Author: alanjjohnstone
More Leninist Distortions
By Binay Sarkar, World Socialist Party (India) 1. Claim that state capitalism is socialism Lenin arbitrarily created a so-called “scientific distinction between socialism and communism”: In the Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution, written April 10, 1917, Lenin proclaimed: “From capitalism mankind can pass directly only to socialism, i.e., to the social ownership of…
An ‘Impossibilist’ Socialist?
An ‘Impossibilist’ Socialist? William Morris and the Politics of Socialist Revolution versus Social Reform by Colin Skelly In a recent article in the Journal of the William Morris Society it has been argued that the anti-parliamentary socialism of the Socialist League (SL) and Morris in particular divided revolutionary socialists from the left and led to…
Re-forming the Reformers
Further to previous articles on the Marxist Impossibilist tradition it must sound rather bizarre to modern ears that there exist political parties that do not make demands upon the present capitalist system and its protector, the State. For many people it seems common-sense that a socialist party should advocate for something right now. Labour and left-wing…
Joseph Dietzgen – The Workers Philosopher
This is an article written by Adam Buick for the journal Radical Philosophy 10. Spring 1975 . JOSEPH DIETZGEN is indeed a neglected philosopher. How many people know that he was the man Marx introduced to the 1872 Congress of the First International as ‘our philosopher’ ? Or that it was Dietzgen, not Plekhanov, who first coined the phrase ‘dialectical materialism’ ? Or…
Be Realistic: Demand the Impossible
In the previous article describing the World Socialist Party of the United States reference was made to Impossibilism. Students of America’s left history will recognize it as an outlook represented by the now defunct Socialist Labor Party, (1), extinct Proletarian Party (2) and the still going Socialist Party of Canada (3) which Larry Gambone describes in a brief history of the SPC. (4) Also…
The Return of the World Socialist Party
A socialist party that some say is a relic from the past and which has been clinging to life-support, is hoping its message can still resonate with an audience, and it is yet again attempting to sow its ideas on more favorable soil, now that American political life is showing promising signs of a revival. However,…
Money Must Go
Another depiction of how socialist society could be organised and this time an extract from a1940s book.Money Must Go was the title of a short book published in 1943. Written by two sympathisers of the Socialist Party who used the name “Philoren” (from their names Philips and Renson), it was an attempt to expound the case…
Socialism and uneven world development
It might be thought that the present uneven development of productive resources throughout the world could be brought into greater balance within capitalism itself. It might be said that as modern productive techniques have been brought into use in one place, there should be no great difficulty in setting these up in other places where…
Impossibilism 2
Anglo-Marxism The SPGB The Socialist Party of Great Britain, more popularly known as the SPGB even though, despite Militant, it now prefers Socialist Party is it by far the longest surviving political party in Britain calling itself socialist. If the SPGB has survived for this length of time it must have been because it filled…
Impossibilism 1
Impossibilismby Stephen ColemanLike other terms of political abuse which have been absorbed into our political vocabulary, the term ‘impossibilism’ tells us as much or more about the labellers as it does about the idea being described. After the French legislative election of 1881, in which the Fédération du Parti des Travailleurs Socialistes de France won only 60,000 of the 7 million votes cast, a group based around Paul Brousse and Benoît Malon began…