Re: For revolutionary factionalism not sectarian lunacy

["Alan Bradley" <abradley1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: Mark Lause
> If memory serves, they didn't even form any organizations on their own at
> all, and explicitly stated, in the MANIFESTO that they advocated nothing
> distinct from the existing working class parties.

Which makes one wonder why Critique of the Gotha Programme was ever
written...

Actually, I'm beginning to wonder about this "Marx and Engels never actually
did anything" line. It seems to have two major problems:

(a) What is it being used to justify?
and
(b) Who gives a damn anyway?

The truth is, what Marx and Engels did a hundred and fifty years ago has
even less to do with our tasks today than what Lenin did a hundred years
ago!

The things we need to do today need some kind of organisation. This
organisation needs to be a democratically functioning activist team. It
can't afford to be a sectarian snakepit, or it will fail. (This has pretty
obvious implications for the duties of serious revolutionaries.)

Any organisations we form (in a certain subset of the imperialist states!)
will be small. We can't help that, although we can try to avoid making it
needlessly smaller, and we can try to assemble something bigger out of the
bits and pieces that are lying around.

We need to do this. The class struggle is still going on out there, and we
need to be at our posts. Otherwise, what use are we?

If anyone is bothered by being separated from the existing working class
parties, well, you can tell me where they are.

Anyway, if Mark, or Louis, or anyone else wants to continue with this
thread, I would suggest that they come up with some concrete suggestions as
to what they think should actually be done. Anything else is evasion.

Alan Bradley
abradley1@xxxxxxxxxxx


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