File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/97-02-15.234, message 1


Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 06:36:09 +0100 (MET)
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)


COCKROACH! #35

A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE.

WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS.

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have a voice on the Internet.

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How often this zine will appear depends on you!
--------------------------------------------------------
1. List Sociology

2. To the "American Marxists"...

3. General strike in Ecuador

4. Reform Vs Revolution

5. Special Announcement!

--------------------------------------------------------
List Sociology

>Malecki writes:
>"That is just not enough. People's politics and criticism'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 analysis 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 offence, no offence...
>really itching to get on with it. 
>There's no question re the urgency, but I'm sceptical 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 "sceptical regarding the mature
revolutionary/consciousness"
I am relying on can be taken in two ways. The first and immediate reaction
>from the gut can be quoted from a short paragraph 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.

And Trotsky was also very clear on the point of working class consciousness.
Something along the lines of "reaching trade union consciousness" 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 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 labour 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 neighbouring 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
Pittsburgh 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 centre of this country. Today it is only empty factories and these
factories they are now rebuilding to universities. 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 labour 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 does not change the fundamental contradictions that exist on a world
level. It only makes it more necessary 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 market",
GATT. or the recent American treaty that has been debated here on the lists.
>
>So, my point again is that the inculcation of the labour 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 necessity of the conscious
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
---------------------------------------------------------
To the "American Marxists"...

Dear Friends!

Recently L.Proyect actually put on paper some of his thoughts and attentions
about an reorganisation of the broad left in America. Unfortunately I
deleted the letter thinking that I would not waste a letter to M-I in
answering this stuff. But at the same time was curious too see if anybody
would address this stuff. As things have calmed down, obviously the
Americans have gone home to their relatives to eat Turkey
I think that it actually is important enough to address.

His assertion as I remember from the letter is that American Marxists have
to go back to 1776 and the declaration of Independence and things like the
Bill of Rights in order to build something in the United States. Something
along those lines anyway.

Naturally the war of Independence from a Marxist perspective is certainly
defensible and also the Bill of Rights. However, I do not think that this
kind of stuff can lay the basis for reorganising the left. In fact I thing
it is at best a liquidation of any kind of serious struggle to build a
Marxist current and Bolshevik party in the United States. Under the pressure
of the decline of the left Internationally and more specifically the
destruction of Stalinism as a political force, but also the leap of the
Social Democracy into the camp of the bourgeoisie, our so called "Marxist"
intelligensia are looking for new roads to travel. Unfortunately the new
road is not new at all but a clone version of a political line belonging to
the camp of both the Social Democracy and even more so the Stalinist school
of politics albeit in a clone and
neo-Stalinist form. It is also a capitulation to the present right wing
atmosphere that pervades the political scene especially in America after the
fall of the former Soviet Union.

In fact the political thrust of Proyect's assertions actually,(although he
does not state it openly) is in fact a clone version of a bougeois
democratic movement in America for democracy along the lines of patriotism,
democratic rights, and popular front politics. I mean who could possibly be
against the "Declaration of Independence"? And in the final analysis a back
handed support to the stage theory of revolution! I mean I can understand
this coming from third world Maoists (even if they are wrong) but to raise
issues like this in America as Proyect does is hair raising!

Because unfortunately America has gone far beyond any kind of struggle for
democratic rights although in certain instances they are certainly
defensible. But in fact has been one of the major imperialist powers of the
western world that has built its empire on the blood of millions upon
millions of poor and working class people.

So getting out the whistles and drums is hardly the way forward. In fact
this kind of stuff is ultimately to the right of the Labour Party and in
fact sound like some antics that even Gus Hall would even back down from.
Although who knows perhaps this will be the Euro-Communist version of
Stalinism in the United States!

The enormous pressure created by the American bourgeoisie and its allies in
cheering what they think is the defeat of Communism, which I thing is in
fact an opening of the door for intervention by the Bolshevik Leninists for
the first time in decades and great opportunities, has effected the left and
it appears especially intellectuals like L Proyect. Although he has spent a
life time on the new left this latest is a cry of desperation of finding or
building a movement along the Stalinist conception of democratic stages of
revolution. And this in America! What a shame that intellectuals like Louis
in their desperation in confronting the new situation Internationally have
turned towards a clone form of American wrapped
Stalinism and Menshevism.

It is not the Bill of Rights nor the Declaration of independence that
leftists should be claiming for their banner! It is proletarian
Internationalism and struggles in solidarity with the poor and working class
on this planet is what is needed. In the United States and independent
workers party has to be constructed in opposition to the twin parties of
capitalism on a program of politics that moves the workers towards
independent political power.

Not popularlist patriotic crap like Mr. Proyect is claiming to be the way
forward. It is and expression, in the final analysis of a desperate petty
bougeois intellectual who's trajectory is towards capitulating to American
chauvinism, isolationism and preparations for the next imperialist
confrontation.

Against this Marxists in the United States must struggle for the DEFEAT of
its own
bourgeoisie. And L. Proyects line is in the exact opposite direction.

Against capitulation to chauvinism and patriotism!

Against a cloned form of American Stalinist stage theory of revolution!

It is not "Yankee doodle" but the song "The International" that is needed.

For the creation of and American Bolshevik Party in a reforged revolutionary
Communist International!

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki
--------------------------------------------------------
General strike in Ecuador

Tumultuous mass protests started in Ecuador on Jan. 8, provoked by drastic
rises in the utility bills. The cost of electricity went up by 600 percent,
of natural gas by 200 percent. Moreover, an increase of at least 100
percent was expected in the cost of public transport.
At the same time, telephone charges rose by up to 700  percent. These price
rises were decreed after the government had frozen the minimum wage at  the
equivalent of $143 dollars a month.
"Analysts estimate," The Mexican daily La Jornada wrote Jan. 9, "that these
adjustments were a response to the need to put the economy in order in
preparation for making the Ecuadoran currency convertible in July of this
year. This is the axis of the economic program of the Bucaram government
and was designed by his top advisor, Domingo Cavallo, former Argentine
minister of the economy."
Cavallo was the architect of Argentine President Carlos Menem's austerity
plan, which aroused furious protests from the workers'=B9 movement in
Argentina, protests that have led up to the recent general strikes in that
country. He eventually became too hot a potato for Menem to hold, and
apparently decided to take his act abroad.
In Ecuador, Cavallo's plan recently received the accolade of the
International Monetary Fund, which sent a delegation to study the situation
in the country.
By the second day of the demonstrations, six people had already been hurt,
two seriously=8Bone student who suffered a bullet wound and a TV reporter
whose foot was shattered in the explosion of a tear-gas grenade.
A hundred demonstrators were arrested in the capital, Quito. About a
hundred demonstrators were also reported arrested in the town of Loja, 450
kilometers  from the capital.
In Quito, civil rights activists marched on the presidential palace in
protests against attacks on the press by government officials.
In the wake of these protests, a broad coalition of community and
trade-union organizations has called a nationwide general strike for Feb.
5. It includes the Coordinating Committee of Social Movements; the Workers
United Front (Frente Unitario de los Trabajadores-FUT), the country's main
trade-union confederation; and the Popular Front, a federation of social
organizations controlled by an ex-Maoist movement, the MPD (People's
Democratic Movement).
The Coordinating Committee includes Native American, peasant, neighborhood,
and youth organizations, Christian groups, and the oil workers' union. It
was also one of the main forces that launched the Multinational Unity
Movement, Pachakutik-Nuevo Pais.
The FUT played an important role in mobilizing protests against the onset
of 'neoliberal' (austerity) policies in the 1980s. But until the
government's latest provocations, it had been seeking a deal with the
authorities, a social contract. The recent brutal measures have forced it
again into opposition.
In the parliament also, the reformist left and even opposition bourgeois
parties have found it necessary to denounce the government=B9s convertibility
plan. The bishop of Cuenca, the country's third largest city, has said that
the protests are the exercise of a 'natural right.'
And one military commander has declared that the protests are just. In this
situation, rumors are spreading through the country that the president,
Abdala Bucaram, intends to suspend constitutional rule.

Gerry F.
--------------------------------------------------------
Reform Vs Revolution

>Bill-Writes..
>
>Most labour-based mass political parties in the world
>advocate some form
>of what they call democratic socialism. Some of them, despite
>this ideological heritage, have been to one degree or another
>corrupted by the influence of the rich and powerful.  But all
>of these parties, even the best elements of them, are obliged to work
>for reforms of the system, since the working class in most
>countries is not clamouring for revolution.  In some countries
>these reforms have actually improved the lives of most workers
>(a sure sign of "bureaucratic reformist betrayal by the grave-
>diggers of revolution blah blah blah" in the language of trot
>drivel or Stalinist drivel or just plain drivel).

Bill, now the above is not entirely true. Naturally reforms came because of
the struggles of the workers and not in the least the trade unions. Many of
them paid for in blood. Naturally these reforms should be defended at all
costs. But the whole point about "gravediggers" is in relationship to the
reformist idea of reforming the present system. Sweden is a good example
where reformism in the form of Social Democracy has a very long history. It
success can be laid at the door of the Bolsheviks and the Russian revolution
whereas the bourgeoisie in this country were prepared to make a historic
compromise rather then have a development of a
party here in Sweden along the lines of the Bolsheviks. (which by the way
was a real threat!) Today we see that reforming the system which is the line
of the Social Democracy connected to a lot Keynesian economics has utterly
failed. Now the rich and powerful are taking back all of the reforms and are
getting political muscle from the Social Democratic party who has deserted
the working class and trade unions for the middle class.

Naturally this kind of development MUST show itself as a political tendency
in any kind of Labour party movement in the states also. Just as it has here
and in England with the Blairites for example. It hardly has anything to do
with those horrible Bolsheviks who fight in the interests of the poor and
working class. But a certain part of the so called "labour aristocracy"
deserting to the politics of the middle class and bourgeoisie. Much of it
under the guise of "reforms" called "democracy" for the people

As far as people "clammering" for revolution. Well, we shall see. Already I
am beginning to hear that word more and more in the grass roots of the
Social Democracy. At this point in the sense of a palace revolution against
the present leadership. By saying that we need to put forth independent
trade union candidates against all the parties etc. The problem is not the
clammering but the central problem of without a "revolution" their is always
a danger that the rich and powerful can take back things that they were once
forced to give because of a
successful revolution. Thus many of the reforms that came in the west can
directly laid at the door of the Russian Revolution and of course some great
trade union struggles.

>Free health care is one example.  The reforms outlined in our
>Labour Party are mainly of this type.  You show our program
>to a political person in most countries and they would probably
>call it a socialist program.  I'm sure the business press in this
>country will also define it that way once we get too big to ignore.
>Of course, there is a huge difference between this kind of socialism
>and the ultraleft fringe.  I don't think it would be politically
>smart for the Labor Party to self-adopt the label socialist, given
>all the cold war connotations it conveys to most American workers,
>but I'm sure the label will be applied to us by our opponents.
>After some time, eventually workers will start saying, well if the right
>to a job and health care and organizing unions is socialist, then
>thats what I am.  But it may take a generation or two to achieve
>that change.

Naturally I agree with the above in one sense. It is a perfectly correct
demand! However, it is just these kinds of reforms that are impossible to
either get or historically hold on to unless there is a real revolution that
expropriates those that control things. The state is either a state that
works in the interest of all working people or it is a state that works in
the interests of the bourgeoisie! I glad you take up free health care.
Because health care in Sweden although not free has been very very cheap. As
the welfare state is being dismantled health care is being
dismantled. It goes along two lines. Privatisation and raising of the fees
for the services. And cuts in the public sector (in fact open sabotage of
the whole system) where we have come to the point here in Sweden where many
groups of people especially the old no longer get health care at all. They
are put on a wait list because sickness amonst the productive population
comes first. In other words old people are told to DIE!

This process has gone so far because of the massive cuts mainly in personnel
in the hospitals, old age homes etc. under the guise of centralisation and
reforming the system. But also because the banks after the eighties had to
be bailed out of the billions upon billions they were in debt for
speculating in stocks and bonds and especially investments in property! In
fact we had a reportage here recently that old people die of bed sores
because the personnel force has been cut so thin that they no longer have
time to turn the older patients. All of this stuff is the price of stream
lining tax cuts for the rich and profits for the companies and
bailing out the banks who were in a financial crisis!

So things are fairly complicated. And in fact there is no easy path even if
you try to pose it that way on this question. Because you do in fact try to
hide the central contradiction in society by taking "free health care" as a
relative safe reformist demand that any liberal could support at least on
paper. However to keep these kinds of reforms and extend them to the entire
population I believe will take a *real* revolution in the long run. Because
Sweden is one of the best proofs that the so called reformist way to
Socialism does not work in the long run! In fact it is only under very
special conditions and only under short historical periods that
this kind of stuff can work. Because without removing the central
contradiction in society either the bougeois rule or proletarian rule-no
real long term change for the better can be guaranteed!

This does not mean naturally that one has to immediately start screaming
revolution and all that bullshit. But it does mean that any serious
socialist or Communist must have a program which ultimately leads to poor
and working class people ultimately taking power in their own hands and
expropriating the bourgeoisie or the otherway around. Because historically a
middle way just does not work. Except maybe for opportunists!

Warm regards
Bob Malecki
--------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

TO ANTI-DEATH PENALTY ACTIVISTS, ANTI-RACIST ACTIVISTS,
SUPPORTERS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, AND ALL OTHERS INTERESTED
IN SOCIAL JUSTICE:

                  ****  SAVE THIS DATE:  MAY 3, 1997  ****

AD-HOC COMMITTEE WORKS TO BROADEN COMMUNITY
OUTREACH AND MOBILIZE GRASSROOTS ACTION
********************************************************

The Ad Hoc Coalition Against Racism and the Death Penalty is
sponsoring an exciting media event and conference on Saturday,
May 3, 1997 in Philadelphia, PA to increase the level of community
consciousness and mobilize grassroots participation around issues of
the death penalty including, but not limited to:

1.  Education regarding the need to end the death penalty, including the
roots of racism and class disparity in determining who is executed, and
discussion on a national mobilization for a Moratorium on
the Death Penalty.

2.  Increasing and consolidating campaigns to free Political Prisoners/
Prisoners of War through community education and support;

3.  Organizing to build a strong community-based movement to
stop police beatings, frame-ups and murder.
                     
WHAT CAN YOU DO:

Individuals and organizations who are eager to work with the
Organizing Committee to insure maximum community participation
by sharing mailing lists, hosting pre-conference meetings,
organizing transportation to help get folks to the conference,
donating educational and other materials, broadcasting live from
the event, videotaping the event to use for future grassroots
organizing, and offering your ideas, experience and concrete
support should contact ASAP:

Sis. Marpessa Kupendua - nattyreb-AT-ix.netcom.com
Bro. Komboa Ervin - komboa-AT-mindspring.com

!! SPEAK TRUTH TO THE PEOPLE !! ALL OUT FOR MAY 3RD!

MORE INFORMATION FORTHCOMING.
==================================================

Check Out My HomePage where you can,

Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara,
Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball!

Or Get The Latest Issue of,

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http://www.algonet.se/~malecki
--------------------------------------------------------








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