SWP thuggery

The following is from Weekly Worker. Readers should know by now that my politics are quite at odds with the CPGB's, however, I thought that the following was too serious not to be passed on by the Lair.

Condemn physical assaults on this year’s Marxism!

On July 7, the second full day of this year’s Marxism, SWP national organiser Martin Smith physically assaulted Communist Party comrade, Simon D. The attack occurred while our comrade was waiting for the session on ‘Organising for fighting unions’ to begin.
Simon was a member of the SWP for three years up to 2006, when he was suddenly expelled (by phone!) for “bringing the party into disrepute” - the catch-all charge loved by bureaucrats everywhere. In fact, all he was ‘guilty’ of was raising some criticisms and questions publicly and reporting on his blog - verbatum - the words of leading SWPers at a Respect meeting in Tower Hamlets. At the comrade’s appeal, led by Pat Stack and where Martin Smith gave ‘evidence’, he was not given any specific examples of his alleged crimes. He was subjected to a show trial with no pretence of allowing the comrade a fair hearing and then was simply turfed out.
In the following weeks, comrade Simon attended a Camden SWP public meeting on Respect. Incredibly, the next day Martin Smith left a message on the comrade’s phone telling him that he was henceforth “not allowed to go to any SWP events”. Smith also said he had written to the party organiser in comrade Simon’s area to let them know this. Comrade Simon texted back pointing out that it was advertised as an SWP public meeting and surely, as a member of the public, he was entitled to go. The response came back: “When you are expelled from the [SWP], that means you are not allowed to attend any SWP event, public meeting, Marxism, period.”
To make this crass exclusion official, Smith sent through a letter a few weeks later that put this in black and white: “an expelled member of the SWP cannot attend SWP public events (that includes Marxism/rallies/public meetings)” (Weekly Worker June 8 2006).
The fact is that comrade Simon has attended SWP meetings since - despite threats. Indeed, how many people at this year’s Marxism were once expelled from the SWP? Applied consistently, this would see the exclusion of hundreds of comrades on the left of the working class movement who have been in that organisation and fallen foul of its crass bureaucratic regime.
Clearly Smith is personally slighted because his foul role in the comrade’s crude show trial and expulsion was publicly exposed by the Weekly Worker. This is clearly what prompted Smith to aggressively approach comrade Simon, to demand his ticket to the whole event be returned and to physically attack him. He was wrestled to the floor, sustaining bruising, abrasions and back strain. A second SWPer then joined in and they started to go through our prone comrade’s pockets to take his Marxism ticket.
This is a foul and cowardly act. In their sect, SWP leaders are used to wielding unaccountable power, they treat the ‘party’ and the wider movement almost as their own property. Disgustingly, when Simon was expelled, Pat Stack told him “You’re now not going to have any life on the left - your activist days are over”. Who the hell do these people think they are? Since when have they been in charge of our common movement? Since when has it been their prerogative to decide who is a working class partisan and who is not?
However, this Stack comment and the attack on Simon reveal the foul, anti-Marxist mindset of people who treat their own members as little more than paper-selling and leaflet-distributing machines. And ordinary SWPers are the people who should really be disturbed by the physical assault at this year’s Marxism.
After all, the likes of the thug Smith cannot shut up comrade Simon or - even more frustratingly for him - the Weekly Worker itself. We will feature this story next week to make sure that Martin Smith is exposed for the anti-democratic goon that he is and that this information is widely disseminated in the movement in this country and internationally.
SWPers have no such outlet, of course. We can brush off these sorts of crude incidents; Martin Smith’s reputation will take the really bad bruising here. But comrades of the SWP - if you tolerate this despicable culture in your ranks, what about when you develop differences, what about when you want to criticise and hold your leaders to account?
That’s the real lesson from this new SWP assault on political opponents and it is one SWPers themselves should really take to heart.

Bonapartism, basic concepts and Chavez

Jim Denham (of the Alliance for War and Liberalism) has been crticial of Hugo Chavez and his government, calling them ‘a bonapartist formation, with nothing to do with socialism (assuming that by "socialism" you mean the rule of the working class)’. When I posted a Gramsci quote which says that perhaps calling a formation ‘Bonapartist’ is not the be all and end all of the matter Jim responded with ‘[s]o much for basic Marxist concepts’.

I think that position Jim takes here is an interesting one, and worthy of further exploration, especially as it exposes a real weakness in the approach of the British left in general. The Gramsci quote I posted only suggested that establishing something is Bonapartist is not the end of the matter, as it does not stop the need for further enquiry. Denham seems to be insisting that ‘Bonapartist formations’ are a basic concept of Marxist thought, and they tell us that the regime can have ‘nothing to do with socialism’.

The first point to note is that I am not a Trotskyist and I don’t really know that much about the Trotskyist position. This made it hard for me to even think of Bonapartism as a ‘basic concept’ of Marxist thought (I know it gets mentioned in the 18^th Brumaire but still). But even if it is a basic element in Marxist thought, calling it a concept really doesn’t seem to help anyone, in fact Jim seems to have become an ideologist, for whom:

[R]elations become concepts; since they do not go beyond these relations, the concepts of the relations also become fixed concepts in their mind.

So, against Jim I raise Lenin, who refuses to acknowledge that Marxism is about ‘basic concepts’ that allow us to pre-judge a given situation. Against such positions Lenin insisted that the ‘very gist, the living soul, of Marxism [is] a concrete analysis of a concrete situation’. So in this respect I think that Gramsci is right and Jim is wrong, just establishing that a given social formation is Bonapartist tells us nothing about its relation to socialism or the emancipation of the working class – instead we have to ask the Marxist question – who benefits?

The Old man himself

The thing is, it seems to me that Trotsky himself realised this when he did his work on Bonapartism. I just randomly skimmed Trotsky’s article The Workers State, Thermidor and Bonapartism and came up with the following extracts:

The overturn of the Ninth Thermidor did not liquidate the basic conquests of the bourgeois revolution, but it did transfer the power into the hands of the more moderate and conservative Jacobins, the better-to-do elements of bourgeois society.

In France, the prolonged stabilization of the Thermidorean-Bonapartist regime was made possible only thanks to the development of the productive forces that had been freed from the fetters of feudalism.

And perhaps the kicker is:

Without historical analogies we cannot learn from history. But the analogy must be concrete; behind the traits of resemblance, we must not overlook the traits of dissimilarity.

Essentially what these quotes tell us is that although Napoleon was not the most advanced representative of the bourgeois revolution, he nonetheless preserved and stabilised the growth of the bourgeois revolution in France. What isn’t written here, but perhaps is more to the point, is that Napoleon spread the bourgeois revolution (and you’d think the AWL would love that) to the rest of Europe, as is evidenced by the fact that the Civil Code dominates the continent.

So, even for the paradigm case of Bonapartism, Napoleon himself, it is possible to say that he served a progressive role, in consolidating the gains of the bourgeois revolution, spreading it, and generally not liking feudalism. Of course, Louis didn’t play such a role, but this shouldn’t blind us to the fact that it is entirely possible that Bonapartism can play a historically progressive role.

Cui Bono?

But of course this is all well and good when we’re talking about bourgeois revolutions (although I seem to remember hear some Trots talking about spreading the gains of October etc.) but the typical response to what I have said is – ‘the emancipation of the working must be the act of the working class itself’ or ‘socialism from below’(!!!). Now, although I think these slogans themselves have to properly put into context, I do agree that the proletarian revolution is always one that will be qualitatively different from every revolution that has preceded it.

So, agreeing with Jim here, I still don’t think it’s the end of the matter. At the very least we need to ask – has Chavez opened a space for the emancipation of the working class? So, rather than just shout ‘Bonapartist (!!!!)’ we need to ask ‘who benefits’ from the Bolivarian revolution, and we need to enquire if it has benefited the working class.

And surely on this level we can say (at the very least) ‘yes’. Chavez has firstly put socialism and the working class on the agenda in Venezuela and indeed the world stage. This must be a good thing for the perspective of the working class. I think the work of Mike Lebotwitz has been instructive here. Even if we disregard Chavez’ concrete policies relating to the economy it is pretty clear he has opened up a space for the working class in a way that has never happened in Venezuela.

He has opened up the political process to the working class, and indigenous people so that it does not lie solely with the oligarchs and its representatives. The ideas of co-management, no matter how limited their application, help smash the myth that the workers cannot do without he bourgeoisie. The barrio healthcare initiatives are helping the Venezuelan workers get back their confidence and dignity.

I think the confidence and dignity argument is and important one, which ought not to be overlooked. In Venezuela the workers may not rule, capitalism may still not be overthrown, the old state machine may not have been smashed, but the working class and its organisations have grown, they are taken seriously, they are confident and organised. Surely this sort of empowerment is the key to any successful self-emancipation.

It is Jim's prerogative to disagree with my characterisation of Chavez (which was obviously provisional and sketchy), but I hope I have at least shown how a Bonapartist regime might be characterised as 'progressive'. Hopefully this will at least stop the pointless screams of "Bonapartist!!!!!!!!!" at the mention of Chavez' name.

Trotskyist Scandal

Those who read my post on Venezuela a couple of days ago, will have probably understood that I am not too fond of the sectlet known as the Socialist Equality Party, better known for running the World Socialist Website. For all my dislike of them however, I never could have possibly imagined what I read about them today while browsing a marxist community on Live Journal. While I am not entirely sure of the original source's credibility, it just makes too much fucking sense to ignore.

Enjoy:

http://community.livejournal.com/marxism/300825.html

WSWS/SEP
From alt.politics.socialism.trotsky

EXHIBIT 1

http://www.grpinc.com/grandriver-people.html

EXHIBIT 2

http://www.irisolutions.com/pressroom/best-places/2003_Crains.BPTW.pdf

(see page 2)

EXHIBIT 3

http://www.weandrews.com/wwwAndrews/Docs/RRD_piworld_1.pdf

(see page 9 of 14)

Some years ago, the communist political cult to which I used to be a
member
for one year (then known as the Workers League, now known as the
Socialist
Equality Party) made an interesting "turn" in its political line.
According to SEPtic,
the unions were no longer organizations of the working class.

I found this "turn" to be quite startling. Upon further thought,
however, it sorta
made sense. David W. Green ("North"), the cult leader of SEPtic,
having run
the cult since the mid 1970s, had been a complete ineffectual. He and
his cult
never organized any workers, ever gained any influence in the labor
movement,
never accomplished anything. So, in a strange way, it made quite a
bit of sense
that "North" was now writing off the unions altogether.

Still, I wondered, how was it that "North" managed to keep control
over a dedicated
cluster in the top leadership.

Today, playing around on the web, I found a possible answer. It seems
that David
W. Green is CEO of the 241st largest printing company in the USA.
EXHIBIT 1
is a link to the company's site. EXHIBIT 3 show that in 2005 the
company generated
$21mm in sales. EXHIBIT 2 has pictures of "David North" and his wife
in Crain's,
touting them as some of the best employers in the city.

The "puzzle" now makes sense.

Question: why does the North cult solicit members for donations when
they run
a profitable enterprise that could conceivably fund the SEPtic web
page activities?
Is there any sort of democracy in SEPtic? Were a faction to take over
the cult,
what would be the impact of the North crew vis-a-vis the company
activities?

It's interesting that CEO North now tells workers that unions are no
longer organizations
of the working class. This same "line" is probably echoed by CEOs at
all unorganized
companies.

I'm not posting this for the sake of "exposure and denunciation" for sectarianism's sake. I do feel ashamed when certain con artists perpetrate massive frauds on wide sections of the hard left and the youth.
Based on anecdotal evidence (which is unfalsifiable yet will make sense to anyone who has been involved in similar groups) members of the "SEPtic" were expected to empty their pockets to fund their local chapters, while the Good Ship WSWSEP was run rather brusquely, and undemocratically, by Cap'n Green/North.
Already the "Friedrich Engels, too, was a capitalist" defense is being brandished by SEP internet agents, as well as "Don't believe everything you hear on the internet [WSWS notwithstanding]", and "[non-SEP]Splitters are the FBI/CoIntelPro's best tools".
This scandal ranks up there with the Ukrainian fraud (http://www.internationalist.org/ukraineimpostors0803.html) in the US Trotskyist hall of bloopers, and rivals the transgressions of SEP/Workers League's former guru Gerry Healy. Marxists and working-class militants must regroup beyond the scope of sterile orthodox commentaries, academia, and abstentionism. For every David North, Bob Avakian, and James Robertson there are hundreds of disillusioned youths and workers -
Down with MLM [Multi-Level Marketing]!

Wait, there's more!

http://community.livejournal.com/trotskyism/3890.html

A Tale of Two Men
By Joe Hargrave

Here is a story you might find interesting:

I know of two men. One of them is the leader of a small Trotskyist political party in the United States. He is known as David North. The other is the CEO of Grand River Printing & Imaging, a company that earns 25 million dollars a year according to its website. They call him David W. Green.

For nearly 30 years, Mr. North ran his political party and Mr. Green ran his business. Mr. North gave speeches about the exploitation of the working class. Mr. Green exploited his workers, deriving surplus value from their unpaid labor. Mr. North thundered against the corporations that dominate American political life. Mr. Green sought those corporations out as clients, and probably did lunch with some of their executives. Mr. North would talk about the disgusting climate of corporate greed that pervaded the American cultural atmosphere. Mr. Green helped actualize that corporate greed by printing advertisements to help them push their products on consumers.

Of course Mr. Green was no black-hearted tycoon. No, surely Mr. North would have to exempt from his tirades against the corporations that dominate American politics and exploit the entire world certain capitalist leaders who stood out as genuine pillars of their community. Why, Mr. Green had gone to great lengths to make his workers as comfortable as possible. He invested in their training and education, he included them as part of his "larger vision". But surely Mr. North, who understood Marxism very well, would point out the absence of democratic control of the workplace, or the usual separation of the worker from the instrument of production that is the requisite of capitalist production. After all, his party published in statement after statement that the aim of socialism was to create a democratic economy. Yet none of the reports on Grand River suggested anything about "democracy" or "worker ownership" - Mr. Green may have been a nice man who saw the value in keeping his work horses happy, but he was also a businessman. So surely, should Mr. Green and Mr. North ever meet one another, they would disagree on a great many things.

Unless, of course, they were the same man.

Could it be a case of multipule personality disorder? Not exactly. You see, David Green, alias David North, is a fraud. He is the biggest fraud to hit the socialist movement since James Robertson of the Sparticist Leauge or "Chairman" Bob Avakian of the Revolutionary Communist Party. He owns a multi-million dollar corporation, and the upper echelons of his political cult and members of their family occupy key executive positions.

The rank and file members of the party are completely unaware of the existence of North/Green's corporate empire, which includes Grand River Printing, Merhing Books, and who knows what else. They assume that the party sustains itself through the donations that it begs for on its website and at its conferences, as well as the regular contributions that members are expected to "pledge" every month. I was exempt from this particular requirement only after I reminded one of its leaders of the considerable amounts of money I had invested in my own local branch. How nice of them. I can only imagine the giddy internal glee that North/Green must have felt every time some naive sucker wrote the SEP a check for a few thousand dollars. To North/Green, and the other party leaders, such donations were in fact chump change.

I can also only begin to imagine the difficult decisions that had to be made on a daily basis, such as, "how little can we put into this whole socialist thing to keep it viable while we live in the lap of luxury?", and, "should I use a 50 dollar bill or a 100 dollar bill to do this next line of cocaine?" All kidding aside, anyone who is serious about building a revolutionary movement, and who also happened to own a multi-million dollar company, would invest the maximum amount of profits into the former.

What I mean to say is, I could accept the fact that North/Green exploits the labor-power of his workers if the surplus value created by their unpaid labor was being used to build a movement that would one day end all exploitation. The ends, as I generally believe, justify the means if the ends themselves are justified. But this is obviously not taking place. The SEP has full branches in three cities - LA, NY, and Detroit. With the profit margins we can assume a 25 million a year company is capable of, there should be a fully-staffed branch in every major city in the United States. There should be an SEP radio station, a public access program on television, etc., etc., etc. Those profits, in sum, should be used to promote the movement, to expose not tens of thousands but millions of people to socialism.

What could possibly account for a failure to do these things? There is only one inescapable conclusion - that North/Green and his cronies enjoy the good life more than they do the revolutionary life. And they enjoy that life at the expense of the wage-laborers they employ. To dance around these uncomfortable realities they invent all sorts of paternalistic schemes where they provide top quality education and training for their workers - while, of course, "keeping wages competitive". To read the website of Grand River Publishing & Imaging is to be sickened. Every line is infused with phony corporate enthusiasm and politeness, in order to impress the equally phony corporate clients looking to get their ads published and printed. Contrast that to what you normally read on the WSWS. How can these people sleep at night? They might respond like the fictional Renier Wolfcastle: "On top of piles of money with lots of beautiful ladies".

It seems that every other week brings some new revelation about this political cult that I could have only wished I had known earlier. I tell you these things so that you can avoid my mistakes.

David North bio

Fucking hell. I was never under the illusion that the SEP(s) consisted of proletarians, as an organization numbering less than a thousand people globally could hardly be able to sustain a daily updated website like the WSWS if its members lived on an ordinary worker's wage. Also, actual workers hardly ever walk up to people who have given decades of their lives to the socialist movement calling them "middle class radicals".

But this?

Their sectarian ultra leftism, their sickening arrogance and first world chauvinism suddenly make perfect sense. Not in the manner implied by the author of the above articles, namely, that North/Green whatever his name is doesn't really give a flying fuck about the socialist movement - which might very well be true - but in that this pitiful excuse for socialist politics held by the SEP is exactly the kind you would expect from a... CEO's revolutionary consciousness.