Reply To: Russian Tensions
TW – Stated “As far as I understand it is the official position of the SPGB that Russia was provoked in to invading Ukraine. If you deliberately provoke someone in to taking an action then they they take that action it seems to me that the provocateur is at fault.”
This is not the “official position of the SPGB”. We are a democratic party and it would only be the “official position” of the SPGB if the democratic processes of the party decided it was the “official position” of the party.
Some members writing for the Party Journal have put their view that the West provoked the conflict, this was their view, (one I agree with to some extent). However this needs to be seen within the context of capitalist society, i.e. that all sections of the ruling class are in struggle with other sections of their class to gain the long term strategic and eventually the financial advantage, or trying to lesson their disadvantage, in terms of each other.
Which side was “at fault” is not something we (and the working class) have an interest in, one way or the other. It certainly doesn’t follow that we should therefore support the victim of the provocation. As we have tried to explain to you, our view is that neither side of the conflict deserves any support from the working class. They essentially are the two shitty cheeks of the same capitalist arsehole.
Your idea that Russia is some form of society that is not capitalist and is not socialist, is as laughable as it is demonstrably incorrect.
TW – “But parliaments are constituted of representatives are they not? How does a leaderless organisation lead?”
The clue is in your own words “representatives”. Representatives do not lead, they represent, a leadership organisation therefore does not lead, it represents the group it is elected to represent.
You seem to misunderstand the concept of idealism as magnificently as you misunderstand materialism. Idealism doesn’t mean that you have ideas. The Materialist Conception of History does not deny the influence of ideas on history. In fact there would be no revolutionary changes if ideas did not play a part. What it does is to trace the source of the ideas, but to deny the power of ideas alone.
Socialist have drawn certain conclusions from past and present conditions and are trying to pass on these ideas with a view to bringing about a change in the economic base of society because we hold that present conditions are fettering the further development of mankind.
TW stated – I believe you’ve misunderstood me. I was inferring protest/civil disobedience not armed resistance. – ”
You weren’t inferring, you were implying. The active person makes the implication, the inference is made by the person receiving the implicit message.
