Re: The Problem--New tack: "Reformism" vs "Reform"

[cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Carrol Cox)]

    My subject label is not accurate, but the best I can come up with at
the moment.

    I am proposing a *leisurely* new and extended thread, without polemics
at first to allow for some fuzzy exploratory thinking.

    Topic: Clarification of "Reform and Revolution."

    I really don't know much about Gramsci (I read through the Prison Notebooks
about 20 years ago), so I'm borrowing his label here without knowing if I'm
using it in his sense: "War of Position."

    It would seem that the immediate content of such a war would be what
is often called "reform," and which Chris seems to have in mind in the post
I'm responding to. But that would not quite be true, for the "war" is (I would
suppose) a revolutionary war, not a "war" to change Capitalism. I am going
to use "reformism," for the moment, to indicate a struggle to preserve
capitalism by gaining certain advantages for some workers while increasing
the overall (world wide) exploitation of the international working class
and parts of the national working class of the nation within which the
struggle goes on. The Clinton Administration would be an A1 example of
reformism in this sense.

    But I will use "war of position" to name a struggle for better conditions
of the workers under capitalism waged by or at least inspired by those who
recognize that in some historical situations it is impossible to win even
temporary better conditions without an understanding informed by knowledge
of the necessity of revolution. Hence something like "Revolutionary Struggle
in order to gain reforms." I believe that one of the claims Lenin made in
WITBD was, in fact, that only revolutionary *understanding* could achieve
the goal of adding a kopeck to a ruble. I think that may be our situation
now.
    This is confused, but I hope others can take up the matter
the Carrolf adding a kopeck to a ruble.


     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---

     ------------------