I believe I posted to this effect a few months ago. Lefto opportunism or Ultra-Left is characterized by an overestimation of the strength of capital, an under-estimation of the strength of the working class. Using this description, I see the most destructive ultra-leftism of the '60s to have been the SWP policy of "single-issue" demonstrations. The grounds for this, whatever fake grounds the SWP used to defend it, was the principle that capitalist culture/ideology was so overwhelmingly powerful that workers could escape it only if their political education was kept under the close control of the Party which was in possession of the only correct theory of proletarian ideology and of correct revolutionary theory. Luckily this policy failed completely of its purpose, and thousands, tens of thousands, of workers (the students were part of the working class) were able to engage in thought and practice through which they developed a far richer political culture than did so many of those who were under the thumb of SWP ideolgoues.
Of all the barriers to working-class unity, that of the physical separation of black and white workers by racially segregated housing is perhaps the greatest. A working-class movement of even minimal chances of breaking this barrier is a movement the revolutionary leadership of which has a strong base in the Black Community, but which _also_ recognizes the essential political task of organizing black-white unity. The only political organizatin in the '60s that fully realized this task was The Black Panthers. History never repeats itself, and the only lesson it teaches is the lesson that nothing is to be learned from it. (Historical Thinking in Marxist terms invlveds "reading histoyr backwards" (Ollman's phrase), as imaged in Marx's obsrvation in the Grundrisse that "The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape." It is NOT true that starting with the anatomy of the ape one has any information whatever on the anatomy of man.) Most efforts to "earn from history" fail to do history backwards, and therefore blunder seriously. So the particular practice and theory of the Panthers will never be relevant again. But there general example, viewed from the needs of the present, is essential to intelligent left thinking. Carrol ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
