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Dan writes: There must be no separation between workers' union and political party To a great extent I do agree with him. The argument that just a minority of workers belong to the unions is neither here nor there as despite this on the whole, the sizes of left parties (and more particularly of the numbers of workers in them) tend to be much, much smaller than those of unions. The most important thing here actually is that it is socialism amounts to the self-emancipation of the working class. Thus, one would want to believe that parties that stand for socialism, for the self-emancipation of the working class, as a spear in its hand should not be separate from the class. The reality is however very different. This situation is worse at the international level. There are tons of "Internationals" and even Chavez's call for a fifth international. But we often seem not to grasp the fact that there ARE workers internationals (sectorally as the GUFs and with the smaller WFTU TUIs), without the slightest links with our various "workers", socialist, Marxist internationals. As a trade unionist, I do notice the loud absence of any significant Marxist influence in these GUFs, particularly that of the PSI which I work in. And each time it strikes me that the 1st International in particular was primarily more akin to the GUFs as an association of working men (Adrian White's book, commissioned by the GUFs Council a few years back acknowledged the IWA, as the roots of the GUFs while noting there break with Marxism). I would say, a challenge that faces us squarely is rebuilding across that chasm which does exist, between our parties and the unions (including the rank and file and yes! union leadership as well) Baba Aye -------------------------------------------- Nigeria Labour Congress, Hq. solidarityandstruggle.blogspot.com skype name: iron1lion ********************************************* "If there is no struggle, there is no progress" - Frederick Douglass "Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity." - Karl Marx ________________________________________________ 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
