From: "Robert Malecki" <malecki-AT-algonet.se>
Subject: SV: M-TH: Re: M-FEM: All Work and No Play? No Way!
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 20:15:50 +0100


Justin long defense of defending a special place for the "feminists" is
garbage. And besides that the abortion question which he claims is a
feminist issue is not. It is a class issue. Communists are for free, easily
available abortion on demand. Because it is just poor and working class
women who wind up with either unwanted pregnancies or going to a
witchdoctor..

unlike Justin who wants to liquidate Marxist politics along the lines of
gender with claims of special oppression the communist international
supported women's sections and special organs for dealing with these
questions. But they were also like all questions subordinated to the actual
situation. Thus in a civil war it would not be necessarily the specific
oppression of women that would be on the first order of the day..

Claiming like the feminists that Marx was living in Victorian times made him
an unconscious male chauvinist pig is just ridiculous..And the point is that
most "feminists" claiming to be "Marxist" or Socialist in practice want to
liquidate Marx on the class struggle as being moot. Or at best underordered
the struggle of gender. They do this because they do not draw the class line
but the gender line.

And all of the stuff Jari is saying lately is right on line in regards to
the numerous leftists man or women who want to put feminism on a pedestal..
It will not in any way liberate women. And in fact spits in the faces of
those women who belong to the only revolutionary class in society...

And unlike Justin who claims that Leninists deal with the women's question
along the lines of the National question being wrong is also garbage.
Because the two certainly are linked in a very definite way. Both in the
progressive sense, but also in and utter reactionary sense..

What the people on this list supporting the feminist do is capitulate to and
anti-class analysis of social reality. Thus there are no classes in the
women's world just women.. Ha Ha what a joke..The oh so hip leftist on this
list while paying lip service to socialism being the only way out argue for
denying class reality is the central contradiction in the world today for
especially women but men also. You want to derail militant women into a
harmless multi class pressure group to reform capitalism and not the
destruction of this society ..

And Justin dragging Kollentai into this and painting her up as some sort of
wacko is quite absurd. She new quite well what Marxism based on class
struggle was about and that it was the only way out of oppression not only
of women but all of the oppressed.

And despite all the whining about "double work" it was in fact the
industrial proletariat through the October revolution that got the vote for
women. Not only in Russia but elsewhere.. They also took steps to draw women
out from behind the stoves and into politic and into the work places..

Even in the deformed workers states great gains for women came out of these
revolutions despite the Stalinists.. I would say that far more women were
active in politics and the work places then in most of the imperialist
countries..In fact women historically under capitalism were the original
reserve army of unemployed..Brought out only in times of imperialist wars
and sent back after these wars. This is exactly what is taking place today
with all the cuts in the public sector and all the rest..

So who is the real criminal here, the laid off dockworker who gets drunk and
comes home and beats his wife and kids or the system which seys up poor and
working class people for programs like work/welfare and all the rest..And in
fact immigrants have it far worse of then women in general and immigrant
women three time as worse..

So while the soft left capitulates to the whining feminists and capitulate
to them politically the situation for women is being thrown back to the
thirties at least here in Europe. The biggest reason for this is the massive
cuts in the public sector which were considered women's work places.. And it
is the women who lead these trade unions usually under reformist colors that
are the people responsible. They to use feminist arguments.. The latest
being the argument that one nurse or under nurse can take the jobs of two
or three hospital assistants! While the bosses cheer these feminists on!

Like Juri, I also agree that Justin can babble on all he wants about the
need for "feminists" and feminist ideology. But sooner or later we are going
to have to face the more concrete issues and real classes that do exist in
society. And the feminist arguments just do not address these things..

I should also mention that Communist also have the same position on
subordinating the struggle to trade unionism or anything else that tries to
derail the need for a revolutionary Party as the instrument to lead the
class struggle to victory and *real* liberation not only for women but all
of the oppressed.

Feminism like trade unionism is and obstacle to creating a revolutionary
vanguard of declassed and in this case degendered
in order to create the cadre who with a program and tactics of revolutionary
Marxism can lead the proletariat to victory..

Warm regards
Bob Malecki







     --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---