Rob Schaap
Sun, 02 Apr 2000 04:19:57 -0700
G'day Dave'n'Hugh,
A really really quick 'un ...
Sez Hugh of the little disagreement of late:
>it's part of the struggle for the leadership of the working class,
It might be an analogue of some such struggle in some place and time, but I
doubt anyone here really seeks to lead the working class. I don't anyway.
>Need to qualify this: true, revolutionary Bolsheviks -- there's a lot of
>fakes around, causing problems until a clear and trustworthy international
>leadership crystallizes.
'Clear and trustworthy' to whom, Hugh? Whilst purported socdems may
purportedly 'lead' the class now, an awful lot clearly don't trust 'em.
Yet no other international leadership' has arisen of late. Why's that,
d'you think?
Dave taxes my like thusly:
>>SDs are sectarian because they substitute
>>themselves for the proletariat, betray it, and generally shit on it as
>>unable, incapable, unprepared etc for the holy state of SD
>>enlightenment.
How do we do that?
And Hugh agrees with Dave:
>Bureaucratic, moralizing and intolerant are words that spring to mind to
>describe the disorganizing activities of the Social-Democrats. And the
>bureaucrats (of whatever school) can always be told by the vitriol they
>spray on the working class for being "unable, incapable and unprepared".
Well, Hugh blames poor or treacherous leadership. And I reckon the western
working class is not willing, or feels it would be too risky, to overthrow
the capitalist system. I certainly don't think the vast majority of the
world's people is 'unable' to do, or 'incapable' of doing, anything.
'Unprepared' I'll go along with. They must be, else they'd recognise the
enduring Truth of at least one of the schools of Trotskyism - no, Hugh? If
prepared they are, where is their leader?
>>The most recent name for this enlightenment
>>seems to be 'market socialism' - well actually that has been
>>overtaken by 'radical democracy'.
Reckon I might be happy with the tag 'radical democrat market socialist',
but ...
>My favourite is the "New Realism" of the British Labour Movement.
>Marvellous phrases they think up to cover their capitulation to capitalist
>exploitation. You see, they never ever consider the capitalist system as
>one based on exploitation.
Well, I'm certainly convinced by Marx's theory of exploitation (so was
market socialist Justin Schwartz, incidentally).
>>SDs and Bolshelviks can bloc in defence of workers
>>democratic rights,
Let's settle for that then.
>>but as soon as a pre-revolutionary situation
>>emerges, SDs sellout, witness Luxemburg and Liebknecht.
So because I favour a market socialism scenario, I'd murder the likes of
Rosa Luxemburg? How dos that follow?
>I don't think Rob, for instance, is really very aware of the similarities
>between some of his own principles and the principles of the leaders he
>understands to be betraying the historical needs of the class.
Fair comment. I haven't a clue as to what I have in common with 'New
Labour' or the ALP ...
>>Bolsheviks can claim responsibility for the only socialist revolution
>>in history.
It seems ahistorical to take the credit for October, but not a deal of the
responsibility for what happened afterwards.
>>Cut the shit and get down to some serious politics.
Like that sad list of splits and purges on the new web site of your new
party, Dave? You see, the degree of agreement you demand of others
(generally before the event of the shared practice in which theory is
supposed to be constituted) will ever lengthen lists like that. I can't
discuss anything to do with market socialism, because it's treacerous to do
so. So I can't get in for a start, and no interested lay person gets to
weigh the arguments - nor would s/he feel tempted to chance a speculative
post on the question. Just as nearly 90 Thaxists don't.
>Serious politics requires contact with the shit -- that's part of the price
>to be paid.
That much is very true, Hugh.
Then you say of my argument that:
>Cos what he writes here
>is largely irrelevant. The subjective consciousness of the working class is
>not what determines a scientific view of how society works or what needs to
>be changed to make it better. Hiding behind distorted mass consciousness is
>apologizing for the shit.
To recognise something, and to consider it important, is not quite the same
thing as hiding behind it. And I don't think a fear of bolshevik takes on
'scientific socialism' constitutes a 'distorted mass consciousness'. But
that'd be because I've a distorted subjectivity, I s'pose.
>But obviously to make serious progress in politics, these distorted
>elements of working-class consciousness have to be taken into account
I'm 'hiding' when I say that, but you're being scientific, eh?
>is made very clear in the outline of the transitional method in the
>Transitional Programme. The transitional method is the interface between
>the masses with their distorted consciousness (instilled in them by the
>miseducation system and their treacherous mass leaders, naturally) and the
>objective scientific requirements of a real socialist revolution.
An objective scientific bunch of facts upon which no-one seems to agree,
especially within the Trotskyist churches themselves.
>The positions themselves can in fact
>be mutually exclusive if seen in an abstract fashion,
Thus not necessarily in practice ...
>but if the people who
>support them fight together for certain goals, then the possibility of
>future and more general joint action becomes much more real.
So we should be pulling together?
>Here I agree with Dave's criticism. What Rob writes about is the way it
>will appear at first in the struggle.
Well, it appears that way to me. Perhaps I'm assuming that the struggle
has yet to transcend 'at first'?
>taking the situation as is with the minimum defensive and collaborational
>positions Rob mentions (as if they were the only ones) and developing
>consciousness in the mobilizations so that more radical and more
>confrontational steps can be taken that challenge the root problem of
>bourgeois control of society.
I'm agin oligarchy myself. Which capitalism produces as a matter of
course, natch. It's a 'root problem', for mine. Of capitalism, of
feudalism - and of the Soviet Union (right back to the first famines, and
the structure at the peak of which Uncle Joe seated himself).
Yours somewhat indignantly,
Rob.
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