Solidarity US

[charley63]

So, I am very close to finally deciding to join Solidarity US. The decision was a long one coming. I've been anti-capitalist ever since I could think about the concept. I evolved from an Christian anarchist viewpoint to a more secular socialist stance circa 1994 and joined CCDS (before they added the "DS") for two years. Left because the local group was still acting like Communists, very top-down.

I am selecting Solidarity since they aren't sectarian, and integrate feminist and anti-racist politics into the class struggle. They favor a left independent party, as I do.

Given all the above, would anyone want to convince me not to join them? Or suggest some other organization that would be a better fit? I live in Chicago, where ISO is huge. Platypus is also very visible, but they are trying to be something so novel, they don't even understand what that is (except it is Leninist!). The Socialist Equality Party actually has a significant presence, but I am not generally Castroist.

[graymouser]

I've been a member of Solidarity at a couple of points in the past. I wouldn't recommend joining.

There seems to be a misconception in your post. Solidarity does not integrate politics, whether socialist, feminist or anti-racist, into the class struggle. Their labor work is based on something they call the "Rank & File Strategy" that says that socialists need to work as rank & file activists, frequently through union reform groups like Teamsters for a Democratic Union and the magazine Labor Notes. TDU was founded by members of the International Socialists, a predecessor of Solidarity, and still has members on staff. Their labor work is good as far as it goes, but they are what Lenin called "economist" - that is, they refuse to integrate it with a working class political perspective. This means that while Solidarity is for independence from the Democrats, they don't agitate for the trade unions to make a clean break. Instead they focus on workplace issues and union democracy.

As for other movement work, it's fairly near dead in Solidarity. It used to be that the group at least had a vibrant intervention into anti-war activism, but that's withered on the vine. Most members are committed to anti-racist ideas and feminism but these don't have consistent mass outlets in the organization.

Recently, on Libya, there was a really disgraceful incident. When NATO started its bombing campaign, the National Committee of Solidarity couldn't come to a common position. Some wanted to denounce it as imperialism, but others saw the bombing as basically the only chance the rebels had and saw it as the lesser evil in the situation. The NC punted on a hard decision (Solidarity was built on avoiding hard decisions) and issued two statements. You can read them here:

http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/3243

I think this is really an outrageous failure to take a strong anti-imperialist stance. Bluntly, the people who refused to condemn and oppose the NATO bombing deserve to be thrown out of any revolutionary socialist organization worthy of the name. So to me, that vindicated the fact that I'm no longer with Solidarity.

Even without this, there's the fact that Solidarity really is less than the sum of its parts. The group was founded as a regroupment between people who were kicked out of the Socialist Workers Party (and broke from Socialist Action, which tried to pick up the pieces and build a new party), a small group called Workers Power - not the one affiliated with the League for the Fifth International - and the International Socialists, who were the main left-Shachtmanite group and who the ISO broke away from in 1977. In 1986, the three groups merged into a mushy non-democratic centralist organization. The ex-SWPers still held to Trotskyist views on the USSR and deformed workers' states, while the IS and WP folks saw it as bureaucratic collectivist. There are good people in Solidarity, but politically it's a waste of time. In my experience it attracts young people with degrees in labor studies and makes them very cynical about socialist politics, because the group is mainly a sort of long-term holding pattern for people who were burnt out by actual party work years ago.

I really wouldn't make the mistake of going back in that direction ever again. Solidarity won't make you feel trapped or burn you out in a hyperactive frenzy, but it can do the opposite - imbue a deep cynicism about actual class politics and really demoralize you.

Sorry if that's too long, but I'm trying to convey the experience of a year and a half in the wrong group. There are a couple of other wrong assumptions in your post, though. The Socialist Equality Party is distinctly NOT Castroite - they don't even think Cuba is a workers' state. They are a descendant of the Healy trend in politics which is some of the worst in hyper-sectarian "orthodox" Trotskyism, and uphold his slander of Trotskyists as agents of the FBI and GPU. And Platypus is a bizarre organization that takes really backward stances on imperialism, and promotes a lot of obscure academic Marxist philosophy, yet is hyper-sectarian. The ISO I just disagree with on a bunch of things.

[RED DAVE]

The group was founded as a regroupment between people who were kicked out of the Socialist Workers Party (and broke from Socialist Action, which tried to pick up the pieces and build a new party), a small group called Workers Power - not the one affiliated with the League for the Fifth International - and the International Socialists, who were the main left-Shachtmanite group and who the ISO broke away from in 1977.I believe this is wrong. Workers Power was one of the groups left when the IS fell apart after the departure of the ISO. As far as I recall, there was nothing called the International Socialists left when the regroupment that formed Solidarity took place.

As for the "economism" of Soolidarity, I think (a) it is definitely a tendency within the organization, and(b) it is partially a result of the fact that Solidarity (and the ISO) managed to maintain some kind of labor activism during the very dry 80s, 90s and 00s, while no other left group was able to do so on anywhere near the same level. Under those circumstances, a certain amount of backsliding would be expected.

According to a very knowledgeable friend, both Solidarity and the ISO had, and still have, a presence in Madison.

Personally, I've declined to join either Solidarity or the ISO as I can't make the kind of commitment required, but compared to the arrant sectarianism of other groups, this tendency has a lot going for it. I'm not going to get into a pissing contest about it. By all means take graymouser's criticisms seriously and make your own choice.

RED DAVE

[graymouser]

I believe this is wrong. Workers Power was one of the groups left when the IS fell apart after the departure of the ISO. As far as I recall, there was nothing called the International Socialists left when the regroupment that formed Solidarity took place.
The Workers Power split isn't that well documented, but it actually broke from the IS before the ISO did. It was the smallest of the three groups that merged to form Solidarity, but its journal (Against the Current) became the name of the new Solidarity's magazine.

The IS still existed, although it no longer put out the paper Workers Power. By that point I believe most of the members were immersed in the rank & file work. It did have a magazine called "Changes." The IS was the largest of the three groups.


As for the "economism" of Soolidarity, I think (a) it is definitely a tendency within the organization, and(b) it is partially a result of the fact that Solidarity (and the ISO) managed to maintain some kind of labor activism during the very dry 80s, 90s and 00s, while no other left group was able to do so on anywhere near the same level. Under those circumstances, a certain amount of backsliding would be expected.
Yeah, but it's fairly well codified. Kim Moody (who is now in the pro-Zionist Alliance for Workers Liberty in Britain) wrote a pamphlet on the rank & file strategy that lays out an entirely economist strategy based on rebuilding links between radicals and unionists.


According to a very knowledgeable friend, both Solidarity and the ISO had, and still have, a presence in Madison.

Personally, I've declined to join either Solidarity or the ISO as I can't make the kind of commitment required, but compared to the arrant sectarianism of other groups, this tendency has a lot going for it. I'm not going to get into a pissing contest about it. By all means take graymouser's criticisms seriously and make your own choice.
Yeah, to be clear - I'm not saying these things out of sectarianism, and I still like a lot of the people in Solidarity on a personal level. But politically I find the group very problematic. Given the OP's orientation, I would find the ISO a better choice (although I've been with them and have my problems there as well).

[charley63]

Thanks, Graymouser & Red Dave.

I've just spent the day at a Regional Pre-Convention meeting of the midwest branches of Solidarity. Their elder/youth divide is enormous, as I am 48 and no one else fits into my bracket. Most are either significantly older or much younger.

Actually, that gives me hope, because the youth are the future. The elders seem to be actually wising up to their limited remaining time and much of the discussion was about *how* to "refound" Solidarity as a whole in a more disciplined manner.

The narrative that was spun was that Solidarity was formed as a "shell" organization in 1986 awaiting the advent of a mass socialist movement. When that didn't materialize, Solidarity never really came up with an alternate strategy, beyond the labor work you mention.

There is a tendency in Soli that wants to affiliate with the Fourth International, and intends to bring the matter to a vote this July. I am ambivalent, as my politics are not Leninist (though the 4th Int'l. may no longer be so, either). My political methodology has an intentionally open architecture, but I find Rosa Luxemburg seems most appealing to me of all the Second International leaders. I know Rosa supported Lenin, critically, but I imagine if she'd lived longer she'd have seen that Lenin was a dead-end.

One of the Solidarity members tonight stated emphatically, "we need to break from Leninism," and "Kronstadt was wrong!" This person is an old-timer from a Trotskyist background, and one of the 4th Int'l. tendency!:blink:

On the matter of Libya, I think that those in Soli who came out in favor of the "right to request military assistance" are now regretting their earlier enthusiasm for the rebels. There is still some value to the abstract principle they championed, but in Libya it has become crystal clear that the NATO alliance intends to use Libya as a wedge to prevent more radical (either Islamist, Nationalist, or Socialist) revolutions.

Having an "anti-imperialist" stance can become dogmatic. (As a matter of principle, I favor a multi-tendency dialog versus either silence or engineered "unity" statements.) My background is anarcho-pacifist, so I am not justifying the intervention nor fronting for Qaddafi. I do think NATO intervention is leading exactly where it "has" to lead, to an implicit threat to the Arab rebels across the region that the US & NATO are in charge of the world.

However, dialectic and contradiction applies here. Libya and the Arab states in general are right-wing. None of them are democratic, even to the limited level of Western capitalist democracies. While I don't endorse "stageism" there is a sense in which the Arab states (not to mention sub-Saharan Africa!:crying:) have to pass through modernization and democratization.

Western capitalist states see Libya as the right place for a show of strength that will dampen the enthusiasm for revolution that's erupted across northern Africa and the Mideast. This stand-off leads back to the "real" revolutionary engagement, here in the USA. Until a socialist revolution breaks out in the USA, there can never be an international revolution.

This new US revolution will not follow a Leninist nor an Anarchist path, but a dialectic - revolutionary social democratic - path that embraces several tendencies and arises from a convergence of proletarianized (displaced) bourgeoisie, unionized workers, people of color, women, non-union workers and the unemployed, among other social movement sectors (environmentalist, anti-war, lgbtq, religious left, etc).

I am coming to favor rebuilding the Socialist Party USA as an independent third party. I know the Revolutionary Union Group has nearly given up on the SPUSA, but right now, with the likely (and lesser evil) re-election of Obama looming, it seems to me the time is ripe to begin re-invigorating the SPUSA, just in time for 2016:D! It seems to me there is no better time for a revolutionary party than after 8 years of a Democratic Party presidency, unless it's after 16 years of such rule! :ohmy:

On Platypus: Though I have no stake in defending them since they are still too wedded to Leninism, it is unfair to label them pro-imperialist. They are simply critical of knee-jerk anti-imperialism, as am I. I am also interested in advanced (not merely "academic") theory, as they are. They do stop short of practical politics, which is understandable given today's paralysis on the left, domestic and internationally.

That paralysis understandably leads some to a Platypus-style theoreticism, "we need to rethink the revolutionary project from the ground up." I've personally been doing that since I was first politicized in the 80s.

I'm pretty much done with theoreticism, and now favor a Socialist left in the USA that begins as two distinct organizations, an electoral party and a movement organization. Whether Soli gets back to it's initial principles as a "democratic feminist, anti-racist revolutionary" organization is an open question. There is hopeful energy in the midwest branches, coming from the fresh experience with the Madison (and other midwest states') protests.

Imo, the main areas where Soli needs to go beyond its past efforts is in anti-racism work, participatory theoretical education of its membership, and advancing its labor movement work beyond the confines of labor unions. I have already begun proposing that Soli begin study groups on revolutionary anti-racism, college chapters, and organizing among non-union workers, like myself.

Provisionally, I am wagering that the two groups that have the greatest potential in today's left are the SPUSA and Solidarity. There is both electoral and non-electoral work to do in the next 5-15+ years and I think SPUSA is the vehicle for the former, while Soli, at this moment, seems the best for the latter.

[graymouser]

Well, if you choose to go for it, best of luck to you. I don't think you can pull Soli away from the labor unions - that's a very big, very long-term implantation and they are still sending people in to do rank & file work.

The generation gap exists on the left as a whole. You will not meet a lot of people between 35 and 55 on the left; some of it's because they are busy otherwise, some of it is just that the generation got missed, falling between the radicalization of the '60s and '70s and the battle of Seattle and the various ups and downs of the current period. Solidarity's people around my age (not really "youth" but young enough) really seem to develop this very bitter attitude toward anything that isn't immediate practical work, which has positives and negatives. There's a sort of anti-theoretical hostility that I couldn't really deal with.

As for the Socialist Party...oy vey, what a mess. A comrade of mine who was in both groups for quite a long time (he was in the SP in the '80s and again about 6 years ago, and Soli for much of that time) said that if Soli was a car crash, the SP was a train wreck. There are some good people in the SP, but it's such a completely uneven party that it's hard to describe - one area will be pretty revolutionary in its leanings, the next will be old school social democrats. Now is not a good time to be a revolutionary heading into the SPUSA, the latest left wing group seems to be imploding.

Again, I'm not trying to be sectarian, I just want to be very frank about the groups you're talking about. No group is perfect, and both Soli and the SP have the advantage that they're not cults of personality. But neither is a very sound choice for revolutionaries today.

[genstrike]

This is going to sound like a bald-faced recruitment pitch, but I know a couple folks in the Chicago IWW and they're pretty cool guys.

[charley63]

I am definitely sympathetic to anarcho-syndicalism. Autonomous union organizing is one tactic we have to try in this current era. I've known a few wobblies, but not in current contact.

[wunderbar]

I am definitely sympathetic to anarcho-syndicalism.

Just to clarify, IWW isn't anarcho-syndicalist, they're an anti-capitalist militant industrial union. There's anarchists, socialists, and communists in the union, but officially the IWW is none of those.

[Zeus the Moose]

Just a correction to greymouser; the Revolutionary Unity Group (the left tendency in the SP-USA) was going through some serious problems, though it's beginning to pull out of them by getting back to what we were originally supposed to do (be an active left-opposition, not just harangue the leadership whenever possible.) I do agree that the SP is still very uneven in many respects, though I'm more hopeful about getting that fixed now than I have been in a few months.

[3rdcoast]

Charley - I joined the forum (usually just skim) specifically to say I think your analysis would make you a good fit for Solidarity. I myself am a member.

I think greymousser's analysis around particularly Solidarity's rank and file commitment may have been spot on a few years ago but outdated now (and particularly outside the northeast it would seem to me). I'm a younger member from the south and in my two years being involved we've never had a labor focus in my area - our primary areas have been immigration and the student movement (particularly in Geogia) and a few other "movements". As far as I know Solidarity has not sent youth systematically into rank and file work since I've been a member. Is there interest in some in doing so? Yes, but I think there will be very practical (economic and political - unions are at there all time lowest membership rates) issues in re-implementing something like that. And among younger/new members - which there is a resurgence of in Solidarity - there's more of a consciousness around issues of economism and Solidarity's reputation of being "invisible" socialists. But because of the decentralized nature of the org there's different trends of thoughts it would seem in different regions.

Solidarity will definitely have times of frustrating you (and actually I do think many of us view it as a "holding pattern" or whatever the term used was - and there's political reasons for that) but I currently see no other option that fits my politic ideas of what a rev org should look like right now (and, to be clear, I have my issues with this one as well - including that some did not condemn the idea of a NATO no fly zone over Libya).

[syndicat]

actually Solidarity took its name from a fourth group that was involved in the merger that formed the present-day Solidarity. this was the Solidarity Socialist-Feminist Network. This was the left of the New American Movement that refused to go along with the merger with DSOC that formed Democratic Socialists of America. they were not Leninists. (I know about that group because I was in the Left of NAM in its early days, but a part of the libertarian socilaist current which mostly departed in 1974.)

Workers Power was a split from the IS over the issue of the direction for TDU, in which IS had invested a great amount of its people. At the time of the big mobilization circal 1980 of carhaulers, TDU had organized a majority of the carhaulers in the US into a Carhaulers Council. there was a real possibility of leading a strike independent of the IBT bureaucracy. but the majority in IS counseled against this and said to wait for approval from local union presidents. because the local prezes had made militant-sounding words, this was the basis of their expectation. but the presidents caved to the bureaucracy and no strike took place. tailing the local union bureaucracy is a not uncommon failing of Solidarity. Workers Power took the position that in that situation with the carhaulers, the Carhaulers Council should have organized a strike independent of the union. So Workers Power was to the left of the IS majority.

the IS majority had a magazine called "Changes." When they merged back again with Workers Power, they kept the name of the Workers Power magazine, "Against the Current."

in my opinion this weakness of Solidarity derives from the whole boring from within, or "going for power" in the bureaucracy stance of the old IS (a stance they share with the ISO).

in regard to whether the IWW is anarcho-syndicalist. it is true that the IWW is a revolutionary syndicalist organization. it is inaccurate to describe it as "industrial unonist" because historically it advocated class unionism...solidarity of workers across sectoral boundaries, whereas "industrial unionism" in the US has had the same problems of sectoralism as the older craft unionism. having people with a variety of views in a mass union organization is not inconsistent with it being an anarcho-syndicalist organization. the historic CNT of the '30s was anarcho-syndicalist but there were many workers in that union who weren't anarchists. nowadays it would be hard to differentiate anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism.

nowadays the more important distinction is between "single-organization" syndicalism versus "dual organization" syndicalism. those activists in the IWW who hold that the IWW is the be-all and end-all of social transformation are "single organization" syndicalists whereas my organization WSA is dual organization syndicalist because of our recognitiion of the importance of a political organization in addition to the mass organizations.

[charley63]

I doubt that anyone is following this thread, but I have stalled in my decision to join Solidarity and SPUSA. I still want to decide this fall where to put my commitment, but can't get clarity.

Part of the problem is the weight I put on the formation of a left third party. The Greens are the biggest kid on that block, but they are barely left enough, yet I have real ideological agreement with the 10 key values, except for the weak "community-based economics."

SPUSA seems currently overrun with sectarians and social dems fighting each other. I am a long-time admirer of David McReynolds, but his influence is pretty limited, AFAICT.

For what I hope to get out of a political affiliation, Solidarity has come to seem too limited. The promised formation of IOPS by Z Magazine founder Michael Albert has some appeal, but very much an unknown quantity.

[Jimmie Higgins]

in my opinion this weakness of Solidarity derives from the whole boring from within, or "going for power" in the bureaucracy stance of the old IS (a stance they share with the ISO)

I'd like a clarification of this in regards to Solidarity since what you say here and what Graymouser said seem to be at odds (unless I'm misunderstanding what you are arguing above):


Their labor work is based on something they call the "Rank & File Strategy" that says that socialists need to work as rank & file activists, frequently through union reform groups like Teamsters for a Democratic Union and the magazine Labor Notes.

What Graymouser describes is more or less what I had understood their position to be although I think it goes beyond just "working as rank and file activists" and is probably more about trying to be a part of building rank and file independence from the union leadership. If that is the case, then yes, it is not dissimillar to the ISO's view regarding the mainstream unions:


We support trade unions as essential to the fight for
workers’ economic and political rights. To make the unions
fight for workers’ interests, rank-and-file workers must organize
themselves independent of the union officials.
...
The conclusion socialists draw from this understanding
of the limits of the trade union bureaucracy is that the
rank and file must organize itself independently of union
officials, supporting them insofar as they represent members’
interests, criticizing them insofar as they misrepresent
those interests, and ready to act independently of the
officials when this becomes necessary.
...
The union bureaucracy is inherently conservative, and
therefore, as a social layer, resists not only militancy but
also, ultimately, revolution. Not so the working class. The
consciousness and militancy of the working class can and
does change very dramatically from period to period, but
as a class, workers are capable of overcoming the “ruling
ideas” of society and, through their own activity, becoming
capable of fundamentally reshaping society.

To do so, however, it must create more than unions—
though in the first instance working-class militancy expresses
itself in a growth of unions and union membership.
To move beyond the limits of unions, the working
class must build organizations—preferably organizations
of workplace delegates—that overcome the sectional divisions
unions take for granted (between workplaces, between
different skills and between different industries).
And it must build rank-and-file organizations inside the
unions that guide the struggle forward when the union
officials act as a block to further struggle.

[black magick hustla]

another out of the mill split from International Socialists with the same weird "industrial turn" oldskool strategy of putting college educated middle class kids inside the unions, except with a very diluted political line. I believe stagger lee used to be part of Solidarity and has some pretty bad stories.

[syndicat]

What Graymouser describes is more or less what I had understood their position to be although I think it goes beyond just "working as rank and file activists" and is probably more about trying to be a part of building rank and file independence from the union leadership. If that is the case, then yes, it is not dissimillar to the ISO's view regarding the mainstream unions

yes, Solidarity does have an orientation to rank and file oppositional activists and building rank and file organizations, such as TDU. but note that TDU takes a stancer in favor of "going for power", that is, capture of the existing trade union apparatus.

It's okay to say we're for building independent rank and file organization, but then what? workers need to have mass organizations they control. how is this to happen?

many anarchists or anarcho-syndicalists will talk about building new unions in unorganized workplaces. that's fine but it also evades the question, What about the industries where the bureaucratic business unions are still entrenched? Typically those unions have survived in the places where workers have more bargaining power...transportation, utilities, large commercial and industrial enterprises, the public sector.

so it won't do to simply ignore that sector. it's therefore necessary to have a perspective about the AFL-CIO type unions. in some cases I think they will have to be decertified...the union structures are pretty hopeless and they get in the way of workers being able to control their struggles. the UAW in the auto industry comes to mind or the corrupt UTU at the Los Angeles MTA, and there are other examples. but this is not necessarily the only tactic.

It's also necessary to think in terms of an industry-wide strategy. how to organize an industry?

so there are the ideas of industrial networks...an independent association of a militant minority in a particular industry.

but of course there are also community union strategies as well, such as grassroots workers centers or solidarity networks....which make sense at present given the very low level of militancy and the harsh anti-union regime throughout most of the private sector.

[Jimmie Higgins]

yes, Solidarity does have an orientation to rank and file oppositional activists and building rank and file organizations, such as TDU. but note that TDU takes a stancer in favor of "going for power", that is, capture of the existing trade union apparatus.So that's Solidarity's political position, "going for power" in the bureaucracy? Or is the the strategy of a union reform caucus that they support or are a part of?

[citizen of industry]

What does everyone think about the "going for power" strategy? That seems to be the strategy of JRCL(chukaku) here in Japan. The party itself has a pretty low profile (recently; there were some terrorist actions decades ago and they had a high profile then and a bad public image). They've basically run one union, Doro-Chiba, the most militant one in Japan (and currently most active in the anti-nuclear struggle). I've read and edited some of the union literature and it advocates "going for power."

Rather than split or form seperate federations they have a loose grouping/relationship of militant unionists in many different unions, even the most conservative ones, and work from within/go for power. They also have an international solidarity committee and relations with Teamsters and a Korean union, immigrant rights groups in Japan (Burmese workers) etc. And here I'm speaking of Doro-Chiba, not JRCL itself.

Not the most democratic, I know. They had the same president for over 20 years until he passed away. But subsequent leadership is also of the party. The union itself runs a labor school and the content is Marxism. I have to respect the union's militancy and effectiveness.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What does everyone think about the "going for power" strategy? IMHO it's problematic in the absence of a real rank and file push from below. If the rank and file is organizing independently inside trade-unions then a rank and file caucus could help organize the opposition to the leadership and potentially make them follow or be pushed aside. In the absence of this, a reform organization inside unions might help to organize that democratic rank and file opposition, but winning office when maybe 40% of members even bother to vote basically means that the reformers have no real social power even if they have the best politics.

If the rank and file is leading and radicals have made arguments that are supported and are seen as organic leaders among union militants, then I think a reform slate could be very useful and help the rank and file re-organize the union in a more democratic way.