Doyle The left went into a decline in the U.S. after the Vietnam war ended. Even before the fall of the Soviet Union, there was only a tiny remnent political left we might call communist in the U.S from 1980 to now. Probably it is true that communist presence in various activities had a considerable effect in the U.S. However, one can't separate the communist from the organization that they belonged to. So one has to ask why this form of organization failed in the U.S.? In the larger context of the attack by Reaganomics upon the whole of the remaining working class formations world wide the liberal wing of the U.S. political spectrum declined. But one has to ask beyond the disappearance of liberals (who offer us precious little anyway) as a force why the communist organization both produced considerable influence even when it was negligible as a mass movement, and why it failed in the decade leading up to and after 1989.
Doyle Doug suggests that the U.S. history of the last twenty years didn't have the communist mass movement there to make things happen. But I would propose that communist organization requires a focus upon a national strategy, as well as the well known "discipline" of cadres. There is no alternative form of organizational strategy strong enough to match the force that communism managed in the U.S. Since we know communism failed as an organizational strategy here in the U.S. Is there a different way to organize? I mean by different that perhaps we could abandon national goals, or perhaps we root the movement differently in the working class than a communist organization might permit. I would also say our period seems headed directly for a thirties style depression which would provide through horrendous stress upon workers the motivation to make a new movement. So conditions are ripe for a new rise in the working class. Do we in the vacuum that exists after the collapse of the S.U. have a clean slate to make new forms of organizing? I certainly agree with Doug how important communists have been up to this very moment. If we can't come up with new forms, do we want to resurrect communism?
Doyle Primarily it appears to me that communist organizations had different strategies in different locals. Created some variation upon the kinds of groups that it structured and created. Communist organizations relied upon a distinct "military" style structure to keep the movement going when they did not have recourse to national power. The military style of Lenin's creation seems to have lingered in various national contexts, but is no longer able to move beyond those limits. And Lenin's form has only lasted some 100 years approximately and has little left to inspire further hope in it's efficacy. That efficacy was that a state could be won with a disciplined party, and that socialism could then be built. What is the state structure we might want to have? Is that organization of the state rethinkable?
Doyle So that is my response to the lament that Doug wrote. I know this is a very crude summary of communist organization, but I wonder if that isn't something we could debate to some degree. Is it possible to rethink what we mean by the organizational norms of the working class movement? regards, Doyle Saylor