Re: Local/International Organization/Vote Communist

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 10/30/03 9:59:21 PM Pacific Standard Time,
typefoundry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

Well, in terms of "independent concepts" of left radicalism I feel your
pain, I really do: and furthermore I feel that the (later) SP splinter
parties have been much worse for the American left than the CPUSA ever was.
...
there is genuine interest building in a Fifth International.
What exactly it is people want is unclear right now, but I'm writing an
essay which argues that the organization should an explicitly Marxist one of
a new kind, that is one which does not provide "direct aid" to national
political parties but rather links Marxist NGOs in general, including
parties (that is, defines the link as international-party rather than
international-socialist nation to handle factional questions smoothly).

Comment

The longer I shift through a not so small amount of literature and documents
produced in Detroit - from roughly 1963 - 1985, and even down to 1990, the
more different sides of the social process become illuminated. What is called 
the
relationship between masses - people in motion, classes, organizations and
leaders come into focus as a really dynamic interactive process. One question
that was asked was the relationship of "extreme left wing" groups that opposed
electoral politics, to the "Vote Communist Campaign." I do not really know who
to answer this question because a huge section of the working class opposes
electoral politics.

Many comrades inside the old Communist Labor Party resolutely opposed work in
the electoral arena. Their opposition to the "Vote Communist Campaign" was
not sectarian or a "sign" of "bad" ideology or wrong politics. Rather, this
opposition was a political trend expressing a material reality in the working
class. Nor did this "opposition political trend" become a faction or the faction
would have been expelled in mass.  Ten times as many people showed up to do
volunteer work for the "Vote Communist Campaign" as those opposed to it within
the organization, and very large amounts of money was raised from every segment
of the population.

Factions are not groups of people within an organization with a different
opinion. Factions are independent organizations within an organization with its
own distinct administrative and organizational apparatus and propaganda
capacity. No two human beings think the same way so you establish the boundary 
of
misbehaving no matter who it is that is "misbehaving." For example no one has 
the
right to advocate changing the program of the organization from "victory of
the workers in their current struggle" to something else. Anyone that advocates
a different program is expelled, but this is never really a problem because
people enter the group on that basis.

The "Vote Communist Campaign" did not spontaneously arise from the working
class or even the industrial section of the party for that matter. The campaign
most certainly did not arise from the most poverty stricken section of the
workers in Detroit, who in mass absolutely refuse to vote. The campaign arose
from the dynamics of the class struggle. The class struggle does not mean the
fight of "the workers" against the "capitalist."

Class struggle means the contradictions expressed as property - that is
peoples relationship to property in the process of production and how they 
secure
means of subsistence, heats up and compel people to seek solutions to their
immediate problems. This means that within the basic classes and strata in
society people begins seeking solutions to what ever their problems happen to 
be.
What causes the contradiction expressed as property to heat up is changes in the
means of production and shifts in the reproduction cycle, that destabilize
sectors of society fighting to achieve stable means of subsistence.

The Vote Communist Campaign was a response to the social motion of various
sectors of society seeking a vision and solution to changes taking place. This
response was visualized by the elected leaders of the party in Detroit - not
the administrative apparatus. A small section of our leaders were attorneys with
the ability and proven capacity to engage the state in the legal arena. It
was not simply "us" that understood why such a campaign was timely but also the
SWP in Detroit and many other third party movements, like the Libertarians. In
Detroit the city government itself was under assault and experiencing
collapse from the pressure to desegregate.

After 1967 a new internal ingredient in the African American people Freedom
movement emerged as independent from the black petty bourgeois and bourgeois
leaders in the form of revolutionaries with a history rooted in the socialist
and communist tradition. The way the social struggle evolves is not that the
workers say, "gee I am a worker and need to be independent of capital," but
rather the revolutionaries - elite or advanced guard, offers a vision and 
program
of action to achieve immediate needs.

Our program - vision, was the need to change the city government and beat
back the encroachment of capital. This was done by plainly stating, "the damn
banks is squeezing the hell out of all of us and the damn government officials
are trying to give every corporation tax breaks, while we our losing or jobs.
And the trade union leaders will not open their mouth and act like they so not
see what is happening. Is this happening to you?"

Everyone that read the propaganda said, "Damn this is kind of what is
happening to me," but I ain't no damn communist. BUT . . . if I give them a 
couple
dollars and sign their petition those people in power will know I am serious."

We would say "send the good for nothing . . . bending over backwards for the
capitalists . . . you can never help me but give all the tax money to General
Motors . . . And they still lay us off . . . and then you do not have any
insurance for your kids when they get sick . . . a message. The message is that
capital can go to hell when it comes to us because we come before property."

"And do not tell us their is no money for unemployment checks. Get the money
from the same place you got it to fight in Vietnam. Question: How do you tax
an unemployment check? The capitalists have gone crazy. If we had jobs we would
not need unemployment checks in the first place."

Basically every segment of society or some part of every strata said, "I am
not a damn communist, but those folks are telling the plain and simple truth. I
am never gonna join a bunch of damn communists, but I am signing that
petition and don't give a damn who know I signed it. "

Here is why large groups of workers posted literature and banners in a couple
of plants and no one really bothered the posters and banners.

Here is the real practical activity that inhibits anyone but "wreckers" and
"strikebreakers" from wanting to form a faction. "Why would anyone want to stop
a good thing from happening?"  Half the comrades in the plants who did not
vote contributed to the campaign on one level or another and still do not vote
to this day.

Most of the time I do not vote to this very day. This is the truth. I
immediately volunteered to help form a "Labor for Baker Committee" - our 
candidate.
And organized the best plant gate rally for Baker, in an areas that was not
even in the district. I swear. Why? To pass out papers, sell literature and feel
good about myself. And, yes the workers read the papers. We forget ever now
and again, that people in America are tired of the damn capitalists, who
perpetually scream "broke" and got all the money!

Much of our discussions - IMO, lack a sense of reality. It is not like all
the party members read every issue of the paper they are selling! A group of
revolutionaries have to develop the capacity to connect and say connected to the
working or rather laboring classes. Communist groups are not like church
organizations but conceived like a bicycle wheel with the center hub having 
spokes
stabilizing the entire wheel. In such an organization every member has the
right to unfettered access to the hug or center - the highest elected leaders.
We always suggested that everyone follow procedure and not show up at peoples
home at the same time. Afterall most of us have jobs and family.

The administrators or staff of the paper, or editor of the party Journal are
functionaries and not necessarily elected. They most certainly are not the
party leaders. Generally, our discussions about the CPUSA and how it actually
functioned lack common sense. There is a theory of organization and a doctrine 
of
organization and then reality. If a group does not try and organize someone,
knock on doors and pass out literature or organize a book club or something -
there is going to be a problem.

Any communist organization that legalize the existence of factions should
really create a federation and save themselves time. A federation would allow
everyone to come together on specific concrete issues without having to have 
your
administration and organization broken into bits and pieces.  In other words
such communists who believe in legalizing factions are only saying their
vision is for a 'league form of organization." :-)

I advocate a league form of organization with theory debate externalized in
journals or on the Internet openly. Such an organization is prohibited from
"having a position" - as such, on say . . . China or the earth. That kind of 
crap
is argued in journals not internal to a working class organization whose
program is victory to the workers in their current struggle.

Heck, Iskra was a theory journal and a newspaper for revolutionaries in
formation and consolidating themselves to win the vanguard of the proletariat or
the flesh and blood leaders in the working class. The distance traveled by the
Lenin group from 1898 to 1917 is considerable.

>From my standpoint the entire question of democratic centralism is posed
incorrectly and outside history.

More later.

Melvin P


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