Aufheben introduce an article in their latest issue:
BREXIT MEANS… WHAT?
HAPLESS IDEOLOGY AND PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
A number of left groups and individuals campaigned for the UK to leave the European Union in the recent referendum. We argue that the Brexit campaign, and the referendum itself, its results and its implementation, have been one with a victory of the ruling class against us. The implementation of Brexit will negatively affect solidarity among workers and radical protesters, setting back our strength and potentials to overturn capitalism. Many people in the radical left were blinded by the ideological forms of our capitalist relations, the reification of our human interactions, to the point of accepting a victory of the far right with acquiescence, or even collaborating with it.
http://libcom.org/library/aufheben/new-issue-out-now
The group, Aufheben appears to present itself as very knowledgeable on the effects of current events on future possibilities. But from where do they get this certainty?
In the quote above Aufheben say that the Brexit campaign, referendum and prospective implementation have been ‘a victory of the ruling class against us [,] setting back our strength and potentials to overturn capitalism.’
But what does this mean exactly? If we compare other events within capitalism is it possible to be so sure about the consequences of these latest events in Britain?
Was the introduction of the Welfare State a victory for the working class, that is, an expression of our strength, or a means by which capitalism was able to set back our strength and potentials to overturn capitalism? (Is our strength effectively expressed as opposition to capitalism or as forcing refinements in our exploitation? As perhaps the case of the Welfare State, or the achievement of a minimum wage, etc, might be.)
Was the commencement of the First World War a setback to our strength or the catalyst for revolution across Europe?
If Brexit is setting us back, then is non-Brexit to be viewed as part of the long path to something like the events of France in May 1968? In June 1968, De Gaulle, was returned with the biggest majority in French parliamentary history. Does this mean that the incredible and inspiring events of May 1968 were ultimately counter-productive in ‘our potentials to overturn capitalism,’ especially if one views this point in history as pivotal in heralding the real domination of labour/the working class by capital.
These are really difficult questions to consider. I think they have no answer, but I also think the serious consideration of them alters one’s perspective, and perhaps takes one out of the camp of ‘politics’. These questions point to the possibility that, unlike journalists, political commentators, or the politically ambitious, communists and anarchists cannot let their analysis become another solutionist pronouncement. Because if they do they become just another Party in the firmament that believes it has the correct solution and therefore seeks to adhere followers to its cause.
So, how can Aufheben be so sure about the ultimate effects of Brexit? (Not forgetting that the immediate ones have been awful for many, just as the immediate ones were for people in 1914, or the post-Prague Spring ones were for Czechs’.) And what does such an analysis of Brexit – Brexit bad, non-Brexit good – tell us about the depth of their analysis, which appears here, in their blurb above, to merely mirror a form of social democracy?
The full article (which was
The full article (which was posted on libcom yesterday but was taken down shortly after) is kind of an elaborate argument about why revolutionaries should defend the bourgeois political status quo against the far right. I mean I'm really oversimplifying it, but that was the gist of the thing. It reminded me of some of the stuff that social democratic academics write - ie a bunch relatively sophisticated marxist theory to justify some reformist political end.
Some valid observations in
Some valid observations in the article aside....... I'm not convinced that Aufheben have proved themselves (in their conclusion) able to better see through the fog of ideology as a result of their involvement in campaigns of support for migrants and casual workers when it would appear that others similarly involved have come to different conclusions. In the much longer earlier discussion thread on this site about the Referendum few UK posters opted for a Brexit or Lexit vote and some at least were clear in rejecting the whole referendum mechanism as an attack on our class rather than just the right wing Brexit campaign as Aufheben in their 'non-ideological' support for the European Union suggest.. The Left wing political groups in their competition with each other for leadership of the working class, and some future hoped for junior role in the political apparatus of state, have to take up 'positions' on each and every capitalist debate and consult their supposed superior knowledge of strategy and tactics as to exactly how each campaign or vote might be turned to their advantage. Aufheben do not aspire to such giddy heights of political leadership but may fall prey to the same approach in the end in their assumed advisory role as the lefts 'think-tank'. Non of us were able to predict exactly how the vote would go. Nor were we in a position to determine it's outcome. It is understandable that in our personal day to day relationships with fellow migrant workers from the EU we might have felt inclined to declare for the 'vote remain' camp but that cannot be turned into a political case for participation in the referendum still less for any active support for the two opposing camps (there were only two in practice). However bad the immediate situation resulting from the vote it cannot be predicted in the longer term what that may mean in terms of the growth or otherwise of global class struggle and the potential for social revolution. We have to deal with the situation as it is not as we imagine it could have been altered by some better left-wing strategy or tactics.
The specific Brexit related
The specific Brexit related 'practical' or 'strategic' arguments alluded to in the article were not totally unconvincing. It was the corresponding theoretical argument being made that struck me. It felt like they were constructing a sort of universal justification for popular frontism. Something that could be applicable almost any time there's a perceived far right attack on the bourgeois political order. I cant imagine that was Aufheben's intent, but at the same time they didnt seem to even acknowledge that there were any 'slippery slope' (into social democracy) dangers involved in what they were arguing.
I'd need to read it again. My first reading of things can be a bit sketchy.
BNP And EDL Among Far-Right
BNP And EDL Among Far-Right Groups To March With Nigel Farage On Supreme Court
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/supreme-court-march-article-50-nigel-farage-bnp-edl_uk_5821bc2de4b0c2e24ab0ec18?x7n4yg5g2rm005p14i
Must have missed this earlier
Must have missed this earlier angry broadside against Aufheben's article:
https://nothingiseverlost.wordpress.com/2016/11/13/brexit-means-the-sky-is-falling-how-aufheben-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-eu/
Enjoy!