Occupying an impasse: learning from mistakes?

January 26, 2012

All great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice… first as tragedy, then as farce.

-Karl Marx, 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

October 15th has a double significance in this country, as both the day of the 2007 invasion of the Ureweras, and the day the global ‘Occupy’ movement arrived here in 2011. On October 15th 2011 thousands were mobilised across the country; turnout in Auckland was particularly impressive, while the hundreds who showed up in other centres were largely new to ‘the usual suspects’ (such as myself.) Smaller occupations cropped up in New Plymouth, Marton, Invercargill and elsewhere, showing the resonance of this new political language.

Numbers have fluctuated since. Commentary by Socialist Aotearoa accuses the left of ‘vacillating,’ however the reality is that occupiers have vacillated in general; while Occupy Auckland mobilised thousands on its first day, its current battle with attempted eviction involves a relative hard core. We have to learn from this downward trajectory: what happened and why? Read the rest of this entry »

13 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Ian Anderson

21st Century Stalinism and Anti-Stalinism

January 26, 2012

“Anti-Stalinism, by itself, is no program for common struggle. It is too broad a term, and it means different things to different people.”

-James P Cannon, American Stalinism and Anti-Stalinism

Recent shifts in our organisation are renewing historical questions. At Workers Power 2011, comrades from the International Socialist Organisation and Socialist Aotearoa noted that our organisation was revising its position on tino rangitaratanga, and advocated we also revise our position (or more accurately come to a position) on “Stalinism.” Over the last year Mike Kay has contributed Discussion Bulletins on the subject, noting continued disorientation in the wake of Stalinism. His latest IDB argues, “In 2012 we must begin the discussion on Stalinism in earnest. We also need to address why it is that comrades have not been forthcoming with substantial written replies to the IDBs tabled so far.”

In this spirit I take up the discussion of Stalinism.

Read the rest of this entry »

10 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Ian Anderson

The Fighting Propaganda Group

January 26, 2012
Continuation of our discussion about communist organisation (On The Party Question and Demoralisation or Disorientation?)

Only he [sic] who can keep his heart strong and his will as sharp as a sword when the general disillusionment is at its worst can be regarded as a fighter for the working class or called a revolutionary.

Gramsci, Avanti, Piedmont edition, 24 September 1920

 At the last Retreat, I raised the concept of the fighting (or “combat”) propaganda group as an appropriate model for the WP in current conditions. Whilst the idea seemed to meet with general approval, I haven’t had the chance to expand on it until now.

The WP now, and for the foreseeable future, needs to be a “fighting propaganda group”: an organisation whose chief concern is propaganda, but which conducts its propaganda while always immersing itself in and responding to the class struggle, and while always seizing every real opening for genuine agitation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Ian Anderson

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 29 other followers