Leninism in the 21st Century - Alex Callinicos

thanks very much so why are we discussing Leninism why is one of the main meetings at Marxism does this year devoted to this this this subject now I wrote an article at the end of January this year called is is Leninism finished and it's provoked a bit of criticism and one of the criticisms was that in writing about Leninism I was evading what was really at at stake in the debates that have been taking place inside the soldiers Workers Party I think this is a mistake there are all sorts of issues that were in the course of course of debating some quite painful but one of the things that happened after our conference in in January it was a flood of attacks on the on the swp one of the most important of which was by the left-wing labor columnist Owen Jones a very influential figure on the left in which he explicitly argued that Leninist organizations such as the swp were finished so I think it was quite reasonable to say well shall we explore that that particular question in any case I think that the that debate Owens's intervention and my response and all the other responses that have taken place since then are part of a much larger debate that is going on internationally about how the left should organize because what what we're seeing it's quite a significant development is a revival of left Reform ISM and it takes a number of different forms the most spectacular form is the rise of syriza of the coalition of the radical left in in Greece in this country it takes two forms two main forms one is the attempt to revive the labor left represented most visibly by Owen Jones but behind him the muscle of the unite Union and this has become clear very spectacular in the clash between Len McCluskey the union union's leader and Ed Miliband over unites and more generally the unions relationship to the to the Labour Party but there's another version that is outside the laborious camp and which seeks to develop an alternative to labour ISM which is represented by the left unity project initiated around a call by Ken Loach now when I say that's a version of left reformism some people may say I say that's unfair and so on and so forth but if you look at the at logee's statement it's very much based it's focused on his recent film the spirit of 1945 which is essentially a celebration of the 1945 Labour government and the agenda of left unity is very much about defending the heritage of the 1945 Labour government so it seems to me it's not a misrepresentation to say this is another version of left reformism outside leg a very significant development but still a version of version of left left reform ism so it seems to me in this in this context the question of Leninism as an alternative to different versions of left Reform ISM is a real one having said that they're learning scholars and historians in this in this room and I I need to be very careful about the the category of Leninism itself because it's a category with a problematic history it was constructed immediately after the death of Lenin by the so called trium fears the Alliance of Zeno VF Stalin and cuming F which sought to take control of the Bolshevik Party after Lenin's death and they developed an orthodoxy around around Lenin involving a cult of him renaming us in Petersburg sorry Petrograd Leningrad all sorts of things like that to construct an orthodoxy that would both legitimize their and very important exclude Trotsky so it's it's a category that one should be to a degree suspicious of and one of the great things about Tony cliffs full-volume studying of Lenin published in the nineteen nineteen seventies is the way in which he distracts Leninism and more specifically dismantles a whole series of Stalinist myths about letting the continuity of his thoughts the coherence of his thoughts his brilliance the way in which he always got things right and so on and so forth however in in challenging the myths about Lenin and Leninism I think it's a mistake which in virtual in his reply to me in sochi 'it's review goes some weight towards to say that once you pick at Leninism mezcla nothing left there's a play by Ipsen called Peer Gynt and there's a famous scene in it in which there's a discussion about a man's soul which is compared to an onion and you unravel an onion what do you find at the end you find nothing the soul has disappeared now that's not true I think in the case of Olaf Leninism understood in a certain a certain way there is a call to Lenin's contribution to Marxism that it's necessary to defendant to continue now that you could in trying to identify that call we can talk about the degree of coherence of Lenin's thought and how it evolves over over time there's a there's a study of his thoughts written by someone whose name I've forgotten for the minute but it I hope it will come come back to me Lenin's Lenin's political thoughts by I can't remember who Neal Harding thank you very much you see this shows how socialism is a collective project the knowledge of the audience makes up for the senility of the speaker and he distinguishes a pre-1914 lennon who understands himself as a sort of consistent and loyal orthodox second international marxist and our lenin after 1914 14 who confronted with the collapse of the second international into chauvinism and reformism and so on is forced to start rethinking what what's the core at the core of revolution Marxism reading Hegel writing the what becomes the book on imperialism or doing the study for the book on imperialism all sorts of things like that that's all and that's all very important and there's much to be said about that there's interesting scholarship about the development of Lenin as a as a political thinker and an actor but I would insist that one thing that gives Lenin's his thought a degree of coherence one of the things that makes its distinctive is his insistence on the question of the party and Georg lukács in what he wrote about Lenin in the early nineteen 1920s puts it very well he says Lenin was the first Marxist thinker to identify the question of organization as a theoretical problem in other words if you read Marx and Engels of course they're activists who are interested in building different kinds of all organization and they do various things in the course of their political careers but there's no systematic attempt to theorize what revolutionary socialist organization should be should it should be like Lenin is the key thinker who poses that question the question of organization and tries to solve it ok so what's at the call of the the problem the call of the problem that Lenin seeks to address all which he sees the question of the party as a as a solution to is that workers struggles don't through some sort of natural logic developing to produce workers struggles don't through a natural logic cause workers consciousness to develop in a coherent revolutionary direction marx and engels thought that essentially such a development would take place if you had big and strong enough movements over time there would be a kind of natural evolution in the direction of a revolution consciousness but in fact that that isn't the case that doesn't happen and we can discuss the reasons for that I don't have time to go in to it in great depth partly it's to do with the role of bourgeois ideology in other words the way in which the ideas of the ruling class tend through all sorts of different institutions to dominate society and to pervade workers consciousness it's to do with the very structure of capitalism the way in which our lives are permeated by market relationships tend to fragment workers consciousness this is what Marx is talking about when he talked discusses commodity fetishism and it's also very importantly to do with the role of reformism which emerges out of work at workers struggles and workers movements but reacts back on those movement movements to hold the back to stop the moving but beyond the limits of purely economic struggles for for reforms and the the gap between workers capacity to develop act absolutely massive movements of struggle that pose the questions of power and the existence of the necessary consciousness and organization to solve the question of power by overthrowing the capitalist state is an absolutely fundamental one look at Egypt today incredible you know just had a meeting about he Egypt in Syria you know this amazing these amazing demonstrations 14 million people on the streets they force Morsi from power just as actually smaller demonstrations force Mubarak from power whenever it was nearly two two and a half years ago who fills the vacuum that is is produced by morsi's what was his fall the military that's an a symptom not simply of the weakness and fragmentation politically of the Egyptian bourgeoisie but also of the the the the fact that this fantastic movement hasn't produced the kind of political consciousness and political leadership political organization that is required to solve its problems and the problem is reinforced by the fact that the dominant forms a party in the workers movement don't address the problem this is obvious in the case of the reformist parties they are part of the problem shall I just say ed miliband to illustrate the point but the popular alternative to social democracy on the left today the so called broad parties of the radical left like syriza or deal incurring Germany the very or the the the left bloc in in Portugal and and so on don't either if we look at the parties of the radical left in Europe confronted with the most serious crisis of capitalism for for more than 50 years most accused in Europe most exposing the bankruptcy of the system actually actually in in Europe you and if you look at how those parties have responded I don't have time to go into it in different ways they fumbled at the question of a political alternative to the to the crisis why why is is that because all these different parties either evade the question of reforming a revolution there's a lot of fashionable chatter that the questioner reformer revolution is you know an old-fashioned question you know we need to transcend it see it's easy enough to transcend things in words the capita state doesn't go away the concentration of capital is power in the state which is at the heart of the question reform or revolution that doesn't go away just because some intellectual you know proves to his or her own satisfaction that reform already no passion question so either these different parties and the people who tried to justify them ideologically function the question of reform already nor they give the wrong answer which is true let's say of the you know the dominant forces inside d-link here in Germany you know they're quite open we are reformists you know we think the problem with the old social democratic party is that it's a bad reformist party we want to be a better reformist party than them and that leads to inadequate response to the crisis and this is reinforced by something else lots of people talk about the movements as a well the movements are initially presented as among other things a solution to the failure of social democracy so you know we've had way though after wave of radicalization starting with Seattle Genoa the initial phase of the anti-capitalist movement the anti-war movement more recently inspired by the Arab revolutions occupy the 15th of may movement in this in those in the Spanish state these extraordinary explosions that came apparently out of nowhere in Turkey turkey in Brazil we have all these movements and people think people say well the movements are an alternative to all this old-fashioned failed reform ISM and trade unions and also them the Marxist left all this has failed the movement can solve solve our problems but in fact movements don'ts don't solve anything they're very very important developments but movements run up against the question question of power take the case of Taksim Square fantastic and gauzy power the the struggle in Istanbul fantastic the occupation of the square but what happened in the end Derwin sent in the rat police and he cleared the square that's not the end of the story but that indicates the problem of the capitalist stains and simply wave after wave of movement doesn't solve that problem because until you get the development and whatever form it'll take of sufficient lead democratically organized and coordinated working-class power that directs itself against that state you can't you can't you can't beat it so movement isn't isn't a new alternative movement isn't an alternative and what's interesting in the present situation is more and more your tendency for people to say the movements can reroute revive reformism so if you read Owen Jones he doesn't just say you know labour is great or labor would be great if it moved left and we need to press to change the party and so on he says that we need a new movement against austerity represented by the People's Assembly crucial to whose function will be to revive labor and make it a real a real fighting party so movement ISM and reform ISM feed into each other and there lots of ways in which we can see that at the present time and that's something I want to come back to towards the towards the very the very end at the core of Leninism is the necessity for revolutionaries in other words people who understand that workers and the oppressed are going to have to smash the capitalist state to change society fundamentally and solve their problems the necessity of revolutionaries to organize to win the majority for the struggle for power so revolution organization isn't an end in itself it's an effort to solve this problem of the fact that struggle doesn't automatically generate the consciousness and organization necessary to solve the the question of question of power now one thing I'll just say additionally is that Lenin's approach is distinctive not simply because he talks about organization but because of the way in which he Jung understands politics as the fusion point of all the contradictions of of capitalist society and I try to express this recently by talking about the primacy of politics all all the different aspects of capitalist society in the struggle against it ultimately coming to focus around the question of politics and of state power I didn't coin the phrase the primacy of politics by the way I think it was some 19th century German historian but I'm amused by the fact that lots of people who including a number who think I'm the devil incarnate have picked up the phrase property is theft and the Primus the primacy of politics the primacy of politics it's all right I pinched it first the primacy of politics requires a an organization that focuses on the question of power and seeks to bring that focus to every particular struggle or movement that that takes place now this is complicated because Marx insisted that socialism is the South emancipation of the of the working class in other words you workers can only change society by liberating themselves no one could do it for them and therefore we in the tradition of Lenin and the Bolsheviks of Trotsky and so on and so forth and above all of Marx himself reject what Trotsky called substitution ISM in other words the party substituting itself for real movements movements and struggles and that means that a revolutionary organization raising the question of power and seeking to connect the difference struggles and bring out their inner logic are directed towards the overthrow of capitalism have to work constantly involved in in every different different struggle that that takes place gram she put it better than any one the great Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci what we have to achieve is a dialectical interaction between the the movement from below of the masses and the organizing will of the center and just I just want to emphasize that frames the organizing will of the center not not something that people are often comfortable with but it's a necessary part of Leninism as a political project now the swp in the past few years a passive sorry past few decades has evolved a particular version of this general approach you know in other words there isn't a single way of being a Leninist if you were a Reb in Egypt in the 1990s in conditions of severe depression plead oppression but certainly repression if you were a revolutionary in South Africa at the heights of the explosions in the townships and the development of the independent trade unions in the mid nineteen 1980s you'd would organize in very different ways from the way in which revolutionaries can organize in a relatively stable bourgeois democracy in an advanced capitalist country like like Britain their different ways within the the broad framework of Leninism of all of achieving Leninist organization nevertheless through a process of trial and error we in the swp have evolved a particular a particular model a revolutionary organization that reflects our attempt to apply this broad Leninist approach to the circumstances that we found ourselves and this is involved in particular our own model of democratic centralism which is a democratic centralism a very broad sense of organizing principles that emphasize both the importance of debate within a socialist socialist organization but also emphasizes the necessity of that debate concluding in majority decisions that are binding on all members of the organisation and implemented collectively but within that within democratic centralism there are two things that we've tended to emphasize first of all the importance of concentrated political debates concentrated both in tying particularly in the period around our annual conference but concentrated also in terms of political focus concentrated political debate that he's designed to clarify our analysis of the situation and identify our key tasks and those debates involved they say it's crucial to those debates that they involve a critical reflection on our practice to identify not just successes everyone always talks up six well actually but normally everyone talks up successes but also identifies the failures in order to try and correct them and not operate more more more more effectively so that's one key element in our version of democratic centralism the second is that a particularly important leadership role here is assigned to the Central Committee of the swp which is elected by the annual conference and directly accountable to the annual conference this is quite different from what happens in many other organizations where you have a quite a broad leadership body that's elected and then some sort of executive is constituted from within that broad body we we have thought and I think we're still right to do that that it's necessary to have a leadership that is that has quite a lot of power concentrated in its hands to make decisions and take initiatives but is directly accountable for those initiatives to the to the elected representatives of the membership at an annual conference we've wanted a a leadership with the strength and authority to take initiatives that can be held to account by the annual conferences now I'll let you into a secret we haven't always perfectly operated this model and this is long led to quite a lot of discussion about how we should have improved that model which just in the last particularly in the last year or so because of the debates that have developed inside the the swp have become have involved a climate in which some people think that the model is absolutely awful and should just be dumped and some people argue a less extreme position that it's should be modified in various ways now there various ways in which those changes are justified you know and they're better and worse reasons that are that the report and it's an important discussion to have because it's it's a mistake to be complacent about our practices ruthless self-criticism was one of Marx's slogans so we have to be prepared to be ruthlessly so self-critical sometimes the arguments are justified by caricature though you know Lenin one of the great things about Lenin which cliff brings out very well is that his thought is tremendously situational you know in other words he focuses on a specific problem and concentrates all his intellectual efforts and his political energy in cracking that that's that problem and his thought is bent towards and what he writes and says he's bent towards resolving that that problem and you can find the most flagrant contradictions between what he says at one point what he says another and so there's I think sometimes quite disingenuous quoting of stuff that Lenin writes when he's in a United organization with the Mensheviks and he's emphasizing the importance of the autonomy of local organization and maximum decentralization and limiting the authority of the leadership and so on and so forth and people quote him saying this kind of thing as if you know that's what Lenin believed forever you know that was his that was his eternal view of revolution organization which is nonsense he was in a common organization with the Mensheviks they were in a stronger position than him and he wanted to maintain the maximum room for manoeuvre that doesn't mean that Lenin was a cynical opportunist there's always the connecting thread of absolutely obsessive preoccupation with achieving socialist revolution organizing the working class and so so on and so forth but he's he's thought in his embassies and what he argues 'full shifts over time it would be as absurd to set in stone the kind of things he writes in this context as it would be say the decision of the 10th Congress of the Bolshevik Party in 1921 to ban factions within that within the Baltic party if we're going to draw on great thinkers we have to study they thought quite seriously anyway let's have this debate about a Leninism and how to improve how we work as revolutionaries and all that sort of thing but I think it's very important to understand what we've achieved and to avoid jeopardizing it because you see it's very easy to be a set and it's very easy to adapt very easy to be a sect you know we have this holy program everyone else in the world are idiots they don't agree with our program to hell with them we know we know it all you know that's that's an easy position it's very easy also to follow the big battalions to go with the trade union leaders to go with the the main currents of reformism to go with the trends of intellectual fashion that's easy to do to do as well it's quite hard to do what what we have managed to achieve not always you know with all sorts of mistakes and so on along the way what have we achieved in the Socialist Workers Party we haven't unfortunately overthrown capitalism or led a revolution or anything like that we have to leave that to the Egyptian comrades at least and in the short term and when they've achieved it we can go and learn at their feet but what we have built is a principles but non-sectarian Revolutionary Party that exists in constant tension tension with the with the reformists in other words with the trade union bureaucracy and with the the main political forces of reform ISM in particular in the Labor Party existing in tension with these forces is different from either what a sect would do or what people who would adapt do if you're a saint all right you refer you denounce the betrayals of the reformist but it doesn't mean anything because there's no interaction between you and the reformist if you're in if you're active in particular unions challenging the leadership trying to push the leadership leftwards trying to encourage rank-and-file organisation you're constantly interacting with the reformist sometimes are lying them sometimes in conflict with them there's a relationship but you can also adapt you know in the name of the movement with capital n and essentially behind very radical language and up through tailing the the reformist bureaucracy and I want to get personal at this point and mentions someone who often spoke at this platform and made really great revolutionary speeches namely John Riis who is one of the main August organizers of the People's Assembly someone who's been a very good defender of the Marxist tradition over the years at the People's Assembly he made an astonishing speech he said people who press for strikes and think that strikes are more important than other other kinds of protests are ridiculous all kinds of protest civil disobedience demonstrations strikes that all each as good as each each other now that's really a profound what what that is is a sign of a profound political and intellectual degeneration because in the Marxist tradition of course strikes are more important than anything else not because we're syndicalists and just think that trade unions are wonderful and that sort of thing but because strikes are where workers express their collective power the problem that we have now is not that we have strikes but that we don't have anything like enough enough strikes but also in that context what was the context of the People's Assembly this was an assembly that was sponsored by crucially by United then Len McCluskey who he's under pressure was very visible at the People's Assembly itself yeah yeah I with luck I'll finished before then who's under a lot of lot of pressure well one can always hope and who's under a lot of pressure to to put his money where his mouth is perhaps that's not the wrong metaphor that's the wrong metaphor at the minute since lens money is under quite a lot of discussion but - stop talking - stop talking about strikes and actually all organized them to get up in that context and say don't be ridiculous strikes are as important as you know civil disobedience is as good as a strike and so on is essentially to cover the land McCluskey now John will justify that on the basis of you know elaborate analysis of the movement and all that all that sort of thing but he's acting as a cover for left-left reform ISM and I think that comrades who who think well you know maybe the swp is a waste of time you know we don't like what the leadership have done they're bastards you know blah blah blah all that kind of stuff they should reflect a bit and what the alternatives are because political space isn't isn't infinite and I think the alternatives to sustaining the swp if you want to be on the left is either some form of sectarian very variant you know join the alphabet soup of the small far left X you know which is presumably some people enjoy being part of that all in the name of the movement to end up adapting to the forces of left left reform ISM those are the alternatives to trying to sustain the kind of project that we have been building over the the the past past few decades so I think that when we discuss Leninism and when we critically re-examine as we should our own practice and our failures and also I hope our achievements we have to understand that the stakes are very high and in that having these debates we shouldn't jeopardize what we've achieved because it actually is something quite quite precious and I mean that I mean that very very strongly I actually want to start by again referring to Owen Jones article I'm gonna be very brief and one thing that I enjoy is did say is that the swp punches above its weight that's one thing said and I just want to focus on why we punch above our weight we poke we punch above our ways because we're not a debating society and we're not a talking shop we have our debate in the pre-conference period and when we've finished everyone gets on with it that's what we do that's what we've done for a long time now the second thing I briefly want to focus on it I don't and it didn't and I'm not criticizing him but Alex didn't Alex didn't touch on this a lot but just the idea of permanent factions that we've been delaying is a movement and why now the fact is we the reason we don't have permanent factions is because they actually end up stifling debate and because after a while the faction becomes more important than the actual argument itself and you have people compromising themselves because they're more concerned about the faction now if you don't agree with that and you think we should have permanent factions then it's probably not a good idea to pursue a course of action that proves us right that's it Thanks I want to start from where Alex finished off which is the lessons for us in the SVP today so I think we have to be honest this is one of the central points of Lenin's politics Lucas expresses the actuality of revolution what and Alex is referred to as the centrality of politics and how an organization puts those politics into practice I think we have to be clear the reason that we face this debate in yesterday at the moment is our failure to put our politics on the question of oppression into practice in the most serious way possible and the crisis were having in the organization had exposed some of the flaws in Arkans of how we practiced our conception of democratic centralism I think we to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but we also have to ask the quite serious questions Lenin was flexible about how he applied his model of politics in different periods and I think we have to be clear that the whole section analogy was failed a clear test on the question of oppression and at a response to crisis since has exposed a broader crisis of leadership and it's fine to talk about the center need for a strong and central leadership but that's that strong and central Egypt has to be earned in practice through the application of politics in real struggles but inside the organization outside in the real world and I think we have to be clear we don't have a cliff we don't have a Hartmann without the Hamas at the moment and what we need to recognize is the first quotes protects our organization it's going to be resolving the question of oppression trying to clear our name and dealing for just a feeling with justice for the crisis that's engulfed us but the second question needs to be looking seriously about the state of our organization a relationship to the outside world the role of revolutionaries today and actually starting to emphasize the democratic and democratic centralism because if we're going to get through this crisis it means starting a series pure debate from this Marxism about how we get through this together it means recognizing it means recognizing that the solution to this crisis isn't diktats it isn't a choice strong drive from the center is to attempt to construct a broader leadership which control together the experiences across the organization have a humility with people the radicals outside our ranks people have left the party over this crisis an attempt to prove in practice that we're capable of drawing together the broadest sections of revolutionaries in an organization that can take us from being a profit an organization of several thousands into being the sort of mass communist party that we need and it there's a real problem with an attempt to well Alex's document represented which should attempt in a defensive way to narrow our concept of democratic centralism to narrow down what it means to be a member member the stvp and actually I think that the current period requires an opening up of our organization it requires an attempt to put into practice the idea that all members are leaders to shift cultural organization intervene one empowers individual members to look and the world around us and I think I make no apologies but standing up and trying to fight for the organization that I think is necessary I think not do that at the con right in this room that hold their doubts about the case that was heard at the last conference about what happened at special conference I wait to ask yourself why is it that hundreds of members of less feminist organizations why is it that several hundred more how their membership holds by a thread and ask yourself what you can do to turn this situation around and start to build the party that we all need to see Alex talked about how Lenin's conception was rooted in an understanding of the uneven consciousness of the working class and how there was no automatic generalization by the bulk of the working-class towards an understanding of the need for the working class to take power and that idea that therefore that minority who do understand that need did need to organize there's a core principle of Leninism but I think Alec was also right to stress that understanding that is only the starting point and that there are always two dangers there's a danger on the one hand of adaptation towards the rest of the movement the rest of the class and there's also a danger of sectarianism only seeing the side of the need to organize and separate off and the difficult art for revolutionaries is organizing a party separate from the rest of the working class but in order to then engage influence and intervene and shape the role in class it's getting that right is the hard thing and it's not easy and it takes a lot of skill and that does involve debate and discussion simply having a party is no guarantee that we have a monopoly of the truth it does mean internally beard anyone who's at this Marxism who thinks the swp is not a place for vibrant lively from really internal debate hasn't been at the same event I paying so knob welcome to the real world we're having debates we're having discussion nobody is saying if you don't agree you've got to go out or anything like that let's continue that process let's clarify our ideas but some things do matter Rob referred to a case which I'm not going to many details there's been a lot of debate in the swp processes our underwear to deal with that we're having a review of our process that's been conducted in a serious and democratic we're and we are acting on or not that's important but come on there is something else that matters about our tradition I'm all 40 bit I'm not for closing down repair never after getting extremely important to continue but there is an important thing which Rob didn't mention which is unity in action so for example me and Rob both happened to be in the parties teachers fraction I'll continue argue with Rob as lots of things I absolutely disagree with Rob on but I want us to be acting together to build the strikes in teacher strikes coming up in the autumn to build the 29th demonstration in Manchester from Wayne in London the EDL March I want us to be acting in unity to implement the agreed position of the party to mobilize against that all the discussion and debate is necessary but it's about been taking decisions and this is where the centralist part of democratic centralism does matter about what we do together in practice to intervene in the real world and we need the democracy but we need that turning the democratic discussion into unified practice otherwise we do become a talking shop we do become something divorced from the rest of the class so yes let's have the debate we are doing that let's continue those debates but let's also understand we are a party which seeks to shape and intervene in the real struggle and that does mean unified decisions to act together in practice and I will appeal to people like Rob let's have a bit more of that while we have in the continuing debate first of all my English is not very very good so if you don't understand me somebody can translate of my comrades I think a very interesting point what Alec says is about how we relate the movement to the trade unionist to the trade union and also the movement to the to the organ political organization in the indignados movement our key point was bring the movement to the trade union and bring the trade union to the movement relating each space to make it big I mean we we understand the Union and organization as the big important points in our political activity but also we understand that dec structures can be changed inside to make it more friendly for new people for new workers for workers that are more young that are not that works in places where the union tradition is not very hard and to to bring them in a new in a new in a new place where they can be politicized and when they where they can bring their ideas this has a good impact in our organization and as well in our in our trade union I think the the our our activity in the indignados movement was put put the centrality on the on workers what their fights what are they doing in their places and we bring lots of people of the movement to their strikes of workers and this this activity is not very sometimes we have some problems because that they're really beginning the trade unionist like me and other comrades were not very welcome because they identify us like bureaucracy but when we fight together hand by hand they understand the power of trade unionism and also the power of of being in in Oregon in a political organization and for me in that moment where the movement was very very very heightened there's lots of people in lucha for me it was them the north you know because you can you can you know where are you who is your people the good theory to to to win workers to the revolution and and central thing on on this was the newspaper and also the the people in the insight and lucha that's working on theory and let see few things I want to come in on the relevance of them this organization in 21st century what a few things one is that if you look around Europe well were pretty all aware like okay the rise of fascism is one reason why we need to push revenue sources organization forward because in the coming years like shoulders comrades from France Greece and Hungary and Holland and other places that note are pretty much aware of the rise of fascism we have to deal with that as a we have to deal with fascism very soon because unfortunately as we all know it fascism is not dead we and even that they're becoming very confident in this country like last year I I heard in the repeal that they attacked a trade union hall I think was a unison so even in this country they might that are relatively small still but but they're definitely getting more if you know slightly more articulately with you keep also another thing that I think we need to deal with like besides given workers confidence to to get out and strike and persuade them to join a London slogans in 24 century we also had to persuade I think this to 14 or 15 million unemployed that are you know out of work we have to target that like the unemployment queues they had to be targeted it's not just the walkers as well it's the unemployed as well it's just a number of things I think we need to like flesh how free tonight what I think broadly speaking okay just just like like I said this fast we have to deal with but we also have to deal with the other or with the other people who aren't working because they care they're relevant in all of this as well so I'll leave it at that thank you very much comrades I'd like to raise two issues really that have been other are I think genuine questions that have been playing on my mind about what it really is to be a Leninist today Alex talked about talk rightly about the components that the various components of a revolutionary party the fact that to be a Leninist today is to organize those people who are committed revolutionaries into a single organization but also that that is about fundamentally organizing so as to have a relationship with the working class and especially its most advanced most militant sections we need of course to be an organization to organize revolutionaries because fundamentally if we have all reached the conclusion that capitalism cannot be overthrown capitalism cannot be reformed it must be overthrown and then is our interest to organize together on that basis and there is plenty and history is littered with examples of moments where cut where people have where the absence of people can be committed to that realization has made a huge difference the second is that actually we have to be able to relate to the most militant sections of the working class when Lenin rights in left-wing communism about the necessary features of a Revolutionary Party he writes about the the necessity of a relationship with the class-conscious Vanguard that class-conscious Vanguard is the people at the most advanced edge of struggle the people who are learning learning new ideas through struggle changing themselves through struggle and in struggle Carll developing the kinds of ideas that could actually build a build an alternative society and it's essential that the Revolutionary Party has an adequate relationship to those to those people now I want to raise what I think are two genuine questions about given that that formulation the first is I think it would it is an absolute tragedy and a serious mistake to confuse those two things to assume that merely in virtue of being revolutionaries though that is an important decision that we have all made we are therefore the most class-conscious the most advanced actually we need humility we need to be capable of relating to the people who are out there struggling out there at the cutting edge of the fight against capitalism the second is that in a period of historically low class struggle we need to be honest in our assessment about where that revolutionary Vanguard might emerge and where it is an acknowledge that right now we don't know where that is and that means that we need to be alive to new engagements new developments alive to to all sections of the working class to see where it might emerge and that's where I bring that finally those those two concerns to a concern I have about the Socialist Workers Party as we currently have it you see I believe the Socialist Workers Party over the past year has failed to integrate a generation of young radicals which we have seen seen in 400 people leaving the organization over the past few months we have failed a very serious test to integrate a generation of young radical activists committed to overthrowing the system but who felt they could not believe it be in this organization we need to reflect very seriously about how that happened you see Dunn raised a number of questions the first question he raises is the question isn't it about the Vanguard and the role of the party and how does the party relate to the class and I think actually that Alex maybe is quite clear we talk about organizing as a Leninist party not because the party is an end in itself but because the party is a tool to intervene in the class struggle to try to move the struggles along along the path of revolution and you see there's a reason for this isn't there we talked about the struggles and we hear them all at Marxism the struggles that are happening in Egypt in Turkey in many other parts of the world where there are complicated and serious questions emerging that whether or not revolutionaries are part of those debates there will be debates there would be organization there will be people attempting to lead the struggle in different ways and the role of a Leninist party is to group together those people who have a vision of where those things could go not just a vision of the end game but something specific to say about every struggle about how we take every struggle for words to relate to the twists and turns of every single struggle in every debate and therefore it to eat it means that you have to think about what sort of party that is but you need to do that you need a combat organization and people are quite right to say we need maximum debate in an organization and we need people not just in the party to debate we need to debate with people outside the party we need to engage with people outside the party but comrades we are not a debating shop one of the innovations one of the great innovations of Karl Marx was he broke with the ideas of idealism to actually talk about materialism and the reason that ideas are so important to us is that we analyze the world in order to change the world and I think therefore we need the most flexible debate that we can have among ourselves but we need unity in action to test when whether any of those ideas are right and we do that by a mixture of learning of listening of being engaged in struggles and of ending able to make sharp shifts and turns when we need to you think about what we've done over the past few months you think about the response that we've had to wool each for example a very sad sudden sharp upturn in racism in Britain and we had to think very strongly how do we respond to that and quite rightly we turned the party outwards to relate to a question that emerged and a challenge that was thrown forward to us or you think about something like the bedroom tax if you want to talk about how do we engage and listen and learn from different sections of the working class actually sections of the working classes those groups send themselves up in Leeds we learned from those and then the role of leadership is to generalize from the best experiences of the class and try to spread it elsewhere and that is the role of leadership both inside the party and the role of the party with inside the wider class it's a dialogue it's a debate but it has to come back to having an organization that can intervene that's confident that's a combat organization that both learns but also isn't afraid to lead I don't say few words about the relationship between the movements and organization based on what's happened in Taksim Square in Istanbul there was very good research done about what sorts of people slept in the park for two weeks three or four thousand people the average age was mid-twenties 56% were people in work but most relevant 46% were people who'd never been to any kind of political events any kind of protest ever in their lives so new generation out in the square most of this new generation don't like the idea of central organization because you know we're all living in post 1989 so for example we recruited 30 people on the square I thought that was very good I really didn't think we were going to recruit that many because as I say most people there didn't like the idea of the of organization that was almost always the first discussion we had with people who came to our stalls now there is a problem with that the problem is this when the Prime Minister said ok I'll meet people from the park a delegation of 17 people went to see the Prime Minister they were 90 percent men this was not the case in the park all of them were over the age of 40 or 50 this was not the case in the park all of them were either leading members of chambers architects chambers engineers chambers city planners chambers these are leftist organizations in Turkey or leading members of trade unions none of the members of these things were sleeping in the park for two weeks so when time came to represent the movement in the park and put its demands for words because there was no organization in the park because people didn't like organisation leadership went to someone else secondly afterwards only last week the those sections of the Turkish Left which are hugely nationalist jingoistic and wave the turkey Flagg who were a very small minority in the park organized a big music festival somewhere else in Istanbul and to the rest of the country it looked like these were the people in the park because the people in the park were not organized enough to organize their alternative music festival or whatever now this is a problem I think which we face very seriously my impression is um a bit too young I missed it well in 68 if we've had 4,000 people sleeping in the park we do recruit a 300 or 3000 every organization in this country in 68 group even very spawns today that's not automatic it's the first argument we need to have with people in the movement because unless organization emerges from it it disappears right copies Rani Margolies contribution from tax haven Turkey reinforces the first point that I wanted to make which is that an Alex made it right at the beginning which is that the debate we're having here is one part of a wider international debate it's occurring in Ireland where I am now but it's occurring across the world it's a there is as Ronnie said a hostility to Leninism or organization or even to parties as a whole all across the new movements that our government for very understandable reasons but that's and there's a also a left reformist current internationally now what I want to say here is that when there are strong currents blowing across the society and in the movements they are always reflected inside the party right it is because we are part of the class and part of the movement is imagined you know it's not the case that we're immune from these things and therefore it follows from this that he's quite wrong in my opinion to imagine that the current debate is all about hower disputes committee was handled whether it was handled well or not or about the political or personal failings of the Central Committee these may exist of course etc so that's not what this is about it is about a wider argument being reflected with it with it we're within the party that's the the first thing that I would say and if the way to deal with this was just to open up to new thinking then of course what we should do is jettison Leninism but I'll worry in a lot of the contributions I've heard a lot of contributions I have heard over this weekend say we need new thinking well everybody's in favor of that we need to be open and open to new ideas well that's obviously a good thing to be we need a renewal well that's obviously good without saying what new ideas Chomsky when he was involved in a fairly desperate faction fight once said that you imagine you're a surgeon performing an operation and the surgeon starts to say the implements I've got are not good enough they're really faults with them I want to debate and discuss how good the implements are he said what would you think of this person because they didn't have any better ones he said oh well I'm going to discard what would the patients say I'm going to discard this scalpel because I want a much more beautiful scalpel only there isn't a more beautiful scalpel it's a point to think about in this situation I want to go back just the question also of okay I will I will just I wait one last sentence on this it goes back to question of Lenin and Luxembourg and so on and that is this right it's not just about what you say it's about what you do it's not just about whether you're for a party in principle or for democratic centralism when you're standing on the platform it's do you actually build it that is also a question that we have to think of now you have it the second thing what was Jones talking aboot it was a split in the party those who want you talk and do nothing and noise we don't want you talk and do everything that is rubbish right that is an absolute if that's so if that's so it's been polarized if that's been in John's head then that's a scandal and it's clamped glad I'm hearing it from this platform because anybody who argues a bit hot you see i'm north for permanent factions right but I'll tell you what I've been arguing for four years for an idea or a different kinda way the leadership that's required in this party if we are going to build a kind of develop an intellectual worker intellectual as well as intellect so leadership and Esme we are a bloody debate in society I'll tell you where we debate we debate every week and our branch with any take there's no Elena from and from the Central Committee Felix calendar costs and mob lunch every week that tells me what do you think if something happens in Edinburgh then people and ma branch on different sites response here tell me an Edinburgh where anybody in your position has failed to respond to anything that's been gone on you will not find that so therefore we'll wait that the way right the argument that's been proof and conducted it's a bit what can a Leninist party see Julie I know that Alex isn't our direct you know he looks up to this guy I look to dune and he you know he Kenz exactly what do any clef is let's think that right I'll tell you there's another comrade who I have an argument right Julie water said this is what Julie said and on me and when we were in the is tendency and their fate and an argument aboot Seattle or other and people were arguing at us and people were then caught and Lenin he is dear and everywhere for your different Saints and she said that in the only way that she can see her she said listen Lenin's indeed we have the land on us right the argument is that the party of near rank-and-file of people who want to argue so we want to make sure that what we are talking about as a party where the most class conscious workers what current elections and intellectuals engage and focus on the each side won't while having a thorough argument see John that has new ideas and they won't come forward but it's no bloody easy suggest it sorry sorry I'm yeah dance Wayne asked about what it meant in terms of having a relay were we the class-conscious workers in the Revolutionary Party and of course at different levels of class struggle how our tactics are carried out will be different and I think that in terms of our situation here in Britain we have done I think this is the perspective for that the Socialist Workers Party we have to build and group around us the people who don't want to just wait for the election whether those are the people in the labour party of the trade union leaders and whether it's the left-wing version of that in the People's Assembly we want to group together that those people who want to fight in the here-and-now if we're in Egypt we have a different way of doing that we have tens of millions of people out on the street of people who aren't waiting for the next election and they they bring down and overthrow their government and they have different problems and I think in terms of the swp we've obviously been through a very troubled period and if we don't say collectively that we have to learn some lessons from that then we would be very stupid but I think I think I've learnt in practice something that we've argued for a long time we've argued against permanent factions and people say but surely you want permanent democracy how can you not want that but actually and of course we want debate and discussion every week but the problem with permanent factions is it means that we are saying one side is all right and the other side is all wrong and that doesn't mean that we learn any lessons it doesn't mean that we learn from the debate and these are difficult tactical questions that we have to make every day and so we have to have proper Seri discussion where we do debate out with each other we do listen to each other and that we learn even when we disagree we learn from what other people are saying and if we don't do that we will not be able to lead the struggles that we want to be able to and that's what I think we have to do now very basically I mean I let's spell a basic revolution isn't a parlor game right affects people's lives it makes a difference to people's lives sometimes when you put yourself out there you end up in a situation like some of us not just myself but others where you end up being victimized and being victimized means that you're attacked as an individual because you carry out you carry out the decisions of the organization you're in you see cliff used to talk about how we were revolutionaries 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th and then we were trade unionists and the reason for that is simple because what Lenin talks about is how a revolutionary organization was bought with the class but in advance of the class on certain elements I'll give you an example we had a construction strike of electricians I went along to a meeting in Hartlepool as a member to sauciest Workers Party not to accommodates as people would do to the ideas in there but to try to win people to revolutionary ideas and when an electrician got up and made a racist comments a vile racist comment I had two choices I could have taken the position of the sect and said these are bunch of racists and walking out I could have taken the position of those people who said I'll keep quiet I'll say nothing I love comedies but I didn't because I'm a revolutionary because I'm Melana nice because I know that it's absolutely important to win all the workers in there but at least some of them by standing up for principles even if it means getting up and disagreeing and arguing with people who disagree with you with inside that me in but because I did that and I challenged the racism it meant that after I'd had to leave the meeting and the guy made another racist comments what happened is some the other younger electricians in there jumped in and said you've been told once we don't want that in our meetings that was about standing on a position of clique clarity but not accommodating you see I've listened to some of this debates about people saying well you know the part should be more open and so on the see see if anybody thinks the Central Committee and a sources Workers Party as it presently constituted it's going to be the general staff of the British revolution then the living in cloud cuckoo-land but if anybody thinks that we're going to get to a British revolution if we simply decide to ignore the democratic decisions and the biggest revolutionary organization in Britain then they're also living in cloud cuckoo-land rose upon secretary of a union we took a clear position even if we would and for as we want speed for strike action by one every single steward in that meeting was expected to carry out that decision and they did and if I expect that from people in a union branch how much more is expected of people who regard themselves as revolutionaries all right comrades um I actually found myself agreeing with about 95% of what Alex Kalina just said I think there's two reasons for that one reason is that actually it had been in the same organization as him for the last 40 years and we both made our contributions such as they wear towards building this organization and I'm very happy with a great deal of what we have done over that period the other reason I think is that Alex actually kept things on such a level of generalization and abstraction that it was quite hard to put your fingers on exactly what to disagree with and he's one to pick up on something Alex wrote in the socialist review last month in reply to me and he said we want a leadership that has confidence and authority now I don't think a single person in this room is going to disagree with that nobody's going to say we want an unconfident leadership that can't exert any year any pull on the membership we see and just like to ask one or two questions what is a confident leadership I would say two things among others indicate to me a confident leadership one is a leadership that wants to have an argument that wants to listen to the other side that wants to have the argument in full not a leadership that says we have 25 minutes you have six and secondly a confident leadership is a leadership that can change its mind a confident leadership isn't scared to say all right we got that one wrong authority in a leadership you know you look at Lenin Lenin Lenin could go to the Bolsheviks and for example completely change the line of the organization with the April theses because people knew what lending a done now I'm not sure that our leadership can always make that same claim now you know we're not going to resolve these issues tonight but there have been very serious problems Aleks himself uses the word bruising for the last few months we've had a lot of losses we've had serious setbacks in the last six months now you know I'm quite prepared to wait for the pre-conference discussion although in reality as somebody mentioned the other day the pre-conference discussion whether you like it or not has started now but you know I believe Alex started off by saying the CCR accountable I want to wait and see by the next conference what proposals the CCR bringing to actually renew and restructure the leadership of the party so that we don't make the same damaging mistakes we've made over the last year I want to go back really to Alex's point about the pressures from left reformism and movement ISM because I think what that does in terms of the pressures on us is in terms of the kind of frustration people feel about the degree in the pace to which the class struggle develops the problem is that that becomes internalized and what then becomes the problem is not how we relate to the outside world it becomes the perfection of the swp and I'm sorry comrades that's not the starting point we can talk about issues and so on so but they have to be real issues in the sense that what we're debating is how we intervene are around a whole special a whole number of things I want to see a debate in the party about whether we get the bedroom tax right a protest right whether we get the question of fighting the fascism nuke it right these are the issues that are absolutely central and these are the ones that are gonna count in terms of the effectiveness of the party the question therefore is not as I think a number of Robo UNAM would speak very internalized comments about the nature of the party the whole question really of what Lenin got up to and the way he which he developed the party was never a question of abstract questions of organisation they were always absolutely intimately related to the tasks that were set in terms of how do you develop an organization capable of intervention intervention within the militant minority but a broader mind a broader layer of people because you wanted to win not just the militants in terms of their militant sees but the militants in terms of their ability to understand and advance the and revolution that I think is what faces us and therefore what I want to see us concentrating your honors how are we going to have those debates about what we're doing how are we going to strengthen the party and it's no we're talking about loss of members unless we're prepared to do something about those very issues that count in terms of whether we are more effective next year than we are now I'm very pleased that Marxism has not been the kind of disaster that some were predicting some people could he wanted it to be a disaster it is not we're having very real debates about very real issues and that's exactly where we should start from not from the internalized shortcut of the perfection of the party okay I I agree with you and Burt Schultz about one thing which is I'm not led in it's true we've been through a very profound and painful crisis over the handling of serious serious complaints and as far as I'm concerned I'm part of a determined effort to address those complaints and to learn the lessons from this whole process and of course of course learning the lessons means looking at and recognizing the mistakes that have been that that that that that have been made that's that's part of any honest process in a in a in a revolutionary party but I think it's the purest opportunism when Rob Owen turns that that crisis and it's very specific driving falls into a general condemnation of the poetry you see is the picture one of general paint failure over the past few months actually I don't think so I think what we've actually seen is a is rather a successful process of reorientation of the party moving on from the fact that the strike movement that took place in 2011 has been stalled by the Trade Union bureaucracy and redirecting ourselves to relate to and actually to build them the new movements that are developing around austerity so when it comes to the bedroom tax the swp has been centrally involved in the development of that movement remember at this platform the woman from Glasgow who started Marxism off talking about her experiences of the struggle against the best bedroom tax remember the People's Assembly the People's Assembly that was supposed to be something that it would be very difficult for the swp to to relate to that we would find ourselves in great difficulty in in fact her comrades went into the People's Assembly and found themselves arguing very effectively with fellow activists who wanted to hear what they had to say think think of the wave of reaction which hasn't stopped after the Woollett killing and the way in which unite against fascism which shamefully has become a matter of a factional football within the party in recent in recent months the way in which unite against fascism stepped forward to hold some hall called the fascists I think Rob began to articulate what it is real project when he talked about opening up to the rest of the far-left which is a project of what's called revolutionary recruitment in other words the existing far-left organizations getting together to diffuse into a larger one we have avoided those projects because in general those involved are more interested in talking to each other than relating to real movements outside in the class that doesn't that doesn't mean that were not interested in real projects I hope I would be delighted if left unity led to the development of a new left reformist party in Britain that would break the existing constellation and political forces in Britain and we we would very much welcome that and wanted want to be power part of it but let's distinguish the micro politics of the sect from real real movements dan says we should look for the the the new vanguards that are going to emerge that's fine of course I agree with that but there's a nonsense argument that comes which involves really dissing the existing plan guards and this is the critique of public sector workers the argument that the problem with the swp is that there are too many teachers in it now this is where does this come from it comes from people like jiseok who have argued that the anti austerity movement is a movement of the salaried bourgeoisie trying to defend their privileges when you analyze that that argument comes down to saying public sector workers are still relatively well-organized and therefore have to be been able to develop defend themselves more effectively than other group groups of workers that's a strength in the situation most of our time in the swp we have been marginal in terms of our influence in the most combative true groups of workers that was true in the 1970s the Communist Party was much more influential among the Dockers and the car workers and so on and so forth it was true even during the miners strike in the mid nineteen nineteen 80s now we have hundreds thousands of swp activists well rooted in unions like the teachers and the civil servants that have been the focus of the fight against austerity and this is somehow a bad thing and makes us a conservative force this is no sir this is complete complete nonsense that doesn't mean that we don't have to be open to new forces new developments what the comrades in an Lucia did around the 15th of May movement is very interesting and we should try and learn from that that we shouldn't be prepared to experiment and and so on but don't deny and seek to undermine our existing strengths in the name of something that doesn't exist as an alternative at the at the present time the loss of all those students he's a massive collective failure I accept my share of the responsibility of that but for me the crucial failure came in the way in which we didn't properly integrate the students we one out of the movements of the movements of 20 2010 what happened was that I think that a lot of the students who joined went argued with sufficiently when sufficiently integrated into into our ideas were flattered were told that they were wonderful were encouraged to accept versions and sorry I've heard these arguments so please don't try to pretend that they weren't made that students were the new vanguard who would catalyze movements by workers that the workers would follow the students now I'm old and I was part of a generation of revolutionary students who helped to shape capitalism from one end to the other in the 1960s and 1970s what did that mean that when I joined the International Socialists I was lionized and told I was wonderful no I was told I was the lowest form of creation I was I was systematically argued with I would the first leaflet I wrote I remember it being torn to pieces because not literally but I was torn to pieces because of all the long words are used although in please please it's embarrassing for intellectuals to attack abstraction you should be ashamed of yourself and I I was forced to learn as part of a collective of revolutionaries many of which were workers we failed to do that with the students we won after 2010 that's a lesson that we need to learn now the final point I want to make is to willingly because of course Willie's like right sorry not with Lili sorry this is a like I said I'm own old there many kinks in my brain Willie black and of course Woody's right that an effective revolutionary organization depends upon the creative intervention of its of its members clip one of Cliff's quotes was that there's no rank-and-file in a revolutionary party I can't remember who he claimed had actually said it I think person you know whether it was Lenin or Trotsky personally I think he invented it himself but of course it's right we're building a party of leaders where everyone leads outside in the movements in the class in their neighborhoods in the workplace and so on and so forth of course that's true and without those though those leaders in the in the class we would be a much weaker and more ineffective organization we would be like one of the sets that Rob wants us to increasingly appraoch approximate and to be a party of leaders you have to have constant argument and debates but there is a question I want to ask Willie which is what happened when what happens when you lose the vote Willie says he's against permanent tractions but he's been arguing for four years for restructuring of the leadership whatever fair enough fair dues you know it's perfectly legitimate argument I have about restructuring our internal democracy and so on and so forth you're absolutely entitled every year to raise that question during the pre-conference period if you like Willie what you're not entitled to do who I believe is to insist on pursuing that argument all the time if you fail to win convince the rest of us and I and I want to make a real appeal to the comrades in the in the faction we all know it's a faction it operates as a person no no I want to make I want to appeal to the comrades in the faction honestly oh yes yes yeah yeah I think it's a bit inconsistent to say that you wanted Marxism to be a real arena of debate and then to try and shout people down so I want to appeal this is fight sincere comrade so please listen I'm super I agree with the comments who said a revolutionary leadership should be prepared to listen to comrades and to learn not just for people inside the party but for outside the party I think that goes for all of us so I want to ask ask the comrades oppose this this challenge to the comrades say you fail say you don't carry the majority so you don't win the organization to the specific proposals that you that you're putting for j'l absolutely entitled to support proposals and to want to time the leadership so you fail so you don't overturn the leadership what are you going to do are you going to carry on insisting to organise week in week out month in month out the way that you have for much of the last year because if you do that is the logic of distraction I I mean I don't mean I mean I mean that is the logic of destruction for all of us for us as an organization and I think that would be a disaster so I think the stakes are very high because I think you will fail I don't think that you will be able to carry the organization you could kick me out but you wouldn't persuade the bulk of the comrades in the party that that you were right so I think you will fail so what are you going to do when you fail I appeal to you all to carry on working as good revolutionaries as part of the United revelant revolutionary organization because the truth is we haven't smashed capitalism but we have achieved wonders in the past few decades Willie quoted Julie Watterson very good friend of my mind mine not really at her best really I don't think that was Julie's greatest greatest moment to recognize that Lenin was dead but Julie Julie led us against the Nazis and Julie led us against Julie led us against the armored drought policing proud she represents she was just one particularly wonderful example of what we can achieve as an organization in a in herself she represented the kind of collective achievement that we can make now I think there are lots of Julie water 'sons in our future and lots of the kind of Trance that we've been able to achieve please comrades don't jeopardize that

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Length: 86min 35sec (5195 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 30 2013