Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 23:03:18 -0500
From: neil <74742.1651-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: AUT: why people join 'vanguard' parties?


I think Tom  raised the complaint that some 'vanguardists'
complained about the hegemony of  the   refromist trends
 promoting 'pacifism' in the anti-war, anti bombing actions/protests.

Well, yes,  the 'vanguardists' or  neo-leninists outfits have their 
own horrid problems  in the mass movements, such as has
been critiqued here in this list , the bogarting of the struggles of the
masses and falsely trying to claim they speak in the workers'  name 
when this  is obviously not the fact today, etc..

BUT their  attack on 'pacifist' trends -political influence in the
struggles /demos 
 is certainly  a  meaty class bone to pick  today . I have been to 3 or 4
anti -bombing pickets and rallies in LA  since late Sept. and it is 
certainly true that middle class dominated pacifist outfits have real pol.
influence over the movement-so far , and if this is not opposed with class 
struggle and specifically anti -capitalist politics and Org. , the
lib-labs,
soc-dems, Democrats,  and  petty-bourg pacifists will have their field day 
turning the present motions into less than  harmless little pol. 
pin-pricks
 for the bourgeoisie to handle, and control. 

So really one is not counterposed to the other (pacifists vs. fake
vanguards) ,
for the politics of the workers class terrain (and more working  class
people 
will surely join in the  MC dominated protests in the next months -and
years?)
is opposed by BOTH! And workers pol.  organizations who work in these
struggles
have an obligation to the class to put the stamp of (working) class
politics
into them with their pol. methods of agit-prop, etc. This is not leading
people
around by the nose, but just  mainly trying to identify political
-ideological mine fields
cleverly put into place that hold up workers fighting capital and its
state, so the
masses  political casualties  in the budding movements are kept to a
minimum - and 
conscious progress forward against the exploiters rule is achieved partly 
inside
the  actual struggles themselves..

IG's
Neil 


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