Again delayed... This time partly on purpose. Finally we've gotten a listserver to take care of mailing out Breakaway, and I wanted to wait until it was all set up, so that I didn't have to mail out hundreds of issues manually again... Vidar Hokstad Editor ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BEGIN BREAKAWAY.003 B R E A K A W A Y Debates on modern marxism -+*+- Issue no. 3, volume no. 1 August/September 1994 ======================================================================= CONTENTS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (00) EDITORIAL (01) column: WHAT'S UP? Some informal notes on issues we want to tell you about (02) STATE CAPITALISM AND STALINISM An attempt at a reply to Jack Hills letter in issue #2 (04) column: A SEARCHLIGHT ON INTERNET Revolutionary resources on the information highway (05) column: ANNOUNCEMENTS Red Orange ?!? What's that? (06) series: FOR A NEW BEGINNING (2 of 2) a critique of secterianism (07) GENERAL INFORMATION How and what to submit, how to contact us, etc. ======================================================================= (00) EDITORIAL ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you! The last two months my mailbox have been overflowing. Allthough the number of submissions still is low, the amount of subscription requests, interesting info, and positive feedback mailed to me have been overwealming. It is certainly enough socialists out on the net to justify this publication. The beauty of the net, is the lack of distribution-problems due to geographical issues. For a truly international movement, the net is a blessing of similar importance today, as the railroad was when Marx and Engels wrote their famous _Manifesto_[1]. What before took years, can today be done in weeks - the human factor being the last barrier... We are as users of the net witnessing capitalism create the ultimate tool for the working class to use. The final weapon to turn against them. An anarchic structure where the number of voices crying out their opinions into cyberspace is finally more important than the money of the bourgeoisie. Watch the drama unfold, as capitalist companies struggle to make net access available to us all at low cost, so that we can turn it against them even more easily, or wither away as loosers in an ever hardening competition. Look around you, and see virtual worlds, empires, of information, be created, live and die, in an accelerating cycle of "living knowledge" - the net is a medium in which a creation will never be finished, never will be finite, but always lies open for new exploration and new enhancements. Enter the age of the virtual commune... Vidar Hokstad Editor ---- [1] "And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years." ======================================================================= (01) column: WHAT'S UP? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - After a few series of adverts on a series of USENET conferences and mailing-lists the numbers of subscribers practically went through the roof. On 1th of July, shortly after my first round of advertising for issue #2, 15 subscription requests arrived during my less than an hour online that day (and several more had arrived before I logged on), and that was only the beginning... Breakaway is now distributed to subscribers in (sorted after numbers of subscribers) USA, UK, Canada, France, Norway, Germany, Ireland, Australia, South-Africa, Spain, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden and South-Korea! Most of our subscribers (approx. 60%) comes from the US. Breakaway has also been uploaded to a few local BBS's around the world. I would especially like to welcome our first subscriber in South-Korea, who, in spite of the political oppression, still takes the chance involved with subscribing to Breakaway. The South-Korean government have, as naby of you will know, a reputation for imprisoning revolutionaries, and I doubt they'd like Breakaway very much... - Breakaway is now archived in the ftp archive at etext.archive.umich.edu in the directory /pub/Zines/Breakaway. Another archive is expected soon... - Red Forum have recently gotten it's own gopher archive at the EDIN gopher. In addition to general information about Red Forum, the archive also contains material from Breakaway, and a pointer to the archive mentioned above. Try gopher to garnet.berkeley.edu, port 1520, 1521 or 1522, and select "13. Political Movements and Theory/", then "2. Socialist Political Groups/", and finally "3. Non-US Socialist Organizations/" to find us. - I've adjusted the size of Breakaway up to approx. 40kb from this issue. - The Red Forum meeting will be in late September or early October instead of August. - Two mailing-lists have been set up. One for Breakaway, and another one as a discussion list for Breakaway subscribers and RFIC members. The address is "majordomo@powertech.no". Send a message with "help" in the body to retrieve informations about the commands at your disposal, or use "lists" to get a list of all the lists administrated by Powertech (our service provider). The discussion list may possibly not be set up correctly when you read this. I'll post a short notice to the Breakaway mailing list as soon as it is working. You will *NOT* be automatically subscribed to this list even if you subscribe to Breakaway. - Breakaway is now also available on WWW. Select the URL "http://www.ifi.uio.no/~vidarh/" (my homepage) from Mosaic or Lynx, or go directly to the Breakaway archive by adding "Breakaway/" to the above URL. Starting with issue #4, most material will be available on the web before it is being mailed out, since it will be written in a custom SGML format, and converted to HTML (for WWW), ASCII, and AmigaGuide. For more info about World Wide Web, send mail to info@cern.ch (automatic mailer) The WWW editions will be _updated_ with current addresses, more links etc. However, no new entries will be added. ======================================================================= (02) STATE CAPITALISM AND STALINISM ----------------------------------------------------------------------- An attempt at a reply to Jack Hills letter in issue #2, and more... [1] I agree that naming all regimes "Stalinist" without a closer examination, is to simple. But let me try to explain this simplification. Jack stated, in my opinion correctly, that the Chinese revolution originated as a popular revolution despite the degeneration that followed it, and the party that led it. This is an assertion that seems to provide us with a major difference between the development in China and Russia, as there are differences between Stalinism, defined strictly as _Stalins theory and practice_, contrary to using Stalinism in a broad sense for denoting any state capitalist regime using communist symbolism, and Maoism. And yes, Maoism is revisionistic where stalinism is reactionary. While Stalinism were in effect, with it's bureaucratic system, trying to reverse the process of building capitalism, Maoism was, at the time, a force of liberation. Even the Russian revolution was a popular revolution, allthough the _October revolution_ did not have the support of the majority. In the same way as the great French revolution of 1789 didn't consist of just one attack on the establishment, but a series of struggles, the Russian revolution was a process that at least must be said to include the overthrowing of the Czar regime in February 1917, and later the October Revolution, but which could be extended in both directions: Towards the uprisings in 1905, and throughout the end of of Lenins life. Or even further... Some would even claim that the Russian revolution didn't finish it's task before the State-Capitalist regime was overthrown, and Russia finally got to experience the curse of developed capitalism in a "free market" environment. My opinion is that this is going too far. As always, history has shown us some of it's innumerable variations, by providing us with a series of "socialist" revolutions which all degenerated into state capitalism. State capitalism has earned a position as an independent stage in the development of our world at a place where we before only knew the direct transition from feudalism to capitalism, as it had happened in the developed countries. State capitalism has earned a position as an intermediate step on the underdeveloped countries way to capitalism, as socialism[2] by most communists are seen as an intermediate step on our way towards communism. Again roughly simplified, Maoism played the role equivalent to the role of Leninism in Russia. In the same way as Leninism, Maoism was an adaption of Marxism to a severly underdeveloped, perhaps even non-existent capitalism. It meant the inclusion of the poor peasants into the proletariat, even though we have been able to witness how large parts of these peasants didn't share the interests of the proletariat. There's a lot to criticize about both Lenin and Mao, but there's little doubt about their intent. I don't feel I can say the same about Stalin. And it would be highly unfair to call Mao China's Stalin. True, good intent is no excuse for oppression, but there _is_ a difference between unwillingly causing death by starvation, and organized, well planned, executions. There _is_ a difference between causing the creation of an oppressive regime by not foreseeing the consequences of what you do, and actually intentionally strenghtening oppression. Still the errors of Mao _and_ Lenin must be openly discussed, and the crimes they _did_ commit condemned, as the actions of any revolutionary must be constantly under attack by ourselves - we can't expect to win a war against capitalism, if we don't dare to fight minor battles with our comrades of fear that we might be wrong. But we must also we very aware about what we are doing, and be careful not to throw away the experiences, and ideas, that actually are worth using, and developing. What about state capitalism, then? Certainly there must be valuable experiences to be extracted from the state capitalist regimes, and conclusions to be made? In opposition to some trends, I do not see state capitalism as a highly developed capitalism, ready for the socialist revolution, but as a backward regime created out of combining the political inheritance from a feudalist past with the awakening capitalist economic structures. As such, the development in China, towards a market economy controlled by a highly totalitarian government is no surprise. Similar tendencies could be seen in Europe during the early years of capitalist economy. We just hadn't a good word for it until recently[3] History always repeats itself, but it has a bad memory. It never replicates the exact same patters over and over again. Like the Mandelbrot set of fractals: the further you move from your point of origin, the larger the differences, but changes never appear suddenly - the patterns seems to go through a slow metamorphosis. The revolutions of China and Russia have many differences. But these are minor, cosmetic, differences. The main tendencies, the radicalisation, and then degenerisation, of a bourgeoisie revolution, are the same. This tendency we find in every bourgeoisie revolution, but only in the underdeveloped countries the bourgeoisie is weak enough to let this radicalisation continue to a point where it causes the seizure of state power by a vanguardist minority _strong enough to keep it_. We remember from the French Revolution of 1789 a phase of radicalisation. But this phase was ended by reactionary forces, creating another dictature, and thus it isn't suitable for the capitalists when they look for ways to fight communism. They find their weapons in the "socialist" revolutions - the revolutions where the bourgeoisie finds regimes that looks like their visions of communism. For can their reign be ended without replacing it with _another_ oppressive force? And won't this force be the _state_? This is the nightmare the capitalists envision. Their reign _will_ be replaced by new oppression. Not the state, or rather not the state as in bourgeoisie terminology. It will by neccessity be the dictatorship of the majority, of the proletariat. But it will also be the democracy of the many instead of the few. Here lies the problems of the "socialist revolutions". Until now, they have been seizure of power by an elite - a minority - that haven't understood that the time had not yet come for socialism. To build socialism in countries that lack most fundamental goods, that can't fulfill the basic needs of their populations, will inevitably end in oppression: The vanguardist parties will always be haunted by people in search of power, by people that want more than their share. In a country where poverty rules, how can you escape poverty? By seizing power for yourself, by becoming emperor... In a country with ONE party, or at least only one party with power, which party do you turn to if power is what you want? Vidar Hokstad ---- [1] Please note that the inclusion of Jack's letter in issue #2 was an error on my behalf - the letter was not meant to be published. However I've chosen still to comment on the issues he mentioned, because I find the problems he rises interesting. I would like to hear more opinions on these questions. Submissions are especially welcome, but write even if you don't want to submit (just make sure you state that clearly, so I don't mess up again...). [2] That is, the political system, not the ideology or ideologies. [3] It should also be noted that while early western capitalism certainly showed remarkable resemblances to state capitalism as the term is used here, there were also distinct differences - again the natural variations of history? Or are the differences more fundamental? I won't go into that now. Any comments? ======================================================================= (04) column: A SEARCHLIGHT ON INTERNET ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * CPUSA E-MAIL: communistpty@igc.apc.com, pww@igc.apc.com (Peoples Weekly World) timwheeler@igc.apc.com (PWW editor Tim Wheeler) Communist Party of USA. Publishes Peoples Weekly World, and the theoretical journal Political Affairs. Their youth organization is YCL - Young Communist League. * Marxism (mailing-list) E-MAIL: marxism-request@world.std.com (majordomo) marxism-approval@world.std.com (the list moderator) The Marxism list have had a steady stream of messages, and have established itself as one of the more high-volume leftist lists. It's highly focused on academic questions, but should still provide interesting reading for others - at least you'd probably have no problems getting enough suggestions for what to read ;) * Marxist Leninist Bookstore E-MAIL: Jack Hill writes: " Actually, this is just an e-mail address that the Chicago Workers' Voice (a small Marxist-Leninist political group in Chicago, formerly the Chicago branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party (USA) ) uses to exchange views and information on political issues. We publish two periodicals: an agitational newsletter _The Chicago Workers' Voice_/_Voz Obrera_ in English and Spanish, and _The Chicago Workers' Voice Theoretical Journal_. I would certainly be willing to send anyone who requests it the text of our agitational articles. I can also inform anyone who asks what are the contents of our theoretical journal. Each issue runs about 240-250K so it would be hard to sent out the whole journal by e-mail, but I might be able to send individual articles if someone is really interested. Of course, if I start getting hundreds of requests, I may have to reconsider this offer. M-L Books is an actual bookstore located in a storefront in the Mexican community of Chicago. We have been in this community for 15 years. We have a wide variety of titles of Marx, Engels, and Lenin in English and Spanish. Our prices are generally low, since much of our stock was acquired years ago at low prices. I don't have a complete listing of our current stock with current prices, but if there is a title you want, let me know. We can probably help you. Keep up the struggle. Jack Hill " * Committees of Correspondence GOPHER: See the EDIN gopher below. LIST: cocdiscuss@garnet.berkeley.edu (The CocDiscuss list) newman@garnet.berkeley.edu (the list moderator) * EDIN gopher GOPHER: garnet.berkeley.edu (ports 1520/1521/1522) E-MAIL: newman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Nathan Newman) The EDIN gopher is one of the main resources for revolutionary and other progressive groups on the Net. Apart from pointers to a wide range of leftist organization on the Internet, it contains massive information about human rights organizations, economics etc., and pointers to tons of other info. An absolute _must_. Red Forum can also be found here. The maintainer, Nathan Newman, is highly active on Usenet, and also moderates the Committees of Correspondence discussion list - CocDiscuss. * Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus GOPHER: USENET: cl.gruppen.pds E-MAIL: PDS-BLV@IPN-B.comlink.de (PDS Landesvorstand Berlin) Notice that this entry is by no means complete. The PDS have an extensive list of e-mail addresses to a long range of local sections and members of their party. The few addresses mentioned here have been taken from the newsgroup "cl.gruppen.pds". * Archiv fuer marxistische Theorie EMAIL: CHRONIK@LINK-S.cl.sub.de ======================================================================= (05) ANNOUNCEMENTS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- RED ORANGE A Marxist Triquarterly of Theory, Politics, and the Everyday Robert A. Nowlan, Chief Editor Robert J. Cymbala, Managing Editor The inaugural issue of Red Orange will be published in the spring of 1995. Red Orange will contribute to the positive development of revolutionary Marxist knowledges of contemporary capitalist economics, politics, society, and culture. Red Orange will include critical, theoretical, and pedagogical articles of sustained length, as well as a dossier of briefer writings which deal with developments in popular consciousness and mass culture. Red Orange will produce work that is engaged in systematic investigation and explanation, and which is concerned with extending and developing revolutionary Marxist critical theory of capitalist society and culture. Red Orange will argue for the necessary theoretical and political priority of such concepts as class, class conflict and struggle, class consciousness, history, materiality, mode of production, forces and relations of production, labor, proletariat, revolution, socialism, communism, dialectics, ideology, theory, and critique. The first issue of Red Orange will begin to investigate the broad topic of "Late Capitalism at the Fin-de-Siecle." This focus will continue throughout the first year as the second and third issues of Red Orange will (tentatively) focus upon the specific topics of market and commodity culture (issue two) and globality, globalism, and global post-ality (issue three) in fin-de-siecle late capitalism. We invite submissions for this first and for the subsequent second and third issues of Red Orange that focus on the development of revolutionary Marxist critical theory of, and intellectual-pedagogical intervention within, various institutions, discourses, practices, and social relations of fin-de-siecle late capitalism. We invite submissions from across the full range of traditional academic-intellectual "disciplines." We are also particularly interested in articles which will address the related question -- in the course of their investigation of fin-de-siecle late capitalist economics, politics, society, and culture -- of How and Why, on the Advent of the Twenty-First Century, the Revolutionary Socialist Transformation of Capitalism into Communism is -- Still -- Possible and -- Still -- Necessary. Texts and inquiries should be addressed to Red Orange, Post Office Box 1055, Tempe, AZ, 85280-1055, U.S.A. ======================================================================= (06) FOR A NEW BEGINNING (2 of 2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Written by Dave Hollis Co-authored by Maggie McQuillan Please contact the author before republishing the article. ... continued from Breakaway #2 Democratic Centralism Democratic centralism is usually justified by saying that it originates out of the organisation the workers give themselves in struggle. Leaving aside for a moment that its historical roots were completely different, let me try and examine the concept as such. Instinctively, the idea of democratically deciding and then acting together is very appealing - at least in the cases when one is fighting the class enemy. For a revolutionary organisation, however, democratic centralism has meant and means something else. Democratic centralism is usually defined as being "freedom of discussion and unity of action". This definition, taken from Lenin himself, doesn't tell the whole story. A democratic centralist organisation is based on a separation of the task of leadership from the task of carrying out the decisions. This separation takes the form, in the best case, of a yearly election of a central or national committee. Whatever name this committee may have, I think that no one will contradict me in saying that it has the right to lead the organisation and take decisions in its name which are then binding on the members. Before going into the ramifications of such powers, it is very important to note that such a division of labour is nothing more than a reproduction of the capitalist model of parliamentary democracy in a workers' organisation. Instead of the majority leading the organisation we have the majority drawing up the leaders. As is the case with parliamentary elections when electing MPs, the rank and file does not lead an organisation and the people do not lead parliament because the leaders are elected at regular intervals. The effects of the separation described above are not at first glance apparent. To understand them it is necessary to not only investigate the practical consequences of democratic centralism on the workings of a political organisation, but also to look into what effects it has on the minds of the members. As experienced in the previous two sects, democratic centralism required of the members that they put forward its programme and policies when working within the movement. This makes it very difficult for the members to question and develop differing ideas to those internally agreed. One could of course counter by saying that one can discuss anything with anyone. However it should be obvious that members will feel "obliged" to put forward the "line" in public and not develop ones ideas in a dialogue with the workers. A tendency can and will develop that engenders conformity, something very unhealthy for a revolutionary organisation. Furthermore, it is very easy for a feeling to develop of "us" and "them" - something we have already had more than enough experience of in the past. The underlying processes at work here are by no means easy to depict. Attitudes are shaped by an organisation but an organisation is also shaped by attitudes. Cause and effect will change places more than once Ideas when taken up by people become a material force in their own right. Separating the overwhelming majority of the members from the decision making process has consequences that go a lot further than depicted up to now. A tendency will develop, as is the case in almost any workers' organisation, of loyalty and acceptance of the leaders. Those who decide will also be those who appear to be competent in the eyes of the members. If the organisation grows, i.e. it is successful, the position of the leadership will be strengthened, a bureaucracy can then develop. If the organisation declines, it is by no means said that the leadership will be weakened [1]. How often in the history of the labour movement have leaderships survived bad decisions because of the loyalty of the members? Leaderships of Stalinist organisations, for example, have often committed great crimes against their members and still survived to tell the story! Looking through the documents of the factional struggle within Militant, it immediately becomes apparent that the force of ideas were by no means sufficient to break the loyalty built up in the leadership. Loyalty to a leadership - be it blind or conscious - is poison for a revolutionary organisation. This point has to be seen in context of what I wrote above on sectarianism and the psychological background of loyalty. The development of loyalties, the inability to question ideas, to understand differing ideas shows that democratic checks, as important as they undoubtedly are, are in now way sufficient to prevent an organisation from degenerating. To put it another way, there is always a need for democratic checks when the organisation in question has un- democratic traits in it right from the word go! Bureaucratic centralism, or bureaucratism in general, begins with the separation of the leaders from the rest, i.e. those who carry out the decisions. As soon as no active control takes place - be it due to the structure of the organisation or because the members do not want to - bureaucratism will be the result. It must be the result. Up till now, I have looked into the effects of democratic centralism in the organisation itself. I would like to now portray how democratic centralism affects the political work in the movement. In passing, it should be obvious that the criticisms of democratic centralism are, in a slightly modified form, just as applicable and relevant to the organisations of the labour movement, i.e. the trade unions and the Labour Party. The discussion on the merits or otherwise of democratic centralism are by no means new. Both Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky criticized in detail, and independently of each other, Lenin's organisation concept. Rosa Luxemburg's contribution appeared in English under the title Organizational Question of Russian Social Democracy. Although the translation is terrible, the translator managed to get the meaning more or less across - the article is well worth a read. Trotsky's pamphlet, Our Political Tasks, was published in 1904 in Russian and also translated in 1970 into German. One of Trotsky's criticisms of Lenin's organisation concept concerned the question of self-activity, i.e. the ability of the working class to act by itself. In Lenin's concept this self-activity was given narrow bounds. In contrast, Trotsky saw the main task of the Social Democracy as being one of stimulating and fostering this self-activity. Trotsky saw in Lenin's plans an obstacle for the development of political consciousness of the proletariat. Moreover he saw the danger that the party, due to its not legitimated claim to hegemony with regard to the working class and the resulting strict separation from the proletariat, taking up such a sectarian position that the proletariat could turn its back on the party at the decisive moment. Lenin's formal centralism would not lead to its declared aim, the strengthening of the party, but, instead, to the danger of the separation of the working class from the party. Trotsky saw the guarantee for the party's stability "in an active and self-active participating proletariat and not in its organisational head". Trotsky counterposed to democratic centralism the concept of democratic centralisation, i.e. a centralisation from below. In his view, this centralisation can only be the majority will of the rank and file organisations, which exercise a continuous control over their delegates. To give a flavor and the direction of Trotsky's criticisms, here are a few passages from his pamphlet: "The system of political substitution is, as is the system of 'economistic' simplification, derived consciously or unconsciously from a 'sophistic' understanding of the relationship of the objective interests of the proletariat to its consciousness. Marxism teaches that the interests of the proletariat are determined by its objective conditions of existence. These interests are so imperious that they in the end cause the proletariat to transfer them into the area of its consciousness, i.e. to reach its objective interests by its subjective needs. Between both these factors - the objective factor of its class interests and its subjective consciousness - lies, in reality unavoidable, road of knocks and blows, mistakes and disappointments, vicissitudes and defeats. For the tactical wisdom of the party of the proletariat, the whole task lies between these two planes, it consists in shortening and facilitating the road from the one to another." "... If the Economists do not lead in this way the proletariat because it trots behind them, the 'politicians' also do not lead the proletariat because they are themselves looking to perform their duties. If the Economists shirk their colossal tasks by devoting themselves to a modest role, to march at the tail of history, the 'politicians' solve the question by making history to its own tail..." "We revolutionize the masses badly or well (mostly badly) by waking in them their elementary political instincts. However, as long as it is the question of the complex tasks of transforming these instincts into the conscious efforts of a political working class determined by the class itself, we resort to the short and simplified methods of the thoughts of standing in for others and substitution. In the internal politics of the party, these methods lead, as we will see, to the party organisation replacing the party itself, the CC replacing the party's organisation and finally a dictator replacing the CC; furthermore, these methods lead to the committees creating and abolishing the 'lines', while 'the people remain silent'. In the external politics, these methods appear in the attempts to exert pressure on other social organisations, not by the real power of the proletarian conscious of its own interests but by the abstract power of the class interests of the proletariat." "We are speaking of the absolute necessity of the creation of party members, of conscious social democrats, not, however, of simple skilled 'detail workers'- and one answers us: 'That goes without saying'. What does that mean? For whom does 'that' go without saying? Does 'that' go without saying in the context of our party work, i.e. does the creation of political thinking party comrades an absolute, integral part of it?" "Every thought that promotes the technical principle of the division of labour to the principle of social democratic organisation, consciously or unconsciously acquires the final unavoidable consequence: the separation of consciousness and implementation, the separation of social democratic thought from technical functions by means of which these thoughts must necessarily be realised. The 'organisation of professional revolutionaries', more precisely its head, appears as the centre of social democratic consciousness and underneath this centre, the disciplined executors of technical functions are to be found." Originally, I planned at this point to look into the historical background of democratic centralism in some detail. Due to lack of time, I can only skirt over the subject. If enough interest is present, I can into this subject in some detail. If one reads 'What is to be Done', Lenin states clearly that his organisational model stems from a terrorist organisation, 'Land and Freedom'. Moreover, his ideas were based on an amalgamation of the Marxism of the 2. International (in particular the German Marxism of Kautsky) with the traditions of the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia. The idea taken directly from Kautsky that the proletariat is only capable of developing a trade union consciousness and therefore the bourgeois intelligentsia, collected in the Social Democracy, is required to 'bring in' a socialist consciousness into the working class, determined Lenin's organisational concept. Despite the fact that Lenin modified his views on this subject under pressure from without, the organisational principles derived from this false understanding of the question of socialist consciousness remained. The idea that the ideas of socialism are not to be explained by the material conditions but instead are to viewed as a question of science, higher morals and a successful propaganda activity, have since this time bedevilled the labour movement. The ideas of separating out the tasks of leadership, i.e. the separation detailed above, also have their roots in this false understanding of the question of socialist consciousness. Instead of it being a question of the working class being able to free itself from the chains of capitalism, this mentality leads to this question being reduced to a technical problem that can only be solved by technicians. Slowly, surely and unavoidably, the whole concept of socialism is robbed of its human content: "We have the solution and you have to put it into practice". Having experienced this way of thinking more than once and over a long period of time, I think I can say that this way of thinking was prevalent in the sects. Instead of a conclusion It is easy to criticize, it is easy to know better. I was tempted - despite the shortness of time available to me - to pick up on a number of points made in the documents for your national meeting. What struck me on reading them however, is that it is very unclear as to what you consider to be your tasks. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. What sort of organisation is required and for what purpose? It is stated in the document Establishing a new Tradition that there is a tremendous political vacuum existing in the current world situation. Unfortunately, it is much more than a vacuum. The ideas of socialism, i.e. that the workers can take charge of society, have been discredited and most probably for a whole historical period. The rediscovery of these ideas can only take place over a long period of time. As we have already said in Germany, it is not even clear whether these new ideas will acquire the name "Socialism". What alternatives are there going to be, how they are going to look, etc. will only result from a long period of discussion in and with the labour movement and also by learning from experiences. One very important part of these discussions will undoubtedly be a reappraisal of the history of the labour movement and its ideas. This reappraisal will require socialists having to leave no stone unturned and really questioning things we have always taken for granted. From what I have said in the article as a whole, revolutionaries will have to take more account of a number of things that it has never really done to any great degree in the past. Life has changed a lot since the "great teachers". Either one has to learn to come to terms with this fact and draw the necessary conclusions otherwise how things will end up will be clear right from the word go - sect No. 3! To hold comrades together just on the basis of ideas is not going to be a simple task. Once the pressure is off, those comrades who have missed out on life up to know will want to catch up. Some, or perhaps many, will leave politics altogether. Life is no longer going to be rosy or easy. There are no simple solutions and to call for the nationalization of the top 200 monopolies at every appropriate and inappropriate occasion is not going to help either. Only by understanding what went wrong in the past and why it went wrong, is it possible to build for the future. The form and content this will take are still very unclear - if we recognize this fact, there is a chance that we can do it better. But only if we do so! Dave Hollis, 15.4.94 P.S. This document was written in a hurry and under pressure from an ongoing struggle against redundancies. It would have been impossible to have written it without the help and critical comments of Maggie McQuillan, who agrees with the main lines of argument and conclusions. In this sense, the document should be considered to have been co- authored by her. All grammatical mistakes, mis-spellings, etc. are, of course my responsibility. ---- [1] In fact, often the leadership have been _strengthened_, since it generally is the opposition that leaves the organisation first, leaving the sinking ship in an even worse condition than before. Editors remark ======================================================================= (07) GENERAL INFORMATION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Breakaway will be published as often as we have enough material. "Enough" is at present about 40kb of text, but this might increase if we get enough submissions. Under any circumstances we'll try to limit ourselves to 40kb until we reach one issue every two weeks. (Probably won't happen in your lifetime ;-) The format is, as you can see, pure 7-bit ASCII. Do you: - want to subscribe? - have an idea? - have a question? - want to submit, and want to know how? Just send us a message, preferably by e-mail, and we'll send you appropriate information as soon as possible. To ensure that we can reply, please include your e-mail address in the body of the message. SOME BRIEF NOTES ON SUBMISSIONS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * BREAKAWAY will accept articles from people belonging to all trends or ideologies related to marxism, or from people who are simply interested in marxist theory or practice. * You should limit yourself to articles between 100 and 300 lines if possible (shorter pieces will naturally also be accepted). If you find that difficult, try to divide your article into shorter sections suitable for publishing over two to four issues. * We will publish most articles or news reports we receive concerning marxist ideology, the actions of marxist organisations, or information of importance to the average revolutionary. Also fiction might be accepted (contact us for more info) * We accept anonymous submissions. However, if you choose to do so, we would prefer if you give us a pseudonym to use as your signature. How to contact Red Forum / Internationalists Committee: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor : Vidar Hokstad E-mail : Snailmail : Boks 30, N-2001 Lillestroem, NORWAY Tel. : +47 638 170 35 (5pm to 9pm GMT) ======================================================================= Proletarians of all countries, unite! ======================================================================= END BREAKAWAY.003