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Breakaway Debates on Moden Marxism Volume 2 Issue 1
This issue was meant to be finished in October. But now it's
finally here...
One of the things that have kept me from finishing the issue
earlier, has been lack of contributions.
Please, send me comments about the material - write your own
articles about any part of Marxism you find of importance. To be
able to continue publishing this zine, I need more people to
write for Breakaway.
Still... Thank you to all of you for being patient with me. I'd
especially like to thank the following four people which have sent me
interesting material and/or contributed to Breakaway:
Dave Hollis, Jack Hill, M. Spellman and Steve Deakin.
I'm also very sorry I've not yet managed to go through my backlog
of e-mail - if any of you sent me e-mail to the address
<vidarh@powertech.no>, and haven't received a reply, it have
probably been lost among all the other messages. I know for a fact
that I have more than 3Mb of mail still waiting for me on that
address...
Luckily I'm getting more time on my hands, so please feel free
to write again to <vidarh@rforum.no> - I promise to answer messages
sent to that address within a week or two...
Vidar Hokstad
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BEGIN BREAKAWAY.004
B R E A K A W A Y
Debates on modern marxism
-+*+-
Volume #2, Issue #1
February 1994
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CONTENTS
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(00) EDITORIAL
(01) column: WHAT'S UP?
Some informal notes on issues we want to tell you about
(02) AGAIN THE MASSES AND THE LEADERS
Article by Rosa Luxembourg, translated by Dave Hollis
(04) column: ANNOUNCEMENTS
Socialist Voice
(07) column: A SEARCHLIGHT ON THE INTERNET
About marxism in the US Army handbook and other stuff...
(06) THE MAN
Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
(07) GENERAL INFORMATION
How and what to submit, how to contact us, etc.
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(00) EDITORIAL
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A new year is upon us. It's been a long time.
Though not an eventless period... Quite the contrary.
Unfortunately - as I've mentioned briefly before - work, computer
science studies, and my political activities off the Internet have
prevented me both from keeping up with my mail, and from finishing
Breakaway #4 earlier.
Thus, this issue is smaller than intende.
Still it contains some quite interesting material.
Times are changing, and we are changing with it. We are
developing; undergoing a metamorphosis that will leave us with a
fundamentally new outlook on the world.
We are in the centre of the changes... We have the theoretical
understanding to discuss, and comprehend what the emperors of
bourgeoisie subcultures have only yet started to grasp.
On your visits in cyberspace, have you ever been to alt.cyberpunk?
Have you felt the tide of anti authoritarianism, peeling the fresh
paint of capitalism, to reveal it the way it really is. Still, the
naivete that flows throughout the system...
...we need not preach about rebellion. Rebellion lies latent in the
human soul. It grows whenever oppression is there to nurture it. What
we need is to provide understanding of who the oppressors are, and how
they can be fought.
Often we are called old fashioned and dogmatic, even orthodox. The
day the wanna be anarchists of alt.cyberpunk, and their likes,
understand the fundamental error of that "logic", capitalism will meet
the proletariat of the next century.
When the middle class rebels find themselves in the same boat as
the poor people they once despised; when they start using their
knowledge of technology, their skills with computers, for fighting the
capitalists, the ideology they today only curse on USENET, the ruling
class should watch out.
It is only a matter of time before these people discover that they
are already living in the kind of world they are reading about in their
favorite books.
That the only real difference, apart from the technical wonders of
the 21th century, is just that in the real world, people won't surrender
to the capitalist imperium - in the real world, capitalist reign isn't
eternal.
Tomorrow, hundreds of new comrades will have discovered, that the
dogmas, the orthodoxy, are so much more a vital characteristic of
capitalism, than it is a characteristics of it's child; it's successor.
The only question that remains, is: Will you welcome them, or will
you, as the stalinists, reject them as opportunists? Will we fight with
them, or against them?
Vidar Hokstad
Editor
=======================================================================
(01) column: WHAT'S UP?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- The mailing list red.talk.misc@rforum.no will be up shortly.
(But the software is beta versions, so some bugs are bound to
be discovered...)
It is intended as a forum for discussion about RED FORUM and
BREAKAWAY. Red Forum members and Breakaway subscribers are
particularly welcome.
To subscribe, send mail to rfic@rforum.no and request
that we put you on the mailing-list.
The list gatewayed bidirectonally to our local "red.talk.misc"
newsgroup. The red.* hierarchy will be extended in the near
future, and will be set up to mirror a lot of leftist lists.
SysAdmins that are interested in carrying this hierarchy as
true newsgroups can contact us at rfic@rforum.no to discuss
it with us.
- Preparations for a Marxism FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) are
being made. However we do not have the time to complete such a
big task ourselves. People that are interested in helping us out
with the task can write to <marxism-faq@rforum.no>, and we'll
mail you a draft of the FAQ for you to comment on.
=======================================================================
(02) AGAIN THE MASSES AND LEADERS
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Translated by Dave Hollis <ln_dho@pki-nbg.philips.de>
The translation and is (C)opyright October 1994 by Dave Hollis
ROSA LUXEMBURG AND MASS ACTION
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Dear Vidar,
This is really the final version of the article - promise! The
following article and the translation is also being published in the
next issue of a magazine called New Interventions, a journal of
Socialist Discussion and Opinion. (Published in England). Permission
to publish the introduction was given by Ken. Further details of the
magazine can be obtained from its editor, Ken Tarbuck. His mail
address is: ktarbuck@gn.apc.org
Socialist Greetings, Dave
Introduction
The translation of the following article, which is being published
here for the first time in English, is one of many articles that Rosa
Luxemburg wrote on and around the question of the 'Agadir incident'.
This incident was sparked off by Germany's attempt to spread her
influence over the whole of Morocco. In view of the possibilities of a
war breaking out on this issue, the French Socialists took this incident
as grounds for wanting an international demonstration for Socialism.
The French requested a meeting through the International Socialist
Bureau of the Social-Democratic organisations of those countries
involved in this incident, France, Spain, the UK and Germany. With the
exception of Germany, all participants were in agreement. A full time
secretary of the SPD party executive, Hermann Molkenbuhr, informed the
International Socialist Bureau, however, that the Germans did not want a
conference "for the time being".
Molkenbuhr considered the Morocco incident to be of no danger. The
interests of the various German Steel companies, Mannesmann on the one
side, and Krupp and Thyssen in a French mining syndicate on the other,
would lead the capitalists to putting on the brakes soon enough.
Furthermore, he considered that taking up the issue would lead to a
diversion from the internal issues and therefore damage the chances of
the SPD in the coming general election.
As was often the case, the rank and file of the SPD was more radical
than the leadership and saw things differently. They took up the
question in the run up to the elections. In Berlin and in the large
cities of Prussia the rank and file held protest meetings against the
sending of the warships, Panther and Berlin, to Agadir.
Rosa Luxemburg, as a member of the International Secretariat, had
received a copy of Molkenbuhr's letter. Obviously very unhappy with its
content, she published it on 24th July 1911 in the newspaper, Leipziger
Volkszeitung, with a withering criticism from herself.
The publication of the letter caused an uproar in the party,
published in the middle of an international crisis and before the party
executive had done anything, it brought the dissatisfaction with the
party executive to the boil. This revelation forced the executive on
9th August to begin the agitation on the Morocco question. It did not,
however, pacify the membership.
At the Jena Conference, the party executive tried to make out of a
'Morocco' affair a 'Luxemburg' affair, accusing her of disloyalty and
indiscretion. This attack backfired. The centrists sided with the
'lefts' around Rosa Luxemburg and the party reform went through. Two
new secretary posts came into being, and the post of co-chairman went to
a prominent left centrist, Hugo Haase, who replaced the deceased Paul
Singer.
The article, however, is not being published for the information it
provides us on the Agadir incident, rather because it gives us a very
interesting insight into Rosa Luxemburg's views on the question of party
organisation and her attitude to what has gone down in the literature as
her views on 'spontaneity'. These views are not only of historical
interest but also for the current debates within the labour movement,
both nationally and internationally.
The article also gives a small insight into the workings of the SPD.
I suspect that it is generally unknown that the SPD was quite a
centralised party. It was no accident, for instance, that the attempts
by the Bolsheviks to export the Bolshevik methods of organisation,
epitomised by the 21 Conditions for entry into the Third International,
met with enormous resistance from those members of the CP who stemmed
from the SPD. Their bad experiences with centralism led to the KPD, for
a few years, being an extremely democratic party. But that is another
story!
In so far as time admits, in the coming months I will try to present
various articles unknown to the English speaking public. Her writings
in German consist of five volumes and her personal letters consist of
six volumes. Not that is all. There is a volume of her writings that
has yet to see the light of day. There is a reference to it in an
international scientific journal. The volume consists of her Polish
writings. Alas, the enquiries I have made as to when it will be
published, indicate that there are currently no plans to do so.
Dave Hollis
AGAIN THE MASSES AND LEADERS
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~ Copyright Translation Dave Hollis, October 1994.
AGAIN THE MASSES AND LEADERS
Leipzig, 29th August
News is coming in from all sides about the meetings and
demonstrations organised by our party against the foreign policy and the
Morocco line. The popular masses are answering our appeal everywhere
with the greatest enthusiasm, and this proves how much we have met the
feelings and mood of the masses by giving them a political expression,
solution and direction. Now only one opinion predominates in the whole
of the party, that a mass action against the Morocco affair and an
energetic agitation in the field of foreign policy was an irrefutable
task of Social-Democracy and an urgent necessity.
And now the question immediately posed by this: Why was this
campaign not begun one or two months ago? The dispatch of the German
gunboat to Agadir, with which Germany officially intervened in the
Morocco affair, took place on the 2nd of July. Already in the first
week of July, the protest of the French and Spanish Socialists was in
full swing. Instead of immediately initiating at that time the
agitation with all one's might, we are bringing up the rear and dragging
ourselves along in the wake of events and are at least one to one and a
half months too late. In this important case our political
quick-wittedness has left a lot to be desired. Why?
One will answer: The party executive has showed an unfortunate lack
of initiative. Its call for action was not published until the 9th of
August and therefore the meetings could first begin in the second half
of August. To be sure, but must the party wait for the official call of
the party executive? If today everyone in the party without exception
sees the necessity for action against the world politics, cannot the
local party organisations do something on their own initiative, like the
Stuttgart comrades have done? [1] It is extraordinarily easy to put the
blame on the party executive, who for their part may really have acted
with a lack of determination and energy. However, a no smaller part of
the blame is to be put on those who always expect all salvation from
above and even in such clear and indubitable cases shy away from a
little self-activity and personal initiative. Of course campaigns of
the party on this scale require uniformity and unity in order to be most
effective, which can be best bro ught about from a centre. In this
respect, especially the example of several old centres of the party
movement, who would rouse all the remaining local organisations, would
certainly not miss their mark. To be sure, also the party executive, as
leading centre, would soon see itself forced to generalise every massive
initiative and good beginning by making itself the mouthpiece and tool
of the will of the party, instead of, as now, the other way round, the
party executive viewing the great and powerful party organisations as
being just an instrument for carrying out the instructions of the party
executive.
It must also be said openly: only when there is a reversal of the
present abnormal relations would life within the party first stand on a
normal footing. It is stated in the Communist Manifesto that the
emancipation of the working class can only be the work of the working
class itself and it understands by the working class not a party
executive of seven or twelve but the enlightened mass of the proletariat
in person. Every step forward in the struggle for emancipation of the
working class must at the same time mean a growing intellectual
independence of its mass, its growing self-activity, self-determination
and initiative. How should the capability of action and political
quick- wittedness of the broad popular masses develop if the vanguard of
these masses, the best and most enlightened sections united in the
Social-Democratic Party organisations, exhibit for their part no
initiative and independence as masses, on the contrary, always be at the
ready until a command is issued from above? Discipline and unity of
action is a vital matter for mass movements like ours.
However, discipline in the Social-Democratic sense differs
fundamentally from the discipline of the bourgeois armed forces. There
it is based on the unthinking and submissive subordination of the bulk
of the soldiers to the command of authority expressing an outside will.
Social-Democratic discipline can only mean the subordination of every
individual to the will and the thought of the great majority. Therefore
Social-Democratic discipline can never mean that eight hundred thousand
organised party members have to bow to the will and regulations of a
central authority of a party executive but the opposite, all central
organs of the party having to carry out the will of the eight hundred
thousand organised social democrats. Important for the normal
development of the political life in the party, a vital matter for the
Social-Democracy, is therefore based on always keeping the political
thought and the will of the mass of the party awake and active, and thus
enabling them in increasing measure to be active. We have, of course,
the yearly party conference as highest instance which regularly fixes
the will of the whole party. However, it is obvious that the party
conferences can only give general outlines of the tactics for the
Social-Democratic struggle. The application of these guidelines in
practice requires a constant, untiring thought, quick-wittedness and
initiative. The decisions of the party conferences obviously do not in
the slightest exhaust the regular tasks of the political struggle, for
life does not stand still, and from one party conference to the other
many things take place in heaven and earth to which the party must
react. To want to make a party executive responsible for the whole
enormous task of daily political vigilance and initiative on whose
command a party organisation of almost a million passively waits, is the
most incorrect thing there is from the standpoint of the proletarian
class struggle. That is without doubt that reprehensible "blind
obedience" which our opportunists definitely want to see in the
self-evident subordination of all to the decisions of the whole party.
One can often hear in our ranks complaints about the bureaucratism
of our highest party authorities that is said to be killing the living
political energy. These complaints are also totally justified. Just
those who express them surely take little account of the fact that to a
large extent the lamented state has its roots in the nature of things.
Every body with daily official office work tends to fall into
bureaucratism and routine. Besides, such high-ranking bodies naturally
have a strongly developed feeling of responsibility that unquestionably
has a strongly paralysing effect on initiative and determination. A
real remedy against this bad state of affairs is only the living
political activity of the entire party. The most ideal party executive
of a party like the social democracy would be the one that would
function as the most obedient, most prompt and most precise tool of the
will of the entire party.
However, the most ideal party executive would be able to achieve
nothing, would involuntarily sink into bureaucratic inefficiency if the
natural source of its energy, the will of the party, does not make
itself felt, if critical thought, the mass of the party's own initiative
is sleeping. In fact it is more than this. If its own energy, the
independent intellectual life of the mass of the party, is not active
enough, then the central authorities have the quite natural tendency to
not only bureaucratically rust but also to get a totally wrong idea of
their own official authority and position of power with respect to the
party. The most recent so-called "secret decree" of our party executive
to the party editorial staffs [2] can serve as fresh proof, an attempt
to make decisions for the party press, which cannot be sharply enough
rejected. However, also here it is necessary to make clear: Against
both inefficiency and excessive illusions of power of the central
authorities of the labour movement there is no other way except one's
own initiative, one's own thought, and the own fresh pulsating political
life of the broad mass of the party.
The questions touched upon here are of more than academic interest
in the current situation. It has been recognised from different sides
in the party that the current state of the party executive needs to be
improved, an extension and renewal of our highest party authorities is
seen to be necessary. Recently our Elberfeld organ also wrote like that
on the occasion of the Morocco debate:
"At least one must agree with the 'Leipziger Volkszeitung' that the
party executive should have taken the initiative for a campaign.
"Well, we are also quite convinced after a closer examination of the
matter that the sin of the party executive of failing to do something
must be judged more mildly. The administrative machinery of the party
has become so extensive that the number of members of the party
leadership is no longer enough to fulfil all the requirements that are
to be made on it as seems necessary. The gap left by Comrade Singer has
not been filled; if we add to this the case that a member of the party
executive or even two may well be outside of Berlin for the carrying out
of party business or for agitation, a further member were to be ill, a
fourth and fifth were on holiday - certainly nobody would want to deny
the very busy members of the party executive that - it cannot fail to
happen that a small minority has to decide on sudden appearing,
important questions and that these questions would have sometimes have
been dealt with differently if the whole of the executive had got
together. The contradiction is also certainly to be explained by this
dilemma that the letter of the party executive [3] is described by the
party office as being the private opinion of the letter writer while it
was naturally received outside as a letter of the party executive. The
Jena party conference will have to decide a strengthening of the party
executive. A motion has already been put on this matter by two
constituencies - Tetlow-Beeskow and Berlin I. "
The view expressed here of the necessity of strengthening the party
executive is perfectly correct and the party conference must not be
allowed to shirk from its important task in this field. If our party
pacifies itself with the strengthening of the party executive and again
passively expects all salvation from the "new men", as for example it
passively waited one and a half months for the conductor's baton of the
party executive for the unfolding of the protest action against the
Morocco affair, it would merely mean wanting to come up with purely
bureaucratic means against the evil of bureaucratism. No party
executive in the world can replace the mass of the party's own energy,
and an organisation of a million which, at a great time and in the face
of great tasks, would want to complain that it did not have the right
leaders would prove its own shortcomings, because it would prove it has
not understood the historical essence itself of the proletarian class
struggle that consists in the proletarian masses not needing "leaders"
in a bourgeois sense, that they are themselves leaders.
Leipziger Volkszeitung No. 199, 29th August 1911
----
[1] On 15th July 1911, a protest gathering took place in Stuttgart at
which Karl Liebknecht was the mover of a resolution against German
imperialism's Morocco policies, which was unanimously adopted.
[2] On 8th August 1911 the SPD party executive wrote a confidential
circular to the editorial boards of the party press to try to stop
them publishing criticisms of the leading trade union bodies and
articles on differences in the book printers' union that had been
caused by anti-worker decisions of their executive. The party
membership found out about the circular through a bourgeois paper in
Saxony into whose hands the circular had fallen. The contents of the
circular led to a considerable amount of displeasure in the party over
the actions of the party executive.
[3] Molkenbuhr's letter is meant here.
Taken from the text, Rosa Luxemburg, Gesammelte Werke, Vol.3 Dietz,
Berlin 1973, 4th edition.
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(04) ANNOUNCEMENTS
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A while ago I received this annoucement... I'm sure a newer issue
should be out by now..
Ed.
----
SOCIALIST VOICE
To receive the SV by email send email to SMacSuibhne@Dit.Ie
=======================================================================
SOCIALIST VOICE Guth an Lucht Oibre
October 14th 1994 Vol. 4. No. 18 Price 20p.
=======================================================================
Published by
Connolly Books,
43 East Essex Street,
Dublin 2.
For further information, contact Eugene McCartan
at the above address.
Telephone: Dublin (01) 6711 943.
'----------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS:
AFTER THE LOYALIST CEASEFIRE - A Progressive Agenda
AN INVITATION TO READERS
EAGARFHOCAL - EDITORIAL
FIGHT FOR JOBS NOT SINECURES
'----------------------------------------------------------------------
=======================================================================
(05) A SEARCHLIGHT ON THE INTERNET
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During a few massive searches of World Wide Web, using the LYCOS system
at Carnegie Mellon, I found a lot of interesting pieces of information.
Here's a few of them:
* MARX: The movie
gopher://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:70/00/pubs/pmc/
issue.990/kipnis.990
A movie manuscript. I haven't had the time to read it through,
but the parts I've read at least seems interesting.
* SPUNK press
http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Jack.Jansen/spunk/Catalog.html
This server contains mostly anarchist material, but there's
*LOTS* of information, and parts of it should certainly be
of interest to socialists and communists as well. Worth a
look! The poem by Shelley in this issue was found here.
* CHAPTER 11.06: MARXISM-LENINISM-MAO ZEDONG THOUGHT RE-THOUGHT
gopher://umslvma.umsl.edu:70/00/LIBRARY/GOVDOCS/ARMYAHBS/AAHB9
/AAH90084
This document is a section from the US Army Area Handbook for
Asia. I've mentioned it here mostly as an interesting source of
information about how the enemy perceive Marxism.
* Russian and East European Network Information Center /
Soviet Archives Exhibit
http://sunsite.unc.edu/expo/soviet.exhibit/entrance.html
http://reenic.utexas.edu/reenic.html
Whether we like it or not, the socalled socialist regimes in
East Europe and the USSR will for years to come be associated
with the revolutionary movement.
Much of the material on these two servers are hostile to socialism,
but they provide interesting material in the form of replicas of
authentic archive material, and information about the current
development and history of the former stalinist regimes.
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(06) THE MAN
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Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys:
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches, and obedience
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame,
A mechanized automaton.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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(07) GENERAL INFORMATION
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Breakaway will be published as often as we have enough material.
"Enough" is at present about 40kb of text, but this might increase
if we get enough submissions. Under any circumstances we'll try to
limit ourselves to 40kb until we reach one issue every two weeks.
(Probably won't happen in your lifetime ;-)
The format is, as you can see, pure 7-bit ASCII.
Do you:
- want to subscribe?
- have an idea?
- have a question?
- want to submit, and want to know how?
Just send us a message, preferably by e-mail, and we'll send you
appropriate information as soon as possible. To ensure that we can
reply, please include your e-mail address in the body of the message.
SOME BRIEF NOTES ON SUBMISSIONS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* BREAKAWAY will accept articles from people belonging to all trends
or ideologies related to marxism, or from people who are simply
interested in marxist theory or practice.
* You should limit yourself to articles between 100 and 300 lines if
possible (shorter pieces will naturally also be accepted). If you
find that difficult, try to divide your article into shorter
sections suitable for publishing over two to four issues.
* We will publish most articles or news reports we receive concerning
marxist ideology, the actions of marxist organisations, or
information of importance to the average revolutionary. Also
fiction might be accepted (contact us for more info)
* We accept anonymous submissions. However, if you choose to do so,
we would prefer if you give us a pseudonym to use as your
signature.
How to contact Red Forum / Internationalists Committee:
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Editor : Vidar Hokstad <vidarh@rforum.no>
Contributions : Breakaway <breakaway@rforum.no>
Red Forum : RFIC <rfic@rforum.no>
Snailmail : Soerumsg. 63, N-2000 Lillestroem, NORWAY
Tel. : +47 638 170 35 (5pm to 9pm GMT)
=======================================================================
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
=======================================================================
END BREAKAWAY.004
