Marxists and Gay liberation

[OUTOFTHENIGHT]

'Nothing wrong with any of that, excepting perhaps what appears to be a rather dubious worship of your leader and the occasionally ponderous and grandiose tone. '

Hardly personal, that comment , eh Irish Militant.
What a great Marxist you are!!
Here is another 'non-personal ' quote

'In the first place it is a humourous reference to what I regard as the unhealthy attitude to your leading figures which your publications show, but more of this on another thread.'

You conduct your discussion in a superior tone. Its an opinion just like you would probably argue the above quotes are.

What is your knowledge of the issue of Gay rights in the history of Militant? For a long period of time, leading figures of the CWI
had nothing to say on the issue as well , leading to a lot of criticism from the left. It all changed though in the  mid 80s.
What happened?

[OUTOFTHENIGHT]

Glancing at the History of Militant for around that time there doesnt seem to be any mention of the change towards Gay rights and homophobia.
Have I missed it? Maybe you could point it out for me.

[Irish Militant]

I am entertained to see that you have edited much of your little rant from last night out of existence. I was tempted to reply to it in kind but I was back in from the pub and stopped myself from doing so because getting involved in a slanging match would only divert attention from the core matters under discussion.

The quotes you have assembled are criticisms of your organisation and are not aimed at any particular individual. The tone of the IDOM website and the cloying coverage it gives to your leaders are hardly illegitimate things to mention, are they?

As for my knowledge of the way in which gay liberation was put on Militant's agenda, it comes from speaking to people involved in the Socialist Party LGBT group and other activists who were around at the time. Militant, unfortunately, had been one of the slowest left wing tendencies to take up the issue. That's one of the few things I don't think we should be proud of in our history. Gay members had to fight to change the attitude of the organisation, something which took place over time.

I'm not interested in pointing fingers and claiming that this slowness was the fault of Ted Grant or whatever you implied last night. I don't think that any leader or member for that matter of the group should just wash their hands of a mistake like that and say it was the other guys fault. It's not about personalities but politics. Militant got something wrong, and through the efforts of its members, in particular its gay members, it set about changing that. That's a sign of a healthy organisation.

The thing is though that we are talking about events of nearly two decades ago now. Militant, Militant Labour and now the Socialist Party have set about developing a Marxist programme on this issue. We pay it serious attention, as we do the struggles against racism and sexism, and we intervene in an organised manner into the gay liberation movement trying to point in towards class analysis and a socialist solution. The Socialist Party LGBT Group is a large, active and important part of our organisation.

Over the same period, the former minority, now Socialist Appeal have lapsed back into a long, uncomfortable and conspicuous silence. Your publications have nothing at all to say on the subject despite going on at what sometimes seems to be interminable length about every other conceivable subject. What possible excuse is there for that in 2005?

On the broader point of struggles of specially oppressed sections of the working class, I note that nobody from your tendency seems at all willing to deal with a central point of what Kimberlysark and myself have been arguing. That it is vital to point these movements towards a class analysis and the need to replace capitalism with socialism but that it isn't enough to simply leave it at "it will all be better after the revolution". That's an approach we would never dream of using in a struggle for wages and we shouldn't use it in these struggles either. We need to actively engage with and intervene into real struggles, fighting alongside workers as well as offering our analysis.

[spartafc]

"The gay question seems to me too decadent because the sexual orientation of a person should be something private but today you have gays proclaiming their sexuality openly."

gay rights are decadent?
Perhaps we should say that to those young gay men that fear hate-attacks in working class communities? We'd like to help you but ....gay-rights? Sounds abit too decadent. It's reminiscent of the "homosexuality-is-bourgeoise" attitude of the early British Community party. Tragic.

[Thor Waldsen]

Hi everyone, here's my opinion:

In the first place, I believe that what Irish Militant has been saying all along is a very important point to consider: the fact that this Comittee for a Workers' International has failed to address the discrimination against homosexuality. Although I cannot say this is true, I haven't seen anyone deny it so far, so I'll assume it is.

As I see it, the common goal of all socialists, and maybe even all communists also, is to eliminate class struggle. At the core, our main objective, whether you are a member of the C.W.I. or any other socialist organisation for that matter, is to put an end to the historical relation between the opressors and the opressed. Maybe we've all gotten carried away discussing the economics of class struggle: capitalism.

I think that it is important to realize that class struggle exists in every part of our lives. There are allways the oficialist ruling classes (the opressors) imposing their way of seeing life to the rest (the opressed). This is true for culture, sexuality, morality, as well as economics.

My opinion is that, as socialists, we must all unite with our common objective, and that is to fight opression, in all its forms, including discrimination against homosexuality.

Also, these discussions are very educational, but we must remember that we're all in this together... The world is too full of capitalists for us to get divided into trends that are basically aiming at the same goals anyway...

Finally, what I simply do not agree with is to say that all these discrimination problems will go away when socialism is installed. First of all, like it or not, we are not in a socialist world, and yet gay people are discriminated and forced to live opressed. Gay liberation is a problem of now, and we can't leave those problems for the future.

[Irish Militant]

Originally posted by Thor Waldsen
Hi everyone, here's my opinion:
In the first place, I believe that what Irish Militant has been saying all along is a very important point to consider: the fact that this Comittee for a Workers' International has failed to address the discrimination against homosexuality. Although I cannot say this is true, I haven't seen anyone deny it so far, so I'll assume it is.

Hi Thor, it's good to see a new voice in the discussion. Just a point of correction however - I think, unless you are making a different point from the one you appear to be making, that you have got your organisations mixed up.

KimberlySark and I belong to the Committee for a Workers International (CWI), which does address the issue of discrimination against gay people. We have been arguing with supporters of an organisation which does not do so, at least in any publications we can find.

That latter organisation, the one which runs this site, is internally known as the Committe for a Marxist International (CMI)and externally is known by various names including Socialist Appeal. These two organisations shared a history together prior to the early 1990s, hence the similar sounding names.

[Thor Waldsen]

Hehe, I'm really sorry about that... You're completely right, I ment Committee for a Marxist International:D.

[Volkov]

Originally posted by Irish Militant
First a couple of asides on other issues which have come up on this thread:

1) The name CMI doesn't appear on the IDOM website or in your publications. That may well be what you call yourselves internally but it isn't formally acknowledged in public and I presume you have your reasons for that.

I know I have seen it somewhere (I don't remember where), but then again, the "Grant Tendency" does not show up all over the place, now does it?

2) My problem is not with leadership but with what appears to be an overly reverential attitude towards two of your leaders. I don't think the relentless promotion of their activities, the fawning description of their stature or things like birthday greetings from them are at all appropriate ways for a Marxist organisation to deal with its leading figures. This is all I intend to say about this matter on this thread, but I will come back to it in more detail in a more appropriate one.

If we started attacking points made by Taaffe, surely, you would defend him.  Your sectarian organization, for some reason, is utterly hell-bent on trying to libel Grant and Woods as being the figures of a "cult of personality.":rolleyes:  It proves that your sectarian group (of which did not grow by "leaps and bounds" after the split!) needs to resort to lying instead of trying to actually refute the group you despise so very much.

On the broader point of struggles of specially oppressed sections of the working class, I note that nobody from your tendency seems at all willing to deal with a central point of what Kimberlysark and myself have been arguing. That it is vital to point these movements towards a class analysis and the need to replace capitalism with socialism but that it isn't enough to simply leave it at "it will all be better after the revolution". That's an approach we would never dream of using in a struggle for wages and we shouldn't use it in these struggles either. We need to actively engage with and intervene into real struggles, fighting alongside workers as well as offering our analysis.

Unlike wages and the class struggle, the issue of gay rights seems to be much more simplistic, I feel.  What we would say about it, excluding the part about how capitalism cannot solve it, would not be any new material to those with a progressive ideological outlook.  The more progressive-minded people are inevitably going to already be for gay rights, and go toward Marxism in the future anyway.  

I think that you are making moutains out of mole hills, and that instead of doing something new, you feel like you must spend lots of time on stating the obvious. :rolleyes:

Also:

Other priests have been involved in homosexuality. This in itself is not a surprise, and to any progressive minded person is not a problem, but the point is that the Church hierarchy condemns homosexuality as “an abomination”. Furthermore, while ordinary Greek priests are allowed to marry, those at the top are supposed to stay celibate!

-Marxistiki Foni (from the article at http://www.marxist.com/greece-scandal-church010305.htm )

(Bold is my emphasis)

Now, seriously, for the most part, what can't be said about gay rights by us that are not obvious to those with progressive outlooks toward this issue?  

[nordicmarxist]

Its very touching that Irish militant spends so much time reading trough marxist.com to proove his points. Its seems like you have been obsessed with trying to finds ways of attacking us but thats fair enough.

The greatest fights for gay liberation is actually Lenin and Trotsky because homosexuality was made legal by soviet goverment. Thats our basic position that i think you agree on.

Maybe we should have an articel its just up to someone to write it. But this doenst mean we are ignorant about this for exampel in spain at gaypride there were people from el militante selling papers. In poland the supports of sojalizm supported the banned gaypride demo where the participants went from 200 to 7000 when it was declared banned.

Maybe Alan woods isnt an expert on everything? Even if you would like to believe this.

But this says Alan Woods in Marxism and the usa

We make no distinction on grounds of color, sex or creed. It is neccessary to unite all the oppressed, underprivileged and exploited people under the banner of the labour movement and socialism.

I think if you gay people wants to get married well they should be abel to do it but why they want to this i thinks its quiet strange since the church has harrased them all the time.

[nordicmarxist]

I understand that in the SP you have separate groups for gay, bi and transgender peopel and a special group for Black and asian workers.

Well isnt this separting the members instead of bringing them together?

[Morag]

First, I'm going to apologize for the lateness of my reply, but between night shifts and an 800km trip to see my granda in the hospital, I haven't been too interested in replying:

Ahem, first and foremost. Crass: so crude and unrefined as to be lacking in discrimination and sensibility. This is what you called me. And then you claimed not to be suggesting your own superiority. Don't insult me, or others, if you actually want a proper debate.

Second, if my argument was so filled with "mixed statements of the obvious with a crass attitude towards existing struggles," perhaps you shouldn't have all but restated it, without my sense of brevity. Moreover, because I like to be brief, and I expect others to be able to draw parellels on their own, I gave one example of how, in the here and now, as your argument states is of the utmost importance, legislating equality is useless.

I mentioned women within the Western world. I expected you to be able to think of other groups, such as African-Americans, or Aboriginal populations, or perhaps even groups within your own nation, hemegenous though it is, where legislation for equality has only masked the inequalities of prejudice. Your argument is that we can't unite people along class basis only, but we have to divide ourselves into groups and fight individually, while supporting one another.

Show me a case where legislation has actually, truly, overcome inequality? I can't think of a situation where it has been effective, and therefore, while I support any freedoms and rights gained through legislation that any group achieves, I don't pretend that these rights are either set in stone, or nearly enough, because they are basically see-through band-aids of the capitalist class to staunch dissent among the workers.

To use my original example of women, we can see a backslide in rights and freedoms in our own nations, showing that there is a constant struggle, one which will probably never be completed until we have left behind our capitalist society. So, still, while I'm happy the gays and lesbians are now legally allowed to do everything everyone else in my country is allowed to do, I know it won't be long before they come under attack again. Legislation is not a tool that the working-class, women, or minority groups can effectively use for long-term gains.

But, of course, your right that we shouldn't stop fighting tooth and nail for everything we can get now. But you'll excuse us if we tend to be more concerned with other things than seperate concerns. If all the oppressed peoples of the world need to be liberated, after all, why should we focus on one group at a time? Are gay people more class-conscious than women, or africans, or disabled people? Not as far as I can tell. Therefore, there is another denominator that we focus on: class. The liberation of the working-class, effective and long term, is all and everything we want. That is non-negoitable.

So, you ask, finally, what we here on YFIS plan to do? Well, first, I suggest again that you actually get in contact with the administration of IDOM- the people who, generally, write these pieces that you disapprove of so much- and tell them you'd like to see some. YFIS membership is, obviously, not closed to any but CMI sympathizers, but rather a loose group of people, and often trolls, who debate issues. We don't generally write theory for the website. Most of us aren't at the caliber yet where we could.

But in the end, what do I plan to do about your complaints? Nothing. You haven't convinced me, in all your arguments, that there is anything the matter. We, as far as I can see, have a difference of opinion in regards to tactics. So be it.

[Daymare17]

I think it's about time someone put forward a Marxist position here.

Actually, I think you are quite correct, Irish Militant. I believe there has been too little attention on the homosexual question on marxist.com. I think it's a good idea to treat this question, or rather the whole LGBT question, with the same attention that has been paid to the women question. I think we should make our own section of the site where we produce material relevant to this.

However, the main reason for that would be to combat the wholly petit bourgeois ideas that the SP and other sects are introducing into the left on this and other questions.

In one of the links you posted we read:

"HENSHER'S OPTIMISM reflects the enormous strides forward that have been made by the gay community in driving the issue of our civil rights out of the closet and into the public arena.

Courageous and persistent campaigning by lesbians, gay men and bisexuals has created a sea change in attitudes."

Not a single word about the struggles of the working class! Not a single call for class unity across borders of sexual preference!

To answer all of this petty bourgeois rubbish and lamentable confusion, we have to pull out Lenin's letter to Inessa Armand.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/jan/17.htm
Lenin says:


Dear Friend,
I very much advise you to write the plan of the pamphlet in as much detail as possible.[2] Otherwise too much is unclear.
One opinion I must express here and now:
I advise you to throw out altogether § 3—the “demand (women’s) for freedom of love”.
That is not really a proletarian but a bourgeois demand.


And it goes on in the same vein, criticising her women's program. What does Lenin say here? Does he state that "Courageous and persistent campaigning by women has created a sea change in attitudes"? Does he proclaim proudly that "enormous strides forward has been made by the women's community"? No, he says that they should throw out from the Communist women's program all demands that do not apply to working class women. The SP has no attitude of this sort. It is a totally uncritical, petty bourgeois attitude that disregards all the experiences of the past, as Ted Grant so correctly noted. It's the same in Sweden where the CWI some time ago had a headline that said "Swedes and Immigrants must stand together against fascism". What Swedes and what immigrants are they talking about? IKEA owner Ingvar Kamprad and the Queen Silvia? The whole mess represents a capitulation to petty bourgeois identity politics on crucial questions.

Socialist Appeal/Woods group manages to produce thousands of words about the "pedagogics of Vygotsky", pamphlet length articles marking 400 years since the publication of Don Quixote, enormous pieces about the "revolutionary essence of Fela Kuti's music", a five part series on British poetry and the French revolution

A blindly sectarian, anti-intellectual, thoroughly reactionary and thoroughly moronic and embarrassing tirade. Trotsky devoted a large part of his time to cultural questions. This effort has enriched Marxism with a number of splendid works among which is Literature and Revolution. I suppose the SP would prefer Trotsky instead spent his time building up a class collaborationist front against the oppression of LGBT people in the USSR???

and endless reports of Alan Woods speaking to small meetings.

Granted, the meetings with Chavez, his brother, and the 3 hour meeting with the Venezuelan foreign minister did not gather a large amount of people. However speaking for the workers of the occupied CNV plant cannot be said to be a small meeting. I also believe the upcoming World Youth Festival, to which Alan has got an official invitation to speak about anything he wants, outclasses anything the SP can gather up pretty bad when it comes to size. Sorry about that, I digress.

As for Ted Grant's comments. As is obvious to anyone who is capable of looking beyond his sectarian blinkers, he is denouncing petty bourgeois womens liberation and petty bourgeois gay liberation. This you despicably distort to make him seem like a rampant chauvinist. Blackguard attitudes towards those who defend a working class position may get you some favours with Taaffe but won't advance the proletarian struggle one inch. You are a lamentable excuse for a Marxist organization and pathetic to the bone marrow. Because your failed perspectives and failed positions can't get you into anything other than splits and disarray, you spend all your time looking around for places to attack and sabotage us. Luckily you are incapable of doing any serious damage to the forces of Marxism or you might be a serious obstacle on the road to revolution.

It is really amazing to what depths you people have sunk. It is the case with every sect in a time of political upheavals. Your whole appearance is dominated by a hypocritical objectivity that covers up pure sectarian malice and spite, which usually finds an outlet in sabotage, against those who work hard to spread Marxism in the workers' movement. I only need 2 words to expose you and your tin-pot sect, comrade.

1. Venezuela.

2. Pakistan.

[P.O.U.M]

I also believe the upcoming World Youth Festival, to which Alan has got an official invitation to speak about anything he wants,

So its confirmed now. Nifty. Among those to speak at the Festival is Noam Chomsky. So his "small meetings" have definatly got him somewhere.

[Daymare17]

Lenin on organising separate groups for women (or LGBT people for that matter), as the SP seems to do.

“We derive our organizational ideas from our ideological conceptions. We want no separate organizations of communist women! She who is a Communist belongs as a member to the Party, just as he who is a Communist. They have the same rights and duties. There can be no difference of opinion on that score."

Liberation Generation? More like Liberal Generation.

[Irish Militant]

I'm sorry to disappoint Nordic Marxist but far from spending time digging through the IDOM website I simply used the search engines so thoughtfully provided. My interest in its politics is based in little more than idle curiousity - Socialist Appeal is after all the nearest political cousin to my own organisation but it has no supporters at all in Ireland. It's interesting to see what you have to say, and of course I pick up on the differences with the views of the CWI - notably on the questions of the social democratic parties, the oppression of gay people as well as sexism and racism and of course the bizarre book about Ireland. The fact that the CWI is a considerably larger and more influential group than Socialist Appeal and its associates does not of course mean that we are right – but it should put Daymare’s hilarious foaming at the mouth about how we have it in for you into some kind of context. Really, comrades, if you can’t discuss your political positions calmly with someone who is in the greater scheme of things only a stones throw from you ideologically how on earth do you hope to win over the masses of the working class?

I read Morag's latest contribution and have to confess that I am baffled by it. It is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what I have been arguing. I do not argue that legislation will bring real equality. In fact I have pointed out clearly that it is only the socialist transformation of society which will lay the basis for the eradication of all forms of discrimination and prejudice. Stating something which is not in contention between us over and over as if it proved some kind of point is no way to conduct a discussion. I'm not singling out Morag, various supporters of Socialist Appeal have been doing much the same.

What does seem to be in contention between us is how to build support for that goal. Marxists have to actively intervene into movements against discrimination, pointing those movements towards a class analysis and a socialist solution. To do that effectively we have to fight alongside women or gay people or any other group struggling against oppression and offer a socialist programme to take that movement forward. It is not enough to abstain from involvement, to refuse to fight for every gain, and to just say that after the revolution these problems can be dealt with.

There are two reasons for that.

One is the same reason why we would never stand aside from a workplace struggle or a community fight against cuts. Workers can never really end their oppression through wage rises or other gains just as no end of reforms will eradicate discrimination under capitalism. It is only socialism which can achieve all of that. Yet we fight for every gain because each victory increases the confidence, strength and consciousness of the working class and because we can use the experience to argue most effectively for a socialist programme. None of you would dream of arguing that we shouldn't involve ourselves in a wage struggle because such a gain falls short of what is necessary, I find it astonishing that some here refuse to apply that logic to struggles against discrimination.

The other is that these divisions within the working class exist and weaken the class struggle as a whole. We have to work to bring workers together across boundaries of sex, sexuality or race and that can only be done if we are serious about challenging discrimination and inequality. It isn't done by ignoring discrimination and oppression. The kind of working class unity we fight for is a unity against all oppression. We have to be clear about this - it is the discrimination that is divisive, not a Marxist fight against discrimination.

Daymare manages an even stranger line of argument when he/she quotes a couple of lines from a Socialist Party pamphlet and makes the ludicrous claim that there is “Not a single word about the struggles of the working class! Not a single call for class unity across borders of sexual preference!” I’m not sure if this is a deliberate attempt at misrepresentation or if it is just that Daymare didn’t bother to read the pamphlet before writing about it. In fact the pamphlet goes to great lengths to argue the need for working class unity and a socialist solution:
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/liberation/socialism.html
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/liberation/massAction.html#strategy

I’m tempted to lean towards deliberate dishonesty given that the same post doctors a quote from me about the range of, often quite abstract, issues which the IDOM website contains lengthy coverage of. Anyone who goes back to the original posting will find the words “nothing wrong with any of that” immediately after my listing of the subjects covered by the site and will later find me describing its range as “laudable”. I made no complaints that the website covered the “pedagogics of Vygotsky” or the like. I merely pointedto  that coverage to show the inadequacy of an earlier argument from a supporter of IDOM that gay liberation wasn’t covered because the organisation was only dealing with more pressing matters.

But I am getting distracted from the main point once more. All of this is an argument about the kind of things which have been said on this thread. It isn't about the official statements of Socialist Appeal and co on gay liberation for the conspicuous reason that there are none that we can find. The central responsibility of a Marxist organisation, to offer leadership on the question facing the working class is entirely abdicated. Which brings me to Volkov’s point. Volkov claims that gay liberation is a simple issue about which Marxists have nothing new to say. That to me seems to me a remarkably shallow way of looking at the subject.

The oppression of gay people is an extremely complex issue, tied up with the oppression of women and the nature of the family. Notions of the “natural” nuclear family, and therefore the “unnatural” status of gay relations run deep in capitalist society. The oppression of gays has undergone very serious changes in recent decades, with the gradual removal of legal penalties for gay sex, and long struggles over differential ages of consent. Gay marriage is a very live issue across much of the Western world. Importantly for Marxists, the gay “community” is itself as class divided as the rest of society and the experiences of gay people in working class communities, unsheltered by the so-called “pink pound” can be very different to those of wealthy gay people. And of course, homophobia remains a useful way to divide the working class – to give an illustration homophobic bullying (which happens to students who are actually straight as well as to gay students) is one of the most common forms of bullying in schools.

These are important issues and it is necessary for Marxists to develop a programme to deal with them, to link them in to a wider working class struggle for socialism. Yet the Woods group has abjectly failed to even begin this work.