[Marxism] From Max Elbaum

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear friends,

There are several new items on the Revolution in the Air website, and 
a newly published
review of the book is pasted in below.

The new materials at http://www.revolutionintheair.com include:

*An in-depth study of the early 1970s strike wave by African American 
workers in
Atlanta, in which cadre from the emerging New Communist Movement 
played a significant
role: "Strike Fever: Labor Unrest, Civil Rights and the Left in Atlanta 1972,"
by Monica Waugh-Benton. (See the Left History section of the website.)

*A comment from veteran Sacramento California activist Carl Pinkston 
on the left's
crisis and the role of scientific socialism. (Also in the Left 
History section.)

*"Tangled Up in the Milieu", MRzine's interview with me on the release
of Revolution in the Air's paperback edition.

*"New Left for Old," Mike Macnair's review of Revolution in the Air
for the on-line newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Also available at http://www.revolutionintheair.com are:

*A detailed chronology of events in international politics, mass 
movements and the
left from 1954 to 1992, and an extensive bibliography of books, 
pamphlets and periodicals
relevant to the U.S. left's history during that period.

*More than 35 published reviews of Revolution in the Air, including 
reviews from
the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, Radical History Review, and 
publications
in Great Britain, Canada, South Africa, Australia and Sweden.

*Book reviews of "Letters from Young Activists" and "The Forbidden
Book: The Philippine American War in Political Cartoons."

And an extensive collection of other articles and individual comments 
on the antiwar
movement, radical history and prospects for the left.

Finally, below is a new review of Revolution in the Air which 
appeared on Portside
Monday, January 15, 2007.

May 2007 be a good year for all of you. And - beginning with a huge 
antiwar march
in Washington, DC January 27 - may it be a year of gains in the 
urgent struggle
for peace and justice.

Peace,

Max
--------
A Different Shade of Red

Review of "Revolution in the Air" by Max Elbaum Verso
Books

Ethan Young

With the assassination of King and the urban explosions
that followed, civil rights reached its exhaustion
point as a mass movement. The demand for black
power/black liberation swept the country, and new
political formations emerged and fought to define a way
forward in the wake of mass radicalization and state
repression.

US aggression in Indochina also contributed to
radicalization among young men and women - from
ex-college students to street freaks, gang members,
high schoolers, prisoners and Vietnam vets, and even
active duty military personnel. As a result, the
antiwar movement, greatly inspired by King's
unconditional support, itself grew massive.

*Revolution in the Air* by Max Elbaum, recently
republished in paperback by Verso, brings to light one
of the important efforts to shape a revolutionary
politics out of this mass radicalization. The
post-King, post Black Panther Party "new communists"
were the most numerically significant and influential
advocates of self-styled, wide-open Marxism-Leninism
since the "class-against-class" days of the early 1930s
Communist Party.

The New Communist Movement of the 1970s and 80s
penetrated society on a number of fronts, and was
joined by a significant number of activists of color,
in proportion to both pro-capitalist groups and most of
the left - a factor explored by Elbaum. Unlike the
Trotskyists and 1960s Maoists, these groups came from
the social movements of the day, not the Communist
movement that emerged with World War I and the Russian
Revolution. "Half horse, half alligator," the groups
with names like October League and Revolutionary
Workers Congress made a determined, if quixotic,
attempt to bring political theory drawn largely from
Maoism to bear on the practice of radical activists
turned revolutionary cadres.

Elbaum's book is a serious and thorough start to the
documentation of a failed political movement that
deserves historical recognition. *Revolution in the
Air* documents the details of the development of the
movement - not to enshrine or resurrect it, but to
retrieve for succeeding generations of activists the
lessons and experiences, positive and negative, of two
decades of work by some thousands of revolutionaries.

The book itself serves as an example for a mature
approach to the subject, as it attempts to review the
phenomenon soberly, without nostalgia or
recriminations. Elbaum spurns the grinding wheel and
tosses aside the many axes he once held, as a veteran
of an embarrassingly intricate series of sectarian
fights. While he puts his own views front and center,
there is no hint of "told ya so" or "look what they
made us do."

Most importantly, he puts a minor but rich political
movement in its broader historical context, a practice
that these very groups often took great pains to do in
their own time--and a practice that has largely been
lost to the decimated, confused and atomized left
political movements that have survived or emerged since
the late 1980s.

The reappearance of *Revolution in the Air* offers an
opportunity to address some contemporary questions in a
transformed historical landscape.

The new communist groups, for all their flaws, sought
to reverse the incoherence and dissolution of social
movements after Nixon came to power. They had the right
string, whether or not they had the wrong yo-yo, and
the lack of coherence on the left in its current
anti-politics, anti-organization atmosphere underscores
this.

The Maoism of the New Communist groups, and even the
broader context that Elbaum calls Third World Marxism,
drew adherents based on the promise of "existing
socialism" - living social models that inspired
confidence that capitalism was being replaced by an
alternative born of revolution. In contrast, despite
growing hopes for revolutionary progress in Latin
America, no alternative on the scale of Maoist China
exists today.

Even as China's image as a "red sun" dimmed in the
mid-70s, people turning left saw anti-imperialist
governments cropping up all over the Third World. But
in the Mideast, the nexus of 21st century imperialist
expansion, the resistance is identified with religious
fundamentalism, not egalitarian socialism. Americans,
however furious they get with the Iraq war, will find
no appealing model in Bush's proclaimed enemy -
especially since our own homegrown variety is a major
factor in the public's disillusionment with the right.

Any attempt in the current situation to help the
disillusioned to become active agents for democratic
change must face that "we" are on our own - with the
rest of the world. The left is left to work our way
toward our own social models, without the benefit of a
counter-force to imperialism in the form of a powerful
socialist nation-state, real or idealized.

This could turn out to be a great thing. It could bring
about a new, omni-lateral international dialogue with
leftists worldwide, the Internet willing. In fact, such
a process is unfolding and spreading everywhere, every
day, but we in the metropolitan wilderness are only
beginning to find a role in it.

As people all over the world are discovering, while
recognizing that in the long view political leadership
is indispensable, it is worthless at best when it is
alienated from social movements. For example: it is
important that Cindy Sheehan met with Hugo Chavez.
Equally, and in the most practical terms, it is
important that Chavez met with Sheehan. Because without
the masses they inspire, they are - each in their own
circumstance - just a soldier and a civilian.

*Revolution in the Air* appears at a point when the
strongest intellectual output on the American left
comes from historians. Elbaum's effort reflects this,
but draws contemporary lessons from his research to
reach and teach activists, more than to contribute to
academic discourse. His final chapter and his new
introduction to this edition, presenting a valuable
political overview, make a great starting point for
study for contemporary activists of any age. But the
history in between, when read with care, will help
prevent stupid mistakes, inspire independent thought,
and tantalize the imaginations of left activists in the
perilous times ahead.

To order *Revolution in the Air*, go to:
http://www.revolutionintheair.com/


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