Re: [Marxism] Of victory and victories

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I think with Sartesian's latest post we've gotten down to a very clear
exposition of core issues. 

He says I am "transforming every class struggle into an anti-class
'democratic' 'national' issue." This is a very loose use of "class
struggle," since class struggles are, of their very nature, political, but
let that pass. No, I'm not interested in turning every economic struggle
into an "anti-class" issue. What I am interested in, because it's what I've
observed, is that such struggles do not present as neat "class against
class" embodiments of platonic bourgeois and proletarian essences but are
rather intersected with issues of race and gender, inextricably so. And much
of the U.S. Left has a long trajectory of simply not getting that. 

For Sartesian, it's all about "the necessity of capitalism finding ways to
exploit labor, wage-labor, regardless of color," and so on. My observation
is that capitalism doesn't "exploit regardless of color," not in this
country and not on a world scale. That's simply not the way it goes down.

Now, obviously, Sartesian doesn't mean this in a superficial way; he is
obviously conscious of race and gender discrimination and so on. But he
views those issues as inevitably being subsumed under class issues and
resolved in and through the class struggle itself. I don't believe this is a
sound position, neither in theory nor in practice, but more to the point, it
runs completely counter to historical experience. 

And here is another example of what I call a "class and class only"
approach: Gutierrez is a "congressman, who, first and foremost, is a
Democrat, an agent of the bourgeoisie with a Latino surname." Fine, lovely. 

My contention is that Sartesian's level of abstraction is useless or worse
for practical politics. Just how did his "agenting" for the bourgeoisie by
Gutierrez manifest itself in this concrete case? In what ways was his
"agenting" any different from what the union leadership was demanding? Does
this mean the members of the union leadership were also "first and foremost
... agent[s] of the bourgeoisie"? Why was Gutierrez's "agenting" DIFFERENT
FROM that of other bourgeois politician? Why was it HE that was directly
involved, and not, say, Rahm Emanuel, Obama or Blagojevich? Or even Jesse
Jackson, senior or junior?

Yet having instructed us that Gutierrez is a representative of the class
enemy acting on its behalf (that's what "agent" means), nevertheless S.
Artesian says he's got no objection to the union leadership "appealing to
the Congressman," claiming that such appeals will be outgrown over time. In
an earlier post he said, "In this case they are no different than previous
appeals during earlier struggles, say the early civil rights battles, to the
federal government for intervention-- for FBI investigation and protections
etc."

Something tells me Sartesian is *opposed* to demand the bourgeois state
enforce its bourgeois laws against racist violence and terrorism. He thinks
such demands reflect the immaturity of the movement. But two decades after
Montgomery, during the Boston busing fight in the mid-70's, those sorts of
demands were central to that struggle.

At any rate, I do not see the identity between raising SUCH demands ON THE
STATE and the workers asking Gutierrez to take a turn at bat on their side.
But also, this was a very different attitude on the part of these workers
and their union towards this ONE bourgeois politician in comparison to
various others. There was a different relationship between these workers
--or at least a good number of them-- and THIS politician when compared to
OTHER politicians. Tactics are based precisely on such differences. 

Now turning to the broader issues, he says my comment on McKinney "reveals
the complete, and I do mean complete, bankruptcy of the 'democratic'
'national' struggle." He acknowledges the reality of white (and male)
privilege and adds "I believe, however, unlike Joaquin, that the battle
against such privilege must become class-based and cannot be successfully
prosecuted as a democratic right." 

On this I want to add a retraction and apology to Sartesian though. In my
last post I said he was blind to white privilege and white supremacy,
formulating this as a general statement. But I did not mean "in general,"
but on the specific point at issue, political representation and the closely
connected but more general area of stance and tone towards figures like
Gutierrez, John Lewis and similar politicians who are perceived as being
identified with or part of "the movement" and not simply a candidate or
officeholder who happens to be Black or Latino. Sartesian has shown he is
aware and conscious of issues of race and gender in other contexts 

Where we do completely disagree is what to do about them. I believe in the
full applicability and vitality of a whole range of democratic demands for
nationally oppressed peoples within the United States up to and including
the demand for self-determination. I think the evidence is overwhelming that
there are Black and Latino national movements in the U.S. to carry forward
the fight for such demands (and not just those demands, obviously) and that
could not possibly exist WITHOUT such demands.

Sartesian, it seems to me, takes an essentially Luxemburgist position on the
national question, that viewed self determination as a utopian-reactionary
demand that had been bypassed by history, or, at most, a position similar to
the pre-1914 Bolsheviks. Although the Bolsheviks supported the right to
self-determination, what those two shared in common was opposition to the
national movements of oppressed peoples and counterposition of the workers
movement to the national movement. Later, Lenin came to see national
movements of oppressed peoples as potential allies of the working class.

Applying that to our circumstances, the issue is not whether bourgeois
politicians like Gutierrez can lead a successful struggle against white
supremacy. No one here argues that. The issue is whether the battle is waged
through the simple "class" counterposition to the bourgeois Gutierrez or
whether the struggle also takes place within the framework of, and on the
terms of, the national movement. It is Gutierrez's status within the Latino
community and movement that Sartesian is for ignoring: "the struggle has to
develop beyond ... the ideological limitations  of 'democratic' 'national'
rights." That is where we disagree.

Joaquin


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