tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920488656220463337.post2242374829994686554..comments2024-02-07T19:30:21.880+11:00Comments on Left Focus: Some thoughts on social transformationVaughann722http://www.blogger.com/profile/11604027151490275320noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920488656220463337.post-64483373474129459302009-06-11T21:19:31.791+10:002009-06-11T21:19:31.791+10:00Based on the numbers the entry of five hundred org...Based on the numbers the entry of five hundred organised radicals into the Victorian branch of the ALP would fundamentally change the entire organisation.Lev Lafayettehttp://isocracy.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920488656220463337.post-79325675973475778282009-06-11T14:55:29.000+10:002009-06-11T14:55:29.000+10:00Tristan
I am unsure about the idea of a war of po...Tristan<br /><br />I am unsure about the idea of a war of position. Workers in France in May 68 challenged capital's rule from seeming nothing, and certainly not with any support from the established left. In fact the French Communist party condemned the upsurge to begin with.<br /><br />It seems to me missing from May 68 was a genuinely mass revolutionary party which could have helped workers extend the revolution, not end it. Or at least put those arguments about the way forward.<br /><br />This is not a 'spontaneity leads to trade union consciousness only' argument I am putting, which is in fact a mischaracterization of Lenin's position in What Is To Be Done?. It is to recognise that the relationship between party and class in the first instance needs the existence of a revolutionary working class party as part of the class becoming a class for itself. <br /><br />I look at the ALP today and ask why be in a party that continues most of Howard's policies in one form or another - wars, attacks on workers, destruction of the environment etc - and in which the left either has capitulated or has little influence? Why support a party that doesn't reflect the interests of working people? The argument is more complex since I would say this is not a modern phenomenon. It is rooted in the very nature of the reformist project.<br /><br />So entryism or mass recruitment of the revolutionary left (very generously all few thousand of us!) is not going to change the ALP, it will change us.<br /><br />Further your arguments seem to presuppose using the capitalist state to somehow abolish capitalism. In other words the war of position becomes one for the capture of the state, not for the overthrow of wage slavery.<br /><br />I'll try to write a post later tonight after Socialist Alternative's meeting in Canberra tonight (6 pm in Room G 39 Copland Building ANU) on why Rudd is heating up the planet.John Passantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920488656220463337.post-3649628629377609152009-06-11T11:30:39.000+10:002009-06-11T11:30:39.000+10:00Some Comments from Leonie from 'En Passant'...Some Comments from Leonie from 'En Passant':<br /><br />Very Gramscian… I think Gramsci with his war of manoeuvre and war of position had an interesting approach, but don’t see the necessary logic of these distinctions.<br /><br />Indeed the danger is that they mirror and are another expression of Kautsky’s ideas of strategy of overthrow and strategy of attrition.<br /><br />So the problem for me is that Gramsci’s ideas can fit into a world vision where reform becomes the end in itself. That is Kautskian, and there is a danger of overlapping and eventually devouring the revolutionary content of Gramsci with the dull reformism of Kautsky.<br /><br />Gramsci’s ideas about hegemony - the manufacturing of consent - I can agree with as does, as you say, Chomsky.<br /><br />But I’ll give a more considered response in a day or two.<br /><br />And another thing.<br /><br />The point would be whether this approach can be used in a labour party context or a revolutionary party one.<br /><br />If the former then all the more danger of a collapse into Kautskyism.Leonienoreply@blogger.com