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Extracts from: Mid-Winter Feasts, Spooks and Other Imaginings, Les Skeates, Outside the Gates |
February 16, 2006
(…)
The Leninist construct that had inspired the formation of revolutionary
parties and liberation movements around the world from 1917, collapsed
having failed to achieve it's proclaimed objectives. From 1988 to 1990 I was
'conflicted' (although that piece of jargon was not available then!), not
sure whether this was the demise of the Communist Parties or not. Confusion
reigned. In the end I took all this as not just a crisis in, and of the
Communist Parties but as a crisis of political parties per se. I think that
still stands. Though the notes for my contributions to the CPGB congresses
of 1990 and 1991 have long been lost or stolen, the general gist was;
The political party is a reality which has appeared only recently in the
development of human society. They are the most complex and advanced of
organisations that people have yet developed. They have evolved, in the
course of struggle as a means by which, in a complex society, abstract ideas
of democracy, historic interpretation and shared values, amongst many other
concepts, are brought into common purpose and given concrete expression.
They have a remit which is as vast as the diversity that is the human
condition to one that is as narrow as reaction, and all the shades between.
The struggle between which, is the terrain where to 'become' or not is
thought and fought out.
The Communist Party arrived on the global stage in Russia during, and was
shaped by the 'industrialisation' of death as seen in WW1 between 1914/17.
This Leninist construct was ostensibly 'democratic centralist' where
decisions taken by the membership were binding on both membership and a
leadership who had to carry them out. In reality it was hierarchical, very
much like a military organisation in that the orders came from the top and
went down. Very understandable considering the circumstance in 1917 and the
subsequent invasion of Russia by the armies of the US, GB, Finland and
others, trying to crush the revolution after WW1 was, unsurprisingly brought
to a quick end.
I'm no expert on this period, it's not why I joined the CPGB, but it seems
to me that the Russian revolution was a 'revolution of the moment' during a
specific and historic time in a specific country and which could not be
replicated across the world. It's moment was then - 90 years ago. Again
understandably, revolutionaries from around the world adopted the Leninist
construct - the democratic centralist political party - as the vehicle for
change.
The undemocratic practises that result from this form of organisation are
patronage and the creation of self-perpetuating elites. The 'recommended
list' (a collection of names recommended as the new leadership by the
'retiring' leadership and put to the CP's congress for election), was long
established in the CPGB and demands conformity. It showed a clear lack of
respect for people’s ability to make their own decisions and suggests they
do not have the intellectual ability to make political choices. Choices they
make everyday by just living. Despite the responsibility demanded of them in
their work, their families and their communities they were expected to vote
as they were told.
A political party that relies on patronage and the self-perpetuation of an
elite soon finds that it not only loses it's volunteer membership but that
even worse, the intellectual function of the organisation ossifies. The
understanding of Marx and his relevance to the modern was nearly reduced to
the quoting of text as if literalist believers in a Bible, Qu'ran or Torah.
And the Party claimed to be the home of intellectuals!
It was not just the internal tensions and contradictions that did for the
Communist Parties. Their main enemy, international capital under the
leadership of the US Establishment, took the opportunity represented by the
mistaken intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 to launch a two pronged assault
on the Soviet Union that ultimately helped secure the collapse of the Soviet
state and the Communist Parties. It is now widely known that the US funded
and trained the opium war lords and Al Qa'ida to fight the Soviet occupation
of Afghanistan as a means to drain the blood from the Red Army the same way
the Vietnamese did for the US armed might. But what is not widely understood
or reported is the oil price-war that was conducted at the same time.
During the 1980's OPEC was selling oil, for sustained periods, below the
cost it took the Soviets to get theirs out of the ground. Oil accounted for
50% of the Soviet Union's foreign currency earnings and they were selling at
a massive loss. From 1981 through 1992 George the First was vice-president
to Reagan and then president. His contacts with the Saudi's, by far the most
important member of OPEC in terms of oil reserves and pumping capacity, made
sure this happened.
The unforeseen circumstances of this extremely cheap oil - as low as ten
dollars a barrel - was to be the sudden surge in the growth of China and a
hurrying to meet Peak Oil. Help bring down one enemy while strengthening
another and weakening yourself. Almost as clever as Prescott Bush helping
fund Hitler's rise to power during the 1920s/30s. Now we have arrived at
Peak Oil, Bush the son, the grandson, threatens the world with nuclear
annihilation.
Political parties in America have been in crisis since The Time of the
Toad as Dalton Trumbo named the time of the anti-communist witch hunts
and suppression of mass politics. A monopoly of power has, from then on been
held by a single party with two names - Republican/Democrat - representing
the interests of different factions of the singular, capitalist class.
The graft, the contemptuous flaunting of corruption and the obscene amounts
of money needed to campaign, the purchasing of representation, has
undermined any respect for political parties and the electoral process.
Added to the physical intimidation of stopping people voting, the act of
voting has itself been hijacked with counting machines that are blatantly
rigged, and which are owned by Bush supporters who vocally guaranteed,
pre-election that he would win a second term. The continual psychological
assault on the poor and poor-paid by being blamed for their predicament, the
cutting of benefits and wages in the deliberate worsening of already dire
conditions by Democrat and Republican administration alike has alienated
millions from participation. The disillusion in politics and political
parties this has created is shown by voter turn out for elections. The
figures are abysmal. What political opposition there is, is localised, no
bad thing in itself, but with no national reach their influence on American
foreign policy is somewhat limited to say the least.
The anti-war movement is split and riddled with government agents playing
one off against the other the best they can. And probably acting the agents
provocateur in some of the self proclaimed Leninist/Trotskyist/Maoist
grouplets - that still seek to be the vanguard by sloganising against each
other whilst the proletariat they claim leadership of get on with organising
themselves in either total ignorance of the grouplets ideas and presence or
if known, dismissed as irrelevant in the struggle to put food in their
proletarian children’s mouths.
America is now at the point of this crisis in political parties where
non-violent extra-parliamentary actions are being deemed terrorist and
outlawed. Such things as holding up banners, wearing t-shirts criticising
Bush or even heckling 'nonsense', can have you arrested and questioned under
anti-terrorism laws here in Britain as well as in the US. The British
Establishment is like Greece to Imperial Rome, willingly being led to their
own slavery.
There is not much to say about the crisis in political parties in Britain,
it being so bloody obvious. If people had not seen it before then the first
substantial act of Blair's first government - the cutting of single parent
benefit with hardly a whimper from Labour MPs - showed how far the
well-being of ordinary people was from Labour Party leadership thinking. In
the last election the Labour Party only secured 22% of those eligible to
vote, the turnout being so low. Partly apathy, but also anger at the war and
a conscious turning away from political parties are part of the explanation.
Behind-the-scenes dirty politics and lying to camera are the order of the
day for political parties. This and the recognition by the general public
that national parties have very little influence over the decisions of the
multi-national conglomerates and the oligarchs that are driving Bush and
Blair's rapacious acquisition and/or control of the worlds resources, at
this point of Peak Oil and climate change, has made them redundant in
meeting the needs of the poor.
The anti-war movement in Britain seems to be fairly moribund, reduced to a
yearly demo or the occasional 24hr emergency call for a picket. Very little
media exposure, no stunts and local peace organisations are only functioning
patchily across the country. The recent introduction of new authoritarian
government bills on ID cards and terrorism seem to have had a chilling
effect on the movement despite the opposition against them.
The main cause for the crisis in national political parties has been the
globalisation of capitalism since WWII and which accelerated following the
collapse of the Soviet Union. It has brought untellable miseries to the mass
of humanity but it has also ushered in the glimmer of a New Political
Formation. Marx has written somewhere (and I am not going to search out the
exact quote) that capitalism would come to dominate the world but that this
would also give rise to its nemesis. If this is wrong then Marx should have
said it! This process was slowed with the advent of the Soviet Union. Lenin,
the supreme opportunist, took the opportunity presented by the revolutionary
moment in 1917 in Russia to 'turn the world upside down'. And who is to say
it should not have happened? The experiment may have failed, but its failure
has exposed the limits of 'democratic centralism' as an organisational tool
for the revolutionary left. The Russian revolution has also shown that
turning the world upside down can be done. That a new world is achievable.
It is a truism that there are leaders and led, but how do the led decide who
their leaders are? Certainly not by the patronage of those already leaders
as in democratic centralism's recommended list or with the spending of vast
amounts of money that leaves the field open only to the rich capitalist as
in the American system.
The complexity and diversity that is the everyday reality of our chaotic
human condition, require complex and diverse agencies to represent the
aspirations, desires and interests of the poor and exploited peoples of the
world. A political formation that is loose, lets individuals or groups come
and go as their interests wax or wane but that is influenced by those
interests; allows space for initiative, develops new ways of imagining and
whose range of possibilities will not be defined or confined by
neoliberalism or the failed Leninist construct. It will be a formation that
respects the autonomy of individuals, and the differences within its
constituent parts and yet that can still respond quickly to events. That
marries the intellect to the will to act for the common good. A new history
not it's end.
It is not for me, or others who claim to be of the left to provide a
blueprint detailing the principles that should guide the growth and
development of any new political formation. The constituent parts and the
people involved in them will produce their own organisational principles as
they concretely relate to the conditions in which people find themselves and
which help in forwarding their economic, social, cultural and political
requirements.
A new global political leadership will not be found inside the core of the
Empire, America and Britain, but at its periphery, from those suffering and
struggling against imperial exploitation. This is not to say that in these
two countries it is a waste of time organising against the war. It is
patently obvious that it is needed and the priority for the American and
British people is stopping the war. Our solidarity with those subject to
domination and exploitation by the Empire is by stopping the war –
everything else has to be subsumed into the struggle against the war. It's
the war. Nothing less, nothing more. The war.
Any hope that our species has in coming through Peak Oil and climate change,
let alone building a society based on respect, dignity and reciprocity
between peoples and with our environment, requires the stopping of the war
before its nuclear escalation.
Those who claim that the anti-war movement must be anti-imperialist in
ideology in America and Britain and act in ways that cause splits are
committing a fatal error. They are actively working in aid of the
war-mongers whether they believe it or not. The broadest alliance of forces
and individuals are needed in this struggle irrespective of their
revolutionary purity.
A mendacious position is being put forward that the only way to defeat
Bush/Blair and end the war is violently. Falsehoods propagated, in most part
by 'left' organisations fronting for the US and UK intelligence services.
That old mate of Marx, Engels wrote something in 1844 about the British
working class not being able to militarily defeat their rulers. He was right
160 years ago and he is right today.
There is a way that American and British people can help in stopping the
war. In fact their role is crucial. It is still not to late and Gandhi was
right. Non-violent, mass participatory civil disobedience and direct action
along with the myriad of actions from petitioning to leafleting by
individuals and small groups. The war machine needs to be stopped and big
sacrifices will need to be made if billions be saved. But the going to war
in America or Britain to stop war will not work. There is no such thing as
'the war to end all wars' unless by it we mean the war of our species
extinction.
One of the global organisations whose presence should be universal amongst
the anti-war movements in America and Britain and in the blogosphere but
isn't, is the
BRussells Tribunal.
Their findings and recommendations for actions, as presented by the
World Tribunal on Iraq,
are the only game in town for the anti-war movement in America, Britain and
Europe. The actions are the means by which the non-violent anti-war movement
can coalesce and unite around, so why are they being ignored?!
The leadership of the American and British left need to show some humility
and accept that innovations in political tactics, organisational principles,
intellectual clarity and ethical/moral mores emerging from the struggles in
parts of the poorer world need to be adopted/adapted here at home.
What could become the new political formation is not based upon a nation
state, even if some states are helping to give it shape and space to grow by
hosting events or acting as inspirational example - even they will be
changed by it. The World Social Forum has the potential. Enough of the
groans already!
The WSF is an organic initiative that was originally recognised and used as
an international forum for grass-roots activists and intellectuals opposing
the neo-liberal globalisation agenda in theory and practise. A space where
people could share knowledge and experiences; make friends, links and
alliances; exchange imaginings and project an alternative perspective to
global integration that benefits and celebrates humanity's diversity and
chaotic complexity .
A debate is just starting,
following the latest round of events in Caracas, Bamako and Karachi, on how
far, and if, the WSF should move toward taking on an overtly political
character. Big question. The WSF is already a political movement with a
presence on the world stage in direct opposition to the neo-cons imperial
crusade. But can it become what the new world of our dreams so desperately
needs?
I've slagged off Lenin a bit in this piece so to end I ought to give the old
man a credit for the best imagining metaphor, ever;
"We see the new world through the windows of the old."
© Les Skeates
Extract from:
Mid-Winter Feasts, Spooks and Other Imaginings, Les Skeates, Outside the Gates, former member of the Political Committee of the CP- Great Britain from 1989 till 1992; former Welsh Secretary of the CPGB.
http://outsidethegates.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html