Revive the struggle for socialism
By Larry Holmes
The following is excerpted from a talk given by Holmes, a
member of Workers World Party's Secretariat, to a Sept. 20
meeting in New York City.
What are our big problems as activists,
militants, socialists and all revolutionaries, both in the
United States and around the world? Well, there is U.S.
imperialism, which is on the rampage, unchecked. There's Bush.
There is this deepening capitalist crisis, which is
intensifying exploitation and oppression. There are
unprecedented dangers for a world at the mercy of a new violent
and destructive phase of imperialism.
But that's just one side of the problem.
The other aspect of the problem is on our side of the class
barrier. Those of us in the socialist movement with an
anti-imperialist, revolutionary outlook--whatever the political
differences among parties and organizations that have managed
to hold onto a generally revolutionary perspective and play a
key role in organizing the surprisingly strong mass resistance
to U.S imperialism's endless war--such organizations, and we
count ourselves among them, are waging an uphill battle to
attain real political influence within the broad working class,
the unions, and the mass movement.
The seriousness of the world crises has made us sharply
aware that we must find the way to strengthen our position
among the workers, especially those who are becoming
radicalized and who are in motion. This is in order to wage a
far more effective and bolder class struggle to answer the
day-in, day-out class war waged against us by an unstable
capitalist system ever more prone to resort to economic and
military war against the people of the planet.
The reality is that our class worldwide, but especially here
at the center of U.S. imperialism, needs strong leadership and
strong organizations. If this problem is avoided or denied it
will only leave the working class more and more disoriented,
disorganized, immobilized and at the mercy of bourgeois
ideology.
New anger rising
Today in the United States, even after what has seemed like
an endless mood of defensiveness and passivity on the part of
key sectors of the working class, a new anger is rising from
below. It is there, from the tens of thousands of striking
grocery workers to the legions of new immigrant workers who
have brought new militancy and a high level of class
consciousness to the many industries in which they have become
the predominant force.
And it's scaring the hell out of a capitalist establishment
that for quite some time has been convinced that it has the
workers under control.
The question must be asked: Can the vanguard organizations
help this new tide of struggle, influence it, help sustain it
and foster meaningful solidarity with it? The answer is clear.
Only if we strengthen ourselves to the point where we can go on
the offensive politically--or more to the point, advance the
struggle for socialism.
Many of us who are serious about socialism have felt like we
were on the defensive. But the event of course that accentuated
this problem and pushed it to a higher level, made it an even
deeper crisis, was the collapse of the Soviet Union. As we look
back to 1991, we might say that this event signified the
beginning of a new obstacle for the struggle for socialism. In
many ways, we have been waiting for the opportunity to open up
a new chapter in the struggle for worldwide socialism.
There is reason to believe that now is such a time.
There is a relatively large political movement that has been
radicalized and mobilized by the war. There have been huge
demonstrations like the ones last spring. This movement needs a
worldwide revolutionary socialist perspective. Armed with such
a perspective, the movement will be far better prepared to
uphold real internationalism in the struggle.
What this means is the ability to see the struggle against
the war as not merely the desire for peace, or merely important
because of the toll it has taken on the lives of U.S. soldiers
or the enormous amount of money that has been wasted on it.
There is nothing wrong with those reasons for opposing war
and occupation. But the movement cannot sustain itself,
comprehend events and remain independent unless it clearly sees
itself as part of a world movement to defeat imperialism and to
support the liberation struggle of all who find themselves
under the thumb of imperialism. It is ultimately impossible to
uphold such a position unless you see the struggle as a means
to replace imperialism with a fundamentally different social
order that acts in the interests of humanity.
If there is not a broad socialist movement with strong
organizations that one way or another is influencing the
struggle in that direction, then it should come as no surprise
that some opponents of the war conclude: "Why not have the
United Nations come in and take over Iraq? True, the UN is
dominated by imperialist powers, but what's the alternative? At
least the U.S. role would be diminished."
The imperialists act in their own interests. But if there is
no alternative world struggle for socialism that has growing
influence in the mass movement, why would someone not conclude
that the best course for the Liberian people is for the
imperialists to come there, save them, bring them food,
stabilize the situation to reduce deaths and unnecessary
casualties?
And of course the same holds true for the electoral
struggle. If there is no alternative socialist struggle, then
why should one not be for the Democratic party presidential
candidates as the only pragmatic solution to Bush? Even the
most militant activists and revolutionaries with good hearts,
who love the struggle, are affected by this.
From anti-capitalist to socialist
I often pick up "High Tech, Low Pay," by Workers World Party
founder Sam Marcy. He wrote that the new crisis in the labor
unions, which comes as a result of an entirely new phase of the
capitalist economy--restructuring engineered by the
intervention of technology--is pushing down wages and
permanently eliminating jobs on a worldwide basis.
And he pointed out how this development has the potential of
radicalizing the working-class movement. It brings to the fore
a new composition of labor.
In order to fight back against these changes in the economy,
it is necessary to move from the limitations of trade unionism
to a more bold, revolutionary, political approach--both
tactically and programmatically. In other words, an approach
more consistent with an anti-capitalist, pro-socialist
perspective.
In so many ways, the critical question of how to advance the
worldwide socialist movement affects the tenor and tone of the
struggle, of politics, in the labor movement at every level. It
affects the anti-war and anti-imperialist movement, the
struggle of colonized countries and peoples--indeed the world
class struggle between the mass of exploited and oppressed, and
the infinitely smaller but all-too-powerful class of exploiters
and oppressors.
What can we do to open up a new chapter in the struggle to
revive the world struggle for socialism?
This is a central responsibility for revolutionary
organizations and for the broader movement in the United
States. Because as the detachment of the movement located at
the center of U.S. imperialism, we have an extra obligation to
be strong, to be unflinching internationalists, to do all that
we can in the class struggle at home, the anti-war struggle at
home--but also to embrace and demonstrate concrete solidarity
with our sisters and brothers around the globe who are fighting
the imperialist empire.
Actually this is not a duty; it is a privilege that we
embrace fully.
How do we go about taking this task to the next level?
Strengthening our work in the anti-imperialist movement is
certainly a big part of this. And so is finding new and bold
ways to engage and help the process of radicalizing the broader
workers' movement.
A big problem that the movement will be grappling with for
the next 12 months is the pressure to close itself down,
suspend demonstrations, and focus solely on defeating President
Bush in the 2004 election. The broad problem with being drawn
into the "lesser of evils" desperation is that the problem is
not merely Bush or Rumsfeld or any of the other scary
"neo-cons" running the war.
It's imperialism. And it's the deepening crises that drive
this malignant system toward catastrophic acts no matter who's
in the White House.
The more practical problem is the danger that the movement
will abandon its struggle against the occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan, or the huge funding that Congress just approved
for the war, and virtually put itself on ice until after the
elections. It's a mistake that is far more likely to be made by
those in the movement who have concluded that their only
alternative is to choose between imperialist politicians,
because they lack another direction--a world direction, a
socialist direction.
Actually, both the UN Security Council that rubberstamped
the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and the U.S. Congress that
rubberstamped Bush's request for a fortune to pay for bombs,
bullets and more death and destruction, have shown once again
that they are no brake on the war. They are flunkies for
it.
Is there another alternative we can rely on to stop endless
wars and occupations?
We saw a glimpse of the working-class movement on a
worldwide basis asserting itself on the scene last spring.
Remember those incredible massive marches to stop the war?
New York Times writer Patrick Tyler wrote a front-page
article about these demonstrations in which he compared the
literally tens of millions of people who took to the streets to
a "second superpower." Tyler was earning his pay by warning the
powers that be that the movement could become a force more
powerful than the UN or any alliance of government leaders. And
that force was the mass of the people worldwide rising up from
below in a way that no one has seen in a long time, if
ever.
Such a force could tear down the old order and build a new
order, a socialist one. This is the direction we must move
in.
In December 2003, Workers World Party will be hosting a
conference with the theme "How Can the Worldwide Struggle for
Socialism Be Revived?"
This conference will be a small but timely step through
which we hope to engage activists in a serious discussion, at a
time when the mass struggle is showing signs of new life, about
how those who share the dream of a new world can go on the
offensive.
Reprinted from the Oct. 30, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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