File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/marxism-general.9709, message 59


Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 02:02:54 -0400
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: Re: M-G: Re: M-I: RE: Class consciousness


Dave B. wrote;
>Thanks for your reply James. Of course the article I posted to MI and 
>MG goes into this question in some depth.  You may find the question 
>of devolution a massive yawn, and of course your grandfather was 
>quite right. However,  not everyone in Scotland had grandfathers, or 
>didnt get such good advice,  or maybe failed to take notice. The fact is 
>that there will be overwhelming support for  Scottish parliament. 
>What do marxist do with that?  Sleep through the sessions? Accept the 
>token devolution as if Scotland were a GLC with  little funding and 
>no real autonomy? 
>The problem is that it is not just the tartan tories who want home 
>rule but a sizable chunk of the working class too. Are we to preach 
>at them the wisdom of our grandfathers to grow up and get real, or 
>do we try to convince them that token home rule will do nothing for their 
>problems and win them to a class independent standpoint by 
>participating in the devolution?
>We don't go round saying that nationalism lives OK and its going to 
>solve the workers problems. We say that while nationalism lives we 
>have to fight the nationalists on their own turf, not preach from the 
>editorial rooms of our respective newspapers.
>This is similar to the ravings of the left about Di.  Do we break 
>workers from loyalty to royalty by printing bad jokes about Di's 
>death, or do we shoulder some of the responsibility for this mass 
>hysteria for not having mounted a revolutionary leadership that could 
>have given workers a real alternative? 
>
>fraternally Dave.
>
>Dave Bedggood

Dave and others,

I am a bit worried about the arguement you use here and then metodology. It 
appears from reading that your line is that if a sizeable part of the 
working class supports it then so do we! I must say I think this absurd. 
Because we just saw that a good part of the working class were shedding 
tears for Di and naturally this certainly does not mean Socialists or 
Communists join in the weeping. And on the national question this kind of 
metodology could be extremely dangerous. For example Nothern Italy wanting 
to seperate from Southern Italy where I am quite sure that a sizeable part 
of the class mistakenly has sympathies for this line.

I think that Lenin saw the National question in a negative sense. Thus a 
question because of historic reality was a block in unifing the working 
class. In certain instances Lenin was for the right to self determination 
(Finland). But it was never a tool in the positive sense because the 
ultimate goal was the dictatorship of the Proletariat everywhere and a world 
socialist republic.

So by one sidely pushing propaganda on Wales or Scotland where I in the 
first place am not quite sure is correct Dave who supports this stuff at 
least should do it in the Leninist context. And not by tailing the 
backwardness of Nationalist aspirations in general that are rising in 
England as elsewhere..

This does not mean one should sit on their thumbs but should try and at 
least tell the entire truth to the class..Thus if Dave's organisation wants 
to support this shit it should at least be done in the negative sense of the 
national question and not just say we are for this shit period.. 

What we are for in England as elsewhere is a federation of Socialist states 
under the dictatorship of the Proletariat. We want to go all the way and it 
is only this in the final analisis that can remove the obstacles that 
bougeois nationalism is in the final analisis...

Warm regards
Bob Malecki

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