[Marxism-Thaxis] Re: Lil Joe and Politics
Waistline's statement that 'Practical politics are never to be confused with theoretical Marxism' only shows his own ignorance and confusion regarding the Marxian praxis epistemology of materialism, class war and proletarian social revolution! Comment Actually, I believe that I have shown my ignorance in many other ways, but never on the difference between practical politics and theoretical dissertation. The materialist conception of history cannot be applied to a union organizing campaign, nor can the science of metallurgy be applied to tank warfare. It requires a certain understanding of metallurgy to manufacture the tank, but the actual warfare involved a practical arena of engagement. Marx approach to commodity production on the basis of the bourgeois property relations cannot be applied directly to the conflict between classes and strata and their mutual penetration in modern society. Our saying is that science informs and doctrine does. We can of course speak of class war in American history but there is not very much to speak about - especially in the past sixty years, because in the main the movement of conflict between various classes and social group have not assumed the form of class warfare. Winning that section of the working class in motion to the cause of communism does not mean winning them to Marxism. Marxism is important to various facets of the million and one self proclaimed Marxists, but communism is much more ancient and noble. Some understand the goal of communism to mean workers control of industry - syndicalism, and workers democracy on the basis of the overthrow of the bourgeois property relations. Other understand this to mean public property relations over socially necessary means of production and still others mean public property relations over every aspect of production. Other still focus on the overthrow of the bourgeois property relations that creates a distinct cycle of reproduction on the basis of expanded value and a unique set of needs peculiar to the era of the bourgeoisie. The point is that knowledge of the goals of communism and the Marxist sector of this communism movement, cannot be applied directly to the movement of classes. For instance what is applied is the doctrine of combat as opposed to the materialist conception of history. The materialist conception of history informs . . . specially, it creates our vision of the general path that society must and is traveling. This issue of the Church seems to have you confused and the issue of religion apparently causes you more confusion. Let us take an example using the Nation of Islam. To begin with the area of the country in which the Nation of Islam was founded happens to have the largest concentration of Arabs in the Western hemisphere, running from metropolitan Detroit into Ohio, through Toledo and down to Cleveland. Whether or not we engage many of these Church goers and win them over to the cause of communism is a no brainer and must do act, except to the ideologue who have no actual experience in the life of our diverse peoples and organizations. A theoretical dissertation on the history of religious thought has nothing whatsoever to do with working amongst the very religious masses in the Church and the trade unions. I have no beef with Allah and his various prophets. I have no beef with ones particular conception of the Virgin Mary or the Black Madonna or the symbol of Madonna that is not Black, or for that matter Hiram Abif and the various branches of the Mason Movement. Hiram Abif have done nothing to me. I have no beef with the various 12 Step currents, that collective constitute a social movement in the American Union with over 258 groups, cycling roughly 2 million people per year through their programs. Their collective understanding of a God - as the individual understand him or her, or what is called a Higher Power is not an impediment to communist work and our doctrine of victory to the workers in their current struggle. It is not like I am trying to win the workers over to Marxist theory. That is not my self assignment. Nor am I currently involved in trying to form yet another more than less sectarian Marxist political grouping. The materialist conception of history speaks for itself. That is . . . it is a conception and the term historical materialism is short speak meaning the materialist conception of history. Science knows and doctrine does is the watchword for anyone with any actual experience in the trade unions, Churches, old Civil Rights organizations or the electoral arena. Trust me Lil Joe . . . you are not going to organize any impact towards the expansion of the Labor Party on the basis of Marxism or Marxian praxis epistemology of materialism, class war and proletarian social revolution! Actually, the real formation and expansion of the Labor Party as a national electoral response to the
[Marxism-Thaxis] Re: correction
In a message dated 1/19/2005 5:05:59 PM Central Standard Time, Waistline2 writes: Further, Reuther opposed Civil Rights for a very long time and only shifted his position concerning Civil Rights within the union and outside the union as the result of immense pressure. He died opposing integrating the UAW in fact. Correction The last sentence is awkward (He died opposing integrating the UAW in fact) in as much as the CIO was integrated. That is to say segregated with the African American at the bottom of the social structures. This was also the case for many decades with the Steel Workers Union. Bargaining positions were deemed the exclusive domain of the whites and to a degree expressed the old historic role of the Slavic workers as they rose a notch with the entry of blacks into the industrial social order. Reuther opposed integrating the union structures and election posts. Reuther and major union leaders after him opposed integrating the city administration and police force in Detroit and cause a breach within the union over the Coleman Young Jr. election. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Re: NNCL
(This phase of history of the trade union movement is bound up with the white chauvinism and wrong orientation of the CPUSA and the SWP - and government attack and penetration, that allowed for the political vacuum of the time.) ^^ CB: The National Negro Labor Council was the CPUSA. Coleman Young was a leading member of the CPUSA, as were the main organizers of the NNLC. Reply This is what was stated: After the House un-American Activity Committee basically destroyed the National Negro Labor Council with Coleman Young destroying its membership list, rather than submit (this famous and historical presentation is available on line by plugging in Coleman Young Jr.). The next organizational expression of the fight to desegregate the UAW - not the workplace, was the Trade Union Leadership Council (TULC). The political vacuum refereed to is the emergence of TCLC, and then the LRBW. The work of the NNLC was honorable and occupies an important chapter in our history, as does Coleman Young Jr. and much of the practical activity of the CPUSA. In the context of our history and those groups calling themselves communist and Marxist, the CPUSA (from roughly 1928 and the first Comintern document forced on the party until 1967 Detroit, the political juncture in my opinion - was exemplar in comparison. Some Marxists view the definative political juncture as the Watts Rebellion of 1965 and consider Gus Hall's 1951 pamphlet on the Negro Question as one of the highest theoritical expresses of the party on this question. (Gus Hall, Marxism and Negro Liberation (New York, New Century Publishers, 1951) It is perhaps a mistake and not well thought out on my part to lump the CPUSA with the SWP. This is perhaps an unfortunate tendency on my part in trying to explain some of my past activity and organizational affiliations outside the historic polarity that was the CPUSA and SWP. On practical activity I cannot recall any disagreements with individuals members of the CPUSA. Theory discussion tend to confuse a historic and fundamental unity as activity. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the overthrow of its property relations might even make the old Stalin Trotsky political polarity irrelevant for today. On the other hand theorists such as the Trinidadian CLR James and his writings on the Negro People is an affront to common sense and the generation of communist workers I am a part of. Nothing he has written on this question comes close to Gus Hall's 1951 article, Claudia Jones, Harry Haywood, John Pepper, Petis Peery, James Allen (Negro Liberation, International Pamphlets no. 29 (New York, International Publishers, 1932), or even William Foster, whose position of a nation within a nation strikes me as strange. In terms of my use of the concept of political vacuum some would see the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists as a continuation of the NNLC. This is not my personal point of view because the NNLC was not conceived as a trade union organization composed of employed trade unionists. Yet there is a political continuum that exists, no matter what I personally think. However this is a subject never really discussed in the open or raised by even myself. In the time it took to write this I will reconsider lumping the CPUSA with the SWP since this is like comparing apples and automobile tires in respects to the historical curve of the African American Liberation Movement. Sorry. Waistline ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] NNCL
No problem , comrade :). Of course the time period you were discussing was complex ( what time isn't complex ?), and you said a lot more than what I commented on. You may have been referring to right after the NNLC, the TULC period, not the NNLC, etc. And , also, of course, there was white chauvinism in the CPUSA, as it would be impossible not to be. I just focussed in on that little part because I think, looking at the situation as a whole, and by the whole I mean ALL of racism in US history , which is a really big whole, I think the CPUSA did an incredibly, nay extraordinary, exemplar in your word, historic job of opposing racism within its ranks and outside. No other white majority organization ,political or otherwise, came as close to overcoming racism. Here's the irony of my saying this: When Angela, Charlene Mitchell, Kendra Alexander , Herbert Aptheker, Mark Solomon and the rest of us left in 1991, there were issues of white chauvinism, but when , again, you look at the history of the Party as a whole in comparison to the rest of US society, the racism is miniscule. Gus Hall's _Racism: The Most Dangerous Pollutant_ or whatever the title is, has got to be the best anti-racist, working class consciousness thing by a white person there is. Also, I wanted to highlight for the record that NNLC was a CP front ( I use that term as a compliment), and that Coleman Young was a member of the CP, because those facts could get lost in history. Ironically, the custom of keeping partymembers' identity quiet, a necessity because of state represssion, now threatens to understate the achievements of the Party to future generations. As famous as Coleman Young is in Detroit, very few people know that he was a CPUSA official. When the House UnAmerican Activities Committee called him before it, they had the right one, baby. He was a top Red. And he chased them out of town and they never came back. It was like Jack Johnson beating up those Great White Hopes in front of thousands of screaming racists. One little , sweet, symbolic victory in a sea of lynching and apartheid. These small facts may play a role in inspiring the Communists of the future, who knows. So, I want to spread the word, open up the classified files of the working class movement. I may have mentioned before the book by Mark Solomon ( who is there in Boston with Jim F.), _The Cry was Unity: Communists and African Americans 1917-1936_ It chronicles Comintern relation , etc. I don't know if he would characterize the Comintern as forcing that position on the newly born CP. I often wonder how the Comintern could force anything on the CP, way over there in Moscow. How could they force people thousands of miles away, with the U.S. military between them and hostile to the Comintern ? Maybe I'll reread what Comrade Solomon chronicled on this and report. The question is what does all that teach us for what we have to do with...The Million Worker March Movement and fighting the Detroit chamber of commerce ? You know that, I know. By the way, what Solomon told me is one reason I know Coleman was in the Party. They went to classes together that were members only. I think I have a copy of that Negro Liberation compilation. In general, I think it was and is difficult to say what was and is the precisely correct position on Negro Liberation in that era and this one. But here's a good place to knock it around. There still seems validity to me, in the CPUSA concept that African -American liberation is central to working class revolution in the U.S. Maybe I can find my Roscoe Proctor pamphlet too. Black workers are inherently more militant, but not necessarily more class conscious... Charles Waistline2 : (This phase of history of the trade union movement is bound up with the white chauvinism and wrong orientation of the CPUSA and the SWP - and government attack and penetration, that allowed for the political vacuum of the time.) ^^ CB: The National Negro Labor Council was the CPUSA. Coleman Young was a leading member of the CPUSA, as were the main organizers of the NNLC. Reply This is what was stated: After the House un-American Activity Committee basically destroyed the National Negro Labor Council with Coleman Young destroying its membership list, rather than submit (this famous and historical presentation is available on line by plugging in Coleman Young Jr.). The next organizational expression of the fight to desegregate the UAW - not the workplace, was the Trade Union Leadership Council (TULC). The political vacuum refereed to is the emergence of TCLC, and then the LRBW. The work of the NNLC was honorable and occupies an important chapter in our history, as does Coleman Young Jr. and much of the practical activity of the CPUSA. In the context of our history and those groups calling themselves communist and Marxist, the CPUSA (from roughly 1928 and the first Comintern document forced on the party until 1967 Detroit,
