The Faux Marxism of the International Socialist Organization, By Richard Becker Nov 06, 14

The International Socialist Organization, a group which for the past few years has largely absented itself from the antiwar movement — except for occasionally issuing articles critical of it — has published a lecturing article on its website titled, “Why is the antiwar struggle weak today?” (SW, 10-29-14).
It is a bit odd to receive such a lecture from an organization whose own analysis has left their membership flat-footed and confused in the face of major international crises of the last few years, and which recently discredited itself by publishing an article that referred to the ranks of Jabbat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda) as “decent revolutionaries” who are “just going where the money and arms are.” One might hope for an article full of retractions and self-criticisms, but sadly this one was not.

They argued instead that the “two main weaknesses that have long plagued the U.S. antiwar movement” are 1) liberal organizations, such as United for Peace and Justice, that have fostered illusions in U.S. imperialism, and 2) groups such as the ANSWER Coalition, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and others who they accuse of “faux (false) anti-imperialism” for not supporting the “mass democratic revolt” in Syria. The ISO promises a “new and genuine anti-imperialism” to rescue the movement from these twin evils.

source: http://www.liberationnews.org/faux-marxism-international-socialist-organization/ 

 
photo: Sept. 21, 2013: Demonstration of the anti-imperialist ANSWER Coalition against U.S. war on Syria

If misleadership is the problem, one might wonder why this enlightened group, which claims to be the largest socialist group in the country, has not stepped in earlier to show us all the way? The critique reads like that of an outside observer who has just stumbled across the antiwar movement, as if the ISO has no record of its own to be reviewed and summarized. Let us refresh our memories.
On the liberal side of the antiwar movement

The 2001-2007 U.S. antiwar movement to which the ISO unfavorably compares the current moment was indeed characterized by two main political trends: the anti-imperialist ANSWER Coalition and the liberal and social-democratic UFPJ. The ISO article omits the fact that these trends were in fact engaged in sharp political struggle and debate, a contest over leadership, and that the ISO itself was part of UFPJ during these years. It carved out a space as the “left” within UFPJ, but it was fundamentally loyal to it in its struggle against ANSWER.

The ISO’s recent critique claims that the “faux anti-imperialism” of ANSWER will “alienate the newly radicalizing students and workers who are the potential base of the antiwar movement. Many are still influenced by liberal ideas, but they can be won to an anti-imperialist movement that meets their desire to see justice and democracy. They won’t be won to one that champions tyrants like Assad in the name of anti-imperialism.”

This is a fundamentally opportunist method to begin with: as if the top priority of a social justice movement should be to not alienate those with liberal prejudices. But it is also factually untrue.
January 18 2003 anti-war protestAnti-war protest in Washington, D.C., on January 18, 2003.

The antiwar movement of the Bush era did not begin on Feb. 15, 2003, as the ISO article implies. In both October 2002 and January 2003 hundreds of thousands of people marched in protests organized by ANSWER. Feb. 15 in New York City was the first major action organized by UFPJ, which was formed explicitly as the liberal alternative to rival and oust ANSWER from leadership.

At that time, UFPJ’s chief argument was that ANSWER’s anti-imperialist politics — notably its inclusion of the Palestinian struggle and refusal to condemn the Iraqi government in the lead-up to invasion — would “alienate” those who would otherwise attend anti-Iraq war protests. But for all the liberal attacks and shrill red-baiting, and UFPJ’s sectarian declarations to never work with ANSWER, ANSWER repeatedly brought out tens and hundreds of thousands of people — with the same core politics that it holds today.

The ANSWER Coalition also pursued a policy of creating a united front with UFPJ, despite sharp political differences, in order to maximize the size and impact of large-scale antiwar mobilizations. On September 24, 2005, as a consequence of this united front policy, more than 350,000 people marched in Washington, D.C. to demand an end to the US occupation of Iraq and in support of the Palestinian people.

The article’s call to “begin building an antiwar opposition” also rings hollow. As the ISO knows, the Obama administration has been at war every year, not only continuing the occupation of Afghanistan, but carrying out illegal drone wars in numerous countries, while orchestrating a massive bombing campaign to overthrow the government of Libya.

Over these last few years of imperialist attacks and conflict, the ISO has either been inactive in the antiwar scene, showing no leadership whatsoever and essentially boycotting antiwar events related to Libya and Syria. ANSWER and other anti-imperialists organized with precisely the general antiwar points of unity — “U.S. Out of the Middle East,” “Stop the War on Libya,” and “Money for Jobs and Education, not for War and Occupation” — that the ISO claims must be the foundation for the movement. It did not show up to these events because the Syrian and Libyan opposition forces with which the ISO showed solidarity were overwhelmingly pro-intervention.
The ISO on Libya

The ISO championed the Libyan rebels who demanded NATO airstrikes while ignoring Libyans who rallied against intervention (left). ISO allies in the Libyan exile community chanted The ISO championed the Libyan rebels who demanded NATO airstrikes while ignoring Libyans who rallied against intervention (left). ISO allies in the Libyan exile community chanted “Thank you, NATO” at a pro-war counter-protest in front of the White House (right).

In 2011, the ISO made similar charges against the PSL at the time of the NATO-led overthrow of the Qaddafi government in Libya, which ushered in the chaos and destruction besetting that country down to the present day. The ISO has never uttered a word of self-criticism for their support of the forces that collaborated with imperialism in the destruction of Libya.

In fact, the ISO joined street demonstrations with and organized alongside the exile forces in the U.S. that were demanding a U.S./NATO bombing campaign. These were the same groups that then counter-protested the “No War on Libya” actions.

Just weeks before the bombing of Libya began, the ISO was still trying to maintain the pretense that the “rebels” were somehow anti-imperialist and that NATO leaders wanted the Qaddafi government to remain in power. On the same day that the PSL published an article warning of Western intervention, the ISO distributed an article under the title, “The West’s fear of Qaddafi’s fall,” proclaiming that the U.S. and UK governments “really, really don’t want Qadaffi to fall.”

Within days, those very governments had put warships off Libya’s coast and were publicly discussing a No-Fly Zone—an act of war by any measure. On Feb. 28, 2011, the day the British government confirmed it was preparing the no-fly zone, the ISO published not an attack on NATO, but on the PSL for refusing to champion the opposition movement and join the chorus of condemnation against the “savage assault” of the Libyan government.

This farce collapsed when on March 19, 2011 the NATO assault began, rescuing the “rebels” from impending defeat. Six months later, the NATO-led war succeeded in achieving regime change in Libya and sending the country into a disastrous downward spiral that continues to this day.

Mazda Majidi wrote in the PSL pamphlet, “Socialists and War,” regarding the struggle in Libya :

    “Groups like the International Socialist Organization promoted the contradictory and academic slogan of ‘Yes to the Revolution, No to Intervention,” which only spread confusion in the anti-war movement. After all, the Libyan ‘revolution’ was the loudest champion of of NATO’s intervention in the form of murderous air strikes. Its fate, whether it succeeded or failed, was based on the relative successes of the NATO intervention. All the actors in the Libya conflict (the government, the masses who rallied against intervention, the rebels and the imperialists) understood very quickly that the ‘revolution’ and the Pentagon/NATO intervention had become indissolubly linked. The only ones who denied this reality were groups like the ISO which believed they could magically separate the two with a rhetorical contrivance.

    “As the imperialists bombed away, the ISO ignored the masses of Libyans who rallied in defense of national sovereignty against imperialism since they did not fit the conventional schema, invented by the imperialist media outlets, of the “people versus the dictator.”In practice, instead of joining a united front with all those standing up against intervention, they formed an anti-Qaddafi united front with the Libyans in exile who championed intervention.”

Same mistakes with Syria

Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before the ISO was propagating a similar line in regard to Syria. A 2013 article headlined the question, “Will the U.S. hijack Syria’s revolution?” This renewed indulgence in fantasy contends that a truly independent, revolutionary movement is fighting the government of Syria and that the imperialists are worried. In fact, the FSA and its civilian wing – both made up of many organizations — have been brought together by U.S., British, French and other foreign operatives.

All the forces engaged in armed struggle against the government in Damascus, including the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Shams (ISIS) and the FSA, have been supported, armed and funded by outside forces. Far from being worried about being “hijacked” by the U.S. and other imperialists, the FSA has been seeking, like the “rebels” in Libya before them, more arms, more money, more intervention from the U.S., NATO and regional states.

FSA leaders expressed bitter anger when Obama, under intense domestic and international pressure, pulled back from launching a bombing war on Syria in September 2013. But now they are set to receive $500,000,000 (and perhaps much more) in the way of arms, training and funding to pay the salaries of their troops to fight the government.

This mercenary army will be built on the explicit orders that the training will be carried out by the Pentagon and CIA. It is truly absurd that the ISO can still maintain the illusion that there is a “Syrian Revolution” led by the Free Syrian Army. Just this week, huge sections of nominally FSA units defected to the advancing al-Nusra (al-Qaeda) army.

In Libya and Syria, internal conflicts divided both countries into warring camps. In both Libya and Syria, the U.S., and its NATO and regional allies intervened on the side of those seeking to overthrow the government, the same side supported by the ISO.
The ISO’s historical pattern

There is no fundamental difference between the Libya and Syria interventions and earlier contra wars against Cuba, Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua and other countries. The aim in all cases has been “regime change,” to replace the existing governments with ones that would toe the U.S. line.

In almost all these cases, the ISO got it wrong. It sees revolutions where there are none, and it fails to see revolutions where they actually exist. The following table provides a sample of their historical positions:

Movements and organizations the ISO showed solidarity with (at least initially)

    The “mujahideen” in Afghanistan against the socialist government and the Soviet Union
    The “Velvet Revolution” in Czechoslovakia which brought neoliberal capitalism to power
    The pro-Western “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine
    The “Rose Revolution” in Georgia
    The 1991 overthrow of the USSR (trumpeting Boris Yeltsin)
    The Kosovo Liberation Army (a fascist force)
    The middle-class and pro-Western Green movement in Iran
    The Libyan rebels that championed NATO intervention
    The Free Syrian Army that champions NATO intervention
   
Movements and organizations the ISO tendency refused to support, and attacked instead as “Stalinist”

    The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China including during the Mao era
    North Korea, even during the Korean War
    The Cuban Revolution and the Communist Party of Cuba
    The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola
    The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
    The Philippines’ National Democratic Revolution and the Communist Party of the Philippines
    The United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution
Although the ISO hedges its analysis here and there with various criticisms or supportive comments on both sides of this table, in reality its historical tendency has stood out on the Left for its most hostile attitude towards actual revolutions, and its apologetics on behalf of Western-backed “democracy” movements that are always (magically) “hi-jacked” later. If one were to create a table of which “revolutionaries” and movements the U.S. imperialists supported, and which they condemned, it would be more or less identical.

What this history and the latest ISO polemic reveals is how close the ISO is to liberalism and how far from revolutionary Marxism and Leninism.

Imperialism and national oppression

The writer, Ashley Smith, states that the PSL

    “consider[s] U.S. rivals like China and Russia and various Third World dictatorships like North Korea to be ‘anti-imperialist.’ By siding with these oppressive states [sic] they fail to side with the oppressed people who live under them . . . Genuine anti-imperialism does not choose between rival states in the capitalist system, but supports national liberation struggles against all imperialisms as part of the international workers movement to get rid of capitalism and its system of states. That means standing with mass democratic revolts, regardless of whether the regime is an ally or opponent of the U.S.”

There are so many fundamental errors in the above sentences it’s hard to know where to start. First of all, it’s not just China, Russia, etc., that are “oppressive states.” As Lenin put it, “the state is a special organization of force; it is the organization of violence for the suppression of some class.” He was not just talking about Czarist Russia or the Roman Empire, but all states. To refer to some states as “oppressive” but “forget” to mention that the state we live in, the most powerful in the world, is as well, panders to liberal illusions.

“Genuine” anti-imperialists, particularly those who live in the center of world imperialist often must make decisions about which side they defend in struggles between states in the capitalist world system. Otherwise the concepts of national liberation and self-determination are just empty slogans. When an oppressed country is attacked by an imperialist state or alliance of imperialist states, anti-imperialists support the oppressed country, as in the cases of Ethiopia, Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba, Panama, Angola, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, etc. This does not necessitate political support to the government in question, but defending its basic right to determine its own destiny.

To not defend oppressed countries – capitalist or otherwise — that are under attack by imperialism is a complete abandonment of the Leninist position on the right of oppressed nations to self determination. Revolutionary socialists inside an imperialist country are required to struggle against “their government” when it targets and attacks a state that has been subjected to colonialism and imperialist oppression.

Only anarchists can subscribe to the view that we are today in the stage of eliminating “the system of states” in the world. Clearly, that will only be possible after the worldwide triumph of socialism.

In another bow to mainstream political discourse, the article refers to Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, as a “butcher” and “tyrant,” terms the ISO  refrains from attaching to the leaders of world imperialism.

Smith calls the PSL “Stalinist,” with no clarification of what that term means and no evidence supporting his characterization. In other words, it’s just one more regurgitation of a bourgeois anti-communist slander – particularly popular in liberal circles — intended to discredit revolutionary socialists with no explanation required.

The government of Syria and former government of Libya have been highly demonized in the West, making defending those countries against imperialism more difficult. The ISO’s substitution of imagination for reality in regard to both Libya and Syria has contributed nothing but more confusion.

No one active in anti-war organizing has any doubt that the movement needs to be stronger. In recent years, the ANSWER Coalition, together with other organizations, has initiated national days of action against the U.S. wars and interventions against Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and has played a major role in mobilizing solidarity with the Palestinian people under assault by the U.S.-backed Israeli regime.

ANSWER has worked together with March Forward!, which carries out organizing work among vets and active duty service members. There is much more to do and the new U.S. wars on Iraq and Syria make the tasks of the movement more urgent.

A key foundational requirement for building a powerful anti-war movement is political clarity, especially here in the United States, the center of world imperialism.

V. I. Lenin, Alvaro Cunhal, Sam Webb: of Saviors and Liquidators, by Hans-Peter Brenner, German Communist Party July 9, 2011

Dr. Hans-Peter Brenner, a psychologist and psychotherapist, is a member of the national leadership of the German Communist Party and co-editor of Marxistische Blaetter. This article appeared July 9, 2011 in Junge Welt, a Marxist daily newspaper published in Berlin.

source:  www.jungewelt.de/2011/07-09/001.php?sstr=HansPeterBrenner
Translation by Bill Miller.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
On a “Feature” of Coping with a Political Defeat

Certain Features of the Historical Development of Marxism is a work of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In it he dealt with the consequences of the defeat of the first Russian revolution of 1905. At that time, many party members (including many recently enrolled intellectuals) left the revolutionary party in droves. Soon after that, the farewell to Marxism, which we too experienced in 1989-1991, became the fashion.

As a reflection of this change there occurred profound disintegration, confusion, shaking and swaying of all sorts - in a word, there appeared a very serious internal crisis of Marxism. The resolute defense against this decay, the determined and persistent struggle for the basics of Marxism, again came on the agenda.

That was Lenin's diagnosis.

It was -- and still is -- important for us German Communists to examine what conclusions other Communist parties later drew from the defeat of socialism in Europe and the USSR.

First of all, I think about the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba, which had already adjusted to this disaster before the shameful end of Mikhail Gorbachev who drove to ruin Soviet socialism, his country, and his party. Cuba -- the country and the Communist Party – understood this: the harsh “drought” of the Special Period would govern the 1990s and early 2000s. Without its revolutionary, Marxist-Leninist character, the Communist Party of Cuba would have given up its socialist goal.

Self-awareness or Self-doubt?

I recall one Communist leader, prominent but, unfortunately, less noted in Germany, Alvaro Cunhal (1913-2005), the longtime general secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). At the time of the fascist Salazar dictatorship, Cunhal’s underground struggle, his inspiring and mobilizing role during and after the 1974 victory of the "Carnation Revolution,” as well as his shrewd leadership, are legendary.

The advance of the socialist stage of the revolutionary upheaval in Portugal was stopped by the united and coordinated actions of U.S. imperialism, NATO, the EU, the main European imperialist states, international social democracy, and domestic reaction.

Thanks to his personal resourcefulness, Cunhal embarked upon a strategic retreat. With a party united by a Marxist-Leninist program, he achieved the preservation of the PCP and its mass influence. He developed its clear profile, which it keeps today, as a revolutionary party of the working class, peasants and other working people.

To this day, his conclusions about the character of a Communist Party at the beginning of the 21st century are well worth reading. In his 2001 work, As Seis de Caracteristicas Fundamentais do Partido Comunista (The Six Basic Features of a Communist Party) Cunhal goes into the internal situation of the Communist movement at the beginning of the 21st century. He writes:

The international Communist movement, and the parties from which it is made up, were subject to profound changes as a the result of the collapse of the USSR and other socialist countries and capitalism's success in its rivalry with socialism. There were parties who denied their militant past, their class nature, the goal of a socialist society, and revolutionary theory. In some cases, they were transformed into system-integrated parties, and they eventually disappeared from the scene.

In 2011 as well, this finding is relevant and correct.

Features of a Communist Party

The Communist movement as a whole - Cunhal went on – has achieved flexibility in its composition and reached new limits. Admittedly, though there is no model of a Communist Party, nonetheless "six basic features can reveal a Communist party, regardless of whether the party bears that name or another.
Briefly, their traits could include:
1. To be a party completely independent of the interests, ideology, pressure and threats of capitalist forces;
2. To be a party of the working class, the working people, in general, the exploited and oppressed;
3. To be a party with a democratic internal life and a unified central leadership;
4. To be a party which is both internationalist and which defends the interests of its country;
5. To be a party that defines its goal as the building of a society which knows neither exploited nor exploiters, a socialist society;
6. To be the bearer of a revolutionary theory, the theory of Marxism-Leninism, which not only makes the explanation of the world possible, but also shows the way to change it.

In its simplicity and plainness, the last point sounds like it is of little interest, just as the other five points appear to include too little that is new. And yet these "self-evident truths" are not self-evident truths - not even for Communists. But more of that later.

Classics Taken at their Word

Cunhal made available to us the following explanation for his six points. It is cited here, in more detail, because of its uniqueness and distinctiveness:

All the slanderous, punishing, anti-Communist campaigns are lies. Marxism-Leninism is a living, anti-dogmatic, dialectical, creative theory, which is further enriched by practice and by its responses to new situations and phenomena, which is its job. It drives the practice of enrichment and development, dynamically and creatively using the lessons of practice.

Marx in Capital, and Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, analyzed and defined the basic elements and characteristics of capitalism.

In the second half of the 19th century, however, the development of capitalism underwent an important amendment. Competition led to concentration and monopoly. We owe to Lenin and his work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism the definition of capitalism at the end of the 19th century. These theoretical developments are of exceptional value. And the value of research and systematization of theoretical knowledge is rated as high.

In a synthesis of extraordinary clarity and rigor, a famous article by Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism explains it. In the philosophy of dialectical materialism, historical materialism is its application to society. Political economy is the analysis and explanation of capitalism and exploitation, and the theory of surplus value is the cornerstone for understanding exploitation. The theory of socialism is the definition of the new society, the abolition of exploitation of man by man.

During the 20th century and the social transformations accompanying it, much new theoretical thinking was added. However, there also was scattered and contradictory thinking which made it difficult to distinguish what is theoretical development and where it is a question of revisionist deviation from principles. Hence the urgent need for debate without preconceptions and without making truths absolute. It's not about the search for conclusions deemed to be final, but rather the intensification of joint reflection." Quoted from: www.kommunisten.ch

Cunhal is now dead six years. His party, the PCP, however, considers him not an idol on a pedestal, a "historical figure" whose thoughts and ideas slowly but gradually have been forgotten. Today, his theoretical and programmatic conclusions determine the path and self-understanding of the PCP. But, unfortunately, it is quite different elsewhere.

On Slippery Ground

The current example of this is the thinking of the chairman of the CPUSA, Sam Webb. Political Affairs, the theoretical organ of his party, published in February this year under the title: "A Party of Socialism in the 21st Century: What It Looks Like, What It Says, and What It Does." It has now appeared in German on the news portal of the German Communist Party's website, www.kommunisten.de

Why are Webb's theses of interest beyond the CPUSA?

For example, why did the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), despite the demands of the controversies and class struggles raging in that country, to which it devotes so much energy and combativeneness, send a really dramatic appeal To the members and cadres of the Communist Party USA! To U.S. militant workers! It was also addressed to all the Communist and Workers' Parties, "in order to protest against these theses."

And now, why do German Communists deal with the Webb theses too?

Sam Webb stressed at the beginning of his 29 theses, each different in detail and very different in theoretical significance, that he was on slippery ground. The publisher of the theoretical journal of the CPUSA, Political Affairs, also knew well what he was getting involved with by posting it. The preface that introduces the article makes this clear.

"The following article represents only the views of its author. It doesn't necessarily reflect the official views of any organization or collective... "

And Sam Webb, too, seemed to suspect, that there would be some critics reading his theses who would be reminded of the old proverb whereby the overconfident donkey will go out onto the ice and dance, i.e., take unreasonable risks.

At least this would apply to those who judge mental capers not by their intricate originality and self-circling conclusions, but rather by the donkey’s ability to keep its balance and pursue a course that will give meaning to its (political) acrobatics.

Apparently, to avoid such criticisms, Webb emphasized in the introduction that it was a "draft," an unfinished manuscript, and that "readers will surely note inconsistencies, contradictions, silences and unfinished ideas."

This is all too ostentatious modesty, and the ensuing fishing for compliments belies the altogether clear and complete implications of the theses.

Communists without Lenin
 
In the end Sam Webb delivers a very consistent idea, although it is not original. A letter in the German Communist Party weekly Unsere Zeit has already pointed out:

What is so exciting, new and important for us in these theses of Comrade Webb...? I cannot see it. Readers of Marxistische Blaetter already read and evaluated the core of his "Reflections on Socialism" in mid-2008 (In Focus: International Marxism, March 2008). And in our party, since the mid to late 1980s, we have discussed other theories (for example, the reduction of Marxism to a mere method, or the orientation to”Marxism without Lenin." Not only did we do this thoroughly, but we developed collective responses crowned with a new party program'. Lothar Geisler, "Theses Not New," Unsere Zeit, July 1, 2011, p. 12)
In fact, most of the 29 theses do not contain much that is new. Though he writes of merely one in the article mentioned in Marxistische Blaetter from 2008, in its approaches, the quixotic intellectual journey already discernible in 2008 continues, but it now ends as a break with central points of Communist theory — socialism, and the doctrine of the Party. He runs aground on the shoals of a left–pluralist Marxism; or the earlier "Eurocommunism," or the current democratic socialism of the German Left Party, European Left, respectively.

I mention particularly the rejection of the theory of Marx, Engels and Lenin as a unified, revolutionary theory of the working class.

What is original here is a hitherto less well-known chauvinistic undertone. As noted in his Thesis #2:
As for "Marxism-Leninism," the term should be retired in favor of simply "Marxism." For one thing, it has a negative connotation among ordinary Americans, even in left and progressive circles. Depending on whom you ask, it either sounds foreign or dogmatic or undemocratic or all of these together.
 
Granted, Lenin was no Russian exile finding safety in the U.S., taking out U.S. citizenship, and Americanizing his first or last name - perhaps to Sam Cook or Sam Smith.

But do ordinary Americans deem Karl Marx to be a fellow American?

And does Marxism really sound so terrifically American, that perhaps Sarah Palin herself, the icon of ordinary Americans, understands by Marxism a sweetness and innocence, causing her patriotic sentiment to peal like a church bell?

Webbism?
 
So the real test awaits Jim and Jane, ordinary Americans.

Shakespeare's Macbeth comes to my mind, with its sigh, almost a curse:
"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

But the meaning of Webb's theses is more than noisy fury.

We long-suffering European Communists are quite accustomed to this counterposing of Marx and Lenin, and the elimination of the latter from what is coyly called "Marxism" or - even more subtly - "scientific socialism."
A Diminished Picture of History

In the early 1980s, the German Communist Party grappled intensively with a forerunner of today's "Webbism," the idea of a Western "plural" Marxism, and a Marxism without Leninism. It arose in the study and seminar rooms of the West Berlin professor Wolfgang Fritz Haug.

At the same time, the highly relevant Marxist journal Argument was being published (compare Marxism. Ideology. Politics. Crisis of Marxism, or Crisis of the Argument? Frankfurt am Main, 1984. Editors: Hans Heinz Holz, Thomas Metscher, Joseph Schleifstein, and Robert Steigerwald.)

The second argument pushed by Webb for the amputation of Marxism-Leninism is even less original. And it is no less wrong. Back then it was also formulated by the Haug school. Allegedly, Marxism-Leninism is not "classical Marxism."

Sam Webb's allegation of "simplification" of the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and other early Marxists in the form of "Marxism-Leninism" in the Stalin era is simply wrong.

In the Soviet Communist Party and the Communist International, after the death of Lenin and long before the nonsensical enthronement of Stalin as the "one true disciple of Lenin," acknowledgement began of Lenin as the third classical author of Marxism.

The careful processing, safeguarding and development of Lenin's theoretical legacy by many CPSU and Comintern theorists are hidden by the Webb theses in a way that ignores history.

The general assertion that "Soviet scientists under Stalin's leadership systematized and simplified earlier Marxist writing," not to mention adapting it to the needs of Soviet state ideology, is nothing more than repetition of the old anti-Soviet slogans.

There were, in the course of seventy years of Soviet party history and scientific history, numerous introductions to the academic and theoretical papers of Marx, Engels and Lenin. They were simplifications, just as in any scientific discipline there is simplification in all introductions, compendia, and so forth. They are merely introductions.

In no way was there systematic falsification of the inheritance. Even in the post-socialist era, the collected works of classical authors have still not finally emerged. This does not change the fact that, in a few texts of Lenin, there also was one or another politically motivated "editorial reworking" or omission, although this was justified and made transparent.

It is not true that Marxism-Leninism was — or is — an impoverished, simplified version of the true Marxism.

Certainly there was and is, in every theory and in all science, phases of greater or lesser creativity and development. And undoubtedly there was and will be future phases, just as in any scientific doctrine, in which revolutionary Marxists/Communists do not evaluate promptly new social and/or natural scientific phenomena. Or they do so too late. Or in a way that is only partly correct. In general, it is the nature of science that it moves in a contradictory manner between faster and slower stages of development.

Webb's more far-reaching conclusion is that even what he designates as his new "Marxism" is only a "scientific method."

He thinks his altogether limited and schematic scientific-theoretical view surpasses the comprehensive legacy of the three classic founders of Marxism-Leninism.

A "method" which brings to light no apparent content, is worthless. And in the thesis of Sam Webb, the method goes straight to this "new-old" distinction and the rejection of content.
A German Version of Webb?

After the defeat of real socialism, the Left could not fail to weigh its previous relationship with Lenin and Leninism. The PDS [Party of Democratic Socialism] originating in a Marxist-Leninist party did this too. It broke with its Leninist heritage. In May 1990 at a closed meeting of the former PDS Executive Board, Gregor Gysi spoke about the new theoretical basis of his reform-socialism-turned-political-party. In this context, he explained both the departure from Marxism-Leninism and the move to an "ideologically pluralistic" party in which the Communist component would enjoy only a marginal existence, tolerated and allowed.

Thus far the statements by Sam Webb are nothing new. The same applies to his "new" concepts of organizational theory. They are in theory 27 ideas presented to remodel the party structure into an informal communication network, mainly Internet-based, whose members interact with each other primarily via e-mail.

Abolition of the unity principle and the commitment to the party program and decisions amounts to a vote for the open liquidation of the Communist Party.

Reassuring evidence that the huge distances between widely scattered individual U.S. Communists absolutely requires use of modern means of communication, in this context, is not completely convincing.

It's clear Webb doesn't mean to modernize the lines of communication. Such modernization, of course, is useful and necessary.

This is about something entirely different: the liquidation of a strong organizational structure, clear criteria for party membership, a common collectively developed program, binding revolutionary strategy and tactics, and in general decisions grounding the party in the working class, in working people, in the revolutionary youth and among oppressed women, in production enterprises and scientific institutions, and in the intelligentsia worn out by capital.

He also thinks joining this structure existing only in cyberspace should be slapdash - "no more difficult than joining other social organizations." This is a logical consequence of the destruction of a party once in political struggle against the capitalist system – a party consisting of real, like-minded people coordinated with each other. The party is downgraded to a loose, small electoral force primarily concentrating on the support of the election campaigns of the Democratic Party.

Sam Webb has still provided the remnants of a party. "Teams" will be traveling around as "meet and greet" and support groups.

This is nothing more than window dressing.

Does the U.S. workers' movement need such a party? I doubt it very much. But it has to decide for itself.

In any case, German Communists do not need it. Nor do we need an "open-ended and interesting" discussion of this plea for the end of Marxism-Leninism and the Communist Party.

We have better and more important things to do.


>.