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The Encyclopedia of Anti Revisionism on-line http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/erol.htm "The dirty little secret" ? part 2 version 2.0 Waistline ? ? CL became unique by winning the proletarian core of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW) to their specific approach to social revolution, and CL's signature approach to applied dialectics. This approach is located here: http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/articles/v21ed2art1.html ? It helped that CL Chairman was a "Negro proletarian intellectual" with a substantial grasp of reality. Detroit was home of CLR James and James and Grace Boggs, who collectively probably never recruited more than three workers in their entire life. Being black and Marxist was not sufficient reason for LRBW to express an interest in such "intellectual giants." ? When we entered the Communist League - nay the reason the LRBW listened to CL was its revolutionary position on the "Negro Question," and latter Nelson Perry's article "Syndicalism Disarms the Proletariat." ? The Communist League and later the Communist Labor Party did not arise out of the middle class or petty bourgeoisie. Much of the "Young Communist Movement" origins, down to individual leading members of the various groupings, was of the student movement. ? The Communist League, or rather the initial California Communist League was formed by eleven individuals galvanized by the Watts rebellion. Six of them were part of the breakup of the CPUSA and the Provisional Organizing Committee. When this dynamic was explained in the article "Dialectics of the development of the Communist League," various groups of the New Communist responded with polemics that collectively belong in the gallery of pettiness. Read for yourself a couple of response. "The Dialectics of the Communist League: Double-Dealing, Intrigue and Conspiracy - An Attempt to Liquidate the American Communist Movement." First Published: In El Fuego, a "Mao Tsetung Thought Journal on Theoretical and Political Problems of the American Communist Movement," No. 1, February 1974. http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-2/red-banner/index.htm ? Here our apparent purpose in life - as an organization - was to liquidate the American communist movement in total, because we had nothing better to do. ? There is the "National Executive Committee of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists" paper "Dialectics of the Development of Nelson Perry's Head. A Refutation of the Counter-Revolutionary Line of the So-called "Communist League." Part One: The Leaders of the "Communist League" are the Real Splitters and Saboteurs of the Marxist-Leninist Movement Today!" (June 1974) http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-2/perry-head.htm ? "Refutation" discloses the class origins of the "Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists," which of course is the student movement. Why were all these organizations origin in the student movement, when we grew out of the industrial proletariat with our youth in toll? ? We expressed a different American experience. European immigration and slavery defines American history. The American communist movement was to a large degree dominated by German immigrants, who tended to couch the social struggle in concepts and the sensibility of the mother country. We lacked the immigrant experience and expectation of inclusion into the system, being seven and eight generation Americans and two generations industrial proletarian. Much of the bitterness of the polemics was due to our 100% proletarian origin and character and our revolutionary position on the "Negro Question." Despite some theoretical errors and inaccuracies Peery's "Negro National Colonial Question" further developed Harry Haywoods "Negro Liberation" and became the "must read, must have" American Marxist document on the national-colonial question. ? Here we come to the "dirty little secret." ? The Communist League expressed class phenomena; the fighting section of the industrial proletariat in its exact historical features. The social movement between1958 - 1979 was dominated and defined by the Negro Peoples movement. The Communist League was formed and evolved from within this social movement as it evolved, polarized and split between its proletarian and bourgeois/petty bourgeois sector. Sure, CL's "position" on the Negro Question, the Southwest, the Indian nations and peoples and social revolution in America was well thought out, but that is not why we were different. Rather, we were different in the sense of our historical American roots, generations of industrial proletarians and this difference required thinking out all questions differently. Our sense of the evolution of the industrial system was different. We were not just black but proletarian, in the same degree the Eastern European immigrant workers were not just "Slavic" but proletarian. ? This difference in vision was spelled out in the document of the founding of the Communist Labor Party Labor Day 1974. ? "The trend toward shifting the economic base from mechanics to electronics has not only increased the reserve army of unemployed but also created a huge qualitatively new army of the permanently unemployed, especially amongst national minority proletarians. Every technical advance makes the position of the proletarians more untenable." http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-2/clp-1st/program.htm ? Mind you, this was 1974! ? In 1989 we retooled Marxism based on the electronics revolution. Today, the old industrial society has been changed enough to admit we are in a gigantic revolution in the means of production, with all its implications. ? Initially we were called followers of Alvin Tofflers 1980's book "The Third Wave" but something material was driving us. We experienced automation on the basis of robotics and computers in the "body shops." This was not automation based on electro-mechanics or the automaton. We faced robotics, a term that did not exist during the time of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. We faced revolution in its objective logic, as it qualitatively changes the social organization of labor.? This change in the social organization of labor hit auto hard and since we were located in auto we experienced the process at the front of the curve. Today, Detroit is in ruins and Michigan is the only state in America that registered an absolute population loss during the last decade. What is taking place in Michigan is off the scale but coming to your neighborhood. ? Further, we are experiencing the front curve of fascism in power. The theoretical debate over American fascism has been ended by the state power itself. Look at Benton Harbor, Michigan, where the "Emergency Financial Manager," operating as the executive authority has all but abolished civic authority. The first use of an "EFM" was a decade ago in Highland Park, Michigan, the birthplace of Ford's assembly line production. See: http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2006.02/PT.2006.02.4.html ? At any rate, we chronicled and experienced a historical process and class dynamic - shifting the economic base from mechanics to electronics - and tried as best we could to articulate this? process, as it intertwined with the polarization and class separation in the Negro Peoples Movement of that era. Peery's "Negro National Colonial Question" (NNCQ) second edition 1975, has an article "Socialism: The Only Road" reprinted from the "Peoples Tribune," outlining this growing polarization.? CL became the subjective expression of an objective process by winning the battle for Detroit. Peery's "African American Liberation and Social Revolution" 1992 continues the work of NNCQ, noting subtle changes in the African American Freedom movement with an eye on the "trend towards shifting the economic base from mechanics to electronics." ? "The Future Is Up To Us" (2002), chapters three and four, completes a historical process that began with the Comintern's 1928 document on the Negro Question. NNCQ and "The Future Is Up To Us" express a fundamental "Americanizing" of Marxism or dialectical concreteness of the American experience through the eyes of seven generations of Americans.? NNCQ is an American communist document rather than a communist document written for Americans. ? ? end part 2 WL ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
