shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
> At 11:14 PM 5/20/2010, Carrol Cox wrote:
> >I like shag's "heavy users of Marx," and I suspect that will contiue to
> >be an accurate description of many/most withing any anticapitalist
> >movement, but it need not be a ticket of admission. And the broadness of
> >the movement need not be acheived through (pseudo-)sophisticated
> >theorizings of "popular fronts" and "united fronts" etc.
> >
> >Carrol
>
> I understand where you're going, though I wonder if "anti-capitalist"
> hasn't been spoiled by what has gone before in the name of anti-capitalism:
> people who aren't so much opposed to capitalism as opposed to Big Bad
> Meanie Corporations.
Yes. This is true. But a number of times over the years I have argued that most revolutions aren't carried out by revolutionaries! A revolution may be described as a mass reform movement which "gets out of hand." But here is also one of the points at which the Manifesto still has an important point to make -- about the role of Communists in the workers' movement, which is to see the interests of the whole in the the struggles of the part. (M&E put it better!) It does not necessarily affect negatively the evolutionary potential of a mass movement that most of those in it are concerned with various immediate goals 'inside' capitalism. And full-fledged confrontations speed up political time enomously.(Following from memory & titles not exact, but it shows the spirit of it.) At the time of the Fisher sit-downs wives, sisters etc of the workers formed a Ladies Auxiliary, a couple days later they changed the name to something like "Women's Support Group" (wrong, but you get the idea), and in another few days to Red Berets. Similar things were happening in Russia in the summber of 1917. Think of self-conscious revolutionaries (Marxist or no) as the yeast in a movement, and element that keeps naming thigs.
And even within theoretically rigorous parties, as they grow they absorb more and more members (and leaders) who give only lip-service to the theory. This drives (or in the past drove) Trotskyists wild. It shows up in "criticisms" of Chavez or the Argentine governmment I have read (or glanced at: I very seldom read them carefully) over the last six yers on other lists. An inability to see a movement in the context of what the parameters of the given context make possible.
As to the question below -- I seldom read more than the first sentence or two of such texts. I attach at the end of this post a post making fairly sensible use of the contrast. I follow that with a polemical post you can make up you own mind on. Then I attach the announcment of a special Yahoo list, about which you may also judge for yourself.
Carrol
>
> One question, though, what are the theorizings of the popular front /
> united front?
>
> shag
>
FIRST EXAMPLE:
Subject: Re: [Marxism] India: On the issue of Third Front, Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:35:09 펝 From: new wave <new.wave.nw at gmail.com> Reply-To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition<marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu> To: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> References: 1
Dear Nada,
As you may see, the perspective of CPI(ML) is also dwindling between a 'United Front' and 'Popular Front'. The article of CPI(ML) which you had referred in response to my article on formation of 'Third Front' in India, talks about the 'peoples' and not working class. This conciliatory politics, in the name of peoples instead of working class, is bound to result, sooner than later, in accomodation with capitalist parties. Our concept is clear. The United Front of working class parties and trade unions. Those who want to expand it to embrace the non-working class parties and organisations in the name of 'people' distract towards the same politics o CPI & CPI(M).
On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 8:28 AM, nada <dwaltersMIA at gmail.com> wrote:
And here is the response by the the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist):
http://www.marxmail.org/msg58961.html
David
===========
SECOND EXAMPLE
*Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Socialist Revolution Started 90 Years Ago in China Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:06:02 -0500 From: "S. Artesian" <sartesian at earthlink.net> Reply-To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition<marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu> To: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> References: 1
That's hardly pressing comrade, since you skip over 20-25 years of history. You skip over the imposed subordination of the Chinese workers and the CCP to the KMT, not by the popular demand of the Chinese workers themselves, or the popular demand of even the Chinese petit-bourgeois and peasantry, but the subordination of the workers at the demand of ... the ECCI and Chiang Kai Shek.
You omit the role the "bloc of four classes" and the subordination of the CCP and Chinese workers to the "national democratic front" played in the destruction of the workers of Canton.
You omit the reversal of the Communist International and its support for a disaster attempt at a putsch against the KMT after the workers had already been beaten into retreat by the KMT coup.
And all this dictated by "outsiders," the outsiders of the ECCI, who acting at the behest of so-called anti-imperialism could do nothing more than award the KMT membership in the Communist International just prior to its coup and repression of the workers; who could do no better than insist on the subordination of communists and workers to the KMT.
Of course, there was one dissenting vote in the ECCI to these policies. You get to guess who cast that vote.
We don't agree on some fundamental things-- the bloc of four classes is akin to what is called a Popular Front, not a United Front. A united front is class specific, and maintains the independence and opposition of the working class to the bourgeoisie, national and international.
And where does your skipping get you? To the position that overthrowing imperialism in China was always more important than socialism-- which of course is nothing but the stages theory all dressed up and still with no place to go. So.....
So.... if you want to establish continuity between the so-called bloc of 4 classes, the national front, and the defeat of imperialism, then you must also accept the continuity between the establishment of the Chinese anti-imperialist state, and its rapid transformation into-- within 30 years of its founding-- and establishment of , capitalism as its determining social relation of production.
You dont' get one without the other. History is not a playground for cherry-pickers.
Like I said, if you don't know anything about the period between 1923 and 1949-- try reading up.
----- Original Message ----- From: <Waistline2 at aol.com> To: "David Schanoes" <sartesian at earthlink.net> Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 11:43 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Socialist Revolution Started 90 Years Ago in China
===========
THIRD EXAMPLE
Subject: [Marxism] New Yahoo mailing list created Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:51:58 -0400 From: Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com> Reply-To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition<marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu> To: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/soviet_legacy/ This mailing list was created in order to debate the role and legacy of Stalin, Trotsky, Mao and other historic figures involved with the construction of socialism in the 20th century. The discussion will primarily be focused on the period lasting from 1917 to approximately 1990 but there will obviously be a need from time to time to relate it to current events.
Among the topics that are germane to this forum are:
--Socialism in one country versus permanent revolution
--The United Front versus the Popular Front
--The causes of the collapse of the USSR, internal or external?
--What was the best way to fight fascism in the 1920s and 30s?
--Was Soviet foreign policy revolutionary?
--What best described the Soviet economy: socialist; degenerated workers state; state capitalist?
These are obviously hotly disputed topics on the left but we expect to explore them with an absence of flaming. The list is moderated by Louis Proyect, who identifies with many of Trotskys criticisms of the USSR but no longer considers himself a Trotskyist.