Workers’ government: the realities of our era are different
The following is a guest column by David Camfield, an editor of New Socialist Webzine. It was submitted in response to my article, “Workers’ Governments and Socialist Strategy — a Reply.” David’s comments are followed by a list of links to all other items in the “workers’ government” exchange on this website.
I must thank John for the invitation to reply to his response to my comments on his article. His response raises many major political issues that I can only deal with here in the most cursory way. Read more…
Workers’ governments and socialist strategy — a reply
David Camfield and Pham Binh have raised important issues in contributions to the workers’ government strategy debate on this website. Here is a reply to each of them.
David Camfield on the ‘Crisis of Politics’
In “Workers’ Governments and the Crisis of Politics,” David Camfield makes a number of cogent comments on working people’s road to power. His definition of a workers’ government as “a government of working-class forces in a capitalist state …. that objectively doesn’t rule for capital” is useful – and consistent with the position of the Comintern’s 1922 congress analyzed in my article on this question. (“A Workers’ Government as a Step Toward Socialism”) Read more…
We need to provide a credible political perspective
The following guest column is by Nathan Rao, a Toronto-based socialist writer. It responds to previous posts on this website by John Riddell and David Camfield.
Thank you to John Riddell and others for this interesting discussion. So long as we keep front and centre the long list of caveats Riddell provides (and David Camfield enlarges upon), I agree with Riddell’s concluding paragraph with respect to the relevance today of the debates from nearly a century ago: “The relevance of its workers’ government discussion lies rather in alerting us to the possibility that working people should strive for governmental power even in the absence of a soviet-type network of workers’ councils.” Read more…
Workers’ governments and the crisis of politics
The following is a guest column by David Camfield, an editor of New Socialist Webzine. It was submitted in reply to my article, “A Workers’ Government as a Step Toward Socialism.”
John is right that “The Comintern’s decisions on governmental policy were rooted in a political environment that no longer exists.”
Before offering some comments on the demand for a “workers’ government” (WG) today, I think it’s important to clarify what kind of government we’re talking about. There has been a lack of clarity about what distinguishes a WG from a far more common phenomenon: left governments in capitalist states that rule for capital, as “administrators of the capitalist order” as John puts it. Read more…
A ‘workers’ government’ as a step toward socialism
The concept of a workers’ government is the awkward child of the early Communist International. The thought it expresses is central to Marxism: that workers must strive to take political power. But in the early Comintern, it was attached to a perspective that was contentious for Marxists then and is so now: that workers can form a government that functions initially within a still-existing capitalist state. Read more…
The Comintern in 1922: The periphery pushes back
Until recently, I shared a widely held opinion that the Bolshevik Party of Russia towered above other members of the early Communist International as a source of fruitful political initiatives. However, my work in preparing the English edition of the Comintern’s Fourth Congress, held at the end of 1922, led me to modify this view.(1) On a number of weighty strategic issues before the congress, front-line parties, especially the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), played a decisive role in revising Executive Committee proposals and shaping the Congress’s outcome. Read more…
Communist history debated at ‘Historical Materialism’ London conference
The eighth annual conference of Historical Materialism, held in London 10–13 November 2011, featured a coordinated stream of papers on the history of the world Marxist movement during the era of the Communist International (Comintern) (1919-43). The thirty-eight presentations in this stream reflected vigorous activity in this field, while also pointing up some research challenges for historians of the workers’ movement. Read more…
The shape of socialist strategy
Daniel Bensaïd’s La Politique comme art stratégique (Politics as a Strategic Art),(1) published a year after the French socialist theorist’s premature death in 2010, raises important questions about the shape of a working-class project to achieve political power. Bensaïd was a prominent theorist of France’s New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), one of Europe’s most influential far-left organisations, and of the Fourth International.(2)
The 99% occupy Wall Street
The following article was written today by Pham Binh, a participant and chronicler of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests in New York. Binh’s account graphically describes the changing composition and broadening social base of the protests. It is republished with his permission. Subheads have been added. Read more…
What’s behind the highway protests in Bolivia?
Opponents of a proposed highway in Bolivia seized government minister David Choquehuanca September 24 in a dangerous escalation of conflict over the plan. Choquehuanca had come to negotiate with the protesters. The marchers forcibly occupied territory of a community that supports the highway, wounding a policeman in the process. Read more…
How Clara Zetkin helps us understand Evo Morales
Is Bolivia “a case of a workers’ government in the sense the early Comintern/Zetkin meant it?” The question comes from Pham Binh in a comment on this website. In my view, the “workers’ government” concept is certainly relevant but must be used with caution.
Black liberation and the Communist International
The influence of the Communist International was decisive in the early 1920s in winning a generation of black revolutionaries to Marxism. On this the historians agree. But what did this influence consist of, and how was it exerted? Read more…
Farmers seek defenses against the giants of agribusiness
The National Farmers Union (NFU), an affiliate in Canada of La Via Campesina, is now leading the struggle of western grain producers to save the farmer-managed Canada Wheat Board. (See report on this website.) In the following article, originally published in 2008, I take a broader look at the work of the NFU, starting with the experiences of farmers in Grey County, northwest of Toronto. Read more…
Ottawa takes aim against a historic right of grain farmers
Canada’s government has announced plans to abolish western grain farmers’ right to market their products collectively as a protection against agribusiness monopolies. In the following article, originally printed in Briarpatch Magazine, Saskatchewan wheat farmer Terry Boehm explains the stakes and appeals for support. Boehm is the president of the National Farmers Union. Read more…
A dialogue on the characteristics of revolutionary groups
An exchange of nine recent comments by Pham Binh and John Riddell on this website explores how the example of the early Communist International can assist – or mislead – Marxist organizations in North America today. Totaling 5,000 words, this dialogue encompasses relationships to social movements, leadership selection, international centralization, and the example of the Communist Party of Cuba. Read more…
