From: "Paul Bowman" <paulbowman-AT-totalise.co.uk>
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Throw The Vanguardists Out? [Offline]
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 01:27:18 +0100


commie00 said:
> so: ultmately, taking these two points into account, its ridiculous to
> "throw out the vanguardists". instead we must engage in two things:
>
> 1) blocking their taking over of meetings and demostrations (and
movements).
<SNIP
> we have to find ways to re-democratize the movements... which brings us to
>
> 2) we must actively expose their politics and organizational methods, and
> argue for the re-introduction of non-hierarchical organizational forms and
> direct actions in meetings, demos, movements, etc.
>
> as far as what the wwp does in meetings... its simple: they take them over
> and run them. if they set them up, they tell you wants going on and what
to
> do. they actively hierarchicalize things under their control.

Couldn't agree more. The point is to stymie the centralising behaviour. In
the anti-poll tax movement in Britain one Trot group in particular - The
Militant (as was) - tried to take over the movement from the beginning. What
happened was that in areas where there were no anarchist or libertarian left
population they called group launch meetings which elected a (Militant)
committee and the group then became a paper group. Where -AT-s & lib left were
present we defeated the move to form committees insisting that decision
making power of the group remained entirely with the assembly of the
neighbourhood group. Under such "democratic" strictures the Militant members
in the group were only able to contribute their labour same as everybody
else (and some of them did commendably). These "living" groups, forced by
their composition to be active or not to be at all, became the active part
of the movement (although the active part was only a small, if vital, part
of the movement - the other part being the mass of non-payers, not the paper
groups). Address the behaviour rather than starting witchhunts against
"Stalinists" (or whatever) - there's nothing more guaranteed to put off
interested "politically unaffiliated" working class people than some sect
attempting to throw another sect out of the group over something that
somebody did to somebody else in Russia in 1921, rather than discussing the
practicalities of getting the job done (nothing that is, apart from allowing
the centralisers to take over)




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