Marx has been described as 'the Machiavelli of the proletariat'. In his book 'School for Dictators' the Italian novelist, Ignazio Silone, wrote: 'In our own time, Marx - with different means and different intentions - fulfilled the same function as Machiavelli in the 1500's: he tried to clarify the real workings of capitalist society of his time, freeing it from the veils of German idealistic philosophy and of French humanitarianism.' Does the Socialist Party's desire to put local councillors on the spot by urging them to declare illegal budgets do anything to 'clarify the real workings of capitalist society of [our] time'? Linda Taaffe may tell us - from her vast experience of the Poll Tax - that Getting councillors to do this, in the language of the schoolyard, is 'Easy-Peasy'.
Last Saturday, Linda Taaffe, a superannuated schoolmistress at the head of the Socialist Party, with high-pitch emotion moved her proposal at the NSSN Conference that she had hitherto described as 'Higgledy-Piggledy' but was now rewritten and tarted-up to exclude the former 'All Britain - Uber Alles' content and any reference to back anti-cuts candidates and thereby not to offend the anarchists or anarcho-syndicalists in the NSSN who Linda seemed to want to court against the SWP. Of the syndicalists the Socialist Party said they regarded them 'as mostly genuine in their arguments'. The SWP they claimed were self-serving in their opposition.
The Chair of the NSSN, Dave Chapple, a long term trade unionist and revolutionary syndicalist, had already made his position clear in his response to a complaint about his chairmanship at the NSSN Steering Committee: in a charge from a Socialist Party member that because of his conduct he was 'unfit to chair' the NSSN meetings and should stand down; Dave had retorted that this was a brilliant idea but 'Why stop at me?' Why not dispose of all the 17 members of the Steering Committee, including the Deputy Chair and Treasurer, who opposed the Socialist Party proposal and then the Socialist Party would have a free run without the vexed problem of having to persuade others of syndicalist and Marxist ilk? Dave Chapple was saying 'Eat Me! Eat Us All! Eat Thyself!' and that is what the Socialist Party, in its wisdom, did last Saturday afternoon. While the Socialist Party clearly lacks prudence in this respect one must wonder about some of the union officials who encouraged them in this endeavour.
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2 comments:
Linda Taaffe says:
'I laughed uproariously when I saw this. And it is completely devoid of any argumentation. Water off a duck’s back!'
I am deeply worried by this response from Linda Taaffe because Ignazio Silone's character 'Thomas the Cynic' in School for Dictators warned his students that the aspiring leader or dictator, to be successful, ought not to become hooked onto debating or argumentation with his or her opponents. The great leader must avoid debate like the plague, which of its nature will only weaken him or her and make him or her appear human in the eyes of the masses. The successful leader or leaderess must appear triumphant and must proclaim and assert; rather in the way Linda did at the NSSN conference on the 22nd, January by asserting that all her opponents were 'soft on the Labour Party': that was a brilliant piece of assesrtive oratory and non-argument such as would have impressed the Great Dictators of the 1930s.
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