From: "cwright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: AUT: Re: Why People Join Vanguard Organizations?
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 21:03:51 -0500


This is kind of two things blurred together, so I apologize for the
non-transition...

Thomas,

What you read or do not is not that important.  I joined the US section of
Lutte Ouvriere, called Spark.  I read almost only 'classics': Marx, Egnels,
Lenin, Trotsky, Plekhanov, Kautsky, Bukharin, Luxemburg, etc.  Party
literature was not promoted, we did not sell the newspaper to middle class
people (e.g. students, at L stops in 'middle class' neighborhoods, etc.),
but only to workers at sales in working class neighborhoods and at
workplaces (which we would go to every week, at the same time on the same
day, no matter what the weather and only missing for health reasons.)  The
magazine was mostly only for people interested in our organization and
reading Marx, Engels, etc with us.  In this sense, the group did not promote
the specialness of its politics in the usual middle class way.

Also, Spark did not create much of a social life.  Militants were not
encourage to know each others home phones or addresses or to know each
others' real names (we planned meetings in advance and used political
names.)  The group did not encourage a lot of 'socializing', preferring that
members spend time recruiting instead of talking to each other.  As such,
Spark was actually pretty much socially alienated.

Rather, what Spark did was create an identity of being 'serious',
'disciplined', 'non-sectarian' (we were encourage to discuss and debate with
other groups and Spark had no fear of our folks meeting with other people,
since we were usually much better educated politically.)  I think in some
ways Spark articulated a desire for real intellectual seriousness and
independence, unlike the party-line think of most groups.  You were expected
to read a book a week.  You were expected to give classes, which you were
expected to seriously and rigorously prepare.  Spark was not a 'partying
party', nor did they ever consider themselves a party.  They expected a
party to form out of dialogue and discussion between organizations and by
some organization proving itself through its political work, not in
theoretical debate.

However, Spark also knew how to play on middle class guilt, how to entrap
people in the kind of 'professional workaholic' relations common in this
society.  Spark had an element of cloak and dagger that gave it some
romanticism.  And Spark had ideas and encouraged serious intellectual
engagement.  Of course, it also found ways to totally isolate people from
each other, to leave militants facing the organization solely as
individuals, and therefore totally isolated and atomised.  And like any
abuser, Spark also knew how to create a sense of community at times, such as
2-3 times a year having 'commie camps' as we joked about it, where we would
take 10 days with people in our age and level of the organization and read
and talk and hang out.  We would also have a 'festival' for the workers
around the organization every year, usually 2 times a year, with food and
games and crafts and political discussions and booths.

I don't feel that the experience was totally negative.  Far from it.  But it
was bad enough.  However, I don't think it was like what I have seen in most
other organizations, either.  Control stemmed from the idea that there are
no new ideas, that the political analysis of Trotsky and Lenin was
sufficient.  The only task was to put it into practice in a truly Leninist
way, with a peculiar workerism (which was anti-trade union/almost
revolutionary syndicalist, btw).

Because of this, I sometimes do not identify with the discussions of
Leninism and organizations I see here.  The Leninism I was used to was far
more rigorous and I sometimes feel that people treat Lenin too lightly and
read too much the SWP (GB) version of Lenin rather than Lenin.  For what it
is worth, a good re-reading of Lenin on self-determination right now would
be a good thing, not because Lenin is right per se, but because he is wrong
in really important ways that are much more sophisticated than his progeny.
If you read him carefully, his critique of nationalism is scathing.  His
failure is in his conception of the state and capital as state-centered, not
in his failure to be rigorous.  Even so, it is better than much of the stuff
I have read elsewhere and it is vastly more serious on these questions.  In
some respects, the 'ultra-left' has yet to surpass Lenin on these matters.
Now before someone thinks I have gone off the deep end, allow me to say that
I raise this as a challenge to be met, not agreement with Lenin.  The
problems are there and clear, but we have yet to rise to the challenge.

Cheers,
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Seay" <entheogens-AT-yahoo.com>
To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>;
<IMF-WB-protest-discuss-AT-yahoogroups.com>; <marxist-AT-yahoogroups.com>;
<redbadbear-AT-yahoogroups.com>
Cc: <kelchie-AT-aol.com>; <debsian-AT-pacbell.net>
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2001 12:43 PM
Subject: AUT: Why People Join Vanguard Organizations?


> > 1) not recognizing that a lot of the kids involved
> > with the iac / wwp are
> > involved for reasons we should investigate and try
> > to understand. that is:
> > what attracts people to them?
> >
>  This is a good point.  Let's begin the investigation.
>  First of all, I think that
> it is hard to be on the Left in this country (the
> USA)...one can feel quite marginalized.  These
> vanguard organizations, like WWP, offer a social
> circle for these young people...a place where they can
> feel less marginalized.
>
> Nothing wrong with that in itself except that it is a
> "hook"
> which binds these people to a dogma.  Not only does it
> provide them with a dogma, it also "uplifts" them to
> think that they are an elite, chosen people...the ones
> that are going to lead us poor masses to the promised
> land.  Does this sound like some forms of christian
> eschatology?  Indeed!
>
> And what about the democratic Centralism that they
> propose?  Isn't it just
> a device to alienate the individual's power into
> a transcendent body...the central committee?  Of
> course, members of vanguard organizations are not
> encouraged to read Marx's work on alienation (too
> hegelian), let alone Feuerbach.  They will be
> encouraged to read a few selected lines from Lenin's
> "What is to be Done".  Democratic centralism basically
> means to them, enact the central committee's program,
> or be branded a "petit bourgeois individualist".  In
> other words, members should be good worker ants.
>
> It would be good, I think, that we create free
> organizations that promote debate instead of
> group-think. We should have groups that are organized
> along vertical lines with no center, as opposed to
> hierarchies with strong centers.
>
> Luca Casarini of "Tuta Bianca" has spoken a lot about
> the need to
> "fare societa", that is, to create long term free
> associations of the Left that exist continually
> through times of struggle and through times of
> relative stasis.
> I think it is a good idea and one that will provide
> democratic forms in contrast to these annoying
> vanguard groups like WWP.
>
> Thomas Seay
>
>
>
> ====> "The tradition of all the dead generations
>  weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"
>
> -Karl Marx
>
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>
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