On leaderless resistance & Occupy Wall Street
Posted by kasama on October 2, 2011
“There is a difference between wanting a non-bureaucratic, open, transparent, participatory, decentralized, and accountable leadership, which can provide direction to the movement — and not having leadership and direction at all.
“One of the unintended consequences is that in the context of a lack of leadership and direction is that the state, and their enforcers, the police, become the leaders and directors of the mass. As happened in the Brooklyn Bridge, by all accounts.
“The abandonment of any pretense of leadership also signified the abandonment of any pretense of direction, with nefarious unintended consequences.”
* * * * * * * * *
by sks
I will go out and say it outright:
The “occupy” movement in itself is a snowclone, viral movement with a lot of promise – regardless of the many valid critiques others have engaged regarding its many short-comings.
I do not intend to add to the chorus, but provide a fresh perspective, hopefully thought-provoking, on a key aspect of the movement: the claim of “leaderless resistance”. (While I am cognizant of the fascist origins of the strategy and tactic, in particular Louis Beam was a voice of the far-Right, I am ignoring this for the time being: the truth is that in practice in the last 20 or so years it has become widely used in the left and in the animal rights and ecological movements, and hence as a practice, divorced from the right – however, the theoretical underpinnings are indeed elitist).
My intent, in this note, is to raise context and observations on the nature of “leaderless resistance” as a strategic outlook, and as a tactic.
I am particularly motivated by the counter-intelligence coup the NYPD achieved in the Brooklyn Bridge kettle (which echoes a similar one in London nearly a year ago). That is, my intent is a strategic and tactical observation of the “leaderless resistance” concept as applied to “Occupy Wall St.”, its problems, its roots, and more importantly, alternatives that increase the effectiveness, security, accountability, and survivability of this movement.
I do so as a veteran of the anti-colonial struggle in Puerto Rico, and in particular both the relative victory against the US Navy in Vieques Island in 1999-2003, and the relative defeat of the 1998 anti-privatization strikes – as well as the student and community struggles there. Also, as a red diaper grandchild, having the dubious honor of being exposed to the worse excesses of counter-intelligence and State repression since before birth. As an active student of these matters, I do not claim authority, but I do not claim ignorance either.
I. Starting from the end
Whiteshirts: the new Brownshirts.
The Brooklyn Bridge kettle is a historic event: it represents both the first time in living memory that a mass disruptive action has happened in New York City that was pro-active in form: there is no RNC convention, there is no WTO meeting, there is nothing to fight for other than the atrocious malfeasance of the State and Wall St.
It is also historic in that in represents a conscious shift in police tactics.
For those who remember the “Guantanamo-on-the-Hudson” during the RNC protests in 2004, it is clear: While mass arrests did happen, they were the usual random snatching operations in a large scale street isolation. As such, violent tactics, such as the use of pepper guns and baton charges were the norm.
Perhaps the most recent example in a mass movement of this set of tactics was the Pittsburgh G-20 protests in 2009 in which even sonic weapons were used. However, in those protest, already the first change of tactics was visible: two of the most dramatic events of the protest were the identification of passive plainclothes police among the protesters (not active provocateurs) and the preemptive dismantling of a media center, including the arrest of those behind one of the main twitter accounts used for organizing (which was part of a months long intelligence operation).
This “kinder and gentler” approach has its roots in contemporary policing theory, and had its first essay in the London kettles in fall of 2010. Some of the same tactics first used there were clear in the Brooklyn Bridge kettle.
Lets give a short overview of the ones I find significant:
1) Tactical assumption of a lack of leadership in the protest –
While politically and even on terms of prosecution they wouldn’t admit this, the police didn’t try to snatch particular leaders from the protest as they would normally; this pragmatic approach to dealing with the situation is novel and proved very effective to their ends. In London, this allowed easier kettling by tricking naive and idealistic people into moving in the direction the cops wanted, to then kettle them. In the Brooklyn Bridge incident, this was semi-successful: apparently the majority of the people saw the obvious trap and side-stepped the police. Still, hundreds fell for it. In effect, since there are no leaders, the police become the leadership, de facto.
2) Use of high-ranking officers in the front-lines –
One of the origins of the Police Riot, which is what often leads to the most violent actions on the part of the Police in mass situations. In the Brooklyn Bridge kettle, nearly all the front-line officers present were “white shirts” or officers of Lieutenant rank and above. While Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna provided a one-man Police Riot, he is indeed a rotten apple: white shirts are often the cooler heads under pressure, and in the videos you can see open chastising on the part of these white shirts to even lower rank white shirts. This also a pragmatic recognition on the part of the Police of the non-violent, yet provocative, nature of the protest: they do not expect violent actions on the part of the mass – they do expect a few cops to lose their cool and riot, with the consequential spectacle in the media. This robs the mass action of the provocative intent of civil disobedience: since the State’s reaction is pedestrian and “acceptable”, there is no message transmitted. The medium of mass civil disobedience is robbed of its only effect. The cops win, not the movement.
3) The measured proportionality of action –
Until recently, the tactics of mass policing in the western world were based on intimidation and control via overwhelming force. The use of non-lethal weaponry, the massed deployment of physically imposing riot police on exotic steroids, the use of provocateurs and active counter-intelligence. This has given way to a more proportional and surgical utilization of what they call “the quiver”: all of the options previously available are still available, but not deployed. In the recent English riots, this perspective gave way to much criticism on the part of right wing elements who sustained that the police intervention was ineffective. However, a careful look at the arrest and convictions show they dost prostest too much. All of the people allegedly involved in murders during the riots have been indicted. Nearly all active participants, including those in minor crimes, have been arrested, indicted, and for the most part convicted. Turns out that the Police was not asleep at the wheel, or even overwhelmed: they switched from a tactic of direct control and intimidation to one of post-facto enforcement: essentially hitting participants when they least expected it. Rather than street fighting and running battles, the police chose CCTV video, and intelligence operations to get the participants. The result is even more effective than that of a running street battle from the perspective of the state.
Purposes of counter-intelligence
The Bridge to Nowhere: OWS Edition.
With all this in mind, and with some further elaboration below, I think it safe to conclude that the Brooklyn Bridge kettle had a particular intent, all related to counter-intelligence:
1) De-articulation of the main base of the “Occupy Wall St.” camp –
By successfully depopulating the main base, the police was able to isolate the committed participants in the infrastructure of the camp, the unaccountable true leadership of the movement. Like sifting sands for gold, the identification of the logistical leadership is priceless to future intervention.
Those targeted should be very vigilant: they are no longer Anonymous.
Leaderless resistance claims to solve this by allowing any compromise member to be taken over by another anonymous member, but the false egalitarianism promoted that we are all willing, able, and equally effective in any capacity is a lie. If this were true, we wouldn’t need surgeons or pilots because we would all be able to do it, without a need for skill, talent or willingness. If, say, Lorenzo, gets arrested, who will take over him? A model of leadership that identifies, protects, and prepares people for accountable leadership is less vulnerable in this respect.
2) The de facto Red Squad needed to update the databases –
This movement has attracted lots of people who are new activists, unknown to the State. They needed to round them up and identify them, and in particular those willing to be arrested for the movement. Rounding them up in a diffuse open plan like that of the camp, or tediously using CCTV and on foot video for no crime cannot be justified. However, the process of booking is an intelligence coup.
Not only are the databases updated, but new items added, biometric data collected, network analysis made. In effect, 700 arrests mean, 70,000 data routes for the average person, who knows 100 people or so. There is overlap, so obviously the number made vulnerable is not 70,000, but it will still be in the five figures.
This is a counter-intelligence coup.
Yes, we are Anonymous, we never forgive, we never forget. Neither does the State – and its power is underestimated. One of the claims of leaderless resistance is that since people do not actively conspire in cells or pyramids, it protects the independent cells. But as the Federal de-articulation of the North-west USA eco-cells (the Elves of the ELF), there is no need for active conspiracy to connect the dots via social network analysis (and I do not mean Facebook: social networks are not a technology, it is how humans connect socially everywhere). In effect, the movement has provided the State with an intelligence head-start of great value – and did so because the leaderless resistance’s directionless approach failed to notify people of this consequence.
3) Separate the “hard-core” from “soft-core” and from “no-core” activists -
A key goal of counter-intelligence is to de-cohere movements so they implode. One of the methods used in the past is to take advantage of the inherent wedges within movements. The leaderless resistance model claims to solve this by eliminating hierarchy – but this is also a lie. The elimination of formal hierarchy doesn’t eliminate informal hierarchy of will, charisma, economic/racial/gender privilege and other such background hierarchies. In effect, counter-intelligence hoists the movement by its own petard in a pragmatic approach. This wedging is formally addressed in “leaderless resistance” theory as “weeding out the weak”, a sort of social-Darwinist process – but this is anathema to a true mass movement. The inherent elitism of “leaderless resistance” with the onus of dedication and self-sacrifice is exploited effectively by the state.
4) Criminalization -
This is the most political of the goals. By criminalizing the movement, in other words, by equating active participation with the possibility of being processed criminally, the same “preventative” logic of policing is imposed on political speech. The idea, however, is not to prevent gang violence or other crimes, but to prevent political speech that questions the groundwork of the State. Leaderless resistance in this sense doesn’t figure at all: no matter what strategic and tactical method is uses, this response will happen. However, leaderless resistance has a specific weakness in this respect: the inability to protect participants from State criminalization.
No team of lawyers, no bail fund, no clarity to participants on what can criminalize you or not.
The kettling exploits this: by criminalizing behavior that normal citizens assume to be legal, and because leaderless resistance is unable to provide clarity to participants that kettling can happen, participation is limited to those willing and able to be subjected to criminalization. This has concrete effects: in many jobs, even a misdemeanor can get you fired, and definitely having to serve time and pay a fine is an economic hardship to the bulk of people.
II. The Law of Unintended Consequences
The path to hell is paved with good intentions
Another problem is that even the strategy and tactic of leaderless resistance is not actually being followed as prescribed by its creators. One of the most important aspects of the leaderless resistance concept is the aspect of direction: it is “leaderless” in so far as it puts the onus on acting on the principles, rather than organizing anything around them, but it is not “directionless”.
So, one of the fundamental problems of “leaderless resistance” as carried out by the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, is not the concept itself, but a lack of clarity and education on what the concept means, and furthermore, an irresponsible assumption that not having leaders means that a decision is a good idea by the sheer power of numbers. As those in the Brooklyn Bridge kettle will now find out, a lack of leadership that devolves into a lack of direction.
There is a difference between wanting a non-bureaucratic, open, transparent, participatory, decentralized, and accountable leadership, which can provide direction to the movement and not having leadership and direction at all.
One of the unintended consequences is that in the context of a lack of leadership and direction is that the State, and their enforce, the Police, become the leaders and directors of the mass. As happened in the Brooklyn Bridge, by all accounts.
The abandonment of any pretense of leadership also signified the abandonment of any pretense of direction, with nefarious unintended consequences.
III. Mass movements require mass leaderships
Over nine thousand leaders needed.
All of this means that the concept of “leaderless resistance” needs to be reformulated to the actual mass movement as it exists.
As we see, “leaderless resistance” is a theory that applies to vanguardist, elitist struggle: it is perhaps a viable alternative to direct resistance (that is, defensive) politico-military situations, such occupation by a foreign power, or as a way to mobilize direct action around narrow, single issue campaigns, such as ecology or animal rights. It is, at heart, a politico-military theory that requires each member to become a soldier. This is anathema to any mass movement: not even in hunter-gatherer societies do all members of the group engage directly in warfare or even military affairs. In effect, leaderless resistance theory is elitist: it calls only upon the most dedicated, the most “clear”, the most capable – all while seemingly advocating egalitarian participation.
However, it is not applicable to a movement that aspires to be a mass movement: the mass movement needs a mass leadership, a mass direction.
Personally, I view the development of a broad united front of the different affinities is needed: far from the NGO model of bureaucracy, it needs to be based on actual active participation, not simply endorsing a proclamation. This will of course accept and respect the existence of multi-polar and pluralist politics: false unity is always false. Differences of opinion and of direction are healthy if they are in good faith. Recognizing the need for poles of leadership to emerge is not to be feared, but embraced: let only those forces and affinities willing to be accountable and responsible emerge. We shouldn’t be little children hedonistically acting upon our whims: real action in real life has real consequences, only those willing to grapple with those consequences, to protect the movement, to advance the movement, and to engage the movement with wider society should take leadership, but leadership shouldn’t be a bad word. With leadership also comes direction: in particular, is this movement for true revolutionary political and economic change, or simply aimed at extracting reforms that “return” to a mythical “better” past. These are questions other address, but the fact is they need to be addressed by the mass itself: the “leaderless resistance” claim is in itself a leadership and direction that seeks to exclude, implicitly, the addressing of these questions.
The alternative, quite frankly, is to continue to let the cops be the de facto leaders of the movement, surely a way to de-articulate any potentiality it has to effect actual change – and surely a way to cause more harm than good to future movements of resistance. The struggle for peace, justice, jobs, equality is not a short or direct one. We shouldn’t kid ourselves into thinking there won’t be bends in the road, or one in which leadership is irrelevant. Those defending the status quo certainly recognize the immense value of leadership, and have effectively used that against the movement.
Participants in Occupy Wall St, and the other viral snowclones that emerge for it, would be doing themselves a service by critically approaching this central question: there are no shortcuts, there are no easy victories. The Financial-Industrial complex that rules the USA, the crumbling Empire that feeds it, the Nuclear deterrent that holds the world hostage is not easy to beat. And it cannot be beaten, no matter how hard you will it to be, without leadership and direction. Leaderless resistance is a self-kettle, a straigh-jacket that will keep the movement from acquiring the true mass, political, basis that can enable actual change to happen.
Those who want a wide-tent should understand that a free-for-all is not the answer: the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. This a strategic and tactical consideration, a politico-military one, if you will: the ability of the movement to resist, grow, and triumph against the present odds require that it doesn’t straight-jacket itself into what doesn’t work anymore. Be realistic, do the impossible…
pranabjyoti said
Cliche phrases like “participatory democracy” are often used to undermine the class struggle between proletariat and petty-bourgeoisie. In most of the countries today, petty-bourgeoisie makes the lions share i.e. majority of the population and there always crying for “participatory democracy” ultimately end in old petty-bourgeoisie fallacies and this movement too will end up like the movements of previous times i.e IN NOTHING AT THE END.
I myself want democracy to be strictly restricted within the proletariat and petty-bourgeoisie should follow the leadership of proletariat. Petty-bourgeoisie in itself can not go anywhere, it should be under the leadership of proletariat.
Mike E said
Really? You want power for one demographic group alone? And everyone else disempowered and disenfranchised? And how will you explain and justify this strange contraction of political power?
Charlie said
Our most recent blog post at http://epigrammaticgroove.blogspot.com addresses some of these issues, especially #3 – “Separate the “hard-core” from “soft-core” and from “no-core” activists”
Tim Rezeti said
When some people talk of the “occupy” protest’s it seems like the term “petty-bourgeoisie” has been thrown around a lot. Am I mistaken, or is this sort labeling coming from a “third-worldist” perspective, which holds that there is no woking class (or proletariat) in major imperialist powers such as the United States?
I think that though the old, classical class break up and analysis is very important and useful, but I think in some ways it is inadequate. Class lines get even more obscured in places like the U.S. where we are taught that there are no real classes but only various income brakets. On top of that, it gets even more obscured when there are some terms such as “working class” are used but only to refer to low paying blue colar jobs, and not the working class (in its totality) in the classical Marxist sense.
Let us also not forget that bourgeoisie ideology (in its many forms) is dominant in capitalist societies, and is often expressed by all other classes, including the proletariat!
I have no right to speak on the actual class make up of the occupy protests going on, but considering how class devisions can get very complicated in places like the US and that they are intentionally obscured I would like to hear from other comrades their thoughts on the class make up of the US and its relation to these protests, so that we all may have a better understanding of what is going on.
Patrick said
I’m sorry, but while sks has succeeded in making lots of assertions, he has failed to prove his point (or really establish what exactly his point is). Something as simultaneously vague and charged as the term “leaderless” can’t be examined or critiqued from afar.
Sks is mixing together 1) very valid analysis of counter-intel work by police, 2) ludicrous straw man critiques of generic, abstract “leaderless” strategies, and 3) condemning whatever organizational/movement structure Occupy Wall Street actually has.
The result is really incoherent, and that bums me out. A concrete look at the day-to-day facilitation and decision making at Occupy Wall Street, on large and small scales, would help immensely. As would a detailed account of what actually happened on Brooklyn Bridge, because it’s far from unanimous that it was a cleverly planned police kettling operation, and not a ton of marchers catching the police off-guard and forcing their temporary retreat.
And while sks insists on staying at 30,000 feet when describing “leaderlessness” (because it’s a straw man) and the actual Occupy Wall Street structure (because he doesn’t know what it is), the one thing that he could get specific on, his own suggestions for leadership structure for Occupy Wall Street, he keeps intentionally vague. Bummer.
Erick H said
A worthwhile read with some experienced criticisms. Yet a contradiction remains: arrests at protests are not the worst thing to occur, and in fact they are expected. As an arrested woman wrote: ” We had been trapped by the police for ten hours. And still, we were smiling, undeterred and unafraid.” They are back on the street now, having garnered more media attention than ever.
Brad Wood said
I’m not sure that institutionalizing hierarchy is ever the solution.
As you recognized, this movement is multivocal. As such, there must exist certain pockets, or cells of activists. Within these cells, members should delegate tasks among each other, and “elect” a few people to liason with other cells or even represent the cell in a central committee. Decisions of the central committee would need to be ratified by a supermajority of the cells
Yet the connections between cells should not be limited to central committee and each cell should be able to act with some sort of autonomy. It is very important to maintain the integrity of a movement even when its leadership is inevitably coopted, arrested, etc.
Ghan Buri Ghan said
pranabjyoti – I agree that the ideology of participatory democracy is “used to undermine the class struggle between proletariat and petty-bourgeoisie.” I also agree that “petty-bourgeoisie should follow the leadership of proletariat.” I strongly disagree, however, that “in most of the countries today, petty-bourgeoisie makes the lions share i.e. majority of the population”. This claim has no scientific basis and seems to imply that the majority of the human race is “petit-bourgeois” and needs to be directed by an elite core of political “proletarians”. It’s sort of an individualist elitism in Marxist garb
SKS said
Patrick:
I took my time to read your response and give it some thought, and every time I could only come to the conclusion that:
1) You completely misread the text
2) That you do so because you disagree with the assumptions it makes
3) That, however, you do not make clear what these disagreements are
There is not a cubic inch of strawman in my argument. There is however, nothing but straw in yours: In particular, the claim that I am ignorant of the actual existing functioning of the OWS General Assembly and working group model is ludicrous. As I stated, I am experienced in mass movements, some that were successful in their demands, some that weren’t. I am not critiquing from afar – I am critiquing in the midst of the action.
As to what happened in Brooklyn Bridge, lets say that the incredible fantasist arrogance you express in your comment “a ton of marchers catching the police off-guard and forcing their temporary retreat” is precisely why my view is in need of serious consideration: the NYPD has murdered people with impunity, such a force cannot be outsmarted that easy. We can win, but not by willing victory into being – it requires a realistic, dynamic and constant appraisal and re-appraisal of the correlation of forces. The NYPD, unquestionably, won this battle from their perspective of counter-intelligence. And did so because the leaderless model was exploited to their ends. Only a dogmatist embrace of a given model of organization is blind to this fact.
Those of us who are serious about winning, or at the very least, about advancing forward shouldn’t allow our excitement on the mass nature of this unprecedented movement to blind us from the actually present reality – on the ground at OCW and in the general context of how the police acts against the forces of resistance.
You state that a “concrete look at the day-to-day facilitation and decision making at Occupy Wall Street, on large and small scales, would help immensely. As would a detailed account of what actually happened on Brooklyn Bridge”. This is true, but it doesn’t validate or invalidate anything said in this brief note – it is in fact another strawman, this time a classical one: you are criticizing the lack of something that this note doesn’t claim to want or even attempt to do. In fact, it begins by saying: “my intent is a strategic and tactical observation of the “leaderless resistance” concept as applied to “Occupy Wall St.”, its problems, its roots, and more importantly, alternatives that increase the effectiveness, security, accountability, and survivability of this movement.” Attacking the narrowness of scope, when this narrowness is intentional and open is the very definition of a strawman argument.
Lastly, you falsely claim that no alternative is presented. The entire third section is spent doing just that. Perhaps the prose was dense so let me represent it as bulletpoints:
1) Mass movement needs a mass leadership, a mass direction.
2) The development of a broad united front of the different affinities is needed: far from the NGO model of bureaucracy, it needs to be based on actual active participation, not simply endorsing a proclamation.
3) Recognizing the need for poles of leadership to emerge is not to be feared, but embraced: let only those forces and affinities willing to be accountable and responsible emerge.
4) Only those willing to grapple with those consequences, to protect the movement, to advance the movement, and to engage the movement with wider society should take leadership, but leadership shouldn’t be a bad word.
5) With leadership also comes direction: in particular, is this movement for true revolutionary political and economic change, or simply aimed at extracting reforms that “return” to a mythical “better” past.
6) Those who want a wide-tent should understand that a free-for-all is not the answer: the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
Now you can disagree with these views, and we can discuss these differences, but to claim no alternative was presented is not only false, but seriously leads me to question the good faith on your part. Which is a bummer.
pranabjyoti said
Mike, you and people like you are just unable to understand that THE REAL DEMOCRACY IS A CLASSLESS SOCIETY, NOTHING LESS. In class based societies, classes struggle with each other to establish their own rule over the other the others and human history is nothing but the results of such struggle. Problem with petty-bourgeoisie is that, it just can not establish its own rule over others, You can ignore it but you can’t deny it.
Ghan, which class do you think most of the population of present world belongs to. Workers (if you strictly follow the sociological terminology) are those who are working under others direction and sold their power to do labor against wage i.e. who are directly employed in factories or establishments and get their wage at the end of month/week. While petty-bourgeoisie are those, who don’t sell their labor but instead sell some kind of service or product. As for example, taxi cab drivers are workers in USA, because they there work under a cab company, while in cities of India, they are petty-bourgeoisie because they are independent. I don’t know which you are from, but do you have any idea what % of population of your own country are directly working in factories or establishments and what % is self-employed? It’s not scientific at all if you deny any data just because it’s outcome isn’t satisfactory to you.
What we know as French Revolution is actually Paris Revolution because most of the incidents were staged in Paris and in other French cities and were organized by city dwelling “elite” (comparatively well earner) part of population. Peasants, who were the actual oppressed and exploited under the Monarchy just lay idle in villages and large portion were actually afraid of the incidents going on in cities and opposed the revolution. In fact, they were in deep dark and was just unable to understand the significance of what is going in the cities. This is just one example that how important role “some elite group” can play in history if they were sufficiently aware and radical and were guided by proper ideology.
ph said
The bit about how “the elimination of formal hierarchy doesn’t eliminate informal hierarchy of will, charisma, economic/racial/gender privilege [etc.]” is very interesting. In short, sometimes eliminating formal hierarchies can throw us all the more brutally back onto interpersonal domination and leave us without institutional recourse (such as recalls, in the case of elected positions) to correct inequalities or abuses of power. We might also want to cast a skeptical eye on the hard and fast conceptual separation of leader-driven and leaderless movements: it’s a broader questions of the multiplicity of possible organizational arrangements by which a mobile, collective entity relates to, directs, and develops itself. It would be interesting to reconstruct the leader/follower relationship and the concept of discipline which sustains it along the same lines that Ranciere reconstructs the teacher/student relationship and the concept of education.
ph said
People talk about how the Left has no discipline, but it takes a special kind of discipline–and a particularly robust intuitive understanding of equality–to sustain the kind of autonomous, self-organized activity we’re seeing in NYC.
Mike E said
It is always amusing when someone sets out to explain to you that which they assert you are unable to understand. And yet the hostile rarely see the humor in their own paradoxes, right?
An important point raised is the question of “what is real democracy?”
My view is that there is no single democracy, and no particular form that is more “real” — but rather there are different kinds of democracy serving different kinds of society (i.e capitalist democracy and socialist democracy).
In a fundamental sense, capitalist democracy is a fraud — in the sense that people are allowed votes and a degree of speech, as long as power remains in certain hands and as long as the fundamental nature of society is not threatened.
As for the nature and forms of socialist democracy — there is a lot here that remains an open question, though (imho) there is a lot to learn and sum up from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in particular. I don’t believe, however that the dictatorship of the proletariat means that workers have political rights and no one else does. Such a view is wrong for many reasons… and would be unacceptable to progressive people; and it involves unnecessary and unworkable restrictions on the political life of the people (broadly speaking). The suppression of organized reactionary forces during and after a revolution hopefully will not require a generalized and semi-permanent suppression of political rights and discussion broadly among the population — or the success of the revolution is in great jeopardy and the nature of the revolution is questionable.
SKS said
PH:
1) I think it is important to recognize that power abhors a vacuum, and that as such, when there is nothing without power. The claim of “leaderless” is ultimately false, what is really at work is unaccountable, elitist leadership on the part of anonymous leaders, who are irresponsible with this power. The alternative, that of truly democratic participation is way better, even if it indeed has problems of their own. We cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but we cannot let the good be the enemy of the better.
2) The only things that actually “work” well in OCW are the ones were there is indeed leadership and organization, but this leadership and organization has been so far unwilling to be accountable and transparent. For example, there is a website to donate to the camp, but little is known of the people behind this, there is no democratic discussion, no collective division of labor, etc. Even the so-called “people’s microphone” while highly effective to transmit speeches and other one-sided communication is a total impediment to actual discussion (for example, deaf people are excluded, as are people who lack skills in English) – but even this is nothing compared to the passive acceptance of the limits the state imposes to sound systems – instead of confronting the trampling of speech this prohibition represents, instead of questioning the States right to impose silence, instead of opening this very question up to discussion.
3) There is incredible intuitive solidarity and self-discipline among human beings, even when there is no bodies of leadership. This is made obvious in many situations of crisis, not just political crisis but also in natural disasters, criminal situations etc. There are many instances of this: just the other day a video was making the rounds of a group of people who saved a child by spontaneously grouping together and pulling a car from on top of the child. Yet, there is a reason why humans do not remain loosely organized in this fashion: organization has many advantages. It also has many problems, some of which do not exist without the very organization that creates them. Perhaps I am crazy, but I believe that the levels of organization required to cure polio, explore space, and lift billions out of poverty… indeed that which allows this very website to exist, are ultimately preferable to living as hunter gatherers, spontaneously joining together to fight off a lion or to hunt an elephant in the savanna.
All of this, of course, is a more broad observation, but ultimately I called it a “straight jacket” in this note: the idealistic attachment to simplified mode of organization can lead to potential the OCW had to not be realized. That would be a terrible blow. So, even if there are indeed positive aspects to what OCW has done until now, there are also many negative aspects that I and others have pointed out, but the most important one is that it is unable to effectively confront what the State puts in front of it.
chicanofuturet said
I love “Participatory Democracy”!!
..especially if it’s fueled with hatred and passion,burning vitriol,a overwhelming desire for justice and change.
How I would love to see the “Participants” marching by the millions down the streets of America’s financial centers with (in an imaginative political sense) pitchforks and burning torches,intent on storming the citadels of exploitative capitalism,cleaning out that filthy vile nest of capitalist vipers currently occupying Wall Street.
The more “Participants” the better as far as I’m concerned..and NO they don’t necessarily have to be marching for proletarian revolution,Socialism,the D of P..etc etc..
Of course that would be nice..BUT..I believe to expect so,to demand so,would be extremely foolish,stupid and just plain wrong to expect this to happen at this particular stage of the popular struggle..
As for as the current controversy,debate taking place here on Kasama over “Leaderless” vs “Leader” OCW demos.etc etc..
As far as I’m concerned..such debate is a “tempest in a teapot”,secondary,missing the main point here in this struggle.
IMHO,there is a certain wisdom in shaping these events as being “leaderless”.
From my personal Communist perspective,in a certain sense,I believe it would actually be better for these OWC revolts to remain “leaderless”.
What is most important in these OCW actions are the political and emotional ideas and effects being generated and transmitted to the American people,this is what is primary..the people being educated,moved,motivated emotionally, connecting the dots between and throughout all sectors of American society.Dialectics in action!
Angry senior citizens outraged at the rulers who are trying to starve them to death by taking away their SS benefits.
Outraged workers,People of color,and middle class folks who hate the banks for charging them 5 dollars a month to withdraw their own money from atm’s,screwing them at every turn from A to Z..foreclosures,exorbitant interest rates, bogus penalties and fees.
People are angry,outraged..tired of being ripped-off seeing their quality of life being gradually destroyed,their blood being sucked dry to engorge,prolong the lives and health of the elite rich and ruler vampire class!
This rage should be channeled politically through a hurricane of “Participatory Democracy”….away from phony presidential elections (fuck the Democrats,fuck the Republicans..fuck the bullshit!) and towards mass demonstrations,militant actions against the banks,finance,corporate-government complex.
Once this earth shaking dynamic is unleashed,the resurrection,prospect for a communist revolution could very well be realized much sooner than expected( cancel the funeral folks!)…communism could actually be back in the game,in the hunt once again..a new lease on life..
(hopefully,we can get it it right this time)..
it’s a natural …anti-capitalism,anti-fascist corporatism,Marxism and communism..that baby belongs to us..that’s our territory..
Look at it this way..at this stage of the struggle “leaderless” is better than leaders who would co-opt,divert and derail the movement,I’m talking about the neo-liberals licking their chops like the wolves they are,the George Soro’s and don’t automatically dismiss the guy who “waves,smiles and shoots hoop”..Obama,from cynically manipulating and exploiting the movement for re-election thereby wresting control over that movement to the neo-liberal ruling class usurpers,pretenders. WE want to be the leaders!
Leader vs Leaderless..A “Tempest in a Teapot” at this stage of popular struggle..mass demonstrations,actions,events….
True leaders are like diamonds,they don’t come so easy..so fast..they come from the incredible pressures and forces of time and nature..of course we will have organized leadership and a program when the struggle intensifies and sharpens,manifests itself as revolutionary….that is axiomatic…WE want to be the leaders!
Abbas Goya II said
To me, leadership of a political movement is first and foremost related to its political function. While it is crucial to evaluate every aspect of Brooklyn Bridge, I would like to first see an evaluation of BB’s political impact. A leadership could, for example, emerge out of this very simple quality: Evaluate it; if any gain focus on the gains; establishes its gains, and plan your NEXT action based on the current balance.
It’s a huge mistake to focus on the immediate link of the establishment, that is the police actions. The cops are the armed forces of the political establishment. They won’t dare to take one step without the order of the politicians. The relation of the two is perhaps best described in Eisenhower’s “War is too important to be left for the generals”.
Anyways, to make the story short, I was attracted to this thread because of its title but, no offence sks, while your writing could perfectly fit within the context of the “tactics of a street action with possible confrontation with the cops”, I am afraid, I am not any wiser about the leadership of this movement.
To be fair to sks , I appreciate your later response to Patrick where you clarified some of your views re the leadership.
Abbas Goya II said
@Mike For what it’s worth, a contemporary Marxian critique of democracy has to face this first:
Democracy: Interpretations and Realities – Mansoor Hekmat, 1993
http://www.marxists.org/archive/hekmat-mansoor/1993/07/democracy.htm
PatrickD said
I agree with chicanofuturet about leaving the general movement without a leader. I’m excited about this movement, but am more excited about what can grow out of it. Within the movement, I’d argue for creating a revolutionary pole and try and gather people around. Never try to take over the movement. Out of this may come the next step. As people realize the limitation of the OWS movement, some will seek more effective means of organization. We should be waiting with exactly that, an organization with some form of formal leadership.
Patrick said
SKS,
You write that your post is analyzing the “leaderless resistance” concept as applied to “Occupy Wall St.” Okay, sure thing. But “narrow scope” or not, you can’t analyze Occupy Wall Street if you don’t first describe it! That’s why a factual look at the nature of its decision making processes and organizational structures is required. Otherwise it’s just you saying that they are leaderless (which doesn’t make for a compelling argument). Because you didn’t establish the claim on which your arguments about leaderless resistance rest, your critique of leaderless resistance at Occupy Wall Street feels rather flimsy.
From your post: “However, leaderless resistance has a specific weakness in this respect: the inability to protect participants from State criminalization. No team of lawyers, no bail fund, no clarity to participants on what can criminalize you or not.”
Except for the legal team and bail fund that the “leaderless” OccupyWallStreet folks have set up. And the numerous Know Your Rights trainings held.
From your post: “One of the unintended consequences is that in the context of a lack of leadership and direction is that the State, and their enforce, the Police, become the leaders and directors of the mass. As happened in the Brooklyn Bridge, by all accounts.”
So the evidence presented for this unintended consequence is what happened on the Brooklyn Bridge during a march — what actually happened being still contested (the infallible omnipotence of NYPD aside). I can only hope readers would expect more justification before agreeing with that statement, or your claim that the cops are the “de facto leaders of the movement”.
From your post: “apparently the majority of the people saw the obvious trap and side-stepped the police.”
The first-hand testimonials I’ve listend to and read contradict that it was an “obvious trap”. Here’s a very nice run-down of what happened, from someone on the front lines:
http://thenewinquiry.com/post/10995237203/a-bridge-to-somewhere
From your post: “There is a difference between wanting a non-bureaucratic, open, transparent, participatory, decentralized, and accountable leadership, which can provide direction to the movement and not having leadership and direction at all.”
Wow, a 2-for-1 fallacy: a straw man inside a false choice! Which of the two is OccupyWallStreet? Because it seems to be acting a helluva lot closer to the former than the latter.
From your comment: “Lastly, you falsely claim that no alternative is presented.”
Never claimed it. If you read my comment again, you’ll see I claimed that you were “intentionally vague” about it. Which you continued to be in your comment. Please be more specific:
- Give me a concrete example of what “a mass leadership” would look like, specifically in the context of Occupy Wall Street. How is it held “accountable”?
- Give me a concrete example of what “poles of leadership” would look like in this context, and how they might interact.
- Give me a concrete example of what “actual active participation” would look like in this context.
SKS said
Patricik:
1I.
I am not analyzing, nor claimed to analyze, OCW as a whole. I stated so clearly, and your insistence that this is a shortcoming is completely out of step with a good faith attempt at elucidating issues or at least clarifying lines of sturggle. Many others have described OCW, in many different ways – I build consciously upon those descriptions. Your attitude – that the specific cannot be addressed without addressing the general is ridiculous and paralyzing: we can speak about gravity without having to quote quantum physics at length or describe it mathematically in detail.
Definitely there will people whose views and experiences are in contradiction with my views and experiences: this doesn’t make either false – it does make them different ways to process the same information. For those that see in elitist adventurism and in unproductive infantile “protesting” this is all going according to plan. Also, those with less experience, coming to confront the State for this first time, the experience can be exhilarating and happy , with little time or emotional countenance to examine issues such as security and correlation of forces in any serious manner, and in fact with a lot of ideological baggage about the “misguided” nature of the cops, about the inherent “neutrality of the State – this is not to be understimated.
We all process everything ideologically – I am a communist and will process things as a communist. You, perhaps, are not and will process things differently. However, even with these difference of perspective we can come to agreed upon facts, and the fact is that for those outside of the Bridge’s roadway, including those in the footbridge, there was a cleat kettle. To deny this is to deny the sky is blue – and to do so to push bankrupted ideological ideas that put the entire movement in danger of being crushed even as it is born.
You talk about “know your rights” workshops and “bail funds”, but to whom are this people accountable? Who elected them? Who are they? What are their motives? Where is the political transparecy? I do not mind, for example, pseudonimity – voting for someone with a Guy Fawkes mask on to lead me – but I do find it undemocratic, elitist, and demoralizing when a security workshop is given by a dude in a Guy Fawkes mask who doesn’t know what he is talking about and then leads the masses into a kettle. Which is an accurate description of what transpired – even if the details are a composite of the experience. Pseudonimity is a way to protect leadership, but with great power comes great responsibility – and so far there has been little on the way of responsibility.
Say tomorrow we storm the palaces, would you want these people running hospitals and fire stations? I don’t.
II.
Why don’t you provides us with your answers to these questions you raise?
What you describe as vagueness I describe as provocation: we should be thinking about these things, in that direction. Saying “we should make bread” doesn’t imply one has to provide a recipe for bread – your comments so far have been very contradictory in this respect, you claim I am prescriptive (and that this is a bad thing) but then express frustration that I am not providing recipes.
Well, mass democracy is precisely about not providing recipes and prescriptions – one less the self-activity and imagination of the mass come up with them –
When I am present at OCW, I do raise these issues – which is were they should be raised. My note was directed, however, at the wider public and the wider left: we need those with experience as mass leaders to participate, and to do so in ways that preempt or at least try to preempt
For example, the work that Kasama comrades have done in Occupy Boston and with the Occupy Wall Street Journal is a good example of where to begin. Some of the people involved with OWSJ are veteran mass leaders of the last big mass upsurge in NYC, the mass student protests of the early 1990s. Their experience is invaluable – both for the positive and the negative experiences they can bring to the table. People from other groups have also been there, for example the PSL. Regardless of the line differences I might personally have, these interventions are positive and a step in the right direction: rather than an amorphous leaderless resistance, we need a solid multipolar leadership than provides both security and consciousness to the mass movement, and which the mass movement can hold accountable and respond to.
Jan Makandal said
Leadership of ideas/ line vs. individual leadership
In any spontaneous movements, to quickly assert an individual leadership, even if it is from political organizations, without a clear line is still, in my opinion, a bureaucratic leaderless movement. The negative consequences are usually the depletion of the spontaneous movement and sterile struggle of the left for control, not leaderships. In many instances what we see is the left implementing the same bourgeois tactics of their enemy for control.
Again, I will argue for two dialectically linked approach guided by a proletarian line on leadership
1. 1] The autonomous presence of revolutionaries
2. 2] A line define by revolutionaries for the mass mobilizations while respecting the autonomy of the masses and their capacity to make their own decisions, even if we as revolutionaries are in relative minority. For this line to be effective the application of Mass line is imperative and if we are in minority we [revolutionaries] must struggle, in non-sectarian way, to construct ourselves to a majority position from the principle UNITY STRUGGLE UNITY.
In both dialectically links levels of presence, the orientation to construct political unity is the most advance form of constructing a political leadership, which is ideas and line leadership] and leaders [people] will emerge from that process [peoples that reached a certain level of appropriation of the line]. The orientation should be and must be militancy at the base to build political unity and to construct leadership of ideas, not leadership behind individuals, not to quickly go for control and to finally end up with a head without a body. The demands as well as the leaderships will emerge from that process, not parachuted in the process.
[Side point]
Class dictatorship is class democracy and vice versa. It is an abstract and politically guarantees the power reproductions of the class, in unity with others class against their enemy. Proletarian dictatorship is the capacity of the Proletariat, in all its reproductions, to lead society to a classless society, where the working class is addressing two problematic] defending and its destructions, and the destructions as the determining factors.
The Proletarian Cultural Revolution was not structural, nor formal, and can’t be equated with popular democracy which is structural and formal. It is an experience led by a “dominant proletarian line” to effect and readjust popular democracy in the objective of rendering the proletariat the dominant class. I would argue of the need to have systematic non-partisan critical analysis of that experience in order to reinforce proletarian theory.
Materialistically, it is impossible to speak of democracy without addressing its identical twin dictatorship, to understand one without the other will lead to reformism, and reduce those concept to their non-structural aspect, such as participatory democracy, repression. And ET all.
Stanley W. Rogouski said
I was one of the 700 people arrested. Honestly, I think this article reads a lot into the whole operation that wasn’t there.
Like this:
I wasn’t fingerprinted. I was photographed with a 1970s polaroid, not a digital camera. We all had to wait upwards of 9 hours because the police were clumsily filling out paperwork in longhand. If they were trying to update their databases, they’re it in the most difficult, inefficient way possible. The police could get a lot more intelligence searching through facebook profiles than in spending the millions of dollars they did kettling 700 people, shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge for an afternoon, and paying hundreds of police officers overtime.
Who stayed on the walkway and who took the street largely depended on who was on which side of the bottleneck when it simply became easier to stay on the street than try to shove your way onto the sidewalk.
[moderator note: Sorry Stanley, this comment was temporarily caught in the spam filter.]
Patrick said
Hi SKS,
We can certainly discuss gravity without explaining it fully, but I imagine if you’re critiquing gravity and suggesting paths to an alternative, you’d want to get specific. If you’re making the claim that OWS is best categorized as “leaderless resistance,” especially for a broader left audience, I’m just saying it’d be good to give even a cursory look at the decision making structures (not “OCW as a whole”) you’re describing as leaderless and directionless. Because that’s far from a given.
I asked those questions because I don’t usually use terms like “mass leadership” and “poles of leadership,” and I get the impression you’re using those terms much more precisely than I can glean from the text. I appreciate the angle of provocation for your suggestions – and I understand if you don’t have any specific hypotheticals of these concepts. Though as a veteran of many struggles, it’d be great if you could think of examples you’ve seen that hit close to your mark in ways OWS doesn’t.
SKS said
Stanley,
This contrast with the experiences of others. For example:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/04/occupy-wall-street-mass-arrests_n_995047.html
Yes, bureaucracies are inefficient, but not because of this being true does that mean they are ineffective. For example, in the 1970s, when the only way to do things was by longhand and the only cameras were film and polaroid they still managed to keep millions of updated files of citizens whose sole crime was being against the Vietnam war, of hundreds of thousands of more committed activists, and of thousands of active revolutionaries. These files were used to great effect to dismantle and physically annihilate these movements. And they did so writing in long hand and taking polaroids.
Here is the thing, these are not the paranoid ramblings of an alarmist, but the studied consideration of someone who has been there, whose family has been there, for many decades and through many periods. Your view is valid – but I feel it is impressionistic, and part of my intent is precisely to say: there is more here than meets the eye. That meets your eye, and than meets mine. The question becomes: are we going to explore this, or are we going to let it be?
Patrick:
The official website for OCW makes the claim of “leaderless resistance”:
“Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.”
– http://occupywallst.org/
I am simply meeting the movement were it says it is at.
Today while there, I did begin to see some changes, in particular around security that are in my view positive. And in particular, I saw much more willingness to assume leadership and responsibility that in the first instances. Perhaps it is the callouses developing in the weary hands toiling the fields of struggle, perhaps it is a recognition that something needs to be done.
Perhaps, I hope, my voice and that of others generated positive thought…
I use the term “mass leadership” not as a technical term, but as what it literally means: a leadership of the mass. Poles of leadership is somewhat more technical, using the metaphor of a “pole” as in a “magnetic pole” – a leadership that attracts people. But they are not nefariously used,
In terms of examples, I plan in the future write about this, but not in this comment thread – it does deserve exploration this medium is not good for, in my view.