DaringMehring
12th July 2010, 10:48
First off, thanks comrades for indulging me. These are my views on the broader movement. They may partly stem from the fact that, due to traveling a lot in my life including to different countries, I've worked with a number of different organizations.
First, our movement is bigger than any one Party. At a certain point, a critical instant in time, when the question of power is immediate, precise Parties and programs become decisive, like in Russia 1917. But in general, there is room for more than one Party, current, or tendency. For instance in the decades long run-up to October 1917 in Russia, there were multiple tendencies, and they all played their role. The SRs educated and agitated the peasants, the Mensheviks worked in the cities building unions, anarchists played their role in directly attacking the state. Without the sum of these labors, there would have been no February 1917, and hence no October.
At the same time, while the Parties are separate, a certain common purpose and comradeship is needed. When Trotsky escaped captivity and fled through Europe, he was able to make it all the way across because the local SDs helped him out along the way with money and shelter. The Bolsheviks participated in the Russian SD formation all the way up to the war period. The 2nd International was multi-tendency. The whole socialist movement had vibrancy.
Of course a break had to happen around the social chauvinism of WWI, and the question of the Russian revolution. But think of the exceptionality of these circumstances --- and think of how, the end result was a successful socialist revolution. What other breaks ended with successful socialist revolutions?
Today, it is not healthy that socialist groups often spend so much energy attacking one another (the Sparts would be the extreme of this). Instead of lobbing shells at the enemy, half of the munitions are detonated in our own camp. It's a colossal waste, demoralizing, fragmenting, and self-defeating. Instead of taking it up with workers on issues that matter to them, often the target audience isn't even workers, or the issues are about long-dead people that workers don't care about. It's a turn off.
And of course, there is the darker history, of turning over opponents to the bourgeois state, or of thuggery and ultimately murder. That this has been socialist self-destruction is too clear, and too painful.
M-L, Trot, Maoist, Left-Com, etc. --- have a common interest in recruiting as many workers to socialism as possible. For instance, if I'm a Trot in a capitalist country, my position is much better if there are 1 million Maoists in my country, than if those same people were 1 million liberals. You can plug in any two names.
The inter-group questions only matter *after* reaching a point where the socialist parties have real power. Letting sectarianism derail the movement miles before it ever gets to that point, is self-destruction.
As an example, take our hated enemy the Tea Party movement. A variety of political opinions exist within the Tea Party, including on the question of operating within the Republicans versus as an independent Party. At the same time, they maintain a certain coherence and mutual support as a movement. Of course, they enjoy certain advantages over us in their corporate funding and media attention. It's an imperfect analogy, but the basic idea is there.
Dear reader, after having bothered to read so much text, you ask somewhat irately what I am suggesting. My main plea is for an attitude. The precise political circumstances and decisions of the future are always a mystery, but I am confident that with the right attitude, the best choices will be made. Chavez's call for a Fifth International can be mentioned but it is hardly the end of the story.
Let us build our movement!
Socialist, not bourgeois!
First, our movement is bigger than any one Party. At a certain point, a critical instant in time, when the question of power is immediate, precise Parties and programs become decisive, like in Russia 1917. But in general, there is room for more than one Party, current, or tendency. For instance in the decades long run-up to October 1917 in Russia, there were multiple tendencies, and they all played their role. The SRs educated and agitated the peasants, the Mensheviks worked in the cities building unions, anarchists played their role in directly attacking the state. Without the sum of these labors, there would have been no February 1917, and hence no October.
At the same time, while the Parties are separate, a certain common purpose and comradeship is needed. When Trotsky escaped captivity and fled through Europe, he was able to make it all the way across because the local SDs helped him out along the way with money and shelter. The Bolsheviks participated in the Russian SD formation all the way up to the war period. The 2nd International was multi-tendency. The whole socialist movement had vibrancy.
Of course a break had to happen around the social chauvinism of WWI, and the question of the Russian revolution. But think of the exceptionality of these circumstances --- and think of how, the end result was a successful socialist revolution. What other breaks ended with successful socialist revolutions?
Today, it is not healthy that socialist groups often spend so much energy attacking one another (the Sparts would be the extreme of this). Instead of lobbing shells at the enemy, half of the munitions are detonated in our own camp. It's a colossal waste, demoralizing, fragmenting, and self-defeating. Instead of taking it up with workers on issues that matter to them, often the target audience isn't even workers, or the issues are about long-dead people that workers don't care about. It's a turn off.
And of course, there is the darker history, of turning over opponents to the bourgeois state, or of thuggery and ultimately murder. That this has been socialist self-destruction is too clear, and too painful.
M-L, Trot, Maoist, Left-Com, etc. --- have a common interest in recruiting as many workers to socialism as possible. For instance, if I'm a Trot in a capitalist country, my position is much better if there are 1 million Maoists in my country, than if those same people were 1 million liberals. You can plug in any two names.
The inter-group questions only matter *after* reaching a point where the socialist parties have real power. Letting sectarianism derail the movement miles before it ever gets to that point, is self-destruction.
As an example, take our hated enemy the Tea Party movement. A variety of political opinions exist within the Tea Party, including on the question of operating within the Republicans versus as an independent Party. At the same time, they maintain a certain coherence and mutual support as a movement. Of course, they enjoy certain advantages over us in their corporate funding and media attention. It's an imperfect analogy, but the basic idea is there.
Dear reader, after having bothered to read so much text, you ask somewhat irately what I am suggesting. My main plea is for an attitude. The precise political circumstances and decisions of the future are always a mystery, but I am confident that with the right attitude, the best choices will be made. Chavez's call for a Fifth International can be mentioned but it is hardly the end of the story.
Let us build our movement!
Socialist, not bourgeois!