Rawthentic
13th March 2009, 22:25
Swimming with the big fish, or leading a new school? (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/swimming-with-the-big-fish-or-leading-a-new-school/)
Posted by n3wday on March 13, 2009
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/blog-revolution.jpg?w=292&h=300
Many thanks to Zerohour, Eddy, and Ulises for their thoughtful comments.
“We need a firm commitment to radicalism that can speak in wildly poetic terms. Without such, we’ll have no revolutionary movement.”
By N3day
As I’m writing this, a vicious struggle is raging within society over how to sum up the current and deepening economic crisis. For the first time in many years the word “socialism” has been injected into popular discourse (which is wonderful even despite its often narrow interpretation), and responses to the crisis are emerging in many forms ranging from “let em’ fail” populist calls of right, to temporary nationalization programs (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/who-keeps-screwing-us-ove_b_166438.html) aimed at putting the many failing businesses into the hands of more “responsible” managers. How we approach and relate to this upsurge is very important.
The current crisis is not mainly the result of mortgage defaults or the debts of irresponsible consumers (even though their defaults are inseparable from the crisis), but of the inherently anarchic system of capitalist accumulation.
It is indispensable for us to approach this crisis from a revolutionary perspective, whether within a mass organization, study circles, or when conducting agitation on the street. For the first time in many years all of capitalism’s ugly contradictions are coming to a head, and how history will gaze back on this moment depends heavily on our actions now.
The question of our approach to reform has emerged many times on Kasama, and here I think it is important to discuss again. In the end, communists engage in reform struggles. Whether they are to end a war, raise a wage, provide a service, or something else. We fight to improve the lives of people within the system, while at the same time creating the conditions for its final overthrow.
Mass struggle serves as an educational process in which people learn a number of things. From realizing there is no future within global capitalism, to mastering the skills and mindset required to run a new society. But, the different forms of struggle, slogans, and methods, carried out by communists all teach different lessons. As revolutionaries we have to constantly interrogate ourselves and ask, does the curriculum we’re advocating truly divorce our minds from the system, or does it mobilize people around a program incapable of breaking with bourgeois hegemony?
Here I’m going to pick on Carl Davidson a bit, because I believe he, of all the folks posting on this site, most consistently and articulately represents the line I believe we should avoid at all costs. Carl is often fond of referencing Gramsci, and at one point Carl says (in reference to reform struggles for things like coops) (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/where-does-that-leave-us-plotting-acting-changing-moving/#comment-10264),
“Instead, think of them as schools of struggle where workers learn the skills of becoming masters of all society, and these schools in turn become positioned as strongholds, dugout positions in the battlefields of class struggle, what we need to acquire in the ‘war of position,’ so when the times arrives to go ‘over the top,’ in a period of dual power and insurrection, ie, the ‘war of maneuver,’ we’ll be able to do so with some accumulated strength.”
At first, it appears we are saying essentially the same thing. However, when Carl’s position is examined more closely, it becomes clear he is speaking mostly in an administrative sense. He views consciousness as secondary to the immediate struggle, so his interpretation of dugouts within society, take on literal forms (“power” through cooperatives, electorates, etc. literal positions of power). People gain positions of power, and from there learn the tasks needed to run society (management). On one level, there’s nothing wrong with viewing those types of skills as positive and useful, but the real problem lies in how those positions are won, and how they are viewed by the people who struggled to win them (in other words, what is learned beyond the narrow scope of technical ability).
We’re trying to create schools for revolution, not syndicalism or other flavors of reformism. Ultimately those reformist views lead to capitulation. Unless a certain level of consciousness is obtained by those fighting for change, large concessions may ebb the tides of struggle. More and more revolutionaries will find themselves in competition with reactionaries and reformists over who can win the biggest concessions that meet the immediate self-interest of the people (which has been proven to be within the capacity of bourgeois forces to dole out). In times of acute turmoil (such as the Depression, or what we have the potential to entering) this can be very difficult for bourgeois forces, but if those periods of turmoil pass and no solid revolutionary foundations have been built, then the struggle will fade away.
So in practice, simply struggling for directly tangible reforms (even if these struggles take on wildly militant forms), without reaching out broadly in attempts to raise revolutionary consciousness, ropes people into the system rather than helping them divorce themselves from it. Viewing motion as more important than consciousness is the death of genuine class war, and such narrow views wind up reinforcing people’s participation in the process of capital, even if (in an illusory way) they are struggling against their oppression.
(http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/where-does-that-leave-us-plotting-acting-changing-moving/#comment-10330)
RW Harvey said in a related thread (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/where-does-that-leave-us-plotting-acting-changing-moving/#comment-10330),
“The radical beauty of the GPCR, and perhaps its greatest gift to revolution here in the U.S., may not be primarily in the various forms it adopted (though some of these may be applicable as well), but in its persistence in making every effort to transform people’s consciousness, to bend every effort to break the lethargy of self-focused interests, and to foster a revolutionary critical awareness as a vital component on the road to communism.”
I think the latter half of this quote beautifully sums up how we should treat revolutionary work.
We clearly should be attempting to win those who we have prolonged engagement with over to communism (through propaganda work), but also I believe it’s very worth while to try and win those with whom we have very limited engagement with, over to revolutionary views (through agitation, sloganeering, etc).
It’s this notion of constant pushing and pulling that defines us as conscious revolutionaries.
(http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/collision-course-building-anti-imperialism-after-the-elections/#comment-9635)
Carl often emphasizes (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/collision-course-building-anti-imperialism-after-the-elections/#comment-9635) the fact that there are innumerable factors that all contribute towards people becoming revolutionary, or otherwise politically conscious. This I don’t disagree with. However, when it’s brought up, it’s done in order to belittle the importance of revolutionaries actively seeking to win those with whom we have limited engagement over to a more revolutionary position. To Carl, this is simply something that happens through life experience (to which revolutionaries make little to no significant contribution) so, regular attempts to raise consciousness (through strongly challenging bourgeois narratives) are seen as ultimately sectarian and futile, simply dividing people. In the end, to people who hold this view, bodies are considered as principal over minds. This is wrong on a few levels.
People become politically conscious in numerous ways. Some have mainstream political ideologies deeply entrenched in their thinking. Those types of people require constant reengagement and patient struggle. For them agitation likely plays a small (if any) role in their becoming conscious. Others are more or less depoliticized (for example, the folks who don’t vote, not because of any well developed views, but because they simply see no point). They have views and opinions, but don’t subscribe to any particular ideology. Among them, some turn out to be something along the lines of ‘natural’ communists (as TNL once pointed out). For them something like agitation could be the spark that lights the prairie fire (this was the case with myself), hinting answers to questions they always had. And there are also numerous shades and variations of these two views, and probably many others. But, the important point I’m making here is Carl’s view of this is typically very one-sided. He says he doesn’t subscribe to the “all propaganda” view, but rarely sees any use in trying to teach communist values and ideas except within very narrow and particular contexts (as far as I can tell almost never). Which I believe, results in the missing of many opportunities.
In Mike Ely’s pamphlet, “Slipping into Darkness” (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/cpusa-in-30s-slipping-into-darkness/) he discusses the historical experience of the old CPUSA. In one of the sections Fred Beal, a strike organizer recounts his experience in leading a large strike and the debates that went on in the CP about how it should be politicized.
He recounts how another comrade, “brought orders from the Comintern and from the Central Committee that I emphasize the Negro Quesiton.” Beal explained that there had only been two Negroes working in the mill and that they had fled when the strike started, but, Weisbord argued that this situation involved more things than a mere strike.
“It’s not just a skirmish. We must prepare the workers for the coming revolution. We must look ahead and smash all feelings of inequality,” he insisted.
“I failed to undestand how it was possible to bring in to the strike the question of Negro rights when there were no Negroes involved.”
Mike points out that this was a strike occurring in the heart of the South during the 1930’s, an area that thrived off the brutal oppression of black people. However, for Beal, the consciousness of the working class relating to the coming revolution didn’t matter compared to what was happening in the immediate sense (the strike right then). Racism was viewed as an issue of immediate utility, only as something important if it would propel the struggle forward in a material sense (winning a strike for wages rather than preparing minds to become genuine revolutionaries, capable of waging an all around struggle against all forms of oppression).
This is very much how Carl views things when he shrinks away from a strong internationalist stance (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/collision-course-building-anti-imperialism-after-the-elections/), or more or less anything outside very narrow interests. A bit later in the paper I just mentioned there is a quote from
Lenin, it goes,
“[a school of war is] a school in which the workers learn to make war on the enemies for the liberation of the whole people.”
It’s that latter part we need to always keep in mind.
It’s wrong to view the problem as one of form rather than content because revolution is not mainly a problem of administration (workers learning to a run factories). It’s a question of people actively taking up the task of challenging all forms of oppression and exploitation. A war of position is not simply fought in the literal material sense. Meaning working class people to literally occupying favorable positions in society. If we adopt this view, it leads to an insistence on dividing the economic from the political (or ethical in the case of anti-war struggle and internationalism), and is incapable of creating a strong revolutionary movement for genuine liberation.
The concept of hegemony extends much further than this (we need to fight a war of position in the realm of ideas, ethics, etc as well), and so should our actions. As long as the struggle of the people is confined and atomized it poses no great threat to bourgeois rule. If our main task is viewed as organizing people broadly to directly confront only a single aspect of the system, it creates a phenomena very similar to tunnel vision. Problems are then viewed in a singular way, so, once on problem is confronted and defeated, the impulse to simply move to the next one, without any sense of their systemic nature manifesting itself. When favorable conditions for struggle begin to wane or escalate, there is no sense of the necessity to end of the whole thing.
This is probably one of the greatest lessons of the CPUSA. This doesn’t mean our view is what will be adopted by a given mass organization we are working in. But, our role is to voice that, fighting to create the conditions under which capital can be overthrown.
Our goal should be to encourage people to adopt a revolutionary view as much as is possible on all fronts. Whether that is at the demonstration, the meeting planning it, or the study group held later that night. The same goes for the strike, demonstration, or whatever else. And what is the most radical possible thing varies in every one of those situations (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/collision-course-building-anti-imperialism-after-the-elections/#comment-9652). But, there are bottom line ideas we’re trying to fight for people to adopt. We won’t be solely responsible for the transformations that occur in this respect, but we surely have the ability to contribute to that process.
A winning a reform that would get rid of one owner within the vast network of capitalist relationships in and of itself will not help the people involved in the process become more conscious of their class position from a total understanding of society, and the need for revolution that necessarily accompanies that view. We can’t limit ourselves to simply being professional fighters for reform, but rather we should be professional revolutionaries, whose goal is to help the people to adopt the viewpoint of the proletariat, that understands it’s relationship to the whole of society.
Agitation and revolutionary language can also have benefits of immediate practical utility. A radical slogan raised among people within a given area of production facing a bailout, can quickly help identify what views different people hold. It gives an opportunity to discuss socialism/communism among a wide group in a brief sense, and provides a reference point for appealing to folks with more friendly or ambivalent views when trying to conduct propaganda work later.
Ultimately, I believe it is our job as communists is to identify the varying and contending viewpoints in a room, and push for the most radical agenda that it’s conceivable for the group in question to adopt (which clearly varies from situation to situation). This isn’t really something that can be discovered without experimentation. Entering a room with preconceived notions about what’s possible generally only leads to lowering one’s standards, and severely limits the amount of engagement that can occur. People can often be more radical than we initially assume (and sometimes less as well). But I’ve never had the opportunity to discover where people are at by laying out a common agenda I thought everyone would adopt.
We need a firm commitment to radicalism that can speak in wildly poetic terms. Without such, we’ll have no revolutionary movement.
On an endnote, we’re often accused of hatching ‘get rich quick schemes’. But I’d like to turn that criticism around.
Those who raise it rarely see the use of revolutionary (or otherwise radical, such as anti-imperialist) agitation or work except in what it called a “revolutionary period” (which, because it’s only vaguely defined I can only imagine to mean a period of massive upsurge, literally on the eve of a possible revolution).
Work being done be to raise class-consciousness (term except among a small group of people preordained to be the ‘advanced’) before then is simply viewed as futile, ultra-left, or some other negative term. But, then it is expected that through circumstances mostly separate and unrelated to the actions of conscious revolutionaries, large bodies of people will suddenly be very receptive to revolutionary agitation. Once again, I don’t disagree that some circumstances are more favorable than others for revolutionary work. But, to imagine that suddenly revolutionary forces will be able to emerge from the woodwork in a relatively short period of time and divert these struggles without long periods of preparatory work, involving the raising of consciousness (beyond narrow struggles), seems highly unlikely.
These periods of upsurges, should not only be viewed as a time favorable to struggle, but also as a period in which the previous work put in by revolutionary forces comes to fruition. By keeping our views quiet except among a few during non-revolutionary times, we are simply awaiting a revolution to ‘happen’ while trying to put the workers into a slightly better relationship with capital. Once again, ultimately we would be struggling to rope the people further into Capitalist relationships, so when crisis occurs, the work of breaking with that mentality will be much greater. The price perhaps being the sacrifice of the revolution and real change.
We should fight a war of position on many different fronts using a variety of tactics. There certainly is a dialectical relationship between reform and revolution, and I can’t name one revolutionary I know who doesn’t fight for reforms in one-way or another. So yes, we should fight for reforms and we should fight to win, no doubt. But in the process of doing so we should keep our final aims and goals at the forefront of our minds at all times, lest we lose our precious future in the heat of the moment.
Posted by n3wday on March 13, 2009
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/blog-revolution.jpg?w=292&h=300
Many thanks to Zerohour, Eddy, and Ulises for their thoughtful comments.
“We need a firm commitment to radicalism that can speak in wildly poetic terms. Without such, we’ll have no revolutionary movement.”
By N3day
As I’m writing this, a vicious struggle is raging within society over how to sum up the current and deepening economic crisis. For the first time in many years the word “socialism” has been injected into popular discourse (which is wonderful even despite its often narrow interpretation), and responses to the crisis are emerging in many forms ranging from “let em’ fail” populist calls of right, to temporary nationalization programs (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/who-keeps-screwing-us-ove_b_166438.html) aimed at putting the many failing businesses into the hands of more “responsible” managers. How we approach and relate to this upsurge is very important.
The current crisis is not mainly the result of mortgage defaults or the debts of irresponsible consumers (even though their defaults are inseparable from the crisis), but of the inherently anarchic system of capitalist accumulation.
It is indispensable for us to approach this crisis from a revolutionary perspective, whether within a mass organization, study circles, or when conducting agitation on the street. For the first time in many years all of capitalism’s ugly contradictions are coming to a head, and how history will gaze back on this moment depends heavily on our actions now.
The question of our approach to reform has emerged many times on Kasama, and here I think it is important to discuss again. In the end, communists engage in reform struggles. Whether they are to end a war, raise a wage, provide a service, or something else. We fight to improve the lives of people within the system, while at the same time creating the conditions for its final overthrow.
Mass struggle serves as an educational process in which people learn a number of things. From realizing there is no future within global capitalism, to mastering the skills and mindset required to run a new society. But, the different forms of struggle, slogans, and methods, carried out by communists all teach different lessons. As revolutionaries we have to constantly interrogate ourselves and ask, does the curriculum we’re advocating truly divorce our minds from the system, or does it mobilize people around a program incapable of breaking with bourgeois hegemony?
Here I’m going to pick on Carl Davidson a bit, because I believe he, of all the folks posting on this site, most consistently and articulately represents the line I believe we should avoid at all costs. Carl is often fond of referencing Gramsci, and at one point Carl says (in reference to reform struggles for things like coops) (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/where-does-that-leave-us-plotting-acting-changing-moving/#comment-10264),
“Instead, think of them as schools of struggle where workers learn the skills of becoming masters of all society, and these schools in turn become positioned as strongholds, dugout positions in the battlefields of class struggle, what we need to acquire in the ‘war of position,’ so when the times arrives to go ‘over the top,’ in a period of dual power and insurrection, ie, the ‘war of maneuver,’ we’ll be able to do so with some accumulated strength.”
At first, it appears we are saying essentially the same thing. However, when Carl’s position is examined more closely, it becomes clear he is speaking mostly in an administrative sense. He views consciousness as secondary to the immediate struggle, so his interpretation of dugouts within society, take on literal forms (“power” through cooperatives, electorates, etc. literal positions of power). People gain positions of power, and from there learn the tasks needed to run society (management). On one level, there’s nothing wrong with viewing those types of skills as positive and useful, but the real problem lies in how those positions are won, and how they are viewed by the people who struggled to win them (in other words, what is learned beyond the narrow scope of technical ability).
We’re trying to create schools for revolution, not syndicalism or other flavors of reformism. Ultimately those reformist views lead to capitulation. Unless a certain level of consciousness is obtained by those fighting for change, large concessions may ebb the tides of struggle. More and more revolutionaries will find themselves in competition with reactionaries and reformists over who can win the biggest concessions that meet the immediate self-interest of the people (which has been proven to be within the capacity of bourgeois forces to dole out). In times of acute turmoil (such as the Depression, or what we have the potential to entering) this can be very difficult for bourgeois forces, but if those periods of turmoil pass and no solid revolutionary foundations have been built, then the struggle will fade away.
So in practice, simply struggling for directly tangible reforms (even if these struggles take on wildly militant forms), without reaching out broadly in attempts to raise revolutionary consciousness, ropes people into the system rather than helping them divorce themselves from it. Viewing motion as more important than consciousness is the death of genuine class war, and such narrow views wind up reinforcing people’s participation in the process of capital, even if (in an illusory way) they are struggling against their oppression.
(http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/where-does-that-leave-us-plotting-acting-changing-moving/#comment-10330)
RW Harvey said in a related thread (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/where-does-that-leave-us-plotting-acting-changing-moving/#comment-10330),
“The radical beauty of the GPCR, and perhaps its greatest gift to revolution here in the U.S., may not be primarily in the various forms it adopted (though some of these may be applicable as well), but in its persistence in making every effort to transform people’s consciousness, to bend every effort to break the lethargy of self-focused interests, and to foster a revolutionary critical awareness as a vital component on the road to communism.”
I think the latter half of this quote beautifully sums up how we should treat revolutionary work.
We clearly should be attempting to win those who we have prolonged engagement with over to communism (through propaganda work), but also I believe it’s very worth while to try and win those with whom we have very limited engagement with, over to revolutionary views (through agitation, sloganeering, etc).
It’s this notion of constant pushing and pulling that defines us as conscious revolutionaries.
(http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/collision-course-building-anti-imperialism-after-the-elections/#comment-9635)
Carl often emphasizes (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/collision-course-building-anti-imperialism-after-the-elections/#comment-9635) the fact that there are innumerable factors that all contribute towards people becoming revolutionary, or otherwise politically conscious. This I don’t disagree with. However, when it’s brought up, it’s done in order to belittle the importance of revolutionaries actively seeking to win those with whom we have limited engagement over to a more revolutionary position. To Carl, this is simply something that happens through life experience (to which revolutionaries make little to no significant contribution) so, regular attempts to raise consciousness (through strongly challenging bourgeois narratives) are seen as ultimately sectarian and futile, simply dividing people. In the end, to people who hold this view, bodies are considered as principal over minds. This is wrong on a few levels.
People become politically conscious in numerous ways. Some have mainstream political ideologies deeply entrenched in their thinking. Those types of people require constant reengagement and patient struggle. For them agitation likely plays a small (if any) role in their becoming conscious. Others are more or less depoliticized (for example, the folks who don’t vote, not because of any well developed views, but because they simply see no point). They have views and opinions, but don’t subscribe to any particular ideology. Among them, some turn out to be something along the lines of ‘natural’ communists (as TNL once pointed out). For them something like agitation could be the spark that lights the prairie fire (this was the case with myself), hinting answers to questions they always had. And there are also numerous shades and variations of these two views, and probably many others. But, the important point I’m making here is Carl’s view of this is typically very one-sided. He says he doesn’t subscribe to the “all propaganda” view, but rarely sees any use in trying to teach communist values and ideas except within very narrow and particular contexts (as far as I can tell almost never). Which I believe, results in the missing of many opportunities.
In Mike Ely’s pamphlet, “Slipping into Darkness” (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/cpusa-in-30s-slipping-into-darkness/) he discusses the historical experience of the old CPUSA. In one of the sections Fred Beal, a strike organizer recounts his experience in leading a large strike and the debates that went on in the CP about how it should be politicized.
He recounts how another comrade, “brought orders from the Comintern and from the Central Committee that I emphasize the Negro Quesiton.” Beal explained that there had only been two Negroes working in the mill and that they had fled when the strike started, but, Weisbord argued that this situation involved more things than a mere strike.
“It’s not just a skirmish. We must prepare the workers for the coming revolution. We must look ahead and smash all feelings of inequality,” he insisted.
“I failed to undestand how it was possible to bring in to the strike the question of Negro rights when there were no Negroes involved.”
Mike points out that this was a strike occurring in the heart of the South during the 1930’s, an area that thrived off the brutal oppression of black people. However, for Beal, the consciousness of the working class relating to the coming revolution didn’t matter compared to what was happening in the immediate sense (the strike right then). Racism was viewed as an issue of immediate utility, only as something important if it would propel the struggle forward in a material sense (winning a strike for wages rather than preparing minds to become genuine revolutionaries, capable of waging an all around struggle against all forms of oppression).
This is very much how Carl views things when he shrinks away from a strong internationalist stance (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/collision-course-building-anti-imperialism-after-the-elections/), or more or less anything outside very narrow interests. A bit later in the paper I just mentioned there is a quote from
Lenin, it goes,
“[a school of war is] a school in which the workers learn to make war on the enemies for the liberation of the whole people.”
It’s that latter part we need to always keep in mind.
It’s wrong to view the problem as one of form rather than content because revolution is not mainly a problem of administration (workers learning to a run factories). It’s a question of people actively taking up the task of challenging all forms of oppression and exploitation. A war of position is not simply fought in the literal material sense. Meaning working class people to literally occupying favorable positions in society. If we adopt this view, it leads to an insistence on dividing the economic from the political (or ethical in the case of anti-war struggle and internationalism), and is incapable of creating a strong revolutionary movement for genuine liberation.
The concept of hegemony extends much further than this (we need to fight a war of position in the realm of ideas, ethics, etc as well), and so should our actions. As long as the struggle of the people is confined and atomized it poses no great threat to bourgeois rule. If our main task is viewed as organizing people broadly to directly confront only a single aspect of the system, it creates a phenomena very similar to tunnel vision. Problems are then viewed in a singular way, so, once on problem is confronted and defeated, the impulse to simply move to the next one, without any sense of their systemic nature manifesting itself. When favorable conditions for struggle begin to wane or escalate, there is no sense of the necessity to end of the whole thing.
This is probably one of the greatest lessons of the CPUSA. This doesn’t mean our view is what will be adopted by a given mass organization we are working in. But, our role is to voice that, fighting to create the conditions under which capital can be overthrown.
Our goal should be to encourage people to adopt a revolutionary view as much as is possible on all fronts. Whether that is at the demonstration, the meeting planning it, or the study group held later that night. The same goes for the strike, demonstration, or whatever else. And what is the most radical possible thing varies in every one of those situations (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/collision-course-building-anti-imperialism-after-the-elections/#comment-9652). But, there are bottom line ideas we’re trying to fight for people to adopt. We won’t be solely responsible for the transformations that occur in this respect, but we surely have the ability to contribute to that process.
A winning a reform that would get rid of one owner within the vast network of capitalist relationships in and of itself will not help the people involved in the process become more conscious of their class position from a total understanding of society, and the need for revolution that necessarily accompanies that view. We can’t limit ourselves to simply being professional fighters for reform, but rather we should be professional revolutionaries, whose goal is to help the people to adopt the viewpoint of the proletariat, that understands it’s relationship to the whole of society.
Agitation and revolutionary language can also have benefits of immediate practical utility. A radical slogan raised among people within a given area of production facing a bailout, can quickly help identify what views different people hold. It gives an opportunity to discuss socialism/communism among a wide group in a brief sense, and provides a reference point for appealing to folks with more friendly or ambivalent views when trying to conduct propaganda work later.
Ultimately, I believe it is our job as communists is to identify the varying and contending viewpoints in a room, and push for the most radical agenda that it’s conceivable for the group in question to adopt (which clearly varies from situation to situation). This isn’t really something that can be discovered without experimentation. Entering a room with preconceived notions about what’s possible generally only leads to lowering one’s standards, and severely limits the amount of engagement that can occur. People can often be more radical than we initially assume (and sometimes less as well). But I’ve never had the opportunity to discover where people are at by laying out a common agenda I thought everyone would adopt.
We need a firm commitment to radicalism that can speak in wildly poetic terms. Without such, we’ll have no revolutionary movement.
On an endnote, we’re often accused of hatching ‘get rich quick schemes’. But I’d like to turn that criticism around.
Those who raise it rarely see the use of revolutionary (or otherwise radical, such as anti-imperialist) agitation or work except in what it called a “revolutionary period” (which, because it’s only vaguely defined I can only imagine to mean a period of massive upsurge, literally on the eve of a possible revolution).
Work being done be to raise class-consciousness (term except among a small group of people preordained to be the ‘advanced’) before then is simply viewed as futile, ultra-left, or some other negative term. But, then it is expected that through circumstances mostly separate and unrelated to the actions of conscious revolutionaries, large bodies of people will suddenly be very receptive to revolutionary agitation. Once again, I don’t disagree that some circumstances are more favorable than others for revolutionary work. But, to imagine that suddenly revolutionary forces will be able to emerge from the woodwork in a relatively short period of time and divert these struggles without long periods of preparatory work, involving the raising of consciousness (beyond narrow struggles), seems highly unlikely.
These periods of upsurges, should not only be viewed as a time favorable to struggle, but also as a period in which the previous work put in by revolutionary forces comes to fruition. By keeping our views quiet except among a few during non-revolutionary times, we are simply awaiting a revolution to ‘happen’ while trying to put the workers into a slightly better relationship with capital. Once again, ultimately we would be struggling to rope the people further into Capitalist relationships, so when crisis occurs, the work of breaking with that mentality will be much greater. The price perhaps being the sacrifice of the revolution and real change.
We should fight a war of position on many different fronts using a variety of tactics. There certainly is a dialectical relationship between reform and revolution, and I can’t name one revolutionary I know who doesn’t fight for reforms in one-way or another. So yes, we should fight for reforms and we should fight to win, no doubt. But in the process of doing so we should keep our final aims and goals at the forefront of our minds at all times, lest we lose our precious future in the heat of the moment.