Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 23:26:46 -0500


COCKROACH! #40 (Workers-Communism?)

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1. MARXISM AND THE THIRD WORLD - REPLY

2. Workers-Communism?

3. Special Announcement!
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MARXISM AND THE THIRD WORLD - REPLY

I was very pleased to see that my questions regarding the relationship 
between Third World struggles and Western Marxism generated so much 
discussion and so many questions. It's really nice to see Third World 
issues getting some attention!! I've also been following the discussion 
re:Nigeria with interest. 

I will try to answer the questions asked as briefly as possible. I can 
only answer from an African perspective but assume that there is some 
commonality between African and other Third World experiences.

1. HOW IS VALUE TRANSFERED FROM AFRICA TO THE WEST

Well, how about the following for starters:

-massive flow of skilled people from Africa to the West (the West 
	actively encourages the immigration of educated and talented Africans) 
-interest on loans
-elites investing their vast fortunes in the West (in the case of Mobutu 
	his personal wealth exceeds the national debt of his country!)
-massive fetishisation of western goods (Mercedes Benz, Whitney 
	Houston, MacDonalds, Coco-Cola etc, etc)
-huge spending on arms (Western countries engage in hard sell and corrupt 
	deals)
-a neo-colonial economic system where raw materials are taken from Africa 
	(with workers getting slave wages and elites getting big money which  
	goes on imported goods or in to Western banks) and are processed in the 
	West. (value of course comes with processing). Right now the EU is 
	trying to bully South Africa into singing a Trade Agreement (do we get 
	some beads and mirror?) which formalises this arrangement. 
-corrupt "aid" programs which use "aid" as a bribe for access to 
	markets or, in the case of Malaysia, to give English capital a contract 
	to build a dam Malaysia doesn't need.
 
2. WORKERS AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE OF THE WORLD UNITE

I agree that this is a worthy ideal but what confronts me everyday makes 
easy sloganeering seem a little too easy. I live in Durban. Unemployment 
is 40%, one in four pregnant women tests positive for HIV, just over half of 
the city's population lives in squatter settlements with no sewerage, 
electricity etc. Annagreta Khumalo is typical. She lives in the women 
only settlement which lines both sides of New Market Street. She makes 
pillows which she sells for about 1 US dollar to people going on long taxi 
trips to Jo'burg. She pays about 5 US dollars to get to church every 
Sunday and about 10 to get home to her family once a month. She has about 
20 US dollars to give them. 

I have been accused of "poor third worldism." I would like to 
stress that, contrary to the images of the Western media, people like 
Annagreta are not passive victims. They are people with remarkable 
resourcefullness and vigour who are succeeing in making a life for 
themselves under the most difficult of circumstances. However I am not 
sure that people like Annagreta have much in common with the Western 
proleteriat. The reality is that the vast majority of Western workers 
are rich beyond Annagretta's dreams. Western workers also bennefit form 
Third World exploitation economically (when they get to buy cheap 
goods), enviromentally (when toxic waste comes to Africa instead of low 
income areas in the west) and so on. The European proletariat were happy 
to serve in colonial armies and, on the whole, still appear happy to 
profit from Third World exploitation. In fact in the case of French 
agricultural workers they protest in defence of the exploitative trade 
arrangments that Europe currently has with South Africa.

The only Western country that I have lived in is England and while I was 
there I delivered council newspapers in Tower Hamlets. (the East End of 
London) It seemed to me that 1. the English just don't know what poverty is 
and 2. that the beginning of a consciousness of the humanity of 
Third World people is more evident in the over-educated underemployed 
"generation X" youth than in the Tower Blocks of the East End.

I may be wrong about this and in fact hope that I'm wrong about this. What 
I do know is that capitalism knows no borders and therefore the struggle 
must know no borders. Clearly we need to struggle together against this 
system and the elites that prop it up and defend it in various countries.
I still have difficulty in accepting that Annagreta Khumalo has much in 
common with the Western working class though. I am not so much making an 
argument here as I am asking a question. I wonder if perhaps the 
Zapatistas may have found a way to bridge this gap? Any Marxian analysis 
of the Zapatista phenomenon will be much appreciated.

3. THE HISTORICAL DEBT

This cannot, as one posting suggested, be wished away. It may be not be 
part of an orthodox Marxist view but it is a reality in people's 
consciousness. Western countries haven't even begun to understand their 
barbarism toward Africa. The British museaum is still filled with stolen 
goods. Salisbury Cathedral still flys the flags of the Regiments that 
destroyed so many Africa communal societies and rebuilt them on 
exploitative lines. The flags of the Regiments that invented the 
concentration camp still fly. Until the West recognises this barbarism 
at the dark heart of its "Enlightenment" there will be an emotive wedge 
between Africans and European workers. Moreover the common sense 
conception of justice held by most people is that if you steal and 
destroy you have a debt which must be repaid.

England, Portugal, France, Germany and Belgium were primarliy 
responsible for colonialism and the USA and the USSR must take 
responsability for turning Southern Africa into a was zone during the 
70's and 80's. America in particular owes Angola and Mozambique a lot. 
Contrary to one posting Cuba most certainly did not play an imperialist 
role in Southern Africa. The Cuban defeat of the SADF at the battle of 
Cuito Cuanavale was a pivitol point in the struggle against apartheid 
and South Africans will not forget our debt to Cuba. Even Mandela 
refuses to bow to America pressure to isolate Cuba.

5. SOUTH AFRICAN AND INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTION

South Africa is a country where communists like Joe Slovo and Chris Hani 
are national icons and the elite call each comrade. Our Communist Party 
is also large, well respected and has some very talented mebers. (eg 
Blade Nzimande) However that is about as far it goes.

The settlement in this country was between white capital and the black 
bourgouise. In the past, to the great surprise of foreigners, political 
discourse was largely constructed around class but now it's race. The 
political pressure is no longer directed at changing the structure of 
society but is now directed at changing the race of the people at the top of 
the structures. (echoes of Fanon here) Just as English/Jewish capital 
sold off large sections to Afrikaaner interests after the National Party 
came to power white business is now "unbundling" and selling some key 
interests (newspapers, mines etc) to black consortiums. The Sowetan (our 
largest daily) celebrated one such aquisition with a twenty page 
supplement which was headlined with: "General's Win Wars Not Soldiers". 
Given the communal nature of the struggle against apartheid and the 
strength of the unions this attitude that the black captains of industry are 
the new 
revolutionaries is a remarkable ideological shift. In fact the political 
culture of this country has changed radically in the last few years. 5 
years ago T-shirts with socialist slogans or socialist icons were de 
rigeur campus chic. These days it's Nikes and baseball caps. We have been 
flooded with individualistic, materialistic American culture since the 
end of the cultural boycott. It sucks.
 
Many of us are hoping that after Mandela goes the Unions and the 
Communist Party will break away from the ANC to form a socialist 
opposition. However the ANC has just passed new labor legislation aimed 
at making South Africa more "investor friendly" which will undermine our 
great Union tradition significantly.

Massive corruption and very conspicuous excess (we are drowning in 
Mercedes Benzs and the new elite seem to spend a lot of time hanging 
with Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Johnny Chochrane etc at Sun City) is 
making people very angry but at the moment they have no organized 
channel through which to articulate their frustrations. An ANC MP, Bantu 
Holomisa, was recently fired from the ANC because he exposed corruption 
and is attracting a lot of very vocal support. However he is an 
ex-general from a "homeland army" and is hardly the person to 
lead the second revolution.

With regard to the question concerning Mandela and the ANC's position on 
Western imperialism it is clear that Mandela is not completely pliable. He 
stands by Cuba and has rejected Clinton's outrageous proposal for a US 
backed "African Peace Keeping force. Mandela is, however, not a Nyerere and 
in his 
autobiography claims to be an Anglophile. Mandela does not seem to have 
transcended his aristocractic, mission school background. He is not a 
radical. After all it was not radical to take up arms against apartheid. Any 
sane person supported the arm struggle. Of course he has a remarkable 
generosity of spirit and a better sense of the big picture than most 
politicians. He steered this country away from war and will be remembered 
for that. However he does not challenge the West. On the contrary he 
makes them feel good about themselves and allows people like Thatcher to 
bask in his glow. 

I've already gone on more than I intended so I'll leave it here.

Stay Well
Richard Pithouse

PS "Heita" is Totsi Taal for "Hello". Tostsi Taal is a Jo'burg street creole 
with anti-authoritarian connotations.
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Workers-Communism?

This is an attempt too reply to the document on "workers-communism" I found 
in the
mail today which appears to be sent in as and Iranians contribution to the 
debate on
both the past and the future. Actually after the debacle in Iran with the 
left and their
support to the Mullahs a number of years back it is quite refreshing to see 
a document
like this. Because the poor and and working class people in Iran certainly 
paid a very
high price for the fundamental "Stalinists" political orientation that the 
Iranian "far"
left had then and certainly in many ways have not broken with as of today. 

First I would like to comment on some of the GOOD things that I saw in the
document and then go on to what I think is fundamentally wrong both in its 
analysis
and some of its conclusions.

First, I think it is important that the document recognizes the role of the 
working class
as the revolutionary motor in society. While at the same time realizing and 
openly
admitting that the working class actually can lose! I mean our Iranian 
friends are not
taking the same path as some of our other neo-Stalinists of writing off the 
working
class altogether!

Secondly, I like very much the recognition of the International character 
and the
Internationalism of the document. The Iranian left has historically I think been
anti-internationalist. And this new turn has more to do with the tens of 
thousands of
Iranians living in exile after the fiasco in Iran. There is nothing better 
then exile for
opening the eyes of people to the most inbitten Nationalists. But I do not 
like the
"people" stuff because it is a left over of the Maoist popular front rhetoric...

I also like the document because it takes up the political bankruptcy of 
Stalinism, at
least evolving from Moscow, but then the document appears quite silent on the
Stalinist leaderships of China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba. I think that 
this has
its bases in that the so called far left in Iran leaned towards "Maoist" 
political
solutions and saw the Tudah Party as the reformist "Moscow" orientated party 
in the
region. So the position is understandable in concrete terms.

Now, I think that we have to get down to the fundamental wrongness of this 
long but
interesting document. I think that the central problem is its complete 
capitulation to
spontaneity! Capitulation to the consciousness of the working class as it 
is. It even
goes so far as to defend the present "leaderships" of the trade union 
movement despite
their fundamentally pro-bougeois anti worker politics as being and 
expression more
of the left missing the working class all together, rather then fighting to 
replace the
present pro-bougeois leadership with a revolutionary leadership. This 
naturally is a
tendency by our Iranian friends of putting a Stalinist interpretation on the 
working
class. In other words even if you are a right wing Social democratic hack, 
you are our
pal in the struggle against those horrible imperialists. Naturally they are 
the deadly
enemies of the working class and should time and again be exposed for their 
rotten
pro-bougeois and anti-working class politics. And if they are FORCED by their
position to take a step in the interests of the working class we will march 
side by side
with you. However we intend to keep the right of telling the workers exactly 
what
your politics represent for them!

The reason for this fatal mistake is both real, but also historical and very 
empirical.
Our Iranian friend accuses the left in general of missing the working class 
and mostly
carrying on sterile debates about historical fights. In a sense this is true 
if one were to
look at the very special conditions that evolved out of the second world war 
and for
our Iranian friend the very special conditions in Iran with the Shah and the 
oil money.
One of the basic problems with the new left is that historically it a student
petty-bougeois based movement both in the west and in Iran. This was partially
because of the historical domination of the Stalinists and reformists in the 
workers
movement. And partially because of the post war boom economically and the post
war baby boom!

It was both good and bad. Good in a sense that these petty-bougeois youth 
made a left
turn in history to investigate and agitate in politics outside of the 
dominant wing of
Stalinism, reformism and bougeois ideology. In some cases especially Iran 
western
and Iranian students saw a contradiction between Moscow Stalinism and Mao
Stalinism (during the Maoist flirt with guerrilla movements) which led to 
huge battles
where also the Trotskyists (who also had a petty-bougeois student base) could
intervene. It was the new left expression of the end of the cold war! And 
came long
before the fall of the eastern block countries and finally the 
disintegration of the
Soviet Union. And also before the Chinese turn towards the politics of enrich
yourselves. So in a sense the students just like in Russia one time were in fact
unconsciously the vanguard of what was and is to be a new era. Naturally, this
movement, because of its petty bougeois base grew very quickly and also declined
very quickly into babies and career making. In Iran it took far more of a 
dramatic turn
with the Mullah bloodbath sending thousands upon thousands of these student 
leftists
into exile. So in a certain sense our Iranian friend has drawn a conclusion 
that the left
missed the working class all together. 

This is not really true! In fact it is only parts of the left that missed 
the working class.
And they missed the working class for very specific reasons. In the Stalin and
Mao-Stalin dominated far left they missed the working class because of a
CONCRETE political line. It was the line of the stage theory of revolution and
popular front politics which in Iran for example led to the bizarre and what 
proved
suicidal line of seeing the Mullahs as part of the dynamics of the Iranian 
Revolution.
In other parts of the world like America it was expressed in the popular 
front versions
of the anti-war movement and worship of the petty-bougeois guerrillas like 
Castro
and not in the least Che! This because of the student petty-bougeois 
character of the
movement and its worship of these types of movements not in the least Vietnam
where the *real* action was, but also the political leaderships of these 
movements. I
am quite sure that examples along these lines can be given in just about every
country. But the bottom line in fact was not the "petty-bougeois" character 
of the
students themselves but political line which was dominated just by the 
Stalinists and
Mao-Stalinists in these movements. I should mention that even the reformist 
Social
Democracy was effected by this huge student radicalization. It even in some 
cases
like Sweden went so far as to support a lot of the third world liberation 
armies and in
Vietnam led to a breaking of diplomatic relations with the Americans! 
However this
radicalization missed the working class because the political leadership had the
political line of the Stalinists and Mao Stalinists! It was not just and 
unconscious
mistake..

Going on to say that the left missed the workers and now saying that we have 
to go
back and tail at best the backwardness of the working class is not the 
political answer.
Just because you put on a pair of blue jeans or slacks and go to the local 
industry or
office and bow to the backwardness of the working class for missing them 
will not
change things. In fact it is only changing horses from the popular front, 
stage theory
of Stalinism and Mao-Stalinism for reformism and economism! In other words back
to the old debates between Lenin and the economists in stuff like "What is to be
done!". In fact, I could say that the document is and unconscious attempt, 
albeit both
polite and honest to try and break with the Stalinist politics of the new 
left as it was
represented only to turn towards reformism albeit keeping a bit of Stalinist 
rhetoric
and garbage in the writing of the document.

And in fact that is what our Iranian friend is doing! Naturally he is very 
sympathetic
to read because of the very polite way he presents his views. However for 
poor and
working class people it would mean a political DISASTER. Lenin was correct in
saying that "trade union consciousness" is "bougeois" consciousness in the 
workers
movement. He counter-posed a party of professional revolutionaries to solve this
problem among others. And unfortunately our Iranian friend is bowing at the 
alter of
just the backwardness of the proletariat and is telling us that we are being 
snobs in
saying that a professional organization of revolutionaries is VITAL for the 
success of
any revolution! Although I to have a very workerist streak in me and many 
times have
accused the left of being petty-bougeois and discussing issues basically on 
a level
which any worker would find appalling at best. It does not change the 
political fact
that the whole lesson of Lenin's 45 volumes can be summed up with a party of
professional revolutionaries changes the bougeois trade union consciousness 
of the
workers at best-- to a revolutionary consciousness that will take them down the
historical path that Marx set out for them as the revolutionary motor of 
history. But
Lenin and the party and Marx are like one egged twins in the womb. If one 
dies so
does the other or at best is doomed to a life of slavery under the present 
system!

Finally, I would like to say that I HOPE our Iranian friend and is 
supporters who quite
clearly after the defeat in Iran are theoretically trying to find a way out 
of the dead
end that Iranian new leftism gave them. (Death or a life in exile, like 
myself) That
these people seriously begin to consider not taking a step backwards to the 
class that
they missed. But a step forward and read both Lenin and Trotsky on the 
political and
ideological struggle that has been taking place. Unfortunately the 
Trotskyists just as
the far left in general (in this case our Iranian friends) have because of 
the domination
of Stalinism and reformism in the leadership of the working class are still 
trying to
come up with both "new" and really old formulas that just won't work! For 
the youth
their is and excuse (their youth) but for our generation it is a crime!

Only by once again turning to the fundamentals of Marxism, Leninism and
Trotskyism can the seeds of a future revolutionary International be sown. 
The death
of Stalinism does not mean that we should turn towards the reformists and their
historical solutions. Besides the Social democrats are deserting to the 
bougeoisie! So
if you want to take their place, our Iranian friend and the bottom line of 
his political
line is one way to go! However their is a better way and a way to building a
revolutionary International. We might lose but it is better to storm the 
gates of heaven
then bow at the alter of spontaneity!

Forward to the creation of a Revolutionary International!

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.
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