Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 20:10:09 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: Re: M-I: new voice? (fwd)


Neil writes;
>
>I have never used any slogan of 'smash the unions' in my
> union  critiques on the list.  This is a lie of careerists and 
>bureaucrat wannabees.

Ah Neil takes a smallstep! He says that he does not want to smash the 
unions. What should Communists do ignore them Neil? And in practice your 
call for building small groups outside of the unions, because the unions are 
completely bankrupt is in fact a declaration of fake revolutionary 
blustering rather then taking part in *real* class struggle.
>
>Socialists and other worker militants  need Revolutionary
>politics to be able to foresee and to prepare for the future
>creation of new mass organs of real class struggle and
>to help turn the tide in a revolutionary attack.

Not really Neil. In fact other organs will develop as the crisis deepens and 
the working class becomes more concious. History has show us that other 
organisation forms developed in many pre-revolutionary and revolutionary 
situations like the "Soviets" in the former Soviet Union. But these organs 
did not replace the trade unions-but were a complement to them. I think this 
will be the case in the future also.
>
>Reformists and careerists, stalinist, social dems. trotskyists,
>want  nothing to do with socialist struggle.
>We need to realize what the legal unions are in this epoch,
>they are mainly instruments of bargaining (independent of 
>leadership politics) the price and trade of labor power 
>between buyer-capitalist, and seller-the workers.
>Sure, true this is a form of class struggle, but constricted
>to the level of bargaining , based on the hegemony of the
>capitalist social relationship.

The above is a bunch of ultra-left romantism at best and proves that Neil 
has no tactics at all except going out into the desert and screaming 
revolution! In fact Communists and Socialists have tactics regarding the 
trade unions. Both in peaceful legal times, wartime, and also revolutionary 
or counter-revolutionary illegal times. That is because we try to analise 
living reality, the forces working in society and trying to change the 
situation in favor of the working class and its ultimate struggle to become 
the ruling class. But for Neil, no tactics are neccessary just blustering 
and ultra-left sloganeering will not change anything. Only by rolling up 
your sleeves and getting in there and taking part in the class struggle 
according to the conditions that exist and try to move things forward. 

>This is  a main reason why unions arose and are still in 
>existence. Unions today are under increasing constraint
>to mediate the capitalist interest inside the working class.
>Unions don't operate on some kind of bargain-margin:
>The capitalist economy as a whole survives today only
>on the basis of wages overall being reduced.

You are completely ignorant of why trade unions arose. And are trying to 
paint a rosy revolutionary pictures which goes along with you hate of the 
trade unions. In fact trade unions arose out of struggle against the 
incredible working conditions imposed on the working class by the ruling 
classes in every country of the world. For example it was the Adalen 
massacre by the Swedish bougeoisie that was one of the fundemental pillars 
of the trade union movement. In the United States it was some of the great 
revolution struggles by the teamsters that is part of the trade unions great 
tradition. You are trying to implant the present bureaucratic grip that the 
present trade union bureaucracy has on the unions on some of the greatest 
and most violent struggles and heroic struggles that brought the union 
movement into existence. Poof the trade unions stink says Neil: Who are you 
trying to kid Neil. Do you think that your are dealing with some typical 
student leftists of the campuses from the sixties. It might work there but 
not here and not in the workers movement. Because most workers would think 
you have completely flipped out!
>
>Of course the apologists for the unions role never say any of
>this, or about the material basis on the systems overall
>falling rate of capitalist profit , nor would they educate/alert 
>the workers on how capital adapts to compensate for this.
>They just hide the fact  that the  continuing capitalist realtions
>and disasters for workers are the very material baisis for
>the existence of the unions.

I at least am not apologising for the crimes of the reformist,Stalinist or 
pro-capitalists trade union leaderships. But I see a clear difference 
between the base and the top. And I defend the trade unions on principle as 
working class organisations despite this leadership. Do you? In fact 
Communists defend every economic struggle between the workers and bosses or 
any minimal reform which makes conditions for the workers better on 
principle. Although we understand that this is hardly enough and that only 
by taking political power and smashing the ruling class can really garantee 
any gains made in partial struggles. Do You Neil? Naturally the question of 
the present leaders of the trade union movement must be seen in the tactic 
of setting the base against the top and exposing their treacherous twists 
and turns or even more open class collaboration with the class enemy and the 
bosses. But one can not do that by empty slogineering and wandering out in 
the desert Neil.
>
>Of course it would be idiotic to  just shout mantras for the
>"smashing of unions" as any serious political tactic.

Good Neil! I like that. But you still want to run off and leave the working 
class in the hands of the traitors who presently control things. Instead of 
getting in there and trying to change things.

>BUT  it is also just criminal to call workers to the defense
>of unions  instead of calling on workers  of the rank and
>file and inside the ranks to build new rank and file
>organizations for mass struggle outside and against 
>the bosses/state compatibilities, for defense of workers
>immediate interests, and honestly delivering wide 
>information and agitation  for a political attack, as
>well as industrial, on capital. 

You have the same position as the Stalinists had in Germany. These tactics 
led to the victory of the facists and everything that it meant. The only 
difference is they called their groups the "red" trade unions. They thought 
that the reformists and their trade unions were more dangerous then the 
brown shirts and Hitlers national socialism. This was also the death of the 
Third International as and organisation that could be changed. It also 
proves that in reality your line is in fact in practice "smash the unions". 
So far from being anything new and revolutionary you are sounding more like 
a parrot of the Stalinist in the German KPD which got its orders from 
Moscow! How quaint my ultra leftist hero!
>
>Communists can agitate in the ranks in the unions-
>and outside them too. hovever, The point here is the unions
>are not any kind of leadership for attacking style  class clashes..
>THe needed political leadership builds up inside the
>raised class conflict, and that is somthing the unions
>must combat to maintain their own institutional hegemony
>in the system of wage labor.

The last just does not fit Neil. You have been writting for days and in most 
of this letter your contemt for the trade unions. And in the final paragraph 
tell us that it is ok to agitate in the unions. Then you go on and say that 
the unions can not be "attacking style" in class clashes. Bullshit Neil.

Everytime there is a strike. Or for example the French and Danish truckers 
today and their *real* actions or yesterday when the powerful miners union 
here up in the north of Sweden called for a political strike against the 
Social Democratic government and its bougeois partners in December-the 
question is posed who rules? The bougeoisie and its parliment or the working 
class and its organisations! The institutional hegomony you want to combat 
is really funny. Because your politics are the same as the German KPD. Ha 
what a joke Neil.

I suggest thast you contact a Trotskyist organisation or even some socialist 
organisation that does some real class struggle work in the unions. You 
might learn something about tactics. But you also need a program and a party 
in the final analisis if the working class is going to be successful in 
smashing the bougeoisie and not the other way around. Because your 
ultra-left attitude even if which I believe stems from your real hate of the 
bougeoisie (that's good) will not move us one step forward but only backward.

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki 




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