Ecosystems of Revolution: Congealing Diverse Efforts
Posted by Mike E on April 16, 2010
The following exchange emerged from the still ongoing discussion around our “Understanding Che Guevara” essay.
By Phil Ferguson, TellNoLies and Mike Ely
Phil Ferguson wrote:
I agree with Mike E’s comment about there not being one, or even two, ways to power in Latin America (and elsewhere). Indeed, in Latin America this could be seen as early as 1979, with the FSLN overthrow of the Somoza regime.
The FSLN had three tendencies, which had split apart for a while and then reunited in 1978. It was the fact that they were able to fight in three ways, not one, which made them the only radical movement in Latin America post-Cuba to actually topple a dictatorship. They waged prolonged people’s war and there was a section of the FSLN (led by Borge) devoted to that; they had an insurrectionalist tendency (led by the Ortega brothers) and a tendency oriented to the small but growing class of wage-labourers (the tendency led by Jaime Wheelock). Without bringing those aspects together in a multifaceted strategy, when the FSLN reunited in 1978, I think the July 1979 revolution would have been unimaginable.
Of course, what happened later was the succumbing to the pressures of imperialism (and the temptations of office/power) and the FSLN is now only a faint echo of the radicalism of Fonseca and the struggles of the 60s, 70s and its early years in power. But that is another story.
TNL writes:
The Sandinista experience has always suggested to me what I have called an “ecosystem approach” to revolutionary strategy. That is to say that real-life revolutions are not simply the result of the triumph of a single correct line over all the assorted incorrect lines, but rather a convergence or synchronization of sometimes competing but ultimately complementary strategies on the part of differently situated actors.
Sometimes this occurs within a party or a formal front, but often not. I think, for example, of the role of Left SRs and anarchists in the October Revolution and its immediate aftermath. One trend is almost always primary in this relationship, but success depends on the contributions of multiple formations. This doesn’t mean its not important to struggle over the correct line,a but it does mean that we should expect some of those struggles to be incomplete in their resolution and for trends that divide in order that certain forms of work are able to mature can come back together in later moments. I’m not sure how this fits into Bill Martin’s idea of a “vital mix” but Phil Ferguson’s comment brought it to mind.
Mike Ely then wrote — looking back at some history using TNL’s “ecosystem” analogy:
In the Tsarist empire, at the end of the 1800s, the revolutionary movement split between the Narodniks (populists who “went to the peasantry”) and the Social Democrats (Marxists who “went to the workers”). In their famous polemics and split, it was presented as an either or thing. You were on one side of that divide or the other — and there are a whole host of strategic and cultural attachments to those two basic sides (including among this was a certain decree of volkish nationalism among the populists, contrasted with a very western-looking internationalism and developmental pull among the marxists).
But, in reality, (starting with the 1905 revolution and then even more powerfully in 1917) the Russian revolution was accomplished by an upsurge of workers and peasants.
It emerged as what Marx had prophetically called
“a replay of the Paris Commune backed by a second edition of the Germany peasant wars.”
And there was, for the new revolutionary Soviet state (after 1917 and then after the victory of the civil war), a profound, vexing problem of how to keep that worker-peasant alliance real, and keep it alive.
There were stages to this. We have spoken on this site about how the RSDLP (the Marxists) had done their pre-revolutionary work, as organizers in working class centers. While the Narodniks (morphed over time into the Socialist Revolutionary Party) had some (always tenuous) roots in rural life.
As the revolution approached, Lenin saw that the RSDLP’s own program for the peasants (developed over much painstaking “scientific” work and debate) had no traction. (It was essentially a plan of land to the tiller) While the SR’s program had the support of growing numbers of peasants (many of them returning veterans and mutineers awakened by the horrors of World War 1). (The difference was basically over how to socialize the land, and what the role nationalization by the central state would/should play, as opposed to land socialization by distribution to the tillers.)
In a stunningly creative move (the kind that would never be understood by some of our own dogmatists today), Lenin set aside his own program (which he had personally spent years developing) and urged the Bolsheviks to simply adopt the SR’s agrarian program whole. And he made special efforts to bring, into the new Soviet governments, those elements of the SRs who were willing to join in that new socialist experiment.
This is an expression that the worker-peasant alliance was not led, simply, by having the Bolshevik party gather and lead all the diverse streams of discontent. It involved actual negotiations with other parties, and a mutual transformation, and it rested on literally decades of previous mass work (including by non-Bolsheviks) that could not be short circuited or instantly vaulted over “in a telescoped way.”
And it has to be said that the Bolsheviks’ own weakeness in the rural areas, and their inability to form stable political alliances with radical forces with real political support in the rural areas was one of the fatal problems of the Russian revolution — opening up social conflicts and compulsions that defined, and ravaged Soviet political life for decades.
One of the SR’s (Alexander Kerensky) became the head of the new bourgeois government that tried to pursue Russia’s involvement in World War 1 (on a populist-nationalist basis). Other sections of the SR’s split off — forming the Left SRs and (for a brief period) became part of the new post-October Soviet government in coalition with Lenin’s Bolsheviks. As a party they gradually faded/shattered, with quite a few merging into the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik).
That brief history suggests that the Russian revolution too had its “ecosystem” — where diverse forces “toiled in the vineyards” bringing their work, their social base, their programmatic insights, with them into a larger mix (and into a complex society-wide application of mass line and endgame tactics).
TNL’s example deals with a small country (Nicaragua) with its urban rural divide, and its multinational internal complexities. But how can a revolutionary be OTHERWISE in very large, highly diverse, multinational states — like India, Russia, the United States? There will inevitably be “other flags in the field” — not merely as competitors (in an ecosystem) but as part of a revolutionary “web of life” that is dynamic and evolving, and (hopefully, through struggle and leadership) moving together toward the seizure of power and the transformation of society.
The example of Nicaragua reveals the question is not just “coming together to seize power” — but a far larger question of “for what.” In Nicargua, the revolution against Somoza stopped half way — and stalled — not just because of the intense international pressure of the U.S. contra war and invasion threats, but also because of the particular mix of parties and programs that had come to power which were (to put it in a few words) not that radical in the final analysis.
What does this look like in India today
The Indian Maoists have made serious, now-known inroads among the tribal people of interior forests, and developed a series of base areas over years. It is an important political base among people oppressed and profoundly marginalized by Indian society.
Now, to imagine a strategy for seizing and holding power, what other areas are there in the “ecosystem” of Indian communist politics (and mass revolutionary work), that will form a key basis for the seizing and holding of power?
It is hard to imagine this particular Maoist current simply (linearly) expanding its influence and leadership — from these areas of concentration and success to the highly diverse and rapidly changing areas of India’s more urban and industrial centers.
So, how will that work? And what can be learned from the Nepali Maoist efforts to lead and make breakthoughs, and then on that basis gather around themselves quite diverse (and previously hostile) political forces around a common program of power?
Future ecosystem of a revolution in the U.S.?
Not just now, but over time, as various contradictions fester and explode.
What are the potential flags in the field? How can they forge alliances that could advance a common cause? What is the role of communists in that process — and what kinds of political preparations should communists make, among particular core social groups, in their work with those of other political trends?
What are the divisions that would obsruct people “seeing each other as allies”? (Patriotism? Overlapping land disputes? Differences over the vision of socialism, planning and central government role?)
What are the faultlines that will produce distinct radical currents (among Native peoples, among Mexican immigrants, potentially among ruined family farmers, etc.) and what are possible political and programmatic expressions that can congeal and ally those forces — in a common project of remaking power and society?
tellnolies said
On the question of the United States, an important aspect of this is clearly those constituencies presently largely organized within the Democratic Party (African Americans, organized labor, the environmental movement, etc…) This is I think a daunting problem. Ultimately if there is to be a serious revolutionary movement in the US, much less a successful revolution, the Democratic Party must fracture with significant portions of its rank and file going over to new more radical or revolutionary formations. How that happens without revolutionaries going more or less clandestinely inside the Democratic Party to fight for it to happen (and for it to happen along the most favorable lines) I don’t see. (And this should not be confused with a perspective that imagines the Democratic Party itself can be transformed into a genuinely progressive force though it will presumably involve relating precisely to forces that do have that perspective because they are among those we want to cleave off the Dems.) At the same time it seems critical to have very clearly revolutionary politics being openly and loudly articulated OUTSIDE that framework. While it would be nice for these two projects to somehow be tightly coordinated its very easy to imagine them being posed against each other. This is just one example, but I think an important one.
CPSA said
chicanofuturet said
The flags are already out there comrade,flapping right in our faces,snapping us right on our asses..that’s not the main problem we face.
The most immediate crisis which the Communist Project currently faces is not so much in seeing “potential flags” out in the field,as it is surviving,avoiding dying out,approaching for all intents and purposes extinction…which were getting pretty damned close to becoming..
Many Communists are getting up there in age,many veterans of the 60′s.This is fine,but we cannot hold back the inexorable march of time.Many of us will not be around in 5,10,20 or more years in the future.We need to urgently,and I mean urgently..attempt in earnest to bring more new forces into the struggle,we need fresh blood so to speak so that the revolution can live on,become stronger,more vibrant and alive..
We must reach out in a serious and urgent way,recruit and educate more revolutionary fighters..young people, vastly more people of color,immigrants,involved in the struggle.
Communist “Shop Talk”..ideological theoretical struggle is great..I love it as much as the next person…we need more of it!
But unless we get new people involved all those wonderful ideas will go with us to our graves.Someone in another post mentioned “Old School Communists”..there’s nothing wrong with “Old School” depending on what School were talking about,which courses we studied and which lessons we learned..
my point is that many of the “Old School” need to go back to school,take up some up to date refresher continuation education classes..especially creative innovating thinking,other wise they risk becoming Old School RCP type dogmatic sectarian “textbook” Marxists preaching to an empty house ….(or to an RCP convention).
We need begin writing some new textbooks of our own now which apply more to 2012 than 1917 or 1968.
Making sweeping assumptions of seizing “flags” may make us feel good,but they are an illusion,useless until,unless we Communists get our shit together first.
It appears to me that we’re jumping out way ahead of ourselves here with all this presumptive “big talk” of OUR forces and groups,OUR alliances, common causes,preparations..etc etc..you would think we were the Bolsheviks of June 1917!
First of all who in the hell are WE? This WE insinuated is an unknown,undefined chimera,almost non-existent,isolated,irrelevant,tiny in numbers,divided,sectarian.
Before we can even begin to talk of realistically dealing with “flags” out in the field,we need to “field” some type of defined ..real.. not virtualorganization which is
fighting a real not virtual revolution..
because if we do not develop any real unity or actual physical organization and instead rely on the internet,spontaneity or metaphysics we will all be running around haphazardly willy nilly all over that “field” tripping over those “flags” in different directions like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off..
Mike E said
CFT writes:
I think you misunderstand what is being said:
1) we need to congeal a new coherent communist strategy and presentation. There is no survival outside of that.
2) Yes we need to reach out to connect more people to a communist politics and help train revolutionary cadre. And in its own, modest way, the debate here is not just an example of inner-communist discussion, but a model for how people are trained. Drawn from struggles, confronting core issues in that context, and then drawn to a framework where communist politics and ideas are debated out.
3) The question of ecosystem is not a question for the future — it is precisely a question of understanding strategy, orientation and leadership. What is “a vanguard” — and how does it ‘relate” to other political trends and to sections of the people who don’t share its politics? What TNL is raising is a question of current debate (over how communists should view strategic alliances, not some future problem that can be tackled after we “get our shit together.” Understanding these things is a big part of how we get our shit together (i.e. regroup on the basis of reconception)
We can’t regroup first, and then afterwards work out what our ideas and plans are. The regrouping of communists (and the incorporation of new forces) will only happen on the basis of reconception and investigative practice.
Or to put another way, CFT writes:
Isn’t that one-sided and one-way. We are going to “recruit and educate” them?
Aren’t the new generation of radicals (and the people generally) also going to “educate” us (meaning the communists)? Don’t we have a lot to learn? Hasn’t our movement been lagging far beyond reality — lost in a daydream of schema and fantasy?
At one point CFT writes:
Exactly. I think the starting point is thinking of "we" as the forces trying to create a new communist pole within a new revolutionary movement. And even thinking about that "we" (in all its contradiction and dynamics) requires this sense of the larger new revolutionary movement as an ecosystem with several flags.
Our symbiotic relations can't even start (and we can't develop an organically situated communist pole and core) if we don't have such concepts. This is not a thing for later, such understandings are part of what defines a new communist attempt.
chicanofuturet said
Mike E
“I think you misunderstand what is being said”
Wrong comrade..I totally understand what is being said..
and I’m also on board with the basic substance of the argument being made which I believe is sound and reasonable..
My take on this matter is not mutually exclusive nor precludes the correctness of the case being made,rather my particular variable element in this Communist formula is more one of “tone”,emphasizing a sense of “urgency”,pointing to,in a general sense,an immediate subjective “path” which I believe the Communist Project must pursue in order to survive..