Originally posted by Red_Hooligan+November 18, 2007 05:42 am--> (Red_Hooligan @ November 18, 2007 05:42 am)
Originally posted by devrim+--> (devrim)I was talking to a railway worker, who I am pretty sure is a member of the CHP (Republican People's Party) the other week, and he told me that 'We are going to cleanse the Kurds'. What are you saying I should do? Never speak to him again, or argue for class politics?[/b]
If someone told me he wanted to "cleanse" any ethnic group, I would say to him,
"What the fuck do you mean? That kind of shit disgusts me. If that's what you're into, you're talking to the wrong guy."
[/b]
OK, so here we are in a war situation. Over 80% of the population supports military intervention, and many of them are saying things like that. What are you going to do refuse to speak to them on moral grounds? It may make you feel personally righteous, but what you are doing is cutting yourself off from the working class. Effectively you are abdicating from even an idea of a struggle of ideas within the working class.
Originally posted by Red_Hooligan
You've fought fascists in the streets...the same ones you're "friends" with? What if you met THEM in a street battle one night? Would you "take it easy" on them, or even run away? Gosh, don't want to alienate the pro-fascist workers. We need to argue with them, right? :D
Here I am not sure what this mocking tone is for. I think it is to do with the fact that there isn't a political argument here at all. Yes, of course we need to argue with fascist workers. Let's look at why:
Originally posted by Red_Hooligan
Whoops, forgot to address Devrim's ignored-point.
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So let's look at one real practical example, the current national Telekom strike. There are 26,000 strikers. Even if we imagine that only 10% voted fascist, that would still leave over 2,500 of the strikers as fascist voters. What do you suggest that we do, attack them on picket lines? No, that is absurd. We argue for class politics.
Fascist voters are inherently anti-worker. Nazis and KDP members stood side-by-side during strikes in Germany, 1930's.
What they SHOULD have done, is treated molotov cocktails and bricks to the heads of Nazis, as much as they did the police! T
Any breathing room we give them to organize, will come back to bite us in the ass later on. We'll slap our heads, and realize that we should have been BASHING THEM and keeping them from getting strong in the first place.
By the way, if the fascists have safety and freedom to "exist" in a workers' strike, then they ARE organizing, this you can be sure. That isn't "OK" with me.
To sum it up, yes, on the picket line you should identify who is "with you" in the long run, or who is a detriment to your struggle.
Actually, you didn't answer it here either. The question was 'do we attack striking workers on picket lines?'. You skate around it. Never mind. Let's deal with the points you make.
Of course fascists exist in workers' strikes. In our country we have fascist unions. The point about a strike though is that it is workers fighting for their own interests on a class terrain*. Of course revolutionaries should struggle for the unity of the working class, and attempt to introduce class politics into the struggle. Your solution seems to be to attack other workers.
Your analogy with Germany misses the point. The problem wasn't that KPD members, and Nazis were on strike together. This happens it is a workers' struggle on a class terrain, and we welcome it. It gives us a chance to argue with these workers on our terms. The point is that the KPD co-operated with the fascists on their terrain, that of the national question, organising joint demonstrations with them in the name of national independence.
The communist left, absolutely rejects the idea of any cooperation with fascist groups. I would also note here that this is note the case with many leftist organisations, and many of them are dragged into co-operating in the name of 'national liberation'. What we do not reject is the idea of arguing class politics with workers whatever their politics.
Red_Hooligan
Fascists and bourgeois politicians are fundamentally different.
Voting for bourgeois politicians is simply an ignorant act in futility. It won't change anything.
Voting for fascist politicians is an act of aggression. If a fascist party takes control of your government, you can expect quite a few "changes" to come about. The few "freedoms" that the bourgeois governments granted you will be swept away, not to mention whatever campaigns of racial/ethnic killings, as well as a historically-large increase in political imprisonments.
It is funny, because as we remember it in this country the last time we had pogroms, and mass imprisonment, the army was in power not the fascists. And guess who is the main supporter of that very same army today...yes the social democrats.
I remember the fascists being part of a coalition government a few years ago, and nothing really changed.
The point is that the bourgeoisie will use mass repression against the working class, and pogrom against ethnic/and religious minorities. Sometimes the parties doing this will call themselves fascist, and at other times they will call themselves socialist.
Noske opened the road that led to Hitler.
Today all bourgeois parties are equally anti-working class. There is no progressive bourgeoisie. All of these parties will use repression against both the working class, and minorities when they need it.
The leftists fetishism of anti-fascism is looking increasingly irrelevant.
Devrim
*There are exceptions to this. Things like the UWC, or the 'Powell strike' but they are neither relevant to the example that I gave nor to the point.