SYRIZA Alternative Culture / Mutual Aid?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Welcome developments, I think:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/10/greece-euro-syriza?newsfeed=true


Yesterday I was a meeting of the branch committee for Syriza the small town in Crete where I live.

Our new Syriza MP was with us and brought us up to date with what is happening in Athens - he reported that there was an incredible sense of unity amongst the Syriza MPs (many of them relatively young and new to politics) and a willingness to work hard. The emphasis was not on politics, but on how to best support the vulnerable members of the community when the new austerity measures go through. Both on a local and national level. "Hamas" style if you wish.

I am in the committee for schools and we decided to use Syriza funds to set up a bakery on site to ensure the children get something to eat in the mornings. We are also pushing ahead with a scheme to provide free medical access for the under 12's at school (our hospital has closed and the private doctors no longer take National Insurance patients).

Anyway, the impression I got is that there is an overwhelming sense that Syriza will soon be called to form a government and they are working hard to consolidate their position on all levels from the grass-roots up.

[Art Vandelay]

Keep in mind this perspective is coming from someone who doesn't know all that much about the different ways socialist parties are attempting to organize around the globe, but this seems to me to be the exact type of organizing that socialists should be doing. We need to show people that when they're being fucked by austerity that socialists are the ones who still care about them, not just wait around till they take an interest in our literature or something. And yet this is the first time, since I have joined revleft and kept up to date on radical politics, that I am seeing organizing like this.....and its coming from a bourgeois workers party :confused:

The left fucking sucks and needs to get its shit together.

[A Marxist Historian]

Keep in mind this perspective is coming from someone who doesn't know all that much about the different ways socialist parties are attempting to organize around the globe, but this seems to me to be the exact type of organizing that socialists should be doing. We need to show people that when they're being fucked by austerity that socialists are the ones who still care about them, not just wait around till they take an interest in our literature or something. And yet this is the first time, since I have joined revleft and kept up to date on radical politics, that I am seeing organizing like this.....and its coming from a bourgeois workers party :confused:

The left fucking sucks and needs to get its shit together.

Really? As described, SYRIZA, instead of organizing the masses to fight against capitalist austerity measures ... is using SYRIZA funds for charity relief, like the Salvation Army or a church, and trying to arrange some volunteer doctoring for poor children.

In prep for when they get the government, at which point they hope to throw a little money into New Deal style social welfare measures, I guess to be funded by loans from the EU once they capitulate to the bankers loan terms.

This isn't organizing the poor, this is charity to the poor from their social betters. Very much the "bourgeois" party of the nature of a bourgeois workers party.

-M.H.-

[Art Vandelay]

Really? As described, SYRIZA, instead of organizing the masses to fight against capitalist austerity measures ... is using SYRIZA funds for charity relief, like the Salvation Army or a church, and trying to arrange some volunteer doctoring for poor children.

In prep for when they get the government, at which point they hope to throw a little money into New Deal style social welfare measures, I guess to be funded by loans from the EU once they capitulate to the bankers loan terms.

This isn't organizing the poor, this is charity to the poor from their social betters. Very much the "bourgeois" party of the nature of a bourgeois workers party.

-M.H.-

In all honesty I am assuming that this is the "ends" that they wish to achieve through this sort of action. Obviously SYRIZA is attempting to paint itself as the "radical" and "leftist" alternative, which to socialists, is obviously a farce. However if this sort of organizing was being done by a socialist party, not a bourgeois workers party, I am sure that we would not be complaining. Note that I have made no illusions to the fact that SYRIZA is a bourgeois workers party. However in times like these in Greece, I am far from one to criticize the action itself, merely the party which it is coming from. I still am not sure where exactly I stand and who I stand behind in the situation in Greece, but this is the sort of organizing the left needs; albeit this could be seen as a minor stepping stone towards the sort of actions that we would all like to be seen undertaken by radicals in Greece.

Edit: When I said stepping stone, I meant that clearly what Greece needs isn't charity. We need to organize so that the social conditions which create poverty and the need for charity in the first place do not exist; however during times when people are struggling to even find food, as people are in Greece, this could be seen as the first step towards branching out to organize and meet those needs.

Now again as I stated in my first post I am not very informed on the type of organizing going on in Greece, let alone the world; but where is the KKE's equivalent to this? Where is the KKE organizing to feed hungry children in Greece? I, for one, haven't heard of it. This seems, to me, to be the sort of organizing that socialist parties have lacked. We need to reach out to the working class and help them with tangible benefits during periods of crises, rather than sit on the sidelines promoting a future utopia when finally their needs will be realized.

[A Marxist Historian]

In all honesty I am assuming that this is the "ends" that they wish to achieve through this sort of action. Obviously SYRIZA is attempting to paint itself as the "radical" and "leftist" alternative, which to socialists, is obviously a farce. However if this sort of organizing was being done by a socialist party, not a bourgeois workers party, I am sure that we would not be complaining. Note that I have made no illusions to the fact that SYRIZA is a bourgeois workers party. However in times like these in Greece, I am far from one to criticize the action itself, merely the party which it is coming from. I still am not sure where exactly I stand and who I stand behind in the situation in Greece, but this is the sort of organizing the left needs; albeit this could be seen as a minor stepping stone towards the sort of actions that we would all like to be seen undertaken by radicals in Greece.

Edit: When I said stepping stone, I meant that clearly what Greece needs isn't charity. We need to organize so that the social conditions which create poverty and the need for charity in the first place do not exist; however during times when people are struggling to even find food, as people are in Greece, this could be seen as the first step towards branching out to organize and meet those needs.

Now again as I stated in my first post I am not very informed on the type of organizing going on in Greece, let alone the world; but where is the KKE's equivalent to this? Where is the KKE organizing to feed hungry children in Greece? I, for one, haven't heard of it. This seems, to me, to be the sort of organizing that socialist parties have lacked. We need to reach out to the working class and help them with tangible benefits during periods of crises, rather than sit on the sidelines promoting a future utopia when finally their needs will be realized.

Certainly poor people in Greece could use some charity, and if liberal capitalists and the churches want to try to help the poor I am all in favor.

But that's no way to organize the workers to fight. The way to organize to feed hungry children is strikes for higher wages, plant seizures to put the unemployed back to work, and mass marches demanding relief from the government--regardless of who is in office.

I suppose mass looting grocery of stores might be a possibility, but given that there are so many small shopkeepers in Greece who would be outraged and want to join Golden Dawn, probably not a good idea.

To help people with tangible benefits right now requires--money. In a capitalist society, that's something the capitalists have and the workers don't. So you have to take it from them. Pretty elementary really.

-M.H.-

[Die Neue Zeit]

Certainly poor people in Greece could use some charity, and if liberal capitalists and the churches want to try to help the poor I am all in favor.

But that's no way to organize the workers to fight. The way to organize to feed hungry children is strikes for higher wages, plant seizures to put the unemployed back to work, and mass marches demanding relief from the government--regardless of who is in office.

I suppose mass looting grocery of stores might be a possibility, but given that there are so many small shopkeepers in Greece who would be outraged and want to join Golden Dawn, probably not a good idea.

To help people with tangible benefits right now requires--money. In a capitalist society, that's something the capitalists have and the workers don't. So you have to take it from them. Pretty elementary really.

-M.H.-

Wow, you pose the usual economistic "alternatives" to Alternative Culture as a means of politicizing the class.

[Delenda Carthago]

What da fuck is "Alternative Culture"?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Look up Vernon Lidtke's The Alternative Culture: Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Really? As described, SYRIZA, instead of organizing the masses to fight against capitalist austerity measures ... is using SYRIZA funds for charity relief, like the Salvation Army or a church, and trying to arrange some volunteer doctoring for poor children.

In prep for when they get the government, at which point they hope to throw a little money into New Deal style social welfare measures, I guess to be funded by loans from the EU once they capitulate to the bankers loan terms.

This isn't organizing the poor, this is charity to the poor from their social betters. Very much the "bourgeois" party of the nature of a bourgeois workers party.


Workers have immediate needs which must be met too. I imagine many workers in this situation would have a hard time understanding why this is such a bad thing. If this were the full extent of SYRIZA's organization you'd have a point but it doesn't sound like it is.


But that's no way to organize the workers to fight. The way to organize to feed hungry children is strikes for higher wages, plant seizures to put the unemployed back to work, and mass marches demanding relief from the government--regardless of who is in office.
How are these in any way mutually exclusive? On the contrary, workers having basic aspects of security can embolden them to fight. The OP included the example of Hamas, a fairly reactionary group which has made ample political headway with what you dismiss as "charity." Taking factories would be a nice revolutionary proposal but workers have immediate needs which must be resolved in the short term, like making sure that their kids can eat. Not ignoring that aspect is one thing which gives Social Democrats an edge over small radical sects politically speaking.



I suppose mass looting grocery of stores might be a possibility, but given that there are so many small shopkeepers in Greece who would be outraged and want to join Golden Dawn, probably not a good idea.

That and looting is unsustainable for obvious reasons. There's only so much rice to steal from the store shelf before the shopkeeper needs to buy more for people to loot.


To help people with tangible benefits right now requires--money. In a capitalist society, that's something the capitalists have and the workers don't. So you have to take it from them. Pretty elementary really.
Organizing requires money just as much as fixing people's immediate social and economic needs does.

[Positivist]

Really? As described, SYRIZA, instead of organizing the masses to fight against capitalist austerity measures ... is using SYRIZA funds for charity relief, like the Salvation Army or a church, and trying to arrange some volunteer doctoring for poor children.

In prep for when they get the government, at which point they hope to throw a little money into New Deal style social welfare measures, I guess to be funded by loans from the EU once they capitulate to the bankers loan terms.

This isn't organizing the poor, this is charity to the poor from their social betters. Very much the "bourgeois" party of the nature of a bourgeois workers party.

-M.H.-

I am not familiar enough with SYRIZA to know there intentions, but I do believe that aiding the poor is integral to organizing them.

First of all, the contemporary party strategy of waiting for the masses to come to you is tremendously ineffiecient. That being recognized, a different strategy is needed. The best alternative I can possibly imagine is reaching out to the exploited in their exploitation. This means approaching working communities and supporting them in their struggles, while simultaneously educating them as to what the causes of their suffering is, and organizing them to abolish it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I am not familiar enough with SYRIZA to know there intentions, but I do believe that aiding the poor is integral to organizing them.

First of all, the contemporary party strategy of waiting for the masses to come to you is tremendously ineffiecient. That being recognized, a different strategy is needed. The best alternative I can possibly imagine is reaching out to the exploited in their exploitation. This means approaching working communities and supporting them in their struggles, while simultaneously educating them as to what the causes of their suffering is, and organizing them to abolish it.

This article appeared in the Weekly Worker:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/922/the-appeal-of-syriza

I'll reproduce the full article and hopefully submit an Alternative Culture letter later.

[A Marxist Historian]

Wow, you pose the usual economistic "alternatives" to Alternative Culture as a means of politicizing the class.

Aternative culture isn't really a means to politicize the class, it's an alternative to politicizing the class.

http://www.amazon.com/German-Social-Democracy-1905-1917-Development/dp/0674351258/ref=la_B001H6SPQM_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342554692&sr=1-2

Long ago, cultural historian Carl Schorske explained how the extremely well-developed and widespread network of alternative cultural institutions developed by Second International parties, especially in Germany, served to pacify the German proletariat and distract it from revolutionary struggle.

This is not to say that alternative culture can't have a subordinate place in a revolutionary movement--but only as long as it is clearly subordinate.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Workers have immediate needs which must be met too. I imagine many workers in this situation would have a hard time understanding why this is such a bad thing. If this were the full extent of SYRIZA's organization you'd have a point but it doesn't sound like it is.

How are these in any way mutually exclusive? On the contrary, workers having basic aspects of security can embolden them to fight. The OP included the example of Hamas, a fairly reactionary group which has made ample political headway with what you dismiss as "charity." Taking factories would be a nice revolutionary proposal but workers have immediate needs which must be resolved in the short term, like making sure that their kids can eat. Not ignoring that aspect is one thing which gives Social Democrats an edge over small radical sects politically speaking.

And how did Hamas get the money to do these things? Because it was sponsored by Saudia Arabia, and originally encouraged by Israel as an alternative to the PLO.

You want to do big scale charity work, you have to get the money somewhere, and the ruling classes have it and we don't. So you, ultimately, have to do their bidding.

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

And how can SYRIZA pay for big scale charity? Clear from original posting. They get elected to office and pay it from tax revenues. And, presumably, loans from the EU bankers.

To do this, they have to be acceptable to the EU. So...



That and looting is unsustainable for obvious reasons. There's only so much rice to steal from the store shelf before the shopkeeper needs to buy more for people to loot.

Organizing requires money just as much as fixing people's immediate social and economic needs does.

Yes, money helps, but broke poor and working people have managed one way or another to organize themselves to fight without the ruling class money necessary for charity work for the masses. They've even staged revolutions and overthrown the ruling classes.

Meanwhile, you have revolutionary charity work, not for the masses as a whole, that's hopeless, just trying to ladle out the oceans of capitalist misery with teaspoons, but for those engaged in struggle right now, on strike and cut off from any income other than outside help.

Like the striking steelworkers in Greece. The steel strike is the most important class battle going on in Greece now, the strikers need money.

So if you want to do this kind of thing, send them money. Your own, or collect it from your friends and organizations you belong to. And they could make useful to them political campaigns out of collecting for the Greek steelworkers.

Here's a link to an article about their struggle, including how to send them money.

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1005/greek-steel.html

-M.H.-

[Die Neue Zeit]

Aternative culture isn't really a means to politicize the class, it's an alternative to politicizing the class.

On the contrary, it is a most excellent means to disseminate political messages and start political discussions.


Long ago, cultural historian Carl Schorske explained how the extremely well-developed and widespread network of alternative cultural institutions developed by Second International parties, especially in Germany, served to pacify the German proletariat and distract it from revolutionary struggle.

The only "dark side" of Alternative Culture originally was the obvious top-down stuff: http://www.revleft.com/vb/proletarian-demographic-minorities-t155191/index.html (see the very first link in that thread).


This is not to say that alternative culture can't have a subordinate place in a revolutionary movement--but only as long as it is clearly subordinate.

Um, if anything else, you should be criticizing Alternative Culture for having been subordinated already! See, all that stuff eventually became subordinated to the leadership of the parliamentary fraction, and this, when combined with cozying to tred-iunionisty, was a recipe for disaster.


And how did Hamas get the money to do these things? Because it was sponsored by Saudia Arabia, and originally encouraged by Israel as an alternative to the PLO.

You want to do big scale charity work, you have to get the money somewhere, and the ruling classes have it and we don't. So you, ultimately, have to do their bidding.

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

And how can SYRIZA pay for big scale charity? Clear from original posting. They get elected to office and pay it from tax revenues. And, presumably, loans from the EU bankers.

To do this, they have to be acceptable to the EU. So...

Workers aren't dirt-poor, you know. There's also membership dues. Political support isn't worth much without the clout of membership dues.

As for SYRIZA, I don't think Greek law allows them to use campaign finance money for Alternative Culture stuff, and I'm sure EU loans are out of the question. The funds come from dues and, if existent, "party taxes" on legislators, media revenues, etc.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Workers aren't dirt-poor, you know.

Fuck off.

All this boils down to is a re-distribution then, from workers' pockets to charity doled out by the party. Can anybody else see the folly here, and the potential for abuse of power/money? :rolleyes:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Funding cultural societies, recreational clubs, makeshift workers insurance, etc. isn't exactly "charity." My point stands.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Call it what you want, 'funding', 'grants', etc. if it's not a re-payable loan or invested capital in the production process, then it's a form of charity.

Your point doesn't stand, because you're so out of touch that you don't realise that on the ground, most working people, let alone the poorest who - despite your ridiculous protestations - are worse than 'dirt-poor', would rather put food on their tables and make sure their kids are healthy and clothed, than give money away to an insurance company, recreational club or so on.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

What do you even mean, 'cultural societies'? Do you really think your drab vision of a world in which workers look forward to doing the cultural bidding of the party - nay, pay for it too! - will ever come to fruition? Only under dictatorship mate, only under dictatorship. Any worker would be mad to vote for/enact your soulless, top-down girder-like vision of the future.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Call it what you want, 'funding', 'grants', etc. if it's not a re-payable loan or invested capital in the production process, then it's a form of charity.

Your point doesn't stand, because you're so out of touch that you don't realise that on the ground, most working people, let alone the poorest who - despite your ridiculous protestations - are worse than 'dirt-poor', would rather put food on their tables and make sure their kids are healthy and clothed, than give money away to an insurance company, recreational club or so on.

Many workers "give money" to recreational clubs, as club members. :confused:

The less well-off ones also give and take from food banks.


What do you even mean, 'cultural societies'? Do you really think your drab vision of a world in which workers look forward to doing the cultural bidding of the party - nay, pay for it too! - will ever come to fruition? Only under dictatorship mate, only under dictatorship. Any worker would be mad to vote for/enact your soulless, top-down girder-like vision of the future.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/proletarian-institutions-t168100/index.html?p=2364802

"Cultural societies can be as basic as choir, orchestra, band, other music groups."

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

But these things already exist, so why do you need to recreate them under the 'party' umbrella?

You pour scorn on hyper-activism all the time, yet here you are doing pointless double-counted work, when you could be doing proper political work. I say 'doing', I mean 'advocating other to do', because we all know you exist politically on the internet and nowhere else.

[Die Neue Zeit]

But these things already exist, so why do you need to recreate them under the 'party' umbrella?

Because they're a far more effective means of politicizing the class as a whole than today's agitation fetishes.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Because they're a far more effective means of politicizing the class as a whole than today's agitation fetishes.

How is the proletarian table tennis club or the under 18s proletarian baking club an effective means of politicising the class?

How can you call agitation a fetish? What do we do if we don't agitate? Without agitation we cannot organise. So we're just left to education. Which to you is presumably the utterly pointless intellectual masturbation you and seemingly the rest of the CPGB indulge in online.

[Die Neue Zeit]

How is the proletarian table tennis club or the under 18s proletarian baking club an effective means of politicising the class?

Because the organizers can initiate political discussions in those clubs?

Because they can do so overtly? [That is, up to the good or ill point of caricature that is Socialist Realism.]

Because they can also do so with subtlety? [Think of product placement and subliminal advertising, for a moment, but instead of consumer products, things like idle chat and histories of certain items used in the clubs.]


How can you call agitation a fetish? What do we do if we don't agitate? Without agitation we cannot organise. So we're just left to education.

First, Wilhelm Liebknecht's slogan was ordered "Educate! Agitate! Organize!" for a reason. Second, I have already written about how the left should agitate, as opposed to how it agitates right now. Too bad it's still stubborn about the potential of communication savvy / "charisma," (http://www.revleft.com/vb/labour-monarchy-strawmani-t172753/index.html) "demagoguery," (http://www.revleft.com/vb/one-born-every-t144497/index.html) and conspiracy theories (http://www.revleft.com/vb/religion-evil-article-t159465/index.html) to agitate even the most backward sections of the class.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Because the organizers can initiate political discussions in those clubs?

Because they can do so overtly? [That is, up to the good or ill point of caricature that is Socialist Realism.]

Because they can also do so with subtlety? [Think of product placement and subliminal advertising, for a moment, but instead of consumer products, things like idle chat and histories of certain items used in the clubs.]



a) do you really think that the domain for politics is in recreational clubs? You must be more out of touch than I thought already!

b) do you really think the difference between apathy and revolution is a boring political bloke turning up to a recreational club and trying to get everyone to do politics? :confused:

I seriously, seriously think you've either not thought this through, or have never actually attended a sports/social club and so do not understand that it is not the domain for the initiation of political discussion, in general (though this of course is not absolute!).

[Die Neue Zeit]

a) do you really think that the domain for politics is in recreational clubs?

Not exclusively, but one such domain exists there.

Here's a timely article linking this to the London Olympics by CPGB comrade Ben Lewis:

Doing it better than our enemy (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/924/doing-it-better-than-our-enemy) ("Many on the left see sport as nothing else than another way for the bosses to dupe the workers. Ben Lewis disagrees, and argues for a workers’ sport movement")

I or another comrade will post the full article over the weekend.

[A Marxist Historian]

Not exclusively, but one such domain exists there.

Here's a timely article linking this to the London Olympics by CPGB comrade Ben Lewis:

Doing it better than our enemy (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/924/doing-it-better-than-our-enemy) ("Many on the left see sport as nothing else than another way for the bosses to dupe the workers. Ben Lewis disagrees, and argues for a workers’ sport movement")

I or another comrade will post the full article over the weekend.

Actually workers sports clubs are great. They are marvelous training for picket line combat.

In America, union hit squads traditionally have often got disguised as "baseball clubs." Those bats have other uses...

And they teach military discipline, following orders from the "coach" at key moments.

In England, I suppose hockey fan clubs might work. Cricket is too damn bourgeois and civilized. Now rugby...

The true American method is of course union sponsored NRA chapters.

-M.H.-

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ You almost hit a nerve with me by mentioning union-sponsored NRA chapters. Did you read my anti-councilist polemic recently on workers' paramilitias?

[A Marxist Historian]

^^^ You almost hit a nerve with me by mentioning union-sponsored NRA chapters. Did you read my anti-councilist polemic recently on workers' paramilitias?

Haven't seen that one. As a general proposition, any military body needs leadership based on talent. Elected officers are great for breaking down a bourgeois military unit on behalf of the proletariat, but to be effective in combat, the elective principle at the unit level doesn't work well, rather commanders need to be selected by the workers collectively, not in decentralized unit by unit fashion.

But in a bureaucratically dominated, nondemocratic union (or, putting the same thing another way, 99.9% of unions these days) at least if you elect the paramilitia captains you are less likely to have a gutless wonder in charge.

Better an inexperienced honest worker than an experienced cut and run artist. McClellan was a brilliant commander in the Civil War, but he didn't want to fight...

-M.H.-

[Die Neue Zeit]

Haven't seen that one.

You should have it with you.