Letters
Bolshevik tactics
In recent weeks we have had an exchange with James Turley in the Weekly Worker on the subject of Lenin's attitude toward voting for bourgeois parties. In a previous discussion with the CPGB, in which the same issue was raised, we wrote:
"The most interesting political point raised in comrade [Mike] Macnair's contribution is his reference to Lenin's 1920 assertion in 'Leftwing' communism: an infantile disorder that the Bolsheviks had been correct to vote for the bourgeois Cadets in the second round of elections to the tsarist duma. Macnair appears agnostic on the issue, commenting only that 'Lenin may have been wrong' on this point. We think Lenin was indeed mistaken to pose this as a model for the fledgling Comintern, and note that voting for the Cadets stands in contradiction to the policy outlined in his famous April theses, the document that laid the political basis for the victory of the October Revolution" (Weekly Worker May 19 2005).
In his letter of June 4 2009, comrade Turley cited the Bolsheviks' electoral support to the Cadet party as evidence that "there is no class character that automatically precludes Marxists from giving support to a political formation". We replied: "Because they conceived of the tasks of the Russian Revolution as essentially bourgeois-democratic, the pre-1917 Bolsheviks were prepared to discuss the idea of electoral agreements with what they described as the 'revolutionary bourgeoisie'; that is, 'only with parties which are fighting for a republic and which recognise the necessity of an armed uprising' ('Blocs with the Cadets', November 1906). This category did not include the Cadets, as Lenin made clear in his November 1906 'Draft election address'" (June 11).
In his reply, comrade Turley quoted Lenin's comment in 'Leftwing' communism that "the entire history of Bolshevism, both before and after the October Revolution, is full of instances of changes of tack, conciliatory tactics and compromises with other parties, including bourgeois parties!" This is, of course, quite true, and we have often participated in united actions with various bourgeois formations to defend abortion rights, to win equality for gays and lesbians, to stop fascist mobilisations, etc.
But the nub of our difference is the CPGB's insistence that it is perfectly principled for communists to vote for cross-class formations or outright bourgeois parties. Turley charged that we were "spinning a yarn" to suggest that Lenin saw voting for the Cadets as unprincipled:
"On the question of a deal with the Cadets, what Lenin opposed in 1906 was a strategic alliance, as proposed by the Mensheviks. But [the IBT's Barbara] Dorn neglects to mention that the Bolsheviks did strike a tactical deal with the Cadets in the duma elections, which resulted in the Bolsheviks winning all six seats in the workers' curia. And, of course, Lenin referred to this approvingly in Leftwing communism" (June 18).
It is true that the Bolsheviks were prepared to make deals involving support to Cadet candidates during some stages of the convoluted tsarist electoral process. It is also true that Lenin retrospectively endorsed this policy in 'Leftwing' communism, his famous 1920 polemic against those who rejected the idea of any and all 'compromises'.
The Bolsheviks' willingness to "support the bourgeoisie against tsarism (for instance, during second rounds of elections, or during second ballots)" derived from their presumption that tsarism would be overthrown by a bourgeois-democratic revolution. Their policy was also shaped by the necessity to manoeuvre within the framework of a grossly undemocratic, multi-tiered, indirect electoral system where voters were assigned to different 'curia'.
The resolution on election tactics adopted at the Menshevik-dominated RSDLP Tammerfors conference in November 1906 stated: "During the first stage of the elections in the workers' curia, absolutely no partial or local agreements are permitted with groups or parties which do not adhere to the viewpoint of the proletarian class struggle. In all other curiae, if during the course of the election campaign there appears to be a danger that the lists of the rightwing parties will win, local agreements are permitted with revolutionary and democratic opposition parties . The forms of such agreements must correspond to the local conditions and may involve either a territorial distribution of candidacies within a single electoral district or the composition of joint lists of elector candidates" (Resolutions and decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Vol 1). A similar policy was agreed to at the July 1907 conference in Kotka. At the Bolshevik-dominated Prague conference in January 1912, the same policy was endorsed for the elections to the fourth duma:
These narrow, "technical" agreements were further restricted in the big cities where, "because of the clear absence of any Black Hundred threat, agreements are allowable only with democratic groups against liberal": ie, with Socialist Revolutionaries and other Trudoviks against Cadets.
Max Shachtman, the pre-eminent American renegade from Trotskyism who ended up backing counterrevolution, cited Bolshevik support to Cadet candidates to justify his shift toward voting for the 'lesser evil' Democratic Party imperialists (see New International fall 1957). Various other revisionists have used the same argument over the years, and it is abundantly clear that the CPGB leadership considers it a licence to cross the class line.
But such comparisons are entirely illegitimate, because this tactic was conditioned by the anomalous situation the Bolsheviks found themselves in: as the socialist leadership of the most militant sections of the proletariat in a semi-feudal society that they were convinced had to undergo both a bourgeois revolution and a period of capitalist development before a socialist transformation was on the historical agenda.
In Britain, where the bourgeois-democratic revolution had occurred hundreds of years earlier, Lenin recommended that the fledgling communist movement attempt to form a united front with Labour against the capitalist parties. Lenin suggested that if the Labour Party rejected this offer, it would provide the communists with an opportunity to expose it as an agency of the capitalists.
For revolutionaries, offering political support to capitalist formations is a matter of principle, not 'tactics'. The CPGB's attempt to defend a policy of electoral class-collaborationism by hiding behind the "purely technical" arrangements the Bolsheviks were forced to make to get around the obstacles created by the tsarist autocracy is unworthy of any militant with an ounce of revolutionary integrity.
As Lenin stated, "Many sophists . reason exactly in the same way as the British leaders of opportunism . 'If the Bolsheviks are permitted a certain compromise, why should we not be permitted any kind of compromise?' . Every proletarian . sees the difference between a compromise enforced by objective conditions (such as lack of strike funds, no outside support, starvation and exhaustion) - a compromise which in no way minimises the revolutionary devotion and readiness to carry on the struggle on the part of the workers who have agreed to such a compromise - and, on the other hand, a compromise by traitors who try to ascribe to objective causes their self-interest ." ('Leftwing' communism).
'Communists' who are prepared to give electoral support - however 'critical' - to bourgeois parties do not stand on the legacy of Lenin and Trotsky, the leaders of the October Revolution, but rather embrace the policy of Kerensky and the Mensheviks.
Barbara Dorn
International Bolshevik Tendency
Just resolution
Yossi Schwartz claims that, although Israel has existed for more than 60 years, still the Israeli Jews do not have an Israeli national consciousness, but rather a "mystical Zionist dogma claiming that the Israeli Jews are part of a mysterious Jewish world nation" (Letters, June 18). He then announces that as socialists we cannot support the right to self-determination for what he describes as "an imperialist population".
But in what sense can an entire population be described as imperialist? Ethnicity and nation are all about self-ascription - if a given group of people wish to designate themselves as an ethnic group (based on language, culture, religion or claims to a mythical shared history), then it is their democratic right to do so, whether it makes sense to us or not. If they then wish to build a political apparatus based on that ethnicity, and thus become a 'nation', it is also their right to do so - even if we may disagree and argue against such a move.
It was Lenin, after all, who endorsed the Second International's "absolutely direct, unequivocal recognition of the full right of all nations to self-determination; on the other hand, the equally unambiguous appeal to the workers for international unity in their class struggle" (The right of nations to self-determination). Thus, we should support the political rights of all national groups on the condition that we also support international class solidarity between those groups.
The same applies to the situation in Israel-Palestine. The late Maxime Rodinson had a more sophisticated take on the conflict than most contemporary Marxist commentators. Rodinson argued that, yes, the foundation of Israel was a tragedy in the sense that it rested on the self-determination of one nation being granted violently at the expense of another; but, nevertheless, the Israeli-Jewish nation now existed and its right to do so must be defended.
I do not believe that all young people in Israel today are in the thrall of a "mystical Zionist dogma". Israeli national consciousness exists, but contains many strands, some of them secular, democratic, anti-militarist and socialist.
Many are recognising the formation of Israel for what it was - a brutal, colonial enterprise by their national ancestors for which they are being made to pay. They support the right of Palestinians to a nation-state if they so desire, and the same right should be afforded them in return. Only by supporting each other's legitimate national rights will a just resolution be achieved.
David Bates
Middlesbrough
Zeroing in
Comrades Tony Greenstein and Yossi Schwartz reply (Letters, July 2) to my previous letters and articles at tedious length, which serves to obfuscate the main issue.
It is really quite simple: what my Matzpen comrades and I have been advocating consistently for many years is equality of national rights between the Palestinian Arabs and the Hebrews (so-called Israeli Jews). Almost needless to say, this presupposes the overthrow of Zionism.
What these two comrades advocate boils down to national inequality. The snag is that without the credible assurance of national equality, there is zero likelihood of overthrowing Zionism.
Moshé Machover
email
Moralistic
Does Tony Greenstein ever think before pressing fingers to keyboard? The comrade's last letter concludes with the truly illogical assertion that the "starting point" for socialists is that "oppressor nations" - like the Hebrew or Israeli Jewish people - "do not have a right to self-determination".
No, no, no. Seeing how the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, etc already freely exercise their "right to self-determination" - and no doubt are all "oppressor nations" as far as the comrade is concerned - is Tony proposing that they now be denied their right to self-determination? If so, could the comrade please enlighten us as to the process by which the USA or UK, for example, are going to be stripped of their 'nationhood' or 'demoted'?
As Tony singularly fails to understand - and at least in this he has been consistent over the years - communist support for the right to self-determination is fundamentally a demand for the equality of nations and peoples. It is not, as appears to be the case for the comrade, a moralistic bestowal upon those nations or peoples which happen at the time to be in his 'approved' list.
Eddie Ford
email
Peaceful
What kind of communist is Tony Clarke? He would happily import anything from Stalin's Soviet Union, but incorporating democratic demands from American revolutionary experience is beyond the pale (Letters, July 2). All because of British exceptionalism and his very British Stalinist, chauvinistic hatred of everything American.
Actually all European parties in the Second and Third Internationals before the rise of Stalin demanded the right to bear arms, whether they were in a position to implement the demand or not, including even Bernstein. No exceptionalism there.
The truth is, comrade Clarke is hoping for a revolution so peaceful that the working class need play no role whatsoever. I quote: "The peak oil economic crisis, which is unfolding, raises the possibility that, at a certain stage, the bourgeois state may be used as an instrument of reform to introduce socialism."
Socialism is the rule of the working class, which requires the overthrow and destruction of the bourgeois state. Not a series of economic measures that can be implemented by the British bourgeoisie. Surely that would be the continuation of those bourgeois rights that he hypocritically pillories.
Phil Kent
Haringey
Perilous
In his short letter concerning the introduction of gun control laws in this country at the beginning of the last century, my comrade Ted Crawford points out that these laws were enacted in order to disarm the working classes of this country at a time of heightened class struggle (July 2). I doubt very much that this was directly related to the revolution in Russia, however.
Rather, I would suggest that what concerned our lords and masters was the example of the frustrated revolution in Ireland - an event that excited many of the revolutionaries of the day. Indeed, we are aware that the small Socialist Labour Party had collaborated with Irish revolutionaries in a number of ways. This collaboration went so far as to include the smuggling of arms to the national liberation struggle in Ireland, although evidence for this is scarce, due to the secrecy imposed by the very nature of the work undertaken.
Let us not forget that, at the time of these laws, the boss-class was more than willing to threaten a militant workers' struggle with suppression by their armed forces. This is a situation unlikely to be repeated in the near future, I regret to say. Given the bloodthirsty nature of the British ruling class, however, it is forgotten at our peril.
Mike Pearn
email
Class action
Yassamine Mather writes of the recent demonstrations in Iran: "Those of us who can identify the class composition of demonstrators from their clothes and accents have not had the slightest doubt about the predominance of workers and wage-earners" ('Beginning of the end', June 25).
How pathetic to sit and study the composition of the clothes and accents for the sake of this obsession of non-working class intellectuals who decide whether something is good or bad according to whether it is working class or not. Humanity should be the first and foremost consideration, not whether the protesters and the victims are working class!
Potkin Azarmehr
azarmehr.blogspot.com
Falsification
I should like to raise some issues that have occurred to me while reading articles in papers like the Weekly Worker and hearing the declarations of my western comrades concerning the ideology of the international workers' movement of our times.
I have lived in Hungary - one of the countries that had socialism - so I have been able to follow and see with my own eyes the theoretical developments and changes in the Communist Party of my homeland and (partly) of its fraternal countries too.
Why do you unceasingly affirm that what was presented and taught in the countries of this region as Marxism was actually a 'bastardised', false kind of Marxism? Would you kindly prove this very grave and provocative affirmation and provide some concrete examples where this so-called falseness is unambiguously demonstrable?
Stalin is mentioned only as this incorporated devil and 'Stalinism' (a favoured cliché of bourgeois propaganda) is therefore nothing other than something to curse. Don't you realise that, by repeating these clichés of our class enemies, you are actually backing their fight against us and against the international movement of workers?
Petik Janos
Hungary
Ignored
In response to Mike Belbin's article ('Evolution's revolution', July 2), why has the work of Chris Knight and his associates been ignored?
Cliff Slaughter
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