Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 12:06:11 +0100 (MET)
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-G: Re: so- called deformed workers states


Neil writes;
>
> BM, you are so busy giving a left-cover to bourgeois trade unionism
> (and hence social democracy too) in practice that you you cant even
> conceive of  finding more original/effective ways to carry on communist 
>political work at the base with union or non-union workers.

Why Neil! Why should the Trotskyists change their position on trade union 
work? I mean the Transitional program is still quite and effective weapon.  
>
>You think workers faced with growing crisis and attacks just
>want the wave of the magic wand of trotskyist mantras and
>presto--the trots will get installed as the new union honchos 
>and then world revolution!

Not really waving the wand Neil. Just some fairly consistent work in the 
trade unions based on a program. Hasn,t got anything at all to do with 
mantras or anything else.

>History shows whenever  your trend ends up with worming 
>their way on &  pushing out  the usual SD style union hacks , the trotsky
>"revolutionaries" soon  just become just  new union hacks to
>help the bosses ride the workers.

Who supports unions hacks? And naturally if Trotskyists get elected to union 
posts it should be on the program of trotskyism applied to the trade union 
movement.

>This is because the nature of the unions in our epoch has
>qualitatively changed and most all are tied up now not
>just in peddling wage labor but are integrated into the 
>courts and other parts of the state of capital (in the US, the CIA, AIFLD,
>etc.).

Not right their either Neil! I mean there is nothing really new with the 
analisis of Lenin and Trotsky regarding the trade union movement nor the 
present leaderships whether they are pro capitalist Democratic Party types, 
Social Democratic reformist types or Stalinist types.

Naturally I can not take responsibility for what the trade union tops do in 
the courts. However Trotskyists on principle do not support the ideas of 
bringing the capitalist courts or cops into the trade union movement. 

> Trade UNIONS today are not "opposition" as they were in the pre-imperialist
>epoch of capitalism , there has been qualitative changes .
>Of course communists work in them to have access to the ranks
>and also to keep their jobs! 

Yes the trade unions are the mass organisations of the Proletariat (despite 
the present leadership). That is why Trotskyists do not walk off into the 
desert screaming "Smash the Unions" like our ultra left Neil. You have the 
same methodology on the unions as you have on the deformed and former 
degenerated workers states. Which basically is throwing the baby out with 
the bath water. 
In fact not understanding onre thing about class struggle and fighting for 
the leadership of the mass organisations of the Proletariat. In fact you 
desert the unions, just as you deserted the deformed and ex degenerated 
workers states.

>
>You have the similar mechanistic/metaphysical  problems with your view 
>of how soviets/ workers/soldiers councils get formed.

Not really. And futhermore "Soviets" are not just a means to and end. Thus 
the equation Soviets=revolution. But who leads those Soviets is naturally 
the decisive factor! 

>They do NOT merely, with Malecki  magic wand , "appear in pre-revolutionary &
>revolutionary situations". They are actually  prepared in from embryo 
>and fertilized by steady  communist agitation and organizing from below 
>in non-revolutionary times and the crisis creates the soil for them
>to develop more.

Really Neil! Go out in the desert and scream to you are green in the face. 
And build your embryos! But I doubt that this kind of shit rises above 
anarchism at the best! It willl be the Bolsheviks who will try to stand at 
the head of all proletarian organisations whether they be "Soviets" or trade 
unions or strike committes or what ever that leads up to a pre revolutionary 
and revolutionary situation.
>
>Communist groups must carry on political agitation from below 
>toward the ranks including building a new  revolutionary marxist
>party but also supporting struggles in the industries  that will
>help the workers to get confidence of victory and take the
>defensive fights against the bosses  to higher levels.-where
>workers will want new industrial  organizing that the bosses
>and the union apparatus cannot control and manipulate.

OK! So what.This does not exclude but include fighting for the leadership of 
the factories today and that my friend usually means a trade union.
>
>These are some of the key lessons in the Western Soviets
>history of struggle and fatal mistakes of  hesitation 
>with trying to re-group liberal-labor and social democrats 
>who worked as the trojan horse.
>E.g. the experience of Germany in 1918-20 and Italy
>in 1919-21, etc.

The fatal mistake in both of the above was in fact that there was not a 
mature party with a program that had consumated the historical lessons of 
the Bolshevik Party!
I mean the Social Democrats were already written of by the Third 
International. So naturally to do like you is just a belated cheap shot 
which tries to make cheap points that can,t be made. In fact the blame must 
be put on the left splits moving towards the Third International and the CPs 
which did not have the cadre or maturity to use the situations to take the 
revolutionary helm and lead it to victory.
>
>Lenin and co. "soared like eagles"  up to 1920-22 when faced with
>the isolation and  strangling of the european revolutions
>caused them to make fatal compromises, like backtracking
>on ther own hostile views toward reforming unions and parliaments.

Well, Lenin was quite explicite both about the compromises the Bolsheviks 
were forced to make and also very clear about the revolution not spreading 
and the development of mass communist parties in the west wopuld mean. Then 
Lenin died and we got Stalin and all that followed. And so! Trotsky and the 
Left Opposition. 
>
>You take "left wing communism" period lines and think 
>you can just  beat militants on the head with it NOW in your
>dogmato-religio fashion!

Not really Neil. Your leftism is in fact rightism! Where your positions put 
you not only outside of class struggle but usually in the third camp which 
is no camp at all! 

> Wrong Bob! How  could Lenin  correctly call  social democracy
>"counterrevolutionary " and a "stinking corpse" from 1914-9
>and then demand British (and others workers) workers
>support the British Labor Party in elections  in 1920?

Well, I assume it was a matter of "critical" support as a tactic in trying 
to split the base from the top in the struggle to build a section of the 
Communist International in Britain.

>He said support  like "rope supports a hanged man"
>but the hanged men (sic) were not in the end  the bourgeois 
>but the workers!

Well the above is both clear and very Lenin! So...

> Bob! No more bible thumping--deal with it!
>Try to go cold turkey on this -- please no popish trotsky dope
>torn from historical context!

Well I feel i am dealing with you just fine here Neil. And of course will 
continue to try and to my best both here as other lists where you try to run 
the out in the desert anti trade union game of yours. However I will defend 
you against red baiting by the reformists and others. Because I really do 
think you still want to make a revolution Neil! Its just that you have no 
program, a bankrupt political history of a plague on both your houises type 
and you have no future. That is unless you find a 
Bolshevik-Leninist-Trotskyist organisation who can teach you some 
revolutionary history and tactics. Then maybe you can be part of the future. 
However along the path your are walking is only the desert Neil!

Warm regards
Bob Malecki

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