On 2012-11-12, at 1:07 AM, Julio Huato wrote: > These are my prepared remarks at the annual meeting of Science & > Society's editorial board held yesterday. In them, I elaborate on > issues that we've discussed on these lists repeatedly. I'd be very > interested to read your reactions. > > http://juliohuato.org/2012/11/07/marx-marxism-and-u-s-electoral-politics/
Well argued, Julio, especially your point that "... the inside and outside approaches must be viewed as complementary, rather than as mutually exclusive. It is true that, under certain conditions, the logic of the two approaches may conflict. But this does not have to be the case necessarily. It seems to me that, under current conditions, both approaches are forced on working people by circumstances that cannot be altered overnight." I don't know offhand of any historical instance where the flow of traffic hasn't been from both directions in the construction of a new party - from within the established but increasingly discredited mass party favoured by the workers, and from those who remained apart from it. Do you? Syriza seems to me the latest example of a union of outside far left groups and popular movements with disaffected militants from within PASOK, the once hegemonic Greek social democratic party, who have been frustrated in their efforts to prevent the party leadership's commitment to the vicious austerity program being imposed on the Greek people. (Whatever their origins in the workers' movement, PASOK and the social democratic parties in Europe and elsewhere now represent the liberal wing of the capitalist class in much the same manner as the Democratic Party in the States, and your analysis of the DP's internal dynamics is also applicable in their case.) As someone with first hand knowledge ! of the Cuban Revolution, I was expecting you would also cite Fidel's early political activity within the bourgeois Partido Orthodoxo prior to the Batista dictatorship which did not preclude he and other young activists from later converging with Marxists formerly active in the Cuban CP and other small left wing groups to form the July 26 movement. Finally, I think it goes without saying that the forces you have in mind to reach are not those inclined to favour Predator drone strikes, but those inclined to oppose DP imperialism abroad and austerity at home, and that you see the role of left-wing activists like yourself inside the DP as essentially one of identifying and separating the latter from the former. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
