--- Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
>
> How can you identify what you call "advanced
> elements" in trade
> unions and mass organizations by holding the type of
> mass actions
> that IAC and ANSWER have been holding?
Well, Yoshie, I dont mean that WWP looks over the crowd at a big protest march and says, "Ok, there is an advanced element over there, get him/her". No, they come into contact with people who attend ANSWER meetings regularly. They also argue for their positions in ANSWER meetings and they can tell from reactions who might be a good candidate.This is how WE used to do it and, having spoken with a number of ex-leninists, this was not particular to my group.
Besides,
> while we still have
> trade unions in the United States, we don't have any
> mass
> organizations on the left to reckon with.
Well, I would call ANSWER a mass-organization. I
would call the NAACP a mass-organization, I would call
NOW a mass organization....there are many many more
By mass-organizations, I dont mean mean that they meet
a certain quantitative size (like over 10,000 people).
By mass-organization I mean those groups focused on one or more progressive issues but whose aims are not directly tied to socialism. Sometimes the leninists enter them from the outside or they create them, like the WWP has with ANSWER, IAC, etc.
Most
> importantly, what's
> the point of winning any so-called "advanced
> elements" anywhere, if
> party members are to keep mum about socialism _even_
> at the rallies
They keep mum about it (or at least WWP does) in certain instances. But if they see someone, at an ANSWER meeting who they want to win over, they will talk to that person about it privately. Also, they will try and make sure that their line gets implemented in these mass-organizations. That does not mean that they will push the mass-organization to have a Principle of Unity that includes supporting socialism. It does mean that they attempt to get their political line on the given issue implemented However, do you see ANSWER (which WWP does have control over) putting forward the slogan "Down with US Imperialism and Sadaam". No, you wont. Back in the 70s you would see the maoists and trotskyists trying to take over these types of coalitions. The trotskyists would say "we need to denounce US Imperialism", and the Maoists would say "we need to denounce US and Soviet Imperialism".
You may respond that of course political parties are going to try and influence these organizations with their political viewpoint.
My point, however, is that this approach cannot be seperated from hard-core leninism aims: to win over "advanced elements" and to be strategically positioned to lead "the masses" when a revolutionary situation arises. I am sure that there are well-intentioned WWP members who really want to stop the war, but there is also at work the "necessity" of building the party and that colors any acitivities these vanguardist groups take up (no matter how noble or ignoble those activities might be).
-Thomas
===== <<Be like me! The Primal Mother, eternally creative, eternally impelling into life,
eternally drawing satisfaction from the ceaseless flux of phenomena.>>
-Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy"
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