On 6/29/2011 3:53 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
On 2011-06-29, at 1:10 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: [Clip]
Marv: The movements to which Carrol alludes have not been "left movements" but REFORM movements, ie. successive waves of single issue movements of trade unionists, women, blacks, gays, environmentalists, anti-war activists, etc. which have aimed at modification rather then overthrow of the existing system.
Carrol: I'm not sure what label to put on this formulation: Romanticicism, Metaphysics, Dogmatism, and Idealism come to mind, but none quite fits. The best discussion of this quaint argument of Reform vs. Revolution remains Rosa Luxemburg's from 113 years ago. She outlines the actual activities of the SPD's actual activities, then asks what makes the party socialist. She replies, it's final goal - and that final goal is not some vague image of socialism but, quite simply, state power. She also quite sensibly does not try to specify any "scenario" for that achievement; that exercise in prestidigitation was left to the falsifiers of Lenin in the 3d & 4th Internationals. Not having a hegemonic Left party in the U.S. now (or in any other major capitalist power for that matter), some other label is perhaps needed: Provisionally I would suggest: Constsituent Assembly. And there is no such thing, and never has been, as a "Revolutionary Party"; there have been independently organized groups which focus on mass democracy and contain within their ranks those who understand the necessity (though not necessarily the possibility) of the overthrow of capitalism. Those who claim the possibility _and_ those who claim the impossibility of such an overthrow are both pretending to pssess a crysal ball. No one can predict the future in this way. Again, Luxmburg's "Socialism or Barbarism" remains a pretty complete formulation of present, past , and future. There is no formula by which we can say, "This is Revolutionary; This is Reformist.," since, as Luxemburg recognized, the current practice of both is indistinguishable.
We _can_ say that certain tactics at a given time challenge 'legaitimate' authority, which means that they contain the _potential_ but only the potential for, uncer the right conditions, to become a demand for a constituent assembly, a demand which will be met with force, which (again on the basis of unpredictable conditions) will or will not be implemented by the agents of force. (See Brecht's poem on how wonderful a device a tank is.) There have been a number of dramatic instances in the last 60 years when those agents were ready to fire and were not. Marv in the past has dismissed those instances because the forces involved did not wear the exact labels his metaphysics of revolution call for.
Marv continues: There have been anti-capitalist left wings WITHIN all of these reform movements which have sought to replace their reformist leaders and to lead an assault on the system, and while the Marxist and (to a lesser extent, anarchist) left has historically gained varying degrees of influence within such movements, it has never been able to exercise hegemony and steer them in an anticapitalist direction.
Carrol: The phrase "assault on the system" leads us back to the two armies neatly lined up that Lenin mockes someplace. It won't happen; it has never happened. It never happened in Czarist Russia, where the state itself forced the reformist forces to overthrow it. (From 1998 to 1910 Lenin constantly asserted that the Russian workers WERE engaged in revolutionary struggle; it was the leadership of the RSDLP that was failing the workers.) One can tentatively criticize certain "reform" demands as offering no 'grip' for mass action, and hence, I suppose, such "reformist demands" can be called Reforms, not Revolution. But it doesn't, really, butter any parsnips. My response for a reform Alan R took from Ravaitch was badly written and swerved into a sneer at Alan; I'll try to rewrite that some day to illustrate the present point. The distinction wanted is not between Reform & Revolution but reform demands which lend themselves to collective mass action (and the heightened political thought which such action generates) and those which only lead to the kind of punditry I referred to in my description of the Ann Arbor Conference on Vietnam. "Out of Iraq," if it catches on, leads to intense political debate and intellectual growth within the movement it activates. (See Joshua's first post on Wisconsin.) A nuanced "alternative solution" leads into nothingness.
Perhaps also relevant here is a wonderful 1905 article to be found in Vol. 8 of Lenin's CW. I can't recall an exact enough prhase to do a search for it, and my eyes prevent using the index volumes to find it. Trotsky had written an article saying that there would be no more Father Gapons, and thus the Maarxists had to do the work he had done. (Rough memory.) Lenin asked something like this: Why does Trotsky say this? He says it because he is a blowhard. There must be scores of Father Gapons or there will be no revolution. Now the fact that Father Gapon turned out tob e also a Czarist agent is quite irrelevant; what is important is that "The Revolution" grows not out of some map in the minds of an ideal leadership; it emerges, as does the leadership itself incidentally, from hundreds of local struggles led by a quite moteley crowd of local leadership. And of course that was how Lenin started out: a member of a local leadership doing factory agitation in St. Petersburg. (See the notes in WITBD.)
Marv continues: Now, it follows that the Democratic party and the social democratic parties are "betraying" the aspirations of these "left" . . .
Carrol: Utter nonsense. "It follows" as used here ought to be exiled back to the 10th-grade geometry texts which are its natural home. But I've been arguing this for 10 years. The DP doesn't deceive or betray _anyone_; liberals and too many potential leftists deceive themselves. The DP exists 'objectively' to absorb, blunt, deflect mass movements, and to some extent its leadership operates consciously in this mode. But that is another book which some radical scholar needs to write. Neither the DP by itself nor naïve movement leadership, separately or together, constitute an adequate explanation of the "dying away" of radical movements. In a recent article in Historical Materialism Charles Post demolishes very effectively traditional views of an "Aristocracy of Labor," bribed by "super-profits" from imperialism as an explanation for working-class "opportunism." (My current scan on it is too poor to use here, but I will get back to it in another post.)
Marv continues: [it follows that the Democratic party and the social democratic parties are "betraying" the aspirations of these "left" ] movements if one proceeds from the assumption, as Carrol and others do, that their methods and goals are inherently antithetical to those of the "reformist" parties they* support. .******
Carrol: Who is "they" here. I really have no idea who Marv has in mind. Direct action (even circulating -BY HAND- petitions) is not electoral activity. Whether it is "revolutionary" or not I leaved to Marv & other metaphysicians of politis.
.******
Marv goes on: In fact, these movements inevitably and however reluctantly engage in "lesser evil" politics . .*******
More literal non-sense. People, not "movements," do or do not engage in electoral politics. .******
Marv] because what the left .******
Marv cannot, apparently, write in resdponse to the actual world but only in terms of metaphysical abstractions such as "the left." There are leftists. There are specific leftists organizations at specific times and places. They are real. Marv's "left" as discussed here is of no interest, theoretical or practical. Marv's discussion of the Supreme Court's history is interesting and in some contexts important. But it has no relationship to my present concerns. As some off-list comments have indicated, the bulk of my post is devoted to specific activities now proceeding in McLean County Illinois, carried out by a number of different groups, sometimes cooperatively, sometimes by a specific group - and more, by the incrase in active participation in political discussion which these activities are creating. I do NOT attempt to label them as "revolutionary" or "reformist," or make any predictions concerning how they will develop. Most of it hangs, in fact, from my friend's point, quoted in an earlier post, that Wisconsin (and "Wisconsinism") represent a "tiny, tiny fissure" - and we will see. And my main ARGUMENT or THHESIS is simply that when such fissures appear or seem to appear what leftists do is plung into action, attempting to build on those "successes" (illusory or real). Neither Marv nor Brad seems very interested in the question of WITBD _now_, each in his/her local situation.
Carrol