Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 01:09:39 +1000
From: rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au (Rob Schaap)
Subject: M-I: Re: New Zealand Elections


What a night!  Anyway, first, a menshie's plea to the bolshies ...

Dave recognises there are learners on this list and has a way of calling a
bloke 'wrong' that does enlighten and, importantly, does not intimidate -
if we don't get more people contributing to this list, it won't be his
fault.  What strikes me, from a practical point of view, is that serious
differences between menshies and bolshies need not appear before, during,
and for some period after the establishment of a new-left reformist party. 
Practical point: it's no use shrieking at each other at these points in
time.

The tension arises, of course, if and when the rank and file start to voice
disenchantment with the horse they've backed.  Extra-parliamentary 'direct'
action needs a unifying leadership.  That leadership (BTW, I'm still not
convinced the party leadership need necessarily be bourgeois in its make-up
or programme) has the heaviest of responsibilities - to abandon its
bourgeois status (and the checks and balances this status confers) *at the
right moment*.  

The criteria for judgement are complex and manifold: what are the dynamics
in salient other countries; how many are with/against us here and now; are
those on our side at this point informed socialists or mere haters; at
which points in the hegemonic structure must we assert ourselves first etc
etc.  For to get it wrong at such a moment is to blow credibility at the
worst possible time .... resulting in either an ideologically nourishing
triumph for the old order, or recourse to an unaccountable revolutionary
elite with an unhealthy monopoly on coercive resources.  Or, as history
indicates to me, *both* ...

In short, while Dave makes a compelling case, it still amounts to the
placing of too much power in too few hands.  The party's contribution must
be to tell the people what is happening as it happens.  If this does not
demonstrably speed up the process, ultimately attracting a *majority*
support base for the party in its parliamentary form, *then the time is
simply not right* (and when it is, integrated, comprehensive action, *where
the means remain ever true to the end*, must be instantaneous).  To act
before time is [morally] not democratic (by my definition of the concept
anyway) and [practically] it's too *bloody* dangerous.  To my mind, if
you're forced into means that are insonsistent with your ends, you have
betrayed your trust (and hence the revolution).  

I realise my stance necessarily involves yet more decline in the material
conditions of most of us, but we must recognise a sad fact about our
revolutionary natures.  Large stakes attract the likes of us, even make us
impatient.  But we must learn what the conservative disposition takes for
granted: if the stakes are big, only bet on the odds-on favourite, and only
late enough in proceedings so that you're sure it will start as the odds-on
favourite.  

Anyway, as we write, the menshie and the bolshie can be allies, if not comrades.

Regards, Rob.







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