Strategy, let us see

[Harald Beyer-Arnesen <haraldba@xxxxx>]

Monty,

Just a few fragments of undigested thoughts. Some of them, maybe a bit out
of track. Since I've chosen the easy strategy of focusing on some aspects
that bother me, which you may find irrelevant, or at least may seem to be at
the margins of what you've written, I will like to thank you now for
initiating a discussion on strategy.

What is a working class strategy?

I find your use of the term "working class strategies" problematic, or
rather  the use of it without explaining more in
depth how it could be problematic. Working class strategies are in most
times _not_ and don't claim to be revolutionary, they are strategies to get
the most out of specific situations. In Leninist terminology a working class
strategy has meant to imply the abstract "objective" interests of the
working class, in reality another word for the party strategy.
	It is true that great numbers of workers have seen social democracy and
Leninism as viable strategies for their ends, but many workers have also
seen it as a viable strategy to follow Peron, and quite a few came to see
the leadership of Mussolini or Hitler as strategies to obtain a secure wage.
Today some pin their hope in Le Pen's Front National, islamic fundamentalism
or the various nationalisms in South Slavia: Still the most common strategy
of them all remains in most times to stick with the system and try to get
the most out of it. Which does not mean that workers don't struggle within
this framework, nor that if they see a chance and some possibility to
succeed will not take their struggle further.
	As far as working class strategy goes, if you with that mean the strategy
of workers, Leninism in power and Leninism in opposition must mean two
completely different situations. When the alleged working class strategy
becomes identical to the strategy of the new party-bourgeoisie, the workers
own strategy must undergo a fundamental change: Some will try leaving their
working class existence behind by climbing in the new ladder, the majority
will however have to find new ways to protect themselves from state-capital.
Something similar, though less dramatic,
occurs with workers relation to social democratic parties. In Norway the
working class movement underwent a radical change  after Arbeiderpartiet
gained power the first time, as did of course the party itself.
	With or without power Leninism and social democracy have been strategies
that disciplined workers in ways that made workers more, not less, adaptable
to capitalistic relations. The historical role of the left has mostly been
to be the vanguard of new capitalistic strategies and adaptations.
	As far as you talk of this century as a whole, and not only the post World
War II, to only mention the very ossified social democratic and Leninist
strategies, gives a distorted picture.
	Surely something is missing. In the period before and following 1917 other
strategies than the social-democratic/ leninist ones played an important
role, even if they did not succeed. In Germany (and elsewhere) the council
communist tendency unfolded itself through Allgeimeine Arbeiter Union (1919)
including members of the Industrial Workers of the World, the Allgemeine
Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands (AAUD, 1920) and its political component
Kommunistischen Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (KAPD), and then through the
Allgemeine Arbeiter-Union
Einheitsorganisation (AAUE), which rejected the need for a separate party
altogether. In many places there existed a
cooperation with workers organised in the anarchist Freie Arbeiter Union
Deutschlands (Syndikalisten) FAUD(S), which also attracted  large number of
workers in this period (some 120 000). That they did not succeed, and soon
disintegrated does not mean they did not represent real alternative
strategies at a point in history, and strategies which were worker
controlled.. The Italian USI is supposed to have had 500 000 members at
about the same time, the anarchist workers' organization FORA in Argentina
200 000 members, which grew to 300 000. Neither should be
forgotten the repression of alternative strategies within social democratic
and leninist organizations.
	Such alternative strategies existed in most places, anarchism and
revolutionary syndicalism were movements
existing in many countries in Europe and South America and Central America
(also in Mexico), which not only played
a crucial part in the class struggle, but also in some places at certain
times where dominant, and which also had substantial numbers of followers in
places like Korea, Japan and China. The history of working class strategies
in the US followed a pattern of its own which does not fit neatly into
neither of the above ones, but certainly IWW among other movements, many of
them without labels, did represent a different strategy.
	
	I am not saying this for nostalgic reasons, but it seems that in much of
the current discussion, themes are reoccurring (e.g. within autonomist
marxism) which were prominent a century ago and were trodden down and erased
>from the historical memory by fascism, Leninism and social democracy
sometime between World War I and II.
	One thing I like with your piece is that it seems to be a departure from
the in some aspects "ultra-anarchism" of autonomist marxism which often have
troubled me (as ananarchist), where the complex question of organization has
been reduced - if not always - to the *circulation of struggles*, a term I
suspect is derived from capitals own circulation.  In a way this contradicts
the claim of the working class's ability to act autonomously. Not there has
not emerged some important insights through this approach,  and it has had
the advantage of being an open one - still it is wanting in something. I
believe we agree on this.

I wonder about your use of the term localism, which in my ears sounds too
much like parochialism, and undefined could mean just about anything. You
also claim that "localism ... is materially feasibly". Again, what is
"local"? (a bolo; a community of maximum 500 people?) - and secondly, what
defines the present globalisation is the dispersion of production, which
means a dramatic reorganisation of the means of freedom (production) would
have to take place before any such material feasibility could be created.
Another question is if "localism" is desirable on a human level, I think
not, but this again depends on how you define it.
	What is crucial is that the _power_  both in our struggles against capital
and in the daily creation of a human
society should be situated locally, where local does not necessarily
designate a territorial community, but also the
communities of needs and desires that knows no boundaries. I believe these
distinctions to be important. The purpose of decisions taken in common
locally, and regionally, geographically defined, should be to establish the
conditions for the greatest possible freedom, that is to bring forth the
tools of freedom. The coordinating links (some which crosses every ocean)
should be _instruments_  to expand our possibilities, instruments that
arise, are transformed and die as our needs and desires changes. They could
also be seen as councils in the true meaning of the
word, that is as without power to put people to work or force them to act in
any specific way, but as meeting places
for crystallisation of ideas and coordination of actions decided and acted
on locally, where locally again could be a trans-geographical term. And not
to be forgotten, direct democracy will only function if people learn _not_
to stick
their noses up in everything which is none of their concern.
	Participatory democracy is a slippery term.  "Mandar obedeciendo" is also a
very diffuse one, even if it contains some poetic beauty and probably also
some reality. [What is the illiteracy rate in Chiapas? It bothers me that so
few voices are heard. There could be many reasons for this (Spanish not
being the mother tongue, an oral and not a written tradition etc.) still the
question should be asked.] Still the following passages from an interview
with Marcos I found (through Harry Cleaver's Chiapas pages ) certainly is
refreshing compared with what usually comes out of the left (I would have
liked to have seen the Spanish original though) - but it certainly also
reveals the weakness of the concept "mandar obediciendo".
	
S. Marcos: [...] Political parties come in and they as:  "Who is going to be
the"ejido"'s head authority?"  The brothers say:  "The problem is not who is
going to be the head authority of the "ejido" but that this authority
complies with the wishes of the community."  Then, what is needed is a
political force which organizes the community to be able to demand that the
"ejido"'s head authority, the mayor, the governor, the president of the
republic, and congress serve the community and the nation...I know I am
delirious...

"Brecha"__ They are going to tell you:  "Enter the Parliament and
impose your view point by majority vote."

S. Marcos__  Yes, I know.  But the brothers are saying:  "That
Parliament should obey those it claims to represent."  I know I am talking
about something new which is difficult to understand..

"Brecha"__What you are saying is to take over the power...

S. Marcos__To exert it.

"Brecha"__What you are not saying is how to embody that.

S. Marcos__Because we don't have the fucking idea of how to do it.  I can
imagine an assembly in a "ca~ada" (canion), even within an ethnic group.
Why?  Because I have seen it.  I know how they organize themselves and how
they go on solving their problems in the midst of a sort of mixture of
representativity and assembly.

"Brecha"__And you honestly believe that that can function for a nation?

S. Marcos__I know that the other way does not work.  What there is right now
does not work.

"Brecha"__And you are giving the people the idea that this is something that
might work?

S. Marcos__We are going to "dialogue" it, as we say.  We have that
experience, but maybe the Yaqui Indians, or the workers, or the
transporttion workers of "Ruta 100", or the National Meeting of Citizenship
Rights ("Encuentro Nacional de Derechos Ciudadanos",)have other ideas that
can be amalgamated.

"Brecha"__What you are proposing...Isn't it the political arm of the guerrilla?

S. Marcos__No.  It is a new world.  It's that simple.

>From the following passage from this excerpt it becomes pretty obvious why
Marcos has "no fucking idea" how to apply the "mandar obediciendo" on a
larger scale: "Then, what is needed is a political force which organizes the
community to be able to demand that the "ejido"'s head authority, the mayor,
the governor, the president of the republic, and congress serve the
community and the nation...I know I am delirious..."  He still seems to be
partially caught up in the Maoist (or social democratic for that) notion of
"serving the people". And it is very hard to see how "mandar obediecendo"
can have any validity in the long run outside a homogenous consensus based
smaller community setting. Still, the refusal of putting up the conquest of
the state as the answer, is a great step in the right direction. Through
this crucial decision, doors are held open.

I don't hold any preconceived ideas on how the situation created by the EZLN
will develop. I believe there are real possibilities which have been opened
up, though I tend to see these as at the moment lying mostly outside
Chiapas. But I wonder what the following could possible mean: "Rather than
the traditional united front [popular front], then, the EZLN may be
developing a new means of conceptulalizing through practice the working
class AND SUBORDINATING SMALLER AND NATIONAL BOURGEOISIES TO A WORKING CLASS
PROJECT." (my emphasis.) It is one thing to say that one lacks the strength
to expropriate the property of the expropriators, an other thing altogether
to turn this weakness into a strategy. (Neither am I sure of if the concept
of national bourgeois holds much meaning.)

	There seem to be an underlying conviction, shared by all who have commented
on "neo-liberalism", that the area of deals is closed. I find this very
unlikely, it is one thing that some of the old deals are torn to shed while
capitalism is restructuring itself on a global scale. But even capitalism is
in need of some stability and a degree of consensus. Neither should it be
forgotten that many places this restructuring is taking place
within the framework of the old deals, or newer ones which I suspect is
somewhat the situation in South Africa. If you take the European Union, this
is also a project which could be seen to be instrumental in forging a new
deal on a larger terrain. I see no inherit reason why NAFTA in time could
not develop in the same direction. Monty, you write that Chiapas is
"fantastically
wealthy", but certainly from a capitalistic point of view the human
resources of Chiapas are poorly tapped, are not put to use very productively?

									So long, Harald

  in solidarity,
  Harald Beyer-Arnesen
  haraldba@xxxxx



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