Is the SPGB an anarchist organization?

Since some weary of my lengthy replies , and some simply don't take any notice of what is stated in them , preferring to repeat their own prejudices , i refer Trenchone to anarcho's earlier comment.

A fair summary of the SPGB position.

but unlike in e.g. Russia, they werent slaughtered while handing over a very moderate petition to the Czar, political repression in the Britain was much less severe than e.g. in Spain, Italy, Argentina, Ireland etc. ... and there was also the possibility to benefit from colonial exploitation or to become a white settler in a colony;

In principle any member of militant (Socialist Party [SP] to their friends... of Great Britain [SPGB] to everyone else) is a potential admin: comment unpublished as it smears a group in a way which we believe is inaccurate. If the poster disagrees with this, please post evidence for the claim

The SP and the SPGB are two completely different groups.

And this is precisely where the accusation of Leninism comes from. The posing of a contradiction between the conscious socialist militants and the helpless unconscious mass of workers. It smells exactly like the old statement that the working-class by it's own efforts can only reach 'trade-union consciousness'.

Not sure if this is communist flame-bait or what?

It is certainly a tenuous inference. I don't know of any credible group that actively theorise against spreading their message within the class, other than insurrectionist anarchists (which i do not perceive credible).

Unlike Leninists, SPGB do not want to take power in the name of the mass of unconscious workers....

Harrison Myers,

I am not against 'spreading the message'. What I am against is the idea that this is somehow necessary for a revolution to occur. This leads to all kinds of illusions. The fact is that even after the working-class has seized political power communist consciousness will most likely be the propery of a minority of the class, however sizeable. The SPGB imagine, on the contrary, that first of all the working-class will have to have had 'the message' drilled into them through propaganda before we can do anything.

Zanthorus, although our politics differ a great deal, I very much agree with your last point, and that is the reason why, although i am sympathetic to the SPGB, I am not a member.

The SPGB defend a view of parliament that is completely at odds with how the ruling class actually rule. The state is NOT parliament – and it’s difficult to make much of a case for it ever having been, apart, perhaps, for a limited period in the 17th Century. The state has an executive– top civil servants, top police/intelligence bodies/armed services, top financial/corporate/media interests, party leaders etc - whose make-up may be labyrinthine and opaque, but which is no more controlled by parliament than it’s controlled by the Wombles. The idea that a politically conscious working class can seize control of this state through the ballot box is a fantasy. The idea that the state would allow a ‘people’s tribune’ to elect even a few representatives to parliament to articulate the case for socialism is a similar fantasy. The Law and parliamentary convention are weapons of the ruling class, and ones they’ll use whenever their interests are threatened – we saw how they rushed through the Representation of the People Act in 1981 to keep out `Irish nationalists (even though the nats were defending the interests of the bourgeoise!) – and they can use THEIR rules at will (Royal Prerogative, Special Powers, Anti-Terrorism Act blah, blah, blah). For all that is positive about the SPGB (their refusal to line up behind factions of the bourgeoise in imperialist war, unlike the Trots, for example) their parliamentarism is essentially idealism; workers will reflect and think though the arguments for socialism, realise they are a jolly good idea, then troop off individually as privatised individuals to vote in socialism. Aye, right.

I am unaware of the difference. A testament to my ignorance is the fact that SPGB is nothing but a rumour where I live. However, permitting that I have limited knowledge about universal socialism and its utopian ideology it appears to rest on my conscience that imperialist cringing matters very little.

The Polish resistance demonstrates a complete sense of what is desired at the moment. I can't feel the same way as Marx and Engels about it, because socialist policy is dovetailed to capital, therefore every one of the state's interests are bound over to the system of authority, which supports this. In particular we have a principle against militarism, in so far as socialist policy that is conditioned by it is realised. During the Russian occupation anyone opposed to Russian Soviet domination was smeared as a 'reactionary'. Anarchists are no different.

A common misconception is that the SPGB believe everything should come through parliament. That is not true. As far as i know, they see the vote as but one tool to be used during the high point of class struggle, to essentially minimise the casualties the workers will face when passing the means of production into common ownership.

If people want to see what the SPGB are really about, i'd recommend their latest pamphlet
What's wrong with using parliament?

I have echo that Zanthorus is making an extremely important point.

I would invite anyone to scan all the threads you find in this fine forum and look at the various "beginner questions". A large portion of these questions hinge on the assumption that "we anarchists" or "we communists" or someone will be selling the idea of revolution to the passive mass of workers as they exist today. "How can we get workers [as they exist within present capitalism] to embrace our ideas???" - over and over again.

But even, if somehow, we could "sell our ideas", it wouldn't matter because people sold an idea aren't going be collectively empowered. And just as much, just "liking the idea" doesn't get people off their asses to do anything - rather, "material necessity" is the force the gets people going.

The point is that generally revolutions have happened and so will happen with people empowering themselves and then beginning the debate about to do on a different basis than what previously existed. Look at what happened and is happening in Egypt (not that this doesn't have far, far to go BUT what is possible to discuss today, there, is very different than what was possible to imagine two years ago).

When you really "get" this point, it is a "sea change" in your mentality. It's common for people to become revolutionaries with the idea that they're aiming to get people to like their ideas - that they intend to argue the world into being revolutionary. But the point is that it's "perfectly natural" for someone integrated into this world to justify their integration by adopting the dominant ideology. There's really no reason to argue with people.

If nothing else, the Nihilist Communist folks make this point very, very thoroughly. And indeed, it is unfortunate that one needs to read something larded with all sorts of other baloney just to get this critical point....

what are you talking about?

Sorry, but if you are going to start calling people things like "grasses" then you should at least have the vaguest idea of what you're talking about. The SP and the SPGB are both completely different. What do you mean by "imperialist cringing", and what has the Polish resistance got to do with this discussion? You have been making off topic, nonsensical posts all over the forums, and now with this smear we're going to have to give you a warning which will lead to a ban if you persist.

The root of the discussion is proposing that the subject group are anarchists. Fightback against state socialism ought to hold special relevance to any discussion about anarchism.

ZANTHORUS -

How often does this assertion require refuting?

What we have indubitably stated is that to achieve socialism requires a clear understanding of socialist principles with a determined desire to put them into practice. For socialism to be established the mass of the prople must understand the nature and purpose of the new society. Our theory of socialist revolution is grounded in Marx's - the position of the working class within capitalist society forces it to struggle against capitalist conditions of existence and as the workers gained more experience of the class struggle and the workings of capitalism, the labour movement would become more consciously socialist and democratically organised by the workers themselves and would require no intervention by people outside the working class to bring it. Socialist propaganda and agitation would indeed be necessary but would be carried out by workers themselves whose socialist ideas would have been derived from an interpretation of their class experience of capitalism. The end result would be an independent movement of the socialist-minded and democratically organised working class aimed at winning control of political power in order to abolish capitalism. Marx’s “the workers’ party to be", would be the mass democratic movement of the working class with a view to establishing socialism" the SPGB no longer claim that mantle.) We however fully accept that it is the responsibility of the SPGB to challenge capitalist apologists and pseudo-socialists in the battle of ideas and that requires talking to, leafleting and debating and engaging with our fellow workers.

The workers' acceptance of capitalist political and social ideas, like their other ideas, is learned from other people--their parents, their schoolteachers, their workmates, the press, television--and so derived from society so it follows therefore that the struggle against capitalist ideology must be also be a struggle to spread socialist ideas - a role taken on by the SPGB. Socialist ideas arise when workers begin to reflect on the general position of the working class within capitalist society. They do then have to be communicated to other workers, but NOT from outside the working class as a whole. They have to be communicated by OTHER workers who, from their own experience and/or from absorbing the past experience of the working class, have come to a socialist understanding. It's not a question of enlightened outsiders bringing socialist ideas to the ignornant workers but of socialist-minded workers spreading socialist ideas amongst their fellow workers. We see socialist consciousness as emerging from a combination of two things - people's experience of capitalism and the problems it inevitably creates but also the activity of socialists in making hearing the case for socialism a part of that experience.

i am sympathetic to RedHughes comments and see little conflict with the SPGB who have written that

We regard socialism not as a purely political theory, nor as an economic doctrine, but as one which embraces every phase of social life.

I suppose a shorter reply should have been that the SPGB are not against co-ops, the unions, or any other way in which workers struggle. What we do say, is that these are not means towards socialism, and we advocate socialism as the better and lasting answer.

Brevity has never been my strength !

Does Mr Blues have the misconception that the SPGB proposes state-socialism (-capitalism) ?

Mr blues has now been banned following breaching the terms of his warning, posting repeated nonsensical, off topic posts on various threads.

In reply to Shug's comments but not wishing to get too involved in Irish nationalist politics but didn't Sinn Fein engage in the electoral process quite successfully and were never banned, and even the Bobby Sands seat was held, with an increased vote, by Sinn Fein, who were never legally excluded from participation in elections. Successes convinced republicans that they should contest elections and led to the armalite and ballot box phase of their politics and then led to a resurrection of the old Sinn fein boycott of the London parliament strategy for elected MPs and eventually lead to their integration fully with parliamentary democracy in Northern Ireland.

Regardless though, the SPGB position is that we would change our tactics if the law on elections is changed to the workers detriment, but until that day, we will show our commitment to democracy and let the capitalist class prove themselves to be un-democratic. We won't stand idly by if the constitution is changed. It wouldn’t stop socialism being eventually established, one way or another.

Way back in 1909 we answered the question " “What would be the action of the S.P.G.B. if the capitalist class, in view of the possibility of an adverse vote, disfranchise the workers?”

(for some early members of the SPGB waging war against the capitalist class might have been seen as literal )!!

Shug's argument (an oft repeated and inaccurate criticism of the SPGB ) is that faced with an impending socialist election victory the capitalist ruling class would abolish political democracy and, even if they let things go so far as an actual socialist election victory, would not respect it and would carry on ruling regardless yet recent events in North Africa, like those previously in Eastern Europe even if a pro-capitalist minority were to try to prevent a change of political control via the ballot box, the socialist majority will still be able to impose its will by other means, such as street demonstrations and strikes.

The 2002 coup against Chavez failed because people were prepared to take to the streets to back up their vote and because the bulk of the armed forces remained loyal to the constitution and the constitutionally-elected president. The theory that power obtained by the ballot box to effect radical changes can’t be retained was disproved by actual experience. It confirmed our view that a socialist majority can both win and retain power via the ballot box if that majority is sufficiently organised and determined and if there is no question as to their democratic legitimacy.

The SPGB case in the present world and not a hypothetical future scenario is that any attempt to establish an socialiist society by ignoring the democratic process gives any recalcitrant minority the excuse for anti-libertarian direct action itself. We insist on the necessity of majority understanding behind socialist delegates with a mandate for socialism, merely using the state and parliament for one revolutionary act, after which the Socialist Party has no further existence.

But that doesn't really explain the actual economic policies of Chavez, does it. Sure he retained power, but Venezuela as a nation is about as socialist as Britain is. The reality is that most of the powerful capitalists in Venezuela remain powerful with little prospect that his is going to change. So the question has to be, if this large majority won via the ballot box, why have they not been able to expropriate the means of production and why has Bolivarian process become increasingly mired in economic problems and militarisation?

i don't wish to be dragged into a debate about Chavez, that deserves another thread on its own, but to respond to your point, Chavez was not elected on a platform of expropriation but on a campaign of reform promises and therefore has no democratic mandate from the people to do so. (His attempt of strengthening his constitutional position was defeated by a referendum if you recall.)
Secondly, the reality of an interdependent world capitalist system constrains and restricts his choice of action in Venezuela. Economically, Chavez is tied into the oil business and the resulting revenues his state derives from it.

Yeah and even that has seen massive reaction, particularly from the upper third of wealth in society - a pattern which repeats the world over and is unlikely to ever stop being the case because for a third of the population it is fundamentally not in their interests for a revolution to happen. What's unclear from the SPGB is where the power to resist this (internationally united) third of society comes from while parliamentary norms and in-situ capitalism are continuing as usual.

But surely that's part of the point? Nothing will ever happen in a vacuum and more than ever before, politics and economics are globally situated. So when Chavez is elected on a platform of significant economic reform, he finds himself basically unable to do so on a sustained basis through normal channels, even with significant oil holdings, because he is continuing to play the game to their rules.

In order to break those rules, he would have to expropriate on a mass scale and turn over entire industries to their workforces - which in turn would prompt a far more violent reaction from the local elites, backed by international ones which have more than enough excuse to come to the aid of private property.

With war becoming inevitable, what's the next reaction?

Well you're basing your power on the concept of an undivided nation and a standing army founded on principles of unquestioning obedience (parliament and the military), so you have to appeal to nationalism and military discipline. Because you're in charge and looking to maximise your power base to deal with the reaction, you need to start imposing discipline where you can't command it automatically. Which means bringing any autonomous movements to heel.

By this point, where is the difference between you and what became of Lenin, Stalin et al?

By an opportune coincidence, June's Socialist Standard has a review of "Venezuela. Revolution as Spectacle" by Rafael Izcategui, editor of El Libertario, a Venezuelan anarchist journal which offers a critique of Hugo Chavez. Worth a read.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/jun11/book_reviews.html#top

It seems to me that you might be accusing the SPGB of holding the idea that somehow a socialist revolution is possible in one country whereas most know here that we have always stood for the argument that what will be necessary is a world-wide socialist revolution, not one country in isolation. It's why the SPGB often uses the other name World Socialist Movement. Ideas are social, artificial national borders cannot contain them, as we are presently seeing in the influence of the "Arab Spring" that's now spread to Spain.

We have often disparaged those who call for some form of minority revolution and have also dismissed any nationalist solutions to the workers problems because of what you describe as the "internationally united" opposition which would indeed strangle any attempt at expropriation.

Our view on the army (and police) is basically that they are workers in uniform, as receptive to revolutionary ideas as civilians are (see the appropriate threads here on libcom).

The SPGB, as we have often said, engage in the parliamentary process not to take and hold political office and form a government (which appears to be your impression) but for the purpose of seizing control of the state for its abolishment. Others on here may question the validity of such an approach, and doubt the possibility of success, but it makes the SPGB more than your average run-of-the-mill parliamentarian political party, elected to administer capitalism or offer palliatives, in the way Chavez presented himself and we shouldn't be confused as such.

The SPGB can be proud of its long history in exposing the oxymoron of the "workers state" and attacking the concepts of Leninism (and its offspring Stalinism and Trotskyism). A quick search of our website should suffice to prove that.

You seem to have missed the point that I'm a devil-worshipping Leninist vanguardist in the flesh who doesn't believe that the workers' need a majority 'socialist consciousness' to innaugurate any revolution in the first place. That, on the contrary, it is the revolution that produces the majority 'socialist consciousness'.

EDIT:

Actually, I have a question. You note that the SPGB is one of the longest surviving organisations not just on the 'left' but on the political spectrum as a whole. My question is, why do you think you have managed to exist for so long whilst remaining a marginal propaganda sect? Do you not think that your history would lead one to conclude that there is something faulty in your methods, since you've been harping on the same tune for the past hundred years whilst going nowhere?

Isn't this the key conceptual weakness? The 'parliamentary process' does not 'control the state'.

Parliament is only one sector of the state. But the other sectors, the executive, judiciary, police and military (leaving entirely out of the equation the extra-state power of the bourgeoisie) are not elected.

And even if the elected bit of the state, parliament, comes under workers' control, from historical experience we know the other unelected sectors will just slough off parliament, and continue to function as a state without parliament. In this sense, parliament is a pretence.

The state is like a lizard, and parliament is the tail. If we manage to grab the tail, the lizard just discards its tail, and we are left with a useless member in our collective hands.

And if it's a 50 foot angry lizard, with big teeth, when it turns round, we're fucked, mate. It was very attached to its decorative tail.

Zanthorus, once you can find the answer why the anarchist movement and the Left Communists groupings have also remained just as marginalised , maybe you will have found the answer why the SPGB has too. (People tend to forget that Freedom magazine has been in existence for longer than the Socialist Standard).
I certainly got no answer but the SPGB has never been in the business to win popularity contests and jump on any old band-wagon for the sake of recruitment and many of the political organisations that did have disappeared, having had no lasting impact. Events have only confirmed the SPGB case that understanding is a necessary condition for socialism, not desperation and despair. 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. Has history actually proved this position wrong? i doubt it. Until the knowledge and experience of the working class are equal to the task of revolution there can be no emancipation.
The fact of the longevity of the SPGB as a political organisation based on agreed goals, methods and organisational principles seems to suggest that we indeed represent some strand of socialist thought that some people are drawn towards.
You say "it is the revolution that produces the majority 'socialist consciousness'."
Care to explain how it does and why it's not taken place.

LBird, your point has been thrown at the SPGB before and it disagrees with your view . The issuing of orders, the appointment and control of officials, and everything else connected with the operation of the State, is in the hands of the majority group in Parliament who go on to constitute the Government. Underlying your argument is idea that there is somehow a power behind or beyond elected governments that in reality controls them (some kind of shadowy group or committee or boardroom that is really in control) and that, therefore, if its position is seriously threatened it has the means at its disposal to clamp down on those threatening it and will not hesitate to use violence to do so, perhaps in the form of a coup or a military takeover. Its why we sometimes counter that it is a conspiracy theory.

We don't think faced with a massive majority vote for socialism, and a working class outside parliament organised to back it up, the ruling class would put their life and liberty on the line by resorting to violence to try to resist the inevitable. Maybe there'll be a few isolated acts of violence by fool-hardy individuals, but these could easily be contained and the socialist revolution should be able to pass off essentially peacefully. Your hypothetical scenario of the military and police being turned upon the workers since they too would be influenced by socialist ideas, as civil servants and administrators and all who work within the state-machine. As i have said , a recalcitrant minority or as marx and engels descibed them pro-slavery rebels will not hold back socialism because there'd be strikes there'd be mass civil disobedience (refusal to obey the rebels' edicts) and street demonstrations and there would be army mutinies. As stated ad nauseum, our object of taking political control of the state is not in isolation with events outside parliament

Have you thought through the implications of this? That the socialist/communist revolution is going to be accomplished only by a minority of the working class. I know this is a long-standing anarchist position, but it is not the position held by Marx and Engels or by others in that tradition such as Rosa Luxemburg and Anton Pannekoek.

From the Communist Manifesto:

From Engels' Preface to the 1888 English edition of the Manifesto:

From Engels again:

I don't know if this is your intention but you seem to be advocating a minority-led revolution in the interests of the majority, as if that hadn't been tried in Russia and look what it led to.

Not really, underlying the argument is the plain and simple understanding that the army's upper echelons are mainly comprised of the children of long-established elites, that its existence (and the power of all its middle-ranking/upper-echelon staff) is based on the continuance of the state, that it swears an oath to the Queen (ie. the nationstate) not to parliament etc etc. Which is partly what my earlier point about required tactics for Chavez in the event of genuinely revolutionary intent refers to.

Parliament is a single actor in a far grander coalition of interests making up the state in which the military is merely one. The private sector is another, the collective economic leverage of the international community is a third. And even within parliament's main power base of taxation/public service different wings have radically different priorities (say, well-paid bomb-makers vrs barely-paid cleaners).

Parliament cannot control jack without the consent or overthrow of anti-change interests, even if the only thing done with that control is to say "we're no longer in charge."

And no parliament, voted in though it may be by the mass, is ever going to be able to persuade vested interests to abolish themselves voluntarily. Look at Egypt, where the various military commanders (ruling class all) took practical steps to make sure sedition didn’t spread through the ranks by swapping out malcontents away from Tahrir, even as they were helpfully manouvering Mubarak out of the way under public pressure.

I am inclined to think that this is because of the present historic low in the level of class struggle. The Communist Left was not always an insignificant series of groups numbering in the hundreds. In the 20's in Italy and Germany there was sizeable support ranging in something more like tens of thousands. I think you are correct though in what you go on to say that there is not much relevance in popularity contests and proving who has the most recruits. What I think is more problematic is the fact that in a hundred years of existence the SPGB has done nothing except to continue to promulgate it's own peculiar mishmash of Marxism and the Utopian Communism of Morris and Kropotkin.

The membership of the ICC may not speak for much more than that of the SPGB but their militants have been involved in recent events in France and Turkey among others. By contrast, what struggles has the SPGB been involved in? From the look of it's site I would say 'none'. Maybe this is just a matter of presentation, but if you look at the ICC's Platform or it's Basic Positions those documents mention previous historical struggles from the Russian Revolution to Mai 68. There is some kind of sense that their current is connected with the real movement of the class. The SPGB has a lot of positions that look good on paper like rejection of state-capitalism/self-management, of the so-called workers' states etc but idk you give off the vibe of just being a communist version of some Puritan sect. I personally find it pretty hard to take your organisation seriously at all and I don't see that you've ever done anything that would warrant praise as part of the proletarian milieu apart from the defence of a 'correct line' which isn't really worth much if you never use it anyway.

This is a false inference though. From the statement that even after the seizure of power communist consciousness is maintained by a minority of the class, it does not follow that socialist transformation will be achieved only by a minority of the class.

Well to the charge of advocating whas was tried in Russia you can colour me guilty. I think your statement that it was a 'minority-led revolution' is both counter-intuitive and at odds with the historical record though.

i have already stated that working class power cannot solely depend on Parliament, Rob Ray, but for the sake of argument, accepting your case that the military high command would somehow still retain the loyalty of their junior ranks (something i doubt knowing many servicemen throughout my life and their attitudes towards their superiors ), what exactly is your suggestion that the working class should do to prevail politically when up against the guns and tanks you say they would inevitably face?

(The Chinese govt in Tiannenmen Sq unable to depend on the local garrisons, transferred non-Han, non-Chinese speaking troops to crush it. Franco had to rely upon his Moor and Foreign Legion regiments)

Oh I'm not suggesting that officers can rely on the loyalty of their grunts necessarily (in fact I'm saying the opposite - that officers have to swap out troops periodically to maintain discipline). I am suggesting however that the idea of Parliament as something which will enable the abolition of the state is a phantasm because all the other groups will still act to retain the old order. If you acknowledge this, then it becomes pointless looking for votes other than as a form of popularity contest (ie. "look at us we got loads of votes, therefore we have a mandate for action).

But if that level of support for change is there anyway, there's no point in waiting for parliament to catch up - revolution is already at hand.