Allow me to recycle my post from a local political discussion in Columbus, Ohio.
At 1:25 PM -0500 2/18/01, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>X-Sender: yfuruhas at pop.service.ohio-state.edu
>Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 13:25:09 -0500
<snip>
>>Are we explicitly anti-capitalist....and if we
>>are, does that mean we are connected to old reds of various stripes, and do
>>we take on their baggage? And we're trying to resolve these questions in an
>>atmosphere that's just not conducive to social protest, and we hear messages
>>every day (at least in the U.S.) that the time for protest and resistance is
>>done.
>
>I don't speak for anyone else here, but my position is that we
>should continue (1) to oppose reactionary initiatives taken by the
>ruling class & governing elite (whether they concern domestic or
>foreign policy) & (2) to struggle for worthwhile reforms, _at the
>same time_ as frankly discussing & asking all to recognize the
>_severe limits_ placed upon what & how much reforms are possible
>within the boundaries of capitalism.
>
>Within capitalism, all reforms are minimal & temporary, benefiting
>mainly better-paid workers & "professionals." For example,
>African-Americans are said to have "won" civil rights, but for
>working-class African-Americans, many of hard-won rights & liberties
>have been taken away by the wars on drugs & crimes (aka the wars on
>the poor, initiated by the elite in reaction against the mass
>movements of the late 60s & early 70s). Unions have become
>drastically weak, social programs for the working class have become
>abolished (e.g., AFDC) or eroded (e.g., higher ed tuition hikes).
>
>I don't know if a mass leftist movement will rise again in the USA,
>but if & when it does so, folks will begin to ask how we may replace
>capitalism -- production for _profits_ -- by a democratic &
>ecological production to meet people's _needs_.
>
>For the last couple of days, there has been a discussion of
>Palestinian struggles on SERJ. It has been a good opportunity to
>reassess what alliances & coalitions are possible. Those who take a
>relatively "progressive" position on the domestic policy front --
>e.g., Hillel -- are not necessarily opposed to American imperialism
>(on which Zionism -- including left-wing Zionism -- depends). This
>fact does not preclude working with such "progressives" on a clearly
>defined issue concerning domestic policy, but such alliances can't &
>shouldn't be permanent.
>
>Yoshie
I usually say something like above to my fellow activists in Columbus, Ohio, when they ask, "What Is To Be Done?" A very general question like those asked by you & the activist to whom I replied above can be given only a very general answer. Distilled into principles, neither economism nor voluntarism, neither sectarianism nor opportunism.
Future tactics can't be spelled out too far ahead of time, since we have little insight into what the future holds (beyond "foreseeable" trends, but even they may or may not materialize). "Tactics must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of all the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements" ("Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder," at <http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/apr/lwc/ch07.htm>). Sound advice in my opinion.
I'll be probably using a different language than what is used in my post I copied above, if and when a mass leftist movement will rise again in the USA. As you can see from my "Leninist Equations," No Spontaneous Mass Militancy on the Rise = No Leninism (as a collective practice), however: "Certainly, without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action" ("Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder," at <http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/apr/lwc/ch07.htm>).
What, then, can we still learn from Lenin, when there exists no spontaneous mass militancy? As Lenin emphasized, we should try not to fall into voluntarism -- "an infantile disorder": "The surest way of discrediting and damaging a new political (and not only political) idea is to reduce it to absurdity on the plea of defending it. For any truth, if 'overdone' (as Dietzgen Senior put it), if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its actual applicability, can be reduced to an absurdity, and is even bound to become an absurdity under these conditions" (Lenin, "Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder," at <http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/apr/lwc/ch07.htm>). At the same time, we should eschew economism & advocate all-around political education: "_however much we may try_ to 'lend the economic struggle itself a political character', we _shall never be able_ to develop the political consciousness of the workers (to the level of Social Democratic political consciousness) by keeping within the framework of the economic struggle, for _that framework is too narrow_" (Lenin, "What Is To Be Done?" _Marxism: Essential Writings_, ed. David McLellan, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988, p. 146). In other words, economist & workerist struggles for workers' rights, higher wages, etc., in themselves, do not directly translate into a demand for the abolition of capitalism & transition to socialism. Lenin argued, instead, that "the conduct of the broadest political agitation and, consequently, of all-sided political exposures is an absolutely necessary and a _paramount_ task of our activity" & that we should seek to become "_the tribune of the people_, who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects, who is able to generalize all these manifestations and produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation" ("What Is To Be Done?" _Marxism: Essential Writings_, ed. David McLellan, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988, p. 146, 148). Lenin's counsel here still holds.
That said, we may very well find it impossible to get socialism going in the USA. In fact, barbarism is far more likely than socialism. Still and all, we slog on, the future being contingent -- neither capitalism nor socialism is inevitable.
Yoshie