Nailing Jello to the wall? Creative struggle among the people
Posted by Mike E on June 14, 2011
In a nearby thread (and then on Facebook) there has been debate over how to view Jello Biafra — after hearing of his terrible announcement about scabbing on the boycott of Israel.
Jello’s decision is wrong and his argument is riddled with bullshit. And there is a need for clear, sharp and principled arguments in opposition to his plans (both with him, and with people influenced by his arguments).
But a debate emerged over how to view (and handle) such contradictions.
TNL helped circulate Jello’s statement for criticism, and suggested that people reach out to him directly. Others were quick to condemn him as a complete sellout and write him off — as if the issues are obvious, as if the problem is moral, and as if we should have a culture of quickly discarding those who make mistakes as well as contributions.
By Mike Ely
Here is what I wrote about method — which tries to take its distance from a pessimistic and sectarian culture (influential in some punk scenes and identity politics) that too quickly denounces anyone who disagrees as privileged, or corrupted, or hopeless, or enemies.
I’m arguing for a more strategic and confident approach — that assumes we can win people over, and that assumes even the best of us make mistakes, and that assumes that any differences don’t necessarily negate all unities.
“Strategic confidence, patience, generosity toward allies and potential allies, and a clear, forceful, principled, startlingly revolutionary stand ourselves.
“Let’s assume we will win many people over, and that at many points, decent people will make mistakes and show their confusions (and prejudices).”
“Look, i have (for example) participated in many strikes and picket lines where, for quite sincere brothers and sisters, the issues were not clear — and where patient, repeated struggle and explanation were needed. The world is not obvious — and there is a prevalent sectarian-pessimistic mood that says ‘The world is obvious, and everyone who disagrees with us is just corrupt, compromised, privileged and an enemy.’ That may seem very left, and very radical. But it is a classic example of ‘left in form, right in essence.’
Jello has long not been as radical as we remember the Dead Kennedy’s being. I saw him speak at a Nader/Green rally (with Pearl Jam’s Eddy Vedder), and while he is/was obviously oppositional (to the “corporate two party system”) the rap was also revealing in its weaknesses and political confusion.
But as a strategic method we should make Mao’s distinction of “contradictions with the enemy and contradictions among the people.” And with people like Jello (or Franti!) we should have an “arm around the shoulder” approach to sharp struggle.
And, we need to train those around us in that method — precisely because many have been trained in “If you don’t agree with me, you must be privileged and a sellout” — which was a pessimistic and divisive culture within both punk and within college-based identity politics.
It is infuriating (in many ways) that anything around Israel is immediately ‘confusing’ to much of the U.S. left (in contrast to South Africa in the 1980s), and the whole moderate left starts to sputter and wriggle. And it is infuriating that (for that reason!) this boycott of Israel is not as recognized or as solid as similar boycott of South Africa.
It is a sign of the work we have to do.
I was later talking to someone (on facebook), who kept insisting that Jello was now exposed as a “complete sellout.” And I was trying to explain that it showed how he had made a big mistake that he should undo, and that others should avoid . And I wrote:
“Mao (by the way) once advised his followers “Always give people a way out.” By that he meant, when criticizing someone, don’t pin them in a corner and go in for the kill. Give them a chance to think things over, to criticize themselves, to do productive work, to make a contribution in areas where they DO understand things well. Don’t negate someone completely because they have made mistakes (even great mistakes), and above all, allow people to transform and come back. That affects how we talk to and about people. Don’t burn bridges, don’t be one-sided, don’t be impatient. Humans are flexible, creative and complex. And our methods of struggle should incorporate that.”
Here it is a matter of contradictions among the people… and how to resolve them on a higher level….
Let’s unravel this some more…
Resolving contradictions among the people often involves raising consciousness, waiting while people learn from how things unfold, learning from each other, giving people a chance to hear and digest opposing arguments etc. It is not simply a matter of battering or exposing each other (or just “i win, you lose.”) There is right and wrong in such conflicts (one side is often wrong, and the other side is more correct…. and it is important that the influence of the more correct approaches spread…)
I usually agree with (and learn from) TNL’s comments, but here I thought he may have confused the point:
“I remember reading some imperialist military strategist explaining that in most military battle the correct strategy is NOT to completely surround the enemy, but rather to give them an out, a direction in which they can flee. If you surround them, they are compelled to fight for their life. If you give them an escape (and choose where it is) they will fight with less determination and you can still generally achieve your objectives which are rarely the complete destruction of enemy forces in a single engagement. Jello is NOT the enemy, but the principle applies.”
Looking at it this way precisely blurs the necessary distinction between the enemy and the people — and implies that similar methods apply to both.
First: I’m reluctant to extend the “give them a way out” to contradictions “with the enemy” — which are a very different matter (when we are speaking about the hard core of “the enemy” — both die-hard reactionaries and their concentrated/armed formations.)
In some ways, in moment of warfare, history concentrates the worst of a society in one place (the Confederate Army, SS battalions, Klansmen, etc.) and gives the oppressed a chance to whup them, demoralize them, break them, and reduce them in numbers — and doing that well can have a long-time historic influence on politics and social development.
TNL writes:
“Jello is NOT the enemy, but the principle applies. “
I by contrast am arguing:
“Jello is NOT the enemy, so DIFFERENT principles apply.”
Part of this is that, in fact, in actual battle, the principle should NOT be to give the core of organized opposing forces “a way out.”
After the war, revolutionaries often give veterans of the reactionary armies a chance to transform, self-criticize, rejoin society and regain some respect — but those methods and policies have to be developed case by case. And even during warfare, Mao urged his forces to welcome deserters and treating prisoners well, so that these forces (who are by definition not “die-hard” enemies) have a “way out” by leaving their armies and actually coming over. The Maoist approach of treating prisoners and deserters as redeemable, and giving them political instruction (plus food and good treatment) worked very well (even with U.S. prisoners during the Korean War).
However Mao was not a fan of “give them a way out” to opposing armies who remained organized and effective combat forces. Quite the contrary.
In Protracted War he describes an overall method:
It is break up your opponents, catch parts of their forces, bring to bear overwhelming numbers of your forces in that particular situation, and annihilate them. This “war of annihilation” involves “strategy one against ten, tactics ten against one.” (Without getting too detailed, he describes both “war of attrition” and “war of annihilation” — and the relationship of those aspects.)
“Ruthless struggle, merciless blows” or “Cure the disease to save the patient”
Let’s get into contradictions among the people. Mao sums up a sharp contrast in method in his essay “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People.”:
“The “Left” dogmatists had resorted to the method of “ruthless struggle and merciless blows” in inner-Party struggle. It was the wrong method. In criticizing “Left” dogmatism, we did not use this old method but adopted a new one, that is, one of starting from the desire for unity, distinguishing between right and wrong through criticism or struggle, and arriving at a new unity on a new basis…. For without this desire for unity, the struggle, once begun, is certain to throw things into confusion and get out of hand. Wouldn’t this be the same as “ruthless struggle and merciless blows”?
“It was precisely this experience that led us to the formula “unity — criticism — unity”. Or, in other words, “learn from past mistakes to avoid future ones and cure the sickness to save the patient”. We extended this method beyond our Party. We applied it with great success in the anti-Japanese base areas in dealing with the relations between the leadership and the masses, between the army and the people, between officers and men, between the different units of the army, and between the different groups of cadres. The use of this method can be traced back to still earlier times in our Party’s history. … Our task now is to continue to extend and make still better use of this method throughout the ranks of the people; we want all our factories, co-operatives, shops, schools, offices and people’s organizations, in a word, all our 600 million people, to use it in resolving contradictions among themselves.
In other words, Mao’s theory is sharply (and explicitly) opposed to a particular kind of mechanical thinking that came out of the late 30s in the Comintern and Soviet party. (The Left dogmatists he describes defeating were those forces trained along the Comintern line by Chinese communists returning from Moscow.)
That approach assumed that if someone was doing something considered “objectively” damaging to our current needs, then they were probably also “subjectively” aware that they were hurting the people and the revolutionary cause.
So the logic allowed dogmatic communists to rather quickly assume that people making errors were probably conscious agents of reactionary forces. It is an evaporation of the distinction between “objectively” damaging and “subjectively” serving the reactionaries.
This is the mechanical illogic that permeated the whole Moscow Trials and late 30s purges like a poisonous mist, and then came to influence the thinking of a whole generation of communists in many places around the world.
Often it went further and said that we could assume such a link, and that proving it was not necessary — so that supporters of the CPUSA would say of political opponents “They are serving the system by opposing us, and if they are not cops they are missing a paycheck.”
Meaning that: We will casually and automatically accuse you of being agents, even if we have zero evidence and even if we cynically know it is probably bullshit.
Further, the standards for what “objectively serves the other side” were constantly eroded and the bar lowered — until it applied to anyone who merely disagreed with the CP in important ways, or emerged as an obstacle to their desires (at some particular moment).
Basically, anyone who got in their way was fair game for police baiting — even among the ranks of the people and other communists. It is a whole mental package of assumptions that ends up with methods of “ruthless struggle, merciless blows” and a lot of baiting that dissenters and political opponents are agents of imperialism.
As we reconceive our communism and regroup — we should reject the method of “ruthless struggle, merciless blows” and adopt the method of “unity-struggle-unity.”
Contrasts in our own discussions
That is why the most ardent apologists of Stalin-era actions and thinking also come into the discussions here on Kasama with a very hostile attitude: Strange though it may be, some have absorbed this “package” that believes people (especially communists) who disagree with them are (essentially) pigs who serve the ruling class.
Among many examples, Tifo starting a comment by saying:
“So Mike E turns out to be just another unreconstructed Cold Warrior.”
This is absurd (as another brother quickly points out). But there is a historic framework and a logic among communists that this represents — it moves quickly (even immediately) from perceived differences, to quick declarations that you are all agents of imperialism, hidden scabs and traitors.
The definition of who is a traitor is simple: It is those communists who don’t see the world through simplistic orthodox blinders.
Example: If you support uprising against Gaddafi, you must be a secret defender of the NATO invasion. Your support for NATO doesn’t even have to be documented, it can be deduced, assumed and then declared. And if you deny that, if you say you support popular uprisings but also oppose NATO invasions, then you are just a slimey and deceptive liar (because this world is binary and simple, and anyone who disagrees with their policy-of-the-moment must be an imperialist wannabe.)
Everyone is an asshole but them.
These small gnarled cycles of illogic are not just irritating and nuts. They are part of a highly developed mechanical outlook (and historically influential view) opposed to Mao’s theory handling of line struggle and contradictions among the people.
The creation of distinctions and barriers
I think our approach should be:
First, we need strategically defined categories of “the people” and “the enemy” which are fairly far removed from each other and distinct as concepts. And those distinctions allow for a kind of wall demarcating different methods of resolution.
(There are actual agents, infiltrators, spies etc, of course…. real ones. And they belong in the category of the enemy. But such designations should not be applied lightly, without careful consideration and ample reason.)
Second, we should treat most differences “among the people” thoughtfully and respectfully — and sort right from wrong in a non-antagonistic way. We should treat the ideas of dissenters and political opponents seriously — and certainly not assume that their public ideas are merely subterfuge covering for some sinister secret allegiance to the police and CIA.
Third, we should apply the methods of “unity struggle unity” over time — with patience and substance — within the ranks of revolutionaries, within our social base and potential social base, in relations with allies and potential allies. And we do that precisely because we are trying to accomplish something, precisely because we are operating with a long range strategy (and some strategic confidence).
Carl Davidson said
Very good. I basically agree with this. By the way, I love the graphic. I first heard the phrase decades ago from Ted Allen, ‘…defending an opportunist position is like trying to nail Jello to a Wall.’
Mike E said
You are misremembering: It is a reworking from Lenin, who talks about the difficulty of pinning down an opportunist position (cause they slip and slide around). It is refuting opportunist positions that is as hard as nailing jello to a wall.
And (without nitpicking) I suspect you don’t basically agree with one integral part of my argument — which is “a clear, forceful, principled, startlingly revolutionary stand ourselves.” That’s actually the spot on which the whole method rests. Without that, it degenerates to just liberalism.
Carl Davidson said
I’ll disagree. Defeating opportunist positions may be tricky, but hardly impossible. Defending opportunism nearly always falls apart in the end, which is how I would see the effort to nail Jello to a wall. But thanks for sourcing it back to Lenin. First I’ve heard it, although I don’t know if he had Jello or its equivalent in his time and place.
Mike E said
Lenin’s version is without the jello reference.
Carl Davidson said
My working assumption, at least for starters, is that everyone here is taking ‘a clear, forceful, principled, startlingly revolutionary stand ourselves.’ The long argument has do with what this means under current conditions.
I often argue that good politics requires two things: 1) being very clear and firm about your own values, both to yourself and others around you (ie, taking a revolutionary stand); and 2) being skilled at knowing how and what to count (ie, the ability to do concrete analysis of concrete conditions).
mike e said
Car writes:
That is not my working assumption. On the contrary — I think one of the main controversies in this discussion (and in the struggle for a new revolutionary movement) is whether to be revolutionary at all.
For a great chunk of the left, socialist and communist ideas are just something “in their heads” (as a vague personal hope) — and have very little connection (at all!) with what they do politically (which are often framed tightly by liberal politics and immediate goals). The idea that tactics, agitation, demands, methods of work and mass organization are all influenced by our final goals — and that there are different approaches to these things rooted in the struggles over road — that idea too is very controversial. (And it is often denigrated or ridiculed by pretending it just means we should just stand on streetcorners in a sterile quasi-religious way and preach at everyone.)
A politics is possible that is both startlingly revolutionary — and yet practical. That puts forward shocking ideas (and attracts a core on that basis) and yet can unite with others, develop mass roots, and eventually contend in the central arena of politics and power.
The idea of conducting public politics that include an explicit argument for revolution (and for an alternative society that is profoundly different) is highly controversial — here on this site, and among people who self-identify (overall) as revolutionaries and communists.
Carl Davidson said
I think we agree. My qualifier was ‘everyone here’, meaning those discussing on Kasama, not those in wider circles we work in. Perhaps that is still unwarranted–you would know better than I.
But yes, for a ‘great chunk’ of the left, socialism is either a vague yearning or something tacked on in the last paragraph of articles and speeches. Even at some of the sizable socialist conferences, the actual questions of today’s socialism, how to get there, and what to do when and if you do, are minimal.
We certainly need something more and different from that.
You and I may still disagree over the more serious content of our socialist tasks today–structural reforms, transitional demands, the theory of productive forces and such, as well as what ‘startling’ means. For instance, my recent experience in Mondragon in Spain was ‘mind-blowing’ in some ways, and certainly raised my consciousness. Some may find it ‘startling’ in regard to it, but I wouldn’t use that term, even though it taught some powerful lessons
mike e said
Carl writes:
Just to be clear, I too meant here — meaning those discussion on Kasama. I don’t at all assume that a clear and revolutionary stand is assume, common or appreciated.
jfsp said
Gil Scott-Heron one year earlier cancelled a scheduled Israel gig following a pressure campaign by activists and his own fans. Maybe Jello will cancel as well.
another brother said
Best headline of the week (and there’ve been some good ones).
BB said
I am trying to think through how Mao’s distinction of contradictions among the people vs. contradictions with the enemy works in our current context(s).
As noted in discussion, adopting the language of “enemy” without nuance or careful consideration certainly lends itself to the problem of fragmentation and to the problem of classifying (or much scarier verbs) anyone without a rigidly-defined “correct” politics as the “enemy.”
But the demarcation of “the people” and “the enemy” is more difficult today (though not, perhaps, higher stake) than when Mao was writing. Mike calls for “strategically defined categories of ‘the people’ and ‘the enemy’ which are fairly far removed from each other and distinct as concepts.”
How do we demarcate “enemy” and prevent it from becoming a static category incompatible with our commitment to revolution as a transformative *process*? This seems pertinent because:
(1.) as already stated– so many critiques of communist history revolve around who got branded as “enemy” and how “enemies” were handled;
(2.) so few people in the U.S. identify with far left politics—false consciousness is still more the rule than the exception;
(3.) because we are mindful of not subordinating (related but not identical) struggles against racism, hetero/sexism, etc. to the struggle against capitalism.
As a first pass, Mike puts agents of the state in the category of “enemy.” Who else would we put on the list? And how useful is the language of “enemy” right now?
Mao argues that
Is the language of “resolving qualitatively different contradictions” presently better than/any different from demarcating the category of “enemy?” Is that related to the questions– To what extent do we give our “enemies” a face right now? When are we struggling against racism and not racists? Capitalism and not capitalists? Dunno…