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chickenfeetAt first glance it might seem odd to compare such apparently mortal enemies as Trotskyists and New Labour but I want to argue that they have a great deal in common and that what they have in common has much to say about the essential impotency of the left.
The essence of the critique is that both groups are centralising elitists who use an artificially constructed "people" to justify their essentially undemocratic nature. This leads logically to an assertion that a genuinely transformational left agenda would be rooted in the needs and aspirations of actually existing people.
Let's look at the Trots first.[1] The essence of Lenin's theory of the party was that the working classes of Tsarist Russia were insufficiently advanced to be trusted with power. Instead, the party as the "true" representative of the most advanced workers, should adopt a custodial role and exercise power through a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (sic) until society had advanced enough for the workers to understand their true interests. This idea became closely coupled to the idea of Democratic Centralism which was originally a pragmatic response to having to operate clandestinely but became elevated to a principle. DC amounts to the belief that the executional organs of the party and its cadres should operate in strict conformance with the directives of the, in principle democratically elected, Central Committee. This concept was, and is, perpetuated by Leninist parties long after the conditions that brought it into being ceased. It is after all a godsend for control freak leaders. Unsurprisingly, 100 years after Lenin formulated the idea, the "people" still need their collective hand held by the party and the party still needs to be tightly directed from the centre.
How about New Labour? New Labour has a very similar view of "the people". They are made up of some sort of mythical collective old lady who needs to be protected from her neighbours[2] by the benificient power of the state. Any actual "ordinary person" who dissents from this view is dismissed and marginalised in various ways, most of which turn on the suggestion that they are too educated to understand the mythical ordinary people. Interestingly the elite that determines what "the people" want is very far from ordinary. The inner circle of New Labour consists largely of people from highly privileged backgrounds and, in many cases, members of families whose members have occupied positions of power and privilege for more than one generation. School teachers and trade union officials, one generation at most removed from manual work, once the backbone of Labour, are conspicuous by their absence.
The other obvious parallel with the Trots is the concentration of power at the centre of the party, thinly veiled by some pretence at democracy. The membership of the party and its institutions; CLP Executives, Party Conference etc have been totally emasculated and power transferred to the Leader, his entourage, and party officials who he appoints. I can't help wondering how much the similarity owes to the fact that so many of New Labour's inner circle cut their political teeth in alliance with the Euro-Stalinists of the 1970s CPGB, many of whom are still profitably hanging around the periphery of New Labour.
I'm not sure at this point how one breaks out of this mould but it seems clear that the key is a polity and policy that focusses on and empowers actually existing people rather ideological constructs. In some way that must include returning the kratia to the demos.
fn1. These remarks apply to any "vanguardist" group in the Leninist tradition.
fn2. Her neighbours appear to be a strange mixture of hooligans, Islamic terrorists and asylum seekers. Naturally she doesn't live next door to corporate fraudsters and bent politicians so doesn't need protecting from them.
The essence of the critique is that both groups are centralising elitists who use an artificially constructed "people" to justify their essentially undemocratic nature. This leads logically to an assertion that a genuinely transformational left agenda would be rooted in the needs and aspirations of actually existing people.
Let's look at the Trots first.[1] The essence of Lenin's theory of the party was that the working classes of Tsarist Russia were insufficiently advanced to be trusted with power. Instead, the party as the "true" representative of the most advanced workers, should adopt a custodial role and exercise power through a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (sic) until society had advanced enough for the workers to understand their true interests. This idea became closely coupled to the idea of Democratic Centralism which was originally a pragmatic response to having to operate clandestinely but became elevated to a principle. DC amounts to the belief that the executional organs of the party and its cadres should operate in strict conformance with the directives of the, in principle democratically elected, Central Committee. This concept was, and is, perpetuated by Leninist parties long after the conditions that brought it into being ceased. It is after all a godsend for control freak leaders. Unsurprisingly, 100 years after Lenin formulated the idea, the "people" still need their collective hand held by the party and the party still needs to be tightly directed from the centre.
How about New Labour? New Labour has a very similar view of "the people". They are made up of some sort of mythical collective old lady who needs to be protected from her neighbours[2] by the benificient power of the state. Any actual "ordinary person" who dissents from this view is dismissed and marginalised in various ways, most of which turn on the suggestion that they are too educated to understand the mythical ordinary people. Interestingly the elite that determines what "the people" want is very far from ordinary. The inner circle of New Labour consists largely of people from highly privileged backgrounds and, in many cases, members of families whose members have occupied positions of power and privilege for more than one generation. School teachers and trade union officials, one generation at most removed from manual work, once the backbone of Labour, are conspicuous by their absence.
The other obvious parallel with the Trots is the concentration of power at the centre of the party, thinly veiled by some pretence at democracy. The membership of the party and its institutions; CLP Executives, Party Conference etc have been totally emasculated and power transferred to the Leader, his entourage, and party officials who he appoints. I can't help wondering how much the similarity owes to the fact that so many of New Labour's inner circle cut their political teeth in alliance with the Euro-Stalinists of the 1970s CPGB, many of whom are still profitably hanging around the periphery of New Labour.
I'm not sure at this point how one breaks out of this mould but it seems clear that the key is a polity and policy that focusses on and empowers actually existing people rather ideological constructs. In some way that must include returning the kratia to the demos.
fn1. These remarks apply to any "vanguardist" group in the Leninist tradition.
fn2. Her neighbours appear to be a strange mixture of hooligans, Islamic terrorists and asylum seekers. Naturally she doesn't live next door to corporate fraudsters and bent politicians so doesn't need protecting from them.
