Everbody knows that Harry Cleaver has been a tireless activist both on and
off the Internet for the Zapatista cause. The example he has set is not
only important for this particular struggle, but for others as well,
including a labor movement that is more and more becoming
internationalized. The sort of instantaneous electronic information that
sprung up around the EZLN is now being deployed for the "wharfies" in
Australia. If war comes to Colombia, there is no question that the Internet
will serve as a brain and nervous system for a broad movement fighting US
intervention in that country.
I do have differences with Harry that I want to take up in this section of
my post. It has to do with the classic Marxist analysis of the role of the
state, with which his articles disagree. Let us take a look at the
concluding paragraph of his paper "The Zapatista Effect and the
Cyberspacial Subversion of Foreign Policy:"
"While the capacity of such grassroots groups for collective protest action
has been clearly demonstrated, their potential for taking over or usurping
the functions of the nation-state and intergovernmental organizations will
certainly turn on their capacity to elaborate and implement alternative
modes of decision making and collective or complementary action to solve
common or related problems. In some instances, such as the defense of human
rights, ecological protection or the formulation of new constitutional
frameworks for the protection of indigenous rights, this potential is
already being realized. The strongest argument for the continued primary
roles of the nation state and private corporations has been their ability
to get things done. It seems highly likely that the amount of political
will to displace them will depend on the emergence of what are viewed as
practical and more attractive alternatives. So far, grassroots alternatives
have demonstrated that imagination, creativity and insight can generate
different approaches and new solutions to solving widespread problems. To
the degree that such new solutions proliferate and are perceived as
effective, the possibilities of replacing state functions with non-state
collaboration will continue to expand. At the same time, because such an
expansion threatens the established interests of states and those who
benefit from their support, state efforts at repression or co-optation of
such alternatives will continue. The degree to which the autonomy of
grassroots efforts will be maintained will not be a question of imagination
or organizational ability alone, but of their political power to resist
such efforts and displace governmental hegemony. For this reason, the scope
for the positive elaboration of grassroots initiatives at both local and
global levels will depend entirely on their negative power to challenge
existing policies and force concessions. In this drama we are barely into
the opening act."
This statement fails to come to grips with the central problem for
progressive politics. The armed revolution must smash the old state to
pieces in order for a new state to come into existence that represents the
true interests of workers and peasants. In Marxist jargon, we call this the
dictatorship of the proletariat. Alas, there is no better term to take its
place. The particular strand of Marxism that Harry identifies with tends to
identify this paradigm with all the old abuses and failures of the Soviet
model. Unfortunately, as long as the ruling class has the army and police
at its disposal, it is very difficult to achieve significant structural
change.
In the case of Chiapas, hungry peasants will not receive land until a
government that represents their interests comes to power. Furthermore, it
is impossible to elect such government. It has to ensue out of an armed
struggle, such as the kind that toppled Somoza or Batista. While it is not
unprincipled to urge a vote for Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, it would be foolish to
think that his presidency would change anything in Mexico as long as the
army and police remained intact. It would be nothing but a replay of the
Allende regime in Chile.
The reason that the Zapatista struggle is attractive to post-Marxists such
as Harry and Roger Burbach is that it tends to bracket out the whole nasty
question posed in Lenin's "State and Revolution." Since the EZLN has little
chance to lead a successful revolution as long as the rest of Mexico
remains at a lower level of struggle, there is a tendency to identify with
the movement as movement. It reminds me of the sort of infatuation with
movement politics that characterized the German Social Democracy at the
turn of the century when the actual problem of taking power receded into
the background to a vanishing point.
While it is true that the Zapatistas have no immediate prospect of taking
power, it is also true that their struggle is appropriate to the task at
hand, which is extracting reforms from the Mexican government. The only way
to achieve reforms is by struggling in a militant, if not revolutionary,
fashion. The peasants of Chiapas attempted reforms through the system in
the 1980s and have discovered that the only way the Mexican government will
take them seriously is if they arm themselves and launch guerrilla warfare.