From : [email address removed] Reply-To : [email address removed] Sent : Tuesday, June 15, 2004 11:36 PM To : [email address removed] Subject : correspondence from LRP June 15, 2004 Dear Peter and the AL Collective,
Sorry for the long time it has taken us to respond. I’m writing to reply to your most recent letter, which was addressed to Joseph, because Joseph has had other pressing writing assignments and we prefer not to delay our response any longer.
We want to continue these exchanges because we think there may be significant areas of agreement between us, even though until we have more substantial discussions regarding overall program, we cannot make any quick assumptions about how deep this agreement may be. This is something for us to probe and hopefully arrive at further understanding.
One of the questions that you were discussing with Joseph is the distinction between agitation and propaganda, and the relative importance of these in the present period. I would like to take this up by first putting it in the context of the state of the class struggle at the present time. As you point out in your letter, there is no layer in the working class in this country that has revolutionary socialist consciousness. In fact this is true in most part of the world today. The extremely small size of our own organization is obviously related to this fact.
The reason I point to the present situation is that you begin your discussion of propaganda and agitation by discussing the possibilities that arise for a revolutionary organization that already has won the adherence of a significant layer of the working class in a given locality. I think you will agree that this is a qualitatively different situation than what we face today. At the present time we find advanced workers who are open to revolutionary ideas at best in very small groups, more frequently it happens as isolated individuals.
Thus in discussing the form of our public presentations as they exist now, whether they are considered propagandistic or agitation, we are not talking about what a small party can do that has already found a beachhead within the class struggles by having won a small but significant layer of the workers in a given locality. We are talking about what kind of public face we can have when those who are interested in revolutionary ideas are few and far between.
In these straits the danger of opportunism resulting from refraining from theoretically advanced propaganda in order to engage primarily in agitation is in fact quite large. (We are not saying this to accuse you of opportunism. But if any of us blind ourselves to a proven danger, the consequences should not be surprising. I will also say something later in this letter about whether in fact what you are engaged in primarily is really agitation.) For agitation to be successful there must be an audience ready to receive it and an organization or leadership prepared not only to present the agitation but to act upon its acceptance. It is not enough to simply present a single or simple idea to a large number of people to call it successful agitation. This is why what you refer to as the subjective aspect is really integral to the idea of agitation. Clearly the definition of political agitation has to have more to it than simply a small number or lack of complexity of the ideas contained in it. For example, agitation must, more immediately and directly than propaganda, adapt itself to the current consciousness of masses of workers. In replying to Joseph you questioned the idea that agitation has the aim of some kind of response by the masses who are intended to receive it. If the audience is not expected to respond, then what would be the purpose of agitation ... simply to engender a passive recognition of a new idea? This conception does not seem useful to me, and it does not seem to me to reflect accurately what the word “agitation” has normally meant in our movement.
It seems to me that you have to admit that agitation involves seeking mass reception of a few simple ideas with the intention of a mass response, action of some kind. Then an organization that feels that its primary purpose in a given period is carrying out agitation will be forced to tailor its message to the state of consciousness of the masses in the period, such that there can be a realistic expectation for action as a result. This is why you should recognize the great pressure toward opportunism when the consciousness of the masses who are being addressed is at a low level: prioritizing agitation to an audience of backward workers means adapting to a very low level of consciousness far away from the revolutionary goal. There is no law that says opportunism is inevitable in this situation. We simply should recognize the danger.
Even as a very small group, we do not have a blanket prohibition on agitation. As you know from our pamphlet “Propaganda and Agitation in the Building of the Revolutionary Party,” we are in agreement with you that there are no distinct stages between periods of propaganda and agitation. In fact during the negotiations in New York City between the Transport Workers Union and the Transit Authority, we intervened with our very small forces with fairly effective agitational tactics (although on a small scale) employing placards with such slogans as “First Class Contract or Strike.”
At the same time the overall thrust of our work during this period was propagandistic. We attempted through agitation to have a bearing on the direction of the strike movement (and we believe we did have a significant impact). But we had no illusions on the strength of our forces and at every stage we brought forward our analysis of what was wrong with the union leadership and why revolutionary leadership was needed. The presentation of such analyses were mostly contained in Revolutionary Transit Worker.
By and large the style of RTW is not agitational, but rather propaganda that seeks to be written in a fairly accessible style for workers. We describe this type of propaganda as “popular” in distinction to the more theoretical type of articles that are generally found in Proletarian Revolution. If we tried to make RTW primarily agitational at the present time, we would very likely fall into the trap of lowering the revolutionary content to adapt to the current level of consciousness of our audience. So we consider RTW to be “popular propaganda” rather than agitation. Actually I suspect that what you tend to call “agitation” in reference to your own work we would call “popular propaganda.” (The meaning of words is important precisely in order to discuss their implications. Without agreeing on the meaning of the words we use, we are not having a conversation.) All the same, we would argue that orienting exclusively towards popular propaganda and avoiding the necessary theoretical development is a prescription for succumbing to opportunism, for the same reasons I gave already for the danger prematurely concentrating solely on agitation.
You commented on the difference in style and approach between RTW and PR. I would like to explain why all our propaganda cannot be written at the level and in the style of RTW. We think popular propaganda is extremely important and we are certainly not at all opposed to it. (After all, we do want to reach masses of people.) But at this stage during which we are a very small group whose political definition is the goal of building the revolutionary workers party of the future, we cannot avoid making our first priority the definition and explication of our political principles and our analysis of the world, of the class struggle as a whole. The people we want to reach most at this stage, the only ones we really can reach, are those who are not only interested in fighting against social ills but who are open to thinking seriously about revolutionary ideas and who are willing to take an active role, should they be convinced of our programmatic approach, in building the revolutionary party.
Of course we could build some sort of organization with other methods. We could imitate Workers World Party or the International Socialist Organization and make activism on some lowest common denominator the main characteristic of our work. But what kind of organization would we be building? Would it have the theoretical clarity and principled determination to play a leading role in the class struggle, and not fall into both opportunism and sectarianism (Both WWP and ISO of course are simultaneously opportunistic and sectarian!) No, we cannot build a revolutionary party without taking extreme care to develop not just an “predominantly correct program” but the program and theory behind the program that are the closest to being correct as is objectively possible (given all the limitations of being fallible human beings!)
You used the phrase I just quoted, “predominantly correct program,” several times, and I’m curious as to what you mean by it. Of course knowledge is always relative, so no program can be infallible in every respect. But a “predominantly correct program” could be incorrect on the very point that is most critical for a particular point in the struggle. Typically centrists have approximately correct planks in their program, but they tend to be deficient precisely on the essential elements in any given struggle.
For example, they may say they are for revolution and smashing the bourgeois state through proletarian insurrection, and then support reformist civilian reviews boards to “stop” police brutality. Is their program predominantly correct or incorrect? It depends on what is essential at a given conjuncture. Without theory, an organization necessarily flounders into fatal error, even if it has an overall “correct” adherence to the goals of revolution.
Proletarian Revolution has to be on a very high level theoretically because at this stage when there are so few of us committed to building the revolutionary party the highest priority is the clarification of our programmatic ideas and our fundamental analysis of the social forces in the present period. Otherwise attempts to reach the masses either now or at a future stage will fall flat. Without a rigorous theoretical foundation we will not be armed against the social pressures that every subjective revolutionary faces from the class enemy and the enormous social pressures that are aligned with the class enemy.
I totally agree with you that we must present our theory as more than re-constituted formulas taken from the Marxist classics. We think of course that there is a great deal more in PR than that. We agree with you that getting people to want to study the classics is important, but we also have put our own contributions to theory into our writings, such as our understanding of Stalinism, its character as statified capitalism and its historical role within the imperialist structure of decadent capitalism, our view of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli imperialism, and in general our analysis of the epoch of capitalist imperialism as it has developed in the last few decades.
Your characterization of the function of PR as being primarily an inducement for further study of the Marxist classics is not quite accurate. Certainly we must have that effect, but that is not our main purpose. Our highest priority is essentially not just to encourage people to learn about Marxism in general but to convince others of the need to join us in building the party that can lead the working class based on a well-defined set of programmatic and theoretical ideas. I think the arguments I have already presented in favor of this function clarify that purpose.
We long very much for a more popular press, and we look forward to launching various forms such as a newspaper format as soon as we have built up the means to do it. Lenin, the arch-theoretician of proletarian revolution, declared at the time of the October revolution, “Theory is gray...” (he was quoting Schiller). So we have no appetite for remaining forever a small group. We are fully determined to become an organization that aggressively reaches the masses with myriad forms of popular propaganda and agitation. Unfortunately at the present time we simply do not have the resources to produce the kind of frequent popular press that we quite likely agree with you is needed. And as I have stressed already, to skip over the theoretical work would mean disaster for the development of our programmatic understanding and that of the cadres that we develop.
Our resources are conditioned by the level of the class struggle, which unfortunately is at this conjuncture at a very low level when viewed historically, even though there are a number of bright spots. (We are not at all pessimistic.)
Let me also add that PR is not simply theoretical. We do include articles written in a more accessible style (“popular propaganda”) and we intend to develop this more as we move towards eventually launching different types of publications. We have produced popular supplements to PR specifically addressed to the anti-war movement and to the Palestinian movement, and we also frequently produce special popular bulletins and leaflets. We plan to bring out occasional popular supplements of this type during the coming year. You ask why we don’t approach the anti-war movement with the same style and tone that we present in RTW. One reason is, yes, the smallness of our resources. If we were significantly larger, we would certainly be producing more types of popular propaganda addressed to the anti-war movement. But another reason for the lack of something comparable to RTW for the anti-war movement at this stage is that we place a higher priority on our work within the transit union due to our long history of involvement there, which is due to our orientation towards work within the labor movement, particularly those sectors that are available to us in locations where we are present that have a fairly immediately potential for struggle, especially if it also involves the more oppressed layers of the working class, particularly Blacks, Latinos and immigrants. On the other hand, despite some individual working-class participants and a few small labor contingents, the anti-war movement is clearly primarily middle-class in composition and political outlook. We don’t abstain from the anti-war movement, but it has a different priority level than our work in the transit union. So that is why at this time we don’t have anything comparable to RTW for the anti-war movement.
You agree with our call upon the anti-war movement to break with the middle-class reformist misleadership. We would like to be able amplify this call in any number of ways. But in addressing a middle-class movement with such a call, it’s very important that we stress the basic class questions regarding why it is important to break with the middle-class reformist leaders. It is not simply that the anti-war movement could be more effective if it was based on working-class militancy. We are not interested in producing a more powerful version of middle-class radicalism. For any of these anti-war activists to develop to the point where they can truly help bring an end to capitalist depredation and war they have to come to revolutionary politics, and this requires that they be exposed to a critique of capitalism from a revolutionary perspective. We also agree that it is important to bring action proposals to the anti-war movement that go beyond simple calls for building the revolutionary party (“join our group”). We always try to raise positive slogans that point to mass struggle. On the other hand, it is hard to tell the movement to stop being what it is ... middle-class. However we can point to actions that could make a difference, such as strikes by workers against the war. We point propagandistically toward an anti-war movement based in the working class that carries out mass actions. You argue in favor of agitational efforts to move the base of the anti-war movement away from its leadership. Success for such tactics will depend on the actual developments in the anti-war movement. For the last few months the tendency of the vast majority of anti-war activists is towards electoral action in support of the Democrats to displace Bush, i.e., seeking to replace one pro-war party with another. So long as the anti-war movement is in decline and for the most part essentially deaf to revolutionary ideas (which happens to be the case for the last year or so), agitation would be a waste of resources. However things can change fast. Events are certainly moving quickly in Iraq at the present, as the position of the U.S. deteriorates militarily and politically. If there are signs of a revival of the anti-war movement, particularly on a more militant plane, we will definitely be addressing these people with popular propaganda and agitational tactics.
Before leaving the topic of the anti-war movement per se, let me address a point you made regarding the slogan “Turn the guns the other way.” You make the point that soldiers did exactly that during the Viet Nam War, and that there wasn’t any revolution as a result. Even the most revolutionary-sounding slogans can have a non-revolutionary content. We point to the “fragging” of officers during the Viet Nam War to show people that even in the absence of a mass revolutionary party or even a revolutionary situation in the United States, some American soldiers in Viet Nam acted upon gut class instinct to eliminate their officers.
However, those actions did not constitute a program in themselves and are not exactly what Lenin meant when he said, “Turn the guns the other way.” Lenin coupled that with “Turn the imperialist war into a civil war,” i.e., workers revolution. Simply turning some of the guns around to kill some of the officers doesn’t by itself lead to revolution.
That leads back to the limitations of agitational tactics when the situation is premature. Agitating, say, among soldiers right now in Iraq simply to turn their guns around would be self-defeating. However using the slogan in a propagandistic context to point to a long-term direction of a working-class revolutionary movement with an essential component within the ranks of the military gives the slogan revolutionary content. It’s a matter of context. When we use the slogan, we are not calling for an agitational campaign for shooting officers today or tomorrow. That soldiers are quite likely to do exactly that today or tomorrow is simply a fact that we use to demonstrate the objective potential for our program.
This brings me to the question of our attitude towards the draft and movements that oppose it. I believe that our article in PR 69 is really quite comprehensive on this, and I won’t attempt to restate it. I also think that Joseph explained our position very well in his last letter to you. I will try to answer your questions and arguments. You make the point that there are three “distinct” questions involving the draft:
“The first question, is whether a working class revolutionary should support, oppose, or maintain neutrality regarding the resumption of a bourgeois draft. The second question is what attitude a working class revolutionary ought to take regarding anti-draft *movements*. The third question is what attitude a working class revolutionary ought to take regarding resistance to a bourgeois draft vs. submission to such a draft.”
These are three aspects of the conscription issue but they are not at all distinct, in that they are all very much related to each other. On the question of opposition versus neutrality, you raise the question of how we would vote in relation to the resumption of the draft. You imply that our not indicating whether we would vote against it or abstain is a logical omission. It was not. The question of how revolutionaries would vote depends on the circumstances (which are quite hypothetical to say the least in the present period). By the time we are large enough to have elected representatives in Congress, the draft will probably have already been implemented for some time, or else by the time we are large enough and popular enough to have the kind of support that could potentially put us in a seat in Congress, there may not even be Congressional elections, at least the kind that would allow a revolutionary party to participate. But even accepting the hypothetical situation of our having a representative sitting in Congress today and confronted with the question of voting for, against or abstaining on the a bill favoring a drafted army, there are still many possibilities. As Trotsky explained in a polemic with Max Shachtman that can be found in the collection In Defense of Marxism, revolutionaries would under no circumstances vote in favor of any final legislation regarding the constitution of the bourgeois military. We do not support one form of capitalist state over another but rather seek to rally the working class to the cause of overthrowing that state. If a bill were to be put forward essentially and specifically to replace the mercenary army with a conscripted army, we would probably abstain, depending on whether a “no” vote would imply support for maintaining a mercenary army. If a “no” vote implies support for maintaining a mercenary army, we could not in principle vote “no.” However if the bill is an omnibus bill laying out a complete military budget or program, we might well vote “no,” because we would be voting against the entire military program. In either case, we would be supplementing our vote with a complete public explanation and motivation of our position, since our whole purpose in holding any seat in bourgeois legislative bodies would be to advance the consciousness of our class through exposing the real nature of all the legislative acts, not to participate in the capitalist government.
This is very much related to how we regard anti-draft movements. As we argued extensively in PR 69, protests and organized opposition to the implementation of the draft that focus on the conscription policy per se are simply backhanded calls for a mercenary army. This is because anti-draft movements rely on the essentially pacifist illusion that resisting and opposing the draft can somehow stop the government from organizing the military. The participants of such movements have the luxury of telling themselves that no matter what kind of military is organized, they themselves are morally free of any taint of being complicit in it. Organizing against the draft cannot stop the draft. The bourgeoisie will be able to raise a conscription army even if it is extremely unpopular. (How well such an army will fight is another question!) During World War I there was massive opposition, protest and evasion of the draft. All that opposition did not prevent the American bourgeoisie from committing a massive conscripted army to the war. What opposition did accomplish was the prosecution and imprisonment of many anti-war activists who could have been at the front agitating among the troops against the imperialist war.
We characterize anti-draft movements as being primarily middle-class. This doesn’t mean that there cannot be an working class organization or movement with a position against the draft. With your example of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement as a working class movement that held a position opposed to the draft, you answered your own argument. We disagree with DRUM’s position. But, as you point out, one would not characterize DRUM as an “anti-draft movement.” Opposition to the draft was not their main focus and did not define them as a group. (They had other serious programmatic deficiencies, notably a Black “nationalist” orientation.)
You defined the third question regarding the draft as “what attitude a working class revolutionary ought to take regarding resistance to a bourgeois draft vs. submission to such a draft.” When we argue why opposition to the draft makes no sense strategically (since it means preferring a mercenary army to a conscripted army), we stress that in a drafted army the ranks of the military are more accessible to popular moods of the masses and are ultimately more accessible to revolutionary activity.
Now some subjectively revolutionary elements see this accessibility as an opportunity to induce resistance to the draft. For revolutionaries it is more important strategically that there be anti-war, anti-imperialist elements throughout the ranks of the conscripted army than that a relatively few resistors manage to escape. As I think you agree from several of your comments, a conscripted army is a threat to the ruling class at the same time that rulers find they must rely upon it to carry out their imperialist aims. We want to maximize the weakness and lay the basis for “turning the guns around,” etc. So while we wouldn’t ostracize or condemn draft resistance or desertion, we seek to dissuade anti-war militants from this course.
Let me just clarify that we do expect the American rulers eventually to implement the draft. You questioned Joseph’s comment that they do not dare do it at this time. We view their hesitation as temporary, and expect that their own imperialist needs will ultimately force them to re-instate the draft in some form, even though they are aware of the risks to military discipline and to social stability. Joseph made it clear in the remainder of the same paragraph (which you also quoted) that we expect it to come – was casting it negatively in terms of what conditions he saw as necessary before that can happen: “...They will not do so until they feel they have enough popular support to get it going without fostering a mass rebellion.”
In Dave’s earlier letter, he also stated that eventually the ruling class would be forced to turn to the draft. Our article in PR 69 is also clear on this question. We wrote there, “But the time will come when the ruling class will be forced to turn to a drafted mass army, because expanded wars, conquest and occupation require massive numbers of troops. This is why these issues are extremely important for workers to consider now, even though there is no draft on the horizon at the moment.”
You ask, if I may paraphrase, why not oppose the draft if the draft is necessary for the capitalists’ victory?
First (as you also point out) organizing opposition to the draft cannot end the draft. A movement powerful enough to stop the draft would be already approaching a point where it could challenge the capitalists’ state power. It would be impossible to build a movement of such power simply around opposition to draft. You made some statements that show you are aware of this, I think. The same problem exists with the very old idea that imperialist war could be halted by a general strike against the war. If the working class is in a position to halt war through an indefinite general strike, including the ranks of the military, it would be ready to seize power.
Unfortunately the masses most often have to go through the experience of war to be disillusioned with the rulers’ justifications for it. Again I think your own statements in your letter support this.
Secondly even if anti-draft actions could significantly weaken the war effort leading to military defeat, the military defeat of one’s own bourgeoisie is not enough. We must overthrow it. As Joseph discussed very clearly in his letter, the military aspects of the revolutionary struggle point to the necessity of revolutionaries’ presence within the ranks of the military. Thus even if the draft is clearly a necessary element of the capitalists’ strategy for victory, we want to participate in the draft so as to turn this supposed element of their victory into the avenue for their overthrow.
You asked about “defeatist-minded individuals” in Israel, whether those who “submit to the draft are unlikely to play a positive (from a revolutionary perspective) role in the Israeli Defense Forces.” Obviously the Israeli military is one of the most difficult arenas due to the current hold of Zionism over the Israeli working class. However the fact that it is a very difficult arena doesn’t mean that it is hopeless. It is tied to the overall problem of the revolutionary struggle in Israel. Anti-Zionist individuals will not be able to play much of a role in prison or underground. If they emigrate to avoid the draft, they will be abstaining from the struggle inside Israel. But if they submit to the draft, they will receive very useful military training and will be in a position to communicate with like-minded draftees and conceivably to agitate against Israeli aggression should the situation improve from a revolutionary perspective.
We will be interested in hearing more about your on-going discussion regarding conscription. We hope that we can broaden this exchange of views to take up other questions and disagreements you may have with us. As I argued in this letter, our magazine Proletarian Revolution has the primary function of presenting revolutionary politics to those who are the most advanced from a working-class revolutionary perspective and who are committed to working to build the revolutionary party. It is precisely people such as you that we are most interested in engaging in political discussion. We can discuss much further methods of political presentation and party-building. Even more important at this stage however are fundamental programmatic questions. In other words we would like in addition to discussing the form and style of Proletarian Revolution, further discussion of the main political positions that we have been presenting in our magazine.
Also, although we put aside the question of animal liberation, the question of your position on that matter does seem somewhat unavoidable as we pursue further discussion, and therefore we will be sending our basic position on the matter to you shortly -- for your comment at your convenience.
We look forward to deepening our discussion and once again regret the inordinate delay.
Comradely regards,
Jim M.
For the League for the Revolutionary Party