Re: [Marxism] Supporting the resistance? To BK

[Barney Katz <taxi4marx@xxxxxxxxx>]

It's truly extraordinary how much hostility, animus
and intellectual arrogance is generated in response to
suggestions that workers MUST be at the forefront of
the struggle for socialism.

As I see it, in order to make progress towards
socialism, socialists should drop their sectarian
differences and support efforts by workers to organise
themselves. If I may quote Marx again (and you won't
find this article in the Moscow-approved, Collected
Works), "Trade unions are the schools of socialism. It
is in trade unions that workers educate themselves and
become socialists, because under their very eyes and
every day the struggle with capital is taking place.
Any party, whatever its nature and without exception,
can only hold the enthusiasm of the masses for a short
time, momentarily. Unions, on the other hand, lay hold
on the masses in a more enduring way;  they alone are
capable of representing a true working-class party and
opposing a bulwark to the power of capital"
(Volsstaat, 27 Nov. 1869).

In my view, and I believe this to be a consistent
revolutionary Marxist position, the task for workers
is to organise themselves to advance their class
interests vis-a-vis their bosses (in whatever guise
the latter may take, be it industrial, political or
military), and to study the lessons of the working
class movement in order to make their industrial and
political practice more effective. Participation in
the class struggle - and reflection upon it - is what
produces, increases and deepens workers' class
consciousness. Unorganised workers, when organised,
develop union consciousness which, in the course of
struggle, can become transformed into socialist and
revolutionary consciousness. Only after workers
achieve the knowhow and willingness to seize social
power can a transition to socialism properly take
place and have some chance of success. As a worker and
unionist myself it is with this paradigm in mind that
I observe social life under capitalism.

I do not support the forces of US imperialism in Iraq,
as has been claimed by one individual, I merely have
no confidence that the anti-war movements can do
anything about forcing the US out. Without being
underpinned by an organised and militant working
class, little will be achieved by anti-war demos. And
because workers' morale and levels of organisation are
at record lows as a result of the twenty-year
offensive by capital, little can be expected in regard
to effective action on the part of workers.

Certainly, the argument that US aggression is
strengthening the Islamists, and that a US defeat by
the armed "resistance" would raise the confidence of
the Arab masses of the region to resist imperialism
and capitalism in general, is a good one, but it's
also a gamble. It doesn't guarantee the outcome that
comrade Lenin insisted would occur. Whilst I'm not the
world's most foremost expert on Iraqi events I suspect
that a victory by Islamists and Baathist-remnants
would be a victory only for their millionaire backers
who would then want to replicate the same scenario
elsewhere. It would also have the effect of giving the
ideology and methods of armed Islamism a tremendous
boost elsewhere.

For me, the question of WHO forces the US out of Iraq
is of great importance. If the US can be forced out by
a partly functioning constitutional democracy with a
reasonably strong workers' movement as a part of it,
this would be a far better alternative. At least
anti-capitalist elements might have some space within
such a set-up to conduct their activity. While I am a
Marxist, I am also a Humanist and I would not wish
Islamist backwardness and barbarism upon my worst
enemy.

The primary tasks for socialists should be to do what
they can do, to do the possible. In the North, their
time would be best spent assisting workers in
self-organising, helping to develop their capacity to
fight back against the bosses, and helping them to
build their industrial and political confidence and
power. Help them put out their own papers, etc. A
working class that understands its class position is
an empowered working class, a class that has the
potential to become effective in disrupting efforts at
military expansion by imperialism (to site a topical
example). What would work more effectively to disrupt
the war effort than if workers put bans on the loading
and transportation of military equipment? If such
actions were defended and supported by mass demos of
the type we have seen recently, progress towards a
pull-out of forces could realistically be achieved. I
believe socialists have a responsibility to assist
workers in raising their morale and organising. Of
course, this is a long term strategy.

And, yes, comrade M. Junaid Alam, I have heard of Leon
Trotsky. He was the guy who, with his fellow Bolshevik
leaders, established the Council for People's
Commissars, an executive body that usurped power from
the soviets in revolutionary Russia. The Sovnarkom
looked and functioned like a bourgeois cabinet, and it
represented the beginning of the end of workers' and
peasants' power in Russia.

Oh, woe the caste of professional revolutionaries.

BK





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