Die Neue Zeit
24th January 2011, 03:46
"Every class struggle is a political struggle." (Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Karl Kautsky)
I think enough time has passed for a more refined and mature discussion on something so raw that controversy naturally followed. Here is an attempt at possible routes to political consciousness (among "spontaneist"/"naive" cosnciousness and socialist consciousness, and inclusive of actual class consciousness) without the usual canard of growing political struggles out of economic ones, most notably mere labour struggles (formed from "spontaneist"/"naive" consciousness).
Short critique of Popular Fronts and United Fronts: Popular Fronts seek to work with the liberal bourgeoisie. United Fronts as interpreted by Trotsky seek to work with social-corporatists. In both kinds of work, one has to shut up about more radical politics, such as actual class struggle, and the class collaboration sets out achieving something less than even the Orthodox/Kautskyan minimum program.
Before continuing, the reader should note that there are such people as "bourgeois communitarians" and populists not fond of communitarian ideas (like individualists / "libertarians"). It should also be noted that there should be independent working-class political organization in all three cases.
Populist Fronts vs. Populist Front Tactics
When I started out mapping some sort of road beyond popular and united fronts, I started very prematurely with the Populist Front, which implies something more than short-term organization. Given the whole range of controversial issues that could be addressed by this Populist Front, I had to rethink my approach. The first part of the rethinking is addressed in the final section below, which I daresay is like knee-jerking from one end to the other. The second part is addressed in the second section below. However, the third part is discussed next.
Just because plain Populist Fronts aren't viable doesn't mean that Populist Front tactics, with respect to Greens, "Pirates," non-gold standard advocates of monetary reform, and various other non-bourgeois but non-worker "third parties" opposed to the two-party system, aren't:
In the case of democratic reforms and defence of civil liberties I would advocate a "populist" front as a short term tactic. The question of a formal bloc or just practical co-operation is another question that would depend on circumstance. PR is an issue I see cross class alliance as acceptable. Here in Canada some of the best proponents of PR come from either PC or Reform backgrounds.
Other examples I can think of are around defence of political prisoners -- the Globe and Mail (for those of you non-Canadians it's Canada's oldest newspaper and conservative) tends to defend civil liberties and rights of association. In recent years a group I was in worked with a number of very mainstream centrist NGOs. If a bit of compromise keeps a sister or brother out of prison and draws some attention to what got them in trouble in the first place, I say go for it.
A whole range of other issues are there for Populist Front tactics to be applied to, such as:
- Full, lawsuit-enforced freedom of assembly and association, free especially from anti-employment reprisals, police interference such as from agents provocateurs, and formal political disenfranchisement (class-strugglist rhetoric deliberately omitted, since actual class consciousness is a subset of the broader political consciousness).
- The expansion of the abilities to bear arms, to self-defense against police brutality, and to general self-defense, all toward enabling the formation of people’s militias based on free training, especially in connection with the above assembly and association, and also free from police interference by the likes of agents provocateurs.
- The expansion of local autonomy for equally local development through participatory budgeting and oversight by local assemblies, as well as through unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for localities seeking to establish local currency alternatives to government money.
- The abolition of legal personhood, most notably with respect to corporations, and the prohibition of legally defined political contributions made by non-government entities other than eligible voters.
- The mandatory private- and public-sector recognition in full of professional education, other higher education, and related work experience “from abroad,” along with the wholesale transnational standardization of such education and the implementation of other measures to counter the underemployment of guest workers and all other immigrants.
- The abolition of all copyright, patent, and other intellectual property laws, as well as of all restrictions on the non-commodity economy of peer-to-peer sharing, open-source programming, and the like.
Communitarian Populist Fronts before the DOTP
In the Third World, this goes by other terms:
People's Histories, Blocs, and "Managed Democracy" Reconsidered (http://www.revleft.com/vb/peoples-histories-blocs-t142332/index.html)
When in the context of the most developed bourgeois countries, it's more controversial. It has to do with winning over leftist but hyper-nationalist (but not racist) tendencies away from the other hyper-nationalists who are definitely more right-wing (and more inclined towards racism).
[For more on this, there's a thread in the Third-Period Marxist-Leninists group.]
Communitarian Populist Fronts as the DOTP?
The Paris Commune was the first Communitarian Populist Front. It had its fair share of radical political measures (recallability of all officials, average skilled workers' wage for all officials, militias replacing the standing army, etc.) but also social-democratic economic measures (yes, including the "cooperatives with state aid" stuff that Marx had an inconsistent position on and which is flourishing in Venezuela). Moreover, some socially conservative measures were enacted, such as strict measures against gambling.
In contemporary terms, this is like having mutualists, Georgists/geoists, "Red Tory" communitarians, sympathizers of no-interest banking (such as Islamic banking), etc. all working together to push through those same measures, especially the radical political measures, and very likely more.
However, the most important feature of the Paris Commune was that it was a coalition/front between radicalized elements of the petit-bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Yet Marx and Engels called this an example of the DOTP, again because of the radical political measures.
Just my two cents on the connection between moving beyond popular and united fronts, on the one hand, and routes to political consciousness without the usual canard of growing political struggles out of economic ones, most notably mere labour struggles.
I think enough time has passed for a more refined and mature discussion on something so raw that controversy naturally followed. Here is an attempt at possible routes to political consciousness (among "spontaneist"/"naive" cosnciousness and socialist consciousness, and inclusive of actual class consciousness) without the usual canard of growing political struggles out of economic ones, most notably mere labour struggles (formed from "spontaneist"/"naive" consciousness).
Short critique of Popular Fronts and United Fronts: Popular Fronts seek to work with the liberal bourgeoisie. United Fronts as interpreted by Trotsky seek to work with social-corporatists. In both kinds of work, one has to shut up about more radical politics, such as actual class struggle, and the class collaboration sets out achieving something less than even the Orthodox/Kautskyan minimum program.
Before continuing, the reader should note that there are such people as "bourgeois communitarians" and populists not fond of communitarian ideas (like individualists / "libertarians"). It should also be noted that there should be independent working-class political organization in all three cases.
Populist Fronts vs. Populist Front Tactics
When I started out mapping some sort of road beyond popular and united fronts, I started very prematurely with the Populist Front, which implies something more than short-term organization. Given the whole range of controversial issues that could be addressed by this Populist Front, I had to rethink my approach. The first part of the rethinking is addressed in the final section below, which I daresay is like knee-jerking from one end to the other. The second part is addressed in the second section below. However, the third part is discussed next.
Just because plain Populist Fronts aren't viable doesn't mean that Populist Front tactics, with respect to Greens, "Pirates," non-gold standard advocates of monetary reform, and various other non-bourgeois but non-worker "third parties" opposed to the two-party system, aren't:
In the case of democratic reforms and defence of civil liberties I would advocate a "populist" front as a short term tactic. The question of a formal bloc or just practical co-operation is another question that would depend on circumstance. PR is an issue I see cross class alliance as acceptable. Here in Canada some of the best proponents of PR come from either PC or Reform backgrounds.
Other examples I can think of are around defence of political prisoners -- the Globe and Mail (for those of you non-Canadians it's Canada's oldest newspaper and conservative) tends to defend civil liberties and rights of association. In recent years a group I was in worked with a number of very mainstream centrist NGOs. If a bit of compromise keeps a sister or brother out of prison and draws some attention to what got them in trouble in the first place, I say go for it.
A whole range of other issues are there for Populist Front tactics to be applied to, such as:
- Full, lawsuit-enforced freedom of assembly and association, free especially from anti-employment reprisals, police interference such as from agents provocateurs, and formal political disenfranchisement (class-strugglist rhetoric deliberately omitted, since actual class consciousness is a subset of the broader political consciousness).
- The expansion of the abilities to bear arms, to self-defense against police brutality, and to general self-defense, all toward enabling the formation of people’s militias based on free training, especially in connection with the above assembly and association, and also free from police interference by the likes of agents provocateurs.
- The expansion of local autonomy for equally local development through participatory budgeting and oversight by local assemblies, as well as through unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for localities seeking to establish local currency alternatives to government money.
- The abolition of legal personhood, most notably with respect to corporations, and the prohibition of legally defined political contributions made by non-government entities other than eligible voters.
- The mandatory private- and public-sector recognition in full of professional education, other higher education, and related work experience “from abroad,” along with the wholesale transnational standardization of such education and the implementation of other measures to counter the underemployment of guest workers and all other immigrants.
- The abolition of all copyright, patent, and other intellectual property laws, as well as of all restrictions on the non-commodity economy of peer-to-peer sharing, open-source programming, and the like.
Communitarian Populist Fronts before the DOTP
In the Third World, this goes by other terms:
People's Histories, Blocs, and "Managed Democracy" Reconsidered (http://www.revleft.com/vb/peoples-histories-blocs-t142332/index.html)
When in the context of the most developed bourgeois countries, it's more controversial. It has to do with winning over leftist but hyper-nationalist (but not racist) tendencies away from the other hyper-nationalists who are definitely more right-wing (and more inclined towards racism).
[For more on this, there's a thread in the Third-Period Marxist-Leninists group.]
Communitarian Populist Fronts as the DOTP?
The Paris Commune was the first Communitarian Populist Front. It had its fair share of radical political measures (recallability of all officials, average skilled workers' wage for all officials, militias replacing the standing army, etc.) but also social-democratic economic measures (yes, including the "cooperatives with state aid" stuff that Marx had an inconsistent position on and which is flourishing in Venezuela). Moreover, some socially conservative measures were enacted, such as strict measures against gambling.
In contemporary terms, this is like having mutualists, Georgists/geoists, "Red Tory" communitarians, sympathizers of no-interest banking (such as Islamic banking), etc. all working together to push through those same measures, especially the radical political measures, and very likely more.
However, the most important feature of the Paris Commune was that it was a coalition/front between radicalized elements of the petit-bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Yet Marx and Engels called this an example of the DOTP, again because of the radical political measures.
Just my two cents on the connection between moving beyond popular and united fronts, on the one hand, and routes to political consciousness without the usual canard of growing political struggles out of economic ones, most notably mere labour struggles.