PR And “The Kids”
by James Turley
As most comrades will be aware, the small British group Workers Power and its network of clone-parties the League For the Fifth International (LFI) has recently fallen on hard times. Last summer, a minority consisting largely of the group’s most experienced and talented activists were ejected, forming around a new and impressively shiny publication called Permanent Revolution (as the “PR supporters network”, or PRN). Not long after that, its “independent” youth group REVOLUTION (popularly called Revo) was forced to expel whole layers of non LFI-affiliated youngsters – again, including whole national sections, such as that in Germany. It was perhaps inevitable, then, that the PRN would have to confront the question of youth organisation anew. Sure enough, this has happened, firstly in an open letter to iRevo’s founding conference last yeari, and now in a full article in the latest issue of PRii both by leading (and not, it is probably fair to say, particularly young) figure Stuart King.
Youth organisation today
Firstly, the good news – King’s logic flows from a very important fact: the lack of mass communist parties (Lessons, p37). Where such parties exist, it may be perfectly permissible, tactically speaking, to organise a youth section which is effectively within the party, subject to the same discipline as everybody else. In such circumstances, young comrades will naturally gravitate towards the party anyway, because it would be the expression of communist politics from the campus to the streets. Such a party, furthermore, would have to maintain full minority rights, and so “discipline” would not be the sort of chafing, rigid regime we have come to expect.
However, this is not the scenario confronting youth and adult parties alike in 2007. Thus, the decisions of the Bolsheviks on the subject are largely of peripheral value, since they were confronting a very different era. It is good, then, that King uses as his starting point the 1938 positions of the American Socialist Worker’s Party, for decades the largest and most important Trotskyist group and at the time operating under the authority of Trotsky himself. King notes that youth organisations “aim to attract large numbers”, whereas a revolutionary party will – barring a “mass revolutionary struggle” – attract only a few young people as such.
“Organisational independence, political subordination”
Nevertheless, King rejects calls for complete independence of the youth leagues. This could imply that “democratic-centralist fractions of the revolutionary organisations should not be allowed in the youth movement if they sometimes demand democratic centralist discipline over their youth members” (Letter…iii). His preferred formula is “organisational independence, political subordination (or ‘solidarity’)”. This means that the youth group must have its own conferences and so on, at which policies should be debated and consensus won if possible. It may even take “some positions at variance with the adult organisation’s program” (Lessons p37, my emphasis). However, the basic line would be the same.
This all is backed up with various tidbits from leftist history – Lenin calling for “complete independence” during WWI (to break the youth from the social chauvinist parties), through various Comintern resolutions culminating in the “organisational independence, political subordination” formula. He cites approvingly the Comintern’s rearranging of a youth conference to ensure victory of the united front policy as evidence of the efficacy of OI-PS.
It should now be abundantly clear that this policy is essentially absurd and completely contradictory. If “political subordination” allows the adult party to rearrange conferences in order to force through votes, exactly what does “organisational independence” include? What, precisely, are the young cadres free to “organise”? How does this differ from the LFI Revo faction’s unprincipled manoeuvrings? (King does have an answer of sorts to the latter question – more on which later.) In my view, the whole gamut from the third congress of the Comintern, through the American SWP, through to the LFI’s early relationship to Revo and finally King’s articles all try to have their cake and eat it. On the one hand, the PRN know there is no point in simply setting up a youth “trotskyist cadre” organisation and do not wish to do so. They acknowledge that the majority of younger leftists have not “come up” through traditional communist or trotskyist groups but in fact through the ever-more-influential anarchist movement, and that the battle for partyism and vanguards must be won. For this reason, they wish for the youth to keep a degree of independence. On the other hand, however, they want to have the youngsters there for them, as another layer of footsoldiers. They want the youth group to have some kind of connection to the mothership, and this means (for an orthodox trotskyist) some kind of theoretical agreement. The youth group is to be of the revolutionary party but not in it.
The aforementioned actions of the Comintern pose it all very sharply. The OI-PS model lopes on quite happily as long as the Comintern can rely on winning all the important votes. They can make a show of convincing the youth rather than handing down the line. Nevertheless, when it comes to crunch time, the crisis cannot be resolved within that framework. Organisational independence implies control over the programme, or what else are the youth organising? Political subordination implies the adult organisation “trumps” the youth equivalent, otherwise how can they be effectively subordinated? There was no middle way in this dispute, then – either the Comintern acted as it did, or the CYI declared full independence. (iRevo’s denunciation of this framework as “Maoist” is more true than they perhaps think – what was the paradigmatic bit of Maoist “philosophy” but the rejection of the Hegelian ‘synthesis’ in favour of catastrophic conflict, one side “devouring” the other “mouthful by mouthful”iv? The OI-PS line disavows such an event but leads right to it.)
Line-dancing
Another well-known feature of Maoism is its elevation of the struggle between political lines to a near-cosmic force to which all trifling matters of organisation, epistemology and the like are to be subordinated. King certainly does not take such a histrionic view of things, but the determining factor for him does seem to be ‘political perspectives’. For instance, we have his summary of the split in Revo, its “roots of the trampling on the independence of World Revo lies in the LFI’s political perspective and tactics” (Letter).
The catastrophism embodied in the LFI’s line led directly to the crisis in Revo. Things would, clearly, have been much better had the LFI leadership taken a more sober view of things.
However, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks reined in the youth in the early 1920s, this was principled and within the bounds of the party/youth relationship. Why? Because the youth were arguing against the allegedly correct line of the “united front”. The principled nature of the comintern’s action, then, lies in the fact that they were “right” about the united front. No doubt there is some truth in King’s analysis of the Revo split. It is a general feature of political perspectives that they form into political practices, and a specific feature of catastrophism that it leads to a dramatic tightening of the chain of command. Like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, terrified of being late, the party must subordinate all other concerns to getting the best spot on the barricades. What he seems unable to concede, however, is that comrades in Revo had no way of challenging such perspectives, and no way of forging their own, for as long as they were under the cosh of OI-PS. The choice for revolutionary youth, it seems, is to try their best to hitch their wagon to the least swivel-eyed adult party on offer, and then hope the latter don’t try anything stupid as long they’re in a “politically subordinate” position.
Not good enough.
A balance sheet
King’s analyses have the merit of not underestimating the complexity of the issue – one of the advantages of running a bureaucratic SWSS/Student Respect/Revo style regime is that you get to cut this Gordian knot without much bother. However, his resolution of the problem essentially amounts to a theorisation of such regimes. The balance he proposes is no balance at all but a dormant volcano, which will erupt the minute a dispute arises on which the adult party, in its wisdom or stupidity, shall give no quarter. It is a recipe for splits, but more dangerously, driving potential activists away from the movement altogether.
The only ways out of the deadlock, as I see it, are an openly cadre-based group entirely subordinate to the party programme, consisting of full party members, which has a specific remit within the party’s division of labour for youth work; or cutting the organic link entirely, and using youth groups as “neutral zones” between different parties and trends who struggle openly to define everything, from strategy to tactics to programme. Whether or not party fractions act under party discipline is up to the parties themselves. This certainly does include the possibility of a “hostile takeover” by a less scrupulous organisation, but it also includes the possibility of resistance to such a takeover. The OI-PS line amounts to writing the takeover into the youth organisation’s genetic code, and frustrating all attempts to break this logic well in advance.
iStuart King, “PR letter to iRevo conference on October 7 2006” (http://tinyurl.com/38pekk )
iiStuart
King, “Lessons of Revolution”, in Permanent Revolution #5 Summer 2007. Also reproduced are two articles by members of iRevo and the leadership of the dissident German Revo section.
iiiHe
then asks the question, “is this in fact [iRevo’s] position? It should be noted that the suggestion is dismissed by iRevo as “ridiculous” (http://www.anticapitalista.com/irevo/?p=43&language=en).
King himself comes much closer to this when he cites approvingly the “graduation system”, whereby youth who join the Party leave the youth section after a year or so (Lessons, p39).
iviRevo,
“Declarations of Independence”, in Permanent Revolution #5 Summer 2007; Mao Tse-Tung, “Talk on Questions of Philosophy” in On Practice & Contradiction,
ed. Slavoj Žižek (London: Verso, 2007).
This is quite an interesting article. However, in my opinion, it tends to overstate the case and pose alternatives in an abolutist manner- either complete independence or a cadre organisation of youth. I’m a member of Permanent Revolution but my opinions in this are my own- we don’t as usch have a ‘line’ on this issue.
As James acknowledges the big problem for revolutionary socialists/ communists generally is that we are not in a period of major class struggle or revolutionary upheaval. There is nothing wrong with having a youth cadre- subject to the discipline of the larger group but also making up its own mind on certain issues as they arise in campaigns. That’s one model.
Of course we would also be for setting up united front campaigns and working within these. So another possibility is completely independent youth groups- in my opinion, though we would be for trying to win these youth to socialism, to the group, to a revolutionary party.
I think it’s also possible to have a youth group which is in political solidarity with a larger adult group but has organisational independence- e.g. running its own campaigns such as a school or college based antiwar movement, campaigns against deportations, against privatisation and school/ college closures and other issues that arise.
James argues that this is trying to have it both ways. If there was a matter of great importance the larger group or party would try to win the line and ultimately may even split from those who didn’t support it. May be- this could be the case on major class lines such as a major strike, a war, and some other issues of principle and class line. However, in such a struggle the battle to win youth, the arguments and discussions would all be worth while. What Stuart is arguing against I think is the idea that the line needs to be handed down from the adult group to the youth group.
It seems to me all these models are possible and there’s no point being too didactic on them. the point is to win people- including the youth- to class struggle politics and to socialism. We should neither fetishise independence nor reject organisational flexibility.
Jason
Stuart is indeed arguing against that, but he remains – in terms of his conclusions – within the problematic that produces the bureaucratic aberrations we see in Revo and Student RESPECT, etc.
A lot of the problems facing those of us trying to organise revolutionary youth are refractions of the sad state of the various adult parties around. With Revo, for instance, there is nothing particularly wrong – as such – with using a disciplined block vote, but one does not imagine that the L5I cadre obediently raising their hands have had a good chance at winning their line within their L5I sections. This is why I emphasise not only the possibility but desirability of openly subordinated youth sections within the party – it is just not possible now, because there is no Party worthy of the name.
Regarding OI-PS groups – they are possible, strictly speaking. The problem is that they are inherently unstable. Political solidarity is a fine phrase, but I do not believe that it has any place within the formal-constitutional character of a youth group. Communist Students is certainly, at present, literally in political solidarity with the CPGB – but this is voluntary. It has relevance in terms of what actions are likely to be agreed, but not what actions cannot be agreed. Were CS to agree, hypothetically, to march under a banner for a single state in Palestine, that would leave the CPGB to decide whether to submit its members to CS discipline, or split, etc. However – were the CPGB to use whatever undue influence to enforce political solidarity, to override or sabotage that decision, this would result immediately in a split. This is what happened to Revo. What else could happen?
I do not like posing things in Manichean terms, but this seems clear to me – a youth cannot be independent and subordinate. Organisation and political line are not completely separate concepts, but interpenetrate all over the shop. If the political line is decided elsewhere, then that makes the youth group essentially like a contestant on the Crystal Maze – subject to a series of alien whims, however free they may be to carry them out. This is not a recipe for the sort of creatively-minded cadres that will master revolutionary situations in the future, but rather burned-out drop-outs on the one hand and compliant robo-activists on the other.
We from REVOLUTION (the anarchist-stalinist-liberal-nazi ones, according to different LFI members) recently worked out a document about independent youth organizations:
http://www.revolution.int.tf/?p=114&language=en
http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=1607
I’d like to hear what comrades think.
Firstly, I would recommend everyone have a look at a surprisingly good Spartacist pamphlet from 1967 on “The Leninist Position on Youth-Party Relations”.
It’s available on the PR and IBT sites:
http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=1514
http://www.bolshevik.org/history/youth/mb7_complete.html
There is a more thorough definition of the formula “organizationally independent and politically subordinate” – which in James’ eyes is a contradiction in itself – in the “Draft Resolution on Party-Youth Relations” by Shane Mage. He wrote:
“12. From time to time there are necessarily differences of opinion between the SWP and the YSA. In the normal course of events such divergences can be handled through the regular channels of coordination and consultation between the two organizations. When, however, serious political disagreements arise, this procedure is inadequate. In such a case it is the obligation of the youth movement, insofar as its public political activity is concerned, to subordinate itself to the discipline of the revolutionary movement as a whole. The YSA recognizes and accepts this obligation.”
The formulas of the Comintern were dependent upon the existence of mass Communist parties as potential leaders of revolutionary struggle, as the Comintern itself pointed out: “With the establishment of the Communist International and, in some countries, of Communist Parties, the role of the revolutionary youth organisations changes” (The Communist International and the Communist Youth Movement, 1921). James is correct that we can’t simply adopt these formulas today. But I would disagree that they are merely of a “peripheral value”. For example, on the question of the Comintern leadership rearranging a congress of the Communist Youth International in order to prevent a victory of the ultralefts in the youth movement – this was legitimate not because the Comintern’s policy on the united front was “correct” (even if it was, as was shown by historical experience, what minority wouldn’t like to impose it’s “correct” policy on the organization?!?), but because the Comintern was the elected leadership of the CYI, the CYI had voted to form a component part of the International and submit to its leadership.
James writes (in a comment) that “there is nothing particularly wrong – as such – with using a disciplined block vote”. He then cites as an example: “Were CS to agree, hypothetically, to march under a banner for a single state in Palestine, that would leave the CPGB to decide whether to submit its members to CS discipline, or split, etc. However – were the CPGB to use whatever undue influence to enforce political solidarity, to override or sabotage that decision, this would result immediately in a split. This is what happened to Revo. What else could happen?”
Well we all know what is wrong with “submitting its members to discipline” and the “block vote”. It abolishes democratic centralism, as the experience with Revo and the LFI shows. The dashing young 40-, 50- and 60-year-olds of the LFI leadership work out the line and their majority faction in Revo is obliged to push this line through. So there’s no discussion in the base of the organization – the members don’t even know who are writing their documents, let alone have any possibility to recall them. They can either accept these decisions made outside their organization or be kicked out.
So any kind of “Organisational independence, political subordination” needs to be based on 1) a conscious decision by the youth organization to subordinate themselves to a party leadership and 2) elected and recallable representatives of the youth organization having influence on this party leadership, being represented in congresses etc.
We for the current period have developed a couple of guidelines for the question. On the one hand we don’t want to exclude members of revolutionary parties (or groups that would some day like to become parties) from our youth organization, because as young revolutionaries get older they will naturally gravitate towards “adult” groups. On the other hand, we want to prevent the kind of bureaucratic control that creates, as the Spartacists put it, “office boys and sycophants” of the revolutionary movement.
So we have a limit on the number of members of leading bodies who are simultaneously members of another organization (40%), to guarantee that such an organization can only have influence by convincing, not by decree. More importantly, we demand that such organizations don’t provide a “line” for their members in a youth organization. Of course the members of a revolutionary organization are committed to basic principles of the communist movement, but must a revolutionary organization decide on precise formulations of documents for the youth? On their logo? On how they carry out campaigns? On where they hold their meetings?
This demand of “no factions” (or more creatively: “no entryism in your own youth organization” shocked the LFI and to a lesser extent PR. That’s why we were thrilled to find documents from the early 60’s explaining precisely this position: “how is one to ensure the political subordination of the youth to the party without destroying the organizational independence of the youth–its independent life and vitality which is so attractive to young people? Here again we base ourselves on the general approach of our movement historically and insist that in general the party should exert its discipline over the youth organization as a whole rather than resort to simply applying discipline on party members in the youth. The latter approach, which may be necessary under extraordinary circumstances and in the absence of proper forms for exerting discipline over the whole youth organization, tends to undermine the essential unity of party and non-party youth, eat away at the independent organization of the youth, and damage the possibilities for future growth of the youth movement.” (Tim Wohlforth, On the Essence of Our Approach to Party-Youth Relations)
James Turley takes issue with my argument in PR5 against a completely (politically) independent youth movement. He happily rejects the whole history and method of Lenin, the Communist International, and the American SWP and says that trying to build youth groups that are organisationally independent but politically in solidarity with revolutionary groups/parties is trying “have their cake and eat it”. Lets look as his alternative.
But first a correction. Apparently I “cite approvingly” the CI re-arranging a youth conference to win a majority. If you actually read the PR5 article (p39) I do no such thing. I use the example to show that Murray Weiss was wrong when he said the Leninist view was to never to have party youth fractions and never to over-rule the youth in the name of party discipline. The CI clearly did this on occasion, whether it was right or wrong on this occasion in 1920 I don’t know.
Cde Turley poses two alternatives. Firstly “an openly cadre based group entirely subordinate to the party programme, consisting of full party members”. Clearly this would not be a real youth movement – it would exclude the vast majority of 13-18 year olds who would not join a “cadre based” organisation whose members would have a clear understanding and commitment to the full party programme. It would be instead a small party/group youth fraction.
His second option is “cutting the organic (political) link entirely”, “using youth groups as ‘neutral zones’ between different parties and trends who struggle openly to define everything from strategy to tactics to programme” (a sort of young replica of the CPGB/Weekly Worker!). Now if this isn’t a ‘dormant volcano’ I don’t know what is. In reality such a youth organisation wouldn’t be a neutral zone but a ‘war zone’ with every organised group fighting to dominate or split it.
We cannot get round the fact that the reason we have different political groups is because we have political differences that give rise to different strategies and tactics. To give an immediate example, PR students and youth would have fought with the Bath University students fighting to prevent the fascist BNP leader Nick Griffin holding a meeting on campus, invited there by their youth wing leader. Communist Students, a CPGB led organisation, would have been opposing this and advocating instead having a ‘debate’ with the BNP on campus.
The idea of youth organisations as “neutral zones” is pie in the sky.
What does it mean for a youth group to be ‘organisationally independent but in political solidarity’ with a group/party? Cde Turley wants to know if the youth will have “control over the programme”. Of course they will, it is their youth programme after all. But the group they are in solidarity with will have an input, through its fraction and joint meetings. The youth will run their own affairs paper and organisation, but the adult group they are in solidarity with will have an input.
Does this run the risk of a deep disagreement even a split – well it might, but it is not as inevitable or likely as cde Turley seems to think. In fact he ignores all the discussion of safeguards in the PR5 article – the party fraction being in a minority, strict age limits, short time overlapping of membership etc which would make this relation, between youth and adult party, a question of winning political arguments rather than imposing political discipline. Trust and honesty is crucial in all such relationships, this is what was lost in the LFI and inevitably led to the youth group splitting.
Stuart King
Comrades,
This debate is coming along nicely so rather than taking my time to write a much longer and more structured response, I thought it would be apt to respond now directly.
Firstly, although I am in the same organisation as comrade Turley, indeed within the same organisation, I do think that it is impossible to argue for the creation of any “independent” youth organisation that does not have some ties or links with any of the 57 varieties of the left sects today. This is not to say that one day, in a concrete situation, it may be correct to call for the complete independence, effectively the splitting, of a youth organisation from an “adult” party. The example of Lenin and the youth organisations in the social chauvinist/social pacifist organisations in WW1 is helpful in this respect. Clearly then, the first thing to be said is that youth organisation, along with revolutionary organisation more generally, is dependent on the period and the conditions in which we are organising. I admit, this is an insufficient analysis of JT’s ideas, but like I say, I will return to these in the next few days.
Now to clear up a slight “misrepresentation”, to put it mildly, of the majority position of CS on the BNP. He argues that we ALWAYS and in EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE want to debate the BNP rather than take them on, to coin his favourite phrase, “with two baseball bats.” This is not our position. As revolutionaries, we do not want to limit our revolutionary arsenal to one single weapon, as this will necessarily weaken the ability of our movement to fight back. It was Lenin who said that the essence of Marxism is to understand a particular situation concretely, to “hear the grass grow”, and we argue that sometimes, it may be incorrect to no-platform the BNP, whereas in other situations it could be helpful to our movement to stop them speaking or organising. And let us not fetishise the defense form of the baseball bat, comrade King, AK-47s are also effective. As Broue points out in his brilliant “The German Revolution” (a book I, quite ironically bought at the PR school) the early KPD’s students did SOMETIMES hold debates with the Nazis, and won over many disillusioned people in that way. Obviously for comrade King, this tactic would not even be permissible. Not merely stupid, but actually a potential hindrance to our movement responding effectively to the threat of fascism.
King also underplays the organisation of British revolutionaries into a Communist Party and international revolutionaries into a genuinely international Communist International as the real answer to this. This brings me on to his response to JT.
Of course “we cannot get around the fact that the reason we have different political groups is because we have political differences.” Yet the idea that differing views on the Soviet Union or fascism preclude two people working together effectively in the same organisation is utter nonsense and will lead to split after split. You would have thought this would be obvious to somebody who has just gone through an acrimonious split with Workers Power on account of that minority’s inability to express their views openly.
He seems to draw the wrong conclusions though. For him “trust and honesty is crucial in all such relationships, this is what was lost in the LFI and inevitably led to the youth group splitting.” Politics is a lot more than trust and honesty. CS members may trust people like JT or me, and may think that we are honest, har-wroking chaps, yet unless the democratic mechanisms are in place whereby we can be instantly recalled and replaced, trust and honesty become vacuous concepts.
I am sure our German comrades will tell us more, but the reason for LFI going balls-up was its open manoeuvering and control of decisions. This “factionalism” as the comrades in I-Revo put it, exposed Revo for what it was – an “international” youth movement controlled from London, predominantly by a not-so-youthful Richard Brenner.
What appears to be a paradox for comrades Turley and King is I think best explained by the concept of autonomy. CS is not a CPGB-led organisation. Yes we are an active minority, that, given our experience, play a leading role – yet this is in no way controlling it, and definitely not in the sense that the PCC of the CPGB sit around and secretly concoct recipes for the youngsters to cook up.
As a CPGB member on the executive, I fight for CPGB politics and argue with others on these questions . Yet it is hardly the case that, when we come to making a decision on this or that, that the CPGB in the leadership, i.e. 50% of its leadership, meet beforehand to discuss “our line.” This was of some surprise to poor old Sasha Ismail of the AWL, when he demanded from me what the “CPGB position in CS” was on voting for candidates at the NUS conference. There are differences between CPGB members on a number of questions – between Dave and I on fascism, for example.
We stress AUTONOMY as the best way of bringing together students on the basis of Marxist ideas, not warmed-up social democracy as with Socialist Students, (Un)popular Frontism in the form of Respect, or Education Not for Sale’s narrowly economistic list of demands that even their beloved Oona King could sign up to.
CS has its own programmatic statement, constitution and leadership, all of which can be changed by the authority of conference. This is a much better way of organising than “political subordination” because as comrades King and the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Trotskyist comrades understand it, “politics” and “political unity” means AGREEING on every dot and comma of a programme or statement – an approach that has more in common with religious sects than Marxist parties and groups. Comrades are reminded of comrade Jim Padmore’s amendment to last year’s CS constitution, who said CS members must “agree” with the programme. Thankfully, this was voted down in favour of “accept” – a small, but significant nuance.
This is the only feasible way of uniting youth and students dedicated to overthrowing capitalism. Of course, there will be arguments IN THE OPEN, and sometimes,0 controversy. Yet that is politics – I hardly think that Marx and Engels or Lenin would have amassed so much writing if they had not criticised tendencies and ideas in their own parties.
CS is, consciously, NOT a democratic centralist organisation, and certainly not a bureuacratic centralist one like Revo or Student Respect. This is because we believe that anarchists and those cautious of democratic centralism (who can blame them when the left’s application of it is so inhuman!) can play a role in CS. It is not something with the discipline of a Communist Party, but in many ways, a “step-up” to it.
Finally, on the question “being entered” by other groups, which was also raised by some of the PR comrades at the school I spoke at back in July. The way I see it is this: If theoretically the SWP mobilised to become the majority in CS and take it over, update the programme to make it more “SWP-ish” but without (a) removing the commitment to international socialist revolution (b) the right to factions openly publishing their ideas and (c) to publish/distribute their own documents and papers then I would argue, and any one with any sense would argue that it would be right to stay in there and win a majority patiently. In fact, even if they removed (b) and (c) we’d still be in it and FIGHT for a space even if it wasn’t formally granted to us. Of course, blinded by their sectarian tailism, the SWP would never do such a thing.
Sadly, because in many ways comrade King suffers from similar problems to the SWP in terms of democracy in our own movement, he would never suggest to the youth/students in PR (to the extent you have any at the moment) that they should look to organise in CS and win people to their ideas whilst working within the framework of a revolutionary programme commited to the overthrow of capitalism. Until we start doing this though, there will be more and more Socialist Labour Parties, Socialist Alliances, Respects (looks like that is shaky at the moment too) and Revos – steps backward for our movement rather than the steps forward we need to lead it out of the decay and disintegration it is still suffering from.
Apologies for the length of this response and the fact that it has been put together so hastily.
B.E.K
That Communists Students has, in its short life, been extremely successful is a credit to the members of CS.
However, the CPGB are novices in this game and we are bound to make mistakes.
For now, let me point out just one bloomer from comrade Klein. He claims that CS is not a democratic centralist organisation.
Well, that news to me, as he knows from my criticisms of the constitution of CS last year.
Look what one sentence of the constitution says.
“Members of CS have both rights and responsibilities. All members of CS are expected to support actions agreed by the majority, attend meetings and distribute its publications. ”
Now if that’s not dc then I’m an Englishman. Surely when we recruit at freshers fayres we should recruit students simply on their willingness to join, not demand of them subordination to actions determined by the majority. The criteria for CS should not be the same as the democratic centralist culture of the CPGB. Rather than expect of them that they carry out actions and sell the paper, they should be encouraged to. There’s a big difference.
The problem that will arise is that at fayre’s next month we will recruit on a deceit. We will claim to anarchist-inclined young communists that they are free to do as much as or as little as they find compatible with their political consciousness. Yet, in reality they are signing up to a dc constitution.
It was a double deceit that the words dc were not put in the constitution – if you’re going to practice dc in CS, then be proud of it and proclaim it openly.
This needs to be changed at the next conference. Adherence to dc is something that must be voluntary and self-imposed. It should begin when CS members join the CPGB, not before. Or there is potential in the future for it to become an accident waiting to happen like Revo – without that ever being the intention.
I’ll keep my powder dry on ‘organisational autonomy’ for another time.
It’s great to see the CS blog and expect a hard time from me in the future.
x
Could I please ask comrades to read this post on my blog? I have just edited it of some obvious spelliong and grammar errors. I also got rid of the problem of the LFI being their “open” rigging of votes, which falsely suggests that rigging behind closed doors (actually what they did!) would be better. Apologies.
http://benjamin-edgar-klein.blogspot.com/2007/08/i-couldnt-resist.html
Stuart
Good to see you rising to the bait, first of all. I do not reject the whole history of Lenin etc on youth organisation (if nothing else, the slogan of “complete independence”, whatever its context, has its charms – particularly now at a time of generalised fragmentation, seeing as its first appearance was as an epiphenomenon to the great WW1 split in socialism). I do not think the leader of a mass revolutionary party’s precise formulations should be taken literally with regard to today’s situation, and I do think that outside this scenario of mass communist parties, the ‘limited indepence’ scenario falls down. I take back “cited approvingly” re the Conference business – but I’ll put in “cited uncritically” instead, because uncritical it was. I would also like, if possible, a ‘straight answer’ on this one – was this in the proper spirit of organisational independence, etc? And if not, how might this breach of ‘political solidarity’ (and a serious one at that, relating to the entire strategy of the Communist movement) have been dealt with better?
With that out of the way, some of the more substantial points. King claims, correctly, that I gloss over his various suggestions about “good practice” for the party fraction within the youth group. I think that these suggestions are, in many ways, helpful. But they are extremely diverse – limiting the size of the party fraction has vastly different implications for the group composition from “graduation system” – the latter implies a youth group that is explicitly a sort of training ground for party members, after which you join the “real thing”, while the former implies limited co-operation even with other organised fractions. This seems to me a more general issue with Stuart’s original article. It often takes a great variety of tactics from vastly divergent strategic periods, and mixes them up in a strange sort of eclecticism. OI-PS, if it is to be found in the comintern tradition, essentially grants limited autonomy/independence by the fiat of the adult party – ie, a youth fraction of the party. Fine – but we have no party. Using that model now doesn’t grant any more freedom.
If all Stuart King means by this, however, is that there is a Party fraction in the youth group and this is used as the sole tool for providing political solidarity, then fine – but why the need for all these theoretical acrobatics and constitutional formulations? This kind of “voluntary” political solidarity is great, but it can be withdrawn at any moment. That is sort of the point. Why, furthermore, the assumption that there will only be one party fraction? What would be the CPGB fraction’s proper action should Jim Padmore get a dominant “PR” platform in CS? A “neutral zone” is “pie in the sky”, apparently – yes, a “war zone” is a better word for it. But if a “war zone” is undesirable, comrade King, what kind of “peace” is preferable?
B E Klein says I misrepresented the CPGB/CS on debating with the BNP but he avoids saying what position the CS took (or if they didn’t comment, what they should have done) at Bath University. Truth is always concrete. Would CS have joined the campaign to prevent Nick Griffin addressing a politics meeting at Bath University? Would they have supported/initiated resolutions to general meetings calling on students and the Labour movement to prevent him speaking, to blockade the campus? Or would it have been so divided on the question that it was paralysed? Can you give us an answer.
This also relates to Cameron’s point. Having decided to carry out a course of action based on a political discussion and vote one would expect members to carry it out (or at least not obstruct it). This after all is the case even in a trade union when we vote for a strike (and we even enforce it on dissident members through picket lines). This doesn’t make a TU democratic centralist but it does make it an effective organisation for action. Of course someone in a student organisation who wanted to argue and mobilise against a decision on the BNP at Bath University could do so, but not in the name of the organisation which would logically mean being outside of it. The alternative is confusion and paralysis not leadership.
Benjamin uses Communist Students to clarify on ‘autonomy’ but CS
is not a youth organisation, it encompasses people of all ages who are students. The fact it is called ‘Communist’ means it is fairly narrow, it presumably self-limits itself to organising those students who want to overthrow capitalism and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, those who consider themselves as, or are attracted to communist politcs. This is a ‘party organisation’ under the de facto leadership of the CPGB.
We don’t object to this method, PR will do its own “party work” amongst students and point out where we differ with CS – on fighting the BNP, on opposing the two state solution in Palestine, and arguing against supporting or entering Respect. We are happy to work with you on campaigns and actions where we agree – marching separately and striking together is often better than a false unity in what is effectively a propaganda bloc.
But back to the point of youth organisations, using the word ‘autonomy’ isn’t some marvellous cure-all. “Autonomous from what !!!” Lenin might have asked, and have underlined it three times, – from communist politics? And if we mean organisationally autonomous but politically influenced by revolutionaries then we are back to the formulation “organisationally independent but in political solidarity”. I prefer this formulation to “political subordination” precisely because it means a looser relationship than the relationship between the CI and the Young Communists in the 1920s. This was the formulation the LFI started out with to build Revo groups and one that took account of the different period we are in.
Stuart
I did write a fairly substantial reply to Stuart King from an internet cafe, but it appears to have been eaten by the internet. Let’s try again.
Firstly, some basic housekeeping.
-Regarding Bath, one assumes that any comrades we had in bath would discuss it, agree an action democratically and carry that action out. I cannot be more specific than this, being that even among the CPGB fraction of CS there are serious differences on this issue, and we have no binding “perspectives” beyond those of the operative majority in a given vote. If comrades in a faction, such as PR, were to consider this a “split issue”, then so be it. The idea that we’re brushing serious debates under the carpet or otherwise diminishing their importance is absurd – the first CS paper had just this debate in its pages, and the first CS school as a full session including a lead-off from Mark Hoskisson!
-I do not reject the entire history of the Bolsheviks and the Trotskyists and so on. It should at least be obvious that I sympathise with the slogan “complete independence for the youth leagues” – if this has an unwanted implication of the absence of party fractions, it is a matter of mere terminological significance and I am essentially in agreement with it. Stuart King chooses the no less pragmatic slogan of a different era as his model. OK, he could be right, but it is not more “Leninist” than “complete independence”.
-I withdraw the phrase “approvingly cites” where the objection is raised. But it is certainly uncritically cited. I would like to request a straight answer on this – was that action of the Comintern politically principled or not?
-“Neutral zone” or “war-zone”? “War-zone”, almost certainly. That was kind of the whole point of the article. Ideological struggle among the politically colnscious youth. Bring it on.
Moving on, the main issue of disagreement here appears to be the party fraction. Specifically, I’ve been puzzling over whether comrade King considers, in his scheme the youth group the private property of the adult party. It now seems to me that it simply doesn’t enter into his head that this might NOT be the case. “the [adult] group [which the youth] are in solidarity with will have an input, through its fraction and joint meetings”, says cde King – of course. Nobody denies this. Nobody denies, furthermore, that a given tendency will exercise political dominance over any effective organisation. In his view, however, this dominance is drearily inevitable and drearily permanent – eg, CS pops out of the CPGB’s womb and is the latter’s youthful and spunky stomping ground for all time.
Struggle is cast not as between “equals”, so to speak, different trends within the youth organisation, but between the party fraction and everybody else, who will be slowly won over. While King’s properly Leninist patience for winning over youth in this manner is to be commended over the shallow bureaucratism prevalent on the left, it still condemns youth in “solidarity” with an adult party who does a Workers Power and adopts nutso perspectives to the stark, dispiriting choice – ostracism and isolation from the youth at large, or a flat-out split. An effective resistance to such a nutso turn from the dominant fraction requires an organised opposition. For such an opposition to be possible, the particular adult party who will, inevitably, have taken the lead in forming the youth group must be prepared not to be the adult party. Call it independence, call it autonomy, whatever.
On a separate issue, we have this “marching separately, striking together” formulation. In principle, this is indeed appropriate when dealing with ultimatum-happy sectarians. We obviously do not refuse to march with the Spartacist League simply because they have a problem with reformist syphilis or whatever it is. The examples offered by King, however, rather beggar belief coming from someone who, a few inches of website previously, has been flexing his “orthodox Bolshevik” muscles. To say that differing perspectives on anti-fascist tactics can co-exist in an effective fighting organisation is nothing less than democratic centralism. Leaving aside Cameron’s objections for the time being (and they are worth taking seriously), this principle of “diversity in thought, unity in action” is perhaps the central contribution we inherit from Bolshevism, is the very essence of party democracy and crucially is specifically designed to decide on such issues. The idea that the Palestinian question is some apocalyptic insurmountable difference flies completely in the face of this tradition. Exactly what are comrades in PR allowed to disagree on, if not these sorts of questions?
“differing perspectives on anti fascist tactics can co-exist in an effective fighting organisation is nothing less than democratic centralism”:
if one demands that what we are discussing is a FIGHTING organisation which
carries out bold activities, then it will be a union of those forces that are prepared to FIGHT! within that, hopefully we could have democratic functoining and could handle the political question of “differing perspectives” but here actually we are discussing what would be a split-off organisation
but in the “anti racist” “movement” there is a very broad spectrum of opinion, outside of revolutionary ideas, and it is for unity with these rank and file workers that we strive: in general insofar as they are political they may be in the Labour Party, perhaps a constituency delegate – and aside from the revolutionaries that are in a and around the Labour Movement, these social-democratic workers are an advant-garde
1. On the ‘straight answer’ to whether I endorse the decision by the CI to move the youth congress in 1920 to Moscow I thought I had given it. I don’t know whether this was a right or wrong decision – I have not read the ECCI minutes, or surrounding arguments/polemics – has Jimbo? It wasn’t quoted ‘uncritically’ in the article; it was quoted in a different context without saying whether it was a right or wrong decision.
2. On the “basic housekeeping” of how you fight the fascists in the universities, Jimbo’s answer is more open and honest than Ben’s. Ben said “we argue that sometimes, it may be incorrect to no-platform the BNP, whereas in other situations it could be helpful to our movement to stop them speaking or organizing” implying it depended on circumstances.
Whereas Jimbo reveals there is no position because the CPGB/CS is deeply divided on the question: “Regarding Bath, one assumes that any comrades we had in bath would discuss it, agree an action democratically and carry that action out. I cannot be more specific than this, being that even among the CPGB fraction of CS there are serious differences on this issue, and we have no binding ‘perspectives’ beyond those of the operative majority in a given vote”.
Now assuming you wouldn’t adopt one position in Bath Uni and a contrary one in Sheffield, this means that as a national student organization CS is paralysed. When the fascist youth wing is busily attempting to organize in the Universities you can’t give any political or practical leadership on how to fight the BNP, rather you only offer “a debate” on the question.
Now if you want to be an interesting university debating club, fine, continue debating, but if you want to offer leadership amongst students and the NUS, any fighting organization would have quickly debated the question and come to a majority decision and according to your constitution all members of CS would be “expected to support actions agreed by the majority”. Can I hazard a guess that the reason this hasn’t happened is because the CPGB leadership is afraid it might lose? Or afraid CS might fall apart as a result of taking a decision. Instead it prefers paralysis and hopes the issue goes away – some revolutionary leadership.
3. No I don’t think the ‘youth group is the private property of the adult party’ but I do think to be a revolutionary youth (or student) group it needs to be in solidarity with a revolutionary organization, not with a centrist or reformist one. Of course there will be oppositions in a youth group and they might over turn the views of the adult party they are in solidarity with. But if it happens on fundamental programmatic issues you have a split. The SWP US had an open debate in 1940 in the adult and youth group over the nature of and defence of the Soviet Union. The youth group in its majority sided with the Schactman-Abern faction in refusing to defend the Soviet Union and characterizing it a bureaucratic collectivist state, and formed a new party as a result.
1. On the “straight answer” to whether I endorse the decision by the CI to
move the youth congress in 1920 to Moscow I thought I had given it. I don¹t
know whether this was a right or wrong decision I have not read the ECCI
minutes, or surrounding arguments/polemics has Jimbo? It wasn¹t quoted
Œuncritically¹ in the article; it was quoted in a different context without
saying whether it was a right or wrong decision.
2. On the ³basic housekeeping² of how you fight the fascists in the
universities, Jimbo¹s answer is more open and honest than Ben¹s. Ben said
³we argue that sometimes, it may be incorrect to no-platform the BNP,
whereas in other situations it could be helpful to our movement to stop them
speaking or organizing² implying it depended on circumstances.
Whereas Jimbo reveals there is no position because the CPGB/CS is deeply
divided on the question: ³Regarding Bath, one assumes that any comrades we
had in bath would discuss it, agree an action democratically and carry that
action out. I cannot be more specific than this, being that even among the
CPGB fraction of CS there are serious differences on this issue, and we have
no binding Œperspectives¹ beyond those of the operative majority in a given
vote².
Now assuming you wouldn¹t adopt one position in Bath Uni and a contrary one
in Sheffield, this means that as a national student organization CS is
paralysed. When the fascist youth wing is busily attempting to organize in
the Universities you can¹t give any political or practical leadership on how
to fight the BNP, rather you only offer ³a debate² on the question.
Now if you want to be an interesting university debating club, fine,
continue debating, but if you want to offer leadership amongst students and
the NUS, any fighting organization would have quickly debated the question
and come to a majority decision and according to your constitution all
members of CS would be ³expected to support actions agreed by the majority².
Can I hazard a guess that the reason this hasn¹t happened is because the
CPGB leadership is afraid it might lose? Or afraid CS might fall apart as a
result of taking a decision. Instead it prefers paralysis and hopes the
issue goes away some revolutionary leadership.
3. No I don¹t think the Œyouth group is the private property of the adult
party¹ but I do think to be a revolutionary youth (or student) group it
needs to be in solidarity with a revolutionary organization, not with a
centrist or reformist one. Of course there will be oppositions in a youth
group and they might over turn the views of the adult party they are in
solidarity with. But if it happens on fundamental programmatic issues you
have a split. The SWP US had an open debate in 1940 in the adult and youth
group over the nature of and defence of the Soviet Union. The youth group in
its majority sided with the Schactman-Abern faction in refusing to defend
the Soviet Union and characterizing it a bureaucratic collectivist state,
and formed a new party as a result.
8/9/07
1. I have not read these minutes, but they would not in and of themselves tell us if it was principled. We can make our own judgements on this regardless of who said what. You are dodging the question.
2. Well forgive me for feeling a bit frustrated on this point but, having quoted me at length claiming that we would decide an action and carry it out, you claim that we refuse to decide actions and carry them out! There is a rather more prosaic reason why we had no serious intervention at Bath Uni on this issue – there are none of us in Bath. It would have been poor little me, on a train up from Exeter, “physically confronting” a bunch of bootboys.
On my estimation, the CPGB may well lose, on some points, on this issue. It must be said that Ben is rather “softer” on the issue than even the CPGB majority. It would almost definitely lose on Israel/Palestine. But you say this like you’re revealing some kind of state secret. There are people who know exactly how the votes would fall on this, and those are your very own comrades who attended the debate at CU North! It also strikes me as bizarre that the very issues that allegedly force you to “march separately” are the battles you could most easily win.
3. I do not think that a revolutionary youth group is necessarily in solidarity with a revolutionary adult group – it simply has to have a revolutionary programme. Yes, mostly this will be under the influence of adult groups. But one should not confuse the issues. You are not revolutionary because your mates are revolutionary, but because you have a revolutionary programme.
Regarding the 1940 split, I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Did the Cannonite minority split from the YPSL? If the minority in the youth party found itself unable to condone marching under the majority’s banner on agreed actions, then it was going to split – but I say this was an unnecessary split . If you are unprepared to suffer the indignity of being in a minority, then you may as well form your own party of one. Splits on the basis of theoretical matters are overblown. Was Shachtman advocating US entry into WWII? Was there any practical matter of concern that made it necessary for a trotskyist group to have an official line on the class nature of the USSR? We seem to muck along without one.
In real terms, for instance, most of the differences between the CPGB and PR on anti-fascism come down to emphasis. Mark Hoskisson says, at CU North, “yes, occasionally we may be unable to physically no-platform people, but we should absolutely try to do so to the best of our ability anyway.” Mark Fischer says “while we certainly don’t object to physical confrontation, it may not always be realistic.” It seems to me perfectly possible for an orgainsed anti-fascist fighting unit to be happily comprised of members of both, because both can easily agree on actions within that format. Framing something like this as a “basic programmatic issue” seems way off – reform vs revolution, the working class as the agent of historical change are basic programmatic issues, for instance. The list of acceptable anti-fascist tactics is a tactical issue. It is important to make decisions on such things, but splits on this are just immature. Again, what is democratic centralism FOR if not to decide issues of tactics like this? Give me an example of something we can disagree on without it being of mortal importance.