Frank's second response (slightly more concise)



-----Original Message-----
From: Alex G.
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 1:21 PM
To: pof-300@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [pof-300] Frank's second response (slightly more concise)


Frank replied to me again. This letter is slightly more useful, in my 
opinion, because I believe it is more clear and concise than the last 
one. This should be useful to me when I make my eventual reply, but 
it may be some time before that happens.

Anyway, here it is:


Dear Alex,

Continuing from yesterday, a preliminary:

You say that you want to address the more serious of my arguments and 
not waste time on "trivial" ones. I would therefore be interested in 
knowing what the arguments are that you consider to be trivial. Other 
readers might also be interested in seeing what's behind such an 
authoritative statement other than, perhaps, wanting to appear 
authoritative.

More on transparency:

You write that the "fact that SAIC can apparently agree on some 
things it good." Only "apparently" agree!? I think that numerous of 
our leaflets (we've written something like 23) and the Unity 
Statement have been heavily hammered out, with unanimous agreement 
around most of our materials. More, if you actually study them from 
the beginning, I think that you'll find that there is not only 
consistency in the politics, but development and better elaboration 
of them. To have this consistency would seem to indicate agreement on 
a political line on what to do now in this world. This is a little 
more than agreement on "some things."

You continue that "what are not seen (on the website) are all of the 
contradictions that SAIC has and how those contradictions are 
resolved." But who is really interested in these things? Busy-bodies? 
People who are interested in how to develop the perfect discussion 
while caring little about the politics? I just for the first time had 
a meeting with a young guy yesterday who has been paying attention to 
our website, homepages, and posts on Indymedia. He wasn't interested 
in how we resolve contradictions, he was interested in our politics 
and view on various questions, and in comparing them with his own 
(which are unformed and often quite different than ours, although I 
think that he has good basic stands). Further, he was quite aware of 
what`s in our Unity Statement and liked one of the clauses because it 
conformed to his own experience in actually trying to build 
something. Transparency? I wonder what can be more transparent than 
two activists honestly sharing their vie ws, organizational and 
movement experiences, personal histories, etc., and explaining all 
they can about their respective organizations.

You go on and on about activists outside the SAIC not feeling that it 
belongs to them, that they need to feel that they have an acceptable 
level of control over it, that they need to be reassured that they 
have control over the movement (SAIC is not the movement, by the way) 
before they will want to be part of it. But where is this coming 
from? Have you been told this by activists who are struggling to 
build something? If so, what have they actually built, and along what 
political lines is it? Or is it that you've been told this by people 
on Ben's list? Or is it a subjective and untested hypothesis that you 
have? If it's from other activists striving to do something in the 
movement (and not just isolated individuals on internet lists or 
Indymedia) I would certainly like to hear what was actually said.

While I'm waiting, however, I would point out that the committee is 
acutely interested in hearing what other activists have to say about 
its work and its agitation (which you've said nothing about). This is 
because we think we need less abstraction and more concreteness in 
our leaflets, for example, and because we need to get still more in 
tune with what people are thinking, their hang-ups and questions, and 
so on. Of course, one way that they can do this is to make comments 
on our website, but practice shows that these are far and few between 
in comparison to the face to face comments that we get from people, 
and even fewer than those that we get on Indymedia.

In concluding this section, I would argue that political transparency 
is not going to come from idealist schemes for using the internet to 
lead the revolution, or from sideline glorifiers of abstract (non-
class) democracy. It's going to come from groups working hard to lead 
the class struggle. This demands openness with the masses, and being 
closed toward the bourgeoisie. It's in the thick of the class 
struggle that everything is out in the open. It's there that we stand 
in our nakedness. But rather than fearing this, we welcome it.

"Left-wing" communism

You write that you "completely support SAIC in its goal to draw a 
wide range of activists … At this stage, I recognize that SAIC is not 
ready to put forward a clear vision of what a world without 
imperialism looks like because this would indeed alienate activists 
(and Ben realizes this as well)."

But this indicates that you do not agree with (or understand) 
anything that I wrote. The issue is not stages, or "being ready", or 
even alienating activists. The class movement is comprised of many 
types of organizations---united front organizations, if you well. 
SAIC, with the program elaborated in its Unity Statement, is one of 
these. A trade union is another. And I gave the example of Lenin 
saying that it would be folly to demand to make recognition of the 
dictatorship of the proletariat a condition for membership in the 
trade unions three years after the October revolution. But did Lenin 
write of the trade unions getting ready to put forward a clear vision 
of what a world without the down but still desperately fighting 
bourgeoisie would look like? No, that was the task of the most class 
conscious workers organized into the communist party, and this would 
be part, and only part, of drawing more workers from the trade unions 
into the communist movement, an d into the party More, if this party 
were to be more than a sect, it certainly couldn't confine itself to 
spreading this clear vision while not seeing, confronting and 
successfully winning all of the complex struggles of the moment. 
(And, although they're connected, where the Bolsheviks ultimately 
failed was in the latter, not in the former.)

Not only do you not agree with this, you directly argue against it 
with the same tired "leftism" as Ben: 

"If SAIC discusses the question of what a world without imperialism 
looks like, activists will be reassured through the multiple views 
displayed that a world without bourgeois rule is possible and they 
will be more likely to support SAIC."

Thus the SAIC becomes a "communist" organization after all. 
Discussion between members "reassure" activists that a "world without 
bourgeois rule is possible." But what of a communist organization 
like the CVO? Does not its articles on state capitalism reassure 
activists that communism is possible? Similarly regarding activist 
study groups that are reading the works of Marx, Engles and Lenin. To 
reassure in a mass way means that the communist movement in its own 
right must be further built. But to do this requires that united 
front organizations also be built (out of which will come many future 
communists), and this requires that they defend themselves from 
liquidationism from the "left." 

One last comment before I retire. Look at this that you wrote:

"Lenin felt that it was reactionary to use the various opportunist 
parties in Europe to plaster all political parties with the same 
image, and I agree.

"But Frank uses this argument to back up his own, which says that 
what Ben and I have advocated is unsound. We don't see the 
connection, because we are not advocating that all political parties 
are always bourgeois."

What in the world does any of this have to do with the relationship 
of the communist party to various mass organizations!? This is the 
point that I raised and that you're floundering on. 

Frank