Hitherto philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways. The point however is to change it. Karl Marx
Economic & Philosophic Science Review
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No 942 Tuesday March 17 1998                                                                                                                                    10p

As preparations for the new deal bring the completion of Irish liberation closer, British ruling-class opinion and propaganda starts performing painful somersaults. Calling the Orange bluff may end in self-destructive slaughter. Sinn Féin's triumph will crucially help workers struggle in Britain.

English bourgeois ideology, the sick man of world imperialism, is at last gearing itself to accept the reality of defeat by armed revolutionary struggle in Ireland.

Britain's oldest colonial territory, - since 1921 reduced to the wretched sectarian enclave of six gerrymandered counties of Ulster,- has been forced by national-liberation struggle to admit its poisonous and racist futility.

The capitalist press apologists for the 'British tradition' can no longer close their eyes to the total failure of the abysmal fictional country of 'Northern Ireland', and are resigning themselves gradually to the snail's-pace reunification of Ireland following the forthcoming 'peace settlement'.

Unable to defeat the IRA guerrilla war, unable to sustain the costly damage this was causing to English cities and commercial stability, and constantly outmanoeuvred by Sinn Féin's superior political intelligence and tactics, the London Establishment has long been seeking a way out.

The great problem was how to avoid it looking like a capitulation to armed revolutionaries, and how to prevent too much terrorist backlash by disillusioned pro-imperialist thuggery in the Occupied Zone, inspired and protected by the Orange-Lodge colonial godfathers.

Goebbels-level lies and disinformation have tried to solve the first issue via confusion. More resolute government intervention might be needed for the second.

But as the penny drops over this titanic victory over colonial fascism by Sinn Féin/IRA, so the part of the 'free press' most vain about its 'liberal' illusions,-- the Guardian, - has felt poisoned by the dirty disinformation business, and sickened by the realisation that a handful of armed guerrillas and a Marxist-sympathising national-liberation struggle have shattered all the phony 'rule-of-law' myths of bogus 'British democracy'.

The chairman himself of the Scott Trust, the Guardian's capitalist owners, has spat out this coded bile amounting to an admission, in effect, that the UK has surrendered to the IRA, but that nothing can be done about it:

THE release of Roisin McAliskey is a deep perversion of the course of justice, one more deformity that Northern Ireland has worked upon the British state. After painstaking investigation, enough evidence was collected to persuade a magistrate that Ms McAliskey should be extradited to Germany, to stand trial for her part in an IRA bombing attack on a British Army base. But now she is set free, a shocking development engineered not by the courts but by the British Home Secretary. This is a multiple insult to the legal order. Ms McAliskey, admittedly, is in uncertain health, and has been held in custody for some time. But the case is very serious, and the process the Home Secretary aborted is precisely the same as the one the British have often sought to implement in the American courts, only to be enraged by what looks like the political obstinacy of the judges. Here we have an intervention that doesn't even hide behind the pretence of due process.

Nor is Jack Straw's reasoning any more satisfactory than his decision. He has statutory power to revoke an extradition which might be "unjust or oppressive", but the only injustice here is to the judicial system itself, with a sidelong crack at the German version of it. As for oppressive, there are asylum-seekers every week, innocent of any criminal suspicion, who are deported by the Home Office without a backward glance at the question of oppression.

What Mr Straw has done is succumb to political pressure. The McAliskey case became a juicy cause célèbre for Irish-American lobbyists, and then came to be defined by the Nationalist side of the peace process as a pressure-point that might bear fruit for them. As an unnamed official from the Northern Ireland Office told the Telegraph: "This young lady's continued imprisonment could hinder the chances of keeping republicans on board." There could be no more blatant illustration of how British standards have collapsed under pressure from expediency.

So yes, this is a perversion. It should not be happening, and it shouldn't be defended in ways that give the McAliskey crowd an excuse to represent her as some kind of oppressed innocent. But then there are a lot of perversions at large in Northern Ireland. It's a place where the Queensbury Rules have long since ceased to apply in any arena outside, possibly, the boxing ring.

Some of the broken rules concern accountability for the vast reserves of public money poured into the province. The other day, the Guardian reported a scandalous compilation of funds that were creamed off the sale of Belfast airport, and other pieces of "community" funding that seem to have found their way into civil servants' pockets: a story whose publication was exceeded in shock-effect only by the fact of its non-publication for months before, until dug out.

Perversion of the norm will be seen today, when Gerry Adams is again received in Downing Street. The moral as well as the legal order is offended by the presence, at the Prime Minister's side, of the head of an organisation with wholly-owned terrorist links, who cannot yet credibly renounce violence, and who is purringly propitiated by the government in Dublin.

But nausea is something the British will have to put up with; and the truth is that few of them will experience the sensation anyway. For the greatest perversion of all is the condition of unpeace in Northern Ireland. By their willingness to countenance any number of aberrant breaches of the legal order, whether by the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister, the British are showing that these blatant offences are acceptable. I would say that, even by the rules of moral logic, this end justifies these particular means, and that the Tory Party, the only voices to be heard in dissent, are once again in retreat from the real, regrettable world.

After years of futile effort within the moral and legal order, we've negotiated with terrorism, revoked an extradition and doubtless done many other unfastidious things. We owed this to Ulster, to avoid the great darkness that will otherwise descend. For that, terrifyingly, is what will happen if, after all these concessions to Irish requirements,  the leaders do not repay the British sacrifice.

What this booby is saying is that to get the Irish national-liberation struggle off British colonialism's back, any surrender and any humiliation would be worth it. Beaten British imperialism, or what?

The ending shows that Hugo Young's real fears are that the lying propaganda game his newspaper has helped discredited British imperialism to play, - pretending that Ireland's honourable and heroic national-liberation struggle against the all-powerful British police-military dictatorship over the Occupied Zone is on a 'murdering terrorist' par with mindless fascist slaughter of innocent Catholic civilians as practised by the LVF nazis, - may have gone too far, and may have caused Sinn Féin to refuse a deal at the last minute. What an irresponsible bunch of cowardly crooks the British bourgeois Establishment are, - playing shallow propaganda games to try to bolster their own sad prestige (by dimming Sinn Féin's) but at the risk of rekindling what is admitted as "the greatest perversion of all, the condition of unpeace in Northern Ireland".

And in all this degenerate humbug, not a single word about the giant-sized historical criminals finally responsible for this "greatest perversion of all", - namely British bourgeois decadence which closed its eyes to the nonsensical and murderous injustice of Partitioning Ireland at bayonet-point in 1921, just to save face and to dangerously spite Irish nationalism (which had fairly won its united independence by the sweeping 32-country electoral triumph for Sinn Féin in the British run 1918 elections, and then by its heroic resistance to Black-and-Tan terror in the three-year war of national-liberation after.)

The ensuing Orange-fascist tyranny under a permanently gerrymandered dictatorship (effectively) made the latest 30-year war ("the greatest perversion of all") inevitable.

But not a word of apology from this champion of the 'English liberal democratic spirit' for this foul mess, or for the countless "breaches of the legal order" and acts of "violence" perpetrated by the British 'rule of law' itself such as the shoot-to-kill terror; the Gough torture barracks; the judicial frame-up of innocent Irish people in the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, the Maguires, and many more; the midnight terror raids on Irish residential areas; the protection of Loyalist and RUC fascist thuggery; etc, - all far more disgusting 'affronts to decency' than any terror/military operations by the IRA against the legitimate targets of the British state machine and public order which was inflicting the colonial tyranny on Ireland.

But the Guardian hypocrites need not worry. The deal is still on for a completely new Ireland after the May referendums, where 'Northern Ireland' in its old gerrymandered colonial form will be no more, and where new north-south executive powers will gradually introduce changes effectively leading to the eventual reunification of Ireland.

Isolated loyalist-fascist killers are still on the loose, as well as pockets of nazi resistance in the RUC and other colonial institutions.

But the London imperialist Establishment, buttressed by bourgeois support from Washington, Dublin, and the European Union, has shown signs of taking firmer control at last over its own colonial debris to put it in order for a decent snail's-pace burial over the coming years. Blair and Clinton may personally intervene to help the Orange-colonial die-hards relinquish their final 'No Surrender' posturing and pageantry or tone it down suitably, and help get the referendums voted for with sufficient majorities north and south, with the detailed reforms themselves ('restorative justice'; international commission overseeing complete RUC reorganisation with a Gardai input; power-sharing community democracy; etc, etc) still all to be floated as interesting or appealing novelties to win general support for the 'peace plan', all swelling up at the stage-managed last minute.

Sinn Féin will have a triumph in Washington today at the British Embassy and then at the White House, and Trimble & Co will be seen to be reluctantly going along with the new mood of conciliation and optimism at some stage more than likely, (they will still have their business interests at stake under the joint-sovereignty Six Counties). And the 'Northern Ireland' of immediate past British colonial tyranny will begin to be no more. 

Further mess and alarm is certain, particularly around the pockets of fascist resistance in the loyalist gangs and their connections with the Orange Establishment institutions (like the RUC, etc) - as currently raising eyebrows over the suspicion of a prison silencing-murder being carried out on one of the four LVF thugs wanted for questioning on the Poyntzpass massacre, who might have been willing to say who put them up to it.

But none of this now looks capable of halting this final Irish national-liberation triumph, - as the Guardian recognises through biliously gritted teeth.

Only the barmy Trots continue to pursue one of their pseudo—scientific fetishes (see other story) that 'all that is happening in Ireland is an imposed surrender.....on the IRA and Sinn Féin(!), forcing them to abandon(!) their national-liberation resistance to British imperialism, - all inflicted on Irish nationalism by "the imperialist new world order", in just the same way, allegedly, as the US ruling class has "imposed peace" on the Palestinians(!)'(Weekly Worker, March 12). And to 'prove' this 'imperialist triumph' (and the 'correctness' of their own defeatism), they quote  just one daft sentence of meaningless hype from a pro-imperialist newspaper, which does not necessarily even convey what the Trots want it to, - namely: "The road to Northern Irish peace might just run through Dayton and Oslo".

The Trot CPGB still has not twigged that the only point of quoting capitalist sources, which Marxism began to do more than 150 years ago, is to quote them AGAINST their own capitalist interests, - making admissions of wrongdoing, confusion, disappointment, despair, and the like. As already explained elsewhere, the Trots subjective-idealist philosophy (the ideology of the petty-bourgeoisie) can never begin with an objective look at reality, but only ever starts with preconceived ideas. Having ludicrously insisted for two years that the IRA was surrendering to the imperialist new world order, urged on by career-seeking Gerry Adams & Co, their egocentric individualist conceit refuses to let them admit they have been hopelessly misleading their followers.

The Irish national-liberation triumph will surge on regardless. And among the greatest beneficiaries will be the struggle for socialism in Britain where the working class will at last be no longer loyally supporting their 'own' country's colonial domination of another nation. As Marx explained, no people who support the domination of another nation can themselves ever be free. Socialism has never yet even been in with a chance in colonial Britain, especially in regard to the domination of part of neighbouring Ireland, with more than 3 million Irish (or of Irish descent) in Britain racially discriminated against because of that never-ending festering colonial sore. A victory for the IRA/Sinn Féin means an even more important victory for British working-class interests, and thus for the socialist interests of workers everywhere. 

Build Leninism. Douglas Bell

Defeated Trots try to get back at Socialist Labour via rewriting Bolshevik history, and launching propaganda provocations against the EPS Review. But Alliance-swamp 'unity' can only pervade more mud and slime everywhere. Lenin exposes their traditional middle-class deceptive treachery, insisting on leadership bureaucracy against 'autonomous democracy'. The Trots factionalise because they cannot cope with healthy SLP theoretical discussion. Their "no monopoly of the truth" agnostic nonsense should secure their permanent retreat from the fray, - their capitalist-press backers permitting.

Failed Trotskyite entryists are stepping up their middle-class sniping at the SLP by trying to isolate theoretical discussion of Socialist Labour issues published by the EPSR.

The attempt is to "prove that factionalism exists" to try to provoke some anti-EPSR response from the SLP leadership, and to promote the idea of a swamp of ALL the factions as the only kind of party worth having.

Trots in the Midlands have launched documents pretending that the Russian Revolution was only achieved by a swamp of many factions, but simultaneously trying to set the EPS Review up for ridicule and hatred, - and isolation, - because of its communist solidarity with the Chinese workers state.

Meanwhile, the Weekly Worker end of the Trotskyite swamp of nearly a dozen sects (already!) of "ex-SLP members" has sensibly reproduced huge chunks of an EPSR analysis of the class philosophy of 'black sections' but foolishly trying to pretend that theoretical discussion amounts to 'published factional attacks'.

In the Midlands, the failed petty-bourgeois entryists have launched an anti-SLP manifesto which ludicrously claims that Socialist Labour's unitary constitution, which rules out factional recruitment and 'opposition rights', is contrary to Marxism-Leninism.

"This was not actually the way of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party" they say about the SLP's insistence on one leadership, and disciplined support from all members for the party's policies.

According to these frustrated individualists and careerists, the SLP without them has immediately turned into 

"a bureaucratic formulation. It means party worship and leadership worship, with hacks, fanatics, and clones as members."

Modesty and logic are not their strong points. Many individuals among this shower of Trotskyite opportunists who have now left the SLP were supported by Socialist Labour as General Election candidates. One minute, that party support is good enough. The next minute, it consists of nothing but "hacks, fanatics, and clones".

Rewriting history, these Trot sectarians lyingly imply that oppositional factionalising was only reluctantly and mistakenly frowned on by Leninism 

"in 1921 under the severest of economic circumstances".

Once again, they shamelessly wheel out the great bogyman of Western anti-communist propaganda, Stalin, to imply that party discipline ideas were murderous, monstrous, and inhuman, - a complete denial of 'freedom'.

This gibberish is loosely supported by propaganda from the so-called 'Socialist Alliances' to which the Trot swamp is now turning as a spoiler against the SLP. Their attempt to overcome their incurable sectarian factionalism with some 'unity', so as to collectively overshadow the SLP, insists that if 'socialists' would settle for 80% agreement on issues, then it would be possible for all 57 varieties to work together permanently. Admitting that the Trotskyite swamp has never achieved such 'unity' before (or any unity), the Alliance make-believe declares that something 'new' has taken place, - namely, 

"a growing acceptance that no single group has all the answers".

And just to confirm this triumph of the bourgeois philosophy of agnosticism, the Alliance Trots say it again: 

"This has meant accepting that no one has a monopoly of the truth". 

In other words, nothing has been agreed at all, - except opposition to the SLP. There is no 80% agreement on anything, which is why there are already nearly a dozen "ex-SLP" competing Trotskyite sects in existence.

In other words, it will be the 57 varieties of subjective individualism exactly as before, and each one separately thinking theirs is the ONLY truth, which has always been the only possible meaning of the idiot agnostic phrase "no one has a monopoly of the truth" which has been used for centuries by reaction to try to hold back revolutionary new thinking.

The sole aim of Marxism-Leninism has always been to establish the scientific socialist truth about human civilisation and its future. What has 'monopoly' got to do with it? The only successful struggles for socialism have been led by communists who have correctly analysed the historical situation and the balance of class forces, and have CORRECTLY built the sort of disciplined democratic-centralist movement (party or guerrilla army) which alone can defeat ALL the wiles of bourgeois counter-revolution in EVERY situation.

And the only basis for arriving at the necessary scientific socialist understanding in every case has been by the constant interchange between theory and practice, learning by mistakes or successes how right or wrong has been a party's perspectives, programme, strategy, and tactics.

For the proletariat, socialism is not the same thing as it is for middle-class academic dilettantes who can possibly afford to spend their whole lives gibbering pointlessly into their glass: "No one has a monopoly of the truth". For the proletariat, socialism is eventually a necessity requiring REVOLUTIONARY ACTION. The types who stand around at such crucial historical junctures muttering "no one has a monopoly of the truth" will be plainly identified at that moment as counter-revolutionaries.

The Trot pretence that the 1917 socialist revolution was carried out by a party permanently riddled with oppositional factions is just total lying nonsense. At any one time, the Leninist party had as many differences of opinion as there were members of the leadership. But what even the flimsiest knowledge of 1917 history demonstrates is that once a firm party line was established, the Leninist party was utterly ruthless in its hostility to indisciplined behaviour by any section of the party.

So far was Lenin from any notion that "no one has the monopoly of the truth" that at one stage, when the party leadership delayed a decision about whether the time was ripe to seize power, Lenin threatened to quit and form a new party rather than remain in a minority position.

And immediately power had been seized, ALL the history books in the world confirm that an international propaganda blitzkrieg was launched at once denouncing Lenin the bloody dictator, and Bolshevik Red Terror as the greatest threat to civilisation ever. Stalin had never been heard of at this stage in history.

And this Red Terror was most notorious of all for 'turning on its own kind' when the Kronstadt Soviet was drowned in blood by invading Red Army troops in 1921 to put down an armed 'opposition' mutiny engineered by anti-communists infiltrating the Soviet structure and adopting counter-revolutionary petty-bourgeois demands, masquerading as a 'socialist opposition'.

EPSR 935 recently quoted at length from the 10th Bolshevik Congress which in 1921 imposed a massive purge of factional groups and platforms which had wormed their way into the revolutionary party from the vast ranks of the petty bourgeoisie in Russia. Such factional oppositionism, proposing rival platforms to the agreed party policy, would unfailingly lead to the triumph of the counter-revolution if not purged immediately, the Congress agreed, at Lenin's insistence. This reinforced discipline alone saved the planned Soviet system from being overthrown there and then. The Soviet workers state went on to transform 20th century history, although sadly stopping short of going all the way, - ultimately being undermined by revisionist retreats from strict Leninist party and state discipline.

To take up this lying Trot pretence from the Alliance that freely-flourishing factions made the Bolshevik Party a success until the 'disastrous and mistaken' 1921 10th Congress, Leninist science from earlier periods, (declaring permanent factional opposition impossible to tolerate for a revolutionary party which meant business), has to be studied.

The first Lenin quotes from May 1904 (from One Step Forward, Two Steps Back) show that undisciplined petty-bourgeois individualists immediately shouted 'bureaucrat, dictator' at Lenin as soon as they failed to get their own way inside the party. The Midlands Trot manifesto does exactly the same today because of being defeated in the SLP.

In 1904, the party majority which backed Lenin were dismissed as 'mere pawns'. In 1998, they have become 'hacks and clones'. Even the sneer at the 'mechanical' majority at the Party Congress is identical, with the same bruised egos at not being invited to become leaders, and furious that their sectarian circles were being ruled out of order.

Contrast this with Lenin speaking gladly that the party had now grown far enough for constitutional organisation to be needed to replace the informally-disciplined struggles of voluntary amateurish circles.

Bluntly, Lenin insists that centralist bureaucracy must always prevail over autonomist 'democracy' in any serious workers party which intends to build socialism. He specifically champions the centre's right to appoint cadres to local committees and to have the decisive say in who should be the local candidates for parliament.

Lenin notes how, exactly as today, the capitalist press rushes to give publicity to anti-party opportunists who want to denounce 'dictatorship' and 'lack of democracy' in the party, strangely ignoring, of course, the careerists' own pretence of being 'more revolutionary' than the party they are grassing up for the benefit of the class enemy. But who are the real 'revolutionaries', - those who build a disciplined party of the working class to abolish capitalism, or those intellectual individualists who reject all party discipline and are merely in love with the sound of their own voice?

In December 1910 in his Open letter to all Pro-Party Social-Democrats (which was the word for communist at the time), Lenin specifically ridicules the Alliance notion that anything worthwhile can be built out of the undisciplined 'left' swamp all getting together, all with a proportional say on the leadership committees. Such a 57 varieties swamp will NOT get rid of factionalism which in time will always wreck the work a party tries to do. Lenin wanted factionalism expelled from the party, and even insisted on a clear break-up with those 'conciliators', like Trotsky, who still insisted that working with the swamp was the best plan of action. Lenin rubbished such thinking, saying the swamp could only harm the work; and it was precisely the disciplined Bolshevik Party which went on by itself to complete the abolition of capitalism, starting with the Bolshevik Revolution seven years later.

Abolish factions, Lenin insisted, and seek agreement only with those who fully accept the pro-Party principle, the need for a disciplined authoritative leadership.         

Lenin deals with the fake-'left' hypocrites who shout loudest about 'Leninist' or 'communist' principles but in practice do exactly the opposite, just like today's Trots who have tried to wreck the SLP with their opportunist phrasemongering, their indiscipline, and now their abusive denunciations.

Identify the middle-class splitters, those with their own individualist culture and conceit who will never make good communists, and throw them out as soon as possible, Lenin recommends. He spells it out: Trotskyites, and Trotsky, are a disaster.

In October 1911 in The New Faction of Conciliators, Lenin explains the incurable class contradiction at the heart of the treacherous Trotskyite notion of 'conciliation' with the swamp of fake-'left' petty-bourgeois ideology. Trotskyism lies when it pretends that organisational questions are the problem (the block vote, the appointment of candidates, the black sections, Congress arrangements, the adopted constitution, etc around the SLP). It is irreconcilable class differences about the whole political situation which are really behind the factionalising, Lenin explains. 

Out with these conciliators, Lenin adds. No false 'unity' with the petty-bourgeois swamp, he insists, neither ultra-'left' Otzovist (comparable to a position today of denouncing 'electoral-ism' (a sound Bolshevik tactic whenever mass revolutionary action was not immediately on the cards)) nor rightwing collaborating Liquidationism (comparable to a position today of making Vote Labour the priority). Both deviations were incurably middle-class, Leninist science concluded.

In Material On Conflict of October 1913, Lenin concludes that whether it is an unbridgeable conflict of ideas or organisational indiscipline, anti-communists should not be part of a communist party:

What is the implication of "autocracy" in the Party, about which the dissatisfied "editors" clamour? Autocracy means the supreme, uncontrolled, non-accountable, non-elective rule of one individual. We know very well from the literature of the "minority" that by autocrat they mean me, and no one else. When the resolution in question was being drafted and adopted, I was on the Central Organ together with Plekhanov. Consequently, Comrade Axelrod and Co. were expressing the conviction that Plekhanov and all the members of the Central Committee "governed the Party", not in accordance with their own views of what the interests of the work required, but in accordance with the will of the autocrat Lenin. This accusation of autocratic government necessarily and inevitably implies pronouncing all members of the governing body except the autocrat to be mere tools in the hands of another, mere pawns and agents of another's will.
It is clear, I think, that the cries about this celebrated bureaucracy are just a screen for dissatisfaction with the personal composition of the central bodies, a fig-leaf to cover up the violation of a pledge solemnly given at the Congress. You are a bureaucrat because you were appointed by the Congress not in accordance with my wishes, but against them; you are a formalist because you take your stand on the formal decisions of the Congress, and not on my consent; you are acting in a grossly mechanical way because you cite the "mechanical" majority at the Party Congress and pay no heed to my wish to be co-opted; you are an autocrat because you refuse to hand over the power to the old snug little band who insist on their circle "continuity" all the more because they do not like the explicit disapproval of this circle spirit by the Congress.
How many times Comrade Martov and various other "Mensheviks"* have convicted me, no less childishly, of the following "contradiction". They quote a passage from What Is To Be Done? or A Letter to a Comrade which speaks of ideological influence, a struggle for influence, etc., and contrast it to the "bureaucratic" method of influencing by means of the Rules, to the "autocratic" tendency to rely on authority, and the like. How naïve they are! They have already forgotten that previously our Party was not a formally organised whole, but merely a sum of separate groups, and therefore no other relations except those of ideological influence were possible between these groups. Now we have become an organised Party, and this implies the establishment of authority, the transformation of the power of ideas into the power of authority, the subordination of lower Party bodies to higher ones.
Inseparably connected with Girondism and aristocratic anarchism is the last characteristic feature of the new Iskra's* attitude towards matters of organisation, namely, its defence of autonomism as against centralism. This is the meaning in principle (if it has any such meaning ) of its outcry against bureaucracy and autocracy, [*Not Lenin's Iskra.]
It was autonomism (if not anarchism) that Martov and Axelrod defended at the League Congress when, with amusing zeal, they tried to prove that the part need not submit to the whole, -  that the part is autonomous in defining its relation to the whole, that the Rules of the League, in which that relation is formulated, are valid in defiance of the will of the Party majority, in defiance of the will of the Party centre. And it is autonomism that Comrade Martov is now openly defending in the columns of the new Iskra (No. 60) in the matter of the right of the Central Committee to appoint members to the local committees. I shall not speak of the puerile sophistries which Comrade Martov used to defend autonomism at the League Congress, and is still using in the new Iskra*—the important thing here is to note the undoubted tendency to defend autonomism against centralism, which is a fundamental characteristic of opportunism in matters of organisation.

* In enumerating various paragraphs of the Rules, Comrade Martov omitted the one which deals with the relation of the whole to the part: the Central Committee ''allocates the Party forces" (Paragraph 6). Can one allocate forces without transferring people from one committee to another? It is positively awkward to have to dwell on such elementary things.

Bureaucracy versus democracy is in fact centralism versus autonomism: it is the organisational principle of revolutionary Social-Democracy as opposed to the organisational principle of opportunist Social-Democracy. The latter strives to proceed from the bottom upward, and, therefore, wherever possible and as far as possible, upholds autonomism and "democracy", carried (by the overzealous) to the point of anarchism. The former strives to proceed from the top downward, and upholds an extension of the rights and powers of the centre in relation to the parts. In the period of disunity and separate circles, this top from which revolutionary Social-Democracy strove to proceed organisationally was inevitably one of the circles, the one enjoying most influence by virtue of its activity and its revolutionary consistency (in our case, the Iskra organisation). In the period of the restoration of actual Party unity and dissolution of the obsolete circles in this unity, this top is inevitably the Party Congress, as the supreme organ of the Party, the Congress as far as possible includes representatives of all the active organisations, and, by appointing the central institutions (often with a membership which satisfies the advanced elements of the Party more than the backward and is more to the taste of its revolutionary than its opportunist wing), makes them the top until the next Congress.
It is highly interesting to note that these fundamental characteristics of opportunism in matters of organisation (autonomism, aristocratic or intellectualist anarchism, tail-ism, and Girondism) are, mutatis mutandis (with appropriate modifications), to be observed in all the Social-Democratic parties in the world, wherever there is a division into a revolutionary and an opportunist wing
Kautsky, too, defines the basic tendencies of orthodoxy and revisionism in this sphere with the help of the "dreadful word": bureaucracy versus democracy. We are told, he says, that to give the Party leadership the right to influence the selection of candidates (for parliament) by the constituencies is "a shameful encroachment on the democratic principle, which demands that all political activity proceed from the bottom upward, by the independent activity of the masses, and not from the top downward, in a bureaucratic way.... But if there is any democratic principle, it is that the majority must have predominance over the minority, and not the other way round...." The election of a member of parliament by any constituency is an important matter for the Party as a whole, which should influence the nomination of candidates, if only through its representatives (Vertrauensmänner). "Whoever considers this too bureaucratic or centralists let him suggest that candidates be nominated by the direct vote of the Party membership at large [sämtliche Parteigenossen]. If he thinks this is not practicable, he must not complain of a lack of democracy when this function, like many others that concern the Party as a whole, is exercised by one or several Party bodies."
Thus you have, in a different environment, the same struggle between the opportunist and the revolutionary wing of the Party on the question of organisation, the same conflict between autonomism and centralism, between democracy and "bureaucracy", between the tendency to relax and the tendency to tighten organisation and discipline, between the mentality of the unstable intellectual and that of the staunch proletarian, between intellectualist individualism and proletarian solidarity.
The Frankfurter Zeitung, leading organ of the German stock exchange, published a thunderous editorial (Frankfurter Zeitung, April 7, 1904, No. 97, evening edition) which shows that shameless plagiarising of Axelrod is becoming a veritable disease with the German press. The stern democrats of the Frankfort stock exchange lash out furiously at the "absolutism" in the Social-Democratic Party, at the "party dictatorship", at the "autocratic rule of the Party authorities" at the insistence on "blind obedience", "deadening discipline", "servile subordination", and the transforming of Party members into "political corpses" (that is a good bit stronger than cogs and wheels!). "All "distinctiveness of personality", the knights of the stock exchange indignantly exclaim at the sight of the undemocratic regime among the Social-Democrats, "all individuality is to be held in opprobrium.
One step forward, two steps back

Phrase-mongering amounted to asserting that it is sufficient to obtain "promises" about the abolition of factions, to compose the central bodies out of the most heterogeneous elements, to "balance" opposed elements, and an important step towards the abolition of factions will have been made.
The year's experience showed, as it could not fail to show, that the phrase-mongers' method was a complete failure. It is impossible to build anything on promises, it is ludicrous to base anything on the union of heterogeneous elements that are incapable of uniting. On the morrow of the plenum, everything in its decisions and measures that was based on phrase-mongering proved to be a soap-bubble. The decisions, resolutions and artificially composed bodies were all in fact a dead letter, lifeless institutions.
Formal and verbal "conciliation" has become a weapon of the Golos liquidators and Vperyodists.
It goes without saying that we, as representatives of the Bolshevik trend, cannot play this role of dupes. Having waited a whole year, having done everything possible through the pages of the Central Organ to make clear the anti-Party character of the Vperyodists, Golosists and Trotsky, we cannot assume responsibility before the Party for institutions which occupy themselves with "invitations" to the liquidators and formal correspondence on "business" raised by the Vperyodists. We want not squabbles but work.
We desire to work jointly with those who want to work in the Party spirit, and have actually proved their ability to do so.
Under such conditions, to continue playing at conciliation with these factional centres, to close one's eyes hypocritically to their independence, to ''invite" their representatives for a joint fight against their own policy, to shield them in the eyes of the Party by accepting their members in the centres—means dooming oneself to hopeless squabbling. It means putting a brake on the work of the centres abroad.
To say what the position is means acknowledging that the attempt to abolish all factions has, unfortunately, been frustrated by the Golosists and Vperyodists, but the rapprochement of the basic core, of the really pro-Party elements of the two main factions, their closer alignment with the pro-Party elements of the nationals and non-factional Social-Democrats, has made a step forward. If Trotsky and similar advocates of the liquidators and otzovists declare this rapprochement  "devoid of political content",  such speeches testify only to Trotsky's entire lack of principle, the real hostility of his policy to the policy of the actual (and not merely confined to promises) abolition of factions.
No one can deny that these conditions have not been fulfilled by the Golosists and Vperyodists, in spite of the resolution they signed. Our formal right to cancel the agreement is therefore indisputable. By cancelling the agreement we proclaim an independent fight for the Party principle, independent work on building the Party without those who have proved by a year's experience their unwillingness to work on this, together with those Mensheviks and non-factionalists who have proved the opposite. If the agreement, which was directly and explicitly dependent on the Golosists and Vperyodists coming over to the pro-Party position, has proved to have been violated by them, it is our full right and our duty to cancel the agreement with people who have flouted the Party, and to seek all possible forms of closer alignment with people who support the Party.
Much more important than the formal aspect, however, is the factual state of affairs. Especially illuminating in this respect is the hypocrisy of the Golosists and Vperyodists, who both at the plenum and after it continued to make declarations in the press about their pro-Party attitude. The hypocrisy of such asseverations, the glaring falsity of cries about a split on the part of such people, is so obvious that it is not worth wasting many words on it. It was the Golosists and the Vperyodists who created an actual split immediately after the plenum—or rather, who did not cease creating it despite their promises at the plenum; it was they who during the whole year continued this split, intensified it, and supported the independence from the Party of the group of Potresov and Co., the group of literati, the organisers of the "Machist" school, etc., etc. To allow such splitters to remain in the Party centres means the utter ruin of the Party's cause. To let the previous position remain, where these splitters took advantage of their presence in the Party centres to put a brake on all work, to demoralise the Party from within for the benefit of Mr. Potresov or the leaders of the "Machist" school, means to do tremendous, irreparable damage to the cause of Party unity.
Long ago it was said that not everyone who calls out "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven. And, after the experience of the plenum, we must repeat: not everyone who voices cheap phrases about partyism is really pro-Party. The Golosists and Vperyodists split the Party after the plenum. That is a fact. Trotsky was their advocate in this matter. That is also a fact.
An open letter to all pro-party social-democrats

Trotsky expressed conciliationism more consistently than anyone else. He was probably the only one who attempted to give the trend a theoretical foundation, namely: factions and factionism express the struggle of the intelligentsia "for influence over the immature proletariat". For a long time now, Trotsky—who at one moment has wavered more to the side of the Bolsheviks and at another more to that of the Mensheviks—has been persistently carrying on propaganda for an agreement (or compromise)  between all and sundry factions.
The opposite view (see Nos. 2 and 3 of the Diskussionny Listok*) is that the origin of the factions is to be traced to the relations between the classes in the Russian revolution.
In every single proposition, the alleged Bolsheviks (who in reality are inconsistent Trotskyites) echo Trotsky's mistakes.
Indeed, look at the main ideas contained in the message, Who are its authors? They say they are Bolsheviks who "do not share the organisational views of official Bolshevism". That looks as if it were an "opposition" only on the question of organisation, does it not?
Trotsky has been deceiving the workers in a most unprincipled and shameless manner by assuring them that the obstacles to unity were principally (if not wholly) of an organisational nature. This deceit is being continued in 1911 by the Paris conciliators; for to assert now that the organisational questions occupy the first place is sheer mockery of the truth. In reality, it is by no means the organisational question that is now in the forefront, but the question of the entire programme, the entire tactics and the whole character of the Party, or rather a question of two parties—The conciliators call themselves Bolsheviks, in order to repeat, a year and a half later (and specifically stating moreover that this was done in the name of Bolshevism as a whole!), Trotsky's errors which the Bolsheviks had exposed. Well, is this not an abuse of established Party titles? Are we not obliged, after this, to let all and sundry know that the conciliators are not Bolsheviks at all, that they have nothing in common with Bolshevism, that they are simply inconsistent Trotskyites?
What is the reason for the existence of factions in the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party?  They exist as the continuation of the split of 1903-05. They are the result of the weakness of the local organisations which are powerless to prevent the transformation of literary groups that express new trends, big and small, into new "factions'", i.e., into organisations in which internal discipline takes first place. How can the abolition of factions really be guaranteed?
Only by completely healing the split, which dates from the time of the revolution (and this will be brought about only by ridding the two main factions of liquidationism and otzovism), and by creating a proletarian organisation strong enough to force the minority to submit to the majority.
Hence, both the ideological merit of the Plenary Meeting and its conciliationist error become clear. Its merit was the rejection of the ideas of liquidationism and otzovism; its mistake was the agreement concluded indiscriminately with persons and groups whose deeds are not in accordance with their promises ("they signed the resolution").
The very foundation of conciliationism is false—the wish to base the unity of the party of the proletariat on an alliance of all factions, including the anti-Social-Democratic, non-proletarian factions; false are its unprincipled "unity" schemes which lead to nothing.
Trotsky provides us with an abundance of instances of scheming to establish unprincipled "unity". Recall, for example (I take one of the most recent instances), how he praised the Paris Rabochaya Zhizn,136 in the management of which the Paris conciliators and the Golos group had an equal share. How wonderful!—wrote Trotsky—"neither Bolshevik, nor Menshevik, but revolutionary Social-Democrat". The poor hero of phrase-mongering failed to notice a mere bagatelle—only that Social-Democrat is revolutionary who understands how harmful anti-revolutionary pseudo-Social-Democracy can be in a given country at a given time.
Trotsky was merely revealing the plan of the liquidators whom he serves faithfully—parity on the Central Organ implies the termination of the struggle against the liquidators; the liquidators actually enjoy full freedom to fight the Party; and let the Party be tied hand and foot by the "parity" of the Golos and Party men on the Central Organ (and on the Central Committee). This would assure complete victory for the liquidators and only their lackeys could pursue or defend such a line of action.
Instances of unprincipled "unity" schemes that promise peace and happiness without a long, stubborn, desperate struggle against the liquidators, were provided at the Plenary Meeting by Ionov Innokentiev, and other conciliators. We saw another such instance in the message of our conciliators who justify liquidationism on the grounds of Bolshevik "factionalism".
The new faction of conciliators or the virtuous ideological unity 

The liquidator newspaper writes: "Social-Democracy constitutes a definite ideologically united body and those who do not subscribe to its ideas do not belong to it."
That is the truth, but not the whole truth, for Social-Democracy is not only an ideologically but also an organisationally united body. This can be forgotten only by liquidators, i.e., by those who refuse to recognise precisely the organised body, who ignore its will, flout its decisions, etc.
The liquidators have been strongly condemned in a number of decisions adopted by this, the only existing political organisation of the workers of Russia. They have been condemned for their intolerable, disruptive and schismatic attitude towards this  organisation.
That explains why the liquidation newspaper, in discussing the question of organisation, concealed from its readers the fact that Social-Democracy represents not only an ideologically but also an organisationally united body. Operating in complete isolation from the organisation, flouting its decisions, making its very existence the subject of derision, the liquidators, naturally, prefer not to remind the workers of this.
But although the liquidator writer conceals this circumstance from his readers, he has nevertheless had to admit that those who do not subscribe to the ideas of the Social-Democratic organisation cannot possibly be regarded as belonging to it.
Both in their organisational activities and in their propaganda of non-Marxist ideas, the liquidators have gone beyond the bounds of Social-Democracy.
Social-Democracy is a definite organisationally united body and those who refuse to submit to the discipline of this organisation, who ignore it and flout its decisions, do not belong to it. Such is the basic rule.
But the liquidator who let the cat out of the bag is also right. He is right when he says that those who do not subscribe to Social-Democratic ideas do not belong to Social-Democracy.
Material on conflict within S.D. Duma group

The Weekly Worker Trots try their latest mud-stirring against the EPSR (after weeks of another failed policy, - attempting never to mention the Review's theoretical polemics ever again in the ostrich-like hope that this would make them go away) by pretending that analysing the philosophy of 'black sections' politics amounted to a public pursuit of internal SLP squabbles, — a supposed factionalising activity banned by the constitution, allegedly.

This is just an extension of the Midlands Trot silliness denouncing SLP decisions as 'dictatorship' and castigating the party which takes or supports them as 'hacks and clones'. The struggle to improve political understanding goes on non-stop in the SLP, - and all the more successfully and rapidly now for being rid of the reactionary backwardness of the petty-bourgeois individualist Trots who have given up their entryist takeover or been expelled.

The debate was had on black sections (and that would have been better but for the chaotic disruption forced on Congress by the conceited subjectivism of the Trots), and it still continues, not unhealthily so far. It would only become a matter for concern about 'factional' struggle if it started to interfere with consolidating Socialist Labour's appeal as an independent working-class party, dedicated to the abolition of capitalism, and challenging New Labour on every front, where possible,- a great task which idiot Trot entryism deliberately tried to wreck on behalf of its middle-class "there is no monopoly of the truth" comfortable complacency which is in no hurry to get rid of capitalism.

There may yet be more factional disruption of the SLP, that remains to be seen. But healthy theoretical discussion will continue and grow as it has had to do since Socialist Labour was first thought of as a mere idea of a firm project more than three years ago.

The real philistines, of course, are the Trotskyites who throughout history have always shown the most complete sectarian woodenness on questions of theory, made incapable of scientifically learning from mistakes by their incurable petty-bourgeois class vulnerability.

They are in reality terrified by the idea of proletarian revolution, - the dictatorship of the proletariat, - and spend their life ferreting away at sectarian pseudo-science or just plain factional disruption, - all totally dominated by their own subjective-individualist interests.

Trotsky's wounded pride as a rejected would-be leader (after Lenin) spawned the bogus 'Marxist science' of the non-existent and never-to-exist 'political revolution', appealing to a class revolution in all but name ('caste' was the mealy-mouthed substitute to describe Lenin's bureaucracy) but one where the dictatorship over the means of production (by the proletariat in the Soviet Union's case) did not change hands.

But self-evidently, to call for a 'revolution' in the Soviet workers state, where planned socialism was being built, could only mean one thing, - counter-revolution, - or the re-establishment of a capitalist bourgeoisie, - exactly as did happen when the bureaucracy finally overthrew itself (self-liquidated out of total revisionist bankruptcy). Even more moronically, present-day Trots still agitate for what effectively could only be counter-revolution in Cuba, and counter-revolution in China, etc. Congenital sectarian imbecility, or what? Why do we hear so little about whether the Trots are pleased or not about the results of their non-stop lifelong counter-revolutionary agitation against the Soviet bureaucracy, i.e. the Soviet workers state, building planned socialism, and doing quite a bit in its time to aid Third World anti-imperialist struggles??? Are they happy with the contribution to anti-imperialism and socialist development being made by Yeltsin's Russia???

The other Trot philosophical trick is just to ignore difficult or painful theoretical polemics. Trounced over their defeatist nonsense about IRA/Sinn Féin surrendering to British imperialism in Ireland (see other story), the CPGB Trots simply gave up trying to answer EPSR criticism of the Weekly Worker's ongoing stubborn muddleheadedness, determined to insist against all the evidence that no mere national-liberation struggle could possibly have defeated British imperialism. Why do they need this anti-historical nonsense? Purely because of their individualist conceit that only Trotskyite guru-ism of their own variety (about No 53) could possibly successfully lead a revolutionary anti-imperialist mass struggle of any kind.

When not pursuing sectarian pseudo-science about non-existent 'political revolution', the Trots indulge in endless factionalising rigmarole such as the continuing saga of the Reading anti-SLP fiesta in January when several factions of failed entryists disrupted and factionalised each other for a day to feel out the best intrigues to engage in next.

Recriminations about who did what to who, and who said what to who, are still flying around in mind-numbing profusion. The latest salvoes are spread over two pages of the current Weekly Worker, much to do with 'exit factions' and door-keeping (but not connected).

This jamboree of 'democrats', all offended by so-called 'SLP bureaucracy', was not all sweetness and light:

It is possible, that John and Stan were excluded because they were thought to be members of the CPGB. I say "possible" because this is conjecture not proven fact.

There is a clear difference between being excluded because you are alleged to be a communist or alleged to be a supporter of the CPGB.

The second problem is that we are presented with the very powerful imagery of Stalin's secret police henchman Yagoda. Stalin's right hand man controlled the entrances to meetings. Yagoda, Carolyn Sikorski and Lee Rock are linked together. But why limit ourselves to only these three. What about the Gestapo or the SS who stood guard at the entrances to various prisons and concentration camps. What about Mark Fischer, who guards the entrance to CPGB seminars? What about other CPGBers who take a turn on guard duty? Is it really helpful to lump all or some of them together in a rather arbitrary way?

I have yet to hear of any organisation that does not have doorkeepers or stewards. Of course under communism not only will classes have been abolished but doorkeepers too.

Anybody will be able to go to any meeting, anywhere time or place. Lee Rock and Mark Fischer are unfortunate to have been born in class society and not communism. Consequently they or their comrades may be called upon to act as stewards and doorkeepers. In case anybody believes that the CPGB practices total and absolute openness at all their meetings, let me assure you that I witnessed one person being physically ejected from a CPGB seminar (not by Mark). Door keeping, like war is a continuation of policy by other means.

The agreed agenda began with a debate for staying and building the SLP versus leaving the SLP. Afterwards an indicative vote would be taken. The meeting would then split into two. Those remaining in the SLP would meet to discuss the way forward for the SLP. At the same time the 'exit faction' would meet to set up their new group. After we would reconvene as one meeting to discuss future cooperation.

This plan was known to all participants at the meeting. Marxist Bulletin and the CPGB were not formally part of the Democratic Platform. In the case of the CPGB, it is an independent organisation and not a faction of the SLP. There was no reason to consult with the Provisional Central Committee. This did not prevent the PCC from writing to Martin Wicks and putting forward objections. They did not do so.

The planned structure for the meeting was known and accepted by all participants. Nobody objected at the start of the meeting to the structure of the agenda. The meeting therefore implicitly endorsed the plan around which the pro- and anti-exit factions of the Democratic Platform agreed. No SLP member, voided or not, was excluded from the meeting. Everybody present was allowed to speak and vote.

When the first part of the meeting finished, there was a break, after which it was agreed to convene the separate meetings. Marxist Bulletin, SLP Republicans, some independents, plus those sympathetic to the CPGB, agreed to meet in one room. The reason for this was definite policy. 

The CPGB, Marxist Bulletin and the SLP Republicans were in favour of staying in the SLP and were totally opposed to other comrades leaving to form a group. We were not in favour of disrupting or breaking up the other meeting. This would have been wrong in principle and counter-productive in practice.

It was suggested to me in the break that Stan and John try to go to the other meeting. I mistakenly went along with that on spurious libertarian grounds - 'If they will let you in why not?'. This was an error on my part that I freely acknowledge. But this in itself should not have been a problem. A polite request to attend and an acceptance or a polite refusal should surely have been the end of the matter. I did not realise that John would present the resulting refusal publicly in the Weekly Worker as an anti-communist plot, masterminded by Lee Rock, the jack-booted henchman of Martin Wicks.

The reason for the exclusion of Stan and John was in line with pre-agreed policy. The 'exit faction' were more than generous. They allowed John to address the meeting as to why they should be allowed to attend. This was despite the fact that the SLP Republicans, Marxist Bulletin and the CPGB were totally opposed to what they were doing. The 'exit faction' then voted unanimously to ask them to leave. As far as I know this was carried out democratically and politely on all sides.

I am well aware that some members of the 'exit faction' are anti-CPGB and possibly one is anti-communist. This may have clouded their judgement. But Lee is neither anti-communist nor anti-CPGB. He disagrees with the CPGB, holding different views on programme and tactics. Whatever the disparate motives of various individuals in the 'exit faction' they were united on a common policy to hold separate meetings. This was accepted by SLP Republicans, Marxist Bulletin, independent lefts, all the Democratic Platform candidates, the 'exit faction' and as far as we can tell the CPGB.

We are not trying to guess what is in heads of each individual member of the 'exit faction'. We are dealing with the policies of definite organisations. Had Lee turned up to attend our meeting, I would have had no qualms about excluding him on the grounds that he was in favour of leaving the SLP. We did not hold our 'stay in the SLP' meeting in Reading for a general chit chat with Tom, Dick and Harry, but for the serious business of planning future work in the SLP.

Neither the SLP Republicans nor the Marxist Bulletin sought to disrupt the 'exit faction' meeting that day. Despite the fact that Martin Wicks had behaved in a provocative fashion in the run up to the meeting, it was not our intention to reply in kind. We need to ask the PCC about their policy. Did they oppose the split into two meetings? Did they intend to disrupt the 'exit faction' meeting. Was it their plan to stage a provocation, ie try to enter the meeting knowing that they would be excluded, and then make political capital out of this by singling out Lee as a Stalinist and witch hunter? We need some answers from the PCC.

The 'exit faction' now call themselves Socialist Perspectives. The acid test of whether this is a sectarian organisation is not that they wanted to hold their own meeting. It is how they relate to other organisations on an open and honest political basis or on a petty bourgeois prejudice - 'We don't like this or that group so we are ignoring them'. The real test for Socialist Perspectives is whether they can establish proper political relations with the CPGB. If I was a betting man it is a test they will fail.

The only appropriate comment is: You couldn't make it up. The new pseudo-Marxist philosophy being applied here would seem to be: If you can't be an entryist, be an exitist! Roy Bull