******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
I read the article by Dobbs with interest. He makes the classic mistakes that Lenin so criticized in "Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder". Of course, he is right to criticize DSA's links with the Democratic party. And he is right about his perspectives for the Democratic Party. He is dead wrong on the issue of a mass working class political party in the US. It's interesting that he quotes Engels. He should have remembered this comment from Engels: "The first great step of importance for every country newly entering into the movement is always the organisation of the workers as an independent political party, no matter how, so long as it is a distinct workers' party. And this step has been taken, far more rapidly than we had a right to hope, and that is the main thing. That the first programme of this party is still confused and highly deficient, that it has set up the banner of Henry George, these are inevitable evils but also only transitory ones. The masses must have time and opportunity to develop and they can only have the opportunity when they have their own movement--no matter in what form so long as it is only *their own* movement--in which they are driven further by their own mistakes and learn wisdom by hurting themselves." (Engels to Sorge, Nov. 29, 1886) Dobbs talks a lot about "a revolutionary class to be", but how can the working class ever be even a class "for" itself if it has no history of having its own political party? Instead, Dobbs seems to advocate the sort of "base building" that assorted Maoists and others engage in. This means organizing tenants, etc. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but how does that differ from what Lenin criticized in "What is to be Done?" if we don't go further? I also think it's a mistake to simply ignore what's happening on the socialist left. Dobbs points out that DSA is about 90% white. It's also about 90% middle class in terms of the orientation of the individual members - at least that's my experience. And if there were any sort of beginnings of a real struggle somewhere else, that's where I'd be. For example, here in Oakland there was the beginning of a campaign against a new baseball park to be built across the street from Oakland's most important educational institution - Laney Community College. That struggle started to draw in working class youth of all different ethnic backgrounds (but not DSA to its everlasting shame). I was very involved in that campaign. But that's just episodic. In the absence of any other socialist movement, even nominally so, where else is there to be at the moment? John Reimann Oakland CA -- "No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them." Assata Shakur Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
