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A Fourth International Tendency (FIT) pamphlet, February, 1988. Used by permission.
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Last February 13th to the 15th, delegates from across the country met at the fourth national conference of the Fourth Internationalist Tendency in Cleveland Ohio. In addition to this political resolution, the conference approved reports covering international, trade union, anti-intervention, and women’s liberation work, as well as a tasks and perspectives report.
There is a threefold crisis facing working people in the United States today: 1) We confront a deepening crisis of the capitalist system in this country, which is part of the crisis of the imperialist system throughout the world. 2) The heavy weight of reformism has up to now kept the unions, the Black liberation struggle and other allies of the working class from generating an alternative leadership, one that can organize on the elementary basis of militancy, class solidarity, and independence from the capitalist government. 3) The perspective for building a revolutionary party in this country has been dramatically set back by the degeneration of the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party, and the ability of that leadership to persuade the majority of the organization to go along with them in their efforts to undermine the party’s historic revolutionary Marxist program.
Each of these three crises has its own particular dynamics and features. Yet they are at the same time interconnected aspects of a single reality. And it is no exaggeration to say that the future of the entire world hinges on whether the U.S. working class finds a way to qualitatively change that reality, on the road to the third North American revolution-the overthrow of the power of North American capitalism.
The current situation faced by the U.S. capitalist system is the culmination of forces which have been building up for the last two decades. At the start of the 1970s, the U.S. imperialist government, then headed by Richard Nixon, found that the immediate post-World War II period of unchallenged U.S. economic dominance was coming to an end. More and more the U.S. lead in productivity and technology was being challenged-in particular by West German and Japanese industry. U.S. corporations faced competition for markets they had previously taken for granted.
The result of this increased competition on a global scale was the development of a chronic crisis of capitalist overproduction – the production of more goods than can be sold for a profit, not more than can be used by society. Tied to this was an accentuation of the ongoing problem of where and how to find profitable investments. This led to a series of recessions beginning in the 1970s, with steps taken by the U.S. ruling class to try to maintain its profits.
The first, and most obvious of these steps was the launching of a series of attacks on the standard of living of working people. This began in the United States with Nixon’s “wage-price freeze” in 1971. All through the 1970s the U.S. ruling class looked for means of undermining gains won by the unions during the 1950s and ‘60s, without yet launching a head-on attack against organized labor. Then, beginning with Ronald Reagan’s brutal smashing of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) during its 1981 strike, a new phase was opened. In selected cases, where the possibility existed for success, major corporations began to take steps to deunionize their industries. In addition to direct attacks, like destroying PATCO, other methods were used for this: bankruptcies to void union contracts, closing of union plants and opening new ones on a nonunion basis, out-sourcing of previously unionized work to nonunion subcontractors, etc. This attack by the employers has been successful in reducing the absolute numbers and relative weight of the organized working class in the U.S.
The direct attack on the U.S. union movement was prepared by the concessions bargaining policy of the union bureaucracy. The unions moved onto the defensive, retreating and giving back previous gains. In the face of the capitalist crisis, with no working class program to resolve it being developed by any significant section of the labor movement, concessions seemed to most union members like the only alternative that would keep them from joining the ranks of the unorganized or the unemployed.
Structural changes taking place in the economy during this period contributed to a weakening of the unions and the condition of the working class as a whole. During the 1970s and 1980s dramatic gains were made in the productivity of labor in basic, goods-producing industry. Fewer workers were necessary to produce the products which could be profitably sold by the bourgeoisie. This put an even greater pressure on precisely that sector of the U.S. working class which had been the backbone of the organized labor movement since the 1930s (steel, auto, etc.). The kinds of labor which it represented – semiskilled, industrial production workers were less in demand. This enabled the capitalists to drive down wages as a surplus of available labor power created sharp competition.
New workers have found fewer jobs available in the old, relatively highly paid and well-organized industrial sector. Both this layer and the layer pushed out of industrial employment by the restructuring of industry have been forced into lower-paying employment in the service sector industries, maintaining the pressure to keep wages down in these areas. Though the process of transforming industrial production in this country has created a certain layer of new jobs which offer good earnings opportunities, these are reserved for the relative few who manage to obtain skills in engineering or technical fields. On the whole, the real wages of the majority of workers have declined substantially during this period.
Many commentators have treated shrinking industrial employment, declining real wages, etc., as if they are an inevitable outcome of the restructuring going on in the U.S. economy. This is incorrect. The only objective realities are the economic crisis itself and the increased productivity of industrial labor. All the rest are social consequences resulting from decisions made by the minority of society that owns and controls its productive machinery.
There is absolutely no material reason, for example, why the same proportion of industrial workers cannot be employed today as twenty years ago, with an overall reduction in hours but no cut in pay. They would still be able to produce more goods, that is, more real usable values for society as a whole. Nor is there any law of economics which requires that workers in educational institutions, or hospitals, or other areas of “service” employment must receive lower wages than those in industrial jobs. The results of the crisis and the restructuring take the form that they do simply, and solely, because the primary power to make decisions about employment patterns and wages in specific industries remains in the hands of the bosses. So long as the workers fail to challenge that power, the decisions of the owners of capital and their government take on the appearance of objective laws. But that is only an appearance.
The process of shifting wealth from the workers to the bosses to help maintain the profit level of the capitalists in the face of their economic crisis has taken other forms as well. The capitalists have used their government to restructure the tax system increasingly in their favor. New tax legislation was enacted shortly after Reagan took office, designed to give massive breaks to big corporations. Most recently, the “Tax Reform Act” of 1986 completely revised the income tax code, dramatically decreasing the share of taxes which will be paid by the corporations and the wealthy.
Similar developments to those in the United States have been taking place – to a greater or lesser degree – in all of the major imperialist countries. The crisis is an international crisis, and the solutions which are being sought by the bourgeoisie are international solutions-despite the fact that every national imperialist ruling class must look out for its own interests above all, and will frequently act to advance those interests even when they conflict with the overall objective of maintaining the imperialist system as a viable international entity. This is one of the insoluble contradictions faced by the bourgeoisie stemming from the fundamentally national character of the capitalist economic system.
The attack on the working classes in the imperialist centers is not the only way through which the capitalists have tried to maintain their profits despite the difficulty of finding markets and investment opportunities in a period of severe overproduction. The fantastic growth of Third-World debt is another. This serves a two-fold function. First, money capital which would otherwise have had a problem finding profitable use is loaned, at rates of interest acceptable to the imperialists, to Third World countries. Second, these countries are expected to use the money to buy industrial products from the imperialists.
At the same time that this burden of debt has been imposed, the economies of these countries have been further undermined by the erosion of the prices paid for their basic exports: agricultural products and raw materials. It therefore became qualitatively more difficult for most of them to earn the foreign exchange necessary to repay the loans which have been incurred.
(There are a few exceptions such as South Korea, where the loans taken from the imperialists were used to create industries- electronics, automobiles, shipbuilding. These have been able to compete on favorable terms because of the extremely low wages of their workers. But in Korea there has now been a sharp upturn in workers’ struggles.)
Despite the extreme imbalance of wealth today between the industrial countries and those which are less developed, the imperialists do not hesitate to impose conditions on the dependent countries which further exacerbate the economic imbalance – to the point of a severe economic and political destabilization for imperialism’s junior partners.
An additional approach which was taken to try to avoid the effects of the international economic crisis-in particular the problem of what to do with surplus capital – was an extensive boom in investment in nonproductive areas: real estate, purely speculative monetary ventures, etc. These types of investments, however, produce no new values which increase the wealth available to society. Because of this, these sorts of monetary activities only postpone for a short time the problems inherent in the crisis of overproduction. They can never resolve things in any fundamental way. The same can be said about the massive explosion of consumer and corporate debt in the U.S., which, like the third world debt, generates a demand for industrial goods and services which temporarily hides the fact that the bourgeois system is producing more than it can sell.
The “Reagan recovery” has been simply and purely a recovery of capitalist profits, not a recovery that resolved anything fundamental about the U.S. economy. It is a recovery which has taken place at the expense of the workers and of the poorer nations. While it has been successful in postponing the ultimate crisis for a period of time, the usual result of such a postponement is that the next wave of the crisis (perhaps heralded by the stock market crash of October 19, 1987) will be even deeper and far more destructive in its effects.
The economic situation is only one aspect, though by far the most important, of the crisis of the capitalist system today. Alongside and in connection with it is a profound crisis of government credibility and social confidence. This manifests itself clearly through the growing opposition to imperialist foreign policy and through protest movements which arise on a broad range of issues. And it is felt less tangibly, though no less vitally, in the form of increased alienation felt by broad layers among the oppressed nationalities, youth, the elderly, etc.
In the face of these problems inherent in the bourgeois economic and political system, there is no significant tendency within the organized workers’ movement of this country which has systematically posed a proletarian solution. But ferment has begun, raising the most elementary questions of the class struggle: trade-union militancy, democracy, national and international working class solidarity, and political independence from the bourgeoisie.
Isolated, partial efforts at a fightback against the ruling class offensive are being seen. Most notable was that by the workers at the George A. Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota. The Hormel fight began to generalize its lessons and reach out effectively to other unionists around the country when the struggle in Austin itself faced a severe crisis – as a result of intervention by the national guard. But the Austin workers faced a severe attack by the bosses and in the end were sabotaged by the leaders of their own international union. This illustrates one of the basic problems for militant workers today: how to overcome the weight of a conservative bureaucracy on their struggles. Despite the defeat in Austin, many other workers appreciated the valuable example set by the Hormel experience – in terms of rank-and-file activity, democratic functioning, and a local leadership which relied on and respected the wishes of the membership.
There are other recent fightback experiences, some of which have led to victories, or partial gains, for the workers involved. Examples include the Oregon State Employees strike and that of the Watsonville Cannery workers. But we have yet to experience in the 1980s victories, such as occurred in the ‘30s in Minneapolis, Toledo, and San Francisco, which can spark a major working class upsurge and a renewal of the labor movement. Such breakthroughs for the labor movement are unquestionably brewing however, in the rising discontent being expressed in hundreds of local unions throughout the country.
There is, of course, no lack of false solutions proposed by the present crop of reactionary trade-union leaders. Unable to break free from a narrow identification of their own interests with those of the ruling class which they serve, this parasitic layer projects a series of ineffective, parochial, and narrow national-chauvinist responses to the crisis. Their outlook can be summed up with the words “concessions” and “protectionism.” Yet neither concessions nor protectionism offers even a short-term solution for the bureaucracy, let alone for the union ranks.
The basic assumption behind the original concessionary agreements made by a number of major trade unions was that the givebacks were only temporary, to help tide the employers over hard times. When prosperity returned the workers were supposed to get their fair share. But despite the well-documented and highly touted recovery of profits over the last five or six years, not a single union that granted “temporary” concessions has been able to win back those wages and benefits which were given away. Corporations now demand concessions without even pleading poverty, when they show record profits – claiming that this is necessary in order for them to outstrip their competitors both here and abroad. There is no limit to the greed of the bourgeoisie, no profit margin that they consider high enough.
The effect of the concessionary movement has been purely and simply to weaken the unions. As the wages and conditions of union workers sink closer to those of non-union with whom the bosses insist they must compete-workers see less reason to have a union. The process of negotiating concessions has further undermined union consciousness, which began to deteriorate in the 1950s as the labor movement became more openly class collaborationist and corrupt. This process affects not only older, more established unions, but also the ability to organize the unorganized, contributing to the overall decline of the organized labor movement in the U.S. today.
Although the union bureaucracy has caved in to the bosses’ demands for concessions, the ruling class has not gone along with the labor officialdom’s desire for protectionist legislation. This idea strikes a favorable chord among some more shortsighted ruling class elements, but it does not enjoy majority support and is unlikely to be implemented in the immediate future. The trade union bureaucrats remember little in the way of history – either of the union movement or of the dynamic of previous economic crises. But the majority of the ruling class appreciates the disastrous effect which protectionist legislation played in accentuating the economic calamity of the 1930s. They are not looking for a repeat performance.
“U.S. jobs” cannot be protected by excluding products from other countries. The inevitable result of erecting increased U.S. tariff barriers sufficient to have any substantial effect is reciprocal action by other governments. Far more U.S. jobs will be lost through the shrinking of international markets than could possibly be gained in the U.S. market alone.
But the problem with the slogan of “keeping U.S. jobs” runs deeper than that. It fosters a divisive, narrow, chauvinistic nationalism at a time when internationalist workers’ solidarity is a necessity – because the corporations are international, imperialism is international, and the problems are international.
Is it really in the interests of U.S. workers to fight for “our jobs” by putting workers in Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Mexico, Korea, or Brazil out of work? Can that truly advance our struggle? The bureaucrats cannot supply any other answer, and extend the logic of this so that workers in New Jersey are urged to keep “their” jobs at the expense of those in California, etc., etc. All of this serves to undermine labor solidarity, weaken the working class, and strengthen the bosses. Whether on a national or international level, that sort of “solution” is a disaster.
There is an important discussion taking place within the U.S. labor movement on the need for international solidarity rather than competition with workers in other countries. The debate over U.S. Central America policy in the AFL-CIO is a prime example of this. The development of a significant wing of the official trade union leadership which tends to identify with the struggles of working people in Central America, rather than with the efforts of the U.S. ruling class and its allies to suppress those struggles, is an important step forward – even if this current remains hesitant and uneven in its consciousness. Likewise, the positions taken by many unions regarding South Africa and apartheid offer an important opportunity for discussion and education.
New explosions around the world-such as the current struggle of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will continue to alert U.S. labor to oppression abroad. Here, too, there will be openings to bring up issues of working class solidarity and the links between U.S. foreign policy and repressive governments in other countries.
The trade union bureaucracy is not homogeneous. There are three broad groupings that can be detected. First, there are the “mainstream” business unionists who haven’t changed much from the days of Samuel Gompers, the pioneer of this current. These bureaucrats consciously base themselves on a layer of the more privileged, and socially backward, sections of the unions. They are avowedly class collaborationist and seek to get some crumbs to maintain their base. AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland is the foremost leader of this current.
Secondly, there are the social democrats, who themselves are divided into left and right wings. The right wing is very right indeed, sometimes supporting Reagan, always supporting the CIA and State Department, and opposing affirmative action, comparable worth, and other progressive trends. Albert Shanker, head of the American Federation of Teachers, is the outstanding example of this “state department socialist” current.
The left wing of the social democracy is more interested in trying to influence and co-opt the more militant components of the labor movement – Blacks, women, and younger workers. They affect a more militant verbiage and sometimes involve themselves in social movements – civil rights, the ERA, opposition to intervention in Central America, anti-apartheid, etc. William Winpisinger, president of the International Association of Machinists, is a leading example of the “left” social democracy within the labor bureaucracy.
Third, there are the Stalinists of the Communist Party. Though the CP is far from being the mighty force that it once was, the Stalinists retain some influence within the packinghouse section of the United Food and Commercial Workers, the textile division of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers, electrical workers, and various local unions,
All of these currents represent alien forces inside the labor movement. None can be trusted. All are capable of selling out to the employers and the government. However, their interests and goals are not identical and conflicts among them can some times open cracks that can be exploited by militant workers. The mobilization of tens of thousands of trade unionists around opposition to intervention in Central America and South African apartheid on April 25, 1987, is a good example of what can be accomplished given the proper conditions.
The solution to the crisis faced by the U.S. labor movement requires the formation of a conscious, militant, class-struggle left wing in the unions. This may occur with a change of leadership and policy or a caucus in an existing union, the formation of a new union, or in some other way.
But whatever the initial form of this development, it is certain to emerge from action taken to advance working people’s interests, and will need to consciously pose a programmatic alternative to the bureaucracy. This, and this alone, will enable it to build a significant opposition current and influence sufficient forces to successfully change the present class-collaborationist direction of the organized labor movement. The basic outlines of this programmatic alternative are clear, and have already been suggested:
Over the last few years caucus formations, opposition currents, rank-and-file newsletters, etc., have begun to take shape in many unions-both on a national and local level. The successful national conference organized by Labor Notes in the fall of 1986 showed that there is a great deal of ferment and dissatisfaction with present union policy. Yet as long as that dissatisfaction fails to address the essential programmatic questions facing working people, its effectiveness in creating an opposition will be extremely limited. A positive example in this regard was set by the Rank and File Packinghouse Workers Conference held in Austin, Minnesota, in May 1987, which adopted the Packinghouse Workers Bill of Rights.
Although a concentration on the crisis of the trade union movement is essential for revolutionary Marxists in the U.S. today, it would be a serious mistake to ignore other essential social issues and problems, which exist independently of the workers’ movement per se, though they are strongly intertwined and interrelated with it. In the late 1960s and early ‘70s there was a strong rise of the student movement, the Black and Chicano liberation struggles, women’s liberation activity, etc. Beginning in the middle of the 1970s the general crisis of working class leadership, whose manifestation in the organized labor movement we have been discussing has also taken its toll in these areas.
Consciousness concerning the fact, and to a large degree even the causes, of the national oppression which they suffer remains high within the Black community. At the same time, the inability to find any viable organizational expression for this consciousness has led to a severe contradiction and frustration on the part of a layer of activists. Some have tended to draw ultraleft conclusions, while others have turned to reformist answers in response to the same phenomenon.
This problem is, to a large degree, created by the historical development of Black leadership in this country. Of particular significance was the assassination of two of the most influential leaders: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Each of these individuals demonstrated, in his own way, an uncompromising commitment to the struggle against Black oppression, an understanding that the road to liberation could come only through the mobilization of the masses of Black people themselves, an ability to translate that understanding into a language that the average person could appreciate, and a willingness to apply it in action.
Yet King and Malcolm represented different poles within the Black community. King’s political goal was the integration of Blacks into the already-existing structure of white-dominated, class-stratified, capitalist society, and he was morally committed to nonviolence. Malcolm, on the other hand, was an uncompromising revolutionary who viewed the complete overthrow of the racist capitalist system as the only viable answer. He also believed in the necessity for Blacks to defend themselves against racist violence. King’s views, as they stood at the time of his death, were entirely incompatible with a proletarian revolutionary perspective for the USA., while Malcolm was rapidly moving in the direction of drawing revolutionary socialist conclusions, to complement his revolutionary nationalism, when he was gunned down.
With the deaths of these two giants in the 1%0s (undoubtedly with the collusion of federal officials if not their active participation), there was no one with similar qualities who stepped in to fill the void, and no collective leadership which was able to provide an adequate substitute. The success of the government in destroying organizations such as the Black Panthers, through frame-ups and infiltration in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, contributed further to the present leadership void. Though the possibility of a significant step forward was posed in the early ‘80s with the formation of the National Black Independent Political Party, this group proved unable to go beyond abstract programmatic discussions, and did not connect with any real mass struggles. As a result it has now disappeared.
The previous generation of leaders, those who came out of the civil rights struggles of the ‘50s and ‘60s, have tended to move in a conservative direction, immersing themselves in Democratic Party politics or other reformist projects. The growth of a larger living space for the Black petty bourgeoisie-and even an aspiring layer of bourgeois entrepreneurs – creates a relatively stable social base for this layer.
As a result of its own leadership crisis, and also reflecting the effects of the overall ruling class attack on working people, the Black liberation movement has suffered a major decline over the past two decades. Even so, sporadic defensive struggles have taken place, and over the last period the pace of this activity has accelerated – in response to incidents like the one in Howard Beach, Queens, or the attack on Tawana Brawley. As with the signs of discontent in the labor movement, the reaction within the Black community to these events may well be the precursor of a new upsurge among Black people in this country.
Other movements of oppressed nationalities – Chicanos and Puerto Ricans – have suffered a similar decline throughout the 1970s and ’80s. The Chicano movement, in particular, achieved important organizational steps in the late ’60s and early ’70s with the formation of the Raza Unida Party and with the Chicano Moratorium movement in response to the Vietnam war. But in the absence of a parallel development of consciousness on the part of others – the organized workers’ movement in particular-which might have reinforced such vanguard efforts, the extent to which independent political forms of the Chicano movement could succeed proved to be severely limited.
This points up the interrelated dynamic of the U.S. political scene, which flows from the combined character of the coming third, American revolution. That revolution must be both a proletarian revolution for the establishment of socialism and a national revolution, which can guarantee the right to self-determination of Blacks, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, American Indians/Native Americans, and other nationalities oppressed by U.S. capitalism.
The term “combined character” refers to the struggle for power against the bourgeoisie as well as the tasks of the new revolutionary government after that power is conquered. The proletariat’s battle for socialism is complementary to, but not the same as, the struggles of the oppressed nationalities for their liberation. The enemy of all of these social forces is the same, and none of them can be successful unless all are victorious. That’s why the workers’ movement must see the oppressed nationalities as equal partners; their struggles are not subordinate in any way to the fight for a proletarian revolution. Workers’ organizations must fully support the demands raised by the movements of these allies, recognizing their legitimate autonomy. It is only with an attitude of mutual respect and support that the necessary unity can be forged.
Obstacles to this mutual alliance include the history of racism among white workers, racist practices of many trade union organizations, and the general complicity of the top AFL-CIO bureaucracy with the capitalist government and its oppression of people of color – not only in the U.S. but throughout the world. But the alliance can and will be forged through experience, as a new working-class leadership emerges from the struggle and shows in action that it can be sensitive to, and supportive of, the needs of the communities of the oppressed.
At the same time, this crucial alliance is facilitated by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the oppressed nationalities in this country are members of the working class. These layers will no doubt prove to be the most conscious and militant in the process of creating a new class struggle orientation for the workers’ movement as a whole, and are likely to make up more than their fair share of its leadership. This will be a significant help in breaking down the barriers to solidarity and cooperation erected by bourgeois ideology.
Through the course of the combined struggle against the U.S. bourgeoisie, this revolutionary movement of workers and oppressed nationalities will forge the kind of solidarity and needed programmatic perspectives which will allow a new revolutionary government to attack the age-old problem of racial oppression and prejudice. Here, too, the continued combined mobilization of the workers and the communities of the oppressed, each following the imperatives of its own separate but interrelated demands, can assure the success of the joint revolutionary project to the mutual satisfaction of all concerned.
The women’s liberation movement in the U.S. over the last two decades has followed a pattern similar to that of the movements of workers and the oppressed nationalities, though the specific forms and manifestations have been different. After a dramatic rise of feminist consciousness in the early ’70s, and a signal victory on the right to abortion in the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision, the movement began to mark time. On the key test – the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment – it mobilized its forces in a way that was ineffective for counteracting the increasingly conservative trend of ruling class policy.
The same period saw a concerted right-wing attack on abortion rights, with only a sporadic and relatively weak response. Whenever an opportunity for mobilization was provided, as the National Organization for Women did with its “March for Women’s Lives” on March 9 and March 16, 1986, in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, the response was impressive. Over 155,000 people participated in those actions. Similar outpourings occurred on the few occasions that national actions were called around the ERA. But the overall strategy of NOW-which is the largest and most authoritative women’s group in the country-has been one of relying on lobbying and electing liberal Democratic “friends of women.” This has been a disaster, and has made it far easier for the ruling class to scuttle the national ERA and proceed with its attacks on abortion and women’s rights in general.
The dominance of NOW and its liberal-democratic oriented leadership within the women’s movement reflects the rise in both number and status of professional women lawyers, business executives, politicians, etc. during the 1970s. This rise stemmed from social and economic realities, as well as from the pressures generated by the women’s movement itself. A similar proportional rise in the numbers of women in proletarian occupations has, unfortunately, not resulted in a similar increase in their political weight within the organized women’s movement. The Coalition of Labor Union Women, which might have represented their interests, became the victim of the general bureaucratic organization of the unions and has primarily played the role of spokesperson for the union officialdom.
The task among women is fundamentally the same as that within the communities of the oppressed. A leadership must be forged which recognizes that the fundamental interests of women cannot be served by the capitalist government of the United States, a leadership which relies upon the mobilization of masses in the streets to win women’s demands for equality and the right to control their own bodies, and which strives to forge a strong alliance with working people, the communities of the oppressed, etc.
Related, ideologically and historically, to the development of the women’s movement is the fight for gay liberation. The problem of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), which strikes inordinately at male homosexuals, has placed a spotlight on the broad homophobia of capitalist America, and provided the excuse for a stepped-up reactionary campaign against the gay community. On October 11, 1987, more than half a million people, predominantly lesbian and gay, marched in Washington to protest against this treatment, and to demand full human rights. This march stands as a fresh example for the women’s movement, and for every other social struggle, of the impact that can be achieved when masses of people ate mobilized in their own interests and under their own banner; when they don’t mortgage themselves to the political aspirations of ruling-class politicians. It is an example which can and should be emulated.
Other struggles which deserve the attention, support, and participation of the revolutionary Marxist movement taking a wide variety of forms – are constantly being posed by capitalism in its decline.
Foremost among these in the U.S. today is the struggle against U.S. intervention and for the right of self-determination for all nations oppressed by imperialism. Primary in this regard is the fight against the U.S. counterrevolutionary war in Central America. The revolutionary Marxist current within the broader anti-intervention movement has a responsibility today – in particular because of the confusion generated by the Arias peace plan-to present a clear, principled orientation: No Aid to the Contras! No Aid to Duarte! U.S. Hands Off Central America! Once again, the perspective of street actions, aimed to mobilize the largest numbers around these demands, is key.
Unfortunately, the Central America movement has been dominated by those with a different orientation, one which sees material aid, individual witness actions, and lobbying liberal politicians as its central pillars. The few times that mass demonstrations have been called the response has been overwhelmingly favorable. Most often, however, despite the obvious objective need for continuing actions of this type and a great deal of rank-and-file sentiment in favor of them, those who have had organizational control have succeeded in stifling efforts to bring them about.
The only way that this will be changed is for large numbers of activists to become involved in the ongoing organizational work of the movement. Then they will be able to promote an alternative leadership. Without this, the domination of decision making in the movement by the “peace bureaucrats” will continue. An alternative model is not hard to demonstrate from the anti-Vietnam War era, when thousands of students and other activists would join in conferences and meetings to decide on what the movement should do next. There has been no comparable outpouring of militants anxious to involve themselves in planning and organizing actions – as opposed to simply participating in them – during the Central American struggle. If there were it could help push things in the direction of organizational democracy and regular mass action.
The Emergency National Council Against U.S. Intervention in Central America/the Caribbean has been one voice within the national movement which has consistently presented an alternative perspective – for democratic decision making for mass action, for political independence. The ENC has remained small and relatively isolated due to the factors discussed above. Nevertheless, at key junctures the ENC has been able to play an important role in helping to ensure the character of particular demonstrations – even the fact that they would take place. This makes the effort to maintain such a mass-action caucus within the movement worthwhile, despite the hostility of those who oppose its program.
The work done by the ENC today, to hold to gether a layer of activists around a principled program and to educate those who can be reached about the importance of mass action and movement democracy, lays an important basis for the future development of a mass organization with the ability to severely limit, or even halt, U.S. intervention in Central America.
Closely connected to the movement against U.S. intervention in Central America has been the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. This has inspired hundreds of thousands of Blacks, working people, and students. Here too, when an opportunity arises, massive mobilizations have occurred, but also as with the movement against intervention in Central America such opportunities have existed only sporadically, at the whim and under the control of selected leaders – predominantly left trade union bureaucrats in this case – who call them when it suits their specific needs.
Recent events in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel-the naked repression and brutality of the Zionist armed forces- have created new openings to explain, and organize opposition to, the reactionary role of this colonial settler state. They clearly expose the popular myth of a “progressive Israel,” and have already had a profound effect on public opinion in the U.S., with leading Jewish organizations raising: a voice critical of Israel for the first time.
There are still other problems about which revolutionary Marxists are deeply concerned-such as environmental questions and the antinuclear movement, struggles for civil liberties and constitutional rights, etc. These deserve active support from all working people.
Not surprisingly, the effort to construct a revolutionary vanguard party of the U.S. working class has sketched a curve which follows closely the curve of development of the mass movements for social change. Beginning in the early ’60s, as the civil rights movement and the Cuban revolution began to make their weight felt in American society, the Socialist Workers Party began to reverse its numerical decline of the cold-war/witch-hunt years. Later in the decade, as the student radicalization and the anti-Vietnam war movement became truly massive phenomena, the party began to grow dramatically and spread geographically. Its youth organization, the Young Socialist Alliance, became a major force on the campuses. All of this was made possible because of its substantially correct political analysis and participation in the events occurring at that time.
Since the degeneration of the Russian Revolution there have been three: main poles within the radical movement throughout the world-social democracy, Stalinism, and revolutionary Marxism or Trotskyism. Sometimes there are splits or divisions within the context of these three main currents. On occasion, independent groupings or tendencies develop – such as the Castroist current in Latin America which can have an important impact on the class struggle and the overall relationship of farces. But even these currents can be best understood by looking at their relationship to social democracy, Stalinism, and revolutionary Marxism – since they tend to represent hybrid forms, exhibiting aspects of political program and behavior which can always be historically identified with one or another of the three main tendencies. In the U.S.A. in particular, the radical movement has been fairly clearly demarcated among these three.
Social democracy represents the interests of the trade union bureaucracy, and seeks to reform and stabilize present social relations through collaboration with the capitalist class. The Stalinists, though often indistinguishable from social democracy in their program and tactics, are fundamentally loyal to the parasitic bureaucracy ruling in the Soviet Union (or in China, or in one of the other bureaucratized workers’ states). Only the revolutionary Marxist current has no interests separate and apart from those of the working class.
The increased political weight of the SWP and YSA during the 1%0s had a significant impact on the shape of radical politics in the United States. No longer was the revolutionary Marxist current a tiny and persecuted minority as compared to the Stalinists and social democrats. It was in a position to challenge for leadership on a number of levels, and enjoyed its most important success in the anti-Vietnam War movement, where the strategy it presented-massive street actions independent of the capitalist politicians, full democracy and non-exclusion in the movement, unconditional support for the right to self-determination of Vietnam in the form of the slogan, “Out Now!”, was able to win majority support. This, in turn, played an important, perhaps decisive, role in resolving the Vietnam conflict in the interests of the Vietnamese people.
But the very success of the SWP in the antiwar movement of the sixties and seventies laid the basis for the crisis which was to consume the party a decade later. The generation of activists who had been recruited and trained during this period expected a continuation of the radicalization, sustained recruitment, and a further expansion of the party’s influence. They were dlsoriented by the shift in the objective situation, a downturn in the level of mass activity which the party faced with the end of the Vietnam War. Failing to recognize this fundamental reality, the party leadership, which by now represented almost entirely a new generation recruited during the 1%0s and headed by national secretary Jack Barnes, tried a series of schemes that, it was hoped, would somehow provide the same stimulus for party growth as the anti-Vietnam War movement. The struggle for abortion rights, school busing, a search for local struggles through a turn to “community branches” of the party, the “turn to industry,” these are a few of the areas in which the party looked, hoping to find one which would blossom into the equivalent of a new antiwar movement.
Much good political work was done by party activists throughout the 1970s. Yet the hoped-for breakthrough failed to materialize. And with each disappointment, the projections for the next round became more and more out of tune with what was really possible. Even where there was some validity in objective events for the latest turn by the party such as in the effort to gain an implantation in basic industry beginning in the late 1970s – the leadership would carry it out in such a caricatured fashion and with such exaggerated expectations that any real benefits that might have accrued were lost.
Playing a role in the failure of the SWP to understand and adjust correctly to events during this period was a decline in serious education on Marxist fundamentals. Lacking a firm theoretical underpinning – possessing only a superficial understanding in this field – the new party leaders reacted empirically and pragmatically to changing circumstances. Many, even most, of the members recruited during the 1960s and early ’70s were like wise ill-equipped theoretically to recognize what was happening and call the leadership to order.
The result of all of this was a gradual demoralization and decline in the SWP’s basic cadre through the middle of the 1970s. It might be argued that given the overall decrease in class-struggle activity some shrinking of the party was inevitable. That is the view presented by the SWP’s present leaders themselves. But that is too superficial. The decline was not strictly the result of objective events. If some decline in the party was inevitable, the degree of that decline and the level of demoralization was not. The serious errors made during this period contributed qualitatively to the damage.
Then, in 1979, a specific event triggered an even greater crisis for the party leadership: the Nicaraguan revolution of 1979. The SWP had badly misjudged the FSLN in its analysis before the overthrow of Somoza, stating that it was a fundamentally petty-bourgeois, popular-frontist current. When the FSLN took governmental power in its own name and proceeded to use that power in the interests of the Nicaraguan workers and peasants – against the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie – its actions came as a complete surprise. This event was paralleled by the revolution in Grenada, where the New Jewel Movement, also using methods not strictly in keeping with the preconceptions of the international Trotskyist movement, took power the same year.
The accumulated frustrations over a decade or so of failed party-building projects in the U.S. combined with these international events to deal a fatal blow to the ideological self-confidence of the SWP’s leaders. It is now obvious that shortly after the Nicaraguan revolution they came to a profound conclusion: their problems stemmed from the programmatic traditions of Trotskyism, which they believed they had been applying all this time. Since they had done so badly, the program itself must be at fault.
This transformation of the thinking of the Barnes current marked the beginning of a major programmatic crisis in the SWP. But there was one additional decision of this leadership grouping that made the depth and consequences of that crisis qualitatively more severe than it otherwise might have been. They decided not to tell the party that they had changed their minds about basic programmatic issues. In fact, even as late as the 1981 preconvention discussion, they stated precisely the opposite. Instead, they decided to launch a secret campaign to undermine the program – through articles in the press, educational activity, and speeches by party leaders – without permitting a discussion by the organization as a whole.
The results of this process are well known. After the end of the 1981 convention a series of programmatic revelations began to be made. Open revisions of history (concerning the Russian Revolution and the Trotskyist movement) were published. Deeply erroneous analyses appeared on issues such as the Iranian revolution, the Jaruzelski coup in Poland – as well as on Cuba, Nicaragua, and Grenada, around which a limited discussion had been possible at the 1981 convention. At the same time, a qualitative sharpening of abstentionist errors in domestic policy took place.
Party members who began to question and object to these things were slandered and harassed. Soon trumped-up organizational charges were made and many were expelled. Others became exasperated or demoralized to the point where they simply resigned. Because the new programmatic revelations were made piecemeal, and because at every step the party leaders rejected the opening of a formal political discussion about their new ideas, individuals began to realize what was happening at an uneven pace. Opposition emerged sporadically in different branches, but did not congeal into a coherent force that might have been able to convince and influence a significant layer of the party as a whole. The leadership used its monopoly of informational sources to slander oppositionists, and no opportunity existed for the individuals who were the victims of the slander campaign to respond. Finally, in January of 1984, a mass purge of oppositionists took place.
For the first time in the history of the SWP bureaucratic methods had triumphed over political ones. For the first time an opposition was expelled before a political discussion. This fact alone stands as the most severe indictment of the party leadership’s methods.
The opposition to the Barnes faction within the SWP was not unified ideologically. There were a series of differences over such questions as the relative weight of practical vs. theoretical issues, the role of the majority leadership of the Fourth International, the best methods of trying to influence other party members, etc. After the mass expulsions, three tendencies which had generally taken shape within the SWP were unable to form a unified organization. Today they exist as the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, Socialist Action, and the Fourth Internationalist Caucus of Solidarity. Of course, each of these currents has gone through a series of experiences, lost some of its previous adherents, recruited new people, etc., but the roots of their existence as separate currents can be traced back to ideological differences (some times subtle and not clearly defined) which existed inside the SWP.
It is for this reason that the best way to appreciate the present organizational reality of the Fourth Internationalist movement in the United States is as four specific tendencies – the three oppositionist groups plus the SWP itself ’ which would all be part of a single Leninist party had it not been for the bureaucratic expulsions. That means that the existence of these four groups cannot be conceived as a permanent state of affairs, but as a transitional one. The normal Leninist practice would be to have a common discussion of the problems facing our movement in the United States, voting on a line to be carried out, and then testing that line in practice. Instead we have four lines being tested in practice at one and the same time. The proper perspective is for this to lead to a drawing of common lessons and a reunification of at least some elements from each of the four groups at some future stage.
The reforging of unity among those Fourth Internationalists who can be brought back together, either to rebuild the SWP if that is possible or to build a new party if that is necessary, must be the primary objective of revolutionary Marxists in the U.S. today. This is primarily a political question, not an organizational one. The reason for the fracturing of our movement was the refusal of the SWP leadership to allow a programmatic discussion, in violation of all norms of Leninist functioning. The discussion with members of the party is still blocked by the bureaucratic attitude of the party leaders, who fear that debate more than anything else. The differences within the opposition have taken an organizational form, but there are important political issues which underlie that organizational separation. All of this means that a process of discussion and further experience will be essential before a reunification of our forces can be achieved.
That process will take time, but it cannot be left to chance. It must be consciously and actively pursued. Ultimately, the creation of a revolutionary leadership in the United States, which can win significant influence among the masses, apply the transitional method, and recruit the majority of the most advanced layers to a Leninist party, is the key to solving the crisis – not only of U.S. working people but of all humanity. Though this will obviously involve a far, far greater number of people than the layer of cadre who were once members of the SWP and remain true to (or can be rewon to) revolutionary Marxism, that layer and the programmatic heritage of American Trotskyism as maintained for fifty years by the SWP have an indispensable contribution to make to its formation.
The effort to rebuild the unity of the revolutionary Marxist organization in the U.S. today is particularly important because both the main social-democratic formation (Democratic Socialists of America) and the main Stalinist formation (the Communist Party U.S.A.) are becoming more aggressive in their efforts to recruit militant workers and activists. Both of these currents are heavily involved in the 1988 election campaigns, initially supporting Jesse Jackson and then, no doubt, the Democratic Party’s nominee. (Parlaying its chances, the CP will also run some token campaigns in its own name, seeking to pick up the support of those who can’t stomach the capitalist candidates whom the Stalinists will actually be supporting.) Each of these groups (but especially the CP) has a significant apparatus and substantial (from the point of view of the radical movement) financial resources, as well as a certain amount of patronage to dispense from their influence in the unions and some local governments. This material base, combined with the occasionally radical-sounding rhetoric of these groups, can prove attractive to newly radicalizing workers and students who have not compared the programs and histories of the various currents. Ironically, the CP often benefits from the witch-hunting they have been subjected to which gives that party a false image as a revolutionary alternative to capitalism.
We believe profoundly that the essential and fundamental toot of the party-building problem (though by no means its sole aspect) in the U.S. today is programmatic. The program of revolutionary Marxism differentiates us from the Stalinists and social democrats, and from other reformists and ultralefts within the labor movement. More importantly, it is the key element which can overcome the present organizational divisions within the Fourth Internationalist movement in this country. Our program shapes our party in its most profound features, and other considerations are strictly secondary. Because of the nature of the programmatic crisis that shattered the SWP we believe that the primary contribution of the Fourth Internationalist Tendency to the party-building process in the U.S. today can be through our creative application of the program of revolutionary Marxism to the problems facing working people in the U.S. and throughout the world.
We recognize as well that mere paper explanations of program, which are by their nature limited in showing how our ideas can manifest themselves in life, in the class struggle, are not sufficient. And that is why our members are activists, participating in our unions, in antiintervention work, the women’s movement, and other areas.
It is our firm hope and expectation that, despite the debacle for American Trotskyism created by the Barnes faction, we can emerge at the end of our present process with a better appreciation of our tasks based on all of the experiences of all of the Fourth Internationalist currents in the U.S. today. If such a synthesis can be collectively conquered by everyone who sincerely wants to contribute to building a revolutionary party in the United States, then we will be able to move forward on a stronger footing with a far better programmatic understanding, and increased possibilities for fruitful mass activity.
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Last updated on 28.12.2002