Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On Nov 30, 2014, at 11:01 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: This is economic determinism bordering on fatalism but what might be expected from a supporter of Democratic Party presidential bids for the time he has been on Marxmail…From everything I have heard from Marvin over the past decade or so, he would be oriented to the PSOE. You seem to have compiled pretty good files on those you disagree with on this list, Louis. How about some choice quotes from the archives to back up your statements? _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 12/1/14 8:25 AM, Marv Gandall wrote: On Nov 30, 2014, at 11:01 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: This is economic determinism bordering on fatalism but what might be expected from a supporter of Democratic Party presidential bids for the time he has been on Marxmail…From everything I have heard from Marvin over the past decade or so, he would be oriented to the PSOE. You seem to have compiled pretty good files on those you disagree with on this list, Louis. How about some choice quotes from the archives to back up your statements? I have better things to do than dive into the archives dumpster to find pro-Obama comments you made in his first run for the presidency (you had the good sense not to proselytize for him in his second campaign.) But five minutes of a search revealed this: -Not too early, though, to lend support to Fred's comments that the politicalsituation in the US is more fluid than it has been in a very long time-with deep divisions within the two major parties and third party trial balloons being circulated at the highest political levels. Within that context, Obama's candidacy might well contain the germs of a third party formation from below more serious than the earlier Nader and other efforts to build something from outside actual, existing American politics.- full: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.politics.marxism.marxmail/9704 The Fred referred to above is Fred Feldman, a leader of the SWP for 35 years who succumbed to Obamania in 2007. Obama's candidacy might well contain the germs of a third party formation? What in god's name gave Marvin such an idea? I understand that Obamania was an epidemic in late 2007 and early 2008--much worse than Ebola in Liberia--but there were substantive critiques of this illusion much earlier that should have been a wake-up call. All you needed to do was read Bruce Dixon or Adolph Reed who had him nailed. Marvin has a way of playing the coquette around these questions but anybody who has been reading him for the past decade, as I have as Marxmail moderator, understands that he advocates that socialists should constitute a left-wing in the DP so as to help foment a split at some point when the shit really hits the fan, like when martial law is declared and Rush Limbaugh organizes a coup in the name of the America Rules Party. My strategy is different. I advocate that socialists should try to help organize a party to the left of the Democrats that articulates a clear anti-capitalist agenda. Some memories from Marvin's misspent Trotskyist youth lead him to feel some affinity for the latter strategy but his longtime career in the Canadian labor movement has had the disorienting effect of making him favor the first. That is his contradiction to resolve, not ours. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Two Views of Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Louis wrote: I have gone through the experience of a small group being built around a revolutionary program and hoping to accumulate cadre until the masses radicalize in sufficient number to flock to the party like iron filings to a magnet. It does not work. So did Jim Creegan when he was in the Spartacist League. I encourage him to continue along those lines since it seems to sustain him spiritually and psychologically. God knows we all need security blankets in times like these. * Louis can't seem to answer the arguments of anyone who disagrees with him w/o baiting them for other political positions or their political past. But apart from that, he is right that attempts to organize a revolutionary party in the US and other Western countries have failed in the post-war period, mainly because they can't recruit more than a handful of people, and the idea of revolution is very remote from any segment of the population right now. Any existing energy for change is in the reformist camp. But Louis might pause in his rush to join the left-reformists long enough to consider this fact: left-reformism, even (and especially) where it has achieved its electoral aims, hasn't worked either. Left-reformist governments have come under massive political and economic attacks from the ruling classes, for which they have no answer. They either retreat, or go down to defeat (usually both). This occurs because their politics are explicitly or implicitly based on faith in bourgeois democracy. They believe in the mobilization of the masses solely or chiefly for electoral purposes. Further, when the reformists are defeated, the masses who followed them don't draw the appropriate conclusions and go on to some higher level of revolutionary consciousness on their own. They are instead despairing and demoralized for years and decades after. Nothing fails like failure. True, a much larger number of people are drawn to reformist parties and causes, and this is probably why Louis finds them so much more appealing than the SWP of his younger days. But this doesn't make them any more successful in the long run than minuscule revolutionary sects. I think it is important to engage the left-reformists. But to engage them is not to join them. Jim Creegan _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two Views of Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 12/1/14 11:23 AM, James Creegan via Marxism wrote: But Louis might pause in his rush to join the left-reformists long enough to consider this fact: left-reformism, even (and especially) where it has achieved its electoral aims, hasn't worked either. Left-reformist governments have come under massive political and economic attacks from the ruling classes, for which they have no answer. I have a totally different estimation of Podemos than you. That might be a function of the fact that I spent the better part of two days reading 25 articles on the party, including some key documents in Spanish, a language I have some familiarity with. In all the posts you have written here, you have not said a single word that address the substance of Podemos. Instead you are writing in generalizations of such a broad nature that you make an amalgam of Mitterand and Podemos, without evincing the slightest interest in the fact that Podemos arose over disgust with Spanish Mitterandism: Felipe Gonazalez and his minions. Yesterday I mentioned that their key economic document was co-written by a long-standing contributor to Monthly Review and another economist who likened German domination of Southern European nations to Nazism. What would transform the document they wrote into a revolutionary program? Calling for the nationalization of industry and a planned economy? Maybe the sort of approach they are taking is more consistent with what Lenin advocated in Czarist Russia. You will note that he says zero about socialism: We think that the working-class party should define the demands made on this point more thoroughly and in greater detail; the party should demand: 1) an eight-hour working day; 2) prohibition of night-work and prohibition of the employment of children under 14 years of age; 3) uninterrupted rest periods, for every worker, of no less than 36 hours a week; 4) extension of factory legislation and the Factory Inspectorate to all branches of industry and agriculture, to government factories, to artisan establishments, and to handicraftsmen working at home; election, by the workers, of assistant inspectors having the same rights as the inspectors; 5) establishment of factory and rural courts for all branches of industry and agriculture, with judges elected from the employers and the workers in equal numbers; etc. full: http://louisproyect.org/2011/01/05/rethinking-the-question-of-a-revolutionary-program/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On Nov 29, 2014, at 4:51 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: On 11/29/14 4:34 PM, Andrew Pollack wrote: The fact that one was published in June and the other November is significant; that is roughly the time period in which it became clear to all (well, almost all) that the Podemos leadership was intending to follow the liberal trajectory of Syriza's tops. I think we probably have different ideas about what a liberal trajectory means. But beyond the question of its decision, for example, to scale back some of its more radical proposals, there is another dimension that has to be considered--namely, the class dynamic of a party that has no links to the Spanish bourgeoisie and that is open and transparent. Unlike the British Labour Party or the Democratic Party for that matter, Podemos is much more like the Greens in the USA. If you keep in mind that Podemos represents the next stage of the anti-capitalist struggle in Spain rather than the Leninist party that will ultimately be necessary for total emancipation, then it begins to make sense. The problem, of course, is that whenever left-wing parties have neared power - and especially once they’ve have formed governments (Labour, European social democrats) or participated in them (Communists, Greens) - these parties quickly become beholden to the bourgeoisie and the international capital markets. Even modest efforts at reform are met by capital flight and sabotage, and the resulting economic difficulties turn the masses against these governments, which are then forced to retreat rather than face certain defeat in an early election. It is easy to condemn these parties for not mobilizing the masses and pushing back against these pressures, but this fails to take into account that the balance of power between the classes and the level of consciousness of the masses in bourgeois democracies have never provided the necessary conditions for such struggles to unfold. It’s only in conditions where democratic rights are absent and the masses don’t have peaceful electoral channels to vent their grievances, or where wars and other catastrophes lead to a breakdown of social order and mass deprivation, that the property and power of the bourgeoisie has been challenged through insurrection. And these insurrections have been more often quashed by the armed forces of the state than have succeeded. I don’t like to sound these notes, but this is the course history has taken to date. As for Podemos and Syriza being on “liberal” or “social democratic” trajectories, the two terms are virtually synonymous today, so Andy and Louis are both right. Here, BTW, is a link to a news article a couple of days ago about Podemos, which corresponds to my remarks above. Spain's poll-topping Podemos tones down radical plans in manifesto Reuters Friday November 28 2014 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/28/us-spain-podemos-idUSKCN0JC1OC20141128?feedType=RSSfeedName=worldNews _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 11/30/14 10:45 AM, Marv Gandall wrote: The problem, of course, is that whenever left-wing parties have neared power - and especially once they’ve have formed governments (Labour, European social democrats) or participated in them (Communists, Greens) - these parties quickly become beholden to the bourgeoisie and the international capital markets. Even modest efforts at reform are met by capital flight and sabotage, and the resulting economic difficulties turn the masses against these governments, which are then forced to retreat rather than face certain defeat in an early election. This is economic determinism bordering on fatalism but what might be expected from a supporter of Democratic Party presidential bids for the time he has been on Marxmail. Our job as Marxists is simply to form the left wing of new formations like Syriza or Podemos to keep them honest. As I said to someone on FB complaining about Podemos moving to the right, there are 900 constituent local organizations of Podemos. If only a third were ready to break with the group because of such compromises, that would be a much more significant opposition to the neoliberal state than the sects. In 1971 Sam Brown launched the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam with the obvious intention to form something roughly equivalent to Moveon.org. The SWP jumped in with both feet and helped to transform the Moratorium into a militant Out Now movement. Politics is about struggle. If you are determined to be protected from reformist germs, the best thing to do is declare yourself as a vanguard party and hand out leaflets denouncing the existing movement. Basically Podemos offers an unprecedented opportunity for Spanish Marxists to challenge the two-party system. From everything I have heard from Marvin over the past decade or so, he would be oriented to the PSOE. No thanks. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 30/11/2014 17:01, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: Our job as Marxists is simply to form the left wing of new formations like Syriza or Podemos to keep them honest. As I said to someone on FB complaining about Podemos moving to the right, there are 900 constituent local organizations of Podemos. If only a third were ready to break with the group because of such compromises, that would be a much more significant opposition to the neoliberal state than the sects. You keep singing the same song about anglo trot sects, which is completely inapplicable in the spanish political context. Far be it from me to tell people whether they should form the left wing of Podemos or not, but there's a perfectly functional communist party on offer. If you are determined to be protected from reformist germs, the best thing to do is declare yourself as a vanguard party and hand out leaflets denouncing the existing movement. No-one, or no-one of note, is doing this in the Spanish context. These proxy fights about whether Canon or whoever was sectarian or not played on foreign political orgs are really useless imo. opportunity for Spanish Marxists to challenge the two-party system. From everything I have heard from Marvin over the past decade or so, he would be oriented to the PSOE. No thanks. How is it unprecedented? I'll point out the last elections that have taken place in Spain, this would be the European ones a few months ago, IU rose very significantly and obtained more votes, and seats, than Podemos, for which it is hard to extrapolate actual likely electoral results given how they have, essentially, no history. The two-party system is fatally wounded in any case (not that it ever was a proper two-party system as such) and whether Podemos existed or not is of questionable relevance to this fact. The national foundational myth of the democratic transition is leaking all over the place under the weight of corruption scandals from top to bottom affecting all possible magistratures of the state and the inequity of people without homes and homes without people, supermarkets and restaurants throwing food to the garbage and people in hunger, and actually being fined for resorting to thrown away food. Podemos starts with an advantage that contains its own disadvantage: it has no history. There is no organisation, no past errors to apologise for or explain away, no people with decades in institutional positions or potential corruption scandals. By the same token, there are no experienced cadre, no significant local organisation and all but a skeleton national one; no institutions, no party discipline, no clear boundaries on the party's policies or programme. It is also a completely electoral platform (while IU/PCE do significant work in the anti-eviction struggle, or carry out expropriations of food from supermarkets). This is not necessarily to say that Podemos is useless or bad or any such. But it's not the first time that there's a leftist mass party in the country, and it's to be seen to what extent it can effectively fill this role. --David. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * LP wrote: Our job as Marxists is simply to form the left wing of new formations like Syriza or Podemos to keep them honest. We must translate LP's posts into Greek and Spanish. The communists of Greece and Spain await his guidance. Because LP knows: A wise armchair revolutionary comments on foreign countries more than on his own. --attributed to E. Debs _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * It seems my previous attempt to send this to the list didn't work. Trying again. On 30/11/2014 17:01, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: Our job as Marxists is simply to form the left wing of new formations like Syriza or Podemos to keep them honest. As I said to someone on FB complaining about Podemos moving to the right, there are 900 constituent local organizations of Podemos. If only a third were ready to break with the group because of such compromises, that would be a much more significant opposition to the neoliberal state than the sects. You keep singing the same song about anglo trot sects, which is completely inapplicable in the spanish political context. Far be it from me to tell people whether they should form the left wing of Podemos or not, but there's a perfectly functional communist party on offer. If you are determined to be protected from reformist germs, the best thing to do is declare yourself as a vanguard party and hand out leaflets denouncing the existing movement. No-one, or no-one of note, is doing this in the Spanish context. These proxy fights about whether Canon or whoever was sectarian or not played on foreign political orgs are really useless imo. opportunity for Spanish Marxists to challenge the two-party system. From everything I have heard from Marvin over the past decade or so, he would be oriented to the PSOE. No thanks. How is it unprecedented? I'll point out the last elections that have taken place in Spain, this would be the European ones a few months ago, IU rose very significantly and obtained more votes, and seats, than Podemos, for which it is hard to extrapolate actual likely electoral results given how they have, essentially, no history. The two-party system is fatally wounded in any case (not that it ever was a proper two-party system as such) and whether Podemos existed or not is of questionable relevance to this fact. The national foundational myth of the democratic transition is leaking all over the place under the weight of corruption scandals from top to bottom affecting all possible magistratures of the state and the inequity of people without homes and homes without people, supermarkets and restaurants throwing food to the garbage and people in hunger, and actually being fined for resorting to thrown away food. Podemos starts with an advantage that contains its own disadvantage: it has no history. There is no organisation, no past errors to apologise for or explain away, no people with decades in institutional positions or potential corruption scandals. By the same token, there are no experienced cadre, no significant local organisation and all but a skeleton national one; no institutions, no party discipline, no clear boundaries on the party's policies or programme. It is also a completely electoral platform (while IU/PCE do significant work in the anti-eviction struggle, or carry out expropriations of food from supermarkets). This is not necessarily to say that Podemos is useless or bad or any such. But it's not the first time that there's a leftist mass party in the country, and it's to be seen to what extent it can effectively fill this role. --David. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On Nov 30, 2014, at 11:42 AM, David P Á via Marxism wrote: ...there's a perfectly functional communist party on offer... ...Podemos starts with an advantage that contains its own disadvantage: it has no history. There is no organisation, no past errors to apologise for or explain away... What has the PCE done to apologize for its long, long, Stalinist history, especially its counterrevolutionary role in 1936-1938 (which cannot possibly be explained away)? Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 30/11/2014 20:17, Shane Mage wrote: What has the PCE done to apologize for its long, long, Stalinist history, especially its counterrevolutionary role in 1936-1938 (which cannot possibly be explained away)? Trotskyist prejudices aside, if the PCE should respond for something, it should be its historic role in the 1975-78 transition which resulted in a monarchical bourgeois state with amnesty for the fascists and the levers of economic power in the same hands as during the opus dei/technocratic phase of Franco's rule. What the PCE has done to explain its role in that regard, and not reflexive complaints about Stalinism, would be the correct question to ask, and one which, historically, the PCE has been unwilling to answer. Nonetheless, the balance of forces at the time was a virtual guarantee for defeat, so in spite of potential divergences with what turned out to be the PCE's eurocommunist strategy, one can't very well fault them for it, given what was known at the time. --David. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Two Views of Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Marv Gandall wrote: It is easy to condemn these parties for not mobilizing the masses and pushing back against these pressures, but this fails to take into account that the balance of power between the classes and the level of consciousness of the masses in bourgeois democracies have never provided the necessary conditions for such struggles to unfold. It?s only in conditions where democratic rights are absent and the masses don?t have peaceful electoral channels to vent their grievances, or where wars and other catastrophes lead to a breakdown of social order and mass deprivation, that the property and power of the bourgeoisie has been challenged through insurrection. And these insurrections have been more often quashed by the armed forces of the state than have succeeded. I don?t like to sound these notes, but this is the course history has taken to date. *** You no doubt dislike sounding these notes because they imply that there is no way forward: thoroughgoing reformist initiatives are bound to be defeated by bourgeois reaction, and revolutionary attempts to mobilize the masses against reaction are impossible because the masses, under bourgeois democracy, refuse to be mobilized. Both reformist and revolutionary politics, in other words, lead to a dead end. This has been true up to now, but, in the case of a democratic country where revolution came closest to happening--France, 1968--the established party system had become dysfunctional because there was no one to play the role of the Democrats or Social Democrats. DeGaulle monopololized bourgeois politics to the extent that the only alternative was the PCF (which ultimately played a role akin to social democracy, but was never trusted by the ruling class). It can be argued that bourgeois democracy, for different reasons, is becoming dysfunctional today. Never has the political class of all major parties, in all Western contries, been perceived as so remote from the realities and concerns of ordinary people, and as so beholden to moneyed interests. Might this not present new opportunities for exposing the limitations of electoralism? Jim Creegan . _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Socialist Worker newspaper (ISO) The success of Podemos is good news for socialists and workers. Although there is still debate about how strong the class basis of its vote was, Podemos' program has a clear focus on both labor issues and social issues that affect the working class--for example, opposition to the latest labor law reforms imposed by the PP and PSOE, support for a ban on workers being fired from profitable companies, and a proposal to suspend all foreclosures and create a public housing program for evicted families. These measures would mean a great improvement in the lives of workers if implemented. http://socialistworker.org/2014/06/18/the-rise-of-podemos --- Socialist Worker Newspaper (British SWP, which stands for the Sectarian Woebegone Party) The leaders of Podemos and Syriza want to replace the people in government with others who they argue would do a better job. But power doesn’t stop with the people in office. Elected governments are still part of a capitalist state that is made up of powerful unelected bureaucracies, not to mention the police and the army. They are part of the class which owns the factories, supermarkets and the media. Much of Podemos’ rhetoric is about kicking out the “caste” at the top, while Jones stops at taking on a vague “establishment”. But if these were replaced by Labour left wingers or even by Podemos, real power would remain with the bosses and their state. The ruling class is rarely completely united, especially in times of crisis. But the state and capitalists rely on one another. http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/39431/Is+the+left+breaking+through+in+Europe%3F _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 11/29/14 4:34 PM, Andrew Pollack wrote: The fact that one was published in June and the other November is significant; that is roughly the time period in which it became clear to all (well, almost all) that the Podemos leadership was intending to follow the liberal trajectory of Syriza's tops. I think we probably have different ideas about what a liberal trajectory means. But beyond the question of its decision, for example, to scale back some of its more radical proposals, there is another dimension that has to be considered--namely, the class dynamic of a party that has no links to the Spanish bourgeoisie and that is open and transparent. Unlike the British Labour Party or the Democratic Party for that matter, Podemos is much more like the Greens in the USA. If you keep in mind that Podemos represents the next stage of the anti-capitalist struggle in Spain rather than the Leninist party that will ultimately be necessary for total emancipation, then it begins to make sense. The British SWP's mistake is to counterpose a Platonic ideal of a Leninist Party and seduce the innocent into its imaginary ranks. Hal Draper described its methodology here: The sect establishes itself on a HIGH level (far above that of the working class) and on a thin base which is ideologically selective (usually necessarily outside working class). Its working-class character is claimed on the basis of its aspiration and orientation, not its composition or its life. It then sets out to haul the working class up to its level, or calls on the working class to climb up the grade. From behind its organizational walls, it sends out scouting parties to contact the working class, and missionaries to convert two here and three there. It sees itself becoming, one day, a mass revolutionary party by a process of accretion; or by eventual unity with two or three other sects; or perhaps by some process of entry. full: http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1971/alt/alt.htm#CHAPTER3 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 29/11/2014 22:51, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: I think we probably have different ideas about what a liberal trajectory means. But beyond the question of its decision, for example, to scale back some of its more radical proposals, there is another dimension that has to be considered--namely, the class dynamic of a party that has no links to the Spanish bourgeoisie and that is open and transparent. I'm myself more positive about Podemos than just calling them liberals and writing them off, but they're not particularly more open or transparent than other parties. They've recently set up their internal organisation through a slate (or strictly speaking, quasi-slate) system. They have no organic links to the working class. Sure they're not like Labour or the Democcrats, but Spain has IU and the PCE as working class parties with plenty of cadre (we're talking high tens of thousands, not tiny sect size). Podemos seems a lot more hazy and potentially penetrable. --David. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Two views on Podemos
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 11/29/14 5:27 PM, David P Á wrote: Sure they're not like Labour or the Democcrats, but Spain has IU and the PCE as working class parties with plenty of cadre (we're talking high tens of thousands, not tiny sect size). If the IU and the PCE were not so compromised... _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
