In treacherous times why the New Party has to represent an educated openly socialist leadership
Kathrine Brannan and Henry Nowak, supporters of the Socialist Platform,
present a case against attempting to hide a Marxist revolutionary identity
within a ‘broad radical movement.’
Let’s refuse the Trojan Horse trickery of a ‘revolutionary Left deeply embedded within the broad radical movement’ waiting for ‘the appropriate moment’ to bound forth like Superman.
The ideas put forward by J. Penney for moving towards socialism have the advantage of transparency, even if his ultimate aim (socialism) is to be hidden until the ‘appropriate moment’ when all will become clear, even for the masses. His argumentation is useful for building a counter argument and political debate.
I have to assume his ideas as to the how of socialist transformation is likely to be central to the approach of the Left Party Platform: JP supports this platform and I do not recall any supporters of the LPP criticizing or disowning this approach. Certainly we know of other comrades associated with the LP platform who are Marxist and call for revolution but not in the case of LU where they seem to wear another more ‘acceptable’ hat.
The LPP does not advance its strategy openly, but limits itself to ‘progressive attitudes’; ‘Socialist, feminist, environmentalist and against all forms of discrimination. We stand against capitalism, imperialism, war, racism, Islamophobia and fascism. Our goal is to transform society: to achieve the full democratization of state and political institutions, society and the economy, by and for the people.’ We would be hard put to find thinking people who disagree with these attitudes and rather vague and pleasant wishes. John Penny’s outline of how we might travel to this pleasant land allows us to demonstrate why the active strategy behind the LPP wish list is flawed.
Moving on to the substance of the argument:
It is clear what strategy J. Penney wants us to follow. He outlines three possible scenarios:
The first is a mass mobilization against the “Great Austerity Offensive”, forcing the ruling class to make some concessions “as a demobilizing tactic”. This is where, contrary to what some advocate of a “this is too abstract to discuss here and now” position would say, a grasp of Marxist economics helps: the room for manoeuvre of the ruling class, their capacity to accede to the working class’s demand is very limited: their crumbs would not feed a sparrow.
Secondly, and this is an incredible statement, we “get a social crisis leading to (…) a 1973 Allende Chile outcome’: is the comrade seriously proposing that we deliberately engage on a path possibly leading to what amounts to a mass suicide? Does he really want to send unprepared, unarmed masses of working people against the state apparatus of the ruling class, just to make a point?
The third possibility, if we avoid (how?) the second outcome, is one of ‘Dual Power’ and a ‘socialist transformational opportunity.’ This I like better. But wait a second… Dual Power, we know where this comes from. And, those who developed this theory state that without a revolutionary party, based on a socialist program and with deep roots in the working masses, ‘Dual Power’ will inevitably end up in a bloody defeat of the insurgents. The 1871 Paris Commune, the January 1919 Spartakus uprising are cases in point. So, back to point 2. Furthermore, can anyone explain how, in a party explicitly built on a refusal of socialist identity and program, would ‘the revolutionary Left (…) deeply embedded within the broad radical movement, drawing out the political lessons for the class as the struggle deepens and progresses, and AT THE APPROPRIATE MOMENT pushing for leadership of the mass movement as it reaches that crucial political crossroads of reform/collaboration or socialist transformation.’
This is sheer daydreaming. The whole history of the labour movement tells us what happens ‘at the appropriate moment’, when the revolutionary left hasn’t built its own party. Do the names of Noske, Scheidemann, Ebert ring a bell? Does the fate of the Spanish revolutionaries murdered by Stalin’s thugs awaken some vague memories? By what magic, would revolutionary socialists, under deep cover, suddenly emerge from their foxholes and mobilize on a program they have never acknowledged before? Again, this is not a political strategy, but a pipe dream.
Trotsky spoke about the relation of masses and party in the Preface to his History of the Russian Revolution: ‘only on the basis of a study of political processes in the masses themselves, can we understand the role of parties and leaders, whom we least of all are inclined to ignore. They constitute not an independent, but nevertheless a very important, element in the process. Without a guiding organization, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston-box. But nevertheless what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam. ‘The problem we face, today, is not that the masses reject revolutionary ideas; the problem is that the ‘steam’ is not there to move the ‘piston’. The sad reality is that the working class has been absent from the political scene for the past 30 years.
Where such steam did arise, such as in the mass strike that engulfed the French West Indies in 2009, guess who was leading the movement? Total “nutters” ( as some like to warn unhidden revolutionaries will be tarred by the public): the openly communist, revolutionary, Trotskyite members of Combat ouvrier (Lutte Ouvrière’s branch in the French Antilles) and of Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire. Similarly, the defensive, but partially successful strikes at Continental tyre factory, and more recently the Peugeot plant in Aulnay, were led by members or close sympathizers of a very “nutter” organization, Lutte ouvrière, with members of other “ultraleft” tendencies playing a role. The only ones rejecting them were the scabs and company thugs! Other examples abound.
Right now,in the UK, at least four major unions are planning imminent strikes in their sectors against wage freezes and austerity measures. Never has the onslaught against the working class and it dependents been so vicious. This has been particularly evident in the crushing defeat of Unite in the Grangemouth booby trap set by the owner, Ineos. Unite had told workers not to surrender and demanded nationalisation of the plant. Workers first rejected the bosses’ blackmail and bullying. But Unite general secretary Len McCluskey finally surrendered saying the union will accept the firm’s demands “warts and all”. The warts include a wage freeze for three years and a commitment to no strikes in that same period. Obviously, retreat in the face of blackmail will encourage every boss across Britain to use the same tactics. It will encourage further assaults on pay, pensions, jobs and union rights. How to turn the tide?
The worse form of defeat is a defeat without a fight. However, to win this fight you would have to take on not only the company but the forces of international capital and the Westminster and Holyrood governments, the capitalist media, all the political parties represented in both parliaments (with the possible exception of Respect and Galloway, the British and Scottish establishments, the TUC and STUC, the Unite leadership, and the British state. A daunting fight indeed. A strategy that could have won victory would have involved occupation of the site, the cutting of fuel supplies and an appeal to all rank and file workers in Britain and beyond for active solidarity all linked in to a call for the nationalization of oil and all the energy companies without compensation. Obviously such a fighting strategy does not have mass support at this time but without it we will just go down to more defeat
Surely this desperate situation points to the need for preparing, educating through agitation, reflection and debate an openly socialist and qualified party to lead, in the coming time.
Russel Brand is certainly not the Messiah of such a movement! However, the fact that his witty and irreverent humbling of that servant of the system, Jeremy Paxman went viral is indicative of a population, especially of young people, who are certainly not ‘put off’ by ‘revolution’ or ‘socialism’ in themselves. My young hairdresser had enthusiastically recorded the TV interview which, for those who insist on ‘simple language’ contained words like ‘failed paradigm’ and concepts like ‘tacit complicity’.
At the other end of the spectrum, Mr Saatchi (former chairman of the Conservative Party) warns his peers about the danger of underestimating ‘the power of socialism’. You can be sure that well funded research of popular opinion lies behind his unusual words, which are geared to stopping his colleagues making the mistake of branding Milliband a scary’ socialist’ as he points out this will scare no-one.
So why should we be scared?
Or should we not be more worried by the void left by our non-engagement with Marxist education and the taking on of leadership roles? In the ‘broad movement of the Left’ proposed by the LPP shall we, too, run with the crowds behind the one-sandaled madcap Russell, waving our shoes to the ‘Master’, now that we too have seen ‘The Sign’? (As in ‘The Life of Brian’)
If the popularity of calls to radically change the system is noted and welcomed, who will divert that shoe waving crowd as the New Messiah (and there will be others) exhorts them (eloquently) to ‘Revolt in whatever way we want, with the spontaneity of the London rioters, with the certainty and willingness to die of religious fundamentalists or with the twinkling mischief of the trickster’? (From an article ‘we no longer have the luxury of tradition’ Russell Brand 2013). There is no quick recipe for the building of a socialist movement but it is collective action by an increasingly organised working class that the ‘corrupt establishment’ fears more than the loquacious and sometimes dangerous ramblings of a licensed court jester.
17 comments
17 responses to “In treacherous times why the New Party has to represent an educated openly socialist leadership”
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I’d just like to correct Kathrine Brannan and Henry Nowak’s statement “Russell Brand is certainly not the Messiah” … YES HE IS!
OH NO HE ISN’T! As the pantomime reply goes. RB’s irreverent tripping up of the Elite’s stooge Paxman was very disarming. Would like to see more of that, and do more of that!
What a confusing and rambling article. I’ve read it twice now and still don’t get it.
Well, it may well be rambling… speaking only for myself, but creeping towards my 70’s I’m not as short and sharp as I was once. Nevertheless, surely the central idea that History tells us that it is an illusion to hide your real political intentions whilst campaigning is clear enough, through the examples given? The second point being that ‘socialism’ and ‘revolution’ dont scare people as much as has been protested by more reformist approaches… witness R Brand and Saatchi quotes. Is that so confusing? Well, at least its SOMETHING! Hasn’t there been a spectacular lack of real political debate, around political ideas I mean, not just name calling or complaining,in these pages and in the site generally? I mean for such a young dynamic ( unlike me!) party membership.
The authors ask “Do the names of Noske, Scheidemann, Ebert ring a bell?”
I would hazard a guess that the answer, for 99.9999999% of the people Left Unity should be aiming to reach, the answer is a resounding and bewildered “no”!
I wish there was a “like” button on here! I’m one of those 99.9999999% Bob Marsden! Well said.
I am not a supporter of the LPP but I think it is a little risky – and unfair – to build an argument against it on the basis of postings of one of its backers and the activities of a celebrity who, to the best of my knowledge, isn’t a member of Left Unity.
The anarchist celebrity gush of Brand has gone further than anything any of the “Platforms” have said in in its spirited calls for total revolt against capitalist injustice and degradation, and in its contempt for parliamentary “democracy”, despite his mysticism and the “anti-totalitarianism” that pervades his New Statesman issue.
In fact, when has anybody heard any of the “left” (so-called – Trotskyists or revisionists) ever said anything remotely close to Brand in public meetings? They would wriggle and squirm in their seats if such arguments are made, or “blind chair” techniques would be used to shut it down. Oh yes, some will tack on the word “revolution” to the end of their lengthy contributions, if pushed, but the whole thrust of their arguments would be about what they think should be done “in the meantime”.
The Platforms can argue until the cows come home over who is more revolutionary then who, but none of it will amount to anything as long as they are putting out statements hostile to past and existing revolutions that have taken place in reality, rather than in their heads – the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, Eastern Europe, etc.
If the working class is to overcome the lie that “communism doesn’t work” an all out polemical debate for truth of the Soviet Union’s triumphs and mistakes is required; alongside a struggle to understand the depths of capitalism’s crisis and the need for revolution as the only way to bring it to an end. Left Unity could be the necessary vehicle for such a debate.
This can start with Spain. What “murder of Spanish revolutionaries”? Why would the Soviets do this? They were providing the revolutionaries with 99% of the arms they had to conduct their fight.
So when was the ‘revolution’ in eastern Europe Phil? Don’t you mean conquest?
Thanks to comrades Kathrine Brannan and Henry Novack for this usefull contribution which we have just re-published on our French site Prométhée/Prometheus with a short introduction in Fraench language. Commentaries are welcomed !
tl;dr Let’s be honest? Yes, excellent principle. Approved. :)
‘Socialist, feminist, environmentalist and against all forms of discrimination. We stand against capitalism, imperialism, war, racism, Islamophobia and fascism. Our goal is to transform society: to achieve the full democratization of state and political institutions, society and the economy, by and for the people.’ We would be hard put to find thinking people who disagree with these attitudes and rather vague and pleasant wishes.
Wow – where do you live!! i wish I lived in a place where nearly all thinking people were against capitalism, and imperialism.
The truth is – of course – that you live in a little self deluding ultra-left bubble. Actually NO – it’s worse than that. You are not self deluding – you know the truth but nevertheless deliberately distort, take out of context and riducule the comments of John Penney, – who, by the way, is in no way an official spokesman for the LPP but a rather critical supporter. You are so sure you are right that it is OK to completely caricature someone elses position just to give yourself the smug satisfaction of a well-turned polemical phrase. This stuff recruits and educates no-one. Its all style, and rhetoric, destructive not constructive. You can win a polemic this way but not really win the argument.
Reformism is redundant in the midst of capiitalist crisis. People need to stop intellectualising clever tactics to hide left unities members as radicals, democrats and communalists. We need an honest vote on who we are and what we stand for.
I say again that left unity contains many recent swp members and the swp is engaged in a further gagging of oppositionalists who simply want current cc to be held accountable for their distusting actions when faced with rape and sexual asdault allegations ahainst a leading comrade.
The swp seems so stalinistic that is incapable of accepting it can make mistakes and so will splintet further. By establishing a correct alternative we coulf attract many more from the swp.
I ask again why block right when intsn, aci and soc res could turn left.
Whilst left unity is still accumulating initial forces to build a new socialist party it should look at real developments in the left and balence these against their pseudo theories to liquidate the socialist left into a swamp of indecision.
Many ex members are being attracted back into the idea of building a new party by the neccusity to do something against this historic defeat of the working class through the demolition and privitisation of the welfare state. Others are attracted to a rethink of the leninist rev vangaurd party model, which seems to have failed us.
I think we need to keep left and the groups within left party platform need to turn left. Its the founding conference and socialists need to be counted. The sophistory of blocking with the right is not sophisticated at all. Its a boring centrist turn. Revolutionaries in private and reformist bag carriers in public. This is no way to build a new socialist party and no way to build left unity.
Pete b
Katherine Brennan’s argument , in favour of adopting a hard, avowedly revolutionary socialist programme for Left Unity, is a perfectly legitimate position to hold. Entirely fruitless and wrong in the reality of today’s UK though – if we want to build a radical party of active resistance to the Austerity Offensive, which can draw in tens of thousands of ordinary working people , beyond the few thousand Leninists and Trotskyists in tiny warring sects who now compose the UK Far left.
Unfortunately Katherine’s chosen debating style displays all the sad hallmarks of the all too traditional “debating” methodology on the Far Left, ie, to misquote, quote out of context, and misrepresent, the positions and arguments of your opponents.
My “position” on the required political stance and programme of Left Unity is not something thought up by myself – but is actually firmly based on the recommended approach of one, Leon Trotsky , ie, “The Transitional Programme”. This will be of no interest to 999.999% of our potential Left Unity recruits of course – but the nub of the approach is to grasp the hard, uncomfortable reality – that hardly anyone at all in the UK working class is currently prepared to even consider a full-on assault upon capitalism as a means to oppose the many aspects of the Austerity Offensive. “Revolutionary socialism” is simply not on the ideological agenda today – it has lost its “social mind space” – due to the all too evident crimes and failures of Stalinism in the USSR , China, etc, , but also due to the impact of over sixty years of the postwar capitalist long growth wave in the West , Labourite reformism’s dismal performance and collaboration with the interests of capitalism, and the social atomisation of the UK working class accelerated by the neoliberal era of the 1980’s onwards.
We have to accept that even in the midst of the vicious Austerity Offensive and rapidly falling living standards generally, the working class is simply NOT awaiting the announcement of the Revolutionary Party with its uncompromising revolutionary Programme. If it was – Katherine and her chums in various sects have had such a Party (lots of em in fact), AND Revolutionary Programmes available for generations. There have been few takers !
With the Left Unity Project therefore we have to relate to where “people’s heads are NOW” . Tens of thousands of people undoubtedly can be drawn into joining and supporting a radical Left , but democratic and REFORMIST socialist party today, given a sufficiently coherent radical socially and economically transformative programme to tackle the economic crisis the UK is trapped in. Unlike Katherine, and so many “its total revolution or nothing” adherents, I have no doubt that major concessions could be wrung from the UK capitalist state given sufficient mass support for a serious radical party of the Left. And this is the critical point – the ultraleft, for this is what Katherine and her friends are – end up in a politically pure ivory tower – totally incapable of recruiting outside of the tiny Far Left bubble community, spouting ultimatist revolutionary demands to a bemused public. Whilst we actually need to engage with masses of people round believable demands and objectives – the protection of the NHS, rebuilding and restructuring the UK economy, building millions of homes, creating millions of jobs, getting the tax revenues in from the rich and big corporations, etc, etc.
Would this, if it gained wide public support, provoke a backlash from the capitalist class and their agents and stooges ? Economic sabotage by the superrich class who operate behind the façade of “The Market” ? Of course it would. But it is then precisely in the real world context of radical social upheaval – enabled by a radical reforming socialist government, that the issues of reform v revolution” have any historical “traction” at all. Long before that point is reached I would indeed expect a major (genuine , rather than posturing) revolutionary current to have emerged within and beyond the mass radical reforming Left party – which by then , for a real social crisis to exist, would be on the cusp of governmental office (like Syriza currently in Greece), or actually in government, and battling the forces of reaction to carry out radical transformation .
It is at that point , that the different potential outcomes I have discussed previously arise – to a 1973 Allende style disaster – or forward to a socialist transformation of society. The balance of class forces domestically and internationally at the time would determine the outcome .But of course at present this potential radical future and its different potential paths is pure fantasy – the working class is in full retreat – leaderless, rudderless, an not attracted to ANY party with a progressive radical agenda to organise the fightback. Effective Political action in the real world is about adopting appropriate tactics so as to move the struggle forward – and then modifying the tactics as real circumstances change – whilst always keeping the final objective, socialist, in sight. It is not about adopting rigid positions and tactics , unchanged since 1917.
One thing’s for sure, if Katherine and her ultraleft buddies succeed in disrupting the formation of Left Unity as a democratic radical reforming party of the socialist left through their endless attempts to foist tactically inappropriate “revolutionary socialist” aims, terminology ,and programmes on the organisation, it will simply be stillborn as a vehicle for building radical resistance to the Austerity Offensive. Yet another great idea killed by the sectarian bickering and fantasy politics of the current Far Left..
John, what you seem to propose is a gradualist, two stage strategy in which we bite our collective lip during the first whilst in the meantime leading tens of thousands of people towards the illusion – and that is what it is – that radical reform is necessary (yes) and possible (no) within modern capitalist reality. It is not possible because the state of global capitalism does not allow for a social wage at postwar boom levels AND a rate of profit acceptable to capitalists; that Keynesian compromise died with the oil price rises of the 1970s, which is why we have neoliberalism now.
There would be an unprecedented capital flight from any advanced capitalist country that looked as if it might force austerity back as far as this, and its political defenders would be warning about this throughout our struggle to achieve it, with all the media they have at their disposal. Only, at minimum, a Europe-wide move in this direction could mitigate this flight and how is that to be coordinated? Since we would not be in political power at any stage during this process, and neither would other broad left parties in Europe, the mass of people will be forced into making a choice under immense media pressure and we would be subject to all manner of covert and legalistic repression.
To me, that indicates that, although I agree that wearing red revolutionary banners on our sleeve from the outset would be a fatal error, there are some realities which have to be introduced to LU’s following in a gradual but definite way as the organisation grows and, hopefully, as it starts to make a difference. There need be no moratorium such as you seem to propose, waiting for concessions to be won first, because there will not be two distinct stages split cleanly by these concessions and our starting point means that such concessions are so long away from us now that reformist illusions will by then be hard-wired into LU. The first concessions won will be piecemeal and not as revelatory as you seem to imagine, appearing to reinforce reformist illusions.
LU’s run-in to this stage under your proposal is likely to follow the history of the German SDP, with a leading cadre who have grown up with nothing but reformism. Ebert called in the military cheifs to crush the Workers Councils pledging that “I hate the social revolution like sin” not because he was coorupt but because of how the SDP had evolved during the run-in to the crisis of 1918-19.
We need political debate from the beginning, coupled with a public posture that says we are not yet fully sussed as to every aspect of going forward with our project beyond our imeediate defensive demands and a pledge to be open and to sponsor open discussion. Unless we remain flexible, find a way of keeping revolutionary and reformist people within the same organisation, create real openness and, in so doing, move political literacy up from its depressing levels in this country, we will become irrevocably and dogmatically reformist.
Nope, I’m definitely not proposing a “two stage” strategy, John. Does most of the Far Left have no grasp of the concept of “time appropriate tactics” ? Or has 60 years or so of political irrelevance reduced most of the Far Left to the status of a religious cult – forever repeating the now irrelevant certainties and political nostrums of the distant past ? I don’t know how many times I can outline a political “Transitional strategy” which definitely has no distinct “stages” , before those on the Far Left stop trying to misunderstand or misrepresent my position.
I don’t know what timescale you think I’m talking about here. If I was talking about 30 years of struggle I could understand all the attempts to draw comparisons with the “Minimum /Maximum Programme” of German Social Democracy. On that timescale a radical Left party would inevitably get “lost” in the compromises and corruptions inevitable in pursuing a reformist political path.
However, as you point out, we are in the midst of a profound 1930’s style systemic world wide capitalist crisis, which cannot be solved within the bounds of either capitalism or bourgeois democracy. Unlike you and so many on the Far Left I do however believe that mass resistance interwoven with radical political organisation using bourgeois democracy CAN win significant concessions in the speed and viciousness of the UK ruling class’s Austerity Offensive. Undoubtedly the concessions won would indeed provoke “The Market” into all sorts of reactionary responses. But that is the entire point, it would be through the rising tide of mass participation in struggle around essentially reformist demands that the more fundamental issues of capitalism and class power will arise. Would the Radical Party of the Left driving this process remain united as the crisis deepened ? Of course not. Just look at Syriza in Greece now – the leadership heading rightwards towards “national salvation” inspired compromise already .
But the point is that only Syriza, with its radical reformist political offer has been able to mobilise masses of Greeks to vote and mobilise for radical change – precisely because Syriza hasn’t isolated itself from the current state of mass political consciousness by issuing ultimatist “it’s revolution or nothing” political demands – unlike the Far Left. The place of the Far Left is WITHIN the broad radical Left Party, agitating and working for the stepless “transition” between the essentially reformist but nevertheless mainly unacceptable (to capitalism) demands made in the opening phases (not STAGES) of struggle and the more profoundly transformational policies and actions required by a radical Left government to combat the reaction of Capital to its initially reformist objectives.
Such is the seriousness of the current world and UK systemic capitalist crisis ,I see the entire process of transition between an essentially limited, defensive, reformist opening phase of struggle, and its development into a much more radical socialist struggle as covering no more than about ten to fifteen years – far too short a period for a radical left Party to decisively fossilise into a rerun of the ossified bureaucratic class collaborationist party that was the German SPD.
Most of the UK far Left are lost completely in a self referring political bubble – happy to forever issue ultraleft demands in language codes completely incomprehensible to the mass of working people we need to draw into struggle. Rather than having to “bite your collective lips” during some supposed initial “Reformist stage” of struggle, all the Far Left is actually being challenged to do is to get out of the pub backrooms into the fresh air and engage in real everyday struggle against the Austerity Offensive – still pumping out the revolutionary socialist analysis, but within the political vehicle of a radical, reformist, political party which actually relates to where “people’s heads are at” NOW.
This is the only political formation on the Left (as opposed to the constitutional and Fascist Far Right of course) for actually mobilising masses of people to enter the arena of radical struggle. Far Left posturing just aint going to do it. The Far Left is actually all too often, in its “all defensive resistance struggle is futile” posturing , acting like the caricature ultralefts approaching a workers picket line and informing them that their wages struggle is irrelevant, “because wage struggles only perpetuate the condition of wage slavery” – the “answer” being to abolish capitalism ! Yeh .. right.
The LPP and it’s signatories have stated their politics and strategy perfectly openly and clearly. If you choose not to respond to the arguments but to make up your own, that’s up to you.