The SPD, Parti Ouvrier, the Bolsheviks and their electoral tactics – Roger Silverman and Ian Spencer

Learning from those that came before us: The SPD, Parti Ouvrier, the Bolsheviks and their electoral tactics
Intros by Roger Silverman and Ian Spencer

good evening comrades um Welcome to our fourth session in this series on the elections the general elections we’re taking another look back at the past and we’ve previously looked at marks and the chartists and elections and tonight we’re looking at the French Workers Party The Social Democratic party of Germany and the Bolshevik so we’re starting with Ian uh speaking about the French Workers Party and the Social Democratic party and then Roger on the Bolsheviks thank you for joining us comrades I get this thing to that’s it sorry comrades few glitches there um good evening comrades um in looking at Marx’s parties of the past uh it’s worth having a look at um those with which marks and Engles were most intimately connected uh so we’re going to have a look at the German Social Democratic party uh in in its various formations and the process by which um a revolutionary program became a central feature of of workers parties um and as we’ll go on to see that was followed right through to the biks um and but also they were intimately connected with the development of the party of FR say uh and and to the extent of Marx having a hand in and actually simply writing their program with with some minor assistance from je yed um who was the leader of the party at the time um so in looking at uh the the various parties the first real um German Mass Workers Party uh really was founded uh by and and sty it’s interesting to have a look at marks and engel’s correspondence and look at the attitude that marks and Engles had to the various contributors to the development of the German Workers Party um LEL uh certainly up to about 1863 enjoyed sort of Fairly cordial correspondence with Mark um not least of which because uh you know Lal was a leading figure within the German Workers movement he’d come from a comfortable background um his father from a Jewish Family his father father was a um a sort of textile Merchant um his name was originally Lal spelled with one L and it was kind of changed subsequently to kind of eff face the jewishness of of o o of his background um but despite coming from a sort of petty B bis background he supported the Revolutions of 1848 and was subsequently in prison for his pains um and uh established the the the German Workers Association um and founded in in in leig uh in in the 1860s but it if if you look at the the correspondence about laal from marks and Engles although they had as say fairly good relation early on um Engles in particular was much more critical of Lal and over time they eventually broke with him almost entirely um not least of which because he continued to in in his kind of economic perspective he was really kind of a follower of uh David Ricardo rather than KL Marx and continued to insist on stuff like the iron law of wages over which the implication being that workers couldn’t really um increase their their their pay in any significant way without the the market reasserting itself as it were so um they were also very critical of lal’s tendency to emphasize the importance of a kind of um intellectual and bouro element within the German Workers movement as it as its leadership remember of course that Marx famously had written that um the the liberation of the working class is the act of the workers themselves later on as the German Workers movement eventually developed into the Social Democratic party and was a thoroughly Marxist party um part of that process was the critique of the gut program and it was really a critique of lalian politics in the context of of the German Workers movement um so from that point of view um although Lal uh enjoys a a particular place by virtue of being U the the founder of the first kind of mass uh German Workers movement he um really and he wasn’t really able to develop um his ideas because he was killed in a duel um but uh but the critique of the goth program importantly is a critique of lalian politics um by the time um we get to uh the the the establishment of the German Workers democ the German Democratic workers party or the Social Democratic Workers Party of Germany um and vilhelm libn who was a a member of uh the Communist league and had very good relations with with Marx and Engles although they were critical of him as well um libn too and of course uh he was also the father of Carl libn who will meet again in a moment um took also took part in the Revolutions of 1848 um and as did Engles and he escaped to Geneva where he met Engles in uh in in in in the period after 1848 so established the Social Democratic Workers Party of Germany uh initially joined uh lal’s organization uh in 1862 um but moved to Le liic later where he met August Babel um Babel had been elected to the north German right in 1867 um what’s important here I think and and this will be the recurring theme if you like is that the uh standing uh in uh elections and in this context was standing as a revolutionary and using the uh electoral platform to advance the the the importance of of of socialist revolution of worldwide socialist Revolution this was not an attempt to take office as it were in in that context um so uh both and and it was also bound up with the kind of revolutionary internationalism that we’ve just discussed many times before that was Central to the work of marks and Engles um so both vilhelm Li libni and uh August bbel uh opposed the war with France uh the Franco Prussian war of 1870 to 1871 and both uh voiced their support in in favor of the Paris commune um and and both were accordingly arrested um so Babel and lick had effectively established the uh Social Democratic Workers Party of Germany in isak in 1869 um and so in the literature you tend to hear people talking about eakas as be as people who were behind the program of the Party founded in in 1869 in isak and isak is in this context meant as it were the Marxist wing of the German Workers movement um so beel and lbck uh occupy a very important position within uh the context of of both the the demands for um widening of the franchise even in the context of a rag which had little or no power um you know Germany was not a constitutional monarchy in any way bound to accept what the rag uh whatever resolutions the right day passed um but nevertheless we’re determined to use um that platform uh to advance the possibility of re to advance the the the demand for revolutionary change um uh by the by 1875 you get a merger of those those ties to form uh the Socialist Workers Party of Germany and it is in that context that you have the G program that was previously mentioned men um of 1875 um and and Marx’s Trent critique of it subsequently um just to put it into context uh or you know here is a party standing um a relatively new party standing uh but but won nearly half a million votes in in a in a restricted franchise in a for um electoral fora that had very little power but were determined to stand on the basis of of uh advancing the the cause of of revolutionary socialism um so the name the Social Democratic party of Germany was adopted from 1890 and crucial here is uh c kotsky um the so-called pope of Marxism um it earns this subri which is not always I think meant as as particularly flattering um in in no small part because he was an intimate of friederick Engles uh in the last five years of Fredick Engles life kosi was in London and uh subsequently became something of the literary executive of angles just as angles had been the literary executive of KL Marx um ksky um and in ksky was even the literary executive of some of Marx’s work that um Engles hadn’t got round to so theories of surplus value for example was edited and put together by korski initially um although not published until quite a bit later and sometimes it’s referred to as volume four of capital theories of surplus value um it’s Marx’s kind of outline of a history of economic thought in a sense um kolski as this So-Cal pope of Marxism might be expected to um have uh had a fairly decisive role and as a as a theoretician within um the SPD and because of his enormous Prestige of having been a close associate of angles uh did enjoy great Authority within the context of the German Workers movement and he was one in one of the authors along with interestingly Edward Bernstein um of the Earth program of 1891 which is often reckoned to be a kind of a Orthodox Marxist program for the German social Democratic party um by 1912 as is well known the SPD was one of the was the the despite being borred effectively from taking office one of the strongest parties in the rush and so here is the situation where you have a party which by this time was much more than just simply the kind of political party you would see in in Britain or many other countries today um if you weren’t in the the spd’s um reach went far further than just simply um standing people in elections and that kind of thing if you were into cycling you could join a Social Democratic Cycling Club if you were into Hill walking you could join a hill walking club with the SBD it was a um a thoroughgoing Association of workers in many different spheres um ksky uh was was so well thought of even by Lenin uh that it’s the when eventually the German SPD voted for the war credits in 1914 it said that Lenin um absolutely couldn’t believe it and didn’t believe it initially um uh and of course then subsequently what most of people know of of ksky is is is Lenin’s assertion of him as a renegade uh as someone who betrayed the fundamental principles of socialist ationalism in voting for war credits for a fratricidal war uh in in Europe um Bernstein and ksky uh both subsequently regarded I think uh the the amount of support by the SPD uh for the war effort as having gone too far uh and by by 1917 both KK and Bernstein had formed the independent uh social um Social Democratic party um and so from that point of view it’s a little more comp complex and nuanced even though uh Bernstein throughout uh is often regarded as the beginning the the beginnings not of revisionism but beginnings of a revisionism which is worked out in theoretical terms um remember you know the British labor party had never had a a a a Marxist tendency within it really it had never had a revolutionary program people often talk about Clause four of the of the labor party Constitution um that this has nothing to do with Marxism too secure for the workers by hand or brain this is in sharp distinction uh to uh the the re the liberation of the working class is the act of the workers themselves um but by contrast Bernstein had worked out a kind of theoretical perspective which is actually when you when you look at it it’s quite close to a more sociological attempt to analyze the position of the German working class talking in terms of um the movement is everything and the end is nothing really by reference to the fact that there was a growing middle class in the context of Germany and a professional class uh that was uh relatively privileged and so from that point of view you start to see the beginnings of a kind of of a sociological reappraisal of Marxism which has always existed in an effort to counter the Revolutionary potential of mar Marxism and meanwhile in France uh a similar process is taking place I mean we often hear the kind of narrative of uh you know the the the Renegade ksky and the the Betrayal of the German SPD of the international workers movement but ex the same kind of process was taking place in France at the same time uh so what we start to see is a division between possibilist and revolutionaries in the context of the um the French workers movement uh the Federation of of Socialist Workers of of France led by former anarchists Paul brus and Ben Malon a Marxist left led by jeid and Paul lfag Paula of course was the son-in-law of of KL Marx having married his daughter Laura um and so the possibilist uh who organized themselves around achievable gains within the context of capitalism and argued for a reformist political program um was subsequently led by Jean jores um but again it’s rather subtle and Nuance because when we come to 1914 for example je jurz was implacably opposed to um supporting the war and was prepared to back the idea of mass strikes against the war um the party socialist def France led by GID and the former blist uh Edward valon um uh formed as it were the the Revolutionary part of the workers movement and it wasn’t really until coming under pressure from uh the the um second International uh the workers party in France uh United um just as an aside here’s jul GID um originally born jul Bazil Bazil was his father’s name and he used his mother’s name uh to avoid his father being kind of persecuted uh for his position because he came from a sort of a respectable background as it were um so uh really started off as a radical republican um and concentrating really on the Rights of Man the editor of Le um a refugee in Geneva in 1876 but um gradually moved towards a Marxist position um but opposed at the time to taking uh part in in Revolutionary politics part in electoral politics uh partly as a result of his earlier influence by the anarchist crudel um and it’s this accusation of his revolutionary phrase mongering uh which led Marx famously to say that if uh if these people are anything to be judged by I am not a Marxist um and but of course uh G eventually changed his View and was EV eventually elected as MP for rway in 1893 but G like ksky ultimately supported the war and didn’t support the Soviets in the USSR when they when they took power so um G’s uh Legacy uh is not un but I mean he’s usually less wellknown than ksky because he left behind no real um theoretical Legacy in terms of his understanding of of of politics in general Marxism in particular um lfag as is well known uh was quite apart from um being married to Laura Marx he was a close associate of of Marx and Engles worked with geed in in promoting Marxism in France Paul and Laura translated much of Marx’s work into French uh before uh they tragically died in a suicide p in in 1911 and um Lenin actually spoke at their funeral um Jean jurz who’s the kind of leader of the uh possibilist Wing as it were a republican Deputy in elected as a republican Deputy in 1885 and then elected in 1893 as a socialist Deputy uh the leader of the the possibilist wing and approved very much in not just in uh standing for election uh for revolutionary ends to propagate the possibility of Revolution uh but but it was in in favor of the participation of socialists in government um and we can see these kind of strands within the French uh movement uh which was subsequently also um taken up by G during the war um so but jores founded Luman um he eventually uh formed a United party with GID um but interestingly for somebody who’s usually regarded as a reformist he was implacably opposed to imperialism and militarism and and supported the idea of a general strike to stop the war and we don’t know really what would have happened had he not been assassinated by a nationalist ra vain um so the party of uh the Party overare founded in uh 1880 and I think it’s worth I mean I don’t normally do this but sometimes it’s just worth read in something out that that kind of sums things up so um here we have a program which is written by Marx was dictated by Marx to G and G subsequently uh included stuff um in the political section and economic section so the the program of the Workers Party of France and the workers party of Britain could uh indeed learn a few things from this one um considering that the emancipation of the productive class is is that of all human beings without distinction of sex or race that the producers can only be free when they are in possession of the means of production so here is a revolutionary program which is concerned with the means of production not just simply occupying seats in Parliament for its own sake as it were it is the only when they are in the possession of the means of production uh that there were only two forms under which the means of production can belong to them the individual form which never existed in a general State and which is increasingly eliminated by industrial progress here he’s talking about the personal possessions of working people the collective form the material and intellectual Elements which are constituted by the very development of capitalist Society considering that this is the collective appropriation can can arise only from the Revolutionary action of the productive class or proletariat organized as a distinct political party that’s such an organization must be pursued that such an organization must be pursued by all means of the proletary has at its disposal including universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into the instrument of emancipation so throughout marks and Engles have were uh not only willing to use the electoral process but determined that the workers should use every everything that their disposal uh to to promate the possibility of Revolution um eventually uh the party of R became part of the party socialist fores and the French section of uh the Communist International the Socialist International so um second International founded in uh 1889 um and then but there were at the time as it were two separate conferences possibilist and and a Marxist conference uh and then later uh 1896 Congress uh with reformist and revolutionary factions um one of the things that because of the destru of the anarchists in the first International they were effectively excluded um and it was really pressure from the international that led to the unification of the French party and throughout the second International had uh reaffirmed its it commitment to anti-militarism well of course we know what happened uh only Carl lick and later oo ruler voted against War credits um there was the split in the German uh SPD to form the independent uh uh Social Democratic party of Germany in 1917 uh because the the even ksky and Bernstein regarded the support for the war has gone having gone too far um and really it’s the German Revolution and the workers councils that it had thrown up that had ended the first world war um remember uh that workers councils had come into being in uh St Petersburg in 1905 and and is written brilliantly by written about brilliantly by trosy in his book 1905 um but it’s really the the German Revolution that ended the first world war with the Mutiny of sailors at willhelm Fen and Keel um and it’s really the German Social Democratic party that opposed the Revolution and effectively drowned It in Blood um so uh Frederick Erbert who subsequently led the the German SPD um effectively joined the 1918 strike leadership in order to break it in order to uh guide it as it were into a peaceful um end with from the point of view of the ruling class and he was in a PCT effectively with uh senior military officer vham grer uh uh to to help to oppose the revolution um uh workers councils it’s an interesting area because of course um the many who uh look towards workers councils as being uh the means by which socialism will come into being sometimes Overlook the fact that many of the workers councils in Germany at the time in in the absence of a unified Communist Party um were the those workers councils themselves could often include me members of the SPD that could include liberals famously even Max vber who had a hand in writing the constitution of the viar Republic uh was on a workers Council um but of course the other features of the German Revolution was the feature of workers in arms uh arms have been distributed to a population which of course was well used to using them by 9th of November Philip shidan proclaimed the German Republic Carl libn independently had proclaimed a socialist republic of Germany and but the Communist Party of Germany wasn’t formed until the 1st of April uh 1st of January 1919 um by which time the spartacist uprising um was was was quickly defeated and Gustaf nusk a senior figure within the German Social Democratic party had ordered the murder of Rosa Luxenberg and Carl libni um this set the scene uh for the disastrous split really with um the communist Workers Party of Germany splitting uh from from the Communist Party of Germany and also the founding of the German um General Workers Union as a kind of syndicalist arm of syndicalist wing of the of the German communist Workers Party um so we have this tragic history uh and uh Lenin’s famous little book leftwing communism and infantile disorder was published in 1920 um here you see the original kind of take name which is taken directly from the Russian uh the infantile sickness of leftism in communism um uh written for the second Congress of the Comm turn um and it’s a a critique of of ksky and others but it’s also a CR critique of of the the ultra leftists as it were uh of Communism in Germany a critique of the Communist workers part communist Workers Party of Germany uh and other characters within it Anton panako the C Council communist is referred to as as Herer uh there was critical of uh leftwing communism in Britain and and the refusal for example of Willie Galaga occupying significant Place uh within the the the the developing Communist Party of Great Britain um for his refusal to take part in uh re uh Al politics and of course others such as Sylvia pankus and then famously talking about the support for Arthur Henderson the leader of the labor party one of the leaders of the lab party as supporting him as a rope supports hanged man thank you comrades thank you Ian over to you Roger all right he me yes yes all good okay well um it’s a hard act to follow Ian that was a really absolutely stunning and thorough presentation of the whole history of particularly well the French and the German uh origins of the labor movement I’m not going to try anything quite so ambitious I’m afraid I’m concentrating on the on the record of the bolix in relation to parliamentary elections and parliamentary procedures um and I’m going to focus um first in on their attitude towards the Duma which was um a kind of mock Parliament introduced by the tar um in out of panic um at the time of the uh 1905 Revolution onwards and then also because there’s so much confusion and myths about it the bvic attitude towards the constituent assembly when the um uh after the October Revolution so um I’d like to start by saying you know we’re often misrepresented we marxists as enemies of democracy uh and according to the to the boura mythology didn’t the bik ban opposition parties didn’t they shut down the constituent assembly uh didn’t they impose War communism creates a one party police state Etc and actually I mean this I’m not going to attempt to uh to answer all those questions in this particular session but on the contrary it should be noted that um far from imposing a one- party State the first Soviet government was not even a onep party government it was a coalition with the left SRS uh and this is not the place to explain the later emergence of a tyrannical St police states which of course had nothing in common with balic Traditions the constant efforts of the enemies of democracy of the working class to ascribe to the biks the crimes of their stylist graved diggers are of course a travesty so let’s examine specifically the attitude of marxists and specifically the bik towards Parliament and elections first a word about one of the attributes of Marxism which is least recognized Often by its own adherance and that is what I could call its modesty because unlike the assorted sectarians that were their contemporaries Marx and Engel have never sought to impose our priori utopian fantasies upon the realities of the class struggle they saw it as their task above all simply to learn from the actual historic experience of the working class and to adapt their scientific conclusions according inly it was after all the workers of Parish in the commune of 1871 who demonstrated to Marks and not the other way around the necessity of Smashing and replacing the bouris state machine rather than simply commandeering it the workers of Paris rose up in the struggle to take hold of Their Own Destiny and in the course of that experience it was their own Collective leap of imagination and improvisation that shaped the form the workers power would take Marx’s genius consisted above all in his ability to watch to listen and to learn from their experience and to condense it into theoretical conclusions all the elements of workers democracy the rotation of administrative duties the strict limitation on official remuneration a workers militia Soviets Etc these were not devised by Marx or Lenin in their own heads and then imposed on the living reality of the movements after all that’s the definition of sectarianism all these attributes of workers democracy were derived from the process of the struggle itself as it unfolded so again and again at the high points of History it was always the creative energies of workers in struggle which showed the way forward the mark of the great revolutionaries was their Insight in grasping these lessons there are of course countless examples it was the actual course of the the Russian Revolution which sharpens up Lenin’s earlier incomplete and what Trotsky called algebraic formulation of its tasks as a democratic dictatorship of the works and peasantry into workers rule it was the course of the Revolution itself which demonstrated to Trotsky something to which he had previously as he freely admitted given inadequate weight the as he called it the imperious necessity of a centralized mic party we all on constantly reminded of the need therefore to question outborn shibs and test them against reality as it unfolds so another relevant example which is uh coming really to the to the meat of this U of this discussion in 195 it was by their own spontaneous improvisation that the workers in what was still then St Petersburg demonstrated in action The crucial role of the Soviets as Democrats organs of workers power much to the dismay originally of the local biks who were initially skeptical and distrustful of what they perceived as a threat to their precious leading role of the party Trotsky was of course the chair of the of the St Petersburg Soviet in 1905 and it was to the last in credit of Lenin at that time of course belonging they belonged to rival factions that the biks were so quick to acknowledge the form of organization that the workers themselves had created now flexibility is needed all the more with purely tactical questions so there’s no single fixed definitive answer to the question our Marxist for or against participation in Parliament let’s remember in 1850 Marx insisted on participation even in rigged elections for the advantages they held uh just to quote he said even when there is no Prospect whatsoever of their being elected the workers must put up their own candidates in order to preserve their independence to count their forces and to bring before the public their revolutionary attitude and party standpoint but 20 years later when it came to his review of the experiences of the Paris commune Marx contrasted its incomparably more democratic character to the boura parliamentary system which he mocked of course as quote deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to represent was to misrepresent the people in Parliament and Lenin um really only slightly um uh amended that when he said later the real essence of boura parliamentarism is to decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through Parliament now but over a period of just 12 years Russia went through a series of political convulsions and upheavals requiring constantly changing kaleidoscopic shifts of tactics and then in listed sharply distinct phases uh which he classified as follows the years of Revolution 1905 to7 the years of reaction 1907 to 1910 the years of Revival 1910 to 1914 the imperialist war 1914 to 1917 and the Second Revolution in Russia as he called it February to October 1917 and as he explained in relation to this varied experience of the bolix the alternation of parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms of struggle of the tactics of boycotting Parliament and that of participating in parliament of legal and illegal forms of struggle and likewise their inter relations and connections all this was marked by an extraordinary wealth of content so their attitude towards Parliament and their corresponding tactics changed accordingly so first let’s have a look at the balik’s attitude towards the Duma the Duma was a quazi parliamentary institution set up by the toist regime as a token concession rung out of it following the outbreak of the 19 195 Revolution now the establishment of the Dumar was a gain of the 195 Revolution which shook the absolutist state through its foundations it was a token acknowledgement of the end of personal autocracy and it was the first hint of accountability and while it failed to overthrow the monarchy and overturn the semi- feudal social relations of Russian life it did Force thear to Grant this limited constitutional reform Alle leged ative assembly but from its B birth this state zumar was a deeply undemocratic institution rather than being elected on a one person one vote basis parliamentary representatives were elected separately from each social class divided therefore into landlords wealthy City dwellers workers and peasants and the allocation of delegates was of course heavily weighted towards the rich there was to be one Deputy for every 2,000 landlords but only one for every 30,000 peasants or 990,000 workers moreover Lenin’s Social Democratic labor party was still an illegal organization that is both wings uh was still an illegal organization which the sist State constantly clamps down upon now the question came immediately should revolutionaries have participated faced with this monstrous caricature of democracy the immediate reaction of the entire rsdlp both factions alike was boycott Lenin faced an uphill struggle trying to win support for participation in elections not only among groups like the social social revolutionaries who were exclusively focused on terrorism as the sole weapon to be waged against sism but also from Lenin’s own comrades Lenin argued that despite the rigging of the elections participation in them would offer real advantages namely since deputies were to be elected separately from each social class that meant that workers deputies had to be elected in all the big factories in every major industrial area and this gave revolutionaries the opport the opportunity to lay out their election program in front of mass meetings of workers in each of the major workplaces and have their candidates elected by a show of hands and that was an opportunity that Marxist parties in Western Europe could only dream of and once socialists were elected to the Duba they would gain a vital platform in a society in which political discussion was repressed by police surveillance State violence and of course the threat of deportation to Siberia now at first Lenin failed to convince the mics to run candidates but when that first Dumar was disbanded in July 1906 after just two months for Lenin this abrupt autocratic sh shutdown of Russia’s first elected assembly was a key moment that shed new lights on the realities of tus Society lessons that he would constantly impress upon the bvic Parliamentary deputies until the rsdlp Dumar faction was finally outlawed having agitated against the first world war in 1915 now the main party of the capitalist class the dets had failed to do anything to defend the first Duma Beyond giving High flutin speeches in its chamber Lenin believed that this highlighted two important lessons first it demonstrated the danger of parliamentary crism a term that Lenin borrowed from Marx secondly it dramatically underlined Lenin’s thesis that the Russian capitalist class was incapable of leading the sort of boura revolutions that their English and French counterparts had made in the 17th and 18th century to destroy fism and smash the power of the old aristocratic ruling classes the liberal capitalists and their political arm the cadets were simply too scared of the risk of workingclass uprisings to lead a movement against the SAR and the great land owning nobility uh so thus Lenin was able to expose the fact that instead of the capitalists leading a bour de Democratic Revolution to overthrow the fudal aristocracy it was the task of the working class to take matters into its own hands in Alliance with the peasantry to overthrow terorism and Lenin used the debates in the dubar to expose to the working class the unwillingness of the Liberals to confront the aristocracy and Sim simultaneously to show the peasantry that only a revolutionary alliance with the working class could give them the land so by participating in this in this truncated Duma Lenin was thus shown to be a champion of democracy in the face of the dirty smears that he was an elitist or a desport not only did the Bolsheviks grasp with both hands the opportunity to participate in elections despite the uto rotness of the Duma but they also went to Great Lengths to ensure that their deputies were accountable to the rank and file of the party now this second Dumar listed only a little longer than the first first just a matter of a couple of months when it too was dissolved the the question of future participation in the new Dumar conf in convened in 1907 became the flasho of a new debate this time Lenin was categorically opposed to participation he called not for abstention but for something very different an active boycott on the eve of a conference which had been called to reunite the two Wings Of The Party uh following the earlier splits between bolik and menik Lenin said he welcomed the prospect of unification but the one point that he raised was the question of participation in the dubar so he said and this is a this is a um direct quote there is still one point on which the two halves of the party disagree the state Duma all party members must be clear on this question bolik and menik are agreed that the presid Zuma is a miserable travesty of popular representation that this fraud must be exposed and that preparations must be made for an armed Uprising to bring about the convocation of a constituent assembly freely elected by the whole people uh sorry one second I’ve lost my [Music] place um the disputes he said is only about the tactics to be adopted towards the Duma the menic say that our party should take part in the election of delegates and electors The bovic Advocate an active boycott of the Duma and then he explained what that meant what does an active boycott of the Duma mean boycott means refusing to take part in the elections we have no wish to elect either Duma deputies electors or delegates active boycott doesn’t merely mean keeping out of the elections it also means making extensive use of election meetings for Social Democratic agitational organization making use of these meetings means gaining entry to them both legally by registering in the voters lists and illegally expounding at them the whole program and all the views of the Socialists exposing the Dumar as a fraud and humbug and calling for a struggle for a constituent assembly and he just continued why do we refuse to take part in the elections because by taking part in the elections we should involuntarily Foster belief in the Duma among the people and therefore weaken the effectiveness of our struggle against this travesty of popular representation the Dumar is not a parliament it is a Roose employed by the autocracy we must expose this root by confusing by refusing to take any part in the elections the Duma is not a parliament but a new police fraud and so um he went on I won’t read any more of that but I think he made his position very very clear now the bik um eventually did participate in the in the dubar until they were kicked out in um in 19 uh in 19 15 no in 1912 sorry uh that was of course the almost the U the lowest point of the counter Revolution now what about 1917 in 1917 the biks had a similarly flexible approach to the constituent assembly actually although they are constantly branded as the people who um the people who destroyed the constituent assembly who destroyed any chance of a legitimate parliamentary democracy and so on the fact is that the call for a constituent assembly was one of their principal demands following the overthrow of terrorism uh because after all a constituent assembly is not just a parliamentary legislative body it’s a special tribunal convened in order to formulate a new Constitution that hence the name a constituent assembly is an assembly created to constitute a new state apparatus a constitution so the constituent assembly figured prominently in the vvix program in February 19 19 17 they demanded an immediate peace land to The Peasants workers control of the factories immediate convocation of a constituent assembly and a truly Democratic Republic so even on October the 25th that is speeding up if you like going go fast forward to the octob to the October the first day of the October Revolution on October the 5th it was the the meeting of the Congress Congress of Soviets which had begun with Lenin going to the rostom with the immortal words announcing we will now proceed to the construction of the Socialist order but in that same speech he continued the Soviet government will ensure the convocation of a constituent assembly now sure enough elections did take place uh in um on 12th of November and the early election result returned gave gave big majorities to the bovik but when results arrived from the provinces it was the social revolutionaries and especially their rightwing who were the winners and the final tally when the when the election results came in was social social social revolutionaries 299 Ukrainian social revolutionaries 81 left Social revolutionaries 39 bolix 168 menik 18 Cadet 15 and an assortment of others 83 so how could this have happened a proletarian Insurrection in petrograd and at the same time an endorsement of the status quo in the provinces how could this have happened why was this and the reason is because the provinces were remote from the scene of the decisive battles of the Revolution without of course media Communications and moreover of course in conditions of mass illiteracy the participants in the provinces were unaware of the rapidly moving developments and the debates in petrograd and Moscow mostly they are unaware even of the fact of the October Revolution the right social revolutionaries prevailed because the peasantry were far removed from the daily debates on the rising Consciousness among the workers in the factories and the soldiers in the Garrison who in fact in effect constituted the armed peasantry and of course in patrr there the the consciousness of the workers and the soldiers had overtaken that of the peasants in the Countryside by leaps and downs how then in this situation were they to react the biks were uncertain and irresolute and Lenin himself at first uh abstained from participating in the discussion he was himself at first undecided how to cope with this um conjuncture so the biks were in doubt they were divided the bvic parliamentarian parliamentarian deputies um Led Led by CF and others were Keen to participate but on December the 11th Lenin finally proposed that the bvic delegation be dissolved but and again this is an answer to those who think that Lenin commanded the the party like a like an absolute dictator when he when he made that proposal he was was overruled Lenin went on to the offensive he argued that the inevitable coming clash between the constituent assembly of the Congress of Soviets would constitute a confrontation leading to Civil War because by that time far from being a revolutionary Call to Arms the call for a constituent assembly and even the slogan all power to the Soviets have by now been opportunistically taken up by surprise surprise the cadets and even the white generals the cist remnants of the Old State it had become objectively a counterrevolutionary slogan the menix of the SRS demanded the immediate convocation of the assembly but meanwhile the forces of armed counter Revolution the fascist white guards were already arming and mobilizing their forces in parenthesis by the way it should be noted that far from the caricature of the bovik as ruthless bloodthirsty tyrants the fact is that they were initially hopelessly split and soft and naive the first armed Revolt the first counterrevolutionary Revolt was led by the CAC General prasov and how was that snake defanged what happened is it was done by a friendly visit to their Garrison by two bovik no more who uh who discussed and argued and convinced the troops to hold fire pending peaceful negotiations and following which they actually released kof himself simply on the basis of his assurances that he would not try to subvert the authority of the Soviets and of course once released he promptly fled South and uh began to mobilize together with other white generals a counterrevolutionary army so what happened with the constituent assembly it met on January the 18th 1918 the bovik immediately proposed a motion that it ratify the measures already taken by the Soviet government therefore legitimizing the uh the power of the Soviets this uh vote was rejected by 237 votes to 138 the bovik and the left asirs then walked out never to return and that in fact was the end of the constituent assembly because after ref hours of inconus inconclusive bla the assembly dispersed never to reconvene and the important thing is that public opinion was supremely indifferent nobody missed it for one second by now the revolution had far outpaced uh and overtaken this constitutional trapping it had become no more than a sheet bble in the context of Soviet power and simmering Civil War the considerate assembly could now have served only as a rallying Center a war cry for the counterrevolution suddenly every tarist and counterrevolutionary and fascist in the world was Raising on high the completely unfamiliar to them Banner a parliamentary democracy in a constituent assembly everyone from CAC generals to um for instance uh Winston Churchill in Britain who was soon to spend millions of pounds in the attempt to overthrow workers and peasants power in Russia nowhere did the cry for the constituent assembly appealed successfully to the workers and peasants they understood who Champion championed it and why and that’s why it was dispersed by the Revolutionary regime and that’s why it was not mourned or missed or even remembered by the people of Russia the result was inevitable they rallied ever more firmly around the Soviets and the Soviet regime so were the Bolsheviks inconsistent in their approach yes they were and quite rightly so Lenin Trotsky and the bovik adapted empirically to the rapidly advancing March and progress of the Revolution I like to quote from one quite interesting book which I don’t I would recommend comrades if they haven’t read it to read by somebody called lead B called leninism under Lenin and he wrote perhaps overstated his case a little but it’s worth uh keeping in mind what he says today it appears to us that each Leap Forward made by the Revolution was transcending its bour limits intensified its character as a socialist Revolution Lenin however hesitated on this point groping his way and sometimes contradicting himself these approximations and varying definitions will surprise only those who wish to see in Lenin an infallable master and omniscient planner of revolutionary strategy and this he was not uh leedman actually says I don’t quite agree with him on this but he was not even he says the real theoretician of the Revolution but merely the maker of it but he was right to say that it was Lenin’s absorption in Practical activity that doubtless prevented him in 1917 from formulating and deducing theoretical conclusions from the lessons of events and hence the theoretical hesitancy of his approach initially to the problem of the constituent assembly which of course he made up for very greatly by his boldness in practice uh now finally uh what sorry uh yeah sorry quite rightly as the context of the debate shifted so too necessarily the approach of the Bic had change changed accordingly it was only subsequently and implicitly the Lenin in practice even acknowledged trotsky’s formulation of the tasks of the Revolution as set out in his prophetic earlier writings on the theory of permanent revolution but on this question of the constituent assembly Lenin wrote with absolute characteristic Clarity sharpness and simplicity this is how he explained the situation the the biks began their Victorious struggle against menix in a very cautious Manner and the preparations I made for it were by no means simple at the beginning of the period mentioned we did not proclaim a boycott of the boura parliament the constituent assembly but said and following the April Conference of our party uh that’s following the April thesis began to State officially in the name of the party that a boura republic with a constituent assembly would be better than a bour republic without a constituent assembly but that a workers and peasants Republic a Soviet Republic would be better than any bour Democratic Republic so finally what would replace aour our Democratic Constitution Soviet power and as we said earlier its principles were not artificially imposed from the sidelines let alone dictated from on high they arose from the organic process of the Revolution itself it was in the feverish months of the Revolution itself in 19 17 not at some projected Promised Land of the future but in the course of the actual living process of history when Lenin was in hiding following the premature uprising of the July days in petrograd that Lenin wrote his uh classic work stat of Revolution and in that work he set out once again not from a preconceived recipe but from actual historical experience the Practical form the workers democracy was taking and it could be reduced to the to the following principles no standing army but the armed people all officials to be elected by the workers with direct right of recall all officials to receive the wage of a skilled worker and of course we have to add the footnote to that in in the prevailing conditions the shortage of skilled technicians Etc a clearly defined maximum differential of 4 to1 was grudgingly permitted and of course that was a FAL concession which in isolation and over a period led to the crystallization of a monstrously privileged bureaucratic Elite uh with a with a differential not 4 to1 but 40 if not 400 to1 and of course the monstrosity of sism and finally though popular participation in all administrative duties direct management through Soviets workers councils and that is a means of running Society more rational than any part than any constituent assembly or than any previous state machine in history so thanks comrades I’ll um I’ll leave it to leave it at that brilliant thank you very much Roger um two to four very good also Ian’s introduction very very interesting um comrades if you have a question if you’d like to make a contribution please click raise hands um I’ve got a couple of uh questions for for you both um get the ball rolling Ian um I mean Roger I think Drew out really well the question of tactical flexibility when it comes to in election standing in elections it’s not a principle either way you know we have to always stand or we always have to boycott it so it’s a you know it it it depends on the circumstances entirely so in a bourge a BBA Parliament with its all its limitations Sometimes the best you can do is use Parliament as a platform and K liip did that quite well I me he gave some some stunning speeches then in Parliament even though he was the sort of he was in in a total minority uh on that but that perhaps you know once once there is an revolutionary upsurge you have to adjust pretty quickly and a b Parliament then becomes a burden or a a um something that has to be overcome rather than participated in how did um especially the social Democrats and the also the the French party did they have those kind of debates on on flexibility on how to how to engage with with Parliament and elections or was that perhaps too early and because there hadn’t been a revolution then um that they hadn’t really that they didn’t get to those kind of debates um the first thing about car Le would say to preface anything else is that was one of the ways in which he was frequently shouted down um was the demand for Unity that because he was in a very small minority of demanding a kind of transition to socialism um he was often shouted down on the grounds of you know the Social Democratic party has has to retain his Unity despite the fact that um the leadership of the Social Democratic party had been responsible for crushing the revolution U both by its alliance with um the the the command structure of of the German Army but also um you know directly in ordering Le and and luxenberg’s killing um but the debates around the the uh tactics involved in in in standing for Parliament um there were tensions because uh uh you know if if you if you stand for election do you take office for example uh I mean you don’t really see anywhere in in Mark’s angles and you certainly don’t see wilham lick or anyone else saying um you know if if offered a Minister’s post should you take it no uh there was no suggestion whatsoever of that but there was debate within the context of um the the French uh party uh about whether one should take and and Jean is represented that that kind of contradiction on the the one hand he was anti-militarist on the one hand he was um uh in in favor of of a strike to stop the the first war war but on the other hand he was prepared to take office um so there was that kind of strange contradiction in the right wi of the of the French movement uh and of course ultimately it was expressed by GID who who did take office within the within during the first world war so yes there were debates and I think that it is a very clear uh uh dividing again uh are we always saying under no circumstances would one take office um I think you have to look at that whole question of tactical flexibility and say you know what would be the purpose of taking office uh you know would inevitably when um uh the kind of shattered remnants of the of the second International socialist parties have taken office they’ve always ended up um suppressing the interests of the working class and from that point of view um there is a uh I suppose the principal feature of it is to what extent can you um bring about socialism by by taking office within within a bush or Parliament I think standing for Parliament is one thing taking a a seat within Parliament as a um a workers Tribune as it were is is one but to take office it puts you in a completely different position altogether uh and from that point of view generally should be avoided I’m not saying never but generally it should be avoided certain certainly a contradiction within the French party yeah on this point Alexandra Mond obviously I guess that’s who you’re um talking about do you know a bit more about it I mean he he started off as quite a a socialist and then became war minister and basically you know helped to organize a Slaughter of their brothers and sisters absolutely of course you you see I mean you’ve seen exactly the same thing with the the labor party in Britain often you know helped to effectively Marshall the working class behind the interests of of the war um behind you know um so although someone like Ramsey McDonald for example was was in principle opposed to the war it was largely on pacifist grounds rather than uh socialist grounds um but mil I mean um you know you end up with a socialist who’s better at marshalling um the working class behind the interests of capital than even the capitalists and that’s the the danger that’s the things to be avoided that’s the that’s the that’s the area where it becomes where office becomes completely corrupting and and no no no serious socialist should do it and we have the same I mean from Germany as you can tell the link in Germany is is very keen um to participate in governments whenever they can local government Regional government Etc and of course first thing that happens is you have to manage capitalism you have to manage budget cuts you have to basically take money away from libraries from children you know kindergartens etc etc so you you end up attacking the working class and you get punished for it at The Ballot Box so it is really a loose loose situation similar of course R communist in in in Italy um we had all sorts of uh all sorts of examples of the European left really not learning that lesson about not not participating in government under these conditions you know I mean there could be um totally different conditions if there’s a rise in working class um resistance Etc if it’s a pre-revolutionary situation then then you could possibly uh consider participating because you know that that could spark something something uh happening on the streets Etc um Roger in terms of then what you know the the um looking at today and sort of any lessons we can we can draw from from the experience and you you’ve described I think really well the situation how it was in Russia but from from today you know how can how can we looking at the elections today and all these Independents standing you know and they’re being they’re being sold to us as that’s a really good thing you know all these all these people standing on their own platform Etc everybody’s doing their own thing but we really do need a a party don’t we we do really need to be organized in in one party what kind of lessons do you think we can learn what kind of party how can it be a party that is as flexible and you know tactically astute as as the bolik were well I wish I knew the answer to that I think but the um I mean the question is we um we need we need a mass party we don’t need we I mean I’ve I’ve said this in other contexts but I mean we see we see this uh this really bizarre situation at the moment of uh a sprouting of little parties all um really puffing themselves up into being something um something far more significant than they actually are because there they are in fact ceks and some of them um you know led by people who just want to have a little um you know little build a little Empire in which um almost a kind of fantasy worlds I’m not going to name names but the um that we do have as a result we have the situation I keep complaining but I mean about my constituency where um we’ve got three three um independent well not three left candidates unless there’s some more that I haven’t heard of yet uh but we’ve got we’ve got the Workers Party we’ve got the um so-called revolutionary Communist party and we’ve got the one that I’m supporting is just an honest militant trade unionist who’s standing as an independent but the um the question is all of this that you know it’s worth it’s worth sing preferably one per constituency not more but in order to use it as a platform to speak to um to um it it gives you a voice it gives you one thing I mean I always enjoy participating in elections and canvasing because it’s the one opportunity you have to just knock on a strangers door and have a political discussion with them normally it’s something which you which um you don’t get that opportunity and you speak to a lot of people and you um you you establish well you actually get them thinking and you get some ideas from them too about how to formulate your ideas and all the rest of it but that’s a question of taking office well taking obviously taking a seat in Parliament that is um uh I mean in the current context we’re not talking about AIS Dumba um in current context um of course it’s uh if you have a if you have somebody you can use that as a platform to be a Tribune to denounce the uh the political representatives of the ruling class to um to speak uh to a much wider audience that you could just as a an individual without that position it’s obviously um something which is um uh you know which it’s an opportunity that should be used as for uh that’s for representation in Parliament as for taking office if you mean ministerial office and so on I mean I cannot conceive of any circumstances except in a in a revolutionary context where um where you could do that but we have to be careful of that too I mean I think there is a place for uh not just standing for election to local councils but to running local councils provided you use that again as a platform and as a um to to refuse to carry out the uh the policies the repressive anti-working class policies that you’re instructed to I do think although mistakes were made and you know I don’t want to go into the whole history but overall I think the record over five years of the Liverpool City Council in the 80s was a model I thought it was absolutely right it got the it got the support of the entire you know more or less you could say the entire population of Liverpool it organized tens of thousands in general General strikes token General strikes it um defied the government it held out for 5 years it when they when the councelors were sirch charged um they organized collections throughout Liverpool in order to in order to pay their pay the astronomical uh sums that were being demanded of them and what is interesting which I didn’t know before but I only found this out recently that they uh they not only appealed to the population of Liverpool to um for donations in order toh to meet the SE charges but they insisted that nobody should give more than 50 pence they wanted they did not want to um they didn’t want to be seen as a burden or an imposition and they wanted to ensure that you know um to force themselves if you like to get the widest possible uh support uh on the basis of an appeal to the to the entire population and they did Cover the entire cost several hundred, 000 I think um of the of the S charges so I’m just giving that as an example but generally speaking um you wouldn’t take any any office the only the only um position you would take would be if it would uh if it would strengthen your voice and strengthen your power to defy the ruling class and its state machine and running a council I mean that is has become a lot more difficult as well since since 80s and the budget cuts Etc so I’m not sure that kind of example could be repeated and I that there were mistakes then there’ll probably be a lot more mistakes these days um but you know we nowh close at the moment um to that situation um Ian did you want to say anything in response to that or should we bring some questions open it up to the floor okay um Matthew who for some reason called tina yeah I know some reason it’s that cover you’ve got on this thing anyway so yeah I think that the thing you can almost look at it the other way though of course is that the ruling class itself the capitalist class is not Democratic by Nature I mean it had to be forced thanks it it had to be forced to to concede um you know the universal franchise it didn’t ConEd the universal franchise until after the Russian Revolution when it was in it was in fear of its existence you know um and you see all this sort of fight through the whole you know whole of the the 19th century and into the 20th century for for the vote and of course when you’re talking about um you know these all of these uh parties you know starting in the 19th century and into the early 20th century of course they’re operating on you know um rotten franchises you know most you know the vote you know vot vot was split by class people didn’t have the vote they property all these sort of methods were used um these methods of course still apply in places like the US where different lots of people have different uh weights and votes um you know because it’s but but you know say it’s undemocratic the point being also is as as Mark said I mean you know um so pre in in his analysis uh of the commune you know that you can’t simply lay hold of the um uh the mechanisms of The Bard State for the for your own use you know there is a difference I mean the thing you know I mean I think that the point being is that obviously you know given the fact we had to fight to get this thing out of the the ring class um and given the fact it does offer some kind of a Tribune then then absolutely where it’s possible to use it then we should use it but the point is to understand that that the the these structures belong to the ruling class they’re not ours um you know as as socialists or as revolutionaries we represent a completely different Power um you know to to to to um to that which exists in in in Parliament and that’s quite clear and and you can see the problems you can see you know by the behavior of all the you know the various forces and so on in assorted parliaments that of course they they don’t understand that at all um and but the thing is obviously you’re also seeing a situation where under the current conditions you know the B is increasingly moving towards a dictatorship you know starting with with with the hegmon in the United States and it’s a real question you know do you know uh as as to the continuation democracy at all which is going to change politics completely in in on a global scale and you sit in in situation say on Tuesday where hundreds of thousands of Kenyan youth demonstrated towards the parliament which passed the an oppressive Bill to tax them while the cops were opening opening fire on them outside you know and and the response of the youth was to try and torch the parliament I mean quite entirely reasonably you know they tried to set fire to the place they tried to set fire the city hall as well um you know and the basis obviously these people don’t represent us and this institution doesn’t represent us but the question is that you know as as as as a as as a revolution how how do you actually she you know draw out that that Contrition and the key now of course is to say right okay well what is the alternative to this mess you know what is the alternative I mean people look at you know you look at the the what is going to happen now of course um is is is that parliament in this country will will will will be in utter distribute as well you can see getting it’s already stands pretty low but the next the next government is going to get a lot worse and the question is okay well what what alternatives do you have and how do you understand why that situation is thanks thanks Matthew Ian or Roger want to say anything i’ just like to draw a distinction between what Marx and Engles were arguing for which is socialism which is the working class taking power for itself and in particular the the means of production what we might call State Socialism or I don’t think it even deserves the name socialism but the idea of um seizing hold of the state in an effort to there would always be good grounds for using a place in Parliament or local Council to bring about reforms that would further the interest of the working class um whether nationally or locally so you know I would happily stand for election to the local Council because Durham city council has got a pretty bad record when it comes to attacking workers uh terms and conditions and you could use that position to do that but the minute you start getting yourself co-opted onto um the finance committee or some other thing then you face up with the simple fact that um if you’re if you’re saying well you’re going to set an illegal budget or do some other uh things which are going to lead to a direct confrontation um you’re you’re almost certainly going to lose outside of a a mass revolutionary upheaval um unless you’ve got that um you’re on hiding to nothing if you’re just trying to take power and and what you end up doing is you know colluding in laying workers off in the end and and bringing some considerable um you know aium on on the left you you end up making ourselves look ridiculous really um so I I think it’s important because when you look at for example the French workers party and you look at the Workers Party of Britain currently standing you know okay I’ll be voting for him because uh the alternative is some Dreadful appara imposed by the labor NEC um but uh when when you look at the the the Workers Party of Britain what they’re advocating is State socialism they’re advocating the idea that you could just sort of if all you need is enough Workers Party of Britain representatives in in in Parliament and hey Presto we’ve got socialism comrades no what you’ll have is the Salvador Salvador alendi route to Oblivion I think that’s probably where you where it’ll end up um you know the ruling class isn’t going to give up so easily I mean if you’ve got for example um you know an explicitly revolutionary Socialist Party that’s overwhelmingly elected by say 60% of the population then you could do something with with Parliament and you could do something but you would have to confront the property relations first and foremost because that’s that’s where the power lies and you have to be prepared for example to say well we need to disarm the armed forces in favor of a workers militia because otherwise you will just end up in in front of a firing squad yeah Roger you want to say something no nothing to add really okay Ken please hello can you hear me y okay first uh thanks to uh Ian and Roger for a fascinating session my question is is about if you like lenon and Germany Ian referenced Lenin surprise that you know the German socialists voted for war credits now he may have been surprised because he didn’t have enough information about was what was happening in Germany or he’d been given the wrong information or misinformation or there may be another possibility um what I’m curious about is when the German Revolution was happening how far was Lenin better informed about was what was happening there or was it the case that you know he didn’t have more information or he simply didn’t have the capacity resources to intervene effectively because he had his own issues to to deal with at the time and obviously his circumstances at the time of the vote for war credits and at the time of the German Revolution were significantly different but I’m just curious as whether you know he learned anything from the the lack of information in 1914 tried improve his knowledge about what was happening in Germany after the first world war or how farther there’s another explanation for for that thank you thanks Ken Roger do you want to take this first that’s Ian’s Department okay Ian well if you’d have asked me that 20 years ago I would have I think it is fair to say that I I think Lenin underestimated the extent to which social democracy had been completely corrupted um if you look at i’ recently had cause to read uh the proceeds well and I read it all but I’ve read the the um the the program of uh of the Russian Social Democratic and labor party in in 1903 and it it although it’s much longer it really does follow the pattern of the French and German social Democrats and and and that’s conscious I mean Lenin um you know did to a certain extent um maintain quite close relationship with ksky and up until 1914 and so I don’t think he really did understand how just how corrupted uh social democracy had become whether that was still true when he was writing leftwing communism is something which is Up For Debate um the German and Dutch Council Communists uh argued that uh you’re asking us to have an alliance with people who are just slaughtered the revolution just drowned It in Blood and so that’s one of the reasons why you got the split in the German Communist Party um the other aspect of it is that um ksky uh whatever you think of him um was arguing that the the Russian Revolution was premature and of course others have had the same argument I mean if you have have a have a if you fancy an evening of in in innocent merryman have a have a chat with people from the Socialist Party of Great Britain who they held that view a long time ago um that the Revolution was premature and the but what ksky was really presenting was a perspective which uh which which saw the move towards World communism in a kind of very mechanistic way that is to say uh you you have to wait until all the conditions are there before you can possibly move to World Revolution uh and all the conditions being there would mean presumably a situation where um a country the size of the Russian Empire would have to be fully developed as a capitalist Society before it could even contemplate socialism so other words um socialism is put off to an indefinite future when the whole of the world is is is ready for it as it were um the very thing that often uh people on the far left are accused of or something you know it’s it’s it’s um unrealistic to expect Revolution to break out all over the world um if you cast your mind back to the development of uh capitalism from feudalism although uh capitalism as it were isn’t fully developed all over the world it’s still a world system it’s still a world system almost the moment it comes into being um if you’re looking at uh the the the development if you if you take the English revolution of the 1640s um the the the British Navy uh is already very Adept at fighting the Dutch for for control over colonies and all the rest of it is becoming a world system and it’s becoming a world system because the conditions for capitalism being a world system were already in place it’s not accidental that um the black death of the 14th century wiped out a third of the population World Trade World Trade was already a feature it was already a feature before the end of feudalism so the the basis for for capitalism being a world system was already there even though um you know so the English Revolution a Bourgeois Revolution could take place and be a world system and Export um export capitalism effectively around the world so uh the short answer is I think I I genuinely feel that Lenin didn’t fully understand just how corrupted social democracy had become and that’s why he was surprised I’m not sure he fully understood what had gone on um in 1920 when he wrote leftwing communism but I can see why at the same time he he would have argued for a a unified Communist Party in the context of of Germany in particular and in in in the United Kingdom so so I can understand why he would disagree with Sylvia panker or Willie Gallagher or whoever else and and argue that you know um that that the Communist Party of Great Britain when it was founded uh should should have an an attitude towards elections that was about ProMag gating Revolution I don’t whe that answers the question okay thank you thank you um Anthony please um can you hear me yes okay I think there’s big dangers in what Ian is saying in terms of an incomplete break with Sil and particularly entering bord governments because this goes back to 1848 when BL was his last I think it was Louis blank was the first social Democrats who utopian socialist that went into a bulog government made certain concessions led to the crushing of the working class when they closed the national workshops down and the marks class Independence is very important of the working class and this is very relevant now uh because some of the well the thew pwp uh counter fire adapting to popular fism uh in France and election I I wouldn’t support the greens as a middle class part I support malan um this part Communist Party The Alliance as work as united front exclud in the GRE as a bu party I wouldn’t vote for it but we going to attack the idea of a of front but I think um uh uh uh I I I think uh I the first I mean what happened was the French middle class with mult leftism to opportunism and I think in 1893 the L they got 50 seats in there the sist party after the dra Cris radicalization and reformist got incorporated into there uh but let let in 197 uh well my thought process again uh my thought process uh of course had that with B off thinking when he called for a b is an imper pism we have to have a dialectical approach to capitalist democracy it said to incorporate capitalism and all the opportunism of social democracy and the popular front Alliance is like the Social Democrat can s this p in these Coalition governments Leed what has said but we shouldn’t be in reformist governments we haven’t got confidence in in them but in the July days uh what he was saying about the left communist in the old July days uh the social Democrats crush the workers kenu as part but then we call for we call for the men the social revolutionaries to break from uh break from the capitalist ministers and the BS had the volish one the middle class but D with the left Social Revolution which was the what the middle the middle class left peasantry and trash said in the peasant capitalism was with the bankers on the arat that’s without the P could have made that revolution of a tiny working class but remember L had the sages to that’s other for class independency D russal liberals had he had the two what’s it called the uh uh Democratic dictation of the poar uh and peasant now one of the weaknesses are Roos Luxenberg picked up about to a certain extent Kowski I finish on here is that uh is that uh the the parliamentarians journalist could could betray the revolution because they’re Incorporated in capital cly after 1905 Revolution but we have to have Democratic transitional Dem Fashions a major danger in France the running classes split uh got one class unit be h on the streets is going to be a popular front government I don’t agree with or the left wins the three parties or there’s going to be a mass up with Fascism and Civil War but there’s big danger to popular the RP the ex not seeing the danger of fascism because he reflects those pressures of the right an ultra left guard I’ll leave it there I got my memory back on my memory thank you thank you I it’s a it’s a complicated one isn’t it because um let’s cast our mind back to the description of the German SPD as social fascists by by Stalin what a disaster that was um should revolutionaries um get into kind of popular fronts with reformist parties of one sort or another in the context of France today it is a defensive act I think you know the idea that melon sha and uh the Communist party and the greens and all the rest of it could get together to kind of hold back leen’s party uh is a defensive act and I don’t I don’t have a problem with that anymore than I have a problem with you know well it would have been a great thing if uh Stalin had had not destroyed the possibility of a useful alliance between the German SBD and KPD uh to to to keep fascism on Bay but I don’t think the situation we currently facing in France is fascism I think the idea of an authoritarian right-wing nationalist government is not the same as fascism it’s the idea that that’s just a kind of it’s at that point that fascism just becomes an epithet just something to throw at people and I I don’t think that is the situation that France is in um I don’t know what will happen I think it’s good to keep uh leen’s party out if if at all possible uh because the likelihood is it will be authoritarian it will be nationalist it will be a carnival of reaction but the idea that it’s fascist in the way that um the vichi France the vichi regime was in France or the or the or or Hitler in Germany or or muselin in Spain is nonsense because after all what what’s the the the mass base of that of of Leen leen’s party in France it’s not a huge peti bisi that’s faced between you know caught between the hammer and Anvil of of of of capitalism on the one hand and a and a potentially revolutionary proletariat um so I suspect that what will happen if Marine Le Pen ever gets the presidency is that in the end she’ll do as she’s told she’ll do as she’s told by the ruling class just in the same way that Mone in in Italy has effectively moderated her terms moderated the way in which um she she’s you know speaks about musolini or whatever else I mean I remember when being told that fro tujan in in Croatia was a was an out and out fascist because he just adopted all the kind of trappings of the aachi regime um but we didn’t see fascism in Croatia we might have a nationalist authoritarian government or whatever but but that’s not the same thing so popular fronts yes it’s it’s it’s not simple I think I I hope they keep Leen out but I I don’t I don’t believe fism is an imminent likelihood in in in the most in in Europe yeah agree Roger do you want to say anything on that um yes I um I mean I I agree with the um up to a point but I think uh we have to say first of all yeah um Leen will do what she’s told by the ruling class but it’s it it works the other way the ruling class are backing Leen because uh they want to adopt uh policies which are at variance with the uh with the with the regime they’ve had um in the last few decades they do want to and it’s not only in France it’s a European phenomenon and almost a worldwide one they want to adopt a much sharper harsher more confrontational uh stance in relation to the working class and to the to the rights of the population now I would say Leen is a fascist I’d say Malone is a fascist I’d say bolsonaro was a fascist and so Modi was a fascist but that does not mean that when they’re in power that they can impose a fascist program absolutely not because the point is that they don’t have the forces they don’t have they don’t have a mass um Street Army as musolini and uh and Hitler did they can’t destroy the working class they don’t they can impose authoritarian repression from above but they cannot pulverize and and destroy the organizations of the working class and that means that they are in a very weak position I think if Leen comes to power she won’t destroy the um the um the the labor movement any more than Maloney has been able to Etc or bolsonaro was or Modi was um the point is that they as we’ve seen Modi uh thought that he in the recent elections he thought that he could get an overwhelming majority and change the Constitution and establish a Hindu um uh Hindu commonality because he could not control the situation there was a mass revolt and he was deprived of his majority the same with bolsonaro who um who lost his position and um I I think in other words if you like I I agree with Ian the alarmism the idea that this is fascism and so on that’s wrong the decisive battles are still to come the uh the um this is really the precursor to a movement which could develop into street fights and and uh uh situation I don’t know of um of pulverization of the mov on but we’re nowhere near that yet first of all the working class still has its um still it hasn’t it hasn’t spoken yet and it will and I think um if Leen comes to power I think she could also be defeated um uh both in being unable to carry out her program and maybe being um being um overthrow at least in the next election and in other words I agree we should avoid alarmism but we should also be we should also understand that this is a serious warning it’s a last warning if you like to the labor movement that they have to get their act together and they have to mobilize and they have to make sure that uh the threat does not materialize that’s the way I would put it thank you Roger um Maran yes I I I I I would uh Anthony wasn’t saying that fascism was on the order of the day but I think Ian downplays it and there are some people that say that the pen and these other figures are not fascist yes they are just like Tommy Robertson is in this country and it’s very dangerous if we underestimate it the working I agree with Roger the working class hasn’t spoken yet but we have got to get our act together and if we don’t then we don’t know what’s going to happen we’re living in a very dangerous world at the moment everything is in flux and we have to be aware of that the economic conditions the um if we don’t get these situations right and class Independence is key actually what alliances we make and when we make them and I think what Tina said earlier is it’s critical that we understand what the balance of forces are in the situation that we’re in and um this is key but what I do want to say as well when uh Roger talked about Liverpool at the same time you had lamb stood out for a long time the GLC was fighting for a limited period but unfortunately that Alliance broke down and then you had the the the collapse of of it and uh that they were important battles that that that we didn’t win and that’s part of the Reon we’re we’re in in the mess we’re in now but unless we start to seriously um understand the dangers that we are confronting in terms of the move to the right in Europe but also in this country with Nigel farage among un certain layers and unless we actually start to organize in a lot of the areas the know what what was called the red wall unless we start serious ly doing proper campaigning work and Community work in some of these areas to win the hearts and Minds for socialist ideas and having a program that we can put forward using the using transitional methods different demands to build a movement that would then mean that we’ve got the uh balance of class forces that we could fundamentally change this society and we do need voices in Parliament we do need powerful speakers that will be in Parliament advocating for the working class advocating for democracy you know we need more more more more people like that actually in there making making the kind of speeches that need to be made we need to be wherever we can raising the issue of the demands that we want to take the situation from where it is today and I think we have to be careful not to underestimate the the rise of the far right and we haven’t won all the ideological battles within the working class and we need to have we need to have some of these debates out thank you Maran I mean we are not going to be able to talk about fascism uh properly to tonight but next week we’ve got a session on the European elections um with the speaker who who knows about the situation particularly in Germany and Poland and in Britain and we’ll probably have a discussion about that is it far right on the right and what does it mean in terms of threat of fascism or not I think there’s quite different views on on that issue even on on the on this small panel um to sum up comrades could I ask you maybe both to do two three minutes each on sort of the key the key lessons we can learn from you know those who’ve gone before when it comes to elections as you as you see them um can we start with you Ian well I agree with Baran on one thing absolutely we’re living in dangerous times um I’ve argued in another place and not been necessarily agreed with uh that all an army has to do to lose a war is to lose the will to fight to realize that it’s completely hopeless and and then you just get out the trenches and you go home and uh I don’t know to what extent um the Ukraine uh the Ukrainian war will will continue simply hemorrhaging ukrainians um at which point does NATO step in and have a direct war with Russia and that is something which could transform everything both in terms of propelling an even more authoritarian approach um and not to mention uh the the absolute destruction of of a nuclear wall um beyond that of course uh the situation in Palestine shows us one thing firstly it’s possible to have an international movement an international movement including millions of people the problem is that that International movement doesn’t have a direction doesn’t have a party doesn’t have a a program which can can can put forward some kind of solution can’t effectively and so what we end up doing is is demonstrating week after week month after month uh until such time as conditions change um and and that’s not something and that’s you know the people of Palestine need more than that and of course the other thing that’s going to change is the situation in the USA I don’t know what a trump presidency is going to be like what we do know is that he has has his own authoritarian Tendencies what we do know is he has his own nationalist Tendencies and uh and and a a capricious uh difficult to to to judge what’s going to happen next feature of him uh we certainly do live in dangerous times and I also think there is a distinct possibility of of a significant realignment on the right in Britain um I don’t think forage uh the reformed party is going to get many more than a few MPS but that in itself might form the basis of some sort of realignment on the on the far right in Britain and that will be a dangerous situation what will they be able to do um we’ve seen what Liz trust what happened to Liz trust when she sort of overstepped the mark whether that would happen again and whether it would be possible for that realigned far right in in Britain to to take any kind of action how could they act against the stock markets how could they act against um the interests of of the ruling class um I don’t think that that’s on on the horizon um but nevertheless the the the move to the right has to be resisted and it has to be resisted but I would argue it has to be resisted on a Marxist program and not just on the basis of some kind of low lowest common denominator uh party that will put forward uh some some demands in the hope that we can all rally around the idea of um a left-wing part party a labor party 2.0 as it were thank you Ian uh Roger um yes okay first of all on that last Point v um I’m absolutely uh agree what’s go what what has happened if you look at the opinion polls now for instance all right labor is um is seems to be heading for a massive majority but that’s because there’s been a split in the Tory party that’s the the real point if you look at the opinion polls if you take the Tories plus the Reform Party and actually there’s very little difference if any in their policies um they together they’re pretty well neck and neck with labor that’s the reason why there be a labor um a big labor majority on the on a low pole with mass subtensions with lots of votes for third parties for none of the above parties and um and I do think there will be a fusion of the Tory party it’s already I mean the split has begun already when when Johnson um threw out all the anti- brexiters from the uh including you know uh very eminent uh people like Kenneth Clark and the rest of them and hesel and all the rest um and I think that what we’re going to get is a a new party which will be the Tory party um fused with the Reform Party um I predict that the next but one government will be led by Johnson plus farage I think Johnson would be would would they like to bring him back as a figurehead because for some reason they think he’s popular God Knows by what um criteria but anyway um so that is a danger and that means that is part of what we were talking about already there’s going to be a general um a general movement worldwide of the ruling class is to abandon the sort of old um liberal democracy uh stance and from you know we already see like Italy we could see in France soon we could see in Germany a coalition of uh of the right-wing parties with the afd um you could have um you know all over all over Europe we’ve seen we’ve seen that situation plus a trump presidency in um in the USA and as I say that that’s not the end of the story that’s not our defeat but it means a a completely new phase in the struggle and we’ve really got to get ourselves organized and it is one thing first of all I think it was um I was jubilant to see that for once that the French uh that the French left parties have managed not to um not not to split their vote we are again and again we’ve seen even in the last presidential election if um if the left had got their act together you could U What’s um Leen would not have got on to the second ballot probably milaw would have got on and he could well have actually won the presidency that would have been a possibility at least he would have been the main opposition uh to to mcon but this time anyway it’s you know it’s a relief to see they got their act together we may not we can quibble about whether the greens should have been included and so but it’s not a popular front even though they call it that it’s not a popular front as in the 1930s it’s a it’s an alliance against the center it’s against macron as well as against um Leen on the far right and um what we need in Britain is uh we need you know in ch you know with all due changes according to the uh to the traditions of the situation here what we need now is instead of this lunatic situation as I say of um of a sprouting of popup parties all competing with each other and um and just degenerating into into cleat uh what we U what we need is a new mass movement of the working class and that means that you know just as originally the labor party was formed because the trade unions they didn’t they want didn’t want to form a socialist party they wanted to have a party which would represent their interests in that in that in that case to defend their right to strike to protect um their their means of you know their their their resor etra and so they broke away from the liberal party and they formed a labor party a party of labor now there must be surely a movement not of course we’re not talking about the union bureaucrats but um but within the rank of file there must be surely under under a SAA government which will be of course itself a a very right-wing um government not like labor governments of the past right-wing even compared to the Blair governments or new labor governments um but there would be a movement from the militant activists within the unions to say what the hell are we still giving our money to this party for we need to create a party which will defend our interests and I think there should be there should be a um uh a campaign and I I ICT that there will be to get the act together not by just linking up this little cleek and that little set and that little committee and um which all exist now all of them you know play a play a role in that but it would have to take on the heavy balians of the labor movement which are they do still exist it’s true the trade unions are not what they were um half a century ago but the uh the trade unions are still the only Mass force in in society and um they have to find their political voice and I think well I’d finish on that point thank you very much I’m not going to start another discussion on that I would have a few disagreements julan uh not of of course just to answer Julian is I’m not advocating for replication of the errors of the formation of the labor party in the past but I am saying that the um that the heavy battalions of the work class of organized labor need a voice they need a political expression of their own and I’m sure that sooner or later they will come to that conclusion and fight for that and of course it can’t be like the labor party of the past uh because it’s in a new context and I hope that some lessons would have been learned and as Marxist would be calling for a Marxist communist program of such a party or at least a party where you can argue for such a program rather than course with should be be free discussion within the ranks but but in other but we we’re not in favor I’m not in favor of a party with a pure principle standing on its own it should be a tendency within aass aass party and would fight within that party for recruits to their program and their ideas can probably discuss this a bit further next week we’ll be looking at the European elections the results and what it means means for the workingclass movement across Europe not entirely positive generally the election results but perhaps there are some openings for for us to get involved also about the need for the European left and the European working class to actually get together used to be a lot closer cooperation when we looked at the first and second International it’s not much happening at that like that at the moment so looking forward to that session next week and hope comrades can join us thank you both Ian and Roger very fascinating introductions and a very good discussion thank you comrades good night thanks comrades