RE: John Percy on the Marxism list: hangout for "anti-Leninists"

["Jose G. Perez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Adam wrote:

>>The thing that is truly bizarre about this is that many members of
this list--including Lou, myself, Jose, and others--have fairly high
opinions of the DSP.<<

I think we should try to look at this article in the way that John and
his friends in Australia undoubtedly did -- as a political intervention.
If you think about it that way, I think the article and especially the
polemic with this list makes sense.

This article was written in the wake of the DSP's turn towards
"liquidating" into the Socialist Alliance. This --although the DSP has
abandoned certain aspects of the Cannon/U.S. SWP variant of
Zinovievism-- is nevertheless a significant about face for a group that
still remains tied to other aspects of that tradition. Moreover, the
much looser and broader organizational form that will undoubtedly result
should the DSP's proposals prosper falls very short of what the DSP
leadership and ranks have in mind as the "ideal" form of organization,
which is something much, much closer to what they have today.

Thus John and the DSP leadership are trying to re-enforce and make
explicit what they view as essential in the traditions that they have
come from, while making clear those parts of the tradition that they've
broken with, on issues like program, internationalism and so on. 

And in a way, in doing this SA move a big danger for the DSP as an
ideological current is that (from the current point of view of the DSP
leadership), a wing of their party will "overshoot," and will take what
the DSP's leading comrades anticipate will be an essentially temporary
over-loosening of organizational structures to be the norm.

In encouraging this, providing some sort of coherent ideological
framework for it, arguments and so on, the "greatest danger" (again,
from the point of view of the DSP) comes from their friends, those
currents *closest* to the DSP. Hence the polemic with "Marxmail" which,
while not an organization, does, I believe, tend to be something in the
direction of an ideological center or current, one which largely
coincides with the broad outlines of the DSP's approach except on the
organization question, at least in appearance, on paper, in written
texts.

On this, it isn't clear to me how wide the differences are between what
the DSP espouses and the views I hold. I am for "democratic centralism"
-- democracy in decision making, unity in action -- and for a "leading
party" -- understanding by "party" here a concept that encompasses a
whole series of different forms, conceivably including something like an
alliance or front of different organizations at certain stages of "the
party's" development. I don't like the term "vanguard," I much prefer
the way it is put in the Manifesto: 

"The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand practically, the most
advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every
country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other
hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat
the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the
conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian
movement."

I like the image and I especially like the approach to strategy and
tactics implicit in the phrase "that section which pushes forward all
others." 

But you'll see that John's article actually outlines an approach very
similar to this; that it isn't mere ritualistic repetition, but
something that forms an integral part of their concept of "party
building" is especially evident from their move to try to transform the
Socialist Alliance into the nucleus of a much bigger party of
revolutionaries in Australia.
Without being there it is hazardous to have very firm opinions on what
should be done down under, but everything I've seen, heard or read tells
me they're doing exactly the right thing. I think that is probably
Louis's opinion also.

On this level of purely literary exchanges, I'm not sure how much more
clarity it is possible to achieve in making clear the REAL differences
between the DSP's approach and that of the current on this list, because
they relate to very immediate, knots and bolts, specific, concrete
questions, which really need to be illuminated by practical activity.

And by its very nature, a "hangout" like this represents only one aspect
of the practical activity we all undertake to develop the revolutionary
movement, the theoretical/literary side of "practical activity" at that.


The weak side in John's polemic against "us" is simply this: it may well
be a false polemic, the outlooks are essentially identical, or even if
not identical, so largely overlapping, at least on this level of
abstraction, that by falling into a false counterposition, John discards
arguments, concepts and lessons which would strengthen the DSP's concept
of the kind of party that should be built. That, of course, goes for us,
too.

I think comrade Gary hit on something very valid when he said, "It was
actually Lou's very, very good post on Lenin and WW1 on the old Marxism
list that brought me out of my anti-Leninism.  Maybe one day he  will
re-post it to this list.  It will show clearly that is absolute
nonsense to describe Lou as 'anti-Leninist'."

This is an element that is missing from John's article because he does
not yet agree with it or see it from the same angle Louis or I do (our
views, as far as I can tell, are extremely close on this although we
came to them by somewhat different roads and this may emphasize
different aspects: that also may be true to a significant degree of the
DSP). 

John says, by rejecting "Zinovievism" you're really rejecting Leninism,
that is what it amounts to in practice. And he goes on to say, this is
MORE than what was in the Manifesto originally about constituting the
class into a party, there is a specifically Leninist concept of the
vanguard party which (shorn of all sorts of mistakes added later, i.e.,
much of what we include in "Zinovievism") needs to be preserved. And he
finds that legacy in aspects of early 20's Comintern resolutions and so
on. 

Actually, in so doing he preserves aspects of "Zinovievism" or
"post-Lenin Leninism" that I think we'd be better off without, given the
general sorts of circumstances we face in the English speaking
imperialist countries, which aren't that dissimilar.

One of these is the norm of the "closed" party. By this I mean the idea
that by default, party meetings are private, party discussions and
decisions are private, which aspects to open to the public is a decision
made by the group on a case by case basis. I think that is wrong, by
*default* party functioning should be public, it is the decision to go
private that should be specifically made and motivated.

The DSP (and lots of other comrades) in Australia are soon (I hope)
going to go through the experience of functioning on the basis of "my"
default norm, when the reconstitution of the SA as a "party" goes
through. Almost certainly on the day after the "fusion" or whatever one
calls it, the reborn SA isn't going to want to erect ANY organizational
or "rules" barriers to drawing in more people from the milieu of
dispersed revolutionary-minded activists that much of it is coming from,
quite the contrary, they'll be trying like crazy to reactivate people
who drifted away over the past decades and the new young rebels who are
just coming into activity, trying to inspire them with the big step
forward the reconstitution of the S.A. as a party implies.

I hope they'll also wind up taking the opportunity to reverse some other
"default" settings typical of groups that consider themselves Leninist,
like functioning in the mass movement as a tight, disciplined fraction.
Yes, when there is a fight over political direction in the mass movement
I think it is entirely legitimate and useful to impose discipline on the
fraction. But otherwise, I think what we should be on our guard against
is the fraction substituting itself for the bodies organizing protests
and campaigns. 

It will not be the end of the world if two comrades from the Socialist
Alliance Party take different positions on the best time for a mass
meeting, or whether it should be a march and rally or an indoor event. I
know we in the SWP and YSA of the 60's and 70's radicalization were
*terrible* about this. We *invariably* came into meetings after a
fraction meeting with a set of pre-worked out proposals *that all
members were expected* --and usually did-- support. The effect was to
leave individual activists with the feeling that they were being
steamrollered by what we ("proudly," as we used to say) called the Big
Red Machine.

When you think about it, and discussions like that in Nicaragua and Cuba
and other places about the proper relationship between the party and the
state, it is the same question, writ small. 

And even when there is a fight around the ideological/political
direction of a protest movement or campaign, we should not automatically
assume the party fraction is the right body to organize "our" side in
that fight. The right group may well be the broader caucus of supporters
of the position we agree with.

Those are a couple of concrete points where, even from afar, I suspect
that were I to be living in Australia (and assuming the DSP comrades
would have me as a member) I would have a minority position on how I
understand the party has been functioning in the past. 

I think behind them is not simply that I come from a certain background
that has made me ultra-sensitive to certain things organizationally, but
rather this question: ¿who does the party belong to, its members or its
class? Ideally the answer is both, because the party has organized into
its ranks close to the complete layer of advanced workers. But since we
are far from there, I think the party should open itself more
systematically to criticism, influence and pressure from the broader
revolutionary socialist or communist movement. The DSP comrades have
made this sort of approach a cornerstone of their international
collaboration, and viewed from this angle, the SA "turn" represents an
extension (or re-invigoration, since the comrades say this has been
their approach all along, it was just a lack of recent opportunities to
put it into practice in a very evident way that did not make it evident
to those observing from afar).

Still, in a more general way, I would reject John's appreciation --if
I've read him right-- that Lenin made a qualitative, distinctive,
different contribution to Marxism on the organization question. I think
what he did on this score is essentially similar to what he did around
the Marxist theory of the State -- brought sharply into focus and gave a
systematic exposition to what had already been implicit and explicit in
various writings by Marx and Engels.

Apart from that, I'd urge people to read the complete article that John
Percy published. It is light years ahead of many other groups on the
revolutionary left in the imperialist countries, and especially those in
the United States, where the issues he raises, for example, about the
program of the party are not widely even seen as issues, never mind
understood.

José