[PEN-L:28188] Re: RE: To Nancy Brumback <hari.kumar@sympatico.ca>

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 7/18/02 6:12:07 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Nancybrumback@xxxxxx writes:


> I said: <<This is why I keep saying
> (though I haven't said it on this list yet) that those who want social
> change have to stop focussing on the working class to the exclusion of
> all others.">>
>
> I am sorry to have been so ambiguous. What i meant is "focussing on the working class as the leader of all others."
>
> Hari said: <<Nancy, how would you interpret Lenin's famous phrase
> that the Bolshevik must learn to be "the Tribune of the oppressed
> people">>
>
> I would interpret it as meaning that again, the bolshevik is the leader of the oppressed people and must accept that position. The corollary is that the oppressed people must learn to accept the working class as their leader. But I feel that instead of following any particular group in order to make social change, we must learn to lead ourselves -- i.e., we must learn to become self-governing. To me, that is a vital part of revolution -- to be able to participate in the making of decisions that affect our lives.



Actually, Mr. Lenin's statement was written in a specific context and historical time frame. If memory serves me correct I believe it is from the book "What Is To Be Done" and the statement is roughly: "The Communist idea should not be a trade union secretary, but a Tribune of the people, able to react to violence and abuse."

The context was the building of a national newspaper and its political orientation. "The Communist (Social Democratic) idea" should not be watered down to mirror the activity of a trade union secretary, or one that simply records events. Rather, the Communist idea must strive to disclose the basis of violence and abuse in society as driven by specific class factors and property relations.

In the Russian context, Mr. Lenin's polemic was against what in America would be called "trade unionism pure and simply."

The working class as the leader in Russia is a specific political formulation occurring during a spercific historical juncture. Russia during the time of the article "What is To Be Done" - 100 years ago?, was a land of peasants of small scale producers or the "middle class," although middle class means something entirely diffeent in the America of today.  The working class as the leader referred to a class policy based on a specific political alignment based in concrete economic factors.

In America today the middle class is working class - proletariat, in the sense of selling their labor power as the basis for subsistence. That is to say, the middle class is not simply a class of small scale property owners connected to the land as in Russia of 100 years ago.

The point is that the communist idea should not be a trade union secretary but a Tribune of the people able to react to violence and abuse. I remember this because it was the slogan on the newspaper of the group I was a member of 30 years ago in Detroit - a major center of industrial unionism.


Melvin P.