File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9705, message 36


Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 09:20:08 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <leata-AT-EarthLink.NET>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Labor & politics:


Louis G:
>The armed strike is an example of what the working class must organize
>towards if it is to successfully confront a State far more powerful,
>omnipotent and dangerous than any encountered during the halcyon days of
>labor activism frequently evoked by Louis Proyect and others in this forum.
>It is in this context that we must look for the root causes of labor's "long
>march" of demoralization and defeat.  It is here, too, that one can begin to
>locate the vestigial beginnings of a tide that can sweep the working class,
>finally, to victory.
>

Louis P:
I never thought that the 1930s were "halcyon". The victories of the SWP in
the Teamsters Union and the CPUSA in a dozen other unions improved the
standing of working people. However, the political legacy of the 1930s is
much more troubled. The SWP had a sectarian approach while the CPUSA
steered the labor movement into support for the war-monger Franklin Roosevelt.

What does interest me is the ability of the CPUSA to speak the language of
ordinary working people during the Popular Front period and after.
Specifically, an organization like the International Workers Order had over
one hundred thousand dedicated members in predominantly working class
neighborhoods. Historians like Mark Naison and Maurice Isserman have been
doing yeoman-like work in uncovering the history of the CPUSA at the grass
roots level during this period.

We had the opportunity to create solid and powerful institutions of class
struggle in working class communities in the 1960s but the left blew it.
The CPUSA failed to attract the radicalizing students because of its stodgy
and dogmatic methods. The Trotskyists and Maoists did grow but squandered
all sorts of opportunities on account of ultraleftist sectarian stupidity.
We of course have a fair sampling of them here on our Spoons lists encased
in amber like prehistoric insects. Today they are a sideshow, but can you
imagine how disconcerting it was to have tens of thousands of
them--including me--running around drunk on jargon and leading the mass
movement into blind alleys.

As far as Louis G.'s reference to armed strikes, I regard this as pure
silliness and a throwback to the 1960s. Guns are the last thing that the
left should be talking about today. The main task is not even to raise the
level awareness for the need for socialism. Rather it is to get the workers
to think in class terms, that they have interests separate and apart from
the bosses. It is especially important for them to understand this need in
the electoral arena. That is why the emergence of the Labor Party is so
important. It opens up the possibility of driving a electoral wedge between
the two main classes in society and allowing all sorts of other political
questions to be raised.





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