Tory Legislation on ‘Extremism’
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"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas"The SPGB would carry on propaganda as usual come rain or shine, democracy or dictatorship.The best people to replace dictatorship with representative democracy are representative democrats like Lech Walesa.The best people to replace capitalism with socialism are socialists.
jondwhite wrote:"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas"The SPGB would carry on propaganda as usual come rain or shine, democracy or dictatorship.Yes but would we include the use of the ballot box as a way of achieving socialism, while at the same time not supporting the call for elections?
“The SPGB would carry on propaganda as usual come rain or shine, democracy or dictatorship.” Even when association is forbidden and socialist propaganda illegal?…. And we would refuse to share our umbrella or parasol…damn us I believe it was you who has pointed out how our activities were curtailed by a degree of self-censorship during both wars than by any other factor. Sorry, Vin, I was quoting the party http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/no-788-april-1970/law-order-or-justice
Vin wrote:Our case would have to be changed radically if we refused to join in the call for free expression and democracy. We would look foolish advocating the ballot box if there were no elections for example.Agreed. That's why we have always "joined in" the call for political democracy, as in places where it doesn't exist. Our case has been that the socialist movement should do this on its own, separately from other, not anti-capitalist groups which may also be calling for this. As we said in the 1978 edition of our pamphlet Questions of the Day:
Quote:In many of the less developed countries political democracy does not yet exist. The governments there, whether representing the old landowning or the emerging capitalist class, stifle criticism and threaten the organisation of opposition parties and even of trade unions as plots to overthrow them. In such circumstances socialist activity is very difficult and the workers (being only a minority of the population), besides trying to organise into a socialist party ought also to struggle fo get the freedom to organise into trade unions and win elementary political rights. As in the the advanced capitalist countries, however, this should still involve opposition to all other parties in order that the socialist issue shall be kept free from confusion.“As in the advanced capitalist countries, however, this should still involve opposition to all other parties in order that the socialist issue shall be kept free from confusion.”
Quote:“The Socialist Party is merely a tool to be used by those who want socialism and who think that organising democratically is more important than seeing yourself as bigger than the society that you want to inhabit and think it important to have a voice for the possibility of a future that is so often buried. Ultimately, what socialist conscious workers decide to do will be for them to decide. If they decide that parliament is an irrelevance then they will ignore it. On the other hand, if they see that to ignore it could be dangerous and also that it has potential, then they will make use of that potential.”http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2011/no-1287-november-2011/what-wrong-using-parliamentThat is going to be the reality. We will be an instrument of workers’ self-emancipation or they will see us as an irrelevance and pass us by. We are nothing without the working class and everything we do must be about how we reflect and connect with our fellow workers otherwise we are merely dogs howling at the moonIn regards to “ besides trying to organise into a socialist party ought also to struggle to get the freedom to organise into trade unions and win elementary political rights. As in the advanced capitalist countries, however, this should still involve opposition to all other parties in order that the socialist issue shall be kept free from confusion.”Serious thought should be given to actually thinking we should be creating a socialist party when simply there exists no firm foundation to form one. We should recognise the limitations we have, and rather than create prematurely a political party that may not reach an receptive audience by having such principles as our hostility clause and proscription of religious persons, we begin with study groups, reading groups, discussion groups that become part of wider general movements for union and political rights. We shouldn’t jump into the deep end without considering the concrete conditions of the place and of the time. I'm loathe to advocate rather unmaterialistically that there is a universal prescription to be applied everytime and everywhere. The party rightly opposes the idea of being the vanguard and leading workers, but as workers ourselves we shouldn't be reluctant to be " that section which pushes forward all others…" and i don't think we can do that pushing by being a political organisation outside the tent pissing in.
jondwhite wrote:The SPGB would carry on propaganda as usual come rain or shine, democracy or dictatorship.A strange and rather naive thing to say JDW.At last count the SPGB had under 500 members. It's probably fair to say that propaganda activity comes from less than 50% of the membership. Combine those with the SPGB policy of democratic transparency, and it wouldn't take much for a hostile dictatorship to shut down the SPGB entirely. An example from history. During the reign of the Nazi's in Germany, of 32,000 death sentences ordered for political reasons, 20,000 went to communists and socialists.I've also no doubt a hostile "democracy" could find ways legal and illegal, to severely cripple the SPGB and any other political organization it so chose.
An interesting Statement on Poland a bit related to this thread. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1980/no-916-december-1980/class-struggle-poland-socialist-statement
fuck it, can't get the image the right size but here is the url for it http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XnymVJaRO6E/VO1WOS2ti6I/AAAAAAAAOz4/6v5YMrbKGM8/s1600/the_political_voice_by_party9999999-d7rmplo.png
No, if there is no ballot box, then replacing capitalism with socialism would not be able to use a ballot box.Would the SPGB carry on activity forbidden or made illegal? Well, the question is who rules something forbidden or illegal? Marx's answer is the ruling ideas in every epoch are those of the ruling class.The SPGB getting involved in calls for democracy or sharing our umbrella, apart from anything else, could associate a movement for democracy with revolutionary socialism. We don't tie our wagon to them and they don't tie their wagon to us, a mutually beneficial arrangement.In 1908, F. C. Watts in Suffragette Humbug in the Socialist Standard put it best;http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1900s/1908/no-46-june-1908/suffragette-humbug"Democracy is not an end in itself, but a means to an end; and for us that end is Socialism."I've no doubt a dictatorship could cripple socialist organisation but the point is the SPGB/WSM is committed to political action (not discussion circles or reading groups either).
JDW,I said a hostile dictatorship could easily shut down, ie destroy the SPGB, while a hostile democracy could easily cripple it.Illegality is irrelevant.Regarding democracy, socialism and democracy go hand in hand. You don't get one without the other. So it could be said that real democracy, the sort the SPGB/WSM advocate, is an end in itself.If this government tried to use such legislation to hammer revolutionary organisations, would the SPGB stand on the sidelines waiting its turn, or stand with other revolutionary groups to resist? After all, there are those on the "left" who agree with the goal of the SPGB/WSM, but disagree with how to achieve it.
Quote:We are aware, of course, that we lost an unique opportunity of indulging in heroics. We shall be told, perhaps, that we ought to have gone on in defiance of the powers that be till we went down in a blaze of fireworks. Our view, however, was the sane one dictated by our avowed principles. We have always held that the supreme power is in the hands of those who control the political machine. The most we could hope for by going on was to prove that contention. But it is not for us to prove our contentions by acting in opposition to them.There was no question of fighting for Socialism or Socialist principles. The Regulations were not, as far as we could judge, in the nature of anti-Socialist legislation. They were merely the precautions ordinarily resorted to by countries embroiled in a serious war. For this very reason we had nothing to gain by running counter to the Regulations, for just as the temper of the working class is, at the moment, such as to prevent them benefiting from our propaganda, so it would prevent them learning anything from our victimisation or martyrdom. Clearly, then, it was our tactics to place ourselves in such a position that only by the Regulations being strained to the point where they would become obviously anti-Socialist could we fall victims to them. These tactics demanded, in view of the risk of having our spoken words twisted and distorted in the Courts, that we suspend propaganda meetings for the time, and confine our activities to such forms of propaganda as would secure us from any attack that did not reveal the deliberate intention of our opponents to crush us under the cloak of the present situation.I'd suggest we'd do the same again…
SocialistPunk wrote:If this government tried to use such legislation to hammer revolutionary organisations, would the SPGB stand on the sidelines waiting its turn, or stand with other revolutionary groups to resist? After all, there are those on the "left" who agree with the goal of the SPGB/WSM, but disagree with how to achieve it.Which "revolutionary groups" would they be then? I know of none, at least not within these shores. For just as sure as socialism and democracy go hand in hand, so does the goal of the SPGB/WSM and how to achieve it.
gnome wrote:Which "revolutionary groups" would they be then?Come on, we didn't invent this stuff….There's at least five "groups" in the UK (more worldwide) I could think of that share the goal of a stateless, moneyless world of common ownership but differ from us on how to get there (and therefore it is impossible for us to undertake any practicle co-operattive action with them).
DJP wrote:gnome wrote:Which "revolutionary groups" would they be then?Come on, we didn't invent this stuff….There's at least five "groups" in the UK (more worldwide) I could think of that share the goal of a stateless, moneyless world of common ownership but differ from us on how to get there (and therefore it is impossible for us to undertake any practicle co-operattive action with them).
Did I say we did "invent this stuff"? We are, however, fairly unique in the view that before socialism can be established there has to be a majority actively in favour of it, and that it's essential for this majority to win control over the machinery of government (political power, the state) before trying to establish socialism. It's this essential point that puts us at odds with these other so-called revolutionary groups. I suggest you re-read what was said in its entirety; you'll find our conclusions aren't that different.
I don't suppose they'd be interested any more than us in petitioning the capitalist state not go ahead with legislation for which the government has just got a mandate and which has probably got widespread popular support. The only way to have stopped it was not to have elected a one-party Tory government and to have hoped that the LibDems were in some coalition government as they were the ones who had blocked these proposals up to now. But I think even Alan would baulk at that. Also, these other groups that do stand for a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless world are smaller than us and so our combined efforts wouldn't make the slightest difference.
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