Re: [Marxism] Ultraleftism and Revolutionary Strategy today

["Calvin Broadbent" <calvinbroadbent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I was looking through the list archives earlier today, and I came across
this message by Domhnall on revolutionary strategy. When I first read the
message, I was impressed by its non-doctrinaire and pragmatic approach to
promoting socialist politics. However, I think that parts of the post could
bear some clarification. My questions are addressed to Domhnall in
particular, but obviously anyone's input is valuable.

DoC WROTE:

> My own work in the last year has developed my own thinking a great deal. I
> think that the central task of revolutionaries in the West is to build
> movements of a huge scale.

When you suggest here that movements of a huge scale need to be built, on
what basis do you say that these movements ought to be, or will be,
advanced? Isn't there a real danger in industrial (or even postinductrial?)
societies of attempting to accomodate widely divergent class perspectives on
the basis of a latter-day 'popular front' strategy? Isn't such thinking a
rehash of 'Eurocommunism', with its attempt to ignore the realities of class
positions and conditions and 'put politics in command'? The question for
socialists is, what kind of politics?


DoC WROTE:

> It is not necessary or desirable for these movements to be established on
> the basis of a given programme. What is necessary is for the revolutionary
> core to find simple issues which motivate people and are coherent with a
> wider strategic approach to changing society and to focus attention on
> these. For rabid sectarians, the point will be reinforced only by looking
> at what Lenin did - 'Land, Peace, Bread' in no way represented an advanced
> marxist programme but instead represented a three word slogan carrying all
> the people's hopes in tow. We need to find what those issues are which
> drive people.

But surely 'land, peace, and bread' *was* a fully Marxist slogan, that is, a
slogan designed to appeal to the working class and peasantry of early
Twentieth Century Russia. Objectively, the social conditions of that time
were fully conducive to the development of a mass-based Marxist movement.
Surely Socialism is not simply the attempt to build as wide a coalition of
'interests' as possible?  God knows what kind of slogan would appeal to 'the
masses' in some Western countries 'MTV, Sex, and Coke', perhaps!

DoC WROTE:

> What is important is to take issues which will get people involved in the
> existing political structures. This is not to somehow feed into them
> apolitically, leaving to institutionalisation and demoralisation. Rather,
> we need to take people into structures in the confident knowledge that
> their ever increasing demands will never be satisfied. It is then up to an
> intellectual section of revolutionaries to constantly make the concrete
> case for the possibility of a different world - not a utopian dream of
> perfection but a better situation in clear understandable and workable
> terms.

I think Domhnall's suggested aim in the last two sentences here is, broadly,
a sound one, but there are at least two practical difficulties. Firstly,
won't this strategy necessitate some kind of fundamental subterfuge in
asking people to get involved in institutions which cannot possibly advance
their interests or quality of life? On the other hand, and secondly, if this
element of subterfuge is downgraded, isn't there a danger of a kind of
Statist instrumentalism, whereby supposedly 'popular' forces are supposed to
seize control of the capitalist State and somehow bend it to their own
requirements? In other words, is there not a danger of Domhnall's strategy
of popular involvement in Capitalist State structures leading to social
reformism and impotent social democracy? That is, more or less what we
already have in most of the West.

DoC WROTE:

> What I think is central, however, is a strategy for political growth which
> involves people in politics. It will, of a necessity, I believe, mean
> promoting social partnership type structures and working to ensure that
> they are worked to beyond the limits imposed by the ruling class. Where
> these do not exist, it is important to obtain them by reference to those
> already existing in other countries. Where they do exist, we need to avoid
> the knee-jerk reaction to exclude ourselves from these structures as they
> are often viewed by the left as mechanisms to ensure class-collaboration.

In this, and in the rest of his original message, Domhnall tackles some of
the reservations I have sketched above. Nonetheless, a final question I have
is related to Domhnall's apparent conceptual distinction between what he
calls 'civil society' and the State. If Domhnall's would-be revolutionary
party successfully engages various elements of so-called 'civil society' in
the State, and gradually immerses their everyday functions and realities
into those of the State, then how can one continue to make a clear
distinction between the two aspects of a still-capitalist totality? Hasn't
the attempt to engage 'civilian' forces in the State in the UK produced the
horrible capitulation to Capitalist Imperialism of the UK Labour Party of
the 20th Century? Or, isn't this same attempt at work throughout much of
Eastern Europe in the guise of Soros' 'empowerment' of civil society against
the State?

Anyway, I believe that Domhnall's commitment to, as I see it, popularly
affect the 'facts on the ground' is laudable and is surely very effective. I
am simply concerned that (1) the seizure of a measure of state power and (2)
the building of as popular a social alliance as possible can lead to grave
distortions in the socialist project, and in socialist analysis also. This
can, perhaps, be most clearly seen in the theory and practice of Italian
Eurocommunism and in the anti-economistic ideology of post-Marxism.

cheers.

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