Politicised Publishing Houses
Posted 24th July 2011 at 18:11 by Feodor Augustus
Tags funding, iso, party newspaper, political centre, sects
Two threads on this board have caught my eye over recent days. The first concerns how the ISO (US) is funded, and the second addresses the mythology that has come to surround the 'Bolshevik newspapers', Iskra and Pravda.
The ISO discussion is based on some revelations that came to light via the financial returns of one of its front organisations, The Center for Economic Research and Social Change. This document, in short, shows them to have received funding from a liberal NGO - $250k from the Wallace Global Fund (op. cit. p.15) - held small amounts of stock in certain multinationals - the most egregious example being that of Caterpillar Inc., who provide the IDF with machinery (op. cit. p.21) - alongside making substantial gross profits on book sales - $601,411 during 2010 financial year (op. cit. p.17).
There was a previous thread on this subject which was (presumably) deleted because some Rev Left users tried to do the job of the IRS for them, and launched all kinds of allegations about financial irregularities and improprieties. I do not wish to repeat such charges as they are largely irrelevant, but instead focus on the furore that accompanied these revelations, and restate some of the points I made in the now lost thread.
Specifically, I wish to raise the question of how the critics of these organisations financial practices expect them to avoid such methods without addressing the far more fundamental issue at hand: the basis on which these groups are constructed. For it seems rather myopic to, on the one hand, advocate the formation of independent revolutionary parties that are more or less completely detached from the major sources of working class financial revenue; and yet on the other, to then scold them for resorting to some kind of commercial activity to mitigate against this.
If you are to set up a party that cannot hope to gain any kind of serious trade union affiliation and financing, how else does one expect to fill the coffers?
This is, by the way, not a problem that is restricted to the ISO. Its estranged parent, the SWP (UK), used to have a policy of '[turning] Socialist Worker buyers into sellers', as Tony Cliff put it, thus 'creating a wide network of sellers and supporters of the paper.' (Cliff, "Lenin's Pravda", 1974, conclusion.) In the words of Jim Higgins, a 'spurious get rich quick [policy]' that needed to be avoided.
Other examples could be cited: the RCP (US) with its bookstores and promotion of its 'dear leaders' (Bob Avakian) writings; the SWP (US) with its long-standing paper, The Militant; and so on. The point, however, is less to name names, but rather to draw attention to a much larger issue.
This is where the second thread cited comes in. Finding its focus in an article from Louis Proyect, it deals with the misrepresentation of actual Bolshevik practices that have come to be widely imitated by the numerous parties of the Leninist left.
As Proyect puts it: 'For most aspiring vanguard party builders, the Bolshevik Party serves as a kind of gold standard worthy of emulation, even if the actual historical experience of that party remains far removed from contemporary versions of that history which tend to project back into the early 1900s patterns of behavior that Lenin would have never recognized.'
Nothing is more important to this process of emulation than the party newspaper, and the idea is that the correct line will enable this or that particular sect to seize the moment as the revolutionary tempest emerges, and in turn lead the working class towards the successful capture of state power. Of course history has not yet vindicated this line of reasoning, and its advocates end up resembling the Chiliasts: preachers of a mystical doctrine, in this case the 'inevitable' proletarian revolution that they will lead to victory.
Moreover, each end up differentiating themselves from their competitors by virtue of their own particular brand of historical interpretation. Usually penned from the hand of an academic failure, they guide their organisations towards constant splits and acrimony based on the most narcissistic perception of minute (and often trivial) ideological differences - notwithstanding the verbiage about the 'correct' approach to tactics and strategy that generally accompanies such divergences.
Marx wrote of such practices that: 'The sect seeks its raison d'être and its point d'honneur not in what it has in common with the class movement, but in the particular shibboleth distinguishing it from that movement.' (Marx, "Letter to Johann Baptist von Schweitzer", 13 Oct. 1868.) And furthermore, the practices of isolating ones theoretical tradition off from healthy debate is the complete opposite of Lenin's argument that: 'Every circle ... is entitled, on joining the Party, to demand the opportunity to express and advocate its views; but no circle, not even of generals, is entitled to demand representation on the Party’s central bodies.'
The idea is simple: there should be no restriction on the ability to express political arguments within the party itself, but in order for these arguments to be put into motion its advocates must be able to win majority support within said party. Yet in reality this appears to be some distance away from the actual functioning of democratic centralist organisations, not to mention the way in which these groups behave upon entering a coalition of divergent interests. Indeed in the latter case, the sects usually have such difficulty in adhering to this basic standard that they are rarely able to enter into genuine coalitions, and instead settle upon the far less appealing format that is the nominally independent but nevertheless central committee controlled front organisation.
The communists were to be a tendency of the working class movement, engaged in its bodies, and acting as its political centre. They should not, however, remove themselves from this movement under the ultra-left pretence of building a perfect movement with perfect politics. That is the fastest route towards political obscurity, the outer realm today occupied by most far left grouplets. However today it is the road that is most often travelled.
It is, therefore, about time we saw these self-proclaimed mass revolutionary parties for what they are: politicised publishing houses, albeit ones with a fairly important potential function. For while they labour in the wilderness attempting to build a new workers' party, they overlook their historic role as the political centre in the already existing bodies of working people. A centre capable of setting the tone and content of working class struggle, without attempting to also control it. The delusions of grandeur need to give way to proper engagement with working people. As the Latin proverb derived from fable of the boastful athlete tells us: Hic Rhodus, hic saltus!
Questionable commercial practices will continue to underpin most organisations as long as they remain secluded from, and irrelevant to, the actual bodies of the working class and the financial reserves they can offer. To realise this is the first step towards remedying it; but to simply complain and impugn without offering any kind of corrective, is moralism of the first order.
The ISO discussion is based on some revelations that came to light via the financial returns of one of its front organisations, The Center for Economic Research and Social Change. This document, in short, shows them to have received funding from a liberal NGO - $250k from the Wallace Global Fund (op. cit. p.15) - held small amounts of stock in certain multinationals - the most egregious example being that of Caterpillar Inc., who provide the IDF with machinery (op. cit. p.21) - alongside making substantial gross profits on book sales - $601,411 during 2010 financial year (op. cit. p.17).
There was a previous thread on this subject which was (presumably) deleted because some Rev Left users tried to do the job of the IRS for them, and launched all kinds of allegations about financial irregularities and improprieties. I do not wish to repeat such charges as they are largely irrelevant, but instead focus on the furore that accompanied these revelations, and restate some of the points I made in the now lost thread.
Specifically, I wish to raise the question of how the critics of these organisations financial practices expect them to avoid such methods without addressing the far more fundamental issue at hand: the basis on which these groups are constructed. For it seems rather myopic to, on the one hand, advocate the formation of independent revolutionary parties that are more or less completely detached from the major sources of working class financial revenue; and yet on the other, to then scold them for resorting to some kind of commercial activity to mitigate against this.
If you are to set up a party that cannot hope to gain any kind of serious trade union affiliation and financing, how else does one expect to fill the coffers?
This is, by the way, not a problem that is restricted to the ISO. Its estranged parent, the SWP (UK), used to have a policy of '[turning] Socialist Worker buyers into sellers', as Tony Cliff put it, thus 'creating a wide network of sellers and supporters of the paper.' (Cliff, "Lenin's Pravda", 1974, conclusion.) In the words of Jim Higgins, a 'spurious get rich quick [policy]' that needed to be avoided.
Other examples could be cited: the RCP (US) with its bookstores and promotion of its 'dear leaders' (Bob Avakian) writings; the SWP (US) with its long-standing paper, The Militant; and so on. The point, however, is less to name names, but rather to draw attention to a much larger issue.
This is where the second thread cited comes in. Finding its focus in an article from Louis Proyect, it deals with the misrepresentation of actual Bolshevik practices that have come to be widely imitated by the numerous parties of the Leninist left.
As Proyect puts it: 'For most aspiring vanguard party builders, the Bolshevik Party serves as a kind of gold standard worthy of emulation, even if the actual historical experience of that party remains far removed from contemporary versions of that history which tend to project back into the early 1900s patterns of behavior that Lenin would have never recognized.'
Nothing is more important to this process of emulation than the party newspaper, and the idea is that the correct line will enable this or that particular sect to seize the moment as the revolutionary tempest emerges, and in turn lead the working class towards the successful capture of state power. Of course history has not yet vindicated this line of reasoning, and its advocates end up resembling the Chiliasts: preachers of a mystical doctrine, in this case the 'inevitable' proletarian revolution that they will lead to victory.
Moreover, each end up differentiating themselves from their competitors by virtue of their own particular brand of historical interpretation. Usually penned from the hand of an academic failure, they guide their organisations towards constant splits and acrimony based on the most narcissistic perception of minute (and often trivial) ideological differences - notwithstanding the verbiage about the 'correct' approach to tactics and strategy that generally accompanies such divergences.
Marx wrote of such practices that: 'The sect seeks its raison d'être and its point d'honneur not in what it has in common with the class movement, but in the particular shibboleth distinguishing it from that movement.' (Marx, "Letter to Johann Baptist von Schweitzer", 13 Oct. 1868.) And furthermore, the practices of isolating ones theoretical tradition off from healthy debate is the complete opposite of Lenin's argument that: 'Every circle ... is entitled, on joining the Party, to demand the opportunity to express and advocate its views; but no circle, not even of generals, is entitled to demand representation on the Party’s central bodies.'
The idea is simple: there should be no restriction on the ability to express political arguments within the party itself, but in order for these arguments to be put into motion its advocates must be able to win majority support within said party. Yet in reality this appears to be some distance away from the actual functioning of democratic centralist organisations, not to mention the way in which these groups behave upon entering a coalition of divergent interests. Indeed in the latter case, the sects usually have such difficulty in adhering to this basic standard that they are rarely able to enter into genuine coalitions, and instead settle upon the far less appealing format that is the nominally independent but nevertheless central committee controlled front organisation.
The communists were to be a tendency of the working class movement, engaged in its bodies, and acting as its political centre. They should not, however, remove themselves from this movement under the ultra-left pretence of building a perfect movement with perfect politics. That is the fastest route towards political obscurity, the outer realm today occupied by most far left grouplets. However today it is the road that is most often travelled.
It is, therefore, about time we saw these self-proclaimed mass revolutionary parties for what they are: politicised publishing houses, albeit ones with a fairly important potential function. For while they labour in the wilderness attempting to build a new workers' party, they overlook their historic role as the political centre in the already existing bodies of working people. A centre capable of setting the tone and content of working class struggle, without attempting to also control it. The delusions of grandeur need to give way to proper engagement with working people. As the Latin proverb derived from fable of the boastful athlete tells us: Hic Rhodus, hic saltus!
Questionable commercial practices will continue to underpin most organisations as long as they remain secluded from, and irrelevant to, the actual bodies of the working class and the financial reserves they can offer. To realise this is the first step towards remedying it; but to simply complain and impugn without offering any kind of corrective, is moralism of the first order.
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