Andy Cox

[robbo203]

Exactly one year ago to the day my brother, Andy, who was a member of the SPGB's South West Regional Branch tragically died of heart attack.  It is still hard to believe and those who knew and loved him will always feel this sense of great loss.  He did however leave behind some writings which I'm sure will be of some interest to folk on this forum and I felt  it was rather fitting on this sad anniversary to bring this to the attention of people.

 

Some of this writing can be found on this site which he created as well as a sister site of his as follows

http://andycox1953.webs.com/

http://socialistmatters.webs.com/

[jondwhite]

For me the key passages are

Quote:

The first of my proposals is this: I think we need to earnestly weigh up what is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to our existence as a political party, what constitutes our ‘mission statement’ if you like, enshrine the propositions thus identified, and then simply bracket off EVERYTHING ELSE as supportive and pertinent – but not crucial to our case, and thus NOT needing to be PUBLICLY ACCEDED TO by anyone wishing to join up. What are the core propositions of the World Socialist Movement? In my opinion, they are these: 1.      What do we want? 2.      How do we get it? 3.      When do we want it? In other words, what are our Ends and Means? The answers, of course, are as follows: 1.  Socialism/Communism; viz A world-wide system of free access to all goods and services provided entirely by people contributing their services of their free will in which there would be no money, wages, profits, national borders etc, and which would run along democratic lines and would permit the greatest possible degree of personal liberty commensurate with not causing harm to others. And so on. 2.  Socialism/Communism requires the consent of the majority. Hence, we should endeavour to gain people’s support by whatever means possible. As a party, we should operate on a wholly democratic basis with complete transparency and without a leadership. Where we can and whenever we can, we should endeavour to gain political power via democratic means. Where it is not possible to vote for a genuine Socialist Party, e.g. China, local socialists will need to look at what options are open to them. But most certainly, an ongoing propaganda campaign (clandestine or otherwise) will be one of them. 3. The establishment of Socialism/Communism must not be delayed; in other words, we must consciously forego any involvement in reformist activity as this will only sap our energies and resources, and in any case, often prove to be futile (That said, what constitutes ‘reformist activity’ needs to be clarified: See more anon). In my view, it is imperative that anyone wishing to join the Party must publicly consent to these 3 CORE PROPOSITIONS. And certainly, if a member, by word or deed, demonstrates an intransigent deviation from these, then it behoves the Party to consider expulsion. I have no problem with that. In fact, I consider it essential.   However, the corollary to this proposal – and I have no doubt that this will alarm many reading this – is that the Party should not insist on a prospective member consenting to ANYTHING ELSE. That means not insisting, for example, that he or she accepts a Marxist analysis of contemporary society, or eschews any sort of religious outlook. The Party itself could still have a democratically sanctioned position vis-à-vis such matters, but ought not to make it mandatory for members to accede. In other words, dissenting minorities on such matters would be TOLERATED.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed on the basis of the Object and the Declaration of Principles. These are the non-negotiables, we can confidently say the Object and Declaration of Principles are our core case.By contrast, rules, conference decisions and cultural practices, even long-standing ones, can be changed with members wishing to change them, openly expressing their wish to change them and then acting to change them. The second key observation by Andy Cox is

Quote:

It is as though the weight of ‘doctrine’ keeps insidiously growing all the time. All because there is no tacit recognition of limits to which conference proposals may be invested with dogmatic significance. This proposal of mine would work in the opposite direction: It would give people ‘permission’ to demur and question within the parameters set by 3 essential and implicitly agreed upon propositions. Consequently, it could also make for better scrutiny of all ‘non-core’ propositions or positions taken up by the Party.

Every year rules, conference decisions and cultural practices can be changed back and reverted too.For members of a church, rules are fixed, ordinary members do not change them, and are not supposed to or encouraged to question them, this is called dogma. We should take care to, and pro-actively, guard against this situation becoming the norm in the party. Our rules and practices should be temporal matters designed for the practical effectiveness of the party. We are a movement not a monument.

[Author]

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