On 3/9/16 8:09 PM, Tom Walker wrote: > As Marx wrote in his September 1843 letter to Ruge... > > > "Hence, nothing prevents us from making criticism of politics, > participation in politics, and therefore /real /struggles, the > starting point of our criticism, and from identifying our criticism > with them. In that case we do not confront the world in a > doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down > before it!We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s > own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, > they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We > merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and > consciousness is something that it /has to /acquire, even if it does > not want to."
Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed. Marx and Engels, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, London, March 1850 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
