slothjabber
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The word “or” is very instructive.
Socialists should be a reference point for the working class. We seek to enlighten workers as to what socialism and capitalism are, and how they have no ultimate interest in defending the one against the possibility of the other, and how it is the working class that will create the future socialist society (and if it isn’t it won’t happen, it’s not like there is another route to this. What is this if not being a ‘guide’ to non-socialist workers? We seek to point out the common interests of the proletariat no matter what national specificities (indeed, the common interests of all humanity in overthrowing capitalism) and we try always to represent the interests of the whole working class rather than this or that section.
The vanguard is socialists. If you are opposed to socialists trying to generalise class consciousness, you are anti-vanguardist. If you instead try to be part of the process of the working class coming to consciousness then you are part of the vanguard whether you like the term or not.
Whatever your position on what the party ‘should’ be, the capitalists control the education and media systems. The means of the propagation of ideas lie in the hands of the ruling class, a class that also puts forward the ideas that bolster its own class rule.
There can never be a ‘mass revolutionary party’ outside of revolutionary times. To insist there ‘should’ be is just idealism. If things were different, things would be different. But they aren’t.
The revolution will be made by the working class, or it will not be made. But the working class cannot do that without a minority of workers trying to get the rest of the working class to see ‘the line of march’, the ‘interests of the movement as a whole’.
The SPGB can accuse the CWO and by implication the ICT of being ‘vanguardists’ all you like, but the fact is it’s the SPGB-WSM that believes that the party should take over the state, not the CWO-ICT. For us, the working class is the decision-maker.
In 1952, the political programme of the Internationalist Communist Party (on which the theoretical work of the ICT is based) stated: “At no time and for no reason does the proletariat abandon its combative role. It does not delegate to others its historical mission, and it does not give power away to anyone, not even to its political party.”
We believe that socialists (or communists, we don’t mind, like the SPGB we understand these terms as synonyms) should organise together to propagate socialist ideas among the working class, and to try to intervene where we can in the workers’ initiatives that can develop towards a confrontation with capitalism. This, we think, means that said socialists (which includes the SPGB in so far as they do that) constitutes a political vanguard, in line with the passage in the Manifesto, Ch2, that says:
“The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.”
While we are no longer in a position where there are ‘other proletarian parties’ that communists can intervene in, the general thrust is still pertinent: the communists are those who (more or less clearly, and we only have, at the moment, fragments of the solution to capitalism) see ‘the line of march’, and who push for the working class’s struggles to reach a point of rupture with capitalism. That for us constitutes being a ‘vanguard’ – ‘the most advanced and resolute section’ of the working class. We (socialists, not we the ICT) have come to a realisation that capitalism offers no future and that the working class is the force that can bring about a better world. Not all workers have. If you accuse us of ‘vanguardism’ then you must also accuse yourselves, for you too have come to a realisation that capitalism offers no future and that the working class is the force that can bring about a better world, in advance of other workers.
If you mean, we want to take over the state, that is not true; it is yourselves who have that conception. So, the ICT is less ‘vanguardist’ than the WSM.
As to intervention, I’m sure even with your inactive members the SPGB has more members than the CWO, so in that sense you’re probably more active, the ICT has intervened to the best of its ability in all the working class struggles going on, even though they’re mostly trapped in the union form, and where we have not been able to intervene ourselves we’ve written about these struggles both in the UK and around the world.
If anyone wants to understand the actual politics of the ICT, rather than bad-faith readings of them, I’d recommend starting here:
I like yours much better Jon. A few others are 'workers of the world, unite!' and 'abolition of the wages system!'.This text – or something like it – has been floating around for a while. Pretty sure it's been posted to RevLeft a couple of times in the last 3 years or so.
As I said in the other thread, I think it's a shame the organisers didn't allow the SPGB to have a stall. I shall come and see you outside (and the ICC too who have also been refused a stall).
steve colborn wrote:…. The Socialist Party have had a ban imposed upon them, which stops them participating in this Bookfair. They have, ergo, been banned…I added the emphasis. And I agree with you – or, rather, you're agreeing with me. The refusal to grant you stall, when you asked for it, can be considered a 'ban'. Unlike the situation last year, where you didn't ask for a stall but whined about not getting one anyway. Though to be fair, the SPGB hasn't been banned from the Bookfair in toto. SPGB members can participate by going to meetings. What has happened is that your application for a stall has been turned down. It's johndwhite that you don't agree with. He thinks the term 'ban' is not appropriate at all in this circumstance, because the 'ban' is only for this year and may (in theory) be changed in future.
jondwhite wrote:…Unless the Anarchist Bookfair organising committee are some permanent House of Lords type body full of life members or the anarchist objection to political parties so important and strictly enforced, then its probably simpler to use the term 'refused' or not to use the term 'ban' at all…Well, that's a matter for you and the rest of the SPGB to sort out. But if I run into threads on RevLeft (& facebook, etc) claiming you were 'banned' this year (ie, that the organisers refused to allow your request for a stall) I'm not going to complain. I did last year, because they didn't refuse your request, as you didn't make a request. I don't think 'ban' is the wrong term. But I think 'refused a stall' is more accurate. I don't think it's worth arguing over in this case.
jondwhite wrote:…Its been suggested the CWO also (mis)use the term 'ban' for one refusal from (even merely attending) multiple meetings, hence why probably not the clearest term to use.I still don't understand this point. In my understanding, IP and the ICC each issued statements saying that the other group was not to come to their meetings, and that's what the CWO were referring to. If that isn't a mutual banning, I don't what is.
If you want to say that you were refused stalls in 2008 (or whenever you last asked for one) and then again in 2014, then that would also avoid ambiguity. But I think your problem is not with me, here, but with members of your own party. What much of the first five or so pages of this thread are concerned with is the use of the term 'ban' on several forums by members of the SPGB, and my attempts to demonstrate that if one is 'banned' from something, one must first attempt to do it and be prevented, not just assume on the basis of a previous situation that it would not be allowed.
jondwhite wrote:You might not object to the term 'ban' but I do.Really? What do you think is inappropriate about the term? I certainly think it's more justified in this set of circumstances (you made a request, it was refused) than last year (you didn't ask because you'd bee refused some years previously), when it was repeated on a bunch of different forums by members of your organisation.
ALB wrote:slothjabber wrote:But good on you for applying. If you want to say that you were banned from having a stall this year, then I shall be offering no objection.Fair enough, but do we have to apply every year and be refused to be able to say that we have been banned? Personally, I was opposed to applying this year as we knew from past experience what the answer would be. It's clear they don't want us and we should not demean ourselves by begging to be allowed in…
Yes, I think you do have to ask every year and be refused to say you were banned. If the CWO hadn't asked they wouldn't have been accepted, so would they still be 'banned' on the basis that because it didn't happen up to 2013, it couldn't happen? As to 'demeaning' yourselves… really? Asking and being turned down isn't demeaning yourselves, it's doing what every other group does. There's no automatic right of access in my understanding. Everyone has to apply, afresh every year. Those applications are then judged. The refusal in my opinion reflects badly on them not on you. It may be true that the committee would not let the SPGB take part under any circumnstances, and if you try at any time in the next 5 years you'll be refused. But I don't see how you can 'know' that. Committee members may change their minds. New committee members may join who have different ideas. It seems to me that the best way of insuring that you have a chance of having a stall inside is to keep trying, and keep engaging with the Anarchist movement as a whole. You know this is also being discussed over at LibCom and many of the Anarchists over there, as well as those associated with the 'Marxist ultra-Left', are epressing the viewpoint that the SPPGB has a much better case for inclusion than a large number of other organisations that have been given stalls in recent years. You've already won the argument with many Anarchists. So I don't see that there's anything inevitable about a continued refusal.
ALB wrote:…i agree that they are being inconsistent in letting the CWO in but not the ICC especially since the CWO is more into the ideology and practice of the vanguard party than the ICC.Not sure that's the case really. Their views on the necessity of an organisation of communists which doesn't in itself take power seem pretty similar to me.
I don't understand what you mean. Maybe you don't understand what I mean. If and when the SPGB says it has been 'banned from having a stall this year', I shall agree that you have. Asking for something, and being told you can't have it, constitutes 'banning'. My understanding, however, is that the process is reconsidered anew every year. The CWO has managed to 'get a change of policy' on having a stall, it seems, as it has now, for the second year running, been granted a stall. Last year the KpK/Mouvement Communiste group was allowed a stall, despite (as far as I'm aware) considering itself a Marxist rather than Anarchist group (I'm not sure of the situation this year). So the organisers, I think, are not in principle opposed to all Marxist groups; nor given that some of the groups there in recent years have advocated electoral intervention, are they hard and fast opposed to electoralist strategies. But the basis on which the organising committee has made its decisions is not very clear. Why the CWO should be allowed a stall, but the ICC not, despite their politics being very similar, is not clear; why the SPGB should be denied a stall, when its politics are, in my opinion at least, and despite what some correspondents think, closer to Anarchism than the Labour Party, is not clear either, especially when organisations with less clear comnnections to Anarchism have been allowed to have stalls. But in the end we're not the organising committee. It is up to them how they organise the bookfair and who they allow to have meetings or stalls. I just think it's unfortunate that they can't seem to see what to me would be the advantages to allowing the SPGB and ICC to have official stalls.
Well, for what it's worth, I think it's a shame that the organisers of the Bookfair didn't take the opportunity to allow the SPGB a stall. I know there are going to be many Anarchists there that disagree with that decision. But good on you for applying. If you want to say that you were banned from having a stall this year, then I shall be offering no objection.
The new group – the International Group of the Communist Left – is the result of a fusion of the Fraction of the International Communist Left (a split from the ICC) and the Internationalist Communists-Klasbatalo group from Montreal.
pfbcarlisle wrote:An audio recording of the morning session of this event has now been uploaded to the ICC website -(although it's not yet downloadable as an MP3) http://en.internationalism.org/podcast/201312/9349/capitalism-deep-trouble-debate Also, their written summary of the afternoon session ends off with reference to an SPGB member's contribution – http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201312/9351/summary-afternoon-session "There exists a difference of opinion between the SPGB and the ICC on the Period of Transition. The SPGB believe that the PoT will not be as prolonged or chaotic as others think, the context of Marx believing that there will be a prolonged PoT was that capitalism had not yet fully developed worldwide, thus some temporary measures were needed to produce a modern economy which could cater to everybody’s needs. The SPGB argue that because we now have the productive capabilities to cater to everybody’s needs and the democratic institutions to achieve power it will be possible to have a swift, peaceful transition to communist society."I think this is one of the fundamental confusions that exists when members of the SPGBand Left Communists talk to each other. The SPGB of course doesn't believe that there will be a 'swift transition' to communism, because the SPGB insists that there will be a massively long process of the working class building its consciousness before such a 'swift transition' can take place. The Communist Left on the hand sees the process rather differently. We also believe that capitalism has created the productive capabilities to cater for everyone's needs, but think that capitalism will destroy a portion of this productive capacity in resisting the revolution. This will necessitate a slower transformation of capitalist to communist society; on the other hand, because we think that the working class learns to struggle in the process of struggle – rather than the SPGB's idea that the working class must first be taught correct theory by the enlightened – for Left Communists the process of revolution begins earlier.
