Re: Comments on a John Percy article

[Nick Fredman <nfredman@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Comments on Louis Proyect's critique
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/msg31722.html of John Percy's article
"Looking backward, looking forward: Pointers to building a
revolutionary party"
http://www.dsp.org.au/links/back/issue23/Percy.htm

It's good that Louis Proyect has put down a considered criticism of
this article. The comments that followed Louis' previous brief
quotation of this article, in which various comrades complained that
the DSP was unfairly attacking people for "anti-Leninism", and/or
"arrogantly" imagining it is under attack from the petty bourgeois
swamp dwellers because it sees itself as the one true faith, were all
a bit useless. It's well known that there's significant differences
between the DSP and some others on the Marxist left in Australia and
internationally on the "party question", and it's a material fact the
DSP, like other left groups, is regularly attacked by others on the
left, for sins I would argue more imagined than real. What
revolutionaries should be doing and how they should organise is the
real issue, not whether an article's tone is unpleasant or arrogant.

On the actual debate: Some explanations, such as Louis', of the less
than democratic nature of many revolutionary organizations exaggerate
the importance of formal organizational rules, and norms, at the
expense of political context. That is, rather than seeing the 1921
statutes of the Comintern as the original sin that explains
organisational misdemeanors 80 years later, we should look at the
material bases of sectarianism and bureaucratism. For social
democracy: defending the material interests of the labour
bureaucracy. For Stalinism: defending the Soviet bureaucracy, and
increasingly in Western CPs post WWII, defending a similar
bureaucracy and reformist line as in social democracy. For Trotskyism
and its offspring: isolation from the mass movement compounded in
various currents by major errors. E.g. the US SWP rapidly
degenerating while doggedly sticking to the "turn to industry".

*Any* organisational form has the potential to be subverted by
sectarianism and bureaucratism. The bureaucratic shenanigans within
the social democratic parties and union leaderships have little to do
with rule books (apart from bureaucrats' expertise in exploiting
and/or subverting the rule book). While the organisational forms of
small revolutionary groups should be appropriate to the aims of such
groups, including the aims of avoiding sectarianism and
bureaucratism, the main game for such groups is breaking out of
isolation (or at least aiming to), to "maintain the closest contact
with and to a certain extent merge with the broadest masses" as Lenin
said. In this context I urge comrades to read the other articles in
the current issue of the Links journal, that deal with the Australian
Socialist Alliance and debates between the SSP and the British SWP,
along with the Percy article, to get an idea of current discussions
within the DSP of the "party question".
http://www.dsp.org.au/links/back/issue23/.

Focusing on the bigger political questions, rather than
organizational ones, both yields a better explanation of the problems
of revolutionary groups, and a more coherent strategy of overcoming
them. The alternative can be the kind of left trainspotting, gossip
mongering predilications of the Ozleft site. It's striking that while
people associated with this site belong to different "mass
organizations" as Bob Gould recently pompously declared, rather than
the presumably piddling and irrelevant far left, the site obsesses on
revolutionary groups, particularly the DSP, and seems to have nothing
to say about the organisational goings on in said mass organisations
(presumably the ALP and Greens).

Louis sensibly sticks to the written positions of the DSP (or rather
in this case an article by a leading member), and some tentative
guesses about the internal life of the organisation, rather than
proclaiming himself an expert in the latter subject, as others such
as Gould regularly have no qualms about doing.

I think the fact that his criticisms can only be tentative and a bit
abstract relate to his insistence that revolutionary groups must at
all times have "public" debates and un-circumscribed votes in the
mass movement, apart from questions of specific actions. One could
argue if the DSP or other groups were more "public" then one could
more easily assess claims about democracy/bureaucratism. But this
misses the point. For most observers, it's virtually impossible to
have an accurate, objective assessment of the "regime" of a small
revolutionary group from the outside. There's enough prejudices about
such things, partly fuelled by real bad examples, partly by
anti-Marxist politics, or by opposition to a particular group, to
ensure this. I've heard enough completely inaccurate, even bizarre,
tales about my own organisation to be very wary with hearsay about
any revolutionary group. A few dissenting articles in the group's
public organ and a few non-unanimous votes at movement meetings ain't
gonna change any of that. Far better to debate the public positions
and practice of groups, evidence that can be held up to some public
scrutiny.

I think it's totally justifiable, and functionally useful, for a
small revolutionary group, which due to the history of the left has
come together around a fairly specific program, and which has as it's
main aim propaganda to win people to its program, to present a united
public face, in a general, flexible way, while having every
appropriate means for internal debate and discussion. This *could*
aid a degeneration of the organisation, *if* it was making major
errors, and crucially, if it saw itself as the "the programmatic
nucleus of the revolutionary party", and not as contributing to a
future mass revolutionary party that would inevitably involve broader
Marxist and class struggle forces. Being somewhat more open or
"public" could on the other hand be not a functional device that
helps an organisation correct its mistakes, but simply aid left
gossip-mongers in their trainspotting hobbies, and/or sectarian
opponents keen to cause mischief.

That is, for a small group within a small left, publishing all
debates openly isn't at all "debating in front of the class". A
larger revolutionary organisation, a real class party or something
approaching it, would inevitably have a broader range of views and
much more real interaction with the masses, and different organs,
public debates in and out of the party etc would be far more
relevant, though the nature and forms of such debate would still
depend on the particular situation and which would have to be judged
by the party in question.

It's worth noting here that in the Australian Socialist Alliance,
while scarcely any more a class party than any of its constituent
groups, debates have of necessity been highly public and public
tendencies are enshrined in the organization, and these features are
likely to continue however the organisation develops from the recent
decision to become a broad socialist party. That is, the
organisational forms are developing in an organic and logical way
from the current state of the revolutionary and radical socialist
forces, and from the current possibilities of moving towards a class
party. As I understand it, the DSP has advocated for some time the
idea that unity with other revolutionary currents involves developing
agreement on the general line of march for the struggle in Australia,
not detailed programmatic clarification on every historical,
international and theoretical question.

Finally, on Cannon and Castro. What Louis says maybe conveys more
about his caricature of Cannon, as the archetypal Cominternist
Zinovievist, than it does about Canon's real views and practice:

"there is little doubt that if Fidel Castro had sat down with James
P. Cannon's 'Struggle for a Proletarian Party' and tried to apply its
'lessons' as the Percy brothers did in Australia, we might be seeing
Batista's son running the country".

This may well be true, but is this mindless monolithism and universal
recipe book approach anything to do with Cannonism? Interestingly in
a 1966 letter Cannon dealt with, among other things, both the debate
chronicled in 'Proletarian Party', and with the Cuban revolution. On
the former he says:

"But despite this deep and terrible difference [between the Cannon
and Burnham/Schachtman factions in the US SWP] on such a burning
question as one's attitude toward a revolution in existence [i.e.
Soviet Union], Trotsky did not advocate a split, not even if we
should turn out to be a minority in the Convention struggle. The
split followed only after the minority refused to accept the
Convention decision.

"That is still not the end of the story. Seven years later we
conducted serious negotiations for unity with the Shachtmanites,
despite the fact that they had not changed their position on the
Soviet Union in the meantime. Those who may be playing with the idea
of a 'monolithic' party and a monolithic international will have a
hard time finding any support for it in the teachings and practice of
the Old Man".

And on Cuba:

"The real problem, now as then, is not to recognize the necessity of
new parties and a new intemational - we have known that for a long
time - but rather how to build them and broaden them into a strong
revolutionary force.

"Fortunately, the problem now under discussion is not academic. It
centres, at the moment, on Cuba and the Cuban Revolution and the
leaders of this revolution. In exceptional circumstances, these
people have changed Cuba and changed themselves. They have carried
through a genuine socialist revolution, and armed the working
population, and defended the revolution successfully against an
imperialist-backed invasion. And now they openly proclaim themselves
socialist, and say the 1940 constitution is out of date and that a
new constitution is needed.

"In my opinion, that's pretty good for a start - and I am talking
here about the leaders as well as the masses who support them. If
such people are not considered as rightful participants in a
discussion, and possible collaborators in a new party and a new
international - where will we find better candidates?

"Trotsky, in the middle Thirties, initiated extensive discussion and
collaboration with left-centrists who only talked about the
revolution, and even that not very convincingly. The Cuban
revolutionists have done more than talk, and they are not the only
ones on trial from now on. We are also on trial. What would our talk
about revolution be worth if we couldn't recognize a revolution when
we see it?"

("New revolutionary forces are emerging",
http://www.angelfire.com/pr/red/usswp/new_revolutionary_forces.htm)

I think Cannon realised, and the DSP realises, that there's a lot
more to building revolutionary parties in greatly varying contexts
than quoting chapter and verse from the supposed holy book of
Struggle for a Proletarian Party.

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