Please discuss! No uncritical sectarianism, bad faith arguments, etc.
Important questions:
- Is the strategy most socialist organizations in the US are using, in your opinion, a good one? What else should they do?
- As individual socialist, what do you think we should be doing? What groups are worth joining?
- What should be done about the sudden rise of socially reactionary beliefs and laws across the country?
Reading posted by users:
Where’s the Winter Palace?, posted by @CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml, written by unknown author, I checked and could not find one on the article.
Conclusion from this text, that I think summarizes it’s premise quite well:
We believe that, in the U.S. in 2018, the truly important theoretical tasks have not been solved. We are in a period of a nascent socialist movement since the 2008 financial crisis. We should not be afraid of new ideas, and should look forward instead of harping on the 20th century. Without bending to reformism or adventurism, we must feel free to put everything back on the table and come to build strategy and theory through struggle.
(Emphasis mine)
“Is the strategy most socialist organizations in the US are using, in your opinion, a good one?”
The issue is 99% of the orgs operating in the US are not scientific socialist, they are either bourgeois socialist (socdem; CPUSA, SA, etc…), hopelessly idealist (looking at the Maoist insurrectionist adventurists, the Avakian cult, other related clowns), or appears legitimate in name and nature on the surface but when one looks deeper it becomes clear that they are ran by crypto-spook trotskyists (ANSWER, PSL). The 1 party I know of which is legitimate is not without it’s own issues and has survived 2 major attacks by the bourgeois state in recent years but is ultimately still not large enough to make a large impact (PCUSA). Others exist however are much smaller.
“What should be done about the sudden rise of socially reactionary beliefs and laws across the country?”
Paradoxically, this is work to be decided by a party. One can attempt to infiltrate both sides and attempt to mend the issues of relatability and respect using Marxist analysis and dialectical materialism, but without a party spearheading and coordinating this the results will be sporatic.
(repost as I accidentally deleted this)
relevant idea I had for what could work as a supplement to the organizing structure in the United States
My current hypothesis is that we need some kind of centralized organization that focuses on extremely short-term goals for building worker power, as a kind of transitory organization until the extremely sectarian nature of the US left either subsides or boils over. This organization would exist in tandem with other organizations, not requiring or enforcing specific political memberships besides what directly interferes with specific, short term goals decided by organization leadership to build the power of the proletariat (or long term goals which are specific, effective, and do not demand any kind of ideological purity besides a general commitment to building worker power). These goals would have to be decided by committed, scientific, socialists.
A kind of meta-organization, which would share resources and important information about achieving it’s specific short-term goals, and would let the US left live on “life support” while we figure out exactly what’s going on.
I am concerned that this idea of mine is, however, fueled too much by the kind of pragmatism Lenin would despise. Or I may be being too worried, and the scientifically Marxist nature of the organization’s leadership would fix that issue
As far as the pragmaticism of which Lenin referred, that I’m afraid escapes me. I would recommend rereading the relevant works and if possible link it here and we can discuss it in relation to your idea.
As far as the idea itself regardless, it sounds like a pre-vanguard vanguard if that makes sense. I’m not sure how the logistics would function (getting several split parties to function when they are in fact split, this seems paradoxical to the necessitated existence of this proposed group).
Sectarianism happens because of disagreements on policy. If we can agitate on specific issues (optimally clustered together to ensure anti-imperialism etc) instead of entire, purist, ideologies, we could allow a large variety of radical people to organize together who would otherwise not
Example: Your average anarchist is kind of annoying because they hate everything opposed to forming a full on vanguard party. This is an issue, because most Marxist-Leninist want a vanguard party. Therefore two significant portions of the self-identified Left refuse to work together. It’s also dumb because they have the exact same short term desires and the planet is literally ending (climate change)
If, instead of creating a party which expects everyone in it to have the same political views, we instead focus on specific things that are very important to everyone involved (such as unionization, social issues, anti-imperialism) and work as a “meta-organizer” by connecting different groups with information about actions and stances other groups are taking on those issues.
Or, put more eloquently, the reason parties are split is because of important arguments, but the actual individual beliefs of most (non-imperialistic) self-identified Leftists are the same for the near future, so there is no reason they could not work together anyways.