Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 19:54:40 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Harald Beyer-Arnesen <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: Re: AUT: role of politics


Bill, you responded to the endremark of my last post – "I will 
not comment here on the others things you write, some of which 
I agree with, some of which I don't" – with: "Why not? If I am 
mistaken I would be interested to know why."

The reason that I refrained from commenting on "the other things"
you wrote was and is that I at the moment don't have time writing
any answer worth reading, and partially also that it would lead into 
another, although related thread, that if co-ordination is in need of
centralisation, and also if it is at all possible to co-ordinate 
complex processes on a large - to not say global – scale by the way 
of centralisation. 
  
You also wrote: "Relax, I'm not a member of any political party and 
I'm not recruiting. Just trying to learn through dialogue. You know - 
I put forward ideas and you try to detect the flaws."

I was not worried about that at all. I have the greatest respect for 
the Socialist Party of Great Britain. People who critisize the 
Makhnovshchina in Ukraine from the perspective of it having too many 
traits in common with the Bolshevik regime, I cannot help but like. 
Even if I find SBGB electoral road to socialism odd, they surely got 
the right instincs. Hopefully I can return with a little more 
comprehensive  reply to why I believe elections will never give us 
socialism, or as I prefer to call it, communism or anarchism. As for 
now I will just say: communism involves a little more than what can be 
contained in a "yes". Of course your strategy seems to be more in line 
with the double approach of DeLeon: industrial unionism + elections 
as a platform of propaganda. Whatever other objections I may have, I 
just cannot see that many workers would find it useful voting for a 
party who is in it exclusively for propaganda purposes. Now of course 
this could be a misinterpretation of your position, which is one of the 
reasons I would rather like to return with a reply on a latter date.

My post was merely meant to direct the attention to that the advovates
of the party on this list were speaking of in some aspects two different 
kinds of parties. Though I favor none of them, I may find the 
implications of the "rev Internationalist Party" as the most problematic. 
That belief that such a party could play any other _central_ role in a 
social revolution than that of possibly the role of the vanguard of
counter-revolution, seems to me to be one of the essential parts of 
bourgeois ideology hardest to overcome. Now, I don't worry too much, as 
I see it as very unlikely that such a party would emerge. If the proponents 
of this party could delegate themselves a bit more modest role, like
contributing their little part to the social revolution, I think we would 
have a far more interesting discussion. So that it is said, I have no 
reason to doubt the sincerity of those who disagree with me on this. There 
may also be a gross mis-interpretation underlying this conclusion, but I 
am inclined to doubt it. I am sure I will have the opportunity to return
to it on a latter occasion.

At last, Bill, you've completly misunderstood me if you think I believe 
that a political organisation could be "entirely open". 
A political organization is by defintion exclusive. When talking about 
the internal structure of such organisations, I was thinking in terms of 
the relation between those included on the basis of shared convictions.

                                                      Harald

 
  in solidarity,
  Harald Beyer-Arnesen
  haraldba-AT-online.no



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