The Chicago Factory Occupation

[Leo]

The Chicago Factory Occupation: No “Honeymoon” for Obama

http://en.internationalism.org/inter/149/chicago-occupations

The factory occupation by 240 employees of the Republic Window and Door factory in Chicago, Illinois for six days in early December was the most dramatic episode in US working class history in recent memory. Even the afterglow of the Obama electoral euphoria and its sweet promises of "change" couldn't prevent the angry workers from turning to the class struggle to resist the worsening economic crisis and the growing attacks on their standard of living.

In light of the media campaigns that have celebrated and glorified the sit-in in Chicago, it is critically important for revolutionaries and class conscious militants to be clear on the meaning and significance of these events,. The New York Times exemplified this media blitz with a headline that declared "labor victory comes amid signs of growing discontent as layoffs spread." The Times further stated that the Republic workers "had become national symbols of worker discontent amid the layoffs sweeping the country."[1] But the Times only got the story half right. Yes, the struggle demonstrated growing working class militancy in resisting the wave of layoffs that have culminated in more than 1.7 million workers being added to the rolls of the unemployed or underemployed in the last 11 months. But it was no "victory," not by a long shot, no matter how much the politicians, leftists, and the media celebrate what the workers supposedly "won."

The militancy of the workers is clear. According to media reports, the idea for the factory occupation originated with a factory union organizer after workers became suspicious when the company began removing machinery and equipment from the factory. (Unknown to the workers at the time the company had made the decision to shut down the factory and set up operations as Echo Windows LLC in Red Oak, Iowa, where wages and production costs are much lower.) On Dec 2nd the company announced that all workers would be laid off in three days with no severance pay and no pay for accrued vacation. Then they announced that medical insurance would be cut off. The workers responded with a unanimous decision to takeover the factory, potentially risking arrest for trespassing and holding control over the company's inventory of window frames.

Workers organized their occupation in shifts, maintained order and sanitary conditions, banned alcohol and drugs, and immediately began to attract media attention. When rank and file workers spoke to the media they made clear that their struggle was a fight against layoffs and for their jobs and their ability to support their families. One worker said, "I worked here 30 years and I have to fight to feed my family." Another complained that his wife was about to give birth to their third child, but now there was no medical insurance. In a situation reminiscent of the working class support for the NYC transit workers struggle in 2005, the working class in Chicago and around the country responded with a strong display of solidarity, in the face of growing difficulties confronted by workers everywhere. People came to the factory with food and money to donate; everyone understood that this was round one in the fight against layoffs.

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union (UE), a small (35,000 members nationwide), independent, non-AFL-CIO union that had been thrown out of the mainstream labor movement at the height of the cold war because of the union's links to the Stalinist Communist Party, quickly moved to derail the workers away from a struggle against layoffs onto the terrain of bourgeois legality. Instead of opposing the layoffs and the closing of the factory, the union demanded company compliance with a national law which mandates that the workers receive severance and accrued vacation pay in cases of plant closings - approximately $3,500 per worker. Left-wing and mainstream political celebrities, like Rev. Jesse Jackson and local congressmen and city aldermen, quickly jumped on the bandwagon, visited the occupied factory and voiced their support for the severance and vacation pay. Political leaders urged the local cops not to arrest the workers for fear of provoking a more widespread movement. Even President-elect Obama endorsed the factory workers struggle for the money that was "due" them.

After six days, this is precisely the "victory" that is being celebrated by the left and by the media: the banks funding the company reorganization plan have agreed to make sure the workers will get their $3,500 severance/vacation packages. While it's true that getting the money is better than nothing, the money won't last long and then the workers will be unemployed and without medical benefits. The workers who occupied the plant had made it very clear that what they wanted was to keep their jobs. But the derailment of workers' struggles is the key role that unions play for modern state capitalism. The principal job of the unions is to short circuit any possibility of politicization and generalization of workers' struggles, to block workers coming to a conscious understanding that capitalism has no future to offer.

What happened in Chicago strongly parallels what happened in the auto factory sit-down strikes of the 1930s. In those days the workers were fighting for wage increases and improved working conditions, but the United Auto Workers sidetracked the struggle into a fight for union recognition. In the 1970's, young workers employed by the Western Electric division of the Bell System sought to resist massive layoffs, only to be told that the union was prepared to fight for their severance and vacation monies to be paid in separate checks in order to minimize the tax bite. It's easy for the unions to "win" these masquerade victories, which in the end still leave the workers jobless and facing a disastrous future. This is not just an American phenomenon. Recent struggles involving factory occupations and severance payments have occurred in China as well, as the economic worsens.

The media and leftist glorification of factory occupations is yet another aspect of the defeat. True, factory occupations clearly reflect militancy and combativeness: a willingness for workers to resist and resort to "illegal" actions. However, the historical experience of the working class, dating back to the factory occupation movement in Italy in the 1920's and in France in 1968, demonstrates these occupations are a trap and have never been a good weapon for the class struggle. The critical weapon for the working class is to spread struggles to other workplaces and to other industries, to generalize struggles as much as possible, by sending delegations to other workplaces, by organizing mass meetings and demonstrations to draw all workers into the struggle. This transforms solidarity from passive "support" or sympathy or financial contributions, into an active solidarity of joint struggle. Factory occupations allow unions, as agents of the ruling class, to lock up the most militant workers in the plants, to isolate them from other workers, and thereby keep them from serving as active catalysts to spread the struggle outside union control.

Clearly there is an immense solidarity for the Chicago workers. But for the working class solidarity is the understanding that all workers, whatever the specificities of their job situation, share the same condition, the same fate, and the same way out. We don't care what's "legal" or what's ‘fair' for the bosses. We care what's in the workers' interest, and this is that there are no more layoffs, no more throwing people out in the streets. Rather than stay locked up in their factory, it would have been better for the Republic workers to march from factory to factory in the Chicago area, to send delegations to other workplaces calling on workers to join the struggle, to demand no more layoffs, no more factory shutdowns. A struggle like that will never be hailed or celebrated by the mass media, the unions, the left politicians, or the president-Elect. It would denounced as a threat to capitalist order. The terrible state the working class finds itself in today makes it necessary to reject any idea of a "honeymoon" with the incoming Obama regime, any illusion that anything "good" can come from the new administration and requires a return to the class struggle.

[Bilan]

Fantastic article, but...


The media and leftist glorification of factory occupations is yet another aspect of the defeat. True, factory occupations clearly reflect militancy and combativeness: a willingness for workers to resist and resort to "illegal" actions. However, the historical experience of the working class, dating back to the factory occupation movement in Italy in the 1920's and in France in 1968, demonstrates these occupations are a trap and have never been a good weapon for the class struggle. The critical weapon for the working class is to spread struggles to other workplaces and to other industries, to generalize struggles as much as possible, by sending delegations to other workplaces, by organizing mass meetings and demonstrations to draw all workers into the struggle. This transforms solidarity from passive "support" or sympathy or financial contributions, into an active solidarity of joint struggle. Factory occupations allow unions, as agents of the ruling class, to lock up the most militant workers in the plants, to isolate them from other workers, and thereby keep them from serving as active catalysts to spread the struggle outside union control.

Clearly there is an immense solidarity for the Chicago workers. But for the working class solidarity is the understanding that all workers, whatever the specificities of their job situation, share the same condition, the same fate, and the same way out. We don't care what's "legal" or what's ‘fair' for the bosses. We care what's in the workers' interest, and this is that there are no more layoffs, no more throwing people out in the streets. Rather than stay locked up in their factory, it would have been better for the Republic workers to march from factory to factory in the Chicago area, to send delegations to other workplaces calling on workers to join the struggle, to demand no more layoffs, no more factory shutdowns

What?
Factory occupations are not a tool of the ruling class. They are a method of working class power - but once they become isolated, they are no longer a strength, but slowly deteriorate.
The article is right in saying that is paramount to spread the struggle, to generalise it, from below, because this is a struggle of all workers against the bosses. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't occupy the factories, either.
Occupy, and send delegations. That is the key. We need to hold down ground we have, and gain more.

[Leo]

What?
Factory occupations are not a tool of the ruling class. They are a method of working class power - but once they become isolated, they are no longer a strength, but slowly deteriorate.The article is right in saying that is paramount to spread the struggle, to generalise it, from below, because this is a struggle of all workers against the bosses. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't occupy the factories, either.
Occupy, and send delegations. That is the key. We need to hold down ground we have, and gain more.
The article is right in saying that is paramount to spread the struggle, to generalise it, from below, because this is a struggle of all workers against the bosses. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't occupy the factories, either.
Occupy, and send delegations. That is the key. We need to hold down ground we have, and gain more.

There are several basic and connected risks in occupying factories: first is the risk of isolation, second the influence of the union and third the risk of getting caught up in self-managing exploitation in the factory.

I think this bit makes it clear enough: Rather than stay locked up in their factory, it would have been better for the Republic workers to march from factory to factory in the Chicago area, to send delegations to other workplaces calling on workers to join the struggle, to demand no more layoffs, no more factory shutdowns

[Bilan]

The argument against it alone is true.
But it presumes that it should be the only tactic. It shouldn't. And if it is used as the only tactic then yes, you are right.
But it can't, it must be used as well as sending delegations, etc.

[Random Precision]

Thanks for that Leo. You go right beyond not understanding the nature of the period to rejecting outright the nature of the period.

[Bilan]

RP, firstly, it's from the ICC, not Leo's personal opinion, though he know doubt shares it.
Secondly, they don't not understand, but they're viewing the tactics as conflicting, rather than being not only compatible, but essential.

[Lamanov]

Let's use different semantics then.

Factory occupation is the most valuable tool of the class struggle if it doesn't let itself stay in isolation, that is, if it spreads. When I say "spreads" I mean the same thing ICC calls "generalising".

Bottom line, workers have to occupy, they have to make their occupations active (not mere sit ins), and yes, they have to eventually run the factory, but not as an isolated event, but in the context of wider class struggle, of further occupations and the establishment of workers' councils.

[Devrim]

I think this bit makes it clear enough: Rather than stay locked up in their factory, I disagree with Leo. I agree that can be a danger in becoming isolated in the factory, but also it could also become a place to organise from. They are not mutually contradictory.


Bottom line, workers have to occupy, they have to make their occupations active (not mere sit ins), and yes, they have to eventually run the factory,

I think we are very far from 'running the factories'. I know you right essentially, but you (and your organisation) did support things like that 'strike bike', which in my oppinion show only the dangers of factory occupations.


Thanks for that Leo. You go right beyond not understanding the nature of the period to rejecting outright the nature of the period.

I am not sure that I understand this comment, but you seem to be suggesting that this is a period when workers shouldn't look for solidarity.

Devrim

[Pogue]

I agree that this occupaiton is not enoguh and needs to spread, but its unlikely it will. But who knows? I don't know wha tthe feleing in Chicago at the moment.

[Dean]

Fantastic article, but...



What?
Factory occupations are not a tool of the ruling class. They are a method of working class power - but once they become isolated, they are no longer a strength, but slowly deteriorate.
The article is right in saying that is paramount to spread the struggle, to generalise it, from below, because this is a struggle of all workers against the bosses. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't occupy the factories, either.
Occupy, and send delegations. That is the key. We need to hold down ground we have, and gain more.

Right. And the article also says this:


The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union (UE) ... quickly moved to derail the workers away from a struggle against layoffs onto the terrain of bourgeois legality. Instead of opposing the layoffs and the closing of the factory, the union demanded company compliance with a national law which mandates that the workers receive severance and accrued vacation pay in cases of plant closings - approximately $3,500 per worker.

So, which is it? We can't occupy due to "expediency," and we should be afraid of legalistic narrow-ness? The article is more critical than constructive.

[Random Precision]

I am not sure that I understand this comment, but you seem to be suggesting that this is a period when workers shouldn't look for solidarity.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm taking issue with the ICC's perspective that the Republic occupation wasn't a victory after a long period of working-class retreat in the United States.

Sure, it would have been nice to spread the action and even start a cooperative in the Republic factory, but that didn't happen for a lot of reasons, such as management already having moved the most important equipment away from the factory. The important thing is that the workers did seize the factory, an event unmatched in nearly 70 years of labor history in the US, and from there they forced management and its creditors to back down. This is an important victory, and we should treat it as such.

[Random Precision]

This article puts it very well, I think:

The Meaning of the Republic Victory
By Lee Sustar
Socialist Worker (http://socialistworker.org)

The full implications of the workers' breakthrough victory at Republic Windows & Doors are still unclear, but a few lessons can already be drawn.

First, by occupying their plant, the workers--members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110--gained enormous leverage over the owners and their creditors. The action forced the company's banks to pay for severance pay legally required in a plant closure.

Overnight, a factory occupation--something usually reserved for labor history books on the 1930s and nostalgic speeches at union conventions--became a focal point for working class resistance amid a profound economic crisis.

There is, of course, an important difference with the workers' takeover of Republic and the most famous sit-down strike in U.S. history, the occupation of General Motors' main plant in Flint, Mich., in 1936-37. Unlike GM, which kept operating during the Great Depression of those years, Republic had shut its doors.

A better comparison for the Republic workers' action, therefore, may be the factory takeovers in Argentina and some other Latin American countries, where workers restarted production under their own control after management tried to shutter their plants during the recession of 2001.

The Republic workers didn't attempt to keep their plant operating--not least because management had already moved out some of the most important equipment, perhaps to the nonunion windows factory that the owners' family recently purchased in Iowa. The union has, however, established a "Windows of Opportunity" fund to explore the possibility of resuming production.

Nevertheless, by seizing control of the owners' property, the Republic workers demonstrated to the rest of the labor movement that workers' power is based at the point of production. In an era in which strike picket lines are more often symbols of protest than serious efforts to stop a company's operations, the Republic workers showed that more militant action can win.

The second key lesson of the Republic victory is the centrality of solidarity action.

Within days--if not hours--the occupation became national and even international news. By the end of the struggle, statements of support had appeared from labor organizations all over the world, including the main trade union federations in France and Japan.

At the local level, the factory entrance was the site of a running solidarity meeting involving a wide range of union leaders, union reform caucuses, rank-and-file activists, community organizations, radicals, socialists and religious groups. Organizers compared notes, strategized and made plans--not only to build support for Republic workers, but about other struggles as well.

***

The third point to make about the struggle is that it showed how organized labor can speak for the interests of the entire U.S. working class, even though unions represent just 12.1 percent of workers and 7.5 percent in the private sector.

Thanks to the Republic workers' struggle, an ordinarily hostile national media focused on the fact that Republic's main creditor, Bank of America, had cut off the factory's line of credit despite the infusion of $25 billion of taxpayer money into that bank as part of Congress' bailout of Wall Street. Politicians and bankers, therefore, felt pressured to resolve the issue in workers' favor.

Ordinarily, workers in this situation can wait for years to receive the money due them--if they ever do. But Republic workers forced Bank of America and other creditors to come up with nearly $2 million in less than a week, even though the banks had no legal obligation to do so.

A fourth aspect of this victory is the key role of immigrant workers in the U.S. labor movement. The overwhelming majority of the Republic workforce is Latino, and most are immigrants. Yet in an increasingly repressive atmosphere of workplace immigration raids and deportations, these workers were willing to risk arrest or worse in order to stand up for themselves.

The big marches against anti-immigrant laws played a role in boosting workers' confidence. "We learned that we had rights," one worker said.

Finally, the Republic struggle underscored the fact that class-struggle, social-movement unionism must be at the heart of any serious revival of the labor movement. After decertifying a mob-dominated union, the workers brought in UE, a union with radical roots in the 1930s.

UE eventually grew to be the largest union in the old Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), before withdrawing amid the anti-communist witch-hunts. In the 1950s, UE was raided by rivals in the AFL and CIO, and greatly reduced in size.

Today, it numbers just 35,000 nationally--a far smaller number than in the vast, bureaucratic "locals" of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). And where SEIU seeks clout through political deals and partnership with employers, UE promotes democratic, militant unionism.

The victory at Republic flowed directly from the rank-and-file union democracy practiced in UE Local 1110. If the Republic workers' win has an impact on the rest of the labor movement, it will be because more union members follow their fighting example.

http://socialistworker.org/2008/12/12/meaning-of-the-republic-victory

[Devrim]

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm taking issue with the ICC's perspective that the Republic occupation wasn't a victory...

They did lose their jobs, didn't they. It may have been the best that those workers could get, but I think it is a bit much to go on shouting about a victory.


...after a long period of working-class retreat in the United States.

We think that the retreat stopped about five years ago on an international level. Even in the US there have been signs of a return to struggle. I would see this as one of them alongside things like the NYC Subway strike in 2005.


Sure, it would have been nice to spread the action...

Nice? It depends whether you think that solidarity action is something essential in workers struggles or something...nice.


...and even start a cooperative in the Republic factory,

Not something that we would advocate, and not something we would see as a positive thing for workers.


and from there they forced management and its creditors to back down.

They didn't force them to 'back down'. They still colosed the factory.


This is an important victory, and we should treat it as such.

But what did they win?

Devrim

[Devrim]

So, which is it? We can't occupy due to "expediency," and we should be afraid of legalistic narrow-ness? The article is more critical than constructive.

Don't you think that it is necessary to be critical at the moment, Dean?

Devrim

[Pogue]

Don't you think that it is necessary to be critical at the moment, Dean?

Devrim

I'm not Dean but I don't think so Devrim. We should give advice but I don't think we have anything to criticise, seeing as this wasn't ever designed to be an revolutionary action and its isolated/lacking in revolutionary support and thus conciousness.

[Dean]

Don't you think that it is necessary to be critical at the moment, Dean?

Devrim

Of course I do. But it is useless without a clear or at least crude trajectory. The endless sectarianism of the left is frustrating, and this is a great example. Here, you have a radical piece of propaganda pushing the workers both ways, and that was ultimately the point I was trying to make - if you are going to criticse a workers' movement, have a clear criticism. Vitriol is useful against the enemies of the working class, but against worker institutions vitriol has no place.

[Random Precision]

I think I'm done talking here. Nothing short of a revolution will ever satisfy the left communists.

[Devrim]

We should give advice but I don't think we have anything to criticise,

I think that they are two very similar things. The basic advice function in English is 'You should do', and the criticism function is 'You should have done'. All that separates advice and criticism is time in this case.

However, we are not only trying to address those workers in the struggle, and indeed may not be addressing any of them. It is equally important to draw a balance sheet of struggles for other workers. That involves an honest analysis of what we see as mistakes, or weaknesses.


seeing as this wasn't ever designed to be an revolutionary action and its isolated/lacking in revolutionary support and thus conciousness.

I don't draw this distinction of 'revolutionary action'. I see things as part of a working class struggle. The fight to protect jobs and living conditions today is intrinsically linked to the fight for workers' power tomorrow.


Of course I do. But it is useless without a clear or at least crude trajectory. The endless sectarianism of the left is frustrating, and this is a great example. Here, you have a radical piece of propaganda pushing the workers both ways, and that was ultimately the point I was trying to make - if you are going to criticse a workers' movement, have a clear criticism. Vitriol is useful against the enemies of the working class, but against worker institutions vitriol has no place.

I think the criticisms in the article are clear. I don't see 'endless sectarianism'. Please point out exactly what you mean.

When you talk about 'vitriol...against worker institutions', I presume that you are talking about the unions. We believe that the unions are no longer 'worker institutions', and haven't been for decades.


I think I'm done talking here. Nothing short of a revolution will ever satisfy the left communists.

That's fine as you seemed to have very little to say.

Devrim

[beltov]

The question of whether occupations are useful weapons is relevant to the student movement in Greece too. I read on the Occupiedlondon blog that the assemblies are considering ending the occupations of the universities. One participant has said:


Leaving the universities is anything but a surrender. Please remember that the universities were occupied spontaneously on the night of the assassination - there was no serious plan to keep them occupied long term. There was no plan! So far, they have worked perfectly as points of co-ordination of plans, yet (my personal understanding is that) people now feel the occupations have become more of a burden, as keeping the buildings occupied is a struggle in itself - rather than staying in there, we need to get out to the society and spread the revolt there. This is far from being over!
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2008/12/23/34-1332-raid-of-polytechnic-scenario-weakens-police-resort-to-dictatorship-style-surveillance-shots-against-riot-police-van-student-demo-set-to-start/#comment-872
The idea that we should "hold down ground we have, and gain more" in regard to factory occupations is fraught with romanticism and illusion, perhaps even the false ideology of workers control of production within capitalism. What "ground" is at stake? Are we defending "socialism" in one plant? It was never possible in one country, forget about one plant.

Syndicalisme ou Barbarie grants that the danger is that the "occupation" might become isolated, but the point is that is precisely how it is used by the forces of the bourgeoisie -- to isolate the militant workers -- time and time again. At the Chicago factory occupation, the militant workers were even isolated from each other. Instead of meeting together in a mass meeting of everyone each day, the union organized the 240 workers into three shifts to occupy the factory...so only 1/3 of them were ever together at the same time. The only one who was in communication with everyone was the union!

B.

[KC]

The media and leftist glorification of factory occupations is yet another aspect of the defeat. True, factory occupations clearly reflect militancy and combativeness: a willingness for workers to resist and resort to "illegal" actions. However, the historical experience of the working class, dating back to the factory occupation movement in Italy in the 1920's and in France in 1968, demonstrates these occupations are a trap and have never been a good weapon for the class struggle. The critical weapon for the working class is to spread struggles to other workplaces and to other industries, to generalize struggles as much as possible, by sending delegations to other workplaces, by organizing mass meetings and demonstrations to draw all workers into the struggle. This transforms solidarity from passive "support" or sympathy or financial contributions, into an active solidarity of joint struggle. Factory occupations allow unions, as agents of the ruling class, to lock up the most militant workers in the plants, to isolate them from other workers, and thereby keep them from serving as active catalysts to spread the struggle outside union control.

This isn't exactly accurate, especially in terms of this occupation. In this occupation workers occupied the factory in shifts and were visited regularly by other unions, workers and community groups. However I do think that this occupation could have turned out much more powerful, and the left failed miserably (as usual) regarding this action.


I think this bit makes it clear enough: Rather than stay locked up in their factory, it would have been better for the Republic workers to march from factory to factory in the Chicago area, to send delegations to other workplaces calling on workers to join the struggle, to demand no more layoffs, no more factory shutdowns

This is of course true, but doesn't negate the validity of the occupation itself. The reason that this wasn't done was because there was no general raising of consciousness of the Republic workers to the level where they would have advocated such an action. Which goes right back to my earlier point about how, while this was an enormous victory for the workers, it was a miserable failure for the left.

What was needed were some people to first bring that case up and then argue for it. Nobody unfortunately did so.


So, which is it? We can't occupy due to "expediency," and we should be afraid of legalistic narrow-ness? The article is more critical than constructive.

Not surprising, is it?:p

[Leo]

This isn't exactly accurate, especially in terms of this occupation. In this occupation workers occupied the factory in shifts and were visited regularly by other unions, workers and community groups.

Beltov had a more critical view of that: "At the Chicago factory occupation, the militant workers were even isolated from each other. Instead of meeting together in a mass meeting of everyone each day, the union organized the 240 workers into three shifts to occupy the factory...so only 1/3 of them were ever together at the same time. The only one who was in communication with everyone was the union".

I'd be interested in hearing your comments on what he said about that.


This is of course true, but doesn't negate the validity of the occupation itself.

I think it was stated clearly that the occupation was an expression of the militancy of workers, and that it wasn't invalid. What is criticized is occupations as a tactic.


The reason that this wasn't done was because there was no general raising of consciousness of the Republic workers to the level where they would have advocated such an action. Which goes right back to my earlier point about how ... it was a miserable failure for the left.

What was needed were some people to first bring that case up and then argue for it. Nobody unfortunately did so.

Well, depends on what you expect from what you call "the left". I wouldn't expect much, considering the fact that the overwhelming majority of what you call "the left" has got nothing to do with the class at all and is into defending PRC, of the "Iraqi Resistance" or voting for Obama, or green things etc.

As for the part that does have things to do with the working class; again an overwhelming majority is integrated into the (lower-middle) levels of the trade-union bureaucracy and are torn between their interests as workers or their individually socialistic convictions and their organizations' concerns about not conflicting with the union leadership in order to hold on to the position there. That rules out the possibility of any positive organization intervention.

And now all what's left out is a tiny minority, which doesn't have the strength to make interventions strong enough to cause a general rise in consciousness. The time of that minority has not come yet I'm afraid.


while this was an enormous victory for the workers

I think another unanswered comment should be repeated here: "But what did they win?"


The article is more critical than constructive.

Criticism is always more constructive than praising, applauding and celebrating what is going: it is the only way to go forward.


Nothing short of a revolution will ever satisfy the left communists.

Well yes - there is a problem with your convictions if anything short of it will satisfy you!

We evaluate, comment on / criticize and intervene in every struggle with the perspective of the historical world interests of the proletariat and thus of world revolution and victories and defeats we judge accordingly also.

[Leo]

Thread split here: http://www.revleft.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1318319