New voices and new views on revolutionary history

Some familiar issues were addressed with originality and new vigour at the Historical Materialism conference in Toronto on May 11–13. Attendance at the three sessions on revolutionary history, organized by Abigail Bakan (Queen’s University), ranged between 30 and 75 of the 400 conference participants.

Three panels on revolutionary history: Historical Materialism–Toronto, May 11–13

Historical Materialism Book Series has just published a complete translation of the proceedings and resolutions of the Communist International’s Fourth World Congress (1922).* To mark the occasion, Historical Materialism’s May 11–13 Toronto conference will feature three panels presenting new ‘translations’ of revolutionary history in the Communist International era.

How revolutionaries of Lenin’s time resisted austerity

Economic collapse drives workers into hunger and destitution. Foreign powers extort huge payments, forcing the national economy toward bankruptcy. The government forces workers to pay the costs of capitalist crisis.

This description of Greece in 2012 applies equally to Germany in 1921.

Two views on Evo Morales and class struggles in Bolivia

An important exchange between two leading analysts of class struggles in Bolivia, Jeff Webber and Federico Fuentes, has appeared in the British journal International Socialism. Webber views the government of Bolivian President Evo Morales as an instrument of neoliberal reaction; Fuentes says this government “has presided over a process of change that has brought many advances.”

Toronto event targets tar sands criminals

The historic confrontation now shaping up over plans by Enbridge Corp. to build a new pipeline across the Canadian Rockies to export dirty tar-sands oil was discussed at a protest meeting in Toronto, February 16. The meeting, attended by almost 100 activists, was organized by Toronto Bolivia Solidarity and Common Frontiers around the theme, “Stop Canada’s Environmental Injustice: Building for the Future.”

Bolivia’s García Linera: ‘Moving beyond capitalism is a universal task’

Introduction by Felipe Stuart Cournoyer: Bolivia’s Vice President Álvaro García Linera brought a message of hope and anti-imperialist commitment to Mexico in the first week of February. Speaking to an overflow assembly of students and university personnel at Mexico City’s UNAM (National Autonomous University), he said that the government led by President Evo Morales welcomes social-movement protests and conflict. The more, the better.

Washington threatens reprisals against Nicaragua’s voters

An interview with Felipe Stuart Cournoyer.

In a fit of petulant anger, the U.S. government lashed out on January 25 against the outcome of Nicaragua’s recent presidential election. To understand the context of the U.S. threats, I talked to Felipe Stuart Cournoyer, a Nicaraguan citizen and member of Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).(1)

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.

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”)

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)