But this alone is not enough. An alternative has to be built so that this leadership can be removed. The first step in this is to develop an alternative program to the union leadership, this means an alternative to capitalism. It means developing an international democratic socialist program. The first step toward this is to build fighting united fronts of all workers prepared to take on the capitalist offensive. This means building caucuses in the work places, the unions at all levels, the communities and linking these together around a program of improved living standards for all and a strategy and tactics of mass direct action. No more business as usual. No more letting off steam rallies. No more marching around saying we are union strong union and pretending to be affecting events. The bosses economy must be disrupted, the working class must begin to take control and management into the work places, as I say there must be no more business as usual.
The role of the union rank and file and activists must also be looked at. It is not blameless. Pointing out the rotten role of the union leadership is essential. We disagree with those groups who want to say nothing about this so they can keep in with the union leaders. Such groups are propping up the union leaders. But we also have to say this to the rank and file. Complaining about the union leadership is not at all sufficient. All rank and file members must organize. Must build caucuses in the workplaces, the unions, the communities. We must point out the failure of the union leaders to do this and criticize them for not doing this, but we must not then use the role of the union leaders as an alibi for not organizing ourselves. The rank and file must organize a fighting opposition in the unions and workplaces and tie it together in a fighting force. This is what is necessary to thrown back the bosses offensive. Build a fighting opposition to enforce no more business as usual through mass direct action.
Then there is the role of the left and radical groups. These groups have done damage to the working class movement through their ultra leftism and left sectarianism. Their ultra leftism consists of approaching the workers movement with a program, with demands, with language which is pulled from the most revolutionary periods of struggle in history and even then it is misunderstood. An example is talk of soviets and general strikes and taking over the factories when workers do not even have opposition forces built in their own organizations and do not even have their own mass party. This exists in the US at present. This ultra leftism means the left and radical movement cannot connect with the working class. And worse, it means that the tendency is for the left and radical movement to be discredited in the eyes of the working class.
We pose a question to all the left and radical forces. What is today's equivalent of the demand: "Bread, peace and Land?" We want to suggest some ideas such as a minimum wage of $15,00 an hour or $5,00 increase for all whichever is the great, a guaranteed job for all, an end to the prison system which has the US the largest prisoner per head of population in the world, a free health service, free education at all levels, affordable housing for all. These are not ultra left demands and a mass movement built around these using the tactics of mass direct action would begin to disrupt capitalism's business as usual, its offensive against the working class and lay the basis to build an alternative fighting workers movement.
We pose a question to all the left and radical forces. What is today's equivalent of the demand: "Bread, peace and Land?" We want to suggest some ideas such as a minimum wage of $15,00 an hour or $5,00 increase for all whichever is the great, a guaranteed job for all, an end to the prison system which has the US the largest prisoner per head of population in the world, a free health service, free education at all levels, affordable housing for all. These are not ultra left demands and a mass movement built around these using the tactics of mass direct action would begin to disrupt capitalism's business as usual, its offensive against the working class and lay the basis to build an alternative fighting workers movement.
Getting rid of the ultra leftism in the left and radical movement has to go along with getting rid of its left sectarianism. That is getting rid of where the different groups in the left and radical movement tend to put their own individual interests above that of the movement as a whole. This creates an atmosphere of continual conflict and the tendency towards continual debate and division and split. We pose the question. Why are there many more people who consider themselves revolutionary socialists outside revolutionary organizations than inside them. To pose the question is to answer it. There is something wrong with the revolutionary and left and radical organizations. In the main they have internal lives which are based on the most sectarian history of Bolshevism or the most top down period when Stalinism took over. They have internal lives which glorify splits and division and top down undemocratic leadership methods. The left and radical movement must also look critically at its ways and change.
These are some of the ideas we on this blog would like to present for discussion.
Sean.
Sean, I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, when you talk about the revolutionary left. Because many groups are mired in sectarianism, you seem to want to throw out all principles gleaned from prior experience. What are the principles on which your united fronts would be based? Who would create these united fronts? Wouldn't they based upon the traditional organizational scheme of transitional organizations, like the TUEL of the 1920s? What's wrong with the Transitional Program of 1938? I'd like to see your response.
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ReplyDeleteSean said...
ReplyDeleteComrade I am not throwing out the baby. I am trying to rescue the baby. There are thousands, most likely tens of thousands of lefts and ex lefts and radicals and would be lefts and radicals who are not organized or who are organized in left sectarian or ultra left organizations. As such they are cut off from the working class. I would pose the question why is it that there are so many more people who consider themselves revolutionary socialists outside revolutionary socialist organizations than inside. to pose the question is to answer it. There is something wrong with the revolutionary organizations.
The principles on which united fronts would be based? this would depend. Nothing is fixed. Today/ we are at present facing a massive offensive of the bourgeois world wide. The working class is on the defensive at best. more likely in a rout. The task facing the working class is to halt and throw back this bourgeois offensive and open up an offensive of its own. Such an offensive would transform consciousness, not to a revolutionary consciousness but to a search on a mass basis for the alternative to the bourgeois offensive. Millions of workers world wide would move into action.
So what we need is a united front to move masses of workers into action in open and direct confrontation to the bourgeois offensive. The demands for such an offensive we can discuss at present, I have suggested some ideas, but the demands will most likely be determined by events. We could have a united front on the most basic of demands or the most advanced of demands. we will see. Richard and i are suggesting our demands for a united front but they might not be taken up. We will see.
What is much more important is a movement that has mass proportions and can thrown back the bourgeois offensive. this is what is necessary and will change things. Engels wrote when some left people were criticizing the inadequate program of henry George I think it was that a real mass movement of the working class was worth a hundred correct programs. In this period I believe this applies. If we were in the middle of a mass offensive of the working class at present then the main emphasis would have to be on clarifying and developing the program.
Who would form the united fronts you ask. i do not know. I hope the unions would be involved, the community organizations, I hope the left and radical organizations would be involved. But no united front will be able to throw back the bourgeois offensive unless it develops a mass character and it is not clear at this time which organizations will develop as united fronts in the future . we have to campaign for such but be conditional on where they might come from.
On a small scale the movement to defend public education in California last year was a united front. It sprang up and created march 4th committees. It had some success in organizing and raising consciousness. but it was limited success for a couple of reasons. one was the trade union leaders who choked the life out of the movement. Another was that a lot of the left acted in a left sectarian manner putting their own interests above that of the movement and in doing so divided and undermined the movement. This experience amongst many others is why i raise the need to raise and discuss the damage that left sectarianism does to the struggle of working class and youth. I will not go on any further. But I also believe that ultra leftism does serious damage.
In case there is any confusion i consider myself in agreement with the body of work that is known as trotskyism.
Thank you again for your response.
Sean