Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 20:53:52 GMT
From: Steve Wallis <S.Wallis-AT-mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Socialist Labour Party


Louis wrote:

> What if an individual member of the SWP was persuaded by the passionate 
> antiracist remarks of Scott Marshall and wanted to vote with Scott? Too 
> bad, you couldn't break discipline. You had to wait until the next SWP 
> convention which might have been 18 months away.
> 
> Is this the way the Militant Labor will function in a Socialist Labor 
> Party?

In a word, no!

Militant Labour encourages internal debate, and members frequently express
reservations or disagreements with the position of the organisation at our
meetings, in our internal bulletin and even on the letters page of our paper.
This is a sign of a healthy democratic organisation - a million miles away
from your experiences of the SWP-US...

> Will you vote differently from your floor-leader if your heart and 
> mind tell you to?

We don't even have a "floor-leader"!  We're not robots and we do occasionally
vote differently from each other or argue conflicting positions.

Sometimes we do discuss what position we should take before a public meeting,
but if we do this, we make decisions by consensus rather than by accepting a
line from above.

[But even so, we can be flexible during a meeting itself, which is sometimes
necessary when discussing with other organisations (and much more so than the
SWP-UK, who tend to stick to a rigid line).]

> This is not the type of democratic-centralism we need. It is not the kind 
> the Bolsheviks practiced.

I think you'd find that the form of democratic-centralism we practice is far
more similar to that of the Bolsheviks than that of the SWP...

> Not only did Stalin and the others argue publicly, they 
> actually *broke discipline* during the November days. They were not even 
> expelled for this indiscipline.

This is very interesting.  IMO, public disagreements are probably unavoidable
in a pre-revolutionary situation, and it is not the best time to carry out
expulsions, but do you think Stalin and the others should have been disciplined?
It would seem that at the very least, Stalin's behaviour at this time should
have been used against him to try to stop him reaching a position of such power
after the revolution...

Steve.

               ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
       ++++ if you agree copy these 3 sentences in your own sig ++++
     ++++ more info: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

   /----------+ Centre for Policy Modelling,         Email: S.Wallis-AT-mmu.ac.uk
   \/\  Steve | Manchester Metropolitan University,    Tel: (+44) 161 247 3884
\    / Wallis | Aytoun Building, Aytoun St.,           Fax: (+44) 161 247 6802
 \/\/---------+ Manchester M1 3GH, UK.        http://www.fmb.mmu.ac.uk/~stevew


     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------