Re: reform and revolution (with reference to Argentina 7 New Zealand)

[Michael Pugliese <debsian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>--- Original Message ---
>From: Battaglia comunista <batcom@xxxxxxxx>
>To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Date: 1/26/02 4:25:01 AM

...
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>> the near-hysterical tone and insults of your latest
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>> reply indicates to me that the contradictions in your
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>> position are really starting to bite.
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>>
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>> The contradiction that strikes me particularly
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>> strongly is the one between your advocacy of working
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>> class struggle, on the one hand, and your efforts to
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>> the remove from this discussion any concrete
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>> references to or suggestions for working class
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>> struggle, on the other hand.
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>>
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>> You talk a lot about class struggle, but when faced
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>> with, for instance, the reality that class struggle
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>> almost always takes place around demands for reforms,
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>> you throw up your hands in horror. Similarly, you
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>> regard class struggle in Argentina as the way forward,
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>> but refuse to face the fact that class struggle in
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>> that country is very obviously being undertaken mostly
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>> by workers who still have a reformist worldview, and
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>> also around various demands for more or less radical
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>> reforms.
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>>
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>> You want to escape the contradiction in your position
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>> and the obvious absurdity of repudiating class
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>> struggle in Argentina in the name of class struggle by
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>> withdrawing from concrete debate about Argentina, and
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>> you try to cover this withdrawal with the suggestion
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>> that people like me who do want to discuss the
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>> situation in that country in detail are guilty of not
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>> discussing Argentina in our own 'communities'.
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>>
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>> This is a strange accusation to make of me, since I
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>> have posted very recently the record of a picket and
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>> public meeting on Argentina held by the AIC in
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>> Auckland. I want to tell you a little bit about this
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>> meeting and about the group that held it in the hope
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>> of pointing up what I see as the absurdity of your
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>> total repudiation of fighting for reforms, work with
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>> reformists, and also work with Leninists.
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>>
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>> At our meeting a couple of short talks were followed
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>> by questions and then informal discussion. One of the
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>> first questions asked came from a man who seemingly
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>> thought that liberation theology and, perhaps, the
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>> Catholic Church were a progressive force in Latin
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>> America.
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>>
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>> The person who had just given the talk argued that
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>> liberation theology was not a genuinely radical strand
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>> in thinking but rather a gesture by the church to
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>> maintain influence over rebellious peasants and
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>> workers. She pointed to the reactionary role that the
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>> Pope had played in Latin American conflicts - for
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>> instance, his refusal to condemn American aggression
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>> in Nicaragua during a visit to the country in the 80s
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>> -as evidence for her point of view. She did emphasise,
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>> though, that the ideology of liberation theology could
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>> be construed as radical by individual priests looking
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>> to justify their association with radical struggles,
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>> in the same way that the ideology of Christianity has
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>> frequently been commandeered for radical purposes
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>> during events like the English revolution and the
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>> colonisation of New Zealand. The person who had asked
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>> the question about liberation theology seemed
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>> interested in this answer - it seemed that his
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>> sympathy for liberation theology had stemmed from an
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>> acquaintance with some radical individual priests,
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>> rather than any devotion to the Catholic Church as
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>> such.
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>>
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>> Another aspect of our recent Argentina solidarity
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>> activities that I'd like to dwell on is the
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>> conversation I had with an Argentinean employee of
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>> Aerolinas Argentinas who came to our solidarity picket
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>> of the US Consulate General. This guy thought of the
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>> crisis in his country in quite nationalistic terms,
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>> and put forward the view that "all of the small
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>> countries, New Zealand, Argentina, should get together
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>> and fight the US, oppose its policies". At the same
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>> time, he expressed his great sympathy for the
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>> anti-capitalist protests in Seattle and Genoa, saying
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>> he was delighted to hear about them.
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>>
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>> What I tried to do, talking to this guy, was
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>> respectfully and gently suggest that there was a
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>> contradiction between some of the politics of the
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>> anti-capitalist movement and the nationalist course he
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>> was advocating, and that nationalism of the Peronists
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>> might even be heavily implicated in the economic chaos
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>> which threatened his future. This person was also a
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>> staunch advocate of reforms like nationalisation of
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>> the banks, but did not seek to give those reforms a
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>> class line did not, for instance, seek
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>> renationalisation of the banks under workers control.
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>>
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>> The third example that I want to give concerns a
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>> member of the AIC, the group that organised the picket
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>> and public meeting. It was after coming into touch
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>> with this man several months ago that I realised
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>> particulalry strongly that I would have to revise my
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>> view that all Leninists were contemptible would-be
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>> bureaucrats.
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>>
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>> The guy in question is eighty-eight years old, and has
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>> been involved in virtually every major social movement
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>> in NZ over the past fifty years. He was one of the
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>> founders of the anti-Vietnam War movement, which began
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>> in Auckland with I think a march of three people. He
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>> was involved in anti-racist rugby tour protests
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>> decades before they became an issue that split and
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>> seriously destabilised the country in 1981. He was
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>> involved in an army mutiny over conditions in 1942. He
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>> did an amazing amount of work for our group, including
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>> standing outside the conference of the governing
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>> Labour Party last year with us and chanting Baby
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>> killers, murderers to shame-faced delegates and cops
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>> afraid to muscle an elderly man. He also happens to be
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>> a Maoist.
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>>
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>> Trying to understand the contradiction between this
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>> mans deeds and some of his views, I was forced to
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>> consider the history of communism in this country.
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>> Alone in the West, the NZ Communist Party sided with
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>> Albania and China in the Sino-Soviet split in the
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>> early 60s. A puppet Moscow party was soon set up to
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>> match the Peking parrots, and it gained a
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>> stranglehold over the trade union movement, advocating
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>> very conservative, economistic, semi-reformist ideas.
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>>
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>> The only opposition to this party, at least until the
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>> emergence of small Trotskyists groups on campus in the
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>> late 60s, was the CP, which adopted a sort of
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>> supermilitant Maoism. There were no organised
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>> autonomist Marxists, or council communists, or
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>> anarchists, or anything else that might be contained
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>> by the term libertarian left. In these
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>> circumstances, I can see how the CP, distorted by
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>> Stalinism though it was, might seem some sort of
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>> radical alternative to reformism. Inevitably, the CP
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>> bred splits in the 70s, and I think the guy I am
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>> speaking of ended up in one of these splits.
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>>
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>> The point I am making is that in each of these
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>> examples we encounter someone holding a
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>> position/engaged in a practice which has good as well
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>> as bad features, and which must be engaged with in a
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>> sophisticated, sympathetic manner. Under your
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>> criteria, each of the people I have mentioned would be
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>> rejected out of hand. The first person would be a
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>> symapthiser of a hierachical institution, pushing
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>> alien class ideas, who should be exposed as bourgeois.
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>> The second person would be condemned as an enemy of
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>> class struggle, despite the fact that he had been
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>> engaged in the most whitehot class struggle in the
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>> world at the moment. The third person you would class
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>> as bourgeois, compare to a fascist, and seek to
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>> expose inside protest movements. In the name of
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>> class struggle, you would repudiate a person
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>> sympathetic to class struggle, a person engaged in
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>> class struggle as we speak, and a person who has been
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>> involved in class struggle for longer proabably than
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>> your parents have been alive.
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>>
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>> If your position does not allow you to have comradely
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>> feelings towards these people, and leads you to
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>> condemn and abuse me as some sort of traitor, then I
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>> wonder you expect to be able to do the 'community
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>> outreach' work on Argentina you advocate. How are you
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>> going to deal with what may be by and large the most
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>> reactionary population in the world? If reformists,
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>> Maoists and fellow autopsy list members like me are
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>> too heretical, how will Joe Blow from Idaho, who
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>> thinks everyone has a fair deal in America and thinks
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>> President Bush had no option but to attack
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>> Afghanistan, fare? How will any member of the American
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>> working class who is brave enought to strike or
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>> protest for a reform in the present atmosphere fare?
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>>
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>> Surely your latest coments are digging you into a
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>> ultra-leftist and incredibly sectarian hole, a hole
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>> which you will have to climb out of to engage in any
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>> sort of practical political activity?
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>>
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>> Cheers
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>> Scott
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>>
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>> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
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>> For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea":
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>> THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/th=
>rall/
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>> THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_thir=
>d_eye_website/
>
>> and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production,
http://c=
>antua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7
>Ejho32/
>
>>