Revolution or Academics?

[Guest1]

A schism haunts the left, will continue to come to the fore the more it builds and must be fought at every step. This is not simply a question of divergent views, but a question of deeply ingrained frameworks. Beginning with the same material and objective world, and superficially at least, the same basic ideology, these two methods lead to inevitably irreconcilable general conclusions on the most important questions. It is the difference between stale academic analysis and living revolutionary analysis. From the core issues of organization, methods and tactics, to the pressing issue of making a reasoned judgment of our position in the world today, our work is characterized by an inability to rise to the task.

The key problem facing us today is a lack of real experience to draw from. As revolutionaries, we pride ourselves on our values, but have very little real-world organizational work to show for it. Until recently, this was an expression of very real conditions; the collapse of the Soviet Union amongst other causes ushered in an era of “social peace”. Of course, in practice this meant an era of retreat and loss after loss to reactionary forces. A quick overview of conditions told us that we were alone, isolated, and the world was not ready for our ideas.

A deeper analysis however, reveals otherwise even in the period of reaction and the decline of the left. Across the world we could draw today on historical examples in this period that hinted at revolutionary potential, outbreaks of the war in every society, glazed over by the mood of the times and betrayed by the bureaucrats that reflected it.

Overall however, workers’ organizations became dormant, union membership and attendance sunk to historic levels, and as result a backward bureaucracy rose to leadership positions everywhere. This bureaucracy had the effect of restraining, diverting and sabotaging every expression of working class solidarity. At every step, betrayal was their game.

Today, after a long period of retreat, we are beginning to see a reversal. Right wing bureaucrats are in fact being removed, first to be replaced by “centrists”, then by far left wingers. The mood in the ranks has changed, and the leadership increasingly finds they must adjust to the new mood or jump ship while they can. Most are choosing instead to fight to the bitter end, but are easily swept aside by a newly awakened and active class.

This is beginning to leave its marks on the labour parties as well, parties whose history is intrinsically entwined with that of the unions and who in practice are an extension of the unions; should the unions choose to exercise that power. For years, the labour parties have had free reign to feign being a regular bourgeois party and the right wing bureaucracy of the unions had no quarrel with the 3rd way factions. Today however, they are beginning to see a reversal of their fortunes. In Britain, the 3rd way is thoroughly dead, and a rank and file revival is in the works. In Canada, one section of the NDP is attempting to break away from unions entirely to avoid the coming storm.

Battle lines are being drawn. There will be losses as well as victories, but huge gains are being made overall. Yet even amongst the revolutionaries, changes in leadership will be necessary. Our revolutionaries today are mostly academic, and stale, relics of a reactionary era. They remain in that era, even as the world around them changes yet again and revolutionary energy rumbles beneath the surface. They see none of it, and participate in nothing. The unions to them are dead, as they may have been for a while. The labour parties are poisoned, so they were for a period. Social democratic parties do not participate in socialist revolutions, so is the conventional wisdom. They have waited long for the opportunity that history would provide them, and now fail to meet it.

There are of course, new revolutionaries, those built in the battles themselves. Fighting the bureaucrats, organizing the unions, they have seen the advancing front first hand and understand the class dynamic truly as a question of war. Two sides, one side may be disoriented and retreat for a while, but if it can remove the 5th column from its ranks and reorganize it can still win the war. They also understand the concept of revolutionary momentum. Victory may not be imminent, but every small victory brings us closer and reinvigorates our forces, encouraging them to fight harder.

There is no reconciling these two perspectives. Either the old, dusty ideas are exposed to the battle and tested, or the old comrades become useless and a fetter on our progress. An academic will tell you revolution is hundreds of years away, that Venezuela signals nothing but the beginning of Capitalism in South America. A revolutionary will tell you that men and women make their own history within the circumstances provided by history, and the circumstances have been blown wide open yet again. We are entering a revolutionary period the world over, no doubt about it. Will we be organized and ready to take up our tasks when we meet it, or will we continue with the mindset of defeat, debating on what a perfect revolution is for the rest of our lives and making no effort to help build one?

[More Fire for the People]

Excellent polemic comrade, but I do not believe the CC is the right place for this post.

[Guest1]

I've made it known that I wish to open some theory debates here, where a higher standard can be applied.

[TC]

The problem isn\'t a lack of ideas, eithe revolutionary or academic, its a lack of meaningful action and revolutionary ideas should be geared to determining the most effective, efficent way do take revolutionary action.

as it is most ideas and theory by self styled revolutionaries are justifications as to why revolutionary action can be avoided at the current time. Leftist organizations are more concerned with justifying their own existance, building themselves for its own sake while acting as nothing much more than a social group like a book club, rather than in what they can do to cause meaningful change.

[More Fire for the People]

I actually think that the problems of Marxism are that we've completely ignored the word 'aufheben'. Any attempt to start up again needs to re-analyze theory and put it into action.

[Guest1]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2006, 04:10 PM
The problem isn\'t a lack of ideas, eithe revolutionary or academic, its a lack of meaningful action and revolutionary ideas should be geared to determining the most effective, efficent way do take revolutionary action.
That was exactly my point though, this isn't about just ideas per se, but about a different framework. If you're getting your hands dirty and involved in organizing, your ideas naturally flow from that experience, how to achieve your goals, what works and what doesn't. If you're a spectator, then you're bound to be no more than an academic.

[Reuben]

i think that Che y Marajuana raises some extremely important points and is especially to draw attention to the failure of the Left to get involved in mainsteam workers movements, in social democratic parties and trade unions. Arguably much of the left is afflicted by a kind of quasi-idealism - a sense that the perfect pamphlet, the perfect marxist line, the purist organisation will be sufficient to bring about social progress. The reality is that the truly important progressive movements emerge out of the organisations that workers themselves set up and organise within. This is why it is so ridiculous that more purist revolutionary parties have a tendency to brand my tendency Socialist Appeal (http://www.marxist.com) Labourites because we see fit to organise within the Labour party.

Revolutionaries need to be able to not simply fantasise about the perfect revolutionary movement but also have the capacity to work progressively in relation to the imperfect, not-yet-revolutionary movements that do come about.


I am extremely interested in Che y Marajuana's historical analysis as to hwo the current chracter of theleft has developed.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by CyM
Will we be organized and ready to take up our tasks when we meet it, or will we continue with the mindset of defeat, debating on what a perfect revolution is for the rest of our lives and making no effort to help build one?
Certainly I think we will be organized, and I fail to see much of this 'mindset of defeat', not here at least. It is my belief, and we'll see if I'm right, that the anti-capitalist left is beginning to generally increase in size, and that it will continue to increase in size.

However, what you and the other socialists usually fail to realize is that your socialist tactics of organization are actually not the only ones in existence. When an anarchist speaks on the subject of organization, a large amount of socialists usually come in and say the usual--something along the lines of 'anarchist organization is an oxymoron'--or some other hilarious joke that I've heard already.

It is very well and good that the socialists disagree with anarchists on this matter--that is to be expected. And I can assure you that most anarchists likewise disagree with conventional socialist tactics of organization (I will not begin a discussion on 'what these are', because everyone knows what they are).

I probably sound hostile, but I apologize, because it is not my aim (the anarchist-socialist debate is old and tiresome, and I have no wish to start one here). I am merely pointing out that there is more than one way to cook an omelet. Perhaps there is also more than one way to cook a revolution, so to speak.

So will we be organized? I am confident we will be, however, this organization may take a form very much different than the one you and other socialists assume.

[Guest1]

This was not an anarchism vs. marxism debate. The platformists use tactics that I genuinely believe to be a model, despite my differences with them. This was about sideline theorists. Those who advocate staying away from organizations that have accomplished much, beginning anew no matter what the situation around you is.

I don't believe in barking theory from the sideline, and it's shown that it yields, quite simply, stale ideas and study circles. It's a strategy that ensures that even some of the greatest minds simply cannot keep up with the actual situation on the ground, because they have absolutely no contact with the ground. How are you to draw dramatic conclusions about the potential and the correct tactics to use in worker organizing or even student organizing if you're not on the ground fighting that battle in the workplace, the unions or the campus?

No matter how old or how young, every one of us should be in contact, whether it's by keeping in touch with an organization of our choice (or joining it), or by being involved with the leftist milieu in a union, a student union or a larger national federation. At every level amongst student unions here in quebec for example, a battle is being fought to replace the bureaucrats who have betrayed the building wave of student activism and strikes. I'm working with people at Concordia University, along with the people that prevented Netanyahu from speaking in 2002, to ensure a left victory there. I'm also working in the college I go to, Dawson, which is the largest college in Quebec, to organize a left faction and lay the groundwork for a campus network beginning with these two campuses.

Is that going to bring about the revolution? No. Is it something important? Yes, organizing the left amongst students in Quebec can strengthen the already strong ties between students' unions and workers' unions. Meaning the next general strike could easily include a students' general strike, and Quebec is not short on those recently.

Anarchist or Marxist, we can all find an organizing role we're comfortable with. What I want is all of us to understand that our ideas are only worth it if they've been tested. So every one of us should be involved at some level, or else be careful about how we respond to the organizing efforts of others. Criticize objectively, how much has actually been accomplished is the question that should be underlined in the end.

[Axel1917]

I agree with this. You cannot participate in and help out a revolution if you just sit around and do not get involved. Too many people tend to do this. If they refuse to paticipate, then there will be no choice but for those of us that are revolutionary to build up cadres. I am getting more involved with the US section of the CMI/IMT, the WIL.

[Guest1]

I think this is an important issue to discuss, and I'm disappointed that there aren't more people participating.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 12 2006, 09:27 PM
I think this is an important issue to discuss, and I'm disappointed that there aren't more people participating.
I agree. I find it odd that, even if they would act in such a maner, that they would not come to at least make a defence. We are talking about important things here. Revolutionaries don't sit around all day reading books and going on the Internet. They must get invovled in workers' movements and such. As Engels stated, an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory.

[PRC-UTE]

If Che y Marijuana means that more actual knowledge of praxis comes from activism rather than discussion divorced from action, I completely agree.

I think CyM is onto something here, I'd also like to see the various labels and sects become less important as the focus becomes a straight question of whether you're for working class power or not. Let's hammer out the more specific questions of theory as we struggle.

It begins with correctly reading our current situation and prospects, and then building our structures and 'red base' within the masses.

[Guest1]

I'd actually be interested in hearing something from Redstar on this.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana+--> (Che y Marijuana) I'd actually be interested in hearing something from Redstar on this.[/b]

It's kind of an old lament; "if only people would do what I think should be done, then immense progress would be made."

Well, maybe...and maybe not. When people ask us to "do something revolutionary" then what can you say to a well-grounded theoretical argument that what you're asking people to do ain't really all that "revolutionary".

You can ask people to write you a "blank check" all you wish...but people who grow up in a capitalist society know better than to do that.

Consider the proposition that "we are entering into a revolutionary period".

Is that true? Well, it might be. What happens if you act "as if" that's true only it turns out not to be true?

Leninist parties have a long unhappy history of "sounding the wake-up alarm" when nothing happened at all. What happens when you "get people's hopes up" and end disappointing them?

Another Leninist old recipe that is hinted at in this thread: it's possible for communists to participate in "mainstream" (non-communist) organizations and by "winning positions of leadership" "transform" those organizations into "forces for revolution".

Is that true? Does that ever really happen in "real life"? Historically, I think what happens to communists who adopt this strategy is that they cease to be communists.

They have to "soften" their talk about communist ideas in order to win popularity. And that's what they end up doing, sooner or later.


TragicClown
s it is most ideas and theory by self styled revolutionaries are justifications as to why revolutionary action can be avoided at the current time. Leftist organizations are more concerned with justifying their own existance, building themselves for its own sake while acting as nothing much more than a social group like a book club, rather than in what they can do to cause meaningful social change

What can a small conscious minority do to "cause" meaningful social change?

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[bolshevik butcher]

Well red star how about presenting their analysis in a broader area such as a trade union, and trying to organise among the rank and file working class rather than just setting up another small 'pure' marxist sect which is what I have expirienced many advoacting on the left. I agree with what cym has written here, there is a serious lack of activity among many on the active left and worse than that people get put down for being active and it is the norm for many to say 'they are waiting for something to kick off' or that 'all organisations are shit', how can someone possibly expect a revolution to come about if the revolutionaries are not out trying to increase class consciousness and are not involved activley.

[Guest1]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 09:53 AM
It's kind of an old lament; "if only people would do what I think should be done, then immense progress would be made."
Same one you make with every post, it's natural when you have an idea to wish others to agree. Not really a valid attack to cite something we all do every day :lol:


Well, maybe...and maybe not. When people ask us to "do something revolutionary" then what can you say to a well-grounded theoretical argument that what you're asking people to do ain't really all that "revolutionary".
Well, the argument I was making was that a theoretical argument on a practical issue can only go so far. It's the experiences on the ground, the history of organizing (be it Anarchist or Marxist) that those before us went through that are most valuable in making those kinds of judgement calls.


You can ask people to write you a "blank check" all you wish...but people who grow up in a capitalist society know better than to do that.

Consider the proposition that "we are entering into a revolutionary period".

Is that true? Well, it might be. What happens if you act "as if" that's true only it turns out not to be true?
Then you fucked up, and made a statement that wasn't true. You don't make such a claim without a thorough investigation of the objective situation in all the continents over the decades.

Looking at France, Greece, Canada, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Venezuela, Bolivia, China, Nepal, India, all of which have experienced levels of activity unprecedented in the last 10, 20, 30 years. The story in countries around them is no different, wherever we go, we see not merely a reactionary bourgeoisie who can clearly lead no longer, but also a left-wing movement in the midst of rebirth.

Labour is on the move again, all that you need to see that is to pick the country of your choice and make a comparison with the last 30 years. Are revolutionary conclusions being drawn everywhere? No, of course not, but large-scale battles are beginning, battles that are opportunities for revolutionaries to have a voice.


Leninist parties have a long unhappy history of "sounding the wake-up alarm" when nothing happened at all. What happens when you "get people's hopes up" and end disappointing them?
Then you messed up, and somehow "sounded the alarm" as you put it, that labour is reawakening when strikes are on a trend downwards and the left is turning right.

That's not the case. Everywhere, labour is picking up steam with more strike activity, particularly sweeping general strikes compared to the last period, and this activity is intensifying on the whole, not abating. On the left, we are beginning to see revolutionary and semi-revolutionary trends forming within the leaderships of trade unions, student unions as well as parties controlled by them. Not merely forming, but becoming a major force. That battle has to be resolved one way or the other, but the continuing radicalization of the union rank and file does not bode well for the right of the leadership.


Another Leninist old recipe that is hinted at in this thread: it's possible for communists to participate in "mainstream" (non-communist) organizations and by "winning positions of leadership" "transform" those organizations into "forces for revolution".
It's not about simply winning positions of leadership, and the word "mainstream" is not a correct one to use. The argument is that clearly, the majority of workers are not communist. Does that mean we don't engage them? We don't help them organize because they are not members of the sect?

That's a betrayal of the revolution, and of the class.

It's essential for our work, to enter the unions and attempt to win over the rank and file while marching with them and fighting the bosses together.

When you win positions of leadership, it's usually a good sign the organization's already radically changed. A communist rarely gets elected at the head of a union federation, let alone without a massive revival and radicalization of the rank and file.

At that point, all that's left to do is for the organized revolutionaries to push forward their ideas, and help prepare the class for the battles it will face.


Is that true? Does that ever really happen in "real life"? Historically, I think what happens to communists who adopt this strategy is that they cease to be communists.
Socialists stay where labour moves and shakes, help organize it, and point out the best way forward and the connection between the specific battles and the general battle for socialism.

Historically, despite your assertion, organized revolutionaries (not individuals) who enter the unions have had good levels of success in pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods. Spain, France, Germany, Britain, are just a few examples.


They have to "soften" their talk about communist ideas in order to win popularity. And that's what they end up doing, sooner or later.
Then they go about it the wrong way, leadership positions are important but not the beginning and end of their work in the unions and the labour parties. Opening up the opportunity for a change in leadership on our terms means organizing and radicalizing the rank and file.

You don't just jump into an inactive bureaucratic union, and be elected as a bureaucrat on an empty platform. The change of leadership has to be a part of a greater reinvigoration of the union at the base.


What can a small conscious minority do to "cause" meaningful social change?
Make a bigger "small conscious minority", not by just recruiting people over the internet, but by working with the active workers and students to win their battles in the factories and the universities, and winning them over to our ideas in that way.

The advanced layers respect your organizational abilities on the ground more than your ability to draw castles in the sky, but have a natural understanding of class, even if it is not entirely conscious. Their activity puts them head-to-head with the boss every day so they're more inclined towards revolutionary ideas.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jun 15 2006, 01:53 PM--> (redstar2000 @ Jun 15 2006, 01:53 PM)
Originally posted by Che y [email protected]
I'd actually be interested in hearing something from Redstar on this.

It's kind of an old lament; "if only people would do what I think should be done, then immense progress would be made."

Well, maybe...and maybe not. When people ask us to "do something revolutionary" then what can you say to a well-grounded theoretical argument that what you're asking people to do ain't really all that "revolutionary".

You can ask people to write you a "blank check" all you wish...but people who grow up in a capitalist society know better than to do that.

Consider the proposition that "we are entering into a revolutionary period".

Is that true? Well, it might be. What happens if you act "as if" that's true only it turns out not to be true?

Leninist parties have a long unhappy history of "sounding the wake-up alarm" when nothing happened at all. What happens when you "get people's hopes up" and end disappointing them?

Another Leninist old recipe that is hinted at in this thread: it's possible for communists to participate in "mainstream" (non-communist) organizations and by "winning positions of leadership" "transform" those organizations into "forces for revolution".

Is that true? Does that ever really happen in "real life"? Historically, I think what happens to communists who adopt this strategy is that they cease to be communists.

They have to "soften" their talk about communist ideas in order to win popularity. And that's what they end up doing, sooner or later.


TragicClown
s it is most ideas and theory by self styled revolutionaries are justifications as to why revolutionary action can be avoided at the current time. Leftist organizations are more concerned with justifying their own existance, building themselves for its own sake while acting as nothing much more than a social group like a book club, rather than in what they can do to cause meaningful social change

What can a small conscious minority do to "cause" meaningful social change?

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif [/b]
CyM has already made a good deal of points that I had intended to make, but I must ask you: what has sitting behind that computer all day done for the movement? I don't recall people helping out revolutions just by sitting around and not entering unions, parliaments, etc.

[peaccenicked]

The current situation is bereft of actual analysis. The obsession with the subjective now of what we can do, what we cant do, what is the point of going on is mildly amusing.


What we are living through is unprecedented in its scale of horror, to be alarmist in this situation amounts to ordinary good manners and decency.

What we are witnessing is the escalation of barbarism. This is what Marx predicted.


"Horror upon horror"

How do we measure this horror?

Is it by the treatment of children and women throughout the world?
Is it by the amount of deaths by war, disease and hunger?
Or is it by the shallowness of media coverage of world events?
Or by the disorganisation of the left?

Another thing Marx predicted was the increased pauperisation of the proletariat.

How do we measure poverty?

Is it by the number of cars in a US household?
Is it by the decimation of cities and towns in Iraq?
Is it by the number of charity workers throughout the world?
Or is it in the poor disorganised thinking on the left?

Another thing I would look at from Marx is his view that a society will pass through all its potentialities(or words to that effect). It is this observation that allows to look at what we need to look at and that is namely the world historical process.

This will give us a starting point, as forms of organisation at this point have little relevence. What we need and indeed what we have is political content that is what is in everybodies heads.

The class struggle contains the movement of this political content.

The historical world process has rarely been a subject matter. Rarely do we have a discussion of Engels writings on Morgan or Marx's "Grundisse". We find something of it in Lenin's "State and Revolution" which anarchists assure me is propagandistic.
Nevertheless, it is a part of the discussion.

Without looking at the teleology of humanities history, how on earth are we to think at all?

To cut to the chase we have not developed this conversation, instead we are prone to respond to events armed with slogans or formulae.



If we did have this conversation, we would be able to look at the fundamental directions of history more closely.
What was anamolous about the USSR?
How did these anamolies help to create a modern unipolar power?

Is this development a departure from the evolutionary models of previous theoriticians?

These are the theoretical questions communists should be thinking about, it is at the very root of our history and our relations to the world.

We could find ourselves living in a time warp, if we dont apply the modern world
to Marx and other enabling theories. Our job is to clarify our world outlook and to bring others to confident erudition of that expression.


This is not about promoting a singular point of view but a neccessary discussion, for humanity in general .

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Axel1917+--> (Axel1917)but I must ask you: what has sitting behind that computer all day done for the movement? I don't[/b]

Hopefully, I've really discouraged a few people from getting sucked into reformist traps...wasting their time and energy on "parliaments", for example.

If anyone here works in a place that is unionized, it would be obviously foolish not to sign up and pay your dues. But I hope you do not imagine that the mere act of being in a union or even organizing one is going to "lead to revolution".

That only happens in countries where unions are effectively illegal.

Since a lot of people here are students, I would strongly encourage the ones who live in the U.S. to get involved with the new SDS that has recently re-emerged. It looks very promising in my opinion.


Originally posted by Che y Marijuana+--> (Che y Marijuana)The argument is that clearly, the majority of workers are not communist. Does that mean we don't engage them? We don't help them organize because they are not members of the sect?[/b]
"Engage"? Sell them a newspaper??? Hand them a leaflet? Working people show up all over the political and news boards on the internet; I argue with them all the time...so in that sense I "engage" with them.

I do expect workers to organize themselves and I have little faith in those who plan to "do it for them". But if you want to "help them organize", then no one is stopping you from doing that.


Well, the argument I was making was that a theoretical argument on a practical issue can only go so far. It either makes sense or it doesn't.

Good theory obviously draws heavily on real world experience. If groups have attempted strategy X and have uniformly ended up in the toilet and a coherent theoretical explanation can be developed as to why the outcome was so bad, then that looks to me like a genuine step forward.


Socialists stay where labour moves and shakes, help organize it, and point out the best way forward and the connection between the specific battles and the general battle for socialism. Lots of lefties have tried to do that...without much to show for their efforts except demoralization and a sense of futility.

Were they all "fuckups"? Or "class traitors"? Or operating with some really bad theory? The kind that suggests that we can "fix things" so that capitalism is "not so bad".


Clenched [email protected]
how can someone possibly expect a revolution to come about if the revolutionaries are not out trying to increase class consciousness and are not involved actively? IF Marx was right, then class consciousness arises inevitably in the course of the normal operation of the capitalist system...it's not something that has to be "brought to" the working class.


Che y Marijuana
The advanced layers respect your organizational abilities on the ground more than your ability to draw castles in the sky... Meaning that they'll happily put you in charge because of your demonstrated "competence"?

Well, maybe they will...you'll have to hope that none of them find their way to my site. :lol:

The substance of your argument seems to be that people "are looking for communist leadership" and that people here are unwilling to offer themselves for that function...right?

Well, you have a point...people here are unwilling to be "leaders" of the type you think necessary. There is a sound theoretical reason for that reluctance...followership historically has not promoted proletarian revolution, much less communism. If we want to encourage rebelliousness among the workers, we must lead by example.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[peaccenicked]

The working class are not blank slates to be written on, either are they homogenous. They are defined merely by their social relationship to the employing class and this takes on many shapes or forms depending on function bearing in mind that unemployment serves a function for capitalism. Consciousness is multi-layered, but social, much of it is determined by specific indiviual experience.

The question seems to be "How do the working class realise it own interests?"
Is it on their own or with leadership?

This question then generally shifts to "Does anyone need told what to do or take orders?"

Do we need hierarchical structures?

How do we maintain political security?

These questions are empty. There is nothing to analyse merely an exercise in good or bad examples.

What does it matter how tight or how loose a structure is in theory.

What does matter if there are no orders to be followed, if there is not a military war.

What does it matter if workers are self educated or being educated by some so called 'leader'; if no one is actually any questions about the history of labour movement theory and how and if it relates to present day circumstances, must we swim in our own puddles forever?

[Guest1]

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+Jun 16 2006, 04:31 AM--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ Jun 16 2006, 04:31 AM) But, to return the question: What use are you to the revolution if you are peddling mystical ideas, ones that have presided over 120 odd years of failure? [/b]
I think it&#39;s time for you to stop derailing this thread. <_< Can&#39;t you talk about anything else?


redstar2000
Hopefully, I&#39;ve really discouraged a few people from getting sucked into reformist traps...wasting their time and energy on "parliaments", for example.

If anyone here works in a place that is unionized, it would be obviously foolish not to sign up and pay your dues. But I hope you do not imagine that the mere act of being in a union or even organizing one is going to "lead to revolution".

That only happens in countries where unions are effectively illegal.
You&#39;re very impatient, eh? If it doesn&#39;t bring the second-coming, fuck it, right? Everything&#39;s gotta be perfect, or it&#39;s useless.

Yes, organizing a union is not going to directly, or alone, lead to a revolution. But it certainly does play a role. Putting the unions in the hands of the more radical elements of the class prepares them as an effective weapon of the class.

Afterall, every revolution begins with seizing the means of production, what better tool to coordinate that than one used to shut them down on a national scale?


Since a lot of people here are students, I would strongly encourage the ones who live in the U.S. to get involved with the new SDS that has recently re-emerged. It looks very promising in my opinion.
Sure, why not? But as far as I can tell, the new SDS has no ideological bent. It&#39;s a vague left organization.

In otherwords, it seeks to be one of those mass organizations you hate so much :o It&#39;s not going to lead to revolution on its own, oh no&#33;

However, I do believe people should enter it, precisely because there is nothing fulfilling that function at the moment, so it could become a critical tool for organized communists to use.


"Engage"? Sell them a newspaper??? Hand them a leaflet? Working people show up all over the political and news boards on the internet; I argue with them all the time...so in that sense I "engage" with them.
Haha, sell them a newspaper, good one. No, I mean organize or help organize the strike, and use that to point to the general exploitation of capitalism.

People will be more open to listening, their respect for you comes from your ability to do something for them.


I do expect workers to organize themselves and I have little faith in those who plan to "do it for them". But if you want to "help them organize", then no one is stopping you from doing that.
"Do it for them". What the hell does that mean exactly?


It either makes sense or it doesn&#39;t.

Good theory obviously draws heavily on real world experience. If groups have attempted strategy X and have uniformly ended up in the toilet and a coherent theoretical explanation can be developed as to why the outcome was so bad, then that looks to me like a genuine step forward.
Well, several explanations for the same phenomenon may sound coherent and be internally consistant. Does that make all of them right? No, it makes some of them disconnected from the material conditions and some of us too eager to draw conclusions without actually looking at the real movement of historical events.

The question shouldn&#39;t simply be "what went wrong", a question you haven&#39;t answered, but it should also be "what do we do now". Instead of just telling people unions are bad, the parties of the unions are bad, etc... Where exactly do you think at this stage their time is best spent?

You can&#39;t really give a proper answer except to say, oh, these kids who just did this look cool. You don&#39;t look at what has worked and what hasn&#39;t, you don&#39;t look at the rise and fall of the left, you look only at the fall. So yes, we fell, but we also rose. Was it a legitimate strategy if it got us up there? Should we maybe consider how to adjust, rather than dump it?

You can&#39;t give an answer, because you don&#39;t care. To you, revolution is 400 years away, and even if it wasn&#39;t, you wouldn&#39;t see it. You&#39;ve become jaded and politically suicidal and you want everyone else to follow you off the cliff.


Lots of lefties have tried to do that...without much to show for their efforts except demoralization and a sense of futility.

Were they all "fuckups"? Or "class traitors"? Or operating with some really bad theory? The kind that suggests that we can "fix things" so that capitalism is "not so bad".
Actually, the record shows that it works. This is a battle, you do sometimes lose just because you&#39;re unprepared for the response. You&#39;re so hell-bent on striking down everything. The demoralization you speak of came after they had successfully built strong nation-wide organizations that where everywhere in the unions and had the support of a large amount of the workers. Then they where targeted by the union bureaucrats, the natural response of the parasites when threatened.

Does that mean that strategy didn&#39;t work? No, it did, but next time they must be prepared to defend themselves against the bureaucrats by being better organized and aggressively pursuing a course to remove them.


IF Marx was right, then class consciousness arises inevitably in the course of the normal operation of the capitalist system...it&#39;s not something that has to be "brought to" the working class.
Actually, nowhere did marx claim it was inevitable for the vast majority of workers. He believed those that do reach class consciousness must organize and reach out to the rest of the class, this is why he organized the communist league afterall.

"The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement."

Oh, and Marx on the short-term aims (wage battles, etc...):

"The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement."


Meaning that they&#39;ll happily put you in charge because of your demonstrated "competence"?

Well, maybe they will...you&#39;ll have to hope that none of them find their way to my site. :lol:

The substance of your argument seems to be that people "are looking for communist leadership" and that people here are unwilling to offer themselves for that function...right?

Well, you have a point...people here are unwilling to be "leaders" of the type you think necessary. There is a sound theoretical reason for that reluctance...followership historically has not promoted proletarian revolution, much less communism. If we want to encourage rebelliousness among the workers, we must lead by example.
An what is leading by example? Is that not leadership? Is that not exactly what I suggest? Organize the unions, so that others may take your example and do the same. Call for the strike, so that others may take your example and run with it.

What exactly are you arguing about, old man? What it comes down to is, in practice, you have absolutely no idea what your objection is, so you pick a fight about how I&#39;m authoritarian.

You spend the entire post attacking my ideas, then attacking my complaints that no one will lead by example, then say that everyone should do just that&#33;

Huzzah&#33;

I think the practical side is very difficult for you to envision, isn&#39;t it? On the ground, what is different between my kind of "lead by example", and yours?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
You&#39;re very impatient, eh? If it doesn&#39;t bring the second-coming, fuck it, right? Everything&#39;s gotta be perfect, or it&#39;s useless.

What we do should show real results. Why is that being a "perfectionist"? If someone like yourself says to people here "do something" then there has to be some reason that what you ask them to do will actually accomplish something useful.

You imply that people here have a "duty" to do trade union organizing and that people who don&#39;t are "academics" who should presumably "feel guilty" for being "fuckoffs". You are erecting a strategic hierarchy that, in fact, lacks historical justification. Many of the old Stalinist parties followed this perspective and did become enormously significant within the trade unions of various countries...but they were not a force "for revolution" and often an actual obstacle to working class militance.


"Do it for them". What the hell does that mean exactly?

In your own words...


People will be more open to listening, their respect for you comes from your ability to do something for them. -- emphasis added.

That&#39;s one way to look at it; I hope people will listen to me because what I say makes sense. That may be an unfounded hope; some lefties just assume that workers "can&#39;t understand" theoretical arguments at all.


a question you haven&#39;t answered, but it should also be "what do we do now".

Attack reformism&#33; I think that&#39;s what needs to be done in the present period; smash the illusions that capitalism can be "fixed" to work in our interests by supporting "progressives" in bourgeois politics.


To you, revolution is 400 years away, and even if it wasn&#39;t, you wouldn&#39;t see it. You&#39;ve become jaded and politically suicidal and you want everyone else to follow you off the cliff.

I may well appear to be "jaded"...it&#39;s because of practical experience. I&#39;ve seen the outcome of poor theory and wildly unjustified expectations first hand. I think it is better to tell people the truth -- that successful proletarian revolution in North America is probably unlikely before the end of this century.

You undoubtedly imagine that you and the political group you support at this moment can "do it faster". Fine...but no one here is under any obligation to share that belief.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[peaccenicked]

The prism of "if and when" is a straight jacket. We may as well be talking about Warner bros cartoons. It says absolutely nothing about anything. if everybody is thinking about nothing but possibilities then the actual process is missed.


What is the framework that leftists use?
How did it occur? Why is it useless?

The debate between reform and revolution is so old hat it is laughable. What has been happening is counter reformism, the privatisation of anything that moves including the army. To take a stance against antiworking class attacks from an evolutionary or revolutionary perspective is inadequate. What is happening is the destruction of all opposition, the very destruction of thought. The impoverishment of every aspect of human life.

To tell the truth you have to recognise it, the bludgeoning shibboliths of yesteryear
have not caught up with real process of life itself.

The Stalinism of modern imperialism promotes nothing but safe sane old debates that dont take us forward one iota.

[encephalon]

Marx was an academic. The great majority of his efforts went into academic work. He did some organizational work, granted, but those were mostly massive failures. What ultimately caused action and created revolutionary potential was his academic work.

None of you would be out in the streets now if it weren&#39;t for those "reactionary" academics. And I suspect that trend will continue.

[Guest1]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 09:53 PM
What we do should show real results. Why is that being a "perfectionist"? If someone like yourself says to people here "do something" then there has to be some reason that what you ask them to do will actually accomplish something useful.

You imply that people here have a "duty" to do trade union organizing and that people who don&#39;t are "academics" who should presumably "feel guilty" for being "fuckoffs". You are erecting a strategic hierarchy that, in fact, lacks historical justification. Many of the old Stalinist parties followed this perspective and did become enormously significant within the trade unions of various countries...but they were not a force "for revolution" and often an actual obstacle to working class militance.
They became a force however, and their failure to use that for revolutionary gains was because they themselves where a bureaucratic mess tied down by the COMINTERN&#39;s and COMINFORM&#39;s plans.

You&#39;re telling me that if the unions are significantly influenced by communists, that&#39;s not an achievement that helps in a pre-revolutionary situation to drive the struggle forward? :mellow:


That&#39;s one way to look at it; I hope people will listen to me because what I say makes sense. That may be an unfounded hope; some lefties just assume that workers "can&#39;t understand" theoretical arguments at all
Do something for them is not the same as "do it for them". One means don&#39;t tell people what to do and just stand on the sidelines, the other implies a demeaning attitude.

Workers can understand theoretical arguments perfectly well, the question is, why should they listen to you? There&#39;s plenty of priests in the subways, and parties passing out pamphlets, larouchites and mormons and maoists. What makes you different from them? Just some guy off in the clouds when this worker can barely pay his rent and has to worry about that first, so his first thought will be, how does this help me survive? How do you and your ideas help me and my family?

If you&#39;re helping organize the union, organize the strikes to save jobs and raise pay, you have an answer. You tell him this is only the beginning, and he&#39;s interested because your ideas have been proven on the ground. It&#39;s not some utopian pipe-dream he has no time for.


Attack reformism&#33; I think that&#39;s what needs to be done in the present period; smash the illusions that capitalism can be "fixed" to work in our interests by supporting "progressives" in bourgeois politics.
There is no such illusion. Working people can see that reform is dead. It&#39;s your place to show them how, and show how to break the backs of the bosses. It begins by defending the gains workers have fought for and paid for, that capitalism on its deathbed is Cannabilizing, like socialized healthcare and public education, welfare and social security.

What other option is there but to go on the offensive as a class, demand what Capitalism cannot give us as a way of sharpening the class struggle and weakening the bourgeoisie?

Do you condemn the fight against the CPE in France? Do you deny that it has decisively put the class struggle on the agenda and strengthened the working class?


I may well appear to be "jaded"...it&#39;s because of practical experience. I&#39;ve seen the outcome of poor theory and wildly unjustified expectations first hand. I think it is better to tell people the truth -- that successful proletarian revolution in North America is probably unlikely before the end of this century.

You undoubtedly imagine that you and the political group you support at this moment can "do it faster". Fine...but no one here is under any obligation to share that belief.
It&#39;s not about "doing it faster", it&#39;s about not treating it like the second-coming of christ and making a prediction on when it will happen.

Stop thinking about when, think about the situation we have now and how to push us forward. In Latin America, a revolutionary situation is opening up. Does that mean we have the same situation here, no, absolutely not. But on the whole, opportunities are being blown open everywhere. Our opportunities here are limited, but Marxist and Anarchist leadership of ideas in the student unions and the trade unions can only open up more opportunities. Yes, it will remain a game of two steps forward, one step back, but at every moment we must push forward our ideas on the ground as well as use them to rally workers and defend the interests of the class.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM, two steps forward, one back, eh?

More like one millimetre forward, a couple of kilometres backwards.

And why is this?

Oh, dear..., I cannot say, for fear my comments will upset you, and be removed by the fantom post mover.

[Guest1]

Have you nothing to say on the actual issues? Or is the only thing that interests you the academic side of this debate?

What are your ideas on organizing? Or does that not matter to you unless your philosophy is victor?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:


Have you nothing to say on the actual issues?

Much more than you, apparently -- if what you have written so far is anything to go by -- but you will moan once more, and I, suspect, take your ball home.


What are your ideas on organizing?

That there is not much point you dialecticians doing any, nor even talking about doing any (as here), since your record so far has been disastrous; I wonder you show your faces in public.

What is it now: all four Internationals down the tubes.

And still you talk about &#39;organising&#39;&#33;

Even if I were to do [i]nothing, that would be about 1000% better.


Or does that not matter to you unless your philosophy is victor?

It is anyway.

So, eat your heart out.

Your DM-days are numbered.

You now have my permission to return to rearranging the deck chairs....

[Guest1]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 18 2006, 06:55 PM
Much more than you, apparently -- if what you have written so far is anything to go by -- but you will moan once more, and I, suspect, take your ball home.
So let&#39;s hear it&#33;


That there is not much point you dialecticians doing any, nor even talking about doing any (as here), since your record so far has been disastrous; I wonder you show your faces in public.

What is it now: all four Internationals down the tubes.

And still you talk about &#39;organising&#39;&#33;
And yet, they were internationals. They were organized, and failed. Meaning they did something the left today has come nowhere near, then collapsed.


Even if I were to do [i]nothing, that would be about 1000% better.
You are doing nothing. But that&#39;s beyond the point, what would you do that would prevent a failure and yet still lead to the success of having an organized international with serious potential. How do we, as the left today, go about organizing ourselves?


It is anyway.

So, eat your heart out.

Your DM-days are numbered.

You now have my permission to return to rearranging the deck chairs....
Please stop derailing the thread, this is not about DM, again. What do you suggest in terms of organizing today, or are you, again, stuck in only the academic side of the left and incapable of actually doing something?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think part of the problem in this argument is that perhaps divisions are being artificially created, in abstract and theoretical terms, when no such conflict exists in reality. For example, when CyM talks about communists being involved in and participating existing workers organizations he isn&#39;t talking, I don&#39;t think, about entering them as communists, but as fellow workers, seeking to benefit from existing struggle on the same level as other workers. I mean, hell, my own experience with unions stems from not any ideological fascination with unions for their own sake (or because, "that&#39;s where the workers are,"), but out of the desire, "for fewer hours and higher pay boys&#33;" (thanks, Joe Hill) - as a worker. It is in participating in the collective struggle for meaningful improvement that we&#39;re going to come to the correct strategy for fighting the capitalist class in our peculiar set of circumstances . . . and the same goes not only for "us" - but for all involved - and there&#39;s the problem. It seems to me as though "workers" and "us" is a division that only exists insofar as we allow it to, and allow ourselves to be alienated from the daily struggle of the people around us. As far as I can tell the legacy of Lenin weighs as heavily on the shoulders of any drawing that line, be they "Trotskyists," (it&#39;s OK Fehr, I still ove you :P), or "libertarians".

Sorry, a little disorganized, but my initial reactions, anywhom.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:


So let&#39;s hear it&#33;

Check out my site -- you will get more than you bargained for.


And yet, they were internationals.

Note the past tense.


They were organized, and failed. Meaning they did something the left today has come nowhere near, then collapsed.

Yes, they failed becasue of an an &#39;act of the gods&#39; -- er, I think not.

Self-inflicted, on all four occasions.


You are doing nothing.

On the contrary, I am at least winding you up....


But that&#39;s beyond the point, what would you do that would prevent a failure and yet still lead to the success of having an organized international with serious potential. How do we, as the left today, go about organizing ourselves?

Well, if I were to tell you, my comments would become verbote, because they would mention the dreaded &#39;D&#39; word, and then couple that with the clause &#39;excise it from Marxism&#39;, just for starters.


Please stop derailing the thread, this is not about DM, again.

See what I mean; verbote just because you can&#39;t defend your &#39;theory&#39;.


What do you suggest in terms of organizing today, or are you, again, stuck in only the academic side of the left and incapable of actually doing something?

Headless chickens &#39;do&#39; things, too -- a bit like you DM-*ans (I&#39;d type the full phrsse here, but you would probably issue me with another warning, and then withdraw it a few hours later).

You are good at &#39;doing&#39; that, I&#39;ll grant you.

[Guest1]

You&#39;re good at avoiding the subject.

I&#39;m asking an organizational question, can you really offer nothing on this issue, the most important issue facing leftists today?

Is all you can talk about really philosophy?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:


You&#39;re good at avoiding the subject.

As I am with anything I put my hand to.

You are good at running away.

We all have our strengths....


I&#39;m asking an organizational question, can you really offer nothing on this issue, the most important issue facing leftists today?

So, you still want to &#39;organise&#39; the headless chickens?

Fine, don&#39;t let me stop you.

Speaking for myself, I would rather help them put their heads back on, and get them to reject the useless theory that decapitated them; without that, all the practice in the world will fail (as it has largely done so far).

If you can&#39;t see that, you are condemned to keep on repeating it.


Is all you can talk about really philosophy?

Is all you do informed by mysticism?

[PRC-UTE]

Well, I recall you mentioning something about a group you were involved in that went awry, in your opinion, after it officially adopted DM. Perhaps you could use that as a starting point to comment on organising.

[PRC-UTE]

Ah, this is it:


Unfortunately, almost as soon as I joined this Party, the leadership did an about-face and suddenly discovered a new-found liking for DM, and articles expounding Engels&#39;s confused philosophical ideas began to appear in their publications. Although I now think I understand why this happened, at the time this turn of events was thoroughly dismaying. I could not understand why Marxists I had come to respect for the clarity of their political, historical and economic analyses had suddenly grown fond of Dialectical Mysticism.

As things turned out, I was soon able to witness at first-hand the baleful effect that DM and DL (Dialectical Logic) has had on revolutionary politics -- in this case, on local party activists in XXXX. Several of the latter (in the run up to the defeat of the Poll Tax, and the under direction of the party leadership) began to behave in a most uncharacteristic and aggressive manner, especially toward less &#39;active&#39; comrades. To be sure, any revolutionary group requires commitment from its members, but there are ways of motivating people that do not involve treating them as mere means to an end.

These activists now declared (among other things) that &#39;dialectical&#39; thinking meant there were no fixed or rigid principles in revolutionary politics -- not even, one presumes, the belief that the emancipation of the working-class is the act of the working-class (although somewhat inconsistently not a one of them drew that conclusion). Everything it seemed had now to be bent toward the &#39;concrete&#39; practical exigencies of the class struggle. Abstract ideas were ruled-out of court -- except, of course, for that abstract idea. Only the concrete mattered, even if no one could say what that was without using yet more abstractions.

In practice, this novel turn to the &#39;concrete&#39; meant that several long-standing members of the Party were harangued until they either abandoned revolutionary activity altogether, or they adapted to the "new mood" (as the wider political milieu in the UK was then called by Party YYYY). In the latter eventuality, it meant that they had to conform to a suicidally increased rate of activity geared around the fight against the Poll Tax, whether or not they or their families suffered as a consequence. At meetings, one by one, comrades were subjected to a series of grossly unfair public hectoring sessions (in a small way reminiscent of the sort of things that went on in the Chinese "Cultural Revolution" -- minus the physical violence). These were conducted with no little vehemence by several party &#39;attack dogs&#39; (working as a sort of &#39;political tag team&#39;) until their &#39;victims&#39; either buckled under the strain, or gave up. &#39;Dialectical&#39; arguments of remarkable inconsistency were used to &#39;justify&#39; every convoluted change of emphasis, and counter every objection (declaring them one and all "abstract"), no matter how reasonable these might otherwise have seemed. Comrades who were normally quite level-headed became almost monomaniacal in their zeal to search out and re-educate those who were not quite 100% with the program. [For some reason these comrades left me alone, probably because I was highly active at that time.]

In the end, as is evident from the record, the Poll Tax was defeated by strategies other than those advocated by this particular Party, and the "new mood" melted away nearly as fast as most of the older comrades did -- and, as fate would have it, about as quickly as many of the new members the Party had managed to recruit at the time. I do not think that the local Party in XXXX has recovered from this period of "applied dialectics" (from what I can tell it is about a half to a third of its former size, and thus nowhere near as effective), and I have no reason to believe that the national body has managed to avoid a similar fate.

So, for nearly fifteen years now, Party YYYY has been a fraction of its former size. Coupled with other splits that have occurred since, this probably explains why it has not been able to capitalise significantly on the widespread radicalisation brought about by the international Anti-Globalisation movement, the US/UK invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq (despite the prominent role it has played in the Stop the War Coalition), the weakness of the &#39;official left&#39; and the fight to defend pensions (etc.). From two large annual gatherings a year, it is now down to one -- the second of which used to last a whole week, but is now (2006) projected to last only four days.

Incidentally, I now know that similar (but far worse) things have gone on in other revolutionary groups; the disintegration of the WRP and the Militant Tendency, (that is in reply to this) for example, reveals that this sort of thing is alarmingly widespread, and has gone on for years. Anyone familiar with the history of Trotskyism either side of the Atlantic, and elsewhere, over the last 60 years will know that this is not just a UK phenomenon. Indeed, it is now a stereotypical feature of Trotskyism, which, in many eyes, makes the whole tendency a joke. [Stalinism and Maoism are slightly less fragmentary, but only because they have had a record of imprisoning, torturing and/or killing those who stray too far, as opposed to merely expelling them.]

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

As usual, Repoman, you are more perceptive than most: yes, I will so use it -- one day.

But I have a monster to slay first -- the dreaded D*****.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Personally I can see the idealistic academic&#39;s point, but I do disagree with them on a major level: It is through associating with the working class that consciousness can be developed on any real level. As long as we are being puritans, and avoiding anything that suggests the slightest reforism, we will never connect with more than an academic (and small) portion of the working class with a few fringe activists.

In countries where any real progress is being moved for, whether by unions, or parties, the main achievment may not be their advancement towards definite ends, but rather their association with the working class as it actually exists.

I accept that placing all our hope in a few elements of reform is futile, but so is not associating with the working class on a large scale by avoiding all such elements. No revolutionary agency should be seen as an end, their status as a transitory organisation must be established from the onset. With this in mind there should be no desire to preserve such an organisation once its function has been completed, and its function should be the creation of consitions that would allow fr more direct revolutionary action.

We need to be opposed to reform, and this is so we don&#39;t go the way of those that are as useless as mere academics, but also we need to accept its role in raising class consciousness.

[Guest1]

So to you, no organizing, amongst workers, students or others, is more important than your crusade against dialectics. No revolutionary organizing can be made in the meantime? You don&#39;t believe in winning people to your ideas by proving them on the ground?

[Guest1]

So to you, no organizing, amongst workers, students or others, is more important than your crusade against dialectics. No revolutionary organizing can be made in the meantime? You don&#39;t believe in winning people to your ideas by proving them on the ground?

[Guest1]

So to you, no organizing, amongst workers, students or others, is more important than your crusade against dialectics. No revolutionary organizing can be made in the meantime? You don&#39;t believe in winning people to your ideas by proving them on the ground?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:


So to you, no organizing, amongst workers, students or others, is more important than your crusade against dialectics. No revolutionary organizing can be made in the meantime? You don&#39;t believe in winning people to your ideas by proving them on the ground?

It&#39;s like talking to the deaf....

What more can I tell you; which language do you prefer if English is not clear enough?

There is no point you dialectical mystics talking about &#39;organising&#39; if you have such an appalling record of success behind you.

Now, I am quite happy to help comrades kick this mystical doctrine out of the window and organise in the UK (I do not do as much as I used to, but I still do not do nothing -- and I will do as much as I physically can once I have finished this project).

So I do not counterpose what I am doing with organising, merely say that you headless chickens need to stop and look at the mayhem you have helped to create in the workers&#39; movement, identify the cause (which I claim is partly down to dialectics) and put it right, or you will go on into this new century with more failure to ignore in 50 years time.

To be honest, I think I will fail in my task, since you lot do not listen and hence you do not learn.

Your unreasonableness is exhibit A for the defence here.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:


So to you, no organizing, amongst workers, students or others, is more important than your crusade against dialectics. No revolutionary organizing can be made in the meantime? You don&#39;t believe in winning people to your ideas by proving them on the ground?

It&#39;s like talking to the deaf....

What more can I tell you; which language do you prefer if English is not clear enough?

There is no point you dialectical mystics talking about &#39;organising&#39; if you have such an appalling record of success behind you.

Now, I am quite happy to help comrades kick this mystical doctrine out of the window and organise in the UK (I do not do as much as I used to, but I still do not do nothing -- and I will do as much as I physically can once I have finished this project).

So I do not counterpose what I am doing with organising, merely say that you headless chickens need to stop and look at the mayhem you have helped to create in the workers&#39; movement, identify the cause (which I claim is partly down to dialectics) and put it right, or you will go on into this new century with more failure to ignore in 50 years time.

To be honest, I think I will fail in my task, since you lot do not listen and hence you do not learn.

Your unreasonableness is exhibit A for the defence here.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:


So to you, no organizing, amongst workers, students or others, is more important than your crusade against dialectics. No revolutionary organizing can be made in the meantime? You don&#39;t believe in winning people to your ideas by proving them on the ground?

It&#39;s like talking to the deaf....

What more can I tell you; which language do you prefer if English is not clear enough?

There is no point you dialectical mystics talking about &#39;organising&#39; if you have such an appalling record of success behind you.

Now, I am quite happy to help comrades kick this mystical doctrine out of the window and organise in the UK (I do not do as much as I used to, but I still do not do nothing -- and I will do as much as I physically can once I have finished this project).

So I do not counterpose what I am doing with organising, merely say that you headless chickens need to stop and look at the mayhem you have helped to create in the workers&#39; movement, identify the cause (which I claim is partly down to dialectics) and put it right, or you will go on into this new century with more failure to ignore in 50 years time.

To be honest, I think I will fail in my task, since you lot do not listen and hence you do not learn.

Your unreasonableness is exhibit A for the defence here.

[Guest1]

Moving this out of the CC, to the Theory forum. Let&#39;s hear what others have to say.