Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 09:01:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: With and against Jon - was RE: M-I: Re: Random thoughts on


Adam:
>
>Compare, for example, Trotsky's use of the voting
>figures in the 1930's and his use of them to indicate
>the potential for a united front against the Nazis. We
>have no such reliable barometers of the state of
>workers consciousness.
>

Louis:
For god's sake, what is all this silly talk about barometers? I work at a
university with over 10,000 workers, most of whom are represented by the
UAW, Transit Workers, Hospital Workers, etc. I am in daily contact with
these people since I am involved with a new Facilities Management system
which schedules their work. I also got to know the Barnard strikers fairly well.

There is almost zero interest in socialism. If there was interest in Jon's
shop, I would notice it here. What there is is a general sense that rich
people are doing better at the expense of working and poor people. This is
what Pat Buchanan tapped into.

The problem is that our "revolutionary" groups can not relate to this
discontent if their lives depended on it. The reason for this is that their
rhetoric, slogans, appearance and general demeanor or so out of whack with
what ordinary workers are thinking and feeling.

Take the Militant, for example, Jon's favorite newspaper on the left. It
makes the point of using the word "communist" instead of "socialist". This
word was introduced shortly after the phrase "worker-bolshevik" became
common. I asked my old friend Nelson who used to be the editor of the paper
in the early 1970s why use the word "communist"? Wouldn't that just alienate
people?

His answer: well, the SWP was trying to develop ties with the Cubans and
they preferred the word "communist". Great. Just what an American left paper
needs. This is the problem of all of the "Marxist-Leninist" groups. They use
language and symbols that are appropriated from other times and other places.

I think it is possible to draw working-people into oppositional politics,
but it will be in a way that doesn't look at all like the expected by all of
the Marxist-Leninist sects. I will disclose this method at the conclusion of
the cyberseminar.



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