Leaflet: The Vote: A Blank Check for State Power

The bourgeois state is not a "machine" that can be taken over by the working class and dismantled by inside. It is a specific form of relations, the product of a specific form of society. Similarly, MPs are not "delegates". A new society will grow out of the terrain of class struggle, not the resolutions of an SPGB dominated parliament. It will develop through the sovereign, directly democratic organs which the working class will set up in the course of its struggle. If the working class attempts to use the bourgeois state during times of struggle they will only be leading themselves to the charnel house. The example of anarchists participating in the state in Spain in the 1930s is telling, as if that sorry episode tells us anything it is that the anarcho-syndicalist "leadership" participated in the counter revolution, and that the terrible errors of crossing that class line must not be repeated. Those who make revolutions by half only dig their own graves.

The thought of a militant working class waiting on its "delegates" in parliament rather than taking the struggle into its own hands is a disturbing one. What would they do with a minority of "delegates".

If the alternatives being offered has had made headways into raising working class consciousness then , of course , i would re-appraise the SPGB approach . Alas , we both share , so far , failure in that task .

I would like to have SpikeyMike elaborate on his statement

Django , i understand what you are saying , that constitutionally and legally , MPs are not delegates per se , however , to become an SPGB candidate for election a member has to subsribe to our Party rule ,

You are probably aware of our policy of actually telling the electorate NOT to vote for us if they do not support and understand our case for socialism . We would therefore expect a candidate who reneges on this rule to lose the support of the constituency who then may well take appropriate measures to express their disapproval and and demonstrate his illegitimacy as their MP .

As for your other concerns , be re-assured , the SPGB , does not advocate passivity in the class struggle until we have secured seats in Parliament . We have NEVER had that policy . We urge the working class NOW to advance their own class interests .

The question of what does a minority of socialist MPs do is one thathas been discuss at regular intervals within the SPGB since its formation and also one that was faced practically by our companion party , the Socialist Party of Canada , when they managed to gain seats in Provincial Parliaments ( see http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/proletarian.in.politics.htm ) . The concensus reached was that those minority MPS would endeavour to to improve the lot of the working class inside capitalism . The SPGB emphatically opposes reformism but certainly not individual reforms that are in the interest of the working class when that can be clearly determined .

Let me once again present the SPGB case for the revolutionary use of the vote

The vote is a gain, a potential class weapon, a potential "instrument of emancipation" as Marx put it. Despite Lenin's distortions , Marx and Engels always held that the bourgeois democratic republic was the best political framework for the development and triumph of the socialist movement. This is another pre-1914 socialist position we see no reason to abandon.

Certainly, political democracy under capitalism is not all that it is purported to be by many supporters of the system and it is severely limited, from the point of view of democratic theory, by the very nature of capitalism as an unequal, class-divided society. Certainly, "democracy" has become an ideology used to give capitalist rule a spurious legitimacy . But it is still sufficient to allow the working class to organise politically and economically without too much state interference and also, we would argue, to allow a future socialist majority to gain control of political power.

In a vote between lesser of two evils , " Vote Cholera or Vote for Typhoid" , ( btw , someone once said "Those who choose the lesser of two evils soon forget that what they chose is an evil" ) . Not voting at all is valid, but casting blank ballots or some other form of actively announcing not voting is better .One or two spoilers/blank voters can be ignored, tens of thousands or even millions could not be - especially if backed by a vocal movement explaining the situation. ( see the Argentinian example , for instance ) .

In Britain, Canada and most of America, we don't have anydeep fundamental objection to the electoral system; the provisions for voter registration, nomination of candidates, counting of votes, declaration of result can be inherited by socialism and, certainly with modifications, continue to be used. We also think, of course, that the present electoral mechanisms can be used to express and count, more or less fairly and accurately, a majority desire for socialism. Engel's "thermometer" . So we've no interest in running down the system as such. The way to show that you accept the electoral system but reject the sham choice is to go and use it but not vote for any of the candidates.

There is nothing inherently elitist about the electoral approach. It is how you use that approach that makes it elitist. The World Socialist Movement is not asking people to vote for them so they can solve the problems the electorate have to contend with. The WSM it is saying quite clearly that workers need to understand and support socialism themselves in order for it to come about It cannot be imposed from above. Furthermore, we constantly makes the point to workers in elections that if they dont understand or support socialism then they should not vote for the WSM. The WSM does not propose to come "into office", ie to form a government and so does not propose "to vote itself into office". Nor to we propose that other people should "vote us into office" either. What we do propose is that people should, amongst other things, use the vote in the course of the social revolution from capitalism to socialism; that they should, if you like, vote capitalism out of office. To do this they will need to stand recallable mandated delegates at elections but these will be just this: messenger boys and girls, not leaders or would-be government ministers, sent to formally take over and dismantle "the central State". The situation we envisage in which a majority vote in socialist delegates is one where the revolution ,in respect of socialist ideas has already begun to accelerate.The vote is merely the legitimate stamp which will allow for the dismantling of the repressive apparatus of the States and the end of bourgeois democracy and the establishment of real democracy.
It is the Achilles heel of capitalism and makes a non-violent revolution possible.What matters is a conscious socialist majority outside parliament, ready and organised to take over and run industry and society; electing a socialist majority in parliament is essentially just a reflection of this. It is not parliament that establishes socialism, but the socialist working-class majority outside parliament and they do this, not by their votes, but by their active participating beyond this in the transformation of society.

Basically, there are only three ways of winning control of the State: (a) armed insurrection; (b) more or less peaceful mass demonstrations and strikes; (c) using the electoral system.

The early, pre-WWI members of the WSM adopted, in the light of then existing political conditions, for (c), but without ruling out (b) or even (a) should these conditions change (or in other parts of the world where conditions were different).But this was never understood as simply putting an "X" on a ballot paper and letting the Socialist Party and its MPs establish Socialism for workers. The assumption always was that there would be a "conscious" and active Socialist majority outside Parliament, democratically organised both in a mass Socialist political party and, at work, in ex-trade union type organisations ready to keep production going during and immediately after the winning of political control.Having adopted (c), various other options follow. Obviously, if there's a Socialist candidate people who want Socialism are urged to vote for thatcandidate. But what if there's no Socialist candidate? Voting for any other candidate is against the principles. So what to do? The basic choice is/was between abstention and spoiling the ballot paper (by writing "Socialism" across it). The policy adopted and confirmed ever since was the latter, ie a sort of write-in vote for Socialism.

The first step towards taking over the means of production, therefore, must be to take over control of the state, and the easiest way to do this is via elections. But elections are merely a technique, a method. The most important precondition to taking political control out of the hands of the owning class is that the useful majority are no longer prepared to be ruled and exploited by a minority; they must withdraw their consent to capitalism and class rule-they must want and understand a socialist society of common ownership and democratic control.We need to organise politically, into a political party, a socialist party. We don't suffer from delusions of grandeur so we don't necessary claim that we are that party. What we are talking about is not a small educational and propagandist groupsuch as ourselves , but a mass party that has yet to emerge. It is such a party that will take political control via the ballot box, but since it will in effect be the useful majority organised democratically and politically for socialism it is the useful majority, not the party as such as something separate from that majority, that carries out the socialist transformation of society.

They will neutralise the state and its repressive forces and as stated there is no question of forming a government , and then proceed to take over the means of production for which they will also have organised themselves at their places of work. This done, the repressive state is disbanded and its remaining administrative and service features, reorganised on a democratic basis, are merged with the organisations which the useful majority will have formed to take over and run production, to form the democratic administrative structure of the stateless society of common ownership that socialism will be.

This is perhaps a less romantic idea of the socialist revolution but a thousand times more realistic. Which is why we think this is the way it will happen. When the time comes the socialist majority will use the ballot box since it will be the obvious thing to do, and nobody will be able to prevent them or persuade them not to. At that time it will be the anti-electoralists who will be irrelevant. A real democracy is fundamentally incompatible with the idea of leadership. It is about all of us having a direct say in the decisions that affect us. Leadership means handing over the right to make those decisions to someone else. We have at our disposal today the very means, in the form of modern telecommunications, that could enable us to resuscitate the ancient model of Athenian democracy on a truly global level.

From Mikeyspike

From Murray Bookchin's "Anarchism , Marxism and the Future of the Left"

i couldn't resist it ;-p

FWIW: The SPGB's companion party in the US was quite active in the 1930-40s workers' struggles especially in Auto industry. The Socialist Party of Canada was hugely influential in industrial struggles as well as the formation of the One Big Union (which at points had 80,000 members in Canada and the US).

Spiky your rather dismissive tone:

is rather pathetic since your views are stuck in the mythology of 1919. This bit:

assumes the 'revolutionary' movement of let's say the 1917-1920 era sprung up out of no where. As if there hadn't been 30 or more years of "idealistic and educational" work done by the various revolutionary workers movements. Where does your "(big) militant minority come from"? Handed to the workers by the lady of the lake?

Could you please show me where the SPGB/WSM parties say that workers movements cannot become "significantly radicalized"? Our entire point is to develop a class conscious base of workers who can be involved in such movements.

The SPGB's position on capitalist elections may be more or less consistent with Marx and particularly Engel's views in the period up to the turn of the century - I have not argued otherwise.

But those views were weak then and certainly not up to scrutiny today.

Whilst it is true that the view I have expressed owes much to the experience of the mass radical workers movements of the 1916 to 1921 era or thereabouts and to the early Council Communist theorists such as Pannekoek who wrote of those experiences, far from being stuck there I would argue that those views have been further reinforced by many experiences since, from Spain leading up to the Spanish Cvil War and through the many radical and extensive workers struggles through the 1960's and 1980's.

Of course none of these were carried forward by a majoriy of conscious communists or voted on at all in advance and will be dismissed by the SPGB for that reason, but they do demonstrate that major changes in ideas come from the practice of class struggle rather than the practice of class struggle being a simple reflection of a preformed ideological commitment.

This is not to dismiss the work of communist minorities (including the SPGB) outside of periods of mass struggle in preparing the ground so to speak. That work will include both propaganda or educational activity and also organised activity in other aspects of the every day class struggle. I appreciate that some members of the SPGB are active in aspects of the class struggle outside of the propaganda work of their party but there is a discontinuity, and often an outright contradiction, between those different activities precisely because the SPGB does not recognise these as legitimate areas for the party to collectively consider and act upon.

In all honesty I cannot say if workers in some parts of the world might try to express their will for revolutionary change using any capitalist voting rights they may still have at the time, but I am convinced that it is dangerous in the extreme to rely on such methods and even more important for workers not to succumb to the argument that any action they take to advance their class interests must somehow wait on a democratic show of hands.

It is the capitalist democratic ideal which is used time and again to stultify and derail workers struggle by convincing us all that we have an equal say as (atomised) citizens in determining our fait - not just in elections to the central and local state apparatus but through participation in a whole host of other civil organisations from trade unions to the media. In this respect capitalist democracy reflects the same choices offered through the consumtion of commodities in the market place whilst camouflaging the reality of capital's dictatorship through the wages system.

The capitalist democratic ideal is so deeply embeded that any concessions made to it by erstwhile pro revolutionaries must be a serious weakness.

Much appreciated Ernie in highlighting the ambiguity . What was meant was simply that to bring about socialist consciousness involves understanding socialism which means talking about it, sharing ideas about it - in short educating ourselves and our fellow workers about it.But some detractors, have the mistaken idea that the Socialist Party of Great Britain thinks selling a copy of the Socialist Standard and holding meetings is the key to revolution.If that really was the case, the world would be in for a very long wait. People become socialists from their experiences; meeting socialists is part of that experience, and socialist thought is merely distilled experience from the past.

The SPGB have always guarded against appearing to be the sole agent of the socialist transformation. In fact , that nobody knows how revolutionary class consciousness is going to arise and the WSM/SPGB has the intellectual honesty to admit this.

I don't think anybody here denies that socialism will be established by the working class and that its establishment will result from an intensification/.escalation of the class struggle. That follows almost by definition--obviously, if the working class are going to overthrow capitalism and capitalist class rule the class struggle is going to be stepped up. That's not the interesting question. The real question is what is it that is going to provoke the working class into intensifying/escalating the class struggle and/or acquiring socialist consciousness .

I understand that socialist consciousness comes from life experience, but that being said, why are not more people achieving this consciousness? I guess we all know the answers - everything from education, prevailing and accepted customs, the prevailing capitalist ideology and cultural hegemony .We can say that socialist consciousness comes from life experience, but then that automatically implies that every worker should achieve it, it should have happened. And I see this as a problem. It leads to a belief of the old "historical inevitability" of Socialism, that inevitably people will come around to becoming Socialists. That would indeed leave no role for a Socialist Party . We can join a Party and then watch it all unfold before our eyes .
However many have not accepted this inevitability and wonder what exactly is our role? Where do we "intervene" to raise consciousness and how do we intervene? What practical measures can we take as a Party?

Workers don’t just wake up one morning and think to themselves - "Ah that’s it! Eureka! Socialism is the answer!" This is the mechanistic theory that a socialist consciousness can somehow materialise by circumventing the realm of ideology. We come to a socialist view of the world by interacting directly or indirectly with others, exchanging ideas with them. And that is perhaps the role of the revolutionary group as being - as a catalyst in the process of changing consciousness.

Class struggle without any clear understanding of where you are going is simply committing oneself to a never-ending treadmill. This is where the Leninists and Trotskyists go wrong. They think mechanistically that a sense of revolutionary direction emerges spontaneously out of the struggle per se circumventing the realm of ideology -the need to educate - as such. It does not. The workers can never win the class struggle while it is confined simply to the level of trade union militancy; it has to be transmogrified into a socialist consciousness.
Conversely, socialist consciousness cannot simply rely for its own increase on ideological persuasion; it has to link up with the practical struggle. The success of the socialist revolution would depend on the growth of socialist consciousness on a mass scale and that these changed ideas can only develop through a practical movement:

As Marx explains it
“Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness , and for the success of the cause itself , the alteration of man on a mass scale is necessary , an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement , a revolution. The revolution is necessary , therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way , but also because the class overthrowing itcan only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew” Feurbach and Materialist Outlook

Socialist consciousness on a wide scale is not going to emerge from mere abstract propagandizing or proselytizing . All we are doing in the SPGB , essentially, is trying to help the emergence of majority socialist consciousness, but even if the sort of activities we engage in can't be the main thing that will bring this consciousness about , it is still nevertheless essential. People can, and do, come to socialist conclusions without us, but they can come to this more quickly if they hear it from an organised group dedicated exclusively to putting over the case for socialism. We can't force or brainwash people into wanting to be free , they can only learn this from their own experience .We see majority socialist consciousness emerging from people's experiences of capitalism coupled with them hearing the case for socialism (not necessarily from us, though it would seem that we are the only group that takes doing this seriously).Socialist consciousness emerges through discussion and analysis. Our main task is to find better ways of expressing our message to as many workers as possible, to evolve a strategy so that we use our resources to most effect.

Some in our party have the view the problem with the SPGB's theory is NOT because it emphasises education but because it inadequately theorises the relationship between education and struggle/practice. For example, it has little or nothing positive to say about what workers are to do in the meantime. Neither do you apparently. You emphasise militant class struggle but there are clear limits to what this can achieve on its own and most workers know this full well. The working class is simply the working class, a bundle of contradictions and yet a very real thing. It is both the most conservative class because they have the most to lose AND , at the same time , the most revolutionary because they have the most to gain. Marx put it as, it is a class "in itself" and not yet a class "for itself".
We don't have to lead, or intervene, or integrate into it. That was the role of the Social Democrats and the Leninists. What we have to be is the movement (as Marx said in "The Communist Manifesto") that group which points out the way, which "pushes forward".
The question comes to making Socialism an “immediacy” for the working class , something of importance and value to people's lives now , rather than a singular "end".Socialists are not "superior to society". We understand how the class society basically works. That is the difference to the majority of the working class, which do not understand and therefore do not see the need to abolish capitalism.

We have yet to hear a convincing argument how you are supposed to become a "revolutionary" without engaging - and eventually agreeing - at some point with the IDEA of what such a revolution would entail. There is no logical imperative embedded in the material circumstances of capitalism that dictates that we must necessarily become revolutionary socialists . Our experience of these circumstances could just as easily turn us into Fascists , Tories or Liberals. In other words, our engagement with the world around us is always mediated by the ideas we hold in our heads; we cannot apprehend this world except through these ideas .

We agree the majority will not understand Socialism from the campaigning and educational effort of the SPGB , but from the potential effect of the social practice particularly of the class struggle.

“A period of revolution begins not because life has become physically impossible but because growing numbers of workers have their eyes suddenly opened to the fact that problems hitherto accepted as part of man’s unavoidable heritage has become capable of solution…No crisis of capitalism , however desperate it may be , can ever by itself give us socialism ” Will Capitalism Collapse ? S.S.April 27

“If we hoped to achieve Socialism ONLY by our propaganda , the outlook would indeed be bad .But it is Capitalism itself unable to solve crises , unemployment , and poverty, engaging in horrifying wars , which is digging its own grave . Workers are learning by bitter experience and bloody sacrifice for interests not their own . They are learning slowly. Our job is to shorten the time , to speed up the process” Socialism or Chaos ,Socialist Party of Australia

We can quote from Paul Mattick who too can lay the roots of his understanding to his own political experiences of the 20s and 30s to 70s and 80s

“There is no evidence that the last hundred years of labour strife have led to the revolutionizing of the working class in the sense of a growing willingness to do away with the capitalist system…In times of depression no less in than these of prosperity , the continuing confrontations of labor and capital have led not to an political radicalization of the working class , but to an intensified insistence upon better accommodations within the capitalist system…No matter how much he [ the worker ] may emancipate himself ideologically ,for all practical purposes he must proceed as if he were still under the sway of bourgeois ideology .He may realize that his individual needs can only be assured by collective class actions , but he will still be forced to attend to his immediate needs as an individual .It is this situation , rather than some conditioned inability to transcend capitalism. He may realize that his individual needs can only be assured by collective class actions , but he will still be forced to attend to his immediate needs as an individual .It is this situation , rather than some conditioned inability to transcend capitalist ideology, that makes the workers reluctant to express and to act upon their anti- capitalist attitudes ” Marxism, Last Refuge of the Bourgeoisie

Sidney Hook in his From Hegel to Marx said--( perhaps not the best scholar to quote but also see the later Pannekoek quote)

“…the struggle to achieve institutional change produces changes in those who participate in the struggles .The Praxis of trying to bring about a new order , no abstract doctrine , educates the workers ..Marx‘s great insights that human beings cannot change the world without changing themselves , and that social struggles , under certain conditions, are the best school for acquiring an education in social realities are not isolated thoughts but organically connected with his materialistic theory of history .… The class struggle is not a doctrine , but the school in which doctrines arise Are tested and used or discarded . The working class not only becomes conscious of itself in these struggles , but it changes and re-educates itself by its revolutionary practice"

From Hegel -----Philosophy of the Mind ( another perhaps unwise choice of quote and i'm not pretending to have read him , just came across this apt extract , thats all)

“If , therefore man does not want to perish he must recognize the world as a self-dependent world which in its essential nature is already complete , must accept the conditions set for him by the world and wrest from it what he wants for himself .As a rule ,the man believes that this submission is only forced on him by necessity .But ,in truth , this unity with the world must be recognized , not as a relation imposed by necessity , but as the rational ...therefore the man behaves quite rationally in abandoning his plan for completely transforming the world and in striving to realize his personal aims , passions and interests only within the framework of the world in which he is a part”

And from the pen of Anton Pannekoek ------The Workers Council

“[class consciousness ] is not learned from books or through courses on theory and political formation , but through real life practice of the class struggle”

Lets not forget Wilhelm Reich --------Some quotes from Sex-Pol---
“Everything that contradicts the bourgeois order, everything that contains a germ of rebellion , can be regarded as an element of class - consciousness ; everything that creates or maintains a bond with the bourgeois order , that supports and reinforces it , is an impediment to class consciousness”

and again

“Against the principle of self-denial preached by political reaction , we must set the principle of happiness and abundance …Any socialist political economist can prove that sufficient wealth exists in the world to provide a happy life for all workers .But we must prove this more thoroughly , more consistently , in greater detail than we generally do”

and again

“Question : If two human beings , A and B , are starving , one of them may accept his fate , refuse to steal , and take to begging or die from hunger , while the other may take the law into his own hands in order to obtain food. A large part of the proletariat , often called the lumpenproletariat, live according to the principles of B .Which of the two types has more elements of class consciousness in him ? Stealing is not yet a sign of class consciousness but a brief moment of reflection shows , despite our inner moral resistance , that the man who refuses to submit to law and steals when he is hungry, that’s to say , the man who manifests a will to live , has more energy and fight in him than the one who lies down unprotesting on the butchers slab ..we have said that stealing is not yet class consciousness .A brick is not yet a house , but you use bricks to build a house”

Finally From Murray Bookchin -------Listen Marxist !

“ The Marxian doctrinaire would have us approach the worker , better still - enter the factory - and proselytize him in preference to anyone else . The purpose ? to make the worker class conscious . In the end , the worker is shrewd enough to know that he can get better results in the day-to-day class struggle through his union bureaucracy than through a Marxian party bureaucracy …the worker becomes revolutionary not by becoming more of a worker but by undoing his ‘workerness‘. His ‘workerness’ is the disease he is suffering from , the worker begins to become revolutionary when he undoes his ‘workerness‘ , when he begins to shed exactly those features Marxists most prize him - his work ethic, his character-structure derived from industrial discipline , his respect for hierarchy, his obedience to leaders , his consumerism, his vestiges of Puritanism . In this sense , the worker becomes a revolutionary to the degree that he sheds his class status and achieves an un-class- consciousness .He degenerates and he degenerates magnificently .What he is shedding are precisely those class shackles that bind him to all systems of domination .He abandons those class interests that enslaves him to consumerism , suburbia and a book-keeping conception of life”

I beg your indulgence in placing finishing off with so many quotes which you all probably most know but maybe it’s a sign that the search for why socialist consciousness arises is The Holy Grail of every sincere socialist and no one has the answer as yet . We hold only generalisations - and possess a political approach that when exercised will not be counter-productive or have a negative effect .Unless you wish to accuse the SPGB of effectively being reactionary in its ideas - which i don't think many on the list would accept or subscribe to --- or again i may be wrong , and some do consider the SPGB to be counter-revolutionaries and will have us put up against the wall and shot at the earliest opportune moment of the revolution !!
!

ajj

I can't say I've read the whole your post yet, but I do question these two claims you make in it:

I strongly disagree that "we all know the answers" why there aren't more people achieving socialist consciousness. In fact, I suspect that NONE OF US know the answers, in the sense of knowing all (or even the most important) the answers or reasons why this is the case. Undoubtedly, some know more about this than others, but I think all of us who are concerned with this situation should be seriously investigating the problem, rather than assuming we already have the answers.

Secondly:

I wonder why you claim that the working class have the most to lose. Marx claimed that they have nothing to lose but their chains. Whereas members of the ruling class have their wealth and/or power to lose.

waslax says

The comment was one of ironic reflection on the accepted explanations but from the whole post which you admit you have not completely read the point i was making is exactly the one you make .You probably never reached the concluding paragraph but there i wrote

So i think we are in agreement .

waslax says

I was thinking of the fact that in the class war , to paraphrase James Connolly , workers with empty stomachs go up against a capitalist class with full wallets. Workers involved in a particular class struggle are fully aware of what can be lost - their job , their house , their family , their liberty , even their lives. It is why the decision to risk confrontation is not taken lightly by the working class .
I thought the reasoning was also supported by the quotes i posted by Mattick and Hegel , which indicates the contradictions workers face as individuals with individual need and individual wants and as members of a class with class needs and class wants . Marx may have written of losing only one's chains but it was more poetic licence in a rallying call for action than a literal statement of truth .
But i'm happy to accept your criticism that it should have been better expressed by me.

please can we have done with acronyms and parties already?
as for the vote, paraf-javal's (hundred year old) pamphlet, "the absurdity of politics" is interesting, I just found it over at
http://situationist.gq.nu/paraf.html

Spikeymike said in an earlier post

and then he said later

I am confused .

Indeed there was a situation in the 70s that membership of the womens movement was proscribed for SPGBers . That conference resolution was later rescinded . Yes , the trouble with party democracy is that sometimes wrong decisions are made , but then again , they can be corrected .

Nor will anyone within the SPGB deny that debates upon trade unions arose throughout the existence of the party as a post again placed earlier on another thread indicates [ http://libcom.org/forums/theory/radical-perspectives-crisis-22102008?page=4 ] ,

In fact , though i would argue that the SPGB position on trade unions which developed from discussions and disagreements can be generally vindicated . The ideal trade-union, from a socialist point of view, would be one that recognised the irreconcilable conflict of interest between workers and employers, that had no leaders but was organised democratically and controlled by its members, that sought to organise all workers irrespective of nationality, colour, religious or political views, first by industry then into One Big Union ( as was promoted by our companion party in Canada that once again never seems to get a mention by our critics and i wonder why there is this lapse of memory ) , and which struggled not just for higher wages but also for the abolition of the wages system.The trouble is that this cannot become a full reality till large numbers of workers are socialists. In other words, you can’t have a union organised on entirely socialist principles without a socialist membership. This was recognised in the big discussions on “the trade union question” that took place in the Socialist Party in Britain shortly after we were founded in 1904.

The idea of forming a separate socialist union, as the SLP in America advocated and tried to organise, was rejected in favour of working within the existing unions and trying to get them to act on as sound lines as the consciousness of their membership permitted.
The logic behind this position was that, to be effective, a union has to organise as many workers as possible employed by the same employer or in the same industry, but a socialist union would not have many more members than there were members of a socialist party. In a non-revolutionary situation most union members would inevitably not be socialists but would not need to be. A union can be effective even without a socialist membership if it adheres to some at least of the features of the ideal socialist union outlined above, and will be the more effective the more of those principles it applies. This is why Socialist Party members in the existing unions have always insisted on recognition of the class struggle, democratic control by the membership and no affiliation to the Labour Party. The SPGB avoided the mistake of the American SLP - and of the CPGB during the "Third Period" after 1929 - of "dual unionism", i.e. of trying to form "revolutionary" unions to rival the existing "reformist" unions, though some SPGB members were involved, on an individual basis, in breakaway unions ( see that other post on the other thread for more details on that )

We countered the syndicalist case “The Mines to the Miners!” or “The Railways to the Railwaymen!” by pointing out the socialists want to abolish the sectional ownership of the means of life, no matter who compose the sections , and no reinforce it .Instead of the socialist idea of the ownership by the whole people in common of the land, railways, factories and so on, the syndicalists wish to strengthen the property-foundation of society.Syndicalists were merely projecting into socialism the industrial and professional divisions of workers which exist under capitalism. Since socialism is based on the social ownership (ie ownership by society) of the means of production, the trade union ownership proposed by the syndicalists was not socialism at all but a modified form of sectional ownership.

The working class gets the unions, and the leadership, it deserves. Just as a king is only a king because he is obeyed, so too are union leaders only union leaders because they are followed. To imagine they lead is to imbue them with mystical powers within themselves, and set up a phantasm of leadership that exactly mirror images the same phantasm as our masters believe. So long as the workers themselves are content to deal with such a union system, and its leaders, then such a union system and its leaders will remain, and will have to react to the expectations of the members. The way to industrial unions, or socialist unions, or whatever, is not through the leadership of the unions. The unions will always reflect the nature of their memberships, and until their membership change, they will not change. Unions are neither inherently reactionary, nor inherently revolutionary. The only way to change unions is not through seizing or pressurising the leadership, but through making sure that they have a committed membership, a socialist membership.

If Spikeymike wants an infallible socialist party with a membership totally of one mind on every subject , he is going to be sorely disappointed , but more important , is the failure of himself and others to recognise the SPGB's insight and correct practice where it has existed . And that is a real disappointment for me

i agree that syndicalists have mostly moved on from that earlier position and the early frostiness between syndicalists and SPGBers that existed has thawed . I for one would highly recommend Solfeds pamphlet "Economics of Freedom" . They describe themselves as anarcho-syndicalist and not simply as syndicalists and that is a big difference which remains and that is an entirely separate debate .With syndicalism , in general , the SPGB has always insisted that the structures and tactics of organisations that the working class create to combat the class war will be there own decision and will necessarily be dependent on particular situations . What we have stated is that ;

I have been a member of the IWW and there too the SPGB has revised its attitudes as a result in changes within the IWW . Previously in the past , during the formative years of both organisations , the IWW was seen as more of an anti-political ie an anarchist organisation , promoting Industrial Unionism , which the SPGB disavowed , as you read in the previous post , as insectional and undemocratic , since it was about industries controlling the means of production and distribution and not society as a whole ie also those outside the work-place . But the SPGB now accepts that in recent years the IWW can be more accurately described as an a-political organisation , if you get the difference of emphasis , since it itself has changed its approach to the class struggle and for all practical purposes now acts as a democratic and progressive , inspirational and educational union that is to be recommended for membership when it is to the workers advantage , which is the majority of the time and situations . No longer being divisive with outright opposition to the pure and simple reformist trade unions by its adoption of the dual -card policy has been another change which differentiates the present from the early IWW that the SPGB criticised . It has also accepted the principles of agreed contracts of employment and even State recognition and registration . For all practical purposes it now operates as a union and an umbrella for workers of many political persuasions and not just the one . So it is not a formal position to the IWW that has been taken by the SPGB but an informal one ( and a practical one ), which can change if the IWW decide that certain ideas should take precedence over others or again become dominated by one particular strand of political thought , rather than an open and inclusive workers' organisation which exists now .We also have to be minded that even within syndicalist unions the more effective the union is in achieving victories against capitalism , the more the non-radical workers will join it for the trade union benefits and this could just as like water down its revolutionary aspects as to militantise those new recruits . It is just as likely that they will desert the union if the revolutionary aspirations of the union hinder the practicalities of the daily bread and butter fight .

Unlike the early SLP or supporters of Anarcho-syndicalism , the SPGB have always insisted ( in agreement with the IWW constitution that"the IWW
refuses all alliances, direct and indirect, with existing political parties or anti-political sects") that there should be a separation and that no political party or should , or can successfully use , unions as an economic wing , until a time very much closer to the Revolution when there are substantial and sufficient numbers of socialist conscious workers and considerable over-lap of memberships . And for the foreseeable thats far off in the future .

Tthe SPGB attitude is one recognising that -

ajj is confused that is true.

There is a difference between any particular tactic favoured by Marx in his day and the application of Marx's method of anyalysis applied to an understanding of the situation today or to the evolution of capitalism with the benefit of our knowledge of history since Marx's day.

It should not be so difficult to understand how the SPGB's position, largely unchanged since it's inception, is rooted in a different era and the outcome of different earlier struggles to those we have experienced since.

I acknowledge that some of the more bizarre and sectarian attitudes of the SPGB still around during my stay in that organisation some 34 years ago, have been jettisoned (along with the explusion of some who refused to be modernised) but these are little more than surface changes.

You are welcome to rerun your arguments with the traditionalists of industrial unionism and anarcho-syndicalism but don't confuse me ( or old Pannekoek) with the same.

I am happy to acknowledge some of the SPGB's strengths, particular it's promotion of a genuine communist vision against the left wing ideologues of capitalism, but it's views on trade unionism and capitalist elections are not among those strengths and for the reasons I have tried in vain to explain - a fundamental failure to grasp the relationship between ideas and action.

You choose to ignore the significance of your own quoting of Marx, which I emphasised in my earier post. To put it admitedly rather crudely - a mass change in consciousness can only occur as the result of a revolution (according to Marx) not before it - this is the opposite of the SPGB's position and the reason I have categorised it's politics as essentially idealist rather than materialist.

In fact the ‘materialist’ position of Spikymike that you have the revolution first and then sort out ‘mass change in consciousness’ is, not surprisingly, similar to Maximilien
Lenins.

Although with Lenin you never be too sure that he isn’t taking the piss.

V. I. Lenin
From the Destruction of the Old Social System
To the Creation of the New

April 11, 1920

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/apr/11.htm

It is little wonder that the Anarchists and Leninists worked so well together at the beginning. I don’t think Lenin ever had a kind word to say about the Marxists.

Yeah , we did do a "i told you so"
But we were also doing it pre 1914 , accusing the 2 nd International of being non-socialist and traitors to the working class ,and while we were throwing cold water on the 2nd International , The Lenins of the world were still adhering to the mistaken strategies and tactics and basically still worshipping at the feet of Kautsky while the SPGB almost alone had jettisoned the 2nd International .The SPGB never had to leave the Second International: it was never in it.
The failures of post 1917 has only confirmed the SPGB case that understanding is a necessary condition for socialism , not desperation and despair . Still born revolutions may have a romantic appeal to yourself but when we find Kiel workers councils appointing the future butcher Noske as their representative that's a true picture of the understanding that existed in the turmoil .

For the SPGB take on what was happening in Germany in 1919 see http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/archive/germany%281919%29.pdf

Yes pessimistic and "told you so" but socialists are not in the business of creating myths but about facing realities , whether the truths are palatable or not

Yes we said "we told you so" and with good reason .There is no easier road to Socialism than the education of the workers in Socialism and their organisation to establish it by democratic methods. Shortcuts have proved to be cul de sacs .

No-one denies the courage of the working class , thats been proved countless times , but we do question their foolhardiness .

And what would the SPGB have done with its limited influence ? As always we would have counselled the working class to

As we cautioned in 1926 General Strike