Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 10:09:25 +0100 (MET)
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-G: COCKROACH! #31 


COCKROACH! #31

A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE.

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1. Reply to "Open Letter To Workers Vanguard".

2. Revolutionary Platform of the Socialist Labour Party.

3. The Trade Unions Again!


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>OPEN LETTER TO WORKERS VANGUARD

In an open letter to Workers Vanguard  Jahfree counterposes a line of
black self determination and i assume the "right" to a nation for
blacks to the Workers Vanguard line of revolutionary intergrationism
and a multi-racial workers party to fight for a program of Social
revolution.

Actually this discussion is fairly important. Because the question
should be posed in an entirely different way. Because the bottom line
is can blacks as blacks liberate themselves or can classes in this
case the poor and working class either black or white, yellow or brown
liberate themselves.

I find the arguement for black liberation  a utopian pipedream at
best. Partially because of nationalist demogogues like Fararrkan
who wind up in bed with white nationalists when push comes to shove.
And the other reason is that blacks alone do not have the social power
to smash a system like the one in America which is based on the
concept of racism, classes and devide and rule.

In fact when I read about the one million man march    for black men
on Washinton I thought that it would have been better to organise a
one million man march on Detroit! Because the signal that Fararrkan
was giving to Washshinton was that he just wants a piece of the
action. A march on Detroit and the mobilisation of the Detroit
proletariat in say a political strike for certain demands petaining to
the black community would have given a far clearer signal and the
Detroit proletariat have the muscle to back it up.

But what the whole discussion comes down to is the fact of which
social class has the political power and muscle to really change
things. This of course must be the workers movement in and alliance
with the urban poor in a powerful social movement for real change.

I did not find anything in your critism of Workers Vanguard which
could counterpose a strategy which can present an answer which can
mean real social change.

In fact the million man march, much like the anti-war demonstrations
of the Vietnam period expressed a line of getting enough people on the
streets will end the war. Counterposed to this was a line of
mobilising the working class and the trade unions and linking these
struggles to the building of a real workers party in the United states
with a program of revolution.

In fact the latest expression of black nationalism is leading people
down a road which has a dead end. Instead of black nationalism in the
United States why not black Internationalism in the United States? For
example linking the struggles in South Africa and at prersent in Zaire
and central Africa connected to the rising militancy of the European
and Asian proletariat who are once again struggling on a broad front
against capitalist attempts to take back all the reforms made after
the sercond world war and the following cold war now that the former
Soviet Union has disintegrated.

I think that a line along this path and the creation of a multi-racial
International from the ghettoes of New York City, to the South African
proletariat and on to the European proletariat which is hardly "white"
and extending it to the former Soviet Union where 800 million Russians
are living under the minium of any black in the United States today to
the far east Indonesia, the phillipines and Japan and China.

What is it so fucking special about the "blacks" in America. The
history of class struggle internationally is the struggle of poor and
working class people everywhere in a desperate attempt to end the
tryanny.

Stop being so fucking American centered! In fact I recently talked
with a black South African that think that American blacks live in a
luxorius dream world and that it is sickening to see them come to the
South African airports and kiss the ground of the mother earth as they
push their latest record or supershow.

Otherwise i would like you to present a serious political line which
can end oppression for poor and working class people everywhere.
Malcolm x was beginning to understand this stuff but was murdered
because of it. So i do not think it is workers vanguard that has to
wake up in regards to political line. Perhaps some of the formulations

at least on the surface seem hard and a "white lefty" kind of thing.

But the real point is what is your politics! I think that Workers
Vanguard shows a way out. Albeit it would be better to present this
out of a more Internationalist picture on their part. Sometimes they
have a tendency in their articles to just polemisize against the
bankruptcy of black nationalism as a political force in America
without linking it to the great struggles going on Internationally.

I for example am well aware of the Florida events. The outrage and
rebellion against racist American justice! The riots, the burnings in
desperation against this injustice. I am aware of the Jamal case! I am
well aware of Clintons "reform" of the welfare system and what it will
mean to poor people.But are you aware that the same thing is going on
here in Europe. Do you know that not only blacks, but anybody with
brown or yellow skin can be shot by the facists. Do you know that
millions are starving and dying because of the imperialist world bank
and UN policies in Africa and there colonial BLACK lackies who help
carry out this policy of genocide.Do you know that in the former
Jugoslavia you can get killed for being a Serb,Bosnien, or Kroat. All
of these horrors can be layed at the door of Imperialism but also its
foremost tool nationalism! Do you know about the struggles going on in
Indonesia and the Phillipines?

So my question to you is what makes you so self centered black
nationalists (anarchists?) any better. I mean the black nationalists
in Africa promised freedom and what did black people get. A black
bougeoisie that oppresses them in the interests of imperialism. 


Stop your self centered whining about "black is beautiful" shit. Poor
and working class struggle is beautiful no matter what color it is!
The point is the liberation of ALL poor and working class people the
world over who have always been the pyramid of skulles that the rich
and powerful build their empires on. Only by organising people despite
their color in a revolutionary International to fight for political
power against our class enemies can show a way forward.

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki
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Document as amended and accepted by the first conference of the 
Revolutionary Platform of the Socialist Labour Party

1.  We desperately need radical economic, social and environmental change. 
This can only be achieved through the revolutionary struggle for socialism 
and the establishment of workers' power. As part of this struggle the 
working class must win what Marx called the 'battle for democracy'. A 
revolutionary democratic SLP must stand for:
2.  For a socialist republic, for a united Ireland. We are for the abolition 
of the monarchy and all hereditary privilege. We must fight for the 
abolition of the House of Lords and for proportional representation. We are 
for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of British imperialism from 
Ireland. If led by the working class, the fight for these demands will be a 
vital element in the struggle for socialism in the UK.
3.  Self-determination for Scotland and Wales  We fight for the peoples of 
Wales and Scotland to have the right and the means to exercise their 
self-determination. We advocate their voluntary union with the working class 
of England.
4.  No illusions in parliament  Parliament is a vital area of struggle for 
our new party. Yet there is no possibility of socialism being achieved 
through parliament. We need a democratic workers' state. All MPs and 
Ministers should receive a salary equal to an average workers' wage. All SLP 
MPs must be subject to the discipline of the Party, and are accountable to 
the Party.
5.  Democracy in the workplace. We are for workers' control of industry 
through elected and recallable workplace councils.
6.  Democracy in the trade unions  The rank and file must control their own 
unions. All officials must be elected, accountable, subject to instant 
recall and paid the average wage of the workers they represent. All members 
of the SLP who are trade union officials must be instructed to accept a wage 
equal to the average of that union's membership. All remaining moneys shall 
be given over to the movement.
7.  For a socialist workers' Europe  As a socialist and internationalist 
party, the SLP must pursue a working class agenda on all matters relating to 
the European Union. We must unite  with European workers to fight for a 
united socialist workers' Europe.
8.  Workers' Unity  There should be no residence qualifications for 
membership of the SLP. We want to organise all workers - whatever their 
country of origin - that live under the British state. The SLP must oppose 
all immigration controls. The bourgeois state uses such controls to keep 
migrant workers as worst paid labour in Britain, to criminalise them and 
divide them from the rest of the class. It is a basic principle of the 
workers' movement that we oppose all immigration controls.
9.  An internationalist party  A revolutionary republic must withdraw from 
all imperialist alliances and blocs like Nato. Our international policies 
must be guided by the world fight for working class revolution and 
socialism. We are for a workers' international which unites all workers 
against the capitalists and which fights for a socialist Europe and a 
socialist world. We are for the withdrawal of UK imperialism from every part 
of the world (Ireland, Balkans, Gibraltar, Africa, Hong Kong, Malvinas, 
Carribean, etc). We defend the right of every oppressed people to expel 
imperialist troops from their own lands.
10.  For a democratic SLP  We must have discipline, organisation and 
democracy. We need the principle of free and open debate without 
bureaucratic restriction. This must go along with unity in action. Minority 
views should be given due recognition and comrades should have the right to 
co-operate with co-thinkers to win support in the party.
11.  For a revolutionary alternative to Labour  We don not need a 'Labour 
Party Mark II' or a new Independent Labour Party (ILP). The new party must 
reject reformism and fight for revolution.
12.  For complete equality of workers from all nations and genders Smash 
immigration controls. Support the right for black and Asian community to 
defend themselves against racists and fascists.
Workers of the world unite
--------------------------------------------------------
The trade unions again!

>From: neil <74742.1651-AT-CompuServe.COM>

Once again Neil who at best appears to be and anarchist is running his 
ultra-left childness of throwing out the baby with the bath water rhetoric 
on the trade unions.
>
>In unionisms heyday, albeit reformist , unions were a vehicle
> for workers to enjoin in  the fight for MORE. Today, in capitalisms
> decadence, the unions  policy is basically to get the workers to
> accept LESS! In doing this the state allows the unions to legally 
>and politically function -to prop up the system .

Now Neil is even going futher and saying that trade unions basically have 
become a function of the bougeois state! Thus the only reason they are 
allowed is to sell out the workers or get less. Any trade unionist or most 
workers realize that every time a contract comes up, every time their is a 
strike, in fact anytime an issue is discussed on the factory floor it is 
usually in relationship to THEM or US ie; the bosses or the workers. Since 
when has this changed Neil?

In reality you are cluing your hate of the trade union bureaucracy and 
traitors to the organisational question of the class in itself. In fact 
saying that trade unions should not exist because those horrible reformists 
and pro-capitalist leaders have time and again sold out the workers. 

I say that trade union organisations are and expression of the struggle of 
classes. Albeit mostly along the lines of contracts, disputes in the work 
places etc between the bosses and the working class. This organisational 
form of the working class has a long history despite the leadership. And 
today at least here in Europe the workers are in fact fighting to defend 
these organisational forms (the unions) from the attacks of the bougeoisie 
to dismantle them. Thus here in Sweden most of the anti-worker legislation 
directed at the workers movement is directed at cutting off the legs of just 
the trade union movement. Despite the fact that it is the reformists and 
traditionalists that lead these organisations! 

The capitalist reasoning of having the trade unions smashed is because there 
is no more room for reforms, nor a class collaborationist bought off 
leadership to administrate these reforms in the workers movement. And your 
position appears to be a cheer leader of this kind of development. 
Communists and Socialists defend the working class and the reforms that it 
has won both through a class collaborationist leadership and those reforms 
that were won through open struggle.  Your line appears to be the same as 
the bosses here today of smashing the trade unions with anti-trade union 
legislation and threats of moving factories to the third world etc. 
>
>But the unions by the WW1 period (recruitment sergeants for that 
>slaughter of workers for capital -- & enforcers of capitalist  labor
>discipline  on th ome front too) had begun integration into the 
>political state itself.

World war 1 gave birth to the October Revolution in Russia!
and the rise of Communist parties and tendencies throughout the western and 
eastern worlds..But also to the strengthening of the reformist Social 
Democratic Parties. Are you saying that this was a bad thing for the working 
class?

>By WW2 , this integration was certainly  complete.
>The post WW2 boom period of  capital is long over and the
>unions collaboration with capital against workers struggle after 
>struggle to police the workers has  become rancid and overripe
> by now.

World War 2 consumated the victory of Stalinism and its twin partner 
reformism of the Social Democracy and extended its lifetime. This also 
despite Stalinism was a positive thing for the workers. Despite the 
leadership. Because of the Red Armies victory over the facists whick i say 
is positive and defensible. Because what would have happened to the working 
class if the facists had won?

 But it certainly is not that way today. The Social Democrats are deserting 
to the middle class whilst the Stalinists have been destroyed as a political 
force. So a new leadership must come forward and take up the battle inside 
and outside of the unions. Not whine and scream "Smash the Unions" but a 
leadership that can strengthen the unions and fight for political power in 
the interests of the class.
>
>But instead of going over the track record of the union as insitutions
>  and looking at the actual history of unionism in the class struggle
>-esp. the last 20 years  of capitals ferocious austerity drives, BM 
>gives us the tired spart  great union leader theory of history .
>BM thinks his  tailist  scheming to get the trotsky people into union 
>leaderships ipso facto converts unions into revolutionary instruments 
>of the class.This is not only elitist , but terribly wooden and idealistic. 
>It is no accident that BM says not one word about the struggle
>for the hearts and minds of RANK AND FILE workers, we get only
>his clap-trap about  solving  a "crisis of leadership"
>Well BM, I think any class  political tendency  right , center or' left'
>can make this their mantra--and historically they do just that-- usually
>as fuerhers (leaders) against the workers!

Boo Hoo Elistist! That is bullshit Neil..If anybody is elistist it is Neil 
and his ultra left ideals of wandering off into the wilderness and deserting 
the class struggle. Just when for the first time in decades the 
possibilities for Communist and Socialist  militants to intervene in the 
struggle of the unions and the struggle of the class as a whole is rising 
and new openings are appearing everyday at least here in Europe. You my 
friend are at the same time playing the flip side of the strategy of the 
bougeoisie in destroying the unions and the organisational forms that were 
built on the blood of millions and millions of workers. A petty bougeois who 
at the first sign of real class struggle joins the bougeoisie in the slogan 
of smash the unions! How quaint Neil. Grow up will you!
>
> In European mass worker fightbacks , BM bemoans a "treacherous 
>leadership ' of the unions in one sentence and the contradicts himself 
> in the next  avering we need not worry about  "a reactionary union
> bureacracy stopping the working class at this point."

That's right Neil! But you are misquoting me. I said that "at this point the 
trade union bureaucracy can NOT stop the workingclass".  

>I would also like to ask BM if the Swedish  unions are  building anything
> seriously anti-capitalist to unite the class for mass struggle lately then 
>why are so many union brothers nad sisters in the ranks already  'on
>unemployment ' i n the first place as he admits?? Is this  not
>more pus of  decadent corporate business unionism  oozing out?

OK here is a good example from here in Sweden. A mother of four children 
(unemployed) was responsible for organising a demonstration a few weeks back 
around the anti trade union legislation and unemployment the Social 
Democrats and its bougeois partners are trying to push through the 
parliment. This women's little spark started a fire and the demonstration 
was a huge success! Not only that she is now involved in a new mobilisation 
which is building for a demonstration again. And now even the bureaucrats in 
the unions are forced to back her up! They in some areas have shipped out 
letters to every member in the union to take part in the demo. Others have 
and are announcing in their press to the members to get out on the street. 
Not because they want too but because they have too! The pressure in the 
ranks from below is so enormous that they can not ignore this fight. And on 
the other hand the anti-trade union legislation is not only directed at the 
working class but the reformist leaders allso! 

This is a contradiction. I doubt that our ultra-left Neil understands 
anything about contradictions with his pro capitalist soap box of calling 
for smashing the unions. But a contradiction which Communists and Socialists 
must use in a United Front type of organisation of mobilising the class on 
the streets and marching on the parliment and the capitalists plans to 
destroy the unions. The point being that Communists must not only do that 
but patiently explain to the workers why the situation is the way it is and 
why the only solution is fighting for a real workers government that defends 
its interests.

So that is what Communists and Socialists should be doing while Neil and his 
little brigade of ultra lefts march off into the wilderness under the same 
slogan as the bougeoisie. "Smash the Unions". I hope that all Communists and 
Socialists on this list condemn Neil and his petty bougeois 'leftists' 
tactics. They are completely bankrupt and only play into the hands of the 
class enemy...

>
>BM should understand their is a problem for us socialists to deal with 
>of backward consciouness in the ranks. Do not the ranks in most cases
>elect the  union mis-leaderships?

Yes! And why not.. Workers do not vote a leadership because they think that 
they will betray them! They vote for a leadership which they think defends 
their interests. The point is that Communists and Socialists must present a 
clear program and patiently explain to wrest the leadership out of the hands 
of the traitors. Not wander off into the wilderness whing "Down with the 
Unions". 
>
>In our epoch , in fact union leaders are not  "betraying" workers 
>because their  real political loyalty is to capital and the state. In
>attacking the workers from behind for capital, they in fact are doing their 
job!
>If it were not for the wages system of exploitation's need for hagglers
>and a transmission belt for nationalist ideology , the rich would  not
>license the unions as they do.
>BM, by covering this up, is just tailing behind the TUBS.

Bullshit Neil. Every contract is a question of class against class. Every 
Strike also. So the question is who is going to lead that struggle. However 
for Communists and Socialists it is more then a question of *just* 
economical demands but social demands and polical power which must be linked 
to these economical struggles.
>
>Craft unionism is not 'organizing workers" either , it really helps 
>capital divide the class into limited isolated sectional action. We
>should expose this and point to the need to build class unity,
>and united struggle ,  building  joint activities of union and non-union
>workers. This kind of  mass action support could become impetus to
> a general strike, a political strike, that goes beyond unionism .

Bullshit Neil. The trade unions are and expression of and organistional form 
of the working class. Albeit I agree that a link with the unions and lets 
say the urban poor in the United States would certainly be a key for 
organising the millions of people who do not have a job. Because if the 
working class does not organise the urban poor the facists and Nationalists 
certainly will...

>It is not just a "great man" (sic) elitist "crisis of leadership ' workers
>must grapple with , but a crisis of  our own working class conscousness 
> and the will to struggle!

In fact Neil the only one deserting the class struggle is you and your ultra 
left line. In fact you have the mirror reflection of the bougeoisie who 
throughout the western world are attacking the unions and the reforms won by 
the working class in decades of struggle. This must also be understood from 
and analisis of what is going on Internationally and especiall the 
disintegration of the former Soviet Union led by the Stalinists. Despite the 
Stalinists this defeat was one of the central reasons why the bougeoisie 
Internationally is going to attack on a broad front against the trade 
unions! Only a leadership that understand this stuff and can struggle for 
leadership of the trade unions on the local,national and International level 
on a class struggle program can move the struggle forward. Your way is 
either into the wilderness or the camp of the bougeoisie---and it this point 
most likely both.

Down with the ultra-left petty bougeois anti-union theory!

For a class struggle leadership of the unions!

Bob Malecki
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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