>(3) What would be the preconditions for the working classes (national or
>international) to force such a reform? I suggest that the process which
>would build such preconditions would be more or less synonymous with the
>process by which capitalism could be smashed.
This is the paragraph of Carrol's post with which I agree.
Let's work on structural reforms never forgetting the class positions of the allies who are assembled for each tactical step which contributes to the overall strategy. We can have the advantage of a clear-headedness about this, which in some respects is denied to "them".
Mark wrote:
>>'Us' - you know who: Those among us who do not believe in reforms.<<
That surely is a typo. Of course I understand the overall point, on what we ultimately want. But Mark presumably would not say the following comment is a distortion of Leninism: "With revolutionary tactics under the conditions of bourgeois rule, reforms are naturally transformed into an instrument for disintegrating that rule, into an instrument for stengthening the revolution, and a strong point for the futher development of the revolutionary movement."
I am not sure I agree myself though, with the assumption about "naturally". I think it takes a lot of hard work building coalitions. There is no point in organising mass demonstrations against the IMF or even applauding the masses seizing arms, as they did in Albania, unless progressive intellectual allies can build up the critique of neo-liberalism to demonstrate the stupidity and the class interests behind neo-liberalism.
The working class will never be pure and homogenous. Building coalitions of interest groups however, may provide the space in which real working class interests can get expressed for structural change. I do not think this starts after the revolution, and we cannot predict whether there will be a revolution as capitalism is damnably adaptable, but a clear-sighted building of tactics with the strategic goal is mind, what is wrong with that?
Chris Burford