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Collective Action Commentary*: Democratic Centralism in Crisis (an open letter to members of the SWP)

Thu, 02/07/2013 - 10:13 -- worker

From A-infos

For our international readers the SWP (Socialist Workers’ Party) is a Trotskyist organisation, associated with the International Socialist Tendency based around the ideas of its founder Tony Cliff, and is widely considered to be the largest (and possibly also the most influential) Leninist party in the UK. ---- The SWP has been in the grip of an internal crisis since the beginning of 2013 when an allegation of rape was levelled against a senior member of the party Martin Smith (referred to as “Comrade Delta” in internal party communications). This allegation was handled by the convention of a kangaroo court – a disputes committee consisting of senior party members and friends of Martin Smith – who subsequently dismissed the female member’s claims. As the allegations, and the party’s handling of it, became more widely known, a number of SWP members have very publicly left the party.

Following this there have been accusations of a culture of misogyny within the organisation. A former ‘Socialist Worker’ (the party’s paper) journalist has also claimed that “feminism” was “used effectively as a swear word by the leadership’s supporters”. The ensuing revelations have been well covered by the far-Left blogosphere – on Penny Red, Harry’s Place and the Communist Party of Great Britain blogs – and makes little sense to rehash the content of these here. Suffice to say we share the bulk of rank-and-file SWP members’ revulsion at the way the central committee handled the allegations and, like many on the Left, express our unreserved criticism towards such misogynistic practices and the stark hypocrisy of individuals who claim to stand for women’s liberation.

It is not the intention of this article to seek to twist the knife in a little further in the same ways other Leninist sects have done, revelling in the demise of a much despised rival, when their own democratic practices leave much to be desired and are equally hidden from public scrutiny. We also reject the commentary of the mainstream media and liberal commentators who claim these revelations spell the end for a tradition of revolutionary politics in the UK. Such statements rely on the often repeated mischaracterisation that revolutionary change necessitates the imposition of dictatorship and party diktat. This does not speak to the true character of the revolutionary struggles carried out by the popular classes, nor does it speak to the real and living revolutionary alternative to which we identify – that of libertarian socialism.

Our criticisms of Leninism are clear and principled. If you wish to understand more about them you can read our political platform or our literature or consult the library available on Libcom.org. The intention of this article is to put forward two alternative propositions – firstly, that the vision projected by the SWP of the need to build a popular and revolutionary working class movement is not one exclusively tied to the ideas and organisational practices of that party, and secondly, that an alternative exists to contemporary Trostskyist politics that both embraces dissent and democracy while arguing the benefits of political coherency and unity in the form of social anarchism.

We recognise that for a great number of people the SWP is a first base for their development within revolutionary politics. Many in the anarchist movement got “into politics” as a result of the lively and visible campaigns that organisations like the SWP organise. It is understandable why this happens. The SWP is an organisation that places a great stress on recruiting and mobilising its active membership. Many of us, isolated within a country with little to no far-Left tradition, are attracted to the vision that SWP organisers project of a popular working class movement able to push revolutionary politics to the forefront.

These ideas of building a popular working class movement, however, are not exclusively tied to the SWP. They are also not exclusively tied to the organisational structure that the SWP argue are necessary for their realisation – that of a strict organisational hierarchy and democratic centralism.

Marx argues that ideas and history have an important relationship to each other. We should heed these words when we consider the arguments made by a faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (known as the “Bolsheviks”) in 1903 who called for a loyal and disciplined cadre of “professional revolutionaries.” This organisational practice came to define the structure of revolutionary organisations across the world for the next hundred years. Some argue that these were the necessary operating practices for a revolutionary organisation in the repressive climate of the autocratic regime of the Russian Tsar. When the Bolshevik model proved ultimately successful in overthrowing both the Tsar and the following Provisional Government these subsequently became promoted as a successful model of revolutionary praxis worldwide.

Yet the reality was that it was the Bolshevik party’s pseudo-libertarian ideas, those laid down in Lenin’s “April Theses” and the “State and Revolution”, that were able to attract a mass base of support for the party so critical in the months leading up to the October revolution (ideas libertarian enough that many of the anarchists were fooled at the time). It was slogans such as “All Power to the Soviets!” and those that spoke to the existing organs of working class power that harmonised so well with the increasingly confident and autonomous practices of the Russian workers and peasantry, not cries for party discipline nor the practices of revolutionary terrorism or the repressions and execution of dissidents carried out by the Cheka.

Democratic centralism is less to do with the legacy of a “successful” revolution than with the monopolising influence of the Third International (the Comintern) over the ideology of international communist and trade union movements following the Bolshevik capture of state power. The prestige, practical and economic support offered for affiliation with Russia was a huge bargaining chip in securing adherence to the “Twenty-one conditions” Lenin laid out to the international socialist parties. Following Stalin’s rise to power these centralist principles were easily abused to ensure that sections of the international were acting in conformity with USSR foreign policy ambitions. Even opponents of Stalinism, like Trotsky and Bordiga, held to the essential organisational principles that Lenin laid down here. This is likewise the same tradition that Tony Cliff and the IS (later the SWP) was to spring from.

Now undoubtedly there is a degree of flexibility to the extent that democratic centralism is practised. For some Marxists these ideas are simply a means of operating a healthy organisational unity. With this particular vision we’d likely have little quarrel. The point is that the strict, hierarchical party model has little, if anything, to do with the mobilisation of popular working class movements and even less so with the process of revolution. Returning to the days in October, it was Lenin’s flexibility and the open and autonomous quality of the party sections thrown open by the influx of members, that marked his political practice over this decisive period (see Rabinowitch’s excellent history of the Petrograd Bolsheviks, “Prelude to Revolution: The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July 1917 Uprising”). For these few months the Bolshevik party was transformed from that tightly-knit cadre organisation into a mass party acting in common with the most advance sections of the workers movement. It was the ability of members at the grassroots to use party press and internal structures to push for an ever more radical position from the centre that characterised the shift in the comparatively conservative attitudes of the leadership at this time, not the other way around.

Revolutionary practice does require leadership, but this is not a leadership exercised through committees and party lines. It is a leadership that emerges through a dialogue and relationship of constructive activity within workplaces and communities. It is a relationship that emerges through small victories, patient work and an increasing level of trust. This is a process that specifist anarchists call “social insertion”. We aim to push social struggles on a revolutionary course while also recognising the practical lessons and ideas that evolve from it. Centralism, on the other hand, is unable to listen and anticipate these changes because it denies the critical influence of the grassroots. It is also, as the allegations involving Martin Smith clearly demonstrate, easily open to abuse from a tight clique at the centre. That is not to say that organisational unity cannot and should not exist. Rather it is a unity, much like social leadership, that evolves through an open and democratic culture of self-criticism and debate. In both cases we believe that our own tradition of specifist or "Platformist" anarchism offers viable lessons and guidance on how to build both influential and united political movements while embracing a culture of democracy and internal debate.

We understand that for many disillusioned SWP members the apparent alternatives of the warring Trotskyist sects may seem unappealing. The even smaller anarchist movement even less so. It seems highly unlikely that the central committee will ever revisit its handling of the allegations against Martin Smith and the SWP will likely continue operating in a state of recurring crisis and ensuing splits. It may be that there currently is no alternative on the level of their projected vision of a popular revolutionary party. The SWP itself certainly fails to live up to this, both politically and practically. That doesn’t mean that such an alternative cannot exist. In fact in the current political context such an alternative is more pressing than ever. What is required at this conjuncture is a convergence amongst all those interested in such an alternative on the need for a resolutely feminist, democratic and constructive movement able to look beyond the politics of both Leninism and democratic centralism towards the organisational tasks and social struggles that face us at this time.

-CW
============================================
* Commentary pieces represent the views of CA members and supporters to ongoing social and political issues.

http://www.anarchistcommunist.org/

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Comments

Submitted by anon (not verified) on

Have you ever considered that it may be a false rape allegation? There are a lot of those going around these days.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

I think the issue people both within the SWP (both internally and externally) have is with the way in which this issue was handled. The committee set up to investigate these allegations was made up majorally of central committee members who had close political and personal ties to the accused (who was also a member of the party's central committee). The committee granted specific privileges to the accused that they didn't grant to the victim (such as allowing the accuser to see the evidence against them and questions that would be asked ahead of time in order to formulate a response.) The committee also asked questions to the victim about her sexual history, something which is not only irrelevant to the case (on par with asking the victim what close they were wearing), but also humiliating . There have also been reports that the SWP's leadership has retaliated against another member of the party who had come forward with complaints of sexual harassment against this same central committee member.

I usually enjoy a good shit storm on the left, but the serious circumstances surrounding this controversy makes it fucked.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Yes, young women often enjoy smearing older, much more powerful and popular (within the context of their specific social group) men. There are no negative consequences for saying bad things about the people at the top of social hierarchies, especially very strict, completely fucking insane ones like Leninist parties, and no powerful old men have ever used their positions to engage in coercive sexual relations with younger, more marginal women (or men). Fuck off and die, scum.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

actually, that exact thing has happened several times in anarchist milieus in the past few years, did you not notice? i'm assuming the other person was trolling, but still...

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

"Yet the reality was that it was the Bolshevik party’s pseudo-libertarian ideas, those laid down in Lenin’s “April Theses” and the “State and Revolution”, that were able to attract a mass base of support for the party so critical in the months leading up to the October revolution (ideas libertarian enough that many of the anarchists were fooled at the time)"

Correction: Many of the proto-Platformists were fooled at the time.

Submitted by emile on

this article brings out the basic misunderstanding of ‘leadership’ that pervades we users of the Standard Average European language group.

in the circle processes of anarcha-indigenism, it is understood that ‘the intelligence is in the room, it is not on the podium’. people are the sensing agents of the unfolding world dynamic; i.e. the unfolding world dynamic is a complex dynamic in which people are included, but which people do not determine. e.g. people determine oil production but not the mad scramble that ensues as those addicted to the power it brings participate in a mad scramble to secure access to the dwindling reserves. it is people who determine production [the male conjugate of any dynamic] but it is nature that determines accommodation/access [the female conjugate of any dynamic].

in nature, the podium is the APPARENT source of DIRECTIVE action, like the eye of the hurricane is the podium or apparent centre of directive action of the pinwheeling storm-cell. but the PHYSICAL REALITY is that the ‘podium’ is informed by the experience in the space it is included in.

that is the understanding of ‘circle process’ based leadership. “the intelligence is in the room [relational space], it is not on the podium’.

two things contribute to the bastardization of this concept of leadership which reduces it to a notion absolute point source of directive action; (a) the concept of a God that is the first-cause source of creation, and (b) the architecture of Standard Average European (SAE) language which infuses a notional ‘subject’ and imputes it to be the ‘source’ of a ‘result’;

“[Descartes’ ‘I think therefore I am’ reflects] … our grammatical custom that adds a doer to every deed. In short, this is not merely the substantiation of a fact but a logical-metaphysical postulate” … “That which gives the extraordinary firmness to our belief in causality is not the great habit of seeing one occurrence following another but our inability to interpret events otherwise than as events caused by intentions. It is belief in the living and thinking as the only effective force–in will, in intention–it is belief that every event is a deed, that every deed presupposes a doer, it is belief in the “subject.” Is this belief in the concept of subject and attribute not a great stupidity?” – Nietzsche, ‘Will to Power’ 484

that is, we have built into the SAE language group the ‘REASONING’ that every emergent event in the continually transforming relational space of our physical experience, ... is ‘caused’ by some local ‘source’ or ‘subject’. this is the GOD ARCHETYPE, wherein something comes out of nothing; i.e. something comes out of a word we invent like ‘Katrina’ for a hurricane or like ‘lightning’;

“Our judgement has us conclude that every change must have an author”;–but this conclusion is already mythology: it separates that which effects from the effecting. If I say “lightning flashes,” I have posited the flash once as an activity and a second time as a subject, and thus added to the event a being that is not one with the event but is rather fixed, “is” and does not “become.”–To regard an event as an “effecting,” and this as being, that is the double error, or interpretation, of which we are guilty.” – Nietzsche, ‘Will to Power’, 531

is the ‘intelligence’ directing the ‘flashing’ coming from ‘the lightning’? is the ‘intelligence’ directing Katrina coming from some central source within Katrina? is the intelligence ‘on the podium’ or is it ‘in the room’ [‘im raum’, in space]? the notion that ‘lightning flashes’ or that ‘Katrina ravages New Orleans’ has the same connotation as ‘God creates’; i.e. it REASONS that a word-subject is the source of directive action that yields a ‘result’. The ‘subject’ is something we create; it is an idol that sits on a podium where it’s directive action explains unfolding events in a continuum. as Mach says, this is an economy of thought; it saves us having to acknowledge that the intelligence directing the unfolding ‘events’ resides in space, rather than in the idol on the podium. And Nietzsche says;

"Reason" in language — oh, what an old deceptive female she is! I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.” --- Nietzsche, ‘The Twilight of the Idols’

of course, it is awfully tempting for the guy on the podium presenting the intelligence/wisdom gathered in the circle process, to short-circuit the tedious-to-him circle process wherein everyone gets to contribute their heartfelt experience, and proclaim himself a faithful and trusted representative of the people, and thus that ‘the intelligence is on the podium’, whereupon he can ‘run the system in reverse’ by issuing directions that he feels are best for the people, as in the God model.

he can sell this as ‘representative democracy’ which saves a whole lot of energy gathering people together for these circle processes. also, the ego of the guy who is not ‘the intelligence on the podium’ is stroked since his leadership is no longer as the ‘presenter’ of the intelligence that resides in the relational space, but is now his own self-sourced intelligence directing the behaviour of the masses in a one-sided male-only inside-outward directional basis. the outside-inward informing ‘female’ aspect of the circle process has been ‘replaced’ by ‘reason’ built into language.

who needs the outside-inward informing female aspect when ‘reason’ is available to us. we can jumpstart our directives from the podium using ‘reason’. good quality ‘reason’ can spare the man on the podium having to be the mouthpiece of the intelligence in the relational space that his utterances are directing. why should he just be a channel for the intelligence in the relational space to speak through. after all, the people [of the SAE language group] reason that ‘lightning flashes’, so they it should seem ‘normal’ to them to reason that the guy on the podium is the source of the directives he issues; i.e. that they should put ‘the intelligence on the podium’, and go with ‘representative democracy’. this spares everyone going through the circle process all the time, like the anarcha-indigenists whose leaders are mere channels for the flow of intelligence that resides ‘in the room’, ‘im raum’, in the relational space that all share inclusion in.

it is not only the ‘intelligence of the people’ that is thwarted by ‘representative democracy’ it is justice as well. the circle process of ‘restorative justice’ in anarcha-indigenism is hijacked by the ‘intelligence on the podium’ whereupon the podium considers allegations of harm in the community in the same ‘lightning flashes’ ‘reasoning’ template, ... in this case, ‘offender abuses’. there is no notion that the harm emerges in the continuing unfolding of the community dynamic and therefore that the community must take primary responsibility and so convoke a circle process consisting of community representatives including alleged offender and alleged victim, where the ‘alleged victim’ has the opportunity to directly engage with the ‘alleged offender’ and ‘vice versa’.

no, in the ‘retributive justice’ of ‘representative democracy’ where the ‘intelligence is on the podium’, the problem is seen as someone having ‘violated the laws of the state’, not as conflict arising out of tensions in the community which is calling for transformative adjustments on the part of the relational web of community.

why should the community transform as a result of some evil anarchist or terrorist or rapist. why not just purify the system of ‘wrong-doers’ and keep the system of community as it is? the leaders of the community are the ‘intelligence on the podium’ who are capable of judging good and evil when they see it. after all, the podium is the jumpstart source of judgements of what is good and what is evil, now that representative democracy has determined that that the intelligence is on the podium and not ‘im raum’. the intelligence on the podium is ‘good’ by definition, since it is where the buck starts and stops; i.e. it is the ‘base-case’, the ‘jumpstart sourcing point’ of intelligent directives.

everyone disgruntled by the hijacking of the circle process that casts a stone at the ‘intelligence on the podium’ that is denying that the intelligence ist ‘im raum’ and hijacking the directive process with their ‘own private on-the-podium intelligence’, will be ‘wrong’ [‘evil’] by definition, and the only way around it will be to ‘go get our own man to put on the podium’ who will redefine your ‘wrong’ as ‘right’. of course, if you are in a minority situation with your complaint, you are shit-outta-luck, until the revolution comes.

is it not stupidity to presume that ‘the intelligence is on the podium’? what the author of this article is clearly speaking of, is essentially the ‘circle process’ which assumes that ‘the intelligence ist im raum, rather than on the podium’;

“Revolutionary practice does require leadership, but this is not a leadership exercised through committees and party lines. It is a leadership that emerges through a dialogue and relationship of constructive activity within workplaces and communities. It is a relationship that emerges through small victories, patient work and an increasing level of trust. This is a process that specifist anarchists call “social insertion”.”

so, the revolution that is really needed, must come in terms of the public suspending of ‘stupidity’ as nietzsche calls it, of the ‘lightning flashes’ variety. why should people continue to believe that ‘the intelligence is on the podium’? does it look like it is? does it feel like it is? evidently NOT!

“I am afraid we are not rid of God [intelligence on the podium] because we still have faith in grammar.” --- Nietzsche, ‘The Twilight of the Idols’

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Nice dissertation, Emile. Tell me more about how faith in grammar will subvert my emancipation? Boring. Irrelevant, obscurantism.

Submitted by anon56 (not verified) on

I don't like the SWP that much, but false rape allegations can really destroy a movement and its time people started waking up to the fact that they're not going away on their own.

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