Greens and Revolutionary Socialists: What Relationship Should There Be?

There has been a lot of talk about Green parties among members of the socialist left recently, particularly since there are several major Green campaigns that socialists in general, and revolutionary socialists in particular are trying to orient themselves around. In the US this is represented in socialist attitudes toward the Nader and McKinney campaigns, and in the UK, Siân Berry's campaign for mayor of London is attracting attention since there are strong arguments that she is indeed a socialist. As a result of these fairly strong and potentially promising campaigns, the question of whether revolutionary socialists should support Green candidates or not. This is by no means an easy question, as Green politics can waver over a large political/ideological spectrum, but I hopefully intend to tackle some of the debates over supporting Green candidates and Green Parties, and contribute my own thoughts to the conversation.


When looking at the situation around the London mayoral election, it presents some more interesting questions than elections in the US for two reasons. First, the election isn't entirely first past the post/winner take all, and does take voters second preference choice into account. While it's by no means perfect, it is certainly not a bad step for electoral democracy. Second, the Green candidate in this election, Siân Berry, is actually a socialist. She is a noted supporter of the Green Left tendency within the GPEW, which advocates for a unified anti-capitalist movement in and around the Green Party. While I personally believe that, in the long run, such a movement will probably have to leave the Green Party to maintain its political cohesion and socialist platform, the fact that there is a vocal and active socialist tendency within the Green Party of England and Wales makes for a good argument to support Green candidates affiliated with that tendency. However, the fact that Lindsey German, who is a revolutionary socialist, is also standing in the London mayoral election should make the choice somewhat easier, at least from my perspective. While there is no love lost between me and the Socialist Workers Party, and to some extent the IST in general, I feel that it should be a point of political principle for revolutionary socialists to vote for revolutionary socialist candidates wherever possible. Ideally, if the London mayoral elections used an instant runoff ballot rather than a supplementary ballot, it would not be unreasonable to call for a vote for Lindsey German first, Siân Berry second, and Ken Livingstone third, but unfortunately this is not the case.

The Green Party in the United States is somewhat of a different case. While the Green movement in the US was originally rather left wing and even Marxist influenced (a la the tradition of the Die Grüne in Germany), it seems like history and political manoeuvring have not been kind to the left-wing and socialist tendencies within American Green movement. In short, there were originally two different organisations battling for the name "Green Party." The first, known as the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA) was considered to be more left-wing, with ideological roots in the social ecology, deep ecology, and eco-socialist movements. Not exactly your traditional left-wingers, but with a definite socialist undercurrent. In addition, the G/GPUSA was the carrier of the idea of the "anti-party party" that was originally formulated for the Green Committees of Correspondence, forerunner to the entire Green movement in the US. The second group, the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP), was a more moderate grouping and more focused on electoral action. The ASGP was formed out of the 1996 presidential election and the first Green presidential campaign (where they ran Ralph Nader for the first time), and a strange relationship of cooperation and competition between the two Green organisations resulted in the victory of the ASGP (which changed its name to the Green Party US in 2001), and the eventual decline of the G/GPUSA. Technically, the G/GPUSA still exists today, though it has no status as an official political party, and seems to function primarily as a left grouping within the Green Party. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be a particularly well known organisation in the Greens or out, so doesn't seem to serve as an organised left tendency within the Green Party today.

Nevertheless, there are still many people in the Green Party that would consider themselves socialists of some sort. I'd imagine that many of them are unaffiliated to any larger socialist organisation, though there are a few socialist organisations that undertake active work within the Green Party. In particular, Solidarity, the International Socialist Organization, and Socialist Alternative either do work within the Greens or have at some point in the recent past.

Solidarity's perspective on the Green Party I feel I have the most familiarity with, as I am a member of Solidarity and have heard some of their members speak on the issue. My understanding of their perspective on the Green Party is that Solidarity is involved with the GPUS because the Green Party is currently the largest and most organised option for left-wing independent political action in the US, and when large groups of progressives break from the Democratic Party, the Green Party is the logical choice for them to go to. As such, Solidarity should take part in and help build the Green Party as a means of challenging the Democrats from the left in the broadest possible way. In short, the argument sounds like a call to build a broad left party. From some perspective, that sounds great; even a reformist broad left party that can seriously engage in social movements and contest elections would be a good step forward in the context of the US political system. However, with this fairly modest goal, the Green Party (and Solidarity's strategy regarding the Greens) falls somewhat short. First, the Green Party does not have a particularly working class perspective; rather, its programme is broadly populist. While its platform has admirable focuses against war, in favour of progressive economic programmes, and for environmental protection, a lot of the rhetoric used by the Green Party seems to be focused on people as individuals, regardless of their class. This attracts many people such as "eco-capitalists;" people with a good environmental perspective, but still either accept the current social order as a necessary thing, or wholeheartedly embrace it with occasional exceptions. This is probably due in part to the fairly weak connection that the Green Party on the whole has to many organise social struggles in the US, and there is at least some sign that the Cynthia McKinney campaign and related efforts might help change that, though I for one am not holding my breath. Second, and this point ties into the first to some degree, the Green Party is somewhat inconsistent when it comes to its independent political action. Even in 2000, at the apparent height of the Green Party's influence and media attention, Ralph Nader said that his campaign, and by some extension, other Green campaigns, were primarily in order to put pressure on the Democrats to try and push them to the left. Not exactly putting forth the best effort to build an independent challenge to the Democratic Party. Third, and this is a problem with Solidarity's apparent strategy, there seems to be no discussion about what to do after the Greens. Specifically, if/when the Green Party does end up capitulating to the Democrats in some fashion (either by politically folding or entering into some major coalition), where do socialists and advocates for independent political action go from there? While such an event might not be in the near future for the Green Party, it is definitely something that Solidarity, and other socialists in the Green Party should be seriously considering and making some rough plans for, so that they won't be caught unprepared when it finally does happen. As a side note, I find it kind of odd that Solidarity doesn't take this "one or two steps ahead" approach, as I see such an approach consistent with the idea of the transitional method, one of the best things that Trotskyism has brought to the table in terms of socialist theory. Solidarity at least has its roots in the Trotskyist tradition (a couple different ones even!), so one would think that they would take the transitional method to heart and at least try to use it effectively in their political work. Then again, Solidarity has, in the words of a comrade of mine, "throw the baby out with the bath water" in terms of Leninist organisation theory, so perhaps there is some connection between that and the apparent non-use of the transitional method in their politics.

I have less experience with the ISO's and Socialist Alternative's individual perspectives on the Green Party, so I'm not as qualified to comment on them. However, from what I have read from each organisation on the Green Party, I feel I agree with Socialist Alternative's stance more than the ISO's (or Solidarity's, for that matter.) Socialist Alternative does admit the limitations of the Greens (their left-populist politics and weak class base, dangerous liasons with the Democrats, etc), and calls for a new party with an explicit working class base, with "left Greens" as a main component of said new party. While some of this rhetoric might just be parroting that of their English and Welsh counterpart (mass workers party and so on), it's certainly a welcome idea, and one that I would certainly like to take part in building. However, SocAlt is apparently relying on the Nader campaign to try and get a new party off the ground, saying in an article on the subject that they "urge Nader and Gonzalez to use their campaign to popularise this idea [of a broad left third party]." While the argument is indeed admirable, based on Nader's behaviour towards the Greens in 2000 and 2004, I do not see him as willing to build any type of broad left party. Now, that same article by Socialist Alternative admits they acknowledge this problem too, but they seem to treat is as due to "mistakes" by the Nader campaign as opposed to Nader's political opportunism and fundamental unwillingness to build a new party. So I suspect that Socialist Alternative will be let down yet again after the 2008 elections, though I would love to be proven wrong.

Nevertheless, the argument for a broad left party with a basic anti-capitalist platform is not something that Socialist Alternative should give up if Nader fails yet again to deliver, and it is also something that the rest of the socialist left (whether they're in the Greens or not) should argue for and help build. At the same time though, there is still need to lay the groundwork for a future revolutionary socialist party, though I believe that working through a broad left party (in a democratic, non-sectarian manner!) will be one of the best ways to achieve that. Touching back to the transitional method, we should use that idea of connecting everyday social struggles, major reforms, and the eventual revolutionary transformation of society together in order to build support for both types of organisations.




On a completely different note, this is the best metal version of a disco-ish song ever.

Leninism Against Leninists, Trotskyism Against Trotskyists (Democracy Against democrats?)

or, Why I Choose to Work in “Centrist” Organisations

A couple weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to a few socialist listservs I'm a member of as an attempt to explain my opinions on possibilities for regroupment. I got some positive responses from a couple people (which I should respond to), so at least my post got some people thinking, which is what I intended.

There was, however, one response I received from a resident orthodox Trotskyist on the e-mail list. In his response, the writer expressed concern over my apparent willingness to work with “centrist” organisations instead of working with any of the more explicitly revolutionary socialist groups that exist in the US. He also delivered some criticism of what I mentioned as some individual organisations' strengths, such as Solidarity's union work, the Socialist Party's running of candidates, and the Scottish Socialist Party's open platform policy (which, despite some re-working that will probably need to be done after the Tommy Sheridan fiasco, still is a great idea in my opinion.) Now, I thought the writer made some good points about how even if an organisation tends to focus more on a particular issue than others, that doesn't necessarily make its position on said issue a good one. I will concede that point. And I do understand the writer's argument of how nearly all of the groups I mentioned are in some way “centrist,” but I feel the need to defend and explain why I am in centrist organisations, and why I think working within such groups is, at the moment, actually better than joining a “r-r-revolutionary” (for lack of a better term) organisation.

Now, in the Marxist/Trotskyist parlance, calling a party or organisation “centrist” implies that they tend to waver between revolutionary and reformist positions. Historically, organisations that have been called centrist were groups like the Independent Labour Party in 1930s-1950s Great Britain, which, while did not put off the idea of socialist revolution merely for “holiday speeches,” nevertheless acted in a reformist manner in the meantime. The writer also mentioned that lack of democratic structure and discipline within organisations also made them centrist. Given this definition, it actually makes some sense to consider the organisations I mentioned centrist. Within the Socialist Party (the organisation I work with the most) there is a definite split between revolutionary socialists and reformists/social democrats. There are also problems with our internal structure; in my opinion there's a lack of accountability between the locals and the national office, going both up and down the line. Part of this problem is the SP's apparent phobia of anything having remotely to do with “Leninism” or “democratic centralism.” In some sense, this is definitely an understandable fear, given the track record of many organisations that have claimed to use “democratic centralist” principles, and, if my history is correct, the fact that the Spartacist League has tried to take over the Socialist Party at least once (definitely in the 1970s, and perhaps once in the 1990s as well.)

However, it is important to note that, for democracy to actually be an effective form of organisation, some degree of centralism is inherently necessary. It is absolutely essential to arrive at decisions through the most open and democratic means possible, but once those decisions are reached, there needs to be a commitment by members to do their best to carry out those decisions, even if they may not have agreed with the decision. In the realm of electoral politics, candidates running under the banner of a particular party should be held to upholding the platform and principles of that party, as they are a public representative for that party in the campaign, and in the halls of government, assuming they get elected (a rather small chance in the US, but you never know.) In any event, this combination of internal democracy and outward unity is essential for an organisation to build itself and become a power political force. As fellow blogger Korakious wrote: “democracy has no meaning without a degree of centralism; democracy - binding decisions = discussion. The minority should accept the sovereignty of the majority, without this meaning that the minority should be disrespected and/or marginalized.” In other words, it's best to operate on a system of “majority rule, minority rights,” so that the minority is not expelled or compelled to split from the organisation just because of its minority views. I would add on to this the idea that, after a period of action directed by the policy that's been voted on by the membership at whatever appropriate level, there should also be a time of reflection and analysis of how well the policies or tactics worked in that situation, so that if a similar situation comes around again, the party will be able to draw on experience to put forth a more effective policy.

But I've digressed a bit. The point is, I don't consider the Socialist Party to completely have the fully democratic structure that is should to optimally function. There's disconnect between the locals/members-at-large and the leadership, and far too many members-at-large that aren't represented by a local, regional, or state organisation. While the SP does a decently good job of not straying into the extreme centralism that some organisations can, I repeat that the lack of accountability both up and down the organisational ladder does harm to internal party democracy by failing to be adequately centralist and decentralist at the same time. Interesting trick that is, no?

Anyway, another revolutionary socialist may then ask me, “since the Socialist Party isn't the revolutionary socialist organisation you want it to be, then why have you remained there? Why don't you join an organisation that upholds the the same principles as you do?” I indeed have gotten this question before, once from a member of the ISO, and at least once from a member of the Spartacist League (for some reason, I run into Sparts more than I run into ISO folks... not sure why.) It's a good question, and unfortunately I never really thought through my reasoning until relatively recently, leaving me somewhat defenceless when it came to this question in the past. Hopefully this will help me answer that question with better certainty in the future. The primary reason why I haven't switched my membership to a “more revolutionary” organisation that the SP-USA (or Solidarity, which I am also a member of) is simply because not many of those organisations have good track records when it comes to upholding true democratic centralist principles either.

For example, let's look at the history of the Spartacist League. Now, despite the reputation they've earned in the 40 years since their formation, the minority tendency in the SWP that they were formed from had some interesting criticisms of the SWP, especially regarding the Civil Rights movement. Early on, the Spartacist League also did some decent union work, and were able to recruit gay activists and former students. However, somewhere along the line, it looks like something went horribly wrong. It might have been the first split that the SL suffered, when in 1971 a number of founding Spartacists left to form Spark, and affiliated themselves with Lutte Ouvrière in France. Because of this split, only one leader of the tendency which founded SL remained central in the organisation: James Robertson. It might have just been the pressure that was placed on all socialist groups during the 1970s, and the Spartacist League just wasn't able to cope. Whatever the reason, the SL now has the dubious honour of being one of the most sectarian, obnoxious, sometimes violent, and overall just annoying organisations on the socialist Left.

At least, that's how the organisation appears to people on the outside. On the inside, however, things could be quite different. For all we know, the Spartacist League may have one of the most rigorously democratic internal regimes of all the socialist organisations that exist in the US. That's one of the problems with organisations that operate on a very strict cadre manner (as if Lenin suddenly stopped writing about party organisation after 1902), people on the outside have almost no way of looking into the organisation first, to see if it actually meets their structural as well as political expectations. Even if the internal regime of the Spartacist League is this paragon of true democratic centralism, we on the outside cannot become aware of it.

Still, despite this possibility that the Spartacist League could have a highly democratic and open internal regime, I have severe doubts as to whether or not this is actually the case. My scepticism draws from the fact that, in the 40+ year existence of the Spartacist League, they managed to have practically one split a decade. Aside from the already-mentioned split that formed Spark in 1971, the Revolutionary Workers League was formed out of SL in 1976, and the Bolshevik Tendency split from the Sparts in 1982. Most recently, the Internationalist Group was spawned from the Spartacist League in 1996. Each of these groups split/were expelled/whatever from the Spartacist League for different reasons, but the fact that so many groups were ejected from the Sparts seems to indicate a lack of internal democracy resulting in insufficient political expression for the minority faction. At the same time, the situation could also be explained by the minority wanting special concessions from the majority, also something which is anti-democratic. My guess is some combination of both. Either way, this indicates a lack of respect for democracy on at least one side of the split.

Another, less blatant example might be the International Socialist Organization. The ISO, for better or for worse, is probably the largest organisation in the US that upholds some variant of Trotskyism, and indeed one of the larger socialist organisations in the US. It's probably one of the most represented organisation among the student Left, along with SDS and YDS. Now, as far as I know there has never been a major split in the ISO, except when they were expelled from the International Socialist Tendency, and a small group called Left Turn kept the IST franchise (they've since left the IST as well.) However, the ISO is considered to have a relatively high rate of "member turnover," meaning that people join up for a year or two or three, then leave the organisation. Many organisations use this as an example of the ISO's undemocratic internal practises driving away members. I don't fully buy this argument, as it could be since the ISO is fairly prominent on college campuses, this high membership turnover could be due to college students becoming radicalised for a couple years, then dropping out after they graduate. Still, there is most likely some element of truth in the claim that high membership turnover is a result of an undemocratic internal regime, especially if the ISO has kept much of its organisational norms that it inherited from the British Socialist Workers Party.

So, there are a couple of examples of how revolutionary organisations probably don't live up to the standards of revolutionary democracy either. And, given the choice between an "inconsistently revolutionary" organisation with an open democratic structure such as the Socialist Party, or a more explicitly revolutionary organisation with an unclear democratic/un-democratic structure like the Spartacist League or, to a lesser degree, the ISO, I'd readily choose the former, on the argument that it will be an easier and more productive struggle to change the former groups towards revolutionary politics than change the latter to a more open, democratic structure.

Welcome to the March! (FAQ)

What is this?

A blog.

Well, thanks, that was informative. Why have you created this blog?

It's an attempt to keep my political rants and rambles away from my Live Journal, and try and have that focused more strictly on more personal things, mostly to not bore my LJ friends to death with political stuff. Still, I have a feeling there will be some overlap. We shall see which gets posted to more. So this blog intends to be very political.

Okay, that makes some sense. But why call it "The Long March of the Penguins?"

There are a couple reasons for that. Partially, this project was inspired by a another blog I read, known as the Squirrel Vanguard (or Red Squirrel's Lair), a fine group of communist squirrels based in Scotland. They posted something a little while ago about a blog called The Red Wombat Hole, and referenced some sort of "revolutionary species international." And I'm just building on that, with an American section comprised of penguins.

Also, the title is dual reference to "March of the Penguins", a film about penguins narrated by Morgan Freeman, and "The Long March", which was a march undertaken by Mao Zedong and much of the Communist Party of China in 1934 in order to escape from the anti-communist Nationalists headed by Chiang Kai-Shek. Hence, both communism and penguins.

Ah, I see. So are you Maoists? And why penguins; they're not native to the US.

No, I am not a Maoist. Broadly defined, I consider myself a revolutionary democratic socialist and a Trotskyist (though I freely admit I'm somewhat under-read on the matter). As for other bloggers that may contribute here in the future, their particular brand of socialism cannot be narrowed down since they're not known yet! However, it's reasonable to say that they'll be revolutionary-oriented socialists (ie, probably not social democrats) interested in some sort of regroupment effort, which may include Maoists.

As for the penguins, you're right that they're not native to the US. I just like the animal, that's all.

So this blog will cover topics relating to socialism?

Well, yes. Specifically, I tend to focus on labour/union issues, elections and political work, some youth rights stuff, the Fourth International (in its various incarnations, though I'd consider myself in the orbit of what's commonly known as the USFI), the Middle East (in particular highlighting movements in opposition to both US/Western imperialism and political Islam), and leftist sectology and general sectariana.

Are you a member of any socialist organisation?

A couple, actually. I am (as of writing this) national Vice-Chair of the Young People's Socialist League, as well as a member of the Socialist Party USA, and an "official sympathiser" in Solidarity. My hope is that some time in the future, I won't need to list all these groups, as they'll have merged together (with YPSL coming more into its own as a proper party youth section.)

That's really it to start out, so hopefully other questions will be answered as posts commence. So, enjoy the blog, and remember: