Re: [Marxism] Nader/Departing the Green Party-Revolutionary Process logic

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 12/27/03 3:28:52 PM Pacific Standard Time,
piratefish@xxxxxxxxx writes:

>I am for an all out anti-capitalist campaign by
someone or some party and I don't understand why
lots of "Marxists" don't support the same.

                      Les Evenchick
                      New Orleans<

Comment

I understand the meaning of "an all out anti-capitalist campaign" to be
issues dear and near to the hearts and strivings of the working class, 
articulated
on the basis of the urgent demands of the most poverty stricken sector of the
class. How the issues in a particular area are shaped will vary. A national
issue of importance is medical care, which needs to be fought for as a
fundamental right of all citizens that must be bore by the national government 
. . .
period.

The age old ideological question of "government for, of and by the people"
can become a powerful framework to begin shaping a national class consensus. How
the issues are framed and the slogans consolidated is a process. The last
anti-capitalist campaign - if you will, that many of us were involved in was in
1976 and 1978. The campaign was the culmination of a decade long period of
intense political tension and work. The thrust of the campaigns were against the
"give aways to the corporations" - huge tax breaks, against police violence and
with discussions about jobs, equality and women rights. Circumstances
somewhat unique to the Detroit area allowed us the frame the campaign in two 
words:
"VOTE COMMUNIST."

To "Vote Communist" was not an abstraction but meant voting for specific
issues dear to the working class. Such a campaign was not possible during the
election of 2001. Nevertheless several candidates advanced a line called "the 
need
for a cooperative society" based on the immediate issues of housing, water
bills, the city having a population of 40% retired workers and against police
violence. Also raised was the local government allowing big money - capital, to
engage in land grabs while leaving older workers homeless and forcing them to
vacate their property.

In my area none of the progressives, socialists and most certainly the
communist workers are scared of the word communism, but rather its meaning for 
the
workers have to be fought for again.

My advocacy for a mass party of Labor is not a call for a third party as such
but a class party. Real world politics deal with the art of the possible. We
are under a set of circumstances with the two party system that need to be
explained so that at least the advanced workers will understand our directional
logic and the opening of the revolutionary process and why are advance is going
to take place on the basis of engagement with the fascist current in American
politics. A search of the archives will reveal several articles I have
written about the Vote Communist Campaigns in Detroit.

It is not enough to demand an anti-capitalist campaign. To begin learning how
to think like insurgent leaders of a class, before it is in motion we have to
rely upon our theory for directional logic. Theory will not teach us how to
fight and organize but allow us to maintain our orientation over decades. We
are in a new juncture of history that is producing a spontaneous anti-capitalist
campaign that is mildly expressed as individuals and groups "fighting back"
over scattered issues whose connection in not understood. The point is that we
do not create the "anti-capitalist campaign" as such . . . the capitalist
bourgeoisie does this for us. We must internalize the idea that the new social
movement in formation is objectively communist and this is new in world history.

At the risk of being accused of "stage-ism" or stage theory we have to try
and unravel the first stage of the revolutionary process. The first stage of the
revolutionary process is to learn to politicize our class, to make them
socially conscious, begin the fight to give them an understanding of what our
society really is. We must teach them to identify with one class and stand in
opposition to another class on the basis of issues like the inalienable right of
the citizens to have access to medical care, fresh water, electricity, schooling
and not be victimized by the police.

We are not dealing with an illiterate peasant mass and as you state the
citizens of America are capable of grasping their own self interest.  Now this
first stage or more accurate phase of the social process, is completed by the
formation of a mass class party. Until now the ruling class have made it 
virtually
impossible to form a stable mass party in opposition to the two party system.
Why we are going to engage the fascist current will be revealed in a way that
no one can misunderstand. Nader and the Green Party express an objective
class logic and inescapable social process.

The question of our two party system is set up in such a way that the
formation of a workers party - a mass class party, means the worse of the two 
evils
will win the election. We cannot stop this process and will have to push it to
its next stage of resolution. The worse of the two evils will win the election
and the various political currents that point this out are absolutely
correct.

Nevertheless, the formation of a class party will indicate an advance in our
class understanding of the real meaning of the two party system and the inner
logic of the "lesser of the two evil" political line. Our working are going to
learn, one way or another why they must have their own class party and none
of the communist workers can take part in frightening the advance workers into
supporting the lesser of the capitalist evil.

The matter of a class party is not a Third Party. There are Third Parties and
mass parties that try to be all things to all men and women. These are
populist parties and we need to study our history and understand the role the
Populist movement ended up playing in the Reconstruction period. Any mass party 
that
does not advance a clear class position will inevitably end up being the
political apparatus to take the militant edge off the struggle for social
consciousness and expose the forward moving sector of the class to the sharp 
edge of
the fascist current.

This first stage in the social process have to be fought for and class
positions on issues - not screaming for socialism and anti-capitalist slogans, 
have
to be militantly taken. Health care should not be in the profit making free
market economy. When reaction demands to know how the bill will be paid for, I
tell them the truth - the same way the damn $400 billion to the military is
paid for! Slice us off $20 billion of that $400 billion.

This first phase is going to constitute an era. This phase will not happen
and unfold in a month or a year for that matter but must be fought out. We are
going to be momentarily exposed to the sharp blows of the fascist because our
victory in this period presupposes the worse of the two evils achieving a
momentary political victory - in some areas. We do not know and cannot know what
will be our "Bloody Kansas."

The second phase is the formation of a different kind of party, a party to
guild the revolution itself. This party task is to bring political or class
consciousness to our class. Social consciousness means to take a stand on behalf
of oneself - a class stance. Class consciousness does not mean reading a book
and mastering Marxism. We have to internalize that communism is an objective
spontaneous movement that arises on the basis of the material power of
production.

Class consciousness means to demand political power to achieve the things
that we are fighting for. The ruling class understands the revolutionary process
and is not going sit still and just let things happen. We will have to work
long and hard on the structure of such a party at this phase of the social
process. It must be accessible to the people, but protected from the political
police. We are in a new situation and screaming Lenin and democratic centralism
will help no one. We are of course talking about a mass upsurge or uprising and
mastering the revolutionary logic of our own history.

It is the fight for a vision and ideology of the coming of the Great Good,
that sustains revolutionaries. Our bourgeoisie is so degenerate they no longer
promise the people a better or decent life for themselves or our children.

Melvin P.

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