What Is Needed In The US?

[RedLenin]

I'd like to discuss some strategy, specifically in regard to the US. I tend to see that a lot of people spend a good deal of time contemplating the positions of countries like Venezuela or Nepal, so I think an analysis of the tasks of revolutionaries in the US is needed. Basically, what needs to be done? How do we work toward seriously bringing about proletarian revolution in the US? I have some ideas, and I would like some ideas/critiques in regard to them.

Mass Party of Labor/Entryism - It seems to me that everytime the people of America are outraged at some issue, such as the war in Iraq, they tend to flock to the Democratic Party. As the Democratic Party is just another ruling class party, this never results in anything more than the dissipation of the outrage of the working class. History shows that the working class, in the first instance, always gravitates toward the traditional mass organizations; the trade unions and labor/socialist parties. We have a peculiar situation in the US, in that there is no labor party based on the trade unions. For this reason, I think it is necessary to try to build a workers party in the United States which is based on the trade unions and establish a strong marxist current within it. This will provide the American working class with the benefit of a class-independent organization. In this way, when the working class heads to the party during the initial phazes of a revolutionary situation, there will already be a strong Marxist tendency. In the mean-time, we must also employ this tactic of entryism in the trade unions.

Building bridges between social movements - In recent years we have seen the emergence of four strong social movements that are very large and active in the US: the anti-war movement, the immigrant rights movement, the anti-police brutality movement, and the anti-globalization movement. I think that such movements can serve a profoundly revolutionary purpose if united on a class basis. I think we should consciously intervene in these movements and attempt to build bridges between them on a common revolutionary program. All of these issues have a common underlying cause and if we can demonstrate this, the perspective for a revolution will be much better.

Building a stong democratic-centralist party with a marxist program and the potential for a leadership role - I know that anarchists will not agree with this, but I feel that it is very necessary. I think that sectarianism has been killing Marxism, and we need a centralized and united party capable of a leadership role. It is through such a party that we will be able to pursue the strategies outlined above. Such a party would also have to work dilligently to win the masses to its program and take a leadership role in the event of a revolutionary situation.

I think that these three things will be our best bet in bringing about a revolution in the US. I would like to hear other ideas and perspectives as to how we can bring about such a revolution, as well as any critiques of mine.

[Rawthentic]

I of course agree with the need to bridge the movement gaps along class lines. I do not agree, however, with the "Marxist-Leninist" party and the democratic centralism. I do believe that there needs to be an organization that can unite working people, but it is my belief that the centralized structure of "Leninist" parties creates hierarchies and such.

I see where you come from when you say that there is a need to defeat sectarianism, and I follow you there. Yet a "Leninist" party will not solve this problem. Why? Because anarchists and other left-communists would either be excluded or have little to no voice.

I propose, and am a part of a Marxist organization, the Communist League, which seeks to unite the workers across clear class lines to gain political power. We are Marxist, not "Leninist" or left-communist, or any other current. We take alot of our organization from the original Communist League of Karl Marx and Engels. We have put out the need and fought for an anti-war movement led by the working-class, the only class that has the power to end the war. We have done this through our affiliation with the Iraqi Freedom Congress. Our goal is also to win the masses to the need to take state power and have them take a leadership role, not us. To prevent sectarianism, we allow all Marxists from any trends who agree with our common goals, given that they are proletarians.

This is a very good thread, I hope it keeps going.

[manic expression]

Very good points all around.

The biggest thing we need to do is start working together. Who cares if the other group is Leninist/Maoist/Anarchist/Whathaveyou? We have common goals that come first. People back in the 1910's could be picky about who they worked with, because they were far more numerous. We don't really have that luxury today.

Secondly, the landscape today is a lot more promising than it was before. The gap between rich and poor is growing, class warfare is something people are being forced to deal with, people are frustrated. If we can get people to look at this trend as an inevitable class conflict instead of merely an isolated trend or a Republican policy, we can spread a LOT of potential where we need it most.

Organization in working class communities and other areas (suburbia is feeling a big crunch right now) could win us more support and start putting in motions for change.

Lastly, we cannot be afraid of baggage. If you want to shy away from the history of the left because of stigma, then you're missing the point. We need to show that we're not ashamed or embarrased of our history, but that we are in fact proud of it and that we are willing to continue it today. That will make a better impression on people than anything else, especially Americans (who like brashness and confidence, regardless of the surrounding situation).

Those are some thoughts I've had.

[cenv]

Mass Party of Labor
Impractical. First of all, there are obvious ideological differences that will prevent communists/anarchists from collaborating in any sort of "mass party". Even among communists with nearly identical principles, sectarianism tends to ruin the party. Look at all the Trotskyist groups, for instance. I don't think mass cooperation among revolutionary workers will be possible until an obviously revolutionary situation arises, at which point everyone will note the necessity of some form of coordinated organization.


Entryism
Agreed.


Building bridges between social movements
Yup. Basically, we need to encourage our fellow workers to note the source of the disease, not just the various symptoms.


Building a stong democratic-centralist party with a marxist program and the potential for a leadership role
No. First of all, I've already explained that I think building a single, unified party is next to impossible. Second, you'll never be able to force democratic centralism upon left communists and anarchists. Third, this sounds too much like an attempt to rigidly follow a static ideology -- in this case, "Leninism". We can't just replicate Lenin's Communist Party and it's "democratic centralism" because this is not Russia and it's not 1917. We have a completely different set of material conditions in America and in 2007, so we need to forget ideologies founded upon material conditions of eras long gone.

[RedLenin]

The biggest thing we need to do is start working together.
Agreed. I think that the best thing to do is simply to have serious discussions on theoretical issues. We are all Marxists, and we all base ourselves on the theories of Marx and Engels. Where we have differences is over the contributions of individuals such as Lenin and Trotsky. I think serious debate and theoretical synthesis may be in order. We should start by analysing the history of the class struggle and learn from both the positive things and the negative things. We need to see how we can apply the positive things in the current material conditions. We need to discuss things like the relationship of inner-class democracy to class dictatorship. We need to debate centralism and leadership. We even need to have discussions on things like military strategy and the structure/aims of revolutionary armed struggle.

And, most importantly of all, we need to come to a common agreement on the issue of class and how class relates to communist revolution. I personally think that Trotsky's theories of Permanent Revolution and the tactic of the proletarian United Front are excellent contributions to this debate. I am, above all, for proletarian class independence and self-revolutionary activity. In alliance with the lumpen-proletariat and the peasantry, but self-acting.

I definitely agree with the tactics listed here. We need to go where the workers are and patiently explain our program. We need to intervene in their struggles, stand with them all the way, and promote unity and class-based collective action. If we are seriously going to be a vanguard (or whatever other word you wish to use), we need to start acting like one. Go to the people, talk to the people, organize the people, lead the people.

To do this we need a strong and united force. Though I can be considered a Trotskyist on theoretical grounds, I have always had a problem with the massive sectarianism in the Trotskyist movement. If we can build a strong revolutionary communist movement with a common set of aims and principles, derived through a long process of debate and discussion, we can possibly start getting somewhere. My ideas for such a theoretical unity is the principle of class-independency and proletarian leadership. The proletariat must not unite with bourgeoise or petty-bourgeois forces under any circumstance and should only unite with other oppressed classes while maintaining its independence. The proletariat must also be seen as the only revolutionary class and the only class that will lead to total human liberation and the communist future. We need to smash popular frontism and two-stageism. We also need to make it clear that we stand for class dictatorship and inner-class democracy. If the party holds any power in a proletarian state, they will get there through the electoral process with the potential for recall at any moment. As the last point I can think of at the moment, we need to hold to a strategy of tactical diversity with a common aim. If these measures are taken, and a communist party is built on such a synthesis, I think we may be able to escape the death trap of sectarianism that has been ruining the revolutionary left. That is the first step toward actually bringing about a revolution in the US.

Those are my ideas for now.

[Rawthentic]

Great ideas, comrades, I definitely like where this is going. RedLenin, I praise the way you point out our common ground than our smaller ideological differences, these are the types of debates and bridges that we need to be building.

Yes, we need to study the communist future, as to what went wrong or correct will be up to intense debate, but I will say that we will have to admit the incredible wrongdoings: massacres, genocides, mass graves, suppression of individual liberties, and state-capitalism. Thats my opinion.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 12:08 am

Mass Party of Labor
Impractical. First of all, there are obvious ideological differences that will prevent communists/anarchists from collaborating in any sort of "mass party".
It's really not about you.

Seriously. A mass party of labor is not going to emerge from some federation of the existing left groups. Those groups are not working-class, for the most part, and have no mass influence. If you're going to do real politics, especially working-class politics, you have to stop thinking in terms of "the left." Unite it, divide it, whatever: the point is to move past it.

***

RedLenin is talking about something else: the need for the unions, and whatever other mass organizations of working people may arise, to break from the capitalist parties and create their own political expression. And yes, communists should advocate that.

It's not going to happen tomorrow. So there's no point in being a total broken record on the subject, to the point where people tune you out, as some groups have done. But it is necessary to keep the possibility in mind, look for openings in that direction, advocate the idea from time to time.

Among other things, to have the greatest possibility of influencing any development towards a mass labor party.

It is a good thing that we don't have a mass reformist labor, social-democratic, or "Communist" party in this country. Those parties always act to channel rising mass movements away from challenging the bosses for power.

So when a mass labor party becomes a real possibility - probably during some tumultuous time of rising class struggle - we want to influence that, fight the bureaucrats who will be trying to fasten their grip on it. We may lose - probably will - but better that than giving up without a fight.

The bureaucrats will be handicapped by their longtime opposition to any such party. People who are known as having favored it all along, will have an advantage when it finally comes about.

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by manic [email protected] 18, 2007 04:52 am
The biggest thing we need to do is start working together. Who cares if the other group is Leninist/Maoist/Anarchist/Whathaveyou? We have common goals that come first.
I couldn't agree more, but I limit it to people that actually agree with me. The libertarian left is, fairly non-sectarian, the mobilisation in 2005 around the G8 gave us a lot of links (in the uk), and for the first time on a national scale, libertarians of all shades were working toegther. Unfortunately, the dissent network, was not an ideal model, nor did it have a decent aim. And following the G8, it basically dissolved. But to form a non sectarian federation, with equal participation from all organisations and individuals would be remarkable, it'd be useful, and depending on what it did practically, could ignite a revolution within this century.

All this said, I like the Zapatistas idea, and admire their ability to form a national body, that has Stalinist organisations working with Anarchist ones, in co operation, within a directly democratic system. In other words, we could work with the authoritarian left, if they work democratically with us (which basically means they're anarchists in practice) the fact is that it's such a common sense way of organising, there are no objections. Our democratic, equal participatory way of organising national federations actually provides a model for working with the authoritarian left, whereas theirs does not provide a way for this sort of co operation.

This does of course mean that any top-down vanguardist way of organising is counterproductive, and should be viewed as nothing more that a waste of time. People that organise along these lines are, in my eyes dangerous. Historically, every victory for them results in the murder, imprisonment, and the exile of our activists. The banning of our movement. We cannot work with them.

There's an international gathering in Chiapas around their 6th declaration this july, and I will be going, perhaps as a delegate for the Anarchist federation. Hopefully something constructive can come out of it.

[freakazoid]

Yes! I have said this before that we shouldn't be arguing so much but we should be helping each other.

[SPK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 09:45 pm
Mass Party of Labor/Entryism - It seems to me that everytime the people of America are outraged at some issue, such as the war in Iraq, they tend to flock to the Democratic Party. As the Democratic Party is just another ruling class party, this never results in anything more than the dissipation of the outrage of the working class. History shows that the working class, in the first instance, always gravitates toward the traditional mass organizations; the trade unions and labor/socialist parties. We have a peculiar situation in the US, in that there is no labor party based on the trade unions. For this reason, I think it is necessary to try to build a workers party in the United States which is based on the trade unions and establish a strong marxist current within it. This will provide the American working class with the benefit of a class-independent organization. In this way, when the working class heads to the party during the initial phazes of a revolutionary situation, there will already be a strong Marxist tendency. In the mean-time, we must also employ this tactic of entryism in the trade unions.
The strategies of classic entryism, whether into trade unions or socialist, electoral parties (I’m thinking mostly of the Labor party in the uk here), were devised during a historical period when those organizations had a strong base of working class support. That base was already present. Those preexisting, pre-given organizations had a large membership; that constituency was mostly proletarian; those groups claimed, at some level, to represent working class interests; they had a relatively high level of legitimacy and credibility among workers, in the sense that they were viewed as actually attempting, successfully or not, to act in those interests; they provided a context for line struggle and debate, through mass meetings and other vehicles the membership used to determine an organization’s course; and they had not only an “economic” component – i.e. fighting for immediate gains in wages, reduction of hours, betterment of workplace conditions, etc. -- but a political component as well, in terms of efforts to oppose imperialist war, and so forth. These unions and parties provided an ready-made environment where revolutionaries could, on a day-to-day basis, struggle among workers for a truly anti-capitalist perspective.

Compare that historical backdrop to the current situation in the usa. (As you noted, there is no electoral, workers’ party at all, so we can just set that question aside for the moment.) What of labor unions? There are at least three key differences from the scenario I described. First, the organized base has been significantly reduced: private-sector union representation was at a height of about 35% in the 1950’s, but today the proportion is less than 8%. This reduction has been underway for decades and is integrally related to the weaknesses today of organizing exclusively at the point of production (the bosses can move a point of production, say a factory, to another location where workers’ struggle isn’t as threatening; the bosses can decompose the point of production into smaller units, such as breaking up, say, a large factory into many smaller, nominally independent shops – this occurred frequently in Italy during the capitalist counteroffensive of the 1970’s; the bosses can eliminate the point of production in any conventional sense by, for example, having people work from home or by using other methods; and so on). Second, the bureaucratization, ossification, and hierarchy in most labor unions has reduced direct, day-to-day, mass control of those organizations. That has in turn severely restricted those frameworks, such as mass meetings, in which revolutionaries traditionally engaged in key line struggles and which revolutionaries would view today as having any kind of positive, prefigurative, transformative character. (Communists could become paid organizers in a union apparatus and work politically at the upper echelons, but they should not want to adapt themselves to the current setup and engage in such anti-democratic decision-making practices in the first place.) Third, unions in the usa right now do not generally play a central organizing role in political questions outside of a narrow, economic purview. Their peripheral role in the antiwar movement in one obvious example.

So unions don’t play the central role today in progressive movements or socially that they did in the past – that isn’t anything new. Some form of engagement by revolutionaries is useful, but the term entryism implies a situation that simply no longer exists: reaching the majority or mass of the proletariat can no longer be done primarily through union work. It doesn’t make sense to propose a revolutionary strategy here in which these actually-existing unions somehow become the core vehicle for overthrowing capitalism. It certainly doesn’t make sense either to propose that a labor party, analogous to the social democratic parties that were prevalent in western europe, must be built alongside those unions as part of developing a revolutionary process.

In the usa, many communists, particularly during the seventies, attempted to enter those unions and spread revolutionary politics there. That didn’t work out too well. Other progressives have also attempted many, many times over the years to create electoral third-parties with a stronger orientation towards workers. That didn’t work out too well either. Trying to work inside of those institutions and change the way the operate has failed consistently, and to continue those attempts is a waste of time. Those energies needs to be put into creating genuine, democratically-controlled working class organizations completely outside of existing union structures and completely outside of the whole voting game. People must simply walk around those problems that exist – rather than trying to go through them -- and create whole, new movements from scratch.

[ahab]

we dont need to build any more fucking unions or parties, all that suggests is that after a revolution, that major party would just take over. FUCK THAT, we shouldnt fight for some ideology or political party, we should fight to free ourselves, the human race in general. Yes we need to unite and work together, but as individuals, not as members of some mass party. The only thing we need get it started is eachother and weapons, the peace shit does nothing. If we all banded together and started taking back whats ours, others would join in, soon there would be a massive movement, it only takes one gun to get it started if cast in the right light...

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

Also you need to defeat the pro-state media, and all forms of hedgemony thats pro-ruling class. Like islam has its own tv and radio etc. leftists need that too. I think centeralizing a party would cause more splits in the left, tryand compramise (council communism???)

[RedLenin]

we should fight to free ourselves, the human race in general.
Yes, but the human race can only be liberated through the revolutionary self-emancipation of the working class. The working class is the only revolutionary class in capitalist society, and it alone will lead to the end of class society. Plus, communism is the only society in which human beings will be liberated from class society. In order for the working class to emancipate themselves and build communism, the advanced element of the working class must lead the revolution; they must be the vanguard.


but as individuals, not as members of some mass party.
So individuals voluntarily associating into a revolutionary organization in order to carry out revolutionary goals is not something you approve of? Because that is what a party is.


The only thing we need get it started is eachother and weapons
The problem is that a small minority of people cannot make a socialist revolution. We would be a small minority, as most Americans spend their time going to church and watching American Idol. There is a time for armed insurrection, but that time is not now. We need to fit our revolutionary work to the material conditions that we face.


others would join in
No, they would not. The media would portray the revolutionaries as evil terrorists and the public would support the national guard as they drown us in blood.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 01:43 am
First, the organized base has been significantly reduced: private-sector union representation was at a height of about 35% in the 1950’s, but today the proportion is less than 8%.
That's true. But on the other hand all attempts at "creating genuine, democratically-controlled working class organizations completely outside of existing union structures and completely outside of the whole voting game." have been much less impressive, particularly in terms of numbers.

The AFL in 1930 had all the problems you describe - and more. Mass production was mostly unorganized, craft divisions and bureaucratic control were institutionalized, racism was often overt. It was necessary to break with the AFL to change this - but the break came from within the AFL, not from any of those trying to create red unions or otherwise "create whole, new movements from scratch."

And while the unions are certainly peripheral to the middle-class peace protests you inaccurately describe as an "antiwar movement", they've been less peripheral to the fight for immigrant rights.

Nothing comes from nothing, or from scratch. Struggles emerge from history, and its necessary to relate to whatever mass actions and organizations exist, not those one wishes for. Their problems must be solved, not evaded or "walked around."


In the usa, many communists, particularly during the seventies, attempted to enter those unions and spread revolutionary politics there. That didn’t work out too well.

I gotta disagree. Many people failed because they were not communists and did not attempt to do communist political work on the job and in the union. A fairly typical example was the RCP. Here's an interesting critique by an ex-member of the RCP's brief turn towards the working class (http://www.massline.info/rcp/expel/index.htm). He points out:

The success in recruiting the two drivers already working at Muni was mostly due to the new ideological element in our efforts that came about when the RU/RCP leadership criticized the economism within the work at Muni, as part of the campaign against economism within the organization as a whole. But that recruitment success also depended upon the substantial previous participation of us communists in the day-to-day struggles of the workers at Muni. Drivers weren't recruited before that period because of the lack of (or at least severe weaknesses in) the ideological/educational component in our work with drivers. But drivers weren't recruited after that period either—even though the ideological work was greatly intensified—because the communists no longer seriously participated in day-to-day struggles together with the drivers and were thus seen as "outsiders" or "preachers" (even if they were also Muni drivers). Only during the brief period of a year or two, during which the RU became the RCP, were both essential factors in place at Muni, and thus only during that short period was any real (but limited) progress made in bringing revolutionary ideas to the drivers and turning a few of them into communists.

This extremely important concept, that we must both join up with the workers' own day-to-day struggles, and in the course of that bring the light of revolution to them, is something that the RU/RCP has never been able to grasp.

And not just the RU/RCP. I'll say from my experience it's not an easy thing to do consistently, especially under present-day conditions, even if one clearly understands the need to do it.

There is one organization that sustained its 70s turn to industry: the Socialist Workers Party. I'd say it's only thanks to that turn that the SWP retains a working-class and communist orientation, as more and more organizations drop even the pretense of one.

During a period when the working class remains in retreat, this isn't going to yield any spectacular successes. And it's beyond the power of a small political organization to reverse that retreat, obviously! But it remains the only communist course...and if an organization can retain the capacity to combine mass work with communist propaganda work, it can potentially pay off in a big way with new advances in the class struggle.

[SPK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 02:35 am
That's true. But on the other hand all attempts at "creating genuine, democratically-controlled working class organizations completely outside of existing union structures and completely outside of the whole voting game" have been much less impressive, particularly in terms of numbers.

The AFL in 1930 had all the problems you describe - and more. Mass production was mostly unorganized, craft divisions and bureaucratic control were institutionalized, racism was often overt. It was necessary to break with the AFL to change this - but the break came from within the AFL, not from any of those trying to create red unions or otherwise "create whole, new movements from scratch."

And while the unions are certainly peripheral to the middle-class peace protests you inaccurately describe as an "antiwar movement", they've been less peripheral to the fight for immigrant rights.

Nothing comes from nothing, or from scratch. Struggles emerge from history, and its necessary to relate to whatever mass actions and organizations exist, not those one wishes for. Their problems must be solved, not evaded or "walked around."
Union membership has been steadily declining since at least the Meany era (the fifties) in the AFL-CIO. Lack of democratic control and a bloated strata of privileged functionaries has been a problem for longer that than. Labor union support for the immigrant rights movement (that support itself being only recent) is good, but that hardly means that they were the key driver in initiating that struggle – and it certainly doesn’t disprove their overall peripheral or nonexistent role in radical movements which have arisen since the end of World War II. So we’re talking about a set of troubles with existing unions – the AFL-CIO, UAW, the Teamsters, among others – that have been going on unabated for half-a-century. If there is any problem that should be “evaded” or “walked around”, then surely this is one of them.

That problem, as I define it, is with the existing unions as a set of structures or institutions. A structure is not some empty vessel that can be magically repaired or fixed by injecting the correct politics into it: by having an organizer with the right ideas, by having committed communists agitate for the right line, etc. Institutions as material, practical entities can become so corroded, that it is no longer effective to attempt salvaging them – people, time, and resources could be better used in building other options and alternatives.

Elements of the left have been waiting – breathlessly, for years – for these existing unions to turn in a good direction: to reverse declining representation in the workforce, to move towards more democratic control, etc. Many good people – revolutionaries or not -- have been chewed up trying to make that happen, and it simply has not happened. When you note that the swp usa has uniquely maintained its turn towards industry, whereas other Marxist-Leninist groups have not (I won’t even go into the thousands of standard, liberal, idealistic college student types that they hire as organizers), that simply reinforces my point: these unions are some of the oldest, most hidebound, conservative organizations with which the left routinely engages, and they are irredeemably resistant to reform and change – to such a degree that only a grouping of hundreds or so of the most dedicated communists can continue to do day-to-day political work there. Human beings are imperfect, and if a structure or institution is so decayed that thousands of imperfect people cannot work inside of it and make it do the right thing, then the time has come to decamp from that organization and explore new avenues or paths.

You discuss differing approaches to existent institutions: mobilize a significant base from within and split (which you seem to support, given your example of the AFL in the thirties), versus creating new organizations from scratch (which you do not support). Many new movements have arisen in history without these kind of organizational schisms as the driving force: schisms may come about as a byproduct, but they are not decisive. Was the women’s struggle sparked in the sixties, because of some organizational machinations somewhere? Of course not. Millions of women around the country mobilized themselves and created thousands of collectives, shelters, clinics, antiviolence programs, and political groupings completely outside of anything that existed before. Was the lesbian and gay struggle sparked by some organizational split? Of course not. The handful of old-line gay groupings at the time – like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis – were almost completely irrelevant to the development of gay liberation politics, new community institutions, and so on. The contemporary anarchist and anti-authoritarian movement, with its focus on small and localized affinity groups, collectives, and infoshops (sometimes ad-hoc and temporary) certainly cannot be traced in some linear way to the kind of organizational rupture you’re suggesting. You may not hold these movements in any esteem, but in terms of the institutions and structures they established, they absolutely did “come out of nowhere” and are significant historical forces. For that matter, if the individuals involved in the formative phases of those struggles had wasted their efforts toiling away in the actual groups of the time (which were deeply resistant to the new tendencies), those movements may never have come into being in the first place.

The union federations which exist in the usa right now represent a small minority of workers here. Any upsurge by the working class is likely to take on organizational forms that fall outside of those given union structures. That is a good thing and should be supported wholeheartedly.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 01:24 am
Labor union support for the immigrant rights movement (that support itself being only recent) is good, but that hardly means that they were the key driver in initiating that struggle
You're right that it's recent. It may even be the first time ever that the main labor federation in this country has taken such a position.

There have been union contingents in many of the protests, and organizers for the Carpenters and some other unions were even involved in encouraging people to take off work for May Day.

I'm certainly not claiming they were the "key driver", of course. But an orientation to the industrial working class and existing unions is certainly not an obstacle to responding to this development; I'd argue it's potentially a tremendous asset.


– and it certainly doesn’t disprove their overall peripheral or nonexistent role in radical movements which have arisen since the end of World War II.

OK....of course, if you're going to talk about mass radicalization since WWII, that basically means the 60-70s. That was an exceptional period, I'd argue. It's common on the left to expect it to be repeated, but that's unlikely for several reasons.

That was a radicalization during a period of prosperity, with a large participation by students and middle-class ex-students. (Though it should be noted the civil rights movement, which was basically working-class, kicked off the radicalization.)

Possibly the student population was more readily radicalized because it was a new social layer in a sense - universities had grown very rapidly due to the needs of technical progress. In any case, we're in a different time now: of economic stagnation not post-WWII prosperity. Of growing inequality and class polarization, where the working class is suffering economically and many layers of ex-student professionals are sharing prosperity with the bosses.

In that context, these layers are much less likely to radicalize in any progressive way. Instead, they need to find ways to justify and defend their privileges. The Bell Curve is a good example of an ideological defense of this "cognitive elite" and its economic privileges - "we're rich because we're smart". Significantly, most liberal and left criticism of this book focused solely on its racial claims and left aside its main message, which was about class. That's cause the authors of the Bell Curve were right about one thing - that all kinds of middle-class elements, including liberals and leftists, share their desire to defend their privileged way of life from the unwashed masses. Gated communities, guarded buildings, suburban or private schools....


That problem, as I define it, is with the existing unions as a set of structures or institutions. A structure is not some empty vessel that can be magically repaired or fixed by injecting the correct politics into it: by having an organizer with the right ideas, by having committed communists agitate for the right line, etc. Institutions as material, practical entities can become so corroded, that it is no longer effective to attempt salvaging them – people, time, and resources could be better used in building other options and alternatives.

This is not entirely a post-WWII phenomenon, as you say earlier: "Lack of democratic control and a bloated strata of privileged functionaries has been a problem for longer that than." What is post-WWII was the ranks mostly going along with this situation; the general prosperity made it possible to secure steady wage and benefit improvement without much of a fight, and with unions that were more and more unsuitable as fighting organizations.

That's no longer the case; and the ranks are looking for ways to reverse the decline of the unions. I don't think it's going to happen entirely within, well, current union structures. But history shows that union structures can be broken and reformed from within when the ranks go into action on a large scale.

Not through "by having an organizer with the right ideas, by having committed communists agitate for the right line, etc.". Through the development of mass actions by the ranks, under the impact of the economic situation and the bosses' offensives.


Elements of the left have been waiting – breathlessly, for years – for these existing unions to turn in a good direction: to reverse declining representation in the workforce, to move towards more democratic control, etc.

Working, not waiting. And others have been working towards the creation of new unions. Neither has created mass class-struggle unions, but one approach has made a significant contribution to some important developments in the class struggle.


When you note that the swp usa has uniquely maintained its turn towards industry, whereas other Marxist-Leninist groups have not (I won’t even go into the thousands of standard, liberal, idealistic college student types that they hire as organizers), that simply reinforces my point: these unions are some of the oldest, most hidebound, conservative organizations with which the left routinely engages, and they are irredeemably resistant to reform and change – to such a degree that only a grouping of hundreds or so of the most dedicated communists can continue to do day-to-day political work there.

What? SWP members are certainly not the only people who continue to work in the unions. There's a broad layer of rank-and-file fighters who continue to work to strengthen and change the unions, build solidarity with strikes, educate new members, assert rank-and-file power within their locals, etc.

Now what has proved very difficult is for a political group, mostly student and middle-class ex-student in membership and leadership, to transform that class composition. Especially if its politics are centrist rather than communist. (Centrist: a political tendency somewhere between reformist and revolutionary politics; often vacillating between the two.)

BTW, the SWP is certainly not "Marxist-Leninist"; that's a term coined by the Moscow apparatchik regime after Lenin's death, to describe its own politics and the politics of its obedient franchise parties.


Many new movements have arisen in history without these kind of organizational schisms as the driving force: schisms may come about as a byproduct, but they are not decisive.

Not, however, new unions.

But I may be missing your point here: maybe it's more giving up on labor unions altogether. That seems remarkably shortsighted, historically.

Unions are the basic defense organizations of the working class; they have been since shortly after the modern wage-working class developed. There have always been prone to bureaucracy and other problems; yet this has not stopped them from playing a fundamental role. And they have deeper problems more recently: an aftereffect of the post-WWII prosperity. It's necessary to take a longer view of history, and not assume that current situations or trends continue indefinitely.


Was the women’s struggle sparked in the sixties, because of some organizational machinations somewhere? Of course not. Millions of women around the country mobilized themselves and created thousands of collectives, shelters, clinics, antiviolence programs, and political groupings completely outside of anything that existed before.

Well, actually, it did emerge out of previously existing organizations and movements. A lot of women who started these organizations came out of the civil rights movements, the antiwar movement, the New Left (partly in reaction to the rampant sexism of the New Left.)

Not out of "organizational machinations" especially; but that's really not part of my overall point in this thread.


The union federations which exist in the usa right now represent a small minority of workers here.

The funny thing is, that other workers, when they're looking to fight, start turning towards those union federations.

This topic, on the Smithfield strike was an interesting example (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=59002) A member who thinks unions are reactionary started it as an example of a strike by "non-union" workers, protesting the firing of workers who allegedly didn't have the right immigration papers.

But of course if he'd bothered to read the article he woulda seen it was part of a fight to bring in the UFCW union into the plant. The UFCW bureaucracy, BTW, is one of the worst in some ways.

[SPK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 10:21 pm
Not out of "organizational machinations" especially; but that's really not part of my overall point in this thread.
Well, actually, I thought that was one of the key points you had made in your prior response, and I considered it to be one of the key differences in how you and I view these questions: with your example of the AFL split in the thirties, it appeared that you supported (nay, demanded of revolutionaries) organizing in existing labor unions because of at least the possibility of splitting off sections of more militant workers during the next upsurge. This approach is legitimate as one tactic, as there will always be a large, absolute number of the working class involved in today’s unions (I hope). However, for the reasons I’ve laid out, I disagree with the idea that this must be the central, primary strategy for revolution, which is what RL was addressing when he kicked off this thread.

I believe that there is a specific organizational dimension to these problems, such as loss of union representation in the workplace as a whole, bureaucratization, a resistance to broad left politics, and so on. Institutional inertia and hostility to reform efforts in existent labor unions cannot easily be overcome – or overcome through any kind of viable, reasonable application of time, energy, resources, and people. It may be easier to simply walk around those current structures and create new ones, and as I’ve noted, I think this is likely. Some workers will leave those current organizations. Other workers will never be a member of the current groups and will be radicalized in whatever new formations do arise. Some workers will remain in those existing groups. I don’t agree at all with the position that we absolutely must operate within today’s labor unions, to the exclusion of other independent alternatives that may be developed in the future. Sections of the working class are to going to autonomously make the decision to go off in other directions: you may not agree with that, but surely you recognize that any possible reconstitution and rejuvenation of current institutions, like the AFL-CIO or the Teamsters, will be more likely with external pressure from below. As you noted:
History shows that union structures can be broken and reformed from within when the ranks go into action on a large scale.

Btw, I’m not suggesting that the organizational dynamic is the only problem. Once new formations do appear, they will still have to deal with many of the same, general, abstract problems that we see today. A political culture of internal democracy and grassroots control will have to be developed and strengthened, for example – this is more of an ideological question. Moving from one formation to another doesn’t magically make that happen: it does, however, make the task much easier, by removing opposition from longstanding, entrenched interests.


I may be missing your point here: maybe it's more giving up on labor unions altogether.
No, of course not. I do think there is are serious weaknesses with organizing strategies centered exclusively at the point of production, and those become clearer as the global capitalist economy becomes more tightly integrated: with faster modes of transportation and communication, greater commonality in language skills and business processes, etc. Existing union tactics have worked very poorly in this environment. For well over thirty years, factories here have been dismantled and shipped off to other, lower-wage / lower-cost countries, and this has inhibited union drives among the impacted workforces. The phenomena we see now of certain information-centric service jobs being similarly moved offshore is, from the standpoint of individual capitalist concerns here, simpler and probably won’t take thirty years to finalize. No one currently has a good answer to these dilemmas (at least not one beyond “let’s overthrow capitalism”), and some future worker initiatives may not take the form of a traditional union centered at a physical, geographic point of production, if that particular approach does not do the trick for the workers in question.

Existing union tactics have recently been successful, of course, in exactly those service sectors where a point of production cannot be physically moved, decomposed, or eliminated altogether: i.e. where workers are tied to a particular place or location. Justice for Janitors, for example, recently won concessions from major real estate management firms operating here in Houston (this town has never had a large union base, so their victory is a big deal). Custodial work can’t (easily) be automated or “virtualized” or eliminated, to say the least.

Miscellaneous stuff:

- You have an analysis of the so-called “new social movements” of the sixties and seventies, and their relation to prevailing economic conditions, that I don’t accept. You have a similar assessment of the relation between those economic conditions and the status of union organizing efforts, which I also don’t accept. The postwar “boom” ended almost 35 years ago -- i.e. the “neoliberal” capitalist offensive, with its attacks on working people and rampant cutbacks, began at that point. That certainly didn’t prevent those newer struggles from developing much more fully over the intervening decades. Simultaneously, that didn’t lead to any major, sustained increase in union membership. So I would say that those two things – the economic situation and movement dynamics – are relatively decoupled, and there is no mechanistic or deterministic relation there.


The SWP is certainly not "Marxist-Leninist"; that's a term coined by the Moscow apparatchik regime after Lenin's death, to describe its own politics and the politics of its obedient franchise parties.
- That’s interesting -- I wasn’t aware that this was an swp usa perspective. You should explain it more at some point.

[CNT-FAI]

Not everyone here is a Marxist, BTW.

I think we are way overbalanced already with discussing theory. Theory is important but has to be linked with action, otherwise its impotent.

My repeated theme is that we need to show the working classes what we can do for them. I think much of the divisiveness on the left is simplythe result of a narcissistic disorder which forgets this. It is also a problem of egoistic machismo in which people want to be right no matter what the cost. Zero-sum game reasoning.

The people are simply lost in the shuffle. And what's the % of women in the movement? It's small, & that ought to tell us something. Women are turned off by all the abstract male posturing, head-butting & pissing contests and a "movement" that's almost immobile, & they go elsehere. Another fact we could learn from. Self-critique should be a major priority, to clear the decks for any future action.

A revolutionary IMO has above all to be humble, to be able to learn from others, unless he wants to remain in his Leftist ghetto & never see any progress towards a better life. Can we learn from the people & assist them in their daily struggles? Remains to be seen.

"Serve the People"