Wolfie: Going through the motions

Friday 20 May 2011

Going through the motions

The Labour Party dithers over whether it’s still the Blairite new-labour party or whether it will return to its true-labour social-democratic/socialist position as the mass party of labour. The question for those of use on the broad left is whilst the Labour Party continues to sit on the fence who will lead the offensive against the neo-liberal/neo-conservative attack on the living standards of the ordinary workers in Britain. How will the British Left respond to the attack on our social services, health care, education, employment and pension rights that are being coordinated by the capitalist classes, state and super-state of Britain and Europe, what is to be done?

The British Left can retreat into time-serving bureaucratic activity and dogma; look back longingly to the old certainties when the Soviet Union seemed to represent the socialist future or that somehow Keynesian welfare capitalism would transformation the bourgeois capitalist system into a socialist system. We have seen that the social-democratic road to socialism failed and how since the late 1970’s the capitalist classes have used the ideology of neo-liberalism to privatise and deregulate away much of what social-democrats believed would build socialism. At the same time the capitalist classes have used globalisation and neo-conservative ideology of financial and military imperialism to control the labour movements of the bourgeois democracies and resources of the planet.

We have seen the Soviet Union collapse as a result of an over bureaucratic system and lack of democracy, Yugoslavia had a more democratic form of worker co-operatives and workers councils yet the forces of global capital along with the subversive actions of the USA and British secret services managed to destabilise it and manipulate ethnic and regional tensions within the socialist state. China, Cuba and Vietnam are having to implement capitalist mechanisms in response to the realities of a global political and economic system. If the Left are to effectively defend the working classes of Britain, Europe and globally they will have to respond to the forces of British, European and global capitalism.

This means there can be no road to socialism in Britain or any other state in isolation, the neo-liberal and neo-conservative offensive mounted by the capitalist classes of Britain, Europe and the globally require a coordinated working class response and ideological understanding of the capitalist forces acting against the working classes of Britain, Europe and globally. Therefore if the Left are to be successful in response to the reactionary forces that have set the agenda for the last thirty years there can be no retreat into time-serving and dogma which represents a retreat from Marxist and Leninist theory and practice a retreat from historical-materialism. If the Marxist-Leninist parties are to be the vanguard that leads the counter offensive against the capitalist offensive of the last thirty years then it has to pursue an international and non-sectarian strategy. This I believe is the policy and argument that Lenin would have pursued as an international revolutionary Marxist rather than just going through the motions and is the only response for Marxists and Marxist-Leninist parties in the 21st century.

4 comments:

Wolfie21 May 2011 at 18:16
If I can quote Edvard Kardelj initiative, opportunities, creative action within bourgeois democracy to confront the capitalist system and anti-democratic capitalist state as the antagonisms between the capitalist classes and state with the working classes become more extreme. My argument as a Marxist-Leninist is that this is what the vanguard needs to be doing, not just in Britain but within Europe with other Marxist and non-Marxist communist, socialist and eco-socialist parties.
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Wolfie12 February 2012 at 19:05
If the British Left parties and LRC can mount a successful campaign against Andrew Lansley’s changes to the NHS this subverts not just the neo-liberal agenda of the British political elite but also the Single European Act of 1995, the Lisbon Treaty of 2007 and World Trade Organisation regulations which call for the privatization and marketization of health care as part of the national and international consensus of neo-liberal/neo-conservative rules of world governance.
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Wolfie12 February 2012 at 19:07
the British Left and the French Left could potentially make two decisive blows against the diktats of national and international neo-liberal/neo-conservative governance. A good argument for cooperation and coordination of their strategy and tactics in what Antonio Gramsci would call an ‘‘historic bloc’’ that can oppose national and global capitalism. There is a real opportunity for the British and French Left parties with the NHS and the French elections to turn the historical and material dialectics of the 21st century fightback from the defensive to the offensive for the Left in Europe if they can rise to the challenge and show real leadership. I am sure from what I’ve seen of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Pierre Laurent and Danielle Obono that the Front de Gauche are up for it, and Jacques Généreux seems to have the correct Marxian analysis of the dialectics of national and international capital.
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Wolfie12 February 2012 at 19:07
What’s needed is for Rob Griffiths and John Foster of the CPB plus the leadership of the SP, AGS and LRC to get together with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Pierre Laurent etc. of the Front de Gauche and Lothar Bisky of the GUE/NGL and thrash out an alliance. And for the British Left to get on to the case of crushing the NHS reforms with the leaders of Unite, GMB, Unison and the TUC now, not next month. Get off your back sides and show some initiative and leadership, then you will get the support and respect of the working classes of Britain and the European and Scandinavian Left parties. Let’s say No2aFreeMarketNHS and let’s see the British left leading the fight, this is an issue that has mass support get on the case if you haven’t the gumption then make way for someone who has, the time for ideological debating has passed get your hands dirty in the class struggle and earn the title vanguard of the workers.
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A Future That Works

Friday 20 May 2011

Going through the motions

4 comments: