Click on the headline to link to the Workers Vanguard website for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts on the British Labour Party. Ouch!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
* From The "In Defense Of Marxism" Website Via "Renegade Eye"- On The British Labour Party- A Guest Commentary
Click on the headline to link to a In Defense Of Marxism Website entry via Renegade Eye- On The British Labour Party.
Markin commentary:
A very interesting article, at least theoretically and historically, especailly on the Fenner Brockway-led Independent Labor Party in the 1930s that gave Leon Trotsky fits as it tried studiously, and with every fiber in its centrist body (I am being polite here), to avoid committing to the Fourth International. I am a little perplexed though as to why the British Labour Party is a "happy hunting ground" for leftists now that it is out of office and is badly mauled which makes me question the IMT's motives for a rush to Labourism (seemingly having been previously "bad children" they want to "come back home" after a long hiatus- back to shades of Ted Grant time). Certainly there is no apparent leftward-motion this early on that I can sense at this remove, a movement which revolutionaries would most certainly try to take advantage of with both hand. On relationships, including "entrism", regroupment, etc. and other tactics within mainstream Labour that will depend on circumstances.
What is clear though is that every militant should belong to the Labour Party, just as in the United States every militant should belong to a trade union, if possible. The British Labour Party, like the German Social Democratic, and in the past the French and Italian Communist Parties, is the mass bourgeois workers party in Britain. In the future it has to be split into its reformist and , hopefully, then revolutionary wings if the class struggle is to go forward. But revolutionaries cannot go around Labour and by this I mean go around the fight for leadership of the unions(or try, as in the 1960s and 70s, to sidestep that task by entry in the "sandbox" plaything of Labour youth leagues or constituency organizations).
Whether one supports Labour (critically, "like a rope supports a hanging man," as Lenin stated in his commentary on the Arthur Hendersen-led Labour Party days of the 1920s) in elections is a open question, depending on the politics at the time. In 2010 there was no reason, no reason at all, to call for a vote for Labour, whether eight or eight million people voted for its candidates. A simple question on that one: How, after those well-defined 13 years of Labour rule, as lap dog for American imperialism, the City of London bankers, and Her Majesty's governmental apparatus, could any self-respecting leftist call for such a vote for Labour , except to create more confusion among the advanced workers. That is our, that is we "sectarians" (read: small propaganda groups), real target right now?
By the way, as a very simple first step, although only a first step in that process, would be weaning those advanced militants away for reformism by calls for the abolition of Her Majesty's monarchy, that moribund House of Lords, and the disestablishment of those state churches. "Speak" Oliver Cromwell to those workers, for openers. To the advanced British and immigrant workers (patiently and soberly, of course) now!
Markin commentary:
A very interesting article, at least theoretically and historically, especailly on the Fenner Brockway-led Independent Labor Party in the 1930s that gave Leon Trotsky fits as it tried studiously, and with every fiber in its centrist body (I am being polite here), to avoid committing to the Fourth International. I am a little perplexed though as to why the British Labour Party is a "happy hunting ground" for leftists now that it is out of office and is badly mauled which makes me question the IMT's motives for a rush to Labourism (seemingly having been previously "bad children" they want to "come back home" after a long hiatus- back to shades of Ted Grant time). Certainly there is no apparent leftward-motion this early on that I can sense at this remove, a movement which revolutionaries would most certainly try to take advantage of with both hand. On relationships, including "entrism", regroupment, etc. and other tactics within mainstream Labour that will depend on circumstances.
What is clear though is that every militant should belong to the Labour Party, just as in the United States every militant should belong to a trade union, if possible. The British Labour Party, like the German Social Democratic, and in the past the French and Italian Communist Parties, is the mass bourgeois workers party in Britain. In the future it has to be split into its reformist and , hopefully, then revolutionary wings if the class struggle is to go forward. But revolutionaries cannot go around Labour and by this I mean go around the fight for leadership of the unions(or try, as in the 1960s and 70s, to sidestep that task by entry in the "sandbox" plaything of Labour youth leagues or constituency organizations).
Whether one supports Labour (critically, "like a rope supports a hanging man," as Lenin stated in his commentary on the Arthur Hendersen-led Labour Party days of the 1920s) in elections is a open question, depending on the politics at the time. In 2010 there was no reason, no reason at all, to call for a vote for Labour, whether eight or eight million people voted for its candidates. A simple question on that one: How, after those well-defined 13 years of Labour rule, as lap dog for American imperialism, the City of London bankers, and Her Majesty's governmental apparatus, could any self-respecting leftist call for such a vote for Labour , except to create more confusion among the advanced workers. That is our, that is we "sectarians" (read: small propaganda groups), real target right now?
By the way, as a very simple first step, although only a first step in that process, would be weaning those advanced militants away for reformism by calls for the abolition of Her Majesty's monarchy, that moribund House of Lords, and the disestablishment of those state churches. "Speak" Oliver Cromwell to those workers, for openers. To the advanced British and immigrant workers (patiently and soberly, of course) now!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- Early Communist Work Among Women: The Bolsheviks
Click on the headline to link to the article described above
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*******
Markin comment on this article:
Over the past couple of years I have placed as many still relevant social, political, literary, and cultural articles from the journal Women and Revolution as I have been able to find as a source for leftist militants to think about these questions that are not always directly related to our day to day tasks in the class struggle today. I have made some effort into trying to get as many articles about the experiences of the Soviet Union as possible because that experience is, in some senses, our only example of what could have been had things turned out a bit differently back in the early days of the Russian revolution.
A couple of general observations about the tenor of the Soviet-centered articles. First, each article starts with items and ideas that spoke to the promise of the revolution, the things that could or should have been done and that the Bolsheviks raised holy hell to try to accomplish. Second, each article notes that turning inward of the revolution and the erasing of institutions, movements, and currents that surfaced in the revolutionary period and that were slammed in the period of Stalinist degeneration of the late 1920s. Those observations should be etched in the memory or every leftist militant who wants to fight for our communist future so we do better when our chance comes.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*******
Markin comment on this article:
Over the past couple of years I have placed as many still relevant social, political, literary, and cultural articles from the journal Women and Revolution as I have been able to find as a source for leftist militants to think about these questions that are not always directly related to our day to day tasks in the class struggle today. I have made some effort into trying to get as many articles about the experiences of the Soviet Union as possible because that experience is, in some senses, our only example of what could have been had things turned out a bit differently back in the early days of the Russian revolution.
A couple of general observations about the tenor of the Soviet-centered articles. First, each article starts with items and ideas that spoke to the promise of the revolution, the things that could or should have been done and that the Bolsheviks raised holy hell to try to accomplish. Second, each article notes that turning inward of the revolution and the erasing of institutions, movements, and currents that surfaced in the revolutionary period and that were slammed in the period of Stalinist degeneration of the late 1920s. Those observations should be etched in the memory or every leftist militant who wants to fight for our communist future so we do better when our chance comes.
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- Early Bolshevik Work Among Women of the Soviet East
Click on the headline to link to the article described above
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
********
Markin comment on this article:
Over the past couple of years I have placed as many still relevant social, political, literary, and cultural articles from the journal Women and Revolution as I have been able to find as a source for leftist militants to think about these questions that are not always directly related to our day to day tasks in the class struggle today. I have made some effort into trying to get as many articles about the experiences of the Soviet Union as possible because that experience is, in some senses, our only example of what could have been had things turned out a bit differently back in the early days of the Russian revolution.
A couple of general observations about the tenor of the Soviet-centered articles. First, each article starts with items and ideas that spoke to the promise of the revolution, the things that could or should have been done and that the Bolsheviks raised holy hell to try to accomplish. Second, each article notes that turning inward of the revolution and the erasing of institutions, movements, and currents that surfaced in the revolutionary period and that were slammed in the period of Stalinist degeneration of the late 1920s. Those observations should be etched in the memory or every leftist militant who wants to fight for our communist future so we do better when our chance comes.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
********
Markin comment on this article:
Over the past couple of years I have placed as many still relevant social, political, literary, and cultural articles from the journal Women and Revolution as I have been able to find as a source for leftist militants to think about these questions that are not always directly related to our day to day tasks in the class struggle today. I have made some effort into trying to get as many articles about the experiences of the Soviet Union as possible because that experience is, in some senses, our only example of what could have been had things turned out a bit differently back in the early days of the Russian revolution.
A couple of general observations about the tenor of the Soviet-centered articles. First, each article starts with items and ideas that spoke to the promise of the revolution, the things that could or should have been done and that the Bolsheviks raised holy hell to try to accomplish. Second, each article notes that turning inward of the revolution and the erasing of institutions, movements, and currents that surfaced in the revolutionary period and that were slammed in the period of Stalinist degeneration of the late 1920s. Those observations should be etched in the memory or every leftist militant who wants to fight for our communist future so we do better when our chance comes.
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Woman, Anti-Sex: U.S./UN Crusade Against "Sex Trafficking"
Click on the headline to link to the article described above
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- Ciudad Juárez, Mexico-Capitalism and Anti-Woman Terror
Click on the headline to link to the article described above
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- Pedophilia, Child Pornography and State Repression-"Capturing the Friedmans: An American Tragedy"
Click on the headline to link to the article described above
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"-Women and Immigration in France
Click on the headline to link to the article described above.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- The Magdalene Sisters: Women’s Oppression and the Irish Clericalist State
Click on the headline to link to the article described above.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- Iraq: Women’s Liberation and the Struggle Against Imperialist Subjugation
Click on the headline to link to the article described above
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- Women’s Oppression and the Emperor System-Japan: Abolish the Monarchy—For a Workers Republic!
Click on the headline to link to the article described above
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
Markin comment:
The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
*From The "Massachusetts Jobs With Justice" Website- Victory At Shaw's
Click on the headline to link to a Massachusetts Jobs With Justice Website entry- Victory At Shaw's.
Markin comment:
This was a tough battle and as we all know ratifying and signing a union contract is just an "armed truce" in the class struggle. Nevertheless the resolution of this many week old strike is a "victory" in the sense that the "fired" workers are back and the terms, given today's tough times, are not onerous. The struggle continues
Markin comment:
This was a tough battle and as we all know ratifying and signing a union contract is just an "armed truce" in the class struggle. Nevertheless the resolution of this many week old strike is a "victory" in the sense that the "fired" workers are back and the terms, given today's tough times, are not onerous. The struggle continues
Friday, July 16, 2010
From The Pages Of The Communist International- From The Fourth Congress- "On The United Front"- (1922)
Click on the headline to link to the Communist International Internet Archives for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
The Latest From The Lynne Stewart Defense Committee, As Of July 12, 2010, As We Await The July 15th Sentencing Hearing Results- Free Lynne Now!
Click on the headline to link to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee website.
*Straight From The Horse's Mouth- Even Senator Kerry Says Obama's Afghan Policy Is Off Course
Click on the headline to link to an Associated Press (via The Boston Globe online) article concerning Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Forbes Kerry's remarks on the Obamian Afghan war policy.
Markin comment:
On a day when I am writing about united fronts, and who is and who isn't included (or, at least, should or shouldn't be) up steps Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to want to "join us" (with one hand, at least) in our opposition to the Obama Afghan war policy. Never let it be said that "Brother" Kerry ever got out front on any war issue, including his rather belated, if well-publicized, opposition to his war, the Vietnam War. If memory serves though, this time last year Senator Kerry was waving both hands and both feet (or, maybe, as is his preferred method, one hand and one foot)in defense of the Obama troop build up in Afghanistan. Well, just to kick off the good Senator from our bus let us anti-war militants raise this slogan in his face, and his boss's- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
On a day when I am writing about united fronts, and who is and who isn't included (or, at least, should or shouldn't be) up steps Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to want to "join us" (with one hand, at least) in our opposition to the Obama Afghan war policy. Never let it be said that "Brother" Kerry ever got out front on any war issue, including his rather belated, if well-publicized, opposition to his war, the Vietnam War. If memory serves though, this time last year Senator Kerry was waving both hands and both feet (or, maybe, as is his preferred method, one hand and one foot)in defense of the Obama troop build up in Afghanistan. Well, just to kick off the good Senator from our bus let us anti-war militants raise this slogan in his face, and his boss's- Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./ Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
*From The Archives Of The American Communist Movement- Popular Front Or United Front?- The Classic Trotskyist Position
Click on the headline link to a Wikipedia entry for former old time American Socialist Workers Party leader, and later renegade from Marxism, James Burnham.
Markin comment:
This post is presented as a contribution to the continuing discussion on the vital question of the united front tactic in the struggle for our communist future. On this question, as I know from bitter and frustrating personal experience, we need all the education we can get. On the use of renegade from Marxism James Burnham's contribution
to the question. As I have pointed out before, not everyone makes it to the end of the revolutionary road. We, however, when appropriate as here, use every contribution we can get for those who knew how to "speak" Marxism at some point in their political lives.
***********
The People's Front in the United States
from The People's Front: The New Betrayal, James Burnham, Pioneer Publishers, New York, 1937
The People's Front has not, of course, advanced as far in the United States as in France or Spain. In the formal sense, there is not yet in the United States an established "People's Front." The United States is not faced with a developing revolutionary crisis, as is France, nor is it in the midst of a Civil War, as is Spain. Though the historical issue for the United States, as is the case for every nation at the present time, is socialism vs. capitalism, though only the workers' revolution and socialism can solve even a single one of the major problems facing United States economy; nevertheless the issue is not yet posed in terms of the immediate struggle for state power. The American proletariat is still faced primarily with the more elementary immediate demands: the struggle for the right to organize, for industrial unionism, for the exercise of democratic rights generally, for a powerful trade union and unemployed movement, for relief and union conditions, for a conscious mass revolutionary party of struggle.
But just as the issue of state power can be settled in favor of the proletariat only by the independent revolutionary class struggle of the workers, and is lost for the proletariat through the reformist strategy of the People's Front; in the same way, at the more elementary stages, the interests of the proletariat can be served only by the appropriate methods of class struggle, and are fatally undermined by the class collaborationist methods of the People's Front. The People's Front in this country, seeping into the labor movement under the sponsorship of the Communist Party, has made considerable headway; and already its disastrous effects are becoming apparent in a dozen fields.
Up to the present, the best known and most conspicuous result of the People's Front strategy emerged during the 1936 election campaign. From the point of view both of the social composition of his support and likewise of the political content of his program, Roosevelt was in effect a People's Front candidate. No one could doubt that he was
a staunch and outstanding defender of capitalist democracy, nor that the bulk of the proletariat, the farmers, and the lower strata of the rest of the middle classes, were solidly behind him. Thus the upholders of the People's Front ideology found themselves, willingly or unwillingly, driven into the Roosevelt camp: either openly, as was the case with many, or, like the Communist Party itself, through a backhanded and ambiguous formula.
The Communist Party was compelled to define the issue of the campaign as "Progress vs. Reaction," "Democracy vs. Fascism." It had to discover the forces of fascism in the "Landon-Hearst-Liberty League" combination. It was then required to raise as the central slogan, "Defeat Landon at all costs!" And the only realistic interpretation of this slogan—the interpretation which the majority of even its own sympathizers made—was to vote for Roosevelt. Brow-deer admits quite openly that this was the central direction of the Stalinist campaign. In his post-election analysis of the elections, delivered to the Central Committee of the party, he boasts as follows: "The first objective was the defeat of Landon. This was accomplished to a degree far surpassing all expectations...this aim we shared with the largest number of people.... Without exaggerating our role in bringing about this result, we can safely say that the weight of each individual Communist in the struggle was far higher, many fold, than that of the members of any other political group in America." He apologizes at length for the nominally independent Communist Party ticket that was in the field. If only "a national Farmer-Labor party..." had "decided to place Roosevelt at the head of the ticket nationally.... Would we have refrained from putting forward our own independent tickets and supported the Farmer-Labor party ticket even with Roosevelt at the head? I venture to say that under such circumstances we would almost surely have done so."
In point of fact, this was done in many localities either by the Communist Party officially, or by individual party members. In Minnesota, Washington, California, the
Stalinists supported Farmer-Labor and "progressive" coalitions with no criticism of the fact that Roosevelt headed their tickets. In New York, the Stalinists gave full support to the American Labor Party, which entered the election campaign—as its leaders openly declared—only to gather labor votes for Roosevelt. Individual Communist Party members joined the American Labor Party, and spoke from its platforms in support of Roosevelt.
The People's Front policy dictates a wholly anti-Marxist analysis of Roosevelt. He can no longer be treated as the chief executive for the dominant class. Criticism of him can only suggest that he is not responsive enough in carrying out the "people's mandate," that he cannot be relied on to take progressive steps unless a certain amount of pressure against him is generated. Even when, after the elections were safely under his belt, Roosevelt, at the bidding of his masters, ruthlessly cut the WPA rolls, even in the light of Roosevelt's attitude toward the auto strikes, the Stalinist criticism must remain mild and "loyal." The Communist Party, having abandoned the revolutionary aim of the overthrow of capitalist society, becomes the "party of Twentieth Century Americanism"; its purpose as defined by the People’s Front, is to function within the framework of democratic capitalism, as a reformist "pressure group." It must strive to become "respectable," to ingratiate itself with the class enemy; to show that in return for vague promises of friendship for the Soviet Union and polite words against fascism, it is willing to do its part in smothering the class struggle and guaranteeing the protection of bourgeois democracy against the threat of proletarian revolution.
A reformist political line cannot be isolated into any supra-mundane sphere of "pure politics." It must show its effects on every arena of the class struggle. We thus find during the past two years a cumulative development of the People's Front strategy as applied to Communist Party activities in the trade unions and unemployed organizations. We may be sure that during the coming months this development will be carried unprecedented steps further. The basis of the People's Front is class collaboration; and we know from past experience of reformism what this means on the trade union field.
Are the reactionary trade union bureaucrats agents of the class enemy within the working class? Do their policies act as the major brake to militant class consciousness within the unions? This is what Marxism has always taught, but no one could possibly learn this from the most detailed study of recent Stalinist literature. Nowhere is there any explanation of, or even reference to, the social function of the trade union bureaucracy. At the most, there is occasional personal criticism of some action too gross to ignore; but even this is kept to a minimum, in the interests of currying favor with the maximum number of the bureaucrats.
The policy of class collaboration forces the Stalinists to abandon more and more the fighting struggle for economic demands, and through that struggle the raising of the level of class consciousness, for the attempt to come to agreements with the bureaucrats, to settle disputes through deals behind the scenes, to rely on governmental arbitration boards and mediators. The Stalinist work in the unions must be subordinated to the great aim of achieving in this country a mass, classless People's Front. To secure the adherence of a union to a Negro Congress, or an American League
Conference, or a Farmer-Labor-Progressive what-not, or a Social Security Assembly is far more important than to get it to prepare and win a militant strike.
The results are already widely present within the labor movement, though not yet so widely recognized. In the WPA sit-downs, the Stalinists and the supervisors together explain why the workers must be peaceful and go home. In Pennsylvania, the Stalinists declare that the new policy for the Workers' Alliance must abandon strikes as a method for "settling disputes." At the January unemployed demonstration in Washington, not a single militant slogan or banner was permitted; the whole demonstration was directed toward the achievement of a friendly chat with the relief authorities. In the Federation of Teachers, the general fight against the Boards of Education is deprecated, dual organizations (such as the Teachers' Guild in New York) are met with conciliation, and the open struggle against the A.F.of L. Executive Council and for the C.I.O. principles is shunted aside. In the Cafeteria Workers, there is disclosed an ironbound alliance between the Stalinists and the older racketeers. The furriers, the wild men of the Third Period, turn respectable, and devote their energies against the progressives and revolutionaries in the union. Ben Gold, who as leader of the furriers roared for five years like an untamable lion, now speaks like the mildest lamb. In the United Textile Workers, the Stalinists at the Convention come to the rescue of the reactionary officials. On the Pacific Coast, among the Maritime Unions, the Stalinists last year first tried to put over the I.S.U. proposals on the Sailors, then attempted to head off the strike, then insisted that it be delayed until after the elections (so as not to injure Roosevelt); and in the end were forestalled only by the militant stand of the Sailors' Union.
This trend will continue and increase. The Communist Party, under the banner of the People's Front, now functions in the unions more and more as a reactionary force, and the progressive movement in the unions will have to be built not along with but in large measure against it.
These conclusions are impressively supported by the Stalinist policy with respect to the A.F.of L.-C.I.O. struggle. At the present time, as Marxists have made clear, the progressive movement in the unions must proceed in accordance with the basic slogans: for industrial unionism; for organization of the basic mass industries; for a class struggle policy; for trade union democracy. Every one of these slogans, taken individually or together, dictates repudiation of the policies and course of the A.F.of L. bureaucracy, and determined, though of course critical, support of the C.I.O. This follows not because the C.I.O. as at present constituted and with its present leadership is the sufficient answer to the needs of the workers (indeed, through its fundamental class collaborationist!! and its violation of intra-union democracy, it acts even now and will in the future increasingly act counter to the needs of the workers), but because in the light of the real and actual conditions of the present, the direction of the C.I.O. is the direction of advance for the labor movement, just as the direction of the A.F.of L. officialdom is the direction of decay and disintegration. As against the A.F.of L. bureaucracy, therefore, Marxists must, whole-heartedly and unambiguously, support the C.I.O. Only such an attitude is at present compatible with progressive trade unionism.
The Communist party policy for the next period, however, is formulated around the single slogan of "unity." "We shall," Browder says in the report already referred to, "redouble our efforts in the fight for trade union unity, for the unity of the American Federation of Labor.... We think that it would be harmful if any unions were divided, one section going to the C.I.O., the other to the A.F.of L....under no conditions do we carry that fight on in such a way as to make a split in that union.... For example, in the probable organization of some sections of heavy machinery, we will have the problem of whether these new unions shall go into the Machinists or into some of the other unions, whether it be the Amalgamated Association, or what not. Generally, we have been clear on this last question. We refused to use our forces to carry sections of newly organized workers away from the jurisdictional claims of the Machinists Union over into some of the industrial unions, where there was a fear that this would intensify rivalries and sharpen the split."
No one will argue against the desirability of trade union unity, nor will anyone "advocate" splits. Nevertheless, it is always the concrete content of unity, not unity as an abstract slogan, that is important. And, under the present circumstances, in the labor movement, the fight for unity itself can be understood only as a fight under the slogans stated above, and—translated into organizational terms—for the C.I.O. movement as against the Executive Council. Such a fight alone makes possible the re-integration of the A.F.of L. on a basis that would mean an advance and not a defeat; and such a fight is equally necessary to prevent the C.I.O. officials themselves from betraying the movement which at present they lead. Re-integration, of course, may not be possible without capitulation; and if this is the case, then the workers must be prepared to face the full consequences—prepared to face the necessity for the building of a new Federation. The conduct of a genuinely progressive campaign will have laid the basis for such an eventuality.
The "unity" campaign of the Communist Party, on the contrary, disorients the progressive struggle. It blocks the sharp and fruitful fight against the policies of the Executive Council, announcing in advance a willingness to compromise and indeed to capitulate; and at the same time it contributes to reactionary tendencies on the part of the C.I.O. officials. To an increasing extent its results will be discovered in one union after another—as, for that matter, they have already been discovered in a number of specific instances: for example, in the Maritime Federation of the Pacific, at the Convention of the Federation of Teachers, and at the A.F.of L. Convention itself, in each of which instances Stalinist influence smothered clear-cut support of the C.I.O.
In other fields of People's Front activities, the same general trend is observable. For example, in youth work. Following the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, and the subsequent Congress of the Young Communist International, proposals were made in this country—as elsewhere— for the liquidation of the proletarian political youth organizations into broad, classless, non-political (i.e., People's Frontist) youth movements. When the position of the Young Peoples' Socialist League made this impossible, the Y.C.L. tried to gain the same end by the creation of the American Youth Congress on the same People's Front basis. The Y.C.L. now devotes a major part of its efforts to conciliating Y.M.C.A. and religious youth groups so as to maintain a bloc with them against revolutionary socialists. In the student field, the Y.C.L. consistently attempts to manipulate the American Student Union into a straight People's Front program and organizational form.
Most significant of all is the application of the People's Front policy to "anti-war work." Through a multitude of pacifist organizations, and especially through the directly controlled American League against War and Fascism, the Stalinists aim at the creation of a "broad, classless, People's Front of all those opposed to war." The class collaborationist character of the People's Front policy is strikingly revealed through the Stalinist attitude in these organizations. They rule out in advance the Marxist analysis of war as necessarily resulting from the inner conflicts of capitalism and therefore genuinely opposed only by revolutionary class struggle against the capitalist order; and, in contrast, maintain that all persons, from whatever social class or group, whether or not opposed to capitalism, can "unite" to stop war.
What this "anti-war work" means in actuality is suggested by the fact that the Stalinists have abandoned attacks on the armament program of American imperialism; greet the Buenos Aires Conference (a mighty step forward in this country's preparations for the coming war) as a great advance toward "world peace"; and criticize revolutionary socialists as planning to sell this country out to Japan, when they call for non-support of the government in the war. The truth is, of course, that through the People's Front, the Stalinists are making ready to support the government, and to recruit the masses for such support, in the new imperialist war.
Markin comment:
This post is presented as a contribution to the continuing discussion on the vital question of the united front tactic in the struggle for our communist future. On this question, as I know from bitter and frustrating personal experience, we need all the education we can get. On the use of renegade from Marxism James Burnham's contribution
to the question. As I have pointed out before, not everyone makes it to the end of the revolutionary road. We, however, when appropriate as here, use every contribution we can get for those who knew how to "speak" Marxism at some point in their political lives.
***********
The People's Front in the United States
from The People's Front: The New Betrayal, James Burnham, Pioneer Publishers, New York, 1937
The People's Front has not, of course, advanced as far in the United States as in France or Spain. In the formal sense, there is not yet in the United States an established "People's Front." The United States is not faced with a developing revolutionary crisis, as is France, nor is it in the midst of a Civil War, as is Spain. Though the historical issue for the United States, as is the case for every nation at the present time, is socialism vs. capitalism, though only the workers' revolution and socialism can solve even a single one of the major problems facing United States economy; nevertheless the issue is not yet posed in terms of the immediate struggle for state power. The American proletariat is still faced primarily with the more elementary immediate demands: the struggle for the right to organize, for industrial unionism, for the exercise of democratic rights generally, for a powerful trade union and unemployed movement, for relief and union conditions, for a conscious mass revolutionary party of struggle.
But just as the issue of state power can be settled in favor of the proletariat only by the independent revolutionary class struggle of the workers, and is lost for the proletariat through the reformist strategy of the People's Front; in the same way, at the more elementary stages, the interests of the proletariat can be served only by the appropriate methods of class struggle, and are fatally undermined by the class collaborationist methods of the People's Front. The People's Front in this country, seeping into the labor movement under the sponsorship of the Communist Party, has made considerable headway; and already its disastrous effects are becoming apparent in a dozen fields.
Up to the present, the best known and most conspicuous result of the People's Front strategy emerged during the 1936 election campaign. From the point of view both of the social composition of his support and likewise of the political content of his program, Roosevelt was in effect a People's Front candidate. No one could doubt that he was
a staunch and outstanding defender of capitalist democracy, nor that the bulk of the proletariat, the farmers, and the lower strata of the rest of the middle classes, were solidly behind him. Thus the upholders of the People's Front ideology found themselves, willingly or unwillingly, driven into the Roosevelt camp: either openly, as was the case with many, or, like the Communist Party itself, through a backhanded and ambiguous formula.
The Communist Party was compelled to define the issue of the campaign as "Progress vs. Reaction," "Democracy vs. Fascism." It had to discover the forces of fascism in the "Landon-Hearst-Liberty League" combination. It was then required to raise as the central slogan, "Defeat Landon at all costs!" And the only realistic interpretation of this slogan—the interpretation which the majority of even its own sympathizers made—was to vote for Roosevelt. Brow-deer admits quite openly that this was the central direction of the Stalinist campaign. In his post-election analysis of the elections, delivered to the Central Committee of the party, he boasts as follows: "The first objective was the defeat of Landon. This was accomplished to a degree far surpassing all expectations...this aim we shared with the largest number of people.... Without exaggerating our role in bringing about this result, we can safely say that the weight of each individual Communist in the struggle was far higher, many fold, than that of the members of any other political group in America." He apologizes at length for the nominally independent Communist Party ticket that was in the field. If only "a national Farmer-Labor party..." had "decided to place Roosevelt at the head of the ticket nationally.... Would we have refrained from putting forward our own independent tickets and supported the Farmer-Labor party ticket even with Roosevelt at the head? I venture to say that under such circumstances we would almost surely have done so."
In point of fact, this was done in many localities either by the Communist Party officially, or by individual party members. In Minnesota, Washington, California, the
Stalinists supported Farmer-Labor and "progressive" coalitions with no criticism of the fact that Roosevelt headed their tickets. In New York, the Stalinists gave full support to the American Labor Party, which entered the election campaign—as its leaders openly declared—only to gather labor votes for Roosevelt. Individual Communist Party members joined the American Labor Party, and spoke from its platforms in support of Roosevelt.
The People's Front policy dictates a wholly anti-Marxist analysis of Roosevelt. He can no longer be treated as the chief executive for the dominant class. Criticism of him can only suggest that he is not responsive enough in carrying out the "people's mandate," that he cannot be relied on to take progressive steps unless a certain amount of pressure against him is generated. Even when, after the elections were safely under his belt, Roosevelt, at the bidding of his masters, ruthlessly cut the WPA rolls, even in the light of Roosevelt's attitude toward the auto strikes, the Stalinist criticism must remain mild and "loyal." The Communist Party, having abandoned the revolutionary aim of the overthrow of capitalist society, becomes the "party of Twentieth Century Americanism"; its purpose as defined by the People’s Front, is to function within the framework of democratic capitalism, as a reformist "pressure group." It must strive to become "respectable," to ingratiate itself with the class enemy; to show that in return for vague promises of friendship for the Soviet Union and polite words against fascism, it is willing to do its part in smothering the class struggle and guaranteeing the protection of bourgeois democracy against the threat of proletarian revolution.
A reformist political line cannot be isolated into any supra-mundane sphere of "pure politics." It must show its effects on every arena of the class struggle. We thus find during the past two years a cumulative development of the People's Front strategy as applied to Communist Party activities in the trade unions and unemployed organizations. We may be sure that during the coming months this development will be carried unprecedented steps further. The basis of the People's Front is class collaboration; and we know from past experience of reformism what this means on the trade union field.
Are the reactionary trade union bureaucrats agents of the class enemy within the working class? Do their policies act as the major brake to militant class consciousness within the unions? This is what Marxism has always taught, but no one could possibly learn this from the most detailed study of recent Stalinist literature. Nowhere is there any explanation of, or even reference to, the social function of the trade union bureaucracy. At the most, there is occasional personal criticism of some action too gross to ignore; but even this is kept to a minimum, in the interests of currying favor with the maximum number of the bureaucrats.
The policy of class collaboration forces the Stalinists to abandon more and more the fighting struggle for economic demands, and through that struggle the raising of the level of class consciousness, for the attempt to come to agreements with the bureaucrats, to settle disputes through deals behind the scenes, to rely on governmental arbitration boards and mediators. The Stalinist work in the unions must be subordinated to the great aim of achieving in this country a mass, classless People's Front. To secure the adherence of a union to a Negro Congress, or an American League
Conference, or a Farmer-Labor-Progressive what-not, or a Social Security Assembly is far more important than to get it to prepare and win a militant strike.
The results are already widely present within the labor movement, though not yet so widely recognized. In the WPA sit-downs, the Stalinists and the supervisors together explain why the workers must be peaceful and go home. In Pennsylvania, the Stalinists declare that the new policy for the Workers' Alliance must abandon strikes as a method for "settling disputes." At the January unemployed demonstration in Washington, not a single militant slogan or banner was permitted; the whole demonstration was directed toward the achievement of a friendly chat with the relief authorities. In the Federation of Teachers, the general fight against the Boards of Education is deprecated, dual organizations (such as the Teachers' Guild in New York) are met with conciliation, and the open struggle against the A.F.of L. Executive Council and for the C.I.O. principles is shunted aside. In the Cafeteria Workers, there is disclosed an ironbound alliance between the Stalinists and the older racketeers. The furriers, the wild men of the Third Period, turn respectable, and devote their energies against the progressives and revolutionaries in the union. Ben Gold, who as leader of the furriers roared for five years like an untamable lion, now speaks like the mildest lamb. In the United Textile Workers, the Stalinists at the Convention come to the rescue of the reactionary officials. On the Pacific Coast, among the Maritime Unions, the Stalinists last year first tried to put over the I.S.U. proposals on the Sailors, then attempted to head off the strike, then insisted that it be delayed until after the elections (so as not to injure Roosevelt); and in the end were forestalled only by the militant stand of the Sailors' Union.
This trend will continue and increase. The Communist Party, under the banner of the People's Front, now functions in the unions more and more as a reactionary force, and the progressive movement in the unions will have to be built not along with but in large measure against it.
These conclusions are impressively supported by the Stalinist policy with respect to the A.F.of L.-C.I.O. struggle. At the present time, as Marxists have made clear, the progressive movement in the unions must proceed in accordance with the basic slogans: for industrial unionism; for organization of the basic mass industries; for a class struggle policy; for trade union democracy. Every one of these slogans, taken individually or together, dictates repudiation of the policies and course of the A.F.of L. bureaucracy, and determined, though of course critical, support of the C.I.O. This follows not because the C.I.O. as at present constituted and with its present leadership is the sufficient answer to the needs of the workers (indeed, through its fundamental class collaborationist!! and its violation of intra-union democracy, it acts even now and will in the future increasingly act counter to the needs of the workers), but because in the light of the real and actual conditions of the present, the direction of the C.I.O. is the direction of advance for the labor movement, just as the direction of the A.F.of L. officialdom is the direction of decay and disintegration. As against the A.F.of L. bureaucracy, therefore, Marxists must, whole-heartedly and unambiguously, support the C.I.O. Only such an attitude is at present compatible with progressive trade unionism.
The Communist party policy for the next period, however, is formulated around the single slogan of "unity." "We shall," Browder says in the report already referred to, "redouble our efforts in the fight for trade union unity, for the unity of the American Federation of Labor.... We think that it would be harmful if any unions were divided, one section going to the C.I.O., the other to the A.F.of L....under no conditions do we carry that fight on in such a way as to make a split in that union.... For example, in the probable organization of some sections of heavy machinery, we will have the problem of whether these new unions shall go into the Machinists or into some of the other unions, whether it be the Amalgamated Association, or what not. Generally, we have been clear on this last question. We refused to use our forces to carry sections of newly organized workers away from the jurisdictional claims of the Machinists Union over into some of the industrial unions, where there was a fear that this would intensify rivalries and sharpen the split."
No one will argue against the desirability of trade union unity, nor will anyone "advocate" splits. Nevertheless, it is always the concrete content of unity, not unity as an abstract slogan, that is important. And, under the present circumstances, in the labor movement, the fight for unity itself can be understood only as a fight under the slogans stated above, and—translated into organizational terms—for the C.I.O. movement as against the Executive Council. Such a fight alone makes possible the re-integration of the A.F.of L. on a basis that would mean an advance and not a defeat; and such a fight is equally necessary to prevent the C.I.O. officials themselves from betraying the movement which at present they lead. Re-integration, of course, may not be possible without capitulation; and if this is the case, then the workers must be prepared to face the full consequences—prepared to face the necessity for the building of a new Federation. The conduct of a genuinely progressive campaign will have laid the basis for such an eventuality.
The "unity" campaign of the Communist Party, on the contrary, disorients the progressive struggle. It blocks the sharp and fruitful fight against the policies of the Executive Council, announcing in advance a willingness to compromise and indeed to capitulate; and at the same time it contributes to reactionary tendencies on the part of the C.I.O. officials. To an increasing extent its results will be discovered in one union after another—as, for that matter, they have already been discovered in a number of specific instances: for example, in the Maritime Federation of the Pacific, at the Convention of the Federation of Teachers, and at the A.F.of L. Convention itself, in each of which instances Stalinist influence smothered clear-cut support of the C.I.O.
In other fields of People's Front activities, the same general trend is observable. For example, in youth work. Following the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, and the subsequent Congress of the Young Communist International, proposals were made in this country—as elsewhere— for the liquidation of the proletarian political youth organizations into broad, classless, non-political (i.e., People's Frontist) youth movements. When the position of the Young Peoples' Socialist League made this impossible, the Y.C.L. tried to gain the same end by the creation of the American Youth Congress on the same People's Front basis. The Y.C.L. now devotes a major part of its efforts to conciliating Y.M.C.A. and religious youth groups so as to maintain a bloc with them against revolutionary socialists. In the student field, the Y.C.L. consistently attempts to manipulate the American Student Union into a straight People's Front program and organizational form.
Most significant of all is the application of the People's Front policy to "anti-war work." Through a multitude of pacifist organizations, and especially through the directly controlled American League against War and Fascism, the Stalinists aim at the creation of a "broad, classless, People's Front of all those opposed to war." The class collaborationist character of the People's Front policy is strikingly revealed through the Stalinist attitude in these organizations. They rule out in advance the Marxist analysis of war as necessarily resulting from the inner conflicts of capitalism and therefore genuinely opposed only by revolutionary class struggle against the capitalist order; and, in contrast, maintain that all persons, from whatever social class or group, whether or not opposed to capitalism, can "unite" to stop war.
What this "anti-war work" means in actuality is suggested by the fact that the Stalinists have abandoned attacks on the armament program of American imperialism; greet the Buenos Aires Conference (a mighty step forward in this country's preparations for the coming war) as a great advance toward "world peace"; and criticize revolutionary socialists as planning to sell this country out to Japan, when they call for non-support of the government in the war. The truth is, of course, that through the People's Front, the Stalinists are making ready to support the government, and to recruit the masses for such support, in the new imperialist war.
*On The United Front And Political Action- A "Teachable" Moment, Perhaps- A Short Note
Click on the headline to link to a Workers Vanguard article, dated August 28, 2009, The United Front Tactic: Its Use and Abuse by Joseph Seymour as interesting background for the note below on the question of the united front.
Markin comment:
Apparently the rich lessons, politically rich lessons that is, to be derived from a short note added to a commentary on the need to boost our efforts in the struggle against the Obama Afghan war policy are endless. (See, The Streets Are Not For Dreaming - We Need An All Out Anti-War Push To Get Out Of Afghanistan- And We Need To Start Now, dated July 3, 2010.) Recently I posted an additional commentary based on that notion, the notion that the times were on our side in that struggle against the Afghan war policy but that we had better get moving to organize the opposition, including the now “famous” note that explained why I was less than enamored of the recently held U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in late June. (See, Once Again, On The U.S. Social Forum- A “Teachable” Moment, July 12, 2010.)
As part of that explanation I also mentioned a political action 2004, at a time when the Social Forum held a previous conference that coincided, not coincidentally, with the Democratic Party National Convention that was held in Boston that year. That action, an anti-war march on the convention site the day before the opening of the convention was called by the ANSWER coalition (and some other independent groupings). Given the opportunity to vocally oppose that party’s commitment in the still somewhat popular Iraq war and it nominee Senator John Kerry’s early endorsement of the Iraq war and other aspects of then-President Bush’s war policy it seemed like a “no-brainer” for anti-war militants to attend the event.
The local ad hoc anti-imperialist committee that I am a member of, and that had been formed in 2001 in opposition to Bush’s Afghan war policy, answered the call and attended the event, although we did not officially endorse the action. The main reason for that stance was that some of our members did not support the slogan of "Hands Off North Korea" that was included in the call for the demonstration. Or, at least, did not support the slogan in the uncritical sense that the organizers placed on it. That non- endorsement stance is not an unusual one, and we have all, I am sure, attended marches, rallies demonstrations and other action where we attended based on our own slogans without being part of an official endorsement. On some issues, and that included Iraq at that time, the need for militant action trumped the behind-the-scenes political wrangling.
What prompts this posting, however, is that a member of our local anti-imperialist committee, a newer member who was not then involved with our group, didn't understand why, after reading my post, if we were attending the demonstration, recruiting people to attend it, publicizing the event and all the other things that go into preparing for a political action, large or small, why we did not endorse the event. Hence I get another, "teachable" moment, perhaps.
Over a long life time of political activity, including attending marches, workshops, rallies, picket lines, and the like the notion of the united front, a true united front, has probably been the most difficult one to understand, and to deal with, in our small leftist political universe. I include myself in that category because for a long time I was very mushy (nice precise political term, right?) on the question, as well. I would characterize my own earlier positions as a “family of the left” non-aggression pacts that in the end prohibited any political clarity, or sorting out of political differences, between the myriad groups, leagues, tendencies, et al. that inhabit our American left landscape. In short, we are not all necessarily pulling in the same direction, strategically or tactically. Certainly political neophytes, like our newer member, could not then be accused of opportunistic naivete if they did not automatically understand such a concept.
In the communist movement, mainly from the work of the Communist International that emerged on the world labor scene in the aftermath of the Russian revolution of 1917, the original sense of the united front tactic was to try to get mass Communist organizations to outmaneuver mass Social Democratic organizations by proposing join actions on major issues in the interest of the working class and of pushing the class struggle forward. And, importantly, most importantly, showing in those join actions that the Communist organizations were more doggedly committed to seeing the actions through to the end, to being the best fighters for the class, up to and including revolutionary struggle.
Obviously in America, with its historically-deforming lack of a mass-based communist party (or, for that matter, the lack of a mass-based reformist labor party either), even in the heydays of the 1930s and 1940s when such formations were not without some influence in this country the use of the united front has not conformed to that Comintern notion mentioned above, or mainly does not apply to the tasks of the small propaganda groups that dot our political milieu , or has had to be modified to fit the American political scene.
Thus, in America, the united front really stands for the proposition that we communists are weak and that we need to unite as many organizations and individuals as possible by using this modified means. Of course, as every communist knows, or should know, the concept of the united front has taken a severe beating as a tool to forward the aims of the class struggle. It has been turned, for the most part, by Stalinists, ex-Stalinists, wanna-be Stalinists, Social Democrats, wanna-be Social Democrats, and not a few anarchists into a parliamentary tool that includes capitalist and pro-capitalist formations. In short not a united front but a popular front, and there is a difference, historically written in blood in such places as Spain in the 1930s and Chile in the 1970s, between those two concepts. That popular front strategic conception has, however, continued, in one form or another dominate the leftist landscape for the last fifty years, or more.
Look, let's make it simple. The united front is merely a basis for an action, one time or on-going depending on the issue (on-going, for example, in legal defense cases) by different organizations that join together for a common purpose. The best example of that is an anti-war protest based on a slogan of immediate withdrawal from one or another of America’s imperial adventures. Around that issue everyone can unite, make their own analysis and draw their own strategic conclusions, make their own propaganda and fight for their other programmatic points. Beyond that “minimum” the united front makes no sense.
And that is where the question of 2004 comes in. The ANSWER coalition’s call for the demonstration included a grab bag of slogans on a range of issues, some supportable, some not. In realty the political program presented by the ANSWER coalition represented a call to support their slogan and to form a propaganda bloc on that basis. As I mentioned above some of our members were not committed to defense of North Korea, critically or otherwise. Actually, although that was the main question in dispute over endorsement there was also controversy on the question of Haiti and ANSWER's semi-support of a return of Astride. There were also organizational considerations centered on whether we could have a speaker at the pre-march rally. All in all there were plenty of grounds for not officially endorsing the action.
That, however, is a far cry from not attending, or ordering one's members not to attend a demonstration under one's own banners and with one's own propaganda. Hell, it is done all the time. Most of the leftist political actions over the last few decades have been done that way. So the question of not attending in those circumstances comes down to this- the U.S Social Forum/UJP/Green leaderships were making a conscious decision not to offend the Democrats, or at least not "embarrassing" that organization in the public’s eye by taking a political dive on confrontation that covention week. You know, and here is the "perhaps" part of the "teachable" moment mentioned in the headline such opportunism doesn't really pay in the end. For all their kowtowing to the Democrats, then or later, what did they get- a now vastly expanded war in Afghanistan, among other miseries, by the Democrats led by one former self-described “anti-war activist” of uncertain provenance, President Barack Obama. You reap what you sow.
Markin comment:
Apparently the rich lessons, politically rich lessons that is, to be derived from a short note added to a commentary on the need to boost our efforts in the struggle against the Obama Afghan war policy are endless. (See, The Streets Are Not For Dreaming - We Need An All Out Anti-War Push To Get Out Of Afghanistan- And We Need To Start Now, dated July 3, 2010.) Recently I posted an additional commentary based on that notion, the notion that the times were on our side in that struggle against the Afghan war policy but that we had better get moving to organize the opposition, including the now “famous” note that explained why I was less than enamored of the recently held U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in late June. (See, Once Again, On The U.S. Social Forum- A “Teachable” Moment, July 12, 2010.)
As part of that explanation I also mentioned a political action 2004, at a time when the Social Forum held a previous conference that coincided, not coincidentally, with the Democratic Party National Convention that was held in Boston that year. That action, an anti-war march on the convention site the day before the opening of the convention was called by the ANSWER coalition (and some other independent groupings). Given the opportunity to vocally oppose that party’s commitment in the still somewhat popular Iraq war and it nominee Senator John Kerry’s early endorsement of the Iraq war and other aspects of then-President Bush’s war policy it seemed like a “no-brainer” for anti-war militants to attend the event.
The local ad hoc anti-imperialist committee that I am a member of, and that had been formed in 2001 in opposition to Bush’s Afghan war policy, answered the call and attended the event, although we did not officially endorse the action. The main reason for that stance was that some of our members did not support the slogan of "Hands Off North Korea" that was included in the call for the demonstration. Or, at least, did not support the slogan in the uncritical sense that the organizers placed on it. That non- endorsement stance is not an unusual one, and we have all, I am sure, attended marches, rallies demonstrations and other action where we attended based on our own slogans without being part of an official endorsement. On some issues, and that included Iraq at that time, the need for militant action trumped the behind-the-scenes political wrangling.
What prompts this posting, however, is that a member of our local anti-imperialist committee, a newer member who was not then involved with our group, didn't understand why, after reading my post, if we were attending the demonstration, recruiting people to attend it, publicizing the event and all the other things that go into preparing for a political action, large or small, why we did not endorse the event. Hence I get another, "teachable" moment, perhaps.
Over a long life time of political activity, including attending marches, workshops, rallies, picket lines, and the like the notion of the united front, a true united front, has probably been the most difficult one to understand, and to deal with, in our small leftist political universe. I include myself in that category because for a long time I was very mushy (nice precise political term, right?) on the question, as well. I would characterize my own earlier positions as a “family of the left” non-aggression pacts that in the end prohibited any political clarity, or sorting out of political differences, between the myriad groups, leagues, tendencies, et al. that inhabit our American left landscape. In short, we are not all necessarily pulling in the same direction, strategically or tactically. Certainly political neophytes, like our newer member, could not then be accused of opportunistic naivete if they did not automatically understand such a concept.
In the communist movement, mainly from the work of the Communist International that emerged on the world labor scene in the aftermath of the Russian revolution of 1917, the original sense of the united front tactic was to try to get mass Communist organizations to outmaneuver mass Social Democratic organizations by proposing join actions on major issues in the interest of the working class and of pushing the class struggle forward. And, importantly, most importantly, showing in those join actions that the Communist organizations were more doggedly committed to seeing the actions through to the end, to being the best fighters for the class, up to and including revolutionary struggle.
Obviously in America, with its historically-deforming lack of a mass-based communist party (or, for that matter, the lack of a mass-based reformist labor party either), even in the heydays of the 1930s and 1940s when such formations were not without some influence in this country the use of the united front has not conformed to that Comintern notion mentioned above, or mainly does not apply to the tasks of the small propaganda groups that dot our political milieu , or has had to be modified to fit the American political scene.
Thus, in America, the united front really stands for the proposition that we communists are weak and that we need to unite as many organizations and individuals as possible by using this modified means. Of course, as every communist knows, or should know, the concept of the united front has taken a severe beating as a tool to forward the aims of the class struggle. It has been turned, for the most part, by Stalinists, ex-Stalinists, wanna-be Stalinists, Social Democrats, wanna-be Social Democrats, and not a few anarchists into a parliamentary tool that includes capitalist and pro-capitalist formations. In short not a united front but a popular front, and there is a difference, historically written in blood in such places as Spain in the 1930s and Chile in the 1970s, between those two concepts. That popular front strategic conception has, however, continued, in one form or another dominate the leftist landscape for the last fifty years, or more.
Look, let's make it simple. The united front is merely a basis for an action, one time or on-going depending on the issue (on-going, for example, in legal defense cases) by different organizations that join together for a common purpose. The best example of that is an anti-war protest based on a slogan of immediate withdrawal from one or another of America’s imperial adventures. Around that issue everyone can unite, make their own analysis and draw their own strategic conclusions, make their own propaganda and fight for their other programmatic points. Beyond that “minimum” the united front makes no sense.
And that is where the question of 2004 comes in. The ANSWER coalition’s call for the demonstration included a grab bag of slogans on a range of issues, some supportable, some not. In realty the political program presented by the ANSWER coalition represented a call to support their slogan and to form a propaganda bloc on that basis. As I mentioned above some of our members were not committed to defense of North Korea, critically or otherwise. Actually, although that was the main question in dispute over endorsement there was also controversy on the question of Haiti and ANSWER's semi-support of a return of Astride. There were also organizational considerations centered on whether we could have a speaker at the pre-march rally. All in all there were plenty of grounds for not officially endorsing the action.
That, however, is a far cry from not attending, or ordering one's members not to attend a demonstration under one's own banners and with one's own propaganda. Hell, it is done all the time. Most of the leftist political actions over the last few decades have been done that way. So the question of not attending in those circumstances comes down to this- the U.S Social Forum/UJP/Green leaderships were making a conscious decision not to offend the Democrats, or at least not "embarrassing" that organization in the public’s eye by taking a political dive on confrontation that covention week. You know, and here is the "perhaps" part of the "teachable" moment mentioned in the headline such opportunism doesn't really pay in the end. For all their kowtowing to the Democrats, then or later, what did they get- a now vastly expanded war in Afghanistan, among other miseries, by the Democrats led by one former self-described “anti-war activist” of uncertain provenance, President Barack Obama. You reap what you sow.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
*Not Ready For Prime Time Class Struggle, High School Class Struggle That Is-Jerry Lee Lewis' "High School Confidential"
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jerry Lee Lewis performing his classic, High School Confidential.
Markin comment:
The devil made me do it, made me do this post. Otherwise there is not rational reason to explain it. Okay?
Jerry Lee Lewis - High School Confidential lyrics
You better open up honey its your lover boy me that's a knockin'
You better listen to me sugar all the cats are at the High School rockin'
Honey get your boppin' shoes Before the juke box blows a fuse
Got everbody hoppin' everybody boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
I've rollin' at the High School Hop
I've been movin' at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Come on little baby gonna rock a little bit tonight
Woooh I got get with you sugar gonna shake things up tonight
Check out the heart beatin' rhythm cause my feet are moving smooth and light
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' just a boppin' just a boppin'
Piano Solo!
Come on little baby let me give a piece good news good news good news
Jerry Lee is going to rock away all his blues
My hearts beatin' rhythm and my soul is singin' the blues
Oooooh Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Gettin' it at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Solo Time!
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Well Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Markin comment:
The devil made me do it, made me do this post. Otherwise there is not rational reason to explain it. Okay?
Jerry Lee Lewis - High School Confidential lyrics
You better open up honey its your lover boy me that's a knockin'
You better listen to me sugar all the cats are at the High School rockin'
Honey get your boppin' shoes Before the juke box blows a fuse
Got everbody hoppin' everybody boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
I've rollin' at the High School Hop
I've been movin' at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Come on little baby gonna rock a little bit tonight
Woooh I got get with you sugar gonna shake things up tonight
Check out the heart beatin' rhythm cause my feet are moving smooth and light
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' just a boppin' just a boppin'
Piano Solo!
Come on little baby let me give a piece good news good news good news
Jerry Lee is going to rock away all his blues
My hearts beatin' rhythm and my soul is singin' the blues
Oooooh Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Gettin' it at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Solo Time!
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Well Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Tom Waits' "Hold On"
Click on the title to link a YouTube film clip of Tom Waits performing his Hold On.
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.
********
Tom Waits Hold On Lyrics
They hung a sign up in our town
"if you live it up, you won't
Live it down"
So, she left Marty Rio's son
Just like a bullet leaves a gun
With charcoal eyes and Monroe hips
She went and took that California trip
Well, the moon was gold, her
Hair like wind
She said don't look back just
Come on Jim
(Chorus)
Oh you got to
Hold on, Hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You gotta hold on.
Well, he gave her a dimestore watch
And a ring made from a spoon
Everyone is looking for someone to blame
But you share my bed, you share my name.
Well, go ahead and call the cops
You don't meet nice girls in coffee shops
She said baby, I still love you
Sometimes there's nothin left to do
Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here, you got to hold on.
Well, God bless your crooked little heart,
St. Louis got the best of me.
I miss your broken-china voice.
How I wish you were still here with me.
Well, you build it up, you wreck it down
You burn your mansion to the ground
When there's nothing left to keep you here, when
You're falling behind in this
Big blue world
Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You got to hold on
Down by the Riverside motel,
It's 10 below and falling.
By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
And started swaying.
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music.
Well your old hometown is so far away
But, inside your head there's a record
That's playing, a song called
Hold on, hold on
You really got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You got to hold on.
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.
********
Tom Waits Hold On Lyrics
They hung a sign up in our town
"if you live it up, you won't
Live it down"
So, she left Marty Rio's son
Just like a bullet leaves a gun
With charcoal eyes and Monroe hips
She went and took that California trip
Well, the moon was gold, her
Hair like wind
She said don't look back just
Come on Jim
(Chorus)
Oh you got to
Hold on, Hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You gotta hold on.
Well, he gave her a dimestore watch
And a ring made from a spoon
Everyone is looking for someone to blame
But you share my bed, you share my name.
Well, go ahead and call the cops
You don't meet nice girls in coffee shops
She said baby, I still love you
Sometimes there's nothin left to do
Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here, you got to hold on.
Well, God bless your crooked little heart,
St. Louis got the best of me.
I miss your broken-china voice.
How I wish you were still here with me.
Well, you build it up, you wreck it down
You burn your mansion to the ground
When there's nothing left to keep you here, when
You're falling behind in this
Big blue world
Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You got to hold on
Down by the Riverside motel,
It's 10 below and falling.
By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
And started swaying.
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music.
Well your old hometown is so far away
But, inside your head there's a record
That's playing, a song called
Hold on, hold on
You really got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You got to hold on.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Once Again, On The U.S. Social Forum- A “Teachable” Moment
Click on headline to link to the United For Peace And Justice (UJP) website, for an example of the kinds of activities that this umbrella organization (a part of the bigger umbrella organization, U.S. Social Forum) promotes.
Markin comment:
Yesterday in a post headlined I Will Love This Country Until The Day I Die-I Will Fight This Government Until We Achieve Our Communist Future- A Short Note, dated July 11, 2010, I noted that sometimes it is fun for me to be a communist propagandist trying to mesh the news of the day, the political atmospherics, and the struggle for our communist future together. And, at times, learning a little something in the process. In that commentary I also noted that sometimes it is not. The subject of that post was a commentary on those who challenge my “American-ness”. However today I am back on ground that I much prefer to fight on even though I am being taken to task- again.
This time though the criticism stems from a reader who took umbrage (her word, but I like it) over my characterization of the recently completed U.S. Social Forum held in Detroit in late June as a talkfest at a time when we need to get back, desperately get back, into the streets. (See The Streets Are Not For Dreaming - We Need An All Out Anti-War Push To Get Out Of Afghanistan- And We Need To Start Now, posted July 3, 2010, on the American Left History blog.)
The central thrust of her criticism concerned my note to that entry where I expanded, somewhat, on my take on a previous Social Forum in 2004 held at the same time and in the same city as the Democratic National Convention in Boston where I noted that those attendees were safely ensconced far away from any street action on the day before the opening of that convention. I also noted that, based on both anecdotal and written information by those involved, that the leadership of that Social Forum (and/or organizations that make up that umbrella organization) ordered or discouraged their memberships from attendance at the pre-convention anti-war event. This whole thing, in the end, amounted to some nasty “behind the scenes” organizational wrangling, as usual.
What makes all of this the “teachable” moment promised in the headline is the reader’s argument that Social Forum workshops are important to “gather in the clan” (my expression) and “take stock of where we are, and where we are going” (her expression) in order to move forward. Obviously, workshops, fora and the like ARE worthwhile. What the reader missed, and what I fear that she will always miss is that such activities (such “talk shops”) are a substitute for real actions beyond the walls of the classroom.
In the specific cases that I was addressing (2004, and the G-20 in 2010, but I could go back a longer way that than, a lot farther back to the 1960s with the Socialist Workers Party-led National Peace Action Coalition and the Communist Party-led People’s Coalition For Peace and Justice ) there had been a conscious political decision on the part of the participating organizations to work one way, to try to gain organizational control of the “movement” (such as it is) and, no question, not create a big stir in this pre-election period (a subject of open and constant dispute by the more militant elements) in order not to hurt the chances of the national Democratic Party. This at a time, and that was part of my argument as well, when the situation has cried out, and cried out to high heaven, for opposition in the streets to Democratic Party President Obama’s bloody, vicious war in Afghanistan (and residue war in Iraq).
Rather than go over the same material from that previous blog entry note I have expanded somewhat on that note to try to give a little more historical and organizational background to the dispute. This, by the way is a dispute, in its general outlines, that has been going on in the American left movement at least since the fight over slavery in pre-Civil War days, if not earlier:
Expanded Note: For those who wince at my characterization of the recently held U.S. Social Forum (late June 2010 in Detroit) as a talk fest (actually talk/slugfest, for there are always elements of both especially when the organization question comes up) I will give a very compelling reason for that usage. And I will not even mention the various “anti-imperialist”, “anti- capitalist” sources, like the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and who knows who else, that funded this confab. I will make strictly leftist political points here.
2004, was a presidential election year and a year when the Democratic Party National Convention was held in Boston. That was the year, if you recall, that one Massachusetts U.S. Senator John Forbes Kerry was proclaimed the Democratic nominee. Senator Kerry, if you will also recall, voted with both hands and feet (or was it one hand and one foot) for President George W. Bush’s 2002 Iraq War resolution, among his other sins. Clearly a situation, in any case, for anti-war militants and others to stage a protest, a vocal one to boot, against the Democratic Party and its nominee at the convention site.
2004 was also a year that, not by chance, the U.S. Social Forum (made up of many anti-war and progressive organizations and individuals, as least that is what they alleged in their written propaganda) was held in Boston at the nearby University of Massachusetts/Boston campus at the same time as the convention. A perfect lash-up for a very strong and well-attended protest, right? (That was set, moreover, for the day before the convention started, a Sunday, and would not have interfered with a whole array of other “cause” events during the week.)
No such luck. The vast bulk of the more than 5000 attendees at the Forum ( I do not know the actual number who attended but that was the number that was bandied about then) could not find the time to tear themselves away, for a couple of hours, from some pressing anti-war or anti-imperialist workshop in order to hit the streets. Or, and here is the real crux of the matter, were ordered not to so or discouraged from attending that protest by the Forum leadership or by their organizations. During that Sunday march to the Convention Center in Boston we ran into, few, too few, protesters who “broke ranks” with their leaderships and decided to attend a demonstration that had, in the end, about 1500 to 2000 attendees. That is one of the anecdotal sources for our argument; others included oral statements made to us (our local ad hoc anti-imperialist, anti-war committee) by leading members of organizations that held this “don’t go” position. I will address the written organizational wrangling below.
My group of local anti-war militants and I had our own political differences with the organizers of the Sunday protest (the ANSWER coalition). For example, we could not officially endorse the event because some of our people did not agree with Hands Off North Korea ( not the exact formulation, but that is the sense of it) slogan (some did, including myself) but when the deal when down and a simple anti-war statement had to be made the place for all militants was in front of the Democratic Party Convention Hall chanting our opposition to the Bush/Kerry (now Obama) Iraq and Afghan Wars. And that, in the nature of these things, is where all hell, all organizational hell, breaks out.
For those unfamiliar with the ANSWER coalition it too is an umbrella organization (more or less, although there is a great deal of overlap of organizations and personnel, at least locally in Boston) whose driving force is (or was then, as there has been a split) was the old Stalinoid Workers World Party. This coalition has been characterized by a bit more vocal militancy than the United For Peace And Justice (UJP)-types that form a core of the Social Forum (you know, Quakers, Shakers and assorted pacifists, good government-types, and top heavy with left academics) and a more confrontational aspect to its politics. Moreover it keeps bringing up those oddball things like uncritical defense of North Korea ( I believe they have been aiming for the American franchise, such as it is) that drives the UJP-types to distraction as they attempt to “convince” by rational argument the Democratic Party, the party of war and oppression, to do “the right thing.”
This kind of wrangling is hardly new, especially when there has been historically, as in America, no mass-based Labor or Communist party to fill the vacuum outside, and to the left , of bourgeois politics that would leave such organizations configurations far behind. So that is what we are up against. Still, united front possibilities or not, the place to be then, and now, was in the streets. At least once in a while. As I mentioned in my original note, fortunately, this year’s Social Forum was not interrupted by the need to deal with presidential elections; although I would have made a very strong case that the not very distant (from Detroit) Toronto meeting of the G-20, held at approximately the same time, could have used a few thousand more protestors, if the attendees could have torn themselves away from those lovely workshops in Detroit. Some things never change.
Markin comment:
Yesterday in a post headlined I Will Love This Country Until The Day I Die-I Will Fight This Government Until We Achieve Our Communist Future- A Short Note, dated July 11, 2010, I noted that sometimes it is fun for me to be a communist propagandist trying to mesh the news of the day, the political atmospherics, and the struggle for our communist future together. And, at times, learning a little something in the process. In that commentary I also noted that sometimes it is not. The subject of that post was a commentary on those who challenge my “American-ness”. However today I am back on ground that I much prefer to fight on even though I am being taken to task- again.
This time though the criticism stems from a reader who took umbrage (her word, but I like it) over my characterization of the recently completed U.S. Social Forum held in Detroit in late June as a talkfest at a time when we need to get back, desperately get back, into the streets. (See The Streets Are Not For Dreaming - We Need An All Out Anti-War Push To Get Out Of Afghanistan- And We Need To Start Now, posted July 3, 2010, on the American Left History blog.)
The central thrust of her criticism concerned my note to that entry where I expanded, somewhat, on my take on a previous Social Forum in 2004 held at the same time and in the same city as the Democratic National Convention in Boston where I noted that those attendees were safely ensconced far away from any street action on the day before the opening of that convention. I also noted that, based on both anecdotal and written information by those involved, that the leadership of that Social Forum (and/or organizations that make up that umbrella organization) ordered or discouraged their memberships from attendance at the pre-convention anti-war event. This whole thing, in the end, amounted to some nasty “behind the scenes” organizational wrangling, as usual.
What makes all of this the “teachable” moment promised in the headline is the reader’s argument that Social Forum workshops are important to “gather in the clan” (my expression) and “take stock of where we are, and where we are going” (her expression) in order to move forward. Obviously, workshops, fora and the like ARE worthwhile. What the reader missed, and what I fear that she will always miss is that such activities (such “talk shops”) are a substitute for real actions beyond the walls of the classroom.
In the specific cases that I was addressing (2004, and the G-20 in 2010, but I could go back a longer way that than, a lot farther back to the 1960s with the Socialist Workers Party-led National Peace Action Coalition and the Communist Party-led People’s Coalition For Peace and Justice ) there had been a conscious political decision on the part of the participating organizations to work one way, to try to gain organizational control of the “movement” (such as it is) and, no question, not create a big stir in this pre-election period (a subject of open and constant dispute by the more militant elements) in order not to hurt the chances of the national Democratic Party. This at a time, and that was part of my argument as well, when the situation has cried out, and cried out to high heaven, for opposition in the streets to Democratic Party President Obama’s bloody, vicious war in Afghanistan (and residue war in Iraq).
Rather than go over the same material from that previous blog entry note I have expanded somewhat on that note to try to give a little more historical and organizational background to the dispute. This, by the way is a dispute, in its general outlines, that has been going on in the American left movement at least since the fight over slavery in pre-Civil War days, if not earlier:
Expanded Note: For those who wince at my characterization of the recently held U.S. Social Forum (late June 2010 in Detroit) as a talk fest (actually talk/slugfest, for there are always elements of both especially when the organization question comes up) I will give a very compelling reason for that usage. And I will not even mention the various “anti-imperialist”, “anti- capitalist” sources, like the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and who knows who else, that funded this confab. I will make strictly leftist political points here.
2004, was a presidential election year and a year when the Democratic Party National Convention was held in Boston. That was the year, if you recall, that one Massachusetts U.S. Senator John Forbes Kerry was proclaimed the Democratic nominee. Senator Kerry, if you will also recall, voted with both hands and feet (or was it one hand and one foot) for President George W. Bush’s 2002 Iraq War resolution, among his other sins. Clearly a situation, in any case, for anti-war militants and others to stage a protest, a vocal one to boot, against the Democratic Party and its nominee at the convention site.
2004 was also a year that, not by chance, the U.S. Social Forum (made up of many anti-war and progressive organizations and individuals, as least that is what they alleged in their written propaganda) was held in Boston at the nearby University of Massachusetts/Boston campus at the same time as the convention. A perfect lash-up for a very strong and well-attended protest, right? (That was set, moreover, for the day before the convention started, a Sunday, and would not have interfered with a whole array of other “cause” events during the week.)
No such luck. The vast bulk of the more than 5000 attendees at the Forum ( I do not know the actual number who attended but that was the number that was bandied about then) could not find the time to tear themselves away, for a couple of hours, from some pressing anti-war or anti-imperialist workshop in order to hit the streets. Or, and here is the real crux of the matter, were ordered not to so or discouraged from attending that protest by the Forum leadership or by their organizations. During that Sunday march to the Convention Center in Boston we ran into, few, too few, protesters who “broke ranks” with their leaderships and decided to attend a demonstration that had, in the end, about 1500 to 2000 attendees. That is one of the anecdotal sources for our argument; others included oral statements made to us (our local ad hoc anti-imperialist, anti-war committee) by leading members of organizations that held this “don’t go” position. I will address the written organizational wrangling below.
My group of local anti-war militants and I had our own political differences with the organizers of the Sunday protest (the ANSWER coalition). For example, we could not officially endorse the event because some of our people did not agree with Hands Off North Korea ( not the exact formulation, but that is the sense of it) slogan (some did, including myself) but when the deal when down and a simple anti-war statement had to be made the place for all militants was in front of the Democratic Party Convention Hall chanting our opposition to the Bush/Kerry (now Obama) Iraq and Afghan Wars. And that, in the nature of these things, is where all hell, all organizational hell, breaks out.
For those unfamiliar with the ANSWER coalition it too is an umbrella organization (more or less, although there is a great deal of overlap of organizations and personnel, at least locally in Boston) whose driving force is (or was then, as there has been a split) was the old Stalinoid Workers World Party. This coalition has been characterized by a bit more vocal militancy than the United For Peace And Justice (UJP)-types that form a core of the Social Forum (you know, Quakers, Shakers and assorted pacifists, good government-types, and top heavy with left academics) and a more confrontational aspect to its politics. Moreover it keeps bringing up those oddball things like uncritical defense of North Korea ( I believe they have been aiming for the American franchise, such as it is) that drives the UJP-types to distraction as they attempt to “convince” by rational argument the Democratic Party, the party of war and oppression, to do “the right thing.”
This kind of wrangling is hardly new, especially when there has been historically, as in America, no mass-based Labor or Communist party to fill the vacuum outside, and to the left , of bourgeois politics that would leave such organizations configurations far behind. So that is what we are up against. Still, united front possibilities or not, the place to be then, and now, was in the streets. At least once in a while. As I mentioned in my original note, fortunately, this year’s Social Forum was not interrupted by the need to deal with presidential elections; although I would have made a very strong case that the not very distant (from Detroit) Toronto meeting of the G-20, held at approximately the same time, could have used a few thousand more protestors, if the attendees could have torn themselves away from those lovely workshops in Detroit. Some things never change.
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