Socialist Digest, No. 1
| Date: | 1991 |
|---|---|
| Organisation: | The Workers' Party |
| Publication: | Socialist Digest |
| Issue: | Number 1 Summer 1991 |
| Type: | Publication Issue |
| View: | View Document |
| Discuss: | Comments on this document |
| Subjects: |
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Commentary From The Cedar Lounge Revolution
25th April 2011
This is a pamphlet which was edited by a range of members of the Worker’s Party albeit interestingly that is not indicated upon it, and printed by party press Repsol . Those involved were: John O’Neill, Aidan Hughes, Fearghal Ross, Orla O’Connor, Joe Ruddock, Colm Breathnach.
It’s intention is detailed on the back cover:
Socialist Digest is a review containing articles from various left journals which are largely inaccessable to Irish readers. The intention of the compilers is to stimulate debate and discussion on the left in Ireland. The Digest is a cooperative, non profit-making venture which is published on a quarterly basis: Any suggestions with regard to the inclusion of specific articles are welcome.
Notable is the sense that this was very slightly apart from the Workers’ Party.
The essays and articles collected within are introduced on the Contents page by short descriptions. For example:
In “Preface to Chaos” Boris Kagerletsky, a former dissident and now a leadership figure n the new Russian Socialist Party outlines the crisis situation that the USSR finds itself in and attempts to interpret the intellectual background to the present chaos.
Or…
In “Crisis of Socialism or Crisis of the State?” Simon Clarke argues that the left must break decisively with the statism of the fallen Eastern European regimes.
And it concludes with…
Finally, in a thought-provoking article, Andre Gorz outlines what he sees as the main elements of a New Agenda for the Socialist movement in the advanced capitalist world-centred around the limitation of economic rationality.
Given that the first incarnation of the formation that split from the Workers’ Party barely a twelve months later used the name ‘New Agenda’ one wonders is there a conceptual linkage.
It is telling that Gorz is included, as is a contribution by the ‘Socialist Ecological’ group Sera, a clear opening to red green philosophy.
And added to that it is clear that this is positioned directly on anti-market, anti-statist and anti-orthodox Marxist ideological terrain, though one that is to the left of social democracy, and can be seen as an attempt to delineate that terrain for the Workers’ Party during this period.
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By: Mark P Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:05:23
This is a very interesting document, not so much because of the merits of the articles included but more because of how it came to be published.
As Colm says, it is politically confused. Most of the articles presented are internally more or less consistent, but they aren’t politically consistent with each other. Collectively they seem to represent a reaching out for an alternative rather than actually being an alternative.
The timing is particularly interesting. This is a first issue and it came out in Summer 1991, which would have been in the period when previously surreptitious factional activity had come out into the open. Colm says that there were two more issues published – does anyone know what they contained and when they came out? The third issue must have come out very soon before the split.
I’ve a couple of questions about this for Colm and John (or anyone else who knows):
1) As I understand it, the people behind this (or some of them) were involved in meetings with many of the people who would go on to lead the New Agenda / Democratic Left split. Unfortunately someone has borrowed my copy of TLR so I can’t check, but I think these meetings took place in a leading party figure’s house. Did this magazine stem from an early understanding that the leaders of the NA/DL faction had different, less radical, aims than the people who ended up putting this out?
Or to put in another way, how consciously was this stuff directed against the views of De Rossa / Gilmore / Rabbitte etc?
2) It’s notable that all of the material both comes from people outside of Ireland and doesn’t directly address Ireland. Why was that? Was it a tactical decision to avoid engaging with the views of the Irish left outside the WP to avoid being dismissed as disloyal? Or was it that the people involved shared the WPs contempt for the rest of the left? Or was it that there wasn’t all that much agreement between the people involved in the first place and therefore a certain level of remove and abstraction was necessary to stop them rowing with each other?
3) Did the later issues ever more directly address Ireland or more directly advocate particular strategies for the Workers Party?
4) Who sold these and who were they sold to? Were they sold by the Workers Party bookshop for instance? Were they primarily for circulation inside the party? How did the Stalinist faction and the Social Democratic faction react to it?
5) Finally, why Kerala?
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By: HAL Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:37:46
In reply to Mark P.
Just who were the Stalinists in the WP at the time,are they still there or have they left.
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By: Mark P Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:47:17
In reply to HAL.
HAL,
When I mentioned the “Stalinist faction”, I was using it as a shorthand for the people who supported continuing with the Workers Party structure and politics as they had existed to that point. As opposed to the “Social Democratic faction” who wanted to dissolve the Workers Party or reconstitute it as a social democratic party to the left of Labour.
What’s interesting about this document is that it seems to represent a nascent third faction, who wanted the Workers Party to change but didn’t want it to become an outright social democratic organisation. What they did want it to become isn’t clear to me, and I get the impression that it wasn’t entirely clear to them either.
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By: HAL Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:13:57
Mark P
Workers Party members regard being called stalinist a lazy insult.
Your right about this being a third faction,and the term, Third way was often bandied about..Whats interesting is that Colm B also used the term Stalinist to describe the WP although I cant find any document or speech where the WP said they are Stalinist.It just seems that if you have a beef with the WP you call them Stalinist ah well Sticks and Stones.
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By: Mark P Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:27:26
In reply to HAL.
HAL,
Of course “Stalinist” can be used as a content-free insult but I wasn’t using it as such. Stalinism does actually exist. It’s a political movement stemming from one of the major splits in the world Communist movement and involving support for the following (amongst other things):
1) A “stages theory” of revolution
2) Popular Fronts
3) Socialism in one country
4) A party structure based on that of the CPSU
5) Some or all of the Stalinist dictatorships
The Workers Party did not describe itself as Stalinist, but very few Stalinists ever used that term themselves. It did however support all of the “classic” positions of Stalinism as a political movement.
I don’t mean to divert this discussion away from the document however.
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By: Colm B Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:00:59
Mark – interesting questions, I’m a a bit swamped at work at the mo but I will try to answer these soon as I get a chance.
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By: Guyana plunder update – REPSOL oil spill any day now « propaganda press! Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:10:40
[…] Left Archive: Socialist Digest, Issue 1, printed by Repsol (Workers’ Party), 1991 (cedarlounge.wordpress.com) […]
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