Letters

Muddle-headed

Bill Jones’s recent letter imagines that “hopeless”, “muddle-headed” opponents of ‘democratic centralism’ can’t distinguish between it and ‘bureaucratic centralism’ (August 28). However, he refuses to consider what they may share in common and seems not to consider the alternative of just using ‘democracy’.

If the SWP had a democratic internal culture I would still think it wrong to organise in a “disciplined” way to unseat the “flotsam and jetsam” in the Socialist Alliance. He approvingly quotes Trotsky, who condemned those who had revealed Lenin’s last testament (warning against Stalin) to workers outside the party structures.

To me it is the CPGB that has demonstrated it is “muddle-headed” about democracy. Passively handing over decision-making to parliamentary representatives and not including any democracy in the workplace are of course examples of a democratic deficit. While democratic advances may still be possible without changes in these areas, the CPGB is wrong to consider limited improvements as “extreme democracy”.

Contributors to this debate have given reasons why ‘democratic centralism’ helps pave the way to party domination, but no examples are given of how it has helped revolutionary upheaval. Lenin advocated abandoning it in a revolutionary situation and of course his party’s birth, breaking with the Mensheviks, didn’t follow any centralised, disciplined unity after decisions had been reached.

It is simply not good enough to imagine that ‘democratic centralism’ is a weapon against the ‘capitalist state’ without considering real examples. It is a weapon against rival sects and “flotsam and jetsam” who prefer a larger alliance grouping. Letters have suggested our time is very different to revolutionary Russia, but ‘democratic centralism’ still plays a real role in established, relatively stable capitalism. It helps each sect and ideology compete and market their product against their rivals, while peacefully coexisting within a capitalist society.

Muddle-headed
Muddle-headed

Missing the point

Jack Conrad misses the point about democratic centralism. Why does he assume the organisational arrangements of Bolshevism 1903-04 were democratic centralist, when there was no party democracy from below as we understand it until1905?

All the democratic elements of democratic centralism - election of higher committees and leaders, the right of recall, minority or tendency rights and so on - were absent. Lenin in his letter to a comrade in 1904 spelled out his centralist proposals. Above all a stable centre is required: the central committee will guide and control all the details of party work. Lenin’s proposals, which Lenin was honest enough to concede, in a very defensive response to Rosa Luxemburg’s criticism, were not proposals for a specific form of organisation in principle, but were practical suggestions for the circumstances of the time.

This centralist approach was not unconnected with Lenin following the guidance of Karl Kautsky on the relationship between consciousness/party and class/intelligentsia. Jack sneers at what he considers my suggestion of the influence of Kautsky. But it was Lenin, who at great length, in What is to be done?, cited Kautsky as his authority. As is well known, Lenin sided with the party centre and Kautsky down until 1914. He did not support Luxemburg, Pannekoek and Parvus and other left critics of the party regime in Germany. Indeed Lenin saw it as a model in 1903-04.

Following Kautsky, for Lenin, “The history of all countries shows the working class exclusively by its own efforts is able to develop only trade union consciousness.” History showed nothing of the sort. Chartism in Britain and many other spontaneous mass movements of the class went beyond trade union consciousness. The Kautskyan supplementary position, which Lenin accepted in 1903-04, was that the theory of socialism grew out of the propertied classes and their educated representatives. Luxemburg made the counter-point that socialism grew organically out of the working class struggle, and the party and the vanguard of the class it represented formed its programme in the heat of that struggle.

Lenin did not come round to this position until 1905, when he learned from the creativity of the masses. He then wrote: “The working class is instinctively, spontaneously social democratic and more than 10 years of social democratic work has done a great deal to transform this spontaneity into consciousness.” This was a more dialectical understanding of party and class than 1903-04.

Jack even tries to defend Zinoviev. This is the same Zinoviev who opposed the October revolution of 1917 and publicly denounced the insurrection, betraying its date. A strike-breaker, as Lenin said. Zinoviev’s proposals on organisation at the second congress of the Communist International were an example of bureaucratic centralism. All the lower bodies were to follow the orders of the higher bodies with military discipline. Zinoviev, like other rightwing Bolsheviks, came to the fore during another undemocratic period of Bolshevism - 1909-10 - when Bolshevism would not tolerate tactical differences, expelled talented comrades outside the rules of democratic centralism, and were obsessed with the party line and fighting deviations.

As Marcel Liebman, who is no liberal, has written, this was a barren and sectarian period for Lenin. How can Jack Conrad win over sceptical comrades to democratic centralism, when he adopts such a dogmatic and uncritical attitude to the Bolshevik tradition? Name-calling never convinced anyone.

Missing the point
Missing the point

Mind the gap

Jack Conrad’s editorial sadly shows that the gap between the libertarian and authoritarian left is as great today as in Marx’s and Bakunin’s time. This is a shame, as I expect there is much we agree on.

Jack presents democratic centralism as the only effective form of revolutionary organisation. Frankly this is rubbish - in both theory and practice. He erroneously states that in my recent letter I rejected democracy. Anarchists do not reject democracy. Quite the opposite. Anarchists believe in genuine bottom-up democracy. What anarchists reject with good reason is liberal electoral democracy and democratic centralism.

In practice neither of these have advanced the interests of the working classes or led to genuine freedom. As anarchists we think power is too important to hand over to a few people - whether through the means of a ballot once every five years or, even worse, some bureaucratic committee. Anarchist forms of democracy like affinity groups have been seen recently on the streets during anti-capitalist demonstrations like this week’s DSEi protests and in Argentina - and they work.

It is a shame Marxists like Jack are so dismissive of anarchism. Things are moving on and you are being left behind.

Mind the gap
Mind the gap

SA proposals

The structures of the Socialist Alliance have to be overhauled if it is to become a multi-tendency, democratic socialist party like Rifondazione Comunista or the Scottish Socialist Party.

District committees should be set up in the nine regions of England and in Wales. There would have a steering committee elected by single transferable vote using postal ballots. The district committees should comprise at least six elected representatives: one chair, one treasurer and one officer each for membership, trades unions, women and anti-fascism. Elected representatives from district level would be sent to the national council meetings. A congress should be held within six months of the district committee elections.

The national executive committee of the SA has too many members. Even worse, too many of these people are doing the same things. The NEC has to change. It has so far been the source of most problems afflicting the SA, with too much horse-trading and other undemocratic practices, perhaps not unconnected with the bureaucratic centralism that seems characteristic of most left organisations.

But the biggest problem of all is how the NEC is elected. I propose that the NEC be elected by limited vote. Every member will be sent two sets of ballot papers - one each containing all male and all female candidates. Each elector will be given a total of 14 votes - seven votes for each list. It is assumed that equal gender representation will continue to exist. All candidates must prove that they have spent at least five years in a political organisation or five years in a trade union. This will help to (a) maintain the proletarian nature of the SA and (b) undermine any attempts at MI5 infiltration of the leadership.

SA proposals
SA proposals

Ukraine scam

The prominent coverage given by the Weekly Worker on the events in Ukraine should be warmly welcomed. Nevertheless the article, ‘Global party, not international fraud’, by Peter Manson contained discrepancies which requires correction (September 4).

Amongst the list of organisations affected by the counterfeit left in Ukraine Peter Manson cites the “Committees of Correspondence (publishers of News and Letters)”. The Marxist-humanist organisation in the USA which publishes the monthly paper News and Letters is in fact the News and Letters Committees. The Committees of Correspondence is an entirely separate organisation. This may be an error due to the name of the sister organisation of News and Letters in England - the London Corresponding Committee - or perhaps the predecessor paper of News and Letters being Correspondence (pre-1956, that is). However, this sloppy journalism continues with the assertion that News and Letters Committees, with the other organisations, were “stung for thousands of pounds - cash that was channelled into the Ukrainian section of the CWI via its shadowy ‘international department’”.

News and Letters Committees has already made clear to one other group on the left in the UK that it made no financial contributions to the Ukrainian Workers Group. This is not a minor issue. Peter Manson is surely aware of the current difficulties faced by revolutionaries in the USA following the introduction of the Patriot Act. However, even before Bush’s attacks on civil liberties, there were repressive laws in place to hinder international cooperation of American Marxists with comrades in other countries. Therefore, even if it were true, to publish such information without discussion with the organisation concerned or regard for the consequences displays negligent disregard for the position of Marxists in another country.

On one final note there is no such place as “the Ukraine”, any more than there is ‘the Ireland’, or ‘the France’. This is a common error of English-language authors who ignorantly mimic Russian historiography, which, in the interests of past and present Russian imperialism, treat Ukraine as a mere geographical locality of Russia - ie, ‘little Russia’, as opposed to a nation.

Ukraine scam
Ukraine scam

Oil research

Frances Nickeson writes absolute rubbish (Letters, August 21).

To take the position that inter-generational sex is the result of gay sexuality being repressed is to imply that if gay sexuality were not repressed then there would be no gay people engaging in sexual activities with members of the same sex who happened to be below an arbitrarily-legislated age of consent.

As ‘perversion’ is really nothing more than something that you don’t happen to be into, it’s easy to see how some people can take the liberty to brand the sexuality of others as being perverse.

One cannot possibly be a communist while at the same time denying consenting people their fundamental dignity to practice their sexuality as they so choose to without their being scapegoated, humiliated and prosecuted.

Oil research
Oil research

Gay rubbish

Frances Nickeson writes absolute rubbish (Letters, August 21).

Gay rubbish
Gay rubbish

DC slated

Regarding the debates arising from criticisms of ‘democratic centralism’ that appeared originally on the Socialist Alliance indie e-list and now appear in the Weekly Worker - I think some clarification needs to be made over my original criticism, as all criticisms seem to be lumped together as anti-Lenin.

I personally was opposed to DC and slates being incorporated into the constitution of a broad workers’ party (that elusive ‘alternative to Labour’) not only as it seemed inappropriate, but it would also act as a barrier to hundreds of would-be members of the proposed party, who seem to find anything that smacks of Bolshevism, Leninism, Stalinism or Trotskyism highly suspect (whether their fears are correct or not).

I do understand that Jack Conrad’s vision is not the aforesaid: his was for the formation of a large ‘communist party’, one which would have brought together the existing 57 varieties plus non-aligned socialists - he and others saw the Socialist Alliance as a possible vehicle for this end. Even if this vision had materialised, it would still have stopped well short of becoming a mass party - and to become an ‘alternative to Labour’, surely it is a mass party that has to be built. I can see the sense of DC in a clandestine/revolutionary group, but the appeal of such groups in advanced capitalist countries is extremely limited, as history has shown.

I for one can see the reasoning for having a highly disciplined and centralised organisation when urgent and immediate action is needed. In fact many will hold up the Socialist Workers Party executive as a fine example of this when they flew into action and created the Stop the War Coalition - but Jack and company criticised that as ‘bureaucratic centralism’ because others in the alliance were not considered worthy of being consulted by Rees and co. I agree with Jack’s criticism of the SWP tops over this, as it was a missed opportunity to push the SA forward, but what else have we come to expect of the arrogant quadruplicate?

I also understand fears that a broad party would simply become another Labour Party, where revolutionary socialists may become a minority swimming in a reformist sea of pinks and greens. Wherever a social democratic party has existed in the advanced societies, they do seem to have been comfortably incorporated into their respective states, and now seem to have become liberal parties fully embracing capitalism as the only option on offer. And I do believe Marx and Engels’s point that we cannot escape our exploited condition by reformist means - but, as someone else pointed out in your pages recently, we must at least try to halt the losses and look towards winning back ground lost since 1980: that would indeed give confidence to people and win credibility for those that fought for better conditions, wages and the repeal of anti-worker legislation.

In that way Marxists would be listened to more readily in the trade unions, protest groups, etc, for these organisations are still the ideal training grounds for Marxist cadre, although we must acknowledge that these organisations themselves may never guarantee socialism.

At this time in the UK, to build a leftist mass party means appealing to a mass of the people, and, alas, there is not a mass of ready-made socialists (let alone Marxists) out there ready to enlist. We can see what the electorate thinks of the ‘electoral front’ the SA executive have offered them - if they won’t vote for it, they certainly won’t join it or anything that smacks of the SWP or similar. I know it is hard to understand, but the majority of people in this country still feel happy voting for the big three - oh yes, and some find the racist British National Party more attractive than the SA!

No doubt many will think me a tad thick, but, for all of Jack’s quotes from Lenin’s works or those of other writers, he fails to convince me that democratic centralism, slates and central committees will set us free. In his last article he jumps from the Bolsheviks taking power to “... the first five-year plan in 1928-29 Stalin and his faction launched a bureaucratic counterrevolution within the revolution” (‘In defence of democratic centralism’, September 4). This conveniently gives the impression that before this date everything was run ‘by the workers for the workers’ - but it wasn’t!

In 2003 is there any substantial reason to believe that Marxist revolutions will come about in the foreseeable future in north America, the British Isles, Japan or the Euro states? To date, no advanced capitalist society has experienced a proletarian revolution, even during a time that one would have thought had revolutionary potential, 1918-39 (aftermath of the Great War, escalating labour militancy, terrible slum conditions, hardships and then the great depression, MacDonald’s treachery).

It would be wrong to deduce from this fact that proletarian revolution will never occur in an advanced capitalist state - in fact it would be stupid to do so - but simply blaming the failure of the aforesaid revolutions to materialise on ‘the corrupt and traitorous leaders of labour, the success of the capitalist press and the 20-year post-war boom’, as most self-proclaimed Marxists do with boring regularity, is not convincing enough - well, for me anyway.

We need to question everything and find new answers: to use Jack’s words, “To wilfully refuse to recognise such a cardinal fact is unpardonable.” As far as I am aware, the three main societies that succumbed to revolutions (in the name of Marxism) without outside aid were Russia, China and Yugoslavia, which were all backward at the time of their respective revolutions with predominantly peasant populations and autocratic regimes. The post-war Warsaw bloc countries, such as Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany, were created as Stalinist buffer-states with Red Army backing - these were not created by popular revolutions. In the case of Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968), the Red Army had to revisit to ensure that their puppets remained in power.

This is an advanced capitalist country and we must use Marxism to discover a successful way forward - Lenin and Trotsky were both extremely intelligent men but they developed policies for their times and situations and reacted to the terrible obstacles that presented themselves in a backward country almost 100 hundred years ago. I’m sure we can continue to learn much from their work and experiences, as we do from others, but many on the left tend to treat their writings as holy gospel, forcing their words to fit any and every current situation instead of developing new ideas for a new century.

Do we really want to build a mass leftist party that can offer hope against the injustices of capitalist society - or shall we carry on wasting time sustaining a plethora of Bolshevik mini-sects that the mass of the British people have never ever heard of?

DC slated
DC slated