Showing posts with label revolutionary leadership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label revolutionary leadership. Show all posts

Thursday, June 16, 2016

*Desperately Seeking Revolutionary Intellectuals-Now, And Then

Click on title to link to the James P. Cannon Internet Archive's copy of the 1947 article ,"The Treason Of The Intellectuals", Cannon's stinging indictment of some of the turncoat intellectuals of the 1930s at a time when the American government (and others) ratcheted up the heat in the "red scare" post-World War II Cold War period.

Commentary

No, this is not a Personals section ad, although it qualifies as a Help Wanted ad in a sense. On a number of occasions over past several years, in reviewing books especially those by James P. Cannon the founder of The Socialist Workers Party in America, I have mentioned that building off of the work of the classical Marxists, including that of Marx and Engels themselves, and later that of Lenin and Trotsky the critical problem before the international working class in the early part of the 20th century was the question of creating a revolutionary leadership to lead imminent uprisings. Armed with Lenin’s work on the theory of the imperialist nature of the epoch and the party question and Trotsky’s on the questions of permanent revolution and revolutionary timing the tasks for revolutionaries were more than adequately defined.

The conclusion that I drew from that observation was that the revolutionary socialist movement was not as desperately in need of theoreticians and intellectuals as previously (although having them is always a good thing). It needed leaders steeped in those theories and with a capacity to lead revolutions. We needed a few good day-to-day practical leaders to lead the fight for state power.

In that regard I have always held up, for the early part of the 20th century, the name Karl Liebknecht the martyred German Communist co-leader (along with Rosa Luxemburg) of the aborted Spartacist uprising of 1919 as such an example. In contrast the subsequent leadership of the German Communists in the 1920’s Paul Levi, Henrich Brandler and Ernest Thaelmann did not meet those qualifications. For later periods I have held up the name James P. Cannon, founder of the American Socialist Workers Party (to name only the organization that he was most closely associated with), as a model. That basically carries us to somewhere around the middle of the 20th century. Since I have spend a fair amount of time lately going back to try to draw the lessons of our movement I have also had occasion to think, or rather to rethink my original argument on the need for revolutionary intellectuals. That position stands in need of some amendment now.

Let’s be clear here about our needs. The traditional Marxist idea that in order to break the logjam impeding humankind’s development the international working class must rule is still on the historic agenda. The Leninist notions that, since the early part of the 20th century, we have been in the imperialist era and that a ‘hard’ cadre revolutionary party is necessary to take state power are also in play. Moreover, the Trotskyist understanding that in countries of belated development the working class is the only agency objectively capable of leading those societies to the tasks traditionally associated with the bourgeois revolution continues to hold true. That said, we are seriously in need of revolutionary intellectuals who can bring these understandings into the 21st century.


It is almost a political truism that each generation will find its own ways to cope with the political tasks that confront it. The international working class movement is no exception in that regard. Moreover, although the general outlines of Marxist theory mentioned above hold true such tasks as the updating of the theory of imperialism to take into account the qualitative leap in its globalization is necessary (as is, as an adjunct to that, the significance of the gigantic increases in the size of the ‘third world’ proletariat). Also in need of freshening up is work on the contours of revolutionary political organization in the age of high speed communications, the increased weight that non-working class specific questions play in world politics (the national question, religion, special racial and gender oppressions) and various other tasks that earlier generations had taken for granted or had not needed to consider. All this moreover has to be done in a political environment that sees Marxism, communism, even garden variety reform socialism as failed experiments. To address all the foregoing issues is where my call for a new crop of revolutionary intellectuals comes from.

Since the mid- 20th century we have had no lack of practical revolutionary leaders of one sort or another - one thinks of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and even Mao in his less rabid moments. We have witnessed any number of national liberation struggles, a few attempts at political revolution against Stalinism, a few military victories against imperialism, notably the Vietnamese struggle. But mainly this has been an epoch of defeats for the international working class. Moreover, we have not even come close to developing theoretical leaders of the statue of Lenin or Trotsky.

As a case in point, recently I made some commentary about the theory of student power in the 1960’s and its eventual refutation by the May 1968 General Strike lead by the working class in France. One of the leading lights for the idea that students were the ‘new’ working class or a ‘new’ vanguard was one Ernest Mandel. Mandel held himself out to be an orthodox Marxist (and Trotskyist, to boot) but that did not stop him from, periodically, perhaps daily, changing the focus of his work away from the idea of the centrality of the working class in social struggle an ideas that goes back to the days of Marx himself.

And Mandel, a brilliant well-spoken erudite scholar probably was not the worst of the lot. The problem is that he was the problem with his impressionistic theories based on , frankly, opportunistic impulses. Another example, from that same period, was the idea of Professor Regis Debray ( in the service of Fidel at the time ) that guerrilla foci out in the hills were the way forward ( a codification of the experience of the Cuban Revolution for which many subjective revolutionary paid dearly with their lives). Or the anti-Marxist Maoist notion that the countryside would defeat the cities that flamed the imagination of many Western radicals in the late 1960’s. I could go on with more examples but they only lead to one conclusion- we are, among other things, in a theoretical trough. This, my friends, is why today I have my Help Wanted sign out. Any takers?

Saturday, May 29, 2010

*From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"- On The Struggle For Our Communist Future In Greece

Click on the headline to link to a "Workers Vanguard" article on the recent situation in Greece and the program necessary to get to that communist future the Greeks (and we) so desperately need.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

*On The Question Of Revolutionary Defeatism In The Struggle Against American Imperialism- A Note For Discussion

Click on the title to link to the "American Left History blog entry, "*From The Archives Of Bolshevik Anti-War Work- V.I. Lenin On Imperialist War And The Tasks Of Socialists", dated February 1, 2010, that is referred to below.

Every Month Is The Struggle Against American Imperialism Month

This entry started as a short note in response to a "Renegade Eye" comment about the place of revolutionary defeatism in the revolutionary catechism. As, seemingly, was inevitable on such a central subject for our movement in the fight against American imperialism the note grew and so I am placing it here as a discussion point.

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Ren-I have a few more thoughts on the inner workings of the concept of revolutionary defeatism, its programmatic importance and its place in our struggles against imperialist war today.


Let us put this thing in perspective from our vantage point as radicals in the United States, the number one imperialist power by a wide margin on the military front with no serious contenders in sight, and the main enemy of the peoples of the world. Those two factors go hand in hand. We of the left have done our fair share, one way or the other, in letting the imperial “monster” grow until it is virtually out of control. Moreover, each day that this system survives without us being clear about our goals only adds to their side of the equation.

I confess that in my early political days I thought that it might be possible to ‘tamp down’ the militarization of the American imperial state without having to do the heavy lifting that standing on the ground of revolutionary defeatism entails, and I see and hear much talk on the left today that echoes those early naïve sentiments of mine. One therefore needs to be clear about perspectives. In order to effectively fight American imperialism, which would also put a very big dent in the world imperialist system, we must hope for, pray for, shout out for, stomp the ground under our feet for the defeat of any military adventure the American ruling class and their agents have up their sleeves. And, most importantly, get soldiers, sailors and airmen infected with that same spirit.

We can disagree about many things but if you, I, or anyone else on left have a different perspective than one to that seeks the defeat of every American military adventure, and in some cases supporting victory to the other side, then we are doomed from the start. We can, maybe, keep a few illusions about this and that part of the system but no blinkers are allowed on this one. It is not just bad policies that drive the American imperial system, and most people are now beginning to see that with the replacement of Obama by Bush (oops, Bush by Obama, sorry), even if they are not yet ready to "storm heaven". Therefore a few bandages will not do, it’s the system itself that needs to go. And every foreseeable American military defeat no matter how small, and by whom, can accrue to us and assist our efforts.

How we present today’s version of revolutionary defeatism, and to whom, is another and, frankly, trickier matter. And that perspective too is conditioned by our failure, and the failure of our forebears, to end this capitalist system long ago. Pure pacifists, simple-minded or not, hardened bourgeois democrats, including the left-leaning types that supported Obama are not the audience for this perspective today. I agree with your point there. This failure has, moreover, left open the door for others, internationally, to propose their “solutions”, solutions far from our communist perspective, like those currently being espoused by political Islamic fundamentalism and in the past by various Stalinist trends. That situation, combined with the attenuation of any links to past revolutionary traditions leave us today, practically, with a somewhat watered down version of the tactic. Thus, we are left for the most part with negative slogans when confronting American military aggression- “Down with American Imperialism”, “Immediate Unconditional withdrawal”, “Troops Out” and so forth. That is the programmatic axis of revolutionary defeatism today. Political labor strikes against the war, and actions spear-headed by and with soldiers, sailors and airmen may be that axis tomorrow.

Beyond that we are trending on dangerously thin ice, even if our propaganda goals are directed at left militants. Toward the later part of the Vietnam War more than one militant proudly carried the flag of the South Vietnamese Liberation Front (NLF), and more than one militant, including this ex-soldier, carried signs calling for military victory to those same forces. Today such actions in support of the other side would be incomprehensible to even the best of young militants, even if there were forces on the other that we could identify to support. There are none that I see, whatever individual anti-imperialist actions we might find supportable by those who directly confront the American military machine.

Moreover, the real axis in today’s struggle against imperialism as it has unfolded requires that we carry out some old-fashioned class struggle actions here in America, such as labor strikes and other militant actions to prepare the working class to govern in its own interests. This rather than trying to find some virtuous "anti-imperialist" fighters in the maze of Iraq or Afghanistan politics is where we should be directing our energies. That will help slow down the imperial machine until we can get enough Bolsheviks on the ground, here and there, to make a difference. Then we will very definitely have a side to support. Agreed, brother?