En relación a [L-I] Socialist Democracy at Home and Abroad,
el 19 Jan 01, a las 9:13, Tony Abdo dijo:
> Nestor, I believe that I probably was not clear in what I was saying
> about Third World country Social Democratic Movements.
>
> You wrote......
> <Social democracy cannot take root in the Third World unless under
> extremely favourable conditions (such as those prevailing in Uruguay
> during the first half of the 20th. Century). The periphery is a source
> of extraordinary surplus value, thus it lacks the basic fuel required by
> a social democratic formation.......>
>
> I disagree with this. Social Democracy embodies a natural tendency
> of the oppressed to first approach power apologetically. and with
> minimal demands.
Maybe it is just a matter of words. Maybe not. If it is, then let us not fall
into the sin of nominalism!
The above I would rather name, in a more Leninist way, tradeunionism. Social
Democracy, as it has appeared after WWI, is something different, it is the
cooptation of the parties of the workers by the bourgeois state in an
imperialist formation.
> SD cannot win any real reform in the Third World
> (because the local national capitalist class has so little to give), but
> that hardly stops the oppressed from making the effort.
Of course. Only that this effort can not be fulfilled if you don't push things
further left, until you reach the moment of no return, and you are forced to
set your ships afire (as Cortés did, in Mexico: there is a whole New World
ahead).
>
> My point was merely to criticize the politics amongst certain
> imperialist country Leftists, that "critically support" SD Movements in
> their own countries, but then go on to call efforts of Third World
> comrades to do the same, as being nothing more than 'crossing the class
> line'.
Yes, the above I do understand. It is easier to look more righteous on other
people's skins than attempting to risk your own hair, isn't it? Maybe the
example you give below is, as you say, a "case in point". But I would, rather
surprisingly for you, however, take some exception to the definition of the PRD
as a "social democratic" party. If you push me to a definition, I will give it,
but as you know I am quite respectful of the opinions of those who are on the
spot, so that I would rather prefer to hear those who have actual relationships
with Mexican politics instead. I guess you may know some, don't you? ;-)
I agree with you that many Leftists in imperialist countries follow this sad
pattern you describe here:
>
> SD activity is considered a step forward in the First World, yet a
> betrayal of worker trust in the Third World. If anything, this is
> backward. SD efforts are most often a betrayal of trust in the First
> World, yet a step forward into class struggle in the Third World
> countries.
It depends. Are we talking of the _actual, "social" SD_? This is not the same
as if we were talking of _parties_ which call themselves SD and deserve support
from the imperialist Social Democratic parties. The latter, usually, have
little to do with Social Democracy in a historic sense, they generally act in
our politics as either a false exit for impoverished or deranged petty
bourgeois (the Frepaso in Argentina, Cardoso's party in Brazil, IMHO also the
PRD in Mexico) or directly as a transmission belt for the imperialist powers
(such as our own Partido Socialista Democrático, specially before the 1976
coup). But this does not diminish the value of your point below:
>
> This First World radical sectarianism towards Third World SD tendencies,
> explains a lot of the conduct of certain political tendencies when it
> comes to how they orientate to what is going on in The Balkans and fSU.
> They play hard ball with Social Democracy when it's across the globe.
> At home, they cuddle up to it.
I am not the one, however, who should say that, and I am glad that these ideas
are exposed by comrades who live in the belly of the Beast. This makes one feel
convinced that there is hope, that hope is rational.
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
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