ALB
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In the interest of intellectual honesty, I should point out that, though we didn’t intervene in the argument between the ACG and CWO over the “semi-state”, our position would have been closer to that of the CWO. After all, we argue that the working class should take over control of the state (via elections and parliament), lop off its undemocratic features, and use it to disposses the capitalist class and coordinate the introduction of socialism. You could even describe this residual state as a “semi-state” if you wanted (but we’re not going to as this is Lenin’s term). And of course, once socialism had been established, it would disappear, with any useful administrative parts being incorporated into the democratic administrative of socialist society.
The difference between us and the CWO would be (1) they argue that the working class should smash the existing state in an armed insurrection and then create a “semi-state”, and (2) that this is not what the Bolsheviks did, not even for a couple of weeks.
The CWO said it was a term Lenin coined to make the point that the state the Russian Revolution would establish was supposed to be temporary and a transition to a stateless society. The anarchists asked it meant that there would be a semi-army, a semi-police force, semi-courts and semi-prisons.
Just done a search and Lenin used the term in chapter 1 of his The State and Revolution where he wrote:
What withers away after this revolution is the proletarian state or semi-state.
Continuing what others are saying about Brexit, here’s the position of the Anarchist Communist Group from the latest issue of their paper Jackdaw, very similar to what we say :
The European Union seems some sort of advance on a stand-alone UK. Free movement of people exists within its borders. And its laws offer some limited but nonetheless real benefits to working people. But how long will these benefits last? Given the pasting given to Syriza in Greece and recent threats of the same treatment to Italy, the answer is ‘not long’. And such freedom of movement applies only to Europeans – the EU’s whites only Fortress Europe policy accounts annually for the deaths of thousands of helpless migrants.
Why should we be interested in their trading arrangements, the relations between their governments, the ‘deals’ they make between themselves? Our business is what concerns us, our lives, where we live and where we work. In or out we will still be under the thumb of our bosses. In or out, the destruction of the National Health Service will continue. In or out, sickness and unemployment benefit will continue to be eroded. The only fair and sane deal is the destruction of capitalism and all states — including potential super-states such as the European Union. We should settle for nothing less than this.Actually, there is already a banner hanging on the wall at Head Office which proclaims (speaking from memory): ABOLISH OF THE WAGES SYSTEM. NO WAR BETWEEN PEOPLES, NO PEACE BETWEEN CLASSES. In fact, that’s better, i.e. clearer, than NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR. I think it was inherited from Edinburgh or Glasgow Branch.
Alan, you write: “in all my political life, ever since the Vietnam war, it has been the very same problem we have encountered. We have not succeeded in presenting the alternative interpretations, either to the left or the right.(…) Other than doing what we always do, is there another strategy we can employ to counter the polarization of views and emphasise the socialist position of plague on both houses?
We are not alone about this. In fact it was one of the things discussed at the meeting between the ACF and the CWO in Dorking yesterday (see Events section). Suggested reasons as to why people feel compelled to take sides were: learning to do this in school on any issue, sympathy for the underdog, as well as “anti-imperialism” and nationalism when “your” state is involved. No alternative was suggested other that doing what we/they always do: stating the view, through leaflets, posters, meetings, and nowadays social media, that no working class interest is involved justifying the working class taking sides or joining in any war and why.
“Stop the War”, i.e stop the killing and destruction, is not such a bad slogan as such, except that it has been hijacked by those who want the other side to win (though during the Vietnam War these elements were more honest, advancing the slogan “Victory to the Vietcong”). “No War But the Class War” is much better, though harder to get across as it’s not immediately clear outside the so-called “milieu” what is meant by “class war”. “Against All War” (which we have occasionally used) avoids this but suggests pacifism (which at least is right about workers not joining in, if for the wrong reason)..
Actually, it was quite an interesting even enjoyable meeting. Three of us went, making up 20% of those there. We had assumed that it was just a general discussion meeting, but it was a meeting between the ACF and the CWO to revive a “No War But the Class War” group, to counter those who argue that workers should take sides in wars, as in Syria and the coming one in Venezuela, rather than proclaim that workers had no interest justifying this and that nationalism was a poison and “anti-imperialism” an invalid standard to judge by; a position we have always taken of course. It was a bit embarrassing in fact when they asked us if the SPGB would join the group. All the same, there was also time to discuss wider issues such as the changing composition of the working class and what makes individuals revolutionary and why we are so few. There was a clash between the ACF and the CWO about the latter’s advocacy of a “semi-state”.
On war, the CWO has the position that another world war is inevitable in order to devalue capital by destroying it so that capital accumulation can continue, something they predicted in the 1970s and are still expecting. The ACF and us argued that, while capitalism was the cause of wars due to its built-in competition over markets, source of raw materials, investment outlets and trade routes, a world war was neither necessary nor inevitable (in fact not really likely); but rather that war would continue to take the form of scattered proxy wars, in which the “Great Powers” (and some lesser ones) use locals in disputed areas as cannon fodder to further their interests, and probably become more frequent. Despite this divergence, everyone agreed that workers should not take side in wars.
After the formal meeting, we exchanged anecdotes and jokes about the Trotskyists, and also the Bolsheviks (the CWO didn’t join in that part).
As you know, Keefs was not present.
It’s also a modern application of the Monroe Doctrine, i.e. the Americas are our backyard where we can do what we like, so European powers keep out.
To continue recording what the various Leninist groups are saying about Brexit, here’s an extract from yesterday’s issue of the <News Line (yes, it’s still a daily):
It has become crystal clear that carrying through Brexit will take an explosion of working class anger and a workers revolution.
Which planet are they living on?
Some Yellow Vests are preparing to contest the European elections in France in May:
A sensible way to test how much support they have but which will also show that they are essentially a protest group rather than a revolutionary movement as some have been imagining.
The photo in the link answers one of my questions. But unless they are wearing ceremonial uniform what they are wearing would be a hindrance in combat conditions. But it could still be worn for police duties arresting other women for not wearing the hijab that’s illegal in Iran.
And not just a Remainer but, with his talk of “ a closely consolidated military and economic union” and call that “the customs barriers must be thrown down”, up there with the founders of the EU like Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman who did, after WW2, what he is saying here should have been done after WW1,
He wasn’t wrong of course that a large tariff-free market was good for capitalist development, which is why the UK breaking away from it and re-erecting tariff barriers (which is unlikely as not even the extreme Brexiteers want this) would have the opposite effect.
According to this, Rosa Luxemburg would have favoured Brexit because she was opposed to a capitalist United States of Europe:
Since she rejected the so-called of “rights of nations to self-determination” as irrelevant and as the “right” of a capitalist class to have its own state, this would be strange. But then the ex-RCPers around Spiked are continuing the tradition of the RCP’s Living Marxism (known to us as Dead Leninism) of being deliberately provocative.
Actually, the passages about profits and imposing work which the review was criticising are these:
‘… socially and politically speaking, profit making is merely the capitalist means to its social aim of controlling us by forcing us to work’ (p. 83)
‘Marx focussed on the dialectical character of the struggle within capitalism between those who impose work and those who resist’ (p. 72).
And the review never said he said that the capitalists weren’t interested in profits, only that he said that they were more interested in controlling workers and that making profits was a means towards this end.
Do they have to wear a hijab and be accompanied by a male relative? Does seem very efficient as a fighting force to me.
It’s better in German as it’s a pun: Der Mensch ist, was er isst . The English translation is a bit non-pc as it means “Man(kind) is what it eats”, so women are what they eat too. Actually it’s a more profound statement than any of ours on this thread. As the cells in the human body completely renew themselves over a period of time the material to renew them can only come from what we eat. Which, incidentally, is why vegans have to consume vitamin and other supplements to ensure this takes place properly.
But I thought we’d agreed that we had exhausted this subject.
