From: brumback-AT-ncgate.newcollege.edu
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 21:59:06 -0800
Subject: Re: M-I: Work in Progress, Part 3


>Nancy wrote:
>>Finally, the last part of my essay on Labor, Nature and Value. Here I think
>>I have shown that women, poor people, people of color, gay people, disabled
>>people, young people, old people, and people who are interested in stopping
>>the destruction of nature are the class of people who may lead the world to
>>socialist revolution -- not the working class.
>
>Why either or? Aren't the majority of "women, poor people, people of color,
>gay people, disabled people, young people, old people, and people who are
>interested in stopping the destruction of nature" working-class? Also,
>don't the majority of the working class fall into one or more of the above
>categories?
>
>Yoshie
>
Good point, of course, you are exactly right. I was not very clear. Instead
of expressing myself in a precise way, I was reacting to the line that I
have heard from Marxist-Leninist quarters for so many years: to make the
revolution, organize the working class. Under this philosophy, feminism and
environmentalism, etc., have been criticized for distracting from working
class issues. After all, the Marxist-Leninists have said, the issues of
women, environmentalists, etc., cut across classes. 

Or, if feminists haven't been criticized, they have been regarded as being
of only minor importance.

In the 70's in the US, when the feminist movement was in full swing,
Marxist-Leninist women got a really bad name for themselves by going to
women's meetings and preaching that women had to attach themselves to the
working class, i.e., that they could not have their own autonomous movement.
Instead, they should have gone to union meetings, etc., and tell workers
that they needed to adopt a feminist platform, and join the struggle for
abortion rights, etc. If they had done that instead of splitting the
feminist movement, probably feminist issues would have done a lot better.
And also, they would have gained more support from women in the long run.
But they didn't, because of this obsession with the working class and its
identity as the only revolutionary group. 

There are many more examples that could be given re: Marxist-Leninists and
their positions and practices in regard to environmentalists and gay people,
etc. People of color did better because they were regarded more as a class,
at least in the 70s. I don't know what the line is now that so many people
of color have become successful professionals and business people.

Here's what I should have written: "... women, poor people, people of color,
gay people, disabled people, young people, old people, and people who are
interested in stopping the destruction of nature, in addition to the working
class, are the group of people who may lead the world to socialist
revolution, and not the working class exclusively."

Thank you for your comment!

Nancy



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