Hitherto philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways. The point however is to change it. Karl Marx
Economic & Philosophic Science Review
[P&P Bulletin Publications, PO Box 50 London SWl7 9NL] [Post Office Regd.]                                                                                                         No 1052 July 18 2000                                                                                                                                               10p

National-liberation victory in Ireland is a mighty triumph for anti-imperialist struggle everywhere.

While the major political crises surrounding the collapse of Blairism; the difficulty of buying-off the Palestinian revolution; the imminent outbreak of international trade-war; the fears of Japan's economy imploding; and the embarrassing prospect that Putin might try to restore something like the Soviet Union because it worked better,  - all rumble on unresolved, and threatening to dominate world news at any moment, -  it is highly significant, and a matter of hugely satisfying symbolism for communists in Britain, to put on record the further dramatic slide to defeat for the cause, and the mentality, of British imperialist tradition in Ireland.

The EPSR has been confidently explaining for 20 years how the Irish national-liberation struggle was slowly but surely driving the vicious colonialism remnant called (ludicrously, provocatively, and infamously) 'Northern Ireland' towards being dismantled so that Ireland's legitimate reunification can at last begin formal progress.

The inevitable snail's pace withdrawal from Ireland by dying British imperialism has been charted week by week, reflecting its decadent inability for world domination roles any more, in any part, and reflecting the irresistible colossal power of legitimate national-liberation forces now on earth. At the same time, it has regularly been recorded how the out-of-date 'No Surrender' colonial intransigence of the Orange/Unionist/Loyalist mentality would inevitably start to putrify in these hopeless circumstances, - no matter how hard London's tortuous 'peace settlement' negotiations tried to fix things so as to not let this show, humiliating the whole 'British' connection.

It is especially satisfying to register the last rites of this rotten colonial mentality from the admissions in British capitalism's own press which has kept up the filthiest campaign of cover-ups, distortions, lies, and provocations against Sinn Féin and the IRA throughout these 20 years, using the reluctant miserable concessions which the joke bourgeois 'free press' feels obliged to make, against itself and its own wretched British-chauvinist cause.

This routine use of this reliable Marxist tactic for anti-imperialist evidence was almost scuppered by the wretched Times making the following admission at the end of last week's tremendous triumph for the national-liberation struggle, - an enormously important development in view of the trouble Britain has had with its Irish problem for 30 years, - as just an item for 'news in brief'!!!

Humiliated, or what????

	Times Saturday July 15 2000 – News in brief

Loyalists split over protests

Loyalists across Northern Ireland were left unsettled last night after large-scale protests called in support of the Drumcree marchers failed to materialise and deep splits emerged within the Orange Order. As the last of the barricades that blocked last Sunday's Drumcree parade were cleared Robert Saulters, the leader of the Orange Order, accused the Portadown Orangemen of acting without official sanction and called for a period of reflection. The RUC said that in the middle of the protest only three roads in the Province had been blockaded.  

The Guardian did slightly better on the 'wallowing in British misery' front:

Initial speculation was that Ulster Freedom Fighters were behind the killing. They have an alliance in some areas with the hardline Loyalist Volunteer Force, at murderous loggerheads with the UVF, particularly in Portadown. But it was later suggested fellow UVF members were responsible.

No matter. His assassination, in such a public manner, highlighted the mess the Protestant community is in after 11 days of the Drumcree dispute. Whether they would choose to be defined as Orangemen, unionists or loyalists, Protestants are confused, and irrevocably split.

They cannot even agree what they are protesting against. Some cite the civil and religious liberties of the Portadown district, banned from the nationalist Garvaghy Road for the third year running. Others are unhappy with the Good Friday agreement, particularly with Sinn Féin members in government, and many find their sectarian bile hard to swallow at this time of year. Some are alienated, with deprivation more a cause than politics or religion. Others enjoy the violence. And for many, there is an abstract sense that they are losing in the new Northern Ireland.

So they are unable to agree on tactics. Because there is a lack of leadership among the constituent parts, and with even hardline unionist politicians avoiding involvement for the first time in six years of the saga, the protests are a rudderless disaster. Loyalists, long key in supporting reasoned change, are the bad guys again, and the 205-year-old Orange Order is in disarray.

David Ervine, assembly member of the Progressive Unionist Party, linked to the UVF, said: "Many of us perceive our culture to be under threat from outside. I am inclined to wonder just how much it is under threat from inside. We in the unionist community are doing terrible, terrible damage to ourselves, and I can hear the laughter of the republican community."

Jack McKee, a Larne councillor for the Democratic Unionist party, at the bonfire when Mr Cairns was murdered, said: "I am shocked and numbed. Protestant is now turning gun on Protestant, and it is an absolute disgrace.'

Masked UFF volunteers appeared at bonfires on the Sandy Row and on the Shankill Road in Belfast yesterday. They fired wildly into the air, to rousing cheers.

It was ugly too at Drumcree, with 21 RUC officers hurt, bringing to more than 80 the total of security force casualties.

Protesters burned an effigy of an RUC man in riot gear on their bonfire in the nearby loyalist Corcrain estate. They did so as unionists in the Commons were again trying to save the 78-year-old force's name.

There were scores more incidents. Ambulance crew were attacked in west Belfast. Many Orangemen are distraught.

William Brown, a deputy Grand master of Ireland, said: "When I see people blocking traffic with pints of beer in their hands, that was not the organisation I joined. Good people have only to do nothing to let bad men succeed. We need new leadership."

But Orangemen Jim Rodgers, an Ulster Unionist councillor, was heckled at yesterday's mass meeting of Orangemen in Belfast.

Robert Saulters, head of the Orange Order, sounded a defiant note in Killyleagh, Co Armagh, as he blamed one or two Orangemen for feeding stories to the media. He then attacked politicians who had gone into government with Sinn Fein.

The fear of change in Northern Ireland is deep these days.

The continuation of this colossal historical development, a major defeat for imperialism revealing much about this epoch, - is still ignored by the fake-'left', which either has no view (OP); or thinks the victory for this 'self- determination' a nationalist disaster (Trots); or that Sinn Féin played it wrong and should have won much more, much earlier (SLP); or that the dying fascist-colonial mentality should, after the defeat of its 79-year 'Northern Ireland' tyranny, be awarded a new mini-Partition of just four of Ulster's nine counties, not six as last time (CPGB).

In time, it will no longer be ignored by the forward-looking mentality of the imperialism-corrupted working-class in Britain which will eventually see that it was a proper defeat for imperialism, which will help further defeat the colonial-racist mentality in sections of British workers. It is a colossal victory all round. Build Leninism.   EPSR

Academic fake-'lefts' try new disguises for their anti-communist defeatism.

OPEN POLEMIC has published a reply to EPSR 1036 which accused OP of doing nothing but waste its time on academic arguments for factional anarchism to become the new "revolutionary leadership" for mankind, and of ignoring the EPSR's challenge to OP to start analysing real-world developments in the international class struggle as the only way of demonstrating any leadership qualities themselves for the rest of us to follow. For example, OP was challenged to analyse the situation, say, in Ireland which the rest of the fake-'left' make such nonsense of, but which it is so crucial to understand and explain correctly from a communist perspective before the working class in Britain can begin to be broken from its links with British imperialism, (ideologically sharing in part, its racist and colonialist prejudices).

The OP reply once again refuses to commit itself about any aspect of the international balance of class forces, past or present, anywhere in the world, at any time. All there is consists of the same old vague innuendo that having any 'leadership' at all is all that is wrong with the workers movement (although OP again denies implying this); plus a frank admission of complete defeatism about the anti-imperialist struggle; plus a complete muddle about basic Leninist lessons from 'What is to be done'; plus as clear a statement of OP's factional anarchist (petty-bourgeois) soul as could be wished for.

Taking the last point first, OP declares:

That the EPSR supporters have opened up the question of elitism is useful, for it has focussed attention on the elitist essence of leader centralist practice. Indeed, by rejecting multanimous practice and advocating the continuation of leader centralist practice, the EPSR ignores the outcomes of recent history, expecting us to exchange one set of party elitists for yet another set.

Although they cling to the 'rules and organisation' of leader centralist practice, our EPSR supporters argue that OP's principled struggle for a qualitative development in communist democracy is "endlessly timewasting, with abstract disputes about the rules of argument and polemical organisational structures, etc." On the dogmatic side in this dispute on party democracy, they then produce the contention that:

"OP's solution to this mess is to have...no leadership at all. In the 'multanimous' party, every one says what they like with nothing to be identified as the party line or leadership. But how would a policy-making party conference differ from a packed Saturday night at J D Weatherspoon's?"

We will begin answering that witless question with a brief paragraph on the basic, political organisation of democratic centralism.

The Basic Units of the Party are demographically determined and they delegate to the party centre, its Congress. The congress determines the party line by majority vote and elects a Central Committee which acts on its behalf between congresses. Views may be expressed at any time, provided they do not conflict with any agreed action of the party.

All of these points apply whether the practice within democratic centralism is leader centralist or multanimous.

What, therefore, defines the difference between these practices?

Firstly, leader centralist-practice caters for the collective elaboration of views by the general membership only from within their demographically determined basic units, which have delegates with vote at congress, whereas, multanimous practice also caters for the collective elaboration of views by like-minded forums, which do not have delegates or vote at congress.

Secondly, leader centralist practice caters for the collective presentation of the views of the like-minded only on the part of the dominant faction in the leadership, whereas multanimous practice would deny any faction any such influential, authoritative and organisational advantage.

Multanimous practice would enrich the knowledge and democracy of the party with, most importantly, the original source of all collective views being known to the party as a whole. At the same time, it would ensure that the basic units of the party are politically self-reliant and capable of ensuring that the leadership appointed by the party congress toes the party line.

In support of their thoroughly ignorant contention that Open Polemic is opposed to any leadership or party line, our EPSR supporters then produce a quite irrelevant quotation from a letter that Engels wrote to Bebel in 1873 concerning the anarchist leader Bakunin's theoretical position and conduct, from 1868-72, within the International Working Men's Association. Formed in 1864, the International was open to different ideological persuasions, including that of anarchism, represented by Bakunin. This was a factor in prompting Marx and Engels, after the demise of the International in 1874, to consider that the next International would need to be more 'directly Communist'. The lesson that needs to be confirmed is that there can be no 'unity' with anarchist tendencies within the future party.

Royston Bull seems to have kept his chosen supporters in a blissful state of ignorance concerning the position of Open Polemic. Our EPSR supporters need to understand that political revolutionary leadership and the theoretical revolutionary leadership from which it stems, and with which it is interrelated, is nothing less than the theoretical and political leadership of the party and not that of any faction that has gained the vantage point of its central committee.

The philistine agnosticism of middle-class 'democracy' could not be clearer. A party programme is not "right" because it correctly analyses the objective world and correctly proposes realistic strategy and tactics for reaching the revolutionary goal - according to OP. A party programme is only "right" if a congress majority has voted for it, and if an elected Central Committee has been prevented from making any changes to the party line by "the collective elaboration of views by like-minded forums which do not have delegate or vote at congress" OP implies.

The great turning point in civilisation’s history, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, would simply never have happened on such a basis. The most crucial volumes ever written on the science of human society, volumes 24, 25, and 26 of Lenin's Collected Works, - more than 1,600 pages of analysis and policies for dealing with dramatic movements of class and international forces(of an intensity and complexity from April 1917 to March 1918 which has never been equalled in all human history), which had instant epoch making effect from being the respected advice from a tried and tested leadership, - contain just 3 pages (The Political Situation Aug 2 1917) which had any connection at all with any Congress decisions or deliberations, and then only an indirect instruction for Lenin's supporters among the leadership at the 6th Congress which Lenin could not attend. The richest science of class struggle ever written was simply 'the most sectarian factional dominance and a disgrace to communism', as far as these fake-'left' academic dilettantes are concerned.

This bourgeois democracy fetishism indignantly dismisses the charge of "favouring no leadership at all", but how could Leninism have become the most influential force in the whole record of human society if "the collective elaboration of views by like-minded forums which do not have delegates or vote at congress" had in fact been able to "deny any faction any such influential, authoritative and organisational advantage", especially "the dominant faction in the leadership" such as the Leninists were??

This is pure anti-leadership phobia based on the most gauche middle-class subjectivism. And this childishness still refuses to offer a single historical example or projected real-life scenario where 'multanimous practice" might be worth examining as an alternative to leadership: 

"Multanimous practice would enrich the knowledge and democracy of the party with, most importantly, the original source of all collective views being known to the party as a whole," 

OP declares. When or where has such a phenomenon occurred, ever? For how long? What was achieved?

Petty-bourgeois fake-'lefts' retreat into these naïve idealist fantasies in despair at the real world of class-war politics. Instead of struggling harder than ever for a better perspective on the theoretical catastrophe inflicted on the international working class by both Stalinism and Trotskyism together, purely defeatist perches in various disguises have been adopted by 'socialists' everywhere. OP's is one of the barmier retreats into a fantasy world of 'perfect workers democracy', the deluded world of anarchism and reformism, conning the working class into paralysed ineffectiveness from the 'left' and from the right. Anti-leadership and anti-organisational anarchy will always leave the capitalist state bourgeoisie firmly in control. The trade unions and the old Labour Party, with their "perfect constitutional democracy", will always guarantee that only establishment-backed (or establishment-corrupted) right wingers (or fake-'lefts') gain national identification and win elections, or selections. And if real communists ever did start breaking through such a tightly controlled 'democracy' system, the state can always employ provocations, dirty tricks, and plain old-fashioned fascist-dictatorship methods to break any real communist movement developing.

A purpose-built, independent, designer modelled 'perfect democracy' anarcho-communist party which the OP pretends to dream of (and presumably at least tries to put in practice now, even if only in a small way, and even though frankly admitting that it sees no basis for trying to build a communist party in Britain at the moment), would only 'work' for as long as it did not split on issues, which would be for about five minutes, figuratively speaking. The EPSR knows nothing about the OP as individuals, and very little about its history as a group, but it can be safely guaranteed that OP will already have had uncomfortable or damaging splits in its short history.

Issues split parties because the ultimate 'philosophical' motivation of mankind is what people see as the right course of actions on questions crucial for society's further development, - not some abstract idea about 'the perfect way to poll a party's opinion' or 'the perfect set of democratic standing orders'. Lenin notoriously threatened to go outside the Bolshevik party structure to build a new party from scratch if the Central Committee had vacillated any longer in October 1917 about his proposal to immediately seize the power, - and he was right to do so, and would undoubtedly have succeeded if pushed to it. Lenin would have been nothing without the party he and others built, but while ideas can only be sustained, improved, and turned into material reality for changing society by the collective effort of first a leadership, and then the party, and then the class, - nevertheless the correct understanding for crucially driving things forward at any one vital moment can temporarily be dependent on just one or a few people, and their grasp and leadership (or the lack of it) can be utterly decisive.

No 'democratic structure' is remotely important compared to successfully attaining the highest point of revolutionary science when needed, and getting it acted upon. A proven party of revolutionary understanding, - of revolutionary theory and action, - is the only historically-tested vehicle for this, - with many glorious examples in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc, etc. What has any party ever achieved that took no decisions unless specifically approved by a party congress, and then only as a result of every single different opinion of every single handful of party members being thrown into a congress, all with equal standing and with equal party-wide publicity.????

The point of the Engels quote was to demonstrate that far from taking an opinion poll of every nuance of different understanding in every section of the First International as the only hope for reaching correct majority decisions, the founders of revolutionary communist science were delighted that the majority of the delegates at the 1872 Hague Congress "went home sick with disappointment" at the fact that the 'unity' of the International had been burst-apart by the Marxists engineering the expulsion of the Bakuninists, delighted because the false protestations of 'unity' by various factional anarchist sectarian groups had allowed them to tremendously damage the International's reputation by their "stupidities and infamies".

By the sound of Engels' description of a 'delegate majority' sick with disappointment at the Hague Congress, the Marxists might have had trouble in getting the anarchists booted out if something like the OP’s "all opinions to have equal weight from every ideological variant throughout the International, delegate or not" chaotic Tower of Babel had been a prevailing dilettantes' charter then.

And how can the OP even "confirm that there can be no unity with anarchist tendencies within the future party" if the next phase of world revolutionary anti-imperialist struggle is going to treat any attempt at firm communist leadership influence with the maximum of hostility and suspicion? How does OP know that this party decision making by canvassing every last shred of different membership opinion on an equal basis will, in today's total anti-communist political confusion, even agree that anarchist ideology is a problem anyway, let alone see that there are serious grounds for expelling such tendencies???

The reality is that such an academic sect is not greatly bothered with the practical outcomes of anything any more. OP had a resignation, sharp internal differences, and much stick off its supporters after certain 'leading members' apparently supported the NATO-imperialist destruction of the Milosevic regime, but it rebuffs probing criticism about this astonishing situation with the comment:

"OPEB (Open Polemic Editorial Board) is not a party, it is not a democratic centralist organisation, it does not elect a central committee, let alone that committee electing a Politburo" 

(OP had been accused of covering up its factional internal struggle as the Soviet Politburo used to cover things up).

OP comes up with similar generalised fence-sitting agnosticism (which automatically means covering up for imperialism's existing anti-communist status quo on everything) in the rest of its reply to the EPSR:

'The EPSR has always placed itself above what it describes as the 'Left swamp', with the notion that it alone is the sect that champions "the crucial role of revolutionary theory for the future of mankind" and on the question of the communist party, our EPSR supporters proceed to accuse Open Polemic of "actually avoiding communist Party rebuilding by avoiding the crucial political material, correctly analysing the current world situation, on which the working class and revolutionary causes can alone unite."

They are obviously unaware that, unlike the EPSR and the 'CPGB', Open Polemic has never been concerned with Party 'rebuilding or reforging', precisely because it accepts the reality that there is no actual Party to rebuild or reforge. If the Party did exist and was in a similar state of ideological confusion and theoretical disorder to that of the RSDLP during Lenin's 'Iskra period', then the EPSR and the 'CPGB' (Leninist faction) might have some basis for rebuilding or reforging the Party and uniting it with the working class. But then, they would be two factions of that Party instead of simply being what they are, two sects with different origins existing in the quite different conditions of the 21st Century.

On its formation in 1990, Open Polemic made clear its opposition to Iskra strategies in its leaflet, 'Two steps back - one new step forward' and, in the development of its alternative strategy, Open Polemic is foremost in seeking the collective elaboration of a common theoretical programme to constitute the foundation for the formation of a future party.

Multanimous practice

The concept of multanimous practice within the political and organisational principle of democratic centralism was firstly introduced by Open Polemic relatively recently, in the first issue of OP Prospect No. l in October 1997. OP therefore referred to multanimous practice in its response to Royston Bull, but the EPSR supporters muddy the polemical waters by not even mentioning it. So, although they are supposedly responding to Open Polemic on this question, they instead, weirdly respond to the 'CPGB', a anarcho-communist sect that actually opposes OP's concept of multanimous practice. No wonder they come to the odd conclusion that:

"The dispute over the CPGB's 'multanimous' pretensions is likewise obscure, approaching incomprehensible. Maybe 'multanimous' has been misunderstood..."

Of course our EPSR supporters misunderstand it, perhaps deliberately, and they compound their ignorance with the false claim that the EPSR has always used 'multanimous' to "describe the undoubted CPGB claim that communist 'unity' cannot be built on an agreed interpretation of current world developments and the immediate past they have come from 'because no one can agree'."

All we can say is that, if the EPSR supporters wish to polemicise with the 'CPGB', they should write to the editor of its paper, the Weekly Worker.

Elitism

Managing to baffle themselves, our EPSR supporters insist that:

"The rest of OP's reply is somewhat baffling, ending as it does with a blatant plea for elitist status for party polemicists over ordinary workers,..."

Quite apart from the fact that all party members should be party polemicists, our EPSR supporters are accusing Open Polemic of elitism, which seeks to reduce the masses to a passive role, to mere followers of an elite. Open Polemic's supposed elitism apparently stems from its argument that the primary task is to bring together the advanced elements of the class in order to elaborate a common theoretical programme and a contemporary analysis of class forces.

Not only do our EPSR supporters ignore what Marx and Engels had to say about the leading role of 'the Communists' in the Manifesto, they also seem to be quite unaware of what Lenin had to say on the question of the role of the advanced workers when he correctly argued that:

"The history of the working class movements in all countries shows that the better situated strata of the working class respond to the ideas of socialism more rapidly and more easily. From among these come, in the main, the advanced workers that every working class movement brings to the fore, those who can win the confidence of the labouring masses, who devote themselves entirely to the education and organisation of the proletariat, who accept socialism consciously, and who even elaborate independent socialist theories.

.. After the numerically small stratum of advanced workers comes the broad stratum of average workers. These workers too, strive ardently for socialism, participate in study circles and agitation, and differ from the preceding stratum only in that they cannot become fully independent leaders of the Social Democratic working class movement. The average worker will not understand some of the articles in a newspaper that aims to be the organ of party, he will not be able to get a full grasp of an intricate theoretical or practical problem.

... Lastly, behind the stratum of average workers comes the mass that constitutes the lower strata of the proletariat."

In recognising that advanced elements emerge in the revolutionary and working class movements just as they do in every other field of human activity, perhaps Marx, Engels and Lenin were also making "a blatant plea for elitist status for party polemicists over ordinary workers".

Within the context of the advanced elements in the party, who were not at all like-minded in their thinking, Lenin was engaged in a bitter struggle with 'the Economists', who wanted the Party to cater primarily to the needs of the 'ordinary worker'. Lenin however, correctly insisted that the Party paper should cater, not to the needs of the average or lower, but primarily to the needs of the advanced workers.’

The background to these weasel words about OP silence on current world-imperialist crisis problems facing the international proletariat is a sectarian fetish that the uneven development of capitalism (and therefore of the world socialist revolution) pushed Lenin into anti-democratic authoritarianism and idealism around 1920 when forced to justify Russia's national revolutionary process, a possible part of the world socialist revolution but which, under Lenin's introduction of 'leader-centralism restrictions on party democracy', failed to make it. It is concerning this supposed total defeat for the socialist revolution that OP tries to allege that

"the EPSR ignores the outcomes of recent history, expecting us to exchange one set of party elitists for yet another set".

The 'draft material towards new perspectives' currently running in the EPSR goes at considerable length into attempting to establish the workers states' achievements in the 20th century, - their flaws, crimes, and failures notwithstanding, - as the most ultimately influential development of human relations in society that the whole history of civilisation has ever seen. The humiliating self-liquidation in total revisionist confusion by the bureaucracy under Gorbachev needs (and bears) a detailed tracing back to Stalin's original corruption of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary anti-imperialist theory concerning specific world developments. All the 57 varieties of shallow blanket dismissal of Soviet workers-state developments (from soon after 1917 onwards) by the petty-bourgeois-minded fake-'left' on various grounds and at various stages of so-called 'counter-revolutionary degeneration', unfailingly start out from an incurably anti-communist position of refusing to take a stand in unconditional solidarity with the dictatorship of the proletariat against every single Western propaganda criticism and provocation raised against it from 1917 onwards, whatever the issue. This fundamental anti-communist renegacy is dressed up in any number of posturing academic disguises about disliking or disagreeing with supposed Bolshevik degeneration into "anti-democracy leader centralism"; "autocratic bureaucracy"; "national socialism"; "socialism in one country";  "bonapartist dictatorship"; "authoritarian voluntarism"; "totalitarian brutality"; "state-capitalist exploitation"; "social imperialism"; etc, etc; - as many excuses as there are anti-communist defectors on earth.

But the Marxist-Leninist science that the modern world can either be the dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, not any alternative or anything in between, was demonstrated to all but the blindest anti-communists in the economic and social catastrophe which has befallen the USSR territory since Gorbachevism liquidated the dictatorship of the proletariat, dismantling the party's control of the state and society, in order to let free market forces try to achieve higher economic growth rates. What he achieved was the counter-revolution at last,  -  about 72 years after the first fake-'lefts' in the west were telling us that it had already taken place. Only then did a 'new class' really take over power, who almost certainly will now only be 'removable by a new revolution', which simply was not the case before. Taking revisionist confusion to moronic proportions, Gorbachevism's state bureaucracy simply self-liquidated, requiring no 'political revolution' at all, - the first 'ruling class' in history to just walk away from power, (if such anti-Marxist, fake-'left' Trotskyite nonsense was remotely believable, which it clearly isn't.)

But how could such grotesque revisionist stupidity be possible? Easy, just in the same way that the pressure of expanding bourgeois-imperialist 'achievements' and interests turned the Second International completely into social-chauvinist warmongers, or social-pacifists, by 1914-1918, - apart from the tiny Bolshevik leadership guided by Leninist science.

The sickest paradox, however, is that the self-righteous 'anti-Stalinists', outside the Soviet workers state, degenerated even further and faster under these same imperialist-expansion influences than even the CPSU revisionists did, - leaping onto the bandwagon of the most phenomenal world-wide brainwashing propaganda onslaught that history has ever seen, - 70 years of non-stop international anti-Soviet and anti-Communist lies, distortions and provocations which utterly dominated all human culture outside of the USSR, deliberately helping launch fascist-imperialist aggression (destroying half the world in the process) as a 'cure', for what the fake-'lefts' choose to represent as a 'Stalinist bureaucratic failure', - a workers-state 'failure' which, having destroyed the mightiest forces fascist-imperialist aggression could throw against it, then went on to act as godfather to the further overthrow of colonialism and imperialism in a score more states, and the ending of direct colonial rule in a hundred more.

This is 'recent history', and far from being cause for seeing only defeat, and therefore no cause for trying to rebuild the international communist movement on Marxist-Leninist revolutionary lines, - the triumphs of the world's first workers states, totally dominating 20th century human history, brings into view a more explosive perspective of immediate and more widespread revolutionary upheaval by far, than the world has ever yet been on the brink of, -  in the light of the greatest imperialist international trade-war crisis by far that is now hanging over the planet.

All the fake-'left' scepticism is nothing more than the same old petty-bourgeois vacillations in the face of the last century's relentless anti-communist propaganda against the dictatorship of the proletariat, - but all dishonestly dressed up as doubts about 'illegalities', 'arbitrary lawlessness', 'nepotistic disaster' and the like, - all almost certainly traceable features in workers-state developments which have now been going for more than 80 years and were at one time affecting nearly a third of the world's population in more than 20 countries, - but all missing the point completely, which is that for the first time for 700 years, important social, political, and economic progress has been made on earth for hundreds of millions of people, not just without the capitalist class being in charge, but in the teeth of the foulest and most vicious hostility and obstruction that the international capitalist-class could muster.

This is the only real world, and virtually the entire run of Open Polemic discussions chooses to deliberately ignore it in order to concentrate on endless new variants of denouncing once again all the 'anti-democratic' sins of the workers states. Engels had a thought for such class-collaborating traitors to the dictatorship of the proletariat, the actual front line in history's great anti-imperialist struggle:

"I know nothing more authoritarian than a revolution; & when one's will is imposed on others with bombs and bullets, as in every revolution, it seems to me an act of authority is being committed."

(Engels was replying, on January 14, 1872, to Terzaghi about a huge campaign being mounted in the International against Marx's "authoritarian behaviour".) He went on:

"It was the lack of centralisation and authority that cost the Paris Commune its life. Do what you like with authority, etc, after the victory, but for the struggle, we must unite all our forces in one fascio (bundle) and concentrate them at one point of attack.

"And when I am told that authority and centralisation are two things that should be condemned under all possible circumstances, it seems to me that those who say so either do not know what a revolution is, or are revolutionaries in name only."

The crudest 'left' demagogy to damage Marxist-Leninist science with, however, came from OP's monstrous distortion of Lenin's What is to be done. The EPSR's charge to OP of elitism arose from the previous polemic which declared that:

"Going directly to the class in the present situation is nothing more than a divisive, sectarian claim to the leadership of the class ....For Open Polemic, it is the party which engages in discussing everything: first the party, then the class".

Absolutely contrary to this conceited arrogance, the EPSR believes in having every debate out in front of the working class, with nothing hidden. In the end, the only revolutionary programme which will ever prove itself is one which does carry enough working-class support with it, based on workers' long conviction that it is from a party which has already proved its analytical judgement by debating all its most difficult decisions out in front of the working class, ie by publishing them in full. OP, on the other hand, has covered up its alarming internal differences over some of its leaders actually supporting the NATO-NAZI blitzkrieg bombing destruction of Serbia.

It gets no better here. OP wants "the advanced elements to elaborate a common theoretical programme, and a contemporary analysis of class forces". First of all, it would be lovely to see even a scrap of such programme or analysis. The OP's last word on its hidden NATO-blitzkrieg debates is to declare:

"A special meeting of the OPEB was unable to resolve its differences on the universal question of 'self-determination against imperialism' through any further elaboration of the proposed common theoretical programme. The OPEB was therefore obliged to recognise that, ultimately, it may have to be the future party, or its preparation conferences, to take a majority position on it.”

The NATO blitzkrieg was the greatest imperialist-crisis drama yet, foretelling of far greater warmongering destruction to come. The working class of the whole world desperately needs to understand much more, very quickly, about what this astonishing act of brutal NAZI type blitzkrieg devastation on Serbia implies for the rest of mankind which might have governments which might just challenge an imperialist diktat or two. But any workers looking for leadership from Open Polemic on such complex matters will look in vain. The OP discussion was presumably for "advanced elements" only. And the only sectarians, according to OP, are those who published their whole understanding of this turn to imperialist warmongering for the whole working class to read and debate.

Having turned reality on its head in this astonishing way, OP then uses some Lenin quotes to imply the exact opposite meaning to what Lenin intended in 'What is to be done', and presumably hopes that no one is going to notice. The behaviour of this peculiar academic sect becomes more bizarre with every development.

Their chosen quotes try to imply that Lenin in 1902 wanted, like OP, to restrict the key difficult debates about the way forward for the revolution to "the advanced elements", and duly supply a Lenin description of the obvious reality that workers do indeed come towards the struggle with every range of ability for grasping political understanding and becoming active agitators for it.

But nowhere do these quotes remotely state what OP wants them to say, namely that difficult debates should be restricted to "advanced elements".

Exactly the opposite. Lenin, in What is to be done, certainly argues for a tight-knit organisation of professional revolutionaries to be built, but to go in the absolute opposite direction of the Economists who want to restrict their appeal to the masses to 'simple' factory agitation 'easy to understand', insisting that the most enlightened and far-reaching political revolutionary philosophy possible should be put in front of the whole working class. 

"No-one has up to now doubted that the strength of the present day movement lies in the awakening of the masses (principally, the industrial proletariat), and that its weakness lies in the lack of consciousness and initiative among the revolutionary leaders"

he begins.

"A communist ('Social-Democrat'), if he really believes it is necessary to develop comprehensively the political consciousness of the proletariat, must 'go among all classes of the population'...

"Not only are revolutionaries in general lagging behind the spontaneous awakening of the masses, but even working-class revolutionaries are lagging behind the spontaneous awakening of the working-class masses. And this fact most strikingly confirms...not only the absurdity but even the political reactionariness of the 'pedagogics' to which we are so often treated when discussing our duties to our workers...Therefore attention must be devoted principally to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries; it is not at all our task to descend to the level of the 'working masses' as the Economists wish to do, or to the level of the 'average worker' as the Svoboda desires to do (which thus ascends to the second grade of Economist 'pedagogics') .... You gentlemen, who are so much concerned about the 'average worker' as a matter of fact rather insult all workers by your desire to talk down to them when discussing working-class politics and working-class organisation. Talk about serious things in a serious manner; leave pedagogics to the pedagogues...Are there not 'advanced people', 'average people', and 'the mass' among the intelligentsia too?...You must realize that these questions about politics and organisation are so serious in themselves that they cannot be discussed in any other but a very serious way. We can and must educate workers (and university and high-school students) so as to be able to discuss these questions with them; but once you do bring up these questions, you must give real replies to them. Do not fall back on the 'average', or on the 'masses'; do not try to get off by resorting to empty phrasemongering ....

"As the spontaneous rise of the working-class masses becomes wider and deeper, they promote from their ranks not only an increasing number of talented agitators but also talented organizers, propagandists and practical workers in the best sense of the term (of whom there are so few among our intelligentsia who...are somewhat careless and sluggish in their habits). And we are directly to blame for doing too little to 'stimulate' the worker to take this path, common to them and to the 'intellectuals', of professional revolutionary training, and we too frequently drag them back by our silly speeches about what 'can be understood' by the masses of the workers, by the 'average workers', etc. In this, as in other respects, the narrow scope of our organisational work is without doubt directly due to the fact that we restrict our theories and our political tasks to a narrow field. Worship of spontaneity seems to inspire a fear of taking even one step away from what 'can be understood' by the masses, a fear of rising too high above...the very idea that we could rise too high is absurd."

All of this gives a totally different picture to the very misleading interpretation which OP puts to the quotes analysing the different layers of the working class. And their unreferenced claim that Lenin "correctly insisted that the Party paper should cater, not to the needs of the average or lower, but primarily to the needs of the advanced workers" could, without care, be read to give a completely false impression. Let Lenin speak for himself in Where to begin (May 1901):

"We have taken the first step, we have aroused in the working class a passion for 'economic' factory exposures; we must now take the next step, that of arousing in every section of the population that is at all politically conscious, a passion for political exposure. We must not be discouraged by the fact that the voice of political exposure is today so feeble, timid, and infrequent. This is not because of a wholesale submission to police despotism, but because those who are able and ready to make exposure: have no tribune from which to speak, no eager and encouraging audience; they do not see anywhere among the people that force to which it would be worthwhile directing their complaint against the 'omnipotent' Russian Government.

"But today all this is rapidly changing. There is such a force, it is the revolutionary proletariat, which has demonstrated its readiness, not only to listen to and support the summons to political struggle, but boldly to engage in battle. We are now in a position to provide a tribune for the nationwide exposure of the tsarist government, and it is our duty to do this. That tribune must he a Communist ('Social-Democratic') newspaper. The Russian working class, as distinct from the other classes and strata of Russian society, displays a constant interest in political knowledge and manifests a constant and extensive demand for illegal literature. When such a mass demand is evident, when the training of experienced revolutionary leaders has already begun, and when the concentration of the working class makes it virtual master in the working-class districts of the big cities and in the factory settlements and communities, it is quite feasible for the proletariat to found a political newspaper. Through the proletariat, the newspaper will reach the urban petty bourgeoisie, the rural handicraftsmen, and the peasants, thereby becoming a real people's political newspaper. "

"The role of a newspaper, however, is not limited solely to the dissemination of ideas, to political education, and to the enlistment of political allies. A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, it is also a collective organiser.... With the aid of the newspaper, and through it, a permanent organisation will naturally take shape that will engage, not only in local activities, but in regular general work, and will train its members to follow political events carefully, appraise their significance and their effect on the various strata of the population, and develop effective means for the revolutionary party to influence those events, and so on."

Let the "advanced elements of the class" prove their worth (if such it is) in practice, by arguing out all questions in front of the whole class. Only mass class movement, proving a revolutionary programme right or wrong, will finally demonstrate where the most scientific (Marxist-Leninist) understanding of the international class struggle is being developed. The highest point of understanding invariably arises out of conflict within the party leadership itself over what to say and which direction to take over the latest lurch in the imperialist crisis. The NATO-Nazi blitzkrieg was just such a turn. The OP conflict over this, however, - no doubt as learned and penetrating as it was, - was completely wasted as far as the working class was concerned because it all took place behind closed doors.

Every scrap of the EPSR's conflict with some of its supporters about this, on the other hand, has eagerly been turned into as complete a published discussion of every nuance as possible (and the same on every other disputed development in the EPSR's evolving outlook). The differences about how serious it was to go along with the social-pacifism ('No to war') in the 'left' confusion (SLP, etc) and with the Little Englander social-chauvinism of the CPB's 'keep the pound' movement, - split the EPSR but richly fed its attempts at published understanding on these crucial questions. How else can workers start to judge which approach to anti-imperialist politics provides the best understanding. The idea that it is 'sectarian' to test out all understanding openly, in front of the working class, is elitist nonsense, or just an OP cover-up for the fact that it cannot get beyond total confusion on anything that is really worth discussing, - Ireland, Kosovo, or the role of the workers states in 20th century history and beyond, for example. Build Leninism and the EPSR. 

EPSR.