Re: Labor Party. Debate among Comrades

[cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Carrol Cox)]

    I am impressed by both sides of this argument over the LPA (as
represented by Louis and Walter), and I'm not sure of my own positionon
yet. But I do think it is an issue that can be debated among comrades,
that is among those who share certain basic principles and do not
ascribe diffrent conclusions on this issue to any clash of principle
(or possible loss of principle).

    So while on the whole I find the argument of Walter's reprinted
below impressive, I want to object to his closing statement. While
anyone can lose his/her revolutionary principles (it is commonplace),
at any given time comrades should be seen as solid--and I don't think
Walter should have, even flippantly, speculated on Louis adopting a
position of "passive electoralism." Nothing Louis has ever said suggests
such a position. I think Walter should apologize. "We" (define as you
wish) are not MIMists or SWPers to see every single difference as raising
the spectre of True Marxism/Anti Marxism.
     Carrol
Walter writes:
>
> On Fri, 17 May 1996 11:43:03 -0400 (EDT) Louis N Proyect said:
> [...]
> >We should not be so schematic as to think that only victories and mass
> >struggles will create openings such as the LPA affords. While there is
> >quiescence in terms of strikes and other forms of class-based struggle,
> >there certainly is deep discontent with the attack capital has been
> >mounting for some decades now. Perceptive labor-skates like Mazzochi are
> >worried and this is their motivation for starting LPA. They want to head
> >off a more militant solution.
> >
> >However, this has been true of many openings in the class-struggle
> >for the last hundred years or so. The CIO was initiated by people like
> >John L. Lewis, no enemy of the capitalist system. The civil rights
> >movement was to some degree fostered by ruling-class figures who wanted to
> >clean up the American Jim Crow image during a period of decolonization.
> >
> >I'm afraid, however, that folks like Walter Daum have a much more
> >stringent concept of what struggles and organizations get a kosher stamp.
> >He, I'm sure, would have dubbed the entire antiwar movement--Mobe and
> >Moratorium alike--as reformist. I am much more of an "opportunist", as
> >defined in the sense of wanting to grab hold of every opportunity that
> >comes along.
>
> Louis, no way I would label a living mass *movement* reformist in order to
> stay out of it. In the 50s and 60s I grew up
> in the civil rights and anti-war movements, and that eventually convinced
> me to be a revolutionary. There's obviously room for development and change
> in a mass movement.
>
> But there's a difference between a movement and one of its organizations
> or leaderships, which might well be reformist. And revolutionaries can
> join reformist organizations if the struggle is occurring through them (or
> is likely to). But it would be disastrous to embrace a reformist
> leadership on the grounds that it's at the head of a developing movement.
>
> You're right about the deep discontent and about Mazzocchi's reasons for
> starting LPA and now its labor party to head off a more militant response.
> But you're simply assuming that the party will become massive, the CIO
> of the 90's. That's clearly unproven and to me totally unlikely, because
> of the no-holds-barred enthusiasm of the labor bureaucracy for Clinton --
> and the LPA's unwillingness to challenge this support.
>
> Go ahead and grab this "opportunity," but don't be surprised if the
> struggles that break out sweep past it. And then please don't join in the
> effort to trap real struggles in passive electoralism when they've found
> a way to take action.
>
> Walter Daum
>
>
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>



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