'Fantastic' Musings On The Financial Meltdown: Are We Miliant Leftists Today Prepared To Take Power In Order To Solve The Economic Crises?

Fantastic Musings Of An Old Militant: Are We Communists Prepared To Take Power Today In Order To Solve The Economic Crises Confronting Humankind?

COMMENTARY

Build A Workers Party To Fight For A Workers Government!!! Pronto!!!!

Those of us militant leftists old enough to have seen a few social battles like the struggle for black civil rights and against the Vietnam War in the 1960’s know that organizing such efforts don’t come fully formed out of thin air. They need to be organized. We have spend much of our time since that period fighting essentially rearguard actions in order to defend those democratic rights and those of other oppressed sections of society and attempting to slow down the American imperial military monster that is rightly seen to threaten the peoples of the world.

Thus, in one of those little ironies that history is filled with, we have been essentially condemned to a propaganda force trying patiently, if frustratingly at times, to bring the notions of socialism to the center of the political stage: centralized planning to even out the dislocations in the world economic order caused by the inherent irrationalities of the capitalist mode of production; fighting special oppressions like racism, sexism and for democratic rights, including the right to self-determination for national minorities; and, presenting a vision of what communistic solidarity would do for an advance in the culture of humankind

Frankly, we may have gotten too cozy with the concept of seemingly always having to have confront the great social issues of the day solely from a propagandistic perspective. In short, we may have developed a propaganda circle mentality. The recent virtual meltdown of important segments of the vanguard of the international capitalist system- finance capital- the operations that grease the wheels of international commerce has some implications for our work theses days. I therefore pose the question in the headline to this entry: Are we communists prepared today to lead the working class and its allies to state power in order to reconstruct human society on a new basis and solve some of the fundamental problems of human existence?

Naturally, this question takes the form of a fantastic musing – a Utopian idea if you will- on the part of this old militant, given the hard political realities we confront among them that nobody in national politics today is , in a lukewarm manner or otherwise, even projecting such a proposition-except presenting various schemes that amount to socialism for the rich. Some may, in fact, question whether Markin has had too much to drink or is sulking over his last weekend’s disastrous college football selections. No, not this time. That is the point here. We have to be able to move outside the envelope- a little audacity can go a long way.

With that in mind a little look at our international working class history may help us. It is always dangerous to draw too close an analogy with the Russian Revolution of 1917 when talking about prospects in America in 2008 but there is one idea we can take from that time. The Bolsheviks were an extremely small, virtually broken organization at the start of 1917. During the course of several months they increased their influence and directed their propaganda to the seizure of power. Why were they successful? They were able to articulate the demands of the populace that needed to be resolved- bread, land and peace. Moreover, with Lenin’s lead (and Trotsky’s support) they were audacious enough to think that they had the capacity to resolve those issues.


Of course there was more than that at play like the fact that the Bolsheviks had some authority in the Russian working class from years of legal and illegal work, their previous experiences in the Revolution of 1905 and the generally more pro-progressive and socialistic political orientation of the Russian plebeian masses. That said, we nevertheless need to have a fighting agitational perspective providing socialist solutions for the next period. Here is a start. No Foreclosures! No Government Bailouts For Finance Capitalism! For Workers Committees to Liquidate Bankrupt Operations! For Workers Control of Production! No To The Democrats, Republicans, Greens and Nader! For a Workers Party That Fight For Workers Government! Utopian? Maybe. Necessary? Absolutely

The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-Lessons- *From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky- On The Duty To Defend Workers States, Warts And All

Click on the title to link to a "Workers Vanguard", newspaper of the Spartacist League/U.S, article on the subject mentioned in the headline.

*From The Marxist Archives- Build A Class- Struggle Workers Party- A Guest Commentary

Click on the title to link to a "Workers Vanguard", newspaper of the Spartacist League/U.S, article on the subject mentioned in the headline.

*RANDOM NOTES ON THE WORKERS PARTY QUESTION AND WORK IN THE TRADE UNIONS

Click on title to link to a Leon Trotsky 1938 article on a discussion with leaders of the American Socialist Workers Party on the Labor Party question as it pertained to America.

COMMENTARY

BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM

I have spent a good deal of my political life waging a propaganda campaign here in America in favor of an independent workers party with a program that fights for a workers government, socialism. I have no regrets about that work although I have had more than my share of disappointments over the small inroads made toward that goal. But whining is not what I want to do here. I have received various communications over the past period asking about the whys and wherefores of the workers party question in America and elsewhere and about militant work in the trade unions. Here I make some historical comments and general observations about the work. I will deal with tactical questions at another time.

Let us be clear on this from the outset, calls for formation of a generic workers party are part of the tactics that revolutionaries in America, and elsewhere where such parties do not exist, are appropriate in order to anchor their program and gain a hearing from the more class conscious workers. In the best of all possible left-wing political worlds where working people have developed a level of political class consciousness sufficient to begin flocking to revolutionary parties we would not have to raise the question of a workers party. And there is the rub. Raising the workers party question is a reflection of the apparently undying weakness that the American trade union bureaucracies have for the capitalist Democratic Party (and on occasion a scattering of support for its sister capitalist party, the Republicans) and the weakness of left-wing forces in trying to break that allegiance.

Simply put, unless one assumes some kind of stagist theory of working class organizational development, which this writer does not subscribe to, there is nothing to preclude mass recruitment to a revolutionary organization under proper conditions, like a successful mass trade union organizing drive at Walmart or in the South. To put this point in perspective can one imagine the Bolsheviks in 1917 calling for a mass workers party? Christ, they were the mass workers party (and the class struggle was so 'hot' at the time that there were working class elements to their left who thought the Bolsheviks were unnecessarily dragging their feet on the subject of the seizure of power and wanted to form a ‘real’ mass revolutionary workers party to do so).

To bring this point closer to home there were periods in the 1930’s in America when the workers party question was shelved by revolutionaries because it was possible to recruit the best militants straight to revolutionary organizations. Thus, when we raise the workers party question in the year 2007 it reflects an understanding that we live in tough times for the labor movement. But, as the old Wobbly labor agitator Joe Hill is alleged to have said before he was executed for his labor activities out in Utah in the early 1900’s- “Don’t Mourn, Organize”.

It may be informative to contrast the political tasks that confront American militants with those in, let’s say, Britain where there is a ‘worker's party’, the British Labor Party, that as of this date administers the British imperial state. Despite the changes in that party brought about by one Anthony Blair, in an attempt to make it conform more to a trans –class party like the Democratic Party in the United States, at its core today the British Labor Party is still a working class party, although a clearly reformist one. The British Labor Party has a long and checkered history but mainly it serves as an example of what militants do not want to build. Sure, sure, every British militant today should be a member of the Labor Party in order to get any kind of hearing from the best trade union militants there but their main task is to split the Labor Party and create a ‘new’ workers party that will fight for a workers government. Obviously, that is no simple task given the extreme loyalty of the average British worker to that party. In that sense the tasks in America and Britain, as well as elsewhere are essentially the same.

Someone once told me this little nugget of political wisdom and I hope I have learned it well. Tell me the programmatic basis of your party and I will tell you what kind of party you have. He then proceeded to rattle off various party programs and bowled me over with how close his characterizations came to the type of party he was describing. Sure, innocent political mistakes will be made, and sometimes even conscious ones. Sometimes the whims of personal predilection will twist about the program. Sometimes when confronted with the reality of the class struggle it will fly away in the winds. But, note this well, in the end that damn program is decisive.

If one looks at the latest program of the British Labor Party one will note that even if the greatest amount of class struggle since the Russian Revolution swept through the British Isles that party would stand foursquare in defense of Her Majesty’s capitalist imperial system. Yes, Ma’m. The point is this- if the program of your workers party does not lead to a workers government then you will wind up like the British Labor Party-tied as it is to the monarch, nobility and the state church. Hell, even Cromwell, that consummate bourgeois revolutionary, knew you had to get rid of those things if you wanted to push society forward-and that was over three hundred and fifty years ago!

Those even slightly familiar with American labor history know that the 1930’s represented the last widespread and successful organization of the working class. It was also the time of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reign. Some labor bureaucrats, knowing that many militants would refuse to support Roosevelt under the Democratic banner, organized an organization called the American Labor Party, which was essentially a vehicle for steering militant and socialist votes to Roosevelt. Needless to say our conception of a workers party has nothing in common with that electoral scheme. You can be sure, however, that some bright labor bureaucrat (and there are a few), if there is a labor upsurge will drag out a 21st century model of that moribund organization.


The obvious place to propagandize for a workers party is in the trade unions. I would like to round out my thoughts by observing that the only real way to make an impact on the unions and to break them from their reformist (at best) leadership is to form a caucus within the union based on a program. In that sense the union caucus is the workers party in embryo. Here again all experience has showed that if one does not base oneself on a program one is kind of doomed to failure. A million guys and gals have started out as militants only to burn out, be co-opted by the bureaucracy, or fall silent without such an anchor. If the goal is to bring political consciousness to the working class then it is necessary to have a political program. Yes, yes by all means every militant is the best defending of the day-to-day needs of their fellow workers and defender of democratic rights but one must go beyond that to educate about the need to take power.


Elsewhere in this space I have presented some talking points for the program of a workers party (see the archives under A Modest Proposal for a Workers Party). Here are a few for a trade union caucus. Today, the central question is the war in Iraq and therefore it is necessary to take a position on that in the unions. Sure, plenty of unions these days have ‘paper’ resolutions against the war. However it is necessary to move to action, and fast. I have presented elsewhere my point about building anti-war soldier and sailor committees and that could be fought for here. Moreover, a critical point for the independence of the trade unions is to vote against support to capitalist party candidates. Today, also, in some recent cases this is a desperate necessity, for a fight in support of immigrant rights and organizing the unorganized. More latter.

*Studs Terkel's "Working People"- The Classic Modern Look

Click On Title To Link To Stud Terkel's Web Site.

Studs Terkel’s Working People
BOOK REVIEW

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004

As I have done on other occasions when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War”: an Oral History of World War II".

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do serves to reflect on a time a couple of decades ago when people may have been resigned about their working career but had a feeling that it did not express all of what they were. Given today’s uncertain economic climate and the wider fears about the effects of the long term trend “globalization” which particularly threatens many lower- skilled or easily transferable jobs I am not sure that such interesting reflections on their work experiences would be forthcoming from today’s working population.

Although Terkel has cast a wide net on the range of occupations and types of work that he presents here it is weighted toward blue collar working people: the waitresses, bartenders, service personnel and the like with whom he had such affinity. The most interesting aspect of this effort is that almost universally the work that people do does not reflect on their capacities. In short, the job is not the measure of the person. That said, I believe, intentionally or not, this little treasure trove of interviews is one of the great arguments for socialism: the creation of a society where an energetic waitress or a well-read steelworker, for example, could break out and become a leader of society. A place where every cook can take a turn at governing. That is the real message that these interviewees are trying, unsuccessfully for the most part, to articulate. How to successfully do that, however, is a separate and frustratingly hard political and organizational question that I have argues about elsewhere.

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.

After The Tea Party-Us- The 2010 Midterm Congressional Elections- We Desperately Need To Fight For A Workers Party That Fights For A Workers Government-A Short Note

Markin comment:

In the aftermath of the 2008 presidential elections I, half-jokingly, ran a slogan- “After Obama-Us.” The serious part of that slogan was that once the illusions in the ephemeral “Obama the Charma” whirlwind swirl wore off and leftists, progressive and working people, who should have known better, sobered up then politically our day, the day of those who fight for our communist future, would come. Obviously, given the equally ephemeral capacity of the left to seriously take advantage of those Obamian disillusionments in the immediate situation, there was also fantastic quality, the half-joking part, to that exercise.

What is serious today in the aftermath of the 2010 election is the rise of the tea party movement and its ability electorally, in the short haul, to suck up the political air. Air that by all that is rational in modern class society torn every which way by the contradictions of capitalism should be ours. But, as one of the most general laws of political discourse foretells- politics abhors a vacuum. Thus, for today at least, and if the exit poll numbers are right and there is no reason to doubt their tenor if not their accuracy, there is a substantial working class component to the tea party movement. Not for the first time, given no real reason to seek help from the minuscule left that has the program but not the foot soldiers to bring dramatic social change, working people have sought their “salvation” elsewhere.

Today then I do not want to speak of those who have middle class professional jobs and who support the tea party movement between trips to Europe. Today I do not want to speak of my fellow AARP seniors who on the one hand benefit from the current social and health programs but rail against government hand-outs. Today I don not want to speak of those who, rich or just niggardly, who do not want to pay their taxes, frankly any taxes if you listen carefully to their cant. Those, for the most part are not “our people.”

No, today, I want to direct my attention, and yours, to the need, the desperate need, to break those elements of the working class enamored of this tea-ish movement to the fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. Immediately the fight to get jobs, the fight to stop foreclosures, the fight for free quality health care and about seventy-three other fights that I have detailed elsewhere. That is the real point of today’s headline- "After the tea party, us." Otherwise it’s just back to the other party of capitalist, the Democrats. Been there, done that. More, later.

*The Great Divide-The Class Struggle in America, Part I- The Studs Terkel Interview Series

Click On Title To Link To Studs Terkel’s Web Page.

Book Review

The Great Divide: Second Thoughts On The American Dream, Studs Terkel, Pantheon Books, New York, 1988

As I have done on other occasions when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his "The Good War": an Oral History of World War II.

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of The Great Divide serves a dual purpose because not only is the book a rather remarkable work of oral history but also serves as political prognosis about the emergence of a trend in the American working class in the late 1980's toward downward mobility and the abandonment of the "American Dream" as a harbinger of things that have come to pass today, twenty years on. In short, with the exception of the then already decimated family farmer who is, sadly, not a factor today and the then rampant deindustrialization of Middle America that continues unabated, many of the interviews could have been done today, twenty years later.

Once again Studs Terkel is the master interviewer but I am still put off by the fact, as I was in "The Good War", of his rather bland and inadequate old New Deal political perspective, as much as a working class partisan as he might have been. Notwithstanding that shortcoming his reportage is, as usual, centered on ordinary working people, or those who came from that milieu. These are my kind of people. This is where I come from. These are people I want to know about, especially the Midwesterners and Chicagoans who dominate this book. Being from the East, although some of their life stories, to use the current favored term, "resonate" with me other values like ardent heartland-derived patriotism, admiration for the late President Ronald Reagan, strong religious values and inordinate respect for law and order do not. Terkel, to his credit, heard the particular musical cadence of their lives and wrote with some verve on the subject, especially that old Chicago melody he has embraced that I also noticed from my reading of "The Good War" (Musically, Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home, Chicago" fits the bill here, right?).

One thing that became apparent to me immediately after reading this book, and as is also true of the majority of Terkel's interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else's story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn't to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. But, so be it.

What were Stud's preoccupations in this book? He clearly wanted to contrast the old Midwestern industrial blue collar values with the then emergence Yuppie values that were eroding that old sense of neighborly social solidarity. Moreover, he wanted to contrast various approaches to, let us call it, the need for spirituality as various religious experiments started to flourish (mainly, but not exclusively, varieties of Protestant fundamentalism) from the mega-mall churches to the lonely vigils of the Central American Sanctuary movement. Terkel gives full expression to the ambiguities of the Reagan years from the lassiz faire governmental deregulation (that we are now forced to cope with) to the various foreign policy initiatives, especially in Central America and against the Soviet Union. Also full expression to the failures of the 1960's to bring about dramatic progressive social change (a problem we still have to live down) leaving many participants bewitched and bewildered.


And what stories are being told here? Well, certainly this book is filled with interviews of the lives, struggles and fate of the rank and file blue collar workers displaced by "globalization" and the deindustrialization of America. A few stories of conflict between pro-union and anti-union forces (most dramatically in a husband and wife interview where they were on opposite sides of the class line in a long labor dispute, the husband being a "scab"). Several stories concern the quest for religious fulfillment in a world that has left more than its fair share of people isolated and bewildered by the rapid advances of technology without a commensurate sense of ownership. Many stories tell of the hard, hard life of the city, especially in "the projects", black and white. A few of the same kind of problems in the countryside, especially concerning the fate of the 'hillbillies', the people that I come from (on my father's side). All in all most stories will not seem alien to those who are struggling today to make sense of a world that they, after a quick look at their assets, surely do not own. Once again kudos to Studs for hitting the mother lode. Thanks, Brother Terkel.

On Revolutionaries Running For President, Part II

Commentary

In the Spring of 2007, at the height of the French presidential elections, I wrote a commentary concerning my take on the then current ‘controversy’ on the left about whether revolutionaries, and more importantly, revolutionary organizations can, on principle, run candidates for the executive offices of the bourgeois state (president, governor, sheriff, etc.). (See that article reposted below today’s commentary). I noted there that my comments did not represent my final thinking on the matter. One of my premises is that there is a fair amount of propaganda value in running for these high profile offices. Now that we are in the heart of the American presidential nominating process in early 2008 it is time to reconsider the points that I made in that commentary. Again this does not represent my final thinking on the matter.

The main proponent of the argument for opposing running for executive offices on principle has been the International Communist League (ICL), an organization that has for some time been running an internal and now external argument about this issue. Underlying the ICL’s position is their perceived need to clarify the question of the state that, at times, got rather murky in discussions during the first four Congresses of the Communist International which they (and I) stand on. Admirable as that quest may be I still do not believe that the question of running for executive office in the bourgeois state, with the obvious and longstanding proviso that it is clear we refuse to take office if elected, is in need of this clarification.

Central to my premise, as noted in the earlier commentary below, was that it was unprincipled to accept funds (as revolutionaries did in France, also see below) but that the propaganda value of running for executive office outweighed not doing so as a matter of getting attention during an intense political period. I agree that there was a fair amount of confusion brought about in the Zinoviev-led Communist International around the various formulations concerning what types of workers governments could be supported, at what times and and under what conditions by revolutionaries. Moreover, I recognize that part of that confusion spilled over into Communist policy in Germany in 1923 in regard to support or non-support for various Social Democratic party administered bourgeois provinces. That said, this is nevertheless hardly an argument for not running your own candidates under your own banner for executive office.

Here, however, is where my main problem with refusal on principle comes in. There is no question, or at least there should be no question, that revolutionaries can use the united front policy on elections to critically support other worker formations in their campaigns, including their campaigns for executive office. Lenin, in Left-Wing Communism, can be cited authoritatively for that proposition. Part and parcel of that proposition is the premise that those critically supported worker formations would, if successful, administer the bourgeois state . Thus, revolutionaries would be in the position of remaining organizationally and individually ‘chaste’ while supporting, as a rope supports a hanging man, others who are not so squeamish about running and taking executive offices. I fail to see a reason, much less a principled reason, to draw that distinction here.


The ICL, as a democratic centralist organization, can rightly impose discpline on its members, including any dissenters on this question, now that the organization has publically committed itself to this position. Fair enough. The question therefore becomes whether this issue itself is, in Leninist parlance, a ‘split’issue' even if one considers that the ultimate ramifications might lead to differences on the question of the state. I say, hell no. But that brings me to my last comment. It is certainly not clear to me other than in the above-mentioned interest of historical clarification why given the immense tasks that confront the international working class movement in the fight for socialism that in the year 2007 (and now 2008) this question need take up so much of our attention. Running for but not taking executive office seems like a definitive enough policy to not be called into question at this time.

Reposted article from the Archives


On Revolutionaries Running for President(Now Part I)


The main bourgeois electoral political action of 2007 in the Western world has thus far been the French presidential elections. After the just completed first round the Gaullist and Socialist Party candidates are headed into the final round on May 6th. Recently, in a commentary on the workers movement and public campaign funding (see April 2007 archive), I used the example of the French presidential campaign in discussing the erroneous policy of ‘far left’ groups there, like the Revolutionary Communist League (English translation) and Worker’s Struggle (also English translation), of accepting campaign funds from the French state.

My position was that as a matter of integrity, the nature of our tasks and our own security this policy was unprincipled for revolutionaries. That stirred up some controversy; or rather I should say a 'tempest in a teapot', not so much around the question of accepting funds as the question of whether those organizations in France should have even fielded presidential candidates. Thus, the question is starkly posed. Can leftists in principle run for executive office in the bourgeois state and therefore take political responsibility for the administration of its policy? The following comments represent my take on this issue; however, they are by no means my final thinking on the matter.

Those of us who consider themselves Marxists owe two debts of gratitude to Vladimir Lenin. First, for leading the modern fight against parliamentary abstensionism, mainly a fight against anarchist and syndicalist tendencies in the worker’s movement to deny any importance to bourgeois elections as a means of getting out the socialist message. His classic polemic against those tendencies in ‘Left-Wing' Communism-An Infantile Disorder’ gives short shrift to such notions. Secondly, we owe Lenin for his sorely needed updating of the Marxist conception of the state and the need to replace the current bourgeois state with a workers state with its own institutions. His classic statement of the case in State and Revolution gives short shrift to the notion that a victorious worker’s revolution can take over the current state apparatus with just a little ‘fine tuning’.

Why do we need to invoke the tremendous authority of Lenin on what is a seemingly simple question of whether a revolutionary organization should or should not run for an executive office of the bourgeois state? On the basis of State and Revolution to pose the question would appear to give the answer. However, unlike other questions dealt with there this one is not one where to pose the question gives the answer.

Let us set the parameters of the debate. Nobody, or at least I hope nobody, believes in 2007 that running in elections will lead to socialism. I would also hope that nobody believes that we can simply take over the current state apparatus as is and go from there. I would further hope that no one, in some kind of anarchist funk, would fail to draw a distinction between administering the executive power of the capitalist state and using the legislative branch as a forum in order to be ‘ tribunes of the people’. Finally, for now and the foreseeable future no one should assume that this question is much more than a theoretical one. Otherwise something is desperately wrong with one's organizational priorities and one's grasp of political reality.

So now that I have safety guarded all those parameters, What is the big deal? And that is pretty much where I stand on the issue. Historically, revolutionaries have used bourgeois election periods to run on their programs and get a hearing in quarters they might not reach outside of the electoral process. In terms of executive offices, a revolutionary organization, like the Socialist Workers Party in the old days, ran for executive office with the proviso that if elected they would not serve. And that seems to me to continue to be the right policy. Those who want to carry out a policy of total refusal to participate in executive office campaigns, like the presidency, today have got to make a better argument for that decision than they have thus far.