Click on the headline to link to a "Lenin Internet Archive" online copy of his 1920 classic statement of revolutionary tactics, "Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder-"Left-Wing" Communism In Great Britain"
Markin comment:
For radicals and revolutionaries in America come election time it is, or should be, a no-brainer to call for a NO vote to all the pro-capitalist parties, big or small, donkeys, elephants or greens. Occasionally, at least this has been the case in the span of my political lifetime; we can support one or another socialist or communist candidate depending on their programs. However, for the most part, lacking even a reformist workers party to campaign for, we use the heightened political atmosphere that elections bring to get out our propaganda messages. On such themes as the need to for labor to break from the capitalist parties, in particular its long alliance with the American Democratic Party, the need to build an independent working class party with a class struggle program and the need to deal with questions of special oppression for women, blacks and others.
The tasks for radicals and revolutionaries in the United Kingdom (UK) are slightly different. (I am under the sway of the BBC in this usage as it is their preferred form, and it further recognizes something that should be painful to every revolutionary-that Great Britain is still a monarchy). There, for the past century or so, the working class has had its own party, at least in a formal sense. So the question of whether to support or not support this reformist formation is an open and lively political question. As this entry’s headline indicates there should be no question that New Labor should not be supported by a vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections. After over a decade of hard, bitter, austere administration of the capitalist state against the short and ling term interests of the working class this should be a “no-brainer” as well. The only question then would be support, if any, to the myriad ostensibly socialist organizations that populate the left of the Labor Party, inside or out.
I say that No vote position should be a “no-brainer” but I am beginning to see and hear rumblings from the UK, now that the three-way race seems to be a donnybrook, that those to the left of Labor should give some kind of “critical support” to Labor- the “poodle” party to the Bush/Obama imperial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan…and who knows where tomorrow. And, of course, those who wish to do so will trot out Lenin, the Lenin of “Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder”, to argue that New Labor should be supported “like a rope supports a hanging man”, but supported nevertheless. As the linked article above by Lenin demonstrates Arthur Henderson, and his cohorts, seem almost to be bloody "Bolsheviks" by comparison with today's crop of "labor leaders".
Now critical support to reformist parties, of which Old Labor in the UK was a sterling example, can be an important tactic. Old Labor, however, was at least solidly based on the trade unions and was a class party. An argument could easily be made that Old Labor would not have existed without the support, financial or otherwise, from the trade unions. New Labor is increasingly, and consciously, breaking from that path and modeling itself on the American Democratic Party. But, although at some point, the question of being able to support New Labor at all, as a matter of principle, may come up that is not the case today, nor is it the main criterion for calling for a No vote. Critical support is a tactic that revolutionaries use, including old comrades Lenin and Trotsky, to point out the contradictions between the working class base and the actions of the leadership in cases where revolutionaries are not powerful and authoritative enough to lead the working class. Where can one point to any contradiction in New Labor that revolutionaries could use to draw the lessons for the working class base. To pose the question is to give the answer in this case. No Vote To New Labor!
Note: I had a certain amount of sport bringing up the United Kingdom (UK) designation. However there is a point to be made here. The minimum, minimum, minimum program that revolutionaries should thing about on the question of critical support is actually a democratic program from the 17th century, Cromwell’s program. Abolish the monarchy! Abolish the House of Lords! Abolish the state church! Doesn’t Socialist Republics of the British Isles, although a little bulky to say and write, read and sound better than UK? Ya, I thought so.
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