The exchange between Armoise and Levi in Prometheus and Ryder and Gandakin in Geese Magazine teases out important problems. However, I think both pieces require further development.
Armoise and Levi’s piece rightly teases out the importance of what they term the ‘class constitutional character’ of workers’ party and counterpose this to ‘populism’ (the slipperiness of the latter term deserves its own analysis).
However, their article remains somewhat ambiguous on how Marxists should relate to the existence of organisations like LFI, and could be read (though I don’t believe the authors believe this) as arguing for an abstentionist approach to these organisations by Marxists.
Consequently, Ryder and Gandakin respond to what they see ‘a short-sighted aversion to engaging with the fraught terrain of modern politics itself’ (NB they also elide this assumed position from Armoise and Levi to Prometheus as a whole).
However, whilst Ryder and Gandakin make their case for this engagement, its political content and goal is left unclear. If there is a reading of Armoise and Levi’s piece as abstentionist, then there is a reading of the reply as liquidationist, wherein programmatic and structural fights are avoided or, at least, left secondary.
Implicit within Armoise and Levi’s piece is the argument that democracy in class organisations is essential for the development of self-activity amongst subaltern classes. Without the democratic structures to put forward perspectives from the rank and file, we limit the development of worker-leaders who may want to raise them. We also limit the ways that the class as a whole learns from the different struggles across society. The party must, as Gramsci argues, be a laboratory, wherein mass practice is tested by those engaged in it. To hold fast to this is not an argument against engagement in constitutionally deficient organisations, but it also means we cannot abandon the fight for proletarian democracy.
The concern is that parties built around figureheads can only go so far and don’t act to build the long-term self activity of the class. To put it in a tongue in cheek way for those who are fans of Mélenchon – is the LFI dependent on him or is the party capable of producing many Mélenchons (dare we even hope for something better)?
I believe the exchange points to the need for a deeper assessment of LFI. For example, assessment has not been made of:
- LFI’s refusal to compromise on the question of anti-fascism in the contexts of the attacks on La Jeune Garde after the death of a fascist activist.
- LFI pushback on attempts to delegitimise Palestinian resistance.
- LFI’s role in supporting anti-police protests in the aftermath of the murder of Nahel Merzouk in 2023.
- How LFI’s politics on anti-racism and islamophobia has developed compared to different ‘populist’ experiments.
- What the recent elections, such as of Bally Bagayoko in Saint-Denis, mean for our analysis of LFI’s structures and its relationship with the other parties and wider mass activity.
On these things and more, there is something different about LFI’s ‘populism’, whilst recognising its deficiencies.
