thinking through the meaning of communism and socialism in the conditions of today

A document produced by comrades involved in l’Encontre www.alencontre.org) and Carré Rouge (www.carre-rouge.org)

As men and women members of the nuclei which publish A Contre-Courant, Carré Rouge, and L’Émancipation Sociale, and those associated with the Swiss journal-cum-website A l’Encontre, we have joined forces to organise work on the theory and practice of the actuality, the present-day relevance of communism or socialism (which are synonymous in the strong sense of the term socialism). In addition we have decided to link up with those who have similar aims and propose to undertake joint work or maintain detailed exchanges of opinion with them. The document submitted explains what urges us to undertake this task; it emphasises the considerable difficulties involved; it sketches our first attempt to map the very area involved.

hal draper, the state and socialism from below

by David Broder

Recently this site has seen a debate over the question of the state in bourgeois society and after working-class revolution, with comrades from the Trotskyist group ‘Permanent Revolution’ arguing that such a revolution would necessarily have to create a new state which would centrally plan the economy. They call this “socialism”, to be followed by a later classless, stateless era of “communism”. They furthermore argue that state-planned economies such as Cuba’s, despite the lack of working-class power in decision-making, nonetheless represent, in some dilute form, “workers’ states”.

This has little in common with our conception of how working-class power comes about and should be exercised: by the working class itself, democratically, from below and creating its own structures organically. There are no saviours from on high: we do not want a benign régime or enlightened despot to dish out equality of poverty.

With this in mind, we have added three texts to the ‘ideas’ section of our website by the American communist Hal Draper. These argue against state socialist models and for ‘socalism from below’, and see this sentiment as a thread running through the works of Karl Marx.

Click here to read The Death of the State in Marx and Engels; the Two Souls of Socialism; and The Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Marx and Engels.

report on lrc conference

by Chris Ford

Over two-hundred people attended the conference of the Labour Representation Committee held under the title of ‘The Future of the Left’. On the one hand the LRC conference took some very positive steps and on the other we had a full display of many of the negative traits of the traditional left.

lrc conference: has the traditional left a future?

Saturday 15th November saw the annual conference of the Labour Representation Committee, a body supported both by Labour-affiliated and non-affiliated unions including ASLEF, the Bakers’ Union (BFAWU), CWU, FBU, NUM and RMT.

A packed-out Conway Hall discussed and debated a set of resolutions and elected a new National Committee. Our motion on workers’ self-management won a large majority and our comrades Chris Ford and David Broder were elected to the NC on an openly communist platform favouring workers’ self-management, having been nominated by the BFAWU. Dozens of the trade unionists attending also took the opportunity to buy the first issue of our paper and our pamphlets.

Full report to follow: click here for a pdf of the leaflet we distributed ‘has the traditional left a future?’

are we really fighting in unison?

By James Caspell

Earlier this year, local government workers in UNISON voted for sustained industrial action in support of their claim to “catch up and match up” their salaries with the level of inflation over the last two years, and reject yet another pay cut being imposed by a Labour Government.

Despite this, after just two days of strike action, UNISON’s national bureaucracy decided to suspend all further threats of industrial action, without consultation, before even entering formal negotiations with the employer, therefore undermining the only tactic we had strong enough to win our demands – the collective withdrawal of our labour power.

new pamphlet – “the crisis: an interview with andrew kliman”

For our latest pamphlet, on the subject of the current economic crisis, we interviewed Andrew Kliman (author of Reclaiming Marx’s Capital) on the crisis of global capitalism, prospects and alternatives. The text is reproduced below. Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com if you would like to order a hard copy of the pamphlet (£1).

Q. Descriptions of today’s crisis have included headlines proclaiming the “collapse” of the system.  How would you characterise the current crisis?

A:  There hasn’t been a collapse yet.  If there were one, you’d know it.  But there’s indeed a danger of collapse-of the financial system, and thus of the capitalist system as a whole. That danger was most acute and severe in mid-to-late September, prior to the U.S. Treasury’s $700 billion-plus bailout measures, but it persists even now [November 2].

The crisis is a crisis of “confidence.”  “Confidence” here isn’t some general optimism about the future of capitalism, but lenders’ confidence that the monies owed them will in fact be repaid. When that kind of confidence is shaken, as it has been, lending dries up. But production and trade depend crucially on lending–not only loans to build factories, malls, and offices, and to buy additional equipment–but also loans just to get from today to tomorrow, to pay workers, buy supplies and inventories, etc.  So any “credit crunch” has an effect on the so-called real economy.  If confidence were to be severely shaken, such that there’s outright panic in the credit markets-we were evidently rather close to that point in September, and the threat of such panic persists-there would be almost no new lending to speak of.  The “real” economy would grind to a halt in fairly short order.  That’s a collapse.

photo-report of ‘dancing on the grave of capitalism’ demo

by David Broder

Three weeks to the day after the SWP’s March on the City demonstration in the City of London, tonight saw the “Dancing on the grave of capitalism” action timed to coincide with Halloween and thus featuring lots of dressing up. This, the latest in a series of anti-capitalist demos organised in response to the financial crisis, took place in Canary Wharf.

The protest was apparently the brainchild of members of the Radical Anthropology Group and people formerly involved in campaigns such as Reclaim the Streets, but in fact the 200-strong crowd was largely composed of Socialist Workers’ Party students (‘SWSS’, banner depicted below). A sprinkling from the Socialist Party, Workers’ Power, Anarchist Federation and Class War were present, as well as some people holding a poppy-decked banner for an Army veterans’ union. The demonstrators stood outside Canary Wharf tube station shouting abstract anti-capitalist slogans as City types looked on, bemused.

The slogan “anti-anti-anti-capitalista” made another appearance, as did “one solution – revolution” although another slogan had been toned down somewhat since the October 10th March on the City demo: “they say bankers, we say wankers” had bizarrely morphed into “they say bankers, we say jobs”. Perhaps they were wary of swearing in the wake of the recent Russell Brand/Andrew Sachs affair.

The demo, which had no demands and no real politics to speak of, merely served as part of the SWP’s ongoing “activist” turn after the abandonment of its electoral fronts.

mészáros, harman and brenner debate credit crunch

This evening the Socialist Workers’ Party’s Chris Harman, Richard Brenner from Workers’ Power and the Hungarian Marxist István Mészáros debated the topic ‘Marx and the credit crunch’ at Conway Hall in central London. Around 190 people attended the meeting.

photo-report of ‘march on the city’ demo

by David Broder

Friday 10th saw a demonstration in the City of London called ‘march on the City’. The organisers of the 200-strong protest were the Socialist Workers’ Party, but a number of anarchists participated (no organisations or papers though) as well as two of us and a friend, a few from Workers’ Power and one person from the Socialist Party. The large majority of those in attendance were students.

The protest reprised some of the slogans of the “anti-capitalist movement” which existed around ten years ago, and there was plenty of militancy and activist energy on show. Of course, the real aim of the protest was not to put pressure on the government or banks (to do what?) but rather to give the SWP students “something to do” as part of the organisation’s current turn from East-End electoral work towards anti-fascist and anti-capitalist “activism”.

A rather more worthwhile protest will be the Schroders cleaners’ demonstration at 5pm on Friday 17th (details in Jake’s comment here). The National Shop Stewards Network has organised a further protest on Monday 13th at noon.

Below are some photos and a video. A couple of them are ripped off other websites.

‘march on the city’

by Jack Staunton

A demonstration has been called for 4pm on Friday 10th October at the Bank of England (Threadneedle St, London EC2, Bank tube) with the slogan “We won’t bail out the bankers”.

Chris Bambery writes in Socialist Worker that “we need to take to the streets to demand, “No bail out for the bankers – we will not pay for their crisis!” From small acts of resistance we can craft a political force that can knock back those running this destructive system.”

Of course, working-class action amidst the financial crisis should not be some instrument for building a party, but rather action which actually helps us weather the storm of the economic situation. While demonstrations mocking bankers like Friday’s may seem attractive, the most pressing matter is not to make shallow propaganda arguing ‘look: capitalism is crumbling’ as if power is about to fall into our lap, but rather for the workers’ movement to organise to defend ourselves from the worst concrete effects of the current economic climate (which is not limited to side-effects of the financial slump). Unemployment and underemployment, casual work with no stability (as experienced by many of the UK’s 750,000 call centre workers) and huge increases in utilities bills are all set to become even more aggravated.

We have produced a leaflet ‘the cost of living: it’s time to act’ about reshaping the workers’ movement for modern realities – the text is below.

press conference with behrooz karimizadeh and kaveh abbasian

On Monday 29th September there was a press conference at the University of London Union with Iranian activists Behrooz Karimizadeh and Kaveh Abbasian. The pair were among the founding members of Freedom and Equality Seeking Students, an organisation which is opposed to war and sanctions as well as the Islamist régime and which last autumn played a central role in student protests against President Ahmedinejad. Following these demonstrations the régime cracked down on the student movement, arresting dozens of activists – Behrooz Karimizadeh was subjected to torture. Ted Crawford has kindly given us permission to reproduce his report on Monday’s press conference:

l’étincelle expelled from lutte ouvrière

The majority faction in Lutte Ouvrière, the second largest Trotskyist group in France, this Sunday expelled its minority L’Étincelle faction, which is sympathetic to the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire and its proposed New Anti-capitalist Party project.

lenin the god and lenin the revolutionary

by Sylvia Pankhurst: introduction by Chris Ford

The following article originally appeared in the Workers’ Dreadnought entitled ‘Lenin’, written by pioneer communist Sylvia Pankhurst after Lenin’s death.  Pankhurst was a sympathiser of those opposing the retreat of the Communist International from an organiser of world revolution into defender of Soviet Russia at the hands of growing bureaucracy.  She sought to create in England a Communist Workers’ Party aligned to the short-lived Fourth International founded by the KAPD and others.

rees and german resign from “left alternative” leadership

today’s ‘left alternative’ members’ bulletin announces the resignation of socialist workers’ party leaders john rees and lindsey german from the national committee of  the swp’s post-respect electoral front. no political explanation has been given for this move, although it is clearly part of the swp’s attempt to shift direction after their electoral debacle in may.