On Apr 30, 6:49=A0pm, "Stephen R. Diamond" <srdiam...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> The Sparts oppose running for any capitalist executive office =A0
> (http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/index.html)
>
>
>
> > Down With Executive Offices of the Capitalist State!
> >Comrade Bride began his re****t by noting the im****tance of our
discussion=
> > on communists running for executive office: =93The fundamental point
tha=
t=92s
> > posed here is the line between reform and revolution, between the =A0
> > reformiststrategy of taking hold of and administering the bourgeois
=A0
> > state apparatusversus the revolutionary strategy, which means sma****ng
=
=A0
> > the existing stateorgans and replacing them with organs of workers
rule.=
=A0
> > Communists do notjoin, sup****t or take responsibility for the =A0
> > administration of thebourgeois state. And when you run for, as well as
=
=A0
> > hold, executive office,you are legitimizing exactly that=97the
executive=
=A0
> > authority.=94
> >The position that communists should under no cir***stances run for
> > executive offices of the bourgeois state is an extension of our
> > longstanding criticism of the entry of the German Communist Party
(KPD),=
> > with the sup****t of the Comintern, into the regional governments of
=A0
> > Saxonyand Thuringia in October 1923. The KPD=92s sup****t to these
bourge=
ois
> > governments run by =93left=94 Social Democrats=97first from outside
the
> > government and then from within=97helped to derail a revolutionary =A0
> > situation(see =93A Trotskyist Critique of Germany 1923 and the
Comintern=
,=94 =A0
> > SpartacistNo. 56, Spring 2001). Our new line clears up a confusion in
=
=A0
> > the communistmovement that has been present since the CI Second
Congress=
=A0
> > in 1920. There****ter noted: =93We are trying to do what in the main
the =
=A0
> > ThirdInternational did do, which is clean up the act of the Second =A0
> > International
> > on the state; they just didn=92t finish the job. Because when they had
t=
hat
> > discussion at the Second Congress, they were doing battle with the
> > Bordigists and ultralefts, who in principle didn=92t want to run for
=A0=
> > office.But no distinction there was made between running for
parliament =
=A0
> > andrunning for executive office.=94
> >Our earlier line, affirmed at the 2003 ICL Fourth Conference, was that
> > Marxists could run for executive posts so long as we made clear in =A0
> > advancethat we would not assume office if elected. Comrade Bride noted
=
=A0
> > that thisissue had first been raised internally in 1999, when the
party =
=A0
> > was deeplydisoriented, then was raised again after the 2003
conference, =
=A0
> > leading tothe reopening of discussion. He commented, =93I think our
=A0
> > slowness to grapple
> > with this has a lot to do with the state of the party and the
prevailing=
> > conception, in fact, that the overriding problems were sectarianism
and =
=A0
> > not
> > Menshevism.=94 The subsequent fights and discussions to reorient the
ICL=
=A0
> > havegreatly strengthened our ability to address such questions,
drawing =
=A0
> > cruciallessons from the history of the workers movement to apply to
our =
=A0
> > work.
> >The executive office question was a major subject of debate in the =A0
> > buildupto our Fifth Conference, with many contributions by comrades at
> > pre-conference meetings and in internal bulletins. A number of
research
> > do***ents were produced, examining a variety of historical situations,
> > among them the ministerialism (holding positions in bourgeois =A0
> > governments)of the Second International; the electoral work of the =A0
> > Bolshevik Party andits attitude toward bourgeois municipal =A0
> > administrations during the periodof dual power in 1917; the work of
the =
=A0
> > Bulgarian Narrow Socialists in theyears before and after the Russian
=A0=
> > Revolution; and of early Communistparties in France, Mexico and =A0
> > elsewhere. Further historical researchremains to be done, with an eye
to=
=A0
> > publi****ng more extensive propaganda onthis critical question in the
=A0=
> > future.
> >Our change of line remained controversial up to the eve of the =A0
> > conference.Some comrades initially argued for running for president in
=
=A0
> > =93exceptional=94cir***stances as a means of gaining a broader hearing
f=
or =A0
> > Marxist ideas.Another comrade, pointing to the practice of early =A0
> > Communist parties inrunning local administrations, even wrote that if
we=
=A0
> > won a majority in amunicipal council, we should take office or risk
=A0
> > being seen as=93abstentionist.=94 A comrade responded sharply: =93Our
po=
sition =A0
> > is notabstention, as suggested by some, it=92s opposition. Please be
ver=
y =A0
> > clear,we=92re not neutral, we=92re opposed to the executive of the =A0
> > capitalist state.=94The comrades who initially argued against changing
o=
ur =A0
> > line eventually sawthat their argumentation skirted dangerously close
to=
=A0
> > reformism, and in the
> > end the conference voted unanimously for the new position.
> >A recent polemic by the Internationalist Group (IG) provides a crude
=A0
> > rehashof the worst arguments in favor of running for executive office.
=
=A0
> > The IG=92sarticle, =93France Turns Hard to the Right=94
(Internationalis=
t =A0
> > supplement, May2007), deals with the recent French presidential =A0
> > elections, where theUSec=92s flag****p group both ran a candidate and,
=
=A0
> > after he was eliminated inthe first round of voting, called to elect
the=
=A0
> > candidate of thepro-capitalist Socialist Party. In the name of
=93fighti=
ng =A0
> > the right,=94 in2002 the Mandelites even called to re-elect France=92s
=
=A0
> > right-wing bourgeoispresident, Jacques Chirac, against his opponent,
the=
=A0
> > fascist Jean-Marie LePen. Citing our new position as summarized in an
=
=A0
> > article on the Frenchelections (Le Bolch=E9vik No. 179, March 2007;
=A0
> > translated in Workers VanguardNo. 890, 13 April 2007), the IG =A0
> > ludicrously charges that our policy ofrefusing to run for president or
=
=A0
> > other executive office =93reveals aparliamentary cretinism similar to
th=
at =A0
> > of the Mandelitepseudo-Trotskyists=94=97because we recognize a
differenc=
e =A0
> > between parliamentaryand executive positions!
> >The IG shows touching faith in the capitalist state and its democratic
> > trappings. Marxists have always distinguished between executive
offices
> > like president or mayor, which by definition entail administering the
> > bourgeois state, and legislative positions like parliamentary deputy,
=
=A0
> > which
> > communists can use as a tribune to help rally the m***** against the
> > bourgeois order. Not so the IG, which obliterates that distinction in
=
=A0
> > favorof one between =93democratic=94 and =93anti-democratic=94
bourgeois=
=A0
> > institutions.They write: =93We are also opposed to the existence of a
=
=A0
> > second, supposedlyhigher, legislative chamber as inherently =A0
> > anti-democratic. Should wetherefore also refuse to run candidates of
the=
=A0
> > Senate?=94 To baseparticipation in elections on how democratic the =A0
> > institutional facades ofthe capitalist state are is truly
parliamentary =
=A0
> > cretinism. Does the IGthink the lower chambers of bourgeois =A0
> > parliamentary republics are trulydemocratic institutions? If they
think =
=A0
> > the French Senate is undemocratic,they should look at the Russian =A0
> > tsarist Duma, which the Bolshevikseffectively utilized to propagate
=A0
> > their revolutionary program. As far asthe IG is concerned, communists
=
=A0
> > can run =93for whatever post.=94 Judge?Sheriff? Indeed, if it=92s OK
to =
run =A0
> > for commander-in-chief of theimperialist military, why not for local
=A0=
> > sheriff?
> >As our conference do***ent states: =93The problem with running for =A0
> > executiveoffices is that it lends legitimacy to prevailing and
reformist=
=A0
> > conceptionsof the state.=94 When you run for such offices, workers
will =
=A0
> > understand thatyou cannot be but aspiring to administer the capitalist
=
=A0
> > state. For the IG,running candidates for president or mayor =93in no
way=
=A0
> > implies that theyintend to occupy these positions within the framework
=
=A0
> > of the bourgeoisstate.=94 After all, =93In the unusual case in which a
=
=A0
> > revolutionary candidatehad enough influence to be elected, the party
=A0=
> > would already have begunbuilding workers councils and other organs of
a =
=A0
> > soviet character. And theparty would insist that, if elected, its =A0
> > candidates would base themselveson such organs of workers power and
not =
=A0
> > on the institutions of thebourgeois state.=94 With this line, the IG
=A0=
> > leaves open, and certainly doesnot disavow, the possibility of not
only =
=A0
> > running for executive office butof taking such office in a
revolutionary=
=A0
> > situation, as in the Saxon andThuringian bourgeois governments in
1923. =
=A0
> > And what if a =93revolutionarycandidate=94 wins a municipal post like
ma=
yor =A0
> > in a local party stronghold inthe absence of a nationwide social
crisis =
=A0
> > that poses the question ofproletarian power? This was the
not-so-unusual=
=A0
> > case with the earlyBulgarian and French Communist parties, among
others,=
=A0
> > which controlledhundreds of such local administrations. The IG is mum
on=
=A0
> > what its winningcandidate should do in such cir***stances.
> >The IG upholds the tradition not of Lenin but of Karl Kautsky. Amid the
> > revolutionary upheaval that swept Germany at the end of World War I,
the=
> > Kautskyites claimed to sup****t both the workers councils and the =A0
> > bourgeoisprovisional government, the Council of People=92s =A0
> > Representatives, which theyjoined in November 1918. They thus played a
=
=A0
> > key role in co-opting anddefeating the revolutionary upsurge. It is
=A0
> > precisely in revolutionary timesthat illusions in the capitalist state
=
=A0
> > are most dangerous. After Lenin laidout the Marxist perspective of the
=
=A0
> > revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisstate in The State and =A0
> > Revolution (1917), he was furiously attacked bySocial Democrats who
=A0
> > accused him of going over to anarchism.
> >The IG=97whose core cadre defected from our Trotskyist organization in
19=
96
> > in pursuit of their op****tunist orientation toward various Stalinists,
> > Latin American nationalists and other petty-bourgeois milieus=97sees
our=
=A0
> > newposition as further evidence of our break with =93the continuity of
=
=A0
> > genuineTrotskyism.=94 What they mean here, without saying
>
> ...
>
> read more =BB- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Having just review some of Trotsky's writings on the labor-party
demand in the U.S., I have to conclude that if this point about
executive office in the capitalist state must, if correct, have been
missed even by Trotsky. Trotsky raised the possibility that a nascent
labor party might nominate John L. Lewis to run against Roosevelt for
the U.S. Presidency.
srd
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