Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 09:17:40 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: Re: M-I: List Sociology



>Malecki writes:
>"That is just not enough. People's politics and critism's are just not 
>"enough. It is a question of grasping which class and which party and "program
>can lead to successful revolutionary overthrow of this decadent "system. In the
>final analisis that is what really counts. And as long as "this process is
>delayed by the present leaderships of the International "Proletariat by their
>reformist and centrist politics the only blood "flowing is unfortunately the
>blood of poor and working class people.
>
>
Bob Scheetz answers;
>
>You'd's well be a Mc ...uh,uh...no offense, no offense...
>really itching to get on with it.  
>There's no question re the urgency, but I'm skeptical regarding the mature
>revolutionary consciousness/potential you are relying on from working people.
>Far from class righteousness, I don't even think they hate the rich.

Dear Bob,
This is very interesting and very funny stuff you write! Unfortunately you 
are dead wrong both in your reasoning and the words you use to justify this 
kind of thinking. To say that you are "skeptical regarding the mature 
revolutionary/conciousness"
I am relying on can be taken in two ways. The first and immediate reaction 
>from the gut can be quoted from a short paragraf in put in my book. I said ;

"Well many of us certainly can not express our thoughts in terms 
exceptable to these circles. Nor even put forks and knives on the 
right side when setting the table. Yeah, the rich even have rules for 
this kind of stuff... "

Because in the present society where bougeois culture and "norms" for 
existing in a certain way appear to be raised to the absolute law of 
history! Naturally the truth is that oppression oppresses and one of the 
weapons in bougeois society is this kind of stuff. But the poor and working 
class will have to start with the basics of taking political power and build 
a new society and new values. Naturally this has nothing to do with the 
Stalinist Prolo culture nor the Chinese cultural revolution. But I think 
Trotsky in his "Problems of Everyday life" take up this question.

There is also another aspect of this stuff which shows how stupid and topsy 
turfy it is. The first time our "supieror" types can not shit in their 
toilet the first thing they do is call a plumber! In fact they could not 
even open a can of spagetti without a can opener and in most cases don't 
even know how this kind of stuff is produced or works. They are entirely 
dependent on the working class that produces this stuff. And then they go on 
about fork and knifes and who sits on the right and who sits on the left. 
What Bullshit. First a decent toilet, housing and food for everybody then we 
can discuss table manners. What they control is the banks, the police and 
army, naturally the media and with these instruments impose their culture on 
us. Gee, thanks alot. 

And Trotsky was also very clear on the point of working class conciousness. 
Something along the lines of "reaching trade union conciousness" what is 
needed is a vanguard party to make the leap from economic struggles to 
revolutionary struggles in its own name. This is not just romantic bullshit 
but a science.

And the reason for the vanguard party is just because Marxism is a science 
and we will need intellectuals like Adam who can work some of this stuff out 
like his material on the Lory strikes and the monetary union for example. 
But without people like me as and advanced worker who has and understanding 
of this stuff and must be the transmission belt into the class from the 
"marxist" intellectuals you won't get to first base! Ha Ha Ha..So without a 
party of declassed intellectuals and in a certain sense workers who break 
through the barrier of trade union conciousness to a revoplutionary 
conciousness there can be no party and thus be no transmission belt and thus 
be no fucking revolution!  And naturally this party must take into 
consideration all of the historical mistakes made by the opportunist and 
sometimes counter revolutionary fake Intellectuals marxists that time and 
again take the poor and working class down the wrong road to defeat!

And to say that the poor and working class do not hate the rich is a bit 
ridiculous. Every time the classes clash in society whether it be a strike 
or a rebellion like the recent events in Florida the true nature of society 
is shown to the core and the *real* hate of the class enemy comes to the 
surface. Sometimes it takes very violent expressions at other times at least 
on the surface a compromise. But I think your assertion comes because we 
have had an era of relative class peace in the advanced industrial countries 
since the 2nd world war. But the price of this relative class peace was 
millions upon millions of dead and the destruction of a good part of Europe, 
the former Soviet Union and parts of Asia including Japan.

So i think you are rocking the baby to sleep in believing that the post war 
development is the norm. Hardly! The whole historical era of imperialism is 
bathed in blood,starvation, and oppression on a gigantic scale. The relative 
peaceful development after the 2nd world war was just a hiccup before the 
coming storm.As once again the major imperialists are preparing for a new 
redivision of the spoils on a world level.

Bob S. continues;                          
>There's the case in the late 70's in Youngstown, Ohio (than which
>there was almost no place with a stronger tradition of labor militancy)
>where Stoughton Lynd led a failed worker take-over attempt on the mills that US
>Steel et.al. had decided to shut-down. Here was precisely the proletarian
>revolution in miniature. It wasn't so much that the
>steel industry, local chamber of commerce, finance, gov't, media, all the
>anticipated hysterical opposition to Socialism, nor even that the
>International in neighboring Pittsburgh colluded with the industry
>to insure a peaceful demise and burial of its "brother" (nor BTW the CPUSA, tho
>Chair Gus Hall had cut his teeth there in the 30's organizing struggle); 
but the
>workers themselves, in critical mass, were incapable, even tho there was no
>alternative, of conceiving themselves taking over the plantation to continue
>working it for a dignified living (if not a small profit) absent "Massa", the
>familiar capitalist structure; nor that it would be a distinctive and prideful
>way to restructure a community and move into the future.  Today Youngstown, its
>history and identity down the memory hole, is an industrial and social
>wasteland...and very probably a vision of the future.

The above proves nothing. Perhaps your having a bit of and empirical 
approach to the subject. Giving one example of the decline of an area in 
Pittsburg thus proving that
some workers taking over the plantation makes revolution impossible. Hardly! 
In fact
as John put it new worker babies are being born everyday. And the 
contradictions between work and capital have not changed since Marx wrote 
about them. But the poor and working class are a living organism and their 
will be those that in some areas will take over the plantation, others who 
will be destroyed by the system and even others that will cross the class 
line like "Mike Tyson". And for every area like you mention above there is 
another area in the third world that is producing the stuff from the 
industries that have purportedly died out. This is a big lie by the way.

A good example is Norrkoping here in Sweden which was once the textile 
industry center of this country. Today it is only empty factories and these 
factories they are now rebuilding to unirversities. Thousands of jobs just 
died out they say. This is just a lie. The jobs are in the third world and 
now the former Eastern block countries where labor is cheap and the 
conditions are horrible! A good example is the recent hunger strike in 
Poland in a Swedish owned textile factory in Poland where conditions for 
these women are horrible!

So this this does not change the fundemental contradictions that exist on a 
world level. It only makes it more neccessary that the future leadership of 
the working class is revolutionary Internationalist and aware of these kinds 
of things and have tactics for them. Instead much of the left gets sucked 
into all kinds of stuff around protectionism whether it be the "common 
martket", Gatt. or the recent American treaty that has been debated here on 
the lists. 
>
>So, my point again is that the inculcation of the labor theory of value,
>as a metaphysical postulate, "religion" (to use your word), to create a
>consciousness specific to proletarian existence (what the Theology of 
Liberation
>people call a "pedagogy of the oppressed") is an essential pre-condition for
>revolution...and that no amount of militancy can supply the deficit.

Actually if i understand the above correctly you want to bring the urban 
poor and the peasantry into this struggle. Well, there is nothing wrong with 
that. However the point is who will lead the struggle? I think that it can 
only be the organised proletariat because of its position in production and 
distribution that can do that. But also the neccessity of the concious 
communist vanguard element to lead and guide the struggle.

So the question i put to you is "What position do the poor have in relation 
to production and distribution like the workers that would make them part of 
the revolutionary vanguard as a class?

For the proletarian vanguard and its party the question would be of tactical 
nature. Thus the poor and the peasantry would be the natural allies of the 
class. And we would naturally apply special organisational forms to this. 
But it does not change the ABC's basics of which class because of its *real* 
position in society-production and distribution--is the revolutionary and 
leading class in this struggle.

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki




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