Rawthentic
1st December 2006, 03:04
FPM Breaks with League, IWPA
Thursday 30 November 2006 - 02:07:37
At the end of last month, the Free People’s Movement abruptly announced they were breaking relations with the Communist League and also severing their relations with the International Working People’s Association. This announcement, although done in such a way to maximize its element of surprise, had little effect on the League itself. The membership of the League has met and discussed this issue, and has issued a statement explaining our view on the break, as well as outlining political differences with the FPM we had been in the process of formulating for the purposes of initiating a debate between our two groups. (To read the statement, click on "FULL STORY" below.)
All readers of our website, including members of the FPM, are encouraged to read this statement, to research and analyze the views of the two sides, and make their own decisions accordingly.
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After Breaking Relations with the Communist League and IWPA,
Free People’s Movement Makes Peace with Exploiting ‘Allies’
‘Free People’ Re-Enslave Themselves
In the early morning hours of October 31, the Central Committee of the Communist League was notified by the leader of the Free People’s Movement that they were “breaking relations” with us and the International Working People’s Association.
According to the FPM’s leader, this decision was made unanimously and unilaterally by their International Steering Committee. Their brief, one-line statement was accompanied by a number of slanderous accusations about members of the League and even threats of violence against our comrades.
Since that time, members of the FPM have made a number of statements critical of the League (which we don’t mind) and have continued to repeat a number of slanders about our organization (which we do mind very much).
In addition, the FPM seized the website of the IWPA and locked all others out of it, including the Association’s Corresponding Secretary and website coordinator, and has since closed it down. The IWPA website was also the host for the websites of the Detroit Working People’s Association and the Albert Currlin Institute. In fact, the DWPA and ACI did not know that the FPM had done this until our C.C. notified them.
This turnaround by the FPM, though surprising in its tone and abruptness, did not surprise many members of the League who have had conversations with them over the last several months.
In fact, relations between the League and the FPM had been strained for many months prior to the break, with both sides expressing concerns about the other’s approach to political questions and activity. The League had proposed holding a frank public exchange covering the differences between the two organizations, but we never received a response from the FPM.
At the time we received the FPM’s short statement announcing their break in relations, League members were in the process of drafting the first of our documents outlining what we saw as the political differences between the two organizations.
From our perspective, the manner and reasons stated by the FPM for breaking relations with the League, done primarily during an Internet instant messaging session, would only serve to confuse and cloud the issues in dispute, if left as the only stated reasons for the break.
Therefore, this statement will not only address the immediate reasons why the FPM chose to break relations with the League, fully and openly, it will also outline our political differences as we see them.
The Spark
The spark that set off the explosion was an exchange that took place on the Internet between a member of the League and the leading member of the FPM.
One of our members was concerned about how this FPM member was portraying himself as a “political prisoner,” and an expert on the topic. Our comrade went and looked into his case and, after coming to the conclusion that he was, in fact, not a political prisoner, confronted him about it.
To back up a bit: Earlier this year, this leading member of the FPM was arrested after arriving back in the United States after a trip to the Caribbean country of the Dominican Republic, where his organization has members.
The comrade spent several weeks in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (because he was arrested at the international terminal of John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, he was detained by U.S. Customs, a part of the DHS), and was then transferred to a county jail in the jurisdiction where he was charged. He then spent about two months in that jail, pending a trial.
This FPM member had been charged with defrauding people over the Internet, which carried stiff penalties and possible prison time. While the comrade from the FPM claims the money collected was used to finance political work, all that has ever been provided to the League that this was the case was the member’s word.
At the time of his arrest, he and the FPM asked us to participate in his legal defense. We publicized his case and that of another FPM member (who was very obviously targeted for his political activity) in the pages of our publications, Working People’s Advocate and The Worker [Communist], and encouraged our supporters and members to contribute financially and to help with organizing.
In fact, members of the League, along with members of the Detroit Working People’s Association, held a public protest in Detroit during a “national day of action” called by the FPM to inform and educate people about their case.
However, in the course of this exchange between our member and the leader of the FPM, it came out that this comrade, and the FPM as a whole, was less than forthcoming about the details of the case. In fact, the FPM leader admitted that he outright lied to the League and IWPA about the facts of his case, choosing instead to pick and choose which facts to tell us.
This understandably angered League members, including our comrade who was in the midst of this exchange. The result was that our comrade became very angry with the FPM leader and let him know it.
This led to a series of recriminations against the League by the FPM leader, none of which has any real basis in fact, as well as personalistic attacks on, and threats of physical violence against, other members of the League, including comrades who considered the leader of the FPM to be a personal friend.
(Specifically, the leader of the FPM called members of the League “snakes” who, in his opinion, deserved to be “stabbed in the throat” for their daring to criticize him.)
The next we heard from the FPM was their short statement, made by the FPM’s leader, announcing their break from us and the IWPA.
Personalism
In our opinion, the basis upon which the FPM broke relations with the League is personalistic and apolitical. One of our members criticized their leader, and thus we were declared unworthy of working with them. It is as simple as that.
For a long time, we had been developing concerns about the relationship within the FPM between its leadership and membership. During the period when this leading member of the FPM was in jail, the organization nearly collapsed: branches went inactive or defected to other organizations; “secondary leadership” dropped out of politics; other leading members began to make unprincipled public statements.
It was during this time that the FPM was pushing repeatedly for merger discussions with the League. For several months, League members were repeatedly asked to join the FPM, help with their organizational work, assist them in writing, editing and producing issues of their newspaper, The Free Press, etc.
In response to this push, the C.C. of the League adopted a formal proposal for joint work between the two organizations, with the goal of exploring the basis for fusion. The response of the FPM was less than enthusiastic.
As a matter of fact, it was from the moment we chose the route of proposing joint work that the FPM began backing away from our organization and pursuing independent projects. It was also during this time that a series of exchanges began between the League and FPM about the relations between the two groups.
During those exchanges, we began to notice a tendency on the part of the FPM to transform political criticism into personal affronts.
For example, when the League was critical of the FPM for their work on the Young Soldiers For Change (more on this project below), and commented about how they “did not extend the courtesy” to let us know they were working on it (at a time when, ostensibly, both organizations were involved in joint work and on a path toward possible fusion), their response implied that we were being critical of them as people — more to the point, that we were somehow being chauvinist or even racist.
Where such a criticism came from, we do not know. We can only suspect that it came from the increasingly paranoid and delusional perspective of the FPM leadership.
This slide into personalism on the part of the FPM continued until it reached its apex in the exchange between our member and their leader. That exchange made it abundantly clear to us exactly how intolerant of political criticism and how personal they take such criticism — and thus how incapable the FPM had become in dealing with such critique.
Cult of Personality
We see the problems of personalism to be an outgrowth of the trend within the FPM toward the cult of personality. This trend is not only historical, in the sense that the FPM sees certain leftwing political leaders as almost more than human, but also organizational, in that it appears to us that their leader is above criticism ... internally or externally.
We see this, for example, in the FPM’s cult of personality expressed historically around Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. For the FPM, both Castro and Guevara are larger-than-life figures, seemingly standing above both social and human development.
It is certainly common among leftists today to see Guevara in the same way that the faithful religious see their martyrs and saints. Indeed, “Guevara-as-icon” is something propagated by everyone from European radicals to the Cuban government; anyone who attends a demonstration or public event of any significant size will at some point come across the iconic image of Guevara, on a t-shirt, poster or flag.
But Guevara was a human being, and as such is as much a part of history and society as any of us. Thus, his political outlook and actions are as much subject to material conditions as they are the subject of study, discussion and criticism.
For the FPM, however, Guevara and his politics are above question — above reproach. His iconography is a sizeable part of the FPM’s political profile, as are his politics. And neither is to be questioned or criticized.
A similar cult of personality exists for Castro. The difference is that, while Guevara is revered as a martyr to “the struggle,” Castro is seen as something of a superman, able to leap material conditions with a single bound.
The political development and actions of Castro, and his class background and history, are not only kept outside of the reach of criticism, they are buried beneath a mountain of mythology and delusion. Castro the man is thus transformed into as much of an icon as the late Guevara. (More on this question of the FPM’s mythologizing of Castro below.)
Organizationally, the leader of the FPM, who goes by the name of Ricardo Santiago, is himself treated as something of an icon (and martyr, after his most recent time in prison).
When the League first came into contact with the FPM in April 2005, members spent a great deal of time reading through the materials available through their website. Among these materials, were a number of “essential readings.” Some of these were classic communist texts by Marx and Engels, and some were writings of Castro, Guevara and other leaders of the Cuban Revolution. But the bulk of those “essential readings” were by ... Santiago.
(Since that time, they have since moved much of those “essential readings” off of their website, and, in place, have an “Other Literature” section that contains the FPM’s Manifesto and ... a book by Santiago. You don’t have to save your money, though. The text is online.)
Class
Having now cleared away the fog in which the FPM sought to envelope their break with us, we can now begin to deal more with the political differences that the League had with them. As we said before, the League had already begun to compile a series of political criticisms of the FPM and we were fully prepared to present and defend them to the comrades prior to the break.
For us, the root question behind all of the differences between the League and the FPM was class.
When the League and the FPM began to talk with each other, it appeared that there was enough of a common agreement on this question to work together and develop an arena where other similar organizations could come together to deal with broader issues. This was the motivation for the formation of the International Working People’s Association in June 2005.
While we always thought that the stance taken by the FPM on this question was a little loose and somewhat vague, we felt there was enough common ground to take that step and to work together. Indeed, when we discussed the class question in advance of forming the IWPA, there seemed to be a greater coming together on this question than we expected.
As things progressed, however, relatively small concerns and problems began to appear in the literature of the FPM that indicated a backing away from a strong stance on class questions.
Increasingly, articles in The Free Press and other FPM literature began to speak of a vague “working class and its allies.” At first, the identity of these “allies” was never really discussed. Over time, however, it came into focus; the “allies” of the working class were ... elements of the petty bourgeoisie.
Early on, talk about petty-bourgeois “allies” was more or less limited to issues involving countries in the Global South. But it did not remain limited to these regions; soon, talk about unity with the petty-bourgeois “allies” of the working class became a universal call for the FPM.
Some members of the FPM, like their leader, attempt to cover this by referring to agricultural workers, the unemployed, “housewives” and sections of the lumpenized mass as “allies,” but their words are always qualified by saying they are “one of” or “some of” the “allies.” So, who are the rest?
At the same time, two other transformations occurred that did not escape our notice: First, the FPM began to abandon a materialist conception of class in favor of an idealistic (to be kind) view of class consciousness. Second, the FPM — which had always insisted to us that an organizational policy of only recruiting working people was just “common sense” — reversed course and had begun to build common organizations with sections of the petty bourgeoisie.
Several examples of the FPM’s changes exist, but three of them stand out in particular as an indication of how they devolved.
Castro, the Worker?
A revealing discussion took place on an Internet discussion board between members of the FPM, including its leader, and a young Mexican anarchist. This exchange exposed how far these comrades had moved from their original positions.
The young anarchist asked the FPM how they could justify their organizational “common sense” of only recruiting workers with their seemingly uncritical support for the Cuban government and its leaders, including Fidel Castro.
Indeed, we too were curious about how the FPM was going to square this circle, and so we watched from a comfortable distance and did not interfere in the debate when it started.
To our surprise, the FPM had a clear and concise response to the young comrade: Castro is a worker:
The FPM supports Comrade Fidel because the Cuban people do. He is their chosen leader, tempered in the most serious of revolutionary struggles.
He was born to a landed family, but he broke with his class background and became proletarianized in the fight for justice.
Remember that he was never a lawyer for profit. He used his law skills to help unions, workers, activists and political parties free of charge.
He had a small apartment where he lived with his wife and child. He wouldn't accept any money from his wife's bourgeois family.
Often Fidel couldn't pay the rent. At one point all of his furniture and possessions were repossessed due to debt. His friends put together money secretly (because he wouldn't allow them to do it if he knew about it) to get his possessions back before he found out they were gone.
He led an uprising of workers and farmers for which he was imprisoned. From the walls of the prison he became a hero and cherished leader. Once released he dedicated himself full time to the revolution. (Re: A Question to Members of the Free People’s Movement, October 28, 2006)
This position was originally expressed by one member of the FPM, but was quickly taken up by others, including the FPM’s leader. In other words, this view of how Castro became a worker is the accepted position of their organization.
Admittedly, we had to ask ourselves if they were serious. Our members, many of whom have decades of experience dealing with Castroites and generally uncritical supporters of Cuba, had never heard any of them attempt to argue that Castro was a worker. We can only assume it is because they would have been laughed out of their own organizations for such ridiculous statements.
But for the FPM, the ridiculous has become the “line.” For us, however, this is not the main point.
Class is rooted in material reality — that is, in the social and production relations that exist in society. It is one’s place in this material existence — not just at a particular moment, but throughout a process that span’s one’s lifetime — that determines not only class but one’s class consciousness.
This is the materialist understanding of class, first elaborated by Marx and Engels, which the League understands and supports. For us, understanding someone’s class position (to say nothing of their class consciousness) begins with their class background — their “social being,” as Marx called it.
From this perspective, someone who grew up in a family of landowners, became an independent professional, married into the bourgeoisie and was able to survive without having to sell his ability to work (his labor-power) until becoming the president of a country is someone whose “social being” was firmly rooted in a class other than the proletariat.
Clearly, this is not the perspective shared by the FPM. For them, Castro’s “good deeds” far outweighed his class background and “social being.” He was the “good guy” in the real-life morality play involving the Cuban people and the Batista dictatorship.
There is also a large measure of vulgar romanticism of the poor that comes through in this explanation. Castro is said to have become working class because he lived in poor conditions, and that time spent in poverty, along with a few years in prison, is what eventually led him to be “a hero and cherished leader.”
Social relations — that is, the relations between groups of people defined by relations to the means of production — and “social being” are exchanged for simplistic, incremental relations based on income. Using this method, it is easy to lump together small shopkeepers with lower levels of working people because they may all be “poor.” Likewise, workers in auto, steel, longshore and other industries that pay a decent wage can be lumped together with yuppie “professionals” and managers because they are relatively well paid.
This is the method and doctrine perpetuated by the capitalist class in order to confuse the real class divisions of society, specifically through the myth of a “broad middle class” composed of more privileged sections of workers, the petty bourgeoisie and small capitalists. It is also the philosophical basis of bourgeois economic structures like the so-called “team concept,” which pits workers against each other in order to help the capitalists maximize profits.
We can certainly understand such arguments coming from a group of young, doe-eyed activists who are new to the harsh world of international politics. But from a self-described communist organization, especially one that claims to take class questions seriously, it is inexcusable.
Free People’s Front?
About the same time that the leaders and members of the FPM were attempting to convince people that Fidel Castro was a worker, they also began to organize a “united front” with the lofty goal of “shutting down the war machine.”
This “united front,” called “The Committee for the Creation of a Coalition for a Day to Shut Down the War Machine,” seeks to organize for a one-day general strike to “literally bring the war machine, which relies on all of us to function, to a screeching halt!” Certainly, a noble goal.
For starters, this effort sounds awfully familiar. From our perspective, the FPM’s “Shut Down the War Machine” committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition is little more than an attempt to create a more radical-sounding version of the “World Can’t Wait” campaign, created by the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party USA.
The difference is that, unlike the WCW campaign, the SDTWM wannabe-campaign has none of the virtues and almost all of the vices of the original.
The most glaring example of this is contained in the so-called “Open Letter to the People of the United States.” While the SDTWM “united front” talks a great deal about “working people” and how they are the ones who have to bear the burden of capitalist war — all of which is generally correct — they reveal their true orientation when they speak of whom they wish to organize into their grand committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition.
We urge all interested individuals (including workers, union officials and representatives, artists, musicians, undocumented workers, “housewives” and the unemployed), and organizations to contact us immediately to add their name to the list of signatories of this letter. (“Open Letter to the People of the United States,” received via e-mail October 20, 2006 — emphasis ours)
So, for all of their talk about “working people,” the goal of this committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition — this so-called “united front” — is to bring together “all interested individuals ... and organizations,” regardless of class basis, to hold a one-day national strike, just as the RCP and WCW tried (and failed) to do last October 5.
This campaign of the FPM is, in our opinion, little more than an attempt to reproduce the WCW campaign in miniature with “better” leadership.
(We will not comment in length about the list of “endorsers” so far supporting the SDTWM committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition, except to remind the comrades that a “united front” does not mean simply uniting your front groups.)
The Communist League has asserted from its founding that it is up to working people themselves to defend, extend and resolve the outstanding democratic tasks of society. No section of the capitalist class or its petty-bourgeois managers can do it, either with us or for us. The time when they could be such a partner has long since passed.
This was one of our primary criticisms of the World Can’t Wait campaign when it first started. Nevertheless, we correctly understood that the RCP had the capacity to draw small but militant sections of working people to its events — especially after it was able to successfully divide sections of the base of the Democratic Party and win them over.
One of our goals in participating in the WCW campaign was to intersect these active workers and working-class youth, and attempt to win them over to a revolutionary-democratic and communist alternative.
In our opinion, the SDTWM committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition has no basis for drawing in much more than the FPM, its immediate ring of supporters and the shadow of the exploiting classes — to whom, we suspect, they will make all appropriate accommodation, in order to not lose their “support.” They might get a few more individuals of note, many of whom will sign on to just about anything that sounds “progressive” or leftwing, but little else.
All of their attempts to gather together petty-bourgeois elements like “union officials,... artists, musicians” and “all interested individuals ... and organizations” in any significant numbers will yield little more than they current have, unless they decide to turn over leadership to these “allies” of working people.
When thinking about this effort at creating a new and improved “people’s front” — a “Free People’s Front” — we are reminded of Marx’s comment about historical facts and personages occurring twice: “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
Spare “Change”
While one might be inclined to dismiss our criticisms of the SDTWM committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition as nitpicking or worse, and argue that the FPM is only making such an ecumenical stance because it is for a single event, we would like to point out the existence of the Young Soldiers For Change.
The YSFC was created last September by the FPM and some of its immediate ring of supporters as some kind of paramilitary activist organization for young people from all classes who “oppose capitalism.”
It was the formation of the YSFC that started the real cleaving between the FPM and the League. In order to understand why, it is necessary to go back and talk about what was happening between the two organizations.
About two months before the YSFC came into existence, the League and FPM had begun talking concretely about ways to work together. Among the ideas raised in these discussions was the joint formation of a working people’s self-defense force, creatively titled the Workers’ Self-Defense Corps.
The WSDC would be a volunteer organization of working people trained in the military arts, organized into military formations with elected commanders and chiefs, and with the task of physically defending working people, their organizations and struggles.
Talk about the WSDC started after the FPM began to tell us about some of the work they were beginning to organize in cities like New York. When they told us about what they wanted to do, we felt it was necessary to point out that it would bring them into direct conflict with the capitalist state, and that proper preparation would be necessary.
In those conversations, the representative of the FPM was more than open to the idea. In fact, our two organizations had reached an agreement and, on our end at least, initial preparations were started. We did not hear from the FPM for more than a month on this question. The next thing we know, the FPM has formed the YSFC.
We were understandably upset at what seemed like a case of the FPM going off and forming a self-defense organization with people they could “lead,” instead of working with us on a joint project where both groups composed the leadership.
And, in spite of the statements from the FPM to the contrary, it appeared to us that the YSFC was little more than the FPM’s original proposal for a self-defense group with a new name.
Indeed, everything from the YSFC’s “urban camouflage” uniforms to their organization into “units/brigades” and posting of military manuals on their website (can you say “security risk”?) belied the FPM’s assertion that the YSFC was not created in place of the WSDC.
But these trappings and trifles are not our main criticism of the YSFC. Leaving aside the lame attempts to appeal to the hip-hop community through fashion and language, and leaving aside the total amateurishness of the organization and training, our problem with the “Young Soldiers” is that they are drawn from all classes, not from among working people or working-class youth.
This is important. Here was an organization, the FPM, that was talking about forming a self-defense organization to protect the work of activist fronts like their “Poor People’s Defense Committees,” which would carry out “un-evictions,” utility turn-ons and similar work, and yet they were going to rely on young people — some of whom could very well be the children of the slumlords who sought the evictions the PPDCs were working to undo, or the children of small shopkeepers targeted for selling spoiled meat and dairy products to the poor — to defend poor workers!
Moreover, the YSFC, like the PPDCs and other organizations the FPM sought to create, was designed to be something of a permanent organization, not just a united front for this or that event.
For us, this conscious decision to toss out class restrictions for an organization where the class line was to be defended physically against the capitalist state was proof that not only was their growing appeals to the petty bourgeoisie more than an aberration, but in fact the new rule being established, it was also proof that they were wholly unserious about any of their proposed active work.
This combination of unseriousness and willingness to accommodate the petty bourgeoisie we believe is not only dangerous, but, in the end, also explains their political trajectory.
Cuba
This leads us back to the question of Cuba. It does so because the FPM’s uncritical cheerleading of the current Cuban government and system embodies this dangerous combination mentioned above.
For the FPM, Cuba is a full-blown “socialist society” — not a “socialist state,” a country in transition from capitalism to the first phase of communism, but a new “society” where the social transformations are more or less complete.
What this means exactly is never fully explained. Is this “socialist society” the lower phase of communism, implying that classes and class antagonisms have been fundamentally abolished? Or, is this “socialist society” a new mode of production existing between capitalism and communism, where the guiding principle is “from each according to their ability, to each according to their work?”
For that matter, what kind of “socialism” exists in this “socialist society?” Is it bourgeois socialism, which Marx and Engels described as “the social New Jerusalem,” predicated on “administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labor, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois government?”
Could it be a kind of petty-bourgeois socialism, which “cramp[s] the modern means of production and of exchange within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means,” through some form of “corporate guilds for manufacture; patriarchal relations in agriculture?”
Such theoretical issues are seemingly of no concern to the FPM. Indeed, they have never published a single work outlining what they mean when they refer to Cuba as “socialist” or a “socialist society.” Sound and measured communist theory is replaced by radical phrase-mongering and mantra-chanting.
But the FPM’s uncritical support for Cuba goes beyond cheerleading; their support has made them into proselytizers of the infallibility of the Castro government.
To be sure, life in Cuba is not perfect. Through all the shortages and crises (many of which were created by the U.S. government in one way or another), the leadership of the revolution has always been completely honest with the Cuban people. (“The Truth about Cuba,” Rebel Yell!, No. 1, Summer 2005 — emphasis ours)
Oh, really? Were Castro and the other leaders of the Cuban Revolution being “completely honest” when they condemned communists and revolutionary workers — who fought to establish workers’ councils and assemblies, worker-controlled unions and workplaces, and an independent communist party of the working class, in “socialist Cuba” — to years in prison as “counterrevolutionaries?”
Were Castro and the other leaders of the Cuban Revolution being “completely honest” when they initiated a witchhunt of gays and lesbians in the 1970s and 1980s, ultimately leading to the formation of Soviet-style “sanitariums” where “doctors” attempted to “cure” them of their sexuality?
Were Castro and the other leaders of the Cuban Revolution being “completely honest” about the reasons why General Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez, a “Hero of the Revolution” for his internationalist work in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, was tried and executed in 1989?
It is one thing to support Cuba unconditionally; it is another thing to elevate its very human leadership to the level of infallibility. At least, such is the case for those who take political questions seriously.
“Litmus Test”
Throughout our dealings with the FPM, one thing we learned is that the theoretical vacuum that exists within their politics is often filled with moralistic appeals and “articles of faith.”
Cuba is the best example of this. The FPM has no theoretical basis of their own for their assertion that it is a “socialist society.” But this is of no concern to them. In the place where the theory should be is a series of unfounded assertions such as those above. And it is to these assertions that all members of the FPM must pledge themselves.
These articles of faith are codified by the FPM as a “litmus test” for all those seeking to work closely with their organization. Those individuals and organizations that do not measure up to their “test” are to be discarded as “bourgeois liberal,” “narrow Eurocentrists” and “pseudo-collectives” (as the FPM’s Portland, Oregon, branch referred to us in a letter calling for a break in relations with us on the basis of Cuba).
Cheap insults with no political basis are dime-a-dozen in this society. All one has to do is tune into any talk radio program to hear your fill of them. But whether it is from the mouth of Ann Coulter or a comrade of the FPM is irrelevant; such attacks are no substitute for real political analysis and criticism.
What is the League’s position on Cuba? At the moment, we do not have a unified viewpoint on the class character of the Cuban government or revolution. We are in the process of discussing this question, and are weighing all of the arguments that have been presented historically. In fact, we asked the FPM to help with this discussion by answering two sets of questions submitted by League members that would aid in clarifying the issue. The FPM only answered the first set.
At the same time, League members are united when it comes to the question of Cuba and its “relationship” with world capitalism in general, and U.S. imperialism in particular: We defend the Cuban Revolution against any attempts to restore the old social order, either through external intervention or internal revolt. On this point, there is no difference between us and the FPM.
But because we do not obediently recite the FPM’s Cuba catechism, we were heretical.
In the series of exchanges between the League and FPM prior to the break in relations, we wrote about our concerns over their use of “litmus tests.” One paragraph in particular sums up our view.
Litmus tests often become more than points of principle or analysis. They become articles of faith. This is because, many times, the test itself will become more important than the material conditions that led to the test coming into existence. Moreover, the tests often take on a life of their own, and live far longer than those material conditions themselves. The fact that, for example, 27 years after the actual event, and nearly 20 years after its material relevance ceased to exist, the Spartacists still consider one’s position on whether or not to “Hail Red Army in Afghanistan” as a chief “litmus test” is a testament to the problems that are contained in their approach to political questions. (Letter from the C.C. Bureau of the League to the ISC of the FPM, September 27, 2006)
In the month following this letter, our concerns were shown to be entirely justified, and our criticism to be too late.
From our perspective, the FPM chose to embrace this confessional method and reject principled politics based on serious analysis. In the process, they have also chosen to abandon most (if not all) of the theoretical foundations they had that initially brought our two organizations closer.
“Oaxaca Commune”?
The extent of the deterioration of the FPM’s ability to understand the world around them was demonstrated in their approach to the events in Oaxaca, Mexico, over the last several months.
From the League’s perspective, the events in Oaxaca, including the formation of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) and the occupation of the Zócalo (city center) of Oaxaca City, have been the leading edge of a young but militant radical-democratic uprising.
Although the struggle in Oaxaca was initiated by striking teachers and their local labor unions, the struggle has since been led by elements of the petty bourgeoisie, including “social justice” Non-Governmental Organizations, small business owners and leftwing careerists looking to enhance their status. The workers and their organizations have been relegated to an “and others” role in the struggle they started.
The League wrote three articles on the question of Oaxaca, analyzing the class relationships in the struggle and outlining a communist perspective on the struggle (these articles were published together under the headline, “Oaxaca Struggle in Jeopardy!” Working People’s Advocate, Vol. 3, No. 1, November 2006)
But among many sections of the petty-bourgeois left, seemingly regardless of doctrine, the democratic struggle of the people of Oaxaca has been inexplicably transformed into a proletarian revolution, and the APPO has been reborn — in the pages of leftist publications, anyway — as the “Oaxaca Commune.”
The FPM has also cast the democratic struggle in Oaxaca in this light. In successive articles, the FPM refers to the supporters of the APPO as “communards” and has whitewashed the treacherous role of the petty bourgeoisie in this struggle.
It is a truly democratic body, made up of local workers and farmers – including members of many different unions and political organizations. Decisions are reached after discussion, debate and approval by the members. For the first time in Oaxaca, real majority rule exists. (“Victory to the Oaxaca Commune!”, The Free Press, Vol. 2, No. 10, October 2006)
... [the] APPO (Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca), the de facto governing body of Oaxaca, made up of delegates representing union members, poor farmers and other workers. (“Oaxaca Under Attack!”, The Free Press, Vol. 2, No. 11, November 2006)
Indeed, the FPM has only once made one public criticism of the leaders of the APPO.
To do this, it will be necessary to combat the “mis”leaders [sic], who make up a part of CEAPPO [the State Council of the APPO, the successor to the original APPO — Ed.], that promote “nonviolence” — in the face of violent state sponsored attacks! — and oppose truly revolutionary action. As we pointed out in earlier coverage of the Commune, these policies can, and indeed have, only lead to the defeat and slaughter of the exploited masses Oaxaca. (ibid.)
Here we see how far the FPM has moved away from solid class analysis. Petty-bourgeois leaders become “local workers and farmers” whose only problem is a tendency toward bad “policies.”
Petty-Bourgeois Socialism
This is the classical method of petty-bourgeois socialism, which “often hides behind various labels and terminology — ‘the people’ and ‘the masses’ are their generally popular terms — in order to obscure the identity of which class is really in power: the petty bourgeoisie.” (Point 25, Basic Principles of the Communist League)
In his time, Marx saw this as petty-bourgeois socialism of a special type, “critical-utopian socialism,” and correctly described its method:
The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves [and their icons, we might add — Ed.] far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without the distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of society?
Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary, action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel. (“Socialist and Communist Literature,” Communist Manifesto — emphasis ours)
This aptly describes the method of the FPM, with only a couple exceptions. The FPM’s view of Cuba and its leaders places them above and “far superior to all class antagonisms” in the world. Their whitewashing and disappearing of the petty bourgeoisie in Cuba and Oaxaca, as well as their blanket appeals to “the people” and “society at large, without the distinction of class,” reinforces this understanding.
And the FPM’s love of the Guevarist method of guerrillaism (also called “foquismo”) is certainly a case of wishing “to attain their ends ... by the force of example.”
For Marx, such politics “correspond with the first instinctive yearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of society” (ibid.). In our view, the FPM does indeed have this tendency within them. However, it would be a gross oversimplification to regard this as a universal description of all their members.
If all of the members of the FPM were relatively new to politics, and had not yet been exposed to serious communist theory and practice, then it would be easy to classify the whole of the FPM as critical-utopian, and approach them accordingly. However, many of the leading members of the FPM have extensive experience in the left and are more than familiar with communist theory.
Thus, while many FPM members who are relatively new to politics are drawn to a critical-utopian methodology, the perpetuation of all of the problems of such a method by the organization’s leaders point to an entrenched (and now embraced) influence of petty-bourgeois socialist doctrine.
Negatively Resolved
Throughout its hitherto existence, we knew the FPM had to confront a contradiction that had the potential of leading these comrades to ruin: the conflict between the FPM’s “common-sense” understanding of the importance of class, and the strong influence of petty-bourgeois consciousness and doctrine within the organization.
During the period when the League had comradely relations with the FPM, we sought to counsel our then-comrades on the need for them to resolve this contradiction in favor of their class instincts, which manifested themselves in that “common-sense” understanding.
It has become clear that the FPM has chosen to do the opposite of what we suggested, and have thus negatively resolved this contradiction. They have decided to codify the petty-bourgeois methods that guided their positions on certain issues, and in turn codify those issues as articles of faith.
As a result, the League does not lament the break in relations between us and the FPM. From our perspective, the development of the FPM over the last period would have led to a break in relations, most likely initiated by us.
In our view, the FPM has chosen to “go with the flow” of petty-bourgeois socialist politics, and have thus, in word and deed, betrayed the very words of their Manifesto: “To be clear, due to its role in society the working class (the exploited majority which creates all wealth) is the only class capable of leading a successful revolution.”
For our part, the League has learned from its experience with the FPM. We have a better understanding of how the doctrines and ideology of the exploiting and oppressing classes can transform good comrades into their opposite. We have learned how this develops and how it manifests itself, and how external pressures can guide and mold this process.
So, while we consider the outcome of our relations with the FPM as unfortunate, we do not for one moment regret our relations with them.
Our work over the next immediate period will be guided by these experiences. We will work together with our members and supporters to explore the lessons “taught” to us by the FPM so that we may be able to help prevent such degeneration in other working people’s organizations that exist or may come into existence.
To our comrades, our class brothers and sisters in the Free People’s Movement, we say: consider our words, carefully review what has happened over the last period, and decide for yourselves what kind of organization you wish to build. We know there are members of the FPM who are concerned about the current direction of the organization, both in terms of its politics and its activity.
We encourage these comrades to contact us (as others already have) and discuss the political issues that the leaders of the FPM choose to bury under a mountain of personalism, slander and threats. We are not asking you to break from the FPM, but to take responsibility for understanding these issues and leadership in clarifying them.
The Communist League will continue to uphold the banner of proletarian communism and the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism, and will not retreat from that responsibility. Our primary guiding principle remains, “The liberation of working people must be carried out by working people themselves.”
November 30, 2006
Thursday 30 November 2006 - 02:07:37
At the end of last month, the Free People’s Movement abruptly announced they were breaking relations with the Communist League and also severing their relations with the International Working People’s Association. This announcement, although done in such a way to maximize its element of surprise, had little effect on the League itself. The membership of the League has met and discussed this issue, and has issued a statement explaining our view on the break, as well as outlining political differences with the FPM we had been in the process of formulating for the purposes of initiating a debate between our two groups. (To read the statement, click on "FULL STORY" below.)
All readers of our website, including members of the FPM, are encouraged to read this statement, to research and analyze the views of the two sides, and make their own decisions accordingly.
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After Breaking Relations with the Communist League and IWPA,
Free People’s Movement Makes Peace with Exploiting ‘Allies’
‘Free People’ Re-Enslave Themselves
In the early morning hours of October 31, the Central Committee of the Communist League was notified by the leader of the Free People’s Movement that they were “breaking relations” with us and the International Working People’s Association.
According to the FPM’s leader, this decision was made unanimously and unilaterally by their International Steering Committee. Their brief, one-line statement was accompanied by a number of slanderous accusations about members of the League and even threats of violence against our comrades.
Since that time, members of the FPM have made a number of statements critical of the League (which we don’t mind) and have continued to repeat a number of slanders about our organization (which we do mind very much).
In addition, the FPM seized the website of the IWPA and locked all others out of it, including the Association’s Corresponding Secretary and website coordinator, and has since closed it down. The IWPA website was also the host for the websites of the Detroit Working People’s Association and the Albert Currlin Institute. In fact, the DWPA and ACI did not know that the FPM had done this until our C.C. notified them.
This turnaround by the FPM, though surprising in its tone and abruptness, did not surprise many members of the League who have had conversations with them over the last several months.
In fact, relations between the League and the FPM had been strained for many months prior to the break, with both sides expressing concerns about the other’s approach to political questions and activity. The League had proposed holding a frank public exchange covering the differences between the two organizations, but we never received a response from the FPM.
At the time we received the FPM’s short statement announcing their break in relations, League members were in the process of drafting the first of our documents outlining what we saw as the political differences between the two organizations.
From our perspective, the manner and reasons stated by the FPM for breaking relations with the League, done primarily during an Internet instant messaging session, would only serve to confuse and cloud the issues in dispute, if left as the only stated reasons for the break.
Therefore, this statement will not only address the immediate reasons why the FPM chose to break relations with the League, fully and openly, it will also outline our political differences as we see them.
The Spark
The spark that set off the explosion was an exchange that took place on the Internet between a member of the League and the leading member of the FPM.
One of our members was concerned about how this FPM member was portraying himself as a “political prisoner,” and an expert on the topic. Our comrade went and looked into his case and, after coming to the conclusion that he was, in fact, not a political prisoner, confronted him about it.
To back up a bit: Earlier this year, this leading member of the FPM was arrested after arriving back in the United States after a trip to the Caribbean country of the Dominican Republic, where his organization has members.
The comrade spent several weeks in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (because he was arrested at the international terminal of John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, he was detained by U.S. Customs, a part of the DHS), and was then transferred to a county jail in the jurisdiction where he was charged. He then spent about two months in that jail, pending a trial.
This FPM member had been charged with defrauding people over the Internet, which carried stiff penalties and possible prison time. While the comrade from the FPM claims the money collected was used to finance political work, all that has ever been provided to the League that this was the case was the member’s word.
At the time of his arrest, he and the FPM asked us to participate in his legal defense. We publicized his case and that of another FPM member (who was very obviously targeted for his political activity) in the pages of our publications, Working People’s Advocate and The Worker [Communist], and encouraged our supporters and members to contribute financially and to help with organizing.
In fact, members of the League, along with members of the Detroit Working People’s Association, held a public protest in Detroit during a “national day of action” called by the FPM to inform and educate people about their case.
However, in the course of this exchange between our member and the leader of the FPM, it came out that this comrade, and the FPM as a whole, was less than forthcoming about the details of the case. In fact, the FPM leader admitted that he outright lied to the League and IWPA about the facts of his case, choosing instead to pick and choose which facts to tell us.
This understandably angered League members, including our comrade who was in the midst of this exchange. The result was that our comrade became very angry with the FPM leader and let him know it.
This led to a series of recriminations against the League by the FPM leader, none of which has any real basis in fact, as well as personalistic attacks on, and threats of physical violence against, other members of the League, including comrades who considered the leader of the FPM to be a personal friend.
(Specifically, the leader of the FPM called members of the League “snakes” who, in his opinion, deserved to be “stabbed in the throat” for their daring to criticize him.)
The next we heard from the FPM was their short statement, made by the FPM’s leader, announcing their break from us and the IWPA.
Personalism
In our opinion, the basis upon which the FPM broke relations with the League is personalistic and apolitical. One of our members criticized their leader, and thus we were declared unworthy of working with them. It is as simple as that.
For a long time, we had been developing concerns about the relationship within the FPM between its leadership and membership. During the period when this leading member of the FPM was in jail, the organization nearly collapsed: branches went inactive or defected to other organizations; “secondary leadership” dropped out of politics; other leading members began to make unprincipled public statements.
It was during this time that the FPM was pushing repeatedly for merger discussions with the League. For several months, League members were repeatedly asked to join the FPM, help with their organizational work, assist them in writing, editing and producing issues of their newspaper, The Free Press, etc.
In response to this push, the C.C. of the League adopted a formal proposal for joint work between the two organizations, with the goal of exploring the basis for fusion. The response of the FPM was less than enthusiastic.
As a matter of fact, it was from the moment we chose the route of proposing joint work that the FPM began backing away from our organization and pursuing independent projects. It was also during this time that a series of exchanges began between the League and FPM about the relations between the two groups.
During those exchanges, we began to notice a tendency on the part of the FPM to transform political criticism into personal affronts.
For example, when the League was critical of the FPM for their work on the Young Soldiers For Change (more on this project below), and commented about how they “did not extend the courtesy” to let us know they were working on it (at a time when, ostensibly, both organizations were involved in joint work and on a path toward possible fusion), their response implied that we were being critical of them as people — more to the point, that we were somehow being chauvinist or even racist.
Where such a criticism came from, we do not know. We can only suspect that it came from the increasingly paranoid and delusional perspective of the FPM leadership.
This slide into personalism on the part of the FPM continued until it reached its apex in the exchange between our member and their leader. That exchange made it abundantly clear to us exactly how intolerant of political criticism and how personal they take such criticism — and thus how incapable the FPM had become in dealing with such critique.
Cult of Personality
We see the problems of personalism to be an outgrowth of the trend within the FPM toward the cult of personality. This trend is not only historical, in the sense that the FPM sees certain leftwing political leaders as almost more than human, but also organizational, in that it appears to us that their leader is above criticism ... internally or externally.
We see this, for example, in the FPM’s cult of personality expressed historically around Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. For the FPM, both Castro and Guevara are larger-than-life figures, seemingly standing above both social and human development.
It is certainly common among leftists today to see Guevara in the same way that the faithful religious see their martyrs and saints. Indeed, “Guevara-as-icon” is something propagated by everyone from European radicals to the Cuban government; anyone who attends a demonstration or public event of any significant size will at some point come across the iconic image of Guevara, on a t-shirt, poster or flag.
But Guevara was a human being, and as such is as much a part of history and society as any of us. Thus, his political outlook and actions are as much subject to material conditions as they are the subject of study, discussion and criticism.
For the FPM, however, Guevara and his politics are above question — above reproach. His iconography is a sizeable part of the FPM’s political profile, as are his politics. And neither is to be questioned or criticized.
A similar cult of personality exists for Castro. The difference is that, while Guevara is revered as a martyr to “the struggle,” Castro is seen as something of a superman, able to leap material conditions with a single bound.
The political development and actions of Castro, and his class background and history, are not only kept outside of the reach of criticism, they are buried beneath a mountain of mythology and delusion. Castro the man is thus transformed into as much of an icon as the late Guevara. (More on this question of the FPM’s mythologizing of Castro below.)
Organizationally, the leader of the FPM, who goes by the name of Ricardo Santiago, is himself treated as something of an icon (and martyr, after his most recent time in prison).
When the League first came into contact with the FPM in April 2005, members spent a great deal of time reading through the materials available through their website. Among these materials, were a number of “essential readings.” Some of these were classic communist texts by Marx and Engels, and some were writings of Castro, Guevara and other leaders of the Cuban Revolution. But the bulk of those “essential readings” were by ... Santiago.
(Since that time, they have since moved much of those “essential readings” off of their website, and, in place, have an “Other Literature” section that contains the FPM’s Manifesto and ... a book by Santiago. You don’t have to save your money, though. The text is online.)
Class
Having now cleared away the fog in which the FPM sought to envelope their break with us, we can now begin to deal more with the political differences that the League had with them. As we said before, the League had already begun to compile a series of political criticisms of the FPM and we were fully prepared to present and defend them to the comrades prior to the break.
For us, the root question behind all of the differences between the League and the FPM was class.
When the League and the FPM began to talk with each other, it appeared that there was enough of a common agreement on this question to work together and develop an arena where other similar organizations could come together to deal with broader issues. This was the motivation for the formation of the International Working People’s Association in June 2005.
While we always thought that the stance taken by the FPM on this question was a little loose and somewhat vague, we felt there was enough common ground to take that step and to work together. Indeed, when we discussed the class question in advance of forming the IWPA, there seemed to be a greater coming together on this question than we expected.
As things progressed, however, relatively small concerns and problems began to appear in the literature of the FPM that indicated a backing away from a strong stance on class questions.
Increasingly, articles in The Free Press and other FPM literature began to speak of a vague “working class and its allies.” At first, the identity of these “allies” was never really discussed. Over time, however, it came into focus; the “allies” of the working class were ... elements of the petty bourgeoisie.
Early on, talk about petty-bourgeois “allies” was more or less limited to issues involving countries in the Global South. But it did not remain limited to these regions; soon, talk about unity with the petty-bourgeois “allies” of the working class became a universal call for the FPM.
Some members of the FPM, like their leader, attempt to cover this by referring to agricultural workers, the unemployed, “housewives” and sections of the lumpenized mass as “allies,” but their words are always qualified by saying they are “one of” or “some of” the “allies.” So, who are the rest?
At the same time, two other transformations occurred that did not escape our notice: First, the FPM began to abandon a materialist conception of class in favor of an idealistic (to be kind) view of class consciousness. Second, the FPM — which had always insisted to us that an organizational policy of only recruiting working people was just “common sense” — reversed course and had begun to build common organizations with sections of the petty bourgeoisie.
Several examples of the FPM’s changes exist, but three of them stand out in particular as an indication of how they devolved.
Castro, the Worker?
A revealing discussion took place on an Internet discussion board between members of the FPM, including its leader, and a young Mexican anarchist. This exchange exposed how far these comrades had moved from their original positions.
The young anarchist asked the FPM how they could justify their organizational “common sense” of only recruiting workers with their seemingly uncritical support for the Cuban government and its leaders, including Fidel Castro.
Indeed, we too were curious about how the FPM was going to square this circle, and so we watched from a comfortable distance and did not interfere in the debate when it started.
To our surprise, the FPM had a clear and concise response to the young comrade: Castro is a worker:
The FPM supports Comrade Fidel because the Cuban people do. He is their chosen leader, tempered in the most serious of revolutionary struggles.
He was born to a landed family, but he broke with his class background and became proletarianized in the fight for justice.
Remember that he was never a lawyer for profit. He used his law skills to help unions, workers, activists and political parties free of charge.
He had a small apartment where he lived with his wife and child. He wouldn't accept any money from his wife's bourgeois family.
Often Fidel couldn't pay the rent. At one point all of his furniture and possessions were repossessed due to debt. His friends put together money secretly (because he wouldn't allow them to do it if he knew about it) to get his possessions back before he found out they were gone.
He led an uprising of workers and farmers for which he was imprisoned. From the walls of the prison he became a hero and cherished leader. Once released he dedicated himself full time to the revolution. (Re: A Question to Members of the Free People’s Movement, October 28, 2006)
This position was originally expressed by one member of the FPM, but was quickly taken up by others, including the FPM’s leader. In other words, this view of how Castro became a worker is the accepted position of their organization.
Admittedly, we had to ask ourselves if they were serious. Our members, many of whom have decades of experience dealing with Castroites and generally uncritical supporters of Cuba, had never heard any of them attempt to argue that Castro was a worker. We can only assume it is because they would have been laughed out of their own organizations for such ridiculous statements.
But for the FPM, the ridiculous has become the “line.” For us, however, this is not the main point.
Class is rooted in material reality — that is, in the social and production relations that exist in society. It is one’s place in this material existence — not just at a particular moment, but throughout a process that span’s one’s lifetime — that determines not only class but one’s class consciousness.
This is the materialist understanding of class, first elaborated by Marx and Engels, which the League understands and supports. For us, understanding someone’s class position (to say nothing of their class consciousness) begins with their class background — their “social being,” as Marx called it.
From this perspective, someone who grew up in a family of landowners, became an independent professional, married into the bourgeoisie and was able to survive without having to sell his ability to work (his labor-power) until becoming the president of a country is someone whose “social being” was firmly rooted in a class other than the proletariat.
Clearly, this is not the perspective shared by the FPM. For them, Castro’s “good deeds” far outweighed his class background and “social being.” He was the “good guy” in the real-life morality play involving the Cuban people and the Batista dictatorship.
There is also a large measure of vulgar romanticism of the poor that comes through in this explanation. Castro is said to have become working class because he lived in poor conditions, and that time spent in poverty, along with a few years in prison, is what eventually led him to be “a hero and cherished leader.”
Social relations — that is, the relations between groups of people defined by relations to the means of production — and “social being” are exchanged for simplistic, incremental relations based on income. Using this method, it is easy to lump together small shopkeepers with lower levels of working people because they may all be “poor.” Likewise, workers in auto, steel, longshore and other industries that pay a decent wage can be lumped together with yuppie “professionals” and managers because they are relatively well paid.
This is the method and doctrine perpetuated by the capitalist class in order to confuse the real class divisions of society, specifically through the myth of a “broad middle class” composed of more privileged sections of workers, the petty bourgeoisie and small capitalists. It is also the philosophical basis of bourgeois economic structures like the so-called “team concept,” which pits workers against each other in order to help the capitalists maximize profits.
We can certainly understand such arguments coming from a group of young, doe-eyed activists who are new to the harsh world of international politics. But from a self-described communist organization, especially one that claims to take class questions seriously, it is inexcusable.
Free People’s Front?
About the same time that the leaders and members of the FPM were attempting to convince people that Fidel Castro was a worker, they also began to organize a “united front” with the lofty goal of “shutting down the war machine.”
This “united front,” called “The Committee for the Creation of a Coalition for a Day to Shut Down the War Machine,” seeks to organize for a one-day general strike to “literally bring the war machine, which relies on all of us to function, to a screeching halt!” Certainly, a noble goal.
For starters, this effort sounds awfully familiar. From our perspective, the FPM’s “Shut Down the War Machine” committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition is little more than an attempt to create a more radical-sounding version of the “World Can’t Wait” campaign, created by the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party USA.
The difference is that, unlike the WCW campaign, the SDTWM wannabe-campaign has none of the virtues and almost all of the vices of the original.
The most glaring example of this is contained in the so-called “Open Letter to the People of the United States.” While the SDTWM “united front” talks a great deal about “working people” and how they are the ones who have to bear the burden of capitalist war — all of which is generally correct — they reveal their true orientation when they speak of whom they wish to organize into their grand committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition.
We urge all interested individuals (including workers, union officials and representatives, artists, musicians, undocumented workers, “housewives” and the unemployed), and organizations to contact us immediately to add their name to the list of signatories of this letter. (“Open Letter to the People of the United States,” received via e-mail October 20, 2006 — emphasis ours)
So, for all of their talk about “working people,” the goal of this committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition — this so-called “united front” — is to bring together “all interested individuals ... and organizations,” regardless of class basis, to hold a one-day national strike, just as the RCP and WCW tried (and failed) to do last October 5.
This campaign of the FPM is, in our opinion, little more than an attempt to reproduce the WCW campaign in miniature with “better” leadership.
(We will not comment in length about the list of “endorsers” so far supporting the SDTWM committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition, except to remind the comrades that a “united front” does not mean simply uniting your front groups.)
The Communist League has asserted from its founding that it is up to working people themselves to defend, extend and resolve the outstanding democratic tasks of society. No section of the capitalist class or its petty-bourgeois managers can do it, either with us or for us. The time when they could be such a partner has long since passed.
This was one of our primary criticisms of the World Can’t Wait campaign when it first started. Nevertheless, we correctly understood that the RCP had the capacity to draw small but militant sections of working people to its events — especially after it was able to successfully divide sections of the base of the Democratic Party and win them over.
One of our goals in participating in the WCW campaign was to intersect these active workers and working-class youth, and attempt to win them over to a revolutionary-democratic and communist alternative.
In our opinion, the SDTWM committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition has no basis for drawing in much more than the FPM, its immediate ring of supporters and the shadow of the exploiting classes — to whom, we suspect, they will make all appropriate accommodation, in order to not lose their “support.” They might get a few more individuals of note, many of whom will sign on to just about anything that sounds “progressive” or leftwing, but little else.
All of their attempts to gather together petty-bourgeois elements like “union officials,... artists, musicians” and “all interested individuals ... and organizations” in any significant numbers will yield little more than they current have, unless they decide to turn over leadership to these “allies” of working people.
When thinking about this effort at creating a new and improved “people’s front” — a “Free People’s Front” — we are reminded of Marx’s comment about historical facts and personages occurring twice: “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
Spare “Change”
While one might be inclined to dismiss our criticisms of the SDTWM committee-for-the-creation-of-a-coalition as nitpicking or worse, and argue that the FPM is only making such an ecumenical stance because it is for a single event, we would like to point out the existence of the Young Soldiers For Change.
The YSFC was created last September by the FPM and some of its immediate ring of supporters as some kind of paramilitary activist organization for young people from all classes who “oppose capitalism.”
It was the formation of the YSFC that started the real cleaving between the FPM and the League. In order to understand why, it is necessary to go back and talk about what was happening between the two organizations.
About two months before the YSFC came into existence, the League and FPM had begun talking concretely about ways to work together. Among the ideas raised in these discussions was the joint formation of a working people’s self-defense force, creatively titled the Workers’ Self-Defense Corps.
The WSDC would be a volunteer organization of working people trained in the military arts, organized into military formations with elected commanders and chiefs, and with the task of physically defending working people, their organizations and struggles.
Talk about the WSDC started after the FPM began to tell us about some of the work they were beginning to organize in cities like New York. When they told us about what they wanted to do, we felt it was necessary to point out that it would bring them into direct conflict with the capitalist state, and that proper preparation would be necessary.
In those conversations, the representative of the FPM was more than open to the idea. In fact, our two organizations had reached an agreement and, on our end at least, initial preparations were started. We did not hear from the FPM for more than a month on this question. The next thing we know, the FPM has formed the YSFC.
We were understandably upset at what seemed like a case of the FPM going off and forming a self-defense organization with people they could “lead,” instead of working with us on a joint project where both groups composed the leadership.
And, in spite of the statements from the FPM to the contrary, it appeared to us that the YSFC was little more than the FPM’s original proposal for a self-defense group with a new name.
Indeed, everything from the YSFC’s “urban camouflage” uniforms to their organization into “units/brigades” and posting of military manuals on their website (can you say “security risk”?) belied the FPM’s assertion that the YSFC was not created in place of the WSDC.
But these trappings and trifles are not our main criticism of the YSFC. Leaving aside the lame attempts to appeal to the hip-hop community through fashion and language, and leaving aside the total amateurishness of the organization and training, our problem with the “Young Soldiers” is that they are drawn from all classes, not from among working people or working-class youth.
This is important. Here was an organization, the FPM, that was talking about forming a self-defense organization to protect the work of activist fronts like their “Poor People’s Defense Committees,” which would carry out “un-evictions,” utility turn-ons and similar work, and yet they were going to rely on young people — some of whom could very well be the children of the slumlords who sought the evictions the PPDCs were working to undo, or the children of small shopkeepers targeted for selling spoiled meat and dairy products to the poor — to defend poor workers!
Moreover, the YSFC, like the PPDCs and other organizations the FPM sought to create, was designed to be something of a permanent organization, not just a united front for this or that event.
For us, this conscious decision to toss out class restrictions for an organization where the class line was to be defended physically against the capitalist state was proof that not only was their growing appeals to the petty bourgeoisie more than an aberration, but in fact the new rule being established, it was also proof that they were wholly unserious about any of their proposed active work.
This combination of unseriousness and willingness to accommodate the petty bourgeoisie we believe is not only dangerous, but, in the end, also explains their political trajectory.
Cuba
This leads us back to the question of Cuba. It does so because the FPM’s uncritical cheerleading of the current Cuban government and system embodies this dangerous combination mentioned above.
For the FPM, Cuba is a full-blown “socialist society” — not a “socialist state,” a country in transition from capitalism to the first phase of communism, but a new “society” where the social transformations are more or less complete.
What this means exactly is never fully explained. Is this “socialist society” the lower phase of communism, implying that classes and class antagonisms have been fundamentally abolished? Or, is this “socialist society” a new mode of production existing between capitalism and communism, where the guiding principle is “from each according to their ability, to each according to their work?”
For that matter, what kind of “socialism” exists in this “socialist society?” Is it bourgeois socialism, which Marx and Engels described as “the social New Jerusalem,” predicated on “administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labor, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois government?”
Could it be a kind of petty-bourgeois socialism, which “cramp[s] the modern means of production and of exchange within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means,” through some form of “corporate guilds for manufacture; patriarchal relations in agriculture?”
Such theoretical issues are seemingly of no concern to the FPM. Indeed, they have never published a single work outlining what they mean when they refer to Cuba as “socialist” or a “socialist society.” Sound and measured communist theory is replaced by radical phrase-mongering and mantra-chanting.
But the FPM’s uncritical support for Cuba goes beyond cheerleading; their support has made them into proselytizers of the infallibility of the Castro government.
To be sure, life in Cuba is not perfect. Through all the shortages and crises (many of which were created by the U.S. government in one way or another), the leadership of the revolution has always been completely honest with the Cuban people. (“The Truth about Cuba,” Rebel Yell!, No. 1, Summer 2005 — emphasis ours)
Oh, really? Were Castro and the other leaders of the Cuban Revolution being “completely honest” when they condemned communists and revolutionary workers — who fought to establish workers’ councils and assemblies, worker-controlled unions and workplaces, and an independent communist party of the working class, in “socialist Cuba” — to years in prison as “counterrevolutionaries?”
Were Castro and the other leaders of the Cuban Revolution being “completely honest” when they initiated a witchhunt of gays and lesbians in the 1970s and 1980s, ultimately leading to the formation of Soviet-style “sanitariums” where “doctors” attempted to “cure” them of their sexuality?
Were Castro and the other leaders of the Cuban Revolution being “completely honest” about the reasons why General Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez, a “Hero of the Revolution” for his internationalist work in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, was tried and executed in 1989?
It is one thing to support Cuba unconditionally; it is another thing to elevate its very human leadership to the level of infallibility. At least, such is the case for those who take political questions seriously.
“Litmus Test”
Throughout our dealings with the FPM, one thing we learned is that the theoretical vacuum that exists within their politics is often filled with moralistic appeals and “articles of faith.”
Cuba is the best example of this. The FPM has no theoretical basis of their own for their assertion that it is a “socialist society.” But this is of no concern to them. In the place where the theory should be is a series of unfounded assertions such as those above. And it is to these assertions that all members of the FPM must pledge themselves.
These articles of faith are codified by the FPM as a “litmus test” for all those seeking to work closely with their organization. Those individuals and organizations that do not measure up to their “test” are to be discarded as “bourgeois liberal,” “narrow Eurocentrists” and “pseudo-collectives” (as the FPM’s Portland, Oregon, branch referred to us in a letter calling for a break in relations with us on the basis of Cuba).
Cheap insults with no political basis are dime-a-dozen in this society. All one has to do is tune into any talk radio program to hear your fill of them. But whether it is from the mouth of Ann Coulter or a comrade of the FPM is irrelevant; such attacks are no substitute for real political analysis and criticism.
What is the League’s position on Cuba? At the moment, we do not have a unified viewpoint on the class character of the Cuban government or revolution. We are in the process of discussing this question, and are weighing all of the arguments that have been presented historically. In fact, we asked the FPM to help with this discussion by answering two sets of questions submitted by League members that would aid in clarifying the issue. The FPM only answered the first set.
At the same time, League members are united when it comes to the question of Cuba and its “relationship” with world capitalism in general, and U.S. imperialism in particular: We defend the Cuban Revolution against any attempts to restore the old social order, either through external intervention or internal revolt. On this point, there is no difference between us and the FPM.
But because we do not obediently recite the FPM’s Cuba catechism, we were heretical.
In the series of exchanges between the League and FPM prior to the break in relations, we wrote about our concerns over their use of “litmus tests.” One paragraph in particular sums up our view.
Litmus tests often become more than points of principle or analysis. They become articles of faith. This is because, many times, the test itself will become more important than the material conditions that led to the test coming into existence. Moreover, the tests often take on a life of their own, and live far longer than those material conditions themselves. The fact that, for example, 27 years after the actual event, and nearly 20 years after its material relevance ceased to exist, the Spartacists still consider one’s position on whether or not to “Hail Red Army in Afghanistan” as a chief “litmus test” is a testament to the problems that are contained in their approach to political questions. (Letter from the C.C. Bureau of the League to the ISC of the FPM, September 27, 2006)
In the month following this letter, our concerns were shown to be entirely justified, and our criticism to be too late.
From our perspective, the FPM chose to embrace this confessional method and reject principled politics based on serious analysis. In the process, they have also chosen to abandon most (if not all) of the theoretical foundations they had that initially brought our two organizations closer.
“Oaxaca Commune”?
The extent of the deterioration of the FPM’s ability to understand the world around them was demonstrated in their approach to the events in Oaxaca, Mexico, over the last several months.
From the League’s perspective, the events in Oaxaca, including the formation of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) and the occupation of the Zócalo (city center) of Oaxaca City, have been the leading edge of a young but militant radical-democratic uprising.
Although the struggle in Oaxaca was initiated by striking teachers and their local labor unions, the struggle has since been led by elements of the petty bourgeoisie, including “social justice” Non-Governmental Organizations, small business owners and leftwing careerists looking to enhance their status. The workers and their organizations have been relegated to an “and others” role in the struggle they started.
The League wrote three articles on the question of Oaxaca, analyzing the class relationships in the struggle and outlining a communist perspective on the struggle (these articles were published together under the headline, “Oaxaca Struggle in Jeopardy!” Working People’s Advocate, Vol. 3, No. 1, November 2006)
But among many sections of the petty-bourgeois left, seemingly regardless of doctrine, the democratic struggle of the people of Oaxaca has been inexplicably transformed into a proletarian revolution, and the APPO has been reborn — in the pages of leftist publications, anyway — as the “Oaxaca Commune.”
The FPM has also cast the democratic struggle in Oaxaca in this light. In successive articles, the FPM refers to the supporters of the APPO as “communards” and has whitewashed the treacherous role of the petty bourgeoisie in this struggle.
It is a truly democratic body, made up of local workers and farmers – including members of many different unions and political organizations. Decisions are reached after discussion, debate and approval by the members. For the first time in Oaxaca, real majority rule exists. (“Victory to the Oaxaca Commune!”, The Free Press, Vol. 2, No. 10, October 2006)
... [the] APPO (Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca), the de facto governing body of Oaxaca, made up of delegates representing union members, poor farmers and other workers. (“Oaxaca Under Attack!”, The Free Press, Vol. 2, No. 11, November 2006)
Indeed, the FPM has only once made one public criticism of the leaders of the APPO.
To do this, it will be necessary to combat the “mis”leaders [sic], who make up a part of CEAPPO [the State Council of the APPO, the successor to the original APPO — Ed.], that promote “nonviolence” — in the face of violent state sponsored attacks! — and oppose truly revolutionary action. As we pointed out in earlier coverage of the Commune, these policies can, and indeed have, only lead to the defeat and slaughter of the exploited masses Oaxaca. (ibid.)
Here we see how far the FPM has moved away from solid class analysis. Petty-bourgeois leaders become “local workers and farmers” whose only problem is a tendency toward bad “policies.”
Petty-Bourgeois Socialism
This is the classical method of petty-bourgeois socialism, which “often hides behind various labels and terminology — ‘the people’ and ‘the masses’ are their generally popular terms — in order to obscure the identity of which class is really in power: the petty bourgeoisie.” (Point 25, Basic Principles of the Communist League)
In his time, Marx saw this as petty-bourgeois socialism of a special type, “critical-utopian socialism,” and correctly described its method:
The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves [and their icons, we might add — Ed.] far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without the distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of society?
Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary, action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel. (“Socialist and Communist Literature,” Communist Manifesto — emphasis ours)
This aptly describes the method of the FPM, with only a couple exceptions. The FPM’s view of Cuba and its leaders places them above and “far superior to all class antagonisms” in the world. Their whitewashing and disappearing of the petty bourgeoisie in Cuba and Oaxaca, as well as their blanket appeals to “the people” and “society at large, without the distinction of class,” reinforces this understanding.
And the FPM’s love of the Guevarist method of guerrillaism (also called “foquismo”) is certainly a case of wishing “to attain their ends ... by the force of example.”
For Marx, such politics “correspond with the first instinctive yearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of society” (ibid.). In our view, the FPM does indeed have this tendency within them. However, it would be a gross oversimplification to regard this as a universal description of all their members.
If all of the members of the FPM were relatively new to politics, and had not yet been exposed to serious communist theory and practice, then it would be easy to classify the whole of the FPM as critical-utopian, and approach them accordingly. However, many of the leading members of the FPM have extensive experience in the left and are more than familiar with communist theory.
Thus, while many FPM members who are relatively new to politics are drawn to a critical-utopian methodology, the perpetuation of all of the problems of such a method by the organization’s leaders point to an entrenched (and now embraced) influence of petty-bourgeois socialist doctrine.
Negatively Resolved
Throughout its hitherto existence, we knew the FPM had to confront a contradiction that had the potential of leading these comrades to ruin: the conflict between the FPM’s “common-sense” understanding of the importance of class, and the strong influence of petty-bourgeois consciousness and doctrine within the organization.
During the period when the League had comradely relations with the FPM, we sought to counsel our then-comrades on the need for them to resolve this contradiction in favor of their class instincts, which manifested themselves in that “common-sense” understanding.
It has become clear that the FPM has chosen to do the opposite of what we suggested, and have thus negatively resolved this contradiction. They have decided to codify the petty-bourgeois methods that guided their positions on certain issues, and in turn codify those issues as articles of faith.
As a result, the League does not lament the break in relations between us and the FPM. From our perspective, the development of the FPM over the last period would have led to a break in relations, most likely initiated by us.
In our view, the FPM has chosen to “go with the flow” of petty-bourgeois socialist politics, and have thus, in word and deed, betrayed the very words of their Manifesto: “To be clear, due to its role in society the working class (the exploited majority which creates all wealth) is the only class capable of leading a successful revolution.”
For our part, the League has learned from its experience with the FPM. We have a better understanding of how the doctrines and ideology of the exploiting and oppressing classes can transform good comrades into their opposite. We have learned how this develops and how it manifests itself, and how external pressures can guide and mold this process.
So, while we consider the outcome of our relations with the FPM as unfortunate, we do not for one moment regret our relations with them.
Our work over the next immediate period will be guided by these experiences. We will work together with our members and supporters to explore the lessons “taught” to us by the FPM so that we may be able to help prevent such degeneration in other working people’s organizations that exist or may come into existence.
To our comrades, our class brothers and sisters in the Free People’s Movement, we say: consider our words, carefully review what has happened over the last period, and decide for yourselves what kind of organization you wish to build. We know there are members of the FPM who are concerned about the current direction of the organization, both in terms of its politics and its activity.
We encourage these comrades to contact us (as others already have) and discuss the political issues that the leaders of the FPM choose to bury under a mountain of personalism, slander and threats. We are not asking you to break from the FPM, but to take responsibility for understanding these issues and leadership in clarifying them.
The Communist League will continue to uphold the banner of proletarian communism and the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism, and will not retreat from that responsibility. Our primary guiding principle remains, “The liberation of working people must be carried out by working people themselves.”
November 30, 2006