following the revolution, the proletariat would have to resist violent counterrevolution from the minority former ruling class. (I dearly wished there was an SPGB member present when I came to that point; because I'm putting words into the mouths of a movement I do not know enough about to analyze with any confidence. I'd be delighted if anyone can either correct me or confirm my proposition.)However, I argued, there is another function of the state, well, another function that a not-SPGB Marxist would, I think, have to ascribe to the post-revolutionary socialist state. The post-revolutionary state (which, let's be clear, doesn't have to mean a party, a subset of the (former) proletariat – it can mean the proletariat as a whole, acting in whatever suitably democratic way it sees fit) will have to subjugate not onlly the interests of the bourgeoisie as a class, but also the interests of individual (former) proletarians. Because, in a sense, we will not yet be former proletarians. As long as we do not have sufficient automation and superabundance to permit each person to work only as much as they voluntarily will work, and only on the things that they want to work on, it will be necessary to oblige people to work (perhaps in the same way people are obliged to work under capitalism; perhaps in a different, less morally repugnant way).And we cannot, I think we (anarchists, left-communists, Leninists) would all agree, expect that such a level of superabundance and automation will ever be achieved under capitalism.So I end up at a position of thinking that this is a genuine sticking point between the two sides on the question of the state. And I cannot see how we can expect to be able to instantaneously have communism (no state, no classes, no private ownership of the means of production) under the socioeconomic conditions immediately inherited from dying capitalism.I'm sure I'm rehearsing ancient arguments that have been had often before by others between possibilism and impossibilism (or possibly just gibbering inanely). Forgive me.But yeah… on questions of power structures and organization within the socialist movement and any future socialist society, I find a lot of merit in the positions of left-communists and anarchists (I see no value in vanguardism or democratic centralism or even the existence of a party at all; and I value participatory and/or direct forms of democracy); but on the need for transitional forms of society between capitalism and full communism, I'm with the Leninists.Ah, interesting, of course, I suppose I knew that, but hadn't thought to think of that strand of anarchism as vanguardist. Yes, I'm inclined to agree. It's not necessarily the case that democratic forms are needed in our revolutionary organization if our postrevolutionary society is to be democratic (as it must be), but it seems reasonable to assume that It is the case, unless a very strong argument/evidence arises against it (and I'm not aware of any).
Yeah, I have yet to hear a persuasive argument for vanguardism, and on the face of it, it is obviously inappropriate…. It is a form that is at odds with the forms it is intended to bring about.That said, it is perhaps incorrect to say the vanguardist position depends necessarily on a belief that the proletariat, special clever vanguardists aside, can't achieve the appropriate level of consciousness under capitalism. It could be defended by arguing that in some situations… Let's say… A time-critical threat that the bourgeois state could develop authoritarian forms capable of protecting it dangerously robustly against proletarian revolution… And a majority of the proletariat is not yet won over to socialism… Perhaps then it would be correct, reluctantly and warily, to act as a vanguard, just because the proletariat hasn't yet, not because it cannot ever, achieve revolutionary class consciousness.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Is there any difference between the vanguard and the avant-guarde?'It is we, artists, who will serve you as avant-garde: the power of the arts is in fact most immediate and most rapid: when we wish to spread new ideas among men, we inscribe them on marble or on canvas;…and in that way above all we exert an electric and victorious influence…'http://bak.spc.org/subversion/utopia.htmlNot so much as offering leadership but igniting the imagination…so could we call ourselves avant-guarde socialists.Oh, I love this. I've heard this idea of avant garde not vanguard from three independent, I think, sources now, and I love it. I won't identify the other two sources or their affiliations because the idea was used in informal conversation, and I don't know how publicly they'd air the idea; but I aired it publicly (if you count a document on the CCS website as public
) in my atrociously rambly and ill justified document "Kicking a Demanding Habit". http://communistcorrespondingsociety.org/demands.html From the relevant section… "What is the role of the Left, then, at this time, if not to act as (or if in preparation for acting as) a vanguard detachment of the proletariat? Perhaps the cognate word 'avant-garde' would fit better, with its connotations less of military formation and more of radical, creative exploration." (You will note that it is phrased in such a way as to allow those who are (still) Leninist to at least have a chance of taking the idea on board, by merely gently assuming that a vanguard is not called for now, rather than that it will never be appropriate as a tool of communist revolution.)Oh, I suppose I may as well share the vague thoughts I had on this that I shared with Mike prior to his starting this thread… What led me back to this question of the intrinsic link between vanguardism and reformism, was thinking about it in relation to democracy and the will to communism*. If we want communism, but aren't busily trying to win the proletariat over to communism per se, reformism starts to make 'sense', and so does vanguardism… at any rate, if we're not about winning the proletariat to communism, and yet want communism, we have two related (and nonexclusive) options: somehow reform our way to communism kind of surreptitiously, without needing explicitly to persuade people of our eventual goal, taking advantage of the psychological phenomenon of gradual commitment; or take charge as a minority, 'advanced' vanguard, and lead the unwilling (or at least not positively willing) masses towards communism. A disregard for democracy (in a real sense, not in the sense of the bourgeois democratic forms) seems to underpin both vanguardism and reformism (given that one is communist; reformism needn't disregard democracy if one isn't aiming for something other than mere reform).So, I guess this links a third way in which SPGB differs from Leninist parties, to the other two ways. The SPGB's regard for democracy and opposition to reformism and vanguardism… I find it quite fascinating how very meaningful and interrelated the differences between impossibilism and Leninism are, in contrast, I think, to, say, the differences among the Leninists. I guess to someone within or familiar with the SPGB, this may seem rather an obvious, or at least easily intuitable point, but it is quite striking to me.
*I should note that I use the word 'communism' to refer to, I think, the same as what the SPGB calls 'socialism'. i.e., roughly (correct me if I'm wrong)… the absence of a state, and the presence of socialized democratic control and ownership of the means of production. I prefer to use 'communism' to avoid confusion with the 'socialism' of bourgeois parliamentary reformists or the 'socialism' of Leninist transition. Thanks, Mike, for asking (as you see, I have registered with the forum – I assume, given the straightforwardness of the registration process, that it's okay for non-Party members to register – so you will no longer need to be my go-between for impossibilism-related questions in future
) …… and thanks, both, for your recommendations: I've glanced through the two documents you linked to, and they look very interesting and valuable (with much that the modern British Leninist and Labour Lefts could do with listening to, imo). I'll look at them in more detail and perhaps come back with questions. Cheers!
