Democracy, democratic centralism and John Molyneux
Posted on Monday 28 July, 2008
Filed Under Socialist Workers' Party
Back in the 1980s, I eagerly bought Socialist Worker every week, simply because each edition contained a few hundred words from my all-time journalistic hero Paul Foot.
My second favourite feature was the ‘Teach Yourself Marxism’ column, penned by John Molyneux, pictured left. I strongly admired his ability to condense complex Marxist ideas in an accessible manner, in articles that exemplified serious socialist writing for a readership beyond a purely cadre audience.
TYM is no longer accorded space in the pages of Britain’s main Trot weekly. There are many reasons why that could be so. Molyneux – a longstanding Socialist Workers’ Party member, of course – is known to have tabled internal criticism of the SWP leadership in recent years. That may of course simply be unfelicitous coincidence, although one suspects otherwise.
Whatever the case, most of the Portsmouth-based academic’s offerings now seem to appear only in the publications of the South Korean affiliate of the International Socialist Tendency, and are available in the UK solely on a sporadically updated blog. In his most recent post, John asks ‘is democratic centralism undemocratic?’
At first sight, the question appears somewhat on a par with asking ‘does Kate Moss like cocaine?’ My own experience suggests democratic centralism will never constitute an appropriate model for the type of broad socialist regroupment that has any realistic chance of proving workable.
Come to that, I’m not particularly convinced it represents an appropriate model for a revolutionary party in a bourgeois democracy such as Britain in 2008, either. It is one thing to submit to the ’discipline’ – and that’s the word that is habitually used – of an elected leadership with a proven track record in the class struggle and/or as intellectuals. It is quite another to kow-tow to the current crop of British Lenin wannabes, who have made a hash of every project they have touched for over a decade.
But that’s just me. Molyneux’s post advances the standard far left justification for emulating the Bolshevism of 106 years ago. Democratic centralism, he maintains, is simply the form of organisation that combines maximised democratic debate and policy making with united action by all party members. Far from being anti-democratic, it is really the most democratic method by which the revolutionary left can go about its business, and would be essential in a revolutionary situation.
The money paragraph, for me at any rate, was this one: Be that as it may, the critics will say, we are not in a revolutionary situation, and the trouble with democratic centralism is that it too easily manipulated by bad leaders in the hear [sic] and now. In fact anti-democratic manipulation is always possible, whatever the formal constitution of a party, but democratic centralism makes it more difficult not easier. This is because it disciplines not only the rank and file of the party but also the leaders.
Does democratic centralism – to which the SWP adheres, of course – really discipline leaders? Compare and contrast the following extracts from a document Molyneux put forward in support of his campaign for a seat on the central committee in 2006:
In the course of the last 15 years or so there has hardly been a single significant challenge to the line of the CC [Central Committee] on any major issue, nor till now has there been a contested election to the CC. This is not a normal state of affairs in the history of the socialist movement (just check out the history of the Bolsheviks, the Trotskyist movement under Trotsky or, indeed of the IS/SWP in the 60s, 70s and 80s). Nor in my view is it healthy. We need more debate and we need an atmosphere and culture that facilitates that debate …
I believe the party would be healthier and stronger if there was more involvement of the membership and the NC [National Committee] in decision-making. Obviously we are a combat party that often has to respond to events quickly and decisively, but equally there are a range of issues and decisions that could be put to the NC and branches for their input.
At the moment there is too strong a tendency to decide everything at the top and then simply to get the NC, branches and conference to endorse it.
That’s the reality of an organisational schema we are asked to believe makes anti-democratic practices ‘more difficult, not easier’. As described, it seems horribly reminiscent of mid-1990s New Labour control freakery minus the ubiquitous Vodaphone pagers.
Molyneux was not elected. The irony is – to judge from his most recent blog post – that the very democratic centralism John so avidly touts has reduced the public pronouncements of a thoughtful, articulate Marxist to the level of an intellectually dishonest I-speak-your-weight machine.
What is more, because DC carries with it a gagging order on public criticism of what sounds like a horrendous internal party regime, John cannot even debate this matter openly in front of the rest of the left. In politics, it’s not just Labour backbenchers that are compelled to stay on message at all times.
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32 Responses to “Democracy, democratic centralism and John Molyneux”
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Put it like this; Gordon Brown’s leadership can and will be challenged later this year. John Rees’ position seems impregnable.
Good questions,Dave.
two points:
1. the new left and political power
2. Is DC for thickos?
1. Despite four decades of analysis, covering every subject from working-class culture, the arts, films, feminism, religion even literary analysis, there is an intellectual famine of works which cover power, political organisation, and checks and balances in practical ways, looking at the failures of the new Left in the past 40 years
And doesn’t that seem peculiar? plenty of failures but so little real analysis?
So little written on the psychology of people with power and misuse as it relates to the new Left, plenty of stuff about capitalism, the excesses of wealth, celebrity, how power corrupts but little written with reference to the conspicuous failures of the new Left (leaving aside Tariq Ali’s satirical work)
2. Isn’t the SWP form of democratic centralism really just lazy thinking for thickos?
I’m not accusing all SWPers of being dense, but surely something is wrong if they have to take political instructions from the likes of German, Rees and Harman?
after all they weren’t a central to all of the recent political failures perpetrated by the SWP (StWC, Respect, Galloway, Left List, etc)
Don’t get me wrong, I can understand listening to someone whose well-informed or is clearly an expert in a particular field, but that’s certainly isn’t the SWP Central committee, based purely on their record of long-term achievements, which are zero.
In the past 30+ years the SWP have nothing significant or tangible (solid and fixed) to show for their shenanigans, project after project is eventually swept under the carpet.
So why do SWP members follow these political numskulls? the SWP leaders are not very bright (couldn’t see Galloway’s actions coming) and can’t even get basic admin done correctly (the Respect naming fiasco and site web registration)
Is it laziness that means that SWP members don’t have to think through these issues for themselves, they just rely on someone telling them a particular line, and then they regurgitated slowly? I am not sure
I’ve known some smart SWP members, but that was decades ago and I suspect they’ve long since been kicked out or expel, or died.
What is the attraction of being told what to think by others? I can’t understand it
I agree with much of this. But the blame isn’t Lenin’s, Democratic Centralism was invented by the German Social Democracy, it was never the form of organisation adopted by the Bolsheviks, for one simple reason. They were an illegal party.
Indeed, the term Democratic Centralism is not even used anywhere in Lenin’s What is to be done? Or in any of his other writings discussing organisation in that period.
Every left organisation, certainly in my experience in the UK claims that they are democratic centralist while all the others are “bureaucratic centralist”, this is almost de rigeur. But it ignores the key point – the Bolsheviks were not a democratic centralist organisation, as it is understand by the British Left.
Instead of “toy democracy” Lenin rather states that because of the need of the party for secrecy;
“… something even more than “democratism” would be guaranteed to us, namely, complete, comradely, mutual confidence among revolutionaries. This is absolutely essential for us, because there can be no question of replacing it by general democratic control in Russia.”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iv.htm
In other words this was a radically decentralised party, where the members controlled the organisation based on their own experience and judgement of how to implement the socialist line.
Let’s not forget in the aftermath of the February revolution, base units of the Bolshevik party passed resolutions condemning the collaborationist line of the leadership. This was the tradition of the organisation.
Certainly when the Bolsheviks were trying to split the social democracy after WWI they used a short hand of democratic centralism to try to encapsulate the idea of how the leadership of a party should be accountable to its membership. But paradoxically, this is not the chief lesson of their own organisation.
So to summarise, the key is political unity, i.e. a clear programme that summarises what the party is for and what it wants to do – the organisational form follows from that programmatic understanding.
Mark Hoskisson discusses these themes here, although I’m not wanting to suggest he necessarily agrees with what I’ve said above.
http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/2230
It’s almost not necessary to write to say I pretty much agree with all the above – but I wonder whether Molyneux’s good column ceased because he must have pretty much answered every single Marxist question during its long run.
But yes, it does seem wrong to organise – through democratic centralism – as though you are in a revolutionary situation when you clearly aren’t.
You then get the unpleasant spectacle of people arguing for things that they don’t agree with. Now it is fair enough, if you are arguing as an SWP member to say – the SWP thinks… but when you argue you it personally, and deny it’s just because its the party line to someone you know well, you create distrust. This has happened to me with SWP friends.
Associated is where you feel obliged to keep up your party lies and try to mislead others. A friend of mine, in Workers Power, made a great palaver about how one of their leading members had walked out, and what a great tragedy it was, to join the SLP.
I knew it was a lie – the person had been sent into the SLP by WP – and I never fully trusted my WP friend again.
Similar was Militant’s long-standing ‘we are not a party, just a group of people who like reading the Militant.’ It was just lying to people who may otherwise have been friendly. It would have been ammunition to those who wanted to expel then but on balance the lying was worse, I think.
It is disingenuous to damn the democratic centralist model of party organisation by saying:
1. The SWP is an organisation with an unhealthy internal party culture
2. The SWP claims to be democratic centralist
Conclusion – Democratic centralism is not a valid method of party organisation.
It doesn’t follow. In fact its the sort of flawed argument reactionaries try to damn socialism with (Stalinist country X claimed it was socialist, therefore socialism doesn’t work, blah blah).
In my experience (Socialist Party) the model works very well, because we remember the democratic part, and huge emphasis is placed on educating members and encouraging internal party debates and discussions. Most activity is branch-led rather than centre-led, and the centre certainly couldn’t get away with imposing new turns and initiatives without extensive debate at the branch, regional and national levels, nor would it try to.
Is this perhaps another attempt at self-justification at joining the party of the privatising warmongerers Mr Osler?
Jim,
did your branch education include a bit about “arguing in bad faith”?
do the SP have candidate membership? how is the “line” applied? what if you disagree? get tossed out?
how often does the overall leadership change? once every 5 years or more?
[I thought SouthPawPunch put it rather well, you often know that a political activists is telling you a pile of rubbish, for the sake of their organisation's "line", so next time they try to explain something you tend to dismiss it because of the inherent insincerity in this approach, even when they have something valid to say.]
The version of democratic centralism prevalent in the English speaking left owes much more to the Stalinised Communist Parties’ version than most Trots care to admit. The silly emphasis on always being seen to vote the same way and keeping disagreements in house are the two obvious examples.
A necessary part of revolutionary democracy has to be the right to express differences freely, openly and in public (in front of the class – if you will)otherwise it’s a gift to any bureaucrat who wants to start banging on about “unity”.
‘Bad faith’? In what way? We don’t have candidate membership, though obviously there would be some people who we wouldn’t let join because of certain views or attitudes, as for any political party.
Every member is entitled to disagree with party decisions or policies (we don’t have a crude ‘line’ as you put it) and to continue arguing for their own particular viewpoint, though they have to abide of course by the democratic decision of the party membership at branch, regional and national level. We certainly do not throw people out for disagreement. Only very rarely is anyone expelled, and even then our appeals committee (elected every year) does not have any party full-timers, National Executive or National Committee members on it.
The National Executive is elected every year, as is the National Committee. All congress delegates are elected by the branches, and the congress is the sovereign decision making body.
Please explain why you have accused me of arguing in bad faith. It would seem that you are arguing in ignorance of the facts and with a prejudicial view of the Socialist Party.
I bet Molyneuxs old columns didn’t include this gem.
To put the matter as starkly as possible: from the standpoint of Marxism and international socialism an illiterate, conservative, superstitious Muslim Palestinian peasant who supports Hamas is more progressive than an educated liberal atheist Israeli who supports Zionism (even critically).
Maybe thats why he knows more about throwing people off buildings than getting locked out of them.
Jim wrote:
“Please explain why you have accused me of arguing in bad faith. It would seem that you are arguing in ignorance of the facts and with a prejudicial view of the Socialist Party.”
because that’s what you did with Dave? as in
“Is this perhaps another attempt at self-justification at joining the party of the privatising warmongerers Mr Osler?”
I have no view on the SP one way or other, I was just curious, a poor working class habit I have
Are New Labour not privatising warmongerers?
By the way, not going to university does not make you ‘more working class than thou’, the constant harping on is getting a little tiresome.
Jim
The political purpose of the post is (a) to show up the contradiction between what Molyneux writes in public and what he writes in private and (b) to ask what the point of DC is anyway. I mean, glad it works for your organisation. But why have it??
The point is that the democracy in an organisation is fairly meaningless unless there is the requirement to abide by decisions arrived at democratically.
True democratic centralism is fundamentally different from the following approaches:
1. Bureaucratic centralism – the approach taken by organisations such as the SWP – an ossified bureaucracy sheltered by the lack of healthy internal party debate and democracy, and the lack of branch and regional structures with the ability, confidence and know-how to chew over issues and points of disagreement.
2. Authoritarianism – as in mainstream parties. Undemocratic party structures determine policies and strategy without any real regard for membership or affiliated organisations such as unions.
3. Free for all – As in Respect Renewal and to some extent the Greens. What is the point of Respect Renewal conference passing motions democratically when public representatives ignore it and pursue their own course. Where is the democracy if party members cannot be disciplined for reactionary attitudes, pronouncements and votes (or abstentions) on issues such as abortion and scientific research, contrary to the formal democratically decided policy of the party?
True democratic centralism is also not a fixed structure. It can alter according to the situation. At the moment, branches have a great deal of autonomy, and will approach political work in different ways. You will be able to gather that by comparing A Very Public Sociologists reports with reports on the Devon Socialist Party’s website (http://socialistpartydevon.blogspot.com).
There may be times, such as in the event of state repression, that a more centralised model will be adopted.
But fundamentelly, it aint democratic if it aint centralist. If its all centralist with no democracy then you get the SWP (is it still Left Alternative, I haven’t checked for a few days).
Jim,
maybe the SP should add reading lessons too, to their educational work!
you did what about 90% of politicos do (I have done it myself, so am no hero either way), that is after making some valid points, you add a snidey comment which questioned Dave’s motives for writing this piece, that’s bad faith and it sours any exchange
given that the Left is so small I think you might want to work on that habit, as it only puts your party in a bad light and does not help your arguments
Liam’s point was good, I wonder how these problems are handle in Europe? what’s the political culture like in, say French or Italian groups?
it is not like British groups seem to have had much success in this area, over the past 40 years
Snidey perhaps, though it does irritate me that Dave is criticising an organisation that, in complete contrast to his own, has been consistently anti-war and opposed to neo-liberalism.
He might have more credibility in dissecting other groups had he not willingly joined an organisation led by, lets be honest, balls out war criminals.
What is truly astonishing is that Molyneux, and pretty well every other defender of democratic centalism, hold up as their model “the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky”.
They wilfully fail to note that Trotsky opposed Lenin’s model of organisation until a few months before the insurrection, and that during the Bolshevik seizure of power democratic centralism broke down, with leading figures such as Zinoviev and Kamenev openly opposed to Lenin.
And when democratic centralism was enforced, it stifled the intellectual life of the party, and promoted the rise of the careerists and yes-men. Within a few years, all the fears that Trotsky (and Rosa Luxenburg) had expressed before the revolution were proven to be cruelly accurate.
And it is far too easy to follow the standard ultra-left line and blame the disaster all on Stalin.
The democratic centralist model may possibly work under conditions of savage repression when parties of the left have to operate clandestinely. But under normal circumstances it is a millstone round our necks that should be discarded.
“…the left is so small…” -
Maybe if you think ‘the left’ just means Trots – not even the remnants of the CP and Labour Left. What about the 2 million who’ve left the labour party, the 2 million who marched against the war (admittedly not all left)? Here’s a better one – what about the minimum 70% of the country who want a national health service, but have no-one to vote for to keep it? If ‘the left’ means the (semi) organised extra-parliamentary left (‘revolutionary’ is just too laughable) then whether democratic centralism is the problem, or something else, there is something far wrong given that there isn’t a Save-the-NHS and Stop the War candidate standing for every council and parliamentary seat. Can you honestly say that Respect or any of the others are screaming the Save-the-NHS message so loud you can’t miss it? Why haven’t these organisations attracted the mass support of NHS workers of all ranks? Why is it that most average ‘leftish’ people feel so little confidence in these ‘left’ organisations that they wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole? Is it hard to imagine going along to a Save-the-NHS meeting and being confronted with speeches along the lines of ” We, in the Socialist Workers’ Party, have a Marxist perspective…” by Alex Calinicos, or some other ex public schoolboy. Or being told that borders controls are fascist!
If that’s what Democratic centralism means – that the leaders can talk in pseudo-dialectical gobbledegook, and force policies that will never attract more than a few hundred people – then the ‘left’ is just a hobby for a few eccentrics, and nothing to do with the desperate political fights that must be fought.
Jim,
you say: “The National Executive is elected every year, as is the National Committee. All congress delegates are elected by the branches, and the congress is the sovereign decision making body.”
Can I ask who or which body) elects the executive? Is the national committee elected by slates, or by individual canidates, and who nominates the members?
Transparency – having the internal debates openly in front of anyone who’s prepared to read them, and therefore available to the working class as a whole – is fundamental. Otherwise, the leaders have *private property rights* in this information and the organisation becomes merely “John Rees & Co trading as SWP” (etc).
This is not a “free for all” as Jim (SP) argues, and doesn’t entail MPs or councillors having “free votes”.
No-one ever imagined otherwise until 1920-21 – yet “democratic centralism” was a commonplace. The expression originated in the German SPD, possibly among the Lassalleans. It was first introduced into the Russian left by the *Mensheviks* (around 1905-1906), in rules which said that party *branches* should be democratic-centralist.
Its primary use at this period was in connection with the national question. Thus e.g. Lenin said that a democratic-centralist state, like France, was preferable to Swiss federalism, the survival of the petty states within the German Second empire, or Renner and Bauer’s proposals for ‘national corporations’ as a solution to the national contradictions of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
This is also the context of democratic-centralist branches: rejection of the Bund’s line of separate Jewish organisations in every city, etc.
Why the change in 1920-21? The answer is that the Bolsheviks defied the majority of the working class over the Brest-Litovsk treaty and thereafter were unable to win *soviet* elections without suppressing working class opposition. The working class opposition to the Bolshevik leadership then resurfaced within the Bolshevik party and had to be suppressed there.
Meanwhile, the Bolshevik leadership were setting themselves up as the Bonapartist political representative-master of the peasantry (Narodnik land redistribution). Bonapartism, though it tyrannises over the peasantry, is nonetheless the natural political expression of the peasantry. The “party form” agreed in 1920-21 is adapted to representing-mastering the peasantry, and useless to the proletariat as a class: hence the successes of Tito, Mao, etc., and the persistent failures of 1921-style “democratic centralism” in countries with large urban wage-earner classes …
We (the left) do need a collective damnatio memoriae of the theses of the second and third congresses of the Comintern on the party question, of James P. Cannon. It may be that the phrase “democratic centralism” has been so poisoned by the post-1921 history that we need a new phrase. But then we still need to address the problems of federalism (e.g. Bolivia; Italian Northern Leagues) and the need to subordinate the MPs, etc, which the phrase addressed in the 1900s and which Jim raises.
Mike
Why the change in 1921? Not because the Bolsheviks defied the working class majority over Brest Litovsk. See Alexander Rabinowich’s excellent book on Petrograd after the revolution. the majority of the working class and peasantry were desperate for peace, the majority of the Bolsheviks wanted war.
Their disastrous prevarication nearly destroyed the revolution.
Mike Macnair, as usually, has hit the nail on the head. I think we definitely do need a different phrase; it’s impossible to reclaim “democratic centralism” from the authoritarian practices undertaken in its name. “Participatory discipline,” perhaps?
Mike – If you care to read my posts, you’ll see that I characterised the SWP practice as bureaucratic centralism, and Respect Renewal as ‘free for all’, mainly because their elected councillors, and particularly MP, seem to have free reign in their voting and public pronouncements. If you disagree with my thoughts on that then please say so, but don’t misrepresent what I said.
Red Deathy – The National Executive is elected on the slate system at the national congress. Any delegate can put forward an alternative slate to the one put forward by the outgoing Exec.
Democratic Centralism always seems to be used by people on their way out of revolutionary politics to justify their departure (Christ I’ve done so myself – on several occasion). Usually it has to be said when the the argument has been lost or the lure of other things becomes too great. It is undeniable,however, that the internal regimes of many of the left groups do have the effect of stopping creative, independant or open thinking with the net effect of creating certainties and rigidity, attracting the sort of people who like certainty and rigidity I suppose. Not my type of party!
I am not convinced, though, that by changing the phrase ‘Democratic centralism’ itself you get anywhere – you could equally apply the same thinking to the word socialism or communism and of course some people do. The central question, for me anyway, is what comes next and who will make that change and how do we get there. It seems almost mainstream science these days to note that capitalism is suffocating the world and we have a limited time in which to act, as a species.
Those who are against capitalism and who believe that it is the working class who have the unique social positioning to break with the current order need to be organised to this end. I know this is boring but…fundamentally the logic of this is that a party is needed to assist in this process and one that would implicitly be revolutionary, I would have thought?
At the moment MI5 are not unduly bothered about what the left get up to, largely because it is generally irrelevent and amateurish, however it is inevitable that when the left does finally get it’s act together that this will change. Therefore serious communists and socialists need serious organsiation, that whilst requiring discipline, would also act as a hothouse of debate and ideas on all questions, theoretical and practical, sceintific and art based etc etc. This really would be it’s lifeblood and what would attract people to it, a place where people can act, learn and think.
To a certain extent the internet and the ease with which ideas can be distributed signals the end for the particular form of democtratic centralism associated with the micro sect – hurray! Certainly If anything like the Socialist Party’s ‘A Very Public Sociologist’ blog had been published when I was a member yeara go, he would most certainly have been out on his ass!
Anywe we need centralism and we need democracy, we need regimes like that in the SWP like a hole in the head.
Not convinced about the idea or a rebrand around ‘participatory discipline’ – sounds like group S & M goings on to me! I remember the SP tried to call their group practice Democratic Unity at one point, but it never caught on.
People will be attracted to a revolutionary socialist/commnist Party on the basis of what it does and says and how it exists as a living entity, that’s what is important – anything else is window dressing.
Jim,
does that ever happen? Would a delegate put forward a slate if they disaproved of just one candidate? Has the EC ever lost such a vote? Most importantly, would members risk breeching factionalism rules to organise an alternative slate and to agitate for it?
What this means, in effect, is that members don’t elect the EC, they elect delegates, who then choose whether or not to accept the outgoing EC’s slate – its a receipe for self-perpetuating oligarchy. Damnit, even bureucratic Unison lets me directly elect Exec members…
Red Deathy (great name by the way) – Alternative slates have been put forward in the past. I have been a member for 4 years and an alternative slate hasn’t been put up in that period. I believe it has happened in the past, though I don’t know any particular details.
There would be no breach in factionalism rules in organising and agitating for an alternative slate, as there is a right to form factions.
Slates make sense, it allows for a National Committee that is balanced geographically (important to help avoid a London/Wales centrism that otherwise might occur) and for both bodies to be balanced in terms of comrades particular strengths and areas of expertise (e.g. councillor, trade unionist, regional secretary etc.).
Dave
I have just read your response to my article on democratic centralism. it is hard to believe so many errors, misrepresentations and downright lies could be packed into such a short text. Please allow me to correct a few of the crassest mistakes.
1. I wrote a weekly column for Socialist Worker from 1983-1997 – a long time, especially for me who had to write. During this time I had a number of serious disagreements with the leadership of the SWP (for example on the woman question- this is on record in IS Journal) but this never affected the publication of the column. I ceased writing the column abruptly in February 1997. This had nothing to do with disagreements with the CC and everything to do with the fact that I suffered an aortic dissection (the same illness which hit Paul Foot a few years later and left him disabled)and very nearly died. I was hspitalised for 8 weeks, convalescing for a good deal longer and had no choice but to scale down my activities for some time.
2.The reason I write for the Korean socialist newspaper Counterfire, is that in 2005 I visited S outh Korea and spoke at a conference organised by the All Together group (sister group of the SWP), and after that they asked me to write a column for their new fortnightly paper. This I did for more than a year but then had to reduce to writing monthly due to other commitments.
3.It is completely false to suggest that this is my ‘only outlet’- my work is published internationally in many different languages, and often used by other groups in the International Socialist Tendency – or that I am no longer published by the British SWP. I am on the editorial board of the International Socialism Journal and wrote the lead article in the current issue (on Marxism and Religion). Previous to that I have written (recently) on Picasso, on Trotsky Slandered and on Tracey Emin. I also, amazing as it may seem to you Dave, write quite often for Socialist Worker. Recent articles include Is the World Overpopulated? (early July) and pieces on the Revolutionary Party and on The Meaning of Democracy. All this is easily verifiable since all these articles are to be found on my blog.
4.Yes, I was a vocal critic of the SWP leadership on certain issues, while making absolutely clear my agreement with the party’s basic political ideas. I argued my criticisms at party meetings, in the internal bulletin and, in 2006, stood on an oppositional basis for the CC (yes, Red Deathy, it has happened) getting 57 votes to about 250 for the CC slate in a very fairly and properly conducted election. This was indeed an internal SWP matter but it was done, and had to be done, in the full knowledge that everything I said was likely to be publicised and ‘supported’ by sectarian opponents of the SWP such as the CPGB and yourself.
5. The attempt to contrast what I write now with what I wrote in the good old days of the 80s is just silly. Obviously, with age, my style may have deteriorated, but my political views have not changed. Specifically I have been a supporter of democratic centralism since I was writing Marxism and the Party in 1973-5. I supported it when I wrote for SW in the 80s and 90s, and when I stood for the CC in 2006 and always for the same basic reasons, the reasons I gave in my recent article.
6. I have been a member of IS/SWP for 40 years and in the course of that time have written a great deal for the party. I have never ONCE been asked to write anything I did not believe and have never been prevented from putting my point of view. Dave , you are perfectly entitled to disagree with me about democratic centralism, and anything else, but is it possible that simple respect for the truth could win out over polemical zeal enough to enable you to withdraw some of your more palpably false allegations and insinuations.
Jim,
thanks – but can’t that balance be achieved by regional election, or simply through voting mechanisms? My point was that if you object to one person, you have to cobble together an entire slate, and get it passed (or, rather, have your delegate pass it for you).
BTW, I’m faintly confused, you said above the conference delegates elected the national executive – then you reefer to the national committee (not, I expect, the same thing) – did you mean the national committee is elected by conference, which in turn appoints an executive committee?
Red Deathy – No need to cobble together a different slate, just keep the original slate except for one person and add the person you would rather have. The balance can’t be achieved by regional elections, because that would simply take care of geographical balance and not other factors that need to be balanced also.
Elections on the slate basis also have the advantage of being about choosing a National Committee or National Exec as a collective body, rather than just a group of individuals. There is a danger with regional elections, whereby some of who might be elected partly on prominence or popularity grounds, rather than on what they can bring to the collective leadership of the party.
The congress delegates elect both the National Committee and the National Executive seperately, as well as the appeals committee. In the event of a contested election (more than one slate) or a particularly contentious motion, delegates are mandated to vote a particular way based on the democratic decision of the branch that elected them.
I’ll let Dave speak for himself but John Molyneux’s contribution indicates what is wrong with so much of the British Left:
bright, intelligent but living in a bubble
John Molyneux wrote:
“Obviously, with age, my style may have deteriorated, but my political views have not changed. Specifically I have been a supporter of democratic centralism since I was writing Marxism and the Party in 1973-5.” and “I have been a member of IS/SWP for 40 years”
so that’s 40 years, and “my political views have not changed”
isn’t that a bit frightening, it is as good as saying “in 40 years I’ve learn very little and changed even less”
by ANY reasonable analysis the SWP leadership are political rank incompetents:
STwC imploding, creation & break up of Respect, dealing with Galloway, losing the Respect name because they didn’t have the wits to read electoral regulations, London Election, etc
and they are still at it! another 40 years of that bubble
but please, please don’t believe me, read Mark Steele “AH, THE BRITISH LEFT, WHAT WE DO TO OURSELVES” http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1051
Tony Benn has probaly been a consistant “democratic socialist2 for over 60 years that does not mean he hasn’t learned anything. That John Molyneaux has held consistent revolutionary socialist views for 40 years is to his credit, and I am sure he has learned much along the way.
Not sure what brilliant political leadership modernity rates (the AWL or David Cameron?) but as the whole of the left from the Labour Party, CP, SWP, SP, Sparts to the AWL are much smaller now than in years gone by has more to do with the real defeats suffered by workers (such as the Miners strike) than than the mistakes of this or that “leadership”.
Jim,
but it is cobbling together an entire slate, in as much as you have to propose a slate in opposition to the proposed one, much easier to directly vote against a candidate.
As for the election – the problem with mandated delegates is that a large faction can gain undue prominence, much like the operation of the bloc vote (the one used in English local elections). Say 51% of the party are in a faction. They are 51% of every branch, and so get 100% of the delegates, they then 100% get to control the national committee and the EC, and the otehr 49% are entirely locked out, with no representation above branch level.
The supposed advantaes of the slate system are that someone gets to handpirck the compositioon of the bodies, and then submit that to a confirmation hearing…would you recommend that as a model for your trade union?
I’m not a believer in democratic centralism & have some fairly major disagreements with John M, but I think he got you bang to rights, Dave. “Activist in democratic centralist party raises concerns about party democracy within DC structures, is defeated, continues to be supporter of DC” – it’s not exactly Bukharin’s confession, is it?
and, in 2006, stood on an oppositional basis for the CC (yes, Red Deathy, it has happened)
And kudos to John for making it happen. To be fair to RD, 2006 was the only time it’s happened since, um…