Below is my response to the debate on "PR and the Kids" posted by James Turley. Given all I have to do, it is necessarily rushed and fails to address the issues raised by JT and another comrade who has posted there under the name of "Wladek." Nevertheless, it is hoped that it will do something to encourage some more debate. Maybe at the end of it all we could produce some sort of document. Anyway, gotta get my glad-rags on now for one last night in Aber!
http://csukblog.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/13/#comment-13
Comrades,
This debate is coming along nicely so rather than taking my time to write a much longer and more structured response, I thought it would be apt to respond now directly.
Firstly, although I am in the same organisation as comrade Turley (CS), indeed within the executive of that organisation, I do think that it is impossible to argue for the creation of any "independent" youth organisation that does not have some ties or links with any of the 57 varieties of the left sects today. This is not to say that one day, in a concrete situation, it may be correct to call for the complete independence, effectively the splitting, of a youth organisation from an "adult" party. The example of Lenin and the youth organisations in the social chauvinist/social pacifist organisations in WW1 is helpful in this respect. Clearly then, the first thing to be said is that youth organisation, along with revolutionary organisation more generally, is dependent on the period and the conditions in which we are organising. I admit, this is an insufficient analysis of JT's ideas, but like I say, I will return to these in the next few days.
Now to clear up a slight "misrepresentation", to put it mildly, of the majority position of CS on the BNP. He argues that we ALWAYS and in EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE want to debate the BNP rather than take them on, to coin his favourite phrase, "with two baseball bats." This is not our position. As revolutionaries, we do not want to limit our revolutionary arsenal to one single weapon, as this will necessarily weaken the ability of our movement to fight back. It was Lenin who said that the essence of Marxism is to understand a particular situation concretely, to "hear the grass grow", and we argue that sometimes, it may be incorrect to no-platform the BNP, whereas in other situations it could be helpful to our movement to stop them speaking or organising. And let us not fetishise the defense form of the baseball bat, comrade King, AK-47s are also effective. As Broue points out in his brilliant "The German Revolution" (a book I, quite ironically bought at the PR school) the early KPD's students did SOMETIMES hold debates with the Nazis, and won over many disillusioned people in that way. Obviously for comrade King, this tactic would not even be permissible. Not merely stupid, but actually a potential hindrance to our movement responding effectively to the threat of fascism.
King also underplays the organisation of British revolutionaries into a Communist Party and international revolutionaries into a genuinely international Communist International as the real answer to this. This brings me on to his response to JT.
Of course "we cannot get around the fact that the reason we have different political groups is because we have political differences." Yet the idea that differing views on the Soviet Union or fascism preclude two people working together effectively in the same organisation is utter nonsense and will lead to split after split. You would have thought this would be obvious to somebody who has just gone through an acrimonious split with Workers Power on account of that minority's inability to express their views openly.
He seems to draw the wrong conclusions though. For him "trust and honesty is crucial in all such relationships, this is what was lost in the LFI and inevitably led to the youth group splitting." Politics is a lot more than trust and honesty. CS members may trust people like JT or me, and may think that we are honest, hard-working chaps, yet unless the democratic mechanisms are in place whereby we can be instantly recalled and replaced, trust and honesty become vacuous concepts.
I am sure our German comrades will tell us more, but the reason for LFI going balls-up was its manoeuvering and control of decisions. This "factionalism" as the comrades in I-Revo put it, exposed Revo for what it was - an "international" youth movement controlled from London, predominantly by a not-so-youthful Richard Brenner.
What appears to be a paradox for comrades Turley and King is I think best explained by the concept of autonomy. CS is not a CPGB-led organisation. Yes we are an active minority, that, given our experience, play a leading role - yet this is in no way controlling it, and definitely not in the sense that the PCC of the CPGB sit around and secretly concoct recipes for the youngsters to cook up.
As a CPGB member on the executive, I fight for CPGB politics and argue with others on these questions . Yet it is hardly the case that, when we come to making a decision on this or that, that the CPGB in the leadership, i.e. 50% of its leadership, meet beforehand to discuss "our line." This was of some surprise to poor old Sasha Ismail of the AWL, when he demanded from me what the "CPGB position in CS" was on voting for candidates at the NUS conference. There are differences between CPGB members on a number of questions - between Dave and I on fascism, for example.
We stress AUTONOMY as the best way of bringing together students on the basis of Marxist ideas, not warmed-up social democracy as with Socialist Students, (Un)popular Frontism in the form of Respect, or Education Not for Sale's narrowly economistic list of inoffensive demands that even their beloved Oona King could sign up to.
CS has its own programmatic statement, constitution and leadership, all of which can be changed by the authority of conference. This is a much better way of organising than "political subordination" because as comrades King and the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Trotskyist comrades understand it, "politics" and "political unity" means AGREEING on every dot and comma of a programme or statement - an approach that has more in common with religious sects than Marxist parties and groups. Comrades are reminded of comrade Jim Padmore's amendment to last year's CS constitution, who said CS members must "agree" with the programme. Thankfully, this was voted down in favour of "accept" - a small, but significant nuance.
This is the only feasible way of uniting youth and students dedicated to overthrowing capitalism. Of course, there will be arguments IN THE OPEN, and sometimes, controversy. Yet that is politics - I hardly think that Marx and Engels or Lenin would have amassed so much writing if they had not criticised tendencies and ideas in their own parties.
CS is, consciously, NOT a democratic centralist organisation, and certainly not a bureuacratic centralist one like Revo or Student Respect. This is because we believe that anarchists and those cautious of democratic centralism (who can blame them when the left's application of it is so inhuman!) can play a role in CS. It is not something with the discipline of a Communist Party, but in many ways, a "step-up" to it.
Finally, on the question of "being entered" by other groups, which was also raised by some of the PR comrades at the school I spoke at back in July. The way I see it is this: If theoretically the SWP mobilised to become the majority in CS and take it over, update the programme to make it more "SWP-ish" but without (a) removing the commitment to international socialist revolution (b) the right to factions openly publishing their ideas and (c) to publish/distribute their own documents and papers then I would argue, and any one with any sense would argue that it would be right to stay in there and win a majority patiently. In fact, even if they removed (b) and (c) we'd still be in it and FIGHT for a space even if it wasn't formally granted to us. Of course, blinded by their sectarian tailism, the SWP would never do such a thing.
Sadly, because in many ways comrade King suffers from similar problems to the SWP in terms of democracy in our own movement, he would never suggest to the youth/students in PR (to the extent they have any at the moment) that they should look to organise in CS and win people to their ideas whilst working within the framework of a revolutionary programme commited to the overthrow of capitalism. Until we start doing this though, there will be more and more Socialist Labour Parties, Socialist Alliances, Respects (looks like that is shaky at the moment too) and Revos - steps backward for our movement rather than the steps forward we need to lead it out of the decay and disintegration it is still suffering from.
Apologies for the length of this response and the fact that it has been put together so hastily.
B.E.K
Modern Myth continued
1 hour ago