the politics of relevance/irrelevance

[black magick hustla]

first and foremost, most communist organizations in the west are irrelevant. especially in the united states.

i think these makes a lot of people frustrated. lots of them wof tant to be in the spotlight. lots of them want to emerge and somehow magically become old style mass parties. some of them try to recruit as much people as possible, others end up in elections, participate in dumb activist rituals pretty much catered to other activists etcetera. for example, a particularly bad example is the PSL, and its interesting how their members would post here some shit on how they got one percent of votes in bumfuck nowhere florida, or how active they are when they participate in meaningles s marches. its not only the PSL, but many other people engage in this meaningless quest for relevance. if you read the threads here, a lot of people are concerned with right wing organizations and opposing them, etcetera, as if tiny leftist sects have the muscle or money to do that.

first and foremost, communist becomes relevant when class politics become relevant, and this has very little to do with how active a leftist sect is, but with the particular historical situation and how militant is the class. class struggle in the us is in the retreat, so leftist groups in their quest of relevance, join in the activist ghetto to participate in their self contained rituals that average people dont give a fuck about.

my point is that people should chill the fuck out. by this i mean that dont concern yourself with how active and useful you feel. your destiny after all is tied with the destiny of the class, not the other way around. i am perfectly content with being irrelevant, knowing that it is not the people with my beliefs that would change the world if this miserable world is ever destroyed, but the working class. i dont have to strive for relevancy, nor i have to dumb down what i have to say like class war did by making tabloid style propaganda. the people who are meant to hear what i say will hear it, and maybe someday whatever i believe in will be relevant. but for now i am content with acknowledging my insignificance, and i think it is actually the healthiest reaction, rather than burning yourself out in activist rituals.

[Ravachol]

first and foremost, most communist organizations in the west are irrelevant. especially in the united states.

i think these makes a lot of people frustrated. lots of them wof tant to be in the spotlight. lots of them want to emerge and somehow magically become old style mass parties. some of them try to recruit as much people as possible, others end up in elections, participate in dumb activist rituals pretty much catered to other activists etcetera. for example, a particularly bad example is the PSL, and its interesting how their members would post here some shit on how they got one percent of votes in bumfuck nowhere florida, or how active they are when they participate in meaningles s marches. its not only the PSL, but many other people engage in this meaningless quest for relevance. if you read the threads here, a lot of people are concerned with right wing organizations and opposing them, etcetera, as if tiny leftist sects have the muscle or money to do that.

first and foremost, communist becomes relevant when class politics become relevant, and this has very little to do with how active a leftist sect is, but with the particular historical situation and how militant is the class. class struggle in the us is in the retreat, so leftist groups in their quest of relevance, join in the activist ghetto to participate in their self contained rituals that average people dont give a fuck about.

my point is that people should chill the fuck out. by this i mean that dont concern yourself with how active and useful you feel. your destiny after all is tied with the destiny of the class, not the other way around. i am perfectly content with being irrelevant, knowing that it is not the people with my beliefs that would change the world if this miserable world is ever destroyed, but the working class. i dont have to strive for relevancy, nor i have to dumb down what i have to say like class war did by making tabloid style propaganda. the people who are meant to hear what i say will hear it, and maybe someday whatever i believe in will be relevant. but for now i am content with acknowledging my insignificance, and i think it is actually the healthiest reaction, rather than burning yourself out in activist rituals.

While I agree with the general sentiment of your post (which mirror those espoused in Nihilist Communism), especially regarding the self-described role of the pro-revolutionary milieu as some sort of 'instigator' or 'whip' of the class struggle, I think there are several pitfalls here.

The primary problem with this line of reasoning is that of materialist determinism which is not so much a rejection of the 'cult of personal agency' but a complete negation of the possibility of interventions in the fabric of everyday life.

The process of communism is, in my understanding, a real possibility at each and every moment in history precisely because it is the resultant state from the process of 'communization'. The formation of communal bonds (the 'finding eachother') on the basis of shared subjectivities (or 'forms-of-life') arising from shared material condtions is the embryonic form of communism in the here and now. Organising to realise our demands and dreams in opposition to and despite the presence of state and Capital is 'living communism'.

Thus it is not so much a matter of waiting for 'sponteneous struggles', in a rather anarchronistic mass-worker fashion, to emerge from the decline in material conditions inherent to the accumulation process as it is a matter of 'living the assault' and taking back our lives. This is a real possibility at every moment, the intensity and rate of propagation of this process is dependant on a myriad of factors outside of our reach, yes, but this does not mean communism is irrelevant at all.

[graymouser]

If you don't build some revolutionary leadership now, when the class struggle rises, the leadership that will naturally exist will not be revolutionary but reformist. This is pretty much going to happen anyway, but you need to build a revolutionary organization that will struggle with the reformists for leadership once that does happen. That's the whole logic of building a small Leninist group - not that it will be huge today, but that it is training leaders for the next period. And it's why, when things rise up, a Leninist group has a distinct advantage in building itself to suit the struggle than people who took the attitude that you are taking now.

[Bilan]

If you don't build some revolutionary leadership now, when the class struggle rises, the leadership that will naturally exist will not be revolutionary but reformist. This is pretty much going to happen anyway, but you need to build a revolutionary organization that will struggle with the reformists for leadership once that does happen. That's the whole logic of building a small Leninist group - not that it will be huge today, but that it is training leaders for the next period. And it's why, when things rise up, a Leninist group has a distinct advantage in building itself to suit the struggle than people who took the attitude that you are taking now.

That is fundamentally baseless. Look, your revolutionary leadership is an utterly meaningless phrase.
It is not a leadership if it is only leading itself into a activist circus of meaningless/worthless activism.

Simply, this revolutionary leadership doesn't exist, and no matter how many rent-a-crowd demos you throw, that wont change. You can't impose a leadership on the working class: it is an organic component of class struggle.

[graymouser]

That is fundamentally baseless. Look, your revolutionary leadership is an utterly meaningless phrase.
It is not a leadership if it is only leading itself into a activist circus of meaningless/worthless activism.

Simply, this revolutionary leadership doesn't exist, and no matter how many rent-a-crowd demos you throw, that wont change. You can't impose a leadership on the working class: it is an organic component of class struggle.
There is a subjective element in class consciousness, and without deliberate intervention by revolutionaries it does not automatically develop into a revolutionary leadership. People take on the ideas that are around them, and especially in the modern era those are the ideas of the ruling class. Letting the "organic" leadership develop on its own has historically resulted in populism, both right and left, and reformism. When a conscious revolutionary party comes on this scene it can dramatically change the situation, such as the CPUSA in the 1930s. Despite its serious flaws the CP played a big part (and the Trotskyists a smaller but not insignificant one) in building the wave of labor activism that built the CIO, and laid the groundwork of the civil rights movement.

As for the demonstrations - I've been part of organizing anti-war demonstrations in Philadelphia for years and there's no rental involved. What is involved is the confrontation of theory with actual human beings, and learning how to organize. But clearly you are superior to all that, and your perfect theory can sit untouched, forever.

Seriously, if you take that attitude, you can sit behind your keyboard and criticize to your heart's content. But don't pretend that you're really doing as much for the revolutionary movement as the people who are out there trying to build a movement to oppose imperialism.

[black magick hustla]

There is a subjective element in class consciousness, and without deliberate intervention by revolutionaries it does not automatically develop into a revolutionary leadership. People take on the ideas that are around them, and especially in the modern era those are the ideas of the ruling class. Letting the "organic" leadership develop on its own has historically resulted in populism, both right and left, and reformism. When a conscious revolutionary party comes on this scene it can dramatically change the situation, such as the CPUSA in the 1930s. Despite its serious flaws the CP played a big part (and the Trotskyists a smaller but not insignificant one) in building the wave of labor activism that built the CIO, and laid the groundwork of the civil rights movement.



there is a point for political organizations. hell, ive been thinking about joining a specific one for a while. it is definitely not to build the "leadership" though whatever that means. today, i think the role of an organization is discussion, clarification, and intervention in the class struggle.

[bricolage]

As for the demonstrations - I've been part of organizing anti-war demonstrations in Philadelphia for years and there's no rental involved.
I think anti-war demos are largely 'rental', in that they are organised by and led by committed 'activists' who are able to ship in swathes of people from across the country to march up and down, chant some chants and hear some speeches. They are very pre-planned, act within the confines of accepted political paradigms and generally feel artificial products of the spectacle.
'Anti-fascism' can be even worse, where activists are bussed in, bust up and bussed up, all the while holding no organic links to the groups they are meant to be 'protecting'.


But don't pretend that you're really doing as much for the revolutionary movement as the people who are out there trying to build a movement to oppose imperialism.I think most people that are 'trying to build a movement to oppose imperialism' are probably doing more to harm the 'revolutionary movement' than those who are doing nothing.
I don't necessarily agree with the nihilist communism 'Do Nothing' ideal but I do agree that nine times out of ten, 'Do Something' is more counterproductive than anything else.

[bcbm]

the nihilist communism 'Do Nothing' ideal

i don't think their call to do nothing means literally sitting on your ass doing nothing, but rather to take a step back from the rituals that have taken hold over the left and re-evaluate our ideas and position.

[Lyev]

first and foremost, most communist organizations in the west are irrelevant. especially in the united states.

i think these makes a lot of people frustrated. lots of them wof tant to be in the spotlight. lots of them want to emerge and somehow magically become old style mass parties. some of them try to recruit as much people as possible, others end up in elections, participate in dumb activist rituals pretty much catered to other activists etcetera. for example, a particularly bad example is the PSL, and its interesting how their members would post here some shit on how they got one percent of votes in bumfuck nowhere florida, or how active they are when they participate in meaningles s marches. its not only the PSL, but many other people engage in this meaningless quest for relevance. if you read the threads here, a lot of people are concerned with right wing organizations and opposing them, etcetera, as if tiny leftist sects have the muscle or money to do that.

first and foremost, communist becomes relevant when class politics become relevant, and this has very little to do with how active a leftist sect is, but with the particular historical situation and how militant is the class. class struggle in the us is in the retreat, so leftist groups in their quest of relevance, join in the activist ghetto to participate in their self contained rituals that average people dont give a fuck about.

my point is that people should chill the fuck out. by this i mean that dont concern yourself with how active and useful you feel. your destiny after all is tied with the destiny of the class, not the other way around. i am perfectly content with being irrelevant, knowing that it is not the people with my beliefs that would change the world if this miserable world is ever destroyed, but the working class. i dont have to strive for relevancy, nor i have to dumb down what i have to say like class war did by making tabloid style propaganda. the people who are meant to hear what i say will hear it, and maybe someday whatever i believe in will be relevant. but for now i am content with acknowledging my insignificance, and i think it is actually the healthiest reaction, rather than burning yourself out in activist rituals.I think I can understand where you are coming from, for sure. I think there is this problem in the CWI here in the UK. I went a meeting the other day, attended by some of the party elders and more experienced activists. There was a massive emphasis on, a "recruitment drive". Now I suppose this in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially with the austerity measures being carried out across Europe and whatnot, but it seems to be about a search for, as you say, "relevance". It was cited that we SPEW had some 8000 members in the 1980s, whilst we only have around 2000 now. And something that is done to death is calling on the memory of the anti-poll tax movement and 1990 and the Liverpool labour council in the mid-80s. All of this seems to be a means to call upon our relevance within the labour movement in the UK. I think the class struggle can often develop quite organically and independently regardless of how well-known an organisation is, or how many members whatever party has recruited.

[Martin Blank]

today, i think the role of an organization is discussion, clarification, and intervention in the class struggle.

This is the role of an organization at all times -- in relative class peace or class war. The difference is in what forms the "discussion, clarification and intervention" take at a given time.

But I do understand and in many ways agree with your argument about the rituals that the left undertakes. This is something I've been saying for years. It seems that virtually all of the protests and marches that are organized, regardless of who is organizing them, are meant to do nothing more than give the participants an ability to "feel good", not to actually get something accomplished. Look at the antiwar protests over the last decade. Even at their height, with millions in the streets around the world, they had no effect whatsoever on whether or not the ruling classes carried out their invasions, occupations, escalations, etc. In the end, all that happened was that a lot of very sincere and dedicated people wasted a ton of shoe leather, poster board and time for the sake of the warm-and-fuzzies.

There needs to be a serious re-evaluation of tactics and methods within the left, as part of a larger process of breaking with pragmatism and routinism. There are better ways to organize and be active that don't involve begging the exploiting and oppressing classes to have a change of heart.

[praxis1966]

If you don't build some revolutionary leadership now, when the class struggle rises, the leadership that will naturally exist will not be revolutionary but reformist. This is pretty much going to happen anyway, but you need to build a revolutionary organization that will struggle with the reformists for leadership once that does happen. That's the whole logic of building a small Leninist group - not that it will be huge today, but that it is training leaders for the next period. And it's why, when things rise up, a Leninist group has a distinct advantage in building itself to suit the struggle than people who took the attitude that you are taking now.

Assuming for the sake of argument that a real revolution breaks out, your 'leadership' will still be irrelevant. I'm here to tell you that I don't need to be lead any fuckin' place. I am a worker, I am the people, and if you and your politician friends step in and try to 'lead' me anywhere in 'the next phase' the only 'intervention' will be my union's boot intervening in your party's ass. After 200 years of worker's rebellions extending all the way back to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and so-called leftist parties selling them down the river, I'm not of a mind to trust any of you constitutionalists.

[Martin Blank]

first and foremost, communists become relevant when class politics become relevant, and this has very little to do with how active a leftist sect is, but with the particular historical situation and how militant is the class.

I can more or less agree with this. Relevance is completely subjective, and can even vary from minute to minute. The fact is that the relevance or irrelevance of an organization is never uniform (i.e., some things will strike a chord while others will sail on in the air). Nor is it always what the organization wants it to be. It should also be said that the only people who do worry about the relevance or irrelevance of an organization are its members.

If you do effective work among working people, the likelihood of being seen as "relevant" by workers themselves when the time is right increases. What is effective work? I would say a simple definition is activity that extends revolutionary class consciousness within the class that will carry out the revolution. Sometimes, that's as simple as hanging out with co-workers and shooting the shit about what's going on in the world. In a period like we're in today, that can be more effective than a street protest or teach-in on some college campus.

It's a long, slow, unglamorous process. But then, the best work we can do often is.

[Crux]

Assuming for the sake of argument that a real revolution breaks out, your 'leadership' will still be irrelevant. I'm here to tell you that I don't need to be lead any fuckin' place. I am a worker, I am the people, and if you and your politician friends step in and try to 'lead' me anywhere in 'the next phase' the only 'intervention' will be my union's boot intervening in your party's ass. After 200 years of worker's rebellions extending all the way back to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and so-called leftist parties selling them down the river, I'm not of a mind to trust any of you constitutionalists.
You are the people? Hubris much? Also, constitutionalists..ehm what?

Maldoror: I really see nothing new about what you are saying. It's not like anti-party politics came into being yesterday. Of course we need to focus our energy right, and I do ver much so still believe protests, and more so campaigning around protests give such a venue, even though it certainly isn't the only venue. As revolutionary socialists we don't just go to marches, we build in our neighborhoods at our workplaces at our schools, that is what it means to act as a revolutionary leadership, there is no magic formula, there's just that long hard basework most of us do on a daily basis.

Miles: I don't think talking to co-workers represents a new strategy, sure, and it is important to point that out protesting in itself does not necessarily atke you forward, but you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater here. Again, all we can do is organize people, raise the issues and take action when we can. As for how and when, that's a discussion of tactics, that depends on the forces at your disposal. I very much believe that new mass-parties of the left are a possibility, I also very much believe that these can be won to a revolutionary leadership.

[Martin Blank]

Assuming for the sake of argument that a real revolution breaks out, your 'leadership' will still be irrelevant. I'm here to tell you that I don't need to be lead any fuckin' place. I am a worker, I am the people, and if you and your politician friends step in and try to 'lead' me anywhere in 'the next phase' the only 'intervention' will be my union's boot intervening in your party's ass. After 200 years of worker's rebellions extending all the way back to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and so-called leftist parties selling them down the river, I'm not of a mind to trust any of you constitutionalists.

I cannot even begin to say how important a statement like this is. If comrades here want to know why left groups in the U.S. are so small, it's because this is a common (though often not as well articulated) viewpoint among workers.

[Palingenisis]

first and foremost, most communist organizations in the west are irrelevant. especially in the united states.


Most leftist sects (especially those coming out of Trotskyism but not limited to them) are more interested in themselves and their "growing" their organizations rather than really changing the world.

You should think what you can do to make the community you live in a better place....Thats where the revolution really begins.

[praxis1966]

You are the people? Hubris much? Also, constitutionalists..ehm what?

What I mean is that I'm one of the people he's talking about leading, and workers are fully capable of leading themselves... We don't need to be told how or when to do anything. This to me is the only way for an honest revolution to take place, from the ground up from beginning to end, rather than a bunch of professional revolutionaries stepping in and trying to co-opt it. As for the constitutionalist remark, it refers to anyone who would participate in state politics, whether before, during, or after a workers' revolution, aka more useless bosses.

[Crux]

Most leftist sects (especially those coming out of Trotskyism but not limited to them) are more interested in themselves and their "growing" their organizations rather than really changing the world.

You should think what you can do to make the community you live in a better place....Thats where the revolution really begins.
Obviously I can't speak for all western leftist organizations or all trotskyist groups, but you know what? we build our organizations for a reason, we build them so that we can intervene more effectively, we build them to educate people not just ourselves but also in our organization. It's strange, sometimes I think the left are more blind to what effect we have than people in general. Speaking only from my personal experience, having mostly been active where our branches are small groups can have an effect even small groups get a response among common people, sometimes more so than we realize ourselves. And I noticed this when we were out in the community, people had heard of us and thought positively of us, but it is only through the actions we do combined with our everyday activism, yes that includes paper selling, that we get people to notice.
We might be small today, but again-there are no short-cuts. I don't really see what the alternative you are presenting.

[Martin Blank]

Miles: I don't think talking to co-workers represents a new strategy, sure, and it is important to point that out protesting in itself does not necessarily atke you forward, but you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater here.

Actually, I'm not. I still think public protests, demonstrations, marches, etc., have a place in our tactical arsenal, but they should not be the first or only thing we reach for. It is an abuse of the protest tactic to use it for little more than blowing off steam; in fact, such an abuse is reactionary, because it reinforces the idea that organized action is meaningless. Public protests should have a defined goal: the overturning of a law or stopping of a proposed law; an end to an action taken by the ruling classes or the initiation of an action; etc. If that goal is not met, then the protest, regardless of how many people attended or how "spirited" it was, was a failure. Maybe it takes a series of protests to do it -- I can understand that. But to hold protests on the same issue for almost a decade and have nothing to show for it other than a few more recruits for your organization, that is an epic failure rooted in pragmatism and routinism (ritualism).


Again, all we can do is organize people, raise the issues and take action when we can. As for how and when, that's a discussion of tactics, that depends on the forces at your disposal. I very much believe that new mass-parties of the left are a possibility, I also very much believe that these can be won to a revolutionary leadership.

Yes, it does depend on what you can do when you can do it, and what forces you have at your disposal. But just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should. This is the difference between unconscious blind activism and conscious political organizing.

The blind activist will see something happen, get outraged and organize protests to share his/her outrage with others who are similarly outraged, and nothing will happen but a slight catharsis.

The political organizer sees something happen, takes a measure of what it would take to change it, assesses what can be done and how, sets a clear goal for the activity, and then chooses the proper tactics for maximum effectiveness. After the activity is done, there's another review and the development of an honest, sober assessment of what was accomplished.

I know you know all these things, but since the subject at hand is blind activism and its discontents, I thought it worthwhile to spell it all out.

[Jolly Red Giant]

I think there is this problem in the CWI here in the UK. I went a meeting the other day, attended by some of the party elders and more experienced activists. There was a massive emphasis on, a "recruitment drive". Now I suppose this in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially with the austerity measures being carried out across Europe and whatnot, but it seems to be about a search for, as you say, "relevance". It was cited that we SPEW had some 8000 members in the 1980s, whilst we only have around 2000 now. And something that is done to death is calling on the memory of the anti-poll tax movement and 1990 and the Liverpool labour council in the mid-80s. All of this seems to be a means to call upon our relevance within the labour movement in the UK.
You are making some valid points Lyev. There most definitely is a tendency to overplay the 'Liverpool' and 'poll-tax' card in the CWI. I suspect that the primary reason for that has been the lack of class struggle in the UK (and Ireland) over the past 15 or so years. There has be few examples of the mass mobilisation of the working class in the intervening period (in Ireland we do the same with the anti-water charges campaign - although it is more relevent as the government are planning to re-impose the charges). The reality is that we are now entering a completely new period of class struggle.

The passivity of the last two decades in the UK and Ireland is most definitely a thing of the past. The UK is more advanced than Ireland in this respect as there already has been a significant shift to the left in some trade unions. But the next period will open up major class battles - some will be won, many will be lost - but the process will help to develop the class consciousness of the working class. As time progresses, activists will be able to indicate, using new examples, the strength and weaknesses of the tactics of Marxists and others.

As regards the emphasis on recruitment - recruitment should always be first and foremost in the work of a revolutionary activist. Too often we put the emphasis on other things (and I am as guilty if not more so than most). Particularly in the upcoming period of bourgeois attacks on the working class recruitment will be even more urgent and vital. Without the revolutionary forces to play a role, the working class will suffer more defeats than is necessary or desirable. Following on from this - the current crisis will seperate the 'men' from the 'boys' - for want of a better phrase. Many of the far-left groups will struggle signifcantly in the new situation that is opening up. The CWI is capable of adapting to the changing situation and recruitment will be vital in building our forces and thereby improving our ability to intervene and assist workers in struggle. In contrast, if the SWP run through to form, they will face internal crises. Traditionally they have recruited during periods of subdued class activity and then struggled during periods of intense class struggle because of their in. It may change, but I suspect it won't.

[Devrim]

Maldoror: I really see nothing new about what you are saying. It's not like anti-party politics came into being yesterday.

I don't think that he is 'anti-party' though:


there is a point for political organizations. hell, ive been thinking about joining a specific one for a while.

I presume he is talking about the ICC here, and if so, then the ICC is for a communist party. We don't claim that we are it, as it would be a patently absurd claim, and we are obviously not, but we are for the party.


It was cited that we SPEW had some 8000 members in the 1980s, whilst we only have around 2000 now.

I think that there is an important point here. Virtually all left groups have a significantly lower level of membership than in the 1980s. Obviously it is not because people in the 1980s were better militants, so it must be down to something else.

I believe that the the size and influence of left-wing organisations, to a certain extent, reflect the level of class struggle.

Bearing this in mind, I think one crucial thing is understanding the nature of the historic period. So many left groups are constantly presenting their latest campaign as vital for the future of the working class. Generally they aren't. One of the things that it does lead to is disillusionment, and burnout.

The period that we are going into is in my opinion an important one in that it could see the return to working class combativeness. It is just one small step on a long road though.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I suspect that the primary reason for that has been the lack of class struggle in the UK (and Ireland) over the past 15 or so years.

I think that this is an international tendency, not one combined to the UK and Ireland.

I would also put the worst period of it as the 1990s, with the last decade showing a small, but significant, slow return to struggle.


The CWI is capable of adapting to the changing situation and recruitment will be vital in building our forces and thereby improving our ability to intervene and assist workers in struggle. In contrast, if the SWP run through to form, they will face internal crises.

Despite being very critical of the politics of both groups I also think that the SWP will struggle more than the CWI.

Devrim

[Palingenisis]

Despite being very critical of the politics of both groups I also think that the SWP will struggle more than the CWI.

Devrim

Do the SWP still let people join after buying a paper and expressing an interest in them?

[Jolly Red Giant]

Do the SWP still let people join after buying a paper and expressing an interest in them?
Yes - I was talking to a 15 year old second level student yestarday who told me he signed a petition and then got a phone call from the SWP telling him he had to go to a branch meeting in the next town and got berated when he asked 'who the f*ck is calling me?'.

[Jolly Red Giant]

I think that this is an international tendency, not one combined to the UK and Ireland.
Yes it was


I would also put the worst period of it as the 1990s, with the last decade showing a small, but significant, slow return to struggle.
I am showing my age - and the recovery has been in certain European countries. Latin America is a different kettle of fish.



Despite being very critical of the politics of both groups I also think that the SWP will struggle more than the CWI.
Don't worry - the CWI won't struggle to adapt to changing conditions.

[Soviet dude]

first and foremost, most communist organizations in the west are irrelevant. especially in the united states.

i think these makes a lot of people frustrated. lots of them wof tant to be in the spotlight. lots of them want to emerge and somehow magically become old style mass parties. some of them try to recruit as much people as possible, others end up in elections, participate in dumb activist rituals pretty much catered to other activists etcetera. for example, a particularly bad example is the PSL, and its interesting how their members would post here some shit on how they got one percent of votes in bumfuck nowhere florida, or how active they are when they participate in meaningles s marches. its not only the PSL, but many other people engage in this meaningless quest for relevance. if you read the threads here, a lot of people are concerned with right wing organizations and opposing them, etcetera, as if tiny leftist sects have the muscle or money to do that.

first and foremost, communist becomes relevant when class politics become relevant, and this has very little to do with how active a leftist sect is, but with the particular historical situation and how militant is the class. class struggle in the us is in the retreat, so leftist groups in their quest of relevance, join in the activist ghetto to participate in their self contained rituals that average people dont give a fuck about.

my point is that people should chill the fuck out. by this i mean that dont concern yourself with how active and useful you feel. your destiny after all is tied with the destiny of the class, not the other way around. i am perfectly content with being irrelevant, knowing that it is not the people with my beliefs that would change the world if this miserable world is ever destroyed, but the working class. i dont have to strive for relevancy, nor i have to dumb down what i have to say like class war did by making tabloid style propaganda. the people who are meant to hear what i say will hear it, and maybe someday whatever i believe in will be relevant. but for now i am content with acknowledging my insignificance, and i think it is actually the healthiest reaction, rather than burning yourself out in activist rituals.

Is this how you justify not doing shit? Meaningless belief in the spontaneity?

[Martin Blank]

Is this how you justify not doing shit? Meaningless belief in the spontaneity?

I don't think that's what he's saying (maldoror can correct me if I'm wrong). Rather, I think the point being made is that there are a lot of leftists who organize protest after protest after meaningless protest because they think it makes them "relevant", and that if you're not doing that then you're "irrelevant". It's not support for spontaneity, but criticism of blind activism -- criticism of the subjectivism that says having the largest slum building in the leftist ghetto is makes you the most "relevant" to a working class that really doesn't care about such things right now.

[Soviet dude]

I don't think that's what he's saying (maldoror can correct me if I'm wrong). Rather, I think the point being made is that there are a lot of leftists who organize protest after protest after meaningless protest because they think it makes them "relevant", and that if you're not doing that then you're "irrelevant". It's not support for spontaneity, but criticism of blind activism -- criticism of the subjectivism that says having the largest slum building in the leftist ghetto is makes you the most "relevant" to a working class that really doesn't care about such things right now.

Maldoror clearly believes one day the workers are just gonna spontaneously start struggling, and that's when being a communist will matter (and not before). This couldn't more wrong or stupid, and clearly Maldoror has never done anything relevant in his life to justify saying something so stupid and wrong.

1. The advanced elements respect active groups. You will attract a lot more people who are receptive to radical ideas (though they might be communists, yet), by actively engaging in struggle. They don't respect passing out shitty pamphlets and newspapers.

2. There is literally intense struggle everywhere. It happens all the time. It is simply a matter of keeping your ear to the masses. There are golden opportunities everywhere, that either have no leadership or have terrible leadership. It should be the job of every communist to insert themselves into such situations whenever possible.

3. People don't spontaneously do shit. Pretty much anything progressive that ever happened in American history since 1917 was organized by communists, and other radicals before that.

[black magick hustla]

Maldoror clearly believes one day the workers are just gonna spontaneously start struggling, and that's when being a communist will matter (and not before). This couldn't more wrong or stupid, and clearly Maldoror has never done anything relevant in his life to justify saying something so stupid and wrong.

to be honest, i never made reference to spontainety. what i did refer to is that class struggle is not generallly instigated by leftists.




1. The advanced elements respect active groups. You will attract a lot more people who are receptive to radical ideas (though they might be communists, yet), by actively engaging in struggle. They don't respect passing out shitty pamphlets and newspapers.



i dont think most people respect whatever you and your leftist friends are doing, be them stalinist dinosaurs or anything else.



2. There is literally intense struggle everywhere. It happens all the time. It is simply a matter of keeping your ear to the masses. There are golden opportunities everywhere, that either have no leadership or have terrible leadership. It should be the job of every communist to insert themselves into such situations whenever possible.



Of course, but this has nothing to do with whatever most leftist grouplets do today.


[/quote]
3. People don't spontaneously do shit. Pretty much anything progressive that ever happened in American history since 1917 was organized by communists, and other radicals before that.[/QUOTE]

the reason why there was such thing as a first red scare had more to do with the militancy of the class in general at the turn of the century, which was an international phenomenon involving millions of workers, than ideologues. it was communist militants who capitalized on the class, no the other way around.

[black magick hustla]

Maldoror clearly believes one day the workers are just gonna spontaneously start struggling, and that's when being a communist will matter (and not before). This couldn't more wrong or stupid, and clearly Maldoror has never done anything relevant in his life to justify saying something so stupid and wrong.

actually what im saying is nothing new. nor it was said by people who "did not do anything". these ideas have been there since the early 20th century and were said by people who died in shitty nazi concentration camps or where shot by soviet bosses or where part in the street battles of the italian red years and the spartacist insurrection.but yea man good try

[Crux]

Actually, I'm not. I still think public protests, demonstrations, marches, etc., have a place in our tactical arsenal, but they should not be the first or only thing we reach for. It is an abuse of the protest tactic to use it for little more than blowing off steam; in fact, such an abuse is reactionary, because it reinforces the idea that organized action is meaningless. Public protests should have a defined goal: the overturning of a law or stopping of a proposed law; an end to an action taken by the ruling classes or the initiation of an action; etc. If that goal is not met, then the protest, regardless of how many people attended or how "spirited" it was, was a failure. Maybe it takes a series of protests to do it -- I can understand that. But to hold protests on the same issue for almost a decade and have nothing to show for it other than a few more recruits for your organization, that is an epic failure rooted in pragmatism and routinism (ritualism).



Yes, it does depend on what you can do when you can do it, and what forces you have at your disposal. But just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should. This is the difference between unconscious blind activism and conscious political organizing.

The blind activist will see something happen, get outraged and organize protests to share his/her outrage with others who are similarly outraged, and nothing will happen but a slight catharsis.

The political organizer sees something happen, takes a measure of what it would take to change it, assesses what can be done and how, sets a clear goal for the activity, and then chooses the proper tactics for maximum effectiveness. After the activity is done, there's another review and the development of an honest, sober assessment of what was accomplished.

I know you know all these things, but since the subject at hand is blind activism and its discontents, I thought it worthwhile to spell it all out.
I am sorry for being so dismissive and a discussion of tactics is indeed important, it just that, in the political environment I work at least, sometimes these positions about the need for left to change and adapt new tactics are just a question of disillusionment. And that kind of get's to the point. I definitely think we need ot look at how and why we intervene, go in it with a clear tactic. The pheomenon of "blind activism" certainly is real, the Young Left and the Left Party in general in sweden I think suffers from this in that they, contrary to the other establishment parties, do have an activist organization, primarily the Youth Section, but they don't have any real tactic. In their case, something which I don't think is true of the U.S left, it is mostly about them being so tied up by their parliemantary work, or rather the way they approach it by primarily going about trying to make deals with the soc dems.
This isn't really the case of the left in general in sweden,as a far as the being tied up by parliamentary deals, but of course some of the symptoms are there.

Presently there's a massive protest movement against the far-right Sweden Democrats and their recent entering into parliament this has brought the debate to the fore. Some say we should stop protesting, with argument that we're helping the SD by making them martyrs, something which I disagree with. But the problem of tactics stand we have to be able to take this movement further than just being outraged about having racists in Parliament, and we can't really protest every venue they appear on (although I don't think we shouldn't try) but we have to evolve further tactics. These are issues which I think are applicable to any protest movement, not just the battle against the far right.

I have some further suggestions but I'll leave it at that for now.

[Kuppo Shakur]

I've been thinking of the same thing lately. Like, for example, the G20 summit in Pittsburgh. They did it anyway. All those protesters running around didn't do shit, yet they all went home and patted themselves on the back. I mean, if your going to protest something, why not try to stop it?

[Soviet dude]

what i did refer to is that class struggle is not generallly instigated by leftists.i.e. spontaneity.


i dont think most people respect whatever you and your leftist friends are doing, be them stalinist dinosaurs or anything else.You would be wrong. Nearly the entire progressive community in my area and the people we organize with respect us, and we're universally hated by the police and other powers that be for what we do. It's because we do shit, instead of talk shit.


Of course, but this has nothing to do with whatever most leftist grouplets do today.Most groups in America are Trotskyite cults or anarcho-white-children punk dumpster divers, that generally don't do anything meaningful. Other groups do interesting things and have an impact far beyond what you would expect for their size. The amount of radical activity is basically perfectly correlated with the size of the revolutionary Left for a reason, and it ain't because of some spontaneous rising in some metaphysical property that you want to label "class struggle."


the reason why there was such thing as a first red scare had more to do with the militancy of the class in general at the turn of the century, which was an international phenomenon involving millions of workers, than ideologues. it was communist militants who capitalized on the class, no the other way around.That you could even suggest something so profoundly stupid shows: 1. You don't organize. 2. You probably never will bother.


actually what im saying is nothing new.Truth is, there isn't much of anything new to say within the revolutionary Left, despite what various people saying we should discuss "new" tactics and strategies suggest. Stupid ideas like what you're espousing here is why you and yours will always fail, and why Marxism-Leninism will continue being the only radical politics that succeeds.

[black magick hustla]

i.e. spontaneity.



You would be wrong. Nearly the entire progressive community in my area and the people we organize with respect us, and we're universally hated by the police and other powers that be for what we do. It's because we do shit, instead of talk shit.


"progressive community" lol. do you mean activist ghetto? if so, congratulations that other specialists, "community organizers", and the other lot of professional ideologues pat you in the back. too bad my immigrant friends and the folks i know who live in shittass areas dont care about you and even if they see you they wont care about you either way.




Most groups in America are Trotskyite cults or anarcho-white-children punk dumpster divers, that generally don't do anything meaningful. Other groups do interesting things and have an impact far beyond what you would expect for their size
its rich when a stalinist in the US (i.e. someone who uses the term trotskyite) talks about relevance when everybody thinks you are crazy



. The amount of radical activity is basically perfectly correlated with the size of the revolutionary Left for a reason, and it ain't because of some spontaneous rising in some metaphysical property that you want to label "class struggle."


actually, the reason why "radical activity" correlates with the size of left groups its not because of left groups, but the other way around - i.e.l leftists capitalizing on the militancy of the class.




That you could even suggest something so profoundly stupid shows: 1. You don't organize. 2. You probably never will bother.


do you want a badge



Truth is, there isn't much of anything new to say within the revolutionary Left, despite what various people saying we should discuss "new" tactics and strategies suggest. Stupid ideas like what you're espousing here is why you and yours will always fail, and why Marxism-Leninism will continue being the only revolutionary that succeeds.

lol a marxist leninist in the US talking about his activist cred how rich

[Martin Blank]

Maldoror clearly believes one day the workers are just gonna spontaneously start struggling, and that's when being a communist will matter (and not before). This couldn't more wrong or stupid, and clearly Maldoror has never done anything relevant in his life to justify saying something so stupid and wrong.

Some struggles are spontaneous and some are more organized. The point here, however, is what maldoror pointed out: the impetus does not generally come from within the left itself, but from working people wanting to do something (to which the left sometimes responds). I've done plenty of "relevant" activity in my life to know that you simply don't know what you're talking about.


1. The advanced elements respect active groups. You will attract a lot more people who are receptive to radical ideas (though they might be communists, yet), by actively engaging in struggle. They don't respect passing out shitty pamphlets and newspapers.

No, advanced elements of the working class respect honesty, clarity and effectiveness -- i.e., seriousness. In past generations, protests and similar actions were undertaken as a serious endeavor, and there was a virtual equal sign between organizing protests and "actively engaging in struggle". But in the last 30 years, most protests have become "feel good" activities and have lost their seriousness. The virtual equal sign has disappeared from the minds and consciousness of everyone but the blind activist left.


2. There is literally intense struggle everywhere. It happens all the time. It is simply a matter of keeping your ear to the masses. There are golden opportunities everywhere, that either have no leadership or have terrible leadership. It should be the job of every communist to insert themselves into such situations whenever possible.

On this point, I agree. Wherever and whenever we can, we should employ tactics that reflect the kind of seriousness we need to demonstrate in order to prove ourselves and win the trust of our fellow workers. But, as maldoror already mentioned, this is not what the blind activist left does. Rather, they use the same worn-out tactics over and over. They refuse to look seriously at the effectiveness of their actions; they are dishonest about what their activity has actually accomplished; they muddle and water down their politics, thinking that's the royal road to "relevance".


3. People don't spontaneously do shit. Pretty much anything progressive that ever happened in American history since 1917 was organized by communists, and other radicals before that.

There is spontaneity and spontaneity. There is the "pure spontaneity" of otherwise apolitical people engaging in struggle without any outside influence. You're right to say this kind of thing really doesn't happen. But then there's what can be called "informed spontaneity", which is when normally apolitical people, who have been exposed to struggle-oriented class politics over time, begin to recall the arguments, comments and lessons bandied about between co-workers over the years, and take those accumulated memories and try to shape a plan of action out of them. This latter "spontaneity", which is spontaneous in form only, is more common -- and increasingly more common, given how many workers have come to view the left (see Praxis1966's comment in this thread).

Lenin considered the 1905 Revolution (and, IIRC, the 1917 February Revolution) to be this kind of "informed spontaneity". Back then, it was something relatively new. Now it's something regularly seen. We have to learn to deal with that reality.

[RED DAVE]

first and foremost, most communist organizations in the west are irrelevant. especially in the united states.You couldn't be more wrong. Much of the rank and file labor action in the US, weak though it is, has to do with the presence past and present of left wingers in the labor movement.


i think these makes a lot of people frustrated.True.


lots of them wof tant [want to be] to be in the spotlight.If you are referring to becoming media start or bullshit like that, you're wrong.


lots of them want to emerge and somehow magically become old style mass parties.I don't think that many of us thing this is going to happen by magic but by hard political work over a long period of time.


some of them try to recruit as much people as possibleNothing wrong with that provided the recruiting is done on an honest basis.


others end up in electionsSo long as this does not involve supporting a Republican or a Democrat, it's a tactic to be evaluated.


participate in dumb activist rituals pretty much catered to other activists etcetera.No idea what you have in mind here besides grousing.


for example, a particularly bad example is the PSL, and its interesting how their members would post here some shit on how they got one percent of votes in bumfuck nowhere florida, or how active they are when they participate in meaningles s marches.This is hardly a coherent analysis of the strategy and tactics of an organization.


its not only the PSLOh noes: it's viral! :D


but many other people engage in this meaningless quest for relevance.You haven't demonstrated your original thesis: that these actions are meaningless.


if you read the threads here, a lot of people are concerned with right wing organizations and opposing them, etcetera, as if tiny leftist sects have the muscle or money to do that.To the extent that there is organized opposition to the right, it largely comes from the organized left.


first and foremost, communist becomes relevant when class politics become relevantClass politics are always relevant.


and this has very little to do with how active a leftist sect is, but with the particular historical situation and how militant is the class.During times of low=level class activity, this is true, except insofar as the lefty functions oas [i]the memory of the class[i/]. However, as the tempo of class struggle increases, the presence of revolutionary leadership becomes more and more necessary.


class struggle in the us is in the retreatAbsolutely wrong. After 30 years, the tempo of class struggle is slowly increasing.


so leftist groups in their quest of relevance, join in the activist ghettoWhat is "the activist ghetto"?


to participate in their self contained rituals that average people dont give a fuck about.Some examples would be nice.


my point is that people should chill the fuck out.Actually, this is a time to increase activity.


by this i mean that dont concern yourself with how active and useful you feel. your destiny after all is tied with the destiny of the class, not the other way around.This may be so, but it's no excuse for dropping out or sitting on your ass.


i am perfectly content with being irrelevantSounds like the character played by hugh Grant in "Music and Lyrics" who claimed he was happy being a has-been.


knowing that it is not the people with my beliefs that would change the world if this miserable world is ever destroyed, but the working class.While the efforts of one individual may not be crucial (unless your name is Lenin :D), the efforts of groups is another thing entirely. And groups are made up of ... .


dont have to strive for relevancySuit yourself.


nor i have to dumb down what i have to say like class war did by making tabloid style propaganda.Not clear what you mean here.


he people who are meant to hear what i say will hear it, and maybe someday whatever i believe in will be relevant.Cynicism is never relevant.


but for now i am content with acknowledging my insignificance, and i think it is actually the healthiest reaction, rather than burning yourself out in activist rituals.Let me pull rank here and sound a personal note:

I have been politically active as a socialist for 50 years. I've seen the class struggle flow and ebb, and now it's starting to flow again. I don't fancy myself crucial or irreplaceable, except to those who love me (and to myself). But I have consciousness and a conscience. As such I am not irrelevant, and I will never give up.

Solidarity forever!

RED DAVE

[Soviet dude]

"progressive community" lol. do you mean activist ghetto? if so, congratulations that other specialists, "community organizers", and the other lot of professional ideologues pat you in the back.

The various liberal, soft-left, and revolutionary people that exist within a given area are a section of the advanced; those that lead struggle and have a more-or-less correct understanding the system is fucked up and needs to be fundamentally changed. Your respect amongst the advanced, especially those not within your immediate organization, is a good indicator of how well you are respected by the masses.


too bad my immigrant friends and the folks i know who live in shittass areas dont care about you and even if they see you they wont care about you either way.

I don't know your immigrant friends and those who live in the "shittass" areas around you. I know the immigrants in my community and those who live in the "shittass areas" love us for the stuff we do around immigrant rights and police brutality. They definitely understand what is up and that we're the most dedicated force working with them, and it's not because of any "revolutionary" shit we say.


its rich when a stalinist in the US (i.e. someone who uses the term trotskyite) talks about relevance when everybody thinks you are crazy

I got a secret for you. You ready for it? The masses don't give a FUCK about Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Hoxha, Lenin, Marx, etc. What matters, my lazy little "Left" commie friend, is going amongst them, making their struggles your struggle, and fighting together. They will follow you and want to be a part of you simply because of that, and will accept any figure just fine.

The difference, you see, is that "Stalinism" tells me how to succeed, and "Left" communism tells you how to be an irrelevant fool who complains on the internet about other Leftists. That is why "Stalinism" works, and your shit doesn't. If you get off the internet and do some organizing for awhile, you will come to understand this very clearly.


actually, the reason why "radical activity" correlates with the size of left groups its not because of left groups, but the other way around - i.e.l leftists capitalizing on the militancy of the class.

Again, that you believe this shows how profoundly ignorant you are. Do you also believe protests happen by themselves? Unions form by themselves? Revolutions just "happen" and some 'vanguard' just gets in the way and screws it up? Are you 12?


do you want a badge

If you got one.


lol a marxist leninist in the US talking about his activist cred how ric

The Marxist-Leninist left in the US was once a powerful force. The 1920-50s CPUSA was the only organization that could ever claim to have been the vanguard of the working class in America. Then revision came, and the CPUSA went into a steady decline in relevance, like most parties infected with revisionism. The New Communist Movement was largely ultra-Left, with the problems usually associated with that. Most Trotskyite organizations failed to be relevant, though the SWP did decently for itself for awhile, and the Marcyites today are still some of the most relevant Left forces in America. The Marxist-Leninist left took a massive hit after the fall of the USSR, with many groups becoming completely disillusioned. Things are on an up tick, however.

[black magick hustla]

I don't think that many of us thing this is going to happen by magic but by hard political work over a long period of time.


as i said before, i think political organizations serve a function. but to be honest, although hard work is part of the success of an organization, its growth due to honest militants have very little to do with how much hard work you put in. its like how the bosses tell poor people that if they work hard they will succeed.



Nothing wrong with that provied the reruiting is done on an honest basis.


the problem is that it is almost never done honestly, some leftist orgs are inflated because they let in all sorts of confused elements and naturally, because of that, they are a rotating door. case in point, the ISO.





No idea what you have in mind here besides grousing.


eh, im sure you are old enough to have been in anti-war protests recentñy, for example. im sure, you also have been old enough, that a good part of these protests, whether antwar or g20, are always attended by the same people.
t i


This is hardly a coherent analysis of the strategy and tactics of an organization.


too be honest i dislike too much the psl and its politics to warrant from me an essay. case in point, i think a lot of people understood what i was trying to say.



You haven't demonstrated your original thesis: that these actions are meaningless.

"shrugs" what else is there to say? i think its pretty self evident that most protests are heavily ritualized and consists of generally a game already made up by some professional activists bussing a bunch of people that lack any organic links with their respective communities.



To the extent that there is organized opposition to the right, it largely comes from the organized left.


my point was that the right wing is just another faction of the boss class as much of the liberals are.



Class politgics are always relevant.


true, what i meant is class militancy.



During times of low=level class activity, this is true, except insofar as the lefty functions oas [i]the memory of the class[i/]. However, as the tempo of class struggle increases, the presence of revolutionary leadership becomes more and more necessary.


i agree



Absolutely wrong. After 30 years, the tempo of class struggle is slowly increasing.


this is true too, what i meant is that in the US the class is weak.

[QUOTE=maldoror;1896078]so leftist groups in their quest of relevance, join in the activist ghetto[/quote[What is "the activist ghetto"

the "progressive community" as soviet dude calls it. the people who you see in protests, who are always the same ones and who most people dont really c
are about. hence the activist ghetto.

[Soviet dude]

Some struggles are spontaneous and some are more organized. The point here, however, is what maldoror pointed out: the impetus does not generally come from within the left itself, but from working people wanting to do something (to which the left sometimes responds). I've done plenty of "relevant" activity in my life to know that you simply don't know what you're talking about.

What Maldoror is saying is quite different. Maldoror thinks Left-groups exist to just exploit the masses, who at various times, have low and high amount of this metaphysical property he calls "class struggle." That the masses are generally always pissed off, and that some small amounts of struggle take place that are not being actively organized by some organization, does not mean anything. You would know this, if you truly have done anything relevant in your life.

Or you think protests happen by themselves?


No, advanced elements of the working class respect honesty, clarity and effectiveness -- i.e., seriousness.

Which, if you're not worthless, means being active. Or you can sit on your ass and talk about Trotsky all day, and see how far that gets you with anyone.


In past generations, protests and similar actions were undertaken as a serious endeavor, and there was a virtual equal sign between organizing protests and "actively engaging in struggle". But in the last 30 years, most protests have become "feel good" activities and have lost their seriousness. The virtual equal sign has disappeared from the minds and consciousness of everyone but the blind activist left.

There were plenty of people who felt back then protests were "feel good" activities that didn't accomplish anything. I'm sure their qualities and political outlook were very similar to yours.


But then there's what can be called "informed spontaneity", which is when normally apolitical people, who have been exposed to struggle-oriented class politics over time, begin to recall the arguments, comments and lessons bandied about between co-workers over the years, and take those accumulated memories and try to shape a plan of action out of them. This latter "spontaneity", which is spontaneous in form only, is more common -- and increasingly more common, given how many workers have come to view the left (see Praxis1966's comment in this thread).

You're seriously deranged if you believe this.


Lenin considered the 1905 Revolution (and, IIRC, the 1917 February Revolution) to be this kind of "informed spontaneity". Back then, it was something relatively new. Now it's something regularly seen. We have to learn to deal with that reality

Feel free to quote him.

[Palingenisis]

Malador I can understand if you are pissed off with self-righteous activists who spend their time on a thread mill supported causes far away....But cant you personally find something constructive to do around you, even small silly victories about local crap are important and have the possibility to grow into something more...

[graymouser]

Assuming for the sake of argument that a real revolution breaks out, your 'leadership' will still be irrelevant. I'm here to tell you that I don't need to be lead any fuckin' place. I am a worker, I am the people, and if you and your politician friends step in and try to 'lead' me anywhere in 'the next phase' the only 'intervention' will be my union's boot intervening in your party's ass. After 200 years of worker's rebellions extending all the way back to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and so-called leftist parties selling them down the river, I'm not of a mind to trust any of you constitutionalists.
This is nonsense. You think workers don't have leaders now? They do, and the really existing leadership that workers have is reformist to the bone. Those same leaders will still be there, but they'll be in a position of greater power. The scope and scale of their betrayals will grow dramatically. It's not a question of whether there will be a leadership but who will constitute it.

You may be one worker - but you aren't "the people" (whatever the hell that means).

[Revy]

first and foremost, most communist organizations in the west are irrelevant. especially in the united states. i think these makes a lot of people frustrated. lots of them wof tant to be in the spotlight. lots of them want to emerge and somehow magically become old style mass parties. some of them try to recruit as much people as possible, others end up in elections, participate in dumb activist rituals pretty much catered to other activists etcetera. for example, a particularly bad example is the PSL, and its interesting how their members would post here some shit on how they got one percent of votes in bumfuck nowhere florida, or how active they are when they participate in meaningles s marches. its not only the PSL, but many other people engage in this meaningless quest for relevance. if you read the threads here, a lot of people are concerned with right wing organizations and opposing them, etcetera, as if tiny leftist sects have the muscle or money to do that.

first and foremost, communist becomes relevant when class politics become relevant, and this has very little to do with how active a leftist sect is, but with the particular historical situation and how militant is the class. class struggle in the us is in the retreat, so leftist groups in their quest of relevance, join in the activist ghetto to participate in their self contained rituals that average people dont give a fuck about.

my point is that people should chill the fuck out. by this i mean that dont concern yourself with how active and useful you feel. your destiny after all is tied with the destiny of the class, not the other way around. i am perfectly content with being irrelevant, knowing that it is not the people with my beliefs that would change the world if this miserable world is ever destroyed, but the working class. i dont have to strive for relevancy, nor i have to dumb down what i have to say like class war did by making tabloid style propaganda. the people who are meant to hear what i say will hear it, and maybe someday whatever i believe in will be relevant. but for now i am content with acknowledging my insignificance, and i think it is actually the healthiest reaction, rather than burning yourself out in activist rituals.

One problem is some of these groups genuinely have stupid views. The working class, even if socialism becomes popular and people become receptive to radical left ideas, will never be won over by groups that defend the North Korean dictatorship and other similar regimes. Sorry that's the truth it's a bitter pill to swallow for some people.

Another is that some groups take bureaucratic, lazy approaches in their campaigns. Being on the ballot is not in itself a powerful thing. Plenty of regular people do it all the time and get a handful of votes. You have to do something with it. And that doesn't mean just interviews on TV. Eugene Debs wasn't successful because he got a few mentions in newspapers. You have to try to energize people. Otherwise don't even bother running for office.

"Why can't we unite" commonly said. We have to be smart before there can be unity in any way. The left is fragmented and weak because we don't have the right strategies to reach out to people. Too many people caught up in fetishism of the mass politics but not actually getting there. It's a "road to nowhere" isn't it?

Note I am not suggesting we tailor our politics to what the majority populace thinks. that would be stupid. What I am saying is that without energy and passion and rational thinking, the left will go nowhere.

[Devrim]

I am showing my age

It happens to us all. As you get older you talk about some struugle that seems like 10 or 15 years ago, and then when you think about the dates it is 25. Time passes quickly.


- and the recovery has been in certain European countries.

I think that it is general across Europe, and is a very clear tendency in the Middle East and Asia.


Latin America is a different kettle of fish.

Why do you say this. Latin America is somewhere I know very little about.


Don't worry - the CWI won't struggle to adapt to changing conditions.

I don't think that the CWI will have problems in the upcoming period. You saying it doesn't mean much though. I am sure we can find as SWP supporter to say the same thing about them.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Actually, this is a time to increase activity.


This always seems to be the case though, and I think that is part of the point.

Devrim

[Devrim]

'Soviet Dude' really is top quality, and should be given a TV show or something.

Devrim

[Martin Blank]

I am sorry for being so dismissive and a discussion of tactics is indeed important, it just that, in the political environment I work at least, sometimes these positions about the need for left to change and adapt new tactics are just a question of disillusionment.

Oh, I understand exactly what you're saying. It's as common a phenomenon here as it is there, apparently. When someone says it, the first thought is someone preaching the "New Word", like the Old Man wrote about.


And that kind of get's to the point. I definitely think we need to look at how and why we intervene, go in it with a clear tactic. The phenomenon of "blind activism" certainly is real, the Young Left and the Left Party in general in Sweden I think suffers from this in that they, contrary to the other establishment parties, do have an activist organization, primarily the Youth Section, but they don't have any real tactic. In their case, something which I don't think is true of the U.S left, it is mostly about them being so tied up by their parliamentary work, or rather the way they approach it by primarily going about trying to make deals with the socdems.

There is a large section of the U.S. left that does this, but not using the form of pushing parliamentary agreements. For them, it's about trying to pressure the Democrats into being more social-democratic. If we had a real social-democratic party in the U.S., I think there's little doubt that all of the blind activist and opportunist groups would be acting like the Left Party.


This isn't really the case of the left in general in Sweden, as a far as the being tied up by parliamentary deals, but of course some of the symptoms are there.

I would image it's much like it is here, with the routinist activism.


Presently there's a massive protest movement against the far-right Sweden Democrats and their recent entering into parliament this has brought the debate to the fore. Some say we should stop protesting, with argument that we're helping the SD by making them martyrs, something which I disagree with. But the problem of tactics stand we have to be able to take this movement further than just being outraged about having racists in Parliament, and we can't really protest every venue they appear on (although I don't think we shouldn't try) but we have to evolve further tactics. These are issues which I think are applicable to any protest movement, not just the battle against the far right.

You're right about that. You need to figure out concretely what you want. See if you can express each goal in one basic sentence. (A good example would be, "We want to rob the SD of their base of support", or, "We want to put the SD in a political position where they begin to hemorrhage members.") From there, you can figure out what it would take to do that, in terms of events that would have to happen. After outlining what you would have to make happen, then you can decide on how you do it -- decide which tactics you would have to use and activities you would have to organize. Maybe it's a case of a series of increasingly more complex (in terms of organizing and logistics) tactics and activities, where you can only do one or two things now and use them to build toward the next, more effective tactic.

In any event, the most important thing with this is basing your activities and tactics in political principle. Agitation is taking political principle and applying it in such a way as to be able to mobilize workers to fight for something with which they agree or in which they believe. In other words, it is not simply a matter of what is to be done, but also why it is to be done. The Left Party can rationalize their blind activism because the reasons for doing it are narrow and sub-reformist. You expend a lot less effort moving a rock up a low hill than moving a boulder up a mountain; you can afford to do meaningless protest after meaningless protest if your goal is to "gain their ear" or "make your voice heard".

P.S.: I'll get to Soviet Dude later today.

[The Douche]

That is why "Stalinism" works,

...


BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA:laugh:

I was thinking about making a serious reply to your post, but why? It would be a massive waste of time to take you seriously.

[Pavlov's House Party]

The Marxist-Leninist left in the US was once a powerful force. The 1920-50s CPUSA was the only organization that could ever claim to have been the vanguard of the working class in America. Then revision came, and the CPUSA went into a steady decline in relevance, like most parties infected with revisionism. The New Communist Movement was largely ultra-Left, with the problems usually associated with that. Most Trotskyite organizations failed to be relevant, though the SWP did decently for itself for awhile, and the Marcyites today are still some of the most relevant Left forces in America. The Marxist-Leninist left took a massive hit after the fall of the USSR, with many groups becoming completely disillusioned. Things are on an up tick, however.

yeah, we'll see how powerful stalinist cults can be without funding from the USSR anymore:rolleyes:

[Q]

This is nonsense. You think workers don't have leaders now? They do, and the really existing leadership that workers have is reformist to the bone. Those same leaders will still be there, but they'll be in a position of greater power. The scope and scale of their betrayals will grow dramatically. It's not a question of whether there will be a leadership but who will constitute it.

I think the point Praxis was making was not about denying the existence of leaders among the working class, anyone with a pair of eyes and experience in a struggle knows that some workers will be more farsighted, experienced and organisationally capable than others. The point he was making was about imposing a leadership on workers. You can parachute as many revolutionists as you want, if workers don't respect you (and vice versa), a "revolutionary leadership" is worth bollocks.

[Queercommie Girl]

I think the point Praxis was making was not about denying the existence of leaders among the working class, anyone with a pair of eyes and experience in a struggle knows that some workers will be more farsighted, experienced and organisationally capable than others. The point he was making was about imposing a leadership on workers. You can parachute as many revolutionists as you want, if workers don't respect you (and vice versa), a "revolutionary leadership" is worth bollocks.

That's called "bureaucratism", basically it's when the supposed "vanguard" lords over the workers like a bureaucrat and refuse to integrate with the masses, or the section of the masses he/she is supposed to be working with.

[Crux]

Oh, I understand exactly what you're saying. It's as common a phenomenon here as it is there, apparently. When someone says it, the first thought is someone preaching the "New Word", like the Old Man wrote about.
Good, then you see where I am coming from.


There is a large section of the U.S. left that does this, but not using the form of pushing parliamentary agreements. For them, it's about trying to pressure the Democrats into being more social-democratic. If we had a real social-democratic party in the U.S., I think there's little doubt that all of the blind activist and opportunist groups would be acting like the Left Party.Well, it's also a question of "how" and "why". I don't think it is wrong in principle to try and push a socdem party to the left, although our position towards the swedish socdems is that this simply won't happen because they have lost all touch with their base and are simply another bourgeois party. So in essence the situation is quite similar with the Left Party (and the left left inside the socdems) trying to push the social democrats to be real social democrats again. A real social democratic party in the U.S would represent something new, maybe even something with potential, the question then is, if we want to push it to the left How? It requires a clear tactic to do so. Disregarding the fundamental problem with the swedish socdems, the Left Party seems to think their mere presence in alliance with the socdems will push the socdems to the left, I think also this is the belief of some of those left on the left of the social democrats.
But you can't do that if you don't dare to challenge them. Perhaps a better comparison is to look on how to relate to new left parties like Die Linke or the NPA. If we are to participate in such projects we must be ready to challenge the leadership if they are moving to the right or even if they are just plain old school socdems or centrists. Just being their radical footsoldiers does not do that.


I would image it's much like it is here, with the routinist activism.Indeed, even groups that formally don't believe that the socdems can be drawn to the left, like some of the anarchists, fall into that logic, and does so without any real tactic.




You're right about that. You need to figure out concretely what you want. See if you can express each goal in one basic sentence. (A good example would be, "We want to rob the SD of their base of support", or, "We want to put the SD in a political position where they begin to hemorrhage members.") From there, you can figure out what it would take to do that, in terms of events that would have to happen. After outlining what you would have to make happen, then you can decide on how you do it -- decide which tactics you would have to use and activities you would have to organize. Maybe it's a case of a series of increasingly more complex (in terms of organizing and logistics) tactics and activities, where you can only do one or two things now and use them to build toward the next, more effective tactic.I think it's an important debate, and more often than not I think it gets too focused on "how to stop people from supporting the Sd", which isn't a wrong formulation in itself, but personally I think the more important group to focus on is the mass of people that instinctively oppose the sweden democrats. That's why I believe that keeping on protesting is a viable tactic, but it needs to be followed up with,as you say, explaining Why we protest the sweden democrats. Some fear putting off people by putting forward a too left rhetoric is wrong, personally I think it is essential because otherwise it just becomes blind activism, we have to explain the Why and what force the sweden democrats represent, why the fight should also be against the rest of establishment parties and why the establishment left is failing. The problem is of course to avoid getting ahead of ourselfes and at the same time avoiding being just a radical tail.


In any event, the most important thing with this is basing your activities and tactics in political principle. Agitation is taking political principle and applying it in such a way as to be able to mobilize workers to fight for something with which they agree or in which they believe. In other words, it is not simply a matter of what is to be done, but also why it is to be done. The Left Party can rationalize their blind activism because the reasons for doing it are narrow and sub-reformist. You expend a lot less effort moving a rock up a low hill than moving a boulder up a mountain; you can afford to do meaningless protest after meaningless protest if your goal is to "gain their ear" or "make your voice heard".Well, exactly.

[Martin Blank]

What Maldoror is saying is quite different. Maldoror thinks Left-groups exist to just exploit the masses, who at various times, have low and high amount of this metaphysical property he calls "class struggle." That the masses are generally always pissed off, and that some small amounts of struggle take place that are not being actively organized by some organization, does not mean anything. You would know this, if you truly have done anything relevant in your life.

Some left groups do seem to exist only to exploit. Indeed, the class-based division of labor seen in so many left groups -- where the petty-bourgeois (and bourgeois) elements are the theoreticians, Central Committee members, spokespeople, tactical leaders of actions, etc., and the workers are clipboard carriers, paper sellers, and warm bodies for meetings and protests -- makes me wonder if their whole vision of "socialism" is just another monstrosity of seemingly endless layers of bureaucrats, officials, managers and cops. But there's nothing metaphysical about that. It comes from the definite social relations that elements from different classes bring with them into a political organization. The whole concept of "de-classing" is neo-Weberian twaddle that oozed into the Social-Democratic workers' movement during its formative years in the late 19th century.

And actually, yes, it does mean something that workers who are generally pissed off may resort at times to spontaneous actions, like wildcat strikes or flash protests. It means two things: 1) that they see in such actions, often promoted in the educational materials of the left, an ability to fight for their interests; and 2) that by undertaking these actions, they are more likely to hear out those organizations who approach them in a principled and serious manner.

If you have done any of this kind of work in your life (and I'm guessing you haven't really done any work at all), you'd already know this.


Or you think protests happen by themselves?

Some do. Some don't. Material conditions, including all previous activity by communists, play a large role in this. The working class is not stupid and is not a big bag of shit that some group of self-appointed "leaders" drag around behind them from protest to protest. Working people are quite capable of learning and applying communist theory all by themselves. We don't need the "condescending saviors" from the exploiting and oppressing classes telling us what to do and how we'll be "saved". If we wanted that shit, we'd join real religious groups, not the emaciated confessional sects.


Which, if you're not worthless, means being active. Or you can sit on your ass and talk about Trotsky all day, and see how far that gets you with anyone.

You can't be effective without being both active and conscious. The problem is that blind activism is only half that: active. There is no real class consciousness (to say nothing of revolutionary class consciousness) in such dead-end actions. And I haven't sat around talking all day about Trotsky for over a decade. I'm usually too busy talking with neighbors and fellow workers about what's really going on.


There were plenty of people who felt back then protests were "feel good" activities that didn't accomplish anything. I'm sure their qualities and political outlook were very similar to yours.

I would highly doubt that veteran communists with over 20 years of activity, who have organized unions, strikes, political organizations, mass protests, etc., would feel that way unless it really was nothing but a "steam valve" event.


You're seriously deranged if you believe this.

Well, me and a few others, I guess (see below).


Feel free to quote him.

I do this only to prove my point. I am generally not a fan of quote-mongering; the method is more important than how it was expressed under specific material conditions.


The working class is instinctively, spontaneously Social-Democratic, and more than ten years of work put in by Social-Democracy has done a great deal to transform this spontaneity into consciousness.

Here, Lenin is speaking in the context of the relationship between the RSDLP and the working class during the 1905 Revolution. He recognized that the interaction of Russian communists ("Social-Democrats") with the working class since 1895 succeeded in what I would call "planting seeds" that would later grow into an "informed spontaneity" (my term, not Lenin's).

But this is not the only time he would favorably describe the workers of 1905 as acting spontaneously. Four months later, as the 1905 Revolution was facing heavy repression, Lenin quoted favorably from German Social-Democratic leader Karl Kautsky:


Kautsky concludes his article as follows: “Such are the lessons of Moscow. How far they will influence the forms of the struggle in future, it is impossible, as yet, to foresee from here (i.e., from Germany). Indeed, in all preceding manifestations of the Russian revolution so far we have seen spontaneous outbreaks of the unorganised masses; none of these were planned or prepared beforehand. Probably this will continue to be the case for some time.”

Not only in this passage did Lenin quote favorably and uncritically Kautsky's analysis of "spontaneous outbreaks of the unorganized masses" continuing "for some time", he took it a step farther in the next section, suggesting the role of the Party should be to "pave the way" for more spontaneous action. To wit:


With those who are in favour of insurrection the proletariat “strikes together”, although it “marches separately”; those who are opposed to insurrection we ruthlessly fight, or spurn them as contemptible hypocrites and Jesuits (the Cadets). In that case, we put into the foreground of all our agitation the criticism and exposure of constitutional illusions from the standpoint of open civil war, and concentrate on circumstances and conditions that will steadily pave the way for spontaneous revolutionary outbreaks.

All of these were written after What Is To Be Done? -- all written in the context of the 1905 Revolution. So, you have to ask yourself: Was Lenin being opportunist by recognizing and even encouraging the role of "informed spontaneity", or was he recognizing that the material conditions had evolved to a point where such "informed spontaneity" was indeed possible?

[Jimmie Higgins]

today, i think the role of an organization is discussion, clarification, and intervention in the class struggle.Yes and that would be leadership. What is "clarification" is it elitist to bring "clarification" to the workers? Who are we to tell other workers what they should do or think?

People act like saying that the left should organize and get our points of view out there is elitist; like workers sit around in a bubble all day (without liberal and reformist and reactionary ideas also floating in the mix and informing their views of the world) and then some radical comes and bosses the worker around, telling them what to do and think.

The point of any organization is to "lead" and push their ideas out there into the mix and try and convince people on what they see is the best course of action. Of course there can be double-dealing and disruption - like what certain historical groups on the Left did. There can be attempts at controlling other organizations undemocratically from the top and leading by declaration or bureaucracy. Of course I think all radicals should reject these tactics because it does not help further our goals (if our goals are to build militant self-activity of working class, or help build class or revolutionary consciousness).

But putting aside top-down democratic "leadership" (really it should be called "followership"), leadership is important and a part of even the most spontanious actions - what happens in a wildcat - is there no organization or leadership - no debates to be had and won? Of course there is, leadership is important to any organized action - the important thing to me is that leadership is "among" not "above" and where the leadership is leading.

[Jimmie Higgins]

'Soviet Dude' really is top quality, and should be given a TV show or something.

Devrim
That's a disappointing response - why not take his criticisms more seriously?

Nah, I'm just fucking with you... this is my nomination for hypocritical statement of the year:


The difference, you see, is that "Stalinism" tells me how to succeed, and "Left" communism tells you how to be an irrelevant fool who complains on the internet about other Leftists.

[manic expression]

first and foremost, most communist organizations in the west are irrelevant. especially in the united states.
This mentality isn't really very helpful. It's like saying "well we have very little actual presence, much less than other parties, but it doesn't matter since we're all irrelevant, right?" It's reductionist, it's solace.

It's worthwhile to note that relevancy should not be measured by how many members an organization has, but by how connected and involved it is with working-class issues and struggles. That's why the Bolsheviks were relevant in April-May of 1917, even though at that point they were quite small with an exiled leadership. Rosa Luxemburg, too, was relevant in 1914, in spite of being heavily outvoted and rejected even by her own party.

No one's really saying "my party does more and therefore its politics are 100% justified", it's more along the lines of "it's nice to talk revolutionary politics, but do you do revolutionary politics?", or sometimes "if you can't do it better, then shut up". Lots of self-proclaimed revolutionaries talk a good game, but what makes a revolutionary is how they talk the talk and walk the walk.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory...I don't see the harm in applying that principle.


my point is that people should chill the fuck out. by this i mean that dont concern yourself with how active and useful you feel. your destiny after all is tied with the destiny of the class, not the other way around. i am perfectly content with being irrelevant, knowing that it is not the people with my beliefs that would change the world if this miserable world is ever destroyed, but the working class. i dont have to strive for relevancy, nor i have to dumb down what i have to say like class war did by making tabloid style propaganda. the people who are meant to hear what i say will hear it, and maybe someday whatever i believe in will be relevant. but for now i am content with acknowledging my insignificance, and i think it is actually the healthiest reaction, rather than burning yourself out in activist rituals.
This smacks of economism. It's almost as if you're saying political activity of leftists is useless (or, dare we use the word, irrelevant). If our destiny is tied with the destiny of the class, then let's get our asses in gear and educate and organize that class.

And lastly, nobody is "meant to hear" anything, they're meant to hear it only if we say it loud enough and often enough. Anything else is an excuse, which is coincidentally what your argument seems to boil down to.

[Soviet dude]

And actually, yes, it does mean something that workers who are generally pissed off may resort at times to spontaneous actions, like wildcat strikes or flash protests. It means two things: 1) that they see in such actions, often promoted in the educational materials of the left, an ability to fight for their interests; and 2) that by undertaking these actions, they are more likely to hear out those organizations who approach them in a principled and serious manner.

If you have done any of this kind of work in your life (and I'm guessing you haven't really done any work at all), you'd already know this.

1. There is no such thing as a "spontaneous" strike or protest. It is only a question of who is leading it. If we mean "spontaneous" in the sense of not being connected to any pre-established organization, these are exceedingly rare, and not worth talking about.

2. The belief that these rare events are due to the propaganda-efforts of Left groups isn't founded on anything.


Some do. Some don't.

There is no such thing as a spontaneous protest. Period. Suggestion otherwise shows you don't understand anything.


The working class is not stupid and is not a big bag of shit that some group of self-appointed "leaders" drag around behind them from protest to protest. Working people are quite capable of learning and applying communist theory all by themselves.

A worker "applying communist theory" is probably a fucking communist, and hence, the idea of spontaneous organization goes right the fuck out the window, doesn't it? Do you think before you hit reply?


We don't need the "condescending saviors" from the exploiting and oppressing classes telling us what to do and how we'll be "saved". If we wanted that shit, we'd join real religious groups, not the emaciated confessional sects.

You're not the "working class," and you sure as hell don't represent them. Workers in the real world have all sorts of backwards ideas, they have aspirations of being petty-bourgeois, etc. They understand the contradictions generally; they understand what they do generally makes other people rich. Often they are resentful of it. But they're not communists, and they sure as hell don't have stupid anarcho-hangups like the crap you've expressed in these two sentences.


You can't be effective without being both active and conscious. The problem is that blind activism is only half that: active. There is no real class consciousness (to say nothing of revolutionary class consciousness) in such dead-end actions. And I haven't sat around talking all day about Trotsky for over a decade. I'm usually too busy talking with neighbors and fellow workers about what's really going on.

Being active is almost always the most powerful expression of being conscious. I've met so many pseudo-Left fools who think they're "conscious," but don't do a fucking thing. Workers don't give a fuck about the stuff generally discussed on places like RevLeft. They don't read Zizek and Badiou. But they do understand very basic things, like they are exploited, and that they probably could get a bigger piece of the pie with a union.

Your Lenin quotes don't support at all what you're suggesting, but I don't have time to deal with that now.

[RED DAVE]

1. There is no such thing as a "spontaneous" strike or protest. It is only a question of who is leading it. If we mean "spontaneous" in the sense of not being connected to any pre-established organization, these are exceedingly rare, and not worth talking about.Not worth talking about? The most important strike of the late 60s in the US, the national Post Office wildcat, did not even have union leadership! it was initiated by the rank-and-file, starting with the Letter Carriers in New York, against their union leadership and with no left wing influence that I'm aware of.


2. The belief that these rare events are due to the propaganda-efforts of Left groups isn't founded on anything.That's true, but they are definitely responses to a milieu. The strike mentioned above, which took place in 1970, was definitely about the prevailing anti-establishment atmosphere of the times.


There is no such thing as a spontaneous protest. Period. Suggestion otherwise shows you don't understand anything.Again, depends on how you define "spontaneous." If you mean without leadership, sure. No such thing. Every protest, even a street demo, develops its own leadership. But if you mean without left-wing leadership, or union leadership, you're wrong.


A worker "applying communist theory" is probably a fucking communistMore likely a socialist, in the US at least. Communists are few and far between, and the term is best avoided, for good and bad reasons.


and hence, the idea of spontaneous organization goes right the fuck out the window, doesn't it? Do you think before you hit reply?Okay.


You're not the "working class," and you sure as hell don't represent them. Workers in the real world have all sorts of backwards ideas, they have aspirations of being petty-bourgeois, etc.Okay.


They understand the contradictions generally; they understand what they do generally makes other people rich.If prodded in a discussion, yet. But such a notion is far from their day-to-day consciousness.


Often they are resentful of it. But they're not communists, and they sure as hell don't have stupid anarcho-hangups like the crap you've expressed in these two sentences.Okay. To the extent they're conscious, they're resentful. But, as I said, the level of consciousness is still pretty low.


Being active is almost always the most powerful expression of being conscious.Uhh, be careful there. Activity can pretty much proceed consciousness. Activity that is objectively extremely radical can be accompanied by a low level of consciousness.


I've met so many pseudo-Left fools who think they're "conscious," but don't do a fucking thing.Okay.


Workers don't give a fuck about the stuff generally discussed on places like RevLeft.At the current period, yes. During times of higher consciousness, not.


They don't read Zizek and Badiou.I should hope not. I'd rather listen to Zizek and Badu myself.


But they do understand very basic things, like they are exploited, and that they probably could get a bigger piece of the pie with a union.Again currently it's not clear that the working class, as a class, has reached the level that they they think they are exploited and need a union. I think and hope we're approaching that level but not yet.

RED DAVE

[The Douche]

A worker "applying communist theory" is probably a fucking communist, and hence, the idea of spontaneous organization goes right the fuck out the window, doesn't it? Do you think before you hit reply?

So you can't come to the conclusions of communist thought unless you have read marx? Marx himself would disagree of course. Capital creates the conditions for its destruction, not Karl Marx, and not the communist party. Even if Marx never lived the ideas he advocated would have been developed at some point, they are the natural conclusion of the proletariat under capital.


You're not the "working class," and you sure as hell don't represent them. Workers in the real world have all sorts of backwards ideas, they have aspirations of being petty-bourgeois, etc. They understand the contradictions generally; they understand what they do generally makes other people rich. Often they are resentful of it. But they're not communists, and they sure as hell don't have stupid anarcho-hangups like the crap you've expressed in these two sentences.

If you're this resentful of the working class then maybe you should fuck off somewhere else?

[black magick hustla]

The various liberal, soft-left, and revolutionary people that exist within a given area are a section of the advanced; those that lead struggle and have a more-or-less correct understanding the system is fucked up and needs to be fundamentally changed. Your respect amongst the advanced, especially those not within your immediate organization, is a good indicator of how well you are respected by the masses.

No its definitely not a sign. especially in the US. i dont know who you hang out with but if you hangout with a bunch of activists of course you are going to think like that (after all, your whole reality is entrenched in a meaningless leftist activist slum). most of these "advanced" people actually have very little influence.




I don't know your immigrant friends and those who live in the "shittass" areas around you. I know the immigrants in my community and those who live in the "shittass areas" love us for the stuff we do around immigrant rights and police brutality. They definitely understand what is up and that we're the most dedicated force working with them, and it's not because of any "revolutionary" shit we say.

look. ive seen you guys. ive talked with you guys. here in the michigan area the WWP has quite a few front groups, and if you go to there demonstrations a demonstration of a hundred is actually big. nobody cares about you, i think it is illogical to think that "immigrants" love you because immigrants barely even acknowledge the existence of the leftist millieu. no matter how many front groups you make to conceal your politics (because this is what a lot of stalinists due, they try to cater to liberal elements by making themselves look like radical liberals) you are insignificant. communists do not conceal their viewpoint by the way, we make it very clear what we are for.






The difference, you see, is that "Stalinism" tells me how to succeed, and "Left" communism tells you how to be an irrelevant fool who complains on the internet about other Leftists. That is why "Stalinism" works, and your shit doesn't. If you get off the internet and do some organizing for awhile, you will come to understand this very clearly.



i love the attacks at my personal life as if you had any fucking idea. you can go eat shit to be honest.




Again, that you believe this shows how profoundly ignorant you are. Do you also believe protests happen by themselves? Unions form by themselves? Revolutions just "happen" and some 'vanguard' just gets in the way and screws it up? Are you 12?

eh, i think you misunderstand what i mean when this things have very little to do with communists. "unions" might not form by themselves in the sense we are all just particles floating around subject to ethereal laws but they certainly cannot be just "forced down" by the sheer will of ideologues. case in point, look at the anarchosyndicalists or the IWW. all of them have been trying to form the big union, and most of them, while they consider themselves unions, are just political groups.


and i believe in the creation of a communist party, but it certainly is not about the "parties" that exist today in the US which consist of a foggy old man, its sycophants, and a dog.








The Marxist-Leninist left in the US was once a powerful force. The 1920-50s CPUSA was the only organization that could ever claim to have been the vanguard of the working class in America. Then revision came, and the CPUSA went into a steady decline in relevance, like most parties infected with revisionism. The New Communist Movement was largely ultra-Left, with the problems usually associated with that. Most Trotskyite organizations failed to be relevant, though the SWP did decently for itself for awhile, and the Marcyites today are still some of the most relevant Left forces in America. The Marxist-Leninist left took a massive hit after the fall of the USSR, with many groups becoming completely disillusioned. Things are on an up tick, however.

the downfall of the CPUSA had very little to do with "revisionism", what an ahistorical, ideologically driven point of view. The CPUSA was powerful because virtually all "workers' parties" were powerful at that time. including the left communists, who dominated the italian communist movement and the german communist movement.

[black magick hustla]

You're not the "working class," and you sure as hell don't represent them. Workers in the real world have all sorts of backwards ideas, they have aspirations of being petty-bourgeois, etc. They understand the contradictions generally; they understand what they do generally makes other people rich. Often they are resentful of it. But they're not communists, and they sure as hell don't have stupid anarcho-hangups like the crap you've expressed in these two sentences.
you are such a bitter person. i dont think you get it, nor you get people in general. i dont know what is backward about someone wanting to make it for themselves so they can help their family and friends to not be hungry, cold, and miserable. i think you overestimate the importance of poliitcs

[manic expression]

No its definitely not a sign. especially in the US. i dont know who you hang out with but if you hangout with a bunch of activists of course you are going to think like that (after all, your whole reality is entrenched in a meaningless leftist activist slum). most of these "advanced" people actually have very little influence.
Taking that at face value, "very little influence" is better than "no influence", and "very little influence" can grow into "quite a bit of influence" a lot quicker than the alternative.


look. ive seen you guys. ive talked with you guys. here in the michigan area the WWP has quite a few front groups, and if you go to there demonstrations a demonstration of a hundred is actually big. nobody cares about you, i think it is illogical to think that "immigrants" love you because immigrants barely even acknowledge the existence of the leftist millieu. no matter how many front groups you make to conceal your politics (because this is what a lot of stalinists due, they try to cater to liberal elements by making themselves look like radical liberals) you are insignificant. communists do not conceal their viewpoint by the way, we make it very clear what we are for.
First, a demonstration of a hundred is a pretty good turnout, and it's about ninety-nine more than left communists get, so like I said, if you can't do it better, then shut up.

Second, nobody thinks leftist parties are the toast of the town at this point, but some groups have been involved in fighting for undocumented workers' rights, while some have not. If you don't think that means anything, it's your loss.

Third, front groups don't conceal politics (that's a common anti-communist claim), they act as avenues for people to discover our politics. When you want to reach people who are especially interested in something, you create an organization to bring you and them together so both can work more effectively and inform one another...that's what a front groups is. What issue do you have with this in principle?


and i believe in the creation of a communist party, but it certainly is not about the "parties" that exist today in the US which consist of a foggy old man, its sycophants, and a dog.
i love the attacks at my personal life as if you had any fucking idea. you can go eat shit to be honest.

:rolleyes: Maybe you should get out more.

[black magick hustla]

i love the attacks at my personal life as if you had any fucking idea. you can go eat shit to be honest.

:rolleyes: Maybe you should get out more.

actually you are right. that was uncalled. i apologize. if you remove the snarky language tho, i was trying to make a point. to me a communist party has the loyalty of a good segment of the class, and it emerges from the class. it cannot be proclaimed by a few people and expect to be a party.

[black magick hustla]

First, a demonstration of a hundred is a pretty good turnout, and it's about ninety-nine more than left communists get, so like I said, if you can't do it better, then shut up.

I think this is the point. you think a hundred people turnout is pretty good, which is not. Also, most of the time its around 5-20 people. i cant do better but the whole point of this whole thread is that i am not trying to do "better". tbh ive actually done better than a 100 people, but that is another story and it was a stupid event

[gorillafuck]

Most leftist sects (especially those coming out of Trotskyism but not limited to them) are more interested in themselves and their "growing" their organizations rather than really changing the world.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the US it is not trotskyists any more than other tendencies (so I guess it's not "especially trotskyists", at least in the US).

[Soviet dude]

No its definitely not a sign.That you think so, again, shows how ignorant and inexperienced you are.


look. ive seen you guys. ive talked with you guys.You have never met me or talked to me in your life.


here in the michigan area the WWP has quite a few front groups, and if you go to there demonstrations a demonstration of a hundred is actually big. nobody cares about youI am not a member of WWP, and I don't live in Michigan. The last protest I did made the front page of the NYT, Washington Post, and dozens of other papers, my people were on the national news networks, the story was picked up by news all over the world, and was attended by several hundred people. This was a side thing we did amongst other stuff we are doing, things that are going to change the nature of our community.

What have you done lately?


i think it is illogical to think that "immigrants" love you because immigrants barely even acknowledge the existence of the leftist millieu.The immigrants we work with know and love us because we win gigantic gains for them in terms of money. Have you ever forced a multi-billion dollar corporation to pay tens of thousands of more dollars to migrant farm workers? I have. I've objectively improved the working conditions of thousands of migrant farm workers. They know this. The corporation told them it was because of our direct-actions, which you seem to think are useless. Tell that to the farm-workers.


no matter how many front groups you make to conceal your politics (because this is what a lot of stalinists due, they try to cater to liberal elements by making themselves look like radical liberals) you are insignificant. communists do not conceal their viewpoint by the way, we make it very clear what we are for.I don't conceal my politics. There is a difference between concealing your politics and walking around with "commie" branded on your forehead, like anyone fucking gives a shit about it.


i love the attacks at my personal life as if you had any fucking idea. you can go eat shit to be honestYou have made it clear just how worthless you are, and have constructed an elaborate justification for it. Putting down the real work other people do won't mean shit. You will never win the masses to your side sitting on your ass *****ing about other Leftists. Hell, even the advanced who encounter us both, while they may initially lean toward your ridiculous nonsense ideologically, won't join you, if you don't do anything.


eh, i think you misunderstand what i mean when this things have very little to do with communists. "unions" might not form by themselves in the sense we are all just particles floating around subject to ethereal laws but they certainly cannot be just "forced down" by the sheer will of ideologues.Have you ever salted? Actually scratch that, it's obvious you haven't. Would you like for me to explain to you how actually forming a union works? Because it most certainly, is almost always, organized by some sort of radical. It doesn't just spontaneously happen.


case in point, look at the anarchosyndicalists or the IWW. all of them have been trying to form the big union, and most of them, while they consider themselves unions, are just political groups.Such is the nature of modern anarchism. I know a guy who went to their 2009 national convention. He asked the crowd to raise their hands if anyone had tried to form a union in their workplace. No one did. The host then informed him after the talk that they basically just host concerts.

However, the recent organizing around Jimmy John's is promising. Usually the better anarcho-fools tend to 'get it' after awhile, which is usually promptly followed by leaving it.


the downfall of the CPUSA had very little to do with "revisionism", what an ahistorical, ideologically driven point of view.There are a lot of factors involved. Wrong-lines lead to errors, which leads to losing influence amongst the masses. For instance, the revisionism of the CPUSA basically lead them to completely abandoning their line on the National Question, and they started tailing organizations like the NAACP, instead of battling them for influence. Losing their influence amongst Southern blacks was a direct result of their ideological revisionism toward the National Question. There are other factors, to be sure, but pretty much all revisionist parties went to shit, while all the Communist parties that resisted it are still quite powerful today. For instance, the Colombians and the Greeks. This is an indication you're completely wrong that some property called "class militancy" or whatever you wanna call it, just changed everywhere at the same time.

[bricolage]

trotskyists, where is your revolution?????
left communists, where is your demonstration???????

[manic expression]

actually you are right. that was uncalled. i apologize. if you remove the snarky language tho, i was trying to make a point. to me a communist party has the loyalty of a good segment of the class, and it emerges from the class. it cannot be proclaimed by a few people and expect to be a party.
No worries... :)

Your point isn't something I totally disagree with...a communist party does need to win the trust and support of the proletariat, but that doesn't happen overnight, it happens in steps. Sometimes those steps are big, sometimes they're small. A good example is the Black Panther Party, they started as a handful of guys in Oakland in '66, but through correct action and growth, they became a force to be reckoned with on the national stage by '68. Still, even when the BPP was new and small, they were relevant because they walked the walk and talked the talk.


I think this is the point. you think a hundred people turnout is pretty good, which is not. Also, most of the time its around 5-20 people. i cant do better but the whole point of this whole thread is that i am not trying to do "better". tbh ive actually done better than a 100 people, but that is another story and it was a stupid event
It depends on the situation, I suppose. In a city near me we recently got out over 200 for a demonstration against police brutality, which was a really good turnout because nothing like it has happened in that area for decades (if ever). Not only has it had an impact in the community (we're now able to mobilize people against oppressive cop policies), but it's a starting point. Eventually, that 5-20 will grow if the right approach is applied...but it'll only grow if it's 5-20 and not 0.

[mykittyhasaboner]

A good example is the Black Panther Party, they started as a handful of guys in Oakland in '66, but through correct action and growth, they became a force to be reckoned with on the national stage by '68. Still, even when the BPP was new and small, they were relevant because they walked the walk and talked the talk.

We cannot forget though, that their emphasis on community organizing instead of organizing workers was part of what led to their eventual irrelevance, and dissolution. At least, as far as I know.

edit: To elaborate, i mean that even though they certainly walked the walk and talked the talk, they made fundamental mistakes in that they did not attract workers, black, hispanic, white, or whatever towards conscious, organized action as a class. They failed to integrate themselves within the working class, as well as even the 'community'. As Huey notes in "Revolutionary Suicide":

"we were looked upon as an ad-hoc military group, acting outside the community fabric and too radical to be part of it. We saw ourselves as the revolutionary vanguard and did not fully understand that only the people can create the revolution. And hence the people did not follow our lead in picking up the gun."

[Devrim]

First, a demonstration of a hundred is a pretty good turnout, and it's about ninety-nine more than left communists get, so like I said, if you can't do it better, then shut up.


I think this is the point. you think a hundred people turnout is pretty good, which is not. Also, most of the time its around 5-20 people. i cant do better but the whole point of this whole thread is that i am not trying to do "better". tbh ive actually done better than a 100 people, but that is another story and it was a stupid event


It depends on the situation, I suppose. In a city near me we recently got out over 200 for a demonstration against police brutality, which was a really good turnout because nothing like it has happened in that area for decades (if ever). Not only has it had an impact in the community (we're now able to mobilize people against oppressive cop policies), but it's a starting point.

200 people is not actually 'really good'. To put it in perspective there have been two demonstrations in Ankara this year where we sold more papers than you had people on that demo. Now this isn't because we are particular good at selling papers. We are not. We are a tiny organisation anyway , and actually in Ankara we are pretty poor at paper selling.

You are not right about the demonstrations being "ninety-nine more than left communists get". It is 100 more. We don't organise demonstrations. We don't think that it is the role of tiny communist groups to organise demonstrations either. The role of communists is to intervene in the struggles of the class.

The biggest worker demonstration in Ankara this year had over 100,000* people on it (Estimates ranged between 110,000 and 140,000). We are not claiming that we organised this. We obviously didn't. There were also a few other demonstrations with tens of thousands on them.

The reason that I mention this is that it puts your figure of 200 into perspective. It is not just a difference of numbers but a qualitative differences. One represents a movement within the working class, and the other represents a leftist group organising a demonstration.


Eventually, that 5-20 will grow if the right approach is applied...but it'll only grow if it's 5-20 and not 0.

I think that the whole question that Malador is raising is whether organising demonstrations of 5-20 people, or even of 200 people is "the right approach [being] applied".

To put the question clear; Is it the task of revolutionaries to run around organising tiny demonstrations, or is their role to intervene in the actual struggles of the class?

Devrim

[manic expression]

200 people is not actually 'really good'. To put it in perspective there have been two demonstrations in Ankara this year
No, for our area, it is very much "really good". Upstate NY isn't exactly the capital of Turkey (shit, we aren't even the capital of NY).


You are not right about the demonstrations being "ninety-nine more than left communists get". It is 100 more. We don't organise demonstrations. We don't think that it is the role of tiny communist groups to organise demonstrations either. The role of communists is to intervene in the struggles of the class.
Struggles against imperialism are struggles of the working class.


The biggest worker demonstration in Ankara this year had over 100,000* people on it (Estimates ranged between 110,000 and 140,000). We are not claiming that we organised this. We obviously didn't. There were also a few other demonstrations with tens of thousands on them.

The reason that I mention this is that it puts your figure of 200 into perspective. It is not just a difference of numbers but a qualitative differences. One represents a movement within the working class, and the other represents a leftist group organising a demonstration.
Again, upstate NY isn't Ankara. Your "perspective" lacks perspective. To give you a perspective, my nearest city lost about half its population (which at its height was less than the number of people at that Ankara demo) in the course of a few decades. To call the workers here "demoralized" would be the most absurd understatement of our young century.


I think that the whole question that Malador is raising is whether organising demonstrations of 5-20 people, or even of 200 people is "the right approach [being] applied".

To put the question clear; Is it the task of revolutionaries to run around organising tiny demonstrations, or is their role to intervene in the actual struggles of the class?
In many cases, there is absolutely no dichotomy. The one is the other. But if you'd rather belittle the hard work of revolutionaries in the United States than offer something constructive, that's your prerogative. However, don't be surprised when the communists you're trying to patronize call you "irrelevant" when it comes to political activity, for given your input, it's hard to make any other conclusion.

Is it the task of revolutionaries to organize what they can, or is it the task of revolutionaries to make excuses about what they don't do?

[The Douche]

In many cases, there is absolutely no dichotomy. The one is the other. But if you'd rather belittle the hard work of revolutionaries in the United States than offer something constructive, that's your prerogative. However, don't be surprised when the communists you're trying to patronize call you "irrelevant" when it comes to political activity, for given your input, it's hard to make any other conclusion.

Yes, there is a dichotomy. What you're talking about is activism. Which some people see as synomous with being a communist, it certainly is portrayed that way by the "left" and by the media. Involving ourselves in the struggles of the working class is not the same thing as getting 100 people together to stand on the sidewalk/march down the street/smash a couple windows in opposition to police brutality, or whatever the flavor of the week is.


Is it the task of revolutionaries to organize what they can, or is it the task of revolutionaries to make excuses about what they don't do?

Ooof. Now who's making up a false dichotomy?

[black magick hustla]

Also, i think people misunderstand what the BPP was. i dont think it was a "maoist" party. i mean a few of the leaders flirted with maoism but the rank and file probably were not maoist at all. it was a black power group, and one cannot understand the bpp outside that context. in fact, i heard that the bpp had some problems because some of the rank and file thought the bpp was just another gang. i think this says a lot about the nature of the bpp.

[manic expression]

Yes, there is a dichotomy. What you're talking about is activism. Which some people see as synomous with being a communist, it certainly is portrayed that way by the "left" and by the media. Involving ourselves in the struggles of the working class is not the same thing as getting 100 people together to stand on the sidewalk/march down the street/smash a couple windows in opposition to police brutality, or whatever the flavor of the week is.
If you're referring to the demo I mentioned, it wasn't the "flavor of the week", it was a response to the recent police murder of a local worker who was beaten brutally and left face-down to die. It was an outcry against the second death at the hands of pigs in a matter of months. It was the first mobilization of a working class that's sick and tired of the cops treating them like dirt and getting away with it. If that's what you call the "flavor of the week", give me three scoops and fcking sprinkles.


Ooof. Now who's making up a false dichotomy?I didn't make it up, it's plainly written on the same page.

[Devrim]

No, for our area, it is very much "really good". Upstate NY isn't exactly the capital of Turkey (shit, we aren't even the capital of NY).

Again, upstate NY isn't Ankara. Your "perspective" lacks perspective. To give you a perspective, my nearest city lost about half its population (which at its height was less than the number of people at that Ankara demo) in the course of a few decades.

But the point isn't the absolute numbers. They merely represent the qualitative difference here. When you see demonstrations of a few hundred workers in a small mining town, it represents something within the class.


To call the workers here "demoralized" would be the most absurd understatement of our young century.

This is the point really. The question is whether a few hundred leftists holding a demonstration will do anything to change that.

Do you really think it will?


In many cases, there is absolutely no dichotomy.

Cmoney gets it right on the money here:


Yes, there is a dichotomy. What you're talking about is activism. Which some people see as synomous with being a communist, it certainly is portrayed that way by the "left" and by the media. Involving ourselves in the struggles of the working class is not the same thing as getting 100 people together to stand on the sidewalk/march down the street/smash a couple windows in opposition to police brutality, or whatever the flavor of the week is.

It makes one wonder why he defends the same sort of thing when RAAN are doing it on an even smaller scale.


But if you'd rather belittle the hard work of revolutionaries in the United States than offer something constructive, that's your prerogative.

I think that the most constructive think that you could do immediately is sit down and think about what you are actually doing.

Which comes back to something that you said earlier:


An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory...I don't see the harm in applying that principle.

It is not true. There are many people who run around doing 'actions' with no perspective what so ever, that are essentially worthless.


However, don't be surprised when the communists you're trying to patronize call you "irrelevant" when it comes to political activity, for given your input, it's hard to make any other conclusion.

You can call people what you like. Generally it is all that your arguments amount to anyway, and I have been called worse names by better people. It doesn't really bother me at all.


Is it the task of revolutionaries to organize what they can, or is it the task of revolutionaries to make excuses about what they don't do?

The task of revolutionaries is not to run around 'organising' things, but to organise themselves to play a role in the struggles of the class.

Devrim

[Palingenisis]

Also, i think people misunderstand what the BPP was. i dont think it was a "maoist" party. i mean a few of the leaders flirted with maoism but the rank and file probably were not maoist at all. it was a black power group, and one cannot understand the bpp outside that context. in fact, i heard that the bpp had some problems because some of the rank and file thought the bpp was just another gang. i think this says a lot about the nature of the bpp.

Would have dismissed the African Blood Brotherhood which went to play a majior role in the formation of the Communist Party of the USA as just another gang or merely a "Black Power group"? The Communist revolutionaries most worthy of respect in the US have generally come from capitive New Afrikan nation which the CP held a position of support for its national liberation from the 20s till 1957 when after the death of Comrade Stalin the revisionists who took over the party adopted a white chauvanist position. Black Power and revolutionary communism have always gone hand in hand.

[Martin Blank]

1. There is no such thing as a "spontaneous" strike or protest. It is only a question of who is leading it. If we mean "spontaneous" in the sense of not being connected to any pre-established organization, these are exceedingly rare, and not worth talking about.

RED DAVE gave a very good example of exactly how wrong you are. The 1970 Post Office strike was an example of "informed spontaneity". Many of the postal workers had been influenced by the atmosphere that swirled around American society at the time. But few, if any, of the postal workers were actually members of any political organization, and none of them had the gravitas in the unions to lead the wildcat.

Another good example would be the wildcat strikes in auto in the mid-to-late 1960s. Again, the workers were influenced by the atmosphere of the time, but few of those involved were members of left groups, and no group had the presence to lead the strikes. Instead of starting with a political leadership initiating a wildcat, the political leadership (in the form of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers) resulted from the wildcats.


2. The belief that these rare events are due to the propaganda-efforts of Left groups isn't founded on anything.

These are not rare events, and they're definitely not meaningless ... unlike the thousands of "organized protests" that beg the ruling classes to have a change of heart ("Stop the War!"; "Money for Jobs, Not Bombs!"; "Convert Plants, Don't Close Them!").

These kind of spontaneous strikes are seen throughout labor history. Indeed, the Cleveland Fisher Body strike of 1936 -- the strike that sparked the Flint Sit-Down Strike and the auto strike wave in the late 1930s, as well as the CIO organizing drive of that time -- was an "informed spontaneous" action. For months, workers had been chomping at the bit to strike the plant, especially after factories in Kansas City and Atlanta were struck in the weeks and months before. When ongoing negotiations stalled after Christmas, the 300 union members at CFB decided on the spot to shut down and occupy the plant. The UAW officials had to rush to take leadership of the strike because, quite simply, they were outpaced by the workers themselves (much like in 1905 in Russia). The only way they were able to gain control and leadership was to start the Flint strike and declare Cleveland a part of a "national" strike for recognition.


There is no such thing as a spontaneous protest. Period. Suggestion otherwise shows you don't understand anything.

Really? So, when I witnessed a crowd of over 200 spontaneously protest after the police killed an unarmed African American in their Detroit neighborhood (my partner and I were the only communists, and we had only recently moved there), that just didn't happen? It was a figment of our collective imagination?

>> Insert Dr. House tagline here <<


A worker "applying communist theory" is probably a fucking communist, and hence, the idea of spontaneous organization goes right the fuck out the window, doesn't it? Do you think before you hit reply?

I would venture to ask you the same question, since you completely missed where I said "learning and applying", not just "applying". Yes, a worker who has already learned and is applying communist theory is probably a communist. And water is wet, and grass is green, and bears shit in the woods, and the Pope is Catholic. But a worker who is still learning the basics and is put into a position of having to apply what he or she knows cannot necessarily qualify as offering an organized political leadership ... or even being a communist. This is where "informed spontaneity" comes in. It's like working with a few pieces of the puzzle instead of the whole puzzle itself, and using your own class instincts and experiences to fill in the gaps.


You're not the "working class," and you sure as hell don't represent them.

I may not be "the" working class, but I am working class and have been all my life. I would venture to guess you cannot say the same, given your contempt for my class, as expressed below.


Workers in the real world have all sorts of backwards ideas, they have aspirations of being petty-bourgeois, etc. They understand the contradictions generally; they understand what they do generally makes other people rich. Often they are resentful of it. But they're not communists, and they sure as hell don't have stupid anarcho-hangups like the crap you've expressed in these two sentences.

"Anarcho-hangups" like the principle that the liberation of the working class must be carried out by the workers themselves?

In other words, you do see workers as nothing more than a big bag of shit your "leadership" is destined to drag around until you (not the working class, but your petty-bourgeois socialist organization) rule over society "on behalf of the working class". Or, to put your politics in short form: Fuck the workers.

Yes, there are plenty of my brothers and sisters that have bought into bourgeois ideology. Many of them support reactionary organizations: Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, the "Tea Party" Nativists, etc. But their class instincts are a contradiction to that, so you end up with workers who support the Nativists ranting against tax breaks and corporate welfare. They are not looking for someone to "save" them any more than class-conscious workers are. Even though they might like a Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck, they're not looking at them to solve all the problems they see. They see themselves as the basis for changing things. It might be through elections or it might not, but the class instincts are still there. But there are nevertheless ways to intersect that, to cut the Gordian Knot in their perspective and move them in the direction of revolutionary class consciousness. They are not to be written off, like you suggest, and they cannot simply be corralled like cattle into useless protest actions led by your messianic organization.


Being active is almost always the most powerful expression of being conscious.

Blind activism, like you advocate, is the most damaging to consciousness. It saps the strength of those involved, dulls the ability to explain and advocate revolutionary politics, and prevents internal disagreements being properly discussed. It is a means of gagging the thought and will of the organization by keeping them too busy to think.

Unlike blind activism, revolutionary political organizing is a powerful expression of both the consciousness of an organization and its members, as well as its ability to translate that consciousness into practical activity. However, as I've written above, that requires a principled approach toward activity -- something that blind activists cannot and will never understand. It means making the advance toward revolution the axis around which your activity turns. It means mobilizing workers to fight for their own interests, not begging the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie to do what workers should be doing (and, in time, can do) for themselves. It also means intersecting workers who are coming out to events organized around piecemeal or partial demands, with the goal of introducing them to communist politics and how it applies in practice.

We did this yesterday in Detroit, when over 200 dissident autoworkers staged a picket in front of the UAW headquarters. The picket made news locally, nationally and worldwide as an expression of workers' anger at the combined attacks of the Obama regime and the Big Three (which forced the workers to either give back all of the gains they won since the 1930s or face mass unemployment), as well as the UAW officials (who conspired with Obama and the Big Three on concessions, and then acted like their cops inside the auto plants). Our members in auto did a great job in their discussions -- a fact that results from our five years of work with the Soldiers of Solidarity and other dissident auto movements (e.g., the Delphi Workers Committee in Kokomo, Ind.).


I've met so many pseudo-Left fools who think they're "conscious," but don't do a fucking thing.

Comrades and friends, your moment of Zen.


Workers don't give a fuck about the stuff generally discussed on places like RevLeft. They don't read Zizek and Badiou.

On this, I pretty much agree. Then again, there are plenty of class-conscious workers on here, and having the opportunity to interact with them does make this place somewhat worthwhile. At the very least, one can "plant seeds" that will develop later, as the real-world class struggle develops. But I don't see much of a point to Zizek or Badiou, either. In fact, I have little tolerance for "academic Marxists" of any stripe. Period.


But they do understand very basic things, like they are exploited, and that they probably could get a bigger piece of the pie with a union.

Some do, some don't. Some understand much more. These days, unionized workers increasingly understand the double-edged sword of business unionism: both the value of workplace organization and the treachery of the union officials. And this, I suspect, will lead to more independent actions like the Detroit picket yesterday. Some will be more or less spontaneous, others will be more or less organized. But we'll see both happen.


Your Lenin quotes don't support at all what you're suggesting, but I don't have time to deal with that now.

You were saying there were no such things as spontaneous strikes or protests -- an assertion you repeated here. I pointed out that Lenin saw the 1905 Revolution as a case of spontaneity (albeit "informed spontaneity", resulting from prior education and agitation). You asked me to provide quotes to that effect, and I did. And each one shows how Lenin (and Kautsky, then Lenin's political mentor) not only accepted that the protests and strikes that led to 1905 were spontaneous, but also, in the last passage, expressed his view that the RSDLP should encourage more of these spontaneous actions. You can try to deny it now, but it doesn't change what happened and what he wrote. You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

[The Douche]

It makes one wonder why he defends the same sort of thing when RAAN are doing it on an even smaller scale.



At the risk of going off topic, I of course do not necessarily support everything that happens under the RAAN banner, or support them as somehow "political" (though of course everything is political in some way) or "advancing the struggle", sometimes I see something as just being "cool", or whatever. I think the difference here is that RAAN doesn't go organize a protest on the pretense that it is leading the working class or that it is "making revolution".

[manic expression]

But the point isn't the absolute numbers. They merely represent the qualitative difference here. When you see demonstrations of a few hundred workers in a small mining town, it represents something within the class.
I agree, it's in relative terms. For the workers of upstate NY, 200 against police brutality is very promising, and it does represent something: workers are now showing they're ready and willing to oppose the cops.


This is the point really. The question is whether a few hundred leftists holding a demonstration will do anything to change that.

Do you really think it will?
Yes.

Yes.

And yes.


I think that the most constructive think that you could do immediately is sit down and think about what you are actually doing.
So you want less action? Really? That's what the American left needs? Brilliant. :rolleyes:

If you honestly think American revolutionaries haven't thought out these actions, that's fine, but you're wrong.


It is not true. There are many people who run around doing 'actions' with no perspective what so ever, that are essentially worthless.
Sure, but what we're doing is not worthless, and we have a very good perspective on what matters to the revolutionary struggle here.


You can call people what you like. Generally it is all that your arguments amount to anyway, and I have been called worse names by better people. It doesn't really bother me at all.
Your arguments might be nothing but calling people names, not everyone's are. But if being irrelevant to struggle doesn't bother you, more power to you.


The task of revolutionaries is not to run around 'organising' things, but to organise themselves to play a role in the struggles of the class.
This is, really, a convoluted excuse for inactivity. If communists aren't at the forefront of working-class struggle...then that's a betrayal of their responsibility to the proletariat. Simple as. Communists, by definition, must "run around" (as you put it) and "organize" things, themselves and the struggles of the day. Anything else is economism, not Marxism.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory

[black magick hustla]

i think people here are assuming this is about "doing nothing". this things i am saying were not made up by me and i learned them from older folks that have been in the loop for decades. ive met people who had their friends murdered by the state. one of our comrades, who recently died, had a pretty thick fbi profile. not being an activist does not mean not doing anything. while i am pretty inexperienced, ive met people who have been in more strikes than probably most of you. i think its pretty dishonest to say this is about doing nothing.

[black magick hustla]

Would have dismissed the African Blood Brotherhood which went to play a majior role in the formation of the Communist Party of the USA as just another gang or merely a "Black Power group"? The Communist revolutionaries most worthy of respect in the US have generally come from capitive New Afrikan nation which the CP held a position of support for its national liberation from the 20s till 1957 when after the death of Comrade Stalin the revisionists who took over the party adopted a white chauvanist position. Black Power and revolutionary communism have always gone hand in hand.
notice that i did not post a critique. i mean i am critical of nationalism myself but this was not the point. the point is that maoists and other lot of marxist leninists tap on the BPPs street cred and then argue that hey, the BPP was one of us. the bpp was not. most bppers were not maoists and the maoist tinge they had was more along the lines of maoism being trendy in the radical movement at that time than any serious consideration. the BPP was multitendency, and the only unifying point where the 10 points and black power.

[Soviet dude]

RED DAVE gave a very good example of exactly how wrong you are. The 1970 Post Office strike was an example of "informed spontaneity".You're a moron, and so is RED DAVE (I don't waste my time reading his posts) if you believe over 200,000 people just started spontaneously striking all over the country. Do you or RED DAVE know who the fuck Vincent Sombrotto is?


But few, if any, of the postal workers were actually members of any political organizationNo fucking shit. You don't say.

Of course most people who go on strikes and show up to protests aren't part of any fucking political organization. The question is, is the leadership?


These kind of spontaneous strikes are seen throughout labor history. Indeed, the Cleveland Fisher Body strike of 1936 -- the strike that sparked the Flint Sit-Down Strike and the auto strike wave in the late 1930s, as well as the CIO organizing drive of that time -- was an "informed spontaneous" action.Again, just how stupid are you? Do you know what the UAW is? Do you know who Wyndham Mortimer is? No, wait, here is a better question: Do you just pull this stuff out of your ass to pretend like there are 'facts' to back up your nonsense, or do you somehow seriously believe this example in any fashion (assuming you actually know something about this historical event)?


Really? So, when I witnessed a crowd of over 200 spontaneously protest after the police killed an unarmed African American in their Detroit neighborhood (my partner and I were the only communists, and we had only recently moved there), that just didn't happen?No, it just means you haven't the foggiest clue who actually organized it, and are dumb enough to think it happened spontaneously.


But a worker who is still learning the basics and is put into a position of having to apply what he or she knows cannot necessarily qualify as offering an organized political leadership ... or even being a communist. This is where "informed spontaneity" comes in.This sentence alone should serve to inform the readers that your concept of “informed spontaneity” is complete and utter shit. There is, in fact, nothing “spontaneous” about a fucking communist trying to organize his/her workplace in accordance with how he/she understands things, no matter how sloppily their theoretical understanding or their methods of organizing (that just means they're gonna fail).


I may not be "the" working class, but I am working class and have been all my life. I would venture to guess you cannot say the sameI would venture to guess you're a liar. And yes, I am from a very, very working class background. My father is a mechanic and my mother has basically always worked as a cashier (my current occupation as well).


given your contempt for my class, as expressed below.What hysterical nonsense. You don't understand anything about working people. You think workers talk about "condescending saviors" telling workers what to do? Here's a clue; you and your circle of anarchist/Trot-morons talk like that.


"Anarcho-hangups" like the principle that the liberation of the working class must be carried out by the workers themselves?More meaningless, trite-shit. This is phrase-mongering and nothing more. Workers always liberate themselves. When you organize a strike for better wages, and the workers support it, put their jobs and livelihood on the line for the struggle, and resist the pressure of the bosses, the victory is theirs and without their support, nothing is possible. That doesn't mean the workers fucking spontaneously organized the strike, now does it? This sort of activity almost always comes from the most advanced, and almost always by people connected to some sort of political organization.


In other words, you do see workers as nothing more than a big bag of shit your "leadership" is destined to drag around until you (not the working class, but your petty-bourgeois socialist organization) rule over society "on behalf of the working class". Or, to put your politics in short form: Fuck the workers.More worthless phrase-mongering. Tell me, do you think revolution happens because everyone fucking becomes a socialist? Do you think a bunch of people in Lenin's study-circle stormed the Winter Palace?


Yes, there are plenty of my brothers and sisters that have bought into bourgeois ideology. Many of them support reactionary organizations: Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, the "Tea Party" Nativists, etc. But their class instincts are a contradiction to that, so you end up with workers who support the Nativists ranting against tax breaks and corporate welfare.Hysterical! My statements are called “contempt for the class,” yet when you elaborate further at length on what the “backwardness” of the class actually means, this isn't hypocrisy! Oh well, at least it shows you aren't a complete moron, even if you are highly dishonest.


They are not looking for someone to "save" them any more than class-conscious workers are. Even though they might like a Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck, they're not looking at them to solve all the problems they see. No one is looking to “save” them. This is your own stupid, moronic language that you have injected dishonestly into the conversation. What is being said, is that this group of people aren't gonna fucking organize themselves to overthrow capitalism. The most conscious elements will do that. It is a simple fact. Failing to understand this shows you don't understand a fucking thing about moving people.


But there are nevertheless ways to intersect that, to cut the Gordian Knot in their perspective and move them in the direction of revolutionary class consciousness.Here I think you admit, like most Trotskyites and anarchists believe, revolution is about changing the ideas in people's heads. You want to make people have a “revolutionary class consciousness,” i.e. become radicals Leftists of some flavor. This is the sort of idealistic nonsense of people like you that leads to the mentality that actually organizing is useless; all you need to do is tell the workers about the evils of capitalism and how good socialism will be, and when enough of them believe it, revolution is something that just happens.


Blind activism, like you advocate“Blind activism” is a term I have never used in this discussion. You are a liar.


It saps the strength of those involved, dulls the ability to explain and advocate revolutionary politics, and prevents internal disagreements being properly discussed. It is a means of gagging the thought and will of the organization by keeping them too busy to think.Again you show the moronic belief that revolution happens because people “explain and advocate revolutionary politics.” It goes without saying this is completely and utterly contradictory to Marxism. It is a repudiation of the Marxist theory of knowledge, and along with it, the methods of revolutionary organizing and organization.

If only you were that stupid! You also seem to think activity itself hurts revolutionaries! Communists apparently do most of their learning, not by going to the masses, and making their struggles our struggles, and learning from failure and success organizing with them, but from having lively internal discussions with other commies! Doing too much shit prevents commies from thinking!

One has to wonder if you actually agree with me, and are just trying to make people like Devrim and maladoror look foolish with your “support”...

I can't stress enough to the interested reader, this mentality is a recipe for disaster! It is why “Left” communists are irrelevant and will always be so, and for that matter, most Trotskyites (who have a similar mentality, though tend to be less honest about it).


We did this yesterday in Detroit...In other words, you're willing to try and paint the activity of other people as “blind activism,” but want to hold a different standard for the shit you feel like taking credit for. Gotcha.


You were saying there were no such things as spontaneous strikes or protests -- an assertion you repeated here.When Lenin is using the term spontaneous, he isn't talking about the same thing you are. You're dishonestly quoting Lenin, but I don't feel like pinning you down on what you mean by your bullshit phrase “informed spontaneity,” as I don't have much interest in trying to nail Jello to a wall.

[black magick hustla]

sup intelligitimate hows the math degree

[Martin Blank]

You're a moron, and so is RED DAVE (I don't waste my time reading his posts) if you believe over 200,000 people just started spontaneously striking all over the country. Do you or RED DAVE know who the fuck Vincent Sombrotto is?

I know who Sombrotto is. He was in the Branch of NALC that sparked the 1970 strike and one of those who supported the wildcat. He also opposed union shops at the post office at the time (and even appended his name to a Right-To-Work ad that appeared in the New York Times during the strike). Later, his "rank-and-file movement" of disaffected and aspiring bureaucrats took over NALC, beginning a period of givebacks and concessions that continues today. Sombrotto was part of a new generation of reactionary labor union officials, like Fraser in the UAW or Presser in the Teamsters, that had no problem giving back what workers themselves had won through previous struggles.

I find it interesting (but not surprising) that you see this guy as proof of your argument.


Of course most people who go on strikes and show up to protests aren't part of any fucking political organization. The question is, is the leadership?

In the case of the postal strike, and the auto wildcats of both the 1930s and 1960s I mentioned, no. The union officials opposed the wildcats; the spontaneously-developed leadership was more or less organically evolved, with all the contradictions that entails.


Again, just how stupid are you? Do you know what the UAW is? Do you know who Wyndham Mortimer is? No, wait, here is a better question: Do you just pull this stuff out of your ass to pretend like there are 'facts' to back up your nonsense, or do you somehow seriously believe this example in any fashion (assuming you actually know something about this historical event)?

I know who Wyndham was. I know he made a lot of unfounded claims, including that the strike in Cleveland was all his idea. But he could never really back it up with any proof. Even his fellow party members couldn't really confirm what he did and when, including during the organizing of the UAW. Members of the CP made a lot of claims about leading struggles that they didn't, often for the sake of making it look like the party was in step with "the masses". Hell, when I was in the CP, party old-timers in Detroit even joked about how Wyndham single-handedly organized the UAW. They certainly knew better about who and what he was.


No, it just means you haven't the foggiest clue who actually organized it, and are dumb enough to think it happened spontaneously.

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

In other words, you're saying: "Who should you believe, me or your lying eyes?"

No one could have organized it, since it happened within minutes of the shooting. And since we were soon to be involved with our neighbors in this, if there was any ongoing political leadership being offered, it was from us. There were no other political organizations with members or supporters in that neighborhood, apart from a couple people in the local Democratic Party club (and they were not seen out there that night). That protest was spontaneous; future ones were more organized.


This sentence alone should serve to inform the readers that your concept of “informed spontaneity” is complete and utter shit. There is, in fact, nothing “spontaneous” about a fucking communist trying to organize his/her workplace in accordance with how he/she understands things, no matter how sloppily their theoretical understanding or their methods of organizing (that just means they're gonna fail).

No, there is something spontaneous, when we're talking about someone who doesn't consider his or herself a communist, but has been exposed to some nominally communist education and agitation, and takes those tiny fragments, along with a heavy amount of class instinct and experience, into a struggle that was more or less thrust upon them. Such people may or may not become a leader of that struggle, but they will try to present ideas, just like anyone else.


I would venture to guess you're a liar. And yes, I am from a very, very working class background. My father is a mechanic and my mother has basically always worked as a cashier (my current occupation as well).

If that's true, then what the hell is wrong with you?! You're stabbing your own class in the back with what you're advocating here. I won't call you out as a traitor, but you're moving fast down that road, brother. Get with it, will you? Get your ass out of that petty-bourgeois socialist swamp you're in and start thinking for yourself. You don't have to agree with me; that's never been the issue. But don't sell out the working class by doing the same shit your "comrade managers" have done over the last century, none of which has ever worked or moved society one inch closer to communism.


What hysterical nonsense. You don't understand anything about working people. You think workers talk about "condescending saviors" telling workers what to do? Here's a clue; you and your circle of anarchist/Trot-morons talk like that.

I only use the term among people who understand it ... or, in your case, who resemble the remark. And, again, I'm neither an anarchist nor a Trotskyist nor a Left Communist like maldoror.


More meaningless, trite-shit. This is phrase-mongering and nothing more. Workers always liberate themselves. When you organize a strike for better wages, and the workers support it, put their jobs and livelihood on the line for the struggle, and resist the pressure of the bosses, the victory is theirs and without their support, nothing is possible. That doesn't mean the workers fucking spontaneously organized the strike, now does it? This sort of activity almost always comes from the most advanced, and almost always by people connected to some sort of political organization.

Um, no, there's a difference between workers supporting an action and workers carrying out an action themselves. It's the difference between passive and active; it's the difference between an unconscious and conscious act. The workers' revolution is necessarily a conscious act. That means working people organizing themselves and acting in their own name. There are times when that coincides with the politics of a political organization, and that organization can then interact with the class and provide a perspective that allows them to move forward from protest to power. But there are also times when that outpaces and outstrips political organizations, and the latter have to try to play "catch-up" throughout the struggle. In many respects, this is what is concerning both the bourgeoisie and the left in France; the strikes and protests could very quickly become "uncontrollable" (i.e., move far ahead of the existing political organizations) and out of the hands of the existing leaderships.


More worthless phrase-mongering. Tell me, do you think revolution happens because everyone fucking becomes a socialist? Do you think a bunch of people in Lenin's study-circle stormed the Winter Palace?

The revolution happens because a solid majority of the working class supports it happening. The revolution is not a putsch or coup carried out by a mysterious and evasive conspiracy. It is, at once, the most democratic and most authoritarian act. The October Revolution succeeded because the Bolsheviks were able to intersect the working class at the right moment, and their program ably expressed the interests of the majority of workers. But many of the workers who actually carried out the revolution, while agreeing with the Bolshevik slogan, "All power to the Soviets", were not Bolsheviks. They were Left SRs, anarchists, Menshevik-Internationalists and so on.

Oh, and there was no heroic mass storming of the Winter Palace à la Eisenstein. That was a movie, not a documentary, and it was not as historically accurate as some portray it to be. It's a great film, don't get me wrong. But there are some serious historical inaccuracies (even Eisenstein admitted that).


Hysterical! My statements are called “contempt for the class,” yet when you elaborate further at length on what the “backwardness” of the class actually means, this isn't hypocrisy! Oh well, at least it shows you aren't a complete moron, even if you are highly dishonest.

It's only dishonesty when one is being dishonest. A tautology, I know, but still relevant. Yours was contempt because it gave a completely one-sided, negative view of the working class. It was a viewpoint tempered more by bourgeois ideology than communist theory. More to the point, you were expressing the petty bourgeoisie's contempt for the working class -- the belief that workers covet their managers and want to be them, that workers "resent" the wealthy because they themselves are poor and are not as "successful", etc. On the surface, you do see these things, but only on the surface. The communist method of analysis requires going beyond the surface, to look closely at the contradictions and understand them, to see what kind of motion results from the contradictions, and how their interactions with the world around them change both the contradictions and the world itself. The difference between us is that you stuck with the one-sided, bourgeois-inspired impressionism, and I rejected it for a more comprehensive analysis. So it's neither dishonesty nor hypocrisy; it's doing it right.


No one is looking to “save” them. This is your own stupid, moronic language that you have injected dishonestly into the conversation. What is being said, is that this group of people aren't gonna fucking organize themselves to overthrow capitalism. The most conscious elements will do that. It is a simple fact. Failing to understand this shows you don't understand a fucking thing about moving people.

You are, once again, making assertions without any facts -- a running theme in your "contributions". But it's understandable that you would continue to make such a priori arguments. You already have the viewpoint of a bureaucrat, where workers are pawns to be moved around the chess board of the so-called "class struggle" based solely on your whims. I think the reason you are objecting so strenuously to me pointing out that your politics are messianic and amount to little more than the view of a "condescending savior" (that term comes from The Internationale, BTW) is because you realize you resemble the remark, which leaves you with one of two choices: live in denial and attack the person who is pointing out the Emperor has no clothes, or give in to your class instincts and start seriously re-thinking your politics.


Here I think you admit, like most Trotskyites and anarchists believe, revolution is about changing the ideas in people's heads. You want to make people have a “revolutionary class consciousness,” i.e. become radicals Leftists of some flavor. This is the sort of idealistic nonsense of people like you that leads to the mentality that actually organizing is useless; all you need to do is tell the workers about the evils of capitalism and how good socialism will be, and when enough of them believe it, revolution is something that just happens.

As opposed to leading them around by the nose or dragging them around like a big bag of shit, which is what you're advocating? Because the revolution is a conscious act, and the liberation of the working class is carried out by the workers themselves (the first point of principle for the International Working Men's Association, BTW), you must necessarily have a politically-conscious, critically-thinking and self-acting working class. Imposing "socialism" on the working class is a recipe for provoking a popular counterrevolution -- perhaps not right away, but that's not the point. You will actually do more to give a base of support to capitalist restoration with your method of "revolution" than all the other counterrevolutionary forces combined.


“Blind activism” is a term I have never used in this discussion. You are a liar.

No, it's what provoked you into intervening in this discussion against me. And as you have continued your mealy-mouthed diatribes, you've made it clear that you do support blind activism. Now, obviously, you wouldn't use the term, since it is inherently critical of your method. But if it walks like a petty-bourgeois opportunist and talks like a petty-bourgeois opportunist, well, it must be you.


Again you show the moronic belief that revolution happens because people “explain and advocate revolutionary politics.” It goes without saying this is completely and utterly contradictory to Marxism. It is a repudiation of the Marxist theory of knowledge, and along with it, the methods of revolutionary organizing and organization.

As I've said, that's only part of the equation. The next step is moving from from theory to practice. But to make that move correctly, you need the grounding in revolutionary theory and politics. Without it, you're a ship without an anchor; you just float from port to port without any kind of real direction. Or, to put it another way, without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.

You seem to think that there can be no connection between theory and practice, that either you're a do-nothing just trying to convince people of the need for revolution over a cup of coffee, or you're a weekend warrior running from protest to protest, stopping just long enough to print more leaflets and change protest signs. People who do fit either of these descriptions are just useless; they are a waste of skin and brain matter, as far as I'm concerned, because for all of their comments and protestations to the contrary, neither does a damn thing to help advance the class struggle.


If only you were that stupid! You also seem to think activity itself hurts revolutionaries! Communists apparently do most of their learning, not by going to the masses, and making their struggles our struggles, and learning from failure and success organizing with them, but from having lively internal discussions with other commies! Doing too much shit prevents commies from thinking!

Overextending yourself for the sake of organizing useless protests that are nothing but exercises in groveling before the class enemy is harmful. You cease being a revolutionary and simply become a liberal (OK, "radical liberal"; I'll give you the modifier). But revolutionary activity, organizing on the basis of revolutionary principle and revolutionary demands, is far from harmful; it is the best way to advance not only the organization, but also the class. And, no, it is not the job of communists to simply tail "the masses" and parrot their demands; it is not our job to act as a pressure group on the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. It is the job of communists to offer up political leadership, in the sense of a program and platform of action that workers can take on as their own and carry out through fighting for revolution and the defeat of capitalist rule. But you can only begin that by knowing what the fuck you're doing and how to do it right.

But you don't seem to care about such things as long as you get to play "king of the mountain".


One has to wonder if you actually agree with me, and are just trying to make people like Devrim and maladoror look foolish with your “support”...

Devrim and maldoror are quite capable of defending their own positions. Some things I agree with them about, and others I don't. Why don't you try actually answering the political points instead of just flinging poo like a spider monkey?


I can't stress enough to the interested reader, this mentality is a recipe for disaster! It is why “Left” communists are irrelevant and will always be so, and for that matter, most Trotskyites (who have a similar mentality, though tend to be less honest about it).

And if I was either a Trotskyist or a Left Communist like maldoror or Devrim, your argument might actually make some sense. But as both the Trots and the LeftComs will tell you, I'm neither. I mean, I know you're some brand of anti-revisionist -- your comments about the CPUSA and the National Question were a dead giveaway -- but I haven't once used the term "Stalinist", as a slur or even a way to describe you. I figure that you'll talk more about the organization you're a part of when you're ready to be honest and allow its work to be examined in the light of day.

In the meantime, learn to deal with the fact that I'm a communist without adjective and work from there.


In other words, you're willing to try and paint the activity of other people as “blind activism,” but want to hold a different standard for the shit you feel like taking credit for. Gotcha.

We didn't organize the picket; we intervened in it. The Soldiers of Solidarity organized the event. We don't work in SoS (we don't agree with their naive platform of "reforming" the UAW), but we've worked with them for years.


When Lenin is using the term spontaneous, he isn't talking about the same thing you are. You're dishonestly quoting Lenin, but I don't feel like pinning you down on what you mean by your bullshit phrase “informed spontaneity,” as I don't have much interest in trying to nail Jello to a wall.

You accuse others of dishonesty, but refuse to prove it. That's pretty telling about the politics you've adopted.

[Martin Blank]

sup intelligitimate hows the math degree

Y'know, I figured he was a sockpuppet for someone, but I was looking in a different direction. I would ban him for that, but I'm sort of enjoying pounding him into the ground like a railroad spike. :D

[black magick hustla]

Y'know, I figured he was a sockpuppet for someone, but I was looking in a different direction. I would ban him for that, but I'm sort of enjoying pounding him into the ground like a railroad spike. :D

yea, well im not sure because im pretty sure he is using a fuckin proxy (i checked the ip). but that bitter style of debating and that virulent hatred for "trotskyites" are indicators

[Palingenisis]

notice that i did not post a critique. i mean i am critical of nationalism myself but this was not the point. the point is that maoists and other lot of marxist leninists tap on the BPPs street cred and then argue that hey, the BPP was one of us. the bpp was not. most bppers were not maoists and the maoist tinge they had was more along the lines of maoism being trendy in the radical movement at that time than any serious consideration. the BPP was multitendency, and the only unifying point where the 10 points and black power.

The actual repulsive nationalist bigotry of the average white American is so taken for granted and almost unconcious that until you hit on it you can easily not notice makes the so-called nationalism of groups such of the African Blood Brotherhood, the Black Panther Party and the Revolutionary League of Black Workers necessary. The overt racism of the IWW (who were probably the nearest thing that the white nation working class ever got to a mass revolutionary movemnt) completely justifies their existence (which was promoted by a need for self-defense as opposed to "nationalism").

The 10 point programme was applying the Maoist concept of the Mass Line to the situation faced by the New Afrikan working class. Huey P Newton visted China and was influenced by older Black Communists who alligned themselves to Peking after the CP-USA put the final nail in its coffin in 1957. They sold and studied the "Little Red Book" and other works by Mao. While there might have been Pan-Socialist elements within them to pretend that they werent Maoist but just some jumped up lumpen street gang is being silly.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

a particularly bad example is the PSL, and its interesting how their members would post here some shit on how they got one percent of votes in bumfuck nowhere florida, or how active they are when they participate in meaningles s marches

lol i remember that, was amusing how mad they got whenever someone mentioned that getting 1 pecent in a council election as like, the only opposition to some governer who is currently being tried for corruption wasn't a major demonstration of the growing socialist prescence and how great the psl was.

I remember them claiming that the PSL was the shit cause it had so much "energy" and so on. Agh.

Sorry if this seems harsh, its probably frustrating to spend so much time working with some group, and then come back to your "comrades" and get nothing but critisism, but I think being honest and realistic about your current situation is more important than a temporay moral booast, soon to be crushed.

[Zanthorus]

The overt racism of the IWW

wat

explain please

[Palingenisis]

wat

explain please

Never heard of Jack London?

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/texts/settlers_industrial_unionism.html

[Zanthorus]

Never heard of Jack London?

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/texts/settlers_industrial_unionism.html

Yeah, I stopped reading that as soon as I saw the word 'American' spelt with a 'k'.

[Palingenisis]

Yeah, I stopped reading that as soon as I saw the word 'American' spelt with a 'k'.

The author is pretty close to be being a Third Worldist and a bit psycho true...But her facts are documented and Jack London's pretty vicious racism is well documentated.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

i.e. spontaneity.

You would be wrong. Nearly the entire progressive community in my area and the people we organize with respect us, and we're universally hated by the police and other powers that be for what we do. It's because we do shit, instead of talk shit.

Most groups in America are Trotskyite cults or anarcho-white-children punk dumpster divers, that generally don't do anything meaningful. Other groups do interesting things and have an impact far beyond what you would expect for their size. The amount of radical activity is basically perfectly correlated with the size of the revolutionary Left for a reason, and it ain't because of some spontaneous rising in some metaphysical property that you want to label "class struggle."

That you could even suggest something so profoundly stupid shows: 1. You don't organize. 2. You probably never will bother.

Truth is, there isn't much of anything new to say within the revolutionary Left, despite what various people saying we should discuss "new" tactics and strategies suggest. Stupid ideas like what you're espousing here is why you and yours will always fail, and why Marxism-Leninism will continue being the only radical politics that succeeds.

pipe down

[Zanthorus]

The author is pretty close to be being a Third Worldist and a bit psycho true...But her facts are documented and Jack London's pretty vicious racism is well documentated.

I just searched the Jack London wiki page for both 'IWW', 'I.W.W' and 'Industrial' and came up with nothing, so I can only assume this is some kind of joke, as Jack London appears to have absolutely no connection to the Industrial Workers' of the World, and evidence of the racism of one individual within an organisation does not serve to prove that the whole organisation is "overt[ly] racist".

[black magick hustla]

yea ive never heard the iww called racist either. jack london was a virulent racist but i dont think he was representative of the wobblies. its interesting you call them racist because i recently wrote an article for the icc about the relationship about american workers scene and mexican communists in the early 20th century, and the iww was pretty big on that:

http://en.internationalism.org/inter/155/magon

[Palingenisis]

I just searched the Jack London wiki page for both 'IWW', 'I.W.W' and 'Industrial' and came up with nothing, so I can only assume this is some kind of joke, as Jack London appears to have absolutely no connection to the Industrial Workers' of the World, and evidence of the racism of one individual within an organisation does not serve to prove that the whole organisation is "overt[ly] racist".

Jack London today is more remembered for his novels but he was very involved both in the Socialist Labour Party of Eugene Debbs and in the International Workers of World. Read over the evidence that J. Sakai supplies. Its niave to believe that basically economistic organizations wont reflect reactionary views.

[black magick hustla]

i dont think the IWW was "economicist", it was an extremely political organ. there was a reason why the comintern considered to turn the iww into the american section. the IWW was basically the embryonic form of the communist movement in the US.

[Crux]

Jack London today is more remembered for his novels but he was very involved both in the Socialist Labour Party of Eugene Debbs and in the International Workers of World. Read over the evidence that J. Sakai supplies. Its niave to believe that basically economistic organizations wont reflect reactionary views.
Yes Jack London was, or became I haven't really looked into it, a bigot. So by your stunning logic so was Eugene Debs? or the IWW as a whole? Continue making those logical leaps hopefully one day one will be far enough as to land you outside of this forum.

[synthesis]

yea, well im not sure because im pretty sure he is using a fuckin proxy (i checked the ip). but that bitter style of debating and that virulent hatred for "trotskyites" are hilarious

Fixed.

[Die Neue Zeit]

i dont think the IWW was "economicist", it was an extremely political organ. there was a reason why the comintern considered to turn the iww into the american section. the IWW was basically the embryonic form of the communist movement in the US.

I don't ever recall the IWW advocating militias instead of the US Army, or average workers wages for Congressmen or Senators, among other constitutional questions.

[black magick hustla]

I don't ever recall the IWW advocating militias instead of the US Army, or average workers wages for Congressmen or Senators, among other constitutional questions.


Communists have no codified constitutions to propose. They have a world of lies and constitutions - crystallised in the law and in the force of the dominant class - to crush. They know that only a revolutionary and totalitarian apparatus of force and power, which excludes no means, will be able to prevent the infamous relics of a barbaro[/us epoch from rising again - only it will be able to prevent the monster of social privilege, craving for revenge and servitude, from raising its head again and hurling for the thousandth time its deceitful cry of Freedom!


During the struggle against the existing regime, the proletarian state is not presented as a stable and fixed realisation of a set of rules governing the social relationships inferred from an idealistic research into the nature of man and society. During its lifetime the working class state will continually evolve up to the point that it finally withers away: the nature of social organisation, of human association, will radically change according to the development of technology and the forces of production, and man's nature will be equally subject to deep alterations always moving away more and more from the beast of burden and slave which he was. Anything such as a codified and permanent constitution to be proclaimed after the workers revolution is nonsense, it has no place in the communist program. Technically, it will be convenient to adopt written rules which however will in no way be intangible and will retain an "instrumental" and temporary character, putting aside the facetiousnesses about social ethics and natural law.

-bordiga

[Soviet dude]

I wrote my last response before going to bed. I had a few shots of liquor to help me get to sleep. I usually need this when I get agitated about something. And Miles is correct, on that point. I most certainly was agitated by this thread, but not for the reasons he supposes.

I woke up in the morning, about 10 minutes before my alarm went off. I usually do that when I am anxious about something. I knew I had to go into work today, to a job I got special plans for, and I also had to attend some organizing meetings about other topics. Against my better judgment, I decided to check the internet, which naturally lead me to RevLeft to see if there were any replies to what I wrote...

I didn't really have enough time formulate a reply. About all I really had time to do was some searching on Miles. Sometimes I get into arguments with people here, not really thinking about how bizarre so many people here are. The Left in general is a fringe movement of sorts in the West, and naturally, attracts some of the most bizarre people. But not even trying to flame Miles, I think he takes the cake in many regards...

Usually even the craziest rants of the most bizarre people contain a few grains of truth, like the bottom side of a pile of dog shit has some dirt stuck to it. It is certainly true that there are terrible people in the labor movement. It is lead by forces that are often reactionary. Insinuating I am supportive of these forces is mostly just posturing on the part of Miles. It is, of course, not true, and I have made many statements here critical of various union leaders. Hell, I know labor union presidents who privately say they're Marxists, and they still do the most absurd, backward shit! I'm well aware of the problems with labor bureaucrats, both in a theoretical and practical way.

So this got me to thinking, along with Miles talking about Detroit, that maybe he was a member of the SEP. They have a pretty thought out anti-union line, so I thought maybe that is where Miles is coming from on this. But doing some searching, I discovered what group Miles “belongs” to and such. I could have replied with just a long rant making fun of Miles, aka Michael Sayles. I mean, it's really, really pathetic, he is the living embodiment of the exaggerated stereotype of a Leftist completely out of touch with reality, expelling everyone but himself and two other people in his tiny groupiscule of an organization, which is basically a completely online entity maintained by him (and which he apparently hasn't bothered updating since around March). It would be just too easy to make fun of this, especially considering the topic of this thread.

But rather than doing that, I would like to say Miles is correct, this thread did touch a nerve. And I would like to explain why that is:

I used to also think, that being part of the Left and bringing about communism was an intellectual game. It was about convincing people of the truth socialism and the evils of capitalism. I spent a long time researching both. I had read Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, which became almost a foundational document for my way of thinking. I vigilantly wanted to expose all the lies the bourgeoisie told about socialism, and expose them in turn for the frauds they are. If only we could show people the truth! Then we could have socialism!

I didn't ever clearly articulate this type of thinking to myself. I implicitly accepted it. It was bound up with my understanding of what a good communist was. It was primarily an intellectual pursuit. Being a good communist meant being able to show reactionaries, and other deviant forms of Leftism wrong.

Today, I must emphatically say, I didn't really know what being a communist meant. Once I finally moved away from home, and started actually getting active, it became more evident to me a lot of things I thought were wrong. Things I didn't understand fully suddenly became clear in a way I couldn't have ever understood before. I, even if I still do heavily dislike a lot of other radicals from other tendencies, I do really want people who hate capitalism to have the same sort of transformative experience I did. I want people like maldoror, who I would guess is really young and inexperienced, to go organize stuff. I want him to go and fail and have success in real struggles. I want him to come face to face with the representatives of bourgeois power and experience what it is like to be a leader and to be lead. I don't think this will make him a Marxist-Leninist, but I sure as hell think it will make what he has to say worth paying attention to!

There is a lot to learn from reading radical books. In my weaker moments, I often go back and reread Lenin's works I have already read (he himself would go back and read Hegel in his darker moments). Even the experience I have being involved in struggle transforms and changes how you read these works. You can better understand what they are talking about. Names on a page that haven't a great meaning suddenly have names and faces. I long ago realized most of the modern debates in the Left are just slight variations on shit that played out 150 years ago.

So yes, in so many ways, what has been suggested here by maldoro, Miles, etc, is basically 'advice' that amounts to complete and utter nonsense! It is almost as if it were a carefully formulated message to make the left as impotent and stupid as possible. The masses will teach you 90% of what you need to know! I can't really articulate an argument for this very well. It is one of these things you just know after doing it, and you can't quite understand how you ever didn't get it before. It is like how many a young (straight) man is baffled about women and sex, and then a woman finally teaches you, and you begin to understand, and all the bullshit you ever learned starts to become unlearned.

But back to me waking up and reading Miles' post. I thought about how I would reply, line by line, or just write out a large response. When I think I am going too overboard with my replies, it is a good idea for me to address the reader and not the poster directly. It's helpful to clarify things for the reader, and come to some sort of summation and end to the discussion. Miles is beyond hope. He is probably the single most pathetic person on the American Left I have ever read about, and I'm not saying this just to be a dick. I honestly feel bad for him. What I have done here is basically like arguing about 2012 with a crazy homeless man on the street. I hope Miles will get it one day himself, but I doubt. All I can leave the reader with is this piece of advice: whatever you do, you don't want to end up as a 40 year old “retired” man running a bizarre online-workerist organization that had about 20 people in it, who all disliked you, and who you had to expel from your organization (except your two psycho-buddies) for a bunch of insane bat-shit stupidity. GO TO THE MASSES, and let them be your teacher.

[synthesis]

GO TO THE MASSES, and let them be your teacher.

How does this relate to Marxism-Leninism?

[black magick hustla]

GO TO THE MASSES, and let them be your teacher.

i think that is the whole point of what i said bub

[Martin Blank]

....

I was originally going to say that, because you cannot answer the politics, all you could resort to are personal attacks. But you couldn't even get those right. Like so many others, all you have are lies and innuendo to go on. I find it more than interesting that, in the end, your only hope was to rely on the baseless slander of reformists, provocateurs and informants. But that's how the petty-bourgeois left rolls, I guess. Enjoy your swamp.

[Martin Blank]

How does this relate to Marxism-Leninism?

It doesn't. It's just something they scream when communists point out the failure of their politics.

[synthesis]

It doesn't. It's just something they scream when communists point out the failure of their politics.

The point was that I see Marxism-Leninism as more of a "teach the masses" than as a "learn from the masses." The philosophy perceives itself as pedagogical.

[Ravachol]

I don't ever recall the IWW advocating militias instead of the US Army, or average workers wages for Congressmen or Senators, among other constitutional questions.

Are you for real? :huh:
Why on earth would the communist project be concerned with the constitution or content of a social construct that's fundamentally hostile to it?

Also, since when is communism about 'advocating' stuff or pushing for reforms?

[RED DAVE]

You're a moron, and so is RED DAVE (I don't waste my time reading his posts) if you believe over 200,000 people just started spontaneously striking all over the country. Do you or RED DAVE know who the fuck Vincent Sombrotto is?RED DAVE sure as shit knows who Vinnie Sombrotto was. RED DAVE was a friend and somtime drinking buddy of his.

Vinnie was a carrier over at Grand Central Post Office, the next PO over from Murray Hill where I worked from '71 to '77. Vinnie (I believe he's still alive) was a working class kid; worked in the PO all his life. (I think, like many of the leaders of the strike, he was a Korean War vet, but don't quote me on that.)

Vinnie didn't have a radical bone in his body, nor had he ever had any direct exposure to left-wing ideas that I know of or he ever showed any signs of (jargon, knowledge of labor history, etc). (Prior to the rise of the local rank-and-file movement of which he was one of the leaders, but not the primary leader, he was best known as the biggest bookie in his station.) The head of the Postal Clerks Union, Moe Biller, was an ex CPer, but the national strike started among the carriers, not the clerks. As I said above, Vinnie was not the main leader of the strike in New York. Another worker, younger, whose name I can't recall (Tommy Something), was the primary leader. He was a college grad and might have had some exposure to the Left, but he was definitely not a left-winger. I knew him as well.

The only leftie I knew in Branch 36, the New York local, was a carrier a little younger than I who had at one time been a member of Advance, the CP youth group. However, he was not a person of influence in the union and may have joined after the strike.

The strike arose in New York, over pay and working conditions. The home stations of the strike, the most militant, were Grand Central and Murray Hill. Vinnie and others had formed a rank-and-file caucus of sorts, with White (largely Italian and Jewish), Black and Hispanic workers. The union, which was very democratic, held membership meetings once a month, which were relatively well attended. A motion was introduced at a union membership meeting by the rank-and-file caucus after months of fighting. The motion was for a work action: picket lines and possibly a one-day sick-out. I never got the details.

When the existing leadership fought the motion, tempers escalated, and a motion was introduced for a full strike, which was illegal. (The postal workers, by law, did not even have the right to collective bargaining although the postal workers unions are among the oldest in the country.) It passed. To the credit of the existing leadership at the time (I can't remember the name of the local president), he accepted the motion and led the strike, which spread around the country and lasted two weeks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._postal_strike_of_1970

Sombrotto, although not the primarily leader of the strike, maneuvered himself into the presidency of the local. He moved, relatively rapidly, into the position of an ordinary bureaucrat. Politically, he was a liberal. I recall him supporting McGovern in '72. Eventually, he became the national president, but that was after I left the PO to become a teacher. There was nothing unusual about his tenure as president. In '76 or '77 he gave an interview to the IS newspaper Workers Power.

Here's an entry about him from the Walter Reuther Library.


Vincent R. Sombrotto was elected the 16th president of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) in 1978, serving nearly 24 years until his retirement in December 2002. Bolstered by the rank and file movement in the early 1970s, Sombrotto was overwhelmingly elected president following the adoption of reforms he advocated to make the union leadership more responsive to its members. His accomplishments included wage increases, improving working conditions, passing reform of the Hatch Act, and actively promoting community service and charity fund raising including the annual NALC Food Drive.Good enough for ya?

TRIVIA: At the time i was a member of the NALC, the biannual convention, with over 5,000 delegates, open mike, was the largest democratic body in the world. (There weren't more than ten leftists, of any flavor, that I knew of in the whole union of 250,000.)

RED DAVE

[Martin Blank]

The point was that I see Marxism-Leninism as more of a "teach the masses" than as a "learn from the masses." The philosophy perceives itself as pedagogical.

I never saw his brand of "Marxism-Leninism" as having anything to do with either teaching or learning from "the masses". It always struck me as more a case of "force and impose upon the masses", with no real dialogue established.

[Martin Blank]

Jack London today is more remembered for his novels but he was very involved both in the Socialist Labour Party of Eugene Debbs and in the International Workers of World. Read over the evidence that J. Sakai supplies. Its niave to believe that basically economistic organizations wont reflect reactionary views.

Actually, it was the Socialist Party, not Socialist Labor Party (at least, after 1899). But yes, London was notoriously racist against Asians and African Americans, as were a large minority in the Socialist Party at the time. In fact, like many of the pre-WWI social-democratic parties, there was what can rightly be called a national socialist wing in the SPA. Most of these broke off during and immediately after the War to form their own organizations; Mussolini's and Pilsudski's splits from social democracy were the most successful examples of this.

[Devrim]

I wrote my last response before going to bed. I had a few shots of liquor to help me get to sleep. I usually need this when I get agitated about something. And Miles is correct, on that point. I most certainly was agitated by this thread, but not for the reasons he supposes.

I don`t quite understand why people get `agitated` by political discussions on the internet.

Devrim

[RED DAVE]

Actually, it was the Socialist Party, not Socialist Labor Party (at least, after 1899). But yes, London was notoriously racist against Asians and African Americans, as were a large minority in the Socialist Party at the time. In fact, like many of the pre-WWI social-democratic parties, there was what can rightly be called a national socialist wing in the SPA. Most of these broke off during and immediately after the War to form their own organizations; Mussolini's and Pilsudski's splits from social democracy were the most successful examples of this.Yeah. Actually, London joined the SLP in 1896 and the SP when it was founded in 1901.

London, who was somewhat unstable in his politics, got suckered in by WWI, but before he died he returned to the ranks of the SP but quit the local party. His racism, like his socialism, was complex. He was actually raised by a black woman. The wikipedia article is pretty good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Soviet dude, I'm waiting for a reply to my post 107 of this thread.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1900374&postcount=107

You called me out. Are you going to back your words?

RED DAVE

[ZeroNowhere]

Jack London today is more remembered for his novels but he was very involved both in the Socialist Labour Party of Eugene Debbs
I'm not sure that you're enhancing your credibility here. The Socialist Party of America was a split from De Leon's SLP after an attempted coup, which combined with Eugene Debs' Social Democratic Party to form the SPA. Secondly, London left the actual SLP after it dropped the immediate demand platform, joining the Social Democratic Party and eventually the Socialist Party of America. Thirdly, Eugene Debs' name has onlu one 'b'. Fourthly and most importantly, the SLP is spelt 'Socialist Labor Party', not 'Socialist Labour Party'.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Are you for real? :huh:
Why on earth would the communist project be concerned with the constitution or content of a social construct that's fundamentally hostile to it?

Also, since when is communism about 'advocating' stuff or pushing for reforms?

It's not about reforms. It's about an entirely new constitution (not "constitutional") framework.

[Ravachol]

It's not about reforms. It's about an entirely new constitution (not "constitutional") framework.

Defining a constitution, even an 'entirely new one' is still done within the limits of the institutional discours of Capital. Defining a constitution requires defining the relationships between the various 'groups' and 'institutions' in contemporary capitalist society. Codifying these relationships, however, reproduces the current social and biopolitical framework. Not exactly part of the Communist project I think.

[KC]

Soviet dude, I'm waiting for a reply to my post 107 of this thread.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=107 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1900374&postcount=107)

You called me out. Are you going to back your words?

Don't hold your breath. Of course he's not.


TRIVIA: At the time i was a member of the NALC, the biannual convention, with over 5,000 delegates, open mike, was the largest democratic body in the world. (There weren't more than ten leftists, of any flavor, that I knew of in the whole union of 250,000.)It's pretty funny that actual working class politics are usually outside the realm of "leftism" and vice versa. I think someone needs to make a comic:

Communist #1: The workers are striking!
Communist #2: Yes, but what of their position on Hamas?

or

Communist #1: The workers are striking!
Communist #2: Quick, write an article about the socialist consciousness of the workers! And sell them some damn papers!

It conjures up the narodniki "going to the people" and getting rejected and turned over to the authorities en masse.


Also, since when is communism about 'advocating' stuff or pushing for reforms?

Since Marxism was watered down and pigeonholed to various irrelevant groups of mostly well-off students/liberals/"working class" folks with an inflated sense of their own self worth that worked in organizations that put forward demands for the reform of capitalism and opportunistically backed this or that section of the bourgeoisie. Blah blah blah you know what I'm ranting about.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Defining a constitution, even an 'entirely new one' is still done within the limits of the institutional discours of Capital. Defining a constitution requires defining the relationships between the various 'groups' and 'institutions' in contemporary capitalist society. Codifying these relationships, however, reproduces the current social and biopolitical framework. Not exactly part of the Communist project I think.

Care to explain the Soviet constitution, then? :confused:

[Ravachol]

Care to explain the Soviet constitution, then? :confused:

What does the Soviet constitution have to do with anything? If anything (despite the nuances I have regarding these kind of projects), it has proven that that's not the way forward to Communism.