Class Against Class? Real World Alignments for Revolution
Posted by Mike E on August 19, 2009
Radical Eyes suggested that we make this its own post saying:
“The issue of how to grasp revolutionary polarization (“revolutionary people” vs. “class vs. class” etc) seems to me a crucial one.”
This piece focuses on what the 1960s tell us about the potential alignments and sources of revolutionary energy in the U.S.
by Mike Ely
I wrote:
“Revolutionary rumblings [in the 1960s] didn’t take the form of “class against class” in the U.S. — and never will.
Bryan writes:
“Revolutionary rumblings will take the form of “class against class,” in this country and around the world….You don’t claim to be Marxists still, do you?”
There is a great transition happening in human society — breaking out of the sharp contradiction between social production and private appropriation. But to think that takes the form of workers gathering over here, and capitalists gathering over there — and then a rumble…. well that is non-materialist and non-Marxist (if you will).
There was in the 1960s a great element of rebellion rising from below (in more ways than often appreciated) and it has much to do with the radicalization of the most oppressed and working class layers of Black people in the U.S. And I don’t believe that great revolutions will arise in our epoch without a great ferment from below — without a driving force (a revolutionary people) arising from below and bringing with them into politics a spirit of “nothing to lose.”
But that doesn’t mean revolution has to take the form of “class against class.” (And I don’t think there is anything in Marxism that requires that it take that form.)
The polarizations that produce revolutions have never been that simple, and as the last century went on this became more and more obvious. The successful socialist revolutions happened in countries where workers were a minority, and where the alliances that led to socialism were far more complex and dynamic than this mechanical notion of “class against class.”
To be clear: there was a belief among some Maoists in the 1970s that revolution would become possible when “the fundamental contradiction became the principal contradiction” — i.e. that working people would shatter the alignments emerging in the sixties by (somehow) adopting a workerist orientation and self-identification — and then, as a unified and self-conscious class, entering the field of political battle — and that this leap would be the signal that revolution had become possible. (And this conception, obviously, saw revolution in workerist terms — precisely as “class against class” and there for saw socialism requiring a particularly sharp and defining workerist identification among the poor and working people.)
I think that is unlikely and also unnecessary for socialist revolution. We need a conscious movement for socialist revolution (and all the radical changes of ideas, relations and structures that that implies) — but that does not require working people to embrace some overweening self-identification of “workers as workers.”
That has to do with the history of the U.S. — This has never been a society of class-as-caste — imposing those kinds of class identities on people (the way 19th century Germany or England did).
In the U.S., caste identities were imposed on Indians and Black people — (ile. Black people as slaves and sharecroppers, confined by the “color line” — and Indians as hunted non-people.) Often, the structure and history of this place grouped and excluded people as nationalities — while social mobility among whites prevented the consolidation of a single “hereditary working class” that self-identified as such. And so there has never been (spontaneously in U.S. bourgeois society) that much self-identification as class — compared to the way even quite conservative workers self-identify as workers in England or Germany or France.
In the U.S., revolution will arise (if it arises) from the struggles against the historic oppression of minority nationalities, and from a sweeping new movement for socialist alternative society broadly among the (multiracial) poor and working people. It will arise from collisions that entwine with the liberation of women, revolt against brutal unending wars of empire and a disdain for the dominant culture of money and dog-eat-dog. And it will certainly be spurred by the growing consciousness broadly in society that uncontrolled capitalist development is creating an ecological disaster for humanity.
Socialist revolution does not require that conscious self-identification by sociological class be a defining feature.
“What force, if not the working class leading the oppressed, will change society then?
Well there are many issues bound up here, including what does it mean for one class to lead the rest of the oppressed.
There has never been the case where a class simply united to lead anyone. In major revolutions, there were deep divisions in the working class (certainly that is true in Russia). And what led the oppressed in some cases were radical political forces (the communists generally) who saw themselves as representatives of the working class (and its objective interests) — and who won the allegiance of important sections of that class (often minorities, but significant sections nonetheless).
But again, to say that revolutionary forces identifying with the working class lead broader alliances of the oppressed — is precisely to adopt a vision that is not simply “class against class.”
For example: It is not true that we need to somehow “unite the working class” (as a prerequisite for a socialist revolution). We should seek to unite working people (and other oppressed people) around a radical, socialist program. But there will be no simple class-wide unity in this process. Given the highly stratified nature of the U.S. working class, and the impacts of imperialism… it is quite possible that a revolutionary movement may serve to further polarize different sections of the working class from each other in the U.S.
And not only is this compatable with Marxism, but also Lenin’s experience. Lenin famously said that the revolution does not consist of workers lining up on one pole, and the capitalist lining up at the other, and pointed the historical fact that revolution commonly takes the form of a war between two sections of the people. And even if all this were not compatible with the texts or beliefs of Marx or Lenin, it would still be true.
In the 1960s, the actual alignments in the U.S. (the rise of Black liberation, the eruption of youth rebellion, the conservative expressions among some white “blue color” Democrats etc.) exploded the expectations of some rather crusty and conservative forms of Marxism who expected a repeat of their-romanticized-memory of the 1930s.
I wrote:
“Revolutionary rumblings [in the 1960s] didn’t take the form of “class against class” in the U.S. — and never will.
Bryan writes:
“Revolutionary rumblings will take the form of “class against class,” in this country and around the world….You don’t claim to be Marxists still, do you?”
There is a great transition happening in human society — breaking out of the sharp contradiction between social production and private appropriation. But to think that takes the form of workers gathering over here, and capitalists gathering over there — and then a rumble…. well that is non-materialist and non-Marxist (if you will).
There was in the 1960s a great element of rebellion rising from below (in more ways than often appreciated) and it has much to do with the radicalization of the most oppressed and working class layers of Black people in the U.S. And I don’t believe that great revolutions will arise in our epoch without a great ferment from below — without a driving force (a revolutionary people) arising from below and bringing with them into politics a spirit of “nothing to lose.”
But that doesn’t mean revolution has to take the form of “class against class.” (And I don’t think there is anything in Marxism that requires that it take that form.)
The polarizations that produce revolutions have never been that simple, and as the last century went on this became more and more obvious. The successful socialist revolutions happened in countries where workers were a minority, and where the alliances that led to socialism were far more complex and dynamic than this mechanical notion of “class against class.”
To be clear: there was a belief among some Maoists in the 1970s that revolution would become possible when “the fundamental contradiction became the principal contradiction” — i.e. that working people would shatter the allignments emerging in the sixties by (somehow) adopting a workerist orientation and self-identification — and then, as a unified and self-conscious class, entering the field of political battle — and that this leap would be the signal that revolution had become possible. (And this conception, obviously, saw revolution in workerist terms — precisely as “class against class” and there for saw socialism requiring a particularly sharp and defining workerist identification among the poor and working people.)
I think that is unlikely and also unnecessary for socialist revolution. We need a conscious movement for socialist revolution (and all the radical changes of ideas, relations and structures that that implies) — but that does not require working people to embrace some overweening self-identification of “workers as workers.”
That has to do with the history of the U.S. — This has never been a society of class-as-caste — imposing those kinds of class identities on people (the way 19th century Germany or England did).
In the U.S., caste identities were imposed on Indians and Black people — (ile. Black people as slaves and sharecroppers, confined by the “color line” — and Indians as hunted non-people.) Often, the structure and history of this place grouped and excluded people as nationalities — while social mobility among whites prevented the consolidation of a single “hereditary working class” that self-identified as such. And so there has never been (spontaneously in U.S. bourgeois society) that much self-identification as class — compared to the way even quite conservative workers self-identify as workers in England or Germany or France.
In the U.S., revolution will arise (if it arises) from the struggles against the historic oppression of minority nationalities, and from a sweeping new movement for socialist alternative society broadly among the (multiracial) poor and working people. It will arise from collisions that entwine with the liberation of women, revolt against brutal unending wars of empire and a disdain for the dominant culture of money and dog-eat-dog. And it will certainly be spurred by the growing consciousness broadly in society that uncontrolled capitalist development is creating an ecological disaster for humanity.
Socialist revolution does not require that conscious self-identification by sociological class be a defining feature.
“What force, if not the working class leading the oppressed, will change society then?
Well there are many issues bound up here, including what does it mean for one class to lead the rest of the oppressed.
There has never been the case where a class simply united to lead anyone. In major revolutions, there were deep divisions in the working class (certainly that is true in Russia). And what led the oppressed in some cases were radical political forces (the communists generally) who saw themselves as representatives of the working class (and its objective interests) — and who won the allegiance of important sections of that class (often minorities, but significant sections nonetheless).
But again, to say that revolutionary forces identifying with the working class lead broader alliances of the oppressed — is precisely to adopt a vision that is not simply “class against class.”
For example: It is not true that we need to somehow “unite the working class” (as a prerequisite for a socialist revolution). We should seek to unite working people (and other oppressed people) around a radical, socialist program. But there will be no simple class-wide unity in this process. Given the highly stratified nature of the U.S. working class, and the impacts of imperialism… it is quite possible that a revolutionary movement may serve to further polarize different sections of the working class from each other in the U.S.
And not only is this compatable with Marxism, but also Lenin’s experience. Lenin famously said that the revolution does not consist of workers lining up on one pole, and the capitalist lining up at the other, and pointed the historical fact that revolution commonly takes the form of a war between two sections of the people. And even if all this were not compatible with the texts or beliefs of Marx or Lenin, it would still be true.
In the 1960s, the actual alignments in the U.S. (the rise of Black liberation, the eruption of youth rebellion, the conservative expressions among some white “blue color” Democrats etc.) exploded the expectations of some rather crusty and conservative forms of Marxism who expected a repeat of their-romanticized-memory of the 1930s.
Kirvo said
Well as I said in the other thread, the weird alliances-by-identity happen because of the lack of solid class analysis in the US. Because of this the “if you’re a socialist and make more money than me you’re smug / if you’re a socialist and make less money than me you just want my money” viewpoint is not considered contradictory either.
Mike E said
I’m not sure what that means, Kirvo. What weird “alliances by identity”? There need to be broad alliances developed over time (multiracial unity among the poor, unity between the working people and progressive middle strata, unity around key faultline political conflicts of this society, unity around key demands of the struggle and the revolution etc.)
There is a need for a materialist analysis of the society and its conflicts and of the potential for revolutionary coalitions — and that materialism includes analysis of class structure (as well as analysis of nationalities, world situation etc.)
Kirvo said
I mean alliances of different identities across class lines pitting themselves against each other. The most obvious examples of this are how Republicans’ main base are big businesses mainly in security contracting, big oil, etc., the small business-owning middle class, and countryside working classes while the democrats’ base tends to be financial firms, working professionals earning the equivalent of what small business owners do, and urban minorities. Therefore, the divides are town vs. country, finance vs. megacorps, white vs. minority, petty-bourgeois vs. petit-bourgeois, and all of the former against all of the latter. This is just one of those excesses of identity politics which makes struggle counter-productive.
Patient Persuasion said
I think that this discussion suffers from a common deficiency plaguing many marxists, where “class” is defined in a narrow way. While it’s true that it’s simplistic to assert “class against class” as a mantra for struggle without looking at complexities in hierarchies and antagonisms WITHIN the class (yes, I do believe there is a working class), the simplicity is only reinforced by posing “the struggles against the historic oppression of minority nationalities . . . collisions that entwine with the liberation of women, revolt against brutal unending wars of empire and a disdain for the dominant culture of money and dog-eat-dog” as something COUNTER to, and other than, “class against class”.
Though the struggle for black liberation, women’s liberation, and against ecological destruction are, by definition, multi-class movements, the most militant and driving forces behind them have been proletarian militants. There has been class struggle within these movements which marks a crucial component of the class struggle generally, though of course these class struggles within multiclass movements have not always been unified. The point being that these are part of the class struggle (ie, class against class) broadly understood.
Only a proletarian perspective (ie, communist class struggle against capital and all its manifestations) can lead these struggles forward towards meaningful resolution – ie, international proletarian revolution.
If a broad understanding of “class against class” (ie, meaningfully incorporating the struggles against racial/gender oppression, ecological destruction, and against capital as a totalizing organizing principle for all of society) is not marxist, then I’m not sure what is . . . Certainly reifying these important struggles from our definition of “class struggle” is no more marxist.
Vivid Visionary said
I posted this article here: http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-against-classi-p1524381/index.html#post1524381
The first (and only, for now) comment went like this:
“Against the collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes. This constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to insure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end — the abolition of classes.” – Karl Marx
“The emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself. All the other classes of present-day society stand for the preservation of the foundations of the existing economic system.” – Lenin
“The working class must above all else strive to get the entire political power of the state into its own hands.” – Rosa Luxembourg
“The liberation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself” – First International
“The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat” – The Communist Manifesto
Examples of open class war in the United States:
Great Strike of 1877
Coal Creek War
Homestead Strike
West Virginia Mine War of 1912-1913
Battle of Blair Mountain
***********************
I think it’s interesting to point out that all of these struggles he posted happened in quite different historical periods, and all involve mostly white, male workers.
Anyways, he did no effort to engage the actual substance of the original article. RevLeft is notorious (at least for me) to be quite low in principled debate.
Vivid Visionary said
“I think it’s interesting to point out that all of these struggles he posted happened in quite different historical periods than ours*, and all involve mostly white, male workers.”
zerohour said
I think what’s being challenged here is not whether the proletariat should, or will, lead a socialist revolution but what sorts of social conflicts will drive the polarizations, what configuration of alliances will come together, and what the forces on each side will look like.
The popular notion, quoted above, that the proletariat must liberate itself, has led people to posit the that the proletariat will somehow realize its class interests as one big bloc [even with some degree of internal division] during times of revolutionary crisis, which can then be forged into a cohesive force against a clearly differentiated class enemy. But this has not been the case throughout history. People can throw out all the quotes they want, but reality is what it is. However, I think the idea of “class against class” is not just about denying the existence of internal conflicts within the proletariat or downplaying the broad alliances that will emerge, but also about denying the possibility that there will be some overlap of people from different classes on both sides of the struggle.
Do people really think a revolution will be workers on one side and bosses on the other? Who do they think will comprise the armies of reaction – middle and upper management? No, most likely it will be other proletarians. At the same time, sections of the petty bourgeoisie and maybe even the bourgeoisie [I imagine small sections] may be won over to the revolutionary forces or at least neutralized. We have to be strategically clear on the social bases we must focus our work on now, but there’s no reason to preclude all sorts of future alliances before we can make concrete assessments.
And no, I’m not talking about class “collaboration”, but a revolution carried out under a leadership that is setting the political terms, is not driven by notions of class revenge, and understands the need to win over broad sections of society without any illusions about the contradictions involved. My formulation’s a bit imprecise but I hope people have some sense of what I mean.
Stiofan said
Mike wrote:
This is a bold statement and directly challenges what has been, in Europe and America, a solidly “workerist” tradition among the left. In the united States this workerism is ernest but ineffectual to the point of parody. In its crazed “to the factory” phase, the SWP developed a line that sent its members as missionaries to plants represented by nine unions. It wasn’t enough to be proletarian but you also had to be the right kind of proletarian. I meet a team of kids selling the Militant at the construction gate for a refinery I was working at as a millwright. I told them that all the people coming in were construction workers and that the operators in OCAW used another gate. They fled immediately.
For the New Communist Movement the flight from reality was most evident in the October League’s promise to make “every factory a fortress of communism” which they were unable to accomplish in even a single factory. Once again a feeling of inauthenticity from those radicalized on college campuses through the antiwar movement lead to a missionary zeal that was as much about identity and the desire for self transformation as it was about a political contest for power.
The historical experience of mass production did change the social consciousness of peasants flooding into the cities of Europe in the 19th century. That in and of itself guaranteed absolutely nothing as regards the ability to destroy the bourgeoisie state as is evidenced by the history of Western Europe. Marxism is as prone to mechanistic interpretations as is anything else that derives from the enlightenment.
This rigid, ineffectualness is the hallmark of untold groups that for decades sold or gave away their unreadable newspapers at plant gates where the right kind of proletarian consciousness should have resided. A good many of those plants are now shuttered and the papers are increasingly online but the search for the right kind of worker continues. The quest is quixotic when the real task is to find, encourage, support and develop socialist consciousness wherever it is and from there develop a real political base.
esfandiar said
Hello Mike and other readers,
I loved your post. I am wondering if you or your readers could suggest books to learn more about this discussion.
Stanley W. Rogouski said
And this conception, obviously, saw revolution in workerist terms
Every once in awhile, in some heated internet discussion, some Trotskyist will bring up the fact that the RCP supported the racist anti-bussing riots in the 1970s.
Here’s an example.
www icl-fi org/english/wv/921/ysp-busing.html
Perhaps the most grotesque position on the left was taken by the Maoist Revolutionary Union (RU), soon to become the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), who we aptly called “Jim Crow ‘Socialists’.” They openly sided with the racists who were fighting street battles against the oppressed black masses. It was pretty incredible when they came out with their October 1974 newspaper with the huge, front-page headline, “People Must Unite to Smash Boston Busing Plan.” I heard a story at the time that one of the main New Left bookstores in Cambridge, which catered to all sorts of Maoists, actually refused to carry that issue because of the headline. The RU’s position was the most despicable capitulation to white racism.
That article tried at length to explain the motivations of the anti-busing school boycotters. It denounced as “liberal” all talk of “backward, racist whites.” It denounced as “reactionary” the “absurd line that the ‘only issue’ in the white boycott in South Boston is racism.” It even denounced raising the question of racism as “defeatist and divisive.” They opposed busing as an “issue which heightens the contradictions of people of different nationalities,” in favor of “community control” of the schools. But the perfect example of “community control” is what the racists like Louise Day Hicks were fighting for: it was the “right” of whites to keep blacks out of their schools and neighborhoods.
You almost seem here to be reacting against this kind of workerism.
Mike E said
There was a real workerism in one period of the RU/RCP — especially from 1972-1976. (This is the period marked by the renaming of the RCP and the writing of its first program).
This is the period where the organization formulated that the “center of gravity” of work should be among the economic struggles of the workers. And that the central task was to develop the struggle, consciousness and unity of the working class. (With a defacto emphasis on a particular view of “struggle” — see center of gravity).
The controversy around busing was an outgrowth of that problem — i.e. the RU believed that the busing plan was not mainly about racial integration (and an extension of the civil rights struggle), but was mainly a ruling class scheme for cutbacks of school programs and funds (and an extension of soon-to-erupt struggles over capitalist economic crisis).
it was simply a false idea — one that overestimated the political importance of economic conditions, and underestimated the importance of the raging social contradicitons of society (i.e. racist oppression, and the struggle against it).
A great deal of attention has been focused on the RU’s seriously mistake position.
It is sometimes falsely claimed that the RU united with racists etc. I.e. the phrase “Jim Crow socialists” is simply false and misleading. And even Stan’s passing description “RCP supported the racist anti-bussing riots in the 1970s” is bizarre, and reflects a real dishonesty (not in Stan, of course, but in how these events were distorted.) The RU, obviously, never supported racist riots or racist forces. What they did was seek to inject themselves into this volatile situation and oppose the busing plan (from a non-racist position of unitying black and white workers against a scheme of the ruling class to divide and conquer). It was a failure, bedcuase it was a severe misread of the situation — but it was not (by any stretch of the imagination) support for the racists, let alone their attacks on black people.
And that should be pretty obvious: the RU (like the rest of the New Communist Movement) emerged as a force deeply dedicated to Black Liberation (and that is obvious from its history before Boston, and its history after Boston.) The RU in particular, nationally, emerged from forces around the country with close ties to the Black Panther Party and that experience.
The error of the RU did not arise from some support on Jim Crow (!) or racism — but a serious (and rather brief) misread of what was happening based on a deeply an economist (workerist) approach. In other words it came from an error in communist theory (an old one, by the way), not some slip into sudden white supremacy or support for segregation (!). Of course, other forces on the left preferred to portray this as a narrative of white racism on the left — but imposing that narrative on the RU’s errors required a series of fabrications.
And (it needs to be said) workerism has led all kinds of left political forces to wrong understandings of many many things over the long history of the left in the U.S. — hardly just the RU of the mid-70s –including errors on sexuality, culture, taking up burning political issues, tailing all kinds of sentiments among the people, submerging the political issues of socialism and communism, etc etc.
It is true, however, that economism repeatedly give rise to pulls NOT to take up the difficult issues of race and national liberation. The slogan “black and white, unite and fight” (not by the RU, but popular among economists on the trotskyist site) is a call for building common struggle around common interests (and puts the issue of anti-racist struggle far to the side).
Part of the point of my recent piece “Ambush at Keystone #1″ is exactly that a set of economist assumptions (about who the advanced workers are, about the role of economic struggle in working class radicalizations) can bring communist forces (despite their intentions) into a world of unintended consequences.
It is worth summing that up, and understanding why workerist identity politics and an overestimation of economic struggle is wrong — in conception, in its understanding of how consciousness and rev happen, etc.
It is also worth pointing out that there was another wrong position (on the left) that has received a lot less attention: That is that some groups (including CPML, SWP and the Guardian, if I remember correctly) called for the deployment of federal soldiers into Boston.
Stiofan said
Less commented on in the past workerism of the RU was their opposition to the ERA which was also very contentious. The position was that supporting this campaign by “bourgeois feminism” was going to be harmful to the special needs of working women. I understood what the RU was getting at but the but the arguments seemed weak and unconvincing to even the cadre making them. At the time the campaign against the ERA flowed from a a right wing frenzy that gained tremendous political momentum for religious conservatives as a result of their victory in blocking the amendment.
Perhaps the larger issue is the question of democratic rights and the nature of the state.
If democratic rights are a real, tangible thing that allows the revolutionary movement to build and consolidate its base then they must be fought for and defended tenaciously. If democratic rights are an illusion that only advances reformism or confuses people about the essential fascist nature of the state, then those same struggles must be avoided or opposed.
The revolutionary left has always embraced the reformist trade union movement as an ideal although their ability to work within those unions (or to build an organizational alternative to them) has been difficult historically and produced very little in the way of lasting influence. The leap in consciousness to revolutionary conclusions is not a simple matter of having the right job in the right factory and reading somebody’s newspaper. Conversely, those who work at the “wrong” jobs in the allegedly “petite bourgeoisie” realm do not necessarily come to the wrong conclusions. The bottom line is this: how is this change in consciousness related to what revolutionaries do and how revolutionaries differentiate themselves form everyone else floundering in this bitter sea?
Radical-Eyes said
A very thoughtful post, Stiofan. I think you really hit a certain nail on the head–or at least clearly pointed out the nail that needs to be hit!–when you write:
“Perhaps the larger issue is the question of democratic rights and the nature of the state. If democratic rights are a real, tangible thing that allows the revolutionary movement to build and consolidate its base then they must be fought for and defended tenaciously. If democratic rights are an illusion that only advances reformism or confuses people about the essential fascist nature of the state, then those same struggles must be avoided or opposed.”
I’d like to see more discussion of this ‘question’ of bourgeois rights.
My own two-cent, short response, is that perhaps bourgeois rights are BOTH REAL AND ILLUSORY AT THE SAME TIME, with the particularities of each situation (over)determining which is the dominant aspect in that particular moment. This sounds a bit like a cop-out perhaps, I admit; even to me it smacks of “opportunism, no”?!
Another approach, might be what Slavoj Zizek has been putting forward, for instance in his essay “Against Human Rights” in New Left Review. In short, as I take it, Zizek argues there that the (bourgeois) notion of (human) rights is deeply flawed or even “empty” and “merely formal”–in all the ways that marxists have pointed out for years–and yet this very FORM—and indeed, its very failures, as well as its appropriation by non-bourgeois strata—provide the seeds of new more genuinely radical content(s)….Thus, if we can cut through all their bourgeois baggage, the meaning of these “empty” forms is up for grabs…
[Note: While NLR seems to be charging for Zizek's essay now, I found a link to it here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4138175/Slavoj-Zizek-Against-Human-Rigths ]
Mike E said
I think there are distinct matters here.
On one hand, there is the question of whether we want to wage our struggle under a banner of human rights — i.e. whether we should adopt the ideological construct that there are certain inherent rights that should be ascribed to all humans (by virtue of being human).
There are numerous problems with that.
For one thing, the concept of right changes over history with different kinds of society. And the particular formulations of ‘human rights” most common today (and evolved from a particular discussion of right since the European “enlightenment”) is rooted in certain approaches to individuals, property, social relations etc. (The issue is often “bourgeois right” — which is often confused with the concept “bourgeois rights.” communists are not implying that all discussions of rights are bourgoeis, or that all rights are bourgeois — but that there is a particular form of right that corresponds to bourgeois society, i.e. to the need of “free” and mobile labor, the need for competitive blocks of property, the freedom for a certain kind of “exchange of equals” (my time for your money), etc.
For another thing, assumptions of “inalienable rights” raises a philosophical question of “from where.” The U.S. founding documents ascribe those kind of “inalienable rights” to being “endowed by their creator.” And there is an element, in the discussion of rights, to fix human relations and assumptions to one period, and to insist that it is universal and timeless (and derived either from human nature or divine decision).
A communist approach to rights is far different from the discourse dominant in bourgeois society. Mao’s statement saying that rebellion against reactionaries is justified (as the essence of marxism) is an example of a different sense of right.
Mao made a very sharp critique of a soviet discussion of rights (where long lists of rights of workers and people were listed) — and Mao asked sharply where is the people’s right to rule and transform society. And that revolutinary process inevitably involves a changing notion of “right” — especially as communist revolution undermines forms of right left over from class society (wage differentials, patriarchal and father right, etc.)
* * * * * * * *
All of this strikes me as a very different discussion from the matter of “democratic rights” in certain capitalist societies.
These are much more matters of legal and institutional norms — specific to specific societies.
governments and societies have established ways of functioning and all kinds of established norms — which are linked to the stable functioning of the society and to the legitimacy of both society and government. These operate as constrains as well — constraints on the people (things we are “allowed to do or not do”) and also as proclaimed restraints on the authorities (i.e. a congressman voted out of office can’t keep holding office, a woman acquited of a crime can’t be imprisoned on those charges anyway, there are established procedures for depriving individuals of property and freedom, etc.)
We all understand (here at least) that such “norms” are conditional and relative. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the civil war. Bush unleashed warrantless wiretaps in obvious disregard for both law and custom. And in varying degrees, there has always been a gap between declared norms (in the U.S.) and the actual practices — and there has always been struggle in society about what the norms are and how they would evolve.
We do not have to embrace the bourgeois notions of individual right (and its accompanying views of property, individuality, inheritance, etc.) in order to understand that it matters to our struggle what the dominant norms of society are.
The watershed moment in the twentieth century was (of course) the rise of fascism in Europe (not just in Germany, but in Italy, Hungary, etc.) And it is clear that the shift from one set of social norms to another can have a huge impact on the conditions of preparing for radical change (and even on the ability of people to imagine radical change).
I think that we should not view this rigidly as a “defense” of the current forms of government.
Clearly one of the tasks for preparation is the delegitimization of current forms of government (debunking the illusion that the people rule, debunking the notion that this system of law gives justice, debunking the notion that dominant forms of property are a right etc.) And the problem of communists historically has been the slide from defending the relative and limited political freedom existing in one situation — toward defending the bourgeois democratic political system itself (uphold its constitution, embracing its principles, symbols like flags, anthem etc.)
It matters to the people what form of bourgeois rule they have (in part because some shifts in form lead to a shattering of peoples organization and hopes that take a long time to reconstruct). But it also matters that there are political forces exposing ALL forms of bourgeois rule — and who step back from any slavish, loyal, patriotic upholding of the current society.
Stanley W. Rogouski said
It is sometimes falsely claimed that the RU united with racists etc. I.e. the phrase “Jim Crow socialists” is simply false and misleading. And even Stan’s passing description “RCP supported the racist anti-bussing riots in the 1970s” is bizarre, and reflects a real dishonesty (not in Stan, of course, but in how these events were distorted.)
Sorry about that. I was paraphrasing and should have included quotes.
What they did was seek to inject themselves into this volatile situation and oppose the busing plan (from a non-racist position of unitying black and white workers against a scheme of the ruling class to divide and conquer). It was a failure, bedcuase it was a severe misread of the situation — but it was not (by any stretch of the imagination) support for the racists, let alone their attacks on black people.
I think it was probably difficult to see at the time how the backlash was being constructed, in this case how the category of “white ethnic” was being constructed as a tool to use against the civil rights and black power movements.
I didn’t live though the time but it seems to me that there was a “sleight of hand” going on, which snuck in white nationalist identity politics under the cover of workerism. You still see this today on MSNBC, for example, when you hear Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan talk about the “working class” and just assume the working class is white. You heard it last Spring when Hillary used the term “hard working white people”.
In other words, the mainstream intentionally mislabels white identity politics as workerism and here the elites were using busing as a way to divide black workers against Irish and Italian workers.
Bryan the Trot said
A shorthand response:
I don’t deny the existence of different layers of consciousness developing within a class before or during a revolutionary situation. These differing layers of consciousness need to be taken into account flowing from an analysis of the objective conditions and likely prospects. Program and practical work needs to take into account the different consciousness in the population.
Class is determined by relation to productive forces. Conditions determine consciousness. If class isn’t the determining factor in consciousness and revolutionary power, then how do you analyze general strikes? Seems you would be at a loss.
The class doesn’t move into action as a homogeneous mass. The advanced layers must figure out how to interact with the rest of the class in practice. Impatience will lead to thinking that moralizing sections of the middle-class who are mad about abstract issues can replace a class acting in its own interests.
Real world revolutionary situations that played out as class against class: Paris Commune. Russia 1917. Germany 1919 and 1923. China 1925-27. France 1968. Portugal 1974…
The U.S. in the 60s and 70s never approximated a revolutionary or pre-revolutionary situation. I wouldn’t point to the forces you’d expect me to as examples of an attempt at Marxist work in the U.S. during that time (the then-SWP was stale and sectarian).
The post World War Two uprisings in Europe and the colonial revolution were more complicated and didn’t play out as simply “class versus class,” but class and caste outlooks, domestically and internationally, were the main determining factors. I would refer comrades to the Ted Grant archive to see what a mass Marxist leader wrote about those situations and the Chinese revolution: http://www.tedgrant.org/archive/grant/
Relying on moral categories rather than relations to production will leave you talking to liberals when the working class moves into struggle. You will be asking the wrong questions of yourselves without attempting to grasp at the correct answers.
You need to get better at not feeding the trolls cuz someone with more time on their hands than me (Carl, the corpse of Bukharinism) could derail discussion here. Joking…just trying to get at the fact that I’m not as crude as things appear in a two-sentence post.
The same question still remains: why don’t you regroup with other re-groupers like FRSO and LRNA? The answer is predictable: this is a group of narrow Maoists coming from the RCP who are hostile to other trends. No harm in not being a multi-tendency organization; just be honest about it.
Stiofan said
I am so glad Brian brought up the issues of class consciousness and the general strike.
Class is determined by relation to productive forces. Conditions determine consciousness. If class isn’t the determining factor in consciousness and revolutionary power, then how do you analyze general strikes? Seems you would be at a loss.
The last general strike in the US lasted for 4 days in 1934 organized by longshoreman
in San Francisco. Some of the most militant unions in America history have arisen workers moving people or goods such as train crews, ship crews, bus and subway drivers, truck drivers, etc. None of these workers produce products. They move things and many of them work in small groups or even individually. They do not belong to the “heavy battalions” of the industrial proletariat so beloved of Trotskyite newspapers. Where does their consciousness come from? The only mass left organizations in this country with the majority of proletarian membership (sometimes a large majority) were the foreign language federations of the Socialist Party and the very early Communist Party groups. These groups all failed because they were unable to adapt to American political/cultural conditions besides being tragically flawed on the issue of race. If revolutionary power flowed exclusively from mass concentrations of industrial workers than Britain would be communist and so would most of Western Europe.
Vivid Visionary said
Patient Persuasion:
I don’t think Mike Ely’s article seeks to draw a “Great Wall” between the various manifestations of hierarchy, social divisions, and oppressive social relationships from the class dynamic. I think, more than anything, it seeks to move beyond the very simplistic, economist, and workerist notion of a socialist revolution being about workers vs bosses, which ignores the totality of capitalist social relations and the need for a revolutionary movement to be based on the politics of the proletariat (and its historical mission to liberate humanity).
I think it is still very common in the left for revolutionaries and radicals to search for the “answer” in uniting workers from different sections or social divisions, and on that basis develop a program. But, I think when that happens, when you unite people around an economic/social identity, it becomes about one side getting what they were after and ending the unity on that note. In other words, it doesn’t transcent “the narrow horizon of bourgeois right.”
I also think your comment points to the very real need to develop an understanding of the intersections between class and other social relationships. And of course, a working class exists, but I think we’d benefit on you expanding on your point on our narrow defintion of class.
Stiofan said
Mike wrote:
My concept of “democratic rights” is based specifically on a historical interpretation of what that terms means in the political culture of this country and indeed most countries that have adopted a “republican” (small “r”) form of government. What I believe matters to the people the is that the existence of democratic rights is an affirmation of egalitarianism because it is a check on the regimes power to treat them unfairly or unequally. That this is complicated by issues such as race and sex is obvious as are the limitations of 18th century Enlightenment philosophy. What it is important to remember is that the great change flowing from the destruction of monarchy and aristocratic rule created a mass culture of popular expectation, demands, willingness to fight, and a rationale (i.e. a “right” to) revolution.
As I conceive a communist regime it will be a form of republican government that does not replicate the hieratic division of society that the bourgeoisie accomplished through wage slavery. That is to say it will truly committed to egalitarianism. It is no wonder that over last 20 years the PRC gone form being the most egalitarian country on earth (as measured by political scientists) to one that has now replicated the inequality of Nepal, the poorest country in Asia. China has pursued riches for a few at the expense of a population that is increasingly angered by unfairness and entrenched privilege.
As for the contradiction of democratic rights under bourgeois rule and the dangers of conceding to reformism, I agree but this does not change my argument. China is not the only republic where the people are becoming increasingly angered, alienated and polarized by a realization of the governments unfairness and rejection of egalitarian principles. The monolith of the state is an imposing facade that in closer examination is deeply fissured. One way to work those fissures is to hammer away at the inability for the regime to protect the rights of the people because it can not fulfill the goal of equal and fair treatment. To recognize the reality of democratic rights also means to fight to restrict the governments ability to promote inequality through the embrace and unending subsidy of crony capitalism of which health insurance is only one representation.
Alomg the way in this struggle there is also the need to vigilantly maintain the ability to go to meetings and read literature (or websites) without getting arrested and to restrict
the ability of fascists to assault their growing enemies list of “unamericans.” This will require an enormous amount of tactical flexibility and the ability to initiate and maintain alliances. Such a movement has the capability to gain real traction and to be a force because it both embodies and informs the peoples resolve to begin drawing lines which it will not allow the regime, or fascists, to cross without a sharp and escalating response.
zerohour said
Regarding the Paris Commune:
As we know, most of the participants were workers, mainly skilled laborers, with a few unskilled workers, and there were even a few that could be called “middle class.” However, the majority of businesses in Paris at the time were small businesses and it was Commune practice to respect their property rights. The Vendome column was taken down by a private firm. On the 79-man Commune Council, there were 25 professionals, 21 skilled workers, 16 white collar workers, 14 self-employed artisans and 3 miscellaneous [ex-officers, etc.]. Not a single unskilled laborer was in the leadership.
I am not saying this to deny the overall revolutionary or proletarian character of the Paris Commune’s politics, but to point out some of the complications in an otherwise simplified view of what a “proletarian” uprising actually entails, especially the constellation of the alliances that can emerge.
I do think the general character of a revolution is one of polarization, but a political one, not one of demographics, and it can go under the names of “proletarian vs. bourgeoisie” if they are taken to represent two different kinds of societies being fought for. I do not think that means that the forces on the field will be two homogenous, self-contained blocs. Among the proletarian forces, which I believe will be mainly working class, I think we will find many from other classes, with different levels of commitment and motivations.
As with the Commune and all revolutionary movements since, such considerations have to be evaluated based on the balance of forces and concrete needs of the moment, not decided in advance based on sociological categories.
amte said
– Fred Hampton
Jan Makandal said
Opinion 1
The history of every society is the history of class struggle. This doesn’t mean that class struggle is the principal phenomenon that one can observe in the history. It really simply means historical phenomena, that are the only historical reality, are nothing else but complex forms of class struggles. The classless society we aspire to is basically inexistent in history. Current societies can only permit us to envisage certain features of future classless societies. We can only see, to some limited degree, a few traits that can only be the result of the transformation of class struggle under the effect of that class struggle. For me, primitive communism is not identical, or similar to the communist society that will replace capitalism as a mode of production and social form of organization.
Class existence and class struggles were not discovered by anyone. Class existence is only related to the historically determined phase of the development of production. Class struggle will objectively lead to class dictatorship and eventually will also finally lead to the total abolition of classes and eventually to a classless society. Concepts such as working people and people’s camp only mean a grouping of classes and fractions of classes that are all being dominated and exploited by other classes. Each of these classes that belong to the people’s camp also do have different interests and objectives, sometimes even contradictory. The historical analysis of these classes in the people’s camp and all classes for that matter is the analysis of class struggle and its effect. The ideology of a class and its class-consciousness are not created or invented. It doesn’t come from outside the class, as elaborated by Lenin, but it’s the product in the material conditions facing adverse ideologies and its own. European capitalism confronting feudalism needed, in a flux and reflux process, to come up with its own concepts of freedom, liberty, religion in its struggles for political power against feudalism. American capitalism did not have the privilege of fighting feudalism. Its struggle was against colonialism combined with an internal struggle within capitalist exploitation on the extraction of surplus value and slave labor. This objective reality enabled a very autonomous brand of capitalism.
In Haiti, as opposed to European capitalism, although the slaves were the principal force of the revolution, the new emerging feudal class was the leading force in the popular war against slavery. That class alliance, which bourgeois ideologues nowadays identify as a pigmented alliance of black and mulattoes, was a class alliance of two classes that shared a common interest against colonialism but fundamentally differed on slavery. Haiti’s example is quite
profound. Proletarian intellectuals, based on the experience of European capitalism, usually identify feudal landlords[ correctly so] as a reactionary class, but in Haiti they played a revolutionary role for a short period. Haiti is still paying the consequences of the way capitalism, a very dependent and deformed capitalism, is “developing” as a social form of organization versus feudalism as its antagonistic counterpart. So we have two antagonistic modes of production co-existing, under and conditioned by imperialist domination.
Revolution will always take the form of class against class. Revolution should not be seen as an act of rebellion. Revolution is an objective process. It implies two important yet contradictory aspects, unifying democracy and violence. These two aspects exist in a contradictory unity. It implies the violent destruction of the old regime of production, capitalism versus feudalism, and capital versus labor, in the objective of destroying the old for the new.
I do agree with the need not to fall into workerism, although our definitions may differ. The success of a proletarian revolution will not depend only on the working class. It will not be a duel between labor and capital, I do agree with that point, but will depend on the capacity of the working class to unify all other classes under its leadership, against capital. Only the capitalist class can build capitalism, if we are talking of radical transformation… not a revolution without a revolution
Patient Persuasion said
Fred Hampton speaks for me. Fred goes hella hard. Last time I tried to get into this discussion people totally ignored Fred’s lines . . . pay attention brothers and sisters.
Vivid Visionary said
Look, Patient Persuasion, maybe the reason no one “engaged” your argument on Fred Hampton is because its not really a provoking argument. If you paid some attention to what folks were writing, you’d see that we don’t disagree with Fred Hampton on his discussion on class struggle.
In addition, just because you post something on Kasama doesn’t require anyone to reply. If they want to do so, fine, if not, maybe check what you post and write something more substantial. We appreciate your contributions here, but spare us the self-righteousness.
Of course Fred is right in claiming that their (and our) struggle is one between the oppressor and the oppressed! We couldn’t call ourselves Marxists if we disagreed. What I think is that, as has been repeatedly stated here, a socialist revolution won’t take the character of two homogeneous blocs facing off against each other. Ultimately, revolution will be waged on the political battlefield over broad social issues, and, consequently, broad social alliances. It’s not that we deny class struggle, it’s that it’s far more complex than a simple “worker vs boss” binary. The proletariat and bourgeoisie are sociological groups, but, when speaking about socialist revolution, I think it’s important to understand that these two classes represent two radically different societies, and the class nature of any struggle we take up depends on how we apply the proletarian vision of human liberation.
So, yes, brother Fred is 100% correct! But no, neither the Black liberation struggle nor ours should take the narrow stance of reducing revolution to a matter of workers vs bosses. It certainly wasn’t the case for the Panthers.
Sorry if this was jumbled. I can clarify if you wish.
Jan Makandal said
Theory is a dynamic concept. Concepts, especially concepts that deal with social questions, are constantly adapting to new realities, constantly being revised, rectified and consolidated due to the fact theory is the product of class struggle and the struggle of production. Concepts have a theoretical value that is historically determined. Concepts assume their own relativity depending on the social formation, based on the never ending process guiding the development of our thoughts from sensitive to rational knowledge, from specific experiences to general conclusions. In this context, addressing populism is imperative and urgent.
Populism, for me, is an approach that when looking at people, masses, the people’s camp and minority nationalities, we look at them outside any notion of class or class struggles. In a sense, when these concepts are mentioned, we are talking about a big mass of laborers, a big mass of people that are in an objective economic /political relation of being dominated and /or exploited. In fact, if we look at national minorities, even when they respond as a bloc on certain issues, various class interests can be delineated in the manner in which various responses are articulated inside these national minorities. The civil rights movement could be a perfect example. This movement was not a homogenous movement, even in its most basic reformist demands. Even when positions were articulated in the same class, differences were emerging based on the class interest of the proponents of these positions. The slave movement in Haiti also went through the same right of passage to finally come to term in 1804. The opportunist line of Toussaint was based on his class interest. He was a freed slave and owned slaves himself, versus the revolutionary line that led Haiti to its independence. Inside these movements, there were classes with particular interests, sometimes fundamentally different. One of the most valuable lessons one could learn in the popular war for the independence of that piece of land that became Haiti is the lack of independence and autonomy of the slaves in the class alliance in popular camp. I think the same could be said in the civil rights movement.
Another populist approach is looking at the masses et al in an amalgam, therefore with no class distinctions. More often, we look at the non-proletarian dominated classes that are in majority, even sometimes poorer than the working class. This way of seeing the masses usually benefits a sector [fraction] of the bourgeoisie, landlords and fractions of the petit bourgeoisie. This interpretation usually helps the emergence of a political line allowing popular sector to support fraction of the dominant classes in pursuing their internal contradiction for a restructuration based on struggle within the dominant classes. Different brands of populism can be found in the reactionary camp and also in the petit bourgeoisie. One of the most important characteristics of the petit-bourgeois populist trend is to categorically deny the role of the working class in a period of capitalism and most importantly, when capitalism reaches it most advanced stage, imperialism. This trend also denies the autonomy of the working class and most importantly, rejects the leadership role of the working class. One of the reasons given for their denial is the fact that the working class is a minority, or that the American working class is reactionary.
The capitalist class is a minority and has been a minority in many societies for quite some time. At this stage of imperialism, finance capital is also a minority inside that minority, but it is the hegemonic fraction leading the capitalist class. The argument that the American working class is reactionary is simplistic. This is the same class that gave us May day and that wrested with its blood some democratic rights we are still enjoying. This argument does not hold up. In the seventies, the valiant struggle of the coal miners only proved the capacity of the working class. NUWO [National United Workers Organization] could have been a good experience if it wasn’t a front organization. Populism negates the historical role of the working class, the autonomy of the working class and the leadership role of the working class. Historical materialism defines and analyzes two objective realities: the process of capitalism exploitation and proletarian revolution/ revolution under the leadership of the working class and class struggle that prepares and accomplishes it. The theory of surplus value and proletarian leadership will allow us to rupture radically with bourgeois ideology and for the proletariat to build its political line at the mass and revolutionary level.
Jan Makandal said
It is important to grasp the impact of populism at the level of the international left. The question of radical transformation at the epoch of capitalism has to be addressed from a double reality, the processes of capital exploitation/ surplus value and the processes of proletarian revolution. This will enable the revolutionary movement to rupture with bourgeois ideology and at the same time define a strategy and a tactic [determined by that strategy] of class struggle, so the proletariat can achieve its historical task of burying capital and leading society to a new classless society. To negate these two concepts is to revise proletarian theory and ideology and objectively blocks us from a scientific approach to explain class struggle in order to successfully guarantee the success of proletarian revolutionary struggle.
No revolution is based on some predetermined plan or program of a revolutionary party. There is no recipe for revolutionary struggle. It is important to scientifically analyze the forms surplus value being extracted and the forms of proletarian revolution applicable to this reality. The proletariat will need, at the mass level and at its revolutionary level, a methodology to develop its political line nationally and internationally, with the international level as determinant, so a new definition of solidarity can arise. The proletariat needs to reclaim proletarian internationalism, not the concept of solidarity dominated by petit bourgeois ideology. The proletariat, nationally and internationally, will need to construct real democratic structures in order to coordinate and plan its battles against imperialism and its respective dominant classes by applying the three c’s: centralization of experience, centralization of knowledge, centralization of conclusions drawn out of actual militancy. This process must develop from the emerging proletarian revolutionary struggles throughout the world, seeking to collectively advance the revolutionary science of the proletariat and, through this practice, build coordination and unity.
Some elements of discussion through past experiences: I am only introducing in this setting some succint positions, in this case, not well developped. It is basically a very limited synthesis/ condensed view of discussions and struggles waged at the level of the Haitian revolutionary prolatarian left on populism of the international left.
The Vietnam experience:
As in other countries, the Communist party of Vietnam changed its name to the Labor Party of Vietnam. This was not by accident. This was a reflection of populism in the party. This was a reflection of populism in its midst. It is impertive that we learn from them. In their practice, some proletarian practices in the interest of the working class were achieved, for example their capacity to organize the national bourgeoisie, but in the final analysis, what we really had in front of us was a non proletarian organization, an organization of laborers under the leadership of the petit bourgeoisie, that understood some elements of marxism. Ho Chi Min, himslef, in an interview, acknowledged the inexistant role of the working class in the party that was supposed to be a workers’ party. In this case, the Vietnamese revolution wasn’t able to really construct an autonomous party of the working class, with all its great contributions on popular warfare.
The Chinese experience
The Chinese experience is another historical experience. We must learn from the Chinese experience. Even though the Communist Party of China kept its name, it did not quite address the similar contradictions confronting the Vietnamese. The Communist Party of China was basically made up of peasants with a petit bourgeois leadership. We must admit, even with these limitations, the great contributions that Chinese revolutionaries brought to proletarian theory. The two lines struggles, during and after the installed popular take over, was in full force within the party and even during the Great Cultural Proletarian Revolution which had as one of its objectives to reinforce the proletarian base of the party. The proletarian alternatives were defeated and they weren’t able to build an autonomous proletarian organization. Populism, the peasant base, totally degenerated and gave way to the development of a bureaucratic bourgeoisie, finally for China to become an imperialist country. Deng did not become a capitalist roader. He was a rich peasant, a non-proletarian revolutionary who could only understand, because of his class origin, the construction of capitalism. Mao, at least in theory understood the contradiction, did call for the non proletarian recolutionaries to transform themselves, to politically rupture with their class origins…
The question of the role of classes and the question of class autonomy are questions that need to be fundamentally addressed in defining a strategic political orientation.
The Cuban experience
In this case, we must recognize that many objectives in the interest of the working class were addressed. When we look at the actual conditions and the the role of the working class in the social relations of production or in the political leadership of the movement, the presence of the working class was simply as a support group against the dominant classes of Cuba, under the leadership of radical progressive petit bourgeois elements, that transformed into, in this case, into a bureaucratic bourgeoisie. The Cuban social formation did advance. A positive leap forward occurred, sometimes against all odds, and with great difficulty. This advancement was done in a populist orientation, without really constructing the autonomous organization of workers.
Some proletarian revolutionaries such as Marx sometimes faulted in the understanding of class autonomy, in particular working class autonomy, while in some cases he also insisted on keeping the autonomy of the class. In the US he lauded the bourgeoisie but did not denounce its attitude towards the working class. He adopted a totally a different attitude in Germany.
We could also include the experiences of the National Liberation Movement in Africa and the Middle East
The RCP kept the name but totally dropped the role of the working class. Their concept of revolution is that of populism. A revolution without a revolution that could only, in the final analysis, perfect capitalism, not transform society.
In the struggle against capital, in the different forms in wich surplus value is extracted, the working class must build its own organization and unify all others popular classes under its leadership to achieve its ultimate goal, the abolition of wages. NO OTHER CLASS IN SOCIEY CAN LEAD IN ACHIEVING THIS GOAL BUT THE WORKING CLASS. The other classes has proven their historical impotenccy of radically transforming society…