[Marxism] Re: To Carlos

[Brian Shannon <Brian_Shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

That is the record. I only point it out. That you defend the Green
Party but
attack the PT I find incredibly contradictory, and can only explain in
terms
of white privilege.

______________

At the risk of formalism and speculation, it is explainable in entirely
different terms.

The Green Party and the Nader campaign are nascent formations in a
country that has no significant Left at all. If it began to grow and
attracted thousands of active members, Marxists would aid in the
development of a Left Wing. For tactical reasons, during the early
stages of turning this small movement into a large, mass party,
Marxists might emphasize the need to build such a movement while muting
its own program.

If such a movement won an election on the scale of Lula's, the task of
Marxists would be to develop the Left Wing into a revolutionary
alternative. Whether it was within or outside the imaginary successful
Green Party would be a question of strategy, etc.

For many years, some Marxists followed a similar strategy regarding the
British Labor Party. At present, most "revolutionists" have abandoned
such a strategy regarding the Labor Party and don't even give it
electoral support.

In the past it did have left-wing leaders that could easily have
matched Lula's program and rhetoric. A revolutionist could not stay
outside such a political formation. Revolutionists, with varying
degrees of success, both supported and defended the Labor Party, while
setting forth their own program and criticisms in order to build a
revolutionary tendency.

In fact, the history of the so-called white-skinned European Left, from
the Critique of the Gotha Program, the writings of Luxemburg, Lenin,
and others, and the formation of the Third International until the
present day is a history of the development of revolutionary
organizations on the basis of criticism of Lula-like figures and
organizations. Such criticisms intensified as such organizations and
leaders won elections and took responsibility for running the
capitalist state.

The intensified criticism of Lula, who has even thrown over his own
program, has nothing to do with so-called white skin privilege.


Brian Shannon


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