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jondwhite wrote:

The Prof asks Is Leninism finished http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=12210

Here's what the same Callinicos wrote in an article in the same magazine in January 1993 when answering questions on "What will socialism be like?":

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But what would this socialist democracy be like? How would it differ from liberal democracy as it exists today under capitalism?The most important difference is that democratic decision making would spread throughout the whole of the social body. Prevailing capitalist democracy separates political power, which is formally subjected to democratic rules (even though they're often ignored or twisted in practice), and economic power, which is exercised by a small number of unelected bosses. This separation would go. The workplace would provide the basic unit of the new socialist democracy, electing delegates to local, regional, national and (as the revolution spread) international congresses.Representative democracy, first developed by the emerging capitalist class when it was still revolutionary, would thus be extended beyond the sphere of politics narrowly understood, as decisions about what and how to produce passed into the hands of elected delegates. It would also be strengthened, since these representatives would be subject to regular re-election and liable to instant recall, thus making them accountable in a way that MPs never are.Democracy also requires open discussion and choices between genuine alternatives. Both are limited by the power of capital in contemporary society. Here again socialism would represent an extension of democracy. Access to the media would not be restricted to those with the wealth to buy newspapers and television networks.Freedom of debate, however, isn't effective without the ability to choose between political parties offering different programmes. A workers' state would, like any other state, have the right to defend itself against counter-revolutionary forces seeking its overthrow. But any party willing to work peacefully within the framework of the new state would be free to compete for influence in the workers' councils and would be guaranteed access to the media.

Electing delegates subject to regular re-election and liable to instant recall, open discussion and choices between genuine alternatives, these are essential features of democracy  — though not of the SWP's top-down decision-making process.

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Young Master Smeet wrote:

This went on until 1996.

And started in 1922 when the south of Ireland got "independence". What was that about "Home Rule" = "Rome Rule"?

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They're not criticising the SWP for its lack of democracy, but for not being properly "democratic centralist". What else would you expect from people calling themselves "Bolsheviks" !

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There was an article in the July/August issue of the Skeptical Inquirer on this entitled "Besieging the Last Bastions of Race" by Kenneth W. Krause. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be available without paying, but here's an extract:

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In his introduction to Race and the Genetic Revolution: Science, Myth, and Culture (Columbia University Press, 2011), Sheldon Krimsky, Tufts University community health specialist and coeditor (along with human rights advocate Kathleen Sloan), confirms that race amounts to nothing more than a "scientific myth"—a "vestigial cultural artifact" persisting only in our "minds and public policies."Race and the Genetic Revolution emerged from two projects launched by the Council for Responsible Genetics. The first examined the effects of expanded DNA databases on racial disparities in criminal justice. The second, more interesting to me, explored how modern scientific—especially medical—practices have actually revived a dangerous concept that should have been tagged and bagged years ago.In a concise historical essay, contributor and Drexel University public health expert Michael Yudell considers the recent "upsurge" in race-based medicine and its possible drivers. The genetic revolution, he finds, combined with our noble desire to resolve certain health disparities—especially in heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, for example—has scientists rummaging for solutions in every possible direction.Unfortunately, many well-intentioned researchers have reverted to race. According to Yudell, this reckless trend suggests that "an analysis of the complex relationship between individuals, populations, and health will be surrendered to a simplistic, racialized world-view."

 

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At the risk of being done for flaming or whatever, but I'm banking on the sense of humour of comrades in the North East, here's a news item in today's Times that hopefully will provide some light relief:

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Town councillors are to be given a lesson in civility after complaints about their conduct. Members of Ferryhill town council, in Co Durham, have been the subject of seven complaints, four of which related to a meeting in October. Now Durham County Council is to organise a meeting to establish "why differences of opinion between members cannot be entertained and debated in a civilised manner".

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The Socialist Standard is in fact planning an issue on catastrophism so this will help.PS. I wish contributors would not put quotes in italics (which is hard read) rather than using the Quote facility.  Oh, just realised there isn't one here.  So, use [/quote] to end and

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to begin.

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They're discussing it here too:http://www.facebook.com/groups/147039565328926/

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Here's what the Socialist Standard said at the time about the 1919 police strike:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1919/no-178-june-1919/bobbys-discretionandhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1919/no-180-august-1919/police-v-police

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It's not as if we've not been here before as this extract from the Proceedings of Annual Conference 2008 shows. What did Marx say about when history repeats itself?

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MOTION 9 [Vote 13]: (EARB) "This conference rules that Spintcom and Spopen should not be moderated".Stevens (EARB) on opening referred the meeting to their statement. She had been impressed by democracy in the Party. Moderation appears to go against this. There is a culture in the Party which ignores disputes.Donnelly (Glasgow) Non moderation a disaster, it is not like a letter. I've been moderated, essential, too easy to press SEND button, ends up like school kids bickering. The idea is that we can communicate with workers throughout the world. We have lost speaking opportunities, outdoor meetings. We lack a real activity; we are turning in on ourselves. If we could get together there would be no time to bicker. The moderators are doing a difficult job, though we don't go in for praising members in the Party these two should be.Foster (WMRB) he agreed with moderation but suggested a trial period of non-moderation, to see if it works.Morris (Manchester) is appalled at the abuse, especially over petty things, if she had been a new member she would have resigned. If in dispute ring up and talk privately. On the Internet we look stupid.Shannon (Lancaster) his branch astounded at this view, patently not true that we have grown up, that's why we have Chairs, not amazing that it's happening on e-mail. This is passive/aggressive behaviour, blood crazed imbeciles. This is not about openness, this is about licence. Democracy doesn't mean no rules. Maybe we should have a late night breathalyser test.Chesham (Central London) On e-mail there is no comparison between a Chair and moderation, they offend first. Moderation is inconsistent, outrageous things said but not moderated, other mild ones get moderated. We are looking for a future society without moderation. Abused members have no redress, its still happening. Doesn'tsubscribe to moderation as present set up, they should be accountable.Carr (SWRB) if it's not working properly, then tighten up.Hart (South London) branch also opposed. The Charter should be adhered to.Johnson (Swansea) Swansea are also opposed. There should be more strictness. Since the EC reminded the Moderators, things have been better. The more we fight among ourselves the less we are focussing on outside activity. If not moderated we will be said to be a crowd of undisciplined hooligans.Stair (Non Delegate) There are two reasons for this on the agenda. One, personal abuse and two lets listen to what people have to say,. The attitude lets sweep everything under the carpet, lets not get to the route of the problem and deal with it. Sees personal abuse as being action detrimental.Buick (West London) This idea is bonkers, a recipe for Anarchism. If we experiment into non moderation, public face would make us look stupid, one member has unsubscribed another is in limbo. We could see other ways to moderate, e.g. anyone who sends a message could get an answer "Do you really want to send this?" Quoted Conference Standing Orders 15 and 14.Stevens (EARB) winding up asked what does Comrade Buick have to hide.VOTE:  FOR 21. AGAINST 81. NOT CARRIED.

 

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For the record here's the challenge to us issued on 18 January by someone on the Militant Southwark Facebook page:

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The second largest party after labour gets 344 votes. We get 72 votes beating all the small parties. SPGB get  34. They must aknowledge our superior electoral machine now & see if they have the stomach for 2014. Lol. SPGB, if  u want to play big boys games u face big boys consequences. lol

We will be contesting Brixton Hill ward again in the Council elections next May. We'll see. After all, it is not as if 72 votes is all that much. Lol.

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Jonny K. wrote:

When a Marxist Leninist, say (so, a Trot, a Stalinist, a Hoxhaite, a what-you-will), says 'state', they mean 'the mechanisms by which one class suppresses by force the interests of another class'. Expressed in these minimal terms, I find it difficult to see how any revolutionary communist, howsoever left- they may be, would not agree that, following the revolution, the proletariat would have to resist violent counterrevolution from the minority former ruling class. (I dearly wished there was an SPGB member present when I came to that point; because I'm putting words into the mouths of a movement I do not know enough about to analyze with any confidence. I'd be delighted if anyone can either correct me or confirm my proposition.)

Well, yes. Our position is that a democratically-demonstrated socialist majority would not/should not allow, should it occur, a "recalictrant minority" to impede the establishment of socialism by violent action and that, if they tried, they would have to be dealt with one way or another if necessary by arms. As the Chartists put it, "peaceably if we may, forcibly if we must". Whether or not a minority of anti-socialists would be prepared to take up arms against an overwhelming majority is another matter. There is no reason to think that it will necessarily happen.and some reasons to think that it might not. So your "would have to resist violent counter-revolution" should more correctly be "would have to in the event of…"In any event, we can't imagine the whole capitalist class and their hangers-on being prepared to do this, even though (peaceful) political power will be being used to dispossess them. That will be the action of one class (the working class) agains another class (them). Since this action need not involve violence the Leninist definition you give of the state as "the mecanisms by which one class suppresses by force the interests of another class" could be misleading unless it is explained that "force" doesn't necessarily mean physical violence and armed suppression. It just means the exercise of political power.  But of course Leninists don't envisage the working class as such imposing their will on the capitalist class. They envisage themselves, as the self-appointed "vanguard of the working class" doing this, a quite different matter.

Jonny K. wrote:

However, I argued, there is another function of the state, well, another function that a not-SPGB Marxist would, I think, have to ascribe to the post-revolutionary socialist state. The post-revolutionary state (which, let's be clear, doesn't have to mean a party, a subset of the (former) proletariat – it can mean the proletariat as a whole, acting in whatever suitably democratic way it sees fit) will have to subjugate not onlly the interests of the bourgeoisie as a class, but also the interests of individual (former) proletarians. Because, in a sense, we will not yet be former proletarians. As long as we do not have sufficient automation and superabundance to permit each person to work only as much as they voluntarily will work, and only on the things that they want to work on, it will be necessary to oblige people to work (perhaps in the same way people are obliged to work under capitalism; perhaps in a different, less morally repugnant way).

After the state has been used to dispossess the capitalist class then classes will have been abolished and the working class will become "former proletarians" just as the capitalist class will have become former capitalists. This being the case (even on the Leninist definition of the state you quote above: for one class to oppress another) there will be no longer any need for a state and it can be dismantled (i.e. the coercive aspects of the central administration lopped off). Socialism will have been established and there will no longer be a state.In fact, our view is that the term "socialist state" is a contradiction in terms ((like "Marxist-Leninist!"). There could be no physical coercion to get people to work since with no state there'd be no way of doing this. (if there was, then there wouldn't be socialism). Why should there be? People who had just carried out a socialist revolution (the dispossession of the capitalist class) would surely have done this in the knowledge that, this done, they would still have to work and would still want to work, if only to keep socialism going.

Jonny K. wrote:

So I end up at a position of thinking that this is a genuine sticking point between the two sides on the question of the state. And I cannot see how we can expect to be able to instantaneously have communism (no state, no classes, no private ownership of the means of production) under the socioeconomic conditions immediately inherited from dying capitalism. (….) But yeah… on questions of power structures and organization within the socialist movement and any future socialist society, I find a lot of merit in the positions of left-communists and anarchists (I see no value in vanguardism or democratic centralism or even the existence of a party at all; and I value participatory and/or direct forms of democracy); but on the need for transitional forms of society between capitalism and full communism, I'm with the Leninists.

You are right that the argument that as long as there is not (super) abundance there will therefore be the need for a necessarily coercive state is a Leninist argument put forward by both Lenin (who said it would be needed to enforce the "bourgeois right" of some receiving more than others for working more) and Trotsky (who said it would be needed to make people stand in line for their rationed supplies of consumer goods and services). There are two separate questions here:1. Will socialist society, even in its early days, really not be in a position to produce enough of the things people need to live and enjoy life? Given the end of the artificial scarcity (production stopping at the amount beyond which it is no longer profitable to go) and the organised waste (not just wars and preparations for war but also all the resources devoted to buying and selling and money shuffling including collecting and spending taxes), it should be possible to go over to free access very rapidly after the establishment of socialism. "Superabundance" is a red herring; all that is necessary is the ability to produce enough for all.2. Even on your assumption that this won't be the case, it doesn't follow that there would therefore be a need for a state to coerce people to work and stand in line for their food, etc as advocated (and implemented) by Leninists. There are various non-Leninist, non-State proposals of how to deal with this perceived problem: labour-time vouchers as advocated by the De Leonists of the Socialist Labor Party of America, the Dutch Council Communists and the advocates of Parecon. We don't think much of these blueprints but at least they don't envisage a State like the Leninists do.

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Oh dear, does this mean back to this?Shouldn't do normally as we're in a busy high street with CCTV not down a back alley.

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We know Healey loyalist Corin Redgrave of old: http://www.newstatesman.com/node/147017Pirani does raise the intriguing question of the psychological state of those who join hierarchical, Leninist organisations and their willingness to submit to the dictates of the Leadership.

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SWP members put themselves in this position of being summoned to explain themselves because in joining the SWP they accept a constitution which says that a member:

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works within and under the direction of the appropriate party bodies.

and

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Subject to the sovereignty of Conference, decisions taken by the Central Committee (CC), National Committee (NC) and Party Council are binding on caucuses, districts and branches, and individual members.

In other words, they agree to be foot soldiers carrying out the orders of "higher-ups" in the organisation.If we are going to issue a statement on the SWP's present troubles it is on its undemocratic nature that we should concentrate. Here, for instance, is how, according to Rule 5 of its Constitution, its supreme body, the Central Committee, is "elected":

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The CC consists of members elected by Conference according to the following procedure:The outgoing Central Committee selects and circulates a provisional slate for the new CC at the beginning of the period of pre-Conference discussion. This is then discussed at the district aggregates where comrades can propose alternative slates.At the Conference the outgoing CC proposes a final slate (which may have been changed as a result of the pre-Conference discussion). This slate, along with any other that is supported by a minimum of five delegates, is discussed and voted on by Conference.

No trade union has such an undemocratic constitution. As the draft statement proposed by JonD at the beginning of this thread puts it, the SWP's "organisational norms" go against "the norms of the labour movement for over a century" and are "contrary to the labour movement and its best interests".

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Zinovievism? Intrigued by the title I took a look at this one: http://internationalsocialismuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/is-zinovievism-finished-reply-to-alex.html and found confirmation  that the SWP is modelled on the CPGB of the 1920s:.

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The model operated currently by the SWP is not that of the Bolshevik revolution. It is a version of the Zinovievite model adopted during the period of “Bolshevisation” in the mid-1920s and then honed by ever smaller and more marginal groups.

On the face of it "democratic centralism" seems reasonable: Conference votes for something; this is binding on all members and an elected executive body is responsible for carrying out the decision. This is how our party functions. But this is not how the SWP (and, let's not forget, other Leninist and Trotskyist groups) operate. As the author of the article points out, what the SWP Conference decides is what is proposed to it by its executive body and this executive body is "elected" as a slate and co-opts its successors and new members. This is certainly "centralism" but is not democratic.

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But merely invoking the term “democratic centralism” does not tell you anything about which level of decision get made by which people, how frequently decisions are made or what mechanisms should exist for review, let alone how to elect a Central Committee or of whom it should consist. Two examples will show how our current model is weighted towards centralism at the expense of democracy.The first is in relation to decision making. According to the theory, conference discusses and decides (democracy) and then comrades, including those who opposed the agreed position, carry out the decisions (centralism). Fine: but what does conference actually decide? It is presented with a series of general perspective documents which are usually so bland and platitudinous that it is virtually impossible to disagree with them: the economic crisis is not going to be resolved, times are hard but there are also opportunities, we must not be complacent over the threat of fascism, and so on. To agree with this kind of statement is not to make a decision over strategy or tactics, or anything specific enough for the CC to be held to account. The real decisions about actual policy – to establish united fronts, to join electoral coalitions – are almost always made by the CC itself between conferences, with conference asked to ratify them after the event.The second is in relation to the composition of the CC. The CC self-selects: it has an agreed political perspective; when someone dies or resigns it chooses as replacements comrades who agree – or who are thought to agree – with that perspective; at no point is the chain ever broken by open political debate. And if the perspective is wrong? The problems extend to the membership of the CC. What are the requirements of a potential CC member? There are apparently two: that they should live in or around London and that – with a handful of exceptions – they are full-time employees of the party. So – the comrades who are eligible for membership of the CC are those who until their selection have been paid to carry out the decisions of the previous CC and who, because they tend to have been students beforehand, rarely have any direct experience of the class struggle. How can a leadership this narrow be capable of forming an accurate perspective?

The trouble is that the author and many of the other critics still look back to the Bolshevik party that usurped power in November 1917 as their model. Hopefully, it will be a case of them learning one step at a time that Bolshevism and Leninism should not be regarded as models to follow.

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