To Comrades in the US-some thoughts

[OI OI OI]

This is a time that comrades in the US, in light of the economic crisis, need to become active and start building the subjective factor as the material conditions for building it are very favorable.

Of course we can only lay the basis of the creation of a mass revolutionary party and not lead a revolution in the short term.

A real step forward would be to build a mass workers party with a general socialist platform that will include all the leftist tendencies in the US.

In this mass party the revolutionaries can find a wider audience to spread the ideas of revolutionary marxism.

There is a need for leftist organizations to unite under a common platform in order to have something visible for the workers to join in.

There is an urgent need to attract all those workers who lost their jobs etc and that are drawing revolutionary conclusions.

Especially with the probable ellection of Obama there is a need of a strong united voice of exposing Obama to the eyes of those who have laid hopes on him and hopefully they will draw more radical conclusions.

The problem that I have observed in the US is that the left has not realized that the conditions of the US are not those of building an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans , a party that the most opressed layers of the US population which is a pretty big chunk of the population and a part of the workers can see and join.

there is a need to attract the rank and file of the workers and the common people affected by the crisis.

the problem is that you cannot approach them as a small group of 10-20 revolutionaries.

In order to have an echoe you need a workers party that you will have an echoe in.

That is why I encourage people in the US to start thinking about my suggestion and start working on taking the movement forward a step on a time.

Working alone with your tiny groups of 100, 500 or even 10 000 members is not enough to reach the working class.

there is a need of unity and there is a need for a creation of a labour party.

These are some of my thoughts,

[bcbm]

We're workin on it, thanks.

[OI OI OI]

We're workin on it, thanks.

Can you please not mock?

This is a discussion forum.If you have nothing constructive to contribute on the discussion then just don't post a reply

[KC]

This is a discussion forum.If you have nothing constructive to contribute on the discussion then just don't post a reply

Then why did you start this thread?

[OI OI OI]

Then why did you start this thread?

To have a discussion regarding the best tactics to "profit" from the crisis in the US and be able to build the basis for a revolutionary party.

It seems though that some members here are so out-of-touch with reality and the seriousness of revolutionary politics that just prefer to mock, rather than making constructive contributions on the issue.

That being said I don't want this thread to degenerate so I won't post anymore on the mockery issue.

If a mod could trash the smap by superstar dj and my reply I would be grateful

[freakazoid]

I too think that the time is right to be able to build a mass movement.

[bayano]

we have so many parties as it is, though, that if political parties, those that have parliamentary strategies and those that don't, were a solution i'd have joined one

but which one?

the US is too big to simply create yet another tiny party to put forth nothing

you want a part? we have tons. running candidates includes PSL, Green Party, SPUSA, SWP. some other parties support one of those candidates (either the Greens or whichever they're closest to politically). then, some leninist parties have gone behind obama like the CPUSA (they always go Democrat) and FRSO-Fight Back. or the DP tag-alongs like the Working Families Party or the DSA. of course there are dozens more parties, many of which argue the elections are completely useless.

whether its real political fissures, ego, dogmatism, these groups can't all get in the same room together. period. and no new party that struts along will mean anything at all.

i would suppot one where it actually had a chance of getting elected, and particularly at the executive level that ain't gonna happen. wade thru our factionalist left and come up with a more practical and practiceable solution.

[Mindtoaster]

CPUSA supports Obama, and is pretty much not an option.

SPUSA has always seemed to be the most agreeable platform, and the least sectarian. It sounds odd to say this, but hopefully alot of these parties will start collapsing, so there won't be as many to have to deal with. On the other hand, I'm not sure I even agree with the concept of a political party, let alone a revolutionary one.

[bcbm]

wade thru our factionalist left and come up with a more practical and practiceable solution.

Work locally through community/neighborhood/workplace groups?

[Sendo]

I think the best recipe is to organize horizontally. People aren't attracted to any of the ogranizations that you have to work your way into. Follow a set up like that of the Wobblies, unite all workers and students and unemployed and mobilize for them mass strikes, looking at US history what works amazingly is city-wide strikes. And work on training people in dealing with police and possible army "crowd controllers". Tell people what to bring to rallies and how to deal with mace. There is a large element of fear in attending this stuff. Get more attention for aclu and lawyer's guild. Morale and legal support can be great. I know that I wussed out on something once because I was in the midst of getting a criminal background check and couldn't fight a legal battle.

[Saorsa]

This thread is hilarious. :lol: I can just see Oix3 sitting down to ponder this. His reasoning probably went something like this...

The IMT is a massive revolutionary tendency with huge influence around the world and is playing a leading role in Venezuela and elsewhere. I can prove this by quoting from Marxist.com. The IMT line must therefore be totally correct, for how else could we have achieved such incredible success? Therefore it applies everywhere.

The IMT practice entryism into the Labour Party, which after 90 years or more of existence and many terms in government, during many of which it attacked the working class, has somehow still not managed to expose itself a bourgeois party! This is obviously an excellent line, and anyone who doesnt think so is a left sectarian isolated in a leftist ghetto (unlike the mighty IMT, with it's international influence and massive working-class support base).

Now, it's obvious that something has to be done in the US... but what is it? Well obviously they have to practice entryism into the labour party! After all, this is the IMT line, and we've been so succesful with it. Oh wait, there is no Labour Party in the US (apart from a tiny left sect isolated in a leftist ghetto).... shit.

I know! I have it! We need to just, like, get out there and make a mass labour party! My god, how could nobody have thought of this before? That's what they've been doing wrong there! And once it's been just, like, created out of thin air, once all the socialist groups paper over their differences and unite into one organisation (again, why has nobody suggested this before?!?), the IMT can practice entryism into it! I'm a genius!

[ashaman1324]

would it be possible for all our tiny organizations to unite under a blanket title simply to present a unified front?
simply merging into one super party is too much to hope for i realize.
but if they united under a common title simply for recognition and could still keep their original parties i dont see why this couldn't work.
am i wrong?

[Rosa Provokateur]

A real step forward would be to build a mass workers party with a general socialist platform that will include all the leftist tendencies in the US.


Do you know how many tendencies there are? You have factions among everybody; anarchists(green, communist, feminist),
communists(stalinist, trotskyist, marxist, marxist-leninist, maoist, hoaxist), socialists(democratic, anarcho, radical).

To get them to all work with eachother is hard work like Stalinists and Trotskyists or anarchists and hoaxists; it's all good in theory but at the end of the day probably aint gonna happen. Leave the US to us and you do what you do:thumbup1:

[bcbm]

would it be possible for all our tiny organizations to unite under a blanket title simply to present a unified front?
simply merging into one super party is too much to hope for i realize.
but if they united under a common title simply for recognition and could still keep their original parties i dont see why this couldn't work.

A coalition? Everyone would be at each other's throats before it got anywhere.

[DiaMat86]

Class Consciousness is very weak in the US. Class is well hidden by the strong emphasis on individualism in popular culture.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This thread is hilarious. :lol: I can just see Oix3 sitting down to ponder this. His reasoning probably went something like this...

The IMT is a massive revolutionary tendency with huge influence around the world and is playing a leading role in Venezuela and elsewhere. I can prove this by quoting from Marxist.com. The IMT line must therefore be totally correct, for how else could we have achieved such incredible success? Therefore it applies everywhere.

The IMT practice entryism into the Labour Party, which after 90 years or more of existence and many terms in government, during many of which it attacked the working class, has somehow still not managed to expose itself a bourgeois party! This is obviously an excellent line, and anyone who doesnt think so is a left sectarian isolated in a leftist ghetto (unlike the mighty IMT, with it's international influence and massive working-class support base).

Now, it's obvious that something has to be done in the US... but what is it? Well obviously they have to practice entryism into the labour party! After all, this is the IMT line, and we've been so succesful with it. Oh wait, there is no Labour Party in the US (apart from a tiny left sect isolated in a leftist ghetto).... shit.

I know! I have it! We need to just, like, get out there and make a mass labour party! My god, how could nobody have thought of this before? That's what they've been doing wrong there! And once it's been just, like, created out of thin air, once all the socialist groups paper over their differences and unite into one organisation (again, why has nobody suggested this before?!?), the IMT can practice entryism into it! I'm a genius!

There IS a labour party: the United States Labor Party (although it's in a coma). There is also a tiny "social-democratic party" that broke off from the SPUSA.

[Saorsa]

I know, and I mentioned it. :)


(apart from a tiny left sect isolated in a leftist ghetto)

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ The United States Labor Party isn't "a tiny left sect" (at least with 5,000 members or so):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Party_(United_States)

[Saorsa]

By Oix3's definition it would be.

[Random Precision]

^^^ The United States Labor Party isn't "a tiny left sect" (at least with 5,000 members or so):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Party_(United_States)

Yeah, well, according to Wiki it has that many. I would suspect there's actually a lot less, as most people walked off after a year it was founded, when it wasn't getting anywhere. That's still the case- it seems their website hasn't been updated for two fucking years, either.


Now, it's obvious that something has to be done in the US... but what is it? Well obviously they have to practice entryism into the labour party! After all, this is the IMT line, and we've been so succesful with it. Oh wait, there is no Labour Party in the US (apart from a tiny left sect isolated in a leftist ghetto).... shit.

That's exactly the IMT logic. In fact allegedly all the activity of their group is centered around the Labor Party (I say allegedly because that's the impression I've gotten from IMTers on RevLeft; I've never actually met one of them or seen any at protests or what have you). So yeah, their idea is to build a labor party, then have a revolutionary "take-over". It's an incredibly mechanical and stagist view of the working class' consciousness.

There are precious few arguments for a broad revolutionary party here (like they have in Germany and now in France), let alone a broad reformist party.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yeah, well, according to Wiki it has that many. I would suspect there's actually a lot less, as most people walked off after a year it was founded, when it wasn't getting anywhere. That's still the case- it seems their website hasn't been updated for two fucking years, either.

That's a shame, in spite of the fact that they are running in the elections. :(


That's exactly the IMT logic. In fact allegedly all the activity of their group is centered around the Labor Party (I say allegedly because that's the impression I've gotten from IMTers on RevLeft; I've never actually met one of them or seen any at protests or what have you). So yeah, their idea is to build a labor party, then have a revolutionary "take-over". It's an incredibly mechanical and stagist view of the working class' consciousness.

Alas, that has become Louis Proyect's approach, too. :(


There are precious few arguments for a broad revolutionary party here (like they have in Germany and now in France), let alone a broad reformist party.

Why don't you join the SPUSA (I'm not American)? BTW, your thinking here seems too binary. "Revolutionary" parties can include hooligans and bomb-throwers. On the other hand, coalitionist-reformist parties are mainly class-collaborationist. What about class-strugglist labour parties?

[cmbnd10]

Here is something: Everyone that is affiliated to your party, email/call/talk with the people who run it and ask them what their thoughts are for a coalition-type setup.

The only way anything will ever happen is with a large group sticking together.

[Revy]

This is a time that comrades in the US, in light of the economic crisis, need to become active and start building the subjective factor as the material conditions for building it are very favorable.

Of course we can only lay the basis of the creation of a mass revolutionary party and not lead a revolution in the short term.

A real step forward would be to build a mass workers party with a general socialist platform that will include all the leftist tendencies in the US.

In this mass party the revolutionaries can find a wider audience to spread the ideas of revolutionary marxism.

There is a need for leftist organizations to unite under a common platform in order to have something visible for the workers to join in.

There is an urgent need to attract all those workers who lost their jobs etc and that are drawing revolutionary conclusions.

Especially with the probable ellection of Obama there is a need of a strong united voice of exposing Obama to the eyes of those who have laid hopes on him and hopefully they will draw more radical conclusions.

The problem that I have observed in the US is that the left has not realized that the conditions of the US are not those of building an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans , a party that the most opressed layers of the US population which is a pretty big chunk of the population and a part of the workers can see and join.

there is a need to attract the rank and file of the workers and the common people affected by the crisis.

the problem is that you cannot approach them as a small group of 10-20 revolutionaries.

In order to have an echoe you need a workers party that you will have an echoe in.

That is why I encourage people in the US to start thinking about my suggestion and start working on taking the movement forward a step on a time.

Working alone with your tiny groups of 100, 500 or even 10 000 members is not enough to reach the working class.

there is a need of unity and there is a need for a creation of a labour party.

These are some of my thoughts,

People are already working on this. But what they are against is social democracy. We don't need a social democratic labor party, we need a socialist party. And parties like that exist, all that must be done is building them up and unifying when it is possible. I see you're in the IMT, well the Workers International League, US affiliate of the IMT, has endorsed Cynthia McKinney, a capitalist over socialists like Brian Moore and Gloria La Riva. Sorry, but you need to change your own group before you lecture other people.

[DancingLarry]

The answer is not about parties, because if it were with our surplus of "parties" the halls of the Capitol would be ringing this instant with the strains of The Internationale.

We have to learn from what the leftists that went before us did. They recognized that in times such as this, in a nation as politically backward as the US, with the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie virtually uncontested, our steps at this point are by necessity preparatory, even remedial. There exist few large-scale organized instruments of working class power in the US. Those that do exist are heavily coopted by the most class collaborationist elements of the labor aristocracy. THere's a yet deeper reason for this weak working class organization, and its bourgeois reformist character, which is the dire lack, almost complete absence, of a culture of solidarity within the contemporary American working class.

I agree with the fundamental premise of the original post, that an hour that we can make a difference draws nigh, that a time when we're the only ones in American society with the analytical tools to understand what's happening in coming at us really fast. Unfortunately, we can't afford the luxury of maximum programs and obsession with correct line which have characterized the culture of the marginalized revolutionaries in America for the past 40 years. We have really basic work to do, disseminating just the simple idea of the value and virtue of class solidarity, and injecting that into the general culture. I happen to think that task alone overwhelms our aggregate capacity as revolutionary organizations, cells and individuals. But that MUST be done before anything else can happen. Simultaneously there is this crying need to build institutions of workers' power, not just as means of crrying out political social and economic struggle, but as a means for the political self-education of the American working class, which is woefully ill-prepared for the class struggle which the crisis in capitalism is thrusting upon us. It is only through that self-education via political engagement that the ranks of the revolutionaries can be expanded, but as yet the mechanisms for that gaining of experience simply do not exist. Therefore, like the Left of the 30s we're confronted with the task of building new organizations, unions, workers and unemployed councils, community organizations. I don't know that we're adequately prepared for that task, but there's no one else to do it but ourselves. We need to be able to rely on each other, and at least set aside for now even the major philosophical differences, such as the question of statism, that divide us, because with our tiny numbers of admittedly inexperienced and ill-prepared cadre, we need to be able to depend on what few of each other there are in the practical tasks that are dumped in our laps. To quote Donald Rumsfeld (of all people), "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had" and that is precisely our circumstance.

[DancingLarry]

^^^ The United States Labor Party isn't "a tiny left sect" (at least with 5,000 members or so):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Party_(United_States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Party_%28United_States))

IIRC the US Labor Party is the Larouchies.