I’ll start by saying that I think it’s great that Wolff is getting a fair amount of public exposure and is very open and explicit in his criticism of capitalism as an economic system, rather than just its symptoms (corporations, money in politics, etc). Further, in discussing worker cooperatives he raises the issue of democracy in the workplace and calls into question core ideas of capitalism– namely why bosses manage and control workplaces and the potential that workers have the ability to do this themselves through a democratic and horizontal alternative to the top down control of capitalism. Much as when Nader entered the public imagination in the 2000 elections with his anti-corporate populism, Wolff’s discourse expands the floor for discussion and debate with his radical questions and makes easier the work of organizers on the radical left.

That said there are several contradictions and problems though that should be apparent right off the bat. I’m confused when he calls for alternatives to capitalism, challenging capitalism and then curing capitalism. This immediately strikes me as contradictory as I see these as important distinctions politically at least from my perspective.

I support the idea that workers should run the economy, but I think it needs to go way beyond what Wolff puts forward. A key problem with what he advocates is that worker cooperatives (or his invented term, Worker Self Directed Enterprises or WSDEs) is that they exist within the context of capitalism, ie the pressures of the market competition, and context of wage labor. Now I do think that worker cooperatives can provide a good example that alternative and democratic social relations within a workplace are possible. Worker cooperatives can also act as a resource to larger movements by providing resources and a source of employment- for instance many cooperatives in Latin American began when union militants were black listed from their industry for organizing or are created when workers seized the workplace after abandonment by the owner. But Wolff leaves unaddressed the classic criticisms of worker cooperatives, which aren’t just theoretical but based on real problems that cooperatives have encountered in practice.

First, is the idea that you can’t “out compete” capitalism. Corporations will always have larger capital to invest in research, technology, machinery and their willingness to cut costs through lower wages, less environmentally sounds practices, outsourcing, etc, will give them an advantage. Second, is that cooperatives are subject to market pressures to compete just the same as capitalist enterprises and this lends itself to pressures to create the same practices of corporations. For instances, in the same Mondragon cooperatives that Wolff upholds as models there have been labor strikes in the past, outsourcing and low wages in production sites opened developing countries, as well as a trend towards unelected management that is more like a typical capitalist corporation. Other entities such as the well known sex toy company, Good Vibrations, which became a cooperative in 1992 when the owner sold the company to the workers, eventually developed a structured four-tier hierarchy of decision making that began to take on the character of management.[1] In 2006 workers voted to become a shareholder corporation which was later bought by a larger corporation. Strangely, these not surprising pitfalls of workers cooperatives are missing from Wolff’s discussion.[2]

Third, is that many cooperatives face the same issues as small business owners face. Often worker cooperatives are in the service, food or other specialty industries with lower profit margins and because they are smaller and do not have the advantages of scale which larger companies do, workers are often are forced to work long hours at lower wages to stay afloat. I’ve heard this called by some “self-managed exploitation.” As well, many cooperatives such as these in part remain afloat because they produce niche products like radical books or vegan/specialty food products that don’t really compete with the major corporations that dominate their industry. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m really glad worker cooperatives like the radical/anarchist publisher AK Press exist, as they are a service to the movement and no one else will publish those books, but there is no possibility that they would or could compete with publishers like Routledge or with sellers like Amazon or Barnes & Nobles. In a 2012 interview with CounterPunch Noam Chomsky discusses these issues:

“Worker ownership within a state capitalist, semi-market system is better than private ownership but it has inherent problems. Markets have well-known inherent inefficiencies. They’re very destructive. … [what is needed is to] dismantle the system of production for profit rather than production for use. That means dismantling at least large parts of market systems. Take the most advanced case: Mondragon. It’s worker owned, it’s not worker managed, although the management does come from the workforce often, but it’s in a market system and they still exploit workers in South America, and they do things that are harmful to the society as a whole and they have no choice. If you’re in a system where you must make profit in order to survive. You are compelled to ignore negative externalities, effects on others.”

Lastly is the tendency of worker cooperatives to see their needs and interests as an entity apart from and/or above other workers. After all, as cooperatives exist within a market system, their interests are to compete with other companies and expand their market share. This is a key and important difference between workers cooperatives, where the means of producing goods and services are owned by a specific group of workers competing with other cooperatives and capitalist companies through a market system and the deeper and post-capitalist goal of a socialized economy whereby all the means of producing goods and services (or at least the vast majority) are seen as belonging to society as a whole and while directly operated and run by the workers at each entity would be federated and coordinated in a horizontal manner to produce products and services based on need.

This contradiction of whether Wolff poses an actual alternative to capitalism can be seen in a piece by Wolff called ‘A New Strategy for Labor and the Left’ where he says:

“Labor’s and the left’s implicit strategy for the micro level of the enterprise thus reduced to improving the terms of the employer-employee relation for the workers. There was no strategy to eliminate that relation in favor of something better. It was the modern equivalent of struggles during the time of slavery that aimed for better food, clothing, housing, etc. for slaves rather than demanding the end of slavery.”

This is a great analogy but the problem is that a strategy of advocating worker cooperatives is akin to allowing small groups of slaves on a small number of plantations to self-manage themselves. It makes life better for some, but it doesn’t end the system of exploitation. Early labor radicals in the US often in fact drew an explicit analogy between slavery and capitalism with the term “wage slavery.” What they meant by this is that workers under capitalism are not ‘slaves’ to a particular boss, but through the system of wages they are compelled to work for bosses as a class in order to survive. This is why anti-capitalist labor radical such as the founders of the IWW believe that an end to capitalism required a struggle to organize workers eventually leading to workers to taking control of their workplaces and what they called the “abolition of the wage system.” This is I feel that while worker cooperatives can have some uses, I don’t feel Wolff offers perspective or strategy that can be call anti-capitalist in a meaningful sense.

[1] There are no public sources I could find on the four tier hierarchy that emerged at Good Vibrations, but my knowledge of this comes through my organizing experience with the IWW when a worker contacted the union wanting to organize.

[2] It has come to my attention that Wolff addresses some of these issues in his weekly radio podcast, though these are not addressed in any of his recent radio or television appearances.

Understanding the political legacy of Lenin

This review/summation piece is being released in conjunction with a piece by Scott Nappolas,  “Democratic Centralism in Practice and Idea: A Critical Evaluation” that also examines the baggage and experiences of Leninism.

From Theory to Practice, Taking a Critical Look at Leninism

A Look At Leninism by Ron Taber. 104 pp. New York , New York : Aspect Foundation, 1988

Where can those looking for a critical understanding of Lenin turn? How can we better understand how the Russian Revolution begin as the first modern anti-capitalist revolution from below with workers taking over and running their workplaces, peasants seizing the land, and the creation of democratic soviets (worker committees)? And then in less than a decade its devolution into the brutal dictatorship of Stalin? Is there a continuity between the ideas of Lenin and his particular brand of Marxism that reshaped the Marxist movement in the 1920’s and the number of revolutionary parties that would later achieve state power and claim the Bolshevik party and Lenin as their model and inspiration?

Little known and barely circulated now over two decades since publication in 1988, A Look At Lenin by Ron Taber is perhaps the only systematic and thorough critique of Leninism as examined through the writings and work of Lenin and the Bolshevik party. For this reason it has been a favorite of mine since I picked it up as a teenage reader of the late Love and Rage magazine. When I came across the book I was someone struggling with and questioning my relationship with anarchism at the time and looking in other directions such as the Leninist tradition. While Taber’s piece did not answer many of the larger political questions I was grappling with at the time (no matter where I’m at politically I don’t think that itch will ever go away), it did help me think deeper about Leninism as a tradition as well as with understanding better the problems I saw in many Leninist inspired political organizations that I was beginning to come into contact with at the time.

What is most useful about the piece is, in the words of one review, it “attempts to draw explicit links from Lenin’s theory to Bolshevik practice.” Taber is well suited to take up this task as a past leader of the Revolutionary Socialist League or RSL (1973-1989) which emerged out of the Trotskyist milieu of the 1960′s.  Over time Taber and other members of the RSL steadily became more critical of Leninism and the Trotskyist tradition and by the time of RSL’s dissolution on 1989 a number of members had moved over to anarchism and went on to participate in the founding of what became the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation active throughout the 1990’s. The short booklet was first published as a series of articles in RSL’s publication The Torch and after being published in as a book went on to be distributed by Love and Rage members.

What follows is a summation of the key points of each chapter with a healthy dose of direct quotes. All quotes from Lenin or other source writings by Bolsheviks appear with indentation.

“What Kind of Revolution?”

The opening chapter “What Kind of Revolution?” delves into a discussion of the character of the revolution that the Bolsheviks intended to carry out. Less interesting than the rest of the book, Taber develops his argument that “It was only in early 1917, after the February Revolution had overthrown the Tsar, that the Bolsheviks adopted the point of view that the revolution they sought to carry out would be a socialist one. … throughout the entire formative period of Bolshevism as a political tendency/movement/party, it advocated and sought to implement not a socialist revolution, but a bourgeois one.” (11)

“Party, Class and Socialist Consciousness”

Moving onto Lenin’s conception of the relationship between political organization, the larger working class movement and revolutionary consciousness, the second chapter “Party, Class and Socialist Consciousness” draws largely from Lenin’s most influential piece What Is To Be Done?

Taber underlines the importance of What Is To Be Done? as having “represented a major ideological assumption of Bolshevism, underpinning the Bolsheviks conception of the nature of the party, its relationship to the working class … [and] remained central despite the various changes in Lenin’s/the Bolsheviks’ ideas” (29)

Taber pulls this key quote from the piece by Lenin:

“We have said that there could not yet be Social-Democratic consciousness among workers. It could only be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. (Trade unionism does not exclude “politics” altogether, as some imagine. Trade unions have always conducted some political [but not Social-Democratic] agitation and struggle.) The theory of Socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals.”(29)

Taber draws the following points from this: “If the workers are able, by themselves, to come only to trade union consciousness, and socialist consciousness must be brought to them from ‘without,’ by revolutionary intellectual/the revolutionary party, then:

1. The source, repository and guarantee of socialist consciousness are socialist intellectuals/the revolutionary party, not the working class.

2. What ultimately matters, in terms of a socialist revolution, is that state power is seized by the revolutionary party; the bottom line of what constitutes socialism/the dictatorship of the proletariat is that the state is ruled by a revolutionary party.

3. In any conflict between the revolutionary party and the working class, the revolutionary party is right, and the party has the right, even duty, to rule “in the name,” “in the interests of,” the working class.” (32)

The chapter is then closed with two quotes showing the logical extension of these ideas, the below is from Leon Trotsky:

“The party [is] entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashe[s] with the passing moods of the workers’ democracy… It is necessary to create among us the awareness of the revolutionary, historical birthright of the party. The party is obliged to maintain its dictatorship, regardless of temporary wavering in the spontaneous moods of the masses, regardless of the temporary vacillations even in the working class.” (36)

“The ‘Ethos’ of Bolshevism”

Here Taber puts forward his criticism of the ethos or what we might today call the internal culture of the Bolshevik Party in three aspects: the cult of the “hards”, the adoration of centralism especially in regards to the economy, and the willingness to use brutal and harsh methods.

According to Taber the ethos of the Bolsheviks was defined by what he calls “the cult of the ‘hards’” (37) in which they contrasted themselves the tough, strong, skillful, who acted with “iron discipline”, were more proletarian, more politically radical and had a greater willingness to use violent tactics in comparison to the “softness” of the Mensheviks in working in underground and repressive conditions, who were also seen as less radical, and more prone to political vacillation. He notes that the Bolsheviks referred to themselves as “the hards” and their signature dress was black leather jackets and coats.

As well the title of Lenin’s key work What Is To Be Done? was taken from a book of the same name by Russian populist N.G. Chernyshevsky, which Taber describes as “virtually the bible of the young, mostly middle-class and upper-class radicals of the 1860′s who ‘went to the people’ (the peasants) to bring them enlightenment and radical ideas. … [The key figure Rakhmetov] believes only in the cause and is totally devoted to the ‘people.’ Not least, he prepares himself for the coming struggle (implicitly, a vast upheaval) by sleeping on a bed of nails [and eating raw meat -AW] and otherwise toughening his body and mind. The connection between Rakhmetov’s style and that of the Bolsheviks was no accident.” (39)

The danger that Taber identifies with this culture revolves around power, as “had ‘hardness’ remained a question of individual style or attitude … a cult of ‘hardness’ might not amount to much. What makes a cult of ‘hardness’ in political organization potentially dangerous is the possibility that it becomes part of a state ideology.” (40) A major weakness of this section of the chapter though is, unlike the rest of the book, we are left to take Tabor on his word as it is presented completely without sources or references.

Next Taber takes up the relationship to the principle of centralism and economic planning which he asserts the Bolsheviks “revered” beyond the immediate needs of operating clandestinely. ”The Bolsheviks saw the capitalist factory, run on a centralized basis, as a progressive institution, technically speaking. Lenin, for example, constantly held up the highly centralized and hierarchical German postal system and German industry as a whole as an example for the Russians to adopt. This, after the October Revolution Lenin defined the creation of a highly centralized economic apparatus as a major goal of the Soviet state.

The organization of accounting, the control of large enterprises, the transformation of the state economic mechanism into a single huge machine, into an economic organism that will work in such a way as to enable hundreds of millions of people to be guided by a single plan- such was the enormous organizational problem that rested on our shoulders. [Political Report of the Central Committee to the Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the RCP(B), delivered March 7, 1918. Collected Works, Vol. 27 pp. 90-91] (41)

But beyond the need for centralized economic planning Tabor emphasizes Lenin and the Bolsheviks belief in not just the necessity based on circumstances but as a matter of principle  the need for hierarchical and bureaucratic management of the economy as steps toward socialism. “Thus, as soon as they were able, the Bolsheviks subordinated the factory committees to other institutions (the trade unions) and ultimately effectively did away with them altogether. They were replaced by ‘one-man management.’ While this has often been explained as motivated by necessity (the onset of the Civil War, the drastic decline of the economy, etc.) and this is true to a degree, it was also totally consistent with the Bolsheviks’ pre-existent ideas and leanings, particularly their idolization of centralism.” (43) This lengthy quote serves as a key evidence to his point:

…it must be said that large-scale machine industry – which is precisely the material source, the productive source, the foundation of socialism – calls for absolute and strict unity of will, which directs the joint labours of hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of people. The technical, economic and historic necessity of this is obvious, and all those who have thought about socialism have always regarded it as one of the conditions of socialism. But how can strict unity of will be ensured? By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one.

Given ideal class-consciousness and discipline on the part of those participating in the common work, this subordination would be something like the mild leadership of a conductor of an orchestra. It may assume the sharp forms of a dictatorship if ideal discipline and class consciousness are lacking. But be that as it may, unquestioning subordination to a single will is absolutely necessary for the of processes organised on the pattern of large-scale industry. ["The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government" written in March-April 1918. Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 268-269] (41-42)

Finally, Taber presents his arguments on the Bolsheviks belief in the use of harsh methods in the process of building socialism which he summarizes as: ”1) that the Bolsheviks were overly inclined to advocate coercive/brutal methods, in general; 2) that they seemed unaware that this might undermine the very goal they claimed to be fighting for; and, 3) that, at least implicitly, these coercive measures would logically wind up being directed against members, even large sectors, of the working class, whose vanguard the Bolsheviks claimed to be.” (47)

Three examples are given which “were written or spoken in April and May 1918 … after the October Revolution but before the onset of the Civil Way (which was really to get underway in June, 1918).” (47)  The final example being a speech by Lenin given at the Moscow Soviet of Workers’, Peasants’ and Red Army Deputies on April 23, 1918:

This country, which the course of history has advanced to the foremost position in the arena of the world revolution, a country devastated and bled white, is in an extremely grave situation and we shall be crushed is we do not counter ruin, disorganisation and despair with the iron dictatorship of the class conscious workers. We shall be merciless both to our enemies and to all waverers and harmful elements in our midst [emphasis added] who dare to bring disorganization into our difficult creative work of building a new life for the working people [Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 233.]

Pulling these three threads together of the ‘cult of hardness’, the principle of centralization and willingness to use brutal methods Taber comes to his conclusion: “the main point I have been trying to establish is that there were many aspects of the style and culture of the Bolshevik Party that pointed in the direction of state capitalism. These were tendencies that implied the establishment of a dictatorship of a self-proclaimed socialist elite over the workers and peasants ‘in the interests of’ those classes and ‘in the name of’ socialism and communism. … it is not clear to me that, even had there been successful workers’ revolutions in Western Europe, the Bolsheviks would have reestablished real proletarian democracy, including legalizing other left tendencies. Nor is it obvious that, given their infatuation with with centralization and ‘scientific’ planning, they would have tried to set up real workers’ control of the factories and the economy as a whole.” (50-51)

While the revolution in Germany is still slow in ‘coming forth,’ our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to space no effort, in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it. Our task is to hasten this copying even more than Peter [Tsar Peter the Great - RT] hastened the copying of Western Culture by barbarian Russia, and we must not hesitate to use barbarous methods in fighting the barbarism.  ["Left-wing" Childishness and the Petty Bourgeois Mentality, April 1918]

“State and Revolution”

Written during the Russian Revolution itself in the summer of 1917, The State and Revolution is often cited as being Lenin’s most important as well as libertarian work where he puts forward a vision of a communist society, direct worker control and the ultimate goal of the withering away of the state. In this chapter Taber challenges these ideas and perceptions of The State and Revolution around the points that Lenin’s vision of the state withering away relies on first building up the state along hierarchical and bureaucratic lines with a limited vision of workers’ control.

First Taber begins with a key paradox of The State and Revolution, which is the claimed goal of a stateless society and the key task following a revolution of building a new state. “The revolutionaries who claim that they are against  the state, and for eliminating the state, … see as their central task after a revolution to build up a state that is more solid, more centralized and more all-embracing than the old state.” (56)

“Until the higher phase of communism arrive, the socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state over the measure of labour and the measure of consumption” [emphasis original]

How the transition from the newly built centralized state to the withering away of the state is not outlined in Lenin’s vision though. Rather the elimination of the state is simply presented as part of the ‘historical process’ which Taber sees as rooted in the Hegelian notion of history as “since the theory declares that the ‘logic’ of this essence, purpose and historical direction is that the state will eventually be eliminated, ‘negated,’ ‘transcended’ via a ‘dialectical’ (apparently contradictory) process, this is what will inevitably happen.” (57) But as the history of actual states where communist parties came to power shows, this is anything but the case.

“Direct workers’ control over the factories and worker’ democracy are, to Lenin, stepping stones, part of a transitional stage, towards a very abstract ‘higher democracy,’ what is in fact a very centralized, hierarchical,  bureaucratic, regimented ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ … During a revolution, the new, cooperative social relations have to begin appearing among the workers and oppressed classes right away. The workers have to learn now to related to each other in this new way. They learn this through reorganizing their work situations, and through directly governing society at all levels. … This dimension of the socialist revolution seems to be totally lost on Lenin. The socialist revolution, in his conception, is largely a change in form. Bust much of the content of the old society – bourgeois technology, bourgeois managerial techniques, hierarchical structures, factory discipline and, I would suggest, bourgeois social relations- remains.” (64)

“Lenin’s Theory of Knowledge” Part I and Part II

The final two chapters “take up Lenin’s conception of human knowledge and truth” (67) nearly entirely through the text Materialism and Empirio-criticism written in 1909 where Lenin engages a polemical argument against “two Bolsheviks who were attracted to the ideas of Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius, Henri Poincare and other scientists, mathematicians and philosophers who were the precursors of a school of philosophy called logical positivism.” (70) The details of the debates and Lenin’s criticisms are best left reading Taber’s own presentation, and therefore I’ll simply present the key take away point

Taber leads with his conclusions: “I am convinced that Lenin and the Bolshevik Party as a whole believed: 1) that there is an absolute truth (I mean by this that reality is determined and predictable); 2) that absolute knowledge, that is, perfect knowledge of the truth, is possible; 3) that such truth and knowledge exist in respect to human society and history; 4) that Marxism is the knowledge of this truth and 5) that within Russia, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the only real Marxists.” (67)

These two quotes best support and illustrate Taber’s argument:

Materialism in general recognizes objectively real being (matter) as independent of the consciousness, sensation, experience, etc., of humanity. Historical materialism recognizes social being as independent of the social consciousness of humanity. In other cases consciousness is only the reflection of being, at best an approximately true (adequate, perfectly exact) reflection of it. From this Marxist philosophy, which is cast from a single piece of steel, you cannot eliminate one basic premise, one essential part, without departing from objective truth, without falling prey to a bourgeois0reactionary falsehood. [Collected Works, Vol 14, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1986, p. 326]

If what our practice confirms is the sole, ultimate and objective truth, then from this must follow the recognition that the only path to this truth is the path of science, which holds the materialist point of view. [ibid, 141] … The correspondence of this theory to practice cannot be altered by any future circumstances, for the same simple reason that makes it an eternal truth that Napoleon died on May 5, 1821. But inasmuch as the criterion of practice, i.e., the course of development of all capitalist countries in the last few decades, proves only the objective truth of Marx’s whole social and economic theory in general, and not merely one or the other of its parts, formulations, etc., it is clear that to talk here of the “dogmatism” of the Marxists is to make an unpardonable concession to bourgeois economics. The sole conclusion to be drawn from the opinion held by Marxists that Marx’s theory is an objective truth is that by following the path of Marxian theory we shall draw closer and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting it); but by following an other path we shall arrive at nothing by confusion and lies. [ibid, 143]

An important argument underpinning the book is that the ideas, internal culture and practices of Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the antecedents if not basis of the later political direction of the Soviet Union. Here Taber states his case in crystal clear terms: “…Lenin allowed his philosophical preconceptions to prevent him from even considering, let alone accepting an idea that would become a fundamental tenet of this century’s physics. … [W]hen a party with Lenin’s conception of philosophy and science comes to power, it is highly likely that someone in that party will, sooner or later, try to tell scientists what to do and how to think.” (86-87)

Conclusion

The wrap up of the piece gives a solid summary pulling all the thread of Taber’s criticism: “While I believe that Leninism is not entirely, 100% authoritarian, that is, that there are some truly liberatory and democratic impulses, I believe these impulses are far outweighed by those that point toward and imply state capitalism. Moreover, these latter are so strong that they distort the democratic impulses themselves, rather than merely overshadowing them. For examples, the advocacy of a classless society in The State and Revolution is turned into its opposite by Lenin’s conception of how to achieve it, e.g., through building a strong centralized state modeled after the German postal system.” (92)

“I believe that of the various tendencies within Leninism that point toward state capitalism, the most important are three:

First is the fact that although Leninism advocates the establishment of a stateless society, it not only proposes to use the state to achieve this goal, it sees the use of the state as the main way to accomplish this. Not least, although this state is said to be a proletarian state, a dictatorship of the proletariat, it is to be structured, with relatively minor exceptions, along hierarchical and bureaucratic, that is, capitalistic, principles. Given this, is it any winder that the outcome of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was not classless, stateless societies, but monstrous, class divided, state-dominated, social systems?

The second state capitalist tendency within Leninism that I believe to be decisive is its advocacy of coercive , ruthless methods. While some kind of armed force/coercion is inevitable is almost any revolution, Lenin almost revels in it: the need to be ‘ruthless towards our enemies,’ ‘not to shrink from the most ruthless measures,’ to ‘shoot and shoot and shoot some more.’ Since morality lies within, is immanent in, history, that is, morality find its fruition in the outcome of history (as Marx, following Hegel, argues), there is no need to act morally, there is no morality, in the sphere of politics. But outside of Marian/Hegelian (or any other comparable) metaphysics, how can moral neutralism lead to a more moral society? It can’t and hasn’t.

The third fundamental state capitalist tendency in Leninism, and tying all three together, is Lenin’s belief in determinism and absolute knowledge. Physical and social/historical reality is absolute knowledge. Physical  and social/historical reality is absolutely determined, Marxism represents true knowledge of this reality (it ever increasingly approaches this reality), the Bolshevik faction/party hold the only correct interpretation of Marxism-these are fundamental tenets of Bolshevik thinking. And they point directly to the establishment of a dictatorship of the party over the proletariat in the name of the proletariat itself.” (pg 93-94)

Oakland General Strike poster

In response to the police repression unleashed by Oakland PD in evicting Occupy Oakland from their occupation site, the renamed ‘Oscar Grant Plaza’, on Wednesday, October 26, the General Assembly of Occupy Oakland approved a call for a November 2 General Strike declaring “All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.” Already local officials of the mainstream unions are attempting to push for late afternoon rallying times (to discourage workers from striking as did unions, non-profits and the Catholic Church during the 2006 immigrant protests) and Democratic Party linked groups such as MoveOn.org, Rebuild the Dream, and national union leadership are sharpening their knives in drafting plans to coopt and channel the occupy movement into an electoral and policy agenda as happened in Madison earlier this year.

As the usual suspects look to gut the occupy movement of radical potential at their alters of responsible leadership and trickle down change from above they look to pull the movement backwards. But perhaps as dangerous is the abstention and hesitation of radicals to push this movement forward and blossom in its potential.

For radicals who have  been around the proverbial organizing block I would urge caution to avoid falling into the role of being the left naysayers of the movement. Just as under capitalism “all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned”, in times of upheaval and crisis events that never seemed possible suddenly become so. People who are unpoliticized or only have nascent consciousness become radicalized and people who are already politicized begin to identify with revolutionary politics. The lack of organic connections to more politically defined political militants leaves these newly radicalized layers to flail in the wind and take many political missteps, grow cynical, or be swept into the first organization that seems to offer a ready baked formula for radical change.

The Occupy movement, just like the 2006 immigrant marches which included workplace strikes, the Republic Doors and Windows factory occupation, or the California student protests and building takeovers, if you would have asked most any seasoned radical if any of this was possible, no reasonable estimation would come back affirmative. Would any of us had imagined that a mass meeting of several thousand would take up the question of a general strike and take a vote 1,484 in favor to 46 opposed? I sure wouldn’t have. A week ago only layers of individuals within the anarchist movement, the IWW and an Al-Jazera article were the only voices I heard putting “occupy” and “general strike” into the same sentence. Now the entire occupy movement is looking at and discussing this. That’s a major step forward.

So will a general strike actually materialize next week? Who knows. Almost surely it won’t be a total shut down by any stretch, but it seems like from what I’m hearing that downtown Oakland will be shutdown and outreach groups for several industries have already formed to agitate, flyer and mobilize. But keep in mind the ‘general strikes’ that we hear about in Chile, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, etc are not too different than this – from my understanding only 20-30% of workers participate in the called for stoppages. Let’s also keep in mind that every conversation struck about the possibility of a general strike and leaflet handed out and posted becomes a radical point of reference around the idea of mass collective action and this lays the ground work, it is a great preparation if you will, for larger steps in the future. As revolutionaries let’s not forget the Gramscian adage “Pessimism of the intellect, Optimism of the will.” Its truer now more than ever.

May 1st - International Worker's Day

The struggle continues with yet another May 1st upon us. The impact of the financial crisis through mass lay offs and unemployment, foreclosures, service and education cuts, attacks on unions and a general move towards neo-liberal austerity is still being felt hard. As well, the total failure of much promised and hoped for immigration reform has become all too obvious. Let this be a day to renew our struggles to organize ourselves as a class and as oppressed peoples and carry forward our fight for a better world. It’s needed now more than ever.

Here’s a few retrospective pieces to put the moment into context. First is a brief article on the history of May Day and its significance, some retrospective thoughts on the 2009 May 1st protests as well as some analysis on the 2006 protests that started it all from Machete408.

Next are some thoughts on the San Jose march in 2009. These are criticisms raised by Raj Jayadev of Silicon Valley Debug on the co-option of the march by institutional large non-profits and mainstream labor unions. I’m happy to saw the 2011 was of a very different character, less contrived, no directives on what flags or banners to hold, and an open mic where a diversity of speakers were allowed to speak. I think its worth looking back towards to answer the question of where is the movement at now?

The 2007 and 2008 marches were reunions of sorts, marches to honor and remember the history that was made in 2006, the largest mass marches in the history of the United States by a people who largely did not exist according to federal law.

The irony was that in an effort to reclaim that spirit of spontaneity that defined the 2006 march, every effort made by the large institutional organizations seemed more contrived and predictable. The first march, no one knew where it was going to end, or who was “leading” it. The route that was made in 2006, the same one we did yesterday, was created by walking it. It went from the immigrant Latino center in East San Jose, to the heart of civic power in downtown — City Hall. That route was made by children marching for their undocumented mothers, and was a social movement in a raw and profoundly inspiring form. Yet once organizations tried to organize the march, capture and direct the energy in 2007 and 2008, the march got deflated with route directors wearing matching armbands and politicians speaking on expensive stages. It resembled a parade, rather than a call to action.

Reflections on the student movement that swept CA in 2010

Interviews by Adam W.

These two interviews of student organizers were conducted in early 2010 and published in the first edition of Especifista in May of that year. I think the most relevant themes that these interviews address are roles of radicals within larger mass movements, what are the shapes these movements will take as the possibilities and contradictions direct action and democratic practice. More analysis of the interviews will be added soon. -AW

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Esteban Garcia is currently a graduate student at UCLA and a member of Amanecer. Originally from Northern California, Esteban has previously been involved in student as well as community organizing and community media.

What are some of the challenges that radicals face in trying to build a more widespread movement in your area? 

The first challenge is the relationship between formal and informal organizations on campus.  There are student organizations that are very concerned with keeping a certain relationship with student government and the administration and see direct action as a threat.
Formal student organizations face a lot of restrictions due to their funding, which is allocated by the administration.   Student groups who attempt to represent those most affected by the budget cuts feel they must walk a line not to risk their funding.
It is similar to how many non-profits function to not upset their funders.  Their decisions about tactics and strategies are dictated by this fear.
It is not surprising that many are creating a more affinity group style structure so people can come in and discuss these tactics and not feel the need to represent their organizations.
A second challenge is creating a radicalizing experience on a popular level given the political climate on campus. The liberation of Carter-Huggins Hall at UCLA was an attempt to create such a space, by putting the building under student-worker control as long as possible.
Unfortunately, the communication with those inside and outside, logistical difficulties and really, a lack of experience, didn’t allow the action to reach its fruition. Nevertheless, this was not a failure. It forced the discussion of tactics and strategies to the forefront for groups organizing around the budget cuts, which is a very important step at UCLA.

Let’s talk about the contradictions of the direct actions in the student movement, such as the building occupations, and how these have also shifted the political terrain. What are the parts that are amazing and inspiring to you and what aspects are not?

While it’s important to discuss and critique the dynamics regarding tactics and organizing, it is also important to acknowledge the militancy of the occupations that have taken place.
These occupations are a symbolic re-appropriation of institutions connected to capitalism and a de-legitimizing of so-called “representative authorities.”
The tactic has pushed the envelope in the struggle as well as engaged all of us on how to popularize these tactics among a broad base of students in California and nationally.
We know that this struggle is not only a struggle for public education but also a fight against a system that affects all sectors of our society.  The question at this point is how to leave the campuses and connect with our communities.
Some critiques of the occupations have labeled them as ‘a privileged white anarchist thing,’ which can ‘lead vulnerable populations’ such as people of color, immigrants and youth into danger.  While this is not a new critique, it is very problematic. The idea that ‘vulnerable populations’ can’t make their own decisions and are being led into danger is very condescending.
Its important to make the distinction between critiquing a tactic and critiquing the dynamics involved in the action.  At UCLA, where most of the direct action organizing has been among students of color, these actions have been de-legitimized by both the administration as well as potential allies as off campus “privileged white anarchist” agitators.
It is even more imperative that we begin to dialogue as anarchist and radical students in hopes of building a popular decentralized movement that uses a diversity of strategies and tactics. Yet, this will be difficult if we do not have solidarity with each other. The controversy of the March 4th I-980 freeway action in Oakland and in Hunter College in New York, reflects the lack of solidarity among ourselves as anarchist and organizers.  It is as if we lack any accountability to anything larger than our own affinity groups, regardless of which position you take on the issue.
I see this as a sign of the reality we  exist in.  We are repressed and have intentionally or unintentionally been marginalized as anarchists, and lost any accountability to each other and to a broader community.  How has it become easier to stand in solidarity with in Mexico, Greece and Austria but hard to stand  with each other here?
There is a lack of dialoge.  It’s important to reflect on the process of how these actions are organized because if there are legitimate issues with the dynamics of that process, it needs to be addressed.  When there is no separation between tactics and dynamics, it becomes easy to demonize these tactics as “irresponsible” and “reckless,” with broad implications. For example, the Carter-Huggins Hall action at UCLA was completely disregarded as just a bunch of “off-campus agitators” having fun at UCLA.
In Los Angeles, we find it important to popularize direct action politics as much as possible.  This is very challenging at UCLA. There’s definite division within the students here, because the struggle has been predominantly decentralized. Of course the administration doesn’t like that because there’s no one to target, even though they try.  The leftist political groups don’t like it because they want centralization to gain more control. Then you have liberal student groups who want a structured politic. The spontaneity and the potential for repression scares established formal student organizations on campus. Because of this it’s hard to organize students.
But having a diversity of tactics and creating spaces where more people can participate is fundamental. We also have to realize that the structure of a movement that is decentralized, non-hierarchical and based on mutual aid, direct action and egalitarianism really challenges those who you would think to be natural allies on one hand,  and scares the hell out of the administration on the other.
There’s debate between those that sense that the general assemblies represent bottom up democracy and a critique of the general assemblies that question whether they can be tools to organize when they are dominated by liberal groups or leftist political groups. What’s your idea of how anarchists can navigate that?
Hell if I know! Just kidding, but in my experience of Southern California, general assemblies haven’t really been used as an organizing tactic like it up north. But they are  important in building a popular and mass student movement.  General assemblies may be one way to organize thousands of students who are sick and tired of the system and are sympathetic to fighting for free and radical education.
The question is, how do you make the general assemblies as organic a possible? How do you keep that space from becoming a struggle over power, goals, messaging? What do you do when groups come in and use the general assembly as a platform for their own organizing or their own agendas? It would be ideal if people could agree that goals of the movement should be decided upon through conversion, not steering committees. This really calls home the point of being committed to a process.
A powerful strategy understands that we are engaged in a process of building something that we may not even know what it will look like but we know its not the current system.  However, there is a very traditional and formulaic methodology of what organizing looks like in this country; you come up with a campaign, you organize a message, and you build people up around that.
When you are doing something that doesn’t fit it that, something more dynamic, more radical, people have trouble putting their faith into it.  Using general assemblies is an attempt to move away from that.
The powers that be within this country have been able to neutralize radical student sentiments. The politics playing out in this struggle begin to challenge that by creating and reformulating a radical student consciousness.

Protect your education!

Tenaya Lafore is currently a masters student at UC Berkeley in education and a close comrade of Amanecer. In the past she has worked as a staff organizer for labor unions and more recently has spent several years involved in workplace organizing campaigns while working in the restaurant and hotel industries.

Let’s talk about what you’ve witnessed as far the challenges of having a mass movement that is also democratic?

With the building occupation I think the second attempt at Wheeler Hall shows that it’s possible to learn something from the problems of the previous attempt [where an immediate occupation was decided during a General Assembly by a small group of people without the consent of the rest of the people in the building].
The Wheeler Hall occupation on Nov 20 was discussed and decided in a general assembly and done in conjunction with multi day worker and students strike.   The students had a General Assembly on the last day and there was a vote of 150 or more people to do an occupation and a smaller group was chosen to act as a reconnaissance team, going out to scope out potential buildings to begin an occupation.
It wasn’t done in this vanguardist manner of acting on behalf of people because they’re not ready. It was an open discussion and debate. And I think the fact that it had been done in a collective manner is why so many people wound up going on November 20th [to support the occupiers].    When I first got to the occupation at seven a.m. there were only 20 of us, but by noon there were hundreds and by the afternoon over a thousand and they were very adamant about defending the people inside.
At the statewide conference hundreds of students, as well as workers, from all levels of education gathered to discuss the direction of the movement. It was inspiring, but also had its frustrating moments. What are your thoughts on the actual process and how that went? 
At some points during the meeting, when the facilitators called for a vote on an issue, people would yell from the audience “You need to have discussion before you vote on something.” Then the facilitator would say “Well, let’s have discussion first and then we’ll vote.”
In many ways I think it reflects that this is a learning experience for everybody there, and for some of the facilitators in particular on how to run democratic meetings.
We’re in a time in history where we don’t really don’t know how to engage in democracy. We don’t know what democracy means, in that people don’t have much experience getting to make decisions collectively in small or even large groups. People always say it takes too long, but we don’t have any practice.
So I don’t totally blame the facilitators. I think there were issues of power, but they were also trying to deal with both on one side the super reformists who just wanted to go to Sacramento and they were also trying to stop the vote for a general strike on March 4th.
That was their biggest mistake—they were trying to control it instead of allow a real, open dialogue and vote that really was the will of the participants there.
I also saw groups of the audience yelling ‘general strike’ because they were frustrated with the process, which is legitimate. They also wanted what they wanted and they had this kind of arrogant attitude.
It was mostly men and mostly yelling and not trying to move other people by saying ‘Hey you guys, this isn’t democratic’ but just trying to shut it down by being loud.
As far as the demand I understand the desperation for radical change, but I think that’s  equating actual organizing and building power with just calling for it. You can’t just call for a strike, you have to build it.
With respect to the process I understand where they were coming from as well, but people came in with this attitude of this supposedly far left, which I don’t really think is left, but very top down controlling approach—which is saying ‘either you’re militant the way we say, or you’re reformist.’
It totally shuts down conversation and the actual possibility of coming up with something that is possible for people to decide to take action on.
Getting more into the role of radical and their roles, what do you feel are the tensions present?
I was speaking with a long time organizer about the stuff on campus and she said ‘you have to take actions that correspond to the power you’ve built and those actions hopefully get you to a new step of power.
Radical students have helped bring direct action to this movement as opposed to people being stuck on going to Sacramento, writing your legislator and all that bullshit, and so its great that there are people who say ‘no, we have to shut business down and we’re not going to stick to using the means and boundaries of change that those in power want us to use.’
Not being able to assess what kind of actions correspond to the power of the movement at a particular time and the experience of being able to mobilize the power you have is one problem.
The other is the arrogance of the vanguardist sense of lacking trust in the people and that through dialogue and discussion people can come to the conclusion of wanting to take radical action, and that instead decisions and actions have to be taken for people. When this approach is taken people become passive, and objects of the movements instead of the subjects of the movement.
What’s crazy is the connection of the vanguardist actions and anarchists because anarchism is not about this authoritarian lack of trust in people and needing to take action for them, though there are the insurrectionary ideas within anarchism that carry some of these ideas.
But to me anarchism is about direct action, but in a way that is connected to where people are at and helping support them taking actions for themselves, not taking action for people. If you actually have conversations with people, and find others who are on the same page, and perhaps take action not on behalf others but in dialogue with and in conjunction with other organizing to show people what’s possible that can build a movement.
Instead there’s this idea that if a small group of people go take an action it will wake up the masses, but I think it’s not only condescending but misguided and lazy. It turns people off and it becomes like they know better than everyone else, which doesn’t get people involved.
What roles do you think radicals should be playing in the student movement right now? 
Radicals should work together, meet together and talk with each other to build their analysis and also be going back to their own natural communities which is their [school] departments, their friend groups, their clubs, whatever they’re part of at their schools and engage with other students and build groups that may not be as radical as they would like them to be but they can be a voice of ‘Hey, I don’t think we should go to Sacramento.’
I’m involved in a group in my department where some people have different ideas than I do, some for example want to have K-12 administrators come to speak, which is not my focus, but that’s where they’re at. But I engage with them, make the case for my ideas.
For instance, there’s a lot of people who feel we just need to fight the budget cuts, but I feel that just gets us to where we started—we fight this same fight every ten years. So it’s a question of that’s where people start out, but what do with that?
For example I was with a classmate and I asked them, if all the workers in the café we were sitting in had their breaks taken away from them and they knew it was the law that they should have a break.
You could say that the demand was reformist because all they want to do is get their breaks back, but if you organized in a way that you build the power of the group of workers, the radicals among the workers can be asking ‘Why is the boss able to take away our breaks in the first place and why is the boss trying to retaliate against us for demanding this?’
Posing those questions is a dialectical process of not just accepting people are at where they’re at, but thinking that they have the capability of having a more systemic critique and also not having this idealistic view that they’ll all of a sudden come to their senses and rise up. Instead you engage with the issue that people are grappling with and try to get to the root of the problem which is both respecting where people are at and not accepting where they are at, that’s what radicals should be doing.

The Feed will be a semi-regular feature of recommended links and readings along with brief commentary. -AW

Egypt, Libya, Wisconsin! The political moment around the globe is hotter right now than anytime in recent memory. And when even the liberal The Nation magazine runs general strike sympathetic pieces referencing the IWW you know something is up.

The mobilization and hype inside and outside Madison so far around a general strike is nothing short of impressive.  Much of it began with the Feb 21 resolution backed by IWWs and other labor radical that was passed by the South Central Federation of Labor (the local labor council of AFL-CIO unions in Madison) which called for a no concessions stance and to “immediately begin educating affiliates and members on the organization and function of a general strike.”

Following this members of the IWW began passing out in the 1,000′s a “Kill The Bill” pamphlet advocating a general strike as “the ultimate tool of social change” to the crowds occupying the capitol daily.  A second edition is in the works and you can donate towards the efforts here. Spreading the message even further, especially over facebook, was the creation of general strike posters in seven different languages.

The current question is whether the potential of unleashing a general strike will be successfully drained away as Democratic Party and AFL-CIO leaders attempt to drain and channel the mass mobilization into recall and election efforts? Especially as the fight currently stands as at best a draw for an ever declining labor movement in the US, the clamor to push the energy away from the streets and workplaces where workers have the upper hand and into the ballot box and hands of Democrats who already announced their willingness to agree to major concessions and have not pledged to repeal the bill, is a surely a ‘rush to loose’ as one friend puts it.

For some of the latest and most worthwhile analysis here are my recommendations: a member of the US socialist organization Solidarity has been regularly blogging with on the ground analysis and commentary and is now at twelve posts; and both by members of the Workers Solidarity Alliance, a commentary piece critical of the role of mainstream labor officials in the regular column ‘Labor Shorts’ and a critical report back on a recent “Emergency Labor Meeting” of left activists within the AFL-CIO discussing the Wisconsin situation; two worthwhile pieces on organizing a general strike, first, a facebook note titled “Organizing a General Strike: Strategy” and an article with links to the history of general strike and Canadian public sector resistance movements. Finally, see a high definition, panoramic view of the protests with audio clips to feel as if you are there.

[Perhaps some short commentary to be added-AW]

By Adam W.

Originally published in De-Bug Magazine # 16, December 2006

Working at a grocery store is a world to its own. Although the customers strolling through the aisles may not see it, the workers at a store can be like a family ­ brothers and sisters, older parent figures, crazy Uncles. And just like a family, there can be generation gaps. At my store, we had mainly two kind of folks, the 20-something-workers, many who were slowly working their way through community college, and the older workers we called the “lifers.” It wasn’t just how the young folks saw them, but how they saw themselves — stuck.
In the break room was where I would chop it up with the lifers. When the managers would do their paperwork in the early mornings, Gary, a lifer with words of wisdom, would sit across the break room table from me.
“You gotta get out of that credit card debt, start saving money right away. Are you going to school?”  he would lecture. With a stern look and a pointing finger covered by a rubber glove, he would talk straight to me like an older uncle. He would tell the story about back in his day, working at Safeway was like being a teacher, nurse, or a firefighter. It was a respected job that you could buy a house and send your kids to college with.

But not anymore.  Over and over, Gary and the other workers would tell me how it wasn’t like how it used to be any more. They would sigh and say, “Get out as fast as you can.” They wished they could, but they had worked there so long that they couldn¹t even think of doing something else. Most of the younger workers brushed it off, as they would be moving on. But a few would wind up staying, like the ones who were getting married and needed the benefits, or those who just couldn’t get themselves through school.
To the lifers, buying a house seemed out of reach. They couldn’t afford to send their kids to college and they would always try to catch the occasional overtime or holiday shift where they could make double-time. Each of them had different strategies to get their own piece of the pie – their way of trying to get ahead when they were being pushed behind.
The kick-back produce department was where Gary worked. If you
planned on sticking with the supermarket job, then this is where you wanted
to wind up. The produce section was its own little castle. Unlike the checkstands where management was always hawking over you, all the workers at the produce section had to do was meet their quotas, keep the stands looking
clean and the manager didn¹t ever mess with them. While most of the departments were on lower wage scales that topped $15/ hour, all the produce people were on the highest wage scale that went up to $20. But you couldn’t just walk off the street into produce. You had to work in the store for a couple of years and be approved by the older guys who worked there.
A middle-aged white guy, Gary started working at my store as a bagger straight out of high school in the 60′s. Now, he has a mortgage and two kids in college.  His thing was day trading.  Every morning, the phone in the backroom near produce would ring and someone would say, “Hey Gary, it’s your broker.”  You could tell when the market was hot because you could hear him arguing about which ones to buy or sell through the whole backroom. That’s how he was trying to make up for his lack of savings.
Then there was Jack. We would always talk when we worked in the
checkstands together on slow mornings. He always looked completely exhausted with his coffee cup in hand. He would drink five cups every shift and sometimes eat nothing for lunch, except more coffee. His hands were calloused and sometime blackened because every morning at 3am, he would wake up to deliver newspapers to vending machines around the city in his VW bus. He was married, though I got the impression he was never really able to spend any time with her.
The person that everyone loved to talk smack about and hate on was Debra. She was a single mother who dropped out of college while studying
chemistry some years back. Something told me she probably had her share of
fun then. Her strategy was pretty clear: she was trying to impress the managers so she could move up the Safeway ladder and become a store manager or work for the corporate office in Pleasanton. Everyone knew she was working off the clock and on her days off. After she was promoted to supervisor, she would write everyone up for the slightest thing, even for being a minute late coming back from break.
Anytime the jackpot would get really high, say $80 or $100 million, Brenda would organize the lotto pool. She was a short Filipina who worked in the cash room that none of us were allowed into. Her husband worked at another Safeway too. When she would come by to give more change, count our drawers or refill our change machines, she would talk to all the checkers, especially if it was a slow day.
When it was lotto week she would come around asking everyone to pitch in $5. Part of this ritual was everyone dreaming up stories of what they would do if we all won the money. Some would say we could all retire
together in Hawaii, never having to work again.
While a few people would talk about being able to buy a big house, one guy would always talk up how he would buy the store up so he could burn the whole place down and laugh. He was a white guy who wore jerseys and ported his tattoos on the back of his arms on his days off. About 21 years old, he was always trying to act like a thug, and his attitude always got him into arguments with the customers. While I was sure that he would get fired one day for another argument with a middle aged housewife, he always thought his way out was his hiphop T-shirt business that he swore would take off.
One of my favorite co-workers was this older, light skinned, Argentinian checker Alex. Having been the longest running checker at the store, he had a following of customers that would only go through his line. He checked so slow other workers would make call him “Mr. McGoo.” But he didn’t care. He only had a few years until he retired with his pension, and no matter how many “Productivity Training Sessions” management made him attend, he knew they couldn’t touch him.
Checking began to make my back and wrist hurt all the time and
sometimes, I would even hear that “beep” sound in my sleep. But I loved talking with the customers everyday. I worked there for a year, and never ended up as a lifer.

The dust hasn’t even landed on the floor yet in Egypt and already the spin masters of the media and political figures are already laying out a revisionist narrative of what happened as somewhat akin to “fluffy peace demonstrations” in the words of one friend. I think this is interesting because in trying to co-opt an uprising against a dictator held in place by the US for decades and which will be a huge blow to US power in the Middle East (especially if it spreads further) I think we are able to glimpse in action how power structures either co-opt or demonize protest movements.

So are the recent protests in Egypt peaceful? They could be termed non-violent if non-armed confrontation and property destructive fit into that definition, but certainly not peaceful. But being one of those folks who during the WTO protests back in 1999 was attacked (and even threatened to be punched in the face believe it or not) for breaking codes of ‘non-violence’ by bringing out newspaper stands into the street when riot police were attacking people with tear gas or forming a line to push back police who were beating on people doing a sit down blockade of an intersection, I have a hard time listening to the rhetoric of a ‘peaceful revolution’ in Egypt.

Basically I think ‘peaceful’ and ‘non-violent’ in the vocabulary of the US political class means approved and non-threatening. Despite that this is a huge blow to US interests, I think the US is between a rock and a hard place on this one and the international media is largely sympathetic because the demands have a strong fit with all the ideals of liberal democracy which is a cornerstone for journalism as a profession.

I think Obama and other authorities saying “Egypt=peaceful” is the flip side of the same discourse that demonizes social movements. I sure didn’t see anybody attacking police or otherwise with sticks or throwing moltovs during the WTO in Seattle or Oscar Grant protests in Oakland. Maybe there were some minor dumpster fires during both and a few moltovs during the Oakland protests, but nothing like in Egypt. And with Oscar Grant protests I’m sure people wished they could have attacked police stations but that didn’t happen, unlike Egypt. But as soon as any confrontation breaks out in the US all the political figures and media can talk about (and they are largely joined by the non-profit establishment I should add) is how things ‘turned violent’ and how terrible and illegitimate the protests are. Then there’s the obligatory stories about how all the poor shop keepers will suffer because no one bought anything and some windows were broken (which their insurance will pay for) and some big corporations got looted.

I’m sure much of the same things are happening in Egypt—stores are closed, police stations, party offices and government building have been burned and sacked, public transit workers are on strike, roads are blockaded and traffic is snarled. Even the Suez Canal is shut down. But the stories that would be written by the media and denunciations by the political leaders if any of this were to happen in the US (“this is terrorism!”) are all absent.

If the movement continues to radicalize and perhaps neighborhood committees refuse to cede control to the military regime or some new regime in its place, or self-organized workers now on strike begin to seize and operate their workplaces under self-management, I think we can expect to quickly see that rhetoric turn. But as the current situation stands I think, in the words of political organization Bring the Ruckus, “it has become a race to see which force can absorb or co-opt the uprising, not oppose it.”

Now onto how to characterize the uprising currently under way in Egypt. Is it an uprising? A revolution? Regime change from below? When a regime is overturned from below I think revolution is an appropriate term. I think the key distinction here though is a political revolution (the current situation in Egypt) vs. a social revolution (an overthrowing of the political, social and economic structures).

Some on the left are hesitant to call this a revolution and perhaps they are right that many are projecting their unfilled hopes to a certain degree in this. It’s a liberal democratic uprising against an autocratic regime and not anything more just yet. But it is a popular uprising from below, fueled in large by workers that have self organized themselves outside of the existing unions that are tied to the state. An outcome of liberal democracy, which seems fairly certain at this point, opens the door to possibilities, but already some of these are emerging with the nascent appearance of worker and neighborhood level self-organization.

This makes me think about the first Russian Revolution in 1905 where the Czar (an autocratic monarch) granted limited powers to a newly elected Duma (an assembly or parliament type body), which was a step towards liberal democracy. Out of that came the first appearances of worker soviets. Taking over the economy wasn’t yet on the table at that political moment, but it was crucial in setting the stage for what happened a decade later in 1917. Not saying that this is what will happen in Egypt. But I think its worth  pointing out that more radical revolutions are often preceded by more or less reformist uprisings or mobilizations that help radicalize people and move them in more radical directions later. I think this is already underway in some degree in Egypt.

Van Jones with fist in the air

Note: Bringing this back with a revised version. This commentary piece was removed after the attacks by right-wing blog and media sites on Van Jones intensified and led up to Obama washing his hands of Jones with his resignation. Right-wing sites cited “left wing blogger Machete408” as further ‘proof’ of Obama’s undercover socialist credentials (read an actual socialist refute this total non-sense here). As for Jones’ himself, he’s likely made some major political transitions. A mentor of his touts the “pro-business, market-based ideas Van has promoted for years, including in his best-selling book, The Green Collar Economy.” (link) Though I think it’s fair to say that the tendency on the revolutionary left, Van Jones formerly included, which views alliances and involvement with the state and electoral politics—state power if you will— as a strategic orientation is alive and well. (See link, link, link and critique, critique) See also my follow up piece “On Van Jones’ Resignation.”

Did anyone catch the news that Van Jones of Green Jobs for All, and formerly of the Ella Baker Center in Oakland and a revolutionary organization in the Bay Area, was recently tapped by the Obama administration to serve as an advisor around green jobs? The position was officially dubbed the Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation on the White House Council on Environmental Quality, that is before Obama accepted Jones’ resignation following attacks by the right-wing blogosphere and Glen Beck on his radical past.

I’ll get back to that in a minute. I was having a conversation with a friend the other night about the legacy of sixties revolutionaries and Marxists who attempted to “proletarianize” themselves or as some called it “colonize the working class.” Many of these radicals, who were largely from more middle-class backgrounds and college graduates (or those who after becoming radicalized dropped out of college), got jobs in factories and various industries with the goal of bringing the messages of socialism and revolutionary politics to the working class. (For more on this see Max Elbaum’s excellent history of the sixties communist left with Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Che and Mao) Many of them also became active in the unions at these workplace, whom were largely conservative bureaucracies if not outright reactionary.

We asked each other, “So what is the legacy of all the sixties radicals who entered the unions?” We contemplated, scratching our heads for a few minutes. Our only answers are that the legions of ex-radicals and ‘those-who-would-like-to-still-see-themselves-as-radicals’ who populate various staff and leadership positions in unions and are often largely indistinguishable between the non-radicals who occupy these same positions. Perhaps the union locals that they lead attend the local anti-war demos and pass some strongly worded resolutions on progressive causes (sometimes sarcastically referred to as ‘resolutionary’ unionism). Perhaps they, as paid officials or staff, are part of a or aligned with a ‘rank-and-file’ group that opposes the evils of the paid officials higher up the hierarchy than them. But in the end, as a whole or in part, mainstream unions are largely the same institutions, operating in the same ways that make them an impediment to working class action or consciousness.

Returning to Van Jones, with all the shimmer associated with a rising star (perhaps now a dimmer star following the vicious public outing by Glen Beck), many forget that a man now advising the president was a member of a revolutionary organization in the SF Bay Area called STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement). Throughout the group’s history, Van Jones was seen as a public figure within the Bay Area left and a leading member of the organization.

STORM had its roots in a grouping of people of color organizing against the Gulf War in the early 1990’s and was formally founded in 1994. The group’s politics had a number of influences, including revolutionary nationalism as well as some aspects of broad anti-authoritarianism, but evolved towards a more formal third world Marxist/Maoist politics. The group grew in influence until its disbanding in 2002 amid problems of internal dynamics and especially the controversy that grew around the leadership roles members played in with social movement left, especially the Bay Area youth movement (such as the fight against Proposition 21). STORM held sway over near empire of social movement non-profits in the Bay Area, which nearly all members were staff members. The legacy still continues today as almost a decade after their dissolution, STORM’s legacy has “given rise to nearly every radical nonprofit currently congesting the horizon of the Bay Area.” (link) Others activists and organizers in the youth movement, as well as other arenas, began to resent members of STORM and their regular heavy handed leadership in movements, which was dismissive of the leadership roles of social movement leaders and organizations independent of their political orbit. Some of the organizations closest to STORM were Third Eye Movement, SOUL or School of Unity and Liberation, and Youth Force Coalition.

But getting back to the topic of revolutionaries in high places- though I think it is doubtful that Jones still holds revolutionary politics dear to him, as a onetime advisor to Obama what was or could have been achieved? Does the left having allies in high places or the ability to have real dialogue with Obama’s administration grant a tangible opportunity? Has Van Jones “sold out?”

For more on STORM as an organization see “Reclaiming Revolution: History, Summation, and Lessons from the Work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM)” (PDF File), a 2004 document by former members reflecting on their work, politics and pitfalls. See also the classic piece “Where was the color in Seattle?: Looking for reasons why the Great Battle was so white,” originally published in ColorLines (Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2000) where Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez interviews Van Jones. This is, I believe, the only public reference to Van Jones’ membership in STORM. For more on the legacy of STORM in the context of police brutality struggles in the Bay Area see “Bring the Ruckus Responds to Advance the Struggle on the Oscar Grant Rebellion.”

For more on the left tendency which views alliances and involvement with the state and electoral politics—state power if you will— as a strategic orientation see Progressives for Obama (renamed Progressive America Rising), discussions by Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO/OSCL) and Organizing Upgrade, a site that includes contributors who are former members of STORM and those in the same political milieu. As well see a piece discussing revolutionary left political organization which contains a critique of these perspectives, “Toward Theory of Political Organization for Our Time Part III: nature of our period” by S. Nappalos of Miami Autonomy and Solidarity.

Machete 408 is back serving you up with a new series of postings after a summer hiatus. A continuing state of joblessness and downgrading to a slower internet connection both put a bit of a damper on the political juices that went into the blog. But despite these, there’s a nice backlog of recently published pieces that I hope Machete 408 readers will check out. Below is a collage of recommended and recently published articles and commentaries.

Did anyone notice a coup happening somewhere? Writing on the recent coup in Honduras, Jose Antonio Gutierrez of Ireland’s Worker Solidarity Movement (WSM) as well as the Frente de estudiantes Libertarios (FeL) in Chile, provides analysis with “Coup in Honduras: The Return of Guerillas or the Tactics of Attrition?.” Also is a piece on the potential of the recent popular uprising in Iran in response to stolen elections. “The Iranian Election, A ‘Legacy of Martyred Flowers’” is by Farah, an Iranian whom is also a member of the WSM. Both pieces appear on the Anarkismo international anarchist news and publishing site and Farah’s is followed by a lively debate in the comments section.

Looking at a global trend is “Workers Creating Hope: Factory Occupations and Self-Management” by Shawn Hattingh from Monthly Review Zine, which gives a brief overview of the growing factory and workplace occupations around the globe. The piece concludes, “The actions of these workers [involved in occupations] are inspirational. It seems likely that more and more workers will begin adopting and adapting the idea of factory occupations as a viable way to save jobs and reclaim the dignity that bosses have tried to take away from them. Perhaps what we are also seeing through the occupations, takeovers, and self-management is a glimpse of what a post-capitalist world, created by the workers and the poor themselves, would look like.”

On the movement and political analysis tip is the Advance the Struggle blog, founded earlier this year and written by Bay Area writers influenced by various strains of Marxism. Of interest are several pieces debating the movement that surrounded the killing of Black, 22 year old Oakland resident, Oscar Grant at a BART station on New Years Day 2009. Included is three pieces. “Unfinished Acts” is an insurrectionary anarchist piece created in the format of a composite narrative play; “Justice for Oscar Grant: A Missed Opportunity?” is a solid piece with excellent critical analysis of both the role of the RCP and the non-profit dominated CAPE coalition that led much of the community response; and “Bring the Struggle, Advance the Ruckus” a response to “Missed Opportunity” by Oakland members of the revolutionary group Bring The Ruckus is also worthwhile as well. I won’t link the pieces individually, instead you should go to their blog and find them.

For all those in the labor movement disillusioned with the lack of passage of EFCA (suprise, suprise) is the article “Introducing the Employee Liberation Act” by Daniel Gross of the IWW. There is much to be critical about of the EFCA (See the Machete 408 piece on EFCA here), but what Gross provides us with is a total rethinking of what ails the labor movement and what changes in the legal arena might actually allow for advances by workers instead of card check recognition. Its a bit of a wish list, but what he proposes is a three pronged bill that would: 1) Make discrimination against organizing in the workplace on par with federal civil rights protections around race and gender discrimination. This would make worker rights a recognized civil right as it should; 2) End the second class, modern Jim Crow status of undocumented immigrants in workplace across the US; and 3) Eliminate legal barriers and restrictions on strikes, which would unleash worker’s most powerful weapons against the power of bosses: that of solidarity and the ability to bring profits to a halt.

On an uplifting note is an AK Press blog picture report on the 2nd Annual LA Southern California Anarchist Conference, with nice shots of the jewlery, cultural and publishing vendors, as well as some of the performers and presenters for the event.

Finally, on the anarchist political organization theory front we have the long awaited English translation of “Huerta Grande” by a good comrade at The Left Winger blog. The 1972 piece is considered a seminal theoretical text of the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU), which played a leading role in spawning the especifist current within the South American anarchist movement. Also be sure to read this “quick and dirty rought history piece” on the FAU for background and context.

As well, we have a recent translation of South American Anarchist philosopher Angel Cappelletti (1927-1995) posted on the AK Press Blog “Revolution by the Book.” Cappelletti was born in Argentina and spent the later half of his life in Venezuela, becoming a key intellectual figure in the libertarian left, authoring several works on philosophy, anarchism and Latin America. Supporters have recently created a Spanish language archive site of his work. And last but not least is another piece from Jose Antonio Gutierrez, who again offers us some worthwhile thoughts, but this time on strategy and the role of anarchist organization with his Considerations About the Anarchist Program. Here’s an excerpt:

The essence of the Platform is how to build an organisation that unites like-minded anarchists based on concrete proposals and tactics – that is, a “political organisation” as opposed to what is a purely ideological group. In this tradition, it is perfectly fair that we ask ourselves how many of our organisations, leaving aside any pretensions, have actually managed to reach the level of development of a political organisation. At present, the majority of these groupings are only propaganda groups. The principle difference between a political organisation and a propaganda group is not its number of militants nor its level of militancy, nor even the political insertion of its members. The principle difference is the simple answer to the question: what can we offer the people? While propaganda groups can not offer more than a political and ideological vision and, in the best cases, a few slogans, the revolutionary political organisation can offer a course of action; a programme; a tactical line; a strategy; short-, medium- and long-term objectives.