ALB
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There's this old pamphlet which deals with the idea of "world government" (as opposed to world socialism):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/should-socialists-support-federal-union
jondwhite wrote:Robert Griffiths of the CPB/ Morning Star commented on Channel 4 NewsThat could have been us, but I can see why he felt a particular need to repudiate the group. The media are saying that "Comrade Bala" was once a member of the "Communist Party of England". This was a Maoist group which has nothing to do with the "Communist Party of Great Britain" and its successor the "Communist Party of Britain". But I suppose that we should be grateful that it is only the CP and not socialism or Marxism in general that is being smeared.We will see if we can get in on the act locally as the place where the cult lived in Lambeth is only a few streets away from the ward we are contesting in a local council by-election.Griffiths, incidentally, doesn't get his facts right either. He says that the group/cult went out of existence in 1978. We have a leaflet of theirs in our archives advertising a meeting in December 1980.
The "capitalist press" have in fact been phoning us to see if we have an information on this group. We received 4 calls today at Head Office from various media (fortunately not the Daily Wail). We've not been able to tell them much beyond that they contested the same by-election in Lambeth in 1978 as us calling themselves "The South London People's Front" and that we have one of their leaflets in our archives. Naturally, we have explained to them the difference between socialism and Maoism.If there is any member out there who remembers the 1978 by-election and who me them in the course of it they would problem like to interview him or her, admittedly probably to find confirmation sabout how strange they were.They probably phoned us because we are in the area, but one of them had clearly read either this thread or our SOYMB item
KAZ wrote:Apart from a rather strange obsession with North KoreaSurely support for the North Korean regime and its ruling dynasty in the name of socialism automatically qualifies for being described as "nutty".
There's also this article from the Socialist Standard on a Maoist cult in America:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2005/no-1215-november-2005/cult-professional-revolutionary
IP is "Internationalist Perspectives", a breakaway from the ICC. They are reasonably ok (despite being anti-elections and anti-unions). In fact, when I left Belgium, I gave much of my collection of French-language "ultra left" pamphlets, leaflets and journals to one of their members.The French section of the ICC is particularly "cultish". They even have or had their own internal police force. See this article (which also has relevance to the thread on the so-called "slavery case"):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2005/no-1215-november-2005/cult-professional-revolutionary
I'm looking forward to next year's anarcho-bookfair to see what happens if the CWO get accepted and the ICC rejected.
I think this does have political implications. Many Maoist and Trotskyist groups are self-styled "vanguard parties" formed around a single leader (or Leader). People who join such groups already consider themselves followers and are psychologically prepared to submit to the will of the central committee or its leader(s).It is not surprising that from time to time some of these leaders take advantage of this. Why for instance would women have submitted to Trotskyist Leader Gerry Healey's sexual advances if they had not already been prepared to submit to him politically? This incidentally also happened just up the road from us, actually in Clapham High Street where the SLL/WRP had its headquarters. Simon Pirani, ex-WRP, has attempted to explain this phenomenon in this article on his blog:http://piraniarchive.wordpress.com/home/investigations-campaigns-and-other-stuff/the-break-up-of-the-wrp-from-the-horses-mouth/It appears that the vanguard party, especially when led by a single leader, is a much more dangerous form of organisation than we normally assume.
Ukraine is an artificial country. The western part was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and Catholic while the rest is Orthodox and more Russified. Those who demonstrate to join the EU will come from the wesern part (the same part that supplied the Nazis with concentration camp guards).The dilemma for the people of eastern Europe is that "independence" is an illusion. Their only choice, within capitalism, is to be dominated either by Germany or by Russia. Poor sods.
I know Veolia is one of the private firms that try to rip off local councils as much as they can get away with for collecting rubbish. I see their vans passing by every Tuesday. But I think the academics at the LSE may have taken them for a ride.The report outlines two scenarios:
Quote:A report published today by Veolia Environnement and the London School of Economics envisages the home of the future with nanoscopic robots sorting materials, self-cleaning bathrooms and ultrasonic baths. However it also contains stark warnings with two contrasting visions of urban living in 2050. ‘Imagine 2050’ was developed by leading environmental services company Veolia Environnement in partnership with the LSE. Under both scenarios, environmental technology will transform the home of the future – one in the context of a circular economy, the other in the context of a linear economy.The report describes one future city in which system-level planning has created a dense, resource-efficient society characterised by collaborative consumption, shared ownership and local self-reliance. Alongside this, it models a scenario in which disparate and unregulated development has led to a resource-hungry urban sprawl where private consumption and ownership is prioritised over long-term communal thinking.It is clear that the first scenario is only achievable in socialism while the second is what happens in capitalism and still will in 2050 unless we get socialism by then. In fact, it's surely the scenario that's best for Veolia from a profit-making point of view.I think we can use the first scenario to back up our case. So can the Greens, but they think it can happen under capitalism. My speculation is that the LSE academics were covert Greens. Anyway, as I said, I think we can turn their public relations exercise to our benefit.
There were about 200 there. It was organised by the ex-Living Marxism people from the ex-RCP now calling themselves the Instutute of Ideas. They now no longer pretend to be socialists but dedicate themselves to defending the universal humanist ideals of the 18th century Enlightenment against the post-modernists and advocates and practioners of identity politics. So James was held up not as a role model for black people but as a "humanist" and "modernist" who had absorbed and propagated the ideals of the Enlightenment.Much of the discussion was taken up with what should be the "canon" of English literature as taught in schools and universities. The panel (except one) was in favour of everyone studying the same thing, not Jews "Jewish Studies", black people "Black studies" or women "Women's studies". Sounds a good idea, but not everyone in the audience seemed to agree.Obviously cricket came in. I hadn't realised that until 1960 the West Indian touring teams always had a white man as captain. You live and learn.So did his political views. James was described as "a lifelong Marxist" and his writings from his Trotskyist and post-Trotskyist periods were on sale. I bought a copy of his State Capitalism and World Revolution.The meeting was filmed and I was one of those who was interviewed afterwards about what we thought of the meeting. I said that the only "cannon" I'd heard of was in billiards, that I didn't read English literature and hated Shakespeare but liked James's views on state capitalism in Russia and was against his picture appearing on the Brixton pound as he was ultimately for a society without money. It might appear on their site but, don't worry, I didn't say I was from the Party so we won't all come across as philistines.
There used to be a publication called Trotwatch which was useful:http://libcom.org/tags/trotwatchWe also have "trotspotters" (a variety of train-spotting) in our party:http://www.meetup.com/The-Socialist-Party-of-Great-Britain/events/59391582/I used to be one myself in my younger days but there are too many splits to keep up with.
Talking of Raymond Williams (which we weren't but he was one of the same set of ex-CP Marx-influenced writers), the latest issue of Prospect on "Poverty in the UK" has an article by Leanne Wood, the leader of Plaid Cymru, claiming him as one of theirs. In fact Plaid Cymru are making a big thing of this, Wood describing him as "one of the towering figures of the 20th century left".Can it be that he ended up a Welsh Nationalist? Talk about from the sublime to the ridiculous. Or did he make a couple of passing remarks at one stage of his life? Does anyone know?
slothjabber wrote:are you happy about your members saying things that aren't true?You should become a lawyer. You've already mastered how to ask: "Have you stopped beating your wife?"
Morgenstern wrote:Hence, the dictatorship of the proletariat, just as the bourgeois dictated to their former feudal masters. It will last as long as the revolution is in doubt; as long as capitalist ideas are strong enough to need suppressing.Surely the use of state power by the majority working class to force the minority capitalist class to give up their ownership and control of the means of production (call it the "dictatorship of the proletariat" if you like, like old-fashioned terminology that is) will not involve the suppression of "capitalist ideas" or any ideas for that matter (not sure how this could be done, anyway, a ban on their expression at meetings, in print, on the media?). What it will involve is the suppression of capitalist property rights and of any action the capitalist minority might take to try to stop this. In other words, the suppression of "capitalist actions". Mere "capitalist ideas" are no threat to a majority with socialist ideas. We may, in fact do, want capitalist ideas to disappear but not by suppressing them.But this of course is a topic for another thread..
