The ISO and other Communist Cults

[Odin]

I would pay, but its not like I'm gonna ask my mom for membership in the Communist party, she would kill me.

[Bosh]

I'm soooooooo happy none of these groups have really sunk their claws into Wesleyan. We get people selling Workers' Vanguards outside the Campus Center every once in a while and we have a pretty harmless Young Communist League that was formed last semester and probably won't last long. All of our activist organizations are issue-based instead of ideology-based (I've almost never heard any discussions of ideology in all my time as an activist) and formed on a kind of watered-down Anarchist blueprint that usually works relatively well (except for the peace group which is really big and is more "progressive" than either commie or anarchistish). This way our build-up to a good campaign takes longer than with a centralized group but being cult-free has its benefits...

[DuncanK]

My mother would go straight down to party HQ and get all the numbers of all their mothers and call them


joking

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DuncanK
Christ, why do you have to pay? That seems ridiculous to me. Only a cult would make you do that.

Running an organization takes money. Internal documents have to be printed for every member, papers have to be printed, journals, comrades who travel on party business need subsidizing, etc. Every organization on the left has dues, even the SP.

Boshko, Workers Vanguard is the paper of the Sparticist League. I highly recommend it, it's very good politics, if you ignore the sectarian diatribes against other organizations (generally the ISO--for some reason those two groups have an especial hatred for each other--the ISO even busted a Spart comrade's leg, which caused him to lose his job).

Spiffor, The Spark is the American branch of Lutte Ouvrière. I would actually recommend joining this organization, despite it being a cult. Of all the groups on the left, they give their comrades the most thorough eduations. You have to read about a book a week. Not party pamphlets either, but the original texts, Marx, Engels, Lissagaray, Plekhanov, even stuff by anarchists like Guerin and Victor Serge. They also demand a high level of culture of their comrades, and so you get serious cultural education too: Shakespear, Balzac, museums, etc. After you're in for about a year or so, you'll be more educated than any other comrade outside their organization, so you can quite and have your life back. No smoking, no drugs, no children, no marriage, etc. Yeah right.

Odin, join the SP. Our dues are like $5 a year for unemployed/student types.

[Stefu]

WTF reason is there for these organizations not to be cults? Consider: Since they have almost negative chances of *any* kind of success, there's no particular reason why a leadership-kinda, go-getting person would try to establish them or rise to their leadership, other than him being of the particular variety that enjoys playing with people's lives on a personal level, ie. a cult leader-type.

Of course, there might also be something ironically disunifying in communism. From what I've read, Finnish Communist party spent goodish part of it's post-WW2 life in a weasel struggle between Stalinist ('Taistoist', named after it's leader Taisto Sinisalo) and Eurocommunist factions of the party, and, in the late eighties, imploded completely. And they *did* have a chance to succeed.

[axi]

Down with sectarianism!

Now let's see what we have in Greece:

Communist Party (KKE): The actual party founded in 1924, that went through the civil war and all. It is more stalinist than its european counterpart. It has about 5-6%. It is anti-imperialist, but it is rather reformist.

Coalition of the Left and Progress (SYN) 2,5-3%: A coalition of pinko-comie and eurocommunist forces, steeming from the historical KKE-Esoterikou (CP-Interior) which had split from KKE in 1956 following the local leadership of the partry, while the official leadership of the KKE was in the Soviet Union. They merged with the in 1989-1993 and in that period they both shamelessly patrained in a coalition government with the right. SYN is now internally split in three fractions: one that wants to join PASOK (the govt social-democrat party), one that's toying with some sattelite leftist organisations and participates in the atiglobal movement and one centrist which expresses the official view of the party.

Communist Party - Marxist - Leninist (KKE-M-L): Historical party which once had a big following but now is down to about 0,1-0,15% (10.000 votes). They spilt from the KKE ages ago over Stalin. Cooperated with NAR in the 1996 elections. They are obessed with imperialism and the US hegemony (they beleive that we are still practically a protectorate, so they de-emphasise the actions of the national capitalists).

Marxist - Leninist Communist Party (M-L-KKE): They are a split from the former party, which happened ages ago. They have the same anti-imperialist thing, but these are much fewer and much more sectarian. They merged with Asynecheia, a like political group and they recently decided to call themselves Communist Organisation of Greece (KOE). They get about 2000 votes.

Socialist Workers Party (SEK): It is virtually the same with the SWP of England. Long ago they were named Organisation for the Socialist Unity (OSE) that urged it's members to join PASOK to try to bring it to the left. They are the worst sectarians out there. They were the first to organise a convoy for Genova in 2001 and since then they are calling themselves the "Genova 2001 initiative" even though we're in 2003 now.

Internationalist Worker's Left (DEA): They split from SEK last year, I don't know why. They are their worst enemies right now. it looks like this is the left half of the original organisation and at least they cooperate with the others.

Radical Left Front (MERA): A frontal scheme including ,apart from local initiatives, the following parties:
New Left Current (NAR): Revolutionary communist, they were once the youth organisation of the KKE that split from the KKE in 1989 when it joined the coalition with the right. Although it split with about 50.000 people and one europarliament representative at that time, it was unable to hold them in its ranks and gets now about 8.000 votes (though it has more members than the other small parties). It has develloped it's own theory about "totalitarian capitalism" which comes near to the old theory about global capitalism that was the main point of disagreement between Lenin and Luxembourg. It comes very close to the Lutte Ouvriere of France.
Revolutionary Communist Party (EKKE): The main traditional trotskyist party, which had once many thousands of members and in 1974 had got 1,5%. All these people are now high-ranking members in PASOK and EKKE is a small but decent entity.
Revolutionary Worker's Party (EEK): A smaller trotskyist party, which is nevertheless more active than EKKE recently. It ows much to Savvas Michail, who is one of the best marxist theoreticians we have.

Civil and social Rights Network (Diktyo): This org actually begun to do exactly what it's name implies, but it has obtained an independent political outlook. It is currently flirting with the left section of SYN and they have created together the Greek Social Forum (similar to that on Italy). Diktyo make 2 big contributions to the movement right now: it is helping the immigrants and it is defending the people that got arrested for terrorism (participation in 17N and ELA) along with the Coalition against State Terrorism, which consists of anarchists. Many left lawyers belong to Diktyo

Also a few other obscure organisations:
Xekinima (trotskyist)
OAKKE (russophobic loonies)
AKEP (socialist revolutionary loonies)

I must now mention that inside the universities there is a frontal organisation which i'm a proud member of, supported by the forces of MERA and also 3 smaller organisations and independants (like myself). It is called United Independent Left Movement (EAAK) and has stood very well up against the parliamentary parties, having 7% in the student elections, whereas KKE's student org, PKS gets 12% and SYN's DARAS gets 1,5% and being behing virtually every student movement for the past 10 years.

The 3 smaller organisations I mentioned are ARAS, ASYS and AKP, all stemming from a 1978 split from KKE Esoterikou, called Aristeres Syspeiroseis, which was the basis of most independent left student groups in the 80's. They are very well studied people: they dislike Trotsky's "economism" and are highly influenced by Gramsci and Althusser. Inside EAAK, they are the right wing (specially ARAS who are sectarian and were about to split), while the MERA people are the lef wing (not in all issues of course).

Even though EAAK is a big experiment for a united "leninist" (as per chegitz) organisation, which has survived and is slowly getting exported in other social domains outside the university, it is suffering exactly because of this sectarianism that it tries to replace. it's other major problem is that it's highly decentralised (it's a network of autonomous cells) and it has no constitutive chart, which tends to get work disorganised and dependent on the organisational backbones of the participating organisations (meaning that independent can easily be swept aside).

[Imran Siddiqui]

People's Front of Judea vs. the Judean People's Front!

Monty Python is so on the money sometimes.

--

My former roommate was an independant communist. He was just sick of all the infighting. That's what all the sectarian fighting does in the end, alienates their members.

[DuncanK]

aki,

God damn, that's a lot to sects! How the hell do you guys manage to remember all the ways you disagree with each other?

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
People's Front of Judea vs. the Judean People's Front!

Monty Python is so on the money sometimes.

Yeah, that bits funny. I think there is like 15 sects in that bit with similar names.

[Bosh]

Boshko, Workers Vanguard is the paper of the Sparticist League. I highly recommend it, it's very good politics, if you ignore the sectarian diatribes against other organizations

Bought it once, didn't much care for it though. Although its better than such utter crap as MIM Notes (Maoist International Movement). I'll stick to my Z Magazine

Since they have almost negative chances of *any* kind of success

Well some are pretty useful at jump-starting movements, for example the commies and their front organizations have done some good work getting the US peace movement going. The trick is getting the movement out of their little red hands as quickly as possible

[DuncanK]

They help people whenever other groups don't want the political liability too. Like that scotsburo 9, right?

[Imran Siddiqui]

When you believe your minor differences are more important that your collective similarities, you will never win.

As Ronald Reagan () said: "Those that agree with us 80% of the time are not our enemies".

[Shi Huangdi]

Don't remember who said it, but such a schism over an ism that is an anachronism....

[Ozz]

ISO is about getting Americans to write their dates right.

Year/month/Day, not Month/day/Year

Programmers of the world unite!!!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
People's Front of Judea vs. the Judean People's Front!

Monty Python is so on the money sometimes.

Some of Montey Python used to hang around some Trotskyists, so that's where that bit came from.