Eric Beck wrote:
>
> Gindin's, "class" reads like an institution that exists a priori to
> actual struggle. I would think the idea would be to create forms
> during struggle, without the compulsion to unification.
>
[I want to return to the whole of Eric's post on some other occasion; I think it pretty much expresse my own thought. Here I wish only to focus on and add to this passage.
As I have used the word "coherence" over several years now, it was precisly the contrary to "unification" here. That is, I believe that not only is it possible to have a coherent social movement (rising even to revoluton) without a single hegemonic party, but I believe that no such party will ever achieve such hegemony in the United States (or probably any other core capitalist nation). So it is not, in my mind, a matter of choosing between "unification" and (in my sens) coherence, but that unification is simply not going to happen,. It's coherence nothing. And coherence of necessity, not by conscius intention, arises from struggle (or, more accurately) struggleS. But (Of Course) those struggles w ill involve rather numerous small and large organizations with varying degrees of internal centralizaton) as well as a multiplicity of smallr local groups, regional groups with specialized aims), and innumerable independents (many of whom will be more or less centered on one or more of the organized groups.
I have of course been des ribing the '60s as welll as hypothesizing the 'organization" of any future mass movements. There were many organizations important (even crucial) to that period. In no particular order: NAACP, CPUSA, SWP, Liberation Magazine, PLP, SDS, SNCC, Panthers, RNA, AFSC, various Church groups, Women Strike for Peace, JOIN, DRUM,ATM, not tomention the various coalitions which bubbled up around particular actions (and then subsided). Many of these cordially detested each other, but the momentum of the whole imposed for a few years that they (sort of) work together, with or withut formal coalitions. Pl0 participated in the final destruction of SDS, but a year or two before it had contributed importanly to the political developme of SDS. (I also regard the 'spontaneous' and totally undisciplined riots as of real importance to the whole.
Some of these organizations existed long before the events of the '60s, but their role in the '60s was probably not as any of them (particularly, perhaps, NAACP, CPUSA, and SWP) would have projected in advance.
There is a good deal else that could be said around the text quoted above, but I'll let it go for now.
Carrol