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> "Groupscule politics is not the embryo of revolutionary politics;
>it's a substitute for it."---Goren Therborn.
> Louis has posted some interesting articles, dating from the 1950s, on
>revolutionary regroupment and what it would take to rebuild the left in the
>United States. I'd like to give the discussion a different twist. Comrades
>may recall Goren Therborn, the Swedish Marxist who wrote a classic treatise
>on the state, "What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules?" The comment
>above, from an essay composed in the 1970s, was addressed to the
>"groupscules" which emerged out of 1968 in Europe, eg, Lotta Continua in
>Italy(which still exists, in even more miniscule form, inside Rifondazione
>Comunista) and Gauche Proletariane in France (which committed suicide in
>the late 1970s). Therborn's point was that revolutionary parties are
>children born of crisis, and that they either seize the moment (and the
>hour and the day) and win over a large segment of the working class or they
>will suffer arrested development. Unless they grow in large numbers rather
>quickly oblivion awaits. (Curiously, ever since I can remember, the CPUSA
>has claimed a membership of 15,000! The RCP 500, the SWP "less than 1,000"
>and so on) I remember one veteran of the 1960s telling me this could be
>broadened into a historical law: revolutionary parties that fail to take
>state power in their founding generation tend to die. Think about it:
>Lenin, Fidel, Ho, Mao, Kim Il Sung, and Tito were all first-generation
>revolutionaries. Can you think of a single example of a revolutionary party
>that took power having outlived its founders? Of course it can persist, and
>even recruit, but when has it ever gotten a second chance to make history?
> What does this mean for us right now? I think going out and building a
>party (or group or union or league) in today's political atmosphere would
>be next to suicidal.Lenin taught us ("What is to be Done?")that it's the
>program that builds the party, and not the other way around. What we need
>is not one more organization but a Marxist program for the 21st Century, a
>new Communist Manifesto.At the heart of that has to be the dictatorship of
>the proletariat, i.e. "what will the working class do when it rules?" The
>program must emerge from exemplary actions a la Seattle and Washington DC,
>through which people witness Communism in practice. Such practice will in
>turn tell us how to proceed further with the program.Youth especially are
>drawn to Communism because it proposes a new civilization built on higher
>ethical values, not because of economic predictions.
>Julio Cesar
>
>
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