Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 06:34:40 +0000 (GMT)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Scott=20Hamilton?= <s_h_hamilton-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Perplexed, all variations



Sorry about this somewhat slapdash reply...

 Of all the reasons to work within
> the unions, it is not because they are undemocratic
> and bureaucratic.  On that basis, we should also run
> for office, become social workers, cops, join the
> military, etc.  That's ridiculous.  

What I mean is that there will be a contradiction
between the leadership and the base of unions,
reflecting itself in bureuacracy and anti-democratic
methodology, until you have a  revolution. Argentina
seems to me to show this - over there, there are still
bureaucrats hanging on for dear life as unions of even
white collar workers (teachers, for instance) embrace
a revolutionary programme. 
Opting out of trade unions and starting your own new
models won’t get rid of the problem, as the problems
of the anarcho-syndicalists during the
(uncompleted)Spanish revolution (cf Seidmans' book)
and today in the IWA show. 

> Finally, because the unions formed based on the
> limited interests of a particular trade, skill, or
> industry, the history of the unions, especially but
> certainly not only the craft unions, is also a
> history of racist, sexist, and anti-immigrant
Ø	exclusion.

Well, yes and no (sigh). The early syndicalist union
movement in NZ was quite racist at times toward
Chinese, whereas some of the trade union movement that
developed later – the wharfies before they were
smashed in 1951, for instance - pioneered anti-fascism
and anti-racism. To say that trade unions are doomed
to be racist is a bit silly, and would also be
offensive to trade union militants – for instance my
Maori trade union activist friends in the AIC – if
there were any of them on this list.

As for the nationalists, this
> smacks of not having paid attention to them.  The
> nationalists like to kill trade union organizers and
> workplace militants and any other opponents they
> face.  Watch Latin America or Vietnam, where the NLF
Ø	killed thousands of Trotskyists. 

Once again, you can’t wish away the contradiction
which found negative expression in these events. The
Trotskyists were killed, after all, because they were
inspiring  inside the national liberation movement
insurrections that flew in the face of the Stalinist
stagist approach. They failed to turn national
liberation into permanent revolution, but they weren’t
*doomed* to fail (many would argue, in fact, that they
were sold out by the 4th Intl). In a place like
Vietnam in the 40s, commitment to national liberation
was a prerequsitie to any serious activity on the
left. The Third World doesn’t breed many
ultra-leftists.

 Being opposed to
> French imperialism did not require one to be in the
> nationalist movement supporting the national
Ø	bourgeoisie.  

This is silly. The Trotskyists were killed because
they refused to do this, in China as well as Vietnam.
Give them them the credit they deserve, as well as the
criticism they deserve!

> On this idea of 'exploiting the base-leadership
> contradiction', that sounds like entryism.  Why not
Ø	join the Labour Party then?

I would join the NZ Labour Party in 1919, when it used
revolutionary rhetoric and had organic links to mass
organisations of workers who wanted socialism. I would
enter it in an organised way, with the intention of
pushing it to its limits and exposing it. Labour today
is a very different beast.

On fraternity slogans like 'you have to be in to
> win', that means that the majority of the working
> class, which has NEVER been in a union or
> nationalist party, can't win because they aren't in
Ø	the right structures.

All I mean is that you have to be with the people you
want to win over to revolutionary politics. If they’re
not in a union and doing stuff, fine. If they’re on a
union picket line, you have to be there. I don’t see
anything mutually exclusive about the situation. In NZ
at the moment there is an ongoing crisis over funding
in the public sector and a series of strikes by
members of heavily bureaucratised unions have broken
out. Recently the teachers went on strike after voting
to reject the deal their leadership hammered out with
the government. The AIC was at their rally in Auckland
trying to link their struggle with the war on terror
and with events in Argentina. I don’t see how we were
selling out ununionised workers by doing this…

Anti-imperialism.  The first mistake lies in the
> idea that being a libertarian communist (whether
> anarchist or Marxist or other) requires rejecting
Ø	the notion of imperialism. Clearly, this is not the
case. 

	
I’ve been arguing this for some time, of course.

	
But anti-imperialism is a political position
> which of necessity places te struggle against
> imperialism ahead of the struggle against
Ø	capitalism.  

There is no single anti-imperialist position.
Trotskyist anti-imperialism is very different from
Maoist anti-imperialism, for instance. Most people
involved in groups like the AIC have no interest in
these sorts of distinctions, though – they are
anti-imperialist because they don’t want the UN to
intervene ‘instead’ of the US in Afghanistan Iraq etc
It is really the role of international
‘extra-national’ organisations like the UN which
represents the fundamental dividing line at the moment
between anti-imperialists and ‘left’ imperialists –
between the two major factons in the global movement
against the war on terror.

anti-imperialism is a political position
> which of necessity places te struggle against
> imperialism ahead of the struggle against
Ø	capitalism.  

I don’t see a distinction here – I see imperialism as
a form of capitalism. Really, it would be necessary to
look at some detailed evidence for and against to
close the gap between us here. That’s why I suggested
a discussion on Zimbabwe.

Just tell me why
> all of the groups who took this line have tail-ended
Ø	the radical nationalists in every case.  

I can think of lots of counter-examples here. Try the
Vietnamese and Chinese Trotskyists we have already
discussed to begin with.

I happen to think that the
> struggle of the mass of people can overcome the
> limitations of nationalist consciousness in practice
> and that what may start as a nationalist movement
> can grow out of the bounds of the nationalists.  

I agree!

Therefore, my opposition to the PLO does not mean I
> oppose the desire for a separate Palestine, if that
> is what the mass of Palestinians want and lack of
> support from the Israeli working class makes
> possible.  I am not calling for a two-state
> solution, however, because that isn't a solution. 
> It is at best a stepping stone.  In the meantime, we
> should support the Palestinians' struggle against
> Zionism, as we support Israeli opponents of Zionism,
> but I also support the struggle against the PLO
> among the Palestinian population, since the PLO is a
Ø	hinderance to Palestinian struggles.  

This is my position too. It conforms to the position
of the Vietnam Trotskyists, as I understand it. So
what are we arguing about?


The best part though, is
> to claim that the refusal to support this horrible
> politics amounts to a refusal to do anything, to
Ø	'wait for the revolution'.  How assinine.  

Well, you have put forward a good anti-imperialist
position on Palestine, one I agree with 100% and have
been arguing here for months. Those who identify as
anti-anti-imperialists and oppose a secular Palesytine
in place of Israel and the Territories have had months
to come up with a single concrete demand for the
Palestinian situation and have not offered anything
except ‘for world revolution!’, which inevitably means
‘wait for revolution’. 

Maybe they’re saving something good for us?

Cheers
Scott












--- cwright <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net> wrote: > I find
attempted to
> 

===="Revolution is not like cricket, not even one day cricket"

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