kromando33
22nd January 2008, 05:19
I thought more than anything I would like to say a few words of my own in regard to organizational issues of socialist parties and the recruitment of cadres and political activity in general, but also to generate discussion and debate regarding activities of various left-wing organizations.
I personally think the movement has alot of problems, but the biggest one is opportunism and what I would 'left reactionism', more plainly it centers around the futile attempts of organizations would can barely manage 2% of the vote trying candidates. I understand the reasoning, it's too attract attention to the movement, but it's also a double-edged blade, many people take electoral results too seriously, and get awfully disheartened when they loose. There's even an unsaid mentality that 'only if we could get one candidate elected everything will be alright', not only is this untrue, it's also dangerous. Many comrades can put their time and effort into these ventures rather than effort into renewing the ranks of cadres. It can get demoralizing if you invest so much emotionally and then are let down, some comrades think the election result reflects badly on themselves and indicates that their movement is fringe and basically dead.
This 'humiliation complex' that many comrades get themselves into is bad because it gives the false impression that bourgeois 'democracies' today have credibility, that they have legitimacy and that the result in some way reflects social truths, truths some may say reflect that the socialist movement is dead. That's why comrades and indeed organizations should not invest so heavily in electoralism, the idea that a political system 'designed' to uphold bourgeois class interests actively supporting pro-worker candidates is absurd. The whole culture and media of the bourgeois state is geared toward isolation and alienation of the political worker movement from the workers themselves. Worker's are thus entrapped by the right-wing 'labor' or 'social-democratic' parties which have a stranglehold of the labor movement. They are completely class collaborationist, and completely conformist to the bourgeois state.
The key is trying to forge active links with the labor movement itself, and not relying on conservative trade unions. In my country of Australia for example, trade union membership is declining and is below 20% of the workforce, this is because the movement has become too beholden to owners and business, and incredibly bureaucratically inefficient.
Morale, in short, is the issue. To inspire young people to be vanguardists, and to really connect with the basic material conditions and realities of the workers, so that they know that you know so to speak. To be truly Marxist we must analyze the reality of situations, and give material analysis to the working class in such as way to succinctly explain such things. The worst thing to do is to try and bore workers to death with theory, theory isn't bad but the place for it is in the party room, workers don't want to hear such things, they want to hear things relating to them.
Electoralism almost always corrupts left-wing parties, the rightward pressure to conform to their wealthier backers, and to conform to the 'mainstream line' as the party gets bigger. If we truly believe that modern bourgeois parliamentary and congressional systems are not democratic, and that no policy adverse to the bourgeois, we should treat them with contempt, and not 'invest' in them.
Opportunism in this way also relates to electoralism, the attempt to make a 'rightward shift' to come into the bourgeois political circles, but sometimes it comes about because of the personal ambitions of individual candidates and leaders for power in the bourgeois state. Opportunism imo also relates to the sporadic 'issue politics', the odd strike, picket, immigrant scandal or whatever, at which time (almost out of obscurity) pops the socialists to protest. The worker may think 'yeah but where were they before?' and they would be correct. Socialist parties must offer and consistent and continuous messages to the workers, and calmly offer analysis of any events as they happen. Many leftist groups have lost track of any Leninist realism, and what has replaced it is an ultimatist 'all or nothing' ultra-idealism which is neither practical nor possible, in short no more 'bread, peace and land' and real-life issues, instead a dogmatic almost alien approach to the workers, where their own puffed-up self-important sect and their 'divine revelation' takes precedence.
I personally think the movement has alot of problems, but the biggest one is opportunism and what I would 'left reactionism', more plainly it centers around the futile attempts of organizations would can barely manage 2% of the vote trying candidates. I understand the reasoning, it's too attract attention to the movement, but it's also a double-edged blade, many people take electoral results too seriously, and get awfully disheartened when they loose. There's even an unsaid mentality that 'only if we could get one candidate elected everything will be alright', not only is this untrue, it's also dangerous. Many comrades can put their time and effort into these ventures rather than effort into renewing the ranks of cadres. It can get demoralizing if you invest so much emotionally and then are let down, some comrades think the election result reflects badly on themselves and indicates that their movement is fringe and basically dead.
This 'humiliation complex' that many comrades get themselves into is bad because it gives the false impression that bourgeois 'democracies' today have credibility, that they have legitimacy and that the result in some way reflects social truths, truths some may say reflect that the socialist movement is dead. That's why comrades and indeed organizations should not invest so heavily in electoralism, the idea that a political system 'designed' to uphold bourgeois class interests actively supporting pro-worker candidates is absurd. The whole culture and media of the bourgeois state is geared toward isolation and alienation of the political worker movement from the workers themselves. Worker's are thus entrapped by the right-wing 'labor' or 'social-democratic' parties which have a stranglehold of the labor movement. They are completely class collaborationist, and completely conformist to the bourgeois state.
The key is trying to forge active links with the labor movement itself, and not relying on conservative trade unions. In my country of Australia for example, trade union membership is declining and is below 20% of the workforce, this is because the movement has become too beholden to owners and business, and incredibly bureaucratically inefficient.
Morale, in short, is the issue. To inspire young people to be vanguardists, and to really connect with the basic material conditions and realities of the workers, so that they know that you know so to speak. To be truly Marxist we must analyze the reality of situations, and give material analysis to the working class in such as way to succinctly explain such things. The worst thing to do is to try and bore workers to death with theory, theory isn't bad but the place for it is in the party room, workers don't want to hear such things, they want to hear things relating to them.
Electoralism almost always corrupts left-wing parties, the rightward pressure to conform to their wealthier backers, and to conform to the 'mainstream line' as the party gets bigger. If we truly believe that modern bourgeois parliamentary and congressional systems are not democratic, and that no policy adverse to the bourgeois, we should treat them with contempt, and not 'invest' in them.
Opportunism in this way also relates to electoralism, the attempt to make a 'rightward shift' to come into the bourgeois political circles, but sometimes it comes about because of the personal ambitions of individual candidates and leaders for power in the bourgeois state. Opportunism imo also relates to the sporadic 'issue politics', the odd strike, picket, immigrant scandal or whatever, at which time (almost out of obscurity) pops the socialists to protest. The worker may think 'yeah but where were they before?' and they would be correct. Socialist parties must offer and consistent and continuous messages to the workers, and calmly offer analysis of any events as they happen. Many leftist groups have lost track of any Leninist realism, and what has replaced it is an ultimatist 'all or nothing' ultra-idealism which is neither practical nor possible, in short no more 'bread, peace and land' and real-life issues, instead a dogmatic almost alien approach to the workers, where their own puffed-up self-important sect and their 'divine revelation' takes precedence.