Mark:
Patrick Bond evidently believes that "where there is no militant mass
movement for reforms, there is no fertile ground on which to sow revolutionary
seeds", asYoshie put it on CrashList the other day. Talk of a single-minded
focus on revolutionary class war is just silly raving, infantilism, a kind of
political dementia which dooms us to irrelevance. You're lucky to earn a
Henwood put-down for it.
*********
Wait a minute here, Mark. This is a false dichoctomy you are presupposing. There are
no shortcuts to a revolutionary party. I continue to involve myself with the
Rebuilding the Left process in Vancouver here preceisely because they know there is
no substitution towards building some kind of base among the population. Here is the
current situation facing us in the Province of BC, and what plans I have towards this
situation. The last 9 years have seen a very right wing social democratic party in
power. While staying on the side of the unions, they have done themselves much damage
by openly attacking the poor and powerless, throwing many welfare recipients onto the
street etc. Combine that with a long (although in the main, fabricated) record of
scandals, and the local Soc-Dems are about to be in the unemployment line. There is a
good chance they will lose every seat (good riddance, IMO).
The members of RtL are overwhelmingly people who reject parliamentarism (such as
myself). Put them in a room and suggest to them that as we plan our next public forum
(driftnet fishing among the left), we consider the electionas a topic. People got
(comradely) angry with me about such a notion. The idea of rejecting such a notion
might fly in the 60's, cetainly would fly in the 30's- such were eras that saw a
large percentage of the populations being already convinced through a combination of
the right conditions (which we appear to have in droves, with a global recession, a
fake American president and the burgeoning Seattle movement) and tireless organising
such as was done in building the original unions that both our monarchical off-shoots
still have to deal with.
I am not proposing that we change the basics of our program. Nor I am I of the
mind we should do the old (and often Trot, but not always) failed idea of going into
the S-D party in the hopes we can drag out working class revolutionaries somewhere
down the line. I'm simply pre-supposing that at this point, the revolutionary ranks
need to get over our fetish for discussing the obvious. If the RtL, at any point,
entertains the notion of getting involved in organising for S-Dems, or one-issue
tricks, or simply decides to put out another magazine, I will cease my intensive
involvement at that point. However, at this point, to renounce the work being done
because they aren't speaking of the need for revolution constantly, that would be
simply putting the cart before the horse as it were.
Right now, the questions facing the left in North America, particularly Canada, are
3:
1) Can Canadian parliament mean anything, given the global trade agreements (no, IMO)
2) If we go beyond reforming parts of capitalism but intend instead to tear it down,
then do we have to start thinking beyond the national bubble? (yes, IMO)
3) What are we going to do to get people interested in taking on such an imposing
task?
3 is where I do speak of the need for revolution, but I also believe what is of the
utmost importance in this question is humility. Social Democrats are slowly but
surely becoming revolutionarily minded- and it isn't the latest post by a Red that
has brought that about, but rather what the capitalists are doing with the entire
world at their mercy.
The reasons, just as always, are many. They are coming very rapidly now- whether it
is the environment, the sell-off of sovereignty (ala the FTAA, for example) or the
bombing of countries in Europe, let alone the rest of the world. However, I'm a Red
in Canada. I ain't got too much in the way of recent successes to stand in the
traditions of. Those take long painstaking work. I look forward to it- since the RtL
is basically a leftist group which is somewhat turned off by the modern anarchist
movement, while agreeing with them both on their stated enemies and their sense of
urgency. We can, I belive, harness that urgency without harnessing the politics of
compromise. At this point we aren't in any position to make compromises anyways- we
have no following. I am determined to change that as the times dictates.
My greatest allies are the North American ruling elites.
-------------------------------------------
Macdonald Stainsby
Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion.
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
----
Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin.
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
----
In the contradiction lies the hope.
--Bertholt Brecht
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