Re: [OPE] market - and other kinds of - socialism

My aim was not to give a detailed account of why the Irish Republicans did
not serve, simply to indicate that they had principled objections to
attending parliament and that this did not prevent them being elected.

I was intending to draw lessons for parties operating in other countries
that it was possible to participate in elections and win them whilst
repudiating the undemocratic constitutional settlement that currently exists
in that country.

From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [mailto:ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu]
On Behalf Of Paul Bullock
Sent: 05 May 2011 23:57
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
Subject: Re: [OPE] market - and other kinds of - socialism

Paul this is terrible! You say

"The Irish Republicans had a principled position of not attending the
parliament as it was subject to the monarchy."
 
Sinn fein won the 1918 elections. The British government refused to
recognise the result of their own elections, constantly manufacturing
pro-imperialist sentiment and politics in the north of Ireland, and hunting
down the elected represenattives of the Irish people. Abstention, as a
principle, then and subsequently, was because of the imperialist division of
Ireland of which Connolly had long before warned. An Sinn Fein MP could not
actually attend the Westminster chamber without recognising the
illigitimate occupation of the North: swearing an oath of allegience to the
Queen is not simply objection to monarchy! You evade the issue by using the
term 'monarchy', and not imperialism, and so avoiding the issue of the
division, and so subordination, of Ireland. Even the British Labour Party
was embarassed enough about this never to have oprganised on its own
account in the North. The recent loans to the Dublin government arising
from the banking farce (and the attendant hi
gh rates of interest demanded) confirm British interest in milking the
place, monarchy or not.
 
Paul B

On 05/05/2011 20:43, Paul Cockshott wrote:

I think one has to distinguish between standing and winning individual
elections and attending parliament.
The Irish Republicans had a principled position of not attending the
parliament as it was subject to the monarchy. They one elections but refused
to attend.
It would be possible for a radical democratic party to stand in elections on
a similar grounds. They would say that they would abstain from attending
until they had a majority at which point they would attend only once to
bring in an act that would transfrom the elected parliament into a direct
peoples' assembly.
________________________________________
From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu] On
Behalf Of B.R.Bapuji [brbapuji@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2011 5:51 PM
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
Subject: Re: [OPE] market - and other kinds of - socialism
 
From: GERALD LEVY <mailto:gerald_a_levy@msn.com> <gerald_a_levy@msn.com>
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
<mailto:ope@lists.csuchico.edu> <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
Sent: Thu, May 5, 2011 7:04:39 PM
Subject: Re: [OPE] market - and other kinds of - socialism
 
 
 
In, on the other hand, it's a smaller party which is using the elections as
an educational vehicle for explaining their programme to working people,
then it certainly makes sense for them to also specify a socialist
programme.
i.e. a vision of how an alternative, socialist society would be organized
(and, also, explaining the problems associated with the conception of
'evolutionary socialism' and how working people will have to eventually
surpass
a parliamentary process of change).
 
'Using electionss as an educational vehicle for explaining programme to
working people......'This kind of programme which we call in India
'parliamentary path' as opposed to 'revolutionary path'.The past experience
showed that once you enter into it, the bourgeois legislature will engulf
you and you will become a tail to one of the two major bourgeois
'coalitions'. Instead of participating in elections, a communist group or
party can spend all its energies on educating the classes or masses
belonging to various sections of the working class through conducting
struggles on immediate as well as long term issues.
In India, this debate has been there among the so called ML
[Marxist-Leninist] parties who declare their ideology as
MARXISM-LENINISM-MAO'S THOUGHT or Maoism.
This is for your information from India and not to contest your view point.
 
The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401
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Received on Fri May 6 05:11:18 2011