Re: World Party of Socialist Revolution

[Nancybrumback@xxxxxx]

Macdonald Stainsby wrote:

>>Just as a small sect is inevitably doomed to it's own internal contradictions
due to being divorced entirely from the workers or any other movement, so too is
an idea for the revolutionary structure which does not emanate from the people
whose lives the idea is supposed to transform.>>

Right. The potential revolutionists are exactly all of those who can expect 
their lives to be changed for the good. This is why I keep saying (though i 
haven't said it on this list yet) that those who want social change have to 
stop focussing on the working class to the exclusion of all others. One reason 
is that today, because of globalization, the american working class is one of 
the wealthiest and most privileged groups of people in the world; at this 
point, they are very strongly influenced by the ideology of the ruling class 
and not the ideology of revolution. Almost 100 years ago, Lenin observed this 
same condition amongst the working classes (of Europe? Britain? sorry, i can't 
remember which...it's in "Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism").

Another reason is that the lives of the working class are not the only lives 
that could be radically improved by the end of capitalism and its replacement 
by more socialistic modes of production, organization, and education. Poor 
women and men need more socialized housework, child care, and health services 
as well as more income and the end of sexism. People of color need to be free 
of the effects of racism, queers of homophobia. If you think i'm talking about 
a populist movement, you're right. Only those who are oppressed by the system 
(along with their partisans) can be expected to participate in changing it.

But still, on this list and so many others, most of what you hear about is the 
working class. What will it take for people to see the broader picture and 
relate to it before we are all dead?

Nancy Brumback
Professor of Integrated Ecological Studies
New College of California
766 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA

415.437.3405

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