ALB
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We plan to have a stall and leaflet this demonstration. More details later under World Socialist Movement section.
Our answer to the question is No, it can't be. There's a basic exposition of our position on this here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1989/no-1020-august-1989/socialism-means-one-world
There's nothing wrong with workers forming makeshift representative bodies in politically backward countries like Russia was in 1917 where formal, elected, representative bodies don't exist. But where they do there's no need to re-invent the wheel.Of course if there really had been a world socialist revolution after WWI the history of the world would have been quite different and the "failure" of this to take place has resulted in two world wars, continuous lesser wars, famines, massacres, etc, etc. In theory there could have been one because the objective, material conditions for socialism did exist on the world scale. Unfortunately, the second condition — a desire on the part of the world's workers to establish socialism — did not, and it was an illusion of Lenin and the Bolsheviks that it did, as this article from 1922 had to point out:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1920s/1922/no-220-december-1922/book-review-will-bolsheviks-maintain-power
Thanks. Sounds an interesting meeting.
irwellian wrote:1917 was a seminal moment in world revolutionary proletarian historyNot sure about that. It was obviously an important event that had repercussions throughout the last century, but from a geopolitical rather than proletarian point of view. In fact it sidetracked the "proletarian" movement and nostalgia for it still does.
Quote:its failure, and the subsequent failure of revolutionary movements elsewhere were ultimately a failure of "socialism in one country" (or more accurately, state capitalism in one geographical location)Good point.
Quote:the workers councils (soviets) were a major contribution to revolutionary movements (although to be fair, the councils go back to 1905)Not sure about that either. What is the need to create representatives councils where these already exist? They are a sign of political backwards not the future.
Quote:The massive influence of the Russian revolution on the years between 1917 and now are unquestionable. It led to:the bolshevisation or leninisation of the more revolutionary wing of the international workers' movementthis bolshevisation/leninisation included revolutionary groups and movements of various tendencies (including anarchists)the dominance of the Comintern and Stalinist tyranny, etc, led to the deformation of revolutionary politics and has left concepts such as socialism or communism as tainted, damagedpro-revolutionary ideas, groups and movements are still recovering from thisAll good points. In other words, the outcome of the Russian Revolution has been a disaster for the movement for socialism.
Quote:the apparent death of class consciousness, the general lack of collective working class awareness and the dwindling of revolutionary groups and ideas is a probable repercussion of the failure of 1917 and afterI would have thought that this would only be a minor reason, if one at all, for this. It will have had more to do with, for instance, the decline in work in heavy industry and the mistake of considering industrial workers only as "working class".
Quote:the dire state of the world we see today is ultimately evidence of the failure of 1917Well over the top too.
twc wrote:Science deals exclusively with dynamical processes. It only considers static things—stasis—as (1) moments in a dynamical process or as (2) invariants that persist throughout these moments, and so characterise that changing dynamical process conceptually as a persistent conceptual “thing”.Science subsumes definitions—mere words—under the process they feature in. Its terminology is subservient to process. Definitions—words—remain stillborn without a process theory to vivify them.That's a good point. Genes, atoms, etc are not things that exist in themselves. They are descriptions of observed dynamic processes, not things that already exist and waiting to be discovered (as one caricature would have it). What scientists are doing (whether they recognise it or not) is describing these processes with a view to being able to predict more successfully how they will continue to work.I don't think we need as Socialists to get involved in the argument as to whether the unit of evolution is the organism or the gene, i.e to decide which is the better description. We can leave this to those who study the subject to argue amongst themselves, only intervening when they introduce arguments about capitalism and socialism. Interestingly or perhaps ironically, Dawkins himself took this view on last year's EU referendum, a view which will ruffle a few feathers:http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/eu-referendum-richard-dawkins-brexit-23rd-june-ignoramuses
Dave B wrote:Dawkins sort of modified his position in other ways shortly after his selfish gene book with another emerging idea he plagiarised as well.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extended_PhenotypeExactly. Everything he has written since the publication of The Selfish Gene has been backtracking on what he wrote there. But the damage had been done since this is the most famous/notorious of his books.
Quote:Brexit Secretary David Davis says UK will stay open to migrants after leaving EUCabinet minister says it will take 'years and years' for Britons to fill jobs done by EU workersRe County Council elections, West London branch are investigating the possibility standing a candidate in Guildford for the Surrey Council Council. Certain legal matters need to be sorted out before a final decision.
At least she's got one good principle:http://en.rfi.fr/middle-east/20170221-marine-le-pen-refuses-headscarf-backs-assad-lebanon-visit
For the record, back numbers of the Socialist Standard were distributed to those attending. The report-back was that far less than the organisers anticipated turned up and that the Stop Trump Coalition is just another SWP front organisation. Nothing new — or interesting — there then.
This is what happened when Britain changed to the current calendar in 1752:http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-us-our-eleven-days/
Because at the time Russia was using an old calender which was 13 days behind the one used (and still used) in the West, the Tsar was overthrow in March not February 1917 of course and the Bolshevik coup took place in November not October. So the "Great October Revolution" is a myth even on this level — it took place in November.
