Progressive Labor Party

Not the same thing though MJ. Which is the case I tried to make with long posts on each of the three last "national liberation" threads, with no response, that is autonomous struggles of parts of the working class against "specific" oppressions and everything else that could be classed as "national liberation" * are not the same thing.

Observe difference:

Greensboro Sit ins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_Sit-Ins

Bayardo Bar Attack:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_McFarlane#Bayardo_Bar_attack

* common usage of the term is, of course, to mean armed organisation fighting war for national independance.

That would be a great idea! I'm sure that you could mail in the translation to the www.plp.org site and they'll host it for you. To my knowledge, there's a good number of M-L groups in Israel, and a M-L argument against nationalism would help move them to the left.

They look at it as a natural progression of sorts. They see that socialism was tried in all forms, and failed due to various errors. As scientific revolutionaries, they see the necessary struggle directly to communism as the next logical conclustion. http://www.plp.org/pl_magazine/commecon.html This is a good polemic, using M-L, to explain why a direct fight to a stateless egalitarian society is necessary. I see this as progressive.

Honestly, I find it a bit confusing myself. They follow the "red line" theory. They see the fact that the USSR was, ostensibly, in the interest of the proletariat. It was a progressive force of the left, though it was the incorrect position of the left, it did, as Hughy P. put it, "exhaust the limits" of capitalism. Each method, apart from a direct fight to communism, was attempted under the banner of the old socialist movement, therefore proving the truth of anarchist communism with the rational of Marxist Leninism. I guess, and this took a lot of reading, they see that the economic reality of the USSR was outside of the control Stalin and the CC. They see that the idealogy of the CC was unable to control economic conditions, therefore explicitly disproving the "base/superstructure" bullshit of the old movement.

I don't see how the PLP is any part of the state apparatus today. Though the Trots, WWP, RCP, MIM, etc. are definately part and parcel of capitalism, I really don't see how the PLP reinforce capitalism.

I don't agree with your argument's structure. Everybody under capitalism has been poisoned with the ideology of the state. Through collective struggle together we can point it out. Seperate caucuses do just that, seperate the working class. I think struggle needs to be intensified through collective actions against the state in all of its forms.

Wangwei, do you have an argument or do you just want to assert your disagreement? Of course everyone has baggage from life under capitalism. Do you think all people share that baggage equally? Of course you don't - workers and bosses are different, for instance. What about within the working class, do all people share that baggage? As for collective struggle - I agree with you. But I think sometimes some sections of the working class need to struggle with each other. (Some fascists, for instance, are working class, and they need to be [*ahem*] show the error of their ways, rather forcefully.) In some cases dialog between those sections is all that's needed. In others, more confrontation is needed. Just like we try to plan our confrontations with the state and capital outside the presence of the agents of the state and capital, we plan our confrontations with the problematic sectors of our class outside the presence of those sectors. Just like how if you're of the "outside and against the unions" view you don't hold a planning session for an action around that during the regular meeting of a union - because some members of the working class who are members of that union will likely disrupt your planning session.

This isn't a complicated point.

Two more questions - have you been a member of a group that had separate caucuses? And are those separate caucuses barred exclusively along racial lines or are they also barred along gender, sexual orientation, job class, geographic, and language lines?

And I'm not complicating it, as I'm making it quite simple. Mutual aid through the struggle against capital is what is needed to negate racism. When the working class has state power, in a classless society, then the absolute negation of race can occur.

I believe we should "unite to fight" the bosses and their war, the capitalists and their filth, and the state in all forms.

Problematic sections of the working class will be dealt with as the movement gains strength and momentum, but as of now on a one to one basis. The only time that I will have a rational discussion with a fascist is if he can see me as a human being, and not has the social construct that he is fighting to preserve me as. I've had a rational discussion last summer with a skinhead. I didn't know he was one at first, but we talked, and I feel that I won him to a better view, though if I were to meet him at a nazi rally, I would still bust his fucking ass. Any who would actively march against the working class is our enemy, but within an open forum, a good struggle can occur. If you're both committed to fighting for a classless, "raceless", egalitarian society, then there is NO need for a caucus.

I never answer any questions about what organizations I've worked with on the internet, but having said that, I would NEVER join an organization that organizes with seperate caucuses. I see them as detrimental to unity. I believe in the "club/circle" type of organization. I think the affinity group model is viable, but it has a tendency to become more important than the goals or the organization sometimes. I disagree with caucus strategies, but I would work with groups that allow them.

Please tell me this means anything more than "I like the PLP but not the Trots, WWP, RCP, MIM, etc."

Well, I do like the PLP and hate the Trots, WWP, RCP, MIM, and other revisionist assholes, but as I was saying, I don't see how the state benefits from them. The PLP is organizing to create a stateless society in the interests of the working class, and unlike the revisionists, they don't build the unions, support the state, nor ally with "lesser evil" petty bougeois forces.

If they don't take any right opportunism, then how do they support the capitalist structures that support, uphold, and intensify the state?

If you click on the PLP website home page, right hand column where it says that 'communism means abolishing nationalism', you are sent to a 1969 article which starts with a quote from Stalin, goes on to talk about the heroic Vietnamese revolution and the socialist nature of Stalin's USSR.

If the PLP was really breaking with leftism it would be consciously rejecting its own past, not holding it up as the foundation stone of the communist programme.

It is breaking with the revisionist reformism of socialism, and holding up the struggles of the past in the light of the accomplishments of the past. It is possible to support the heroic Vietnamese struggle of the peasants against Imperialism in light of anti-capitalist struggle while denouncing the opportunism of national liberation. The article squarely places the praise upon the shoulders of the working class while denouncing the bourgeois reforms of the Paris negotiations.

I can also tell you only looked at the article superficially since the article is a denounciation of the Stalin quote. The quote supports nationalism, and the article breaks with Stalin's quote. "you can't cover up nationalism-capitalism behind a wall of quotations from Lenin or anyone else." (Pg 2.) The paragraph that follows the text I quoted further breaks with and illustrates the incorrectnes of Stalin's quote. Maybe a closer read next time?

Not to mention that this article was written in 1969, and in the US. This was a major break with the left movement at the time, and laid the foundation for the contemporareous break with Maoism and eventually socialism.

(This is the article that we're discussing: http://plp.org/pl_magazine/nationalismpl69.pdf )

OK Wangwei, I admit it was a first impression. I'll read it and get back to you.

I missed this the first time through -

but this time I about fell out of my chair - Oliver defending NEFAC... Who are you and what have you done with the real Oliver?!

I'm not sure really what to say...

I think certain responses from NEFACers over the last couple of months show a nascent paranoia (or dismissal) towards all criticism.

As I said I would have raised the issue in exactly the same way if "rise" had joined the WSA, or moved to Britain and joined the AF, assuming they knew about his smear campaign.

^ fixed

right, labelling your critics 'wackjobs' demonstrates you're not at all paranoid. has wayne uncovered any more international conspiracies against him?

(for the record nefac are definitely at the better end of american anarchism and i don't think i've anywhere criticised the organisation itself, of which i know little, as opposed to the views of some of its members)

Maybe, maybe not. But whatever we have been able to accomplish as an organization (for better or worse) has happened within an incredibly adverse environment where we have been under near-constant attack from all corners of the anarchist movement. Even on a site like Libcom, where you would expect a basic level of comaraderie among fellow class struggle anarchists, it is the same bullshit.

If we were a group of fluffy pushovers we probably would've conceded to our detractors and folded a long time ago. The fact that we are still around (and growing) owes alot to the confrontational/aggressive way many of our members are able to represent (or defend) themselves against political opponents.

understood, but could have a self-fulfilling dynamic no? i mean from what i can tell of american anarchism nefac existing is a good thing, and i'd like to be constructive in my criticism when i make it

Self-fulfilling dynamic? Maybe, but it is what it is...

Constructive criticism is always a good thing. Unfortunately, these days it is also a very rare thing in the anarchist milieu (particularly on discussion boards like this). I dunno, I'd like to think I can engage people in a respectful and comradely way when they are being constructive and genuine in a given discussion. But I also have no problem telling people to fuck off if I think they are being dishonest or uncomradely (or attacking my group, etc).

There's a reason similar types of organizations have popped up and folded in other regions of the U.S. and Canada. If you look at the strongest areas of NEFAC its Boston and Montreal, with Quebec City pretty close. All arrogant, know-it-all regional cultures with populist traditions of hostile reaction to percieved attacks. When Baltimore was at its strongest it was made up of people with the same type of attitudes. Working class rather than activist, generally unapologetic, driven to function in spite of the anarchists around us all.

If there had been more people like Rise, like his politics or not, in FNAC then that organization would still be around.

Its true. Although, our NYC group is something of an anomaly. Buncha polite bastards (well, CK has a respectable nasty streak to her, but I don't know about the rest of 'em). Good thing we have some transplants from Boston moving down there over the summer...

Yeah really. How the fuck do the nicest people in an organization that exists in two countries come from NYC? Its like opposite world.

I bet The Hammer smacked around a few suckaz back in his day.

no, we're really very nice.

I met someone last week who knew him back in the Trot days. She's unimpressed with his anarchist utopianism.

Does she have any pictures?

Hmmm... I'll ask if I see her again. She was more from the Solidarity crowd though.

According to Wikipedia the RSL were considered "adventurists" by other groups for the type of anti-Klan/anti-racist work they did in the 1970s. Shit yeah, you know The Hammer thugged out Bronx-style and was putting the boot to some nazi scum.

Wangwei: i've read the article properly and I haven't changed my mind. This concluding paragraph sums it all up:

"The victory of socialism in Russia was an enormous breakthrough for the international proletariat. This colossal event proved that socialism could triumph and work. Socialist leadership in the war against Hitler showed that socalism was not only powerful but was the most progressive force in the world. The Chinese Revolution proved you could skip stages, that socialism could triumph in a country without a significant industrial base. To go further, much further, we have to try to learn from all negative developments as well to speed up the socilaist advance"

Thus:
- the USSR under Stalin was socialist, not the most ferocious form of state capitalism
- the victory of Stalinist Russia over Hitler was a victory for socialism, not an inter-imperialist massacre
- the coming to power of Mao was another victory for socialism, not an extension of the Stalinist counter-revolution to China

This is Stalinism pure and simple. Neither can I find any criticism in the text of Stalin's formulations about nationalism. Some of the text sounds radical, but in no way does it represent a break with the extreme left of capital.

There are other articles written after 1969 that do criticize the USSR, but all of them call the USSR socialist. Personally, I see it as proof that you can't fight for socialism, and only a direct fight to communism by the workers themselves is what's necessary.

This one is a difficult one for me. I don't know how to feel about it. If it weren't for the Red Army smashing Hitler, there is an extreme possibility that the Nazi state would still be around today as a center of world counter-revolution, as opposed to the US having to do it under the guise of democracy. I agree that it was reactionary to postulate nationalism, and that the Red Army fought to make the world safe for democracy, but the USSR did plant the seeds of the opportunistic anti-colonial struggles that came to many tragic conclusion. These seeds, though creating nation states in and of themselves, did expose the "paper tigers" of the US and illustrate the fact that stages to communism can be skipped. This laid the foundation for a Marxist Leninist Party to say that a direct fight to communism is the only way to achieve communism.

Having read as much Mao as I have, and it's not as much as I'd like, I can see why you'd say that. It's interesting that the main force saying that they were leading the world's workers at that time was counter-revolutionary. I see Mao as counter-revolutionary in hindsight, but what would we know about revolutionary theory if it wasn't for these failures. His failures, not that I should attribute everything to Mao because that does reinforce the cult of personality, do provide a material proof to what we already knew.

This article should be read in its historical context as a point in a continuum. This article was a step in the right direction, but you're correct that the majority of it is still mired.

Have you read any of the other articles on their site?

How did the failure of those struggles illustrate that "stages to communism can be skipped"?

MJ, you're completely right in the way that you phrase this question, but only IF you're coming from an anarchist understanding. An anarchist understanding of the fight to communism doesn't see it as "stagist", but as a prolonged sustained fight directly against the state.

I'm placing those struggles within the context of the "old communist movement", or "old socialist movement", that falsely believed that you had to FIGHT FOR each deliberate stage of the struggle to communism. They saw that first you had to nationalize the economy under the control of a Party, steer it towards maximum production by increasing the forces of production, etc.

I'm basically saying that these struggles would show anybody that once believed the old "stagist" mentality of socialism to communism, that it doesn't work, and that only a direct fight to a stateless egalitarian society is the proper path to take.

So, I'm not saying that you can wake up the day after the revolution and be in higher order communism, that would be erroneous to say the least. I'm saying that the day after the revolution would still require the same comitment to fighting for communism, and negating all existing social relations into their egalitarian opposites. So, lower order communism will be passed through, but doesn't need to be fought for -- which is a break with "classical" Leninism.