ahmed shawki and sebastien budgen, HM 2010 (european far Left)

SEBASTIEN BUDGENS

The Historical Context

(1) Crisis of ideological legitimacy (dating to 1995, and the French strikes, but onwards since then)

(2) Crisis of social democracy

• membership
• programmatic crisis
• moral crisis (corruption, political entropy)

(3) The stirrings of social resistance (students in Austria, Greece; strike activity in Germany).

New Elements

(4) Opening of political opportunities

(5) Crisis and austerity

(6) Crisis of confidence re: democratic centralism and vanguard parties

Three Different Models

(1) Coming-together of remnants of mass communist parties with other strands (including far-left, trade unionists, etc.). The obvious example is Die Linke, in Germany (East Communist party, splits from the SDP, sections of the trade union movement, Trotskyists, etc.) The party of Communist Re-Foudnation in Italy had similar origins. In Greece, the coalition aroud the former Eurocommunist Party resembles this.

(2) re-foundation of a Left party around many far-left group. The best example is the Left Bloc in Portugal; a more-or-less balanced coming-together of the far-left, to create a new force.

(3) the new anti-capitalist party, a re-making of the defunct Revolutionary Communist League.

We have to bear in mind, always, the disasters of England and Italy, as controls, so to speak.

Why are these worth considering?

(1) They have had electoral success, for one. In the last European elections, the New Anti-Capitalist Party got 5%; Die Linke 7.3%; Left Bloc 10%. In the federal elections, there was a substantial breakthrough for Die Linke (which won 11.9% of the vote; five million votes). In Portugal, the Left Bloc got 9.8%; doubled its parliamentary representation (becoming the fourth-largest in Portugal)

(2) They have a significant presence on the national scene, aside from this.

(3) A coming-together of different trends on the left (autonomists, trotskyists, etc.).

(4) Mixing of generations.

(5) Marks the end of period of bunkering down and ghettoization for the European left.

(6) Portends something on a European scale, perhaps.

General Obstacles

(1) The question of alliances, electorally or otherwise; the question of alliances to the right (and sometimes to the Left). In Germany the question is the possible alliance with the SPD (in Berlin has led to massive disagreements within the party); in France with the French Communist Party; In Portugal with the Portuguese Socialist Party. The question can't be dodged; there is significant pressure from below. Italy though gives us an example of how cooperation can destroy this kind of party (the party of Re-Foundation). It doesn't always have to be this stark—the question of the Left Front in France (for the first time, the Communist Party has decided not to stand with the Socialists in the first round of the elections). At the same time, the New Anti-Capitalist Party has certain conditions, which the Communist party is likely to refuse (no regional executives in alliance with the Socialist party).

(2) Their own programmatic weaknesses—how to articulate a defensist program, protecting the welfare state and whatnot, as part of a larger, more radical program?

(3) How do you translate electoral support into activist support? How do you turn millions of voters into thousands of activists?

(4) The question of internal organization—how do you balance plurality, with leadership? How do you relate to those within your organization who are more skeptical of party membership?

(5) A missing generation of cadre; many of these organizations involve a whole host of people in their 60s, or people in their 20s.

(6) The relationship to the media, and the question of the personalization of politics. You have effective, eloquent spokespeople; but how do you handle overexposure to the media? It makes parties very dependent on these personalities (if Olivier Betanscout was to give up his job tomorrow, the NPA would be in dire straits)

(7) Underdevelopment of theoretical consensus within the parties—often many strands coexisting, rather than constructive debate.

(8) The articulation of electoral movements, to movement-building; how do you relate to trade union leadership? Big problem in France where there's a tradition of resisting political influence over the decision of striking, etc. Or in Germany, may of the trade union bureaucrats are in Die Linke—makes a critique, complicated.

(9) Relate the national, to the international.

(10) How do relate to national minorities? NPA has very few roots amongst youth of color, etc.

(11) The biggest problem, which overdetermines all of this—the absence of mass struggle in these countries.

What are honest expectations?

It is clear that this will be determined by the outbreak of mass forms of struggle—and by the ability of these formations to relate to that struggle in a flexible, creative way.

But things to do in the interim, is quite clear—the creation of a liberated electoral zone, that Social Democracy has evacuated. The danger is the Americanization of European politics, where Left and Right are more-or-less meaningless.

The re-popularization of Socialist values and principles.

The engagement and unification of social movements; having a voice in the national media defending factory occupations, etc.

AHMED SHAWKI

These represent formations that we must learn more about in the US—their importance is obviously connected to our own ambitions and plans, here.

On a broader scale, the reference to the question of the return to the 19^th Century is worth taking up. We're in a new period. In the First International, you had many different currents coming together; then you had a dominant model, in the time of the Second International (which saw a split, then, at the time of the Second World War)--since that period, the main form of expression in the workers' movement was the Communist Parties, which entered a period of crisis, themselves. And they shared, at that time, an industrial organization. The other wing of the workers' movement, of course, was the parties of social democracy. The late 60's, then, saw an attempt to reclaim the revolutionary tradition.

That period, very schematically, has come to a close. It's in this context that the new parties have emerged.

Shared Characteristics

In the main, these parties have an electoral orientation—emerging from a period in the 1980s/1990s when struggles were not politicized in the same way.

The weakness of these parties and general discontent in society at-large, Shawki's arguing, is what explains the disconnect between their social base and their electoral success (so you see people's aspirations and desires reflected in electoral success, but no real social base and local cadre). Analagous to the Party of Socialist Liberation in Brazil, where the leader is well-known around the country, but the cadre is similarly absent.

In the US—the majority of activists want the creation of a revolutionary party, no doubt. The problem, of course, is what steps would this kind of political development take. At the very least:

1. A serious orientation toward elections and social struggles.
2. Decision by the constituent elements to accept other traditions. The problem here is that we don't have the background, the experience; we don't have a social democratic workers' movement that feels betrayal, etc.

Ways Forward

Need to come together in action and collaboration, much more so than the creation of a new party for the sake of having a party (Greece is a good model; painful years before the coalition was formed).

Comment and Questions

(1) The Communist Parties—niche parties; popularity perhaps partly explained by a history of struggle against dictatorship and fascism; element of familial reproduction; contradictory, tactical flexibility, which appeals to a traditional working-class elite which is tied to hard rhetoric but right-wing practice (Greek Communist Party published a favorable account from the perspective of a policeman!). Haven't managed to take it to a new generation. (Argument also that, with the defeat of these parties, Marxism has been liberated from being the property of these organizations; and thus, these new formations have complicated, interesting relationships to the re-formation/re-composition of Marxism. But this is where, obviously, the indeterminateness is interesting/problematic).

(2) Charlie arguing that much of what explains the formation of these parties and their absence in the US is, also, the differential levels of class struggle. (Paul LeBlanc making same point)

(3) How can we talk of the parties of social democracy as bourgeois workers' parties? Or are they capitalist capitalist parties, so to speak? (Paul Blackledge responding that it is the former, which is both a positive and a negative) (Sebastien saying that this is complicated, even metaphysical—how degenerate is the degenerate workers' party? And how degenerate does it get before...? But crux of response that this can only be debated in the context of different national realities. And we have to discuss what we mean by organic links to the workers' movement.) (Ahmed tracing it to its specific roots; a term deployed by the Third International to refer to movements that they had once belonged to; but crux of response seems to have to do with specifics of each situation. We require a willingness to understand the particularity of the situations that confront us).

(4) How to build a mass social movement? Point about Obama's electorate, hopes being aroused and then dashed—so we have 'new openings'. How to push this forward, as revolutionary Marxists? (Ahmed re-emphasizing that it's entirely false to think that there hasn't been a change in reality/consciousness, owing to crisis and Obama—and it may not all be positive, at all. But it's silly to deny that we're in a different context. Fair enough, but there is an enormous question about how this translates into organization ('infrastructures of resistance,' what have you.))

(5) “Cultural Politics”—not in the Eurocommunist aspiration for cultural hegemony; but rather the question of how to reach out to people who have no institutional links to the workers' movement. Film showings; work in mosques; etc. This is a useful term for something that could be critical to work in Pakistan, of course. (Ahmed mentioning that if you have a 'knee-jerk' stupid position on religion, you won't get anywhere in this country).

(6) Die Linke not as a revolutionary party with reformist tendencies; rather, a reformist party with revolutionary tendencies (has much to do with low-level of political consciousness, as much as it does has to do with bureaucratic structures; “I didn't leave the SPD, the SPD left me”). Similarly, on the question of entryism—you cannot simply be a critic from within, you have to be an organizer from within.