The Commune:Still trapped in its leftist past?
Jul 8 2009 20:21
On the Commune's response to the SWP 'Open Letter'
One of the groups to welcome the SWP's ‘open letter' was The Commune, a group that split from the AWL last year. On its website you will find, among other things, material from the Dutch and German Communist Left. At their meetings there is an openness of approach which is very different from what you're likely to come across in a typical leftist meeting.
However, their response to the SWP's latest idea shows what tradition they are still attached to. They say "We welcome the spirit of the Open Letter, and would be interested to participate in discussions concerning left unity in general, or a conference in particular." While they do have their criticisms these are thoroughly constructive. They think the way the Socialist Alliance came together is a good example to follow. They say it is similar to the NPA in France, a group the character of which "is all to play for."
An article on the European elections looks at the number of votes cast for left-wing parties and says "we get the surprisingly high tally of 340,000, which makes you think about what might have been achieved had the left got its act together over the last ten years". Basically they want the Left to get its act together and they see themselves as part of that process, with, incidentally, getting votes in elections as a target worth aiming at.
They often talk of "communism from below" and "emancipatory communism", but as long as they think that they are part of the ‘left' these words will have little real meaning.
Jul 8 2009 23:14
#2
Yes, it's clear from most of their output that there is still a lot of baggage there.
But I mean this is not surprising seeing as their leading members would have been Labour Party entryists a couple of months ago. "Left unity" is a prominent part of their media, as is other typical leftist fare like support for national liberation etc.
However, they still write some good stuff, some of which is often quite spot-on
Jul 9 2009 02:29
#3
Steven. wrote:
However, they still write some good stuff, some of which is often quite spot-on
You mean apart from supporting electorialism, national liberation and the unions?
Devrim
Jul 9 2009 06:56
#4
I was under the impression that their thinking on national liberation struggles etc had shifted recently, and that they no longer demand the right of nations to self-determination. I think thats a pretty positive move.
Jul 9 2009 07:54
#5
We ae not discounting the possibilty of further evolution, but we have to point out to them how deeply they are still stuck in a leftist outlook.
Jul 9 2009 10:32
#6
dp
Jul 9 2009 10:26
#7
ok. I think some of these things are sincere misunderstandings, some are real debates, and anyway I think it's a good thing that the politics of the group are raised for discussion in general.
First, I'd make a general point. We exercise a much less tight editorial control, and are much less centralist, than the ICC - or even, possibly, the AF and SolFed. So, for example, the fact that two people are involved in the LRC does not necessarily mean the group is committed to the LRC. The fact that someone - not a member, I don't think - writes something in an article about election results doesn't mean it is a group position. For example, the spirit of the reply to the SWP's open letter is very different from another recent article, by Dave Spencer (although, to be sure, Dave's criticisms are very different from what the ICCs would be). For me, this is how it should be: the political group as a space for debate openly and 'in front of the class'.
Steven. wrote:
their leading members would have been Labour Party entryists a couple of months ago
This simply isn't right. There are two members involved in the Labour Representation Committe; both of whom are for a break from the Labour Party, and believe that the LRC is a worthwhile space to argue ideas (in terms of a presence of organised workers, etc.). Personally, I am not convinced that this is the best use of time or whatever, but I'm not confused about their perspective being Labour Party entryism.
http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/labour-party-no-return-to-the-living-dead/
http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/leaflet-for-compass-conference-the-partys-over/
^ I appreciate these are recent, but they aren't the result of a 'turn', just of the issue being raised more sharply in recent months, hence more attention to the subject. I'd be very surprised if anyone could find an article advocating general Labour Party entryism on the site.
Devrim wrote:
supporting . . . national liberation
Steven. wrote:
prominent part of their media, as is other typical leftist fare like support for national liberation etc.
Could you say what this refers to? Particularly Steven... I can't think of a single article in our paper related to the national question in six issues.
Platform of The Commune wrote:
We are internationalists: we seek the greatest possible collaboration with communists in other countries; we build solidarity with workers’ movements around the world; we are opposed to all borders and immigration controls; and we are opposed to all forms of oppression of nationalities.
As Django says, this was changed at our January aggregate, from a phrase something like 'we support the right of nations to self determination'. We had a discussion about this. I argued that while the demand for national self determination may take on a pro-working class character in certain circumtstances, this is far from universally the case, and the last thing we want to be seen to be doing is lining up behind any third world militia which shouts about 'anti-imperialism'.do Even when the initial discussions were had on this site (there were two threads) it was made clear that this was never the intention. And obviously we wouldn't want to imply that nations constitute some sort of de-classed unity. If anyone reckons there are examples of supporting militias or papering over class questions let them find them and post them up here. But clearly national oppression is a reality, and it should be opposed.
Not to paper over differences, I think some members might still say that they "support the right of nations to self-determination", but I'm confident that this would not imply - a la many Trot groups - calling for support for anti-working class, nationalist militias. This would be a phrase arrived at through a long tradition of debate on 'the national question' among beardy academic marxists that I really can't be bothered to investigate.
There are two other big issues that have been raised - elections and the unions. I'll come back to those when I've got more time. However, it seems patently absurd to say that we "support ... the unions" (Devrim). Of course, if the ICC want to characterise everyone who doesn't agree with them on the unions using that sloga they can. But I don't see how that's consistent with a real engagement with what we've published on (for example) Lindsey, Visteon, and the City Cleaners struggles. I'd argue that the criticisms we've made have been at least as sharp, at least as detailed, and at least as clear (often more so) than any article you could find on libcom. Go back and read them, and tell me where you find this general, undifferentiated line "support ... the unions".
But like I say, I will come back and explain a general attitude to unions and elections later. I'm working on proper articles on the latter at the moment, so hopefully these theoretical gaps in our positions will begin to close a bit more clearly over the next few months.
But the objection I guess I understand least is the one about 'left unity'. From what people have written, I get the impression that this is more than an objection to electoralism (if it is just an objection to electoralism, please say).
What does left unity mean apart from that? It means seeing recognising that 'the left' is the home of numerous sincere working class partisans, and that 'the left' is the real product and expression of those working class aspirations tending to communism. Is it bureaucratic, and politically flawed? Of course. But if you think that the ICC, and the associated left-communist millieu of (I guess) not more than one hundred, to be optimistic, is going to grow by accretion to become the dominant force of ideas amongst the class... you're having a laugh. Part of the process of clarifying ideas on a wider scale will have to be changes of positions amongst the left.
It also means recognising that the walls which democratic/buraucratic centralism draw between sections of the left are wholly harmful. The suzerainty which each executive commitee exercises over their platoons generates and motivates sectional interests, and all sorts of ridiculous apparatus theory. It prevents people working together in industry and in local campaigning (which I know the ICC don't agree with, but whatever, I do). It therefore materially weakens the movement of the class. It means that there isn't even the space for debate where people with our perspectives - even ICC perspectives - can argue their views. I want there to be that space, I want there to be that room to properly contest ideas and decide action, and that is what left unity is fundamentally about. It isn't seperable, for me, from an end to the bureaucratic sectarianism of the major left organisations (which is what the letter was about - http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/reply-to-socialist-workers-partys-open-letter-to-the-left/).
Also, frankly, the ICC's rhetorical seperation of itself from 'the left' is nonsense: it is part of the left, however painful that may be. It is just a bit of the left with different positions from the other bits. Deal with it.
Jul 9 2009 11:02
#8
Interesting debate really;
I have never been to england but I can see that there is a lot of similarities in this discussion with what we generally have with turkish or kurdish leftists.
First maybe I should clarify a point about why we are not a part of left; actually posi, in one sense I think you are perfectly right when you say that "ICC ... is a part of the left". Yes our organisation is a descedant of the workers organisations dating from the communist league - if that means some sort of "being on the left" in burgeoisie political common sense... However maybe you should see the fact that it is not the ICC but the "left" who left the working class politics. It is for instance stalinist cp's which contuniuesly dragged working classes in inter imperialist wars. It is the trotskyist organisations which worked for the burgeoisie's "democratic" causes. So by mstyfing the workers by saying that 'if you die for "democracy" or "russia" you will be doing the best for your class interests' the leftists became part of the burgeoisie.
(A small note about this; I do not think it would be fair to say that ICC has seperated itself from the real left - which is communist left. A recent example; http://en.internationalism.org/wr/324/latin-american-meeting)
Then of course you also say that it is discussions, among the (maybe it can be said) rank and file people that you really care. Since I live in turkey where leftists in EVERY election call for each other for electoral cooperation and since there are every brand of burgeoisie ultra left from stalinism, maoism to trotskyism still in existance here, I believe I can share some of my experience and personal lessons I drawn;
- Whenever leftists organise an ellection campaign in unity it is because they are weak - to do this campaign themselves. However they of caurse all share a common perspective for the outcome of election; supporting kurdish nationalism. This is the perspective of the majority of the left and if you criticise that inside their meetings, you may even get killed or at least you will be beaten.
- Of course this is understandable for me. For instance whenever leftists come together to organise an antifascist gathering, this is not for discussing politics. It is for discussing the practical matters; should we beat the turkish nationalists or should we just make a demonstration.They usually hinder oral contributions of non-party people on that kind of subjects who have doubts about the "effectiveness" of these methods (!)
- I believe that you can not seperate the program of an organisation from its members. If an organisation is defending national liberation then it obviously tends to reflect this to any coalition with others it'ld be in. It does not matter how democratic a leftist meeting would look like; it is carachteristically function as a parliment. There might be some spices, some interesting colors in leftist discussions just as in the parliment (like Party for the Animals of holland). But the functioning is generally pre-determined with its emphasis on "practicality" and "conclusion". Parliments work not for clarifying problems but to make laws. Similarly leftist gatherings are arenas of shows in which different burgeoisie tendencies try to express their unity and strength through... action - which rank and file militants will show in the streets.
When I was in the university some years before -when I was not an ICC member- I was going to a trot organisation's (which is one of a turkish brand of SWP) discussion days regularly on certain historical experiences . Since I was interested with the historical topics such as Spanish Civil War these were places to intervene and express my opinions -that were leaning to communist left- for me. After discussing with me and realising clearly that they can not organise me, the leader of that group in the university one day told me that; "even you would come today's discussion it would be better if you do not speak out in the meeting since junior students are going to come to this meeting". He was clearly saying to me that you can not confuse the fresh minds that we want to organise in with our meetings...
I believe that is a clear expression of trot perspective which see nothing but a leadership problem in humanity since it is not leading the workers class.
Jul 9 2009 11:16
#9
For reference, SWP's open letter:
http://socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=18114
I think there is a bit of confusion in The Commune's programme. On an individual level, the ones I've met have been involved in solid, concrete campaigning but their "one foot in, one foot out" approach to electoralism, the left, the unions etc ends up tying them in knots and defending the likes of Corbyn and McDonnell against rank and file union members (!!!).
This contradiction is inherent in their reply, in which they effectively list a million reasons why left unity projects with the SWP are dangerous and ultimately not worthwhile, but how a couple of sweet nothings and rhetorical commitments will convince them otherwise. Seriously, do Commune members believe the SWP's praxis, objectives or agendas have changed since the SA?
Jul 9 2009 11:25
#10
posi wrote:
First, I'd make a general point. We exercise a much less tight editorial control, and are much less centralist, than the ICC - or even, possibly, the AF and SolFed. So, for example, the fact that two people are involved in the LRC does not necessarily mean the group is committed to the LRC. The fact that someone - not a member, I don't think - writes something in an article about election results doesn't mean it is a group position. For example, the spirit of the reply to the SWP's open letter is very different from another recent article, by Dave Spencer (although, to be sure, Dave's criticisms are very different from what the ICCs would be). For me, this is how it should be: the political group as a space for debate openly and 'in front of the class'.
I think that a political organisation's publication should reflect the positions sxpressed in its platform. One would imagine that a reply to another organisations open letter would reflect the positions pf an organisation. What do you mean when you say 'different spirit'? Does it mean different emphasis, or different positions?
posi wrote:
Devrim wrote:
supporting . . . national liberationSteven. wrote:
prominent part of their media, as is other typical leftist fare like support for national liberation etc.Could you say what this refers to? Particularly Steven... I can't think of a single article in our paper related to the national question in six issues.
Platform of The Commune wrote:
We are internationalists: we seek the greatest possible collaboration with communists in other countries; we build solidarity with workers’ movements around the world; we are opposed to all borders and immigration controls; and we are opposed to all forms of oppression of nationalities.As Django says, this was changed at our January aggregate, from a phrase something like 'we support the right of nations to self determination'. We had a discussion about this. I argued that while the demand for national self determination may take on a pro-working class character in certain circumtstances, this is far from universally the case, and the last thing we want to be seen to be doing is lining up behind any third world militia which shouts about 'anti-imperialism'.do Even when the initial discussions were had on this site (there were two threads) it was made clear that this was never the intention. And obviously we wouldn't want to imply that nations constitute some sort of de-classed unity. If anyone reckons there are examples of supporting militias or papering over class questions let them find them and post them up here. But clearly national oppression is a reality, and it should be opposed.
Not to paper over differences, I think some members might still say that they "support the right of nations to self-determination", but I'm confident that this would not imply - a la many Trot groups - calling for support for anti-working class, nationalist militias. This would be a phrase arrived at through a long tradition of debate on 'the national question' among beardy academic marxists that I really can't be bothered to investigate.
I wasn't aware that you had changed from the positions that I had previously read, so apologies if you feel misrepresented on that. However, I still think that from what you say the ideas on national liberation seem very unclear.
You write that "I think some members might still say that they "support the right of nations to self-determination"". To us the question of war and national liberation struggles is a vital political issue, probablely the defining one when it comes to an organisations politics.
I don't think it is a question of not "calling for support for anti-working class, nationalist militias", yet still supporting national liberation. Supporting nationalisation directly implies supporting "anti-working class, nationalist militias".
Devrim
Jul 9 2009 11:56
#11
Alan wrote:
defending the likes of Corbyn and McDonnell against rank and file union members (!!!)
If people are gonna say things like this (serious accusation), it'd be nice to have a reference... I've got no idea what you're talking about?!
Quote:
This contradiction is inherent in their reply, in which they effectively list a million reasons why left unity projects with the SWP are dangerous and ultimately not worthwhile, but how a couple of sweet nothings and rhetorical commitments will convince them otherwise. Seriously, do Commune members believe the SWP's praxis, objectives or agendas have changed since the SA?
I so far see no evidence that they have, much. I think the booting out of Rees and their diminished size has made a shade of difference, but not much more. We say "We do want to believe your call is sincere, but we need to see evidence" and "If your perspectives have changed, we can accept that: but we need to be convinced of it." If you want to assume that the sort of evidence, or convincing, we are looking for is "a couple of sweet nothings and rhetorical commitments" that's up to you, but I don't see why you would do, unless you think we're just generally credulous.
Obviously one way to reply would have been: "fuck you, you're never going to change", but that didn't seem very productive. We want to encourage SWPers to believe that something did go wrong, and that they need to work for change in their own organisation.
p.s. I hear that the CWO has published a similar article on the commune? Linx plz!
EDIT: Devrim - you mean nationalism, not nationalisation, right?
Jul 9 2009 12:24
#12
Devrim wrote:
I think that a political organisation's publication should reflect the positions sxpressed in its platform. One would imagine that a reply to another organisations open letter would reflect the positions pf an organisation. What do you mean when you say 'different spirit'? Does it mean different emphasis, or different positions?
They are both within the positions expresed in the platform. Our reply to the letter was tentative. We said we are interested in discussions - i.e. sitting down with people and talking (though since the SWP has replied to others but not us, we gather that the interest is not reciprocated). We did not commit to involvement in anything. Our letter expressed hope about the possibilities. Dave S's article did not express hope: going into detail on some of the SWP's past crimes. I'd guess that his scepticism and that of many other members borders on the view that any form of unity in action will be impossible. (EDIT: but we agreed as an organisation to write the letter, and say that we were willing to enter into further dialogue.)
I don't know whether you'd call that different positions or emphasis.
Quote:
However, I still think that from what you say the ideas on national liberation seem very unclear.You write that "I think some members might still say that they "support the right of nations to self-determination"". To us the question of war and national liberation struggles is a vital political issue, probablely the defining one when it comes to an organisations politics.
I don't think it is a question of not "calling for support for anti-working class, nationalist militias", yet still supporting national liberation. Supporting nationalisation directly implies supporting "anti-working class, nationalist militias".
Well, whatever you want to call it, why don't you start by finding articles on the site which express views you find problematic, then quoting/giving links etc?
We don't - and never have - used the phrase 'national liberation' to describe our politics as far as I'm aware. This is a phrase injected by commentators here.
Anyway, for some people 'national liberation' as a phrase simply refers to the absence of imperialism. The ICC uses it in a more extensive way than that, but I'm not - and we're not - committed to describing our politics using the ICC vocabulary. (Though I have a background of reading libcom boards and maurice brinton stuff, so I probably wouldn't use it.)
The only way to have a useful discussion about it is through concrete cases, with particular reference to the balance of class forces. For example, when the Shoras in Kurdistan in 1991 raised the slogan:
Quote:
Long live self-determination for the Kurdish Nation.
What do we say about this? A bit pointless? Maybe. But reactionary and anti-working class, such that it needs to be fought as a matter of communist principle? I don't think so.
I think that discussing these issues with the ICC is always helped if they make it clear when, in their view, their position started to be true. Am I right in saying that the ICC was for national liberation (potentially, at least) pre WW1? What changed after WW1? This should help establish the material basis of the ICC's views.
Jul 9 2009 12:25
#13
Speaking in a personal capacity, I quite like The Commune, their paper is interesting and well written and I consider two of their members to be friends and/or comrades. I think they have some interesting perspectives, and have the potential to improve (I know that sounds patronising, but obviusly by improve I mean move politically towards my own position).
I actually think their main problem is their seeming need to adopt a position on every single subject despite being a tiny new political group, and without considering whether it will be directly relevent to the work they're engaged in. Its typical of the leftist mindset, and I don't blame them - but it leads to distractions from practical, strategic political action in my view.
Still like I said I like them, and the members I know are involved in good stuff, I think they add something positive to the current dialogue about leftwing realignment that also includes among others Leftluggage.
And they're worth far more than the ICC - and I don't think they should waste too much time responding to any criticisms from that quarter.
Jul 9 2009 12:39
#14
ok, on electoralism. I think we're not going to have a proper debate here and now, because the commune needs to set out its own stall theoretically first, and at length - when something has been completed, I'll post it on these boards. I'd just make two quick points:
1. You will not find a reference to electoralism in the platform. It would be perfectly possible to be a member of the group and be opposed to electoral activity (either on principle, a la the anarchists, or as a function of an alleged 'period' a la the ICC). We do not, in other words, think it to be a dividing line, organisationally: least of all at the moment, when the question is hardly sharply posed. You'll notice that unlike most other left formations we didn't 'call' for a vote for any party at the recent elections. Most of us don't reject electoral activity on principle (some do, I think), but there you are.
2. Insofar as members of the commune do believe electoral activity to be worthwhile, it is not because we believe it is possible to take over the state and install communism from above. We are opposed to such a view. Furthermore, it would probably be widely - but not universally, I think - held that standing in elections is not a particularly good way of making propaganda. Th positive reasons are other than these: like I say, I will post something up when there's something worth reading.
Jul 9 2009 15:02
#15
It was when Durango made his latest attempt to get Unite back onside and in response, McDonnell and Corbyn were denounced for supporting the LAWA campaign. The article writer on The Commune blog called them genuine working class militants or something equally ridiculous....can't be bothered finding the quote cos I'm not really that bothered. My original point stands though: smells like leftism when you end up defending Labour MPs against rank and filers. 
Jul 9 2009 15:57
#16
Alan wrote:
It was when Durango made his latest attempt to get Unite back onside and in response, McDonnell and Corbyn were denounced for supporting the LAWA campaign. The article writer on The Commune blog called them genuine working class militants or something equally ridiculous....can't be bothered finding the quote cos I'm not really that bothered. My original point stands though: smells like leftism when you end up defending Labour MPs against rank and filers. ;)
Quote:
When it came to the agenda item on industrial disputes, reports on the dispute at Visteon, the Rob Williams victimisation and the situation on the London Buses were given extensive time for discussion. During this agenda item Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell MP in particular were also the subject of serious smears over the Visteon dispute by Rod Finlayson, who described “the so-called left-wing MP John McDonnell” whose friends, he noted, were at the meeting.
Doesn't it matter to you what the smears were? Are you confident that the attacks came from the left? Because in my experience, McDonnell has been solid when it comes to taking the right side in any industrial dispute. And Rod Finlayson is a member of the CPB, whose politics are clearly to the right of McDonnell's (and clearly much more based on sycophancy toward union leaders). So at the meeting in question, I understand that Finlayson voted against Alberto being heard, whilst McDonnell has been a strong supporter of the cleaners' campaign - including taking a public stance criticising the Unite bureaucracy.
So a rank and file Stalinist attacks an MP (or anyone else) to the left of them for supporting an extra union struggle - and it's 'leftist' to defend the person supporting the extra union struggle? Please.
Jul 9 2009 16:43
#17
Wow, when did everyone turn against leftism?
Jul 9 2009 17:27
#18
OK, let's talk unions.
The closest to a general theoretical perspective on unions that the commune has published is this:
http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/a-workers-guide-to-bureaucracy/
I wouldn't necessarily stand by every bit of it now (though I did write it), but I think it's generally accurate. Here are some reports published by us, which present analysis of particular struggles. In each case, we draw out the tensions between the union and the workers:
Lindsey, strike wave 1: http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/lessons-of-the-oil-refinery-wildcat-strikes/ (n.b. we don't necessarily agree with the conclusions of the article, but the way that the union/worker dynamics are drawn out, and the depth of research on this, make this article unique.)
City cleaners: http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/alberto-durango-i-am-for-justice-and-the-truth/
If people would like to quote and critique, that would be helpful. Just saying that we are 'leftist' because we 'support unions', and standing back is not.
The ICC's perspective on unions has aquired a surprising currency on these boards over the past year or so. I think that this is unmerited by its real depth. It's very idiosyncratic: it's not even 'the left communist perspective' or anything like that.
Here Loren Goldner, a left communist, some of whose stuff the commune has republished, discusses the unions and cocommenting on the ICC's position. This is an excerpt from an interview with SaNoShin in Korea: http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/sanoshin.html. The whole excerpt - and the whole interview - is worth reading, but I've put some relevant sentences in bold.
Quote:
LG: Well, I was about to say, in prior to 1914, in Germany and the United States and in Great Britain above all, in France to a certain extent, as the working class was growing with industrialization, it was possible for unions to form and wages to rise in a lasting way, and possibly for the workers' parties to participate in elections on some occasions, and that was the basis of the kind of gradualism and revisionism that was articulated by Bernstein in Germany. That kind of practice is impossible in contemporary capitalism. I think that has been proved both in the cases of the West that I mentioned, and it has been proved in the transitions out of dictatorship-Brazil, South Korea, Poland-that I also mentioned. Nevertheless, as I said in the beginning, I do not think the revolutionary approach to the union question is simply 'unions are bourgeois, and to be involved in the unions is to be part of a bourgeois institution'. Karl Marx in 1860 also said that unions are bourgeois institutions. And nevertheless he strongly advocated socialists, Marxists, leftists of all kinds to be active in unions. Nevertheless I think history since that time has demonstrated that the strategy of taking over unions, as is still advocated by some Trotskyists, is a dead end. Already in 1914, the unions in every country participating in World War I joined their national government and helped form almost state capitalist planning institutions in collaboration with capital. And again in World War II, the unions in all the countries, in all the bourgeois democracies, did the same thing, and were central in sending the working class off to fight in the imperialist war. And I think with the much weakened position of unions in the world today, there's no question that the same thing will happen again. So what is my strategy for the unions? It is to be active in unions where they exist, but not to do it with a unionist perspective but with a class wide perspective that points to all of the workers and other elements, other oppressed groups in society that have no opportunity to participate in unions and to involve them as much as possible in struggles. As what is happening to some extent right now with the E-land strike in Korea. One of my favorite examples is the Buenos Aires subway strike of 2003-2004, where the subway workers struck with the demand for '30 hours a week'. And demanding that the subway management hire 2,000 new workers to make it possible for everybody to work 30 hours a week. And they won! Now subway workers in big cities have a special kind of power that very few other workers have, but nevertheless I think the example is one of workers who are in unions doing things that point to a broader class orientation. Do you want me to say more about this?SaNoShin: I completely agree with your tactics. We agree that the unions are becoming more of a state institution but we also think that we have to be active in it. But most of the left communists seem to generally reject the whole idea of participating in the unions or mix it up with what the Trotskyists say, 'capture the unions'. So are there any revolutionary groups in foreign countries who have the same viewpoint as us?
LG: Well, before I get to that, let me just say another thing, in both Europe and the US, there are some Trotskyists who are now union officials at different levels, particularly in France. All three of the major Trotskyist groups have their union shop stewards and low level bureaucrats. And in America, there are in a different way, much smaller but similar kinds of developments. They tend to present this infiltration of the unions as a success for their Trotskyist program. But the reality is that these people are always elected, not because they are Trotskyist, and not because of the Trotskyist transitional program, but because they're good militants! So their political strategy is undermined by their success and their illusions about their success. I'll give a couple of more anecdotes to illustrate what I think is the abstract theoretical bankruptcy of the left communist, left communist of the ICC type. In the American South about five years ago, a chicken packing factory burned to the ground with mainly black women workers trapped inside because the management had locked all the safety exits. Thirty women were killed in that fire. And what did they do? They formed a union to force the company to leave the emergency doors unlocked while people were working. I would like to see the ICC come to a situation like that and say "No, no, , this is the era of capitalist decay, unions are reactionary." I worked for a number of years on the non-academic staff of a big American university on the east coast. I was working on the staff in the library. And there was a unionization drive, that took 15 years to finally win. A unionization drive means an attempt to form a union by the non-academic staff. The management of the university fought this unionization drive in every possible way. The union finally won in 1989, and it was considered the most successful unionization drive of white-collar workers in 20 years. The immediate result of the union victory was a 10% to 20% wage increase for the least paid non-academic workers. More important than the wage increase was that the workers were able to criticize management, talk back to management without fear of being fired as they had been in the past. Now, that's the good news. The bad news was that as soon as the union won, the university began a new strategy of slowly trying to... Do you understand salami tactics?
SaNoShin: Yes.
LG: You can't destroy something all at once so you cut off little pieces. They began a strategy of salami tactics to deeply weaken the union, mainly by reclassifying many non-academic staff members as professionals. Suddenly out of 8,000 workers who were eligible for the union within 10 years, about 4,000 of them had become managers of one kind or another, and therefore classified out of the union. And the union leadership, the same people who had organized the union, went along with this. Another anecdote, just before the final vote that brought the union in, there was a rally of the union with politicians from the Democratic party who were all supporting the union, and this included left-wing Democrats, centrist Democrats and right-wing Democrats. The leader of the unionization drive gathered all the union organizers together and said, "Now, when they give their speeches, I want everyone to applaud all the speeches because no matter who gets elected in November, we want to have a friend in Congress". In other words, "We're just a union, we're not a political organization but we want to have a friends through the parliamentary election". So the result is that almost 20 years after the victory of the union, the union has been deeply weakened by these different kinds of strategies. But nevertheless I think it would have been totally bankrupt in 1989 to say to the workers of this university, "Don't form a union. This is the era of capitalist decay. The union is merely a tool of the capitalists". The university administration certainly did not think so and this university one of the most liberal institutions in America, they could not stop the union using violence for example, because their reputation would have suffered terribly. So it was a special situation but they hated the union and they wanted to get rid of the union by every possible way. So again I just think that these abstract formulations of the groups like the ICC do not take account of these uneven, fragmentary realities of class struggle.
I did not answer your question about whether or not there are any revolutionary groups that I'm aware of that practice the kind of perspective I'm talking about. And I have to say, thinking about it, I don't know of any in North America and if there are some in Europe, I'm not aware of them. I live in New York City when I'm not in Seoul, and I know a number of Trotskyists who are members of a very small group called the LRP,the League for the Revolutionary Party. Are you familiar with them? Walter Daum is one their theoreticians, and wrote a very good book The rise and fall of Stalinism. They have a state capitalist analysis of the Soviet Union and so on. And they have some very serious militants working in the subway system and also in the municipal civil service union. They, by their militant activity and interventions, have a lot of credibility with an important minority of the workers in these unions. And they are hated by the union bureaucrats, the union bureaucrats do everything to get them fired. But because they have the support of a certain minority of workers the bureaucrats can't really get rid of them. So for example, when I want to know what is happening in rank and file labor activity in New York city, I don't ask the ICC or the IP, I ask these people because they have a very concrete experience of day to day kinds of struggle. At the same time, the LRP is a classical Trotskyist organization and as far as I know, their perspective is taking over the unions if someday that ever becomes possible. So they practice the usual Trotskyist kinds of strategies and tactics. They take a statement by the bureaucrats and say "The bureaucrats say we should get a 10% wage increase, let's fight for 10%!" And as far as I know they never raise a perspective beyond the framework of the union. But for the ICC, they are the “left wing of the bourgeoisie.” What can you say? Anyway, I think the important point is that the flaw, the mistake in their perspective is that in a situation where they would ever be close to having power in a union, there would be a broader movement, much bigger than the union, that they would have to address and speak to. That in my opinion is the flaw that if they would ever get close to power, the focus that is strictly on capturing the union would neglect all the people outside the union, outside the workplace who also have an interest in the struggle.
. . .
LG: I would describe my perspective as extra-unionism, that is be in the union, be outside the union, but your perspective is beyond the union. Extra-union means beyond the union.
For the ICC, is Goldner a 'leftist' in respect of unions? The perspective of most Commune members is not the same of Goldner. I doubt he'd call for a vote in union elections, even in the highly qualified way which we do - I don't know. However, his position does include the possibility of using unions as vehicles of struggle. He gives three examples of this. I've seen similar things. I've seen a union organising campaign lead to a £1 an hour raise (17%, that was, for many workers) for several hundred call centre workers. Were the people involved in that mere leftists?
Another example. RMT strikes on the underground. Were these organised outside and against the union, or by the union? I'd suggest that they were obviously organised by the union, through union structures, and leading militants - including, I believe, the anarcho-syndicalist guy - hold union positions.
There are two propositions it is necessary to grasp in respect of unions:
1. They are organisational forms corresponding to a particular, low, level of struggle. They are the product of this low level of struggle.
2. Functionally, they develop an interest in this low level of struggle, and act to maintain it.
But because of 1, simply being 'anti-union' is fruitless and irrelevant. The ICC stress 2 to the exclusion of 1. The nature of unions is represented simply as a cause, rather than also a product, of low struggle. So all the ICC have to say to people is advocacy of high levels of struggle, combined with refusal to engage in the organisational form which correspond to the low levels of struggle. You don't have to be a crude stagist to see why this is nonsense. Apart from anything else, it's completely idealist.
Anyway, what does it mean to transcend the union form? What level of struggle corresponds to it breaking? In fact, it's very flexible, depending on how you understand the union.
Take, for example, the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike 1936. (Farrell Dobbs, Teamsters Rebellion is the classic history.) Now, this involved running battles with the police, strikers carrying arms, daily (I think?) mass assemblies taking decisions, elected and recallable delegates, etc. Yet it was (in some sense) still within the union local, which was taken over by local Trots, basically; that is, the workers and activists identified themselves with the union local. Was this, in the ICC's terms, within the union or not? Now you could argue that the Trot leadership in some ways kept the struggle on a lower level than it might have been - but equally you could argue that this was a rational response to the risk of the national guard being called in, and the fact that the maximum effort was already being made to generalise the struggle.
Anyway, I've gone on too long. This is the bit where baboon chips in and tells us for the 47th time how the unions acted a recruiting sergeants for war in WWI.
Jul 9 2009 17:56
#19
posi;
First of all if baboon "chips in and tells us for the 47th time how the unions acted a recruiting sergeants for war in WWI" it is because I assume he is trying to underline the connection between union form and state capitalism. And in fact this relation is not even an invention of baboon. Rather it is Communist Left's and specifically German Left even from the times when Rosa fought against the ones (like Bernstein) who claimed that "a gradual transformation of state" through low level struggles into ... socialism. Or as we all know clearly today to ... State Capitalism which is most clearly expressed in imperialist wars.
However I think the most important think in this discussion is about the piece by L.G. I did not read the part you quoted again but as far as I remember Goldner was seemed to saying something like in the countries/conditions where union's are illegal etc, i.e. in countries where state capitalism is not allowing even union structures, then it might imply that there might be something to win with unions...
Since I know lots of unions in this kind and situations where unions are excluded from legal mechanisms here in Turkey, I believe I may contribute about on issue;
- In lots of cases here, these small unions are exactly the apparatuses of leninists used to recruit members for their organisations. And how? First they are not even unions. Since they are small they can not negotiate for anything. And when they enter into a workplace the first thing they do is to paint union demand as the way to reach wage increase and security etc. Then of course some militant workers fall into this and try to organise inside workplace illegally. Then the bosses sack them and a desperate struggle for "union strike" begins which continous for months even years -by the time of course the militant workers and others get seperated. Generally these ends up with defeats but who cares! If the left organises some workers this is the victory! That is the perspective of the unionisation struggles in terrible conditions where workers get killed daily in workplaces, where workers hate communists, where strike is seen as a scary business.
In one sentence unions in these low level struggles act as a device for rasping the few militant elements into the void. Maybe this is not the first intention of indivduals, unionists, "base" militants. But the social relations in the phase of decadance or in a more "accaptable" tone; conditions of struggle is not allowing a legal body of gentle union leaders sitting to the table with the bosses. These harsh conditions are a neccesity for further capital accumulation. These are facts that require new forms of struggles and organisations. These conditions I believe are the same conditions which in China and Bangladesh are throwing the workers into violent revolts.
And when the unionisation demands are accepted this is generally because of political reasons; in order to divert the struggle just before they wouldnot get extended or else.
Jul 9 2009 19:50
#20
Forty-seven times was it posi?
Not all the unions acted as recruiting sergeants for World War I - as revol pointed out to me some time ago there were elements of anarcho-synicalism that took a position against the war.
But I don't want to confuse the issue, trade unions, that had been dying anyway for decades as organs for the defence of workers' interests, definitively joined the ranks of the bourgeoisie with their support and encouragement for fratricide, they became a force for the counter-revolution. I don't deny the class struggle during the 20, 30s and even during WWII, the latter showing the complete retrenchment of the trade unions in the state apparatus in every belligerent country. The unions are there to control the working class and of course the working class has illusions in them, as it does in democracy. But that doesn't mean that imperialist war doesn't show the unions as angencies and defenders of the state.
Jul 9 2009 20:36
#21
posi asked: I think that discussing these issues with the ICC is always helped if they make it clear when, in their view, their position started to be true. Am I right in saying that the ICC was for national liberation (potentially, at least) pre WW1? What changed after WW1? This should help establish the material basis of the ICC's views.
Very broadly: we base ourselves on the general method of Marx and Engels on this, which doesn't mean endorsing everything they said on the national question. For them, national liberation was always an expression of the bourgeoisie and the development of capitalist social relations. They supported national movements where they considered them to be developing a mode of production which had not yet completed its historic task of supplanting feudalism and creating the preconditions for a world communist revolution. They did not really see national self-determination as an abstract 'right applicable to all peoples: there were some national movements which they considered to be reactionary.
There were also geographical factors, though still connected to this historical approach: Marx implies in the Civil War in France that the phase of national wars was already over in Europe, but neither he nor Engels nor most of the marxists of the Second International discounted the possibility of progressive national movements in the colonies.
The 1914 war (and the 1917-19 revolutions) is an important watershed because it demonstrated for the majority of the marxists of the day that capitalism had indeed completed its historic 'mission' and had become a retrograde system. This was enshrined in the programme of the Communist International, although the question of the colonies in particular continued to be hotly disputed inside the CI, and generally speaking it was the left wing which was the most convinced that even in the colonies the bourgeoisie had become entirely reactionary. But it was above all the experience of the working class faced with national movements in Russia, Turkey, China etc, plus the role of national movements in preparing the ground for the second world war (and in the inter-imperialist conflicts of the post war period)which settled the issue as far as most of the communist left was concerned.
Jul 9 2009 22:08
#22
Posi wrote:
The ICC's perspective on unions has aquired a surprising currency on these boards over the past year or so.
I don't think this is true at all to be honest.
I don't think that many regular posters outside the ICC share the perspective that workers under no circumstances (outside of closed shops) should form or join unions, for example. Thats not to say that lots of regulars aren't critical of the inherent, inescapable dynamics of unions - which I think you're saying most Commune members are too to a greater or lesser degree- but I think the practical and theoretical perspective is pretty different. My views and those of plenty of AF and SF members I know for instance are much more in line with Goldner's than the ICC's, though you seem to be saying that Goldner's perspectives are different to those usually expressed on here.
Jul 9 2009 23:52
#23
posi wrote:
Steven. wrote:
their leading members would have been Labour Party entryists a couple of months agoThis simply isn't right. There are two members involved in the Labour Representation Committe; both of whom are for a break from the Labour Party, and believe that the LRC is a worthwhile space to argue ideas (in terms of a presence of organised workers, etc.). Personally, I am not convinced that this is the best use of time or whatever, but I'm not confused about their perspective being Labour Party entryism.
http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/labour-party-no-return-to-the-living-dead/
http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/leaflet-for-compass-conference-the-partys-over/
^ I appreciate these are recent, but they aren't the result of a 'turn', just of the issue being raised more sharply in recent months, hence more attention to the subject. I'd be very surprised if anyone could find an article advocating general Labour Party entryism on the site.
sorry, I wasn't implying that anyone in the commune had ever advocated this, but that as some of the founders of the commune only left the AWL very recently this wouldn't be surprising.
Quote:
Devrim wrote:
supporting . . . national liberationSteven. wrote:
prominent part of their media, as is other typical leftist fare like support for national liberation etc.Could you say what this refers to? Particularly Steven... I can't think of a single article in our paper related to the national question in six issues.
Platform of The Commune wrote:
We are internationalists: we seek the greatest possible collaboration with communists in other countries; we build solidarity with workers’ movements around the world; we are opposed to all borders and immigration controls; and we are opposed to all forms of oppression of nationalities.As Django says, this was changed at our January aggregate, from a phrase something like 'we support the right of nations to self determination'. We had a discussion about this. I argued that while the demand for national self determination may take on a pro-working class character in certain circumtstances, this is far from universally the case, and the last thing we want to be seen to be doing is lining up behind any third world militia which shouts about 'anti-imperialism'.do
right okay, I was referring to the aims and principles which expressed support for "national self-determination". I didn't realise that this had now changed. The new language is a significant improvement - and it doesn't surprise me that you were a key person in arguing for this.
I had an argument with David Broder and Chris outside a pub once, where I tried to argue for quite basic internationalism, but I got repeatedly shouted down with very rudimentary Trotskyist arguments, and had to get on a bus to escape. So that statement wasn't related to an article in your paper.
On the ICC, unions etc, I agree with Django. I do not believe the typical ICC view is actually shared by anyone outside the ICC on here. The views of Loren Goldner are closer to most of us are.
That said, there were some things around unions that I've seen on commune articles that I disagreed with, but I don't have the exact wording, so I'll look them up and post up proper comments later.
Jul 10 2009 00:20
#24
steven can I ask something;
Do you think that Loren Goldner has a clear position on unions? I ask so because as far as I understand he is basically implying that unions can sometimes be worthy and sometimes not. And his arguement that "what icc would say about that case now..." is a very close one that I hear from leninists here ... and also lenin. It looks like to me that this is very similar to the "rigidity of left communists" arguement... is not it?
Also what is the position against the unions if it is not that of the communist left? I mean ICC position is not a product of ICC but that of workers movement. Do you think that I am wrong?
Jul 10 2009 07:36
#25
mikail wrote:
However I think the most important think in this discussion is about the piece by L.G. I did not read the part you quoted again but as far as I remember Goldner was seemed to saying something like in the countries/conditions where union's are illegal etc, i.e. in countries where state capitalism is not allowing even union structures, then it might imply that there might be something to win with unions...
No, that is not what he argues. Three of the (five, actually) examples he gives are in the US, one is in S. Korea, and one is in Argentina...
baboon wrote:
Forty-seven times was it posi?
And counting... we get it already!
Quote:
I tried to argue for quite basic internationalism, but I got repeatedly shouted down with very rudimentary Trotskyist arguments
I am sorry about that. I think there might have been some misunderstanding about the content of the conversation, since I had it reported to me as being about whether nations are 'real' or not. But irrespective of that, that obviously doesn't excuse not discussing in a comradely/polite manner. This is an issue across the organised left...
Maybe I have the wrong impression about the impact of the ICC's views... but Django, I meant that Goldner's views are probably different from most of those in The Commune, rather than most of those on the libcom boards.
Jul 10 2009 08:06
#26
Quote:
The ICC's perspective on unions has aquired a surprising currency on these boards over the past year or so. I think that this is unmerited by its real depth. It's very idiosyncratic: it's not even 'the left communist perspective' or anything like that.
Really? The German Left were very clear on unionism and began to reject them after their experience in the German Revolution in 1918. The Italian Left took longer but I'm pretty certain by WWII Bilan had adopted an anti-union position. Today, the two main currents with a direct heritage from the Italian Left surviving today (the ICC and the IBRP) also completely reject the union form. The Italian component of the IBRP (the PCInt) was formed after a split with the Bordigists on (amongst other things) the union question.
So, really, the only left-communists you can point to who do think the unions are a possible form of struggle are Goldner and the Bordigists. And even with the Bordigists, it's not quite that simple and this quote from Programma shows: "For decades the practice of trade unions has been to bridle the workers’ power by wasting them in micro-conflicts, department strikes, strikes limited to a factory, area, region or sector; by placing time and other confinments on strikes; by calling diversionary strikes to defend the national economy, democracy, legality, and so forth. They have weakened the capability to struggle by calling for “worker self-discipline,” making the trade union less susceptible to the voices of the grass roots, and isolating and throwing out militant individuals. These trends and developments must be fought not in the name of deluding “trade-union democracy,” an empty expression given the irreversibly anti-worker orientation taken by trade unions in the past fifty years or so, but in the name of a real and true return to the widest and most vigorous class struggle possible. The strike, the picket line, the cessation of production, and so on are the arms of the proletariat. They must not be taken away, turned against the workers themselves , or rendered less effective
...
The trade unions are now completing (in Italy and elsewhere) their parabolic descent-something we anticipated at the very beginning of the postwar-into becoming an integrated element of the state of capital, a veritable bulwark of it."
So there is more or less complete agreement within the communist left on the role and function of the trade unions today. However, in terms of activity, the Bordigists (or Programma at least) seem to have a position similar to Lenin on parliament i.e. that even while recognising their fundamental anti-working class role, they can still somehow be used as a tribune to denounce the system: "Internationalist communists and avant-garde workers who seek to stand on the terrain of the class struggle will conduct an open and sharp struggle against any manifestation of what we see as “state trade unionism,” and will criticize unsparingly any negative traits of any group born from the disillusion and disgust for such a trade unionism. They will work both in the trade unions-until the point that it becomes impossible and they are faced with expulsion, which would indicate how anti-worker such unions are-and in the organisms that arise spontaneously, laboring to broaden any obvious limits. They will participate and labor shoulder to shoulder wherever the class is found, not to follow it, but to point out what is to be done; they will not bridle themselves behind the limitations of the trade union or ad hoc body but help workers react to the demands of the moment."
For us, this position is dangerous. Just as parliamentary work quickly sucks people into the bourgeois political arena so, too, does the union structure. Particularly militant workers in the unions very quickly find themselves pushed towards functions in the union structure. The contradiction between being a member of a union while constantly denouncing them quickly becomes apparent. As the experience of our very own Alf demonstrates: "In the 80s and early 90s, I was a member of the NUT, feeling “professionally constrained” by all the scare-stories about what would happen to you if you don’t have union protection. I would go along to union meetings and consistently argue for the need to break out of the union framework. When members asked me “why are you in the union then?” I would respond, rather sheepishly, that, well it’s like using a lawyer, OK for individual cases but useless for any collective defence. However, I was later on convinced that I should resign from the union by two things:
- discussions in the ICC about these problems, which aimed at having a more consistent practice throughout the organisation
- the fact that, after spending all this time as an NUT member arguing against the union way of doing things, I was asked by several members if I would stand for school union rep when the job fell vacant!
It then became obvious to me that if I was going to carry on arguing against the unions, it would be clearer all round if I did so as someone who was completely and explicitly independent from them. I resigned from the NUT and put out a written statement explaining why I had done so."
To summarise, it is pretty clear that the ICC position on the role of trade unions is hardly idiosyncratic within the communist left and that our practice springs logically from that position.
Jul 10 2009 08:38
#27
The ICC has already responded to comments made by Loren Goldner at the Korean meeting here, but this thread is not about the ICC (amazing how many threads end up that way)
The point of the article is to try and show the political trajectory of the Commune group - where has it come from, where is it now.
Quote:
However, their response to the SWP's latest idea shows what tradition they are still attached to....
Quote:
They often talk of "communism from below" and "emancipatory communism", but as long as they think that they are part of the ‘left' these words will have little real meaning.
We're not dismissing the Commune, but trying to show the connection between their past and present actions, and suggest that the deep rooted connection to basic Trot positions is a real, genuine barrier to their political development.
The point being made is specifically about the Commune, but there is the wider problem of people trying to break from Trotskyism and they issues they face.
Jul 10 2009 08:53
#28
Quote:
I had an argument with David Broder and Chris outside a pub once, where I tried to argue for quite basic internationalism, but I got repeatedly shouted down with very rudimentary Trotskyist arguments, and had to get on a bus to escape. So that statement wasn't related to an article in your paper.
What does "rudimentary Trotskyist arguments" mean? It could mean anything. Critical support for Hezbollah? Backing the VietCong as a national liberation movement? Trotsky supporting the Chinese against Japan? It could mean, and usually does mean, that kind of thing, whereas in fact we did not advocate, and have never advocated, such positions. Opposition to national oppression and demands like "troops out of x now" in no way implies support for bourgeois nationalist movements who have some of the same opponents.
If I recall rightly, your argument was of the flat-footed 'nations are imaginary' type. Chris was simply insisting on the point that the national question is something real, because national oppression really does exist and is not simply reducible to class dynamics (no more than racial or patriarchal oppression).
'Nations are imaginary' (and for that matter, on the ICC's part, 'unions are simply and only part of the capitalist state') is all very easy to say, but although a convenient posture it doesn't have much explanatory power.
Money too is a societal construct and something we want to abolish, but that doesn't mean that under the current state of things it doesn't matter if you have none.
Quote:
their leading members would have been Labour Party entryists a couple of months ago
Quote:
sorry, I wasn't implying that anyone in the commune had ever advocated this, but that as some of the founders of the commune only left the AWL very recently this wouldn't be surprising.
Since Chris and I left the AWL last August (said national oppression discussion was probably last autumn), and before such a point were not "entryists", I don't understand your use of this argument, it is hardly as if the scales have only recently fallen from our eyes or that we've realised something particularly new about the nature of the Labour Party.
Jul 10 2009 09:46
#29
Davidbroeder wrote:
Opposition to national oppression and demands like "troops out of x now" in no way implies support for bourgeois nationalist movements who have some of the same opponents.
This seems pretty reasonable, and I don't think its the kind of thing that anyone would have any problem with. I mean, we're all against imperialism, war, militarism etc, and have to make the argument frequently enough that opposing these things isn't equivalent to 'national liberation' and 'critically' supporting underdog factions, a division Trot groups usually do their best to muddy.
davidbroeder wrote:
If I recall rightly, your argument was of the flat-footed 'nations are imaginary' type. Chris was simply insisting on the point that the national question is something real, because national oppression really does exist and is not simply reducible to class dynamics (no more than racial or patriarchal oppression).'Nations are imaginary' (and for that matter, on the ICC's part, 'unions are simply and only part of the capitalist state') is all very easy to say, but although a convenient posture it doesn't have much explanatory power.
I don't know what arguments Steven was making, though I can make an educated guess, but I don't see how saying "nations aren't imaginary, the national question is real" has any more explanatory power than pointing out they have no ideal, ahistorical existence or whatever. I mean, the point is that when workers struggles get channeled into struggles over national rights and such they're always playing a dangerous game as nationalism can only offer the restructuring of capitalism and continual rounds of conflict. I don't see how understanding that 'national oppression' (or rather, the oppression and dispossession of certain members of certain nationalities) is real offers any greater insight into what kind of movements or struggles we might support than pointing out 'nations' are basically imaginary.
Jul 10 2009 10:46
#30
davidbroder wrote:
Quote:
I had an argument with David Broder and Chris outside a pub once, where I tried to argue for quite basic internationalism, but I got repeatedly shouted down with very rudimentary Trotskyist arguments, and had to get on a bus to escape. So that statement wasn't related to an article in your paper.What does "rudimentary Trotskyist arguments" mean? It could mean anything. Critical support for Hezbollah? Backing the VietCong as a national liberation movement? Trotsky supporting the Chinese against Japan? It could mean, and usually does mean, that kind of thing, whereas in fact we did not advocate, and have never advocated, such positions. Opposition to national oppression and demands like "troops out of x now" in no way implies support for bourgeois nationalist movements who have some of the same opponents.
If I recall rightly, your argument was of the flat-footed 'nations are imaginary' type. Chris was simply insisting on the point that the national question is something real, because national oppression really does exist and is not simply reducible to class dynamics (no more than racial or patriarchal oppression).
'Nations are imaginary' (and for that matter, on the ICC's part, 'unions are simply and only part of the capitalist state') is all very easy to say, but although a convenient posture it doesn't have much explanatory power.
Money too is a societal construct and something we want to abolish, but that doesn't mean that under the current state of things it doesn't matter if you have none.
firstly, this isn't a big deal, it was a discussion outside a pub after a few drinks, not a serious thing in the slightest.
My point was that support for "national self-determination" was an anti-working class position. In response to this the same question, which was something like "are you saying national oppression doesn't exist?" got asked at me again and again, not letting me actually answer the question. But again, it's not like this was in a meeting or anything, it was late at night at a bus stop, not really the place for a productive discussion.
Quote:
Quote:
their leading members would have been Labour Party entryists a couple of months ago
Quote:
sorry, I wasn't implying that anyone in the commune had ever advocated this, but that as some of the founders of the commune only left the AWL very recently this wouldn't be surprising.
Since Chris and I left the AWL last August (said national oppression discussion was probably last autumn), and before such a point were not "entryists", I don't understand your use of this argument, it is hardly as if the scales have only recently fallen from our eyes or that we've realised something particularly new about the nature of the Labour Party.
in that case I apologise, looks like I've got the wrong end of the stick. I thought that the AWL as an organisation practised entryism into the Labour Party, and I've spoken to a few AWL members before who were in the Labour Party. Having a quick Google it looks like only some AWL members were in the Labour Party, and looks like they got kicked out last year anyway.
The NPA was managed far better than RESPECT.