From: Adam Rose <Adam-AT-pmel.com>
Subject: M-I: RE: Calling people "Menshevik"
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 14:17:26 -0000



Is Louis P a Menshevik ? Is the term meaningful today ?
Are Louis P's views on organisation related to his views 
on the central questions of reform and revolution, the
revolutionary capacity of the working class, etc ?

First, in order to get it out of the way, I will give a straight
answer to a straight question : "yes" and "yes" to the first
two questions as well as the last.

Well, to the last question, obviously, "yes", as everyone's
are. A more interesting question here is " HOW Are Louis P's
views on organisation related to his views on the central
questions of reform and revolution, the revolutionary capacity
of the working class, etc ?"

The reason I think Louis P's views are interesting is not of
course that he is an interesting individual, but that his views
are representative of the instinctive feelings of many on the
left, if more fixed and more theoretical than usual.

I think that it is true to say that the three questions "party :
broad or narrow ? revolution or reform ? and what is the
revolutionary capacity of the working class ?" were related
in early 20th century Russia, and are still intimately related 
today. In late 20th century capitalism there is another related
question, IMO : what is the role of the trade union bureaucracy
in the struggle for socialism ?

Louis P has stated on this list that he has not yet made up his 
mind about the revolutionary capacity of the working class.
[ I am tempted to remark at this point : "How old did you say
you were, Louis ?"]. In this respect, he is entirely representative
of many people on the left who stand somewhere between 
reformism and revolutionary socialism. They'd dearly love a
revolution to happen, they think it might, and yet . . . 

I think it is quite reasonable to argue that this divides Louis P
>from the classical Marxist tradition. The central idea "the
emancipation of the working class is the act of the working
class" is brought into question. This has important practical
consequences : the argument of the out and out reformists
is that workers cannot do it for themselves, therefore we have
to look to parliament or congress to bring socialism from above.
Then the immediate struggles for everyday reforms becomes
subordinated to the overall reformist strategy. This subordination
is not carried into the working class by the right wing reformists,
but by the left wing, militant sounding ones. In order to counter
the demobilisation of the everyday struggles, in order to take
them forward, it is necessary to have a clear and unambiguous
commitment to the idea that socialism comes from below, 
that "the emancipation of the working class is the act of
the working class". 

On the question "Reform or Revolution ?", curiously enough, I 
have never actually read anything of Louis P's on this question.
But this question is related, I think, to the discussion of what 
a workers state is. I stand in the tradition of Karl Marx, as
restated by Lenin in the April theses : a workers state is
a commune state. Under modern conditions, this takes the
form of workers councils, or "soviet" in Russian. Such a form
of rule is absolutely incompatible with the bourgeois state, not
only in some vague theoretical sense but actually, in history,
the two types of state have only coexisted for short periods
of time, until one has crushed the other, more or less violently.
Louis P has never been able to answer this question : what is
a workers state ? He has never been able to disantangle for 
himself whether or not nationalised property constitutes socialism
or not. The reason this matters is that capitalist states can and
have nationalised varying proportions of the economy, leaving
the capitalist state and capitalist relations quite intact. If
nationalisation == socialism, then socialism can be brought about
by forces other than the working class.

Finally, the question of "broad" or "narrow" party organisation.
What this comes down to in practise is "can a party with
revolutionaries and reformists in it bring socialist revolution ?"
My argument is a very simple, very short one : in such a party,
the revolutionaries becomes subordinated to the reformists. 
Irrespective of the individual ideas of the members of the
party, such a party as a party, as a collective organisation,
acts as a reformist party, ie one which props up capitalism.
Quite how many examples of this I need to provide I don't
know . . .

The only way revolutionaries can build an organisation in which
they can relate to the real struggle of workers, in order to
push these struggles forward economically and politically, is
to organise without reformists. Now Louis P has often protested
that he is in favour of building parties which organise everyone
that calls themselves a Marxist. The problem with this is that
some people call themselves Marxists who quite clearly are not,
in the sense that they do not believe that "the emancipation
of the working class is the act of the working class", and that 
some people who are genuinely revolutionary socialists cannot
bring themselves to organise without the reformists. So in practise,
broad parties are always parties with reformists. Revolutionaries
need to organise without reformists, since otherwise they cannot
act together as revolutionaries, but end up acting as reformists,
whatever their individual ideas. As Trotsky said :-) : not 
joining the Bolsheviks was "the greatest mistake of my life".


Adam

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
Britain.


































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