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Talk about superficial analysis this by Dogan takes some kind of cake: "If the people gathered in CPUSA were agents of capital they would have not established the communist party. They would have gone into the parties they think fit best to their political interests and aims. But they have not done so. They insist on their independent being as a political party despite they have supported ruling class parties." Let's plug Kautsky, and 2nd International in place of CPUSA and see how that sounds: "If Kautsky and the people gathered in the 2nd Intl were agents of capital, they would not have established socialist parties. They would have gone into parties they think fit best to their political interests and aims........." Now does that sound like a materialist analysis of Kautsky and the 2nd Intl's shift at the onset of WW 1[a shift long in the making]? Of course, there's little to be learned from the people who remained "gathered " in the parties of the 2nd International, and there's so much more to be learned from the people who left the 2nd Intl-- identified the 2nd Intl for what it was, based on its actions, and gathered in opposition to the 2nd Intl. So put the CPUSA back in the paragraph immediately above, adjust the time frames, and how does that sound? Sounds better to me. I don't know what Dogan's understanding of the US class structure is, and the prospects for a class conscious movement. Pehaps it's better than mine, but I doubt that. What he offers in defense of the CP is exactly what the CP offers-- "programmatic" assertions about one thing-- socialism, and not just any socialism but the socialism of Marx and Lenin [can you imagine in your worst nightmare Marx or Lenin endorsing Democrats?], and then "pragmatic" "adjustments" based on "tactical exigencies" where the tactics actually NEGATE the supposed content of the "progam." And then as if that isn't bad enough, a bit of faux-intellectualism is added so that tactical negation of the program can be called a "dialectic," and we're tell us to read Hegel. You cannot make this up. So let's see if we can settle some things on tactics, strategy, and program-- namely that strategy supports program, and tactics support strategy-- so like pick an example-- any example-- OK let's pick the USA. So we have a program that says: the organization of the means of production as capital, and labor as wage-labor must be replaced by the conscious organization of production by the working class to serve the true needs of the society, not the needs of profit, of debt service, of the current ruling class. Then we pick a strategy that supports that and in the USA, that strategy is finding a way to separate the workers from the influence of, and control by, the established political parties of the bourgeoisie. Our strategy is expose the real content of that allegiance to, subordination of workers to the political parties of the bourgeoisie, because we know from history, from the triumph and defeat of past revolutions, that were the workers are subordinate to the bourgeois political parties, there can be no accomplishing of our program. Then we have our tactics-- which must embody, in every manifestaton, exactly that strategy in our organizing and our direct actions. So.. we demand full protections for immigrant workers, regardless of their legal status. And we work to make workers, as a class, oppose the Obama administrations maintenance and expansion of the Bush program to utilize corporations' employee records as a weapon against immigrants. And we have many more tactics, but each and all embody, apply, are executed in accordance with our strategy. The fact of the matter is that the CP does nothing tactically or strategically to achieve its program-- hasn't done anything in what 70 years to accomplish its program of socialism, and not just any socialism, but the socialism of Marx and Lenin. Its tactics fit its strategy which is to latch on to some imagined "enlightened section" of the bourgeoisie, and then divert, canalize every movement that threatens the ruling class political parties into some channel that will eliminate the threat. So Dogan can reproduce any and all the tracts of the CP-- hey I've read a lot of them, even had a subscription to the PWW-- an ex-friend of mine is very well-regarded in the CP and he told his comrades that he learned his Marxism from me, so I said, "I must be one shitty teacher if what you learned from me has you joining the CP," thus the ex in the ex-friend. He took offense, can you imagine that? Anyway, Dogan can produce anything he wants, and tell us to read Hegel's Master and Slave in the original German if that captures more of the nuance-- but I suggest not doing any of that. Look instead at the actual historical practice of the CP, and decide if you support any section of the ruling class of US capitalism, and if manifesting that support can ever break the power of that ruling class, ever shatter the continuum of exploitation. If you think you can and it can, then have at it, join the CP-- but please don't say you learned anything from me. If you can't support any section of the ruling class, if you don't think that is a strategy than can do anything other than maintain and extend the destructiveness of capitalism, the destructiveness that IS capitalism, then there's no reason to join the CP. And there's no reason to waste a second reading their so-called positions papers, statements, programs. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dogan Gocmen" <dgn.g...@googlemail.com> " <sartes...@earthlink.net> Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 6:25 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The CP is still ga-ga > ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
