Friday, October 28, 2005

Statement of the red party group

STATEMENT BY COMRADES FORMALLY KNOWN AS THE RED PARTY
Our concept of the workers party when we formed the red party was a mass workers party able to contain a multiplicity of currents, trends, and factions, both marxist and other; a party united in aims and goals, but able to use the party's structure for testing and debating the relative merits and failings of each without the short tempered sectarian bitchiness thatcharacterises the traditional left: the inability to hold even the most arcane differences withoutsplintering and engaging in - the last surviving bloodsport - marxist diatribe. We now see that as, in retrospect, our first break with Leninism, although at the the time we did not realise it: we tried originally to square that vision with a form of democratic centralism, which wasfoolish. Our experience of democratic centralism, aspracticed by all existing left organisations, is notconducive to real internal democracy. It provides formembers of leninist organisations the illusion ofdemocracy whilst in reality maintaining the control ofthe central leadership - minority rights only existwhilst the minority remain so; as soon as the centrefeels threatened, the minority are disciplined orexpelled.Our view now of the party is similar to the way Marxused the term in the 19th century. For Marx theworkers party was the whole class in movement aware ofitself and of its interests. As revolutionaries, ascommunists, we are not a vanguard, not an elite, weare no different than our brothers and sisters intheir billions the world over. We see our role as twofold: firstly to provide a revolutionary socialistargument to the myriad of opposition movements thatexist (anti war, anti globalisation, anti poverty,anti privatisation, anti id cards etc. etc.) and willcontinue to be created in opposition to the demands ofa world capitalist system in crisis. To do this wemust develop a meaningful socialist argument free ofthe detritus of authoritarian socialism, a newhumanist socialism which the tens of thousandsmobilised by these movements can relate to.Secondly, our history and position mean that we areknown and to a certain extent can have a hearing inthe traditional left. We therefore wish to act as abridge between the old leninists (amongst whom we feelthere are many committed and genuine revolutionaries)and the new libertarian humanist communism which wefeel is the future.We remain committed to our original aim of uniting theleft (which we now see as far wider than just theleninist groups) and providing a forum for genuinelyopen, non-sectarian debate about the way forward forour movement

2 comments:

Snowball said...

For Marx the workers party was the whole class in movement aware ofitself and of its interests.

Are you sure that Marx was not referring to the socialist revolution here - not the party?

As revolutionaries, ascommunists, we are not a vanguard, not an elite, weare no different than our brothers and sisters intheir billions the world over.

Revolutionaries are human beings, yes - so we have our common humanity in common with billions of working class people. However, under class society, the working class is uneven in its consciousness. Indeed, as Marx put it, 'the ruling ideas of any society are the ideas of the ruling class'. Put simply, there are not billions of revolutionary socialists in the world - but there are billions of people who hold, at least partly, capitalist ideas of racism, as well as sexist and nationalistic ideas.

This means that there is a need for the minority of socialist workers to form their own independent working class organisations in order to better counter the crap ideas of our rulers. Hence Marx and Engels helped form the First International, and Engels helped encourage the Second International. As Lenin once put it, organisation is the only weapon the working class has - something Marx and Engels recognised.

L.J. said...

I´m a member of Communist Democracy (Luxemburgist).
Have you a mail to contact?
SALUD