July 5, 1990
I have learned a lot over the last 10 years. The experience of the Washington campaign and related local campaigns as well as the Jackson campaign has given me many different experiences to mull over. A paper by Ferguson that our unit discussed as well as the readings about the history of the CPUSA from our study several years back and readings from The Media Monopoly by Bagdikian, Reconstruction by E. Foner and Organized Labor and the Black worker 1619-1981 by P. Foner have also been important sources of input. This is a first stab at putting this all together.
This is very rough and it needs a lot more research. I hope that this can stimulate enough interest that we can collectively make a deeper analysis. Many of these ideas have come about during conversation with different cadre and friends. I, of course, take full responsibility for my stand and apologize for the wandering nature of this paper.
The questions I am addressing are:
1. What is the source of the movement for progressive change in America?
2. What forces in American society have played a role in progressive change and why?
3. What is the nature of American politics and how should revolutionaries relate to this?
It seems clear to me that the movement of oppressed people in this country is (and has been) the raw material that fuels any move toward progressive change. The struggle of Afro-Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Asians and women for justice in this society has played a major role in shaping the progressive movement. This is because people in these groups are usually at the bottom of society and (except for women) are in a relatively small minority. In this case it always makes sense (both tactically and strategically) to struggle against oppression by uniting the majority around demands for social justice that actually benefit the majority.
The white working class, the majority of the working class, while oppressed has never seen itself at the bottom – though in many circumstances their material conditions could not get any worse. This position as well as heavy doses of bigotry (not only stirred up by the ruling class, but also inherited from narrow, defensive cultural institutions such as the local church or synagogue) has made the white working class an unreliable ally of the oppressed nationalities and women, and even a rather poor defender of its own interests. The recent struggle in Watsonville, the relation of other working class forces to the struggle as opposed to, say, their support of the Eastern Airline workers demonstrate this problem most vividly.
Inside the oppressed nationalities the struggle of the lower strata of the working class for justice is the struggle of the overwhelming majority, since racism has not allowed many to escape poverty.
The other obvious factors at work here are the lack of basic rights for oppressed people, food, shelter, education, work and the (de facto) right to vote.
To my mind this all adds up to a struggle of oppressed people for democracy and human rights. Democracy not just in the area of participation in the electoral arena but also in terms of participation in the multinational working class. As long as the working class institutions ignore or worse yet are complicit in the oppression of the lower strata, the working class as a whole can not obtain justice.
I think that this is borne out by the results of the struggles in the 30s. Even though the CPUSA took a bold stand toward Afro-Americans, this was relatively short lived. Browder already dismantled the share-croppers organizations in the early 30s to appease predominantly white union organizations. Finally after World War II, not only was the party attacked – after it set itself up – the whole structure of the union movement was handed over to the most backward elements that could be found (though much of this started much earlier). The post-war boom was based on the intensification of the oppression of Afro-Americans with the complicity of the majority of working class institutions. This included the increase in seizure of land in the south and the explosive growth of northern urban ghettos. The latter provided a huge pool of available “super-exploitable” labor. The civil rights movement and the BLM was the response of the Afro-American masses against this. I think it is very significant that the civil rights movement and later the BLM arose in opposition to most of the “progressive” leaders at the time.
Instead of going on with the struggles of the 1950s and 60s, I want to jump back 100 years to the struggle against slavery. The forces that lined up against slavery were very interesting.
On the one hand there were slaves and freed slaves who were the most vehement opposition. Then there was the abolitionist movement which was composed of whites who opposed the immorality of slavery, but for the most part did not really think about the nature of a post-slavery society. In particular, most abolitionists were still die-hard bigots. Then there was the white working class that wanted slavery contained to the south so they would not have to compete with slave labor. This group was (and for the most part still is) thoroughly bigoted against Blacks. Then there were the northern capitalists who wanted an end to slavery so they could institute capitalism throughout the whole country. Their cry was for “free labor”, meaning the comoditization of labor along classic marxist lines. This was the “enlightened” capitalist class clashing with the older now decadent slavocracy.
This new capitalist force eventually broke with the Whig party and formed the core of Republican party. They won their first election and the country promptly went into civil war. After the war, during reconstruction, the forces who opposed slavery discovered that they did not unite on their view of the incorporation of freed slaves into society. The failure of reconstruction is a very complicated story, but I think there are several key lessons. One was that the white working class and its leaders did not embrace the freed slaves even though Marx among others argued strongly in favor of this route. The other was that the new capitalists were pragmatic in their embrace of capitalism in that they were happy to allow Jim Crow to come in to replace the progressive structures of reconstruction as long as this did not interfere with capitalist development. That is, the ideology of free labor was much less important than the development of capital.
The most important lesson from reconstruction is the continuing struggle of Afro-Americans for justice. The development of the Black Church and of separate educational institutions are 2 examples of present day institutions that were created immediately after the civil war. The continuous battles for justice from the Union Leagues, Marcus Garvey, the CPUSA in the 30s to the struggles of the 60s up through the Jackson campaign and the local electoral contests in areas with large concentrations of minorities are all testimony of the unbreakable desire of the oppressed for justice.
The new deal presents a different type of struggle with many of the same characters. In this case, while the working class was struggling for survival, the ruling class was divided between protecting domestic industry versus allowing American capital to prosper internationally. American finance capitalists and their allies struck a coalition with Roosevelt to improve conditions for the working class in exchange for government opposition to protectionist trade legislation. While Roosevelt was hardly in the vanguard of social change, his administration made it much easier to be a communist or political activist. The reason for this (according to Ferguson) is that international capital only depended on labor indirectly while the industrial and small business sector depended on labor directly for their profits. Thus it was more out of indifference to the working class, rather (as Browder mistakenly asserted during the 40s) than any progressive spirit that this element of the ruling class was able to be an ally of progressive change.
Blacks and other national minorities did not fare so well during this period. While progress was made, Jim Crow was not defeated, nor was it challenged as strongly or consistently as it could have been. Besides the bigotry that infected the white working class traditionally and thus also the progressive forces there was a huge population of immigrants from Eastern Europe that started arriving in the late 1800s, and continued until well into the 30s. Many of these workers were deeply affected by Marxism-Leninism (many of my grandparents’ contemporaries were active Bolsheviks before leaving Russia and many of my parents’ friends and relatives were in the party). They came to this country and played an important role in the CPUSA. Unfortunately, they had more of an appreciation for Europe than America and I wonder if part of the CPUSA’s problem in tailing after the CPSU stems from this. They were also completely ignorant of the history of Afro-Americans and could easily loose sight of the national question even under the best of circumstances.
The upheavals of the 60s finally brought the struggle of Afro-Americans to center stage after almost 100 years. Again it seemed that the white working class was not a reliable ally, it seems that Northern liberals including the elements of the ruling class known as the “Liberal Establishment” played a much more crucial role in supporting civil rights. This same force did not support the more militant elements of the BLM with the same enthusiasm and I’m sure that is part of the reason that the government was able to carry out many more assassinations, harassment and dirty tricks against the BLM with such impunity.
The point I am getting at above is that it does not seem clear to my understanding of history that our notion of strategic alliance is really well grounded. While it is certainly true that the whole working class is objectively aligned with the oppressed nationalities’ struggle for justice, the majority of the working class has never made that realization and it has had over 100 years to figure it out. I do not advocate following a path where we make the white working class the enemy. On the other hand, in many cases there are other forces, even among the ruling class that can be supportive (due more to a coincidence of interests). If we see the struggle for democracy and human rights as the struggle to unite the masses around (as I do), it appears to me that the progressive wing of the white working class will be an important element of the alliance, but probably not a decisive element.
Another aspect of American politics that I have become more aware of is the electoral system. As opposed to Europe, American politicians are elected directly by the masses. This makes American political parties far less ideological and far more pragmatic then their European counterparts. This is for several reasons:
1. Large non-local (state and national) political organizations and politicians depend on local political organizations and politicians for support. In many (if not most) cases, a non-local office seeker has no real chance of uniting his or her constituency ideologically, many of the contradictions between different supporters are too strong. An example is Illinois where a successful run for state or national office means uniting people from Chicago as well as “down state” – non-Chicago metropolitan. The concerns of these two groups are many times at opposite polar ends.
2. Many local politicians cannot raise enough funds themselves to defeat their opponent. State wide or national political organizations can provide economic backing and other high visibility activities. In this way, except in rare circumstances such as abortion, local politicians will shy away from taking strong stands that may upset their backers at the non-local level.
3. American business sees the media’s primary role as an advertizing machine. If a media institution becomes too “politicized” – ideological – it reduces its marketing potential and advertisers get more exposure per advertizing dollar from a less “politicized” institution. Thus the more ideological media institutions have become marginalized. Politicians follow suit for the above reasons and because they are trying to reach the same “markets”. In fact advertizing is playing a larger and larger role in politics all the time.
This has led to a situation that most of us find highly frustrating. Not only are the struggles for justice ignored. When they are not ignored, in many cases the enemy will viciously attack the movement one day, and later on pretend that (s)he was always a supporter or worse yet the leader of the movement. This can go on since the media is owned by a small number of wealthy reactionaries and local media personalities care more about their market share than they do about reality. Thus the whole onus of educating, organizing and informing the masses falls on a small number of progressives and their allies. Furthermore, in most cases in this country (though not for the LRS for quite some time), the progressive response is a whining polemic against the unfairness of the media – usually based in some ideological formulations that ignore American realities. This serves to further isolate progressive forces. One of the outcomes has been a call for a 3rd party – a labor or progressive mass party.
The Rainbow Coalition seems to be a far more creative way of doing progressive politics than trying to create a mass party with a particular ideology or even class base. It has all of the elements of pragmatism that seem to be products of our form of government. It just uses that pragmatism for progressive ends. This seems to confuse a lot of the traditional left who want to rid the Rainbow of its “non-progressive” elements.
On the other hand, many of Jesse’s supporters would never support his platform on their own. But due to his stature and influence, they realize that their ambitions will be satisfied more if they support Jesse. Thus many conservative (to be polite) Afro-American politicians go out of their way to be seen as strong Jackson supporters. The same for Latino, Asian and some farm country politicians. This obviously aids the struggle much more than a smaller but purer Rainbow ever would.
We saw much of the same in Harold Washington’s 2 mayoral races. Harold’s death and the subsequent split in the Black community also offer some hard lessons.
While the interests of the Black bourgeoisie played a critical role in Harold’s election, they did not play the leading role. The interests of the masses for justice played the leading role. Harold understood this and he was able to unite the masses and thus the more reactionary forces in the Black community as well. The more narrow nationalist forces can get a majority of the Afro-American vote, but they can not get the same numbers to come out with anywhere the same enthusiasm. Also, the progressive wing of the Afro-American community and progressives in general do not yet have any leader who understands what it takes to create a winning movement (or at least anyone who can carry it out).
What I said about Harold also appears to be true about Jesse. The enthusiasm that can be developed around the struggle of the oppressed for justice can lay the basis for a majority coalition. I think this is the key lesson that I have learned over the last 10 years.
To my mind this means that strategically, we still need to mobilize the oppressed. That mobilization can bring out all kinds of allies from many different classes and strata. We need to be able to understand why different forces can unite with the oppressed and how to keep them united. This seems to me what we have been doing for the last several years. It is clearly difficult, though not impossible. This does seem to be a much broader approach than what my understanding is of the strategic alliance.
One final bit of analysis. The Democratic party was the party of slavery. It also was the party of Jim Crow including during the new deal. The struggles of the 60s forced the Democrats to support civil rights legislation and set the Democratic party against itself. This was the real basis of Nixon’s “southern strategy” – to win over the supporters of Jim Crow and the Klan to the Republican party. Having done this, the Republicans have been able to win every presidential election but one since 1968.
The Democrats have held onto Congress and many local offices. I do not think this is because the American public likes to have the President and Congress balance themselves politically as many media types have put forward. 1 think the reason is that many local Democratic politicians have changed very little in the last 30 years (except for staying away from explicit racist pronouncements). These politicians still get elected to Congress and still support national Democratic presidential candidates (at least on paper). Their constituencies can easily be motivated by racist fear and hysteria.
The Republicans realize this, so they pull the Willie Horton trick on the Democrats and watch the Democrats freeze. The regular Democrats (especially those in the Democratic Leadership Council) fight vigorously against appearing strongly anti-racist since they are trying to convince the racists to come back and vote for a Democrat for president. But the other wing of the Democratic party gets demoralized (and excluded by the same forces I might add) by this and finds it difficult to come out and support the Democratic presidential candidate. So the Republicans win and never get seriously challenged for their nakedly racist appeal. I might add that Richard Phelan used a similar ploy against Eugene Pincham in the latest Cook County Democratic primary. Except for Pincham’s supporters and a few progressive journalists, Phelan’s racism has been ignored.
This puts the Democratic party in an interesting bind and makes it clear which direction the Rainbow must follow for victory (and is following as far as I know). To win a presidential election, the Democrats must register the unregistered, especially among the minority populations. These voters will not be easily manipulated by racist appeals. These same voters will not support the local Democratic politicians who have run the Democratic party though. Thus to win on a national level, the Democratic party will have to be transformed on a local level. So an important tactical question becomes to discover how to create local coalitions to expand the Democratic party. Winning over local Afro-American, Latino or Asian politicians who have not been progressive but have organizations that can be of use can be important. Many times these politicians have also been stymied in their ambitions by a local Democratic party. They may be able to play a good role when they see how mobilizing people around demands for justice can also benefit their careers. Of course there are also dangers here, and I am sure we can and will make many mistakes. But I see no other way to proceed.
One final note. I see the movement for a safe environment as part of the struggle for human rights internationally. The environment is not being harmed as an isolated system. Its damage is due mostly to capitalism and imperialism (at least in the Americas and most of the third world) and the oppressed people in the world also suffer the most from environmental damage. I think that the environmental movement will become stronger as it unites more with the movement of oppressed people and worries less about offending wavering elements (though I do not mean to suggest that environmentalists should completely ignore the sensibilities of their middle class supporters). I hope to have more out on this later.