Reform or revolution?

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Comment by Kenneth Stretcher on January 17, 2012 at 2:32

Many times in the history of the labor movement capitalist spokesmen have sought to confine the activities of the workers within narrow limits. Workers are advised to restrict their activities to a particular plant or industry or within the boundaries of one country. Labor organizations are warned against entering politics, and, once they do become an independent force in political life, are cautioned against seizing state power on their own account. These “No Trespassing” signs are put up for one purpose: to keep the workers from invading these privileged precincts so that reactionary forces can enjoy their undisputed possession.

Comment by peter waterman on October 2, 2010 at 13:22

Peter Hall-Jones: I agree with you, of course, provided we trace back the Cold War to the Russian Revolution or even earlier. Although Marx and Engels argued for a dialectical approach (what Bertell Ollman called 'the philosophy of internal contradiction) and often demonstrated this, in their more political/polemical/ideological writings they frequently resorted to Manichean oppositions - of which Proletarian v. Bourgeoisie is probably the most famous and most lasting. Even Rosa Luxemburg - one of the most respected Marxists (in part because of her critique of Leninism) - declared 'socialism or barbarism', which hardly allowed for 'socialist barbarism' as demonstrated at Kronstadt 1921(?), Prague 1968, Tienanmen Square (1989). And this is not to mention the massacres by Pol Pot, or the prematurely crowned Presidente Gonzalo of the infamous Shining Path in Peru. One could continue.

The customary riposte to such accusations (from r-r-revolutionaries, at least of the more-humanist tendency) is to say that these countries, parties, leaders were not 'really' socialist. Whist this might save 'socialism' to be yet demonstrated, it does so at the expense of recognising that, in attempting to turn the world upside down (or to 'bury capitalism' in the Khruschevian phrase), one has to treat capitalism as an evil totality, and to justify everything done in the name of (one's desired idea or model of) socialism as a process and totality that is essentially virtuous.

Actually, I think we need to 'emancipate ourselves from mental slavery' and take this to mean self-emancipation from the socialism and the left of national/industrial/(anti-)colonial capitalism. This is not to denounce or condemn but to recognise that we live with the heritage of the Left as it was born in the constitutional assembly of he French Revolution (i.e. as the radical-democratic tendency against but also within that bourgeois revolution, the British industrial revolution, and capitalist modernisation).

Marx was the inheritor of not only these traditions/influences but also of the Judaeo-Christian tradition: of Saviours and Scriptures (Marx as the last of the Old Testament prophets, the Communist Manifesto as the 12 Commandments, later followed by the 21 Conditions for membership of the Communist International).

Marx also evidently got his chosen people wrong. Whist the working class has been socially emancipatory and globally internationalist in particular places and times, it clearly is not uniquely imbued with these qualities. Nor, as Marx imagined, has society been reduced to two great classes. Under a complex, globalised, informatised and consumerised capitalism, proletarianisation has continued but without the formation of the single worldwide revolutionary vanguard of Marxist imagination.

So I feel we need to reinvent the left, or to say farewell to this term and replace it with one relevant to contemporary capitalism and the diverse in often inchoate movements against one or other of its alienating effects. Even more radically does this imply a new epistemology (theory of knowledge, worldview, view of the world) that relates to contemporary capitalism, rather than trying to reduce it to a simple/istic 19th or even 20th century model.

Debate, discussion, dialogue around such is taking place energetically within or around what I call the 'global justice and solidarity movement' - a concept that itself is trying to bring into existence that which it names. Unfortunately, little of such thinking (there are exceptions) addresses itself to human labour, its alienations, and the role of labour struggles in the more general one. This, however, leaves plenty of room for us on this site, or within this group, to make up for this lacuna.

Oh, and as for the convergence you speak of, this remains a challenge both for the institutionalised labour movement (unions, parties, publications) and for the newest social movements and their...instances?...networks?...cyberspatial activies?...cultural expressions?). So far they tend to make love cautiously, like hedgehogs. The World Social Forum, one might say, hosts rather than challenges the unions. And unions involved tend to use the WSF rather than to dialogue with it. (And the labour left, within the WSF, as represented by the Globalisation and Labour network, tail-ends rather than challenges the hegemonic labour organisations and ideologies).

I actually therefore consider that UnionBook might prove - in so far as it remains open - to provide that agora (meeting place, market place) in which the necessary reinvention can occur. In such sites as this, more than elsewhere, the traditional differentiation by weight, numbers, experience, prestige, are evened out - at least for those with internet access, capacities and (so far) English.

Comment by Peter HJ on October 2, 2010 at 1:23

@ Peter Waterman: I totally agree. It saddens me to see discredited slogans brandished about like tin swords (no offence is intended to the other contributors here; I'm thinking of specific organisations that are doomed to forever fight out the Cold War on their deserted islands). Working people have made it clear that they won't be uniting around rhetorical rehash. But what/how would you propose to facilitate a real and practical convergence amidst social movements, unions, NGOs, leftists?

Comment by Ira M Wechsler on September 29, 2010 at 23:10

Mr. Waterman I intend not to continue a polemic on Trotskyism or ny other tendency as that is unproductive, a waste of time. i have rarely seen any benefit of debating religion with a Jehovah's Witness for example. I am much more interested in struggling over ideas in the labor movement with those who are looking for change without a preconceived tendency. I don't like to waste time in sectarian discussions. I like to organize , struggle, and build communist consciousness.

Comment by peter waterman on September 29, 2010 at 16:17

Hi, folks, comrades, companyer@s:

Here's an opinion:

Reform v Revolution is an unconstructrive opposition. To start with it is a binary opposition, ruling out any dialectic between or within the two opposed categories. Secondly, it is a binary contradiction of the Manichean type, of virtue versus vice. Historically it belongs to a passing period of a comparatively simple industrial capitalism. All of which explains why it is more useful for name-calling, castigating, imprisoning and executing than for any constructive dialogue in an infinitely more complex (tho no less exploitative and destructive) capitalist world that is globalised, informatised and interdependent in its development. To get out of the cell within which it imprisons us, I would rather proposed we set up a dialogue around 'global human emancipation'. We need to recognise contradiction within each of those old categories and that truth, beauty, justice and science are constructed in dialogue between people(s) and a dialectic between movements of dramatically different kinds that nonetheless (can, could) constructively interact. At least in interested in emancipation (the meaning of which, of course, is/will be part of the dialogue/dialectic.

Comment by Ira M Wechsler on September 15, 2010 at 21:39

peter, my last statement sums up the real-world organizing differences between revolutionary communists and Troskyists. Trotskyists believe in agitational methods above all and do NOT do the nuts and bolts work of building revolutionary cadre through leading class struggle and and then having the right to criticize reform from within the mass organization (union etc) Workers do NOT respect armchair generals you have to lead struggle to criticize its limits and the role of trade union leadership of defending the capitalists and sabotaging class struggle.

Comment by Ira M Wechsler on September 15, 2010 at 17:26

Can there be a synergy between reform and revolution? Let me answer that with the complexity the question and answer deserve. One can not yell revolution a crowded theater and believe it will become the consciousness
of those in that setting. One as a union steward or delegate can't raise the contradictions exposing the absolute failure of reform to lift the condition of the working class from the mire of wage slavery and capitalist exploitation from racism, sexism, imperialism etc. without being among the leaders of struggle in the shop and community. That means revolutionaries have to get their hands dirty. WE might even have to sign up people to vote if that is where the mass consciousness of workers are at. We might have to organize in churches believe it or not even though we ideologically see religion as mystical unscientific crap.
Whatever it takes to work in the mass organization (reform group) we must do , but in a principled way. We let the workers we trust know the failings of this course of action and that we have a broader view of the world . The party press is an essential part of building that broader view and discussion around the party's press and the tools it provides us to step up the class struggle and build communist ideas in our struggle and recruit workers to the party. It demands great discipline to do this consistently and because of all of us being inundated with poisonous bourgeois culture every day there are times that we slip backward. That is why the party collective we meet in and the idea of democratic centralism are ESSENTIAL to meet the challenge of the fight for proletarian dictatorship. People who are used to operating solely as individualists see this as a bad thing. Working collectively requires higher brain function it does not relegate us to the world of insects or robots as the great anti-communist culturalists like Orwell and Huxley
spewed in their rantings against collectivism. It requires the commitment to building an egalitarian world instead of an empire for a
handful of super-powerful exploiters. Supermen do not defeat fascism , but a mass anvil forged from the collective strength of the working class most committed warriors who ALL are leaders will pave the way to
egalitarian communist world first by organizing the mass communist movement from the midst of the crumbling reform movement and neutralizing the armed bodies of the state with communist soldiers who will destroy mindless militarism with class consciousness and duty to workers cause.

It goes to say without working within the reform movement there would be absolutely no chance of building a revolutionary movement
to smash capitalism. It goes to say that only with upping class struggle round communist ideas within these mass organizations will we be in a position to recruit new party members and spread communist consciousness. The communist press is the vital core to the synergy
of this process.

Comment by Don Sutherland on September 10, 2010 at 9:17

Can there be both? A synergy between the 2? What sort of reforms create momentum for more fundamental political and social change?

Comment by Jacqueline S. Homan on September 5, 2010 at 13:15

I agree with that, Peter.

Comment by Peter HJ on September 5, 2010 at 8:02

What do you think of this quote, by Rosa Luxemburg? True/False/Otherwise??

"People who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal."
-- Rosa Luxemburg.