fringe at the tuc congress, 5:30pm, tuesday 9th september, meeting room 1 at the brighton centre. Continue reading “launch of new trade union co-ordinating group”
by David Broder
There were two self-proclaimed “socialists” on the platform at the Student Stop the War rally in London today – Tony Benn and Lindsey German – and most of the one hundred people in the audience were from the Socialist Workers’ Party and other “socialist” groups. But working-class politics was not on the agenda. Not only did they fail to cite the workers’ movement as the agency to fight imperialism, there was almost no talk of solidarity with Marxists and trade unionists in conflict zones like the Middle East and the Caucasus.
today we added two new pieces to the ‘ideas‘ section of our website examining marx’s polemic with the anarchist bakunin.
‘bakunin’s expulsion from the first international‘ by paul b. smith and ‘marx and bakunin, then and now‘ by kevin michaels both look at the dispute in the international working men’s association, and focus on marx’s particular stress on working-class struggle rather than posing the debate as one of “centralism” versus “federalism”.
text of leaflet for the 6th september student stop the war meeting (from 3pm, birkbeck college, malet st, central london).
The recent Russian-Georgian war and the ensuing crisis in the Kremlin’s relations with the European Union and USA have little to do with the fate of South Ossetia. The territory and the 70,000 people who live there – a third of the population of Hackney – are merely an insignificant pawn in the current bout of great power rivalry. Although we have not yet seen an attack on Iran, conflict zones and fronts of tension are expanding at a canter. Continue reading “east against west… or class against class?”
reproduced with the kind permission of ernest haberkern: available to buy at amazon.com or socialisthistory.org.
There is a terminological problem. “Sect“ is often used as a cuss-word to mean a group one doesn’t like. “Movement” is often used to describe something that does not exist in organized form; as when “the American socialist movement“ is used as an abbreviation for scattered socialist elements that often do not “move” at all. We shall use these terms with more precise meanings. Continue reading “hal draper: anatomy of the micro-sect”
HANDS OFF THE PEOPLE OF IRAN
PO Box 54631, London N16 8YE
On September 4 at 11am, Anooshe Azadbar – overwhelming voted one of its honorary vice presidents by the British student union at its annual conference in April – was brought before a court in Iran. She faced multiple charges:
– plotting against the Islamic regime
– plotting against the Islamic order
– acting against Iranian national interests with a left wing group Continue reading “iranian student activist anooshe azadbar imprisoned”
evo morales’ plans to rule in concord with bolivia’s oligarchs are unravelling ever further, as the right wing of the ruling class have now effectively split the country in two and the central government has lost authority over five out of nine provinces, now patrolled by fascists. the workers’ movement betrayed by morales has been left with the task of fighting the gangs hired by the landowners to ‘keep order’. from la paz, september 3rd:
The oligarchy plans to consolidate its power in the east and in the valleys, with its fascist bands seizing control of roads and the streets as the Morales Government continues to place its trust in the ballot box.
With sticks and whips in hand and using their fascist bands as a spearhead, the oligarchy – governors, right-wingers and the 100 powerful clans who own the land and big business – are consolidating their power over the east of Bolivia and the valleys. Continue reading “fascists attempt to split bolivia”
this video was taken at the cpgb’s annual school, the communist university, which took place from august 9 – 16 2008 in south london. for more info, reports and comments visit www.cpgb.org.uk
on friday 29th david broder posted a review of revolutionary strategy, a new book by the cpgb’s mike macnair. this provoked more than seventy comments, and mike himself has written a response, which we reproduce here. Continue reading “revolutionary strategy: reply by mike macnair”
Here we reproduce sections of William Paul’s The State.
Introduction by Chris Ford – William Paul: a pioneer of communism from below
William Paul (1884-1958) is a largely forgotten Marxist theoretician and activist from the early part of the 20th century. Paul joined the De Leonist influenced Socialist Labour Party (SLP) in Glasgow and was to become its leading Marxist theorist and tutor and later a founding member of the Communist Party and one of its key figures in the 1920s. Paul was joint editor, with Tom Bell, of the SLP’s paper, The Socialist, and was a formidable lecturer and theoretician mainly active in England. Continue reading “william paul’s ‘the state: its origins and function’”
last night (monday 1st september) we held the first session in the ‘uncaptive minds’ educational series on class struggle in the 1970s. 23 people attended.
after a showing of arise ye workers, a film on the 1972 struggle against anti-union laws and the fight to free the pentonville five (which you can download here), the meeting was addressed by former vauxhall car worker george shaw and sheila cohen, author of ramparts of resistance. Continue reading “last night’s meeting on the upsurge 1968-74”
a reminder of the first in our series of discussions on working-class struggle in the 1970s, taking place from 6:30pm this evening (monday 1st september)
the subject of the meeting will be the upsurge 1968-74, with guest speakers sheila cohen, author of ramparts of resistance, and george shaw, a former vauxhall car worker and former member of solidarity.
we will also be showing a short film about the era, arise ye workers
the venue is in central london – contact uncaptiveminds@googlemail.com or 07595 245494 for details
today we have added three more links to the ‘ideas‘ page of the commune.
the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ in marx and engels, by hal draper, explains how marx and engels used the term ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ not to mean a specific form of government but rather to denote the class rule of the working class once it has overthrown the bourgeoisie. in this vein draper attacks the understanding of the term elaborated by plekhanov, who proclaimed “when we come to power, we will allow no freedom for anyone but ourselves”.
anton pannekoek’s world revolution and communist tactics, written for an organ of the comintern in 1920, effectively combats statist visions of working-class power and bureaucracy in the workers’ movement, and looks at the new organisational forms workers must use to re-shape society: “the formation by the workers of the soviets, their own organs of power and action, in itself signifies the disintegration and dissolution of the state. as a much more recent form of organisation and one created by the proletariat itself, the trade union will survive much longer, because it has its roots in a much more living tradition of personal experience, and once it has shaken off state-democratic illusions, will therefore claim a place in the conceptual world of the proletariat. but since the trade unions have emerged from the proletariat itself, as products of its own creative activity, it is in this field that we shall see the most new formations as continual attempts to adapt to new conditions; following the process of revolution, new forms of struggle and organisation will be built on the model of the soviets in a process of constant transformation and development”.
ubu saved from drowning: worker insurgency and statist containment in portugal and spain 1974-77, by loren goldner, is of particular interest in that focuses on the struggles of the portuguese working class rather than merely the history of the sects that aspired to lead it (much like mailer’s the impossible revolution). the fact that the portuguese revolution represented the end of an era of class struggle rather than the beginning of a new one, and that the onward march of state capitalism had also petered out by the end of the 1970s, by no means devalues the lessons of the portuguese revolutionary crisis, which saw mass working-class mobilisation, factory expropriations and efforts at workers’ self-management.
the international federation of iraqi refugees and coalition to stop deportations to iraq are holding a joint lobby to protest at the uk home office’s continuing policy of forcible deportations to iraq.
lobby of the home office, 2 marsham st, london, westminster/st james’ park, thursday 11 september, 12.30 – 14.30
the families of hussein ali and muhammed hussein will be attending the lobby: hussein ali committed suicide days after being forcibly returned to kurdistan on 7 august. muhammad hussein died of cancer following six years of struggle to gain refugee status in the uk.
