CONCLUSION During the course of the previous chapters we have defined sectarianism and considered its effects as manifested in the Soviet Union and the post-war anti-capitalist struggle. The role played by Leninist and Trotskyist Bolshevism in directing the anti-capitalist Russian revolution of 1917 - 1924 along elitist, centralist and sectarian lines, has also been examined. We have viewed the stark contrast between this process and the one described and suggested by Marx. During this enquiry many of the problems that have plagued the twentieth century anti-capitalist struggle have been identified and typical events which demonstrated them in action have been highlighted. From the position of the oppressed and from a revolutionary humanist perspective there can be no other conclusion than a negative one. The people who exhibited such sectarian and hierarchical values and practices were certainly not fitted to found society anew nor were they able to assist others to do so. There is very little positive to be salvaged from their particular anti-capitalist tradition. However, the review and evaluation we have considered has been extremely useful in indicating what was faulty and what this perspective lacked. Such information is important, for despite such horrific setbacks, the anti-capitalist struggle continues and will continue until the capitalist system is superseded. In chapter 8 the material base for non-exploitative human societies was confirmed to exist not only in the functioning of early human communities but also extensively in the natural world. For this reason I have tried to situate the struggle for a more humane and egalitarian society within the context of the material evolution of the planet and its life forms. I see this as important in helping us move away from abstract idealistic and utopian visions of any future society. Beneficial associations of human beings, in which reciprocity was predominantly the norm, have undoubtedly existed for millions of years and it has been argued in the main body of the book that this still constitutes the humanist 'essence' of our species. Beneficial association and reciprocity are still universal aspirations even if they are now almost totally submerged and distorted under the weight of capitalist exploitative relations. Positive reciprocity, or the linguistic equivalent in whatever language is spoken, still remains an overwhelming desire and expectation in all parts of the world. It seems from the evidence considered that while there never was a 'golden age' of human existence, there were periods where the human endeavour was less in conflict with itself and with the rest of nature than it is under the capitalist system. We may not desire to go back to previous economic and technological stages, indeed, that would be impossible, but that does not mean there are no ways forward to future beneficial associations based upon positive reciprocity. If enough people are determined to achieve this and the revolutionary opportunity presents itself, then in one country or more, the path will open up once again for a further attempt at constructing a humane post-capitalist socio-economic system. An attempt which, if guided by revolutionary-humanism, will this time provide a beacon of attraction for others to follow. Freed of the domination of capital, the profit motive and the capitalist class, humanity could then use scientific and technological knowledge to interact with the planet and its life forms in ways that do not threaten its existence or our own. When the economic categories of the capitalist system outlined by Marx were considered it was demonstrated how individual and corporate capitalists exploit working people by appropriating their surplus labour and thus the surplus value created by them. The enormous size of that annual surplus value was indicated by reference to only one located example but it was also demonstrated to be implicit in the number of non-productive classes which this surplus supports. Such examples give lie to the constant mantra, uttered by pro-capitalist politicians, that there is insufficient social wealth to fund essential services and higher than basic levels of subsistence for all citizens. The inbuilt instability of the capitalist system and the sources of profound economic crisis were also illustrated in relationship to the creation of credit, fictitious capital and the dangerous turbulence of global speculation. Further, the numerous short-term and long-term effects of the capitalist system on the planet and all its inhabitants have been made abundantly clear. There can be no other rational conclusion than that the capitalist system needs replacing with something more suitable to the needs of the vast majority of human beings and the other inhabitants and resources of the planet. Many of these insights are, of course, not new. Countless thousands of other anti-capitalists have come to the same or similar conclusions. However, as we saw in chapter 11, many have restricted their opposition to this or that aspect of the capitalist system, thinking they could improve things by the method of reform. Reviewing the flaws in this reasoning and the lack of substantial progress, by the reformist method, has indicated that this method was always an illusion. On the surface, reformist campaigns may have given the impression that change of some kind was taking place, but behind the impression, the reality testifies that there has never been any lasting improvement, except for a privileged few. Even these few improvements, as we have seen, have more often than not been at the cost of increasing the problem for someone else in some other place. Closer appraisal of the capitalist political system as a whole, indicated why this is so. In contrast to slow gradual reform, we saw the emerging capitalist class in the 17th century using the opportunity of feudal crisis and the consequent revolutionary ferment to overthrow the then existing social and economic system and establish the foundations for a new one. One which they controlled and which they shaped to correspond to their own needs. We witnessed, in the case of England, America, France and Russia, the representatives of the developing capitalist class cast aside the reformist method and mobilise the masses in order to meet force with force, and overthrow their respective Governing elites. The capitalist class, when they were severely hampered by the feudal or foreign capitalist elite, unashamedly took the revolutionary path when the opportunity arose. Their descendants, who are now the controlling elite, wish to deny the same instrument to those who are oppressed today. However, as we have seen, revolution cannot be legislated for nor wished away, because it emerges not from the conspiracy of a few individuals, but from the interplay of deeply rooted contradictions and changes at work in all oppressive societies. Finally, the main conditions which lead to revolution, and the stages through which it passes, were identified and these will enable anti-capitalists to begin to find their own way through the vagueness and mysticism often surrounding the term. Implicitly throughout this book, and explicitly in many places, I have argued that the essential ingredient which has been missing in past and more recent anti-capitalist struggles has been what I term revolutionary-humanism. The lack of a revolutionary perspective has doomed some anti-capitalists to the self-defeating and sterile struggle for partial and temporary reforms. The lack of a humanist perspective has left other determined anti-capitalists with a revolutionary form, but as we have seen, with a content filled with competitive, elitist, exploitative and negative values. We have indicated that these core (sectarian) practices and values were no better, and in some cases worse, than those experienced under the capitalist system. Revolutionary and Humanist practices are, I suggest, the two essential limbs needed to support and propel any healthy body of anti-capitalists forward. Without either such a movement will stumble and fall. Both are essential. HUMANIST practice, because this best embodies the core anti-capitalist concern over the distorting effects of the capitalist system of production on all human beings, other life forms, and the resources of the planet. It is also the essential motivational and inspirational force for change and purpose for the whole anti-capitalist struggle. REVOLUTIONARY practices, because only by a revolution can the ruling capitalist class and their exploitative and oppressive system be overthrown and replaced by beneficial associations of human producers and consumers. Revolutionary also because that is what is required in terms of radically changing the way society (including much of our present anti-capitalist and humanist practice) is organised and structured. It seems to me to follow from all this that it is time for serious anti-capitalists to cast off, or refuse to take up, many of the misplaced, outdated and often discredited labels of Socialist, Communist, Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist, Syndicalist, Anarchist or even Marxist. As we have witnessed, such labels represent the differences arising from the establishment of 'shibboleths', 'panaceas', 'unshakeable beliefs', 'abstractions', 'logical deductions' 'bitterness' and even open 'rivalry' among many past and a few contemporary anti-capitalist forces. In practice the use of these labels has proved sterile, divisive and has quite definitely served to distract many anti-capitalists from the humanist essence which is at the heart of the working class anti-capitalist struggle. What have we to lose from discarding these labels? If it is ego or habit which makes us reluctant to drop them then does this make us fit to help found a new form of socio-economic existence? This is part of the challenge, I believe, we now face. Revolutionary-humanists can still personally value the respective contributions they may feel have been made by such thinkers and activists as Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci, Mao etc., but without that personal esteem being the cause of competition, division and what is little more than an excuse for sectarian warfare. Getting rid of the labels, or not taking them up in the first place, will also help to eliminate the tendency to create unfailing super heroes or idols out of these talented, but often quite seriously fallible, human beings. More important than this, the use of the term revolutionary-humanism would help keep to the fore the humanist essence of the anti-capitalist struggle prior to, during and after, any revolutionary developments. And of course, the term would also act as a clearer signpost for the organisational purpose and structure of future post-capitalist forms of economic and social existence. Whether anti-capitalists of the future will be up to the challenge presented by the new opportunities remains to be seen. Much, I feel, will depend on how well they are able to study developments, learn from past mistakes and forge a practical unity in the anti-capitalist struggles yet to come. In pre-Revolutionary situations as well as revolutionary crises, a significant section of the ruling class will become critical of the capitalist system and will undoubtedly break away to take their place in the anti-capitalist struggle. They will do so more enthusiastically and readily the more the anti-capitalist struggle is suffused with revolutionary-humanism and devoid of the sterile atmosphere of sectarianism. By ridding themselves of sectarianism even those still trapped in the traditional revolutionary left will be able to take a positive place alongside workers and other anti-capitalists in the coming struggles. A word on mainstream Humanism. It is generally accepted that an early humanist trend emerged as a sort of intellectual mutation, within the Catholic church. It took the form of a movement of educated Catholics who sought to distance themselves from aspects of heritage of the Holy Roman Empire. Rome, before the conversion of Constantine to Christianity, was of course an empire based upon conquest, tribute and slavery. Christian emperors of Rome merely changed their religion and kept this oppressive and imperialist tradition going. This pattern included the bizarre and despotic episodes of the Borgias who combined princely rule and conquest with corrupt papal authority. Catholic humanists (such as Petrarch, Boccaccio, Rabelais, Montaigne and Erasmus) were reacting against this 'holistic' tradition which included territorial conquest, monumental corruption and narrow pontifical interpretation of all matters. In their intellectual battles against this aspect of Catholicism, the catholic humanists leaned heavily on the texts of the ancient Greeks, particularly Plato. They discovered, translated and read these texts avidly, wrote profusely about them and conducted extensive correspondence based upon them. In this way they reinstated the right (and even duty) of other human beings to consider and evaluate the activities of the world without being slaves to the self-serving, hierarchical, scriptural interpretation of the papal authorities. Abstract statements such as "we can become what we will" by Pico Della Mirandola, another early humanist, asserted, at a rhetorical level, a degree of human independence from a destiny previously thought to be ordained by the Christian God. This early Catholic humanist strain became the life's work of a relatively small but influential intellectual elite. It was not confined to Italy, where it originated, and in fact became an international trend whose ideas in turn permeated the entire Renaissance period. Humanism in this Catholic form was not atheistic or anticlerical, merely anti-scholastic and against such obvious corrupt practices as the money-spinning sale of indulgences. Such points are made clear in Thomas More's 'Utopia' which depicts a society more communistic than Plato's 'guardians'. Nevertheless 'Utopia' presents a view which is hierarchical, monastic and entirely spiritual. As a close friend of Erasmus, More was even more scathing than he of the then existing economic inequalities and corruption. It must be said, however, that his brand of humanism didn't stretch beyond his Catholicism, for he was quite happy to see 'heretics' burned. We must surmise that not all of the heretics receiving such punishments, 'became what they willed'. A further significant outbreak of humanistic reasoning reverberated around Europe when Martin Luther nailed 95 propositions to the church door in Wittenburg in 1517. Luther was also articulating a trend which was against financial and doctrinal abuses and supposedly opposed to the extreme oppression of ordinary people by the rich and powerful. Although not always using the term humanist, to describe itself, Protestantism was a definite religious-humanist mutation out of the parent religion - Catholicism. It was the same species, for it too sought a radical increase in the power of the individual human will, without breaking with belief in the supernatural. Luther, however, very quickly distanced himself from the German peasant revolt of 1525 which was at least partly inspired by his teachings. The peasants, assisted by the pastor Thomas Munzter, were trying to 'become what they willed' - in this case they willed to become less oppressed and exploited. However, despite their will and willingness, a superior armed force defeated them at Frankenhausen in May 1525. Munzter, for his trouble, was captured, tortured and executed. Calvin, another Protestant humanist, was also an elitist and deeply religious ruler who influenced the setting up of an enormously oppressive Protestant regime in Geneva. This was the hierarchical form of society led by a group of religious leaders known as an 'elect', the one briefly mentioned in chapter 1. Calvin, one of the 'elect', personally ordered the arrest of a Spanish Protestant physician in Geneva as he left a church service. This apparently devout physician, who had previously been kept under surveillance by the religious police, was burned on the orders of - you've guessed it - Calvin the humanist! These Protestant forms of humanism were also neither atheistic, anti-elitist nor anticlerical, just anti-Roman Catholic, anti-scholastic and deeply intolerant. The Protestant movement, lacking any central authority, quickly fragmented further. Unlike the Catholic church, it lacked for a time an established hierarchy, a system of rewards (stipends and benefices) and punishments (removal of privileges, religious torture and imprisonment). There were, therefore, fewer inhibiting factors to the formation of many different Protestant sects such as Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Shakers, Zwingli-ists, Quakers, Ranters etc. In Britain this Protestant or 'dissenting' humanist trend was also evident in the Levellers, Diggers and the New Model Army of Cromwell and thus, as we saw in Chapter 12, played a not insignificant part in the English Civil War. The abstract humanist hope of 'becoming what we will', was proving for ordinary peasants and citizens to be a concrete reality of, 'we can only become what they will let us become'. With the success of the American War of Independence and the later onset of the French Revolution a new non-religious form of humanism became established. This was yet another mutation of the humanist strand in human affairs. As we saw the rhetorical 'self-evident truths' of the American Declaration of Independence, asserted that 'all men were equal'. In fact, as already noted, there was never any real intention, by the framers of that declaration, that all men should be really equal. In practice Black and Native Indian men were excluded even from legal and political equality, apart from in a few states. And women in America didn't even get the vote until 1920 and are still struggling for equality in many places. The French Revolution, as we also saw, also took up an implicitly political humanist theme with its call for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity - again ostensibly for all men, but primarily aimed at more political and economic freedom for middle-class men. Women - the other half of humanity - had to wait much longer. For a brief time black male slaves were included by the French Convention (until reversed by Napoleon) in the French controlled slave colonies of the West Indies. The sans-culottes and peasants willed a better life for themselves and asserted their will by supporting the revolution to obtain it. However, as we have seen, neither of these two groups of citizens were the main beneficiaries of the French Revolution. The politically orientated humanist theme (basic human rights issues for all) has lived ever since and emerged most clearly in revolutionary conflicts (German, Mexican, Russian, Chilean) and most large-scale colonial liberation struggles. But in all these cases and in these forms the humanist theme has never, to my knowledge, been used to advocate or achieve real equality for all human beings. The exception to this being the previously mentioned revolutionary humanism of Karl Marx. Also as we have seen, even the leadership of the Russian Revolution with its initial humanist rhetoric of workers' equality and peasants socialism created, from the outset, a deliberate, conscious, political, cultural and economic inequality among its citizens and within a very short time, the profoundly inhuman face of the Gulag. It seems to me that the practice, which the developing concept of 16th century - to 19th century humanism justified, can be summed up as; a progressive diminishing of the role of the supernatural in the profane affairs of humans and to assert human rights and responsibility in those affairs. But such practice was on a sliding scale, or continuum, from Catholic humanism through Protestant humanism to Political or secular humanism. It is perhaps only logical, therefore, that in modern times humanism should end up embracing agnosticism and atheism. The reason being that this 'progressive diminishing' has been assisted by the secular (scientific/technological) uncovering of many of the processes previously thought to require a mystical and creationist explanation. Despite their limited and often reactionary sides the various strands of humanism were successful in resonating with movements for change. They were able to do so because they were fundamentally subversive in relationship to then existing oppressive socio-economic regimes. They did not seek to be 'respectable' but became outspoken critics and thus they could not be accommodated by the powers that dominated at the time. They were, each in their own way, precursors of subsequent revolutionary changes. I suggest that modern mainstream humanism has lost that role and is not fundamentally subversive to the exploitative practices of the present capitalist system. Indeed, in its present form mainstream humanism is easily accommodated, assimilated, or rather increasingly marginalised, within the pragmatic arena of capitalistic socio-economic relations. Humanism, if it is to have any future validity to humanity, needs to regain a creatively subversive dimension and embrace more than just the concerns of a different and more modern elite. In short it needs to become revolutionary. A further point is that nearly all the noted branches of humanism shared with politics and sectarianism, at least another important and problematic common denominator. They were all based upon a somewhat arrogant assumption of the innate ability of an elite within the human species. Worse still they all in their own way recognised and celebrated the greatness of individual human genius and the power of their creations in opposing and subordinating what they all saw as the 'brute force of nature'. Instead of seeing humans as part of nature, as just one of the life-forms - and one on a steep learning curve - all previous recorded forms of humanistic views seem to have placed humans at the centre of the known universe - as 'the' crucial element! Around that centre, the whole variety of known life and materials orbit. These other life-forms and materials are viewed as being there to be utilised (exploited) as and when thought necessary, either by the capitalist system, for private gain or, in the case of the Stalinist system, for the state. From a general humanist point of view, human-centredness is much better than a supernatural centred view, but still it has only replaced one form of abstraction with another. More worrying it invites another danger. That of the abstraction 'man' being replaced by the abstraction 'scientific man'. More of which later. Despite these contradictions, partialities and impediments in its evolution, the humanist perspective, as it has mutated, has undoubtedly been progressive. The problem for the modern mainstream humanist movement, as I see it, is that it now finds itself down an evolutionary dead end. Having embraced the Agnostic and Atheistic position, ditched the Catholic, Protestant and Political elements they have not entirely abandoned abstractions and a human-centred view of the universe. For example; "Humanism is directly concerned with the future of human life and civilisation....With an approach to life based on humanity and reason, humanists recognise that moral values are properly founded on human nature and experience alone. Evidence shows that we only have one life; humanists grasp the opportunity to live it to the full." (What is Humanism. Humanity. No. 17 August/September 2000.) Concern about the 'future of human life'. This is so abstract that in the modern global village of tensions, atrocities and exploitation, it is virtually meaningless. Which part of human life; which type of human community? What kind of concerns? Similarly with the abstract concept 'civilisation'. As the reader will have noted, it is my contention that it was precisely the advent of 'civilisations' which was accompanied by oppression and the negation of much of the previous humane forms of socio-economic organisation. It is my view that it was the development of civilisations which ruptured the original voluntary co-operative essence of humanity and imposed either slave labour or domestic slavery for most men and women who were unfortunate enough to live within the reach of the various 'civilisations'. I suggest it is not too difficult to argue that the abstract formulation - 'approaches to life based upon existing humanity and existing reason' - haven't done too well so far. Over 60 million human deaths in wars, concentration camps and gulags are a silent condemnation of a substantial part of existing humanity and its reasoning. Further, many would now argue that 'moral values' ought not to be founded on many aspects of human nature and experience - alone! For a start it depends which aspect of human nature we are talking about. It seems to be part of some people's nature to turn to Imperial conquest - as most civilisations have done - and fascism, or 'ethnic cleansing' as its more recent appearance is now termed. For some human beings 'we can become what we will' has meant becoming, brutal torturers, rapists and murderers. Similarly, considering human experience 'alone' is abstract and insufficient. Which humans? Which experience? Modern humanists, I suggest, need to seriously reflect upon the experience of the other living inhabitants of the planet many of which are in grave danger from some dominant human values. 'Grasping the opportunity to live life to the full', in the above extract, seems to me to be more applicable to an upper class and yuppie formula. They, over the last few years, have certainly become conspicuously 'grasping'. They constantly 'grasp the opportunity to live life to the full' by purchasing yet further luxury cars or houses and all the paraphernalia which goes with them. It seems to me that this particular abstract humanist formulation ignores the real problems for the bulk of humanity and is well suited to the kind of frenetic production and conspicuous consumption in the western capitalist world which is polluting the planet and impoverishing the Third World. The lame inclusion of another abstraction commencing with "We believe (!) that the; "...quality of life can be improved and made more equitable." Is it really appropriate for modern humanist to express their convictions in terms of a belief? Particularly to 'believe' that the 'quality of life can be improved and made more equitable'. Surely the 'belief' orientated strands of humanist thought should be (and were?) left behind at the third mutation from religious into the political humanist trend. Modern humanists, with the experience of the last 700 years of humanist history behind them, should have the temerity to spell out exactly how they would like to see the quality of life improved - and for whom! Instead of contenting themselves with past abstractions, modern humanists should perhaps begin spelling out just how they think the majority of oppressed citizens of the world - whose lives are woefully constrained - can be freed to 'live life to the full'! It is interesting to contrast the above-noted bland modern abstract humanist statement with the fiercely precise articulation of the Catholic humanist, Thomas More. Writing in Utopia, he asked;. "What kind of justice is it when a nobleman or a goldsmith or a money lender, or someone else who makes his living by doing either nothing at all, or something completely useless to the public, gets to live a life of luxury and grandeur? In the meantime a labourer, a carter, a carpenter, or a farmer works so hard and so constantly that even a beast of burden would perish under the load; and this work of theirs is so necessary that no commonwealth could survive a year without it. Yet they earn so meagre a living and lead such miserable lives that a beast of burden would really be better off......Now isn't this an injust and ungrateful commonwealth? It lavishes rich rewards on so-called gentry, bankers and goldsmiths and the rest of that crew, who don't work at all, are mere parasites, or purveyors of empty pleasures......When I run over in my mind the various commonwealths flourishing today, so help me God, I can see nothing in them but a conspiracy of the rich, who are fattening up their own interests under the name and title of the commonwealth. They invent ways and means to hang onto whatever they have acquired by sharp practice, and then scheme to oppress the poor by buying up their toil and labour as cheaply as possible." (Thomas More Utopia. Norton Edition page 88/89) No fear of 'appearing too political' in the eyes of the 'powers that be' in that declaration. As long ago as the 16th century specific categories of oppressive groups are openly named and specific practices are condemned clearly and unequivocally, by More and others. Are there not such abuses and practices in modern global society? The modern human beasts of burden may no longer be located in the urban centres of Europe, although some undoubtedly are, but they are certainly still there in the sweat shops of the Third World. Does the modern humanists movement expose them so clearly and condemn them so vigorously as previous humanists? If they do, I haven't heard them yet. In the 18th century Rousseau declared that; "The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought of saying 'This is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civic society. How many crimes, wars, murders, miseries and horrors might mankind not have been spared, if someone had pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch, and shouted to his fellow men: 'Beware of listening to this impostor; you are ruined if you forget that the fruits of the earth are everyone's, and that the soil itself is no one's." (Quoted in Bullock 'The Humanist tradition in the West. page 67.) No wonder such sharply focused criticisms and humanist reasoning was so subversive of the regimes of oppression under which they developed. They provided the essential intellectual fuel for developing movements undermining the ideology of the ruling elite and looking forward to revolutionary change in all aspects of life; cultural, artistic, economic, scientific and political. This is the radically critical edge that modern mainstream humanism seems to have lost. Modern Humanism also leans too heavily on science in the abstract. Yet science, as we have seen, is not without its problems and distortions. In the realm of astronomical science, for example, there are now learned discussions on 'big bangs', 'black holes', 'singularities', 'strings', 'worm-holes' and 'space/time warps', not to mention 'parallel universes'. All of which are debated by some scientists as if they have actually been proved to exist rather than being highly speculative hypotheses inferred from other (secondary) observed phenomena. Many of the big-bang scientists seem to put a similar mystical creation to the universe as religion once did. e.g.. "..through the eyes of faith one can see numerous vestiges of the designers hand in the universe....I find some of these circumstances of nature impossible to comprehend in the absence of supernatural design." (Owen Gingerich) "However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started - it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. (Stephen Hawking) Instead of a supreme being creating the world out of nothing in a few days, 'big-bang' scientists have the whole universe and its enormous quantities of matter miraculously created out of a rapid explosion of a highly speculative, mystical single atom of matter. What could be more mystical and creationist than this? True, Hawking, for one, later hedges his bets a little with his no-boundary theory, but a lot of scientists, as the prior example indicates, see the hand of a creator in cosmic as well as terrestrial forms of matter. No one can deny the stature of Einstein in the discipline of science but even he considered that; "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. (Albert Einstein) Some scientists are using expensive equipment (and drawing high salaries) to 'listen' for intelligent life in star systems outside our own galaxy despite the fact that light can take two million years to travel that far. So any message sent could at least be two million years old. By that time the supposed life-form could have died out or the star system of which it was an assumed part, have collapsed. Even presuming this had not happened any returned message would take a further two million years to get back, so the extra-terrestrials would have had to wait around for four million years. The senders on earth would also have to staff their receivers for a further four million years waiting for a reply. And all that is presuming (an enormous presumption) that there is anything technically proficient out there. Does this sound sensible? I don't think so. For some reason (perhaps my revolutionary-humanist sensibilities) I think that making sure everyone has enough to eat and a decent place to live and to do this without slashing away senselessly at the environment, its life-forms and resources, is a better use of resources. At the present rate of ecological damage and resource depletion the human species couldn't guarantee to be here in one million years from now let alone the required four million just to send and receive a message. Yet such scientists as these propose long term continued expensive, wasteful research knowing that some people on the planet can't even afford a home or enough food for themselves or their children. Of course these are not the only scientists who haven't a very humanistic perspective on resource allocation. And yet these are among the more benign of the scientific community. A different set of scientists spend every working day on perfecting conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of warfare . I suggest that modern humanists should, therefore, guard against the danger of assigning a higher place to the scientific community than perhaps it warrants. For some people, and many mainstream humanists may be among them, science has become a sort of new religion. It has become yet another body of ideas and practices which they don't question. Due to its complexity scientific knowledge has become as esoteric to a literate population as scriptural knowledge once was, to an illiterate one. In face of this some people are content to 'believe' that humanity, through science (and exercising a blind trust in scientists) will quickly solve all the problems facing it. Science, we should always remember, does not exist outside of the human agents who practice it and advance it. And, of course, those human agents who practice science are made of the same subjective material as the rest of us. So much so that even prominent scientists can be wrong and dogmatically cling onto theories which never really fitted the facts. The chances of this, and much more, are greater if their careers or research grants are dependant upon certain types of science or certain types of theories. Scientific reassurances about the safety of Nuclear power were clearly exaggerated in the recent past by those scientists with a vested career perspective or financial interest in the project and the same is now happening with regard to genetic engineering. Medical science is frequently mistaken on the safety of drugs and other medical procedures, as such gruesome examples as thalidomide and Depo Provera demonstrate. Arrogant and elitist scientific assumptions as to what purpose the organs of dead infants should be put, have also recently come to light. And of course, as noted above, there is a whole field of science given over to biological, chemical and nuclear warfare - hardly the most humanistic of career choices. These may also be only the tip of a much larger iceberg of murky and arrogant practices by science and scientists. Indeed, George Monbiot informs us that; "When Professor Janet Bainbridge, chair of the committee (the Advisory Committee on Novel foods and processes) and an outspoken enthusiast for GM crops, was asked whether the public should be able to choose between GM and non-GM food, she observed that ' most people do not even know what a gene is. Sometimes my young son wants to cross the road when its dangerous - sometimes you have to tell people what's best for them'. (G Monbiot. Captive State. page 278/279) Anyone still in doubt about science and scientists should read the twenty pages of 'Captive State' which follow the above quote. Science is far from neutral and scientists are far from impartial or unbiased. Nor are they the sole font of wisdom. Even without the distortions caused by profit-led research, scientists cannot solve any of the social or economic problems of the world. Therefore, the acquisition of a PhD in science, a white coat and a lucrative research post should not be allowed to intimidate the rest of us into a trepidation of ever carefully questioning them, their actions or their intentions. To return to the earlier theme. As I see it, humanist strands that continue to operate with abstractions and narrow forms of human-centredness are going nowhere. They have become moribund and are heading for extinction. Modern humanism needs, at the very least, to advocate upper and lower economic rights. For under the existing economic system without a ceiling on the upper limit of wealth then there cannot be an acceptable minimum of resources available for those on the lowest. And without a minimum of material sustenance, which many presently lack, humans cannot even survive, let alone 'live life to the full'. In fact I think humanists should advocate more. As already stated, I feel a new species of humanism - revolutionary-humanism - needs to be explicitly re-created, which advocates an end to exploitation and the capitalist global extraction of surplus labour and value from human labour. Marx and others have provided substantial foundation stones of such a revolutionary-humanism. At the same time, in light of mounting evidence, this new revolutionary-humanism needs to recognise that human beings ought to consider themselves as merely the 'conscious trustees' and partners of all life forms and not potential 'masters of the universe'. As 'responsible custodians' of all elements of nature upon which everything depends and which dynamically combine to make up the planet turned living organism, variously called - mother earth or Gia. A final word to the remaining followers of Lenin and Trotsky. A final word needs to be said with regard to the extreme sectarian anti-capitalist elites and their use of ideas. The Stalins, Healys and many others, whose bizarre and sectarian thoughts we have encountered in various chapters, did not act the way they did as a result of mistaken understandings of the theories of Marx, they acted the way they did for other reasons and developed supposedly Marxist theories to vindicate the way they acted. Such people did not and do not study real life in order to evaluate the relevance of their ideas; they study ideas to find relevant ways to justify their actions. We should emphatically recognise for example that it was not perverted theories or brutal programmes which produced Stalinist sectarian behaviour examined in chapter 2, it was Stalinist sectarian behaviour which produced perverted theory and brutal programmes. Lenin's actions in consolidating the soviet state against the Russian working class were not the results of following a mistaken theory or even caused by the fact that Marx did not manage to get around to articulating a comprehensive blueprint for transitional forms for him to follow. Instead the opposite procedure happened. Lenin's real life actions as head of state and leader of the Bolsheviks caused a modification in the ideas he had of the nature and purpose of the state. Trotsky's fetishisation of the Party; his elevation of it over the working class and his concord with Stalin over compulsory labour discipline and the national plan, was not the result of a mistaken understanding of Marx's principle of the self-activity of the working class. His later theoretical modifications and justifications came about as a result of his real life actions in supporting and being an active participant of Bolshevik centralist oppression. So thinking and writing correct ideas doesn't always mean they will be followed even by the person who writes them. Gerry Healy and his supporters in the SLL/WRP did not conduct themselves in dehumanised, arrogant and sectarian ways because they were carrying out dehumanised and arrogant theories espoused by Marx and Engels. Quite the reverse was the case. In the process of carrying out the practical struggles to build a 'vanguard' they adopted brutal, dehumanised and arrogant methods and then sought justification for these methods - not in the writings of Marx, for they could not be found there - but in the writings of Lenin and Trotsky. As we saw in Chapter 3 they were not on their own in doing this. The reasons all these sectarians leaned so heavily on some (and actually not all) of the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky was because they could find in Lenin and Trotsky ideas which justified their practice. These (and many other sectarian group members) were intelligent and dedicated human beings who studied anti-capitalist 'theory' and were quite capable of discerning alternative and more humane readings in Marx, but they used their intelligence to consciously filter and select only those ideas which fitted their chosen methods. Sadly, much of 20th Century philosophical discourse (including a lot of so-called anti-capitalist theory) still appears to be little more than terminological abstraction and manipulation designed not to help make sense of the world but to; a) elevate intellectual production into a superior social and economic position to other forms of production; b) competitively undermine other rival intellects; and c) to reduce the intellect of the working class to a baffled, subordinated and mute incomprehension. This is perhaps understandable within bourgeois circles for this class is thoroughly imbued with elitism and tries to justify its own notions of superiority and inferiority. It has a vested interest in complicating and mystifying life and in making working people feel inadequate. However, this should not be the case for those thinkers ostensibly concerned with the development of, and acting upon, the anti-capitalist ideas of Marx. Even here however so-called 'Marxist' intellectuals have tended to talk down to working people and assume they have a superior revolutionary position to them because of their ability (and the time) to provide complex analysis, detailed programmes and definitive instructions. This occurs despite the fact that, as we have seen, Marx drew attention to the unique and key position which working people had in relationship to the means of production which made them the revolutionary class. Incidentally, the fact that the working class may be proportionally smaller in the advanced countries than in Marx's time does not alter this key position. Nor does the fact that some working people in the advanced countries become chauvinistic or racist, or nationalistic in developing countries as some 'new left' thinkers considered in the 1960s and 1970s. Such subjective factors where they persist may delay the outbreak of revolution, retard its development or even effect its outcome, but this cannot refashion the unique revolutionary position and potential of working people. Revolutionary ideas and anti-capitalist theories are a creation of thinking, acting human beings best made after due reflection on areas of experience - particularly the experience of trying to change things. However, these ideas and theories are never concrete or precise but abstract and general. They are more in the nature of guidelines and hypotheses. As such they need to be constantly tested in action by experience, evaluated against that experience and where necessary modified - bearing in mind the orientating principles or purposes for which the ideas are intended to implement in practice. For this result honest description, reflection and evaluation is essential as well as an honest and clear statement as to the purposes intended. A level of honesty which has become quite rare among the left and entirely absent among the sectarian left. Revolutionary-humanist ideas and theories, as creative guidelines for further practice, should encapsulate where possible, the experience of past struggles so as to provide improved guidelines. This is why Marx's work is so important because Marx's creative thinking - often after exhaustive study and reflection - provided many such guidelines. However, much of what is published of Marx's work was never intended by him for publication. Many volumes of Marx's writings represent his own notes taken down for his own private purposes. As such they are entitled to be obscure and somewhat inaccessible. For this reason special care is needed to understand their terminology and interpret them. Nonetheless, for those with the time to read them and resources to obtain them, they are one of the richest known sources of creative thinking upon the anti-capitalist struggle. They include general guidance on the direction working people and anti-capitalists need to take in order to free themselves and the whole of humanity from the restrictive and destructive confines of capitalist economic relations. But they do not contain precise blueprints. For revolutionary-humanists the creation of the post-capitalist future is the practical creative task of the associated community of workers and citizens themselves, once they are liberated from the political, military and economic hold of the ruling class and their state. This is not merely because they are eminently capable of such creative tasks but also because this is a necessary process for them in order to equip themselves to found society anew. The liberation of the working class and other oppressed classes from the exploitation of capital will be by their own actions and own efforts along with those of their supporters. A liberation which will be brought about just as much from the collapse and crisis of capital caused by its own internal contradictions as from the previous and later positive anti-capitalist actions of the workers themselves. Both elements, revolutionary crisis and collective anti-capitalist actions, will be much more conducive to the adoption and development of post-capitalist humanist ideas among working people than any intellectually led self-appointed vanguard armed with its latest detailed programme - transitional or not. It was enough for Marx (and should still be enough for present day revolutionary humanists) to point out the contradictory and transitional nature of the domination of the capitalist system historically and the potentially anti-capitalist transitional forms which had/have already sprung up within the capitalist system; (co-operatives; cartels; Paris Commune, pre-Bolshevised soviets), and to point out the many pitfalls waiting for workers in struggle. For the rest it is sufficient to support and where possible facilitate, as suggested below, the coming together of workers, anti-capitalists and revolutionary humanists in and out of their struggles. The post-Marx quest to build 'the' Leninist style vanguard party or 'the' Trotskyist 4th International, should be resolutely abandoned as misguided, elitist and reactionary. Do anti-capitalists need detailed programmes of action? We should acknowledge that no amount of peering at the horizon of the future will produce anything but hazy images, or abstract detail and even the serious possibility of self-induced mirages. No amount of years of microscopic analysis of the texts of Marx will produce an exact and/or foolproof blueprint for the future success of anti-capitalist struggle or post-capitalist society. We should also recognise that sadly the legacy we have actually inherited (after all the volumes of theorising of Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Lukacs, Marcuse, Gramsci, Gerry Healy, Tony Cliff, Ted Grant, James Cannon, Burnham, Cliff Slaughter, Sean Matgamna etc.) is a chronic, almost fatal dose of dogma and sectarianism and but for the excellent guidelines left by Marx we would have very little else which is overwhelmingly positive. Devising detailed programmes and endlessly debating them seems to me to be similar to using a rocking chair, we may be comforted (and even fooled) by the fact of some apparent movement, but in reality we are going nowhere except backwards and forwards. We should be ready to accept that the whole project of a post-capitalist society will be both revolutionary and developmental. Revolutionary in the comprehensive sense of both the form and content of social and political life; and developmental in the sense of a series of approximations and changes of tack - but not of principle. Revolution, as we have seen, involves rapid and sudden changes which are themselves unpredictable and are the result of unpredictable and often unforeseen causes. The day to day pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary work of anti-capitalist working people and revolutionary-humanists will be developmental in the sense that much of it hasn't been done before so many new things will occur which themselves will cause constant reappraisal and modification. So no detailed theory or polished programme - no matter what self-styled genius produces it - will guide us much further than next month or at the most next year, for by that time many things will have changed. This will be particularly the case when the accelerated tempo of a revolutionary situation begins and throws many - if not all - assumptions, on which detailed programmes are based, out through the window. Trying to follow a previously worked out set programme in such dynamic situations is perhaps one of the few instances in which well intentioned anti-capitalists can be led into quite reactionary behaviour. The instance of sincere revolutionaries following the detailed schematic programme such as 'defeat social fascism first' in pre-fascist Germany springs to mind here as one of the most catastrophic examples. Sincere rank and file Bolsheviks and revolutionary workers forcing through the Bolshevik programme against the Russian working class and peasants is another. Closer to home the thousands of sincere rank and file anti-capitalists fulfilling the detailed programmes of the sectarian SLL/WRP, SWP, CP etc. and in doing so boycotting many unity actions, is another. Recognising the extremely limited uses of even well thought out programmes does not mean that anti-capitalists and revolutionary humanists need to start with a blank sheet or leave them stumbling about as if in a darkened room. We do know (for we have inherited) sufficient materialist guidelines to begin to act as revolutionary-humanists and anti-capitalists with a conscious awareness of what is needed in general, even if much of the detail will need to be left closer to the events as they begin to unfold. Here are some general points, to add to the ones made in the last chapter on the question of anti-capitalist revolution and future post-capitalist society. We know from experience, and the guidelines produced by Marx in Capital, that the capitalist form of production is exploitative, oppressive, crisis-ridden and contradictory. We know from the experience of capitalist production and from Capital and the Grundrisse that the combination of working people and modern industry can produce enough necessary products to assure all the world's citizens' of a basic humane standard of economic and social welfare once production is organised according to communal methods. We cannot however, know in advance exactly what kind of products and services future associated working people will decide are necessary and how they will create them. We also know from modern society that such is the productivity of the combination of labour and industry that sufficient surplus products can be made available to release adequate numbers of people, or all people for a time, from direct productive activity to ensure safe, clean, humane and interesting cultural, educational, leisure environments exist. We don't know how future working people will do this or what they will choose as priorities. Nor should we be crystal gazing and trying to tell them. We know from the experience of other revolutions that to get to such a revolutionary situation the rule of capital will have to undergo sufficient of a crisis (structural or episodic) to shake the existing socio-political set-up to its foundations. We don't know exactly how or when that will happen, (neither did Lenin or Trotsky). We know from the experience of Britain, Germany, and Russia (plus Cuba, Nicaragua and perhaps Chile) that this revolutionary upsurge and overthrow could be triggered in a particular advanced country, or an isolated outpost of capitalism; but we don't know which or when. Although, of course, a serious study of many of the factors may indicate where it is most likely to occur. We know from the experience of Germany, Britain, Russia, Chile and Nicaragua, that the capitalist class will fight to the death and will, if they need help, call upon other capitalist countries to come to its aid. We know this but we don't know how it will unfold. Some anti-capitalists may hope that revolution will break out simultaneously in many or all countries (since this would weaken the international capitalist class and neutralise any possible military interventions) but real life events may not fulfil such hopes. We know from the negative experience of reformism and reformist labour parties that the revolutionary working class and its anti-capitalist allies will have to adapt their specific orientation to the circumstances of their own struggle but all the time with the general aim of undermining and destroying the political and military power of their oppressors and by arming themselves resist being crushed. But we cannot know in advance how this will occur or even which troops will defect to the workers side or what weapons will be secured and used. We know from the experience of the German and other revolutions that there is a danger of sectarian hot-heads on the side of the revolution engaging in hopelessly premature uprisings which can then be easily defeated. Where they don't exist within the anti-capitalist movement, agent provocateurs will be engaged by the reactionaries to try to achieve the same result. We know from Marx, and the experience of the Paris Commune, Germany, Britain and Russia that the working class is able to create economic and political forms of its own and if powerful enough (or the ruling class weak enough) to seize and abolish the ruling classes political form, their parties and - the state. We cannot know in advance, however, who will prove strongest or weakest on the day or exactly what configuration those working class political forms will take. Sectarians would insist on their forms being adopted by workers and boycott spontaneous organisational forms, as they did in May 1968 in France, or alternatively seek to dominate them. Revolutionary-humanists, on the other hand, would respond to and support working class and other spontaneous anti-capitalist organisational forms. We know from the experience of the Soviet Union that the state will have to be smashed and abolished, not transformed or reformed. We can extend this conclusion to include all formal political practices, since politics is the exercise of power over others. These will need to be abolished - since formal politics easily becomes the potential base for a new ruling elite. Alternative working class social forms of organising (be they committees, co-operatives, communes or assemblies) will need to become, not just the means of declaring this abolition, but of carrying it out. We know that after the abolition of the state the communal form of working class organisation will need to designate all citizens as 'workers' either by hand or brain and members assign themselves or allow themselves to be assigned to some productive activity approved of by the local communal form of organisation. We cannot, however, predict how this will occur or tell them how to do it. They may try many different ways simultaneously or sequentially. We know that these communal forms will have to commence (or continue) the seizure of factories and shops and rebuild any useful but damaged industries and homes caused by the revolutionary upheaval and the collapse of the capitalist system. We know these communal forms of production and distribution will need initially to concentrate on ensuring the production of sufficient necessaries for all citizens. We know that the communal forms of organisation will need to abolish wage labour and institute a (temporary) system of payment by voucher or some other similar method. Providing the system of economy allows communal production and access by producers to sufficient necessaries and collective control and decision-making over access to any available extras during the first stage of transition then this won't be a problem. If it is, or becomes a problem, then the future groups of associated workers will sort it out using their knowledge of the situation and the resources and possibilities available at the time. We know from Marx, the experience of the Paris Commune, and the Russian soviets that the communal forms of organisation will need to choose certain people to work outside of the full-scale meetings but as 'delegates' rather than permanent representatives. We know that for as long as such positions are required - those delegates will need to be elected for their ability, suitability (not past or recent party affiliation) and subject to instant recall and paid only the communal average. We know from the Paris Commune and the early experience of Soviet Russia that these communal forms of organisation will need and want to negotiate with other such communal forms locally, regionally and nationally. Whether and to what extent they can do so internationally will depend upon what has happened meanwhile within other capitalist countries. We know they will need to begin to develop economically the links we know they will have undoubtedly made politically during the pre-revolutionary situation and during the revolution itself. We know from the positive experience of the Paris Commune and the negative experience of the Russian Soviets, that working people through these communal forms of organisations will need to ensure that the decision-making processes (economically and socially) will stay with them and not be permanently delegated to a class of political representatives or permanent group of specialists however much they say they are on the side of working people. We don't know and can't know precisely how the future associated workers will choose to do this last point or many of the other things outlined above - but neither do we need to know. There will (on further reflection) also be other important general points or orienting principles to add to those above, but we can be sure they will be of this kind of generality until much closer to their actual unfolding. But clearly such guiding principles cannot simply be cobbled together into a programme. Yet some anti-capitalists struggle now with defining just who will be allowed to vote in the transitional period between capital's collapse and fully achieved post-capitalist socio-economic system. At the same time others agonise over defining which capitalist or pre-capitalist occupations should be classified as proletarian (or not) in some future soviet or commune. Why do a number of anti-capitalists call for 'state ownership'; 'freedom of political parties'; 'higher levels of productivity than present day capitalism'; 'a workers state which must follow a program'. etc.? Why do all this if it isn't to provide a programme now for the future associated workers and anti-capitalists to follow and which will exclude all those who cannot agree to such a programme or think it is a waste of time? In this context it must be said that some of these anti-capitalist demands upon the future are now also highly dubious given the history of the 20th century. Biological necessity creates the need for economic activity but human progress cannot be treated as if it were the same thing as the modern view of economic development. We can no longer kid ourselves, for example, that the present type of unrestricted economic activity is the next goal of humanity, for if continued that kind of technical and economic expansion will quickly exhaust the planets resources and undermine the very basis of life itself. Sufficient production of necessities will always be of primary importance for human beings, but beyond that there are other important considerations. Simply producing and consuming vast quantities of products is not only environmentally unsound, but already creates a one-sided, one-dimensional life for individuals, without necessarily making them happy or even contented. The nurturing and development of human relationships around creative, economic and non-economic activities may well be something that future groups of humans prefer to undertake, but as noted, that will be their decision. What can anti-capitalists do now? Those who accept the anti-capitalist perspective presented here face not only the task of liaising and combining together but also that of consistently exposing all the characteristics of sectarianism whenever and wherever they are encountered. They will also need to argue for an understanding of the revolutionary implications of any anti-capitalist struggles they undertake and to insist that the humanist essence be to the forefront of any anti-capitalist discussions or events which take place. For those already engaged in the anti-capitalist struggle, who agree with the revolutionary-humanist perspective outlined here, the next section will suggest a way forward. For those who are newly convinced by the arguments in this book there are a number of ways to proceed. Involvement in the anti-capitalist struggle falls into two main categories; relatively passive and relatively active. RELATIVELY PASSIVE. a) Read more anti-capitalist literature. b) Discuss anti-capitalist ideas with others at home or work. c) Pass on anti-capitalist literature to others. d) Whistle-blow. Leak information to anti-capitalist activists on capitalist malpractice. e) Learn to identify and argue against anti-capitalist sectarianism. RELATIVELY ACTIVE. a) Join one of the many anti-capitalist organisations or campaigns. b) Become involved in research/writing on one of the issues or effects. c) Get involved in publicising or publishing anti-capitalist literature. d) Donate money to the campaign or anti-capitalist network of your choice. e) Continue to identify and argue against anti-capitalist sectarianism. All these activities are necessary components of a successful anti-capitalist struggle in a pre-revolutionary period. Personal or employment circumstances may limit or dictate which level of involvement an individual takes up, but each level of activity has an extremely positive role to play. The question of the role of revolutionary-humanists during the heat of a revolutionary political crisis is a separate question but even here I suggest that their future activity should supplement and complement the efforts of revolutionary workers not frustrate them as became the practice in post 1917 Russia. What can revolutionary-humanists do? 'What is to be done', should not be seen as a general ahistorical question to be answered by producing a comprehensive programme leading all the way to the anti-capitalist conquest of power and beyond. On the contrary it is a recurring question and each time it is considered the answer will depend upon the specific conditions facing those who ask the question. Marx responded to a letter regarding a suggestion that a (Dutch) party congress would discuss 'what legislation should be enacted by socialists after they had gained control', by criticising the whole idea. He followed this by criticising the question itself. "What should be done at any definite moment of the future, and done immediately, depends of course entirely on the given historical conditions in which one has to act......The doctrinaire and inevitably fantastic anticipation of the programme of action for a revolution of the future only diverts one from the struggle of the present." (Marx/Engels selected correspondence p 317/318) This indicates that anti-capitalists a long time before us have spent time constructing speculative 'programmes of action' which have tried to anticipate the future based upon some 'vision' created in the present. In evaluating such 'fantastic anticipation's' Marx concluded that they diverted attention away from the struggle of the present. This is sound advice which revolutionary-humanists and other anti-capitalists would do well to seriously consider. So I suggest that among the many elements of the current given 'historical conditions' in which anti-capitalists and revolutionary-humanists have to act are the following key ones; A) a maturing structural, and possible episodic, economic crisis within the world capitalist production and financial processes; B) the complete abandonment of any serious anti-capitalist pretence by 'modern' and 'modernised' social-democratic (including ex-Stalinist) reformist political parties; C) the spectre of Stalinist sectarianism which still haunts, distorts and suppresses the collective aspirations of working people for a better society; D) the divisive and debilitating residue of Leninist and Trotskyist sectarianism among those remaining in the revolutionary anti-capitalist tradition. E) the development of a global anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movement. I further suggest that those who accept the revolutionary-humanist anti-capitalist position should become active in; a) following Marx's long unheeded 19th century advice and overcome - in practice - the multi-faceted and ingrained sectarian habits that have developed within certain parts of the anti-capitalist movement. b) helping facilitate, extend and develop an international non-sectarian network of anti-capitalists, workers and revolutionary-humanists. c) assisting and supporting anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation demonstrations, and workers in struggle when and wherever they are in conflict with capital or the state. and d) sharing with those in all anti-capitalist struggles (and all those who can be reached by whatever means) sufficient of the previously-noted critical (and self-critical) understandings to begin to positively re-assert the potential of the post-capitalist humanist perspective for humanity from within the global anti-capitalist movement. The above points (a - d) are what could be done at the moment and they could form the basis of the present struggle for unity among anti-capitalists and revolutionary humanists. They are those elements which can best prepare us for the next shift in the development of the 'historical conditions' and they are elements which themselves can, if successfully achieved, create something qualitatively new with which to greet those future historical conditions and act in response to them. Seriously addressing the above themes within the ranks of anti-capitalists and revolutionary-humanists and taking the results among working people will also provide a firm practical foundation from which working class anti-capitalist self-activity, imagination and creativity, can again begin to positively respond to historical conditions and to flourish in new forms. The vehicles for doing some of the above tasks are already known. They could take the usual form of conferences, workshops and bulletins as well as utilising the Internet and newer forms of dissemination, collaboration, and co-ordination, such as the World Social Forum, and their regional equivalents. A good start would be to form a revolutionary-humanist network by progressively using some or all of the above forms and for this network to begin to relate to the broad anti-capitalist movement in a positive and non-sectarian manner.