Greetings,
Regarding the recent exchange on litmus tests:
https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/
https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/
I have to agree with comrade Abner Dalrymple’s position on the matter.
I agree with that position precisely because I disagree with comrade Medway Baker’s evaluation of Austrian Social Democracy:
https://cosmonaut.blog/2020/06
Outside actual revolutionary periods for the working class, German Independent Social Democracy (USPD) and perhaps even Austrian Social Democracy should be the model of left unity.
Historically speaking, the workers movement consisted of five tendencies. It did not consist of three tendencies, as put forward by CPGB comrade Mike Macnair in his Revolutionary Strategy.
[Actually, this following identification comes from an earlier article of his.]
The five tendencies are, from right to left:
1) Right syndicalism – Friedrich Ebert, “tred-iunionizm,” going all the way down union bureaucracies after WWII
2) Pacifist socialism – Eduard Bernstein and especially Jean Jaures (while they all endorsed the reform coalitionist strategy, they all opposed war when the chips fell down)
3) Orthodox Marxist center – Bebel, Kautsky, and Old Bolshevism
4) “Hegelian Marxist” left – Luxemburg
5) Left syndicalism – Bakunin and Sorel
WWI showed once and for all that broad left unity cannot be achieved with #1. The majority of socially conservative workers would belong to #1 if they become more unionized.
While the pre-WWI SPD united the first four tendencies, the USPD united only #2, #3, and #4.
The model for left unity today is one that unites as much of all four left-most tendencies as possible: #2, #3, #4, and #5.
The model for left unity today is one that unites the likes of the avuncular pacifist socialist Oskar Lafontaine with the likes of the knowledgeable class-struggle anarchist Wayne Price.
Comradely,
Jacob
