Reconsidering my praxis

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Comrades, I am posting this here because we're supposed to be able to have "advanced" discussion in the CC, right? If it's not OK just trash it and please excuse!

Some of you are already aware that I have been involved with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a US party. After much thought, I am considering terminating my relationship with the party for 2 basic reasons:

1) The reformism that the party promotes is a turn off.

Our party fights for reforms within the system to win gains for the working class, but our final goal is revolution.
This line suggests to workers that revolution is a far off "final goal" and that the goal of a "revolutionary" party should be to fight for reforms. This is revealing of what I see as the fundamental character of the party; how something like this could make it into the official paper of a revolutionary party is beyond me.

Certainly gains of the workers such as the 8 hour workday, etc. should be defended, but it is not what a revolutionary party fights for. A revolutionary party fights for communist revolution, not "reforms within the system."

An example of this: the Chicago branch has been making a big deal of campaigning against the recent privatization of parking meters there. A party calling itself revolutionary and then approaching Chicago people saying "let's fight for reforms within the system" (like struggling for city-owned parking meters, no less) is detrimental to the struggle for revolution because it creates misconceptions about what socialism is and how we should be struggling for it.

2) As an "at-large" member, (meaning that the Party has no branch and extremely limited activist presence in Minnesota), I have no say in the decisions of the party.

I had previously been hoping to help establish a PSL branch in the Twin Cities area after moving there in a couple weeks but I don't see the point anymore in trying to recruit other people into a party whose fundamental character is at best questionable.

As an ambitious young person desiring to raise working class consciousness and fight racism, I think in retrospect I was over-excited by the surface appearance of the PSL, which is in fact a reformist party.

All that said, if I lived in a city with an active branch, I would voice these concerns and others at a meeting because I know there is PSL supporters who would genuinely support an independent working class revolution, who have some of the "right ideas" but are in this party. However, given my distance I don't see any reason to bring an already corrupt organization into my area.

[Sam_b]

I don't see why this can't be answered outside the CC, and you'll probably get better answers there. Needless to say its an interesting post and I intend to respond to it later. Right now I'll say that I believe this to be a confused line of thinking - advocating further advances to working conditions and the like are not reformist characteristics, the Bolsheviks did this as well. Are political parties wrong to call for the people to be bailed out of the current economic crisis because this would go through government and thus be 'reformist'? I don't think so. We should be pushing for and defending gains being made to better the working class, while always remembering this is far from the solution in the long run.

[F9]

CC is an administrative forum, not an "elite" with the best discussers etc.Having a good gasp of theory is required to keep a good level on administrative actions so we dont end up on wrong decisions, that could be from wrong political ideas.
So yeah i dont think this thread offers and much.:);)
I dont care what your party says, unless you are supporting reformism(which seems you dont)...


I don't see why this can't be answered outside the CC, and you'll probably get better answers there. Needless to say its an interesting post and I intend to respond to it later.

I think he posted it here, from misunderstanding on what CC actual serves

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

I think he posted it here, from misunderstanding on what CC actual serves

Yeah, can this just be moved to the practice or politics forum then?

Sorry about that, I'm a CC noob.

[Le Libérer]

Yeah, can this just be moved to the practice or politics forum then?

Sorry about that, I'm a CC noob.No need to apologize. I'll be happy to move it for you.

[Communist]

>>As an "at-large" member, (meaning that the Party has no branch and extremely limited activist presence in Minnesota), I have no say in the decisions of the party.<<

I have no connection with PSL, but you do get to vote in all national decisions do you not? By mail if not the internet?

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

>>As an "at-large" member, (meaning that the Party has no branch and extremely limited activist presence in Minnesota), I have no say in the decisions of the party.<<

I have no connection with PSL, but you do get to vote in all national decisions do you not? By mail if not the internet?


I don't know about the procedure for that, if they vote that way. I don't think there have been any nation-wide decisions since I became a member though. In any case, most decisions are made at the branch level and there is no branch in my state.

[Communist]

I don't know about the procedure for that, if they vote that way. I don't think there have been any nation-wide decisions since I became a member though. In any case, most decisions are made at the branch level and there is no branch in my state.

Did you speak to anyone about it? It would seem to me you would be assigned to the nearest branch, wherever that is, and have a say in their decisions somehow...that's how most parties work, from my understanding. You are a full member I assume, and perhaps you've just been overlooked?
To just leave you stranded and without any voice seems suspect in any case.

[fredbergen]

http://www.internationalist.org/theint3_ns3.gif
March 2006

Behind the War in the Antiwar Movement: Opportunists Squabble Over How to Tail After Democrats

Mobilize Workers’ Power to Defeat Imperialist War! (http://www.internationalist.org/workerspowervsimperialistwar0603.html)

http://www.internationalist.org/060318iraqdemonyca.jpg
Internationalist Group contingent in NYC antiwar protest, March 18. (Photo: Robert J. Mercado)

Throw Military Recruiters Out of the Schools!
For Workers Strikes Against the War – “Hot Cargo” Military Goods
Break with the Republicrats – For a Revolutionary Workers Party!


MARCH 17 – On the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the imperialist invaders are in deep trouble. With close to 200,000 “coalition” troops and mercenaries, plus an Iraqi puppet army, police and paramilitary forces of over 350,000, they have been unable to reduce the insurgency. Well over 100,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the war and occupation, in addition to 3,000 deaths among the occupation forces (U.S., “allies” and “contractors”). After every bogus gunpoint election, the corrupt quisling politicians are at each others’ throats, dispelling any pretense of “democracy.” The Iraqi economy is a wreck, with oil production, electricity and water supplies still well below the levels achieved by Saddam Hussein, despite United Nations sanctions. The Iraqi strong man (and former CIA hit man) has made a mockery of the show trial against him, using it as a platform to denounce the “victors’ justice” and call for resistance to the occupation. And day by day, the country lurches toward full-scale civil war between Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni communalists.

Meanwhile on the home front, popular support for the war has gone up in smoke. The most recent polls show that 57 percent of the American public think the Iraq war was a mistake, 60 percent say the war is going badly or very badly, two-thirds say George Bush doesn’t have a clear plan for dealing with Iraq. Last November, the first leading Democrat, Pennsylvania Congressman and longtime war hawk John Murtha, came out for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. Now even far right-wing Republicans like William F. Buckley are saying that the U.S. has “failed” in Iraq and that Bush’s problem is “acknowledgment of defeat.” Currently, the administration wants to deflect attention from its Iraqi debacle by rattling U.S. nukes at Iran.

Yet even though the U.S. war machine is mired in the quick sands of the Near East, the “antiwar movement” is in the doldrums. It has long been rent by squabbling that has now escalated to an internecine war that oscillates between cold and hot. This weekend each antiwar group is holding its own separate protest. In New York, the Troops Out Coalition (TOC) and its parent, the International Action Center (IAC) led by the Workers World Party (WWP), will demonstrate on March 18 at the armed forces recruiting station in Times Square. Simultaneously, Not in Our Name (NION), led by the Revolutionary Communist Party, will be at the army recruiting station in the Bronx. International A.N.S.W.E.R., led by the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL – a 2004 split from the WWP) will go to the Bronx recruiting station the next day. The Campus Antiwar Network (CAN), led by the Internationalist Socialist Organization (ISO), is limiting itself to low-key campus actions. And the other major player, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), led by the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CoC) along with the Communist Party (CP), is making its big push a month later, on April 29.

Yet in their demands, these outfits hardly differ at all. They all call for “stop the war,” “bring the troops home,” and some variant of “money for jobs, not for war” – as if the imperialist slaughter in Iraq was a matter of foreign policy, budget priorities and U.S. casualties. From the standpoint of Marxism, of the revolutionary internationalist program of V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky, these antiwar coalitions are all class-collaborationist “popular fronts.” They seek to “unite” reformist pseudo-socialists with bourgeois liberals on the basis of cleaning up the U.S.’ act, appealing to the “peace is patriotic” crowd with calls like “Support our troops, bring them home.”

The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International fight instead to defeat U.S. imperialism and defend the peoples and countries under U.S. attack. In contrast to the opportunists’ red-white-and-blue appeals to “bring the troops home,” we call to drive the colonial occupiers out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather than spreading pacifist illusions about “stopping” the war, we call for class war against the imperialist war. We defend the right of the theocratic Iranian regime and the North Korean deformed workers state to get any weapons necessary to defend against the imperialist warmongers. Instead of tailing after “antiwar” Democrats, we fight for workers strikes against the war, for transport workers to “hot cargo” military goods and for building a revolutionary workers party.

So what is behind all the sniping between the competing pop-front antiwar coalitions? In a statement last December 12, the UFPJ announced it “Rejects Future Work with ANSWER.” The stated grounds were complaints about organizational problems in the Washington, D.C. march last September 24 that was co-sponsored by the two groups. ANSWER responded on December 16 with its own complaints, but beyond disputes over who went over their allotted platform time or was responsible for the lead banner ending up in the middle of the march, it pointed to broader political reasons for the UFPJ’s decision to break off relations. These include the latter’s unwillingness to include slogans in defense of the Palestinians against Israeli occupation as central demands of antiwar demos; and “UFPJ's increasing orientation toward and flirtation with the Democratic Party.”

ANSWER noted that “In the core of UFPJ's leadership are political parties and organizations that worked tirelessly for John Kerry and the election of Democrats.” It accused the UFPJ, from its inception, of being on a “relentless path of splitting the movement,” and traced the disputes back to the 1990-91 Gulf War, when the predecessors of the UFPJ called for U.N. sanctions instead of U.S. invasion. It pointed to the “great excitement about John Murtha's disaffection with the war” in the UFPJ, which wrote that the Pennsylvania Democrat “deserves praise and support for his courageous leadership.” Murtha isn’t for withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Near East, ANSWER points out, only for their “redeployment” somewhere outside Iraq. But, it quickly adds, “fewer U.S. soldiers...in harm’s way” would be “a welcome development.”

It is certainly true that UFPJ tailors its politics to the measure of the Democratic Party and bourgeois liberals generally. Its political complaints against ANSWER (laid out in an article by Bill Weinberg of the War Resisters League, “The Question of International ANSWER”) echo the litany of right-wingers and professional red-baiters like Christopher Hitchens, pointing to the WWP/IAC’s adulation of Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and the Kim dynasty in North Korea, and the WWP’s support for the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. In fact, Workers World split from Trotskyism to embrace Stalinists from Mao Zedong to Fidel Castro and Kim Il Sung, as well as nationalist anti-communist butchers like Milosevic and Hussein. Yet the central leadership of UFPJ is chock full of Stalinists and ex-Stalinist social democrats who also supported the suppression of the Hungarian workers uprising, hailed Kim, etc. What hypocrisy!

Seeking to cohabit with liberal Democrats is no preserve of the UFPJ. Workers World and its various offshoots have always done it. In the 1990s, they were the “best builders” of demonstrations for black Democrat Jesse Jackson. In fact, all the antiwar coalitions are desperately seeking Democrats to grace their speakers’ platforms – class collaboration is the name of their poplar-front game. The UFPJ is just cruder about it than the IAC/ANSWER/TONC. Thus in the run-up to the 2004 election, the UFPJ sponsored the huge march outside the Republican convention in NYC on the slogan, “No to the Bush Agenda” – not-so-veiled support for the “anybody but Bush” agenda of voting for Democrat John Kerry (who wanted more U.S. troops in Iraq) or at most for xenophobic populist Ralph Nader. Equally blatant is the RCP/NION whose latest campaign, “The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime,” is endorsed by Democratic Congressmen John Conyers, Bobby Rush and Maxine Waters, Jesse Jackson Sr. and none other than Brig. General (retired) Janis Karpinski, the war criminal who commanded the Abu Ghraib torture prison in Iraq. Talk about shameless!

Under pressure from the right, ANSWER has lately been affecting an “anti-imperialist” stance. At a March 11 session of the annual Left Forum in New York, the UFPJ’s Leslie Cagan faced off with ANSWER’s Brian Becker, who declared that it was necessary to go back to the Bolsheviks in World War I, that the Democrats supported the war, etc. But as a spokesman for the Internationalist Group noted in the discussion, ANSWER has always sought Democrats as star speakers for their antiwar demos. If they can’t get Jesse Jackson they’ll go for Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton or Charles Rangel. And, the IG speaker pointed out, in claiming to be guided by the Bolsheviks, Becker leaves out a key point: Lenin’s call for the defeat of “one’s own” imperialism in an imperialist war.

Anyone serious about combating imperialist wars would demand capitalist politicians out, as they are all defenders of a system of war, poverty and racism (and this goes for minor bourgeois parties as well, like the Greens and New York’s Working Families Party, who seek to keep the discontent of those who can’t stomach voting for the Democrats safely within the bourgeois electoral system). It is necessary to fight for the revolutionary class independence of the workers from all wings of the capitalist ruling class.

We Trotskyists call to mobilize working-class struggle against the war. In New York City, where Transport Workers Union Local 100 gave a demonstration of workers’ power in a three-day transit strike in December, a refusal by dock workers to handle war cargo or any strike action against the war by the transit workers would be worth a thousand “peace crawls” dominated by bourgeois politics.

Unlike fake leftists who call for “unity of the antiwar movement,” we say the capitalist war machine cannot be stopped by voting out the current war party or having a bigger peace parade. It’s not just “Bush’s war,” it’s a bipartisan war drive. It’s not just “neo-liberalism,” it’s capitalism. It’s not just “globalization,” it’s imperialism. It’s not a policy, it’s a system that will keep producing war after war after war until it is smashed by international socialist revolution.

[khad]

I think that's a somewhat short sighted view of things. Granted, I am not a PSL member, but I'll offer my two cents.

It is great to talk about revolution, but the subjective conditions for that in this country are nowhere near ripe. Labor has yet to show signs of life, working class communities are being smashed up and gentrified, and workers in this country instinctively clam up when you start talking about the "working class" or *shudder* socialism. At least by aligning oneself with certain reformist measures one can begin to reach out to a broader public and get the process of base building started. It's one thing to talk about reforms being a waste of time, but that is not going to fly with the base you are trying to influence.

For instance, recently an argument appeared on this board which more or less said that affirmative action was a hindrance to revolution because it allowed capitalism to paper over its inherent racism. To that, a non-white worker would say that's nice and all but he/she needs to have a job, feed the kids, etc.

Furthermore, various reforms reveal contradictions in capitalism which one can dig at. Public education is a good example, as it indicates that capitalism has developed to such a level where it can no longer rely on a workforce that is kept dumb and illiterate.

Despite "reformism" being something of a slur on the radical left, aligning with reforms is not necessarily a bad thing, especially with the Western left so weak right now--so long as these reforms open up further possibilities for mobilization and radicalization. That doesn't mean that one has to become an idiot liberal like the ones infesting the CPUSA. One must not let the reactionaries take an inch.

[fredbergen]

Khad: If Marx and Engels took your opportunist advice they never would have written the Communist Manifesto.

[khad]

Khad: If Marx and Engels took your opportunist advice they never would have written the Communist Manifesto.
I've no time for your bullshit sectarian games, kid.

Marx even wrote in favor of universal conscription because he viewed that as a necessary contradiction in capitalism which would open up military skills to the proletariat and peasantry.

[Tjis]

Fighting for reform isn't neccesarily a bad thing, as long as it never becomes the main goal of an organization. There's of course the pragmatic argument: every gain we get now benefits us.
But way more important is that the struggle for reform can be a very important propaganda vehicle and training ground for the working class. Through these reforms we can reach other groups, share our ideas with them and most importantly it can help foster solidarity between the various groups that get connected this way and it allows the working class to find and try out various ways of organization to find out what works and what doesn't.
We could talk all day about the finer points of dialectical materialism and whatnot but in the end no working class is going to run the world without practical experience.

Imagine that instead of action, we'd just try to convince people by talking to them. Even if we would be successful in convincing the entire working class, it'd still be a divided working class completely void of solidarity (at most there might be a patronizing sentiment among the more well-off sections), incapable of revolution, let alone organization after the revolution because nobody ever really did anything remotely like that. Running the world isn't exactly easy. We need practical experience, and a good way to get that experience is by forming unions, action groups etc and build networks among them. We can't just sit around idly waiting for the big glorious day of the revolution. That way even if it happens, it'd fail.

The end goal should always be a communist society, and we should make that very clear during any campaign for a reform. We should keep the pressure on the ruling class, all the while growing in strength until revolution is inevitable.

[fredbergen]

Marx and Engels advocated universal conscription in Prussia as a radical bourgeois democratic measure when they thought that the working class should ally with the rising bourgeoisie against the princes and priests of reaction. This has very little to do with the struggle against imperialism, decaying capitalism in which significant reforms benefiting the working class and oppressed masses are not possible. Then and today, Marxists would take advantage of conscription to gain military training for the workers and to undermine the army in preparation for the workers to take power through revolution. Of course, if you don't want to say anything that might make you unpopular, you can't do that, so you might as well quit falsely attributing your bourgeois liberal politics to Marx.

[Sam_b]

falsely attributing your bourgeois liberal politics

My my - do we have a left communist within our midst? Everyone on the left is bourgeois except OURSELVES!

[fredbergen]

What would you know about Communism sam_b? Your organization is not even reformist, it is anti-reformist: in order to suck up to bourgeois catholic and muslim politicos, the SWP fought against including the right to abortion in the program of the R.E.S.P.E.C.T. popular front! You are against reforms if it upsets your bourgeois would-be allies! For Free Abortion On Demand!

[khad]

Then and today, Marxists would take advantage of conscription to gain military training for the workers and to undermine the army in preparation for the workers to take power through revolution. Of course, if you don't want to say anything that might make you unpopular, you can't do that, so you might as well quit falsely attributing your bourgeois liberal politics to Marx.
OPPORTUNIST!!!

See, anyone can scream that shit. :rolleyes:

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Did you speak to anyone about it? It would seem to me you would be assigned to the nearest branch, wherever that is, and have a say in their decisions somehow...that's how most parties work, from my understanding. You are a full member I assume, and perhaps you've just been overlooked?
To just leave you stranded and without any voice seems suspect in any case.

I don't really see much to speak about. The distance issue is there and it means only having consistent contact with just a couple people, not really conversing and working with the whole of the party like I would if I could consistently meet up. It's kind of like trying to have a "long distance relationship." :lol:


It is great to talk about revolution, but the subjective conditions for that in this country are nowhere near ripe. Labor has yet to show signs of life, working class communities are being smashed up and gentrified, and workers in this country instinctively clam up when you start talking about the "working class" or *shudder* socialism. At least by aligning oneself with certain reformist measures one can begin to reach out to a broader public and get the process of base building started. It's one thing to talk about reforms being a waste of time, but that is not going to fly with the base you are trying to influence.

But fighting for reforms which win small gains for the working class and fighting for revolution which liberates the working class is what distinguishes social democrats from communists. If one wants to fight for reforms, why not join the CPUSA? They have "communist" right in the name. While I support defending reforms, even as they occur, revolution should be the immediate goal, and communism should be the final goal.

Only by making revolution the immediate objective will it ever happen. Otherwise we just get caught up in fighting for all the reforms.

[khad]

But fighting for reforms which win small gains for the working class and fighting for revolution which liberates the working class is what distinguishes social democrats from communists. If one wants to fight for reforms, why not join the CPUSA? They have "communist" right in the name. While I support defending reforms, even as they occur, revolution should be the immediate goal, and communism should be the final goal.
You really want to talk about the CPUSA? Jeez. Do you know what the current party line is? They're even unwilling to put leftwing pressure on Obama because they're such Democratic shitheads.

There's a difference between reforms towards a radical goal and reformism as an end in itself. Personally I do not think that the PSL has fallen into the latter camp--not yet, anyways.

You really think you can begin to work towards a revolution without even doing the necessary base building and groundwork?

[fredbergen]

Only by making revolution the immediate objective will it ever happen.

Trotsky:


The strategic task of the next period – prerevolutionary period of agitation, propaganda and organization – consists in overcoming the contradiction between the maturity of the objective revolutionary conditions and the immaturity of the proletariat and its vanguard (the confusion and disappointment of the older generation, the inexperience of the younger generation). It is necessary to help the masses in the process of the daily struggle to find the bridge between present demands and the socialist program of the revolution. This bridge should include a system of transitional demands, stemming from today’s conditions and from today’s consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat.

Classical Social Democracy, functioning in an epoch of progressive capitalism, divided its program into two parts independent of each other: the minimum program which limited itself to reforms within the framework of bourgeois society, and the maximum program which promised substitution of socialism for capitalism in the indefinite future. Between the minimum and the maximum program no bridge existed. And indeed Social Democracy has no need of such a bridge, since the word socialism is used only for holiday speechifying. The Comintern has set out to follow the path of Social Democracy in an epoch of decaying capitalism: when, in general, there can be no discussion of systematic social reforms and the raising of he masses’ living standards; when every serious demand of the proletariat and even every serious demand of the petty bourgeoisie inevitably reaches beyond the limits of capitalist property relations and of the bourgeois state.

The strategic task of the Fourth International lies not in reforming capitalism but in its overthrow. Its political aim is the conquest of power by the proletariat for the purpose of expropriating the bourgeoisie.


The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the bureaucracies of the Second, Third, Amsterdam and Anarcho-syndicalist Internationals, as on their centrist satellites; on reformism without reforms; democracy in alliance with the GPU; pacifism without peace; anarchism in the service of the bourgeoisie; on “revolutionists” who live in deathly fear of revolution. All of these organizations are not pledges for the future, but decayed survivals of the past. The epoch of wars and revolutions will raze them to the ground.

League for the Fourth International (http://www.internationalist.org/)

[Tjis]

Trotsky:

Good job being a sectarian prick. What the hell does that second quote contribute to this thread?

Also does it hurt to think for yourself and formulate the argument yourself instead of quoting your favourite great man?

[Communist]

>>You really think you can begin to work towards a revolution without even doing the necessary base building and groundwork?<<

That's completely true FPD. The oppressed are going to listen to what they need in the here and now...jobs, food, affordable housing, etc. Even what appears to be inane to some, isn't to others, even parking meters.
We have to win the hearts and minds of the oppressed and working class before they'll listen to revolution.
In other words, we have to listen to them. We are them. Should be easy.:)

>>I don't really see much to speak about. The distance issue is there and it means only having consistent contact with just a couple people, not really conversing and working with the whole of the party like I would if I could consistently meet up. It's kind of like trying to have a "long distance relationship."<<

The PSL should listen to your concerns and try to work with you. But they won't know what your concerns are if you don't talk to them. Tell them how you feel about their objectives, tell them how isolated you feel. Better to talk to them than just quit, don't you think?

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

There's a difference between reforms towards a radical goal and reformism as an end in itself. Personally I do not think that the PSL has fallen into the latter camp--not yet, anyways.

"Reforms towards a radical goal" only happens when there isn't enough consciousness for a revolution. Our number one goal should be working towards raising that consciousness to a level where revolution is possible. Do you really think the PSL is in any position to influence reform-making politicians anyways? Let me be clear: we should be militant about defending reforms, even as they occur. We should be militant about fighting deportations of immigrant workers. But we shouldn't be fighting for reforms within the current system, because one cannot fight for reform and revolution at the same time.


You really think you can begin to work towards a revolution without even doing the necessary base building and groundwork?
Doing the necessary base building and groundwork would be beginning to work towards a revolution, in my opinion. But fighting for reform isn't building the base for revolution; substituting class consciously fighting for socialism with fighting for reforms within the system kills the base for revolution.

[Tjis]

"Reforms towards a radical goal" only happens when there isn't enough consciousness for a revolution. Our number one goal should be working towards raising that consciousness to a level where revolution is possible. Do you really think the PSL is in any position to influence reform-making politicians anyways? Let me be clear: we should be militant about defending reforms, even as they occur. We should be militant about fighting deportations of immigrant workers. But we shouldn't be fighting for reforms within the current system, because one cannot fight for reform and revolution at the same time.

Yes we can. Maybe you're thinking about different things though. If you mean appealing to politicians, getting signature lists etc then yes of course that's going to be completely pointless.
However fighting for higher wages and fewer work hours through strikes and sabotage is a completely different story. Also, as I said before actions like this are highly desirable because not only do they make the situation of the working class slightly better, they also serve as a training ground for the working class. It's exactly actions like this that raise class consciousness and which foster solidarity.

[fredbergen]

We should be militant about fighting deportations of immigrant workers. But we shouldn't be fighting for reforms within the current system, because one cannot fight for reform and revolution at the same time.... But fighting for reform isn't building the base for revolution; substituting class consciously fighting for socialism with fighting for reforms within the system kills the base for revolution.


New Haven: Break ICE Terror with Militant Class Struggle! (http://www.internationalist.org/newhaveniceraids0706.html)

... Various pseudo-socialist organizations, from Socialist Action (SA) to the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and their former comrades in Workers World Party (WWP) seek to make common cause with the small-time Democrats, portraying them as leading some kind of “resistance” to the federal government. The first issue of PSL’s new biweekly, Liberation, writes: “The capitalists – Democrats and Republicans alike – want to prevent the movement for immigrant rights from reasserting itself as a major power. They want to prevent more cities from decisively taking sides in the struggle for equality as New Haven has done.” Are the New Haven mayor and aldermen not also capitalist politicians and Democrats? Do New Haven cops not protect the capitalist class by “serving” the workers violent oppression, just like the cops in every other city?

These fake-socialist groups play a pernicious role by desperately seeking a way, after everything the national Democrats have done, to keep the workers and oppressed chained to this party of their oppressors. The program of these reformists is the permanent popular front: “the people united will never be defeated.” This is dead wrong. History shows that chaining the workers, poor and minorities to the class enemy in the name of the unity of “the people” spells defeat for the exploited and oppressed. New Haven’s history of racist anti-working-class repression should leave no doubt as to what side “the city” (government) is on. We do not forget how in May 1969 New Haven cops under Democrat mayor Richard C. Lee raided the office of the Black Panther Party, arresting BPP leaders Bobby Seale, Erika Huggins and six other Panthers on frame-up charges in cooperation with the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaign. Thirty years later, Connecticut Democrats honored Lee by having the New Haven federal courthouse renamed after him.

The Internationalist Group, U.S. section of the League for the Fourth International, insists that fight for immigrants rights is necessarily a class struggle. It must be a struggle against imperialism and its wars, which are regularly accompanied by racist attacks on immigrants as “the enemy within.” In World War II, Japanese Americans were locked up, today it’s Near Eastern and Latin American immigrants. What the workers need to defeat the ICE attacks is their own revolutionary party, built through cleaning the pro-capitalist bureaucrats out of the unions. Mobilize the working, poor and oppressed people to fight for a workers government that would grant full citizenship rights to all immigrants! The chains of class collaboration must be broken, a truly internationalist working-class vanguard must be forged that unites all the oppressed in the struggle for socialist revolution.

[Post-Something]

Fly Pan Dulce...that's just not really the way how politics works..any power to the average working person is better than none, and revolution will not by default grant a perfect world. Remember, making peoples everyday lives better is the goal, not seeing the world become as you invision it to be; you won't get anything done that way. How can you actually get support of the workers without showing them you're actually improving their situation? Politics is about power, and to win the armwrestle in America right now is like woody allen against frank bruno or something.

Meh..others have already said it better than me in this thread.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

The oppressed are going to listen to what they need in the here and now...jobs, food, affordable housing, etc. Even what appears to be inane to some, isn't to others, even parking meters.
We have to win the hearts and minds of the oppressed and working class before they'll listen to revolution.
In other words, we have to listen to them. We are them. Should be easy.:)

The revolution is only going to happen if the working class consciously executes it. Class consciousness is only going to increase if we, as working class people ourselves, spread it around. "We" aren't going to win the hearts and minds to become revolutionary by concealing the class nature of things.


The PSL should listen to your concerns and try to work with you. But they won't know what your concerns are if you don't talk to them. Tell them how you feel about their objectives, tell them how isolated you feel. Better to talk to them than just quit, don't you think?

Fair enough, it's not like I've gone and burned up my copy of "PSL: Who we are and what we stand for." But I don't really see much advantage to grafting myself and any of my comrades here onto the national PSL apparatus.


However fighting for higher wages and fewer work hours through strikes and sabotage is a completely different story. Also, as I said before actions like this are highly desirable because not only do they make the situation of the working class slightly better, they also serve as a training ground for the working class. It's exactly actions like this that raise class consciousness and which foster solidarity.

That is not "fighting for reforms." If concessions are granted in the midst of class struggle, fine that's great more power to us, but being granted concessions isn't the same as fighting for them.

We don't need to hide our own consciousness just because our neighbors lack it, that would be detrimental to spreading it (class consciousness).

[Q]

Comrades, I am posting this here because we're supposed to be able to have "advanced" discussion in the CC, right? If it's not OK just trash it and please excuse!

Some of you are already aware that I have been involved with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a US party. After much thought, I have decided to terminate my relationship with the party for 2 basic reasons:

1) The reformism that the party promotes is a turn off.


Our party fights for reforms within the system to win gains for the working class, but our final goal is revolution.

This line suggests to workers that revolution is a far off "final goal" and that the goal of a "revolutionary" party should be to fight for reforms. This is revealing of what I see as the fundamental character of the party; how something like this could make it into the official paper of a revolutionary party is beyond me.

Certainly gains of the workers such as the 8 hour workday, etc. should be defended, but it is not what a revolutionary party fights for. A revolutionary party fights for communist revolution, not "reforms within the system."

An example of this: the Chicago branch has been making a big deal of campaigning against the recent privatization of parking meters there. A party calling itself revolutionary and then approaching Chicago people saying "let's fight for reforms within the system" (like struggling for city-owned parking meters, no less) is detrimental to the struggle for revolution because it creates misconceptions about what socialism is and how we should be struggling for it.
While I certainly agree that the particular formulation is a bit strange, I agree with what others have said. Fighting for concessions from the capitalists is a necessary fight in order to build the workers movement. However, the goal of socialism should at all times be concrete. Socialists, while fighting for aswell for reforms, should always make clear that under capitalism these concessions are just that: concessions in order to deflect class struggle. Therefore they are always temporary as the profit motive remains dominant within society.

As revolutionaries we shouldn't make the error of shouting for revolution at any given circumstance, as an ultimatum for the working class to follow us. Instead we should involve ourselves in patient work of building a broad working class party that is based on working class independance of the capitalists and their state, working class internationalism and working class democracy. Within such a party, the revolutionary current could well be a minority for a while.


2) As an "at-large" member, (meaning that the Party has no branch and extremely limited activist presence in Minnesota), I have no say in the decisions of the party.This is indeed pretty bad. Democratic rights should be absolute within any revolutionary organisation and should be member-based, not branch-based (while branches form a logical basic "building block" of any larger organisation).


I had previously been hoping to help establish a PSL branch in the Twin Cities area after moving there in a couple weeks but I don't see the point anymore in trying to recruit other people into a party whose fundamental character is at best questionable.

As an ambitious young person desiring to raise working class consciousness and fight racism, I think in retrospect I was over-excited by the surface appearance of the PSL, which is in fact a reformist party.Do you have any other indications that the PSL is reformist, other then that one formulation you quoted?


All that said, if I lived in a city with an active branch, I would voice these concerns and others at a meeting because I know there is PSL supporters who would genuinely support an independent working class revolution, who have some of the "right ideas" but are in this party. However, given my distance I don't see any reason to bring an already corrupt organization into my area.I think open discussion is a healthy thing regardless of having a branch in your area or not. Too many organisations base themselves of only allowing critical notes inside the organisation, effectively silencing any serious criticism to develop.

[KC]

This line suggests to workers that revolution is a far off "final goal" and that the goal of a "revolutionary" party should be to fight for reforms. This is revealing of what I see as the fundamental character of the party; how something like this could make it into the official paper of a revolutionary party is beyond me.

Do you have a link to the article?


An example of this: the Chicago branch has been making a big deal of campaigning against the recent privatization of parking meters there. A party calling itself revolutionary and then approaching Chicago people saying "let's fight for reforms within the system" (like struggling for city-owned parking meters, no less) is detrimental to the struggle for revolution because it creates misconceptions about what socialism is and how we should be struggling for it.

I think it is very easy for revolutionaries in the United States to fall into the pit of opportunism to the point of reformism because of the terribly fragmented and basically nonexistant working class struggle in the country since the 80's.


But fighting for reforms which win small gains for the working class and fighting for revolution which liberates the working class is what distinguishes social democrats from communists. If one wants to fight for reforms, why not join the CPUSA?

I think that both you and khad have a point here, and the solution is in the middle ground. A revolutionary party by necessity must go where there is struggle and attempt to raise the consciousness of those participating. There is nothing wrong with fighting for reforms as long as you also explain the necessary ineffiencies of the reform, the fact that a reform is only a temporary measure that can be taken away at any time, etc...

The point of a revolutionary organization is to raise consciousness and one cannot do that without entering into existing struggles. This includes reformist and trade-unionist struggles.

Which, as I continue to read the thread, I see that you basically say what I've just said:

"Reforms towards a radical goal" only happens when there isn't enough consciousness for a revolution. Our number one goal should be working towards raising that consciousness to a level where revolution is possible.


Let me be clear: we should be militant about defending reforms, even as they occur. We should be militant about fighting deportations of immigrant workers. But we shouldn't be fighting for reforms within the current system, because one cannot fight for reform and revolution at the same time.

So are you saying that a revolutionary party should fight against deportation of immigrant workers but not, say, participate in a movement towards full legalization?

Anyways, you're going to find a lot of organizations act in this way, and pander towards reformism to some extent, because of the conditions of the country and the state of the movement. But you're in Minnesota, I see; Socialist Alternative has a pretty large branch in Minneapolis. I support them because I agree with them politically on most issues, and they aren't sectist pricks for the most part. However, they do have opportunist tendencies (just like any organization, I guess) - namely, their endorsement of Nader and perhaps some of their other work. But you could try contacting them if you want. I know there's a ton of other orgs out there, but don't remember which ones now that I'm trying to think of them. :(

But yeah, an indepth analysis of the state of the movement in the US really needs to be conducted. I think that the crackdown in the 80's on the unions and workers' struggles as well as the outsourcing of heavy industry and factory work to other countries has really destroyed the movement, and just now in this crisis we are starting to see some kind of rebound, even if only on a local and sporadic level currently. What's really necessary is combatting the bourgeois propaganda machine about how unions are bad and how if workers in the US unionize then their jobs will promptly be shipped overseas. That's a huge huge huge propaganda point, among many. We're basically starting from square one.

[MarxSchmarx]

By and large I think you're making the right choice. There's no point in being a member of a party unless you and they serious about organizing, and obviously they failed to provide you with the tools to do so where you live.

Having said this, a lot of your disagreement with the PSL strikes me as frankly somewhat semantic.

For instance:


Do you really think the PSL is in any position to influence reform-making politicians anyways? Let me be clear: we should be militant about defending reforms, even as they occur. We should be militant about fighting deportations of immigrant workers. But we shouldn't be fighting for reforms within the current system, because one cannot fight for reform and revolution at the same time.I don't know the PSL all that well (except for their website I just googled and some of the ANSWER stuff) but it seems from their first statement you quoted:


Our party fights for reforms within the system to win gains for the working class, but our final goal is revolution. What they're basically saying is reforms can't be "fought for" for their own sake (which is the traditional line), as you note:


If concessions are granted in the midst of class struggle, fine that's great more power to usIndeed, your claim that

being granted concessions isn't the same as fighting for them. Seems to me saying you'll take concessions, and moreover that if you are to get concessions, you might as well demand the greatest concessions you can get, is just another way you'll "fight for reforms". You're entitled to your own interpretation, but I wouldn't put too much weight on what seems to be a difference of wording more than anything.

Moreover I think it is generally myopic to not see the value of reforms for the broader struggle. For instance, it sharpens the political consciousness of the working class, which , as you note, needs sharpening. Take for example the struggle to make every workplace unionized. It's a "reform", but it can both be a reform AND an effort to raise class consciousness. In fact, most reforms are like this. For instance, welfare states provide workers some leverage in demanding more from their bosses by providing them some leeway to leave crappy jobs.

Well, ok, the parking meter thing is kind of dumb, but you can't deny that it can be one way to get somebody to pick up your newspaper. In fact, I suspect that the branch doesn't really care about parking meters and just sees it as a way to get people who normally wouldn't listen to them to do so. I doubt very very seriously that they are much sincere about the parking meter thing and just see it as an opportunity to get the rest of their message out. I could be wrong, but that scenario seems quite likely.

You've got to do what you've got to do, but I would be surprised if you don't find issues like this to exist in every real-world leftist organization. This is especially true of many leftist "parties" that seem to rely on an organizational model that hasn't worked in nearly half a century.

[fredbergen]

Instead we should involve ourselves in patient work of building a broad working class party that is based on working class independance of the capitalists and their state, working class internationalism and working class democracy. Within such a party, the revolutionary current could well be a minority for a while

Like the Green Party? Or the "British Jobs for British Workers" (excuse me, "No2EU") party?

Lenin (Socialism and War (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/s+w/index.htm), 1915):


In the past epoch, before the war, although opportunism was often regarded as a “deviationist”, “extremist” part of the Social-Democratic Party, it was nevertheless regarded as a legitimate part. The war has shown that this cannot be so in future. Opportunism has “matured”, is now playing to the full its role as emissary of the bourgeois in the working-class movement. Unity with the opportunists has become sheer hypocrisy, an example of which we see in the German Social-Democratic Party. On all important occasions ... the opportunists come forward with an ultimatum, which they carry out with the aid of their numerous connections with the bourgeoisie, of their majority on the executives of the trade unions, etc. Unity with the opportunists actually means today, subordinating the working class to “its” national bourgeoisie, alliance with it for the purpose of oppressing other nations and of fighting for great-power privileges, it means splitting the revolutionary proletariat in all countries.

[Sam_b]

the SWP fought against including the right to abortion in the program of the R.E.S.P.E.C.T. popular front!

So, not only are you a dogmatic sectarian, but also a liar. Where is your proof to substanciate your claims? Otherwise i'll continue to call it what it is - nothing short of slander against our organisation.

An infantile disorder, fucking right.

[fredbergen]

I do not support the CPGB or their ridiculous idea of pressuring the RESPECT popular front. Nevertheless, this is what they report (http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86961):


In the run-up to the 2004 Respect conference we in the CPGB struggled against this opportunism. We proposed a motion calling for the defence and extension of abortion rights at Respect branches. In Hackney we were opposed by leading SWP member Julie Waterson, who absurdly argued that the democratic right of women to decide for themselves whether or not to terminate a pregnancy was a revolutionary demand that should not be forced on the Respect coalition. She led her comrades in voting down our motion.

However, as a result of CPGB pressure and in order to defeat our motion in Greenwich and Lewisham branch, the SWP proposed its own motion which talked in vague terms about a woman’s “right to choose”. SWP comrades opposed anything more specific and made it clear that Respect’s elected representatives - and one particular elected representative - were not bound to support any specific position when it came to voting on any proposals before parliament.

So overjoyed was the SWP that it had managed to keep Galloway and the muslim ‘community leaders’ on board that the central committee later proudly held up the example of Birmingham SWP and how its caucusing had ensured that “all hostile motions on abortion and black sections” were defeated and none of their movers got “elected to Respect conference” (see Weekly Worker November 4 2004).

[Tjis]

As revolutionaries we shouldn't make the error of shouting for revolution at any given circumstance, as an ultimatum for the working class to follow us. Instead we should involve ourselves in patient work of building a broad working class party that is based on working class independance of the capitalists and their state, working class internationalism and working class democracy. Within such a party, the revolutionary current could well be a minority for a while.
So is this what Offensief is trying to do with the Socialist Party of the Netherlands?
Why is building a broad working class party so important? What good will it do if its members aren't class conscious and depend on the party leadership and members of the party in the parliament to fight for them? We just end up with a large group of people with all revolutionary potential sucked out of it. This way of fighting for reforms does NOT lead to a stronger working class. It'll immobilize them and make them dependent on the party's cadre.

I believe we should never impose our organizations on others. No revolution should ever depend on everyone joining your party. A unified working class is important, but that doesn't mean they should be unified in your party. Through grassroots struggle for better conditions it's far more likely that methods of working class libertarian organization that actually work are found, that connections between groups are built and which eventually leads to a unified working class that is far more dynamic and has far more revolutionary potential than a party could ever hope for.

[Q]

So is this what Offensief is trying to do with the Socialist Party of the Netherlands?
To be honest, the work inside the SP was at the time more motivated at repeating the "Militant formula" of entryism. That is, to work inside a big bureaucratic centralistic party. In those concrete circumstances however, we eventually ended up as a sect, isolated from the rest of the party in any political sense of the word. This phase is currently nearing an end as the SP leadership has finally moved towards expelling us and we need to rethink this matter through. A basic lesson I would take thusfar is that creating a tendency in a monolithic party is a dead road.


Why is building a broad working class party so important? What good will it do if its members aren't class conscious and depend on the party leadership and members of the party in the parliament to fight for them? We just end up with a large group of people with all revolutionary potential sucked out of it. This way of fighting for reforms does NOT lead to a stronger working class. It'll immobilize them and make them dependent on the party's cadre.
Mind that the demands of working class independance, working class internationalism and working class democracy are absolute ones, as any concessions on these basic points will result to the points you just mentioned. A broad party involving non-Marxists aswell is important though, as any "purist" road will inevitably result in a sect. It is inside the bigger formation that we fight for our programme and try to gain a majority.

So, we have a paradox on our hands. The SP clearly doesn't support either of the three elementary points, yet it involves broad support of the working class (although this is electorally in decline due to opportunist moves from the party leadership). In these concrete circumstances I think the best way forward is to fight for elementary Marxist points as SP members, yet to remain our independant organisation outside the party.

In this context I think there is also a need for a regroupment of Marxist forces. Perhaps by the formation of a non-membership Marxist center. I'm not totally clear on this matter yet though.


I believe we should never impose our organizations on others. No revolution should ever depend on everyone joining your party. A unified working class is important, but that doesn't mean they should be unified in your party. Through grassroots struggle for better conditions it's far more likely that methods of working class libertarian organization that actually work are found, that connections between groups are built and which eventually leads to a unified working class that is far more dynamic and has far more revolutionary potential than a party could ever hope for.
I fully agree with you here, if I gave another impression, I'm sorry. I wrote a little on the matter of the relationship between the workers party and the working class here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/criticisms-democratic-centralismi-t115894/index.html?p=1529080#post1529080):

Democratic centralism works under a few basic premises. Unity of action is only one aspect, often too much emphasised. The other aspect I would summarise as transparency of disagreement. As (I think it was) Rosa Luxemburg already put it quite well: democracy is not about those who agree, but about those who disagree.

Many organisations don't practice this form of transparency. These organisations emphasise the unity aspect in the sense that there is a "unity in ideas" that everyone has to uphold in public. They only allow, formally, disagreements to develop inside the organisation. However, this is just a paper reality as disagreements don't get published in the party press or discussed among broader layers of the membership. There is no air for disagreements to grow. The result is that disagreements don't develop, the organisation gets dogmatised and splits occur or many people just leave the scene. As KC pointed out, this is the sickness of the sect.

Public factions and tendencies and allowing the party press as a platform for conflicting views is essential for any healthy organisation. Not only to educate the membership and to develop the organisation, but also to educate the working class movement (or at least the layer that follows the said organisation) in tactics and strategy. This mechanism is what makes communists the political leadership of the working class, as opposed to a sect imposing their view on the movement.

Perhaps we should open a new thread on the matter of the way forward from the SP, Marxism and the Dutch workers movement?

[fredbergen]

Those who want to study the Marxist position on labor and social-democratic parties would do well to read this set of theses by Trotsky: "On the Labor Party Question in America (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/xx/lp.htm)" (1932). What the anti-Trotskyists of the CWI aim to do is to create new social-democratic parties to which they can be housebroken "oppositions" and "left" advisors. As the traditional Second International parties weaken, the CWI wants to set up yet more obstacles in the path of the working class toward its political independence.

[fredbergen]

Trotsky:


3. A long period of confusion in the Comintern led many people to forget a very simple but absolutely irrevocable principle that a Marxist, a proletarian revolutionist, cannot present himself before the working class with two banners. He cannot say at a workers meeting: I have tickets for a first class party and other tickets cheaper for the stupid ones. If I am a Communist I must fight for the Communist Party.

Reforge the Fourth International!

[Q]

Those who want to study the Marxist position on labor and social-democratic parties would do well to read this set of theses by Trotsky: "On the Labor Party Question in America (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/xx/lp.htm)" (1932). What the anti-Trotskyists of the CWI aim to do is to create new social-democratic parties to which they can be housebroken "oppositions" and "left" advisors. As the traditional Second International parties weaken, the CWI wants to set up yet more obstacles in the path of the working class toward its political independence.
Just a general observation: In the few posts you have made thus far you continuously attack other comrades by making all kinds of unsubstantiated claims, instead of pursueing a road of discussion and polemics. This makes you sectarian and an annoying one at that.

You also tend to overgeneralise. The fact that I'm in the CWI doesn't mean I'm a clone of Peter Taaffe and agree with each and every opinion of the International Secretariat of the CWI. I tend to follow the motto: I think, thus I disagree (in fact, I'll add that one to my sig right now). You on the other hand seem to be one of those mindless epigones Trotsky so vehemently raged against.

Thirdly, Trotsky doesn't make up the Marxist movement. He made some important additions that should be considered in their proper historical context. Just like Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Lenin, Luxemburg and other Marxist thinkers. Get over your Trotsky fetish already.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

While I certainly agree that the particular formulation is a bit strange, I agree with what others have said. Fighting for concessions from the capitalists is a necessary fight in order to build the workers movement. However, the goal of socialism should at all times be concrete. Socialists, while fighting for aswell for reforms, should always make clear that under capitalism these concessions are just that: concessions in order to deflect class struggle. Therefore they are always temporary as the profit motive remains dominant within society.

Actually I kind of agree that the first criticism was somewhat semantic. I might have been being a bit hasty and dramatic to say it is reformist for that specific reason. I'm not trying to be a sectarian, but to express genuine concerns about organizing and the relationship/structure between individuals, branches, and the national apparatus.


This is indeed pretty bad. Democratic rights should be absolute within any revolutionary organisation and should be member-based, not branch-based (while branches form a logical basic "building block" of any larger organisation).

The distance/isolation is more what I am concerned about. What role can "at-large" people play in organizing? How can it avoid a top-down method of organization in practice? This is what I'm having doubts about. I won't say that I've resigned, because I haven't, but is trying to organize a branch worthwhile when there is already other organizations in the area? I don't know.


I think open discussion is a healthy thing regardless of having a branch in your area or not. Too many organisations base themselves of only allowing critical notes inside the organisation, effectively silencing any serious criticism to develop.


But yeah, an indepth analysis of the state of the movement in the US really needs to be conducted. I think that the crackdown in the 80's on the unions and workers' struggles as well as the outsourcing of heavy industry and factory work to other countries has really destroyed the movement, and just now in this crisis we are starting to see some kind of rebound, even if only on a local and sporadic level currently. What's really necessary is combatting the bourgeois propaganda machine about how unions are bad and how if workers in the US unionize then their jobs will promptly be shipped overseas. That's a huge huge huge propaganda point, among many. We're basically starting from square one.
Agreed.

I also find fredbergen's Trotsky obsession somewhat derailing to the flow of the thread.

[Kassad]

For obvious reasons, I'm pretty disappointed to hear this. Regardless, Fly Pan Dulce, you're a great guy and whether you stay with the party or not doesn't remove you from the ranks of great revolutionaries. Out of curiosity, before I begin one of my rants, what other parties have you considered joining?

I want to start with this. Do you think that the working class in the United States is currently capable, at this very moment, of igniting a revolution? Is any revolutionary party truly prepared to take positions of leadership and advance towards a dictatorship of the proletariat? Probably not. When a significant amount of the population in the United States view socialism as synonymous with England and France's healthcare systems, there's definitely a problem. Labor unions are having trouble seriously organizing because employers intimidate workers with threats of moving the business or laying off workers if they don't cease their demands for better wages and benefits, and those that do organize often are led by corrupt labor leaders that care more about power than anything else. It's safe to say that a lot of progressive movements, whether those to end imperialist war, to support labor organization or for universal healthcare, are seeing some hard times right now because frankly, the bourgeois capitalist state is very efficient at what it does. They promote media and lifestyle that suppress revolutionary class consciousness and make any potential progressive movements seem unfeasible and utopian.

So if you're with me up until this point, I think you're making a serious mistake in leaving the party. Right now, I don't think members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation are seriously saying 'it will be us and our party only that ignite a revolution.' The party is not here to start revolution. The proletariat is the only force that can ignite revolutionary fervor, but the Marxist party is meant to guide the working class in constructing socialism and maintaining a state apparatus to make sure that bourgeois elements in society and even in the party are removed, as to continue the construction of socialist development.

So at a point like this, we realize that a revolution is not happening tomorrow. In my own words, Lenin said that during times of revolutionary potential, the party must lead the proletariat, but in times where revolutionary opportunities are not on the horizon, one must build the party to prepare for revolution. What better way to do this than to educate and agitate through the struggle for reforms? A working man in New York City may be distressed because he is forced to vote for a Democrat to prevent a Republican's tyrannical administration, but when they see a poster for a socialist candidate like Frances Villar, who we are running for Mayor, they see that she is calling for things Democrats are not: an end to foreclosures. Education for all. No rent and transportation fee hikes. Though this worker may not magically turn into a Marxist after seeing a poster, flier or protest led by the party or a meeting of sorts, a worker realizes that there is a fighting program that people are struggling for. So at this point, this worker who was enticed by a message that appealed to his/her working class background can learn more about struggles for these things, which with education and guidance can formulate class consciousness. Sorry, but that's where a significant amount of our membership has come from. Through the struggle for reforms, we educate people about socialism and why reforms only go so far. Now tell me, if a party has a poster that says "Vote for Sam Socialist! We need revolution and the destruction of capitalism!" As true as that is, a lot of workers, especially in America, are going to see that and laugh. Do you see where I'm getting at with this? Through the struggle for reforms, we build our party. At the end of the day, though, our cause is revolution.

Let me give an example. The PSL is struggling for single-payer healthcare. Under capitalism, socialized healthcare would be a very progressive step, but we realize that regardless of what we achieve in the field of healthcare under capitalism, it will constantly be under attack by reactionary forces. Here's a quote from a PSL article on healthcare.


If the capitalists really wanted to fix the system, their only real reform option is single-payer health care. Many capitalist countries, like Canada, Britain, France and others, have had this for decades in response to the power and class consciousness of workers in those countries.

Things would be different under socialism, different even from single-payer care. The first step in building socialism is to end the profit system and seize control of the wealth to provide food, housing and health care to all. The results of what can happen in a planned economy, even one that is surrounded by imperialism, such as Cuba, are astounding.
(Source: http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12643)

So here's a prime example of the PSL fighting for a reform of the healthcare system, but still acknowledging that the profit system is the prime instigator of healthcare, education and food crises. Are we to just forget about single-payer healthcare and just advocate a radical, revolutionary, non-profit based healthcare for all? Of course not, because right now, that isn't feasible. So until that becomes feasible through a revolutionary opportunity, we struggle for the reforms that are attainable.

I feel like I'm dragging this out longer than I wanted and I haven't even really covered any other points besides the alleged reformism. You said you live pretty far from a branch. I don't know exactly where you're at, but I live in Ohio. The nearest branch for me is Chicago, which is around a 6-7 hour drive for me. I think you're kind of selling yourself short when you think about leaving the party because you're out on your own where you are, but think of it this way. If you're out on your own when it comes to organization, so are the workers in your area. So are women fighting for equality. So are minorities fighting for affirmative action. So are LGBT people fighting for equality. You're not alone, because you're surrounded by workers everywhere around you. Those workers need organization and only a party with a platform of real, radical change can bring that to these workers. That's why you need to get Liberation Newspaper to these people in working class communities and why you need to organize events that promote progressive change for workers and oppressed people, which can be done. Within less than five years, over a dozen branches of the PSL have popped up out of nowhere. That means a few people had to seriously organize and thanks to that, we have cities where we have well over 50 members and we're gaining more support every day.

At the end of the day, I can't make the decision for you. Committing to a revolutionary party is not like picking out a hairstyle or a new pair of shoes. It's a serious step towards working for revolution. I hope you stick with us and realize how much potential your area, my area and everyone's area has for revolutionary change.

[Sam_b]

So overjoyed was the SWP that it had managed to keep Galloway and the muslim ‘community leaders’ on board that the central committee later proudly held up the example of Birmingham SWP and how its caucusing had ensured that “all hostile motions on abortion and black sections” were defeated and none of their movers got “elected to Respect conference” (see Weekly Worker November 4 2004).

I know several members of Birmingham SWP who were active and in meetings around the time, and as far as i'm concerned this is a completely barefaced lie. Besides, how w0ould CPGB members be able to effectively report this, when they are not in the SWP and were not a part of our meetings and caucuses? Of course, no hardline and substancive evidence here to back anything up.

[Kassad]

Did Q and Random Precision seriously thank me for trying to convince someone to stay with the PSL? What's up with that?

[Q]

Did Q and Random Precision seriously thank me for trying to convince someone to stay with the PSL? What's up with that?
Despite what you might think of me, I go for solid politics, not sectarian gains. Your post emphasised the important work we as Marxists have in building our movement. The only addition that I would make is that we should think as a class movement, not just as a Marxist movement. That involves building a broader workers party. Of course that is not to say that building a Marxist cadre organisation is bad, it is in fact a vital step forwards.

[Die Neue Zeit]

To be honest, the work inside the SP was at the time more motivated at repeating the "Militant formula" of entryism. That is, to work inside a big bureaucratic centralistic party. In those concrete circumstances however, we eventually ended up as a sect, isolated from the rest of the party in any political sense of the word. This phase is currently nearing an end as the SP leadership has finally moved towards expelling us and we need to rethink this matter through. A basic lesson I would take thusfar is that creating a tendency in a monolithic party is a dead road.

In Canada, you can point your fingers at the "Socialist Caucus" inside the social-corporatist NDP. :glare:


Mind that the demands of working class independance, working class internationalism and working class democracy are absolute ones, as any concessions on these basic points will result to the points you just mentioned. A broad party involving non-Marxists aswell is important though, as any "purist" road will inevitably result in a sect. It is inside the bigger formation that we fight for our programme and try to gain a majority.

The basic principles I've drafted, for example, are Marxist, but words-wise make concessions here and there to pareconists ("participatory economy"), class-strugglist anarchists ("directly act as a class for itself" - direct action), etc.