Re: [Marxism] Different periods, different politics

["Jack F. Vogel" <jfv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 03:31:04PM -0500, Marvin Gandall wrote:
> I think we?ve reached an impasse in the discussion we?ve been having
> over how to orient to the Democratic party militants ? the trade
> unionists and party members who belong to, and are often active, in the
> various social movements. Some people want to turn this into a debate
> about Karl Kautsky or Mao Tse Tung or the Paris Communards. Others think
> it is about shilling for John Kerry. It?s not about any of these things,
> and I don?t have much interest in pursuing those particular threads. If
> I haven?t been able to make this clear by now ? and I?ve certainly
> tried ?  it?s because I?m either a lousy communicator or people simply
> don?t want to hear.
  
Hi Marvin, I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly am
trying to listen to what you say so I dont think the latter
is 'obvious' :)

> Obviously, I think it?s the latter. At bottom, it?s not possible to come
> to a meeting of minds on an orientation to the Democratic party unless
> there is an agreement that the period has changed, something I think a
> lot of people on this list are not willing or able to do. They are still
> living in 1871 Paris, 1917 Petrograd, 1933 Berlin, and 1949 China ?
> because that is what has given meaning and purpose to their life, and
> the present reality is too difficult to face and to contemplate. I mean
> no disrespect; I know the feeling.

You know, I agree with you here, at least in part. Many so-called Leftists
seems to specialize in vasts amounts of knowledge about the past but to
my mind are weak on applying it in the here and now. Not that I would
advocate that we not study Marx and Lenin and so forth. However, IMHO,
when we want to build and lead a movement in 2004, say in the USA, then
we DONT do that by getting a million people to read the Communist 
Manifesto. Revolutions arent book-clubs :) In fact, I would be fine if
the key terms were all renamed, so long as we have the same content, the
same goals.

> Consider: There no longer is a Soviet Union or a socialist bloc of any
> consequence ?outside of tiny Cuba, which however heroic, is too marginal
> in the scheme of things to serve as a powerful model and inspiration for
> the world working class. Closer to home, there are no longer any workers
> parties of any consequence which are still pledged to social ownership,
> by tepid parliamentary means or otherwise. If there were, appeals to the
> workers to abandon the bourgeois parties and join these mass workers
> parties would have some relevance. The appeals and the programmes on
> which they were based originated in a period when these socialist
> institutions existed and offered the promise of continued growth and
> inevitable power .
> 
> Now these appeals sound merely farcical ? exhortations to the working
> people to leave the Democratic party to join tiny organizations
> predominatly composed of intellectuals and students and lacking any
> capacity ? inside and outside of the legislative arena ? to defend their
> most urgent interests. If you go back and study the history of the
> workers parties, you will find  these organizations were created for
> that purpose: to serve the immediate needs of the workers ? in the first
> instance, the right of unions to exist and bargain collectively; in the
> second, legislated benefits giving all workers a modicum of protection
> against old age, unemployment, and disease, and access to education and
> other equalizing social measures.
> 
> The collapse of the Soviet Union and China, the changed composition of
> the workforce from primarily industrial to mostly service and
> professional workers, and the disappearance or transformation of the old
> mass socialist and communist parties ? these three developments have
> been, without exaggeration, world historic and epoch-ending changes of
> the highest order.

I agree about the significance of all the changes in the last couple
decades. In fact, I devoured Negri and Hardt's "Empire", and find it
full of useful insights (although I'm aware of many issues surrounding
it).

I disagree about appeals to leaving the DP sounding 'farcical'. Now, if
they were appeals to join some small fringe party, then I agree, but
appeals to, say, Nader, or the Greens dont sound farcical in the least.
I talk about both at work every day, and while my DP coworkers scowl
at me :), they dont jeer. This is why the DP is making SO much noise
against Nader, because he is not a farce, in fact I believe he scares
the pants of them.

I volunteered for the Nader campaign, not because he will win, but 
given the attitude of people i talk to now I'm not even so sure its
that far fetched of a possiblity. THAT is a fire worth fanning my
friends, and anyone out there helping the Democrats war against Nader
ARE being class enemies. Every single day we see what Kerry is, and
the last thing in the world he could be called is a friend of the
working class, any more than Clinton, Carter, or LBJ were. I was
just coming of age when LBJ, that democratic man of the people
was escalating VietNam, ironic that it was Nixon who ended the
draft when it was time for me to go (only good thing I can say
about the man :) :)

Now I just read on CounterPunch of Hilary Clinton is advocating
a reinstatement of the draft. Real ally to the working class...NOT.

...

> Perhaps a simple example will help illustrate what this means in
> practice.  Yesterday, I referred the list to an article from US News and
> World Report, a conservative publication ? an article which my wife,
> Walker Jones, and I had earlier posted to our website. We did so because
> we thought both the data showing the  system in more trouble than it has
> been in a long time, as well as the evidence of rising working class
> discontent, was obviously of importance. The fact that it was being
> given prominence by a conservative publication was especially
> noteworthy. What struck us most was the evident concern by the editors
> that ?populist politics? ? a euphemism for class struggle  ? ?could
> catch fire? if the Democrats moved to exploit working class discontent.
> 
> If I lived in the US and were active in the Democratic party, it was the
> type of material I would promptly copy and make available to the party
> activists in the local ward associations and campaign offices, both to
> help set a direction and raise their morale. I would encourage them to
> adapt and circulate the material in their neighbourhoods, as well as to
> other local party organizations. It is only, in effect, by leveraging
> the resources of a mass organization like the Democratic party that we
> can have any realistic hope of significant access to the mass of the
> population. The unions and social movements, acting in isolation one
> from the other, can have nowhere this kind of impact.
> 
> I would also encourage them to go up the organizational ladder and press
> their district, state, and national officials to focus on the themes
> expressed in the article ? but I would do so without illusions, so
> please spare me the lecture. I?ve been in enough organizations to know
> the higher up you go, the more conservative resistance you run into. But
> so what? If you?re on the left, you take that for granted. You don?t run
> away from it. You use it to build a grassroots opposition.
  
Hate to say this Marv, but 'been there, done that..' In 1980 I created a
branch of DSOC (a left fringe in the DP started by Michael Harrington),
they had just your idea back then. we were all about trying to stop US
intervention in El Salvador. Just think, back then Harrington could 
actually use the term 'socialist' and not be run out of town on a rail :)
(ahhh, those we the days :)

Just think, that was almost 25 years ago, and where is all that work
gone now?? hmmm? Its gone NOWHERE. But it bore a small harvest, it
taught some of us that working in a capitalist party, no matter how
much rhetoric it might spew about workers issues, when push comes to
shove it will move in favor of its class, it will support killing and
violating your rights, and anything else it deems necessary. Lenin
was not the only one who understood "By any means necessary".

So, that publication is right, the population is just RIPE for a new
answer, and the Rulers are gonna work overtime to betray them yet
again to the Dixieland bands and the men kissin babies :)

I say lets fight to make a real party, be it Green, or Labor, lets
make it broad, not sectarian. It seems to me this is the 'revolutionary'
thing to be doing right now in the USA, what say you?

> This would mean first seeking out the Dean and Kucinich forces, who are
> now working half-heartedly for their party and distrustful of Kerry. But
> they are militants who would be the first to understand the need to use
> the party?s resources to stoke the ?populist fires? and to popularize
> and revise, where necessary, the Democratic planks on job loss, health
> care, education, indebtedness, widening ineqality, corporate corruption,
> and the pro-business bias of the Bush administration ? the issues
> itemized in the article. I would point out to them, and I?m confident
> they?d agree, that pro-business bias is characteristic of the Democratic
> leadership, as well, and that it would be necessary to put our own house
> in order. Judging by my experience in the NDP and what I?m able to see
> from across the border, I think they?re the kind of people who would
> understand this as an ongoing process against against a formidable
> apparatus, involving the requirement to constantly put the leadership?s
> ?feet to the fire?, so to speak. I?m almost prepared to bet they would
> understand this better than many on this list, who appear overwhelmed by
> that process and who want prior guarantees of certain success.

"pro-business bias"?? :) c'mon Marv, being 'modern' and all is good, but
lets call a spade a spade shall we, this is what CLASS means.

> I also gave some thought to how Louis probably viewed the article ? as
> something for information only, and probably not very good information
> at that, given its bourgeois provenance. He either filed it for
> reference purposes, or more likely, deleted it. Then I saw him turning
> back to his study of Lenin In Context and his polemics on marxmail and
> other chat groups ? that which Louis calls political activity;
> ?revolutionary? political activity, no less.
  
I dont know Louis yet, but I like what i've read. I imagine he'll make
the same thing I did of it, the working class has been beat up bad for
some time now, and the old game isnt working very well.

> Louis is an extreme example. I?m aware most others do useful political
> work outside their homes in the unions and the social movements. But
> Louis said something else which was revealing in one of our many
> exchanges: that he could engage ?calmly? only with ?like minded people?.
> To which I recall replying that the purpose of the left was precisely to
> engage calmly with ?non like-minded people? I sometimes have the
> impression that this penchant for primarily engaging with like-minded
> people, usually fellow Marxists, keeps people away from the Democrats
> and, up here, the NDP. There is a hint of elitism in this behaviour, as
> in Mark Lause?s comment yesterday ? not strictly true, incidentally ?
> ?that those who put more thought into politics should probably not be
> guided by those who put less thought into it.?
  
You know, since you advocate all this 'new period' thing, you might want
to read Negri and Hardt yourself, they make it clear that struggle in our
day takes place in new ways, one thing they mention over and over is the
role modern communications, like mail and chat groups, have come to play.

So, Louis is my comrade, and making this list where we can thrash out
issues of theory, and see the way to move forward IS a revolutionary
political activity. Back in the Paris Commune that you seem fond of
mentioning, we would all have to huddle in a back street bar somewhere
to talk about this stuff :) Amazing modern technology eh? :) :)

Well, I've gone on long enough to make my points I hope.

Revolutionary regards,

Jack


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