Begin forwarded message:
> From: Marv Gandall <marvgand at gmail.com>
> Date: July 4, 2011 1:59:46 PM EDT
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Response to MG -- Was Poll....
>
> Hi Don,
>
> Missed you call. We'll touch base with you and Ann later. I decided not to cycle out to Stittsville today. Too muggy. Thought you'd enjoy the exchange below in light of our discussion of windbaggery the other day. The earnest fellow is a retired prof emiritus of English lit who is organizing the world revolution from Bloomington, Indiana. Why am I reminded of what Cannon wanted inscribed on his tombstone: "Here lies James P. Cannon who should be remembered not for what he has done, but for what he has had to put up with"? :)
>
> M
>
>
> On 2011-07-03, at 2:18 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> This is a response to the opening parts of Marv's post. I'm not sure what
>> his point was in the long history of the Court which he offers that. Perhaps
>> he had been preparing it as a response to Doug's recent posts on the Court.
>> It has no relevance to my arguments, but if Marv wanted to get it off his
>> chest, he is welcome. Actually, I used Brad's post in somewhat the same way:
>> as a hook to attach an argument which I had already been working on.
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
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>