is a “workers’ government” a capitalist government?

David Broder looks at the similarities between the ‘workers’ government’ slogan and the cross-class strategy of the Popular Front

The recent history of struggle for communism, or even progressive social change, is not a happy one. While the last decade has seen struggles from which we can take some cause for inspiration, such as social movements in Latin America, general strikes in France and Greece and, even in Britain, the early days of the movement against the war in Iraq, our movement has struggled to offload the burden of the defeats it suffered in the 1980s. There is a crisis of confidence in the possibility of an alternative to capitalism, when every revolution in the twentieth century was defeated.

Given this long-term picture of repeated defeats, it is remarkable how Britain’s socialist groups are fixated with the general election which will take place in a few months time: already we see the calls for ‘guarded’ and ‘critical’ support for the Labour Party, for fear of ‘letting in the Tories’. Just one year after the greatest capitalist crisis for eight decades, we see the spectre of revolutionaries who only ask themselves which party of capital is ‘least-worst’: the short-term tactical consideration comes to shape their whole perspectives. But we will never be able to present an alternative pole of attraction, and make up for long-term historic defeats, if we allow the electoral calendar and the electoral prospects of right-wing social democrats to determine our short-term priorities. We should after all dispel, rather than propagate, mainstream politics’ understanding that you should vote for the least bad politician on offer (Labour’s main argument for the election…), based as it is on an assumption that working people cannot change anything ourselves.

a workers’ movement for communism

by Steve Ryan

So it’s 2010 and the media is full of reflections on the last decade. Looking at it from the point of view of the Left it’s an interesting one. Massive marches against war, the rise of the BNP, the collapse of pretty well all initiatives to build an alternative to Labour. The rise and fall of left led unions alongside occupations and wildcat strikes, climate camps and environmental protests, the list goes on and in many respects shows the Left on the defensive.

Depressing? Actually no. Looking at the areas of hope in the last 10 years is a lesson for the future.

electoralism and crisis in the nouveau parti anticapitaliste

Ramate Keita reports from Paris on the cracks in the NPA’s electoral left unity strategy

Next March will see regional elections in France. These will elect the “regional assemblies” which control the budgets for transport, education and welfare. In the 2004 regional elections the [neo-liberal social democrat] Parti Socialiste won Paris and the majority of regions. At that time there was a Trotskyist alliance of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire  and Lutte Ouvrière which in spite of calls for a “pragmatic vote” secured one million votes. It was a pole for independent working-class politics.

In February we commented on the creation of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste. The LCR called for the formation of this party, and we said “that the stamp the leadership is making on the NPA is a dangerous ambiguity, marked by uncertainty and political and programmatic confusion, and more an electoralist project (with one eye fixed, in the immediate, on the coming European elections) than a tool for revolutionary class struggle”.

the commune’s december aggregate meeting

report by Mark Ellingsen

The Commune held its quarterly national aggregate on 12th December. The first item on the rather packed agenda was a discussion on the organisational principles of the network (see the paper here). The meeting re-affirmed the pluralist nature of the group. It was agreed that members should encourage diversity by embracing different ‘schools of thought’ that were compatible with our platform. The Commune had members who were influenced by various Marxisms and non-Marxist thought, so it would be wrong to characterise the Commune as belonging to a specific tradition. Meaningful pluralism has been rare in the history of the communist movement which has too often been ridden by factionalism and fragmentation. Members are communists who recognise that communism is a movement from below and not a bureaucratic imposition on workers self-organisation. However, it was recognised that there was a need to clarify what communism meant as a specific form of society and that more theoretical analysis of this was required.

a christmas message from the vatican: marx was right!

Introduction by Chris Ford

Published below is what may appear a rather unusual article entitled ‘What Remains of Marx’ by Professor Georg Sans published in La Civiltà Cattolica, a Jesuit paper, closely monitored by the Vatican. It was then republished by the Vatican’s own newspaper L’Osservatore Romano giving it added endorsement by the Roman Catholic Church on 21 October. What is so important is that Sans gives a strong endorsement to Marx’s critique of capitalist society. Now for a Christian to positively engage with Marx in itself is not unusual: there have been Christian communists for many years, furthermore there continues to be strong movement of liberation theology especially in Latin America.

What is important in this article is where it has been published – with clear Vatican approval. The Vatican has especially in the post-war period waged a campaign against the radical left-wing of Christianity, for example the Christian communist movement in Italy was hounded by the hierarchy. The current Pope Benedict XVI earned the nickname the ‘Panzer Cardinal’ when under his predecessor Pope John Paul II he lead the campaign against liberation theology in Latin America. One of the leading theorists of that movement, Leonardo Boff wrote that the Pope saw liberation theology as a “Trojan horse” for Communism: “He convinced himself that in Latin America, Communism was the danger, whereas the true danger was savage and colonialist capitalism, with its anti-people and retrograde elites.” Of the current Pope he wrote: “Like his principal counsellor, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger [now Pope Benedict XVI], the Pope put forward an Augustinian vision of history, where what counts is only that which passes through the mediation of the Church, which carries with it the supernatural concept of salvation… This position led him to a total incomprehension of Latin American theology of liberation”. Boff concluded: “To the outside, he presented himself as a champion of dialogue, of liberty, tolerance, peace, and ecumenism, but within the Church he shuttered the right of expression, banned dialogue, and created a theology with powerful fundamentalist overtones”.

It is against this recent history of the campaign against liberation theology and corresponding retrogressionist trends illustrated in Church policy on gender and sexuality that the article below is of importance. It is noteworthy that whilst the article has been widely reported it has not been published in any of the Catholic press in the UK or Ireland. This is perhaps a reflection of the weakness of the left-wing of Christianity in the UK and Ireland, as regards Marxism there has only been a few Marxian theologians such as Alisdair MacIntyre and Rev.John Marsden. This conservatism has been compounded by the crude nature of the left’s own engagement with religious affairs, either accommodating to conservative trends such as in opposition to war, or taking an undifferentiated approach and failing to see the more radical emancipatory currents which also emerge: the article by Sans below is clearly an expression of the latter current. The article is published in full by The Commune, appropriately on Christmas Day, the official celebration of the birth of Jesus, the leader of a movement against oppression and inequality, who was later crucified by the Roman overlords.

on the content of socialism

Cornelius Castoriadis, aka Paul Cardan, was the most prominent member of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group in France in the late 1940s-1960s, which advocated workers’ self-management in workplaces and society as opposed to capitalism in its private and state-run forms.

Here we present Maurice Brinton’s translation of Castoriadis’ classic On the content of socialism. The work is subtitled ‘From the Critique of Bureaucracy to the Idea of the Proletariat’s Autonomy’

Click here for part 1, here for part 2 and here for part 3.

what would our alternative society look like?

The first of a series of communist discussion meetings in Sheffield. From 7pm on Tuesday 19th January at The Rutland Arms, 86 Brown Street, Sheffield S1 2BS.

Recommended reading for the meeting includes: William Morris – News From Nowhere chapters xii, xv and xvii; Cornelius Castoriadis – On the content of socialism; Karl Marx – Critique of the Gotha Programme parts iii and iv, as well as The Paris Commune from Civil War in France.

communist pluralism: diversity not diffusion

A discussion article by Chris Kane ahead of The Commune aggregate meeting this Saturday

we should avoid being pigeon-holed

One of the terms which has been closely identified with The Commune has been ‘communist pluralism’. There is a twofold aspect to this concept I believe: on the one hand is the fragmentation of the international communist movement over many years since the defeat of the First World Revolution 1916-1921 and transformation of the Russian Revolution into its opposite. The second has been the immensely retrogressive culture which has arisen on the left over this long period, concepts of ‘democratic centralism’ becoming little more than cover for Jesuit Marxism with hierarchical structures and rigidity.

the jab of tragedy, the righthook of farce

David Broder reviews First as tragedy, then as farce by Slavoj Zizek

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profane (Marx, Communist Manifesto)

As we reach the end of the ‘noughties’ this month, there is much scope for reflection on the events of the last decade. There remains a crisis of alternatives to capitalism, yet together with the current dark spectres of recession and ecological crisis, two events bookmarking the decade disrupted the ideology of ‘the End of History’. The September 11th terrorist atrocities in New York shattered the illusion of the invulnerable American military hegemon, while last October’s financial meltdown has fatally undermined the gospel of free-market economics. George W. Bush’s speeches on each occasion were the same, of course: ‘action’ was needed to defend ‘our way of life’. As Slavoj Zizek acerbically comments, this brings to mind Marx’s quip that “History always repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”

rank and file versus bureaucracy in the unions?

Barry (Sheffield) poses questions on the nature of trade unionism as part of the preparations for the discussion at our 12th December aggregate meeting.

This look at the platform followed some recent criticism that the platform did not have a communist understanding of the nature of trade unions. For these critics the platform suggested that a communist rank and file could win the fight against the bueaucracy in the unions and take them over or control them, to turn them into revolutionary organisations.

collective decision-making and supervision in a communist society

by Moshé Machover: only the introduction is presented below, see the full document here.

The importance of this issue cannot be over-stated: it concerns the very essence of communism. If communism means anything at all, it means a radical eruption of democracy. Bursting its present narrow political confines, where it is allowed to hold truncated and partly illusory sway, democracy is to engulf all spheres of social life. This applies in particular to what is, under capitalism, the alienated sphere of economics: major choices that are now made behind the backs of society – imposed by private owners who monopolize wealth, or left to the chaotic play of blind market forces – will be decided consciously and collectively by the community concerned. The enormous extension of the sphere of collective decision-making will necessarily imply a corresponding expansion and deepening of the scope of public supervision, ensuring proper implementation of decisions.

from workers’ self-inquiry to communist re-composition

In the following some general thoughts and a concrete proposal for The Commune’s 12th December aggregate meeting, relating to the article on ‘communist re-composition’ in the current issue. The main point is:

The crisis of workers’ representation is an expression of an accelerated re-structuring within the process of exploitation. New political initiatives have to be developed in relation to these changes and to the already existent embryonic forms of proletarian day-to-day organisation within social cooperation/production. The process of analysing these changes is a common effort of ‘communists/workers’ and in itself a process of organisation: detailed interviews, collective conversations, assemblies and publications. The current task of a class-related revolutionary left would be to re-organise itself in a process of workers’ inquiry: what are the concrete attacks of re-structuring? What (new) forms of conflicts are emerging on the shop-floor, in the estates? What are the lines of possible generalisation based on daily experience and direct power, but going beyond professional or sectorial boundaries?

some thoughts on our newspaper ‘the commune’

Ahead of a discussion of publications at our 12th December aggregate meeting, David Broder looks at the role of a printed paper and critiques the issues of The Commune produced thus far.

While the Socialist Workers’ Party has recently suffered two of its pre-conference internal bulletins being ‘leaked’ on the web, we as a network have our internal discussions out in the open for all to see. We have nothing to hide: we do not think some leadership clique should have their discussions in private then reveal the predetermined line to the public. Anyone interested in The Commune should feel able to participate in deciding on its organisational and political development, and this is no less the case when it comes to our publications.

the global commune

by the Republican Communist Network

It is now 20 years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall. For most people this signalled the end of communism. However, there has always been another view, which understands that the USSR and its satellites and emulators were never communist, socialist or workers’ states. They represented the negation of communism. The socialist transition is not based upon ‘The State’ taking over the functions of private capital, nor ‘The Party’ taking over the functions of a self-organised working class.

Today we face the worst economic crisis for nearly eighty years, accompanied by growing environmental deterioration, and increased powerlessness and loss of hope. Yet the majority of socialists today are not prepared to make the case for a viable alternative social order to get us beyond the ever-deepening capitalist crisis. Often we get little more than vague populist sloganeering – ‘Make Poverty History’ or ‘Make Greed History’. To most workers these sound as hollow as the world of ‘virtual reality’ pushed by the corporate media to divert our attention from the very mundane, or sometimes, desperate reality, we face in our everyday lives. Furthermore, calls for people’s largely passive support through five minutes spent at the polling station can seem a poor alternative, even compared to the promise of ‘five minutes of fame’ in the corporate media spotlight.