I am just joking with this headline. But like every joke if it is any good, there is a reality somewhere behind it. And this joke has a very bad reality behind it. I was a full time organizer for the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) for over twenty years until they expelled me, fired me and slandered and lied about me. The CWI described itself as Trotskyist. That poor man gets blamed for everything. But that is another story.
We in the CWI thought we knew everything. I too thought I knew everything. One day I was selling the paper of the group in Dublin Ireland. A young man came up to me looked at the paper and engaged me in discussion. He said he was interested in the group but the only thing was we thought we knew everything and were always right about everything. I got very indignant and drawing myself up to my full height told the young man this was simply not true. But he was not so slow this young man.
He said: "Okay tell me where you were wrong on something, where you made a mistake on something." I was stumped. I could not think of anything. This goes to show the mad internal and external lives of the so called revolutionary left over the past decades. The non Marxist the non dialectical approach of these groups. No wonder they have failed so dismally. And I include myself in this criticism. We thought we knew everything and were always right on everything. I think I have changed now as I openly discuss my mistakes and criticize the false approach of all the left in relation to the working class and the revolutionary movement and do so openly on this blog.
However just as it would be non Marxist, non dialectical, to think you were always right it would be non Marxist non dialectical to think you were always wrong. In the last days there is one thing on which I feel that I am definitely right. That is the recent situation in Greece. Of course I am not there. I do not know the different moods on the ground. The details of the difference balance of forces in the various parties and unions, in the working class in general. For this reason I cannot suggest any detailed tactics. However, and it is on this I feel I am definitely right. It was absolutely wrong for the Greek government to go for a NO vote in the referendum, win overwhelming support for the NO vote in that referendum and then go forward and immediately surrender to the major capitalist powers. This was a major major mistake. It is a body blow to the Greek working class and a blow to the entire European and international working class.
While I am not there and do not know enough to suggest detailed tactics I do feel I know enough to suggest a strategy and a program. The program - take over the dominant sections of the Greek economy and run it on the basis of a democratic socialist plan. And on strategy go with this plan to the European working class and seek solidarity action and also to get the European working class to take up this program themselves.
The leadership of the Greek working class have made a major major mistake. On this I do believe that my opinion is correct. I will leave it out there. I am looking forward to people on the ground in Greece who know the mood better to help out with detailed tactical suggestions and programmatic suggestion. But please ones that are not based on surrender.
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