Re: [Marxism] Re: Anti-imperialism (response to Yoshie)

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Mark Lause wrote:
>
>
> ...and, even in the antiwar movement, most of those of us "on the
> ground" in the SMCs and PACs understood the model of "the single-issue
> mass peaceful demos" was a "point of principle."  This was so fetishized
> that comrades like myself who discussed the bigger issues of imperialism
> among SMC members were regularly threatened with disciplinary action
> (and this was BEFORE I was in an oppositional tendency).  Indeed, not
> one of the SWP's electoral campaigns raised anything on the war other
> than that single issue of getting the U.S. or its troops "out now."

The way this looked from outside (whether or not it was the way it was
conceived from inside):

The SWP was obsessed with preventing _any_ political discussion by
_anyone_ outside the party. The fear was that such discussion would
interfere with the SWP's drive to be the _only_ legitimate Marxist
party.

Put another way, the "single-issue mass peaceful demos" was, contrary to
Lou's arguments, an ultra-left position. Ultra-leftism, or left
opportunism, is not recognized merely (or at all) by its "greater
militancy"; it consists rather in an over-estimation of the strength of
the capitalist class and an under-estimation of the strength of the
working class. The SWP (assuming their reasons were not merely sectarian
but principled) simply did not trust workers to engage in political
discussion not within the orbit and control of A Party which possessed
The Truth and The True Way and could from that perspective guide them to
that path. That is a a left opportunist position. On the other hand the
CP (along with its ex-members) had ever since the Popular Front in 1936
grossly _underestimated_ the strength of the Capitalist Class, not
realizing (or not being  allowed by the Comintern to realize) that a
revolutionary party could not survive, as a revolutionary party, in the
close embrace of the DP. Hence what others on this list have called its
sloppy bundling of issues together by the CP.

It is correct that a political movement needs focus. That is not the
same thing as what Mark calls a single-issue fetish.

Before reading this post by Mark I was planning one along these lines
which would begin by quoting in full two earlier posts of Mark on
Punctuated Equilibrium, which has been the metaphor within which I
myself have been conceiving of political strategy for several years now.
I think it is still worth quoting the two posts as a pointer towards
what might happen within the kind of broader movement envisaged by Ron
Jacobs.

*****

Subject: RE: [Marxism] Pogo stick
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:14:22 -0500
From: Mark Lause <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

We can't just make a blueprint of what a group should be and build it.
If we could do that, we'd have done it.  There is a necessary dialectic
between events and experiences in our future--many crises to face and
obstacles to overcome--and the formative role they will play in shaping
that group.  We can't cross bridges until we build them...can't do that
until we survey the terrain...can't do that until we get there....

I know myself well enough to know my preferences.  I use phrases like
"comrades" and sing the "Internationale."  Or, as Alan Ginsberg said, "I
feel sentimental about the Wobblies."  In the end, it isn't necessary
that the American working class share these preferences.  Indeed, though
I can see lots of room for confusion without it, the much abused
"socialist" label isn't an acid test.

I don't see any small group growing larger and becoming what we want. In
fact, the failure of small groups today to regroup may be a
self-selecting Darwinian matter.  As with other kinds of evolutionary
developments, it's not gradual progression but fits and starts--that
"punctuated equilibrium" idea of Stephen Jay Gould.

So, if I had to guess, events and crises will create large, amorphous
and explosive mass movement...probably a number of them, simultaneously
or serially or some of both.  The ideological ecology of such things
creates a radical wing, regardless of what we might do or say.  So long
as you have a real movement, and radicals anxious to sustain it, a
revived movement against capitalism can advance by leaps and bounds.  It
will also have the benefits of a much wider and historically deeper
experience given our nonsectarian sharing of our own views. Solidarity!
Mark L.

Subject: RE: [Marxism] Pogo stick
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 16:15:31 -0500
From: Mark Lause <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

When you have movements under way, participants are clearly NOT
"governed by the same restraints" we face today.  That recognition, btw,
IS dialectical.

Obviously, the "engagement of conscious, political actors that resolves
material contradictions," but we have to understand the state of those
"material contradictions" and realize the limits they impose on us.
That's elementary dialectics.

Lots of us on this list know from experience that we can "shape a
revolutionary organization today."  In terms of the traditional
Marxist-Leninist sense, doing so just doesn't mean much in the real
world, and consumes your life in an ongoing effort to resist the
sectifying pressures of isolation that will reshape what you've tried to
build.  Acknowleging this is simply dialectal.

Our experience confirms that of our predecessors.  Even at the height of
the radicalizations in the 1960s-70s or in the 1930s, we had plenty of
self-referencing, self-sanctified clubs of believers.  Sustaining a
healthy revolutionary organization for very long through the isolation
of non-revolutionary times is damned nigh impossible, although I'm all
for working with groups doing good things.

However, if you think we can transform material conditions by declaring
ourselves a Leninist party.  That's simply idealistic and absolutely the
most disreputable kind of religiosity. Solidarity! Mark L

*****

The SWP and its single-issue fetish is long dead. As Yoshie says, we
need to think some things anew. An anti-imperialist movement in fact
will have room for a vast majority of participants who are not
particularly "anti-imperialist"; that's where the slogan "Out Now" as a
principle of unity operates. It should not confine debate but merely
create the framework within which a wider debate can take place.

Carrol

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