Class and Locality
Second and Third Parts of the CU Course "Development" Live Session, Parts 2 and 3 of 10 . Date: 14 May 2014 (Wednesday) . Time: 17h00 (to 18h30) . Venue: FAWU Office, 5th Floor, Dr Neil Aggett House, 90 President Street, Johannesburg . Topics: <https://sites.google.com/site/cu2012courses/23-education/23091%2C%20Multili ngualism%20and%20Democracy%2C%20Khethiwe%20Marais%2C%202014.pdf?attredirects =0&d=1> The Housing Question, 1872, Part Three, Frederick Engels <https://sites.google.com/site/cu2012courses/13-development-rural-and-urban/ 13021%2CEngels%2CTheHousingQuestion%2C1872%2CPartThree.pdf?attredirects=0&d= 1> ; Reform or Revolution?, Chapters 2, 7, 9 and 10, Luxemburg, Part 1 <https://sites.google.com/site/cu2012courses/13-development-rural-and-urban/ 13031a%2CLuxemburg%2CReformorRevolution%2C1900%2CIntroduction%2CC2.pdf?attre directs=0&d=1> and Part 2 <https://sites.google.com/site/cu2012courses/13-development-rural-and-urban/ 13031b%2CLuxemburg%2CReformorRevolution%2C1900%2CC7%2CC9%2CC10.pdf?attredire cts=0&d=1> ; Petty-bourgeois and Proletarian Socialism, 1905, Lenin <https://sites.google.com/site/cu2012courses/13-development-rural-and-urban/ 13022%2CLenin%2CPetty-bourgeoisandProletarianSocialism%2C1905.pdf?attredirec ts=0&d=1> . Material from John Turner, Lauren Royston and Glen Mills was also circulated. See the introduction, below. . Course: Development <http://www.nehawu.org.za/NEHAWU%20Campaigns_Communist%20University%20Politi cal%20School%20Material%20Course%20Packs_13%20Development,%20Rural%20and%20U rban.html> . To download any of the other CU courses in PDF files please click here <https://sites.google.com/site/cu2012courses/> . Class and Locality Because of the election, we are obliged to take two parts of our course together in one session on the 14th. This is a decision we took at the previous live session, on 23 April 2014. The election that took place on 7 May is very relevant to the topic under consideration. As we will have once more discovered during the campaign, votes are aggregated nationally, but they are gathered locally. The class struggle that voters experience is the local one. The "service delivery" protest is a crude local expression of desire for "development" among other, more articulate and constructive expressions of the same desire, such as organisation into democratic structures. We have used texts from Frederick Engels, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg to root the discussion in classical texts. In the introduction to Engels' "Housing Question", we wrote: "The argument about housing is an argument about the reproduction of capitalism. It is an argument about the continuation of the ascendancy of bourgeois values over those of the working-class. For the bourgeoisie, the creation of a dwelling is an opportunity to invest that house with peasant-like values of individuality, and with petty-bourgeois ideas of "entrepreneurship", and to regulate and control the people, according to these values." In our introduction to extracts from Rosa Luxemburg's "Reform or Revolution?" we wrote: "The communists must strive to reproduce, in every locality, the same well-expressed and solid class alliance which has up to now underpinned the NDR at the national level. This means providing for both the petty-bourgeoisie/peasantry, and for the working class. These classes must be able to see a clear way forward, in alliance with each other, at local level, where, at present, it is working-class organisation that is lacking." In our introduction to Lenin's "Petty-bourgeois and Proletarian Socialism" we quoted, from Lenin: "Can a class-conscious worker forget the democratic struggle for the sake of the socialist struggle, or forget the latter for the sake of the former? No, a class-conscious worker calls himself a Social-Democrat for the reason that he understands the relation between the two struggles. He knows that there is no other road to socialism save the road through democracy, through political liberty." But we also quoted Lenin's warning about the danger of creating a "Petty Bourgeois Utopia". The texts from Turner, Royston and Mills are chosen as up-to-date evidence of the continued working out of class politics at local level. The class relations and the class contradictions of the NDR can be read from, and experienced within, the intimate politics of locality and neighbourhood. Any of these works could be cited in our discussions, but if we have not had time to read them all, it does not matter too much, because we have the whole matter in front of us in any case, because of the elections. -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. 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