Markin comment:
Over the past few week as the events concerning the fate of collective bargaining rights, the core of any union’s reason for existence, of Wisconsin’s public workers unions have unfolded I had joined the voices of those who have argued that passage of the ant-iunion legislation by the Republican Senate majority should trigger the call for a one day general strike of all Wisconsin as the start of a push back. Well that day has arrived and every pro-labor militant from Madison to Cairo (Illinois or Egypt, it matters not) should be joining their voices in that call, and agitating in their unions and other organization to carry it out. The lines could not be more clearly drawn, the survival of the Wisconsin public workers unions are at stake, the survival of all public workers unions are now at stake, and the survival of unionism in the United States as well. This is only the start of the right-wing onslaught. Let Wisconsin’s labor response make it the end. Fight for a one day general strike now!
Wisconsin: For a General Strike Now!-by Internationalist Group
Email: internationalistgroup (nospam) msn.com (unverified!)
Phone: 212-460-0983
Address: Box 3321 Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008 USA 15 Mar 2011
A law challenging the very existence unions of government workers has just been rammed through the legislature in Wisconsin. In addition, wages have been slashed by up to 10 percent to make up for cuts to health insurance and pensions. The labor movement and workers nationwide and internationally are vividly aware of the stakes. There has been a lot of talk in the last three weeks about a general strike. The Wisconsin South Central Labor Federation even voted to authorize one. But now that the moment of truth has arrived, the union bureaucrats have gotten cold feet. They are doing everything to prevent strike action and instead to divert anger at this vicious law into a drive to recall Republican senators, to be replaced by Democrats, whose “alternative” budget bill would also have drastically slashed wages and benefits. There should be no delay: this is the hour for powerful labor action. A general strike is needed to shut down Wisconsin now!
Defeat Governor’s Legislative Coup d’État
Wisconsin: For a General Strike Now!
Break with the Democrats, Republicans and All Capitalist Parties!
Build a Class-Struggle Workers Party!
A law challenging the very existence unions of government workers has just been rammed through the legislature in Wisconsin. In addition, wages have been slashed by up to 10 percent to make up for cuts to health insurance and pensions. The labor movement and workers nationwide and internationally are vividly aware of the stakes. There has been a lot of talk in the last three weeks about a general strike. The Wisconsin South Central Labor Federation even voted to authorize one. But now that the moment of truth has arrived, the union bureaucrats have gotten cold feet. They are doing everything to prevent strike action and instead to divert anger at this vicious law into a drive to recall Republican senators. To be replaced by whom? The Democrats’ “alternative” budget bill would also have drastically slashed wages and benefits.
We have said from the outset that “It will take nothing less than a statewide general strike to defeat labor hater Walker.” But we warned , “union leaders block militant action as they chain workers to the Democrats” (The Internationalist leaflet, 18 February). There should be no delay: this is the hour for powerful labor action. For a general strike to shut down Wisconsin now!
When Governor Scott Walker announced on February 11 a bill to eliminate collective bargaining rights for almost all state, county and municipal employees, except for the Wisconsin State Patrol and firefighters, it was a blatant attempt to destroy public-sector unions. Using a phony state “fiscal crisis” as an excuse, its intent was to rip up a half-century of workers’ hard-won rights. Walker and his Republican cohorts tried to ram this draconian union-busting law through the state legislature in a matter of a couple days, declaring an end to hearings of the joint finance committee after only a few hours. But the working people of Wisconsin reacted angrily and massively, taking to the streets in huge numbers to emphatically demand, “Kill the Bill!”
Walker’s position, as one commentator put it, was “my way or the highway” – so the Democratic state senators took him at his word and drove off to Illinois, depriving the governor of the enhanced quorum required to vote on fiscal bills. As thousands of protesters occupied the state Capitol for more than two weeks and tens of thousands repeatedly protested outside (more than 100,000 ringing the square on three Saturdays running), the wannabe Duce of Madison was stymied, and increasingly frustrated. Sending police across the state line to kidnap legislators was ruled out. He admittedly considered sending provocateurs into the protests, but dropped that for tactical reasons. Finally on Wednesday, March 9 the governor decided he had had enough of democratic niceties and proceeded to carry out what can only be called legislative coup d’état.
Walker had aides take scissors to slice out the budgetary provisions of the bill, hoping to do away with the need for a “superquorum” (while also eliminating the supposed reason for such draconian action). The Senate majority leader then called a vote on less than two hours notice, and at 6 p.m. held a hurried Senate-Assembly conference committee that lasted only a few minutes. Moments later, the Senate gaveled through the excised “budget repair” bill by an 18-1 vote with no Democrats present. On Thursday, the Assembly dutifully voted the anti-labor, and on Friday the governor signed it, hoping to cancel union rights with a stroke of a pen. But the issue will not be decided by parliamentary sleight of hand – workers’ rights can only be won and defended through hard class struggle on the streets and in the plants.
Working people and defenders of democratic rights in Wisconsin are ready and willing to fight. The minute word leaked about the plan to drum the bill through the Senate, people headed to the Capitol in droves to try and stop this outrage. The Wisconsin State Journal (10 March) headlined the next day: “Thousands Storm Capitol As GOP Takes Action.” The article described the pandemonium:
“Thousands of protesters rushed to the state Capitol Wednesday night, forcing their way through doors, crawling through windows and jamming corridors, as word spread of hastily called votes on Gov. Scott Walker's controversial bill limiting collective bargaining rights for public workers….
“Shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the locked King Street entrance to the Capitol, chanting ‘Break down the door!’ and ‘General strike!’
“Moments later, police ceded control of the State Street doors and allowed the crowd to surge inside, joining thousands who had already gathered in the Capitol to protest the votes….
“At one point, officials estimated up to 7,000 people had spilled into the Capitol, some coming through doors and windows opened from the inside, including one legislative office and several bathrooms. Some door knobs and door handles were removed….”
Union officials issued angry statements: Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, said that the governor and his cronies had turned Wisconsin into a “banana republic.” Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, said that “Senate Republicans have exercised the nuclear option to ram through their bill attacking Wisconsin's working families in the dark of night.” But when it comes to labor action, it’s a different story. Even as protesters were chanting “general strike” while trying to break down the doors of the Capitol, the union tops were preaching caution.
The next day the Wisconsin State Journal (11 March) reported, “‘General strike’ has been one of the chants that resounded through the Capitol during massive protests Wednesday and Thursday after the Legislature passed a bill that would remove bargaining rights for about 175,000 workers and create major obstacles to basic operations for unions representing teachers, state workers and local government employees.” But, the paper said, “Union leaders say the Republicans' fast-track passage of the bill has fueled strike talk, but for now most are urging legal measures such as recall of Republican legislators as a way to repeal the law.”
Teachers are a main target of Walker’s law. Even though enough Madison teachers called in sick four school days to shut down the schools, and many others around the state did likewise so they could join the protests at the Capitol, Wisconsin State Education Association Council president Mary Bell urged her union’s 98,000 members not to walk out. Instead, the Madison teachers union, MTI, concentrated on negotiating a concessionary contract with the local school board before Walker’s new law kicks in. The agreement, which would extend the contract through mid-2013, would take an estimated $3,900 annually out of the pay check of the average teacher, amounting to a 7.35% wage cut.
A number of other contracts have been extended, some until 2014, but those covering 39,000 state workers expire today (March 13), because two Democratic senators voted against them (one was later rewarded by Walker with a plum state government job). Currently the union tops are pushing to recall Republican legislators, and various legal actions. Suits have been announced charging that Walker violated the state law on open meetings, since the public was excluded from the Senate vote; the conference committee and Senate vote violated a provision of the state Constitution requiring 24 hours notice before a vote by a government body. The Madison district attorney says he is investigating, etc. But at most such tactics would only delay the law.
Usually when union leaders want to drag their heels and head off militant action, they put the blame on the membership, saying the ranks aren’t ready. Certainly, to undertake a general strike in this country that hasn’t seen one in more than 60 years would take a lot of guts and gumption. But of all the times in recent memory, right now, as workers stand to lose thousands of dollars in wages and any semblance of job security, is when they are most likely to take such a bold step. And many are ready. “General strike” was once again a frequent chant among the 150,000 trade-unionists and supporters (including quite a few from neighboring and far-away states) who filled Capitol Square and all the way down State Street on Saturday
Talk of a general strike has not just been whistling in the wind. On February 21 the South Central Labor Federation voted that “SCFL endorses a general strike, possibly for the day Walker signs his budget repair bill.” At the same time it set up an education committee to prepare materials for union locals about how to fight “this naked class war waged upon us.” A history professor at Macalester College (St. Paul, MN), Peter Rachleff, prepared a brief history of general strikes, pointing to the 1886 May Day struggles for the eight-hour work day. In Milwaukee, the governor called out the National Guard to squelch a strike that shut down virtually every factory in the city (as Walker threatens to do today), killing seven strikers. Thus serious preparation for a strike should include organizing workers defense guards.
The SCFL educational materials include a “how to” guide on strike preparations by Dan La Botz of Labor Notes on the series of “Days of Action” in various cities in Ontario in 1995-98. Like many one-day “general strikes” in Europe, these were not real general strikes which pose a contest for power, over which class shall rule, but rather a series of labor demonstrations whose ultimate purpose was to moderate the anti-labor policies of the provincial government of Tory (Conservative) premier Mike Harris. La Botz doesn’t mention that they failed to do that. But even if they had brought down Harris, what was the alternative: the discredited labor-backed New Democratic Party? The NDP was voted out of office after imposing a wage freeze and curtailing bargaining rights of public sector workers?
This underlines that a general strike is ultimately and inevitably political. Many in Wisconsin portray the battle as one against the Republican governor and legislators and reactionary forces such as the Tea Party movement and Americans for Prosperity, the political action committee of Charles and David Koch, millionaire funders of ultra-rightist outfits who were Walker’s biggest financial backers. The toilet paper kings (Koch Industries owns the Georgia-Pacific paper company) are sinister for sure, but the far right are not the only ones going after labor these days. In New York state, a liberal Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, got elected on a union-bashing platform and is demanding $450 million in givebacks while threatening 10,000 layoffs. And nationally Barack Obama has imposed a wage freeze on federal workers while spearheading attacks on teachers, even supporting the firing of an entire district teaching staff in Rhode Island.
Illusions in the Democratic Party are a big problem in Wisconsin. As a result of their grandstand play of decamping to Rockford, Illinois, the 14 Democratic senators were hailed by the protesters demonstrating against Walker’s union-busting bill. On Saturday, when they returned to Madison, supporters chanted “Fab(ulous) 14, our heroes.” They then paraded in a line around the Capitol with senators and the crowd chanting “thank you” to each other. State Assembly Democrats sported their orange T-shirts claiming to support Wisconsin working families. But for all their phony “friend of labor” rhetoric, the Democrats were prepared to vote for all the budget cuts the governor wanted. They only want to preserve the unions’ bargaining rights (and dues check-off), because labor is a key source of funds for this capitalist party.
Just about every left-wing and self-proclaimed socialist group in the country has written about the events in Wisconsin, which are the biggest upsurge in labor struggle in decades in the U.S. Mostly it is just cheerleading, ducking the key issue of the Democrats. In 20 articles on Wisconsin, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a Stalinoid-reformist outfit, assiduously avoiding taking on the Democratic Party. Its main activity in Wisconsin was circulating a petition to “tax the rich,” lending credence to Walker’s talk of a budget deficit. (While claiming there was a $137 million budget shortfall this year, right after taking office he legislated $140 million in tax breaks for businesses, banks and industry.)
The problem is not lack of money – right now the Federal Reserve is funneling tens of billions of dollars to the banks at essentially 0% interest, not to mention the trillions they gave to Wall Street for the “bailout” and hundreds of billions paid to business under the “stimulus” bill. It is not the job of revolutionaries to give helpful hints to the bosses’ government about its budget priorities and how to finance them. We have nothing against taxing the rich, but a “millionaires tax” will not do a thing to defend working people. To think that it would is to promote illusions that the capitalist pols would spend money on education, workers pensions, health care if only they had the dough. We need to mobilize our power to defeat the attacks on working people, poor, oppressed minorities and other victims of capital.
The social-democratic International Socialist Organization (ISO), one of the biggest pushers of the “tax the rich” nostrum, just published an editorial, titled “Now is the time to fight.” But according to the ISO, a general strike is not the way. It argues that “given the low level of strike activity in the last decade, and the overall decline of the labor movement over the past 30 years,” therefore “calling for a general strike – no matter how enthusiastically it is received – is unlikely to get very far.” Its alternative is to “build union activity in the workplaces” by “organizing pickets before work or noontime marches to other unionized workplaces.” In other words, do anything but don’t strike during working hours. So here the ISO, is actively aiding the sellout bureaucrats in suppressing calls for militant union action.
Another group, the Workers Socialist Web Site, which also goes under the name of the Socialist Equality Party (WSWS/SEP), takes a somewhat different tack. The WSWS chimes in on the need for a general strike, and criticizes the Democrats and union bureaucrats for trying to squelch struggle. But in numerous articles, while referring to Walker’s “anti-worker” law, it never mentions the fact that this is union-busting legislation. The reason why not is simple: the WSWS opposes unions as inherently bourgeois. They support scabbing, and tell workers not to vote for unions in union recognition votes. These scab socialists try to hide this fact by denouncing the bureaucrats, who have hamstrung workers’ struggle for decades. But the unions remain workers organizations, even though they are betrayed by the union misleaders who tie them to the capitalist parties, principally the Democrats.
That is why it is necessary to build a class-struggle opposition in the unions, to oust the pro-capitalist bureaucrats and break with the Democrats and bourgeois politics overall. The Wisconsin union-busting law, by outlawing collective bargaining for government workers aims at destroying public sector unions. Following the decimation of many private sector unions over the last three decades, these are the mainstay of what is left of the labor movement. Walker & Co. would certainly make impossible the class-collaboration policies of business unionists who are willing to sacrifice all sorts of union gains as long as they get to negotiate the sellout. Class-struggle unionists do not call for or rely on such mechanisms as a dues check-off, precisely because the government and the bosses can use it as a weapon to cripple labor by cutting off its finances. But we oppose anti-union attacks as an assault of workers’ rights and gains.
A statewide general strike is urgently needed in Wisconsin, and the time is now. To win against all the union-bashers, it is necessary to promote the political independence of the workers movement and break with both Democrats and Republicans, the partner parties of American capitalism, as well as minor bourgeois parties such as the Greens and sundry reformists (of which the social-democratic NDP in Canada is an extreme example) who only seek to modify the workings of the capitalist system rather than bringing it down. Thus the Internationalist Group, in calling for a general strike in Wisconsin links this to the need to build a class-struggle workers party to lead the fight for a workers government and socialist revolution. ■
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Battleground Wisconsin: Corporate Power v. Worker Rights - by Stephen Lendman
Battleground Wisconsin: Corporate Power v. Worker Rights
Battleground Wisconsin: Corporate Power v. Worker Rights - by Stephen Lendman
The issue in Wisconsin and across America is simple and straightforward - a corporate-financed offensive to crush unions, returning workers to 19th century harshness with no rights whatever.
As a result, well-funded union busting organizations want collective bargaining rights abolished, social benefits ended, wages kept low as possible, and corporations allowed to exploit workers freely, unimpeded by legal protections and rights.
A previous article discussed right-wing think tanks infesting America's landscape, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/waging-war-on-working-americans.html
Generously funded, they include the Koch Family Foundations (established by David, Charles and Claude R. Lambe), several Scaife ones, John M. Olin Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, various others, and George Soros' Open Society Foundations, pretending to be liberal, when, in fact, he supports everything smelling money.
Their agenda includes marketplace sovereignty, deregulation, privatization of government services, ending popular entitlements, social spending, and affirmative action, prioritizing business friendly policies, waging class war, controlling electoral politics and supportive media backing everything on their wish list.
Among many others, their beneficiaries include the American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, founded in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, best known for inaction while America sank into depression while he was president.
Less known ones include:
American Crossroads
Founded by Karl Rove, it's "dedicated to renewing America's commitment to individual liberty, limited government, free enterprise, and a strong national defense," entirely benefitting business at the expense of workers.
Americans for Job Security
An anti-labor insurance industry front group backing unrestricted free enterprise, tax cuts for the rich, job-killing trade agreements, and worker rights ended for greater profits.
The Club for Growth
A neofascist organization wanting Medicare and Medicaid abolished, Social Security privatized, unions eliminated, and business given unimpeded power to plunder and exploit freely.
Americans for Prosperity
A virulently anti-labor group backing all of the above and more, including the right to destroy US jobs by offshoring them freely to the world's lowest wage locations.
Freedom Works
Led by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, it conducts aggressive campaigns against worker rights nationally.
Center for Union Facts
Led by pro-business lobbyist Richard Berman, it focuses on anti-union propaganda, destroying worker rights, obstructing organizing efforts, and promoting other anti-union initiatives.
National Right to Work Foundation and Committee
America's oldest anti-union organization, it bogusly claims pro-worker credentials. In fact, it's extremely hostile to high wages, essential benefits, job safety, and favorable working conditions, considered impediments to profits.
Public Service Research Foundation and Public Service Research Council
Composed of small organizations nationwide, they oppose collective bargaining rights for teachers and other public sector workers. In 1981, PSRF led the campaign to fire PATCO strikers, a watershed event weakening organized labor overall.
For-Profit Unionbusters
Describing themselves as "union avoidance firms," "management consultants," or "labor consultants," they use lawyers and other credentialed professionals to manipulate labor laws to subvert organizing efforts and worker rights overall.
These and other groups have full-time staffs, lawyers, and other credentialed professionals conducting media campaigns, seminars, workshops, lobbying efforts, and other initiatives to subvert organized labor for business. Nothing unethical is avoided to accomplish ends they'll go to any extreme to achieve, within or outside the law they freely exploit advantageously, flush with cash to do it.
Annually, they spend tens of millions of dollars for anti-union initiatives, allied with the US Chamber of Commerce - "the world's largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations."
Although most of its members are small enterprises, it overwhelmingly represents giant ones and their campaign for unimpeded free enterprise at the expense of worker rights and small competitors. As a result, it spends millions of dollars annually opposing them.
Wisconsin - Ground Zero Outside the Beltway
A previous article explained March 9 Wisconsin Senate maneuvers described as a corporate coup d'etat, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/corporate-coup-detat-in-wisconsin.html
In violation of Wisconsin's open meetings law, requiring "24 hours prior to the commencement of (special sessions) unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical," Republican senators passed Gov. Walker's union busting bill with no Democrat members present.
On March 10, Milwaukee Sentinel Journal (SJ) writers Jason Stein, Patrick Marley and Lee Bergquist headlined, "Collective bargaining bill passes; courts, recalls next," saying:
The epic battle ended along party lines after Wisconsin's State Assembly past Walker's anti-union bill 53 - 42, "but only after police carried demonstrators out of the Assembly antechamber." Going forward, "a wider war now remains for both sides, one expected to be fought in the courts and through recall efforts against 16 state senators."
After three hours, legislators cut off debate, refusing to recognize Democrats wanting to speak. They were ignored. Angry worker responses inside followed to no avail. Others there the night before were forced out of the Capitol. On the morning of the vote, they and Democrats were kept out, Rep. David Cullen saying he and others had to climb through a ground floor window to enter.
On March 10, the SJ's editorial headlined, 'Defining Moment," saying:
"Republicans were right to demand more of government workers (but) were wrong to demand this much." In fact, "(r)eason (took) a holiday in Wisconsin politics. Civility along with it....Republicans got what they wanted Thursday: a flawed and divisive bill," destroying hard-won collective bargaining rights and more. "Gov. Scott Walker (and his) party may now reap the whirlwind."
"This is a war of attrition now - one that has been nationalized because of the implications for a key Democratic constituency in a key battleground state with a presidential election coming."
Indeed so, and it might help congressional Democrats solidify control in both Houses and give a failed anti-populist president a second term by default, fearing a worse alternative when, in fact, there's not a dime's worth of difference between either party, especially on major issues.
On Thursday night, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Obama understands state budget problems but opposes "denigrat(ing) or vilify(ing) public sector employees." Noticeably, however, he said nothing publicly to support them, expressing silent approval for destroying their rights, a policy his administration endorses.
On March 11, Washington Post writer Karen Tumulty headlined, "Wisconsin governor wins his battle with unions on collective bargaining," saying:
The epic battle ended along party lines after Wisconsin's State Assembly past Walker's anti-union bill 53 - 42, "but only after police carried demonstrators out of the Assembly antechamber." Going forward, "a wider war now remains for both sides, one expected to be fought in the courts and through recall efforts against 16 state senators."
Despite winning legislatively, "the political battle over public employees and their rights to bargain is likely to continue - not only in Madison." Fervor is resonating among workers signaling "it's not over." In fact, the struggle just began with strong public support against Republican thuggishness.
On March 11, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal editorialized, "Taxpayers Win in Wisconsin," saying:
"Congratulations to Wisconsin Republicans, who held together this week to pass their government union reforms....maybe there's hope for taxpayers after all. (Walker's) reforms change the balance of negotiating power in ways that give taxpayers more protection."
In fact, over 200,000 Wisconsin public workers pay taxes, less of them ahead as their wages are cut, ranks thinned, and other rights lost, affecting them and their families, unimportant people for Murdoch's Journal, one-sidedly pro-business like the boss.
According to Democrat pollster Mark Mellman, Walker is "winning the battle through pure, uncompromising force, but he's losing the war."
Unless reversed, however, state workers are losing their rights. Besides collective bargaining, their healthcare and pension contributions will double, resulting in pay cuts ranging from 8 - 20% ahead of more planned reductions coming. Moreover, the measure reads:
"This bill authorizes a state agency to discharge any state employee who fails to report to work as scheduled for any three unexcused working days during a state emergency or who participates in a strike, work stoppage, sit-down, stay-in, slowdown, or other concerted activities to interrupt the operations or services of state government, including specifically purported mass resignations or sick calls. Under the bill, engaging in any of these actions constitutes just cause for discharge."
In addition, the governor may unilaterally declare "state of emergency" authority to fire striking workers, and under the section titled, "Discharge of State Employees," stating:
"The Governor may issue an executive order declaring a state of emergency for the state or any portion of the state if he or she determines that an emergency resulting from a disaster or imminent threat of a disaster exists."
In other words, he can unilaterally seize dictatorial power and do what he wishes, especially regarding public worker rights and job security. They're gone unless resurrected by a sustained, mobilized, united, and committed mass action statewide shutdown for rights too important to lose.
Nonetheless, Democrats and union bosses oppose it, focusing instead on recall campaigns and lawsuit challenges when, in fact, shutting down the whole state is essential and perhaps the only way to achieve justice.
However, in a March 9 conference call, Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) president Mary Bell, representing 98,000 public education employees, told teachers "to be at work tomorrow as we determine the next step to have the voices of Wisconsin's workers to be heard."
Wisconsin Public Employees Union president Marty Beil said "peaceful demonstrations" and recall campaigns are the only way to "change the face of government" when doing so will take months and may fail.
Democrats were just as submissive, supporting every anti-worker provision except ending collective bargaining, and they were willing to compromise on that. So was Jesse Jackson. Ahead of the Assembly vote, he gave the official prayer, asking for Republican - Democrat unity, not joining protesters outside demanding justice. Instead, he urged them to "honor (Martin Luther King's) legacy" by voting for Democrats who betrayed them.
Planned Mass Actions
On Sunday, March 13, mass protests are being organized across the state, involving teachers, students, police, firefighters, small business men and women, farmers, unemployed men and women, lawyers, engineers and other professionals, community leaders, seniors, and others for worker justice.
Wisconsin Wave.org says:
"Forward! Not Backward! We won't pay for their crisis! We stand united as never before around a common sense of human dignity. Today we exercise our freedoms of speech and assembly to defend the Wisconsin that we love, its people, and its lands and waters. We call on" everyone to challenge government and "narrow corporate interests that are hijacking our democracy."
It calls for a "Wisconsin Wave of Resistance against corporatization and austerity and for democracy and shared prosperity." It wants all Wisconsinites involved in a common struggle affecting every working person in the state. Taking aim at corporate giants, it says:
"(W)e will not stand by and watch you destroy Wisconsin democracy, Wisconsin's economy, Wisconsin's schools, and Wisconsin's communities. We will not pay for your crisis. We will organize. We will march. We will nonviolently resist your policies and overcome your agenda."
So will courageous supporters, joined by private sector workers, united in a common struggle for justice. They're on their own knowing it's up to them to do what union bosses and Democrats won't - shutting down the entire state proactively. In Wisconsin and across America, nothing less can work. Battle lines are drawn to regain rights too important to lose, never without a fight!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
Battleground Wisconsin: Corporate Power v. Worker Rights - by Stephen Lendman
The issue in Wisconsin and across America is simple and straightforward - a corporate-financed offensive to crush unions, returning workers to 19th century harshness with no rights whatever.
As a result, well-funded union busting organizations want collective bargaining rights abolished, social benefits ended, wages kept low as possible, and corporations allowed to exploit workers freely, unimpeded by legal protections and rights.
A previous article discussed right-wing think tanks infesting America's landscape, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/waging-war-on-working-americans.html
Generously funded, they include the Koch Family Foundations (established by David, Charles and Claude R. Lambe), several Scaife ones, John M. Olin Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, various others, and George Soros' Open Society Foundations, pretending to be liberal, when, in fact, he supports everything smelling money.
Their agenda includes marketplace sovereignty, deregulation, privatization of government services, ending popular entitlements, social spending, and affirmative action, prioritizing business friendly policies, waging class war, controlling electoral politics and supportive media backing everything on their wish list.
Among many others, their beneficiaries include the American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, founded in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, best known for inaction while America sank into depression while he was president.
Less known ones include:
American Crossroads
Founded by Karl Rove, it's "dedicated to renewing America's commitment to individual liberty, limited government, free enterprise, and a strong national defense," entirely benefitting business at the expense of workers.
Americans for Job Security
An anti-labor insurance industry front group backing unrestricted free enterprise, tax cuts for the rich, job-killing trade agreements, and worker rights ended for greater profits.
The Club for Growth
A neofascist organization wanting Medicare and Medicaid abolished, Social Security privatized, unions eliminated, and business given unimpeded power to plunder and exploit freely.
Americans for Prosperity
A virulently anti-labor group backing all of the above and more, including the right to destroy US jobs by offshoring them freely to the world's lowest wage locations.
Freedom Works
Led by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, it conducts aggressive campaigns against worker rights nationally.
Center for Union Facts
Led by pro-business lobbyist Richard Berman, it focuses on anti-union propaganda, destroying worker rights, obstructing organizing efforts, and promoting other anti-union initiatives.
National Right to Work Foundation and Committee
America's oldest anti-union organization, it bogusly claims pro-worker credentials. In fact, it's extremely hostile to high wages, essential benefits, job safety, and favorable working conditions, considered impediments to profits.
Public Service Research Foundation and Public Service Research Council
Composed of small organizations nationwide, they oppose collective bargaining rights for teachers and other public sector workers. In 1981, PSRF led the campaign to fire PATCO strikers, a watershed event weakening organized labor overall.
For-Profit Unionbusters
Describing themselves as "union avoidance firms," "management consultants," or "labor consultants," they use lawyers and other credentialed professionals to manipulate labor laws to subvert organizing efforts and worker rights overall.
These and other groups have full-time staffs, lawyers, and other credentialed professionals conducting media campaigns, seminars, workshops, lobbying efforts, and other initiatives to subvert organized labor for business. Nothing unethical is avoided to accomplish ends they'll go to any extreme to achieve, within or outside the law they freely exploit advantageously, flush with cash to do it.
Annually, they spend tens of millions of dollars for anti-union initiatives, allied with the US Chamber of Commerce - "the world's largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations."
Although most of its members are small enterprises, it overwhelmingly represents giant ones and their campaign for unimpeded free enterprise at the expense of worker rights and small competitors. As a result, it spends millions of dollars annually opposing them.
Wisconsin - Ground Zero Outside the Beltway
A previous article explained March 9 Wisconsin Senate maneuvers described as a corporate coup d'etat, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/corporate-coup-detat-in-wisconsin.html
In violation of Wisconsin's open meetings law, requiring "24 hours prior to the commencement of (special sessions) unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical," Republican senators passed Gov. Walker's union busting bill with no Democrat members present.
On March 10, Milwaukee Sentinel Journal (SJ) writers Jason Stein, Patrick Marley and Lee Bergquist headlined, "Collective bargaining bill passes; courts, recalls next," saying:
The epic battle ended along party lines after Wisconsin's State Assembly past Walker's anti-union bill 53 - 42, "but only after police carried demonstrators out of the Assembly antechamber." Going forward, "a wider war now remains for both sides, one expected to be fought in the courts and through recall efforts against 16 state senators."
After three hours, legislators cut off debate, refusing to recognize Democrats wanting to speak. They were ignored. Angry worker responses inside followed to no avail. Others there the night before were forced out of the Capitol. On the morning of the vote, they and Democrats were kept out, Rep. David Cullen saying he and others had to climb through a ground floor window to enter.
On March 10, the SJ's editorial headlined, 'Defining Moment," saying:
"Republicans were right to demand more of government workers (but) were wrong to demand this much." In fact, "(r)eason (took) a holiday in Wisconsin politics. Civility along with it....Republicans got what they wanted Thursday: a flawed and divisive bill," destroying hard-won collective bargaining rights and more. "Gov. Scott Walker (and his) party may now reap the whirlwind."
"This is a war of attrition now - one that has been nationalized because of the implications for a key Democratic constituency in a key battleground state with a presidential election coming."
Indeed so, and it might help congressional Democrats solidify control in both Houses and give a failed anti-populist president a second term by default, fearing a worse alternative when, in fact, there's not a dime's worth of difference between either party, especially on major issues.
On Thursday night, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Obama understands state budget problems but opposes "denigrat(ing) or vilify(ing) public sector employees." Noticeably, however, he said nothing publicly to support them, expressing silent approval for destroying their rights, a policy his administration endorses.
On March 11, Washington Post writer Karen Tumulty headlined, "Wisconsin governor wins his battle with unions on collective bargaining," saying:
The epic battle ended along party lines after Wisconsin's State Assembly past Walker's anti-union bill 53 - 42, "but only after police carried demonstrators out of the Assembly antechamber." Going forward, "a wider war now remains for both sides, one expected to be fought in the courts and through recall efforts against 16 state senators."
Despite winning legislatively, "the political battle over public employees and their rights to bargain is likely to continue - not only in Madison." Fervor is resonating among workers signaling "it's not over." In fact, the struggle just began with strong public support against Republican thuggishness.
On March 11, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal editorialized, "Taxpayers Win in Wisconsin," saying:
"Congratulations to Wisconsin Republicans, who held together this week to pass their government union reforms....maybe there's hope for taxpayers after all. (Walker's) reforms change the balance of negotiating power in ways that give taxpayers more protection."
In fact, over 200,000 Wisconsin public workers pay taxes, less of them ahead as their wages are cut, ranks thinned, and other rights lost, affecting them and their families, unimportant people for Murdoch's Journal, one-sidedly pro-business like the boss.
According to Democrat pollster Mark Mellman, Walker is "winning the battle through pure, uncompromising force, but he's losing the war."
Unless reversed, however, state workers are losing their rights. Besides collective bargaining, their healthcare and pension contributions will double, resulting in pay cuts ranging from 8 - 20% ahead of more planned reductions coming. Moreover, the measure reads:
"This bill authorizes a state agency to discharge any state employee who fails to report to work as scheduled for any three unexcused working days during a state emergency or who participates in a strike, work stoppage, sit-down, stay-in, slowdown, or other concerted activities to interrupt the operations or services of state government, including specifically purported mass resignations or sick calls. Under the bill, engaging in any of these actions constitutes just cause for discharge."
In addition, the governor may unilaterally declare "state of emergency" authority to fire striking workers, and under the section titled, "Discharge of State Employees," stating:
"The Governor may issue an executive order declaring a state of emergency for the state or any portion of the state if he or she determines that an emergency resulting from a disaster or imminent threat of a disaster exists."
In other words, he can unilaterally seize dictatorial power and do what he wishes, especially regarding public worker rights and job security. They're gone unless resurrected by a sustained, mobilized, united, and committed mass action statewide shutdown for rights too important to lose.
Nonetheless, Democrats and union bosses oppose it, focusing instead on recall campaigns and lawsuit challenges when, in fact, shutting down the whole state is essential and perhaps the only way to achieve justice.
However, in a March 9 conference call, Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) president Mary Bell, representing 98,000 public education employees, told teachers "to be at work tomorrow as we determine the next step to have the voices of Wisconsin's workers to be heard."
Wisconsin Public Employees Union president Marty Beil said "peaceful demonstrations" and recall campaigns are the only way to "change the face of government" when doing so will take months and may fail.
Democrats were just as submissive, supporting every anti-worker provision except ending collective bargaining, and they were willing to compromise on that. So was Jesse Jackson. Ahead of the Assembly vote, he gave the official prayer, asking for Republican - Democrat unity, not joining protesters outside demanding justice. Instead, he urged them to "honor (Martin Luther King's) legacy" by voting for Democrats who betrayed them.
Planned Mass Actions
On Sunday, March 13, mass protests are being organized across the state, involving teachers, students, police, firefighters, small business men and women, farmers, unemployed men and women, lawyers, engineers and other professionals, community leaders, seniors, and others for worker justice.
Wisconsin Wave.org says:
"Forward! Not Backward! We won't pay for their crisis! We stand united as never before around a common sense of human dignity. Today we exercise our freedoms of speech and assembly to defend the Wisconsin that we love, its people, and its lands and waters. We call on" everyone to challenge government and "narrow corporate interests that are hijacking our democracy."
It calls for a "Wisconsin Wave of Resistance against corporatization and austerity and for democracy and shared prosperity." It wants all Wisconsinites involved in a common struggle affecting every working person in the state. Taking aim at corporate giants, it says:
"(W)e will not stand by and watch you destroy Wisconsin democracy, Wisconsin's economy, Wisconsin's schools, and Wisconsin's communities. We will not pay for your crisis. We will organize. We will march. We will nonviolently resist your policies and overcome your agenda."
So will courageous supporters, joined by private sector workers, united in a common struggle for justice. They're on their own knowing it's up to them to do what union bosses and Democrats won't - shutting down the entire state proactively. In Wisconsin and across America, nothing less can work. Battle lines are drawn to regain rights too important to lose, never without a fight!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / March 12, 2011-In bitter cold rain:Thousands rally at Indianapolis State House
Markin comment: We need a fight to the finish this time. Fight for a general strike.
******
In bitter cold rain:Thousands rally at Indianapolis State House
By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / March 12, 2011
INDIANAPOLIS --On Thursday morning, March 10, three buses left the parking lot of a large supermarket in Lafayette, Indiana bound for the huge workers rights rally at the Indianapolis State House.
The buses were sponsored by the United Steelworkers Local 115A and the NAACP. About 100 workers, teachers, and peace and justice activists were on the buses. About two miles away another three buses left for Indianapolis with 100 activists from the Building Trades Council of Tippecanoe County and the Northwest Central Labor Council (AFL-CIO).
The buses were warm, cozy, and the spirit of solidarity pervaded the atmosphere. Travelers were determined to demonstrate their outrage at the rightwing onslaught on workers and education being planned by Indiana Republicans. Arriving about one hour later, riders disembarked from the warm and fuzzy atmosphere of the trip to a bitterly cold, cloudy, and windy rally in downtown Indianapolis.
The rally consisted of speeches, chants, prayers, and exhortations. Thousands of Hoosier workers withstood the cold to express their anger and their clear realization that the quality of their lives was in jeopardy.
Local 115A passed out some literature to articulate the reasons for enduring the cold and shouting for economic justice. They said that:
The struggle in Indiana was inspired by the events in Wisconsin.
The rally was about worker rights, including so-called Right-to-Work legislation and proposals to eliminate the right of teachers to organize.
The right-to-work bill that was not dead as some media had reported would negatively impact workers in both the private and public sectors.
Public sector rights, which need to be defended, had already been weakened by Indiana’s governor, Mitch Daniels.
The struggle in Indiana was not a publicity stunt, copying the movement in Wisconsin. Democratic House members walked out of the legislature and traveled to Illinois to forestall the Indiana body from passing the draconian legislation.
Taxpayers of the state were not funding the walkout by State House Democrats.
The so-called Right-to-Work bill was not the only threat posed to workers in Indiana. One bill would eliminate the secret ballot in union certification elections. Another would remove the right to collective bargaining from public employees at the local level. Another bill would prohibit local communities from establishing living wage laws in excess of the state determined minimum wage.
The struggle in Indiana is about protecting public education. Bills would authorize private firms to be hired to evaluate teacher performance, without any teacher input. School funding could be used to provide vouchers for use in private schools. Schools that did not meet certain performance standards would be transferred to private for-profit corporations.
The campaign to protect public education also required resisting the cutting of funds for colleges and universities.
The struggle for workers rights was relevant to the economy of the entire state of Indiana, not just the 300,000 unionized workers.
Another USW Local 115 document made the motivation for action crystal clear:
We stand at the statehouse as one people, one labor movement, one united group of citizens. We are proud to be union members and union supporters because together we have built Indiana! Whether we are construction workers, teachers or students --whether we clean buildings, deliver health care or manufacture useful products -- we stand together!
There were different assessments of the State House rally in Indianapolis. The conservative Indianapolis Star, on the one hand estimated that only 8,000 workers rallied in Indianapolis, but on the other hand pointed out how cold, windy, and rainy the weather was, suggesting that attendees were truly committed.
One trade unionist, recalling the rally of 20,000 Building Trades workers in 1995 indicated that he could not tell if this rally was bigger or smaller than that one. Another worker said that we needed at least 100,000 at the rally to make a difference.
Several speakers expressed their appreciation for those that attended the rally. AFL-CIO leaders from Kentucky and Wisconsin pointed out that the Indiana struggle was part of a larger movement involving workers from Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey, and everywhere that the basic standard of living of workers was being challenged.
Perhaps the most poignant statement came from an Iraq war vet who reminded the crowd that $3 trillion had been spent on two costly, foolish wars in the 21st century that helped create today’s economic crisis.
The outcome of the ferment, anger, and rebelliousness all around the world remains unclear. But one fine folk singer, after leading the crowd in a rendition of “This Land is Your Land,” wished the movement well. He recalled Woody Guthrie’s injunction: “Take it easy, but take it.” Perhaps that is where we are at today.
[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical.]
******
In bitter cold rain:Thousands rally at Indianapolis State House
By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / March 12, 2011
INDIANAPOLIS --On Thursday morning, March 10, three buses left the parking lot of a large supermarket in Lafayette, Indiana bound for the huge workers rights rally at the Indianapolis State House.
The buses were sponsored by the United Steelworkers Local 115A and the NAACP. About 100 workers, teachers, and peace and justice activists were on the buses. About two miles away another three buses left for Indianapolis with 100 activists from the Building Trades Council of Tippecanoe County and the Northwest Central Labor Council (AFL-CIO).
The buses were warm, cozy, and the spirit of solidarity pervaded the atmosphere. Travelers were determined to demonstrate their outrage at the rightwing onslaught on workers and education being planned by Indiana Republicans. Arriving about one hour later, riders disembarked from the warm and fuzzy atmosphere of the trip to a bitterly cold, cloudy, and windy rally in downtown Indianapolis.
The rally consisted of speeches, chants, prayers, and exhortations. Thousands of Hoosier workers withstood the cold to express their anger and their clear realization that the quality of their lives was in jeopardy.
Local 115A passed out some literature to articulate the reasons for enduring the cold and shouting for economic justice. They said that:
The struggle in Indiana was inspired by the events in Wisconsin.
The rally was about worker rights, including so-called Right-to-Work legislation and proposals to eliminate the right of teachers to organize.
The right-to-work bill that was not dead as some media had reported would negatively impact workers in both the private and public sectors.
Public sector rights, which need to be defended, had already been weakened by Indiana’s governor, Mitch Daniels.
The struggle in Indiana was not a publicity stunt, copying the movement in Wisconsin. Democratic House members walked out of the legislature and traveled to Illinois to forestall the Indiana body from passing the draconian legislation.
Taxpayers of the state were not funding the walkout by State House Democrats.
The so-called Right-to-Work bill was not the only threat posed to workers in Indiana. One bill would eliminate the secret ballot in union certification elections. Another would remove the right to collective bargaining from public employees at the local level. Another bill would prohibit local communities from establishing living wage laws in excess of the state determined minimum wage.
The struggle in Indiana is about protecting public education. Bills would authorize private firms to be hired to evaluate teacher performance, without any teacher input. School funding could be used to provide vouchers for use in private schools. Schools that did not meet certain performance standards would be transferred to private for-profit corporations.
The campaign to protect public education also required resisting the cutting of funds for colleges and universities.
The struggle for workers rights was relevant to the economy of the entire state of Indiana, not just the 300,000 unionized workers.
Another USW Local 115 document made the motivation for action crystal clear:
We stand at the statehouse as one people, one labor movement, one united group of citizens. We are proud to be union members and union supporters because together we have built Indiana! Whether we are construction workers, teachers or students --whether we clean buildings, deliver health care or manufacture useful products -- we stand together!
There were different assessments of the State House rally in Indianapolis. The conservative Indianapolis Star, on the one hand estimated that only 8,000 workers rallied in Indianapolis, but on the other hand pointed out how cold, windy, and rainy the weather was, suggesting that attendees were truly committed.
One trade unionist, recalling the rally of 20,000 Building Trades workers in 1995 indicated that he could not tell if this rally was bigger or smaller than that one. Another worker said that we needed at least 100,000 at the rally to make a difference.
Several speakers expressed their appreciation for those that attended the rally. AFL-CIO leaders from Kentucky and Wisconsin pointed out that the Indiana struggle was part of a larger movement involving workers from Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey, and everywhere that the basic standard of living of workers was being challenged.
Perhaps the most poignant statement came from an Iraq war vet who reminded the crowd that $3 trillion had been spent on two costly, foolish wars in the 21st century that helped create today’s economic crisis.
The outcome of the ferment, anger, and rebelliousness all around the world remains unclear. But one fine folk singer, after leading the crowd in a rendition of “This Land is Your Land,” wished the movement well. He recalled Woody Guthrie’s injunction: “Take it easy, but take it.” Perhaps that is where we are at today.
[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical.]
Just ask 100,000 people!A Perfect Day in Madison, Wisconsin-By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 13, 2011
Just ask 100,000 people!A Perfect Day in Madison, Wisconsin
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 13, 2011
[This is the third of Paul Beckett's reports from Madison for The Rag Blog.]
MADISON, Wisconsin -- Saturday, March 12, 2011. The wind off the frozen lakes was often 20 miles an hour (or more) and from the north. Windchills were in the 20s. It was mainly cloudy. Here and there, old snow and ice remained, and where there was no ice, the Wisconsin Capitol grounds had been trampled into a slippery, muddy morass. And it was beautiful!
Absolutely unprecedented crowds gathered for a whole day of protest events. Police estimates were 100,000 (but exact estimates are impossible). The crowd filled the Capitol square streets, sidewalks and what once were lawns, and then flowed down State Street and Wisconsin Avenue.
This time, a powerful sound system was in place and you could hear the speeches from far out in the crowd. In fact, you could hear them twice as the sound reflected off the taller buildings.
The breadth of social groups protesting Governor Scott Walker’s “union-busting” and public service-cutting Budget Repair Bill was truly awesome. The private sector unions were there (often with major leadership figures). The public service unions (AFSCME and the teachers unions) were there. The firemen, policemen and prison staff were there. Teachers and workers had come from Michigan, where things are also bad.
Farmers staged a tractor parade during the massive Madison protest. Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
Farmers came in, protesting the planned cutbacks in the Medicaid-based programs on which so many of them depend. Late in the morning a tractor parade pushed through the already-dense crowds, festooned with anti-Walker signs (many of them referring to the animal waste that is so familiar to farmers).
But the dominant impression one got was just of PEOPLE: all kinds of people, from all over Wisconsin, unaffiliated, unorganized. Just people. A feeling of complete like-mindedness and shared values and interests linked 100,000 people together.
Thank you, Scott Walker.
By 3 p.m., when the main program began, no one could move. The 14 Democratic senators who had decamped to Illinois to thwart passage of Walker’s bill were welcomed back. Each gave a speech to tumultuous applause and chants of “Thank you! Thank you!” They had not, in fact, stopped the bill. But they had provided almost three weeks for understanding -- and protest -- to develop
Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
Also, the holdout of the “Fab 14” ultimately forced the Walker camp to “pass” their bill in an abrupt night-time procedure that was full of parliamentary improprieties, and perhaps downright illegal.
The speakers (besides the 14, they included Jesse Jackson, Tony Shalhoub, and Susan Sarandon) noted that now the battle continues, but the battlefield changes.
Suits are already being brought to challenge the legality of the law in the courts.
More important in the longer run are the recall campaigns . While “Recall Walker” was a constant theme in signs and chants, under Wisconsin law that effort can not begin until next year. But petitions against eight Republican Senators have been filed, with May 2 deadlines for completion. There was an enormous sense of energy for these yesterday.
Meanwhile, a Utah-based anti-immigration group has already invaded Wisconsin (it is perfectly legal, it seems) to organize recalls against members of the Democratic “Fab 14” who got so much thanks and appreciation yesterday.
Control of the Wisconsin Senate will be determined during the coming summer by the outcome of these efforts.
Those who participated Saturday went home elated and politically energized in a way that few of us have been for some time. But all understood, as well, that Saturday did not mark the end of a battle, but its beginning. It will be a long battle for the future of Wisconsin, and no one can be sure of the outcome. And Wisconsin, in turn, clearly is just one battleground in the broader struggle for the country’s future.
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 13, 2011
[This is the third of Paul Beckett's reports from Madison for The Rag Blog.]
MADISON, Wisconsin -- Saturday, March 12, 2011. The wind off the frozen lakes was often 20 miles an hour (or more) and from the north. Windchills were in the 20s. It was mainly cloudy. Here and there, old snow and ice remained, and where there was no ice, the Wisconsin Capitol grounds had been trampled into a slippery, muddy morass. And it was beautiful!
Absolutely unprecedented crowds gathered for a whole day of protest events. Police estimates were 100,000 (but exact estimates are impossible). The crowd filled the Capitol square streets, sidewalks and what once were lawns, and then flowed down State Street and Wisconsin Avenue.
This time, a powerful sound system was in place and you could hear the speeches from far out in the crowd. In fact, you could hear them twice as the sound reflected off the taller buildings.
The breadth of social groups protesting Governor Scott Walker’s “union-busting” and public service-cutting Budget Repair Bill was truly awesome. The private sector unions were there (often with major leadership figures). The public service unions (AFSCME and the teachers unions) were there. The firemen, policemen and prison staff were there. Teachers and workers had come from Michigan, where things are also bad.
Farmers staged a tractor parade during the massive Madison protest. Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
Farmers came in, protesting the planned cutbacks in the Medicaid-based programs on which so many of them depend. Late in the morning a tractor parade pushed through the already-dense crowds, festooned with anti-Walker signs (many of them referring to the animal waste that is so familiar to farmers).
But the dominant impression one got was just of PEOPLE: all kinds of people, from all over Wisconsin, unaffiliated, unorganized. Just people. A feeling of complete like-mindedness and shared values and interests linked 100,000 people together.
Thank you, Scott Walker.
By 3 p.m., when the main program began, no one could move. The 14 Democratic senators who had decamped to Illinois to thwart passage of Walker’s bill were welcomed back. Each gave a speech to tumultuous applause and chants of “Thank you! Thank you!” They had not, in fact, stopped the bill. But they had provided almost three weeks for understanding -- and protest -- to develop
Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
Also, the holdout of the “Fab 14” ultimately forced the Walker camp to “pass” their bill in an abrupt night-time procedure that was full of parliamentary improprieties, and perhaps downright illegal.
The speakers (besides the 14, they included Jesse Jackson, Tony Shalhoub, and Susan Sarandon) noted that now the battle continues, but the battlefield changes.
Suits are already being brought to challenge the legality of the law in the courts.
More important in the longer run are the recall campaigns . While “Recall Walker” was a constant theme in signs and chants, under Wisconsin law that effort can not begin until next year. But petitions against eight Republican Senators have been filed, with May 2 deadlines for completion. There was an enormous sense of energy for these yesterday.
Meanwhile, a Utah-based anti-immigration group has already invaded Wisconsin (it is perfectly legal, it seems) to organize recalls against members of the Democratic “Fab 14” who got so much thanks and appreciation yesterday.
Control of the Wisconsin Senate will be determined during the coming summer by the outcome of these efforts.
Those who participated Saturday went home elated and politically energized in a way that few of us have been for some time. But all understood, as well, that Saturday did not mark the end of a battle, but its beginning. It will be a long battle for the future of Wisconsin, and no one can be sure of the outcome. And Wisconsin, in turn, clearly is just one battleground in the broader struggle for the country’s future.
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
From The Renegade Eye Blog- IDM- Nepal: Which Way Forward?
Nepal: Which Way Forward?
Written by Adam Pal in Lahore, Pakistan
Friday, 11 March 2011
In Nepal the stalemate in power is continuing while the ideological battle inside the communist movement intensifies. The struggle for power through constitutional means by the largest party in parliament UCPN (M) faced another defeat when on November 1st parliament failed to elect a new Prime Minister for the 16th time. [Originally published in the Think India Quarterly]
Photo: izahorsky 2009The bourgeoisie and ruling elite of Nepal is putting up hurdles against the handing over of power to the Maoists and are using every available means to sabotage the process. The nine month short stint in power by the Maoists also came to a bitter end in May 2009 when they were unable to remove the Army chief.
The Maoists rose to power after they led the Jana Andolan-II in 2006. Hundreds of thousands of people came out onto the streets of Kathmandu and raised their voices against poverty, hunger, unemployment and the despotic rule of King Gyanendra. According to some estimates two and a half million people came out in this revolutionary movement. Power slipped from the hands of the King and was there in the streets to be picked up.
The reluctance of the Maoists to take this power led to a long series of discussions, meetings, walk outs and talks that have resulted in a painful lengthening of the process. Elections were held in April 2008 in which again the masses expressed full support for the Maoists and they emerged as the largest party in the Constituent Assembly.
But since then they proved unable not hold power as it shifts away from the capitalists and landlords that form the ruling elite of Nepal. The class balance of forces in Nepal is still swinging unless there is complete victory of one class over the other.
The ruling classes are unable to get complete grip on the situation as the masses have risen against their exploitation and have expressed a clear verdict against them time and again. Their capitulation to the imperialist masters and inability to carry out any reforms has exposed their true reactionary character in the eyes of the toiling masses. Currently 35 percent of the total population is living below the poverty line, earning less than one US dollar per day while one third of the population has no access to clean water and 85% of Nepalese don't have access to health services. It is one of the poorest countries of the world where 10% of the population has 50% of the wealth while the bottom 40% has only 10%. Prices of basic necessities are always increasing and inflation is very high.
The bourgeoisie even proved incapable of removing the age old monarchy, which could only be overthrown after the revolutionary movement of Loktantra Andolan. Due to their belated entrance onto the arena of history they can never play a progressive role and are destined to be a subservient slave of their imperialist countries. In Nepal even a country like India is acting as an imperialist state, where a big majority of the population lives in poverty and its own bourgeoisie is unable to carry out the historical tasks of the bourgeois revolution which were completed in 17th and 18th centuries in the advanced capitalist countries.
On the other hand the reluctance of the Maoists to take power completely into their hands and crush the ruling elite by expropriating the land, banks and industries in Nepal lies deep in their Stalinist ideology of the two stages. According to this theory the first stage of revolution is a democratic stage in which, supporting the so-called progressive bourgeoisie, the 'revolutionary' party has to complete the tasks of the capitalist revolution and after that at some later stage the path for socialism will be taken. This theory has revealed its bankruptcy time and again since it was propagated by Stalin and is actually a negation of Leninist principles. Lenin and Trotsky who led the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 never relied on the so-called “progressive” bourgeoisie of Russia to complete its historical tasks but went forward to a socialist revolution under the leadership of the proletariat and completed not only the democratic tasks but built a workers’ state and a planned economy.
Lenin’s April Thesis and the Theory of Permanent Revolution by Trotsky both argue that in a backward country the only path forward is through a socialist revolution. It is the task of the proletariat to carry out the fundamental transformation of society and end poverty, hunger and misery by expropriating the imperialist assets and capital, local capitalists, landlords and nationalizing the commanding heights of the economy and putting them under the democratic control of the workers.
In Nepal we have seen that adhering to the Stalinist theory of two stages has solved nothing and though the monarchy has been abolished the fundamental character of the state is the same and is still a tool of oppression in the hands of the capitalists and landlords. The Maoists' tenure in power also could not change the class character of the state and they were thrown out of office as soon as the movement of the masses started to recede and the ruling classes recovered from their defeat. If the Maoists had gone forward to take socialist measures by expropriating the banks, industry and land, the real strength of these ruling classes could have been broken and the working classes could have been strengthened. As the masses could see the real transformation of society taking place they would have defended the gains of the revolution themselves. But here another important question arises about the dependence of the Nepalese economy on the imperialist powers. Also, with the presence of India and China on its borders how could this socialist revolution survive in a small country?
The bankruptcy of the Stalinist theory of “socialism in one country” again seems evident here which cannot answer this question. However, if we look at the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 we see that its leaders never had an idea of halting the process inside the boundaries of Russia but on the contrary their utmost desire was to spread it to the whole world rapidly. The socialist measures in Nepal can only find support in the proletariat and peasantry of the region and beyond. The Indian bourgeoisie and State can never tolerate such measures and will definitely use every means to sabotage and crush it. They would certainly fear the danger of spreading this revolution inside India’s borders and its proletariat following the example of their Nepalese counterpart and start doing the same. They even can't tolerate the current situation where a revolutionary process has unfolded and is challenging the class nature of Nepalese society. The arrival of the dethroned King Gyanendra in India for a two week visit on 15 November points in the same direction. According to Review Nepal he was going to meet Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. On the other hand the Chinese government seems to support the Maoist movement in this regard. But first of all a complete understanding of the character of the Chinese State should also be discussed.
In China the planned economy has been gradually dismantled over the last two decades and now it is one of the few largest capitalist economies in the world. Property relations in China have been restored on a capitalist basis and the market economy has taken the place of the planned economy. The Stalinist bureaucracy which emerged after a successful revolution in China has been transformed into a ruling class whose members are the latest billionaires of 21st century. The capitalist restoration in China has also given its State an imperialist character which is using all its potential to exploit as many resources in the world for its profit driven economy. The new emerging conflict between a weakening US imperialism and an infant Chinese imperialism is also creating ripples in the region. Obama's recent visit to Asia to empower other small economies against China has increased the tensions. But the recent conflict between China and US imperialism is quite the opposite to the cold war between the USSR and US where two opposite economies and modes of production were in conflict. Here both have same market economy in their country and therefore where they have conflicts with each other they have their interests tied together in many places. China is the largest exporter of goods to US and many US companies have their plants inside China. In this context China is using the peoples' movement in Nepal as a pawn for its imperialist interests against India and ultimately the US. They will try to restrain this movement inside the democratic farce and parliamentary cretinism.
In the case the movement should go forward towards the expropriation of land, industries and banks, the Chinese State would try its best to sabotage it and if it gets the opportunity it will join hands with the Indian State to crush the movement, as this movement can set an example for the Chinese proletariat who are already struggling for better living conditions and higher wages. The number of strikes and protests are increasing every day where the largest proletariat of the world exists and whose lives have turned into a living hell since the restoration of Capitalist economy. This proletariat is also the real ally of the revolutionary masses of Nepal who can support them by rising against their own ruling class in China. However, the decisive role has to be played by the poor peasants, workers and revolutionary youth of Nepal. More than that, the members and cadres of the UCPN (M) have to play a leading role.
Already a debate is heating up on similar lines inside UCPN (M) and after so many years of armed struggle, protests, strikes, elections and constitutional harping, no fundamental change in the lives of people can be seen. This is the reason for the current fractures opening up in the leadership of the UCPN (M) which held its week-long sixth plenum after five years in Palungtar, Gorkha District which started on 20 November. It was the largest meeting in the party's history in which more than 7000 members participated. In this plenum three documents were presented from the party leadership. The first document was present by the party chairman Prachanda. According to news reports he emphasized on the need for a serious dialogue to draft the constitution and to conclude the peace process. He also criticized the imperialist role of the Indian State. The other document was presented by Vice-Chairman Mohan Kiran Vaidya that challenged Prachanda's line and appealed for returning to the armed struggle. The third document was presented by another Vice-Chairman Baburam Bhattarai. Bhattarai has had differences with Prachanda for the last few years which has resulted in his demotion in the party along with his wife Hisila Yami and his other supporters. He was the Minister of Finance in the August 2008 coalition government.
In the summer of 2009 Bhattarai had openly written about the failure of Stalinist ideology clearly supporting Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. In The Red Spark (Rato Jhilko), a journal of the UCPN (M) he wrote an article advocating Trotsky's position rejecting the party's line of Stalinist ideas. He wrote:
“Today, the globalization of imperialist capitalism has increased many-fold as compared to the period of the October Revolution. The development of information technology has converted the world into a global village. However, due to the unequal and extreme development inherent in capitalist imperialism this has created inequality between different nations. In this context, there is still (some) possibility of revolution in a single country similar to the October revolution; however, in order to sustain the revolution, we definitely need a global or at least a regional wave of revolution in a couple of countries. In this context, Marxist revolutionaries should recognize the fact that in the current context, Trotskyism has become more relevant than Stalinism to advance the cause of the proletariat”.
Bhattarai was, however, mistaken on one point. In 1917: neither Lenin, nor Trotsky, nor any other leader of the Bolshevik party (not even Stalin himself) considered that the revolution could be confined to one country. Nobody even mentioned this idea before it became the motto of Stalin from 1924 onwards. But regardless of this factual error of Bhattarai, the fact that a senior leader of a traditionally "Stalinist" party recognized the validity of the ideas of Trotsky was a very significant development. This has stimulated a very useful discussion within the Communist movement on the historical roots of Stalinism and the ideas of genuine Marxism.
In his article, Comrade Bhattarai, suggested new strategic directions for his party, summarized in the following points: There is a need to develop Marxism to a new level by analyzing and synthesizing the lessons of China, Russia, Nepal, India etc., and the new initiatives being taken in some countries in Latin America.
The current crisis of capitalism and the previous era of so-called “neo liberal” development have made many, like the Maoist leaders, realize that “today, the globalization of imperialist capitalism has increased many-fold as compared to the beginning of 20th century. Development of information technology has crossed national borders and transformed the world into a village. On the other hand, the inherent unequal and extreme development of capitalist imperialism has caused disparity among different nations”. This is a tentative step in explaining the theory of combined and uneven development. The Nepalese example shows that the country has a mixture of different historical formations within it (feudal, semi-capitalist, capitalist, etc). In the past, the Nepali Maoists used to blame “revisionism” introduced by Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Deng for the failure of socialism in Russia and China, but now they have put the blame squarely on Stalinism. This is a development that should be encouraged.
However, Dr Bhattarai's paper is not accepted by the Stalinist hardliners within the UCPN (M). They have argued that Leon Trotsky was “outside of the Marxist-Leninist ideological current” and his role in the proletarian revolution, as well as his commitment to Marxism, are doubtful and therefore comparing Stalin with Trotsky and drawing conclusions on that basis is subjective thinking and irrelevant.
In a recent paper, Central Committee member, comrade Kushal Pradhan wrote:
“If a simultaneous wave of revolution is necessary to sustain the revolution in each country and if such a position is in line with the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thought, then there is no point in dragging Trotsky into this debate. Secondly, the idea of revolution in a single country belongs to Lenin; and Stalin created the structure of the first socialist state. Stalin might have made some mistakes, but he was a great Marxist and Leninist practitioner and his contribution should not be underestimated.” (The Red Guard, September 2009, pp.18-20)
Comrade Pradhan also argues that the idea of world revolution or Permanent Revolution belongs to Marx and not to Leon Trotsky.
The ongoing debate and the recent inconclusive plenum on the strategic directions of the UCPN (M) has clearly placed the party in a big dilemma: the Nepali Maoists are neither in a position to return to the jungle to start the second edition of the “People's War”, nor are they able to deliver what they had promised to the people through the current “stage of peaceful development of the revolution”. In the past, the UCPN(M) had trained the party cadres exclusively on the basis of Maoism and Stalinism, but the lessons of their 10-year armed struggle have stressed the correctness of the principles of the Permanent Revolution (as synthesized by Dr Bhattarai) and refuted the Maoist-Stalinist theory of revolution, i.e. 'revolution in one country' and the 'two-stage theory'.
The confusion and rift inside the Maoist leadership could be seen in the general strike of May this year. First, a call for the general strike was made which was moving towards success and which had the potential to overthrow the present regime and move towards a Socialist revolution in Nepal. But after 5 days the strike was called off. The leadership 'explained' that the strike was off but the protests would continue. A general strike of such a nature poses the very question of power, of who governs the country. Instead it was used as a measure to put pressure on the government. However, subsequent events showed that the preparations for a general strike were not properly carried out. If the leadership discusses its internal weaknesses in basic ideology and the true ideals of Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 it can move again towards an indefinite general strike until the fall of the bourgeois government.
An indefinite general strike until the fall of a bourgeois government, organized by a communist organization that has the majority of the workers must be based on a serious evaluation of the mood of the masses and there must be serious preparation, campaigning in every workplace and mobilization for its successful turnout. And because such a powerful general strike, which mobilizes the whole of the mass movement, means that one must work not only for the victory of the strike one must be prepared for what comes next and prepare the masses for taking power through an insurrection, with the creation of strike committees in all corners of Nepal, linking the “liberated” areas with the main urban centres, issuing propaganda explaining that the only way to achieve a genuine Constitution that will liberate peasants and workers would be through the mobilization and participation of the masses themselves in the running of the state.
What is required is decisive and bold action to be taken to ensure that the old state apparatus is removed and a new power is built, firmly in the hands of the poor peasants, workers, youth and oppressed people. The conditions for this now exist. In the past the Maoists successfully organized the peasants and controlled large areas of the country. Now they have shown that the urban masses can also be mobilized. The general strike of May [2010] is proof of that. All the forces are lined up for the workers and peasants to take power. The UCPN (M) leaders should review their position and understand the historical task that lies on their shoulders. They are the leaders; they have the authority and they should use it. Otherwise we will have paralysis and the initiative could pass into the hands of the ruling elite.
By leading the masses to power and carrying through a genuine Socialist revolution in Nepal, they would be lighting a beacon in Asia that the downtrodden masses would look up to in countries like Pakistan, India, China, Bangladesh and beyond. Conditions for revolution are maturing well beyond the borders of Nepal. The present world crisis of capitalism is making unbearable living conditions even worse for many of the workers in these countries. They would instinctively move in the direction of solidarity with the Nepalese masses across the South-Asian subcontinent. Parliamentary politics in Nepal has reached its limits. The power is there for the taking and the working masses under the leadership of genuine communists must take it. This is a decisive moment in the history of the class struggle of Nepal.
Written by Adam Pal in Lahore, Pakistan
Friday, 11 March 2011
In Nepal the stalemate in power is continuing while the ideological battle inside the communist movement intensifies. The struggle for power through constitutional means by the largest party in parliament UCPN (M) faced another defeat when on November 1st parliament failed to elect a new Prime Minister for the 16th time. [Originally published in the Think India Quarterly]
Photo: izahorsky 2009The bourgeoisie and ruling elite of Nepal is putting up hurdles against the handing over of power to the Maoists and are using every available means to sabotage the process. The nine month short stint in power by the Maoists also came to a bitter end in May 2009 when they were unable to remove the Army chief.
The Maoists rose to power after they led the Jana Andolan-II in 2006. Hundreds of thousands of people came out onto the streets of Kathmandu and raised their voices against poverty, hunger, unemployment and the despotic rule of King Gyanendra. According to some estimates two and a half million people came out in this revolutionary movement. Power slipped from the hands of the King and was there in the streets to be picked up.
The reluctance of the Maoists to take this power led to a long series of discussions, meetings, walk outs and talks that have resulted in a painful lengthening of the process. Elections were held in April 2008 in which again the masses expressed full support for the Maoists and they emerged as the largest party in the Constituent Assembly.
But since then they proved unable not hold power as it shifts away from the capitalists and landlords that form the ruling elite of Nepal. The class balance of forces in Nepal is still swinging unless there is complete victory of one class over the other.
The ruling classes are unable to get complete grip on the situation as the masses have risen against their exploitation and have expressed a clear verdict against them time and again. Their capitulation to the imperialist masters and inability to carry out any reforms has exposed their true reactionary character in the eyes of the toiling masses. Currently 35 percent of the total population is living below the poverty line, earning less than one US dollar per day while one third of the population has no access to clean water and 85% of Nepalese don't have access to health services. It is one of the poorest countries of the world where 10% of the population has 50% of the wealth while the bottom 40% has only 10%. Prices of basic necessities are always increasing and inflation is very high.
The bourgeoisie even proved incapable of removing the age old monarchy, which could only be overthrown after the revolutionary movement of Loktantra Andolan. Due to their belated entrance onto the arena of history they can never play a progressive role and are destined to be a subservient slave of their imperialist countries. In Nepal even a country like India is acting as an imperialist state, where a big majority of the population lives in poverty and its own bourgeoisie is unable to carry out the historical tasks of the bourgeois revolution which were completed in 17th and 18th centuries in the advanced capitalist countries.
On the other hand the reluctance of the Maoists to take power completely into their hands and crush the ruling elite by expropriating the land, banks and industries in Nepal lies deep in their Stalinist ideology of the two stages. According to this theory the first stage of revolution is a democratic stage in which, supporting the so-called progressive bourgeoisie, the 'revolutionary' party has to complete the tasks of the capitalist revolution and after that at some later stage the path for socialism will be taken. This theory has revealed its bankruptcy time and again since it was propagated by Stalin and is actually a negation of Leninist principles. Lenin and Trotsky who led the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 never relied on the so-called “progressive” bourgeoisie of Russia to complete its historical tasks but went forward to a socialist revolution under the leadership of the proletariat and completed not only the democratic tasks but built a workers’ state and a planned economy.
Lenin’s April Thesis and the Theory of Permanent Revolution by Trotsky both argue that in a backward country the only path forward is through a socialist revolution. It is the task of the proletariat to carry out the fundamental transformation of society and end poverty, hunger and misery by expropriating the imperialist assets and capital, local capitalists, landlords and nationalizing the commanding heights of the economy and putting them under the democratic control of the workers.
In Nepal we have seen that adhering to the Stalinist theory of two stages has solved nothing and though the monarchy has been abolished the fundamental character of the state is the same and is still a tool of oppression in the hands of the capitalists and landlords. The Maoists' tenure in power also could not change the class character of the state and they were thrown out of office as soon as the movement of the masses started to recede and the ruling classes recovered from their defeat. If the Maoists had gone forward to take socialist measures by expropriating the banks, industry and land, the real strength of these ruling classes could have been broken and the working classes could have been strengthened. As the masses could see the real transformation of society taking place they would have defended the gains of the revolution themselves. But here another important question arises about the dependence of the Nepalese economy on the imperialist powers. Also, with the presence of India and China on its borders how could this socialist revolution survive in a small country?
The bankruptcy of the Stalinist theory of “socialism in one country” again seems evident here which cannot answer this question. However, if we look at the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 we see that its leaders never had an idea of halting the process inside the boundaries of Russia but on the contrary their utmost desire was to spread it to the whole world rapidly. The socialist measures in Nepal can only find support in the proletariat and peasantry of the region and beyond. The Indian bourgeoisie and State can never tolerate such measures and will definitely use every means to sabotage and crush it. They would certainly fear the danger of spreading this revolution inside India’s borders and its proletariat following the example of their Nepalese counterpart and start doing the same. They even can't tolerate the current situation where a revolutionary process has unfolded and is challenging the class nature of Nepalese society. The arrival of the dethroned King Gyanendra in India for a two week visit on 15 November points in the same direction. According to Review Nepal he was going to meet Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. On the other hand the Chinese government seems to support the Maoist movement in this regard. But first of all a complete understanding of the character of the Chinese State should also be discussed.
In China the planned economy has been gradually dismantled over the last two decades and now it is one of the few largest capitalist economies in the world. Property relations in China have been restored on a capitalist basis and the market economy has taken the place of the planned economy. The Stalinist bureaucracy which emerged after a successful revolution in China has been transformed into a ruling class whose members are the latest billionaires of 21st century. The capitalist restoration in China has also given its State an imperialist character which is using all its potential to exploit as many resources in the world for its profit driven economy. The new emerging conflict between a weakening US imperialism and an infant Chinese imperialism is also creating ripples in the region. Obama's recent visit to Asia to empower other small economies against China has increased the tensions. But the recent conflict between China and US imperialism is quite the opposite to the cold war between the USSR and US where two opposite economies and modes of production were in conflict. Here both have same market economy in their country and therefore where they have conflicts with each other they have their interests tied together in many places. China is the largest exporter of goods to US and many US companies have their plants inside China. In this context China is using the peoples' movement in Nepal as a pawn for its imperialist interests against India and ultimately the US. They will try to restrain this movement inside the democratic farce and parliamentary cretinism.
In the case the movement should go forward towards the expropriation of land, industries and banks, the Chinese State would try its best to sabotage it and if it gets the opportunity it will join hands with the Indian State to crush the movement, as this movement can set an example for the Chinese proletariat who are already struggling for better living conditions and higher wages. The number of strikes and protests are increasing every day where the largest proletariat of the world exists and whose lives have turned into a living hell since the restoration of Capitalist economy. This proletariat is also the real ally of the revolutionary masses of Nepal who can support them by rising against their own ruling class in China. However, the decisive role has to be played by the poor peasants, workers and revolutionary youth of Nepal. More than that, the members and cadres of the UCPN (M) have to play a leading role.
Already a debate is heating up on similar lines inside UCPN (M) and after so many years of armed struggle, protests, strikes, elections and constitutional harping, no fundamental change in the lives of people can be seen. This is the reason for the current fractures opening up in the leadership of the UCPN (M) which held its week-long sixth plenum after five years in Palungtar, Gorkha District which started on 20 November. It was the largest meeting in the party's history in which more than 7000 members participated. In this plenum three documents were presented from the party leadership. The first document was present by the party chairman Prachanda. According to news reports he emphasized on the need for a serious dialogue to draft the constitution and to conclude the peace process. He also criticized the imperialist role of the Indian State. The other document was presented by Vice-Chairman Mohan Kiran Vaidya that challenged Prachanda's line and appealed for returning to the armed struggle. The third document was presented by another Vice-Chairman Baburam Bhattarai. Bhattarai has had differences with Prachanda for the last few years which has resulted in his demotion in the party along with his wife Hisila Yami and his other supporters. He was the Minister of Finance in the August 2008 coalition government.
In the summer of 2009 Bhattarai had openly written about the failure of Stalinist ideology clearly supporting Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. In The Red Spark (Rato Jhilko), a journal of the UCPN (M) he wrote an article advocating Trotsky's position rejecting the party's line of Stalinist ideas. He wrote:
“Today, the globalization of imperialist capitalism has increased many-fold as compared to the period of the October Revolution. The development of information technology has converted the world into a global village. However, due to the unequal and extreme development inherent in capitalist imperialism this has created inequality between different nations. In this context, there is still (some) possibility of revolution in a single country similar to the October revolution; however, in order to sustain the revolution, we definitely need a global or at least a regional wave of revolution in a couple of countries. In this context, Marxist revolutionaries should recognize the fact that in the current context, Trotskyism has become more relevant than Stalinism to advance the cause of the proletariat”.
Bhattarai was, however, mistaken on one point. In 1917: neither Lenin, nor Trotsky, nor any other leader of the Bolshevik party (not even Stalin himself) considered that the revolution could be confined to one country. Nobody even mentioned this idea before it became the motto of Stalin from 1924 onwards. But regardless of this factual error of Bhattarai, the fact that a senior leader of a traditionally "Stalinist" party recognized the validity of the ideas of Trotsky was a very significant development. This has stimulated a very useful discussion within the Communist movement on the historical roots of Stalinism and the ideas of genuine Marxism.
In his article, Comrade Bhattarai, suggested new strategic directions for his party, summarized in the following points: There is a need to develop Marxism to a new level by analyzing and synthesizing the lessons of China, Russia, Nepal, India etc., and the new initiatives being taken in some countries in Latin America.
The current crisis of capitalism and the previous era of so-called “neo liberal” development have made many, like the Maoist leaders, realize that “today, the globalization of imperialist capitalism has increased many-fold as compared to the beginning of 20th century. Development of information technology has crossed national borders and transformed the world into a village. On the other hand, the inherent unequal and extreme development of capitalist imperialism has caused disparity among different nations”. This is a tentative step in explaining the theory of combined and uneven development. The Nepalese example shows that the country has a mixture of different historical formations within it (feudal, semi-capitalist, capitalist, etc). In the past, the Nepali Maoists used to blame “revisionism” introduced by Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Deng for the failure of socialism in Russia and China, but now they have put the blame squarely on Stalinism. This is a development that should be encouraged.
However, Dr Bhattarai's paper is not accepted by the Stalinist hardliners within the UCPN (M). They have argued that Leon Trotsky was “outside of the Marxist-Leninist ideological current” and his role in the proletarian revolution, as well as his commitment to Marxism, are doubtful and therefore comparing Stalin with Trotsky and drawing conclusions on that basis is subjective thinking and irrelevant.
In a recent paper, Central Committee member, comrade Kushal Pradhan wrote:
“If a simultaneous wave of revolution is necessary to sustain the revolution in each country and if such a position is in line with the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thought, then there is no point in dragging Trotsky into this debate. Secondly, the idea of revolution in a single country belongs to Lenin; and Stalin created the structure of the first socialist state. Stalin might have made some mistakes, but he was a great Marxist and Leninist practitioner and his contribution should not be underestimated.” (The Red Guard, September 2009, pp.18-20)
Comrade Pradhan also argues that the idea of world revolution or Permanent Revolution belongs to Marx and not to Leon Trotsky.
The ongoing debate and the recent inconclusive plenum on the strategic directions of the UCPN (M) has clearly placed the party in a big dilemma: the Nepali Maoists are neither in a position to return to the jungle to start the second edition of the “People's War”, nor are they able to deliver what they had promised to the people through the current “stage of peaceful development of the revolution”. In the past, the UCPN(M) had trained the party cadres exclusively on the basis of Maoism and Stalinism, but the lessons of their 10-year armed struggle have stressed the correctness of the principles of the Permanent Revolution (as synthesized by Dr Bhattarai) and refuted the Maoist-Stalinist theory of revolution, i.e. 'revolution in one country' and the 'two-stage theory'.
The confusion and rift inside the Maoist leadership could be seen in the general strike of May this year. First, a call for the general strike was made which was moving towards success and which had the potential to overthrow the present regime and move towards a Socialist revolution in Nepal. But after 5 days the strike was called off. The leadership 'explained' that the strike was off but the protests would continue. A general strike of such a nature poses the very question of power, of who governs the country. Instead it was used as a measure to put pressure on the government. However, subsequent events showed that the preparations for a general strike were not properly carried out. If the leadership discusses its internal weaknesses in basic ideology and the true ideals of Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 it can move again towards an indefinite general strike until the fall of the bourgeois government.
An indefinite general strike until the fall of a bourgeois government, organized by a communist organization that has the majority of the workers must be based on a serious evaluation of the mood of the masses and there must be serious preparation, campaigning in every workplace and mobilization for its successful turnout. And because such a powerful general strike, which mobilizes the whole of the mass movement, means that one must work not only for the victory of the strike one must be prepared for what comes next and prepare the masses for taking power through an insurrection, with the creation of strike committees in all corners of Nepal, linking the “liberated” areas with the main urban centres, issuing propaganda explaining that the only way to achieve a genuine Constitution that will liberate peasants and workers would be through the mobilization and participation of the masses themselves in the running of the state.
What is required is decisive and bold action to be taken to ensure that the old state apparatus is removed and a new power is built, firmly in the hands of the poor peasants, workers, youth and oppressed people. The conditions for this now exist. In the past the Maoists successfully organized the peasants and controlled large areas of the country. Now they have shown that the urban masses can also be mobilized. The general strike of May [2010] is proof of that. All the forces are lined up for the workers and peasants to take power. The UCPN (M) leaders should review their position and understand the historical task that lies on their shoulders. They are the leaders; they have the authority and they should use it. Otherwise we will have paralysis and the initiative could pass into the hands of the ruling elite.
By leading the masses to power and carrying through a genuine Socialist revolution in Nepal, they would be lighting a beacon in Asia that the downtrodden masses would look up to in countries like Pakistan, India, China, Bangladesh and beyond. Conditions for revolution are maturing well beyond the borders of Nepal. The present world crisis of capitalism is making unbearable living conditions even worse for many of the workers in these countries. They would instinctively move in the direction of solidarity with the Nepalese masses across the South-Asian subcontinent. Parliamentary politics in Nepal has reached its limits. The power is there for the taking and the working masses under the leadership of genuine communists must take it. This is a decisive moment in the history of the class struggle of Nepal.
Dispatch from Madison:Governor Walker’s putsch-By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 11, 2011
Dispatch from Madison:Governor Walker’s putsch
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 11, 2011
[This is the second of Paul Beckett's reports from Madison for The Rag Blog.]
MADISON, Wisconson -- In less than 24 hours, in a series of shocking and unprecedented developments, public sector union and collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin have been eviscerated by a Republican legislative majority controlled by Governor Scott Walker.
What seemed to Democratic legislative members and to neutral observers (but there are few of those in Wisconsin now) a putsch, began about 6 p.m. on the evening of Wednesday, March 9. As coups go, this one clearly was carefully -- even brilliantly -- prepared. The surprise was absolute.
Governor Walker spoke to a news conference on Monday, March 7. He referred to meetings at the Illinois border his staff had had with some of the 14 Democratic state senators who had left Wisconsin on February 17 in order to prevent passage of the “union busting” legislation, SB11. (See my article, “Madison and the Revolution at Home," on The Rag Blog, March 8, 2010.)
A compromise was brewing, Walker implied. “The problem,” Walker said, “is Senator [Mark] Miller.” (Miller is the titular leader of the Senate Democrats.) Maybe it is time, Walker went on, for the Democratic caucus to elect a new leader.
All eyes turned to the Group of 14 Democratic senators: were they divided? Would one or more accept some form of compromise and enable the Republicans to complete their passage of SB11? (The presence of only ONE Democratic senator in the chamber would legitimate the vote passing SB11.] (Read the full text of SB11 here.)
Meanwhile, unperceived, Republicans prepared a trap that would snap shut on Wednesday. The complicated, 144-page “Budget Repair Bill” (SB11) was being taken apart by staff and reformulated, ostensibly to strip out everything BUT the collective bargaining provisions.
The result was labeled a conference amendment to SB11, and was only six pages shorter than the original. But the point was that this new version could be labeled as non-fiscal and would not carry the quorum requirement of the original.
A bizarre reversal of positions was now apparent. Incorporation of the collective bargaining provisions within the Budget Repair Bill, very definitely a “fiscal” measure, had been stoutly justified by Governor Walker on the grounds that they were inseparable from the fiscal repair provisions. (Opponents had argued that the provisions had nothing to do with fiscal “repair” and should be taken out of the Budget Repair Bill and debated separately.)
Now, the Republican position was the opposite. The new version was NOT fiscal. With the quorum requirement changed, whether the Group of 14 were in the Chamber or in Illinois was immaterial. The bill could be passed with Republican votes alone.
The ambush worked perfectly. Democrats and protesters remained focused on the hold-out by the 14 Senators and on the possibility of compromise. Word of Walker’s plan leaked out only at the last minute, late on Wednesday afternoon. Beginning about 5:30 p.m. a cluster of emails, most of them billed “emergency,” appeared in my email inbox. The following, from the Dane County Democrats, is typical:
Breaking Update: Tonight at 6:00 pm in the Senate Parlor we are hearing that Senate GOP is going to split the budget repair bill, fiscal from non-fiscal, and ram it through in the dark of night. Given that they're attempting to ram through the bill without any media attention we wanted to let you know that very important developments are likely to occur tonight at 6:00 pm in the Senate Parlor.
Please be at the capital by 6:00PM TONIGHT!
Actually, I did not receive any of the emails until the next day. I was having a quick dinner a block away from the Capitol at Ian’s Pizza (an enterprise that has become known internationally for its role in keeping the protesters in the Capitol Rotunda sustained). I was on the way to a 7 p.m. debate between Madison’s two mayoral candidates.
Suddenly people were shouting, “To the Capitol. They’re going to pass the bill! Tonight!” People in groups of two, four, six, were hurrying up State Street toward the Capitol. I followed. At the top of State Street was a volcano-shaped mountain of snow (some five inches had fallen the night before). On its peak a tall young man stood shouting in an amazing voice: “Everyone to the Capitol! Everyone to the Capitol!” He waved us onward.
The word spread amazingly. By 6 p.m. hundreds were there; very soon thousands. It was dark. Everyone wanted to enter the Capitol. A long line formed at the only entrance that was (in a limited way) open. The line moved glacially. Inside, on the other side of the revolving door, protesters were packed, waiting, apparently, to be taken one-by-one through the security wanding procedure. Noise was deafening: “Whose house? Our house!”
Soon, however, any pretense of an open Capitol was abandoned; the police closed the doors absolutely, leaving some inside and thousands outside. People were angry.
Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
In the meantime, inside the Senate chamber, the deed was already done. In less than half an hour, a “conference committee” had reported out the revised bill. The committee Chair gaveled the meeting closed as the Democratic minority leader, Peter Barca, was shouting out the many ways in which the meeting was improper under the rules of the Legislature or illegal under state law.
The bill was then instantaneously passed (or “passed”) by the Senate Republicans.
By about 6:25 p.m. it was all done. The session was immediately adjourned, and the Republican Members were reportedly smuggled out of the Capitol building and beyond the crowds through a tunnel. (Their escape and removal by a special Madison Metro bus was not as secret as they would have liked.)
The word spread among the protesters and, more than any other time in the three weeks of protest, the mood was one of deep anger and frustration. Later in the evening some of the inside protesters opened an unguarded outside door. Crowds outside pushed in, brushing aside the police, who had raced to stop them. Thousands ended up inside, chanting, commiserating, venting. Most left by 2 or 3 a.m.
The expectation was that the building would open at 8 a.m. Thursday morning and that the Assembly would begin passage of the “conference amendment” by 9 a.m. In fact, the building did not reopen in the morning. The Department of Administration announced that an “assessment of building security requirements” was in progress. By 11 a trickle of protesters was permitted in as the Assembly slowly began to organize itself for the crucial session to pass the Senate version.
The session, billed a “Special Session” to allow more flexibility with rules and the traditions of the “Body” as it is always called, was brought to order at 12:34 p.m. Incongruously (considering he had been refused entry to the Capitol an hour or so earlier), the Reverend Jesse Jackson was allowed to deliver an opening prayer. He took no sides on the issues, and insisted that the legislators join hands (literally) across the aisle. They did, and then a bitter partisan verbal battle began.
A little over three hours of speeches were allowed. Most of these were from Democratic representatives clad in the bright orange T shirts proclaiming workers’ rights that they had adopted three weeks before. The session was broadcast by WisconsinEye and is available for viewing here.
The Democrats argued the illegality of procedures. They asserted that the bill before the Assembly was not the same one that had been before the Senate, and that senators (they were all Republican) had not been informed, had not been given copies of the new legislation, and could not have understood what they were voting for. They cited the shame brought on “this Body,” and on Wisconsin by all that had been done over the recent days and weeks.
More than that, they condemned the loss of workers’ rights and human rights, and the great harm that would be done to Wisconsin families and communities by the bill. Representative Tamara Grigsby, Democrat from the 18th District, delivered a particularly powerful and moving speech. (Had this reporter been a member of the Republican caucus he would have instantly moved across the aisle, sobbing with shame.)
To no avail. At 3:40 in the afternoon, abruptly, with some 20 representatives still to speak, the chair called for the vote (it is electronic and almost instantaneous), announced that the bill was passed, and adjourned the meeting.
The Republicans once again dematerialized mysteriously from the Capitol building.
It was over. Or, perhaps, just begun. The Democratic Party and labor unions are filing complaints and suits challenging the legality of the bill’s passage. The Governor’s use of the State Patrol (now under the direction of the father of Scott Fitzgerald, leader of the Senate Republicans, and his brother Jeff Fitzgerald, leader of the Assembly Republicans) to enforce the Capitol closures is being challenged.
But it has been understood from the beginning that this is less a legislative battle than a long-term political one that will touch every community and involve every important issue. It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of Wisconsin is at stake. And as Michael Moore has been saying so eloquently, the implications for the nation are huge.
Already planned for Saturday, March 12, is a major protest, bringing together farmers (who will mount a “tractorcade” around the Capitol square), labor, educators, students, liberal-progressives from all over the state, and many members of smaller communities that are becoming aware of the hit their schools and local governments are about to take from the Walker budget. Major speakers are invited, and it is reported that the 14 Democratic Senators will return to thank the public for their support.
Recall campaigns are planned on both sides. Under Wisconsin’s recall law almost a year must go by before a campaign to recall Scott Walker can begin. The same is true of Assembly members. So effectively, only senators are presently subject to recall. A bevy of progressive organizations are organizing campaigns directed against at least four of the Republican senators and, so far, there seems to be enormous energy behind these. Success would shift the Senate back to Democratic hands. The Republican recall campaigns, if they are pursued, would be directed against members of the “Group of 14” representing swing districts.
The political fallout of this tempestuous three weeks events will soon begin to be known. It is interesting, already, that one Republican senator and four Republican representatives voted against the “conference amendment.” And there is speculation that one reason that Scott Walker opted for this radical and legally risky legislative maneuver was that he sensed weakening on the part of other of the Republican senators.
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
Source
The Rag Blog
Posted by thorne dreyer at 6:00 PM
Labels: Direct Action, Labor Unions, Madison, Paul Beckett, Rag Bloggers, Reactionary Politcs, Scott Walker, Social Protest, Union Busting, Wisconsin
3 Make/read comments:
Extremist to the DHS said...
It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of Wisconsin is at stake.
Doubtful .... It is true that the future of the democratic party in WI, and to some extent elsewhere, is at stake. Without forced collection of union dues by governments, the slush fund to pay off democrat lawmakers with union money takes a hit. That affects both the unions, who get sweetheart deals from the democrat politicians they buy, and the democrat politicians themselves.
Other than that cast of characters, I am doubtful that anyone else is going to give a crap that public employees have to choose to write out a check to pay their union dues and no longer receive special job perks that average workers never see.
Mar 14, 2011 2:26:00 AM
Gaston Cantens said...
The Governor’s use of the State Patrol to enforce the Capitol closures is being challenged.
Mar 15, 2011 4:56:00 AM
Brother Jonah said...
Yeah, Extremist,we workers are just stupid and subhuman. Alle Sieg Heil am der Korporatisch Reich!
Mar 15, 2011 7:20:00 PM
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 11, 2011
[This is the second of Paul Beckett's reports from Madison for The Rag Blog.]
MADISON, Wisconson -- In less than 24 hours, in a series of shocking and unprecedented developments, public sector union and collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin have been eviscerated by a Republican legislative majority controlled by Governor Scott Walker.
What seemed to Democratic legislative members and to neutral observers (but there are few of those in Wisconsin now) a putsch, began about 6 p.m. on the evening of Wednesday, March 9. As coups go, this one clearly was carefully -- even brilliantly -- prepared. The surprise was absolute.
Governor Walker spoke to a news conference on Monday, March 7. He referred to meetings at the Illinois border his staff had had with some of the 14 Democratic state senators who had left Wisconsin on February 17 in order to prevent passage of the “union busting” legislation, SB11. (See my article, “Madison and the Revolution at Home," on The Rag Blog, March 8, 2010.)
A compromise was brewing, Walker implied. “The problem,” Walker said, “is Senator [Mark] Miller.” (Miller is the titular leader of the Senate Democrats.) Maybe it is time, Walker went on, for the Democratic caucus to elect a new leader.
All eyes turned to the Group of 14 Democratic senators: were they divided? Would one or more accept some form of compromise and enable the Republicans to complete their passage of SB11? (The presence of only ONE Democratic senator in the chamber would legitimate the vote passing SB11.] (Read the full text of SB11 here.)
Meanwhile, unperceived, Republicans prepared a trap that would snap shut on Wednesday. The complicated, 144-page “Budget Repair Bill” (SB11) was being taken apart by staff and reformulated, ostensibly to strip out everything BUT the collective bargaining provisions.
The result was labeled a conference amendment to SB11, and was only six pages shorter than the original. But the point was that this new version could be labeled as non-fiscal and would not carry the quorum requirement of the original.
A bizarre reversal of positions was now apparent. Incorporation of the collective bargaining provisions within the Budget Repair Bill, very definitely a “fiscal” measure, had been stoutly justified by Governor Walker on the grounds that they were inseparable from the fiscal repair provisions. (Opponents had argued that the provisions had nothing to do with fiscal “repair” and should be taken out of the Budget Repair Bill and debated separately.)
Now, the Republican position was the opposite. The new version was NOT fiscal. With the quorum requirement changed, whether the Group of 14 were in the Chamber or in Illinois was immaterial. The bill could be passed with Republican votes alone.
The ambush worked perfectly. Democrats and protesters remained focused on the hold-out by the 14 Senators and on the possibility of compromise. Word of Walker’s plan leaked out only at the last minute, late on Wednesday afternoon. Beginning about 5:30 p.m. a cluster of emails, most of them billed “emergency,” appeared in my email inbox. The following, from the Dane County Democrats, is typical:
Breaking Update: Tonight at 6:00 pm in the Senate Parlor we are hearing that Senate GOP is going to split the budget repair bill, fiscal from non-fiscal, and ram it through in the dark of night. Given that they're attempting to ram through the bill without any media attention we wanted to let you know that very important developments are likely to occur tonight at 6:00 pm in the Senate Parlor.
Please be at the capital by 6:00PM TONIGHT!
Actually, I did not receive any of the emails until the next day. I was having a quick dinner a block away from the Capitol at Ian’s Pizza (an enterprise that has become known internationally for its role in keeping the protesters in the Capitol Rotunda sustained). I was on the way to a 7 p.m. debate between Madison’s two mayoral candidates.
Suddenly people were shouting, “To the Capitol. They’re going to pass the bill! Tonight!” People in groups of two, four, six, were hurrying up State Street toward the Capitol. I followed. At the top of State Street was a volcano-shaped mountain of snow (some five inches had fallen the night before). On its peak a tall young man stood shouting in an amazing voice: “Everyone to the Capitol! Everyone to the Capitol!” He waved us onward.
The word spread amazingly. By 6 p.m. hundreds were there; very soon thousands. It was dark. Everyone wanted to enter the Capitol. A long line formed at the only entrance that was (in a limited way) open. The line moved glacially. Inside, on the other side of the revolving door, protesters were packed, waiting, apparently, to be taken one-by-one through the security wanding procedure. Noise was deafening: “Whose house? Our house!”
Soon, however, any pretense of an open Capitol was abandoned; the police closed the doors absolutely, leaving some inside and thousands outside. People were angry.
Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
In the meantime, inside the Senate chamber, the deed was already done. In less than half an hour, a “conference committee” had reported out the revised bill. The committee Chair gaveled the meeting closed as the Democratic minority leader, Peter Barca, was shouting out the many ways in which the meeting was improper under the rules of the Legislature or illegal under state law.
The bill was then instantaneously passed (or “passed”) by the Senate Republicans.
By about 6:25 p.m. it was all done. The session was immediately adjourned, and the Republican Members were reportedly smuggled out of the Capitol building and beyond the crowds through a tunnel. (Their escape and removal by a special Madison Metro bus was not as secret as they would have liked.)
The word spread among the protesters and, more than any other time in the three weeks of protest, the mood was one of deep anger and frustration. Later in the evening some of the inside protesters opened an unguarded outside door. Crowds outside pushed in, brushing aside the police, who had raced to stop them. Thousands ended up inside, chanting, commiserating, venting. Most left by 2 or 3 a.m.
The expectation was that the building would open at 8 a.m. Thursday morning and that the Assembly would begin passage of the “conference amendment” by 9 a.m. In fact, the building did not reopen in the morning. The Department of Administration announced that an “assessment of building security requirements” was in progress. By 11 a trickle of protesters was permitted in as the Assembly slowly began to organize itself for the crucial session to pass the Senate version.
The session, billed a “Special Session” to allow more flexibility with rules and the traditions of the “Body” as it is always called, was brought to order at 12:34 p.m. Incongruously (considering he had been refused entry to the Capitol an hour or so earlier), the Reverend Jesse Jackson was allowed to deliver an opening prayer. He took no sides on the issues, and insisted that the legislators join hands (literally) across the aisle. They did, and then a bitter partisan verbal battle began.
A little over three hours of speeches were allowed. Most of these were from Democratic representatives clad in the bright orange T shirts proclaiming workers’ rights that they had adopted three weeks before. The session was broadcast by WisconsinEye and is available for viewing here.
The Democrats argued the illegality of procedures. They asserted that the bill before the Assembly was not the same one that had been before the Senate, and that senators (they were all Republican) had not been informed, had not been given copies of the new legislation, and could not have understood what they were voting for. They cited the shame brought on “this Body,” and on Wisconsin by all that had been done over the recent days and weeks.
More than that, they condemned the loss of workers’ rights and human rights, and the great harm that would be done to Wisconsin families and communities by the bill. Representative Tamara Grigsby, Democrat from the 18th District, delivered a particularly powerful and moving speech. (Had this reporter been a member of the Republican caucus he would have instantly moved across the aisle, sobbing with shame.)
To no avail. At 3:40 in the afternoon, abruptly, with some 20 representatives still to speak, the chair called for the vote (it is electronic and almost instantaneous), announced that the bill was passed, and adjourned the meeting.
The Republicans once again dematerialized mysteriously from the Capitol building.
It was over. Or, perhaps, just begun. The Democratic Party and labor unions are filing complaints and suits challenging the legality of the bill’s passage. The Governor’s use of the State Patrol (now under the direction of the father of Scott Fitzgerald, leader of the Senate Republicans, and his brother Jeff Fitzgerald, leader of the Assembly Republicans) to enforce the Capitol closures is being challenged.
But it has been understood from the beginning that this is less a legislative battle than a long-term political one that will touch every community and involve every important issue. It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of Wisconsin is at stake. And as Michael Moore has been saying so eloquently, the implications for the nation are huge.
Already planned for Saturday, March 12, is a major protest, bringing together farmers (who will mount a “tractorcade” around the Capitol square), labor, educators, students, liberal-progressives from all over the state, and many members of smaller communities that are becoming aware of the hit their schools and local governments are about to take from the Walker budget. Major speakers are invited, and it is reported that the 14 Democratic Senators will return to thank the public for their support.
Recall campaigns are planned on both sides. Under Wisconsin’s recall law almost a year must go by before a campaign to recall Scott Walker can begin. The same is true of Assembly members. So effectively, only senators are presently subject to recall. A bevy of progressive organizations are organizing campaigns directed against at least four of the Republican senators and, so far, there seems to be enormous energy behind these. Success would shift the Senate back to Democratic hands. The Republican recall campaigns, if they are pursued, would be directed against members of the “Group of 14” representing swing districts.
The political fallout of this tempestuous three weeks events will soon begin to be known. It is interesting, already, that one Republican senator and four Republican representatives voted against the “conference amendment.” And there is speculation that one reason that Scott Walker opted for this radical and legally risky legislative maneuver was that he sensed weakening on the part of other of the Republican senators.
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
Source
The Rag Blog
Posted by thorne dreyer at 6:00 PM
Labels: Direct Action, Labor Unions, Madison, Paul Beckett, Rag Bloggers, Reactionary Politcs, Scott Walker, Social Protest, Union Busting, Wisconsin
3 Make/read comments:
Extremist to the DHS said...
It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of Wisconsin is at stake.
Doubtful .... It is true that the future of the democratic party in WI, and to some extent elsewhere, is at stake. Without forced collection of union dues by governments, the slush fund to pay off democrat lawmakers with union money takes a hit. That affects both the unions, who get sweetheart deals from the democrat politicians they buy, and the democrat politicians themselves.
Other than that cast of characters, I am doubtful that anyone else is going to give a crap that public employees have to choose to write out a check to pay their union dues and no longer receive special job perks that average workers never see.
Mar 14, 2011 2:26:00 AM
Gaston Cantens said...
The Governor’s use of the State Patrol to enforce the Capitol closures is being challenged.
Mar 15, 2011 4:56:00 AM
Brother Jonah said...
Yeah, Extremist,we workers are just stupid and subhuman. Alle Sieg Heil am der Korporatisch Reich!
Mar 15, 2011 7:20:00 PM
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
From The Wisconsin War-Zone- The Lines Are Further Drawn- The Fight For A General Strike Of All Labor In Wisconsin Is Directly Posed-And Solidarity Actions By Those Outside The State- Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Get To It
Markin comment:
Over the past few week as the events concerning the fate of collective bargaining rights, the core of any union’s reason for existence, of Wisconsin’s public workers unions have unfolded I had joined the voices of those who have argued that passage of the ant-iunion legislation by the Republican Senate majority should trigger the call for a one day general strike of all Wisconsin as the start of a push back. Well that day has arrived and every pro-labor militant from Madison to Cairo (Illinois or Egypt, it matters not) should be joining their voices in that call, and agitating in their unions and other organization to carry it out. The lines could not be more clearly drawn, the survival of the Wisconsin public workers unions are at stake, the survival of all public workers unions are now at stake, and the survival of unionism in the United States as well. This is only the start of the right-wing onslaught. Let Wisconsin’s labor response make it the end. Fight for a one day general strike now!
******
Friday, March 04, 2011
On The Question Of General Strikes In Defense Of The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions- Don't Mourn, Organize- A Short Note
Click on the headline to link to a James P.Cannon Internet Archive online article about the lessons of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934 mentioned in the post below.
Markin comment:
Recently, in the wake of the front-line struggle of the Wisconsin public workers unions (now heightened by the latest news that the Ohio Senate has also voted to curb collective bargaining rights in that state), I, along with others, have been agitating for a one day general strike by organized labor, unorganized, but desperately in need of being organized, workers, and other allies, in support of those efforts. I have also placed the propaganda of others, individuals and organizations, who are advocating this same general position in this space, and will continue to do so as I see it come up as I scan the leftist universe. Before I go on, just to make things clear on this issue, I would draw the reader’s attention to the distinction between propagandizing, the general task for communist organizers in this period pushing issues on behalf our communist future, and agitation which requires/requests some immediate action. The events in the public sector labor movement over the past several weeks, as they have rapidly unfolded, call for immediate action whether we can cause any motion on the issue or not.
That said, I would also note that I have framed my call to action in terms of posing the question of a general strike, the objective need for such action. That proposition is the axis of intervention for leftist and trade union militants today. And that is the rub. Of course, right this minute (and as the Ohio situation foretells maybe only this minute), any such one day general strike would, of necessity, have to be centered in Wisconsin, and the tactical choices would have to be made on the ground there ( how to make the strike effective, what unions to call in, what places to shut down, etc.). My original posting did not make a distinction on location(s)though, and I make none now, about whether such a strike would be localized or not. Certainly, given the centrally of the collective bargaining principle to the lifeblood of any union, and the drumbeat of other states like Ohio, it can hardly be precluded that it could not be a wider strike than just in Wisconsin.
And that is the rub, again. I am perfectly aware, after a lifetime of oppositional politics of one sort or another, that it is one thing to call for an action and another to have it heeded by some mass organization that can do something about it, or even have it taken for more than its propaganda value. And it is the somewhat fantastic quality of the proposition to many trade unionists that I have been running up against in my own efforts to present this demand. Now, as I have noted previously, in France this kind of strike is something of an art form, and other European working classes are catching on to the idea. Moreover, in the old days the anarchists, when they had some authority in the working class in places like Spain,thought nothing of calling such strikes. And some Marxists, like the martyred Rosa Luxemburg, saw the political general strike as the central strategic piece in the working class taking state power. However the low level of political consciousness here, or lack of it, or even of solid trade union consciousness, is what the substance of this note is about.
Although the Wisconsin public workers unions have galvanized segments of the American labor movement, particularly the organized sector (those who see what is coming down the road for them-or who have already been the subject of such victimizations in the roller coaster process of the de-industrialization of America) the hard fact is that it has been a very, very long time since this labor movement has seen a general strike. You have to go back to the 1930s and the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934, or to the San Francisco General Strike of that same year to even been able to provide an example to illustrate how it could take place in this country. That, my friends, is over seventy-five years ago, a long time in anybody’s political book and, more importantly, a couple of generations removed from the actual experience. Hell, it has been as far back as the period immediately after World War II since we have seen massive nation-wide industrial strikes. The closest situation that I can think of that would be widely remembered today, and that was also somewhat successful and well supported, was the UPS strike in the 1990s. All of this points to one conclusion, our class struggle skills are now rather rusty, and it shows.
How? Well, first look at the propaganda of various leftist and socialist groups. They, correctly, call for solidarity, for defense rallies and for more marches in support of the Wisconsin struggle. But I have seen relevantly little open advocacy for a one day general strike. That is damning. But here is the real kicker, the one that should give us all pause. The most recent Wisconsin support rally in Boston was attended by many trade union militants, many known (known to me from struggles over the years) leftist activists, and surprisingly, a significant segment of older, not currently active political ex-militants who either came out for old times sake, or understood that this is a do or die struggle and they wanted to help show their support. In short, a perfect audience before which a speaker could expect to get a favorable response on a call for a political general strike. And that call that day, was made not by me, and not by other socialists or communists, but by a militant from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a well-known union with plenty of militants in it. The response: a few claps in a crowd of over two thousand.
Time has been, is, and will be our enemy here as we struggle to win these pubic workers union fights. Why? Our sense of leftist legitimacy, our class struggle sense has so atrophied over the past several decades that people, political people, trade union political people and even leftist political people have lost their capacity to struggle to win. Still, the objective situation in Wisconsin, hell, in Boston and Columbus, requires that we continue to fight around a class struggle axis. And central to that fight- Fight for a one day general strike in support of the Wisconsin public workers unions!
Over the past few week as the events concerning the fate of collective bargaining rights, the core of any union’s reason for existence, of Wisconsin’s public workers unions have unfolded I had joined the voices of those who have argued that passage of the ant-iunion legislation by the Republican Senate majority should trigger the call for a one day general strike of all Wisconsin as the start of a push back. Well that day has arrived and every pro-labor militant from Madison to Cairo (Illinois or Egypt, it matters not) should be joining their voices in that call, and agitating in their unions and other organization to carry it out. The lines could not be more clearly drawn, the survival of the Wisconsin public workers unions are at stake, the survival of all public workers unions are now at stake, and the survival of unionism in the United States as well. This is only the start of the right-wing onslaught. Let Wisconsin’s labor response make it the end. Fight for a one day general strike now!
******
Friday, March 04, 2011
On The Question Of General Strikes In Defense Of The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions- Don't Mourn, Organize- A Short Note
Click on the headline to link to a James P.Cannon Internet Archive online article about the lessons of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934 mentioned in the post below.
Markin comment:
Recently, in the wake of the front-line struggle of the Wisconsin public workers unions (now heightened by the latest news that the Ohio Senate has also voted to curb collective bargaining rights in that state), I, along with others, have been agitating for a one day general strike by organized labor, unorganized, but desperately in need of being organized, workers, and other allies, in support of those efforts. I have also placed the propaganda of others, individuals and organizations, who are advocating this same general position in this space, and will continue to do so as I see it come up as I scan the leftist universe. Before I go on, just to make things clear on this issue, I would draw the reader’s attention to the distinction between propagandizing, the general task for communist organizers in this period pushing issues on behalf our communist future, and agitation which requires/requests some immediate action. The events in the public sector labor movement over the past several weeks, as they have rapidly unfolded, call for immediate action whether we can cause any motion on the issue or not.
That said, I would also note that I have framed my call to action in terms of posing the question of a general strike, the objective need for such action. That proposition is the axis of intervention for leftist and trade union militants today. And that is the rub. Of course, right this minute (and as the Ohio situation foretells maybe only this minute), any such one day general strike would, of necessity, have to be centered in Wisconsin, and the tactical choices would have to be made on the ground there ( how to make the strike effective, what unions to call in, what places to shut down, etc.). My original posting did not make a distinction on location(s)though, and I make none now, about whether such a strike would be localized or not. Certainly, given the centrally of the collective bargaining principle to the lifeblood of any union, and the drumbeat of other states like Ohio, it can hardly be precluded that it could not be a wider strike than just in Wisconsin.
And that is the rub, again. I am perfectly aware, after a lifetime of oppositional politics of one sort or another, that it is one thing to call for an action and another to have it heeded by some mass organization that can do something about it, or even have it taken for more than its propaganda value. And it is the somewhat fantastic quality of the proposition to many trade unionists that I have been running up against in my own efforts to present this demand. Now, as I have noted previously, in France this kind of strike is something of an art form, and other European working classes are catching on to the idea. Moreover, in the old days the anarchists, when they had some authority in the working class in places like Spain,thought nothing of calling such strikes. And some Marxists, like the martyred Rosa Luxemburg, saw the political general strike as the central strategic piece in the working class taking state power. However the low level of political consciousness here, or lack of it, or even of solid trade union consciousness, is what the substance of this note is about.
Although the Wisconsin public workers unions have galvanized segments of the American labor movement, particularly the organized sector (those who see what is coming down the road for them-or who have already been the subject of such victimizations in the roller coaster process of the de-industrialization of America) the hard fact is that it has been a very, very long time since this labor movement has seen a general strike. You have to go back to the 1930s and the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934, or to the San Francisco General Strike of that same year to even been able to provide an example to illustrate how it could take place in this country. That, my friends, is over seventy-five years ago, a long time in anybody’s political book and, more importantly, a couple of generations removed from the actual experience. Hell, it has been as far back as the period immediately after World War II since we have seen massive nation-wide industrial strikes. The closest situation that I can think of that would be widely remembered today, and that was also somewhat successful and well supported, was the UPS strike in the 1990s. All of this points to one conclusion, our class struggle skills are now rather rusty, and it shows.
How? Well, first look at the propaganda of various leftist and socialist groups. They, correctly, call for solidarity, for defense rallies and for more marches in support of the Wisconsin struggle. But I have seen relevantly little open advocacy for a one day general strike. That is damning. But here is the real kicker, the one that should give us all pause. The most recent Wisconsin support rally in Boston was attended by many trade union militants, many known (known to me from struggles over the years) leftist activists, and surprisingly, a significant segment of older, not currently active political ex-militants who either came out for old times sake, or understood that this is a do or die struggle and they wanted to help show their support. In short, a perfect audience before which a speaker could expect to get a favorable response on a call for a political general strike. And that call that day, was made not by me, and not by other socialists or communists, but by a militant from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a well-known union with plenty of militants in it. The response: a few claps in a crowd of over two thousand.
Time has been, is, and will be our enemy here as we struggle to win these pubic workers union fights. Why? Our sense of leftist legitimacy, our class struggle sense has so atrophied over the past several decades that people, political people, trade union political people and even leftist political people have lost their capacity to struggle to win. Still, the objective situation in Wisconsin, hell, in Boston and Columbus, requires that we continue to fight around a class struggle axis. And central to that fight- Fight for a one day general strike in support of the Wisconsin public workers unions!
Out Of The Be-Bop Film Noir Night- The Crime Noir “The Kiss of Death”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir classic, Kiss of Death.
DVD Review
Kiss of Death, Victor Mature, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark, directed by Henry Hathaway, 20th Century Fox, 1947
Sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because, in addition to those attributes mentioned above, they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Kiss of Death, is under that latter category.
But hold on though. Although the plot line is thin, mainly about a middle level career con gone wrong once again who, to save his kids from a fatherless and motherless future (mother having committed suicide), decides to play ball with the law. Thus, chump Nick Bianco (played pretty well by Victor Mature, given what he had to work with) turned stoolie, rat, fink, turncoat and the other ten thousand names for such a wrong gee and the rest of the plot hangs on that idea. Say idea being that it is not good business (and for all I know, maybe, unethical, unethical in the criminal code of conduct, although my own very small youthful experience is that it is "every man for himself") to turn stoolie, especially if the price of “freedom” is to tangle, tango, or whatever with one Tommy Udo. No way, no how, not for anything.
And that is what saves this thing as a crime noir classic, the performance of Richard Widmark as psycho-killer for hire Tommy Udo. Everything about him from minute one says wrong gee, don’t mess. Although, needless to say, Nick will mess (Tommy has threatened his kids and his new honey after all). Yes, although I was only a babe then I will give a retroactive vote to Richard Widmark for that 1947 Oscar he won for best supporting actor. There have been a lot of scary psycho-killers that have come down the pike since then but I would not, and would not advise others, to tangle with this guy. And you would too. Kudos.
DVD Review
Kiss of Death, Victor Mature, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark, directed by Henry Hathaway, 20th Century Fox, 1947
Sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because, in addition to those attributes mentioned above, they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Kiss of Death, is under that latter category.
But hold on though. Although the plot line is thin, mainly about a middle level career con gone wrong once again who, to save his kids from a fatherless and motherless future (mother having committed suicide), decides to play ball with the law. Thus, chump Nick Bianco (played pretty well by Victor Mature, given what he had to work with) turned stoolie, rat, fink, turncoat and the other ten thousand names for such a wrong gee and the rest of the plot hangs on that idea. Say idea being that it is not good business (and for all I know, maybe, unethical, unethical in the criminal code of conduct, although my own very small youthful experience is that it is "every man for himself") to turn stoolie, especially if the price of “freedom” is to tangle, tango, or whatever with one Tommy Udo. No way, no how, not for anything.
And that is what saves this thing as a crime noir classic, the performance of Richard Widmark as psycho-killer for hire Tommy Udo. Everything about him from minute one says wrong gee, don’t mess. Although, needless to say, Nick will mess (Tommy has threatened his kids and his new honey after all). Yes, although I was only a babe then I will give a retroactive vote to Richard Widmark for that 1947 Oscar he won for best supporting actor. There have been a lot of scary psycho-killers that have come down the pike since then but I would not, and would not advise others, to tangle with this guy. And you would too. Kudos.
From The Archives Of The Spartacist League (U.S.)- "Lenin And The Vanguard Party"-Part One- "Kautskyism & the Origins of Russian Social Democracy"
Lenin And The Vanguard Party
Markin comment on this series of articles:
Oddly enough, when I first became serious about making a revolution in the early 1970s, a socialist working class-led revolution, in the eternal quest for a more just and equitable society, there were plenty (no enough, there are never enough, but plenty) of kindred spirits who were also finding out that it was not enough to “pray” such a revolution into existence but that one had to build a party, a vanguard party in order to do so. The name "Lenin," the designation "Bolshevik," and the term "world socialist revolution" flowed easily from the tongue in the circles that I began to hang around in. As I write this general introduction, right this minute in 2011, to an important series of historical articles about the actual creation, in real time, of a Leninist vanguard working class party (and International, as well) there are few kindred, fewer still in America, maybe, fewest still, and this is not good, among the youth, to carry the message forward. Nevertheless, whatever future form the next stage in the struggle for the socialist revolution takes the question of the party, the vanguard party really, will still press upon the heads of those who wish to make it.
Although today there is no mass Bolshevik-style vanguard party (or International)-anywhere-there are groups, grouplets, leagues, tendencies, and ad hoc committees that have cadre from which the nucleus for such a formation could be formed-if we can keep it. And part of the process of being able to “keep it” is to understand what Lenin was trying to do back in the early 1900s (yes, 1900s) in Russia that is applicable today. Quite a bit, actually, as it turns out. And for all those think that the Leninist process, and as the writer of these articles is at pains to point it was an unfolding process, was simple and the cadre that had to be worked with was as pure as the driven snow I would suggest this thought. No less an august revolutionary figure that Leon Trotsky, once he got “religion” on the Bolshevik organizational question (in many ways the question of the success of the revolution), did not, try might and main, have success in forming such a mass organization. We can fight out the details from that perspective learning from the successes and failures, and fight to get many more kindred.
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Markin comment on this article:
The key point to be taken from this article is that the vanguard party idea, while embedded in all that Bolshevism stood for from the start in the disputes of the Russian Social Democracy, only had its parameters defined over time, and in the process of the class struggle first in Russia (in both 1905 and 1917) and later, after the formation of the Communist International in 1919, internationally. Additionally, as the recent events in the Middle East point out, once again, without a vanguard party, against a vanguard party, over the head of a vanguard party (meaning some anarchist “free for all” notion of revolution) the working masses and their allies cannot take power and institute the necessary socialist reconstruction of society. There are no short-cuts if you are serious about revolutionary change. If not, then you do not need a vanguard party, no question. But what do you have, as the Middle east situation again points out, after all those struggles?
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From-Lenin and The Vanguard Party-Preface To The Second Edition And Part One
Preface to the Second Edition
Lenin and the Vanguard Party, first issued as a Spartacist pamphlet in 1978, comprises articles by SL/U.S. Central Committee member Joseph Seymour originally published in 1977 and 1978 as a series in Workers Vanguard, newspaper of the Spartacist League/U.S. The articles take up Lenin's fight to forge a revolutionary leadership, an internationalist vanguard party, to lead the proletariat to the conquest of state power through socialist revolution. The pamphlet also includes, under the title "In Defense of Democratic Centralism," excerpts from a speech by SL/U.S. national chairman James Robertson given to a national conference of the West German group, Spartacus (Bolschewiki-Leninisten), in February 1973.
In this second, slightly edited edition of Lenin and the Vanguard Party we have added the transcript of a presentation by SL/U.S. Central Committee member Al Nelson to a Spartacus Youth Club gathering in the San Francisco Bay Area which appeared originally in Workers Vanguard No. 634, 1 December 1995. Titled "The Fight for a Leninist Vanguard Party," this presentation provides an overall historical and political summation of the crucial importance of the "party question."
A number of the organizations which nominally claimed the heritage of Leninism and whose positions are polemi-cized against in comrade Seymour's series, no longer exist as such. The British International Marxist Group (IMG), an affiliate of the "United Secretariat of the Fourth International" (USec) and in the 1970s one of the largest groups on the British left, has long since ceased to exist. Under the impact of the imperialist anti-Soviet Cold War II of the 1980s, the IMG liquidated into the pro-imperialist Labour Party. The shattered remnants regrouped into a number of much smaller organizations, including Socialist Outlook which claims affiliation to the USec.
The hallmark of the USec has long been its liquidation of the need for a revolutionary party and its corresponding pur¬suit of social forces other than the proletariat and vehicles other than a Leninist vanguard party to further the cause of human emancipation. Having spent the 1980s tailing after the social democrats and championing the cause of capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet Union and East Europe, today the USec is in a state of near-terminal disintegration. With the destruction of the bureaucratically deformed workers states in East Europe and the Soviet Union and the triumphalism of the world's bourgeois rulers over the "death of communism," the USec, together with much of the rest of the left, has repudiated even the pretense of Leninism as it seeks "regroupment" with social democrats, ex-Stalinists, Greens, other so-called "progressives" and even openly cap¬italist forces, within larger reformist organizations.
In the 1970s, Gerry Healy's International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) postured as the defender of Trotskyist orthodoxy against the USec. Healy's organization imploded in 1985 amidst a welter of exposes of its bought-and-paid-for services on behalf of a number of oil-rich Arab regimes in the Middle East (see Spartacist No. 36-37, Winter 1985-86). The criminal political machinations of the Healy-ites—which grotesquely included cheering the 1979 murder of members of the Iraqi Communist Party by the strongman regime of Saddam Hussein—were matched internally by a brutal bureaucratic regime. The Healyites practiced gangsterism, cop-baiting and a deranged interpretation of "dialectics." The purpose of these techniques was to ensure the membership's cowed acceptance of whatever line the leader¬ship divined in the pursuit of its own opportunist advantage.
It was a biographical rendition of Lenin as a Menshevik, written by British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) head Tony Cliff, which impelled us to write the Lenin and the Van¬guard Party series. Today, the SWP continues to peddle its reformist wares as a so-called "socialist alternative." The origins of the SWP lie in Cliff's rejection of the Trotskyist program of unconditional military defense of the gains of the October Revolution—which continued to be represented in the proletarian property forms of the Soviet Union, how¬ever bureaucratically deformed, and of the deformed workers states of East Europe, China, North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam—at the time of the Korean War. Born of capitulation to the anti-communism of the imperialist rulers, the politics of the SWP and its international satellites continue to be defined by an accommodation to the rule of capital whose "excesses" they seek merely to alleviate. Thus the Cliffites are a modern-day expression of the Kautskyite/ Menshevik rejection of the struggle for a Leninist vanguard party.
Today, in the aftermath of the final betrayal of the gains of the 1917 Russian Revolution by the Stalinist misrulers who opened the gates for the destruction of the former Soviet Union by the forces of world imperialism, the idea that the key to the liberation of mankind lies through a proletarian socialist revolution like that successfully pursued by Lenin's Bolshevik Party seems rather esoteric even to sub¬jective leftists. This is due in no small measure to the crimes of the Stalinists, who made a mockery of the ideals of revolutionary Marxism and the instrument for achieving their realization, a Leninist vanguard party.
We of the International Communist League fight for new October Revolutions. In reissuing Lenin and the Vanguard Party we intend to arm those who seek to oppose this system, which is based on the exploitation and oppression of the many by the few, with the program desperately needed to eradicate it. Serving as the memory of the working class, imbuing the proletariat and the new generations of youth with the historic lessons of those who fought before them, is a vital purpose of the vanguard party, necessary to lead the working class to new victories.
—5 August 1997
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Kautskyism & the Origins of Russian Social Democracy
Recently the British International Marxist Group (IMG) and the International Socialists (now Socialist Workers Party—SWP/IS), two of the largest groups of the British "far left," have taken to revising the history of the Bolsheviks. These groups have attempted to deny or obfuscate the principle of a democratic-centralist vanguard party by pointing to those elements of classic Social Democracy retained by the pre-1914 Bolsheviks as well as to Lenin's tactical maneuvers against the Mensheviks.
The IMG, British section of the pseudo-Trotskyist United Secretariat, has performed the remarkable feat of making Lenin out to be a unity-above-all conciliator on the grounds that until 1912 the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were formally factions within a unitary Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDRP). The aim of this particular revisionism is to justify a grand unity maneuver for the British left. Their line is that "the political differences which Lenin and Trotsky considered could be contained within a united organization were vastly greater than those which divide the revolutionary left in Britain today" (Red Weekly, 11 November 1976). For an extended treatment of the IMG's revisionism and its shabby tactical purpose, see "IMG Turns Lenin into a Menshevik," Workers Vanguard No. 164, 1 July 1977.
The most ambitious rewriting of Bolshevik history is that of Tony Cliff, longtime leader of the workerist-reformist SUT/IS. The Cliff tendency today sports a "left" veneer" sometimes they even parade around with portraits of Lenin anc Trotsky. But this group had its 4th of August long ago, in 1950, under the pressure of intensely anti-Communist public opinion, it refused to defend North Korea ---' U.S. imperialism and broke with the Trotskyist movement over this question. And yet this utterly shameless CIA "socialist" now presumes to lecture on what Lenin reallly meant to say in What Is To Be Done?
In the past, Cliff has been a prominent, explicitly anti-Leninist purveyor of Menshevism. His 1959 pamphlet, Rosa Luxemburg states: "For Marxists in the advanced industrial countries Lenin's original position can much less serve as a guide than Rosa Luxemburg's." This bald statement was the second (1968) edition, but Cliff's substantive position remained the same.
However the Cliffites are nothing if not trendy. And in contrast to the 1950s and '60s, "hard" Bolshevism is now "in" among young leftists. So recently Cliff has written a seemingly sympathetic biography of Lenin, of which two of three projected volumes have appeared. Here Cliff presents Lenin in his own image as a nationally limited, workerist eclectic. Cliff's central message is that there are no Leninist principles or even norms on the organization question:
"Lenin's attitude to organisational forms was always historically concrete, hence its strength. He was never taken in by abstract, dogmatic schemes of organisation, but always ready to change the organisational structure of the party to reflect the development of the class struggle.
"Organisation is subordinate to politics. This does not mean that it has no independent influence on politics. But it is, and must be, subordinated to the concrete policies of the day. The truth is always concrete, as Lenin reiterated again and again. And this also applies to the organisational forms needed to undertake the concrete tasks." [emphasis in original]
In other words, whatever works at the time, do it.
Genuine Leninists recognize the primacy of the principles embodied in the first four congresses of the Communist International over pre-1914 Bolshevik practice. Furthermore, Trotsky in building the Fourth International systematized and deepened Leninist concepts developed in rudimentary form during the revolutionary turmoil of 1917-23. To deny the evolution of Bolshevism from 1903 to 1917 is to obliterate the principled opposition of Leninism to Kautskyism. To appeal to pre-1914 Bolshevik practice against the democratic centralism of Trotsky's Fourth International is equivalent to citing Lenin's "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry" against Trotsky's "permanent revolution."
The Kautskyan Party of the Whole Class
The first volume of Cliff's biography, subtitled "Building the Party," ends in 1914. This work mentions Kautsky exactly twice and the Second International not at all! Such an incredible omission warrants dismissing Cliff's book out of hand as a serious study of Lenin's position on the party question.
From August Bebel's offer in 1905 to mediate the Bolshevik-Menshevik split to the "unity conference" arranged by the International Socialist Bureau on the eve of World War I, the International leadership played a significant role in the internal life of the RSDRP. The pro-unity elements in particular, above all Luxemburg and Trotsky, sought to achieve through the German-centered International what they could not attain within the Russian movement.
Lenin was a revolutionary social democrat and, as Cliff himself notes in his second volume, Kautsky "had been the only living socialist leader whom Lenin revered." (This is actually an overstatement: in 1905 when Kautsky supported the Mensheviks, Lenin was harshly critical of him.) An understanding of Lenin's position on the party question must therefore begin with the orthodox Kautskyan position; this was the doctrine of the "party of the whole class," or "one class—one party." Kautsky's "party of the whole class" did not mean the recruitment of the entire proletarian population to the party. He recognized that the political activists within the working class would be an elite minority. No social democrat denied that membership standards involved some level of socialist consciousness, activism and discipline. What the Kautskyan doctrine did mean was that all tendencies regard¬ing themselves as socialist should be in a unitary party. Kautsky maintained that revolutionary social democrats could unite and even have comradely collaboration with non-Marxist reformists. Thus the leadership of the German Social Democracy (SPD) at various times collaborated closely with the avowedly reformist, eclectic French socialist, Jean Jaures.
The SPD leadership was immensely proud of their party's disciplined unity, which they regarded as the main source of its strength. Bebel/Kautsky played a decisive role in the 1905 reunification of the French socialists, overcoming the split between the Marxist Parti Socialiste de France led by Jules Guesde and the reformist Parti Socialiste Francais of Jaures. During the campaign to reunite the French, the Interna¬tional adopted the doctrine of "one class—one party" in resolution form at its 1904 Amsterdam Congress:
"In order that the working class may put forth all its strength in the struggle against capitalism it is necessary that in every country there exist vis a vis the bourgeois parties, only one socialist party, as there exists only one proletariat. Therefore, it is the imperative duty of all comrades and socialist organiza¬tions to make every effort to bring about this unity on the basis of the principles established by the international congresses, a unity necessary in the interests of the proletariat before which they are responsible for all fatal consequences of a continued breach." [emphasis in original]
—reproduced in Olga Hess Gankin and H.H. Fisher, eds., The Bolsheviks and the World War (1940)
Before World War I, Lenin never challenged the above principle and on occasion affirmed it. When in 1909 the Bol¬sheviks expelled the ultraleft Otzovists (the "Ultimatists") from their ranks, Lenin justified this by contrasting the exclusiveness of a faction to the inclusiveness of a social-democratic party:
"In our Party Bolshevism is represented by the Bolshevik section. But a section is not a party. A party can contain a whole gamut of opinions and shades of opinion, the extremes of which may be sharply contradictory. In the German party, side by side with the pronouncedly revolutionary wing of Kautsky, we see the ultra-revisionist wing of Bernstein." [emphasis in original]
—"Report on the Conference of the Extended Editorial
Board of Proletary" (July 1909)
In practice in Russia, Lenin strove to create a disciplined, programmatically homogeneous revolutionary vanguard. Until World War I, however, he did not break in principle with the Kautskyan doctrine of "the party of the whole class." The resolution of that dialectical contradiction was one of the important elements creating Leninism as a world-historic doctrine, as the Marxism of our epoch.
Kautsky's Analysis of Opportunism
The Kautskyan doctrine of the inclusive party was predicated on a particular historico-sociological theory oppor tunism. Opportunist tendencies, it was argued, were a survival of petty-bourgeois democracy carried mainly by the intelli¬gentsia and conditioned by the economic and ideological backwardness or immaturity of the working masses. The growth of the proletariat and of its organization would eventually strengthen revolutionary social democracy. Thus, Kautsky could tolerate a current like Jauresism as a kind of inevitable transition from radical democracy to revolutionary Marxism.
Kautsky's identification of opportunism with pre-Marxist tendencies delved from the history of the European left in the decades following the revolutions of 1848. The principal tendencies opposed to Marxism (e.g., Proudhonism, Lassalleanism, Bakuninism) all expressed the desire of the artisan class to prevent its descent into the industrial proletariat. Marx and Engels understood that artisan Utopian socialism could not be defeated simply through propaganda and agitation but required the actual development of capitalist society. It was recognized in the Second International that Marxism superseded such primitivist tendencies as Lassalleanism in Germany and Proudhonism in France primarily through the transformation of the urban artisan classes into a modern proletariat. The process by which Marxism overcame Lassalleanism, Proudhonism, Bakuninism, etc. became for Kautsky a paradigm of the strug¬gle against opportunism in general.
The view of reformism as a historic lag or regression accounts for Kautsky's limited aims in the "revisionist" con¬troversy with Bernstein. He drew a sharp line between naive, pre-Marxian reformists, like Jaures, and the conscious revisers of Marxism. In a letter of 23 May 1902 to Victor Adler, Kautsky defended the Belgian Socialist leadership from the charge of revisionism on the grounds that they were never Marxists to begin with, nor did they pretend to be:
"I maintain an entirely unprejudiced attitude towards them; the talk about their revisionism leaves me cold. They have nothing to revise, for they have no theory. The eclectic vulgar socialism to which the revisionists would like to reduce Marxism is something beyond which they [the Belgian Socialists] have not even begun to advance. Proudhon, Schaffle, Marx—it is all one to them, it was always like that, they have not retrogressed in theory, and I have nothing to reproach them with." —quoted in George Lichtheim, Marxism (1961)
Kautsky's aim in the "revisionist" controversy was not to purge the Second International of reformist tendencies or even practices, but to preserve the doctrinal integrity of the Marxist camp. If this were achieved, believed Kautsky, the development of the class struggle would eventually ensure the triumph of revolutionary social democracy.
Kautsky located the weakness of revolutionary social democracy in the backwardness of the proletariat, which reflected either a continued identification with the petty bourgeoisie or a lack of confidence in the strength of the workers movement:
"To a large degree hatched out of the small capitalist and small farmer class, many proletarians long carry the shells of these classes about with them. They do not feel themselves proletar¬ians, but as would-be property owners.... Others, again, have gone further, and have come to recognize the necessity of fighting the capitalists that stand in antagonism to them, but do not feel themselves secure enough and strong enough to For Kautsky, the growth of the proletariat, of the trade unions, etc. strengthened the objectively revolutionary forces in society. What was required of Social Democracy was a patient, pedagogical attitude toward backward workers, although Kautsky also recognized that class consciousness could leap ahead during a revolutionary crisis.
With the partial exception of Luxemburg, no pre-war social democrat located the main source of reformism in the conservatism of the socially privileged bureaucracy created by the growth and strength of the labor movement, of the social-democratic parties and their trade-union affiliates.
Lenin's Sociological Analysis of Menshevism
Lenin, following Kautsky's methodology, regarded Menshevism as an extension of 19th-century petty-bourgeois radicalism into the workers movement. Because he considered the Mensheviks an "intellectualist" tendency, in a sense standing outside of the workers movement, he could split from them without positing the.existence of two competing social-democratic parties, the one revolutionary, the other reformist. Lenin was convinced that the growth of social democratic organization among the Russian proletariat would ensure the triumph of Bolshevism.
Lenin regarded the 1903 Martovite grouping as an expression and the attitudes and values of the old, freewheeling, individualistic revolutionary intelligentsia, as a rebellion of the circle spirit against against the construction of a real workers party:
Nonetheless, we regard the Party's sickness as a matter of growing pains.
We consider that the underlying cause of the crisis the transition from the circle form to party forms of the life of the Social Deemocracy; the essence of its internal struggle is a conflict between the circle spirit and the party spirit. And, consequently, only by shaking off this sickness can our Party become a real party....
Lastly, the opposition cadres have in general been drawn chiefly form those elements of our Party which consist primarily of intellectulas. The intelligentsia is always more individualistic than the proletariat, owing to its very conditions of life and work which do not directly involve a large-scale combination of efforts, which do not directly educate it through organised collective labor. The intellectual elements therefore find it harder to adapt themselves to the discipline of Party life, and those of them who ar enot equal to it naturally raise the standard
organisational limitations."
-"To The Party" (August 1904)
Lenin likewise analyzed Menshevik Liquidationism during the 1908-12 period (opposition to the underground party) in terms of intellectuals versus the proletariat:
"The first to flee from the underground were the bourgeois intellectuals who succumbed to the counter-revolutionary mood, those'fellow-travellers' of the Social-Democratic working-class movement who, like those in Europe, had been attracted by the liberating role played by the proletariat...in the bourgeois revolution. It is a well-known fact that a mass of Marxists left the underground after 1905 and found places for themselves in all sorts of legal cozy corners for intellectuals."
—"How Vera Zasulich Demolishes Liquidationism" (September 1913)
Lenin's sociological analysis of Menshevism was valid as far as it went. The Martovite grouping in 1903 did represent in part the habits of the old revolutionary intelligentsia; one thinks of Vera Zasulich in this regard. Menshevik Liquida¬tionism did represent in part the fleeing of intellectuals from the RSDRP toward bourgeois respectability during a period of reaction. But Menshevism was not primarily a tendency external to the labor movement. The Russian Mensheviks antici¬pated the labor reformism of the Second International as a whole, including particularly its mass parties. It was only dur¬ing World War I, in the studies which led to Imperialism, that Lenin located the source of social-democratic opportunism within the workers movement—in a labor bureaucracy resting on the upper stratum of the working class.
Iskraism
Organized Russian Marxism originated in 1883 when Plekhanov broke from the dominant populist current to form the tiny exile Emancipation of Labor group. During the late 1880s-early '90s, Marxism in Russia consisted of localized propaganda circles designed to educate a thin layer of advanced workers. In the mid-1890s, the Marxist propaganda circles turned toward mass agitation intersecting a major strike wave. This turn was in part inspired by the Jewish Bund. Ethnic solidarity enabled the Jewish Marxist intelli¬gentsia to reach and organize Jewish workers in advance of Russian Social Democracy as a whole.
In part because of the imprisonment of the more experienced Marxist leaders (e.g., Lenin, Martov), the turn towatd mass agitation rapidly degenerated into reformism. This tendency, dubbed Economism by a hostile Plekhanov, limited its agitation to elementary trade-union demands, while passively supporting the bourgeois liberal efforts to reform tsarist absolutism. In terms of international Social Democracy, the Economists were hostile to orthodox Marxism and consequently were loosely associated with Bernsteinism in Germany and possibilisme in France. In the later 1890s, Economism was the dominant tendency among Russian social democrats.
In 1900, the second generation of Russian Marxists (Lenin, Martov) coalesced with the founding fathers (Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich) to return Russian Social Democracy to its revolutionary traditions as embodied in the original Emancipation of Labor program. The revolutionary Marxist tendency was organized around the paper Iskra. Lenin was the organizer of the Iskra group. He ran the agents in Russia whose task was to win over the local social-democratic committees or if necessary split them. Iskra provided, for the first time, an organizing center for a Russian social-democratic party.
In polemicizing against Lenin's successful splitting tactics, the Economists pointed out that the German center did not seek to exclude the Bernsteinians. Lenin did not and in a sense could not argue for the exclusion of opportunists from the social-democratic party as a principle. Rather he justified his splitting tactics by a series of arguments based on the particularities of the Russian party situation. Right up to World War I, Lenin would appeal to one or another aspect of Russian particularism to justify constructing a programmatically homogeneous, revolutionary vanguard.
What were Lenin's arguments for building the RSDRP without and against the Economists? The German party had strong revolutionary traditions and an authoritative leadership. The Russian party was embryonic and could easily fall prey to opportunism. The German leadership, Bebel/Kautsky, were revolutionary while the Bernsteinians were a small minority; in contrast, the Economists were temporarily the dominant trend in Russian Social Democracy. The German "revisionists" accepted party discipline, the Russian Economists were incapable of accepting party discipline. And in any case, the RSDRP did not exist as a centralized organization. These arguments are presented in What Is To Be Done? (1902):
"The important thing to note is that the opportunist attitude towards revolutionary Social-Democrats in Russia is the very opposite of that in Germany. In Germany...revolutionary Social-Democrats are in favor of preserving what is: they stand in favor of the old program and tactics which are universally known.... The 'critics' desire to introduce changes, and as these critics represent an insignificant minority, and as they are very shy and halting in their revisionist efforts, one can under¬stand the motives of the majority in confining themselves to the dry rejection of 'innovation.' In Russia, however, it is the critics and Economists who are in favor of what is; the 'critics' wish us to continue to regard them as Marxists, and to guarantee them the 'freedom of criticism' which they enjoyed to the full (for, as a matter of fact, they never recognized any kind of Party ties, and, moreover, we never had a generally recognized Party organ which could 'restrict' freedom of criti¬cism even by giving advice)." [emphasis in original]
As is generally recognized, Lenin's 1902 What Is To Be Done? was the authoritative statement of Iskraism. Despite his supposed sympathy toward Lenin, Cliff is much too much a workerist and Menshevik to accept What Is To Be Done? In fact, a central purpose of his biography is to argue that the 1902 polemic is an exaggerated, one-sided statement which in substance Lenin subsequently repudiated.
First Cliff vulgarizes Lenin's position and then polemi-cizes against his own straw-man creation:
"In general the dichotomy between economic and political struggle is foreign to Marx. An economic demand, if it is sectional, is defined as 'economic' in Marx's terms. But if the same demand is made of the state it is 'political'.... In many cases economic (sectional) struggles do not give rise to political (class-wide) struggles, but there is no Chinese wall between the two, and many economic struggles do spill over into political ones." [emphasis in original]
Lenin did not attack the Economists for being indifferent to governmental policy. The Russian Economists agitated for state-initiated economic reforms and supported democratic rights, particularly the right to organize. In this purpose they passively supported the liberals. In What Is To Be Done? Lenin attacks the Economists' political program as encapsulated in the slogan "giving the economic struggle itself a political character":
"Giving 'the economic struggle itself a political character' means, therefore, striving to secure satisfaction for these trade demands, the improvement of conditions of labor in each separate trade by means of 'legislative and administrative measures'.... This is exactly what the trade unions do and have always done....
"Thus, the pompous phrase 'giving the economic struggle itself a political character' which sounds so 'terrifically' profound and revolutionary, serves as a screen to conceal what is in fact the traditional striving to degrade Social-Democratic politics to the level of trade union politics!" [emphasis in original]
For Lenin political class consciousness, or socialist consciousness, was the recognition by the proletariat of the need to become the ruling class and reconstruct society on socialist foundations. Anything less was trade-union consciousness.
Like all other current workerists and social democrats, Cliff must attack Lenin's famous statement that socialist consciousness is brought to the workers from without by revolutionary intellectuals, that political class consciousness does not arise simply through the proletariat's struggles to improve its conditions. Here are Cliff's fatuous remarks on this question:
"There is no doubt that this formulation overemphasized the difference between spontaneity and consciousness. For in fact the complete separation of spontaneity from consciousness is mechanical and non-dialectical. Lenin, as we shall see later, admitted this. Pure spontaneity does not exist in life.... "The logic of the mechanical juxtaposition of spontaneity and consciousness was the complete separation of the patty from the actual elements of working-class leadership that had already risen in the struggle. It assumed that the party had answers to all the questions that spontaneous struggle might bring forth. The blindness of the embattled many is the obverse of the omniscience of the few." [emphasis in original]
It is important to quote Lenin's statement in full to under¬stand what it means and does not mean:
"We said that there could not yet be Social-Democratic con¬sciousness among the workers. This consciousness could only be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., it may itself realize the necessity of combining in unions, for fighting against the employers and for striving to compel the govern¬ment to pass necessary labor legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals. Accord¬ing to their social status, the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bour¬geois intelligentsia. Similarly in Russia, the theoretical doc¬trine of Social-Democracy arose quite independently of the spontaneous growth of the labor movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of ideas among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia." [emphasis in original]
—What Is To Be Done?
This is not a programmatic statement, but rather a historical analysis with implications for the organizational question. The socialist movement predated the development of mass economic organizations of the industrial proletariat. The socialist movement arose out of the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary currents (the Babouvist tradition represented by Blanquism in France and the League of the Just in Germany). Except for Britain, the earliest trade unions arose through the transformation of the old mercantilist artisan guild system.
For example, in the German revolution of 1848 Stephan Bora's mass trade-union movement, the Workers Brotherhood, was largely based on the traditional guild structure. The leaders of the embryonic trade unions were generally the traditional authority figures of the plebeian community. Methodist ministers, like the Tory radical J.R. Stephens, played a significant leadership role in the early 19th-century British workers movement. Catholic priests played a similar role in the first French trade unions, for example among the rebellious silk workers of Lyons. In most countries the emergence of a socialist labor movement resulted from the political victory of the revolutionary intelligentsia over the traditionalist leaders of the early workers organizations. When Lenin wrote What Is To Be Done? the mass economic organizations of the Russian working class were the police-led unions (Zubatovite) whose most prominent leader was the priest Gapon.
Lenin was a dialectician who understood that the consciousness and leadership of the working class underwent qualitative changes historically. With the important exception of the U.S., trade-union economism (associated with bourgeois liberal illusions and religious obscurantism) is no longer the dominant ideology of the world's proletariat. In the advanced capitalist countries, it is socialist reformism, carried through the social-democratic and Stalinist labor bureaucracies, which binds the working class to the bourgeois order. In backward countries, populist nationalism with a socialist coloration (e.g., Peronism, Nasserism) is the characteristic form of bourgeois ideological dominance over the working masses.
In the Russia of 1902, a small, homogeneous Marxist vanguard, composed of declassed intellectuals with a thin layer of advanced workers, was able to break the mass of the workers from police trade unionism and the Orthodox church. Today it requires an international Trotskyist vanguard, necessarily composed in its first stages of declassed intellectuals with relatively few advanced workers, to break the world's working classes from the domination of social-democratic and Stalinist reformism and populist nationalism. In exactly the opposite sense of Cliff, What Is To Be Done? cannot be regarded as the definitive Leninist statement on the party question. Despite the angularity of its formulations, the 1902 polemical work does not go beyond the bounds of orthodox, pre-1914 Social Democracy. If this work had represented a radical break with Social Democracy, Plekhanov, Martov et al. would never have endorsed it. It was only after the split in 1903 that Martov, Axelrod and other Menshevik leaders discovered in What Is To Be Done? alleged substitutionalist and Blanquist conceptions. It was Lenin's intransigent attitude in practice toward opportunism, circle-spirit cliquism and all obstacles to building a revolu¬tionary RSDRP that caused the Menshevik split, not particularly the ideas expressed in What Is To Be Done? If Cliff finds What Is To Be Done? too Leninist for his liking, it is because his hostility to Bolshevism is so strong that he must reject Lenin even when the latter was still a revolutionary social democrat. In reality the 1902 work is an anticipation, not a full-blown exposition, of post-1917 communism.
It is common in left-wing circles to regard What Is To Be Done? as the definitive Leninist statement on the party question. For example, the American Shachtmanite Bruce Landau, in a critical review of Cliff's biography (Revolutionary Marxist Papers No. 8), concentrates on the Iskra period. He justifies this narrow focus by quoting Trotsky on Lenin's development:
"It was precisely during this short time that Lenin became the Lenin he was to remain. This does not mean that he did not develop further. On the contrary. He grew in stature...until October and after; but this was really organic growth." —On Lenin: Notes for a Biography (1924)
Trotsky is here referring to the development of Lenin's political personality, not to his ideas and their programmatic expression. The decisive period for the development of Leninist communist doctrine was 1914-17, not 1900-03.
Part Two Will Appear On March 20, 2011.
Markin comment on this series of articles:
Oddly enough, when I first became serious about making a revolution in the early 1970s, a socialist working class-led revolution, in the eternal quest for a more just and equitable society, there were plenty (no enough, there are never enough, but plenty) of kindred spirits who were also finding out that it was not enough to “pray” such a revolution into existence but that one had to build a party, a vanguard party in order to do so. The name "Lenin," the designation "Bolshevik," and the term "world socialist revolution" flowed easily from the tongue in the circles that I began to hang around in. As I write this general introduction, right this minute in 2011, to an important series of historical articles about the actual creation, in real time, of a Leninist vanguard working class party (and International, as well) there are few kindred, fewer still in America, maybe, fewest still, and this is not good, among the youth, to carry the message forward. Nevertheless, whatever future form the next stage in the struggle for the socialist revolution takes the question of the party, the vanguard party really, will still press upon the heads of those who wish to make it.
Although today there is no mass Bolshevik-style vanguard party (or International)-anywhere-there are groups, grouplets, leagues, tendencies, and ad hoc committees that have cadre from which the nucleus for such a formation could be formed-if we can keep it. And part of the process of being able to “keep it” is to understand what Lenin was trying to do back in the early 1900s (yes, 1900s) in Russia that is applicable today. Quite a bit, actually, as it turns out. And for all those think that the Leninist process, and as the writer of these articles is at pains to point it was an unfolding process, was simple and the cadre that had to be worked with was as pure as the driven snow I would suggest this thought. No less an august revolutionary figure that Leon Trotsky, once he got “religion” on the Bolshevik organizational question (in many ways the question of the success of the revolution), did not, try might and main, have success in forming such a mass organization. We can fight out the details from that perspective learning from the successes and failures, and fight to get many more kindred.
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Markin comment on this article:
The key point to be taken from this article is that the vanguard party idea, while embedded in all that Bolshevism stood for from the start in the disputes of the Russian Social Democracy, only had its parameters defined over time, and in the process of the class struggle first in Russia (in both 1905 and 1917) and later, after the formation of the Communist International in 1919, internationally. Additionally, as the recent events in the Middle East point out, once again, without a vanguard party, against a vanguard party, over the head of a vanguard party (meaning some anarchist “free for all” notion of revolution) the working masses and their allies cannot take power and institute the necessary socialist reconstruction of society. There are no short-cuts if you are serious about revolutionary change. If not, then you do not need a vanguard party, no question. But what do you have, as the Middle east situation again points out, after all those struggles?
*****
From-Lenin and The Vanguard Party-Preface To The Second Edition And Part One
Preface to the Second Edition
Lenin and the Vanguard Party, first issued as a Spartacist pamphlet in 1978, comprises articles by SL/U.S. Central Committee member Joseph Seymour originally published in 1977 and 1978 as a series in Workers Vanguard, newspaper of the Spartacist League/U.S. The articles take up Lenin's fight to forge a revolutionary leadership, an internationalist vanguard party, to lead the proletariat to the conquest of state power through socialist revolution. The pamphlet also includes, under the title "In Defense of Democratic Centralism," excerpts from a speech by SL/U.S. national chairman James Robertson given to a national conference of the West German group, Spartacus (Bolschewiki-Leninisten), in February 1973.
In this second, slightly edited edition of Lenin and the Vanguard Party we have added the transcript of a presentation by SL/U.S. Central Committee member Al Nelson to a Spartacus Youth Club gathering in the San Francisco Bay Area which appeared originally in Workers Vanguard No. 634, 1 December 1995. Titled "The Fight for a Leninist Vanguard Party," this presentation provides an overall historical and political summation of the crucial importance of the "party question."
A number of the organizations which nominally claimed the heritage of Leninism and whose positions are polemi-cized against in comrade Seymour's series, no longer exist as such. The British International Marxist Group (IMG), an affiliate of the "United Secretariat of the Fourth International" (USec) and in the 1970s one of the largest groups on the British left, has long since ceased to exist. Under the impact of the imperialist anti-Soviet Cold War II of the 1980s, the IMG liquidated into the pro-imperialist Labour Party. The shattered remnants regrouped into a number of much smaller organizations, including Socialist Outlook which claims affiliation to the USec.
The hallmark of the USec has long been its liquidation of the need for a revolutionary party and its corresponding pur¬suit of social forces other than the proletariat and vehicles other than a Leninist vanguard party to further the cause of human emancipation. Having spent the 1980s tailing after the social democrats and championing the cause of capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet Union and East Europe, today the USec is in a state of near-terminal disintegration. With the destruction of the bureaucratically deformed workers states in East Europe and the Soviet Union and the triumphalism of the world's bourgeois rulers over the "death of communism," the USec, together with much of the rest of the left, has repudiated even the pretense of Leninism as it seeks "regroupment" with social democrats, ex-Stalinists, Greens, other so-called "progressives" and even openly cap¬italist forces, within larger reformist organizations.
In the 1970s, Gerry Healy's International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) postured as the defender of Trotskyist orthodoxy against the USec. Healy's organization imploded in 1985 amidst a welter of exposes of its bought-and-paid-for services on behalf of a number of oil-rich Arab regimes in the Middle East (see Spartacist No. 36-37, Winter 1985-86). The criminal political machinations of the Healy-ites—which grotesquely included cheering the 1979 murder of members of the Iraqi Communist Party by the strongman regime of Saddam Hussein—were matched internally by a brutal bureaucratic regime. The Healyites practiced gangsterism, cop-baiting and a deranged interpretation of "dialectics." The purpose of these techniques was to ensure the membership's cowed acceptance of whatever line the leader¬ship divined in the pursuit of its own opportunist advantage.
It was a biographical rendition of Lenin as a Menshevik, written by British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) head Tony Cliff, which impelled us to write the Lenin and the Van¬guard Party series. Today, the SWP continues to peddle its reformist wares as a so-called "socialist alternative." The origins of the SWP lie in Cliff's rejection of the Trotskyist program of unconditional military defense of the gains of the October Revolution—which continued to be represented in the proletarian property forms of the Soviet Union, how¬ever bureaucratically deformed, and of the deformed workers states of East Europe, China, North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam—at the time of the Korean War. Born of capitulation to the anti-communism of the imperialist rulers, the politics of the SWP and its international satellites continue to be defined by an accommodation to the rule of capital whose "excesses" they seek merely to alleviate. Thus the Cliffites are a modern-day expression of the Kautskyite/ Menshevik rejection of the struggle for a Leninist vanguard party.
Today, in the aftermath of the final betrayal of the gains of the 1917 Russian Revolution by the Stalinist misrulers who opened the gates for the destruction of the former Soviet Union by the forces of world imperialism, the idea that the key to the liberation of mankind lies through a proletarian socialist revolution like that successfully pursued by Lenin's Bolshevik Party seems rather esoteric even to sub¬jective leftists. This is due in no small measure to the crimes of the Stalinists, who made a mockery of the ideals of revolutionary Marxism and the instrument for achieving their realization, a Leninist vanguard party.
We of the International Communist League fight for new October Revolutions. In reissuing Lenin and the Vanguard Party we intend to arm those who seek to oppose this system, which is based on the exploitation and oppression of the many by the few, with the program desperately needed to eradicate it. Serving as the memory of the working class, imbuing the proletariat and the new generations of youth with the historic lessons of those who fought before them, is a vital purpose of the vanguard party, necessary to lead the working class to new victories.
—5 August 1997
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Kautskyism & the Origins of Russian Social Democracy
Recently the British International Marxist Group (IMG) and the International Socialists (now Socialist Workers Party—SWP/IS), two of the largest groups of the British "far left," have taken to revising the history of the Bolsheviks. These groups have attempted to deny or obfuscate the principle of a democratic-centralist vanguard party by pointing to those elements of classic Social Democracy retained by the pre-1914 Bolsheviks as well as to Lenin's tactical maneuvers against the Mensheviks.
The IMG, British section of the pseudo-Trotskyist United Secretariat, has performed the remarkable feat of making Lenin out to be a unity-above-all conciliator on the grounds that until 1912 the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were formally factions within a unitary Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDRP). The aim of this particular revisionism is to justify a grand unity maneuver for the British left. Their line is that "the political differences which Lenin and Trotsky considered could be contained within a united organization were vastly greater than those which divide the revolutionary left in Britain today" (Red Weekly, 11 November 1976). For an extended treatment of the IMG's revisionism and its shabby tactical purpose, see "IMG Turns Lenin into a Menshevik," Workers Vanguard No. 164, 1 July 1977.
The most ambitious rewriting of Bolshevik history is that of Tony Cliff, longtime leader of the workerist-reformist SUT/IS. The Cliff tendency today sports a "left" veneer" sometimes they even parade around with portraits of Lenin anc Trotsky. But this group had its 4th of August long ago, in 1950, under the pressure of intensely anti-Communist public opinion, it refused to defend North Korea ---' U.S. imperialism and broke with the Trotskyist movement over this question. And yet this utterly shameless CIA "socialist" now presumes to lecture on what Lenin reallly meant to say in What Is To Be Done?
In the past, Cliff has been a prominent, explicitly anti-Leninist purveyor of Menshevism. His 1959 pamphlet, Rosa Luxemburg states: "For Marxists in the advanced industrial countries Lenin's original position can much less serve as a guide than Rosa Luxemburg's." This bald statement was the second (1968) edition, but Cliff's substantive position remained the same.
However the Cliffites are nothing if not trendy. And in contrast to the 1950s and '60s, "hard" Bolshevism is now "in" among young leftists. So recently Cliff has written a seemingly sympathetic biography of Lenin, of which two of three projected volumes have appeared. Here Cliff presents Lenin in his own image as a nationally limited, workerist eclectic. Cliff's central message is that there are no Leninist principles or even norms on the organization question:
"Lenin's attitude to organisational forms was always historically concrete, hence its strength. He was never taken in by abstract, dogmatic schemes of organisation, but always ready to change the organisational structure of the party to reflect the development of the class struggle.
"Organisation is subordinate to politics. This does not mean that it has no independent influence on politics. But it is, and must be, subordinated to the concrete policies of the day. The truth is always concrete, as Lenin reiterated again and again. And this also applies to the organisational forms needed to undertake the concrete tasks." [emphasis in original]
In other words, whatever works at the time, do it.
Genuine Leninists recognize the primacy of the principles embodied in the first four congresses of the Communist International over pre-1914 Bolshevik practice. Furthermore, Trotsky in building the Fourth International systematized and deepened Leninist concepts developed in rudimentary form during the revolutionary turmoil of 1917-23. To deny the evolution of Bolshevism from 1903 to 1917 is to obliterate the principled opposition of Leninism to Kautskyism. To appeal to pre-1914 Bolshevik practice against the democratic centralism of Trotsky's Fourth International is equivalent to citing Lenin's "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry" against Trotsky's "permanent revolution."
The Kautskyan Party of the Whole Class
The first volume of Cliff's biography, subtitled "Building the Party," ends in 1914. This work mentions Kautsky exactly twice and the Second International not at all! Such an incredible omission warrants dismissing Cliff's book out of hand as a serious study of Lenin's position on the party question.
From August Bebel's offer in 1905 to mediate the Bolshevik-Menshevik split to the "unity conference" arranged by the International Socialist Bureau on the eve of World War I, the International leadership played a significant role in the internal life of the RSDRP. The pro-unity elements in particular, above all Luxemburg and Trotsky, sought to achieve through the German-centered International what they could not attain within the Russian movement.
Lenin was a revolutionary social democrat and, as Cliff himself notes in his second volume, Kautsky "had been the only living socialist leader whom Lenin revered." (This is actually an overstatement: in 1905 when Kautsky supported the Mensheviks, Lenin was harshly critical of him.) An understanding of Lenin's position on the party question must therefore begin with the orthodox Kautskyan position; this was the doctrine of the "party of the whole class," or "one class—one party." Kautsky's "party of the whole class" did not mean the recruitment of the entire proletarian population to the party. He recognized that the political activists within the working class would be an elite minority. No social democrat denied that membership standards involved some level of socialist consciousness, activism and discipline. What the Kautskyan doctrine did mean was that all tendencies regard¬ing themselves as socialist should be in a unitary party. Kautsky maintained that revolutionary social democrats could unite and even have comradely collaboration with non-Marxist reformists. Thus the leadership of the German Social Democracy (SPD) at various times collaborated closely with the avowedly reformist, eclectic French socialist, Jean Jaures.
The SPD leadership was immensely proud of their party's disciplined unity, which they regarded as the main source of its strength. Bebel/Kautsky played a decisive role in the 1905 reunification of the French socialists, overcoming the split between the Marxist Parti Socialiste de France led by Jules Guesde and the reformist Parti Socialiste Francais of Jaures. During the campaign to reunite the French, the Interna¬tional adopted the doctrine of "one class—one party" in resolution form at its 1904 Amsterdam Congress:
"In order that the working class may put forth all its strength in the struggle against capitalism it is necessary that in every country there exist vis a vis the bourgeois parties, only one socialist party, as there exists only one proletariat. Therefore, it is the imperative duty of all comrades and socialist organiza¬tions to make every effort to bring about this unity on the basis of the principles established by the international congresses, a unity necessary in the interests of the proletariat before which they are responsible for all fatal consequences of a continued breach." [emphasis in original]
—reproduced in Olga Hess Gankin and H.H. Fisher, eds., The Bolsheviks and the World War (1940)
Before World War I, Lenin never challenged the above principle and on occasion affirmed it. When in 1909 the Bol¬sheviks expelled the ultraleft Otzovists (the "Ultimatists") from their ranks, Lenin justified this by contrasting the exclusiveness of a faction to the inclusiveness of a social-democratic party:
"In our Party Bolshevism is represented by the Bolshevik section. But a section is not a party. A party can contain a whole gamut of opinions and shades of opinion, the extremes of which may be sharply contradictory. In the German party, side by side with the pronouncedly revolutionary wing of Kautsky, we see the ultra-revisionist wing of Bernstein." [emphasis in original]
—"Report on the Conference of the Extended Editorial
Board of Proletary" (July 1909)
In practice in Russia, Lenin strove to create a disciplined, programmatically homogeneous revolutionary vanguard. Until World War I, however, he did not break in principle with the Kautskyan doctrine of "the party of the whole class." The resolution of that dialectical contradiction was one of the important elements creating Leninism as a world-historic doctrine, as the Marxism of our epoch.
Kautsky's Analysis of Opportunism
The Kautskyan doctrine of the inclusive party was predicated on a particular historico-sociological theory oppor tunism. Opportunist tendencies, it was argued, were a survival of petty-bourgeois democracy carried mainly by the intelli¬gentsia and conditioned by the economic and ideological backwardness or immaturity of the working masses. The growth of the proletariat and of its organization would eventually strengthen revolutionary social democracy. Thus, Kautsky could tolerate a current like Jauresism as a kind of inevitable transition from radical democracy to revolutionary Marxism.
Kautsky's identification of opportunism with pre-Marxist tendencies delved from the history of the European left in the decades following the revolutions of 1848. The principal tendencies opposed to Marxism (e.g., Proudhonism, Lassalleanism, Bakuninism) all expressed the desire of the artisan class to prevent its descent into the industrial proletariat. Marx and Engels understood that artisan Utopian socialism could not be defeated simply through propaganda and agitation but required the actual development of capitalist society. It was recognized in the Second International that Marxism superseded such primitivist tendencies as Lassalleanism in Germany and Proudhonism in France primarily through the transformation of the urban artisan classes into a modern proletariat. The process by which Marxism overcame Lassalleanism, Proudhonism, Bakuninism, etc. became for Kautsky a paradigm of the strug¬gle against opportunism in general.
The view of reformism as a historic lag or regression accounts for Kautsky's limited aims in the "revisionist" con¬troversy with Bernstein. He drew a sharp line between naive, pre-Marxian reformists, like Jaures, and the conscious revisers of Marxism. In a letter of 23 May 1902 to Victor Adler, Kautsky defended the Belgian Socialist leadership from the charge of revisionism on the grounds that they were never Marxists to begin with, nor did they pretend to be:
"I maintain an entirely unprejudiced attitude towards them; the talk about their revisionism leaves me cold. They have nothing to revise, for they have no theory. The eclectic vulgar socialism to which the revisionists would like to reduce Marxism is something beyond which they [the Belgian Socialists] have not even begun to advance. Proudhon, Schaffle, Marx—it is all one to them, it was always like that, they have not retrogressed in theory, and I have nothing to reproach them with." —quoted in George Lichtheim, Marxism (1961)
Kautsky's aim in the "revisionist" controversy was not to purge the Second International of reformist tendencies or even practices, but to preserve the doctrinal integrity of the Marxist camp. If this were achieved, believed Kautsky, the development of the class struggle would eventually ensure the triumph of revolutionary social democracy.
Kautsky located the weakness of revolutionary social democracy in the backwardness of the proletariat, which reflected either a continued identification with the petty bourgeoisie or a lack of confidence in the strength of the workers movement:
"To a large degree hatched out of the small capitalist and small farmer class, many proletarians long carry the shells of these classes about with them. They do not feel themselves proletar¬ians, but as would-be property owners.... Others, again, have gone further, and have come to recognize the necessity of fighting the capitalists that stand in antagonism to them, but do not feel themselves secure enough and strong enough to For Kautsky, the growth of the proletariat, of the trade unions, etc. strengthened the objectively revolutionary forces in society. What was required of Social Democracy was a patient, pedagogical attitude toward backward workers, although Kautsky also recognized that class consciousness could leap ahead during a revolutionary crisis.
With the partial exception of Luxemburg, no pre-war social democrat located the main source of reformism in the conservatism of the socially privileged bureaucracy created by the growth and strength of the labor movement, of the social-democratic parties and their trade-union affiliates.
Lenin's Sociological Analysis of Menshevism
Lenin, following Kautsky's methodology, regarded Menshevism as an extension of 19th-century petty-bourgeois radicalism into the workers movement. Because he considered the Mensheviks an "intellectualist" tendency, in a sense standing outside of the workers movement, he could split from them without positing the.existence of two competing social-democratic parties, the one revolutionary, the other reformist. Lenin was convinced that the growth of social democratic organization among the Russian proletariat would ensure the triumph of Bolshevism.
Lenin regarded the 1903 Martovite grouping as an expression and the attitudes and values of the old, freewheeling, individualistic revolutionary intelligentsia, as a rebellion of the circle spirit against against the construction of a real workers party:
Nonetheless, we regard the Party's sickness as a matter of growing pains.
We consider that the underlying cause of the crisis the transition from the circle form to party forms of the life of the Social Deemocracy; the essence of its internal struggle is a conflict between the circle spirit and the party spirit. And, consequently, only by shaking off this sickness can our Party become a real party....
Lastly, the opposition cadres have in general been drawn chiefly form those elements of our Party which consist primarily of intellectulas. The intelligentsia is always more individualistic than the proletariat, owing to its very conditions of life and work which do not directly involve a large-scale combination of efforts, which do not directly educate it through organised collective labor. The intellectual elements therefore find it harder to adapt themselves to the discipline of Party life, and those of them who ar enot equal to it naturally raise the standard
organisational limitations."
-"To The Party" (August 1904)
Lenin likewise analyzed Menshevik Liquidationism during the 1908-12 period (opposition to the underground party) in terms of intellectuals versus the proletariat:
"The first to flee from the underground were the bourgeois intellectuals who succumbed to the counter-revolutionary mood, those'fellow-travellers' of the Social-Democratic working-class movement who, like those in Europe, had been attracted by the liberating role played by the proletariat...in the bourgeois revolution. It is a well-known fact that a mass of Marxists left the underground after 1905 and found places for themselves in all sorts of legal cozy corners for intellectuals."
—"How Vera Zasulich Demolishes Liquidationism" (September 1913)
Lenin's sociological analysis of Menshevism was valid as far as it went. The Martovite grouping in 1903 did represent in part the habits of the old revolutionary intelligentsia; one thinks of Vera Zasulich in this regard. Menshevik Liquida¬tionism did represent in part the fleeing of intellectuals from the RSDRP toward bourgeois respectability during a period of reaction. But Menshevism was not primarily a tendency external to the labor movement. The Russian Mensheviks antici¬pated the labor reformism of the Second International as a whole, including particularly its mass parties. It was only dur¬ing World War I, in the studies which led to Imperialism, that Lenin located the source of social-democratic opportunism within the workers movement—in a labor bureaucracy resting on the upper stratum of the working class.
Iskraism
Organized Russian Marxism originated in 1883 when Plekhanov broke from the dominant populist current to form the tiny exile Emancipation of Labor group. During the late 1880s-early '90s, Marxism in Russia consisted of localized propaganda circles designed to educate a thin layer of advanced workers. In the mid-1890s, the Marxist propaganda circles turned toward mass agitation intersecting a major strike wave. This turn was in part inspired by the Jewish Bund. Ethnic solidarity enabled the Jewish Marxist intelli¬gentsia to reach and organize Jewish workers in advance of Russian Social Democracy as a whole.
In part because of the imprisonment of the more experienced Marxist leaders (e.g., Lenin, Martov), the turn towatd mass agitation rapidly degenerated into reformism. This tendency, dubbed Economism by a hostile Plekhanov, limited its agitation to elementary trade-union demands, while passively supporting the bourgeois liberal efforts to reform tsarist absolutism. In terms of international Social Democracy, the Economists were hostile to orthodox Marxism and consequently were loosely associated with Bernsteinism in Germany and possibilisme in France. In the later 1890s, Economism was the dominant tendency among Russian social democrats.
In 1900, the second generation of Russian Marxists (Lenin, Martov) coalesced with the founding fathers (Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich) to return Russian Social Democracy to its revolutionary traditions as embodied in the original Emancipation of Labor program. The revolutionary Marxist tendency was organized around the paper Iskra. Lenin was the organizer of the Iskra group. He ran the agents in Russia whose task was to win over the local social-democratic committees or if necessary split them. Iskra provided, for the first time, an organizing center for a Russian social-democratic party.
In polemicizing against Lenin's successful splitting tactics, the Economists pointed out that the German center did not seek to exclude the Bernsteinians. Lenin did not and in a sense could not argue for the exclusion of opportunists from the social-democratic party as a principle. Rather he justified his splitting tactics by a series of arguments based on the particularities of the Russian party situation. Right up to World War I, Lenin would appeal to one or another aspect of Russian particularism to justify constructing a programmatically homogeneous, revolutionary vanguard.
What were Lenin's arguments for building the RSDRP without and against the Economists? The German party had strong revolutionary traditions and an authoritative leadership. The Russian party was embryonic and could easily fall prey to opportunism. The German leadership, Bebel/Kautsky, were revolutionary while the Bernsteinians were a small minority; in contrast, the Economists were temporarily the dominant trend in Russian Social Democracy. The German "revisionists" accepted party discipline, the Russian Economists were incapable of accepting party discipline. And in any case, the RSDRP did not exist as a centralized organization. These arguments are presented in What Is To Be Done? (1902):
"The important thing to note is that the opportunist attitude towards revolutionary Social-Democrats in Russia is the very opposite of that in Germany. In Germany...revolutionary Social-Democrats are in favor of preserving what is: they stand in favor of the old program and tactics which are universally known.... The 'critics' desire to introduce changes, and as these critics represent an insignificant minority, and as they are very shy and halting in their revisionist efforts, one can under¬stand the motives of the majority in confining themselves to the dry rejection of 'innovation.' In Russia, however, it is the critics and Economists who are in favor of what is; the 'critics' wish us to continue to regard them as Marxists, and to guarantee them the 'freedom of criticism' which they enjoyed to the full (for, as a matter of fact, they never recognized any kind of Party ties, and, moreover, we never had a generally recognized Party organ which could 'restrict' freedom of criti¬cism even by giving advice)." [emphasis in original]
As is generally recognized, Lenin's 1902 What Is To Be Done? was the authoritative statement of Iskraism. Despite his supposed sympathy toward Lenin, Cliff is much too much a workerist and Menshevik to accept What Is To Be Done? In fact, a central purpose of his biography is to argue that the 1902 polemic is an exaggerated, one-sided statement which in substance Lenin subsequently repudiated.
First Cliff vulgarizes Lenin's position and then polemi-cizes against his own straw-man creation:
"In general the dichotomy between economic and political struggle is foreign to Marx. An economic demand, if it is sectional, is defined as 'economic' in Marx's terms. But if the same demand is made of the state it is 'political'.... In many cases economic (sectional) struggles do not give rise to political (class-wide) struggles, but there is no Chinese wall between the two, and many economic struggles do spill over into political ones." [emphasis in original]
Lenin did not attack the Economists for being indifferent to governmental policy. The Russian Economists agitated for state-initiated economic reforms and supported democratic rights, particularly the right to organize. In this purpose they passively supported the liberals. In What Is To Be Done? Lenin attacks the Economists' political program as encapsulated in the slogan "giving the economic struggle itself a political character":
"Giving 'the economic struggle itself a political character' means, therefore, striving to secure satisfaction for these trade demands, the improvement of conditions of labor in each separate trade by means of 'legislative and administrative measures'.... This is exactly what the trade unions do and have always done....
"Thus, the pompous phrase 'giving the economic struggle itself a political character' which sounds so 'terrifically' profound and revolutionary, serves as a screen to conceal what is in fact the traditional striving to degrade Social-Democratic politics to the level of trade union politics!" [emphasis in original]
For Lenin political class consciousness, or socialist consciousness, was the recognition by the proletariat of the need to become the ruling class and reconstruct society on socialist foundations. Anything less was trade-union consciousness.
Like all other current workerists and social democrats, Cliff must attack Lenin's famous statement that socialist consciousness is brought to the workers from without by revolutionary intellectuals, that political class consciousness does not arise simply through the proletariat's struggles to improve its conditions. Here are Cliff's fatuous remarks on this question:
"There is no doubt that this formulation overemphasized the difference between spontaneity and consciousness. For in fact the complete separation of spontaneity from consciousness is mechanical and non-dialectical. Lenin, as we shall see later, admitted this. Pure spontaneity does not exist in life.... "The logic of the mechanical juxtaposition of spontaneity and consciousness was the complete separation of the patty from the actual elements of working-class leadership that had already risen in the struggle. It assumed that the party had answers to all the questions that spontaneous struggle might bring forth. The blindness of the embattled many is the obverse of the omniscience of the few." [emphasis in original]
It is important to quote Lenin's statement in full to under¬stand what it means and does not mean:
"We said that there could not yet be Social-Democratic con¬sciousness among the workers. This consciousness could only be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., it may itself realize the necessity of combining in unions, for fighting against the employers and for striving to compel the govern¬ment to pass necessary labor legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals. Accord¬ing to their social status, the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bour¬geois intelligentsia. Similarly in Russia, the theoretical doc¬trine of Social-Democracy arose quite independently of the spontaneous growth of the labor movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of ideas among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia." [emphasis in original]
—What Is To Be Done?
This is not a programmatic statement, but rather a historical analysis with implications for the organizational question. The socialist movement predated the development of mass economic organizations of the industrial proletariat. The socialist movement arose out of the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary currents (the Babouvist tradition represented by Blanquism in France and the League of the Just in Germany). Except for Britain, the earliest trade unions arose through the transformation of the old mercantilist artisan guild system.
For example, in the German revolution of 1848 Stephan Bora's mass trade-union movement, the Workers Brotherhood, was largely based on the traditional guild structure. The leaders of the embryonic trade unions were generally the traditional authority figures of the plebeian community. Methodist ministers, like the Tory radical J.R. Stephens, played a significant leadership role in the early 19th-century British workers movement. Catholic priests played a similar role in the first French trade unions, for example among the rebellious silk workers of Lyons. In most countries the emergence of a socialist labor movement resulted from the political victory of the revolutionary intelligentsia over the traditionalist leaders of the early workers organizations. When Lenin wrote What Is To Be Done? the mass economic organizations of the Russian working class were the police-led unions (Zubatovite) whose most prominent leader was the priest Gapon.
Lenin was a dialectician who understood that the consciousness and leadership of the working class underwent qualitative changes historically. With the important exception of the U.S., trade-union economism (associated with bourgeois liberal illusions and religious obscurantism) is no longer the dominant ideology of the world's proletariat. In the advanced capitalist countries, it is socialist reformism, carried through the social-democratic and Stalinist labor bureaucracies, which binds the working class to the bourgeois order. In backward countries, populist nationalism with a socialist coloration (e.g., Peronism, Nasserism) is the characteristic form of bourgeois ideological dominance over the working masses.
In the Russia of 1902, a small, homogeneous Marxist vanguard, composed of declassed intellectuals with a thin layer of advanced workers, was able to break the mass of the workers from police trade unionism and the Orthodox church. Today it requires an international Trotskyist vanguard, necessarily composed in its first stages of declassed intellectuals with relatively few advanced workers, to break the world's working classes from the domination of social-democratic and Stalinist reformism and populist nationalism. In exactly the opposite sense of Cliff, What Is To Be Done? cannot be regarded as the definitive Leninist statement on the party question. Despite the angularity of its formulations, the 1902 polemical work does not go beyond the bounds of orthodox, pre-1914 Social Democracy. If this work had represented a radical break with Social Democracy, Plekhanov, Martov et al. would never have endorsed it. It was only after the split in 1903 that Martov, Axelrod and other Menshevik leaders discovered in What Is To Be Done? alleged substitutionalist and Blanquist conceptions. It was Lenin's intransigent attitude in practice toward opportunism, circle-spirit cliquism and all obstacles to building a revolu¬tionary RSDRP that caused the Menshevik split, not particularly the ideas expressed in What Is To Be Done? If Cliff finds What Is To Be Done? too Leninist for his liking, it is because his hostility to Bolshevism is so strong that he must reject Lenin even when the latter was still a revolutionary social democrat. In reality the 1902 work is an anticipation, not a full-blown exposition, of post-1917 communism.
It is common in left-wing circles to regard What Is To Be Done? as the definitive Leninist statement on the party question. For example, the American Shachtmanite Bruce Landau, in a critical review of Cliff's biography (Revolutionary Marxist Papers No. 8), concentrates on the Iskra period. He justifies this narrow focus by quoting Trotsky on Lenin's development:
"It was precisely during this short time that Lenin became the Lenin he was to remain. This does not mean that he did not develop further. On the contrary. He grew in stature...until October and after; but this was really organic growth." —On Lenin: Notes for a Biography (1924)
Trotsky is here referring to the development of Lenin's political personality, not to his ideas and their programmatic expression. The decisive period for the development of Leninist communist doctrine was 1914-17, not 1900-03.
Part Two Will Appear On March 20, 2011.
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