Impossibilism - Jon White's reading guide

Edited 'libcom.org's' out of description. This isn't from us. Also unpublished, since this is all outside links. Going to ask what the deal is.

Renamed and re-published. Cheers

I don't have a problem with this list being included under this title but it is of course heavily SPGB weighted. There is much more which could have been added from the SLP in both N.America and the UK plus some of the internal critical publications that appeared from time to time over the lengthy period of both organisations existence and some further links to other external critical publications, otherwise it is little more than a bit of very selective self-promotion from those organisations formally approved sources. Nothing here really gets to grips with the historical origins and limitations of 'impossibilism' . Reading a bit more than Chapter 4 of the book 'Non-Market Socialism in the 19th and 20th Century..' is to be recomended for starters.... and are there not some anarchist versions of 'impossibilism' perhaps?

Thanks for keeping this up. I've historically enjoyed seeing this stuff. Another spot to catch some of this was in the old "Discussion Bulletin" Frank Girad (ex-SLP) used to publish:
http://libertariansocialism.4t.com Also, more stuff by London Solidarity, coming out of that tradition is always great to see.

syndicalist

more stuff by London Solidarity, coming out of that tradition is always great to see.

I don't think the old Solidarity group (London) was related to impossibilism? At least as it is commonly understood.

For a critical perspective on SPGB I would recommend J. Crump's resignation letter. AJJ sent it to me a while back whilst helping a friend/comrade do some research. If people want I will add it to the library.

Android

syndicalist

more stuff by London Solidarity, coming out of that tradition is always great to see.

I don't think the old Solidarity group (London) was related to impossibilism? At least as it is commonly understood.

For a critical perspective on SPGB I would recommend J. Crump's resignation letter. AJJ sent it to me a while back whilst helping a friend/comrade do some research. If people want I will add it to the library.

Android, fair enough on London Solidarity.

I guess since many of their origins were SPGB, I kinda lump them together in a broader libertarian socialism. But there seems to be so many long and small lines that criss cross as succeeding movements away from the original parties, electoralist ideas and so forth where I sorta put bunches into a not so neat box for my own (barely) intellectual and historical reference. Sorta an SPGB, SLP foundation with bunches of more "modern"off-shoots and ties to libertarian socialism, on the hand. And on the other, those who have come out of a "third camp" socialism, with their own origins elsewhere.

OK, I'll zip it on this, before I confuse everyone with my own internal cataloging system.

Don't worry about it, syndicalist. I thought that might have been what you meant.

I just don't find the concept of libertarian socialism in the broad, all encompassing, sense all that useful. Although it does catch a certain political reflex I suppose. It is more useful in the narrower sense, i.e. Solidarity group.

Android, posting that letter to the library would be great!

I would advocate libcom setting up some uniform protocol for Introduction Readings. Let's make sure in Introductions to Anarcho-Syndicalism, Anarcho-Communism, the IWW, etc there include criticisms.

I agree that this is a bit too skewed to the SPGB. Their theoretical work is very good, but we need to include work by and about both the SPC and OBU in Canada. Both of these organizations had a much more active participation in class struggles than the SPGB has had and give a different glimpse as to what Impossibilism advocates. Juan C has posted a number of articles by/about them and I'll be funneling some more to him.

As for DeLeonists, should WIIU ("Detroit IWW") materials be included?

Steven.

Android, posting that letter to the library would be great!

Done.

A critical view; http://libcom.org/library/spgb-paul-petard

The Petard piece is crap. It doesn't deal with SPGB's real politics just holds up a mirror for Petard to confirm his own views.

And check out the text 'monument or movement' in the 'Subversion' library listing for an entertaining internal critique of the spgb by an old Glasgow member. It has it's limitations but reflected one part an ongoing internal discussion amongst some members of the spgb at that time, see here:
https://libcom.org/history/monument-or-movement

wasn't Jules Guesde and his gang in the SFIO considered to be Impossibilists ... before everything changed in August 1914? ... and has anyone said Austria?

I think the confusion about whether or not Solidarity is "impossibilist" (when it wasn't) may be due to the fact that some SPGB members, expelled in 1974, ended up in Solidarity. They didn't last long there though as they soon found out that Solidarity stood for the "self-management" of a market economy, as set out in this article from 1973. Something else to put in the library? Chris Pallis wrote a reply which someone must have. Maybe I have. I'll have to check.

I don't understand either why Larry Gambone's pamphlet on the SPC and OBU, The Impossibilists, is not on the list.

There's also this from a French site (but the articles are in many languages).

alb might be right about the confusion in relation to the UK 'Solidarity' group which a (very!) few people have expressed.

It is noteable that it took two years of negotiation between the 'Social Revolution' group, that had it's origins in expelled members of the SPGB (but by then including various other individuals), and the Solidarity group, to get some significant changes to the original Solidarity 'Where We Stand' and 'Where We Don't Stand' statements (in the library here). Unfortunately there was never wholehearted support from everyone in Solidarity for these and other changes made in the final fusion of the two groups and it eventually fell apart - though not entirely due only to the wavering of original Solidarity members (there was a general drift into swampy politics preceding this). To be fair however Solidarity, at it's best, did make some useful theoretical and practical contributions to our milieu more especially when it was not following a strictly Cardanite (Castoriadis) analysis.

Thanks for this link: http://www.socialisthistory.ca/Docs/Imposs/Impossibilists1.htm

This link to archived DeLeonist material was previously supplied on a related discussion thread:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/pdf/index.htm

Interest in the origins and work of the former SLP in Scotland was briefly revived by The Communist Organisation in the British Isles who republished a book by William Paul on 'The State - its origin and function' together with an introduction from Harry McShane in 1974.

I still have a 1980's to 2000 selection of the old duplicated Discussion Bulletin organised by Frank Girard which has a surprisingly wide variety of both direct and indirect contributors across the genuinely communist political spectrum beyond just the spgb and slp. Perhaps libcom provides something of a modern day version of this.

Just had another look at that original list put up by Jon White and it struck me that for an SPGB member it was still strangely selective. Without retracting any of my own continuing criticism of the SPGB, I thought he could usefully have included this particular issue of the Socialist Standard as their own attempt at a bit of 'internal' history of their organisation. It has some inaccuracies and is still open to criticism of course, some of that reflected in later editions 'Letters' but still of interest to some of us historians of these tiny socialist groups.
www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2004/no-1198-june-2004
Also in the library here.

fnbrill

The Petard piece is crap. It doesn't deal with SPGB's real politics just holds up a mirror for Petard to confirm his own views.

"Crap..." is a pretty crap critique. Considering SPGB's historical eagerness to debate with everyone from leninists to fascists, perhaps surprising that the 'official' SPGB apparently never publicly responded - though the 'reconstituted' Socialist Studies splitter bunch did, not very convincingly; http://www.socialiststudies.org.uk/socstudy63.shtml#petard

great reading list!

i've wondered the same question Spikymike, whether a tendecy's sprung from the anarchist tradition that takes the impossibilist stance of building a supermajority of class-conscious workers and only voting for genuinely socialist candidates to either: a) disarm the ruling class by winning and thus having legitimate control over the military, or b) call liberal democracy's bluff