Socialists and elections

Over the few years I’ve been involved in politics on the left I have come to notice those who choose to stand in elections on the left more often than not the Marxists that are Trotskyists and so on tend to disguise their true ideas in elections. For example many align themselves with reformist programmes and cozy up to left wing bureaucrats in order to curry favor and support. Many will not reveal their true intentions beyond a few catchy slogans in fact. It is almost like the word socialism cannot be used it would scare off those sympathetic to our cause if we mention the S word the line goes. Personally I find this very disingenuous and downright insulting in many ways to think that workers are too stupid to vote for socialism is a bit patronizing if we're honest. Its not ultra left to talk about socialism or what you really stand for. If you explain how you intend to get there people will trust you far more I’d suggest. People are not stupid and will see through you in the end. It is this vanguardist idea again though that socialism needs to be brought into the workers minds without a revolutionary party they will never gain any higher level of thinking than "trade union" consciousness. For me this is one of the reasons I felt awkward at times during elections in a trotskyist party I felt I was having to speak down to workers all the time when really they wanted to know what we were really for and what is our end goal. When I stood in a election for TUSC this year I stood on a "no cuts platform" as they call it and looked to oppose the cuts but there was no room for socialism in the programme I stood under apparently I was told TUSC have a basic programme which is basic for a reason this reason I could not work out why are we hiding the fact we are socialists and want to change society from people? Yes Socialist is in the name TUSC, Trade Union and Socialist Coalition but it was not prominent much in our literature I felt. For workers they are straight forward people they simply to know what you stand for and how you will help them if they back you. If you feel that electoral politics is your thing and I am no longer sure it is for me but if it is for you then good luck but hiding your true ideas is dishonest in my opinion. Calling yourself a socialist is one thing but it’s not a dirty word to use like it maybe once was. I am not sure real change can come through the ballot box anymore many of the gains we as a class have made have come through mass struggle from below but not through a vote. Even the 1945 Labour government who are as popular on the left still sadly as really they didn’t go that far at all and had other downsides of course were forced to do much of what they did through struggle and pressure from below. The old phrase if we don’t give them reform they will give us revolution has been very key over the years with those at the top in positions of political power having to bend to the demands from below to r remain in power if they did not they would have been removed. One interesting election campaign I’d like to draw people’s attention to is Kshama Sawant Of the CWI in the USA in Seatle which has been seen over the years as a more progressive city but her fantastic campaign has gained a fair bit of momentum and congratulations from this blog must go to her. If she does go on and get elected we will be watching with close scrutiny as we have seen how workers in positions of power change and get sucked in by the system in time if they are not careful. Kshama Sawant's $15 a hour as a minimum wage really caught a mood out there it would seem but yet this in itself is a reformist demand and while these sorts of demands are fine in the short term and will gain popular support in times of austerity and cuts to pay and jobs this should only be seen as a start of a programme which looks to one day abolish wages all together in place of a system which meets people’s needs and produces for everyone’s needs. In Seattle, Sawant’s campaign helped put the “Fight for 15” - strikes and protests of low-wage workers for a $15/hour minimum wage - at the centre of political debate. Socialist Alternative energetically built this movement, aiding victimized striking workers and countering arguments against raising the minimum wage. When labour organisations placed an initiative on the ballot to raise the minimum wage to $15 in the suburb of SeaTac, the Kshama Sawant campaign energetically supported this movement, contributing to the ballot initiative’s historic success. While a new workers party is not even close in the US this campaign highlighted above does show how an idea can catch on. Even though this timid and reformist idea got a echo it cannot be ignored but we must also warn of the dangers of putting faith solely in elections and our elected leaders as a historic president. We must continue to build resistance and direct action on the ground. Organising ourselves independent of a leadership is important. As it is also important to keep all our struggles rooted in the rank-and-file democratic committees while trying to prevent them to be co opted for someone’s gain.

What should the working class do?

I had a really interesting and thought provoking question earlier tonight. I was asked well how I think the working class should be organised. This sparked interest in my mind and instantly I thought well why not turn it on its head this question. Why not ask ourselves how can the working class organise itself? Which is precisely the question in my mind right about now. I think leadership is important but not necessarily the concept of leadership we are used to. As a free thinking socialist I like to look at things from all angles so when someone says to me what about leadership and organisation I reply well those are both important but what type of leadership and organisation do we want and what should we strive for? It’s not that I believe that leadership and organisation are flawed but it’s the question to me well what kind of organisation should we look for and what kind of leadership do we need? Do we need one who looks and tells us what to think and act all of the time? Or as I do believe those workers and those who want change the progressives if you like can and will act and think for themselves. As marxists many do think a vanguard or a self appointed elite of workers or a so called advanced layer will need to lead the mass's to think and act for the greater good but I personally hold far more faith in the workers the mass's the down trodden if you like than most Marxists. I personally feel that we should not treat the working class as dumbed down backward thinking people but forward thinking free thinking even mass's who can grasp the situation at hand. As we speak the ruling class are rolling back all the concessions that the power of the organised working class has won from the state. The state is just the enforcer of capitalism, and making that enforcement more naked at the expense of ordinary people doesn’t benefit anybody except those with political and economic power. The real alternative is a world without either the state or capitalism – libertarian communism. To get to that, we need to replace state-provided social welfare with voluntary cooperation and mutual aid. But you can’t have that in a profit system founded on private property, and so in the present its state services or a privatised nightmare-version of 21st century feudalism. As far as the alternative to the vote, what has the ballot box gotten us? Even the vote itself was won through direct action, and the greatest gains of the 20th century – the welfare state and the NHS – were not a result of putting an x in a box. They were concessions offered to appease the strength of our class. “If we don’t give them reforms, they’ll give us revolution,” in Tory MP Quintin Hogg’s words. The alternative to the vote is that threat. The willingness to use direct action, not only for concessions in the present but also to push for a better world in the future. This is what we must keep in mind when asking the question about the working class it is not simply a thing we can mess with and manipulate for our own ends these are actual people with individual thoughts and feelings. I think as Marx always taught us the working class is the only revolutionary class and that class alone can only be the one who changes its own situation. I am not sure that a vanguard of workers those who have appointed themselves without a mass popular vote and decision can be the ones to take us all forward we need mass precipitation and engagement with democracy at all times. Let’s be wary of those who claim to speak for us and their real aims and objectives. We must remember workers have nothing to loose but their chains.....

An outspoken socialist

Some may think I’m outspoken and have ideas above my station. But I have always been the same I wear my views and opinions on my sleeve passionate may be one word to describe me but I truly do put everything into things I believe in. I may not always be right and can accept when I’m wrong if given the facts to show I am wrong but when I believe in something I am strong and forthright in my views. People around me will more often know what I think on things it is quite easily understood my opinions and people round me are left in no uncertain terms. I am a Taurus who is a passionate character by nature and I live up to this tag. People have always tried to pin me down as this or that but I’m constantly updating and refreshing my thoughts and feelings. As the world changes so do our opinions. Even as a Marxist you have to take into consideration the changing times and new events as anyone would do. But being outspoken shouldn’t always be viewed as a bad thing as a radical and loose cannon. Many see someone who thinks for themselves and isn’t dictated to as someone to watch out for but I’d beg to differ. I like to think and read as much as I can I always have done and always will. I’m currently in the socialist party and I hope I can develop my thinking within the party if at some point I can no longer develop my thinking and understanding of the world I may end up outside the party I do hope this won’t ever happen but who knows what will happen in the future. I am proud to think for myself and not readily accept a party line all the time. Whilst I agree with a lot of what the socialist party says and puts across as its demands I still like to think I can think for myself and develop my own ideas and decide if they are the right ideas. Whilst I understand fully democratic centralism, others may not agree I do understand its true meaning and not the bureaucratic centralism that we are often used to in parties of the left these days. I am keen to learn the works of Marx, Engel’s, Lenin and Trotsky to formulate rounded our Marxist position. I may be a loose cannon or someone the party isn’t so keen on as I like to think outside the box and not just swallow the line but I think this is healthy I think we should all think critically about everything. Be cynical if you like I think its healthy and good for us to dies trust means you are thinking and thinking is a good start to changing things. I may not always be liked I accept that I try my best t put forward the ideas of Marx and his thinkers. Being careful to take every argument on its merit and not just pump out propaganda you may or may not fully get is interesting so far I’ve tried to assess every argument as it comes and I think this is the right way to go. An independent mind is important for all and especially Marxists the party is one thing but being in control of your own ideas whilst striving hard to represent the party is absolutely essential I feel.

Why do Marxists stand for elections ? ?

Next week in our branch meeting in Harlow socialist party the topic for discussion will be why do we stand for elections? I will do this lead off as branch secretary and open up for debate and discussion.
With our meeting coming the night before the 3rd may elections I thought it was very appropriate to schedule this discussion in for our branch and what attitude we take to elections.



By PAUL D'AMATO
WHAT ATTITUDE do Marxists take to elections and representative government? In the history of the socialist movement there have developed or coexisted two principal and, in the end, quite different and opposing views of the question. One, reformism, argues that modern representative government affords the working class the opportunity to achieve socialism by electing a socialist majority into office. This view emphasizes the peaceful, gradual transition to socialism, and sees campaigns around elections and the work of socialist elected officials as the most important aspect of socialists’ activity. The other trend, first outlined by Marx and Engels, and then elaborated by Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin, argues for a revolutionary overthrow of the state, based upon the mass struggle of the working class, and its replacement by new organs of workers’ power.
The reformist trend flourished in Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, expressed most fully by a former collaborator of Engels, Eduard Bernstein, who wrote in his reformist bombshell Evolutionary Socialism,
The task of social democracy is to organize the working classes politically and develop them as a democracy and to fight for all reforms in the State which are adapted to raise the working classes and transform the State in the direction of democracy.1
But even Karl Kautsky, the foremost theoretical leader of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a critic of Bernstein’s views, saw "the conquest of political power" as essentially the conquest of parliament. He wrote, for example, in 1912,
The objective of our political struggle remains what it has always been up to now: the conquest of state power through the conquest of a majority in parliament and the elevation of parliament to a commanding position within the state. Certainly not the destruction of state power. 2
Kautsky considered mass action–street protests and strikes–to be abnormal methods of struggle, denouncing an emphasis on them as being "one-sided" and reflecting a "cretinism of mass action."3
In the early socialist tradition, these two tendencies were often blurred by the fact that both reformists and revolutionaries used the term "conquest of political power" by the working class to describe two very different sets of aims.
Marx and Engels on the state, parliament and elections
Throughout their political lives, Marx and Engels always argued that the working class–whatever its size and state of development–must organize itself independently as a class "and consequently into a political party,"4 as they wrote in The Communist Manifesto.
Just months later, during the revolutions of 1848 that swept across Europe, Marx and Engels, as leading members of a small group of socialists in the Communist League, participated in the revolution in Germany as the far left wing of the radical bourgeois-democratic movement. With only a few hundred members across Europe, the League was simply not big enough to assert itself as an independent force. But in the course of the revolution, it became clear to Marx that, due to the cowardly and tentative nature of the radical middle-class elements, it would be necessary for the working class to organize independently to safeguard its own class interests.
In his March 1850 "Address to the Communist League," Marx recommended that in the future course of the revolution, the workers’ party "‘march with’ the petty-bourgeois democrats against the faction whom it aims at overthrowing," but that it oppose "them in everything whereby they seek to consolidate their position in their own interests."5
In addition to arming themselves and organizing centralized and independent clubs, the workers’ party should put candidates up for elections in Germany in the event of the creation of a national assembly as a result of revolutionary upheaval:
Even when there is no prospect whatsoever of their being elected, the workers must put up their own candidates in order to preserve their independence, to count their forces, and to bring before the public their revolutionary attitude and party standpoint. In this connection they must not allow themselves to be seduced by such arguments of the democrats as, for example, that by so doing they are splitting the Democratic Party and making it possible for the reactionaries to win. The ultimate intention of all such phrases is to dupe the proletariat. The advance which the proletarian party is bound to make by such independent action is indefinitely more important than the disadvantage that might be incurred by the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body.6
The argument for voting against left-wing or socialist candidates on the grounds that they can’t win and are therefore helping the right wing into power has, of course, been a time-worn argument in the U.S. against bucking the two-party system. Engels, in an 1893 letter to an American colleague, pointed out that in the U.S., the formation of a workers’ party is hindered by the "Constitution…which makes it appear as though every vote were lost that is cast for a candidate not put up by one of the two governing parties."7
Marx’s March circular was shelved after revolutionary upsurge ebbed. But Marx and Engels lived to see the formation of the first mass socialist workers’ party in Germany that was able to use the German parliament, the Reichstag, to advance their cause. The SPD in Germany was formed in 1875 out of a merger between two different parties–one influenced by Marxism, the other based on "winning reforms through a compromise with the Prussian state."8 But as much as they came to consider this their party, Marx and Engels were from the start critical of what they considered its political shortcomings and always fought any attempt to dilute its working-class character.
As early as 1879, Marx and Engels wrote a circular letter to party leaders in which they asked if the party had not been "infected with the parliamentary diseases, believing that, with the popular vote, the Holy Ghost is poured upon those elected."9 The circular letter also attacked an article written by, among others, Eduard Bernstein. The article applauded the idea of a socialist movement led by "all men imbued with a true love of mankind," and attacked those who "trivialized" the movement into a "one-sided struggle of the industrial workers to promote their own interests." The article called upon the party to be "calm, sober and considered" in order not to scare "the bourgeoisie out of their wits by holding up the red spectre." It also called for "educated" men to represent the party in the Reichstag.10
Marx and Engels attacked the authors, arguing that they should leave the party if they intended to "use their official position to combat the party’s proletarian character."11 For Bernstein and the others:


As Marxists we often say that standing for elections and trying to win votes is the lowest form of class struggle. As the socialist party standing as TUSC of late we have not made big breakthroughs this is true and we do not expect to see them this year either but what we do do is have that opportunity to talk to people and get our ides to a wider audience.
But we do not hold illusions in bourgeois democracy as Rosa Luxemburg was clear that even if socialists were able to achieve a majority in parliament in a given country, this would not signal the victory of socialism. The ruling class would rally around its most trusted state institutions–the police, the army, the state bureaucracy and corrupted party politicians–against parliament if necessary:
In this society, the representative institutions, democratic in form, are in content the instruments of the interests of the ruling class. This manifests itself in a tangible fashion in the fact that as soon as democracy shows the tendency to negate its class character and become transformed into an instrument of the real interests of the population, the democratic forms are sacrificed by the bourgeoisie and by its state representatives
This is not some theoretical debating point, but has often been the bitter historical experience of the workers’ movement internationally. In Chile, for example, Salvador Allende’s reformist socialist government was overturned in a bloody military coup in 1973. Moreover, in many countries, such as China, Saudi Arabia and many others, capitalism and the market go hand in hand with military, monarchic or one-party rule. Democracy–even bourgeois democracy–is in some cases seen as a luxury that those who rule cannot afford.


The Bolshevik Party was the first to utilize elections in a really revolutionary way. The fact that the Bolsheviks organized independently of the reformists, the Mensheviks, freed them to follow the course outlined by Luxemburg, to utilize the rostrum of parliament to conduct revolutionary propaganda and agitation.
Like Germany, Russia had not undergone a bourgeois revolution and was still under the heel of a semi feudal autocracy. Revolutionaries were driven underground, forced to operate clandestinely in order to escape persecution, arrest, exile and even execution.
In the mass upheaval of the 1905 revolution, the Tzar issued a manifesto announcing the creation of a parliament (Duma) as a sop to the revolutionary movement. This was not to be a real legislative body but a consultative council to the Tzar that the latter could dissolve at will. Moreover, the Duma election system was weighted to give more representation to big landlords. The Bolshevik Party advocated an "active" boycott of the first Duma. But once the revolution began to ebb, Lenin changed his position and argued that socialists should participate in the Duma.
We were obliged to do–and did–everything in our power to prevent the convocation of a sham representative body. That is so. But since it has been convened in spite of all our efforts, we cannot shirk the task of utilizing it.
Lenin had to wage a determined fight against party members who argued that on principle Marxists should boycott the Duma. He argued that under changed, no revolutionary conditions, the boycott was meaningless:
The boycott is a means of struggle aimed directly at overthrowing the old regime, or, at the worst, i.e., when the assault is not strong enough for overthrow, at weakening it to such an extent that it would be unable to set up that institution, unable to make it operate. Consequently, to be successful the boycott requires a direct struggle against the old regime, an uprising against it and mass disobedience to it in a large number of cases.
Lenin therefore attacked the idea of a "passive" boycott–that is, simply abstaining from elections or parliament, a refusal to "recognize" existing institutions even if the movement cannot destroy them. He did not glorify the work, but said, "Since the accursed counter-revolution has driven us into this accursed pig-sty, we shall work there too for the benefit of the revolution, without whining, but also without boasting."
Even so, Lenin was clear that revolutionaries considered participation in elections as only a small part of their activity, and that the struggle in the workplaces and streets was far more important.
We shall not refuse to go into the Second Duma when (or "if") it is convened. We shall not refuse to utilize this arena, but we shall not exaggerate its modest importance; on the contrary, guided by the experience already provided by history, we shall entirely subordinate the struggle we wage in the Duma to another form of struggle, namely strikes, uprisings, etc.
What did that work consist of? For party work, it meant using the election campaigns to conduct propaganda among masses it normally did or could not reach. And, for the party members who were elected as deputies, it meant using the Duma as a platform to disseminate propaganda, to expose the right wing and the liberal bourgeoisie and to assist in the organization of struggles outside the Duma. Socialist deputies could use their parliamentary immunity to conduct propaganda that outside the Duma would normally be considered illegal. They could make Duma speeches that reprinted in the party and non-party press could reach a wider audience than other types of party propaganda, and they could use the Duma rostrum to expose, in the form of "interpolations," the various abuses of the system against peasants and workers. Unlike in the German SPD, where parliamentary representatives were the stars in the party crown, the Bolshevik Party subordinated their Duma deputies to party control and saw them as servants of the working-class struggle.

This is exactly the same approach we take today we do not sow false illusions in parliament but we do fight for every reform for workers we can and be that beacon on the inside to expose the right wing and the system from within.
As Lenin rightly points out there are some workers who still look towards parliament as bodies of power and we need to be there winning them over and turning them towards our point of view if we can. Lenin said Participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the platform of parliament is obligatory for the party of the revolutionary proletariat…As long as you are unable to disperse the bourgeois parliament and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work inside them, precisely because there you will still find workers who are stupefied by the priests and by the dreariness of rural life; otherwise you risk becoming mere babblers.
We do not take a ultra left view of totally against elections like the anarchists do we look to be the best working class fighters possible while pointing to the fact that reforms will never be enough for workers.

We are faced with the fact that Parliament exists and that the mass of the population, despite their criticisms, look to it for change. In 1940 Trotsky, while discussing the question of war, explained how Marxists must make use of bourgeois institutions like parliament. “The courts are bourgeois but we don’t boycott them as the anarchists. We try to use them and fight within them. Likewise with parliaments. We are enemies of the bourgeoisie and its institutions, but we utilise them.”
Trotsky carried the argument forward – to the question of war: “War is a bourgeois institution a thousand times more powerful than all the other bourgeois institutions. We accept it as a fact like the bourgeois schools and try to utilise it.” He continues:
“In the union I can say I am for the Fourth International. I am against war. But I am with you. I will not sabotage the war. I will be the best soldier just as I was the best and most skilled worker in the factory. At the same time I will try to convince you too that we should change society.” (Writings, 1939-40, p. 256).
So with parliament. There is no contradiction between understanding, from a revolutionary point of view, the true nature of a bourgeois parliament and at the same time fighting for every crumb, every concession we can gain from it. In the same sense as Trotsky in 1940 advocated that the members of the Fourth International, while opposing the war; in the case of that particular war should be the “best soldiers,” we must be the “best parliamentary representatives,” the most effective in squeezing every possible concession and, at the same time, the most resolute in revealing its limitations. If we are to expose the limits of change through parliament we have to struggle within it to reach those limits and thereby bring them into the view of the working class.
Instead of such sterile ultra-leftism we explain that we are fighting to become the majority in parliament and go on to spell out what we would do if we had that majority. We say we would pass legislation to take the wealth out of the hands of the ruling class. But, as the bitter experience of Chile showed, the ruling class will not peaceably surrender their wealth and power. They would use their control of the armed machinery of the state to resist. Under those circumstances we would mobilise the working class to confront them, just as the Bolsheviks did in August 1917. Part of this resistance would be the formation of workers’ councils, of committees in the army, in short of the emergence of an alternative state based on the independent power of the working class. In this way the real question of power would be posed.
Only a sectarian divorced from reality could reduce this explanation to holding open “the possibility that socialism can be achieved by a mass movement ‘backing up’ its parliamentary representatives.” The ability to go from abstract theoretical understanding to a day-to-day programme and explanation, put forward in a manner and language which can be understood, is one of the factors which distinguish Marxism from doctrinaire sectarianism.

The revolutionary line which avoids the opposite but twin pitfalls of ultra-leftism and opportunism is a difficult and often narrow line which cannot be traced out in advance or from the sidelines of the class struggle. It is not formed through declarations of revolutionary intent, nor is it made deeper by revolutionary phrase mongering. It can only be traced out in practice in the course of the struggle itself.


We are often told by others on the left oh you’ll just end up turning into a reformist and just the same as all those other polititians we refute this as our first elected TD in Ireland has shown Joe Higgins. Like Terry Fields, Pat Wall and Dave Nellist, Joe Higgins has not adopted the lifestyle or adapted to the customs and norms of bourgeois politics. He lives on a workers wage and provides the Dublin West electorate with an account of where the rest of his salary and all his allowances go. He has used the Dáil chamber to challenge the establishment. He has brought the scent of the class struggle into the otherwise rarefied atmosphere of the Dáil, as with his handcuffed gesture in solidarity with jailed building workers. He has used his position to promote working class struggle outside the Dáil, speaking at countless meetings, protests and pickets. He has intervened in debates on legislation, with opposition proposals and amendments. On top of this he has carried a huge constituency case load, trying to use his influence to help working class people in Dublin West with day-to-day problems.


So it is clear going into these coming elections as TUSC where we stand and how we hope to gain from standing. As we say its not just about standing for us at all it’s about having a broad outlook to winning over workers to your cause to change society.

With extracts from the late Peter Haddon from th CWI on Marxists in elections and extracts from ISR

On the national question in Scotland

As socialists in the Marxist tradition we believe in every nation’s right to self determination. This is no different when it comes to Scotland and the question of independence. We support the right for Scottish people to decide their own future. To not be dictated to by capitalist politicians from Scotland and Westminster.

As Lenin writes in his fantastic book on a nations right to self determination http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/ch01.htm
“, the tendency of every national movement is towards the formation of national states, under which these requirements of modern capitalism are best satisfied. The most profound economic factors drive towards this goal, and, therefore, for the whole of Western Europe, nay, for the entire civilised world, the national state is typical and normal for the capitalist period.
Consequently, if we want to grasp the meaning of self-determination of nations, not by juggling with legal definitions, or “inventing” abstract definitions, but by examining the historico-economic conditions of the national movements, we must inevitably reach the conclusion that the self-determination of nations means the political separation of these nations from alien national bodies, and the formation of an independent national state. “

So as a result it is wrong we felt for David Cameron to weigh into the debate dictating how the referendum now planned for 2014 was to be held. It is not up to him.

In a country where the Tories are largely hated and have as many giant panda’s in Edinburgh zoo than Tory MP’s we feel this is very disrespectful of Tories to start calling the shots on a referendum of independence.

The UK Westminster government attempted to force the hand of the Scottish National Party (SNP) Scottish administration into holding a referendum within the next 18 months, rather than SNP First Minister Alex Salmond's preferred option of late 2014.
Crucially, the Con-Dems have insisted that a single 'yes or no' question on the issue of Scottish independence form the basis of the referendum. This is also counter to the SNP's current desire for a multi-option poll including a choice of "devolution max".
The Con-Dems also oppose the idea that 16- and 17-year olds be given a vote in the referendum, which the SNP government support. Ironically, the Lib Dem's official policy is for votes for 16- and 17-year olds.
These three sticks, or "strings" as Salmond has described them, were wrapped up in the carrot of allowing the Scottish government to carry out a "legally binding" independence referendum, rather than the consultative one that the current devolution arrangements permit.
The SNP leadership lost no time in describing Cameron's intervention as being "Thatcher-esque". The Tories were operating in a "London knows best fashion, trying to dictate the rules for a referendum for which they have no mandate".
Cameron and his Lib Dem Scottish secretary Michael Moore quickly dropped the insistence that a referendum had to be held within 18 months, but by then the damage, from their point of view, had been done.
In fact Moore's statement to the Westminster parliament described the SNP's proposals as "unlawful" and still leaves open the possibility that the Westminster government could organise an independence referendum over the heads of the Scottish parliament. Such a 'nuclear option' would result in a ratcheting-up of national tensions as well as a likely boycott of such a poll.
As it is, the crass intervention by the Con-Dems has boosted the standing of Salmond and the SNP and probably support for independence as well.
Burned deep into the Scottish national consciousness, and particularly among the working class, is the memory of the brutal anti-working class Thatcher regime. This included that government's refusal to recognise the rights of the Scottish people to self-determination and devolution, never mind independence.
As a consequence the Tories' electoral base was obliterated. Today the Tories have only one MP in Scotland, outnumbered by the two Giant Pandas currently residing in Edinburgh zoo!
The Con-Dem attempts to dictate the terms and rules for the referendum have been a gift for the nationalists in Scotland, who will have gained at least temporary credit for 'standing up' to the Tories.
Of course Salmond's refusal to bow to the pressure over the referendum does not extend to refusing to implement the Con-Dem cuts in Scotland. To a penny, all £3.7 billion of Tory/Liberal cuts have been inflicted on the people of Scotland by the self-proclaimed "Scotland's party". It's also an indication of the role the SNP will play in any future independent Scotland in defending the interests of big business.

Salmond and the SNP also understand that with independence currently supported by around one-third of the Scottish people, it is better to delay a referendum until late 2014.
They hope that the impact of the economic crisis and the savage cuts can be blamed on the Con-Dems and the lack of powers for the Scottish parliament, bolstering public support for more decisive constitutional change.
It is for this reason that the SNP are still holding out for the prospect of a multi-option referendum. In fact they are the only party in Scotland who support a question being asked on extended devolution.
They believe that even if independence was defeated, the current overwhelming public support (68% in the most recent poll) for a major extension of powers over tax, benefits, the minimum wage etc would see them in a win-win situation. "Devolution max" is a safety net for the SNP which they would claim as another step towards independence at a future stage.
Ironically, despite the insistence of Cameron, Miliband et al on a single question on independence, "devolution max" also could be a way out for the British ruling class as well. It could avoid the instability and loss of prestige that the break-up of the UK would mean for British capitalism.
If the run-up to 2014 saw a significant rise in support for independence even the Westminster parties could back a third option, to act as a lightning conductor, in an effort to avoid a majority for independence.
The SNP leadership, pro-capitalist to the core, have long accepted a 'gradualist' path to independence. They would happily settle for a form of extreme autonomy, within a newly designed federal UK state.
Salmond has already made clear that an independent Scotland would maintain the Queen as head of state and keep the pound as the Scottish currency, effectively keeping monetary policy in the hands of the Bank of England. They would also use powers over corporation tax to reduce the "burden" on big business and encourage a low tax haven for inward investment. Their vision of an independent Scotland would be a nightmare for the majority of working class people and their families.

It is essential that a working class alternative is urgently built to the capitalist and cuts consensus among Scotland's political elite, including the SNP. Any attempt to block the democratic rights of the Scottish people should be opposed, if necessary using the full power of the trade union and labour movement as witnessed on 30 November. A multi-option referendum is a genuine democratic right which the Socialist Party Scotland fully supports.
While supporting a parliament with full powers over the economy, benefits, the minimum wage etc we also need a socialist Scotland and to build a mass party of the working class to fight for it.
Central to this task is the need to stand implacably for the maximum unity of the working class across Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland. We fight for a voluntary and democratic socialist federation of these states as a step to a socialist Europe. Only a socialist society can end the nightmare of austerity, cuts and capitalism once and for all.

Is reformism more utopian than ever ?

Reformism – a programme which restricts the workers’ struggle to allegedly “achievable aims” and fosters the illusion that society can be transformed by incremental changes over a protracted period – was energetically combated by Marxists from the time of Marx.
In the era of globalised capitalism, with its programme of brutal neo-liberal attacks on the working class, these ideas are more Utopian than they have ever been. This does not mean that Marxists must not fight in defence of every past gain or that they should not struggle for improvements in the conditions of the working class. However, we must constantly seek to explain that, even when victories are achieved, these of necessity are of a temporary character – given with the left hand and taken back by the right when conditions are ‘ripe’. It is therefore necessary to build a powerful working class force that can carry through a socialist transformation in the organisation and running of society.
The forces of socialism and Marxism were thrown back in terms of numbers and support in the 1990s. But the viability of democratic and liberating socialism, as propounded by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, retains its validity even in a period of relative isolation of the forces which argue for them. The march of events, the breakdown of capitalism, creates changes in the conditions and ultimately, therefore, in the consciousness of the working class. It can and will bring these ideas back onto the political agenda. That process is already under way, with the strikes of 30th june and 30th november 2011 and the massive 26 of march working calss demonstration the workers are finally starting to feel their power as a class again, This will develop at a ferocious pace. While fighting for socialism, the CWI is closely involved in the day-to-day struggles of working people.
Unlike others who are prepared just to comment from the sidelines, the CWI has never hesitated to get involved in the day-to-day struggles of the working class. Hence, our achievements in a number of countries. Our British section, a pioneer in many fields, as mentioned above, now has the most successful electoral record of any party to the left of the Labour Party in England and Wales. Moreover, in the trade unions we have a more significant number of members of the Socialist Party on national committees and at the base than any other trend on the left in Britain. This has only been possible because our trade union cadres and our members generally have dug roots in local areas and within some of the trade unions.
At the same time, we have never hidden our ideas and our programme, openly proclaiming ourselves as socialists and Trotskyists. More importantly, we have expressed the general ideas of Marxism in a manner that can be grasped by the most developed working men and women. This is why the CWI, in general, has managed to gather some of the best working class fighters into its ranks, although still too few for the tasks ahead i am convinced this will grow as events unfold.


But as the crisis in capitalism deepens which i have no doubt itw ill do the small timid claims for reformism will become increasingly utopian as the ruling class look to take back all of the gains of the working class in the last period. There is a major shift going on out there and there will be chances for the working class to take power if they are ready and prepared for it. This is another reason why a new mass workers party is needed to fight for reforms but point out they may only be temporary and that a fight for a new society based on peoples needs is our true aim as marxists.

Marxists attitudes towards parliament and elections

We are faced with the fact that Parliament exists and that the mass of the population, despite their criticisms, look to it for change. In 1940 Trotsky, while discussing the question of war, explained how Marxists must make use of bourgeois institutions like parliament. “The courts are bourgeois but we don’t boycott them as the anarchists. We try to use them and fight within them. Likewise with parliaments. We are enemies of the bourgeoisie and its institutions, but we utilise them.”

Trotsky carried the argument forward – to the question of war: “War is a bourgeois institution a thousand times more powerful than all the other bourgeois institutions. We accept it as a fact like the bourgeois schools and try to utilise it.” He continues:

“In the union I can say I am for the Fourth International. I am against war. But I am with you. I will not sabotage the war. I will be the best soldier just as I was the best and most skilled worker in the factory. At the same time I will try to convince you too that we should change society.” (Writings, 1939-40, p. 256).

So with parliament. There is no contradiction between understanding, from a revolutionary point of view, the true nature of a bourgeois parliament and at the same time fighting for every crumb, every concession we can gain from it. In the same sense as Trotsky in 1940 advocated that the members of the Fourth International, while opposing the war; in the case of that particular war should be the “best soldiers,” we must be the “best parliamentary representatives,” the most effective in squeezing every possible concession and, at the same time, the most resolute in revealing its limitations. If we are to expose the limits of change through parliament we have to struggle within it to reach those limits and thereby bring them into the view of the working class.

Instead of such sterile ultra-leftism we explain that we are fighting to become the majority in parliament and go on to spell out what we would do if we had that majority. We say we would pass legislation to take the wealth out of the hands of the ruling class. But, as the bitter experience of Chile showed, the ruling class will not peaceably surrender their wealth and power. They would use their control of the armed machinery of the state to resist. Under those circumstances we would mobilise the working class to confront them, just as the Bolsheviks did in August 1917. Part of this resistance would be the formation of workers’ councils, of committees in the army, in short of the emergence of an alternative state based on the independent power of the working class. In this way the real question of power would be posed.



The sociaist party and its sisters organisations in the CWI have had people elected to parliaments in the past and still do currenty have 2 TD's in Ireland and a MEP in the European parliament. We dont see this as a end goal but a way of fighting for concessions for the working class in the most critical way of the system possible.
The election of Joe Higgins is not the first occasion that we have participated in parliament. In Britain, Dave Nellist, Pat Wall and Terry Fields, all members of Militant, sat as Labour MPs and were able to use parliament as a tribune for socialist ideas. Terry Fields went to prison for refusing to pay his poll tax. None of these representatives succumbed to the parliamentary pressures. Sadly, Pat Wall died while an MP and the Labour leadership saw that he was replaced by a right-winger. Terry Fields and Dave Nellist were expelled from the Labour Party and eventually lost their seats because they refused to abandon their ideas and their principles.

Like Terry Fields, Pat Wall and Dave Nellist, Joe Higgins has not adopted the lifestyle or adapted to the customs and norms of bourgeois politics. He lives on a workers wage and provides the Dublin West electorate with an account of where the rest of his salary and all his allowances go. He has used the Dáil chamber to challenge the establishment. He has brought the scent of the class struggle into the otherwise rarefied atmosphere of the Dáil, as with his handcuffed gesture in solidarity with jailed building workers. He has used his position to promote working class struggle outside the Dáil, speaking at countless meetings, protests and pickets. He has intervened in debates on legislation, with opposition proposals and amendments. On top of this he has carried a huge constituency case load, trying to use his influence to help working class people in Dublin West with day-to-day problems.


The CWI has 20 sections and a number of other supporting groups. We work in a total of 35 countries and on every continent. Our World Congress brings together delegates from all sections and is the supreme decision making body of our International. Points of difference are debated in a democratic manner and decisions arrived at through debate.

A debate on any major issue is not the property of a small circle at the top of the organisation, but is something in which the membership needs to be involved. Whenever differences have arisen within our International, or when it has been necessary to adjust our position or to correct past mistakes, we have involved the full membership in the discussions. International Discussion Bulletins, containing all the material from all sides of a debate, have been produced and made available to every member. Only in this way can we educate and involve the membership and only then can the members, in turn, become fully informed, intervene and act as a check on all decisions made.
But when it comes to participating in such roles we will always keep a firm grip on democracy and keep it with us at all times.
In order to withstand the pressures of moods, temporary or longer lasting, which develop within the working class, it is essential that a revolutionary party maintains a democratic centralist structure. This means the fullest internal discussion on all issues including points of difference, but unity in action when it comes to putting agreed decisions into effect.

The need and the role of an international

We as socialists do not take a middle class petti-bourgeois attitude to class struggles we take a internationalist outlook of events. As we know full well that capitalism a global system based on exploitation and greed is a global system that any challenge to this system needs to be met with a international global response.

Many of the great revolutionaries realised this with Karl Marx and Frederic Engels forming the 1st International in the 19th century. In the time since then there has been several attempts to bring together a new international with a common theme and all speaking the language of revolutionary socialism .


Today the socialist party of England and Wales formally Militant is part of the CWI the Committee for workers international one of the few if not the only ral organised internationals still going today with any serious marxist and class analysis.
The CWI was founded at a meeting of 46 comrades from 12 countries in April 1974. This was not the beginning of international work by supporters of the British Militant (now Socialist Party), who were the main initiators for the founding of the CWI. Many efforts were undertaken in the previous ten years to extend the influence of the ideas of the British Militant internationally. Even without a single international contact, Militant always proceeded from an international standpoint. An international is, first of all, ideas, a programme and a perspective. The general ideas are the linchpin of any organisation. From this alone flows the type of organisation that is required. Therefore, the history of the CWI, as with the British Militant, is a history of the ideas of this body, in contrast to the ideas advanced by other rival Marxist organisations.

The need for an international organisation flows from the very development of capitalism itself. The great historical merit of capitalism is that it developed the productive forces, of which the working class is the most important, and bound individual nations together through the world market. Internationalism, as Marx pointed out, flowed from the very situation created by capitalism, i.e. the creation of the world market and the world working class. This idea is even more important today in the period of globalisation. The linking together of companies, continents and different national economies on a world scale has been taken to an extent never even imagined by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

First International
The first attempt to set up an international was, of course, undertaken by Marx and Engels with the founding of the First International. Marx attempted to bring together in one international organisation the most advanced sections of the working class: French radicals, British trade unionists, and even the Russian anarchists. Great work was undertaken by the First International, culminating in the heroic Paris Commune. Engels pointed out that the International was "intellectually" responsible for the Commune although it had not "lifted a finger" to create it.

This first great attempt of the working class to establish their own state made the bourgeois tremble. They drowned the Commune in blood and conducted a witch-hunt against those who they held responsible, above all the leaders and adherents to the First International. But the defeat of the Paris Commune also coincided with an upturn in capitalism and a serious crisis within the First International especially because of the role of the anarchists, led by Bakunin. Marx and Engels led a successful struggle against the ideas of anarchism but, alongside the disruptive activities of the anarchists, the upswing of world capitalism created reformist illusions in those like the British trade union leaders, which led to splits and divisions within the First International. Marx and Engels then drew the conclusion that the First International had done its job, had established the idea of internationalism and of an International in the consciousness of the working class. But they also concluded that, having exhausted this historical mission, it should be wound up after moving its offices to New York.

Second and Third Internationals
The period which followed saw the creation of mass parties of the working class. These parties were mostly influenced by the ideas of Marx and Engels. This process culminated in the foundation of the Second International in 1889. This organisation developed in a generally progressive phase of capitalism. Tens of thousands of working-class people were mobilised by these parties, attracted to the ideas of socialism and given a basic class education. But because of the objective conditions - the steady progress of capitalism in developing the productive forces - this led the leaders of the parties who adhered to the Second International to collaborate with the capitalists, seeking compromises, which became a way of life. In effect, a stratum rose above the working class, with catastrophic consequences, once capitalism’s progressive phase had exhausted itself. This was clearly shown in the onset of the first world war. The overwhelming majority of the leaders of the parties of the Second International supported their own bourgeois in the bloody slaughter of the war.

The adherents to genuine internationalism were reduced to a handful. Some who may feel that the genuine internationalists today have been enormously weakened by the collapse of Stalinism and the ideological offensive of the bourgeoisie, should ponder the situation of Lenin, Trotsky, Connolly, MacLean, Liebknecht, Luxemburg and other genuine Marxists, in the first world war. At the Zimmerwald conference, which gathered together those who were opposed to the first world war, the old joke went that the delegates could have fitted into two stagecoaches! Yet two years later the Russian revolution exploded, and within nine months of this, the Bolsheviks were in power and the first genuine workers’ state had been established. This set in train the ten days that shook the world.

Out of the Russian revolution came the creation, in 1919, of the Third International. If anyone has any doubts of the effects of the Russian revolution, read John Dos Pasos’s USA. He gives many headlines from the US press about the Russian revolution. Not just the yellow press, whose editors dipped their pens in mad-dog saliva, but also the so-called "responsible and informed" journals of capitalism, like the New York Times, which carried headlines such as, "Lenin Assassinates Trotsky", or "Trotsky Kills Lenin". Even more lurid was the edition which claimed, "Trotsky Kills Lenin in Drunken Brawl". The Hungarian workers attempted to follow their Russian brothers and sisters, as did the German and Italian workers. In fact, the whole of the European working class was striving in this direction. It is not possible to go into detail on the causes of the Third International’s degeneration. Trotsky traces this out in detail. The main causes were the isolation of the Russian revolution and the development of a privileged strata which usurped political power. The defeat of the German revolution and the later betrayal of the German working class with the coming to power of Hitler consolidated the political counter-revolution carried out by the Stalinist elite.




The question is how to build such a mass International. We have a vital role to play in this process. We have in the past, as I described, sent comrades to different countries and continents throughout the world to establish the first forces of genuine Marxists. If necessary we will continue to do this. But a new mass International will not develop in a linear fashion. The process will involve fusions, splits and the reassembling of genuine revolutionary forces on an international and national plane.

We have been very successful in this regard. From the beginning we managed to absorb into our ranks organisations that did not agree with everything that the CWI stood for. In Cyprus, for instance, the group mentioned earlier that eventually joined us, after quite lengthy discussions, was somewhat heterogeneous. Many of those who remained with the CWI and who played a key role in building a very important section in Cyprus were, from the outset, committed to the general perspectives and programme of the CWI. But there were others who could be described as occupying a left centrist position, vacillating between the ideas of the CWI and centrist ideas. Some of them dropped by the wayside as the group became more serious, while others evolved into genuine revolutionaries

The development of the British section has always run alongside the growth of the CWI. But it would be a mistake to see the CWI as a mere adjunct of the work that we did in Britain. The CWI has a separate identity. It was impossible to replicate exactly the experience of the British Marxists in every country even in Western Europe. Painstaking discussions ensued with comrades in different countries in elaborating different and varying strategies and tactics to enhance the profile, numbers and effectiveness of the supporters and members of the CWI. As explained above, even when we were restricted to the small island of Britain, we always had an international outlook. We never took a purely British position but always proceeded from an international analysis, only then examining how the situation in Britain fitted in with this. We were always on the lookout for international contacts. Many of the international contacts that we made appeared to be purely "accidental". But these "accidents" were related to the changes in the objective situation which was affecting the working class and their organisations.




It is key in the upcoming period that we continue to take a international outlook on struggles of workers and look to interveen where we can. Workers across the world will be looking for ideas out of this crisis and we will look to be there ready and looking for them.

(pieces taken from the history of the CWI by Peter Taaffee on www.socialist world website www.socialistworld.org.uk)

A one party state for the rich

I recently c ame across this e xcelent blogpost over at http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/one-party-state-for-rich.html
a world to win, it excellently sums up Ed Milibands speech yesterday with him taking a rightward turn. and highlights the unsurprising nature of the speech.


Shocked or surprised at Ed Miliband equating those struggling on benefits in the absence of jobs at decent wages with bankers and executives whose salaries resemble telephone numbers? You shouldn’t be.

Miliband’s speech on “responsibility” yesterday was only the latest in a long line of pronouncements and actions that marked the definitive end of Labour as a party dedicated to defending workers’ interests and reforming capitalism.

Even so, it was sickening to hear Miliband declaim: “To those entrepreneurs and business people who generate wealth, create jobs and deserve their top salaries, I’m not just relaxed about you getting rich, I applaud you.”

Joining in the open season on welfare claimants, Miliband couldn’t help himself and added: “We will be a party that rewards contribution, not worklessness.” People had to take work if it was on offer rather than claim benefits. And, in future, social housing should only go to those who “contribute” to society.

In over 3,000 words of his speech, he never once referred to unemployment as an issue at a time when the dole queue is heading for 10%. And, of course, he declined to use those two “C” words – class and capitalism. He did, however, find time to quote Blair on patriotism.

Worse, he invoked the wartime service of his father, Ralph, to whip up patriotic and nationalist sentiments about “community”. This is shockingly dishonest too because Ralph Miliband was regarded as a Marxist and wrote critiques of Labour and reformism in books like Parliamentary socialism. No doubt Ralph is turning in his proverbial grave this morning.

Ed Miliband is the latest in a long line of leaders of a party that made its unconditional peace with capitalism a long time ago. The die was cast as far back as the Callaghan government in the late 1970s, when the government went cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund. The attacks on wages that followed led to mass industrial action and the end of Old Labour as we knew it.

The context for parliamentary politics that enabled post-war Labour governments to create the health service and the welfare state changed in a qualitative way in this period. After prolonged class struggles, deregulated, free market globalisation emerged. This demanded flexible, cheap labour and shifting production from advanced to developing economies.

The basis for old-style reformist politics disappeared almost overnight. And out of this train crash came New Labour. The rise of Blairism was not therefore, as is often mistakenly assumed, simply a rightward move or a policy decision aimed at winning elections by capturing the “middle ground”.

More than that, it was a recognition and an acceptance that capitalism had changed and that the best that could be hoped for in future was for wealth to “trickle down” from the top to the bottom. Instead, cheap credit fuelled unsustainable consumption that globalisation called for. The rest, as we know, is history.

The Miliband speech was hailed by the miserable Fabian Society, whose research director Tim Horton said “some on the left may feel queasy about this. But they should understand its logic and cheer it.” Frank Field, the right-wing Labour MP who favours the break-up of the benefits system also hailed Miliband’s speech.

As one comment on Horton’s article, put it: “We now have a one party state, a political class which acts as an administrator of corporate excess, to facilitate resources from poor to rich.” A one-party state is a dictatorship in anyone’s language and that is what we have in a coalition of Tories, Lib Dems and Labourites. Overthrowing dictatorships, of course, is an entirely legitimate social activity.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor