This blog is for anyone interested in discussing the political content of a revolutionary programme for the new “ULA” party.
An initial statement by the author of this blog which does not pretend to be a fully finished programme – its aim is to stimulate discussion and debate about the key areas a revolutionary socialist programme needs to cover.
Comments welcome.
A disappointing turn-out of only 12 though that is probably explained by the late notice of the meeting (only 2 days prior) – hopefully just a one-off glitch on the part of the secretary.
On the plus side there were two new youngish women, who had been at the public meeting on abortion rights. Both very keen to be invloved in both the Vote No campaign and abortion rights activity. I flagged the idea of us calling a meeting of all the pro-choice activists in Cork to discuss further activity. Cork Womens Right to Choose is going through a bit of a slow patch in terms of active members so there is a real opporunity for the ULA to play a useful role in taking a lead in putting pro-choice activity back on the map in Cork.
The main focus of the meeting was discussing the austerity treaty and planning our part in the campaign against it.
We will be holding a public debate in the 3rd week of May – details to be decided when speakers are confirmed.
We have 5,000 leaflets ULA leaflets against the treaty and will be getting 300 posters. There was discussion around various creative ideas for maximising the impact of our limited resources. We are holding a briefing session and planning meeting next Wednesday and will be trying to mobilise people from our wider contact list to participate with us.
So despite the low turn-out quite a productive meeting overall I thought.
www.unitedleftalliance.org/united-left-alliance-launch-no-campaign
ULA challenges Government to say where the €5.7 Billion in cuts will come from
Treaty undemines democracy
Today the United Left Alliance launched its campaign calling for a NO vote to the Austerity Treaty.
The ULA is calling for a NO vote to defend democracy and to break from the madness of austerity.
It is committing its full resources to deafeating the governments plans to force permanent autserity on the Irish people.
Paul Murphy MEP said
“Far from providing a solution to the economic crisis, austerity and cutbacks have only made things worse. Manufacturing output is contracting across Europe and according to figures just published by the EU there were 169,000 more people unemployed in March bringing unemployment to 17.4m people across Europe. No amount of balckmail by the government can hide the fact that the passing of this Treaty will deepen the economic crises”.
Joan Collins TD said
“If Ireland were to adhere to the requirements of this new treaty it will mean at least an extra €5.7 billion in cuts and taxes in addition to the €8.6 billion in cuts demanded by the Troika between now and 2015. The Irish state will be squeezed dry until it conforms to the rules laid down by this Austerity Treaty and administered by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.”
Richard Boyd Barrett TD challenged FG and Labour to specify what they intend to cut and what new taxes they will introduce to meet this target. He said “how many teachers and nurses will be lost? Whats welfare payments will be cut? What extra charges will people have to pay? Its time for the government to come clean”
Seamus Healy TD said that
“The Austerity Treaty undermines democracy. It will mean that any future government will be legally forced to implement EU dictated cuts and taxes regardless of how many people oppose them. This will mean that one of the most basic requirements of a democracy – that people are free to vote for different economic policies – will be lost”.
Joe Higgins TD said we
“ will be highlighting the economic alternative to the madness of austerity. We can reject this Treaty and instead refuse to pay the debt. Rather than giving billions to banks and bondholders, we can protect our schools and hospitals; we can invest in jobs and provide for social projection. We call on all those who reject cuts and charges to inflict a massive defeat on this government by voting no to austerity”.
The ULA believes in a Europe that puts the interests of ordinary people before those of bankers and bondholders.
The United Left Alliance: Build it Big and Broad
A few things jump out at me:
“Marx defined sectarianism as follows: ‘The sect sees the justification for its existence and its point of honour not in what it has in common with the class movement but in the particular shibboleth which distinguishes it from the movement.’
“A sectarian organisation sees itself as the repository of political wisdom, embodied in its ‘programme’ and ability to infallibly read ‘the objective conditions. Instead of being in a dialogue with the working class, it sees itself as the teacher.”
So to have a programme which you present to the working class and use as the basis for leading the wider working class in struggle is to be a sectarian? One can only wonder how those inveterate “sectarians” Lenin, Trotsky and the rest of the Bolsheviks ever managed to make a revolution…
But then that isn’t the point of the ULA – why would anyone be interested in the socialist transformation of society anyway:
“But the ULA itself is not founded as an explicitly revolutionary party and is rather a site whereby broader forces of the Irish left can re-constitute themselves as a plural formation.”
And:
“Most immediately, it should mean a clear attempt to open the ULA to left independent TDs who have worked with us in the anti-household charges campaign. We should seek to build a joint campaign with them on the Fiscal Treaty and, through that, lay the basis for a bigger and broader organisation of the left.”
And:
“The style and tone of the ULA needs to be geared to building the broadest organisation – that positions itself to the left of Sinn Fein.”
So the SWP don’t even pretend that the aim is any version of socialism but just a “broad” party a bit to the left of Sinn Fein.
The SWP were posturing as the ultra-democrats, with a lot of formally correct criticisms of the SP and WUAG’s conservatism on making fundamental changes to the Alliance structure in the direction of one-person one-vote. But I am doubtful that the SWP can be completely trusted to remain committed to this as there was no explanation of this marked change from 6 months ago and even some re-writing of history with their complaints about attacks on them for not building the ULA previously claiming they had in fact always been the best builders of the ULA – which is of course far from the truth.
Potentially much more significant was the SP’s argument that something significant had changed in the mood/consciousness of the working class, primarily as a result of the success of the anti-household tax campaign, and that there was now a real opportunity to build the ULA.
So it might be that there could be a change with both the SP & SWP giving the ULA much more emphasis as compared to primarily presenting as themselves as has been the case so far. As a result there could be some recruitment of more non-aligned to the ULA in the coming period and it wouldn’t take too much for that to become a majority of non-aligned in the organisation.
I was put forward as the alternate non-aligned rep to the national steering committee, in case Therese or Joseph can’t make it to any meetings, in the interim until the 9 June meeting which will review that.
There is going to be another conference in the autumn, probably November, so the ULA will survive until then and the next few months could be crucial in terms of recruitment and building the forces within the ULA in favour of moving from the alliance framework to that of a proper party.
So overall it was a much more positive conference than last year and there is an opening for the recruitment of significant new layers which could force a more major move towards the creation of a new party at the November conference.
Decided on first preferences
Joseph – 19
Therese – 17
Alan – 4
Joseph & Therese elected
Quite a low turnout as apparently there are 130 non-aligned with 2012 memberships.
But the result is an accurate reflection of the politics of the ULA non-aligned.
I look forward to continuing to work with Joseph and Therese.
Huge Obligation and Opportunity for ULA as Sinn Féin reiterates its willingness to enter Coalition Government with any Party
Paddy Healy
Because of developments in the national and international economic and political crisis there is a huge obligation on ULA and on its components to make significant progress in its mission to politically reorganise the Irish working class in its own interest. The Irish Labour Party is once again in coalition government with a right-wing party. On this occasion the government is not just failing to introduce improvements for workers but is openly attacking all the gains made by workers over decades. If ULA can rise to its historic task the Labour Party could be wiped out and above all fail to recover from this period in government.
Following the recent rise of Sinn Féin in the polls, the party leader reiterated its willingness to enter coalition with any political party. This guarantees that sooner or later that party will go into oblivion sharing the same fate as Clann Na Poblachta and the Workers Party. But much damage could be done before then. The commitment of Sinn Féin to coalition confirms that it is no longer a revolutionary nationalist party.
The political cornerstone of the ULA is its opposition in principle to coalition with capitalist parties. This provides a basis on which the working class can re-establish the 32-county Labour Party first formed at the TUC Congress in Clonmel in 1912.
The time available to make progress is short. It is now widely agreed that Ireland will be unable to borrow on the open market at the conclusion of the EU/IMF programme. This is less than two years away. This means that the EU/IMF will be able to come forward with new economic and political demands as a pre-condition for further lending. Already the EU/IMF has removed an elected government in Greece and replaced it with a “national government”. The Italian prime minister has been replaced by a technocrat. Even if the Irish fiscal deficit were down to 3% as planned at the end of the programme, due to the continuing debt the state would be required to pay off holders of sovereign bonds periodically and to re-borrow (rolling over debt). In addition the Fiscal Compact requires the structural deficit to be reduced to 0.5% requiring budgetary adjustments of a further 5.7 billion euro. Subsequently the debt to GDP ratio must be driven down to 60% of GDP from 120% over a period of years.
Indeed the above may be a relatively benign scenario. Economists such as Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman has described the EU austerity policy as “suicidal” and some are predicting an early end to the Euro currency.
In any event a vicious austerity regime will be demanded. In order to enforce such a regime new political arrangements will be demanded. Government policy will be seen to have failed. As in Greece, the Troika are likely to demand that the opposition sign up to the new austerity programme before any further money is lent. Pressure will probably come not only on Fianna Fáil but also on Sinn Féin to enter government.
Our opposition to coalition in principle will be a protection for the ULA.
There will be major opportunities for ULA in such a situation. We must be well organised and ready and we must have extensive enough support to give us credibility. Unity, agreement and co-operation between the founding components and the unaligned members must be sought at all times.
The priority in the next period, therefore, must be to win whole sections of workers to the ULA. This must take priority over recruiting individuals to any of the three founding components. Co-operation not competitive recruitment must be the order of the day.
The Workers and Unemployed Action Group is not a small exclusive political organisation . It is a mass movement of workers confined to a small area. It focuses on breaking thousands of workers from social democracy and from Fianna Fail. Seamus Healy was the only ULA TD who was first elected in the General Election and South Tipperary is the only constituency where the Labour Party comes second to the ULA. This is the process which must be repeated throughout the country.
Good turn-out of about 40.
Presentations by Clare Daly focussing on her private members bill and Dr. Mary Favier focussing on the wider context.
Both very good presentations and I have to put my hand up and say that despite my recent criticisms of the SP for dodging the issue in their election material, Clare and all SPers who spoke from the floor were very much on message as regards a women’s right to choose and for free abortion on demand (even if they didn’t use that exact phrase).
Only one anti-abortion nutter spoke from the floor which made my job as chair pretty easy. He tried to heckle a couple of times but didn’t challenge my authority when I told him to keep quiet.
A good discussion from the floor as well which was able to develop without the distraction of the anti-abortion lobby playing silly games. Strong feeling that there should be a campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution that inserted Article 40.3.3 that directly defends the right to life of the unborn and that the ULA should take a leading role in this.
My election statement generated a large degree of discussion on an email list for ULA non-aligned members. Not all non-aligned members of the ULA are on that email list so I post the discussion here as it may be of interest to any of them who read this blog and indeed other ULA members and leftists in general.
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Comrades,
I think it is important that we start discussing the election statements of the people that are going to be representing us and in the case of people who are on this list that they could further expand on some of the points that may be limited by the space of a broad outline piece. As Alan is the first to publish a statement I would like to get the discussion started on that and some of Alan’s other positions on his website http://revolutionaryprogramme.wordpress.com/
I would like to hear what everyone thinks of the following passage from the statement;
“The ULA defends all advances for the working class against attacks by the capitalists. For me this necessarily should include the gains of the remaining countries where capitalism has been overthrown (China, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea), while recognising the need for workers’ revolutions to overthrow their bureaucratic mis-rulers.”
I personally can’t see the advances of the working class in North Korea and can see the defence of North Korea alienating the working classes here and internationally from the ULA or any other leftist party that espouses such a position. To me North Korea is a tyranny/ theocracy not worthy of defence on the grounds that it has advanced our class’ struggle. It is of course worth analysing the nature of what has happened to North Korea including the role of imperialism. I would really like Alan to expand on this point. I of course have no problem calling for workers revolutions in the named countries.
Secondly something I came across on Alan’s website that is particularly worrying to me that I would like Alan to expand on, in case I am misrepresenting his position. I am quoting from the following link. http://revolutionaryprogramme.wordpress.com/for-a-revolutionary-socialist-programme-2/
“The new party must oppose restrictions on sexual expression and sexual choices among all those capable of informed consent and therefore should fight for; an end to all discrimination against lesbians, gays and other sexual minorities; no age of consent laws; and no state censorship, including of sexual material.”
Two of the lines stand out “no age of consent laws” and “no state censorship, including of sexual material”. I don’t think current consent laws are up to the task. I am personally in favour of graduated age limits but to apparently deny that there are no differences in power dynamics between the ages if that is what Alan is espousing, to me is frankly very worrying. To add that there should be “no state censorship, including of sexual material” well this leads me to a very worrying collision if we have no age of consent and no regulation of sexual material does this not lead to child pornography? I really don’t want to be sensationalist about this topic so I won’t add emotionally charged language to judge what I feel about this position. I will just make the political point that if the ULA were to espouse such a position to the working classes frankly I think that would be the end of any hope we have of winning over the masses. It would be disastrous if Alan gets elected to the national steering committee and the press get there hands on the same quotes as I just used.
I really hope I am wrong in my interpretations of both of the quotes I used. But as it stands I currently can not support Alan to represent me at the ULA steering group because of these two positions and also because it appears to me that Alan takes a very maximalist approach when what I believe is called for for the ULA to advance beyond even rules or structures is an actual willingness to advance the cause of working class power. The thing that to me has been broadly lacking from the ULA project so far is a cooperative spirit I don’t think that can be advanced by maximalist positions that in my opinion alienate the working classes and in fact are morally and ethically dubious to say the least.
In solidarity,
Brian S
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Thanks for the feedback Brian. I guess these would be among the two most contentious issues for most people in the political programme I advocate. I’m glad to have the opportunity to elaborate on them.
I think it is just a matter of fact that the deformed workers states, as the political tradition I come from describes them, represent an advance for the working class. This is not of course in some absolute terms but in comparison to what capitalism meant, and would mean if restored, for the lives of working people in those countries.
Brian takes the most extreme example, North Korea, but I stand by my position even in this case. The overthrow of capitalism in North Korea was a good thing for the working people despite the fact that it resulted in the rule of a Stalinist bureaucracy.
Clearly North Korea today is very far from an ideal society and needs a genuine workers’ revolution but the real content of my position has to do with what to do if the existing society was threatened by a return to capitalist rule.
I think it is abundantly clear that the reintroduction of capitalism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe resulted in a social catastrophe for working people in those countries. (see http://www.bolshevik.org/1917/no24/USSR_Article.html for an analysis of this disaster in the concrete case of Russia)
The same would be true of North Korea. Things are bad there now but a return to capitalist rule would make it far worse. I think it is necessary for socialists to oppose that.
This does not mean that I defend the “tyranny/theocracy”, as Brian describes North Korea’s rulers. Indeed I am for a workers’ revolution to overthrow them. However if the Stalinist bureaucrats, or a section of them, fought back against an attempt to reintroduce capitalist rule then I would find myself on the same side.
That is what my position boils down to. It is not based on an assessment of these societies against an abstract scale of goodness but the concrete reality of the catastrophe for working people that capitalist restoration would mean (as capitalist restoration in Russia and Eastern Europe has proven).
If on the other hand you have believe that capitalist restoration would make no difference, or even perhaps have illusions that it would make things better, then of course you will draw different conclusions.
So on to Brian’s second point.
The key phrase here is “informed consent”. If people consent to participate in sexual activity then there is no crime. If someone is forced to have sex against their will then it is a crime irrespective of their own age or the age of the rapist.
I am not sure why Brian believes my position means I “deny that there are no differences in power dynamics between the ages”.Quite clearly such age-based power differentials do exist, alongside many other power differentials, in this society. These power differentials will express themselves in sexual relations, as with all human relationships, and should be taken into account in deciding whether sexual activity was consensual or not.
Unfortunately age of consent laws are not useful in dealing with the problem of rape.
In Ireland it is against the law for an 18 year old to have sex with a 16 year old irrespective of whether both parties are consenting or not. How is it useful to describe this as necessarily being a crime? In fact where such situations are criminalised it is often because the young people in question are targeted by the cops, or the parents are using the law to get rid of an unsuitable boyfriend. These laws can be part of the oppression of young people in society.
The truth is that people under the age of 17 can consent to sex, including with people older than themselves. Obviously the more extreme the age difference the more likely it is that the informed consent wasn’t given. For instance, to take an extreme example, it is difficult to conceive of a situation where a 3 year old could have consented, in any meaningful sense of the term, to sex with a 30 year old. But on the other hand is it possible for an 8 year old to consent to sexual touching with a 10 year old and is it a crime?
My position is that the issue of deciding whether a crime was committed in any instance of sexual activity should be based on an assessment of whether there was informed consent or not, rather than arbitrary categories of age of the participants.
The same arbitrariness comes into play with sexual images.
There is of course a very real social problem of people, particularly children, being coerced into sexual activity for the purpose of creating images for others to get sexual gratification.
But does state censorship of pornography help with stopping this? I don’t think it does.
There is no way, just by viewing it, of knowing if any image is an example of consensual or non-consensual sexual activity (except perhaps in the most extreme cases, but even then the capability of current image editing software makes that unclear).
Driving pornographic material underground through state censorship does not help protect anyone from being forced to participate in sexual activity against their will. Certainly there is no evidence that having stricter censorship laws makes a society less dangerous for those vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Indeed Ireland is an exact example of that. Did the legal restrictions on sexual activity and images stop the massive, almost institutionalised, child abuse that occurred in this country?
Once we allow that the state can determine what images, and words, we are allowed to see, this legislation will inevitably be used against the left or by censoring material based on consensual sexual relations that don’t fit the state/Church view of human sexuality (see my election statement on the role of the family).
The way we will actually rid society of the evil of sexual exploitation of children is by changing social relations. Through greater openness and education about sexuality. Through empowering people by providing the material basis of economic equality so that no-one is forced to sell themselves or their children into the sex trade. Through creating a new culture of freedom and respect between people in place of the fear, isolation and alienation of capitalism.
I hope this makes my position on the two issues raised by Brian a bit clearer. If anyone else has other questions regarding either of these issues or any other in my election statement or on my blog (revolutionaryprogramme.wordpress.com) please let me know and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Alan G.
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Alan,
I really don’t think the ULA is going to progress in Ireland if we look at North Korea and come to the conclusion that it has somehow outgrown capitalism. It hasn’t and a proper analysis would come to the conclusion that North Korea will become a testing ground for a new form of capitalism which can market itself as the opposite. The only way a workers revolution will succeed there now is if the current regime is overthrown and everything it used to get into power is smashed also.
On age-of-consent laws, I really think this is a very small issue when the Left looks at sexuality in a capitalist society. We need to be focusing how sex is being used to sell almost everything around us and how it is being actively used to quell any political resistance in our young people. One just has to go onto any campus in Ireland and you will see how “being a sexual being” is considered much more mature and adult-worthy than being a person of resistance. I will draw on this in my election statement.
Regards,
Joseph L
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Joseph,
Thanks for your comments.
I think is pretty clear that capitalism was replaced by something in North Korea when the original state was set up in 1948, though there are various views on the exact nature of what replaced it.
Some on the left now argue, as Jim did, that the replacement to capitalism has morphed into a form of capitalism. I disagree and think it remains a post-capitalist society.
That being said I agree with you 100% that the key issue for workers in North Korea is a revolution to replace with the bureaucratic Kim dynasty with genuine workers rule.
But given the experience of Russia and Eastern Europe it is not unreasonable to at least consider how to respond to the reintroduction of capitalist rule.
On the age of consent laws I am not proposing making this a central issue for the ULA to campaign on in regard to general questions of sexuality – it wasn’t even in my election statement. It only became an issue on this list because Brian found it in another piece on my blog and asked me about it.
Alan G.
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“If you go carryin’ pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow”
- The Beatles, 1968
Des D
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The Beatles were before my time, but I can appreciate the point 
It seems to me that along with left sectarianism, Stalinism and all of its legacies (from is ideological legacy in the West to regimes like North Korea), may be the most important issue that the left has to address before it can get an echo with the masses anywhere. Why is it that the left often gets less sympathy among the workers than the right does? Has this something to do with the view expressed by many on the left that ’planned’ systems, such as exist in North Korea (remember that North Korea produced a famine the resulted in the deaths of 3.5 million people in the 1990s) are somehow an advance on capitalism? As far as I can see Stalinism only muddles & doesn’t ever really follow any plan. I don’t see any reason why those that oppose imperialism and privatisation have to defend North Korea’s basic economic arrangements (which rest on semi-forced labour). Stalinism atomises the workers, it actively prevents their formation into a class, pulvarises individuals so that they are neither able to act as individuals or as part of a collective, destroys the capacity of whole populations to share ideas, to think critically, to participate in the raising of class consciousness and to contribute to the development of any class struggle worth talking about. In my view, where ambiguous positions are taken on Stalinism (‘these are odious regimes but’ …. ‘on the one hand …. on the other’ ….), credibility is immediately handed to the right, which so often takes its stand on the ‘rights of the individual’, on human rights, on ‘freedom’ etc. In my view, so long as we defend the indefensible, we help to reproduce what may actually represent the biggest obstacle to socialism of all.
Just my two cents
Micael O
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In the film ‘Goodbye to Lenin’ the family of an ill woman, a supporter of the GDR, who has missed the fall of the Wal, don’t wish her to be shocked when she comes around. One of the hoaxes they set up for her is an explanation that the demonstrations on television are against the West and that the masses are streaming from West to East. Of course, the masses were traveling from East to West, and as fast they could many of them.
Des D
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For a description of the reality of the catastrophe that capitalist restoration has been for working people in the GDR read this piece from The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/08/1989-berlin-wall
Alan G.
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But the GDR was already a state capitalist state. Which suppressed a workers’ rising in 1953. The workers’ state suppressing the workers.
For a time Sachsenhausan was ‘borrowed’ by the new state to lock up its own ‘enemies’.
No doubt the takeover of the GDR by West Germany involved a kind occupation and colonisation. Nevertheless there can be no doubt that movement never was not from West to East. Noone was jumping the Wall in the other direction. And the vast majority of those who remember it would not go back to the suveillance of the the Stasi.
Des D
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I’m with The Beatles on this one.
As far as I’m concerned, we’re re-building the socialist movement – from a very, very low level. I don’t think conflating that publicly with murderous, feudal dictatorships of the last century is helpful, to say the least.
Shane F
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Well leaving aside the issue of whether there is anything such as “state capitalism” I don’t dispute that people moved from East to West, nor that anyone would have fond memories of the Stasi, nor that the GDR deformed workers’ state suppressed a workers uprising (that I would have supported) in 1953.
But it is unclear to me what these truths (other than using “state capitalism” to describe a society where there was no capital) have to do with the reality of the social catastrophe that resulted from capitalist restoration.
Alan G.
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I would certainly hope that no-one would be publicly conflating socialism with the the viciously anti-working class bureaucratic rule of the deformed workers states – or privately for that matter
Alan G.
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I suspect that social catastrophe was made all the worse (in Russia for instance) because the workers were left with no means of defending themselves from privatisation, and from the kleptocrats that gutted and destroyed everything else. I’m no expert on the topic, but as far as I know Stalinism permitted no genuinely independent organisations of the working class and destroyed the possibility of class solidarity. If so, then it is not really that surprising that living conditions sank so rapidly. I agree that there is a problem with using a concept like “state capitalism” to refer to societies where there was no capital, but I don’t see how they can be properly described as any kind of workers’ state either, unless a feudal society can be described as a serfs’ state, or a the city states in ancient Greece can be described as slaves’ states. I can’t see any conceptual clarity or precision in either label. Unless ‘state capitalism’ just means an exploitative state, and ’deformed workers’ state’ just means that at one point the workers could have taken control of the state & democratised control over the means of production – but I think that this was only ever true of Russia.
Micheal O
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I would agree that the lack of independent organisations of the working class made resistance to the privatisation and associated social horrors resulting from the reintroduction of capitalism more difficult to resist
I am also quite happy to use another descriptive term for these societies, deformed workers state is merely the one used by the tradition I come from. “Post-capitalist dystopia” or something similar might be a shorthand we could agree on for the purposes of this discussion?
Perhaps an analogy might help make my position a bit clearer (and I realise that any analogy is only indicative and not exact but still it might help explain my thinking)..
What is our position on the trade unions as they currently exist in Ireland?
They have a leadership that is more-or-less openly pro-capitalist and consistently betrays their members. We are for their replacement by a new class struggle leadership.
They are bureaucratically deformed institutions which require a complete overhaul in their internal functioning to become democratic organs of the workers’ movement.
But if these bureaucratically deformed trade unions, with their sell-out leaders, had their very existence threatened by the Irish capitalist state then I assume we would be for defending the unions against being outlawed. We would do so without conflating the unions as they exist now with the organs of class struggle our class really needs or renouncing our programme for a new class struggle leadership and democratic reorganisation of the unions.
I think the same methodology, with all reservations of social scale taken into account, can be used in the case of the post-capitalist dystopias when threatened with capitalist restoration.
Alan G.
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The question of defence of these post-capitalist dystopias is not in terms of some abstract scale but only in terms of what capitalist restoration would mean for working people and should socialists be concerned about that.
I am for a revolution in these kind of societies and I frankly find it a bit annoying to have it repeatedly implied that I give political support to their viciously anti-working class regimes, when I actually want to see those overthrown.
What my critics are unable to deal with is the social reality of what capitalist restoration has meant wherever it has occurred in these societies – it has been a social catastrophe of unprecedented dimensions for working people. And this is not the deluded ravings of some mad ultra-left giving back-hand political support to Stalinism but the findings of the UN – see the analysis of what happened to Russia in that article I linked to.
I find it disappointing that those who express such concern for the working people against the Stalinist tyranny in these countries are apparently much less concerned by this very real disaster for the lives of those self-same workers that resulted from capitalist restoration and don’t think it is something to be opposed or even recognised as a problem.
Alan G.
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And Alan thus raises another aspect of his election statement: his misunderstanding of the the trade unions and misleading perspective on trade union work for the ULA. He is wrong on both sides: that the state capitalist regimes should be defended – from their own populations it seems – and that the trade unions are institutions opposed to the working class. Indeed our trade unions would not have been tolerated for one week in the Soviet Union and a feature of Chinese development will soon be a struggle for free trade unions.
The stalinist states were/are violent and totalitarian machines directed at the suppression, or at times limitation, of the slightest democratic freedom and at the exploitation by the state bureaucracy of the working class. The Irish trade unions are the main defense organisations of the working class, which willy nilly organises, to varying degrees, the class struggle on a daily basis at the point of production. This level of defence and offence, low though it sometimes may be, constitutes the difference between a non-union and an organised workplace.
The trade unions are of course dominated by a bureaucracy that must be opposed with a struggle for trade union democracy and independence from the state and the bosses. This struggle may never be fully successful under capitalism. However the difference between SIPTU and the Soviet Union is that SIPTU is an organisation of the working class movement and the Soviet Union was a state that crushed any sign of independent working class organisation. SIPTU is dominated by a full time bureaucracy which has its own interests but depends as much on
representing the members as dampening their struggle. Depending on the level of shop floor and rank and file organisation, and militant mood, the members can push the leadership into action or bypass them with their own organised action through the Branches, sections and committees. The unions clearly are organs of class struggle, the best we have at present, whereas the stalinist states were/are terror machines, dictatorships in which trade union, assembly, free press, suffrage and all the rights won in the West, were/are non existent. The old maxim still pertains: we support the union officials when they are leading the fight and we oppose them when they are selling it out.
Alan’s electoral statement proposes that the ULA organises in the unions as ULA political fractions or branches. It rejects the crucially fundamental work of building a rank and file movement, or in today’s possibilities, a rank and file or grassroots network at least, which unites all militant union activists, of all political affiliations and none, into an organised alternative to the bureaucracy. An alternative leadership within the existing, not breakaway or isolated miniscule, trade unions. The ULA has made a start in beginning to build such a grassroots complex, with its close support for the Trade Union Activists Network (TUAN). It is I fear, with its recent inactivity, yet another false start to building such a focus or campaign in the unions. There is no avoiding the job though. The left cannot recruit a factory or an office and take them into an industrial dispute to win better pay or conditions. The left cannot support a prolonged strike for union recognition. The unions are necessary. Within them we can operate. As a political organisation eventually, but first in rank and file groupings alongside all trade unionists seeking change.
Des D
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Good grief Des – on what basis do you argue my programme includes the idea that “trade unions are institutions opposed to the working class”.
I quite clearly explained that I was making an analogy and the elements that were similar are the ones that you yourself outline. It does not help political discussion to distort political positions in this way.
It is true that I am for the ULA organise its members inside the trade unions on a distinct political basis:
“As the ULA becomes a party, we need to go beyond this, forming caucuses that fight within the unions for our programme, rather than being submerged in generic anti-bureaucratic rank and file movements.”
This would seem to be a real political difference with Des who apparently does think that it is necessary for the ULA to participate in building a generic anti-bureaucratic rank and file movement and only “eventually” organise separately as the ULA.
It is clear that there will be a need for rank and file movements against the bureaucracy within which the ULA will participate.
I think this should be done on the basis of the ULA as a clearly distinct political force within the unions organised around our programme.
This seems exactly the same as how we should organise in campaigns and movements outside the trade unions. How does Des think we should intervene in campaign movements like the one against the household and water taxes? I think we should do so as the ULA on the basis of our distinct political programme – and political activity in the trade unions should be the same.
Alan G.
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It is also incorrect to say that I am for defending the regimes of the post-capitalist dystopias.
I am for defending the gains of these societies which would be lost if capitalism was restored. The catastrophe caused by capitalist restoration in Russia and Eastern Europe shows that there were real material things about these societies which capitalism would take away.
This is not to say these societies were perfect, indeed they needed revolutions to overthrow their bureaucratic rulers.
But there were real material gains that needed to be defended. This is the problem with describing these societies as “state capitalist” as it disappears these very real gains and provides no explanation for the disaster that resulted from capitalist restoration.
Alan G.
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Alan,
With respect to Cuba (or wherever else free healthcare, education etc. is available to the working class) I don’t think there many on the left that wouldn’t defend any clearly observable benefits to working people. But, as I understand it, being a socialist means opposing all conditions in which human beings are humiliated, limited, exploited, coerced, or prevented from thinking and acting together in their own interests. I think you agree that we must oppose Stalinism in all of its manifestations, while supporting every condition that enables the workers to develop the capacity to win their own gains, and to defend the gains they have won by themselves. But under Stalinist regimes the workers can never develop these capacities, and where these regimes eventually lose (or relinquish) control over political and economic life, the workers are in no position to take control, or even to defend whatever minimimum standard of living they previously had. Clearly, you are opposed to Stalinist rule, but people are bound to jump to other conclusions if it is implied that any gains emerging through Stalinism that can be defended apart from it. No one can defend the gains of the workers other than the workers themselves. We have to support them wherever they defend their interests, but also where they attempt to free themselves from all limitiations on their capacity to organise. But how do you defend gains and oppose the restoration of capitalism in these countries if the workers cannot do it on their own account? If the only force standing behind those gains is a Stalinist bureaucracy (perhaps the greatest enemy the working class has ever known apart from facism), how do you defend these gains other than through the preservation of the existing Stalinist arrangements?
Micheal O
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Is not the current position in North Korea equivalent to the Ukraine during the artificial famines cased by Stalinism. These surely negated any gains of the revolution. The collapse if the USSR is a given. But even there we have to avoid looking like we are on the same side as the Stazi.I am glad that you are not a Stalinist but the Spartacists tend to apologitics in these debates.Here and in Britain the tendencies that leap to the defence of North Korea are also the most Stalinist. The term “tankie” comes to mind. Indeed some look forward to the day when they can deal with the likes of us in a similar way to “Uncle Joe”.
I would add that many of the economic gains of the USSR proved to be incredible lies.
Regards
Jim M
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I am going to have to challenge this apparent consensus that under Stalinism there was no possibility of the working class organising itself to pose the possibility of overthrowing the bureaucracy. I think this is simply buying into bourgeois propaganda and does not reflect the reality of what happened in those countries.
For instance how does this explain 1953, 1956, 1968 when political revolutions to overthrow the Stalinist bureaucracy were on the agenda?
Perhaps it might be argued that these examples were long ago and Stalinism wasn’t as entrenched and the atomisation and demoralisation of the working class less complete.
But then lets look at a more recent example, near the end of these societies in Eastern Europe – Poland in the 1980s?
Micheal you tell us that “under Stalinist regimes the workers can never develop” “the capacity to win their own gains, and to defend the gains they have won by themselves”.
In Poland a mass workers organisation in the form of Solidarity was created that threatened the continued rule of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Unfortunately the political struggle within Solidarity over its programmatic direction saw it fall under the leadership of pro-capitalists but still it is clear that in the period leading up to that a mass workers organisation with exactly ”the capacity to win their own gains, and to defend the gains they have won by themselves” was able to be created under a Stalinist regime.
Also look at Russia and the organisation of workers, particularly in the mines, that was occurring in the 1980s. While it seems they were for the most part neutral during the conflict in Russia in 1991 it is also clear that they did exist as an independent force.
Your statement that such developments are impossible under Stalinist bureaucratic regimes is simple proven untrue by the facts.
My programme does not look to passive support to the Stalinist regimes but rather to the independent organisation of the working class. But what should any such independent revolutionary socialist forces do if capitalist restorationists make a play for power? Should they sit idly by because some sections of the Stalinist bureaucracy, for their own reasons, choose to resist that? Of course not – if capitalist restoration was going to represent a qualitatively greater danger to the lives and living standards of working people (and history has shown this to clearly have been the case) then I believe revolutionary socialists had to resist that irrespective of what the Stalinist bureaucrats did or did not do.
A position of sitting on the sidelines in a conflict between the two enemies of the working class (Stalinist bureaucrats and capitalist restorationists) only makes sense if what was at stake was of little importance. Just look at the UN’s, and other sources,analysis quoted in the article I referred to (http://www.bolshevik.org/1917/no24/USSR_Article.html) – and then tell me that was of no importance and revolutionary socialists had no side.
If we are unable to recognise existing partial gains for the working class and seek to defend them when they are threatened then we will not be able to conquer new ones.
Alan G.
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Jim.
I agree that a complete political separation needs to be kept from the Stalinists and I think my position that calls for working class revolutions to consign them to the dustbin of history does exactly that.
But the key to the difference here is over the question of whether there was anything to be defended.
I believe that the question of whether capitalist restoration was a social and economic catastrophe for working people is simply a matter of fact.
I challenge anyone to read the United Nations Development Programme’s “Human Development Report For Central and Easter Europe and the CIS” that is cited in the IBT article I have referred to and honestly tell me that capitalist restoration in these countries was anything other than a social and economic catastrophe for working people.
I think socialists had a side in opposing the capitalist restorationists because we should have known that was going to happen. I certainly think that with the advantage of hindsight socialists should therefore oppose any moves towards capitalist restoration in the countries of this type that remain. And once again to make it clear – this is independent of the Stalinist bureaucracies and however they may respond, indeed the reality is that some, perhaps even many, of those bureaucrats are going to be found among the forces of capitalist restoration.
As regards North Korea I think there is a lot of capitalist propaganda which negatively distorts reality but still it does seem clear that conditions there are horrendous for working people – but the issue at debate here is not whether this is a socialist wonderland that we aspire to (it is not) but what capitalist restoration would mean. I believe that this would result in a a social catastrophe which would make the already miserable lives of North Korean working people immensely worse – therefore I have no choice but to oppose it.
If people have illusions that the capitalists would make the lives of North Korean workers better, or at least let them remain the same, while bringing them the freedoms of bourgeois democracy then there is no doubt a case to take a different position.
I have no such illusions in what the capitalists would do if they were to take power in North Korea and my position flows from that accordingly.
Alan G.
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Hi
Ranging wide beyond a manifesto.
But. Obviously not all these regimes are totally controlled with no democratic space at all. In Germany in 1953, there was still a Social Democratic tradition and other independent workers still had a space. Hungary and Poland had splits in the party and a little bit of paralysis which allowed some space. North Korea. Incredible repression. If there is a split in the bureaucracy it will e bloody. Funnily Imperialism does not want a collapse and the destabilising effect this might have.
Cuba is different. The late Celia Hart shows that it is not a totally repressive state. Vietnam is evolving in a Chines direction. But except for a shortlived springtime independent working class parties and unions were very weak with the collapse of the USSR.
The replacement of the bureaucracy by a gangster ruling class has had devastating effects in the USSR. I ma not so sure of this vis a vis at least the GDR. A restoration in Cuba would be a catastrophe.
Oh another post you raised the question of Irish Troops abroad. This should be opposed no matter how dressed up. In Chad they acted effectively to defend French Imperial interests in Chad. In the Lebanon they act as a buffer for the Zionsts. In Kabul. they must be mad.We should make an issue of the Battlegroups, an EU army, ready to inforce Imperialism.
No Irish Troops abroad.Or Gardai.(Do we need an army?)
Elections are important, but they are only one arena of struggle. Vita Cortex does not wait for an election victor etc.
Conor McCabe has critiqued the policy of total dependence on foreign capital and the distorting effects on developement. We are caught with an artificial corporation tax level ( which distorts our economy).
Though I am more than sceptical of Keynesianism in one country as well as Socialism in one country. The depression is not something a small country (or even a large one) can opt out of it. The struggle against it has to be international. Neither us nor the Greeks can win alone.
Regards
Jim M
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No real disagreement with any of that Jim.
Alan G.
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Alan,
I agree with some of what you say below. Though I don’t use your word ‘impossible’, it is certainly implied in what I wrote. The sentence “under Stalinist regimes the workers can never develop these capacities” should probably have been ”under Stalinist regimes the workers cannot usually develop these capacities” – since the level of surveillance, control, censorship, punishment etc. was/is different within the different countries concerned. As you might point out, there were real differences in that respect between Poland, GDR and Russia, as there are today, between Cuba and North Korea.
Micheal O
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Apologies I interpreted your use of “never develop” to mean you thought it was impossible.
I of course agree that the possibilities for these developments are different in each of the countries due to their individual specifics and from what I know of North Korea that possibility would indeed seem quite small.
Alan G.
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