RE: [Marxism] Can the working class create revolutionary leadership.Was Re: the SWP and who cares?

["Tony Abdo" <gojack10@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The way this new thread was retitled bothers me some, Fred. The reason is
quite simple, in that I don't think that the issue is really whether the US
working class can create revolutionary leadership for ITSELF. At this time,
it cannot, and it is a mistake for any socialist group based in the US to go
chasing after this dream of providing a leadership for a US working class
that is not quite ready to move on its own issues that much. That's what the
SWP did in the forrmulaic manner that is now associated with Barnes Thought.

So what can a US socialist group do if it cannot kick the US working class
into revolutionary action?   I would say, that there is no country in the
world where true internationalism is more important than in the US.  Any
socialsit leadership within the US has to define itself, and see itself, as
being the leadership of an international working class rather than just its
own national set of workers. That makes for a considerably different set of
circumstances than any other would-be, national revolutionary leadership in
formation has ever really faced before.

In a real sense, the US socialist movement must recruit and motivate
membership in its organization, on  more than just bread and butter, garbage
socialism sorts of issues. The social struggle has to be framed in much more
abstract a manner than how any socialsit movement has had to do so in the
past.  Working class activism has to be much more than just battles over
wages, work conditions, and pensions. It has to be about more than just
vacation time, sick leave, and breaks. It also has to be about much more
than breaking down sexual and racial discrimination. So what just are we
talking about then? Hasn't the Left traditionally defined itself, and formed
itself, in battles over these bread and butter sorts of things? Isn't union
construction and maintenance what socialist politics has to be about, and
centered upon?

I think that the answer is, that in the US trying to follow this traditional
socialist formula is a recipe for total disaster here. Why is that though?
Let's take an abbreviated look....

Several reasons offer themselves, and all center around how the nature of
capitalist imperialism has changed in the last half century. Imperialism is
now driven by both the dominance of new forces of technological military
destruction that are now under total US dominance, but also a new dominance
of IT that the US dominates internationally, too. The science of market
driven propaganda is now on an entirely different plane world wide, than
existed in 1954. When we add the US dominance of military and information
technology up, and then we look at the new fragility of stable world ecology
from that of the mid 20th century, we are just on an entirely different
playing field, than socialists confronted back then.

The US is the centrlaized HQ of where the world capitalist class now directs
its control from. This is not the US ruling class of the '30s, nor even that
of the '50s. And the US working class is not that of those eras, either.
So old formulas for socialist politics are not operative in the US. And it
will be nonconstructive in trying to mechanically apply strategies that
worked in the past. The US working class is just not going to rally around
the traditional bloc of socialsit platform issues.

But is there hope yet out there, for socialist organizing in this new US
environment? And I think that the answer is a definite YES, but only if US
activists really give some hard thought about what is so unique in being
activists in the center of the world capitalist system. And then act
accordingly.

The US working class will move quickly and sharply, but not necessarily on
the old bread and butter sisues of yesteryear. We are reaching a critical
mass, where US militarism, world ecological destruction, and the destruction
of US national community and culture are going to be explosive issues, that
will be of much greater explosiveness than things like the minimum wage and
health care, even. Lesson being, don't concentrate all the organizing on the
old stuff, or socialism will appear irrelevent to the masses.  Working class
organizing may move into totally different areas than where Sweeney might be
at.

Central to all, though, will be the organizing done around restraining US
militarism. This is the issue where socialist organizing can destroy
consensus around capitalist propaganda, and that also confronts the
degradation of world environment, not to mention that of many, many local
areas within the US. US workers are going to be on the wrong side of many of
these battles though, since their jobs directly ride on the military and
police apparatusses.  Socialists who attempt to merely represent US workers
on what the US working class feels most directly effected by, are often
going to be spinning their wheels, and even going backwards, if they
stubbornly persist in the traditonal bread and butter organizing mind set.

Can the working class create revolutionary leadership in the US?  Yes....
but only if they organize around many issues that may actually be initially
more of interest to sectors more outside traditional working class circles.
But a 'leadership' that can't stand up to the more backward sectors of the
national working class within the imperialist center in order to prioritize
its organizing and political demands, is going to lead not much of anything,
anyway. It's going to be  phoney leadership that will be obsessed with
placing its membership where it considers real workers (industrial and
unionized) to be. This we know from sad experience.

Tony Abdo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<<Frankly, I think the SWP I joined and as it existed as a grouping from
1928 was a fighting working class leadership, with all its historically
created sectarian weaknesses,  and had the potential to be a part of a
broader revolutionary leadership in the United States. It survived and
developed for a long time but was definitively smashed up and dispersed
in the 1980s.  It lasted a long time but couldn't last long enough to
converge with other substantial forces with a revolutionary perspective
for this country.  The Barnes leadership was a big factor, but they
operated in material circumstances which broke up and destroyed a lot of
radical groups, including the big blows dealt to the unions, the decline
of Nicaragua and overturn of Grenada, the fall of the Stalinized workers
states in the Soviet bloc and Yugoslavia etc.

There will be others here too, including, I am quite convinced, forces
arising out of the union movement. There will be a July 26 Movement (or
something of the kind) in this country, too.>>

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