[Marxism] Reply To Tim T On Relny Socialist History and It's Application To Green Movement Today Re: Three Questions

[Alex Briscoe <obeynow20001@xxxxxxxxx>]

Everyone else: The relevant items re the Green Party are in the bottom four 
paragraphs. - A.

Hey Tim,

Yes to numbers one and two.  I can't give you an exaustive answer as that would 
take a whole essay, but I'll try to do it in a few sentences.  Before that, I 
would refer you to the writings of Tony Cliff, Paul LeBlanc, Steve Bloom, Hal 
Draper, David Finkel and Daniel ben Said for a better idea of where I'm coming 
from.  You can find some of them through www.marxsite.com, www.mia.org net or 
com (I forget).

Trotskyism came from Leninism which is part of the original program of the 
Third International before it became Stalinized.  The Third Intnl was founded 
in response to the bureaucratic degeneration of the Social Democratic parties 
in western Europe in the begin of the 20th century, culminating in the heads of 
those parties voting war credits for capitalist govts in WW1 and misleading and 
crushing workers uprisings after the war.

The ideas are generally:  capitalism is in an historic decline and needs war to 
keep up the profit rates for ruling classes based in national blocs.  
(ecosocialists like Walt Sheasby, Joel Kovel, James O'Connor have also brought 
out the fact that capitalism destroys the national world through accumulation 
and is leading to ecological catastrophe that will culminate in about 25 years.)

Socialist revolution must be mass democratic and will be lead by workers, poc 
and their allies.

 Soc rev must be international because of the worldwide division of labor and 
because of the threat of the industrialized imperialist nations crushing 
revolutions in the global south.

 Mass democratic struggles in the global south will tend to either go the way 
of post capitalist/worker/peasant revolution (eg Venezuela and the Andean 
countries today) or the most reactionary sectors of the indigineous ruling 
classes will combine with imperialists in the north to drown these movements in 
blood and retard these societies for a whole period (eg Chile in the 70s, China 
30s, Indonesia, 60s to 90s, etc).

In addition, Lenin and the Bolsh also had a core of dedicated organizers 
starting from the handfuls, in Russia in the 1890s, then to the score I believe 
in the early 1900s to even greater layer from 1915 to 1917.  They were a 
minority in the workers councils up to the Fall of 1917 but when the Russian 
bourgeoisie did not know how to rule Russia except through a Pinochet type 
general, the workers went en masse for workers power in November 1917.  The 
workers were able to take and keep power because the Bolsh Party, by this time 
a mass workers party of 20,000 to 30,000 (have to doublecheck that number) was 
organized enough to coord and lead the insurrection, land redistrib, defense of 
the country in the face of imperialist counter-rev, etc.

Cliff's bio of Lenin is interesting, however because he shows that the Bolsh 
Pty started off relatively small, was never that well financed and more often 
than not was not as well organized as all involved would have wanted.  They 
were also many times very fractious and suffered repression, which took months 
or years at a time to overcome, partic 1906 to 1909. The intellectuals 
(writers) abandoned them in 1906 to 1909 and 1917. They were able to succeed to 
a large extent because: the period they were in was one of rising workers 
struggles, they based themselves starting in the working class and supported 
all struggles of minorities and democrats as best they could, they adhered in 
the main to their core principles, they were generally the "hards" who would 
not compromise with the liberals on the issues of strikes, direct action and 
working class independence.

Further, it's interesting that what Cliff writes is that Lenin and the Bolsh 
Party was one of action and (esp worker) movement participation, not process 
mongering.  The Menshevik middle class Party members at one point drew up a 
bylaws document that was pages long that Lenin said was ridiculous because you 
couldn't block opportunism with rules alone.

 Also, the Bolsh Party considered running for office as an adjunct to the 
struggles in the workplaces and in the streets, mainly to get one's message 
out, not believing that reforms would last or that they would prolong the life 
of capitalism which would slowly grind down the mass of people.

However, they were very much involved in worker based reform movements like 
that of the social security boards before 1917.  They had an immensely popular 
newsletter that discussed social security law and agitated and educated to 
organize masses of workers to demand democratic input (more reps, better laws) 
on the boards,  while educating for the final necessity for a soc rev as the 
root soln to social insecurity.

Anyway, have to get back to business, but I think you can see some of the 
implications for the Green Party.  I think that we have to spend far less time 
on process, far more time on movement work and recruit through that, not worry 
so much about respectability and electability.  Also, we need some form of one 
member one vote for rep in the Party (forumula forthcoming from Greens For 
Democracy and Independence, in large part ironically thanks to the efforts of 
Gregory W, a member of the Green Alliance who hates Nader but is now helping 
Forrest Hill, arch Nader supporter Cobb hater.  (Thanks Gregory and Forrest.))

Of course one problem for us is that the workers move here in the US at least 
has been beaten into the ground, but OTOH, I don't think that's going to be the 
case for any more than 10 years at the most and probably for far fewer years 
than that.

Kind of a side note:  some hardened Bolsh types would object that the GP is a 
cross class alliance (small busn owners and workers in one party) and thus is 
doomed to never have a clear class approach (eg definite support for strikes, 
more direct social/class struggle instead of just lobbying nice liberal 
politicos, etc.).

I think that the mushy, cross class aspect of the GP is a problem, as I would 
say that we've seen in 2003 and whether and how to confront the Dems with a 
cand that could pose a real threat (however organizationally difficult he may 
or may not have been).  However, due to the lack of a consolidated layer of 
left worker activists at this point, I think that building a left wing of the 
GP so to speak as an example to working people and organized labor with the 
possibility that the more successful and forward we are (a la Seattle 1999), 
rank and file union members will pressure the labor officialdom to create a 
labor party that the GP could ally with, merge with, etc.  In CA/southwest we 
see sections of the Mexican community breaking off from the Dems and 
re-registering Green along with AfrAmer activists here and there.  Here in 
Illinois, there are similar potentials beginning to be realized through our 
activism.

Anyway, thanks for asking, See You Saturday hopefully,

Alex Briscoe


aikideshi2 <timwtacker@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Alex:

Three questions:

1. Do you consider yourself a Trotskyist?

2. A Leninist?

3. Why? (With which characteristics do you identify?)

Tim

P.S. Thanks.





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