Communist Electoral Tactics Part 2: Re-invented According to Conditions
Posted by Mike E on September 29, 2010
Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Both communist abstentionists and figures like Nader argue that the two main parties are virtually identical "corporate parties." This has a great deal of truth, but also collides with the increasing ideological polarization of bourgeois politics.
“Those communists who believe electoral abstention is a simple principle have assumed that the mere participation of Nepal’s Maoists in national elections in the summer of 2006 was proof they had taken some terrible turn onto the “peaceful road.” It was (and remains) a line that can’t even start to calculate the options and openings created for revolution and legitimization by the Maoist victory in those elections.”
The following post was excerpted from yesterday’s essay Rough Notes: On Revolutionary Participation in Elections, to make the whole a little less rough.
by Mike Ely
Electoral abstentionism has never been a revolutionary communist principle. Or to put is more clearly, non-participation in elections is a strategic question, but not a simple strategic principle. That is not a surprise to many communists around the world — but it is often comes as a surprise to some communists in the U.S. (and also India) because of particular developments and traditions within the Maoist movements of those countries.
Revolutionary communists have historically held that electoral options need to be explored in their particularity (even if, in the U.S., the answer may come back repeatedly that revolutionaries should expose “both sides” from outside the electoral arena).
Mao Versus Some Maoists
Some Maoists in the Third World adhere to the Lin Biaoist assumption that launching and persevering in specific forms of armed struggle remains the dividing line question between real and phony communism. It is an approach that diminishes, flattens and universalizes many complex matters. There has been a bit of a tradition (including among India’s Naxalites in particular) that assumes that electoral participation of any kind (and non-armed political preparation generally) were inherently forms of betrayal and collaboration. And sometimes these verdicts were extended beyond India or semifeudal conditions, to bourgeois-democratic imperialist countries. (See for example Abimael Guzman’s 1988 interview.)
There are, of course, countries (like China in the 1930s, or some bourgeois dictatorships today) where there were no elections, or where there is (for specific reasons) no advantage to electoral participation. It was considered by both Mao and Stalin one of the particularities of China (one of the things that made its conditions unique) that armed revolution was able to confront armed counterrevolution from the very beginning — so in many ways, there was in China especially little space for legal political work and accumulation of forces.
But it is worth noting that Mao himself never spoke against electoral participation in principle and at least on one occasion described elections (and even parliamentary posts) as a fruitful arena of struggle in some countries.
Mao expressed this (correctly, I believe) as a contradiction, within his work Problems of War and Strategy:
“The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries. But while the principle remains the same, its application by the party of the proletariat finds expression in varying ways according to the varying conditions. Internally, capitalist countries practice bourgeois democracy (not feudalism) when they are not fascist or not at war; in their external relations, they are not oppressed by, but themselves oppress, other nations. Because of these characteristics, it is the task of the party of the proletariat in the capitalist countries to educate the workers and build up strength through a long period of legal struggle, and thus prepare for the final overthrow of capitalism. In these countries, the question is one of a long legal struggle, of utilizing parliament as a platform, of economic and political strikes, of organizing trade unions and educating the workers.”
In short: Participating in elections is not the same thing as expecting a peaceful transition to socialism. Winning seats and sitting in parliament has not commonly been viewed by revolutionary communists as inherently parlimentarist (or as a litmus-test proof of “parliamentary cretinism.”)
Communists in Bourgeois Elections?
What about running in elections? What about entering this arena as a candidate (either an openly communist candidate, or as part of some larger electoral front)?
Far from having some anti-election principle, communists in bourgeois democratic countries have virtually always run in elections where that was open to them and where they were strong enough to take advantage of such openings.
The Bolsheviks ran in the Duma elections (and Lenin’s struggle with his #2 Bolshevik, Bogdanov, was, in 1909, precisely over whether to participate ).
Lenin’s Bolsheviks had a section of the delegates to the Tsarist Duma — they used their offices to pass legislation, get in the press, travel the country legally, contact local “constitutents” (who were often local bolshevik organizers otherwise isolated from the organization), receive and publicize petitions from the people and so on. The book “Bolsheviks in the Tsarist Duma” is extremely interesting in its description of communist preparatory work — and I urge everyone to read it. (It also brings to life a political work that is very very different from ours, and so is a lesson in not trying to mechanically adopt models.)
The Comintern parties ran in elections wherever possible — both under their own banners and within broader united front parties (The CPUSA had a legal existence in the beginning only as the electoral Workers Party, and only later came out under its own name, and ran in elections under its own name.)
In the case of smaller parties, the CPUSA, this was mainly agitational — the party program was put before the people. And the party (which was often submerged in trade union work) used elections as a chance to get itself more known in its own right… in other words the electoral side of its work was often more “left” than the other day-to-day activities.
The Example of Pre Hitler Weimar Germany
German Communist Party election poster for 1920 -- shortly after the KPD was formed and barely a year after they launched armed insurrections in various areas. It says: "Voters take your stand! Dictatorship of the bankers or dictatorship of the workers?"
But in countries like Germany, where the Communists had a real mass base, elections were not merely agitational. Communists were also occupying places in the superstructure, and gaining seats in parliament (the Reichstag). First: they were putting their program (socialism and militant resistance to crisis) before the people (in contrast to other parties including the Social Democrats and Nazis). And this was extremely important for their existence and growth. But they were also expected to “deliver” to the people — show competence in governance at local levels, set up mutual aid, represent people in the deliberations over law and policy. And finally, voting was an important (and real) measure of strength. One of the key problems of a political movement is getting a nuanced sense of “where the people are at.” Are they swinging our way? who is thinking what?
What You Learn and What You Represent in that Arena
German Communist Party headquarters in Berlin -- decked out for the 1932 elections, shortly before Hitler's final grab of power
In the German elections of the pre-Nazi and bourgeois democratic Weimar years, the Communists (KPD) and the other parties got a regular sense (from the population) of who stood where.
It was a very big deal in the federal German elections of 1930, when the KPD vote suddenly grew and the rival soft-socialist SPD vote shrank — when the Communist Reichstag group increased by 23 seats — to 77) , and when the Nazis took votes from the traditional conservatives.
It was a sign of a radicalization of both left and right — and the struggle in the streets was reflected in the sharp struggle (even fights) within the Reichstag itself.
There was quite a bit of rightism in the KPD tactics and tradition: In many ways they talked about socialist revolution and wanted it, but their political work and policy did not prepare well for the possibility of a fascist takeover. They developed a serious political militia (The Rot Front) and used it in streetfighting — but when Hitler’s coup came in 1933, the KPD’s “preparations” for underground resistance collapsed and their leadership was largely rounded up.
Germany communists were building a private militia, the Rot Front, while they were also waging electoral campaigns
However on the question of participation in elections, it is worthwhile to consider this: The KPD had attempted at least two armed insurrections in Germany (the somewhat half-baked uprisings of 1919 and 1923), and they were very closely associated with a very nearby existing socialist state (the USSR). So no one was confused about what they stood for — no matter what they said, a vote for the KPD was a vote for socialism and armed revolution.
(Just like a vote for Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver in 1968 was a delightful way to say fuck you to the whole american system — because everyone knew that the militant Black Panther Party was sweeping armed negation personified.)
The opposite is true of socialists running in the U.S.: here no matter what you say (“revolution, blah, blah, blah…”) the fact that you are running for the fucking senate or city council, symbolically implies (under current conditions) an implied legitimization of all that… the system, its offices, the constitution, “American democracy,” the will of the people etc.
The KPD could run for office and everyone knew they wanted to overthrow the Weimar Republic and establish a socialist one. By contrast, we could declare we are “against the system,” but running for office would make us look (to many of the advanced and especially those most revolutionary ) as if we were legitimizing and “entering” the system. And that has to do with how electoral politics works in the U.S. (and how directly participation is tied to legitimization).
Supporting Democrats in Key Races?
Should communists consider supporting Democratic Party candidates? And if so, on what basis?
Examples and principles from the earlier Maoist days of the RCP are worth examining.
In the U.S., the RCP almost universally abstained from elections — and they have never supported Democratic presidential candidates. But that abstention has never been on the basis of some overriding tactical or strategic principle. There were other reasons for the abstention — including the simple fact that the structure of the U.S. political system largely limits electoral politics to the two ruling class parties, and the policy of the media has been to make invisible “minor candidates.”
Inside the RCP, there have always been sharply different views on elections. Most RCP supporters have had (in my experience) a rather rigid abstentionist views similar to those of many anarchists: arguing that this is a rigged system serving the capitalists, the two parties are virtually identical (like the ridiculous twins of Alice in Wonderland, Tweedledee and Tweedledum) and participating (by supporting Democrats or third party reformists, but also by running communist candidates) would merely provide legitimacy to a rigged setup.
Many people influenced by this line assumed that the mere participation of Nepal’s Maoists in national elections in the summer of 2008 was proof they had taken some terrible turn onto the “peaceful road.” It was (and remains) a line that can’t even start to calculate the options and openings created for revolution and legitimization by the Maoist victory in those elections.
But such principled abstentionism was never (in fact) the unified position of the RCP leadership or the party itself.
In the 1972 the early RU went through a process of debate and agonizing over whether it made sense to join the effort around Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern.
As part of his turn toward imagining a Christian fascist coup danger in the U.S. 0f 2005, Avakian revisited the question of earlier abstentions — specifically “Agonizing over McGovern” — in his memoirs (From Ike to Mao, p. 269). Avakian discussed how Leibel Bergman (on of the RU’s leaders) argued for supporting McGovern as part of “our internationalist duty” to the Vietnamese people.
Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden formed the "Indochina Peace Campaign" that urged the antiwar movement to focus their efforts on defeating Richard Nixon in 1972
After all the high tides of struggle in the sixties and seventies, quite a few people saw the George McGovern campaign as an arena for finally pressing through the antiwar victory we had all been fighting for. That was not just those most liberal forces — but included people who had taken quite radical stands (like, for example, Jane Fonda who had famously gone to North Vietnam and made a series of historically important defeatists statements, including in broadcasts to American GIs.) In fact, the Vietnamese Workers Party urged revolutionaries to actively support McGovern. And, influenced by that, the RCP’s close collaborators in party building at that time, the Black Workers Congress (BWC), was urging McGovern support. The word was put out (deceitfully) that “The Vietnamese are losing the war” — and that if we didn’t support McGovern, they might suffer a military collapse. (Holly Near even wrote a song promoting that theme “Hold on Now, Just a Little Bit Longer.”)
Avakian describes considering the possibility of supporting Senator George McGovern for president in 1972:
“This was not something that I, or the RU as a whole, simply dismissed. We didn’t just say, ‘oh, McGovern, he’s a bourgeois candidate, end of discussion.’ I personally agonized over this a lot, I did a lot of reading, a lot of study, trying to understand in a general sense what is represented by conflicts within an imperialist ruling class, and then more specifically what was represented by this conflict — not just the electoral contest in itself, but what larger conflicts within the ruling class and the imperialist system did this represent, or not represent. To what degree were there really serious differences. I wrestled deeply with this question: Could it actually be true that this was an exceptional case, where which bourgeois candidate got elected might make a profound difference? Was it really true that whether or not McGovern got elected would determine whether the U.S. would pull out of Vietnam or, on the other hand, escalate the war? I and others in the RU agonized over all these kinds of questions, trying to understand the realities of the conflict within the ruling class… I came to the conclusion, and the RU as a whole was won to the position that we should not support McGovern, and that in fact whether or not the Vietnamese people would prevail in this war and whether the U.S. would be forced to withdraw from Vietnam would not be determined on the basis of whether McGovern or Nixon got elected.”
After the RU’s decision was made to abstain, two comrades in my area still snuck out to vote. And a number of people left the organization. Afterwards, the RU/RCP propaganda at elections was less nuanced — focusing simply on the sham nature of bourgeois elections, and sometime organizing party supporters to parade around on election day with a giant toilet, urging people to flush their votes.
At the same time, there were repeatedly occasions when the RCP mobilized people to vote in specific referendums (especially in California).
When Carl Dix “ran” as an “anti-candidate” in the Reaganite 1980s, the idea had some juice, but the specific campaign was a rather lame. This was in part because of Carl’s personal Vulkan-like placidity, but really the problem was that this was not much different from any other RCP “campaign” — same folks, same methods, new catchy slogan. It was another poorly executed brainstorm without the creative spark or mass line to go viral.
At that same time, other left forces rushed deep into Jesse Jackson’s two campaigns for president (within the Democratic primaries of 1984 and 1988). There is a lot to sum up about those efforts — for some they were a giddy high point, while for others (including me) those efforts represent (precisely!) the danger and self-deception of throwing radical forces into a liberal electoral campaign.
The fact that there had been such debates in 1972, and the fact that the RCP did not have a simple abstentionist principle was news to many party supporters, and a bit of a shock, when Avakian started writing about it — and there was (in 2005-2006) a lot of resistance to the whole “Drive out the Bush Regime” orientation as it started to be put forward. I.e. During the last years of the Bush administration, there was sharp struggle around the RCP between the widespread “tweedledee-tweedledum” assumptions of most party supporters and the view (coming from Avakian) that the two parties, while imperialist, were not simply identical in program.
It was part of a shift of the RCP toward directing its main fire at one section of the Republican coalition — the theocratic Christian right. Avakian’s turn too something real (the growth of Christian fundamentalist trends and political influence) and went out to lunch with it in semi-delusional ways.
However (it needs to be said) it was true (and important to assert, then and now) that the two main U.S. parties are not simply identical. These are both parties of imperialism, capitalism, empire, the historically developed American political system and a common ruling class — they have that class character in common. But (at the same time) they have different programs, different social bases, different ideological skins, and their electoral collisions do overlap with some real policy disputes within the ruling class (and within the society as a whole).
As 2008 presidential elections approach, the RCP did not oppose supporting Obama’s candidacy on simple principle — there was (again) at least the pretense of evaluating the decision concretely (in light of the arc represented by the Bush years, in light of the work concentrated in the “Drive out the Bush Regime”). And the ultimate decision against endorsing Obama was (for the RCP) a decision based on their leadership’s evaluation of the very particular and specific lay of the land.
In short, we have a bit of a contradiction in many communist circles, where the very discussion of electoral politics is restricted by a belief that the issue can be resolved on the level of principle (i.e. that there is little to discuss).
In fact, the question of electoral work (and what forms it takes, and what moments require them) is something very specific and particular — with differences depending on country and the larger events in society . It has to do with splits in the ruling class. It has to do with the particular structure of a country’s electoral system. It has to do with the consciousness and organization of the people, and with the communist method of mass line.
And it has to do with the overarching strategic necessity of preparing minds and organizing forces for revolution (and not for something else).
Mehrdad Komelah said
Given that according to the Wikipedia Mr. Avakian used to be the chairman of the Peace and Freedom Party of the state of California, what was the purpose of having such a post sixties party on a legal basis at all?
Mike E said
The original point of the Peace and Freedom Party was a framework for organizing the growing radical/progressive upsurge in the San Francisco Bay area — for antiwar activity and support for the Black Panther Party (including the “Free Huey” movement).
I’ve always heard that Bob Avakian and Jerry Rubin ran for office on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket — but can’t find any specific confirmation of that at the moment. In any case both of them quickly moved on from that electoral formation to form other groupings. Avakian helped form the new Maoist group, The Revolutionary Union, which did not run for office. Jerry Rubin went on to the Yippie! network, which ran a pig for president.
The Peace and Freedom Party ran Eldridge Cleaver for President in 1968, and in the wake of that (rather successful agitational effort) had a place on the ballot in several states. over the years it has become an electoral framework for various left forces (like the Socialist Party, the Party for Liberation and Socialism and others) wanting to be on the ballot in California (and has become a bit of a battleground between them for positions on their lists).
Peter M. said
For information on elections, the database site OurCampaigns has some answers regarding Bob Avakian’s and Jerry Rubin’s participation in elections.
In 1967, Bob Avakian ran for Berkeley city council. Local elections in California are non-partisan, so it’s arguable whether this was officially “with” the Peace and Freedom Party or not, but considering this is around the time the PFP formed, it makes sense that this would be part of their preliminary electoral efforts: http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=215802
Jerry Rubin also apparently ran in the 1967 local campaign for mayor of Berkeley (which means that they would have been running on the same ticket, I guess). According to OurCampaigns, Rubin also ran for congress in 1974 on the Peace and Freedom ballot line: http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=17570
Carl Davidson said
First, we are already ‘within the system.’ That’s what it means when conditions are non-revolutionary and dual power is not emerging in the streets in any major way. It’s not a matter of dragging people ‘bank into’ it; they’re already there, albeit with varying degrees of activity and passivity.
Second, we are in no position to confer ‘legitimacy’ on Congress, the Constitution or any of the rest. They already have legitimacy, or at least a good deal of it, in the thinking of the majority, and even to a considerable degree, of the militant minority. Whether the left, at its current level of strengthen, decides to work in elections or not, won’t add or subtract ‘legitimacy’ very much one way or another.
It’s much more a question of growing and developing the sophistication and strength of our own forces and organizations. As I noted earlier, when you engage the electoral arena, you multiply your ability to reach out and cast a wider net by at least a factor of ten or more.
What the advanced revolutionaries think is always important. But in the end, it’s not about them. Far more important is what the masses think, what they consider legitimate and what they are willing to do. And they, naturally, are not monolithic. There are many trends, and we have to find ways to relate to all of them.
Why? Because the masses make history, not mainly the communists. The communists are always a minority, even under socialism and beyond. That’s why they need the united front as well as the party and the army as the ‘three magic weapons’ that go together.
In countries like ours, politics are largely what goes on in the electoral arena. It’s not always or completely the case, but it’s mainly the case now. And it’s doesn’t matter whether we like it or not; it’s not about us, at least not primarily.
Joseph Ball said
OK, so the Bolsheviks engaged in some electoral politics and then went onto make revolution. But all the hundreds of other times Marxists have got involved in electoral politics it’s either gone nowhere or it has been part of a package of capitulation and revisionism.
The disaster in Nepal must be the final straw-no more participation in bourgeois elections ever. The bourgeois parties are our class enemies-the system they work within is the system we want to destroy. Marxists must engage in continuous class struggle, not compromise.
carldavidson said
JB, you want to wage class struggle, but you’re missing where one of the major battlegrounds are. Either that, or you’re surrendering it without a fight. You may want to avoid it. In the meantime, your class adversaries make use of it to extend their hegemony over the masses.
And so far as I can tell, Nepal is mainly proving to be a disaster for the old ruling classes. I’d wouldn’t count our friends out yet.
louisproyect said
How odd to hear these formulations from someone who spent most of 2008 arguing that the left should vote for Obama.
carldavidson said
Not odd at all. The masses did make history in 2008, taking the de facto ‘whites only’ sign off of the Oval office. Why is that important? Because now it becomes even clearer that the problem is not mainly the lack of rights, but capitalism.
It’s a long march through certain institutions–the question is, how you do it and whether you build up your own strength, as well as the strength of mass organizations, in the process. It’s all about making a concrete analysis of concrete conditions, assessing the relation of forces, and developing strategy and tactics accordingly.
Joseph Ball said
My replies on the politics of delusion about Nepal don’t always get approved on this site, so I can’t say much here about it.
The bourgeois legislature is not an arena of class struggle, trying to play the ruling class at their own game virtually never works. Power does not lie in the legislature, it lies in the capitalist owned media, with the banks and the industrial leaders and with the intelligensia-that generally sides with the existing order, unless a powerful proletarian movement is causing elements of it to split away.
How on Earth can you wage class struggle in the legislature? Class struggle is fundamentally about the physical overthrow of the power of one class by another, it’s not about chatting away in a parliament.
carldavidson said
How do you wage class struggle in a legislature? Use your imagination, or recall a little history.
Lenin’s Bolshevik group did it in the Duma. In our own Congress, it came to physical blows in the anti-slavery battles. And when Barbara Lee stood alone voting ‘No’ on invading Afghanistan, it meant something to our side of the class struggle.
To be sure, it’s often indirect and ‘through a glass, darkly,’ but the battles there are still connected to deeper conflicts. If they weren’t, the task of dismissing them–the parliaments, that is–would be rather trivial, wouldn’t it? But it’s not…
artemi0 said
actually- I think Barbara Lee’s lonely vote on the eve of launching a neverending war is more of an indicator that the legislature is not an arena of class struggle.
the fact that there was only 1 ‘No’ vote, means the ruling class was nearly unanimous.
I guess it’s a real slow march through the institutions- 40 years, and it’s produced a single no vote, and now Obama
Mike E said
There are a number of things involved here:
First, the U.S. does not have a parliamentary system. In parliamentary systems it is often possible to have representatives (of your full politics and program) present in the parliament by meeting a certain minimum vote (5% for example of the national vote).
In those cases, it has historically been possible to run on a revolutionary platform, get the votes of conscious supporters of communist politics, and then use a seat (or several seats) in parliament as a platform for popularizing politics, explaining a communist program, exposing the reactionary parties etc.
In the Tsarist Duma, the antagonisms were so sharp, that the Black Hundreds representatives would stand up and demand that the worker delegates be arrested and hauled off to Siberia, and then pantomime shooting them down, one by one.
In the Weimar Reichstag, the red delegates would at times show up in uniform of the Red Front — and square off against the Nazis representatives. It was the buildup to the 1933 showdown, the conflict was as antagonistic and extreme as can be imagined. And there really were very very different forces represented in the Parliament — that were increasingly devoted to its destruction as an institution, and preparing using the Reichstag (and acting on the larger canvas of national politics and public opinion) to defeat, destroy and actually kill their opponents.
Those are examples of what it meant to wage class struggle within parliament.
However all that is not possible in the U.S., which does not have a parliamentary system. Given the “winner take all” election system — you only get a seat in Congress if you have more than a majority in a specific locality. Which is not practically possible for revolutionary politics right now (or for the forseeable future).
It may be possible to consider running agitational campaigns — that by definition reject the logic needed to win office, and seek to use the election season to reach new people with a revolutionary and socialist message. But that is very different from getting into the U.S. congress (or city councils or whatever)… and (frankly) such agitational campaigns have been tried (every election season for our entire lives) with very little visible sign of success or influence.
What getting into Congress means in the U.S. is running as a liberal Democrat, or supporting a liberal, or some variation. (And even then, the liberals have to “run towards the center” unless they are in a few very secure left liberal districts.)
In short it is unlikely (i.e. impossible) under current and foreseeable condition, that someone “electable” (under this system) will be waging any serious class struggle (of the kind exposing the system, promoting internationalism, exposing the dominant parties etc.).
So it is possible to imagine waging class struggle in various parliamentary formats (in Weimar Germany, in modern Nepal, in the Tsarist Duma of 1912) — and yet virtually impossible (for me) to imagine how something like that could happen under today’s conditions within the U.S. electoral system.
Carl writes:
There are several things confused and confusing about this claim.
First (on a simple manner of language), I would never think of that institution as our Congress. It is their Congress, and always has been — the legislative body of this system, of our oppressors, of this awful empire. There is nothing “ours” about it.
Second, there were in fact sharp class conflict and even physical blows in Congress during the build up to the first Civil War — but that is in large part because there were opposing owning classes (and opposing social systems) represented in the Congress then. The United States (before the Civil War) had two different ruling classes, ruling in coalition, complex compromise and then growing antagonism. The representative Preston Brooks of one class (the slavocracy of the South) pulled off the infamous act of beating Charles Sumner, the representative of the other ruling class (the northern capitalist class) with a cane — causing massive brain damage.
But that example just points out that the modern situation: That there are not opposing classes currently represented in the U.S. Congress, and have not been for a century (since the transformation of Southern agriculture from feudalism to capitalism).
There are sharp policy differences and disputes. (Just as there have been assassinations, impeachments, etc. in inner ruling class struggles) There is a current air of hatred and gridlock in the U.S. congress. But those differences are not “class struggle” or “class differences” — they are disputes firmly within the framework of ruling class politics and interests. They are contradictions in the camp of our enemies and oppressors.
Carl writes:
And Artemio answers:
Well said.
A blank check for empire and endless war was written — and there was no struggle at all in Xongress over it. And Barbara Lee’s lonely vote of conscience and restraint just underscores that. And (if you read her awful statements at that time) you can see that even her vote (which was a positive thing, obviously) was actually not something “something to our side of the class struggle.”
Carl writes:
No. Carl is advocating liberal politics and calling that “class struggle.” He is urging us to situate ourselves within the conflicts of the ruling class, and calling that “class struggle.” He is squinting at the politics of empire “through a glass darkly” — and trying to say that we should make ourselves the loyal tail of that politics.
It is the opposite of class struggle. And if adopted, it would destroy our own chances to create a political network of people conscious of the need for revolutionary change.
tellnolies said
[moderator note: this comment was moved to its own self-standing post.]
Carl Davidson said
No, far from the ‘loyal tail’, in those arenas, I’d prefer to be the ‘spanner in the works.’
Ignore it if you wish, but it won’t do you a bit of good. Nonetheless, I’d love to see an elaborated strategy and tactics for getting to socialism in countries like ours that ignore, bypass or otherwise sidestep these institutions spelled out.
Go for it. I’m all ears. In the meantime, our approach of working with PDA is helping us to grow deeply within the workers and community movements, and we’ll keep to it, until a better path is actually shown to us. In brief, it’ll take a little more than talk.
whodunit said
[moderator note: correction made]