I'm beginning to see one possible reason I have found brad's posts unintelligible. He seems to be writing _as a student_, with the resutt that when he says "class struggle" he _means_ WTITING about class struggle. When he says "gender," he means WRITING about gender. That is, he seems to have never been involved in actual political practice, and therefore is suffering from a delusion I think Lenin mocked when he pointed out someplace that there will never be a time when The Working Class is lined up on one side of the field, The Capitalist Class lined up on the other side of the field, both in nice array and proper uniforms so there will be no trouble in identifying the enemy.
One NEVER finds a case, in practice, of pure Class Struggle. Many Marxists and non-Marxists both would offer strikes as an example of Real Class Struggle. This is nonsense of course. A strike , even nationwide strikes, is of a particular group of workers making demands on a particular enterprise, and the Class as a Whole is invisible. I would tentatively suggest that Class Struggle as visible Class Struggle NEVER OCCURS (except perhaps in an Insurrection , and not always even then). The visible struggle is ALWAYS about something else; that is why it takes analysis to identify what the struggle is, who are the participants, etc.
I would like to see Brad give an example of what he means by class struggle, and how we can recognize it when it occurs.
I have recently been reading an interestng and intelligent essay on The Revolutionary Party and how to buld one. And I have been coming to the provisional conclusion that there is no such thing, never has been,, and never will be. Take the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks in fact were not a Revolutionary Party. They were a vigorous, militant organization including members, or at least one member, Lenin, who were capable of recognizing a revolution when they saw one. The Mensheviks, on the other hand, were a party of militants but none of them were capable of recognizing a revolution when they saw one. The same is true of all forms of class struggle: they tnd to be invisible, as the Revolution was invisible to the Mensheviks. And the barrier to recognizing either a Revolution or Class Struggle when it is occurring is some form of dogmaism, some abstract theory in the head of whatr Real Revolution is or what Real Class Struggle is. And the actuality never fits the abstract patternor model. Brad cannot see that actual class struggle will always involve protagonists that don't look like either party to the struggle.
In 1969 Italy came closer to revolution than any time in its history. It was a strike against Fiat. The workers of that company against The Union, against The Party, against Fiat, and against The state. What were they striking FOR. They wer striking to eliminate all the regulations, the multiple pay grades (often differing by a few cents) which fragmented them. They were striking for unity. At an abstract level, they were fighting against RACISM though no races were involved. But _politically_ one must see races as fragmentations of the class (Merit pay is one of the most aggressive forms of racialization.) Most _real_ class struggle then pits workers against workers as they strive to unity the class, crushing false divisions.
Carrol
P.S. During periods of low level in the class struggle, the most common form dogmatism takes is among those who either insists they have a scenario for a true revolution and those who demand such a scenario.