Workers Action fuses with the WIL, Part 1
Workers Action, the US section of the CRCI, the international tendency led by the Partido Obrero of Argentina, has fused with the Workers International League, the WIL, which is the US section of the international tendency founded by Ted Grant after he abandoned the world Trotskyist movement. The fusion was announced on the Workers Power website http://www.workersaction.org/
It is obvious from what the Workers Action comrades write that they have serious illusions about the WIL.
For instance, the Workers Action comrades express their belief the world is now entering a revolutionary period, while it is well-known that the Grantists have believed that for decades. That is, for the Grantists, revolutionary crises are impending in every country, at all times. This is an almost metaphysical given for Grantists, their constant position for a very long time, and it differs radically from a judgment based on facts that would suggest the world is now on the verge of revolution.
The complete lack of reality in WIL's perspectives can be judged from what the WIL leadership writes about the US working class: The editorial, “Sharp, Sudden Changes,” (Socialist Appeal, 20, September-October, 2005, 2) deals with the “rapidly changing consciousness” of US workers, about whom it is claimed, “Over the last five years, millions have begun to question the very system” they live under. In reality, George Bush won the 2004 US presidential election. If “millions” “have begun to question the system,” surely there would have been some kind of mass break from the interchangeable Democratic and Republican parties. There was none. Describing the US, the editorial anticipates “sharp, sudden changes” in the “consciousness of millions,” who are forced “to seek an alternative” to capitalism. Again, what is the basis for this claim?
The vote for the Green Party fell from 2.7 million in 2000 to just over 100,000 in 2004. Does that denote increasing radicalization of US workers? Of course not. The profoundly reactionary thinking of most of the US population comes from the absence of a revolutionary workers’ party and is a byproduct of the destruction of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party through state terror carried out by the US government, together with the pervasive influence of the bourgeois media.
A collapse of the US economy may well be the only thing that will lead to changing the consciousness of the working-class majority in the US. The notion that consciousness will change automatically, without the intervention of a revolutionary party, is one of the most curious features of WIL ideology. Such a change in consciousness, one that would lead workers to reject the venal, treacherous Democrats, is nowhere in evidence among US workers at the moment,
even though most issues of Socialist Appeal (SA) anticipate the imminent apocalyptic breakdown of capitalism: “Capitalism: War, Crisis and Instability” (SA 19, July/August 2005), “2005: A World in Turmoil” (SA 16, January/February 2005), “2004: A Year of Elections, Revolutions, War, and Unemployment” (SA 12, April/May 2004), and so forth. In the WIL, a class analysis has been replaced by something like religious faith in revolution just-around-the-corner.
This evaluation is confirmed by looking at the World Perspectives document by the Grantist International Executive Committee, August, 2005: “We've entered the most turbulent period in world history. One shock after another is hitting the system; there's an enormous ferment. We see a questioning of the capitalist system itself. There is enormous volatility in the world economy. . . . The entire international situation is in a fragile state, moving in the direction of an economic crisis which could be as bad as the early 1970s - the rise in oil prices could be the detonator/catalyst. . . . Revolution is spreading like wildfire. The objective conditions are mature. . . . It is possible for workers to come to power without [a] revolutionary party . . . We need to start with a focus on the general situation of the epoch: the beginning of the world revolution . . . . ‘What does this all mean?’ It is nothing less than the impasse of capitalism on a world scale. . . . Unemployment in Iran is on the rise and the economy in trouble. Revolutionary events are on the horizon.”
The definition of revolution in the WIL, where it refers to any surface motion, like a demonstration against higher fuel prices in Nigeria, or a bus strike in Iran, differs radically from Leninism, where revolution is the concrete, visible act by which an exploited class overthrows its exploiters, by smashing the state machine that guarded and guaranteed exploitation.
In Leninism, revolution can be said to occur visibly, on a certain date. In the politics of the WIL, revolution is invariably a process, which conveniently defies specificity; one is never allowed to draw up a balance sheet on the accomplishments of a "process." "Revolution" approaches being anything that the needs of the WIL leadership dictate. The WIL leradership can flatter a nationalist politician in a developing country by talking about "revolution" that nationalist leader is allegedly heading. Impending revolution is the condition in nearly all places at the present and has been for many years, almost since the appearance of Grantism in the 1940's. "Revolution," as invoked by the WIL leadership, is used to hide the deficient, non-working class nature of movements the WIL supports.
It also serves to obscure the character of a period in history. The WIL leaadership speaks of the "Bolivarian revolution," for instance, when actually Venezuela is passing through a period of mass political awareness and activism. The role of chavismo in this period, and the goal of Chavez, is to preserve capitalist domination, just as Roosevelt did through the New Deal of the 1930's. Revolution has nothing to do with it.
The comrades of the ex-Workers Action refer to the identity of their views on Cuba with those of the Grantists. Trotsky' held that either the workers would smash the Stalinist bureacracy of the USSR through political revolution, to ensure the survival of the revolution, or there would be a capitalist restoration. Abandoning Trotskyism, both the ex-members of Workers Action and the leadership of the WIL have convinced themselves that self-reform by the Cuban Stalinist bureaucracy is realistic, that the Cuban bureaucracy will introduce organs of workers' democracy whose historical mission will be to put the bureacracy out of business and thereby save the conquests of the Cuban revolution. There is a saying, "I was born at night, but not last night," that applies to this claim by the WIL.
[To be continued]
It is obvious from what the Workers Action comrades write that they have serious illusions about the WIL.
For instance, the Workers Action comrades express their belief the world is now entering a revolutionary period, while it is well-known that the Grantists have believed that for decades. That is, for the Grantists, revolutionary crises are impending in every country, at all times. This is an almost metaphysical given for Grantists, their constant position for a very long time, and it differs radically from a judgment based on facts that would suggest the world is now on the verge of revolution.
The complete lack of reality in WIL's perspectives can be judged from what the WIL leadership writes about the US working class: The editorial, “Sharp, Sudden Changes,” (Socialist Appeal, 20, September-October, 2005, 2) deals with the “rapidly changing consciousness” of US workers, about whom it is claimed, “Over the last five years, millions have begun to question the very system” they live under. In reality, George Bush won the 2004 US presidential election. If “millions” “have begun to question the system,” surely there would have been some kind of mass break from the interchangeable Democratic and Republican parties. There was none. Describing the US, the editorial anticipates “sharp, sudden changes” in the “consciousness of millions,” who are forced “to seek an alternative” to capitalism. Again, what is the basis for this claim?
The vote for the Green Party fell from 2.7 million in 2000 to just over 100,000 in 2004. Does that denote increasing radicalization of US workers? Of course not. The profoundly reactionary thinking of most of the US population comes from the absence of a revolutionary workers’ party and is a byproduct of the destruction of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party through state terror carried out by the US government, together with the pervasive influence of the bourgeois media.
A collapse of the US economy may well be the only thing that will lead to changing the consciousness of the working-class majority in the US. The notion that consciousness will change automatically, without the intervention of a revolutionary party, is one of the most curious features of WIL ideology. Such a change in consciousness, one that would lead workers to reject the venal, treacherous Democrats, is nowhere in evidence among US workers at the moment,
even though most issues of Socialist Appeal (SA) anticipate the imminent apocalyptic breakdown of capitalism: “Capitalism: War, Crisis and Instability” (SA 19, July/August 2005), “2005: A World in Turmoil” (SA 16, January/February 2005), “2004: A Year of Elections, Revolutions, War, and Unemployment” (SA 12, April/May 2004), and so forth. In the WIL, a class analysis has been replaced by something like religious faith in revolution just-around-the-corner.
This evaluation is confirmed by looking at the World Perspectives document by the Grantist International Executive Committee, August, 2005: “We've entered the most turbulent period in world history. One shock after another is hitting the system; there's an enormous ferment. We see a questioning of the capitalist system itself. There is enormous volatility in the world economy. . . . The entire international situation is in a fragile state, moving in the direction of an economic crisis which could be as bad as the early 1970s - the rise in oil prices could be the detonator/catalyst. . . . Revolution is spreading like wildfire. The objective conditions are mature. . . . It is possible for workers to come to power without [a] revolutionary party . . . We need to start with a focus on the general situation of the epoch: the beginning of the world revolution . . . . ‘What does this all mean?’ It is nothing less than the impasse of capitalism on a world scale. . . . Unemployment in Iran is on the rise and the economy in trouble. Revolutionary events are on the horizon.”
The definition of revolution in the WIL, where it refers to any surface motion, like a demonstration against higher fuel prices in Nigeria, or a bus strike in Iran, differs radically from Leninism, where revolution is the concrete, visible act by which an exploited class overthrows its exploiters, by smashing the state machine that guarded and guaranteed exploitation.
In Leninism, revolution can be said to occur visibly, on a certain date. In the politics of the WIL, revolution is invariably a process, which conveniently defies specificity; one is never allowed to draw up a balance sheet on the accomplishments of a "process." "Revolution" approaches being anything that the needs of the WIL leadership dictate. The WIL leradership can flatter a nationalist politician in a developing country by talking about "revolution" that nationalist leader is allegedly heading. Impending revolution is the condition in nearly all places at the present and has been for many years, almost since the appearance of Grantism in the 1940's. "Revolution," as invoked by the WIL leadership, is used to hide the deficient, non-working class nature of movements the WIL supports.
It also serves to obscure the character of a period in history. The WIL leaadership speaks of the "Bolivarian revolution," for instance, when actually Venezuela is passing through a period of mass political awareness and activism. The role of chavismo in this period, and the goal of Chavez, is to preserve capitalist domination, just as Roosevelt did through the New Deal of the 1930's. Revolution has nothing to do with it.
The comrades of the ex-Workers Action refer to the identity of their views on Cuba with those of the Grantists. Trotsky' held that either the workers would smash the Stalinist bureacracy of the USSR through political revolution, to ensure the survival of the revolution, or there would be a capitalist restoration. Abandoning Trotskyism, both the ex-members of Workers Action and the leadership of the WIL have convinced themselves that self-reform by the Cuban Stalinist bureaucracy is realistic, that the Cuban bureaucracy will introduce organs of workers' democracy whose historical mission will be to put the bureacracy out of business and thereby save the conquests of the Cuban revolution. There is a saying, "I was born at night, but not last night," that applies to this claim by the WIL.
[To be continued]
posted by Yosef Mikhah @ 7:00 PM
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