Revo opportunism and the unity we need
Dave Isaacson responds to the Revo national committee
The letter from the Revolution national committee claims to be a response to the letter sent to them by the Communist Students executive, yet it completely fails to deal with the issues which we raised. For the most part it is simply a restatement of their belief that there a great opportunities for a national student coordination and that the task of revolutionaries is to throw themselves into building it. Where the Revo NC does seek to engage with CS they blatantly misrepresent our positions.
They write: “The inconsistency of CS is astonishing. When wildcat strikes took place at the Lindsey oil refinery and Staythorpe brandishing the slogan ‘British jobs for British workers’, CS decided to support the strike. We are now left with the bizarre situation in which CS does not support a ‘radical coordination of student struggles’, but does support a strike with a reactionary goal: British workers first, before migrants”.
We are quite clear – despite the lofty hyperbole there is not actually a real radical coordination to support – if there was then we would be in it arguing for the politics of Marxism.
We are also clear that Lindsey was a strike that required critical support. Yes, many of the workers may have had all sorts of strange ideas and illusions in their heads but that is the nature of things when workers move for the first time. It is struggle and politics that decide.
Moreover, it is slightly odd that you lump us together with the out and out uncritical supporters of the strike, such as the Communist Party of Britain, who have banned us from their new electoral adventure, No2EU. Why? Our ‘ultra-left’ opposition to the strike, apparently.
Elsewhere you argue that “Communist Students have wrongly counter-posed the need for uniting students in struggle to the need for a revolutionary communist students organisation”. This is something we explicitly argued against in our letter where we state that “Communists must always be at the centre of the struggles of our class.” Indeed, Revo and CS were both involved together in the Leeds occupation for Gaza, likewise our other comrades threw themselves into this wave of protest right across the country. Take a look at our website to see the reports.
But throughout this work we argued for Marxist politics and for a communist organisation. Without such an organisation how can we win effective working class or student unity?
Unity is all well and good, but we cannot build unity and a new movement through some lowest common denominator lash-up. To achieve real unity on the left we must first challenge all the wrong-headed opportunist nonsense that passes for common sense on the left today. That does not mean that we cannot work together in common actions in the meantime. Indeed this is very important, and can actually heighten the discussion of differences and pinpoint exactly where we agree and where we differ, as our comrades involved in the Sheffield University occupation have experienced recently. But these issues of dispute cannot be pushed to the back in order to facilitate some cosy compromise deal. How we unite in action is of fundamental importance.
On the CS website, Revo comrade Simon Hardy posted up some more constructive comments. He argued that a new movement will have to be built “in debate and discussion, principally amongst the already existing organisations and activists”.
But then Simon went on to argue that: “The stop the war movement was built without ‘marxist’ unity … and mobilised millions. How could we have built that if the left instead focussed its energies on debate and discussion as an a priori process before action? That is a recipe for passivity and paralysis.”
What? You take action before thinking and discussing what you are going to do? This is voluntaristic anarchism, not Marxism.
Without any qualifications Simon holds up the Stop the War Coalition as a positive example. Certainly we agree that its programme of opposition to war was not one that was based on Marxism. But this is not something to celebrate! STWC’s politics were based upon pacifism, Stalinism, and Labourism, along with overtures to outright liberalism and a cosy seat at the table for Islamism.
Now we would not have opposed the involvement in STWC actions of people with any of these ideas. But when the ‘Marxists’ of the SWP (who Revo share a common methodology with) uncritically promoted those with these politics and failed to put forward a Marxist/proletarian internationalist alternative it is not something we applaud. It was not an example of the united front – certainly not in the way that the Bolsheviks described it.
On the issue of numbers, perhaps the fact that STWC had such broad, shallow politics meant that some people who would not have been comfortable with a proletarian internationalist stance got involved when they wouldn’t have otherwise. But the opposition to the war was going to be massive anyway, reflecting a genuine anger from below, as well as splits within the ruling class.
Yet the involvement of the masses swiftly ebbed away. Was this down to a hard turn to Marxism on the part of STWC? Of course not. But it can partly be explained by the absence of Marxism – a politics that could genuinely explain the world situation, the nature of imperialism, and the route to success – in STWC.
“How can Revolution unite with the AWL as ‘Marxists’ when we fundamentally disagree on major issues (imperialism, resistance movement, Palestine) and so on?” asks Simon.
1) Simon, were there no differences on “major issues” in the Bolshevik party? Imperialism? Insurrection? To a large degree these differences can be ‘overcome’ through democratic centralism as an organisational principle.
By this we do not mean gagging critical minorities in public, getting members to sign up to an almost religious set of beliefs (a la Revo and Workers Power). What we are interested in is a programme of definite demands and goals of Marxism – which members are asked to accept as the basis of common action, not necessarily agree to. This is a crucial distinction that Lenin and the Bolshevik faction upheld as the basis for revolutionary unity at the start of the twentieth century.
2) Nowhere do we suggest that revolutionary unity can be won without a fierce ideological battle against opportunism on the left. Unity is not a slogan which can be won with a flick of a magic wand; it is something we have to fight for in a culture of open, sharp and frank exchange in front of the class. Again, read the Bolshevik press and its open publication of disagreements and differences between leading members.
3) Lastly, while debating the united front is useful and throws some light on the issue, it does not directly address the issue of this student coordination as this will not be a united front. The Comintern policy of the united front is about unity of the working class movement as a whole – as a way for the Comintern’s parties to win over the rank-and-file of mass organizations the majority of workers were aligned to such as the SPD or the Italian Socialist Party.
It is not about the small campaigns or blocs composed of tiny sects and individual activists. This is what today’s left tends to call ‘united fronts’, but they are wrong. That does not mean to say that such campaigns and blocs cannot take us forward and be useful, but we are kidding ourselves if we think they are united fronts.
As we have said, this particular bloc – the student coordination – is being proposed on vastly insufficient politics. It is being consciously set up on a non-Marxist basis. This is why it is risible for you to suggest that our Marxism is a “comfort blanket” which we can snuggle around to avoid having to put forward a strategy for students.
Our strategy is that radicalised students need to be won to the politics of communism – ie the mass party, the fight for extreme democracy, independent working class political action, and proletarian internationalism.
This needs to be expressed concretely in relation to the struggles we face today. Let us take the issue of Gaza and the protests and occupations that took place recently. Will Revo, in the name of unity, fudge this question and concede political space to Zionism when it comes to this student coordination? Despite an initial reluctance on the part of their student organiser, Sacha Ismail, the AWL has now jumped onboard and are supporting the call for a student coordination. This poses sharply the problem that we highlighted in our first letter to Revo – and which they fail to address; the question of what politics they want the coordination to be based upon. So far the AWL and Revo seem to be getting along very cosily, which clearly must be an issue for a coordination which is supposed to build upon the Gaza solidarity movement. After all it was the AWL who opted to denounce the fantastic outpouring of anger at Israel’s actions as being characterised by “Islamo-fascism”. Somehow some AWL students managed to square this with involvement in the student occupations, but even then they argued that the left is “confused about the meaning of Zionism”. A fudged unity will not help the Palestinians, other oppressed groups, or the working class – it would only set us back.
We will attend the meeting on April 18 and argue for what we think is necessary: the politics of Marxism. On the question of Palestine this cannot mean conceding any ground to Zionism. We must put forward a proletarian internationalist position of opposition to Israeli occupation; for the right of return for all Palestinians; for solidarity with secular working class forces; and for the smashing of the Zionist state. Put another way, this means revolution.
Comrades this is one of the most confused debates I have ever encountered – if anyone from the student left or student movement has been following these posts they are most likely very confused by now.
This has come about because of completely different approached to the united front tactic, but also because CS appears to have a wrong conception of what this event is.
I will not reply directly to your post but I will make the following clarifications.
1) CS appear to view this event at best as somekind of joint initiative between Revo and ENS, at worst some kind of initiative to build a Revolution front organisation. Neither of these are the case. The ‘For a radical coordination…’ statement was not produced alone by Revolution, but by myself working with some friendly students at the KCL occupation. Revolution decided to support the call and therefore hand it out. This was why we did not brand the leaflet with our logo.
2) The released statement will not dictate the politics of the event. In fact it has come to light that many involved in the organisation of the coordination don’t really agree with that statement. On the other hand, alot of people do. There is a debate to be had.
3) CS say the politics of the event are not sufficient. The politics of the event have not been decided upon. Indeed, 90% of the event will be discussing what is necessary for the movement to progress. Rest assured everyone present will be putting forward their ideas at the coordination and the majority of the coordination will no doubt make up their own minds on which way forward is correct.
4)So all in all, April 18 will be a very good opportunity for Revo, CS, other organisations and individuals to put across their views as to what kind of student movement we need to build.
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So if CS wish to argue for an explicitly Marxist student movement then this is your opportunity to put that idea across to hopefully hundreds of students who took part in the Gaza occupations. This is a very good thing I am sure you will agree. If you do agree, then shouldn’t you be supporting the event, getting as many people to come as possible? This is a real opportunity and I am very disappointed CS are not supporting it in this way.
It is for these reasons Revolution contacted CS directly as we thought you would see the importance of this. Thankfully ENS and many SWP members now have which is why they are particapting despite a previously cold response.
John,
I do not understand why you are so confused about a debate on the way Marxists build the student movement and what kind of politics to we intervene in the movement with. Pretty simple stuff comrade. You say this confusion has come about because of a misunderstanding of the united front tactic; yet you have not put forward what you think is the united front tactic. Do you think Stop the War is a united front like Simon does? If so how do you square that with the Bolshevik understanding of the united front?
On your numbered points,
1) Who put the call out is very unclear. Nowhere was it documented when, where and what happened at this meeting. Apart from Revo it appears that no one else was involved in writing up the callout, but as I was not at KCL occupation or at the meeting it is hard to tell. I think it is very clear that Revo are looking to set up an alternative “activist network” as your comrades put it yesterday. How this activist network will be different to ENS and AEIP is yet to be seen. However, the subordination of Marxism and the fudging of differences seems to be Revo’s game just like the SWP and the AWL.
2) The released statement will largely dictate the politics as the decision that was made yesterday ensures political documents and positions will be “broad and inclusive” to make sure they do not split the “fragile coalition”.
3) See above. How can an event discuss different politics with the sanctions that have been placed on it and have limited what you can submit to the conference?
“That throughout the day proposals will be accepted of no more than 100 words which should aim to focus on organisational aspects such as future meetings/campaigns/days of action or broad statements that conference is in agreement about. To give examples – “This coordination will organise for a week of action starting 24th October.” or “This coordination fully supports the occupations in
support of Gaza.” These will then be voted upon in the last session.” [Minutes of organising meeting 09/04/08 – UMSU]
These sanctions stifle debate and limit what individuals and groups can put forward. If you wanted to have 90% of the politics of the event up for grabs then this is not the way to go about it comrade, is it?
4) CS will attend and put forward Communist politics, let’s hope we will see Revo putting forward Communist politics as well.
I hope that instead of trying to divert the debate towards the ins and outs of the organisation of the event you actually take up some of the political questions we have raised.
This debate could be less confusing. The Revo NC could have actually tried to respond to some of the political arguments, and entirely legitimate direct questions, that CS raised when we sent Revo a letter. Instead they ignored them and wrote a response that focused on the issues that they wanted to talk about.
But lets not go overboard here. This isn’t that confusing. CS’s core argument – that we need to build in the student movement on the basis of Marxism – has been clear all along. We have said clearly all along that we will attend the April 18 meeting and argue our politics. We have also said that, despite what we expect to come out of this meeting, if a genuine and significant national student coordination grows out of this process we will involve ourselves in that. John writes hopefully about “hundreds of students” being there on April 18. I doubt it myself, but we will see.
Revo, on the other hand, have been far less than clear. They tell us that we don’t understand the concept of the united front – but then leave it at that. Why not enlighten us all? Where is their confidence in their ability to convince us (or at least other readers of this debate) of their correctness? Ditto regarding our differences on programme and democratic centralism. Instead of constantly asking us if we will attend a meeting that we have already said we will attend they should come out with some politics.
Also, on John’s numbered points:
1) We have never been confused about the fact that there are people beyond the ranks of Revo and ENS involved in this. But how many? As to the exact origins of the statement, if you now want to read the letter that we sent to Revo then you will see that we asked direct questions about who was involved in writing it up, and why we weren’t invited. These were not rhetorical questions. We actually wanted answers. So it is a bit rich for the Revo NC reply to ignore these questions, yet now John ticks us off for being ignorant of the answers.
Fair enough that the statement was not written up by Revo alone, but presumably John was involved in his capacity as a Revo organiser, not acting as some dilettante. Did he not think to strengthen the political content of a statement that failed even to mention capitalism, let alone the need for a revolutionary socialist transformation?
2 & 3) What a mess. If you are going to distinguish between “the politics of the event” and the statement, then you need to do so consistently. To say that “CS say the politics of the event are not sufficient” is flatly false! Some might say an outright lie. The event has not happened yet. As John says, “The politics of the event have not been decided upon”. We said the *statement* is insufficient and we cannot support it – which John says is the case with “many involved in the organisation of the coordination”. Good. Hopefully they want something with more political meat to it.
But it cannot be ignored that the politics of the statement will have some bearing on the event. After all, it is the statement which is being used to build for the event.
4) CS will be there.
Now can we get some *politics* out of Revo?
A useful snippet from Trotsky on the united front and party factions. Revo comrades should take note:
QUESTION – Should the ILP terminate its united front with the CP?
ANSWER – Absolutely and categorically – yes! The ILP must learn to turn its back on the CP and towards the working masses. The permanent “unity committees” in which the ILP has sat with the CP were nonsense in any case. The ILP and the CPGB were propaganda organizations not mass organizations; united fronts between them were meaningless if each of them had the right to advance its own program. These programs must have been different or there would have been no justification for separate parties, and with different programs there is nothing to unite around. United fronts for certain specific actions could have been of some use, of course, but the only important united front for the ILP is with the Labour Party, the trade unions, the cooperatives. At the moment, the ILP is too weak to secure these; it must first conquer the right for a united front by winning the support of the masses. At this stage, united fronts with the CP will only compromise the ILP. Rupture with the CP is the first step towards a mass basis for the ILP and the achievement of a mass basis is the first step towards a proper united front, that is, a united front with the mass organizations.
QUESTION – Should the ILP forbid groups?
ANSWER – It can scarcely do that without forbidding its leadership, which is also a group, a Centrist group, protected by the party machinery, or without denying the very fractional principle by which it must build its influence in the mass organizations.
Factions existed in the Bolshevik party as temporary groupings of opinion during its whole life – except for a brief period in 1921 when they were forbidden by unanimous vote of the leadership as an extreme measure during an acute crisis.
QUESTION – How far can factions develop with safety to the party?
ANSWER – That depends on the social composition of the party, upon the political situation and upon the quality of the leadership. Generally it is best to let petty bourgeois tendencies express themselves fully so that they may expose themselves. If there are no such tendencies, if the membership is fairly homogeneous, there will be only temporary groupings – unless the leadership is incorrect. And this will be shown best in practise. So, when a difference occurs, a discussion should take place, a vote be taken, and a majority line adopted. There must be no discrimination against the minority; any personal animosity will compromise not them but the leadership. Real leadership will be loyal and friendly to the disciplined minority.
It is true, of course, that discussion always provokes feelings which remain for some time. Political life is full of difficulties – personalities clash – they widen their dissensions – they get in each other’s hair. These differences must be overcome by common experience, by education of the rank and file, by the leadership proving it is right. Organizational measures should be resorted to only in extreme cases. Discipline is built by education, not only by statutes. It was the elastic life within it which allowed the Bolshevik party to build its discipline. Even after the conquest of power, Bukharin and other members of the party voted against the government in the Central Executive on important questions, such as the German peace, and in so doing lined themselves with those Social-Revolutionists who soon attempted armed insurrection against the Soviet state. But Bukharin was not expelled. Lenin said, in effect: “We will tolerate a certain lack of discipline. We will demonstrate to them that we are right. Tomorrow they will learn that our policy is correct, and they wil not break discipline so quickly.” By this I do not advise the dissenting comrades to imitate the arrogance of Bukharin. Rather do I recommend that the leadership learns from the patience and tact of Lenin. Though when it was necessary, he could wield the razor as well as the brush.
The authority of the national leadership is the necessary condition of revolutionary discipline. It can be immensely increased when it represents an international agreement of principles, of common action. Therein lies one of the sources of strength of the new International.
From: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/xx/ilp.htm
Hi Dave,
thanks for that Trotsky piece, I do love to re-read the old stuff! Not sure what you are trying to prove though? Trotsky starts off by saying that the ILP must break its united front with the CPGB and turn to the working masses. In other words the united front is not always with simply ‘other left groups’ but directed at the working class, its unions, committees of struggle and so on. He is saying that there must be a rupture between the mass base and the CPGB party, in order to create a stable base of support for the ILP and to make genuine united fronts (i.e. between mass organisations, not propaganda societies) possible. This is exactly the method of the united front! If Trotsky had been arguing your position he would have said – the ILP must stay with the CPGB, and also join permanent joint committees of Marxists in every town, city and ward along with the Labour Party lefts and so on. Of course Trotsky, like all good Bolsheviks, knows that some nebulous organisational unity of ‘Marxists’ (which ones?!) is not the way to go, instead clarity of programmme, with a face to the workers and youth is what will build the revolutionary organisation – fusions and splits will happen down the road, or entryist tactics, or new workers party tactics or whatever – these are the historical methods that Trotskyists have sought to build their organisations.
I suggest comrades read this to understand the relationship between communists and the reformist workers movement, which is the most important arena of struggle, not between the far left as some might think!
http://www.fifthinternational.org/index.php?permanent-revolution-1
Simon,
you might not have noticed but neither I or any of my other comrades in Communist Students or the CPGB goes around playing down the differences between Marxists and saying that we are all the same really. We are absolutely *not* for some “nebulous” unity of all those calling themselves Marxists. Witness our forthright attacks on the opportunism of other groups. Weekly Worker front pages attacking the failings of the SWP, SP, AWL, CPB etc., are hardly calls for a “nebulous” unity. “Clarity of programme”, as you put it, is absolutely central for us – to claim otherwise simply suggests you haven’t been paying attention. (We do of course have serious differences as to the nature of a revolutionary programme which we can also debate, if you like).
My main point in bringing this quote up is to point out the futility of your comrades’ description of the student coordination as a united front. It is very common mistake on the left to describe some small campaign, bloc, or alliance as a “united front”, and this really takes as away from its real meaning and understanding what it in fact is for.
Trotsky lays it out: “a proper united front, that is, a united front with the mass organizations”. He names these as the “Labour Party, the trade unions, the cooperatives”. This is the scale that we are talking about. So how your comrades can claim the student coordination is a united front really bemuses me. Clearly we are still at the stage of attempting to win “the right for a united front”. No doubt you will accept this – but you group will continue with its pretensions that it is implementing the united front tactic. From your response I expect you believe that through the coordination you are beginning to engage a section of the masses – but really it is the left groups, anarcho ‘groups of one’ and some more.
More importantly though, this engagement is done on such a low political level. You openly argued that it should not adopt a revolutionary programme – after all, every who agrees with the revolutionary programme is already (or should be) in Workers Power/Revo. But it has no programme at all. The coordination is a bloc of fudge – even more fudged than even you wanted. It is not a united front, and it is not a coming together “for certain specific actions” (which as Trotsky says can be of use). It has neither an agreed programme of theory, or a programme of action. Or rather it has a mutiplicity of conflicting programmes. As Trotsky says, “with different programs there is nothing to unite around”. So everyone can run around doing what they like. How does this take us forward?
It will come as no surprise to you, I’m sure, that I do not agree with everything that Trotsky says. He was a first rate Marxist who we can learn a great deal from. Comrades should devote serious time and energy to studying his writings – but they should do so critically. As well as making important advances for the cause of Communism, Trotsky also made some serious mistakes.
From this quotation you highlight approvingly his sectarianism towards the old CPGB and seek to generalise this into a justification for your groups rejection of serious engagement with the far-left groups of today.
A quick disclaimer: when I argue that Trotsky was sectarian towards the old CPGB that does not mean that he was generally too critical of it. I may disagree here and there, but the bulk of his criticisms were entirely valid and needed to be articulated sharply and without remorse. But Trotsky was organisationally sectarian towards the CPGB. For all its political flaws it still represented the advanced part of the working class in a way that the ILP could only hope to. Principled revolutionaries should have had an orientation to breaking its best elements from Stalinism. To separate this out from engaging with the working class is wrong.
But Trotsky was not advocating that the Trotskyists plow their own ideologically pristine furrow. He was not against going through the existing left per se. Otherwise, what on earth was he doing engaging with the ILP in this way?