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Title: A Revolutionary Left Author: Sojurner Truth Organization Date: 1981 Language: en Topics: Revolutionary Socialism, Bring the Ruckus, organization Source: Retrieved on March 14, 2019 from https://web.archive.org/web/20190314161028/http://www.bringtheruckus.org/?q=node/29 Notes: Introductory note by Bring the Ruckus.
Sojourner Truth Organization was a revolutionary cadre organization in
the 1970s and ‘80s that followed the ideas of the radical Marxist
theorist C.L.R. James. STO’s analysis of race has strongly influenced
Bring the Ruckus’s politics. (Ex-STO members edit the journal and web
site Race Traitor, which has also been influential within BTR.) Many of
us in BTR have also been influenced by STO’s distinct approach to
developing revolutionary theory and strategy. STO placed the struggle
against white supremacy at the center of class struggle. They also
argued (with James) that a free society emerges from the desires and
actions of the working class itself, not the teachings or leadership of
a vanguard.
In this article, STO sets out what it believes are the basic political
points a revolutionary organization needs to adopt in 1981. We publish
it here because we feel it’s worth thinking about how these points apply
to our situation in 2004. In the midst of the frenzy within the left to
get out the vote for Kerry and to defeat Bush, there are important
lessons to learn from STO’s attempt “to organize counter to a real drift
to the right within the left.”
---
For a number of years Sojourner Truth Organization has worked to develop
a distinct tendency. Initially, we defined this tendency as
“anti-imperialist,” but our attempts to define it further and to
consolidate it organizationally convinced us that it could not be
developed out of those groups which labeled their politics as
anti-imperialist. Differences on central political issues and the
absence of any overriding external pressure towards unity were too much
to counter.
STO has been rethinking its concepts over the past couple of years. We
have not moved away from the view that the development of a political
tendency holds out more potential that any of the traditional
party-building models, but we have changed our conception of the
character of the tendency and of the steps involved in building it.
Below we include our conception of what the politics of such a formation
should be. Of course, much more is involved this project than political
agreement on points of unity, and we are also including some of our
ideas about the current political situation in the country and about how
the tendency should initially be brought together.
The objective ingredients of a social crisis exist in this country, but
until this point they have only manifested themselves in brief episodes
of mass struggle. It should be clear, then, that we are not purporting
to describe current reality when we argue that the restricted options of
the US ruling class, combined with the degree of polarization in mass
consciousness, require that we plan in anticipation of rapidly
accelerating mass struggle and confrontation.
Our experience of a period of mass struggle, and that of most of those
we address, derives from the sixties. Although we do not want to
minimize what can be learned and applied from that experience,
particularly in terms of the rapidity and explosiveness with which the
movement can change, we believe that there will be significant
differences in the eighties. These need to be stressed.
The mass Black movement and its revolutionary component was a
tremendously important innovative factor in the sixties. There are some
hopeful signs that this movement is recovering from the massive attacks
it received during the early seventies, but it looks like a long process
with many ups and downs. At this point neither the Black nor any other
mass vanguard force apparent to us provides an underlying dynamic
parallel to the one that pulled the entire movement forward during the
sixties. While we must do what we can to facilitate the development of
the Black movement, those of us whose main activity will be with the
white working people cannot rely on that movement to provide the same
leadership that it did in the previous period-at least for the
relatively short-term perspective addressed here.
In the sixties, the world revolutionary movement, Algeria, Cuba, China,
and above all Vietnam, constituted a very important pole of attraction
for radicalized sectors which developed in all areas of struggle. The
potential-and the reality-of national liberation and socialism appeared
much less ambiguous than they do today. It is hard to believe that the
notion of joining people around the world in an inevitably victorious
struggle will find the sort of spontaneous mass audience which it did in
the sixties.
Another difference that must be considered is in mass working class
attitudes and potentials. This is a complicated and controversial topic,
but we would make some generalizations. The insurgency of the sixties in
the U.S., unlike Italy and France, did not involve workers as workers
until the end of the period, and, even then it was limited to specific
areas and issues. However, the sixties had a deep impact on working
class consciousness. This is expressed in an openness to radical ideas
and radical methods, a massive disaffection with “their” organizations
and “their” leaders, a willingness to challenge patterns of oppression
and privilege on questions of race and sex, identification with
anti-capitalist aspects of popular culture. Combined with these factors
is the impact of the qualitative deterioration of the economic and
social conditions of working class life in the last decade. This all
contributes to a massive sentiment of no confidence-no confidence in the
system, but also no confidence in the future and in the working class.
An extremely volatile situation. One way or the other, the insurgencies
of the eighties will be based in the working class. The class will not
be indifferent or passive. It will be the decisive arena of struggle,
containing active poles of revolutionary anti-capitalism and fascist
reaction.
The final point, which we would make, is also a difference in the
sixties. Then the communists and their parties were not much of a
factor. The CPUSA was lost in a dead right-wing sectarianism and the
rest were extremely weak and, with a few exceptions, unable and
unwilling to recognize and capitalize on the potential of the mass
movement. At first thought it might appear that now we are far ahead in
this regard. One of the most visible remnants of the sixties is a
significant stratum of organized leftists and communists. It is
inconceivable that any major struggle will develop without the immediate
intervention of communists of a variety of affiliations. In many cases,
individual communists will achieve positions of mass influence.
Unfortunately it is not clear to us that this marks an advance over the
sixties.
The overriding tendency of the US left, cutting across what appear to be
insurmountable organizational barriers, is towards centrism and away
from its function as a genuine left providing to the best of its ability
an alternative to all forms and alternatives of capitalist power. There
are some smaller groups which do attempt to present something of a
left-critique of this dominant tendency, but they are either hopelessly
sectarian, hysterically posing themselves against mass struggles and
short-circuiting the process of internal development within the
struggle, or they flop their position the moment they achieve the
slightest bit of mass influence. This situation requires the development
of a left-tendency, willing to function as a left, but avoiding any
messianic sense of its own “vanguard” character.
We know that the ingredients for such a tendency exist. It would not be
developed from nothing; however, the various components must be
organized in some kind of national framework in order to have any
impact. This involves a series of problems.
The difficulty of achieving agreement among those who are defined by
their proclivity towards disagreement and criticism is obvious.
Achieving political agreement is not our only difficulty; there is also
a problem in developing a sense of a practical project held in common.
We are proposing to organize counter to a real drift to the right within
the left. This drift is clothed in all sorts of rationales and
arguments. It is “realistic politics”; it is actually concerned with
mass needs and grievances, not its own plans and projections. “Concrete”
objectives are counter posed to “utopian” visions and “ultra-left”
rhetoric. Potential participants in the tendency we are projecting are
commonly quite pessimistic about their ability to resist effectively the
general drift to the right. We have a problem then, of accumulating a
sufficient “critical mass” to embody the exiting political agreement and
perspectives in joint activity and organization.
There is no single organization, and by that we mean specifically STO,
that can gather such a tendency around itself. However, there will
inevitably be suspicions, based on very real experiences in other
“tendencies” that this is exactly what we have in mind. We do not expect
that any who are skeptical will accept our professions of intent at
their face value. Nor should they. However, we hope that the specific
ways which we propose to begin the process will minimize doubts.
The following five points are STO’s conception of the politics of this
tendency. In a certain sense, they derive from our notion of proletarian
autonomy, if the revolutionary force creating itself through overcoming
of its internal antagonisms-a notion that calls for recognition of both
the actuality of the revolutionary process and the self-contained
elements that prevent its fulfillment. They are not our minimum points;
nor are they the totality of our politics, but what we believe are the
best way to define a distinct tendency of the revolutionary left. We
understand that any serious group will want to debate them and offer
alternatives, and that discussion we see as one aspect of the initial
formation of the tendency.
revolutionary strategy must confront it directly as it affects the ideas
and actions of white working people. The institution of white supremacy
rests on white privileges, relative advantages economically, politically
and socially, which are the necessary other side to the denial of
equality to people of color. White supremacy heavily influences the
politics of white working people, but it is not the only determinant. In
fact it is counter to their class interests, interests which are forced
to the surface in the course of social production and class struggle.
This contradiction in the experience of white working people makes it
possible to challenge white supremacy effectively in a mass way by
building on the experience of class solidarity that cut across racial
and national lines. The main guarantee that white supremacy will be
dealt with in a principled and effective manner is the existence of a
autonomous movements of nationally oppressed peoples. Respect for such
autonomous forms is an essential condition for the development of a mass
movement in the US. Further. They constitute an essential mass
prefigurement of the possibility of revolutionary reconstitution of the
social order.
systemic problems of capitalism. There is a widespread popular
appreciation of the depth and magnitude of the problems. This adds to a
passivity that grows and cynicism in combination with a deeply radical
sense of the character of the problems, lowest common denominator
organizing strategies will not be effective even with their limited
sense of efficacy. The left must meet this situation by posing an
alternative to all the policy options of the ruling class, not just
those presented by the “right,” nor those of the sector which now has
governmental control. While it is our estimate that US capitalism
currently has relatively little of the economic and political
flexibility which would provide the motives for and possibility of major
reforms, this does not mean that a revolutionary alternative to it is
presented within the struggle for limited objectives. On the other hand,
involvement in such struggles must be tempered with the understanding
that their likely frustration is going to expand the base for a fascist
movement.
respect for the “order’ and legality which the system has established.
The major mass institutions which embody this capitalist hegemony, trade
unions, electoral parties, will lose their popular legitimacy as the
become unable to organize a legal struggle for reforms while being
unwilling to organize for more basic change. It must be expected that
any real mass movement will be met by organized state repression which
will force it to move beyond a “legal” protest and to utilize various
forms of mass violence. A left, which does not count on this
development, is myopic. One, which fears and opposes it, is not a left
in any real sense.
Fighting the yoke of both class oppression and make supremacy, their
quest for total liberation has the potential to lead women to take a
revolutionary stance. A left must recognize that sexual equality and
sexual freedom, in their broadest interpretation, are essential issues
and demands that the revolutionary movement must take up. A full
understanding of the question therefore involves respect for the
autonomous organizations of women that have played a key role in
insuring that women’s liberation is taken up and insuring that the
movement develops a revolutionary character.
self-emancipation of the working class. It is not a gift bestowed by a
revolutionary vanguard. It is not nationalized factories and state
farms. An understanding of and appreciation for the existing elements of
mass creativity and a program to develop and generalize them is an
essential feature of the relationship of a left to the broader movement.
It is also the basic point of reference from which the debate about the
nature of socialism, and of societies which so defined themselves, must
proceed. We believe that this debate is vital and oppose any attempts to
close it off by establishing rigid definitions and principles at this
point.
We would also argue that there is no point to the formation of a
tendency which is not oriented towards immediate and active intervention
in the mass struggle an in the left-particularly on a national level. Of
course this must be done within the limits of our scarce resources, but
we see no potential for a grouping that is defined by joint work, nor
for a perspective that sees the various elements of activity on a local
basis as the essential character of the tendency.
Finally, STO puts a large priority on theoretical work. We will argue
that the tendency must do this also. We believe that there is a crisis
of Marxist theory, that all of the major questions of analysis and
perspective are open questions and that wide-ranging debate and
discussion are not a subtraction from an activist orientation, but an
indispensable addition to it. In no way do we see the points of
political agreement above as functioning to end debate or even to limit
it. They are a proposal for some provisional initial positions, a point
from which to begin.