Midlands Discussion Forum meeting 06/08/06

Greetings all,

I've been asked to publicise the Midlands Discussion Forum (MDF) meeting of Sunday 6th August, at 1.30pm in the Secular Hall in Leicester (opposite Sainsbury's, 2 minutes' walk from the town centre). Everyone who believes that discussion is necessary or useful for the working class is welcome to attend.

We will be discussing Anton Pannekoek's 1940 article 'Why past revolutionary movements have failed', available at:
http://libcom.org/library/why-past-revolutionary-movements-have-failed-pannekoek
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379/FAILED.HTM
http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1940/revo.htm

This is a (hopefully not too long) introduction to the MDF written originally for distribution to the West Midlands Anarchists, for those of you (most I would suspect) who do not know about the forum:

On the mdf.

The forum came into existence in 1999. Its initial impulse was to discuss ideas around the politics of class struggle anarchism, council communism and left communism. From its origin the forum sought to relate to the world outside the particular city that it was located in. It was the perception of all participants that this enterprise was not an attempt to create a new political group, nor a sympathisers circle for an existing organisation. The aim was to establish and maintain a forum for the discussion of the politics and history of the proletarian movement. Individuals would seek to clarify and develop their own politics within this forum. There was a need to source and share books, journals and articles. This was vital after the closure of the Leicester bookshop that had been an informal support in the early life of the forum.

Proletarian politics. It was apparent that this did not include the left politics that we saw as defending the interests of capital (albeit with ‘socialist’ rhetoric): stalinism and its offspring of maoism, castroism etc., and modern day trotskyism & variants. The participants understood themselves to be in support of the self-organisation of the working class; and identified with those traditions that saw the workers councils as the means of proletarian autonomy. The forum was open to individuals and organisations that sought to defend those positions.

Early topics were on Kronstadt 1921. What is state capitalism? The meaning of communism. War in the twentieth century. May 1968. On Internationalism: Why national liberation is not revolutionary. Also the discussion of contemporary issues as they arose, such as the nature of globalisation/anti-globalisation campaigns, Sept.11 and after – plus a litany of atrocities and disasters. A constant work has been the careful consideration of the difficulties that the working class experiences in its struggle: For instance, why the unions fail to defend the workers interests, what role does the left play against the class struggle. Can the class understand itself as a collective? How to participate in the movement of the class?

It was important to set out an understanding of capitalism. What is it? What is the nature of its crisis? What perspective is there for humankind and the planet if things ‘just carried on’ (sic)? And, flowing from that: Is the working class a revolutionary class? What is the nature of its struggle? What means can it use in that struggle? Can it create the basis of a new world society? What form of human life activity is the aim of the revolutionary transformation? All of this is in the face of the prevalent ‘post modern’ ethos of resignation, meaningless and self-absorption – that justify nihilism, hedonism and indifference to the plight of the world.

The discussion forum does not believe that it can invent a new politics or philosophy for the working class – nor find magic slogans to apply in this or that local ‘intervention’.
The proletariat has struggled and produced understandings from its experiences as a global and historic class. These understandings have largely been lost to the class: buried by defeat and lies. The history of the working class turned against it by decades of systematic slander. How to retrieve that rich experience for the necessary development of future combats? What is useable, and capable of contributing to the struggle for consciousness of the world proletariat. What is dead, and should be buried? What methods for examining these issues in a meaningful way?

The forum has emphasised the study of the history of the revolutionary movement, and the push to understand theoretical concepts. What was the purpose of this work? This has been an attempt to develop and deepen a shared framework to enable coherent exchanges. [NB. Here shared framework is not the same as shared programme or positions.]

Is marxism a contribution to that? What is marxism?: The ideology of state capitalism? A religion of History? Some participants began from the position that marxism was an intellectual racket in the service of left totalitarianism. Others held that there was a revolutionary marxism unrelated to the ‘Marxism’ thrust at the workers by the bourgeoisie.

This process of examination entailed a serious commitment of will and understanding. The necessity was to avoid a caricatured ideological confrontation of Marxism and Anarchism, nor to take shelter in the anodyne of a ‘Libertarian Marxism’. The ongoing discussion has taken Makhnovism as one key reference point. See also Friends of Durruti.

And of course the bolsheviks. Here has been so much discussion. The differences in the forum have been marked. The first thing was to determine a starting point. It was a clear agreement that the regime that emerged by the early 1920s was not proletarian, and that socialism had never existed in Russia. Questions: was 1917 a bourgeois revolution dressed up in workers clothes – and flags? Did Lenin inevitably lead to Stalin? Did the workers councils ever have power? And if they did, how did they lose it? Was the Communist International (1919-1928) ever for genuine world proletarian revolution?

The agreed way forward was to reject the idea that this was a national revolution, and to examine approaches that affirmed the international nature of the wave of workers struggle that erupted to bring WW1 to a halt. It was recognised that this movement posed the real possibility of world revolution and the establishing of the international power of the workers councils. Socialist transformation could not begin (anywhere) without this political victory. With the defeat of the revolutionary wave by 1921-23, no programme (substitutionist or self-managed) could save the proletariat in Russia from the internal counter-revolution of the ‘Soviet’ state – total and complete by 1928. The bolsheviks themselves had been consumed by this monstrous state. But to what extent did they contribute to the defeat of the world working class? What can be learned from that defeat? How has that defeat been understood by traditions that are not implicated in it? Continuing discussion. This has been difficult. All participants have deepened position, and widened references.

The discussion forum has always attempted to be open to participation from other searching elements. We have taken initiatives and sent out open invitations. We have received support and responses on a regular basis from those interested in our work. There is a confidence in the renewed forward momentum of the proletarian movement. The participants in the forum seek to extend and deepen their contact and activity with those in that movement.

July '06

Thanks for your time and patience. Hope to see some of you on Sunday?

Fraternally,

slothjabber for the MDF