Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 20:04:20 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Re: M-G: new voice? (fwd)


I am sorry list. I sent by mistake the beginning of this reply to the 
ultra-left sectarian Neil by mistake. Neil is beginning to sound like the 
Peruvian Maoists who claim that I am at best and "Agent of Fujimora".. So 
here is the complete answer to Neil's anti-trade union drivel!

Neil writes,
>Bob Malecki (BM) has gone into paroxysms  over criticism
>of bourgeois trade unionism & his own obsequious 
>fawning over left postruring  union  hacks  so as to grease the 
>skids to getting  his own  'leadership' style  at the head of
>the unions.

Lighten up Neil! As if Communists never had any tactics in working in the 
unions. Nor and analisis of the trade unions. The only thing that Neil sees 
is "union hacks" everywhere. trying taking the blindfold off Neil..
>
>BM  won't advance any serious materialist critique of the 
>unions  pro- corporate and pro-state collaboration  in the
>modern epoch. He refuses to see the unions have qualatatively
>degenerated from bonified organs of the working class
>when they were first  formed in the last century to the taming, bribery,
>and pro-capitalist institutionalization and company unionism
>you see today . E.g. Delivering up enormous concessions and
> knifing mass workers fights at GM, South Gate (closed) GM Van Nuys
> (closed) Hormel, Pittston, Greyhound, Phelps/dodge, Massey, 
>Caterpillar and Staley just to name a few key  battles in the US
> where the AFL Benedict Arnolds of labor have delivered up  hundreds of
>thousands of workers up to the tender mercies of capital and its state.
>BM, lance man  for the labor fakers, wants to cover all this up.

Since when have the trade unions "degenerated? Do the unions still organise 
workers in the daily economic struggles or not? Last I looked at least here 
in Sweden is that 90% of the workers here in Sweden are organised in the 
trade unions! Obviously the workers do not have the same opinion about the 
trade unions
"degenerating" as you put it. In fact the majority of the workers still 
follow the reformist and more open class traitors in the leadership of the 
unions. Partially because the trade union is the only organisation in the 
work places that defends their interests from the bosses and partially 
because a revolutionary leadership has not developed nor the conditions for 
intervening in the trade unions. Unfortunately the reformists here because 
of very special conditions evolving out of both the Russian Revolution and 
the 2nd world war and later on the cold war strengthened the reformist and 
Stalinist leadership in the trade union movement. However that does not mean 
that the trade unions as and organisational form for the class has become 
outdated. It means that the relative class peace after the second world war 
and the post war boom connected to the cold war strengthened the reformist 
and Stalinist leadership. But with your empirical view you compare the trade 
unions with the leadership. seeing no contradictions nor in fact the working 
class at all! The only thing you see is the leadership and condemn unions on 
principle instead of going forward with the hard work of winning the workers 
>from under the yoke of the reformist and Stalinist traitors. You my friend 
as i said before prefer to walk out into the wilderness and boycott class 
struggle with the exception of building small "revolutionary" groups on the 
out side and stand their with your empty sloganeering screaming down with 
unions. How utterly stupid and sectarian. A petty bougeois ultra left 
tendency that has no answers to the millions of workers organised in the 
trade unions other then "Drop Out".. Ha ! What a joke...
>
>Of course BM, various  unions have arisen under capitalism .
>Capitalism ,  the market system need the institution of
>legal trade unions wedded to the system  to  control the
>resentment of workers who are being robbed by the 
>wages system  and to get the workers to accept the 
>existsing order and the system of wage slavery. This 
>is why you never see the unions use their strong arm men 
>and muscle against the capitalists and their cops/ goons but
>only against  radical militants, anarchists,  syndicalists,
>communists, etc.

Did trade unions arise as an institution to control the workers? Bullshit Neil!
This is just a complete falsification of history.Naturally to fit in to your 
ultra-left of writting off the unions. The struggle going on today 
everywhere Internationally is a constant struggle of who will lead the 
class. By ignoring the trade unions conciously on your part you ignore 
participating in the class struggle.  

>BM hails the AFL support for imperialist  WW1 because after 
>all " it gave birth to the October revolution in Russia" .To get
>revolution, BM supports the  posadist concept that if the 
>imperialist system can just butcher enough workers, well then,
>certainly revolution will be just around the corner. So conerning
>WW1, to BM anyway, Verdun, Tannenburg  and the Somme 
>were the best things that could happen for the working class
> there because to BM, "WW1 gave birth to the October revolution
>in Russia  and the rise of the communist parties and tendencies 
>throughout the western and eastern words........"
>BM has become today a shameless lackey for the trade union
>chauvinists and imperilaist war itself.

This is a lie and a slander Neil! You know well the Communist position on 
imperialist war. And that the WW1 gave birth to the October Revolution you 
know well that the Communists opposed this war from the very beginning which 
created the conditions for the Communists to take power in Russia in 1917. 
The slaughter in WW1 was because of the imperialists or are you saying that 
this was the Communist position?
>
>And in  the next sentence on WW1 , BM  is  still in raptures over
>this imperialist slauhghter of workers  as the war after all also
> led to " the strenghtening of the reformist  Social Democratic Parties
> . Are you saying that this was a bad thing for the working class?"
>Yes  I am BM, because your social democratic parties joined with 
>the capitalist state, the freikorps and white guardists to help
>the capitalists bath the post war workers revolutionary upsurge in the 
>blood of many tens of thousands of  brave revolutionary marxist 
>proletarians and other militant soviet and councilist workers.

Did the WW2 strengthen the Social Democracy and Stalinism or not Neil? That 
is the question..And you know well the history of the Left Opposition to 
this war. Not only were they jailed, murdered but almost completely wiped out.
>
>BM is also a good recruiting sergeant for imperialism in WW2.
>He cannot see taking an internationalist position of principled
>opposition to any imperialist  war.
>BM takes sides with the anit-fascist imperialist camp over the
>fascist imperialist camp, instead of opposing both camps 
>of butchers of workers.
>BM covers for  Russias alliance with nazi Germany  because 
>of the later victory of the Russian army over the German nazis.
>But BM, didn't the American , French , British, Canadian
> Greek, armies also fight tooth and nail  to defeat the fascists?
>You really want to get the band out and pin the medals on them
>too as did your nationalist union leaders  , don't you BM? Why, 
>they  might even give you a medal for your "patriotism" too! 

The history of the Left Opposition is well documented also not only in the 
struggle against the reformists, but especially the Stalinists who were 
responsible for Hitler coming to power. So the above is more lies and 
slander on your part Neil.
>
>You like to pose  the questions but you don't answer any. 
>Again as concerns WW2, where 55 millions, mainly workers,
> were butchered by the Democracies and the fascists.
>What do you think the USA would have done to the Japanese 
>civilians in special camps had the tide of battle turned aginst the
>US? And c'mon BM answer , no more of your coverups for bourgeois
>imperialist democracy and the nature of WW2!

What are you talking about here Neil? The then Trotskyist American SWP 
leadership was put on trial just because of their opposition to the American 
Imperialists in the war..
>
>And by the way BM, the US AFL/CIO trade union leaders were some
> of the most gung ho , other than the KKK types and the California  banks 
>and land grabbers , for packing the US Japanese  off to speicial 
>camps in WW2. Again you are in great company BM!

Now you are trying to blame me for what the trade union leadership did 
during the war. However this is not what the Trotskyists did.
>
>Your apologetics for the unions collaboration with the capitalist offensive 
> today has not been backed up by a shread of real material evidence.
>I know of what i speak not form theory  alone. I have been in the 
>midst of  class  events where  your unions blocked with the bosses and
>even the cops against workers . I have seen rank and file militants
>beaten senseless not just by cops, but by union muscle men too.
>South Gate GM in 1978 is a good example of this.
>I have seen the craft unions demand and get   hundreds of workers
>in other AFL/CIO unions fired  , give concessions, so they they could keep 
>collecting dues. (LA state workers , 1991)
>Then there is the list of other base crimes of the unions against the
>workers i have listed, and there are  hundreds of others to be sure.
>A few of which others of this list have recently  alluded to.
> BM, Enough of your blowhard spart mantras and name calling !  Put up 
>or shut up!

Not really Neil. The difference between Communists and the ultra left 
tendency that you represent is the fact that we have not only and analisis 
but tactics of trying to split the base from the top. You on the other hand 
turn your back to the class and walk off screaming out in the wilderness. 
Throwing the baby out with the bath water willl not solve the problem of the 
millions and millions of workers who are organised in the trade unions under 
leaderships that have a political line that means defeat.

Only by breaking with your completely sectarian attitude to the unions as 
being some sort of steril right wing dictatorship at best. And understanding 
the living dynamics and contradictions that unions actually do mean for the 
workers and fighting in the unions to win the workers to a program of class 
struggle with *real* political power is the only way forward.

I once again say that you proof beyond a doubt that by standing on the 
outside of the unions shows your utter contempt for both history but most 
important of all living class struggle! You have deserted the class and will 
leave them in the arms of the traitors. A nice clean concept. Don't get your 
hands dirty Neil with nitty critty down to earth class struggle not you. You 
in fact ultimately have the same line as the bougeoisie the deadly enemy of 
the Proletariat. You have the same goal and the same slaogans. Smash the 
unions! How quaint Neil.

Bob Malecki




     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---