Pere Duchene
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'A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism' is sheer hyperbole for early 1848,the working class as a political class is in its infancy in early 1848: 'the formation of a class with radical chains' has really just occurredwe had the Chartists in England who demanded: A vote for every man twenty-one years of age, the Secret Ballot, no Property Qualification for MPs, payment of MPs, equal Constituencies, annual Parliament Elections. This could best be described radical bourgeois politics in the vein of Tom Painein France there had been working class 'uprisings' in Lyons, the Canut silk weavers in 1831 and 1834, this is more the economic struggle between capital and labour, Engels wrote from the time of the Lyon rebellions “the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie came to the front in the history of the most advanced countries in Europe”the 1844 Silesian Weavers uprising is comparable to the Lyons Silk weavers1848 in Europe is the bourgeois still as revolutionary class trying to wrest power from feudal, aristocratic, autocratic elitesI think the 'June Days' in Paris June 1848 is when the working class realise fully the enemy is the bourgeois classMaybe start reading part 1 'Bourgeois and Proletarians' now…SPC
I agree re: prefacesSo how does an on-line reading group work? We read a section and post comments/questions ?
Are we going to read the different prefaces ?Section by section seems a rational thing to do.Chapter 1 'Bourgeois and Proletarians' – Week commencing Monday 14 April ?
Mandela Dead – So WhatThe legacy of Mandela is that in August 2012 miners at the Marikana Mine in South Africa were on strike for higher wages. The striking miners were confronted by the South African police, who fired on the miners, using live rounds from automatic pistols, shotguns and assault rifles. 34 miners were killed and 78 seriously injured and many miners were shot in the back and whilst lying on the ground. The South African state has even charged 270 arrested miners with the Apartheid-era 'common purpose' murder of the miners massacred by the police.The South African capitalist state killing people at Sharpeville, Soweto, and Marikana. They all linked although the first two under apartheid. Ending apartheid allowed capitalism more free exploitation of the labour power of the working class.
The SPGB is like the Tardis – a small box from the outside but enormous on the inside. We like that.
Left Unity – I identified 5 platforms before the Founding Congress:The Left Party – Kate Hudson/Andrew Burgin – standard green/feminist/reformismThe Class Struggle Platform – Trotskyite Workers PowerThe Socialist Platform – disgruntled ISN/TUSC, Declaration of Principles had elements of similarity to SPGB DOPThe Communist Platform – Weekly Worker Leninists who had failed to take over Socialist PlatformThe Republican Socialist Platform – repositioning ?
Trotskyites and Stalinists have their origin in Leninism.I agree with Rosa Luxemburg's critique in response to Lenin's What Is To Be Done? Rosa Luxemburg wrote Organisational Questions of Russian Social Democracy (1904) which later became known as Leninism or Marxism? where she criticised his concept of revolutionary organisation and identified Lenin as a 'Blanquist' socialist revolutionist. Luxemburg wrote that 'Blanquism did not count on the direct action of the working class. It, therefore, did not need to organize the people for the revolution. The people were expected to play their part only at the moment of revolution. Preparation for the revolution concerned only the little group of revolutionists armed for the coup.' This is the Bolshevik strategy in its essence. Luxemburg identifies 'the two principles on which Lenin’s centralism rests are precisely these: the blind subordination, in the smallest detail, of all party organs to the party centre which alone thinks, guides, and decides for all. The rigorous separation of the organized nucleus of revolutionaries from its social-revolutionary surroundings.' This is Blanquist organisation although Lenin himself 'defined his 'revolutionary Social Democrat' as the ' Jacobin indissolubly connected with the organisation of the class-conscious proletariat.'But not everything Lenin wrote is worthless; for example, his article entitled The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism (1913), contains a concise exposition of Marxism.As a socialist I have major criticism of bolshevism, Leninism but need to point out there are some good things in 'Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism' where he gives a prescient description of globalisation.Lenin opposed the First World War which we applaud, he promised to take Russia out of the war and he did. What he did 1917-24 is another matter.
So, they are full-on Stalinists, but they criticise Uncle Joe for some revisionism, would be interesting to know what that is. The Harpal Brar Stalinist Communist Party and their Stalin Society are the die-hards, marching on May Day beneath their Uncle Joe banner. Anything post 1953 is revisionism.No time for Trotskyites.Of the Leftist sects the 'Weekly Worker' Leninists are the most admirable.I am an 'Impossibilist' and agree with the DOP of the SPGB.
Wish I'd been there, lots of 'leftist train spotting' missed. I don't know the "Economic & Philosophic Science Review" though.
I recall at University in 1984 an IMG'er was a member of the Labour Club there along with the 'friends of the Militant' newspaper aka Labour Party Young Socialists aka MT Taffe/Grant Trot Party. My understanding is that the IMG went into the Labour Party in early 1980s. The Labour Club also contained a few members of the 'Socialist Labour Group', who are/were these ?
