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The
ABCs of Class Struggle
By
Aduku Addae Scientific Socialism is now just two dirty words.
One dare not mention these words in polite circles. And, that is
a grave pity, for, the organizations of the working class are in
disarray and the struggle for social equity has stagnated
because workers have foolishly abandoned five centuries of
working peoples' history. Discarded along with this history are
a unique anti-philosophy, a system of critical thought, a
methodology of struggle, and the tools for analyzing the
contemporary social drama. Assuredly, the worker's
instinct will direct him/her to the rediscovery of Scientific
Socialism. Working people have been so directed at other
times in history. I am, however, impatient of the
laborers' natural inclination to return to studying history and
shaping human destiny through self-conscious action. So,
at the risk of being impolite, perhaps to the extent of being
unpopular, I would like to initiate a discussion about
Scientific Socialism and the working class struggle in the age
of "global" Capitalism. I am not proposing here
to revive some tedious debate over "Marxist"
minutiae. I am talking about getting back to basics.
Soviet tactical exigencies gave birth to a miserable doctrine
that posited the nationalist struggle as essentially
anti-capitalist and a necessary antecedent to the working class
revolution. This doctrine which held currency for the better
part of a century showed itself to be hopelessly and
definitively bankrupt in and through the implosion and
fragmentation of the Soviet Union into nation states within the
borders of which the worst robber baron capitalism has taken
root. This, to say the least, is the essence of irony, for, it
is towards the preservation of this Stalinist monstrosity (the
Soviet Union), perceived by millions as the Mecca of socialism,
that the doctrine was aimed. But of course people get what
they work for, and the socialists of the world worked for world
capitalism, from 1917 to 1991 under the cold direction of
pragmatic Russian politicians.
One would expect that the demise of the Soviet experiment would
have signaled the beginning of a critical assessment of the
history of the Fourth International with a view to laying a
foundation for formulating a practical program of struggle for
the fifth international under 21st century conditions. It
seems, however, that the Reagan-Gorbachev onslaught not only
destroyed the crumbling edifice of the Russian Gulag, under
which the working people of Eastern Europe stood, but it sapped
the intellectual energy and destroyed the imagination of the
socialists worldwide.
The silencing of the working class and the
decade-old replacement of informed socialist discourse with the
half-wit sound bites of liberalism in the world-sociopolitical
debate is a natural consequence of generations of adherence to
the "political line" which preached the gospel of
"United Democratic Fronts" against
"Imperialism." This doctrine, as we have seen in
practice, is capitalist ideology in essence, all nationalist
struggles being ultimately directed at fortifying the capitalist
order of society. It has yielded the most repressive
and corrupt regimes in Angola, The Congo, Sudan, Egypt,
Ethiopia, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Somalia - - the
list goes on ad infinitum.
The most notable effect of this doctrine is that it sapped the
energy of the working class in imaginary battles against a
so-called imperialistic enemy. These were battles, however,
which were in reality against the working class itself.
This misguided doctrine of "anti-imperialist struggle"
is at the foundation of historic errors made by the socialist
worldwide. In Jamaica, for example, the workers movement
with its strong grass-roots (genuinely proletarian) trade
unionist structure was delivered over to the
quasi-nationalist-brown-man-parties of Norman W. Manley and
Alexander Bustamante. The genuine working class leaders such as
G. S. Coombs were consigned to oblivion and a life of hardship
and destitution. Socialist intellectuals Richard Hart and the
Hill brothers were later expelled from the People's National
Party (circa 1951).
Thus the workers' unions came to be placed
at the beck and call of generations of 'gangster' politicians in
the fractious parliamentary politics which essentially
reinforced and preserved the capitalist order of things. (That
this took place at a time when the workers were in a superb
position to gain ascendancy is, of course, unbelievable). The
same thing happened in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and the rest
of the Caribbean region. Ultimately this gave rise to the
tragicomedy that was unveiled in little Grenada and which
ultimately led to an invasion by US forces in October of 1983
under the pretext of 'saving' a group of American medical
students who were never in any danger.
Lenin's formulation that "Imperialism" was the highest
stage of capitalism is of course what started the trouble. This
misperception emanated as much from Lenin's myopic preoccupation
with Czarist Russia as from his long exilic isolation from the
Russian working class and the broader struggle in Europe.
(The European struggle of itself was an experience in isolation.
The European working class having lost the universal perspective
of the French revolutionaries, and imbibing all the bad habits
of its racist imperialists masters, overlooked the history and
experience of the most durable example of successful struggle
against 'global' capitalism manifested in the Haitian
revolution).
The record should long have been set
straight on this score. So, I am going to ask the old
doctrinaire socialist and the new anti-imperialists, especially
the Pan-Africanists among them, to repeat after me thus:
Capitalism is the bane of both Feudalism and Imperialism.
Capitalism used Imperialism for 500 years and then discarded it.
(The emergence of the USA as a world power after World War II,
in place of Imperialistic Britain, France, Japan, Italy, and
Germany, is a good indication of this. And now the imminent
decline of the USA - as it yields to the final imperialistic and
reactionary impulses of Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the
Confederate South - is even this moment in the making.)
Capitalism is the highest stage of Capitalism - no less, no
more.
The most enlightening thing that can be said about Capitalism is
that it concentrates property in the hands of a few individuals
- Capital runs to monopoly Capital - on a worldwide scale.
Practical experience has shown that capital accumulation
produces a global capitalist class united in its purpose,
disdainful of national borders and its attendant politics, and
scornful of the vestiges of nobility and religious convictions.
(Thus as the world watches we are witnessing the death of the UN
an organization rendered anachronistic by capital's
development).
The very embodiment of alienated labor,
capitalists are not connected to the rest of society by filial,
religious, tribal, cultural, or, as it turns out shockingly,
legal bonds. The substantial nexus is profit. One could
say, in Lenin's reckless manner, that the highest stage of
Capitalism is Monopoly Capitalism on a global scale - Globalism.
(This, however, is not a particularly useful point of view since
it is, in essence, 'historical reductionism,' which opens up to
a repeat of Lenin's error). In this state, globalism,
capital stands over against human society as a morbid and alien
force threatening the very existence of the planet. It
becomes the enemy of humanity.
Marx, by the way, had already delineated the course of Capital's
development, identifying its monopolistic (globalistic) nature
long before Lenin began to labor under his fateful
misconceptions.
Lenin's error cost the workers' movement eight decades in the
last century and is threatening to cost another two, or, three
decades, in this the 21st century, if the movement does not
unlearn these deeply entrenched Leninist teachings.
Working people have been misled by this Bolshevism (a
characteristic Russian misnomer) into abandoning the class
struggle in the interest of the illusion of
"democratic fronts" with petty capitalists throughout
the world. (One of course can see why Lenin would advocate
such a rapprochement with the most reprobate element in society.
His perception is clearly regressive but from the confines of
feudalistic Russia, the petit Bourgeoisie was a progressive
class. Lenin himself, as a member of the so-called
"Intelligentsia," was a member of the petit
Bourgeoisie). The workers' movement must reawaken and
urgently reassign itself a particular class agendum consistent
with its interest.
Throughout the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and
Central and South America, the working people were induced by
'socialist' wise men to render the working class agenda
ancillary to that of varied groups of small time nationalists.
The consequence of this is that while the capitalists are
organized and united under the aegis of their new capitalists'
union - global capitalism - working people are unorganized, dis-united,
and fragmented into clans supporting dysfunctional national
groups of capitalists. (American workers are slaughtering Iraqi
workers (men, women and children) in the interest of Bechtel,
Halliburton, and the myriad oil companies, i.e., in the interest
of the American Nation).
Workers have the additional burden, aside from their 'patriotic'
duty to kill each other as citizens of nations, of supporting
some of the most odious characters as leaders based on racial
(skin color) affinity in the throes of a sisyphean racial
struggle. While workers are distracted in this manner the black
leaders have closed ranks with their white counterparts in
oppressing workers on the worldwide scale.
We can break this down into more particular terms by selecting a
few examples.
In Jamaica the "black man government" of the P. J.
Patterson and the Peoples National Party has maintained a
program of austerity under the direction of the IMF and the
World Bank. This program of austerity has produced the worst
consequences for the welfare of the population of black working
people. These consequences include: 65% unemployment (this being
an unofficial, realistic, estimate put forward by sober Jamaican
commentators); repeated draconian cuts in social services; and
continually shrinking education and public health budgets in a
society that has never, ever, adequately provided for these
things. Meanwhile Dr. Omar Davies, minister of finance, the guru
of Jamaican 'trickonomics,' uses public money to buy out failed
private ventures, in essence taking from the poor to give to the
rich.
In South Africa the ANC and the emergent black elite have joined
the assault against the black workers at the bidding of the
local Boers of apartheid infamy and the global capitalist
(concealed under the veil of the IMF and World Bank). The black
government of South Africa has, over a decade of its rule,
continued to dispossess an already excruciatingly brutalized and
exploited people to an unprecedented degree in the service of
global capitalism. And, yet, the black working people align
themselves with these black leaders in a fictive struggle
against the "white supremacist." Astounding!
In the USA black workers lend unconditional support to black
pimps who keep them chasing the boogie man of "racism"
while these so-called leaders ingratiate themselves with the
practicing racist in Washington, and on Wall Street, betraying
the interest of their black 'constituents' for the proverbial 30
pieces of silver. In the meantime US workers view each
other as enemies across "black" and "white"
barricades.
The plot repeats itself in nations across the world.
As capital develops in its global dimensions and the
"bottom line" asserts itself "white
labor" is becoming as dispensable as "black
labor." Perhaps even the unthinkable is emerging as
truth: Colored labor, being cheaper, and every bit as skilled,
and therefore more in harmony with the profit motive, is
becoming more desirable than white labor. So, "white collar
jobs" are reported by the media to be leaving (white)
America for countries with very large "colored"
populations. Now, who would have 'thunk' it!
The lesson here, banal as it is, is that capital does not give a
hoot about race except to the extent that it keeps the working
class divided.
Working people have a duty to reassert the primacy of the
working class struggle over all others. The working class has no
allies among the capitalist of any country irrespective of what
their race, or, religion might be. The battle lines may
not be clearly demarcated in this era of sound bites and
systematic dis-information about "national security,"
"democratic values," and "war on terrorism"
but there is no question that the real struggle is between
capital and labor. Whatever the diversionary route taken society
shall finally come face to face with this reality. That is the
bottom line. It is time to return to basics. *
* * * *
updated 13 October
2007 |
