File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_1997/97-01-19.114, message 90


Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 11:49:26 +0100 (MET)
From: Harald Beyer-Arnesen <haraldba-AT-sn.no>
Subject: Karl and counter-revolution


Hello people, fellow workers tired of being so...

The discussions around whether or not to exclude Karl from this list, 
which I have followed with interest, whirled up some fascinating 
themes, and also much bewilderment on my part on the nature of this 
new means of communication. I was about to respond when Joshua 
withdrew his proposal.

With some doubts I have decided to post what I had started writing, 
mainly because I never felt comfortable with ostracizing people, 
treating them as thin air*. Though I can see that this might be the 
only way to survive on the net, I've always preferred confronting 
differences, even if there is always the question how much time and 
energy to spend doing this. I include it here more as a general 
statement, should the issue be raised again further down the line, 
than as a suggestion for something to be acted on here and now, since 
this discussion seems to have already reached some kind of diverse 
conclusion. My whole line of argument might also be proven invalid
by the very fact of trying to apply something to electronic 
communication derived from face-to-face situations.

*(Though sending people "to Coventry" often is a necessary approach 
towards scabs, it takes a enormous psychological strength to follow 
up, and you often end up using most of your time and energy 
controlling your fellow workers. And I am not in anyway suggesting
that Karl is a scab.)

Any way this is what I had started writing, immediately after I will 
continue by commenting on something Bob (Robert Miller ) wrote.   

"But first a general statement to Karl:

As I see it you have asked for what you are now getting. Maybe if 
this was not such a "virtual world" we could solve it by going out 
and drinking some beers, and having some good laughs, and I would 
probably ask you, what in the hell are you up to?

This is not an ideological issue. No one has any _right_ to be part 
of this or any other party (in the meaning social gathering). If you 
attack people you might expect that they react, one of the ways being 
to follow you to the door (the technicalities of this being another 
question). This is common sense in the real world. If you prefer to 
call this Stalinism and Nazism, then most workers are Stalinist and 
Nazis.

"So this is my position. Though I would much prefer if you tried to 
explain what you thought to get out of joining this list in the first 
place, your views on the future society and the ways to get there. I 
still wonder why you are so afraid to state your positions. But if 
you are not able to do this without insulting people, it is my view 
that you should be excluded from "this party", for no other reason 
than that I am sick and tired of the all to common practice of using 
these new means of communication for advancing egos and launching 
personal assaults."

Now to some issues raised by Bob (Robert Miller).

You wrote: "So who doesn't want to 'expel' him.  Oddly enough, those 
of us who call ourselves communists, and hence believe in working 
class political organisation and going along with that the ability to 
expel people...."

Is there anybody on this list who does not consider themselves as 
communists? As for working class political organization, who denies 
the need for that? Though I would prefer talking about such 
organizations in plural, and there is always the question of what 
role they should play, you are perfectly right, such organizations 
imply "the ability to expel people". That the aut-op-sy list of 
course is more of an informal meeting place, is all the more reason 
for expecting of people that they behave themselves.

You wrote: "Meanwhile, politics that at least some of us regard as 
being counter-revolutionary (or close to it) are regarded as fine.  
Like supporting trade unionism, national liberationism - when couched 
in the populist language of the zapatistas, syndicalism, radical 
liberalism (to judge from some of the re-posts) ........  But after 
all aut-op-sy is a discussion list."

Maybe you should be a little more cautious, or at least specific, 
when you apply words as "counter-revolutionary". The Subversion-
group, of which you are part and is a project I can sympathize with, 
obviously supports "trade-unionism" in one form or another, as its 
support for the struggle of the Merseyside dockers clearly shows (and 
they are a union by any definition of the word.)

Nobody on this list as far as I know deny the role unions have played 
and continue to play as a "counter-revolutionary" instrument. But to 
say that unions by definition are "counter-revolutionary", really 
amounts to saying next to nothing, or saying that the working class 
is by definition "counter-revolutionary" because workers are 
compelled to reproduce capitalism to survive. 

Workers join unions for specific reasons, and those reasons will not 
go away if by some magic unions should disappear over night. The 
question of a "counter-revolutionary reformism" is something that 
exists within the working class as a whole, and concerns the 
decisions workers make on a day to day basis, and will not be done 
away with by applying other labels to define ones activities. Whether 
one defines those in terms of revolutionary syndicalism, workers 
councils, or a political organization of workers, one end up having 
to find ways to confront the day to day issues.

This question is obviously more complicated than outlined here, but 
we will not get any further if we continue hiding behind overall 
definitions.

As for the "national liberationism - when couched in the populist 
language of the zapatistas," there obviously exist different views 
towards the zapatistas on this list. Even if I prefer to take a 
sceptical stand towards FZLN/EZLN, also because of my limited 
knowledge of the phenomena, I am far from sure if it can be reduced 
to a national liberation movement. I even find the question at this 
moment of history as being of secondary importance, as what happens 
in Chiapas to a large extent will be decided by what takes place or 
not among workers in other parts of Mexico and North America, as 
FZLN/EZLN is not likely to have the strength of becoming a 
government, even if they so wished. (They may of course in the future 
merge with the existing one.)

 You wrote: "1.  At first he wanted to have autonomist marxism 
defined for him. Frankly, he was probably over-optimistic in this, 
and to my best knowledge has failed to get much of a reply.  Maybe 
the list is too diverse for that, maybe the autonomists on it either 
won't or can't define themselves."

Most likely the answer to this is that Karl did not enter this list 
by asking of a definition of autonomist marxism but by attacking 
Harry Cleaver for being an "academic marxiologist", so at the point 
when he did come to ask the question, most people probably did not 
think him genuinely interested.

Another thing that reflects on what seems to me to be the overall 
viewpoint of the diversity called autonomist marxism, which you may 
or may not like, that just as they tend to emphasise the power of 
workers rather than that of capital, it is my personal impression 
that "they" also tend to see it as a waste of time to enter into 
discussions with people obviously hostile, which is certainly a break 
with what has been the history of the left since it emerged. And yes, 
I do know that Subversion does not define itself as part of the left. 
I have no problems appreciating the critique of the Zapatistas coming 
>from Sylvie Deneuve and Charles Reeve, and it would be very 
interesting to see the reply from Cleaver which I have understood is 
forthcoming, but it is my general feeling that one of the main 
differences between autonomist marxist and groups like Subversion, 
Exchanges et Mouvement and so forth, and also my own positions, often 
is one of emphasis, if you concentrate on raising a critique of the 
elements in a struggle pointing in the direction of recuperation or 
the ones possibly leading beyond that.

That said, I had great problems swallowing the following passage from 
the Massimo De Angelis' interview with Cleaver: "Everywhere that 
organization fails to achieve the circulation of struggle, it fails, 
whether in a tiny groupescule in a single city or in a region or 
nation. The strength of relatively small groups such as the 
Palestinians, or the black freedom movements in Southern Africa, or 
the revolutionaries in Nicaragua or El Salvador, etc., has always 
been, in large part, due to their ability to build networks of 
alliance to circulate their struggles beyond their specific locales 
to other groups in other parts of the world. Which is precisely why 
in every case capital's strategy has been to cut them off, with trade 
and financial boycotts or travel restrictions, to isolate them--so 
that they can be destroyed." 

If Cleaver is thinking of organizations like PLO, ANC, the 
Sandinistas etc, those are to me exactly the kind of organizations 
which never had the potentiality of going beyond 
capitalism, being part of the problem rather than the solution. But 
should I disregard the rest of the interview because of this one 
sentence? And even in this passage I get his point. Besides, within 
the Sandinistas movement there may have been currents at 
some point with a possibility of developing in another direction, 
within PLO I very much doubt this ever being the case. These are
my personal impressions ... not the one and only truth.

        Just felt the need for a blow-out.
By the way, I have no problems living with the messages from
Karl, and I certainly will not delete them. If I ever go to 
Ireland I might look him up, and ask him to share some 
Guiness at the nearest pub.

        Hope I have not caused to much of a stir-up?
        So long, Harald 
  
  
 
 
  in solidarity,
  Harald Beyer-Arnesen
  haraldba-AT-sn.no



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