Originally posted by
[email protected] 19 2004, 12:30 AM
Well, it's a "tough call"...
There's little question that a "unified left" would have a significantly greater impact than the scattered groups and isolated individuals that exist now.
OK... Now that we've gotten past the obvious...
;P
But efforts at even partial unity often founder...because there's no set of "left ideas" that clearly predominates over any other -- that acts as a kind of "focus".
For example, consider the matter of electoral politics (any form: running candidates, supporting candidates, voting, etc.).
But what do you mean by "unity", exactly?
IMO the biggest problem with people's attitudes to united fronts and coming together stems from assumptions that 'coming together' means 'being stuck together'. Like a bad marriage. Like in a party or an electoral coalition.
A united front, as I understand it, is instead little more than a "coalition of the willing", actually. The whole point of a united front is AFAIK to make possible the loose federation of disparate, heterodox elements behind some common (often single) goal -- which they can agree to. The whole point is to not get bogged-down in just these very "gotchas". Of course we all want more -- but where do you start??
FI, one of the basic ideas we would all agree on is that capitalism must go. This would IMO scare away many pacifist, liberal types (if not immediately, then down the road, as what this means becomes clear to them) -- which would be just fine with me.
I would be regarded as an "ultra-leftist" on this question -- I think the only relationship that revolutionaries should have to bourgeois "elections" is one of relentlessly attacking them as fake!
It would therefore be unprincipled of me to "unite" with those who are still spreading illusions about capitalist "democracy".
FI where I would stand in relation to you on this is:
We'd both agree that bourgeois "democracy" and it's parliamentary institutions should be relentlessly attacked as decrepit, and in dire need of being replaced immediately by socialist democracy. No strategic alliances with bourgeois parties. Ever.
As regards our possible differences on the use of the present bourgeois institutions:
They are there, and need to be used as a platform for 'spreading the good word'; so electing deputies whose only job is to help bring about the dissolution of the institutions they are in (besides protecting and advancing workers' interests best they can in the chamber), is not antithetical to your stance IMO. We would make it ultra-clear to everyone that this was not support of the system -- but merely arranging a chance to grab at the microphone on the platform. We'd be a hostile camp forcing our way into a tense little pow-wow.
But such a situation would require a sustained, highly organized effort -- which is not what a united front is about AFAIK.
And it should be made clear again that a united front is absolutely not about "being inclusive". That's bourgeois pacifist claptrap. If we are in a socialist united front, there is a minimum program we adhere to, which is shorn of all things bourgeois. The only thing complicating this would be the inclusion of the petit-bourgeois currents who would naturally -- and logically -- be attracted to it, regardless of their fast-fading present bourgeois delusions.
But some of the people who agree with me about this also think of revolution as an event that has as its primary purpose the achievement of state power for their own particular Leninist sect.
And there's no way I want to be involved in that shit!
So who would put up with that in a united front?
I think if you look carefully at the left, you'll find all kinds of situations like mine...the details will be different but these conflicts exist all over the place over all kinds of issues.
The whole point of this thread.
So, at best, I think significant unity on the left awaits the development of a coherent set of ideas about what it means to be left in the first place.
And, of greatest concern to me, what it means to be a revolutionary left.
Are we going to sit around forever, waiting for the marxist Godot?
The very idea of the united front is to break this very "praxis logjam", where none of us moves forward, because the organization for our movement is not in existence yet; yet to get to that level of organization, we must first move..!
Which IMO means we're back to simply trying to agree on the lowest common denominator as a first baby step -- and this is the essence of what "united front" means AFAIK. Otherwise we are basically reduced to just sitting back and waiting for the moment when millions of people finally -- spontaneously -- take to the streets; and take our chances with every lunatic current also vying for power in that chaos.