“I think the most worthwhile
“I think the most worthwhile practical support we can bring to these is a knowledge of the possibilities of going beyond the market system. So Standards and pamphlets are one way of doing this.”A knowledge of a possibility is not practical support. It’s not as if these camps are against political discussion. A major purpose of them is to start them and organise them.”The party has never claimed that ‘the revolution’ can start in parliament without first starting in the minds (and therefore actions) of the masses. Both revolutionary and reactionary-reformist forms of consciousness can be explained by the contradictory nature of social life in capitalist society.”Your point is not relevant to the point I made. Party members deny the caricature (socialism must all come through parliament) with the correct argument that, in the course of revolutionary change, all sorts of things will be going on: working class organisation, strikes, boycotts, protests, etc. Yet when faced with “all sorts of things” in a time of, if not yet revolutionary, certainly unprecedented and extremely serious change, members disapprove because it isn’t going through the channels they first thought of (as if revolutions ever do! As if Marx wasn’t as shocked as anyone by the Paris Commune!). Party members deny the caricature that they are idealist (everyone must become a socialist first in their heads) with some (correct) attempt at an explanation of changes in capitalism and struggle giving rise to socialist ideas (ie, capitalism and struggle produce socialist ideas, not the vanguard socialist party). But when faced with a situation of change and struggle and a ferment of ideas, members go back to the caricature: oh, I’m not impressed, they aren’t socialist, what we need to do is get down there with our leaflets.So which is it, comrades? Retreat to the caricatures we’ve spent so many years fighting against? Or consider instead just what “revolutionary socialism” might mean. Is it just words, hot air? Or does it mean something in practice? Might it not mean solidarity with working class struggles? I’ll answer my own question: if socialism doesn’t mean solidarity with working class struggles, then it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just hot air, or “agitated layers of air”, as Marx had it.”Revolution is of course a process and not an event, but if the Occupy camps represent a tipping-point in this process I’m not yet convinced.”As if the point is to wait to be convinced instead of jumping on the other side of the tipping point!All the bestStuart