I feel that the changes proposed by the CC majority are necessary at this time in order for our work here to move forward and reach its full potential. I am submitting this paper in the hope that people in other areas can learn from our experiences.
Our ties, influence and work in the electoral and social service agency arenas in Watsonville have made it possible for us to greatly expand our work and ties among lover-strata workers during the past year. We have been able to use these positions to concretely help empower the working class and Latino community in Watsonville. For this reason it is very important for us to figure out how to protect people in these positions from attack and to more fully utilize these positions to raise the organized strength of the masses.
The election of a progressive City Council majority in December 1989 represents a real change in the balance of forces in this community. In particular, the victory of Oscar Rios has made City government more accountable to the Latino majority. He has encouraged workers and community people to attend Council meetings to express their concerns. This has never happened before, and it has changed the whole atmosphere of the meetings. Rios won Spanish translation of City Council meetings, enabling the Latino majority to participate in the political life of the community for the first time. He has held regular open meetings in the community so that people can raise concerns directly to him and to City staff.
Since the elections, for a lot of Latinos, for the first time they feel there is someone who listens to their concerns, someone who is not afraid to speak up. People with all kinds of problems come to Rios for help, because him being on the Council represents the first time that there is anyone with real power that they could even approach.
The Rios victory helped to institutionalize a greater degree of Latino empowerment and representation when he appointed Latinos to City commissions such as Planning, Parks and Recreation, Personnel. The Commissioners are gaining experience in running the City that will prepare them to run for and hold elected office.
Rios utilized his position as Council member to draw attention to the Green Giant plant closing and help the workers there get organized. He introduced a Council resolution against the Green Giant plant closing, and he utilized his ties to generate the funds to enable him to travel to Mexico to investigate the company’s plans. By taking a stand on the plant closing and meeting with the workers, Rios vas able to encourage them to get organized. These workers had never before spoken in public or attended union meetings, but they learned how to speak, how to write, how to run a meeting, and they won some real concessions from the company.
There are other examples as well where we have been able to utilize our positions to get resources to help, organize, and empower people. For example, our influence in WAIDR (Watsonville Area Interfaith Disaster Relief) and in the City Council made it possible to get funding to launch a major expansion of the Centro Trabajadores de Caneria Summer Youth Program. This will enable us to really expand our work among the FEMA trailer residents, provide them with leadership training in order to help them emerge as more of an organized force.
I do not feel that the gains that we have made in Watsonville are because of our grasp of Marxist-Leninism. Our work has moved forward to this point mainly because we proceed from the interests of the people, we have good ties with the people, and because we have some very committed organizers.
We try to approach people with an attitude of respect, and we try to include and involve people. In the Rios campaign we had to help people overcome the feeling that voting never changes anything. We approached the campaign with a lot of enthusiasm, and we encouraged people by telling them that in this election, their vote counts, that district elections are an historic victory that we can take advantage of.
Another factor in our success is that our participation In the City Council elections enabled us to tap the resources of the whole district and more effectively involve cadres of all different nationalities. Since everyone is affected by the decisions of the city council, there is a basis for anyone who lives here to become part of the campaign process. This made it possible for us to really throw our district resources behind the campaign in a way that we were not able to do before.
To some people what we are doing here is M-L. Some people may even feel that anything that empowers the working class is M-L. But that means stretching the definition of M-L to the point where the term becomes meaningless. That’s not the way most people view M-L, or even the way that most M-L’s view M-L.
Watsonville has a mayor and a vice-mayor who both consider themselves socialists and have belonged to socialist organizations in the past. Why do neither of them identify themselves as members of a socialist organization today?
Despite the gains we made in the last elections, the right is still very strong here. The vice-mayor has been subjected to a constant stream of attacks in the local press since before he was elected, including allegations that (1) he was not a U.S. citizen; (2) he was taking advantage of the earthquake to further his political ambitions; and (3) that he is a member of a secret Marxist-Leninist organization (the LRS).
As an organization, we have been subjected to some fairly serious attacks. An unsuccessful candidate for City Council went to the Justice Department to allege that the LRS had taken over local social service agencies. Funding for these agencies has been jeopardized, straining our relations with agency directors. Some of our people have been forced out of their jobs as a consequence of this redbaiting.
In this context, for the mayor and vice-mayor to come out publicly as members of a socialist organization would only further fan up attacks from the right In a situation where the masses do not yet have the organized strength to defend them. As a consequence, these officials would be isolated. Even if reelected, their ability to win higher office would be severely jeopardized. Concretely this means less access to government, less resources, less self-confidence, and less political power for the working class and the Latino community.
Under these circumstances, it would be irresponsible for these officials to identify themselves as members of a socialist organization. I even feel that it would be irresponsible for them to be secret members of a socialist organization.
It is a significant victory that socialists have been able to win elected office in other parts of the country. But if our experience in Watsonville is at all representative, it would be a serious mistake for us to think of or describe ourselves as a socialist organization. We can accomplish a lot more if we take a more flexible approach. People in our organization who consider themselves socialists may want to run for office as socialists, but we should not dictate to other members of the organization who want to run for office how they should do it.
I think that for many of us have a lot of loyalty to the LRS because we feel our organization is concretely helping the working class and people of color have more power in this society. Ultimately this means making revolution.
I feel that our work in Watsonville is contributing to this goal in a real way. Not only have we helped the masses win some victories that make their lives a little better, they are forcing local government to be more accountable to them, thereby emerging as a recognized political force in real life.
At this time, continuing as a Marxist-Leninist or socialist organization would jeopardize all of the gains we have made in Watsonville. The changes proposed by the Central Committee majority offers a way for us to protect and consolidate our work, and at the same time opens up dramatically new and exciting possibilities. The proposed changes will enable us to recruit a significant number of Spanish-speaking workers who already agree with us politically but whom we are not able to integrate into our present organizational structure. At the same time the proposed changes will help to create a more open atmosphere where we are feared and attacked less. As a consequence, progressive and revolutionary-minded people in all walks of life will feel more comfortable working with and joining our organization.