The Struggle Continues
This is a post by Dave Dudley, former Editor of Leninist Vanguard
It is the fourth (or possibly fifth) duty of every revolutionary to take his case to the enemy, if only to mock their feeble strategies and invite them to take up his cause as a viable alternative. While the lawyers are still going through the small-print, I have some news regarding my future employment which I believe may be of interest to those who frequent this blog. Regular Harry’s Place readers may remember the misguided decision of the editorial board of Leninist Vanguard to cease production and instead rebrand as Jihad Today, a decision I was forced to consent to only because of the demands of democratic centralism (in spite of my much-admired tenure and circulation rises as editor). In the wake of this, I found my political beliefs and revolutionary zeal still very much intact (you won’t catch me selling out), but for the first time since my recruitment to the cause while at Oxford, I also found myself with no platform from which to espouse revolutionary Marxism and, worse still, no meetings to attend or papers to sell.
Though recent defeats still hang in the air – the decision to liquidate Leninist Vanguard, the implosion in Respect at the hands of Cliffites and their Zionist puppet-masters and George Galloway’s unfortunate electoral performance in the London Assembly elections (again at the hands of the so-called ‘Left List’) – it remains incumbent on me to re-evaluate the political situation once more. Why then should I not park my tanks on the enemy’s lawn? In fact, why shouldn’t I just get in the enemy’s tank and advance on others’ lawns?
Let me start by saying that I am not known for my charitable views on other left-wing organisations and have no intention of changing this any time soon, in spite of other comrades I could mention who speak of mellowing with age. I have worn out many an ink cartridge in fighting the SWP and whatever Militant are calling themselves these days (I wouldn’t even waste ink on the superannuated Socialist Party of Great Britain) and I don’t intend for this to be in vain. In short, I have no intention of consorting with those who build electoral alliances on the far left, for this can only bring about more disillusionment and false hope for the new generation of anti-imperialists.
I first came across the Revolutionary Communist Party during the 1980s and while I argued vociferously at the time that no organisation which purported to be either ‘revolutionary’ or ‘communist’ could operate as a ‘party’ among the confines of bourgeois liberal democracy, I did have to admire their sartorial presence on the far left and tight discipline. Our paths had not crossed much in the intervening years, as Leninist Vanguard went from strength to strength in warning the far left about the perils of the inevitable Cliffite accommodation with Zionism (a process which has gone so far that the SWP should be sued under the Trades Descriptions Act!), while their own Living Marxism rebranded like Leninist Vanguard, first as LM Magazine and then as their fearless niche website spiked-online. You can take the magazine away from the revolutionary (by dint of an ITN-sponsored libel action in the capitalist courts) but you can’t take away the revolutionary, goes the saying and it runs parallel with my own trajectory. A chance meeting with one of the former RCP recruiters from the 1980s, who remains as ravishing and flirty as ever, led to a dinner party late last year where I was promised my own column and the possibility of some form of editorial role. In view of recent disappointments, it was my revolutionary duty to explore where this could lead.
I was surprised to receive the invite to act as community relations adviser to the new mayor of London Boris Johnson, though not as surprised as my partner Jo, who is now staying with her parents while we work it out. “How could you?” she cried, “That man! That hair!” Judging people on physical appearance is just the sort of thing the revisionist capitalist apparatus expects as part of their divide and rule and this only hardened my revolutionary resolve to investigate the offer further.
I entered City Hall on my first day with the same strident sense of purpose as during my stints working for socialist London Boroughs such as Hackney, Haringey and Lambeth during the 1980s and 1990s, for which my time in community development was surely recognised by the new administration. We may not have provided ‘a bicycle for every lesbian in Hackney’ as per the ruling group’s manifesto, but sell-out and compromise are always part of the territory when you cuddle up with reformists. There appears to be no danger of that under Boris.
I held no candle for the previous mayor of London, the Socialist Action puppet Ken Livingstone and his admiration for the ghastly lumpen thug Gerry Healy, and would rightly have tossed any offer of employment from that man into the bin. There are, of course, those who sneer at the new mayor for his earlier writings about “watermelon smiles” and “flag-waving piccanninies”, the Bruschetta-munching liberal left Guardian readers who see no similar contradiction in handing over their money to newspapers who employ warmongering columnists as the bodies pile up in Iraq. But was this not a critique of imperialism on the part of Boris? His sentiments merely chided the failures of the faux communist post-colonial military regimes in Africa to actually bring about socialism. Military fatigues do not a Marxist make.
To paraphrase another new recruit, it’s not Leninist Vanguard that’s entered the Tory Party, it’s the Tory Party that’s entered Leninist Vanguard.
The struggle continues, in whatever form the circumstances dictate.
Comments
| 20 May 2008, 5:17 pm |
Like the line about providing a bicycle for every lesbian.
A few other mild chuckles as well.
| 20 May 2008, 5:24 pm |
Salutations to the indefatigable Dudley.
Someone mentioned the arrest of Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot in the comments following an earlier post. There’s more on the story today from the Journalista blog of The Comics Journal - second or third story down:
| 20 May 2008, 5:35 pm |
He doesn’t really have the prose style to give voice to the discourse of the former RCP types, does he?
(*thinks* yet another silly c— who can’t resist making a gratuitous dig at the best political leader London has had for a long time. Not Boris, tbw)
| 20 May 2008, 5:38 pm |
Venchinka
Ken is the first leader London has had for decades! He is therefore, by definition alone, both the best and worst.
| 20 May 2008, 6:29 pm |
Dave Dudley is real, right? Same for Shabba Goy?
But there ain’t no Noddy.
[…]
[…]
Tell me there there ain’t no Noddy!
| 20 May 2008, 6:41 pm |
This is the Internet, after all, Gene.
| 20 May 2008, 6:55 pm |
” (I wouldn’t even waste ink on the superannuated Socialist Party of Great Britain)”
*Smile* Is Dave Dudley still residing in Florida? That what my superannuated sitemeter says.
| 20 May 2008, 7:08 pm |
Anyone who uses the phrase ‘Zionist puppet-masters’ is a twat. And a bigot.
“my stints working for socialist London Boroughs such as Hackney, Haringey and Lambeth”
When you say socialist, you mean screwed up, don’t you?
Fuck me what’s Boris doing with the likes of you?
| 20 May 2008, 7:59 pm |
I’m ashamed of how far I read before I realized that it must be Dudley.
| 20 May 2008, 8:00 pm |
This is a spoof, right? Dudley Do-wrong is satrizing the Far Left nutters? Jihad Today, Zionist Puppet Masters and providing bikes for Lesbians are funny lines, but not serious.
BTW, when will the essay about the differences between Peoples Front of Judea, the Judean Peoples Front and the Popular Front for Judea be posted? After this post, I am looking forward to it.
| 20 May 2008, 8:05 pm |
A spoof?
Dave Dudley is as real as George W Bush’s Shakespearian wit, Dick Cheney’s sincerity or Richard Nixon’s honestly…
| 20 May 2008, 8:25 pm |
Ah, the Revolutionary Communist Party. I first came across them in the late early 90s when I was a very young man. They were often engaged in battles with the Nottingham Anarchist Group whose entertaining newspaper never failed to point out what a bunch of racist, misogynistic, women-beating scumbags the RCP were - the Nottingham faction, at least.
I once bumped into a girl I worked with who was a member of the RCP. She was crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she revealed she’d been hit by one of the RCP’s top men because she’d been caught reading - while on her lunch break - a copy of the Daily Mail.
| 20 May 2008, 8:30 pm |
“late early 90s”
Er, early 90s….
| 20 May 2008, 9:00 pm |
David T, is it wise of you to have shown your hand at this stage in your glorious process of entryism? Are you allowing the cries of the unfed night army to blur your vision at this crucial and unprecedented advanced stage of the Vanguard’s forward thrust? Ever since I’ve read those all too obvious coded biogs of Boris’ mum– with her vorticist visual discourses of sleeping class consciousness on the tube– I’ve clicked into understanding that Boris is the real leader of the RCP–all that classics, shaggy hair, and Tory MP stuff is just one more faux consciousness front….
| 20 May 2008, 11:45 pm |
This is plenty funny. Of course it would have been even more funnier if certain parts of this blog had not assisted the election of Boris Johnson by failing to rally to the properly selected Labour candidate on the grounds that he was not absolutely perfect.
| 21 May 2008, 1:32 am |
I am sure that with Dave Dudley’s firm hand on the tiller, the Tory Party in London can be re-oriented as an anti-imperialist, progressive and working class force. In fact, I am reassured that defeat for that unholy trinity of sell-out class-contradictory new Labour, Ken, and (the biggest threat of them all) Socialist Action, cam now be seen as the historic victory for the class that it so clearly is.
Hasta la victoria siempre. A luta continua.
| 21 May 2008, 7:25 am |
Ahh, Nottingham Anarchist Group’s mag, edited by the charming Colin Huggins, star of countless delightful personal relationships. Pot, kettle …
| 21 May 2008, 10:38 am |
David B,
Are you suggesting Harry’s Place cost Ken the election, or for that matter had a scintilla of influence over its outcome?
| 21 May 2008, 12:53 pm |
Nice try, no vanguardist would ever publicly acknowledge the existance of the SPGB, even to insult it.
The RCP women weren’t really any better looking than swuppies, they just put on a lot of makeup and smiled a lot.
| 21 May 2008, 1:47 pm |
David Boothroyd
Surely there’s a world of difference between imperfection and corruption, venal feuding and the unpleasant whiff of anti-Semitism?
And even if there wasn’t, is this really the best arguement for supporting a candidate who himself stood against the official Labour candidate for this very post?
| 21 May 2008, 3:21 pm |
Roomed Elephant, I didn’t say ‘decisive’, did I? What I did say was that failing to rally progressive voters to the Labour candidate assists the Conservative candidate in winning an election, and that is unchallengeably true. All progressive voters in London should have backed Ken either on the first or second ballot and I feel quite justified in criticising those who failed to do so and requiring them to take part of the blame for the election of a disaster as Mayor.
As I have previously said, I think it is detestably selfish for someone to have withheld support from a progressive candidate who was not perfect, and assisting to condemn those less well-off Londoners who need a progressive Mayor, when they themselves are wealthy enough to be able to survive.
Roo, yes there is a difference; Ken is the former: not quite perfect. His administration was not corrupt or venal nor was he anti-semitic.
| 21 May 2008, 3:42 pm |
David,
This would be the same Ken Livingstone who endorsed George Galloway for the assembly list, at a time when Labour members of that list were struggling to get elected? Perhaps you could call him up and take him to task for not passing the David Boothroyd test of partisan loyalty.
Ken spent the best part of 3-4 years pushing away what should have been his natural supporters, labelling them ‘Islamophobes’ and worse, deploying his bizarre array of front organisations to smear anyone who didn’t sign up to the programme and then turned round a few weeks before the election and said ‘back me or you’re a Tory’.
I thought it showed remarkable humility on the part of Peter Tatchell for him to endorse Livingstone for a second preference. I’m not sure I could have done in a similar position.
Perhaps if Ken had called his dogs off earlier, those with misgivings might have been as vociferous in backing him as you desire. Some things in life are not just down to the colour of a rosette.
| 21 May 2008, 4:40 pm |
Ken Livingstone did not endorse George Galloway for the list; he advocated a vote for the Labour candidates. He merely said that Galloway would compare well to some of the members on the previous assembly, and that should he be elected, he would work with him. Given that the Assembly is elected proportionately, it’s not a surprise that parties have to reach out to others.
I’m amazed you missed the point about Peter Tatchell which was that he did endorse Ken for re-election, with the second preference vote. Not everyone who identifies as a progressive did the same. Orwell made a point about the objective position of pacifist in the struggle for civilisation which may be considered relevant.
| 21 May 2008, 5:30 pm |
The conclusion that I would draw would not be so much as those supposed supporters of Labour who turned against Ken with an extraordinary parade of lies and mistruths and contemptible muck-racking betrayed London and turned their back on Ken is not so much that were his “natural supporters” but that they were, in fact, either “natural Tories” (not in itself a bad thing: there are many sound reasons to favour a conservative government at national level: perhaps also at London level had they presented a creditable and credible candidate) or just amoral scum, frankly - - those who, having succeeded in getting their way by getting rid of Ken, and who have gone on to state that they wish Bozza, as a Tory, to be a disastrous or at any rate less than successful mayor - have underlined what was already quite obvious months ago: how solipsistic, selfish, self-obsessed , and indifferent to the concerns of all Londoners but themselves many of those who spend much energy undermining Ken were and are.
| 21 May 2008, 5:32 pm |
(not forgetting dishonest)
| 21 May 2008, 5:34 pm |
Jon d
vanguardists aka leninists do indeed ignore the existence of the SPGB, given the choice. It’s understandable given the “Small Party of Good Boys” has pointed out ever since 1918 that the Bolshevik seizure of power led to state capitalism and dictatorship in Russia - a result of Lenin’s anti-socialist politics, which those latter day leninists would have us all recreate, given half the chance.
But the Lennies aren’t alone in their silence. It suits avowedly pro-capitalist people, like HP’s Mikey, to ignore the anti-leninist and pre-1917 marxist tradition - a tradition which shows their “actually existing socialism” arguments to be pure gas.
I am reminded of Karl Kautsky when he said (in 1920) the worst thing that could befall socialism is it being equated with Bolshevism.
| 22 May 2008, 5:15 am |
Indeed spgb grey
Leninists are splitters…get behind Martov or fuck right off. They were so stupid they mistook free association with Solovetsky. Even worst this high intellectual calibre has declined ever since. I’m tempted to pull a big Kaplan party this august - who wants to be the bloody tyrant? bagsie Chernov!
Write a comment