Anti-Capitalist strategy and the question of organization

Friday 12 June 2020, by Julia Camara

No matter how much time passes, or how often history is declared to have ended, the debate over socialist strategy and organization always returns. This foundational question appeared in embryo at the very start of the workers movement in the nineteenth century and was raised explicitly by Lenin when he described his perspective as “tactics as plan” and when revolutionaries split with social-democracy during World War I. [1]


Organizational and strategic questions can be considered separately, but in reality (and inevitably at the theoretical level), they present themselves as mutually related. Therefore, it is necessary to address both in order to systematically explain either. Over the course of the twentieth century, diverse combinations and conjunctural implications have given rise to many debates and concrete formulas, such as what defines revolutionary organization, the much-discussed reform or revolution, Popular Front and United Front formations, vanguard versus mass parties, entryism as a tactic, and the great strategic hypotheses that dominated the past century, of which the Insurrectional General Strike and the Prolonged Peoples’ War are only two. Rather than attempt to review each of these, this text offers some basic tools by which we can orient ourselves theoretically and in our political practice.

In these confusing times, when the political horizon has become blurry, we must bring it into focus and consider how to organize ourselves to achieve some clarity of purpose.

Some basic concepts

Our strategic understanding can be strengthened by considering several concepts developed through hard-won experience that may provide a theoretical base upon which other ideas can be arranged.

In 1915, in the Collapse of the Second International, Lenin began to develop the notion a revolutionary crisis. Lenin’s conception has been popularized as “when those above cannot, and those below will not, tolerate the situation, while those in the middle hesitate and lean towards those below,” such a situation supposes a conjunctural crisis of social relations occurring at the same time as a national political crisis. This notion emphasizes that there are particular and relatively exceptional circumstances in which the State and the system as a whole become vulnerable and, thus, can be overturned. Such a constellation of factors does not take place at just any moment and, therefore, there is a rhythm to the class struggle, one that includes ruptures and discontinuities that must be considered in terms of an understanding of crisis as a political phenomena.

Lenin’s second concept is the political event. Lenin grasped that a crisis may be detonated by any number of events, that is, the totality of contradictions inherent in the capitalist system may express themselves, in a condensed manner, in what at first glance may appear to be minor conflicts. For instance, we have seen student revolts, democratic demands, women’s mobilizations, and national conflicts set off crises. These moments of compression and eruption define what Lenin calls political events. Knowing how to detect such events, how to exploit contradictions and resolve a crisis victoriously, requires conscious intervention, that is, it requires political organization. Because when we start to discuss strategy, this already implies initiative, decision-making, a clear project, implantation in the working classes, and a certain balance of forces.

Political time, accordingly, does not march in linear fashion towards progress, rather, it is broken time, marked by crisis and interruptions of normality, opening possibilities for those who are prepared and know how to approach it. French revolutionary socialist Daniel Bensaïd spoke of empty, homogenous time and dense time, which is to say that there are periods when nothing happensand periods when, all of a sudden, time accelerates and many things happen all at once. [2] Revolutionary politics implies the mastery of this kind of political time, of knowing how to react in the face of rapidly changing events. To prepare, as Trotsky put it, for the “forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.” [3]

Concerning strategy

One of the recurring debates on the radical left revolves around whether we need a political party or mass movement? Or what is the relationship between political organization (the party) and the social movement?… what a century ago was called the workers’ movement.

What is clear – despite bureaucratic and populist attempts to push real-world problems to the margins of political struggle, and the pretensions of the post-autonomy theorists who claim politics can be dissolved into social struggle – is that social and political struggles form two profoundly interrelated aspects of the same endeavor, although they have their own particular rhythms, characteristics, and reality.

Political struggle, conceived properly, is not reducible to a prolongation or intensification of social struggle. Political struggle is, strictly speaking, the struggle for power. Not in a crude or “politicking” sense, but in its most profound dimension. Constructing an anticapitalist and revolutionary strategy requires the conviction that the conquest of power by the working class is possible. Otherwise, socialist politics ends up inevitably moving in another direction, limiting itself to the promotion of day-to-day resistance (in the best-case scenario) where all transformative goals are abandoned.

A revolutionary strategy implies the actuality of revolution. [4] Not in the sense that the revolution will take place tomorrow, but only that it is possible in our epoch. The actuality of revolution carries with it a sense of anticipation, of an attempt to bring the revolution into present time and to bring present to the revolution. In this sense, the revolution functions like a regulating horizon for our present-day actions, if the revolution does not form part of our political horizon from the beginning, we are unlikely to approach it. Here we enter the field of politics as a strategic art where we must put our collective capacity to develop strategic hypotheses to the test. [5] Political struggle does not operate through imaginaries, nor through improvisations, rather, it must be based on a strong hypothesis, in other words, on a well-founded bet. Yet no matter how vigorously researched and prepared, any hypothesis remains nonetheless a bet. Thus, approaching reality strategically is a precondition for victory, even if it is not a guarantee.

Understanding political struggle in this manner (the actuality of revolution, revolution as a regulating horizon, the elaboration of strategic hypotheses checked against reality) brings with it two interrelated virtues. The first is to break free from a stagist view of political struggle, one inherited from a conception of historical time belonging to classical social-democracy that fails, as we have seen, to correspond to the reality of broken political time. The second is that it allows us to respond successfully to the specific rhythms of this broken time, to anticipate crises, and to prepare for forks in the road and sharp turns.

Seen in these terms, the future is not simply the inevitable result of a chain of causes. Rather, the future is itself a cause that makes us choose one or the other decision in the present, it is the regulatory horizon of our political practice. And in turn, our ability to imagine the present is conditioned (not determined) by our understanding of the past. Escaping teleological politics – where everything happens inevitably and nothing could have been otherwise, escaping the mechanical rigidity that mistakes conditioning with determination and eliminates the subjective factor of history – is a necessary precondition for strategic thinking. Bensaïd expressed this sense with a phrase that I have always liked: “the past is full of presents that never came to fruition.”

In opposition to those who write History as an inevitability after it has already come to pass, we should follow Bensaïd’s suggestion that there is always (and always has been) a range of real possibilities. Whether or not one of them finally ends up being realized depends, fundamentally, on the correlation of forces and the level of class struggle. Typical accounts of the Spanish transition to democracy after the end of the Franco fascist regime and the often-praised Pactos de la Moncloa present a good example of how the discourse of what happened happened because it was the only thing that could possibly have happened to obscure political decisions and actions that contributed to the short-circuiting other outcomes which, at a specific moment, were also possible.

Here, by organizing to push one way or the other, we enter the field of strategy. Whether or not any hypothesis is correct will depend, among other things, on accumulated historical experience, the correlation of forces, the capacity for analyzing the national situation, the strength of the State, and a socialist organization’s implantation in and connection with the mass movement. And after accounting for all that, it is always possible to err.

In the traditions of the revolutionary left, strategy is the basis upon which to gather, organize, and educate militants, it is a project aiming to overthrow bourgeois political power. And if politics is the struggle for power, this implies working to build a majority. In other words, having the will to join in the mass, not just differentiate from it. Breaking with the minoritarian fatalism of always being different (and lamenting that nobody understands us) in order to build, in Gramscian terms, a counter-hegemonic project and not merely an alternative political expression. Trying to reverse the correlation of forces is one of the underlying questions of all strategic thinking, and the only possible method is trial and error infused with the spirit of accumulating experience and correcting mistakes. Here the role of the organization comes into play.

Concerning organization

Returning to Lenin, another of his principle contributions was the delimitation between class and party. Starting with What is to be Done?, Lenin clarified the typical confusion between the two: the party does not equal the class itself, but only a group of individuals with a certain level of consciousness and broadly agreed-upon strategies. Two questions flow from this that have sparked recurring debates on the left over the last century, namely, the debate concerning conceptions of a vanguard party and whether or not there are models for such a party that are more useful than others. We’ll return to this later. The fact is that Lenin never argued that revolutionary organization embodied the class as a whole. Rather, such organization represents a class-based project that may serve as an instrument for the optimization of the working class’ transformative power.

One important conclusion that flows from this is that, if the party is delimited with respect to the class, there must be space for more than one party. The defense of pluralism has been a bedrock principle for all revolutionary Marxist movements during the difficult twentieth century. This is true in the first place because socialist democracy can only be learned by practicing it. Secondly, and this is no minor question, pluralism is not inevitable. I’ll try to explain what I mean.

Trotsky suggested that parties, besides their well-known ambition to embody particular classes or sections of classes, are also bearers of ideology and strategic orientations. This is necessarily so because working-class ideological homogeneity is impossible – capitalism itself makes certain of this. This reality is not, in the first instance, based on conscious and massive manipulation by the ruling class, but is the direct result of economic and social mechanisms acting on the consciousness of the oppressed. The achievement of a general class consciousness among the masses – and even then not without contradictions – can only occur during a revolutionary process. Pluralism, therefore, is not only desirable in democratic terms, it is also inevitable. If revolutionary organizations, understood as such, express ideological-strategic wagers, then the existence of multiple organizations (and competition between them) is to be expected.

With respect to the notion of the vanguard, the Leninist delimitation of the party with respect to the class has often been misunderstood as a total separation, thus isolating the supposed vanguard group of enlightened individuals from the real mass movement. The history of the Bolshevik Party itself demonstrates that there can be no self-proclaimed vanguard. Instead, the historic right to act as such, as Ernest Mandel put it, must be won. And this right can only be won through participation in the heart of mass struggle. No one gets to be a leader, or to play a leading role, unless this position arises from within the struggle of the mass of the working class.

In the history of the revolutionary left, the best theoreticians have always been leaders, and many of the best leaders have made important theoretical contributions, for instance, Lenin, Gramsci, and Bensaïd himself, to name a few. The same holds true when consider people known for their practical leadership, such as Che Guevara, where we find that his theoretical production is greater than is often considered. This demonstrates how the party, the political organization, acts as a mediation between theory and praxis.

The party is the vehicle through which strategic hypotheses are elaborated, not out of thin air, but based on the combined, accumulated historical experience of its members. This accumulated experience – and its assimilation by party activists who are themselves implanted in, and learning from, different struggles – transforms the organization into a transmission belt in a double sense. The party is, in this way, as much a producer as a product of mass revolutionary action.

The second critical aspect in our conception of political organization (after properly conceiving of the party as a mediating force between theory and practice) is political strategy. A strategic party is one that not only educates and accompanies the masses, it is also capable of organizing advances and retreats, making course corrections based on rhythms and moments arising from the struggle. That is, a party that understands how to move in broken, political time.

Lastly, the party must play a leading role in an historic bloc composed of a galaxy of diverse forms of organization based on the subaltern classes in what Gramsci called civil society, this operation takes place at the social level that we spoke of earlier, a level that is distinct from the political sphere. When referring to this historic bloc, we use the term coordination (articulación in Spanish) to describe the formation of a collective will that transcends particular interests, one that becomes self-aware and counterposes itself to the dominant powers. The party’s task is to facilitate this process of coordination, generating organizing hubs (centros de anudamiento) that offer a common vision and strategic hypothesis.

This does not mean, and this is important to emphasize, establishing a political leadership the realizes a project that is external to the struggle. Remember, Mandel’s affirmation that a vanguard must with the right to lead, that is, it must be recognized as such by the masses. And as there is a plurality of political organizations, we must also understand that ideological debates and competing strategic hypotheses can only be proven in reality, something that is not possible if the contending organizations are not rooted in the mass movements. The party, then, appears as the political leadership of an historic bloc, but it achieves this position because its objective is accepted by the masses, who recognize it as their own.

Having arrived at this point, let’s review. We have been talking as if party and political organization are at all times synonymous, however, there are clearly other forms of political organization besides a party.
In the debate over party form, what we often find instead are political groups, which also organized on the basis of ideological boundaries and strategic hypotheses, but which do not function as parties but as lobbies. These organizations often lack democracy – both internally (who and how to makes decisions, participation and structures for debate, etc.) and externally – and transparency as no one knows who is a member based on what criteria, many times they even hide their existence, etc.
On the other hand, the party (or parties) should not be confused with institutions designed for the political struggle that, at specific historical moments, the workers’ movement as a whole creates. When the class as a whole identifies itself as a revolutionary alternative (when a new historical bloc arises and is articulated) the need for autonomous and unitary forms of organization appears, such institutions take on the dual roles of acting as counter-power organs within capitalist society and as instruments for the training of the masses in socialist self-management. The most recurrent historical example of these sorts of institutions are soviets, which are nothing more than the Russian word for councils. When soviet-like institutions arise, the parties (based on an inevitable and desirable pluralism) intervene in the soviets, but soviets are much more than the sum of these parties: they are the instrument that the class empowers for its own emancipation. They are, at that point, the form of political organization that mediates between the class itself and its own conscience.

Taking from Gramsci’s interpretation of Lenin, we might say that the accent should be placed on the direct social agent, on the working class. Only in this way can a dialectic be established between the class and a political leadership that prevents the party from converting itself into a body that is not only delimited with respect to the class, but separated and alien to it.

Two caveats must be added here. First, pluralism and democracy are confronted by the constant danger of bureaucratism. Both external pluralism and democracy (that is, a recognition of the legitimacy of class institutions and a commitment to participate honestly and loyally in the movement of the masses) and internal (democratic centralism understood as outlined above, featuring rank-and-file control, the permanent training of activists who are capable of understanding and intervening in debates and in the elaboration of strategy, term limits, publishing organs that are open and comradely, the right to form tendencies, and the absence of leadership by fiat, etc.) are necessary to confront this ever-present danger. Second, strong links and real implantation in living movements – in both the social field and in civil society – can act as a safeguard against bureaucratization, integration into the state apparatus, and capitalist cooptation.

Outlines of a proposal

So far, I hope it is clear how debates regarding strategy and organization intersect and interlock, in other words, it is not possible to think about what kind of organization we want without thinking at the same time about why we want it. Bensaïd posed the question like this: Is a revolution possible and do you want to fight for it. And, if so, you must determine what political instrument is necessary because, with respect to revolutionary organization, the form is part of the content.

The party form is always historically conditioned, but this raises a question about whether there are better, or more revolutionary, models as such, an idea into which many supposedly Marxist groups have repeatedly fallen and which is deeply anti-Leninist at heart. However, if there are no set forms, there are useful criteria, references, and guides as long as we keep in mind that the type of party that we must build today arises from our own concrete global situation and the balance of forces between the classes, the specifics of the crisis in which we find ourselves, and the evolution of the working-class and social movements.

The greatest challenge facing the social revolution is that it is the first in history that necessarily implies the prior awareness of one’s goal. Thus, political struggle is essential to make a revolution since it can shape class consciousness, it is a means by which to accumulate experience, and when a revolutionary crisis opens, it can act to alter the balance of forces. Conscious leadership is, therefore, at the center of the conditions of possibility for the success of the social revolution.

And in this sense, the main criteria for building the kind of party we need were provided by Lenin are still valid and correct today as long as we keep in mind that they are criteria, not models.
A delimited and active party, one which acts as an element of continuity amidst fluctuating collective conscience. This will not always mean the same thing for party members, and it is clear today that it is necessary to allow for a diversity of compromises that fit our lives under late capitalism. But it is essential to maintain a militant nucleus, and not resign ourselves to the dissolution of ties between revolutionaries or to rely on plebiscitary formulas.
A party committed to political action across the whole society. The party must not remain passive in the face of injustices, however small they may seem, it must participte in all local and sectoral battles, not merely shutting itself up on the margins of concrete conflicts. And this is true in all areas of work, be it the economic/union struggle or work in elected or other institutions.
A nimble party, capable of responding to unforeseen events. One with an internal political culture trained in and accustomed to the democratic debate that is capable of making sharp turns while remaining cohesive.
A party capable of presenting an overall vision. In other words, capable of acting with a strategic vision, formulating strategic hypotheses, and contributing to the coordination of the historical bloc through its implantation and work in social movements.
Finally, a party capable of thinking about concrete mediations and temporary forms of organization. That is, one that is capable of developing specific tactics so as to not be paralyzed in the absence of a pre-ordained script that brings the revolutionary horizon into focus.

The great challenge we face today, the question that must guide our political action, is how to advance towards the coordination of a new historical bloc that, as such, is not a simple sum of its parts but is capable of thinking of itself as a totality, one capable of opposing the dominant classes. For this to be possible, it is essential to build class structures and institutions, not in a merely economistic sense, but to go much further and establish contact and collaboration between them. We must strengthen not only combative unionism (very important in this period of crisis) but also social unionism, housing assemblies, mutual support networks in neighborhoods, social centers, the feminist movement, and all those spaces of self-organization where community ties are built, struggles that expose the system’s contradictions and promote processes of class self-awareness and self-activity.

But we must also encourage a pro-party spirit of organization. The party is not simply a participatory space or one more identity on a list, rather, it is the organization through which the political struggle takes place. It is where we come together and organize politically to create organizing and social hubs as we try to construct a new correlation of forces.

5 May 2020

Originally published in Viento Sur. Translated by No Borders News and published in two parts Part 1 and Part 2.

Attached documents
anticapitalist-strategy-and-the-question-of-organization_a6599-2.pdf (PDF - 359 kb)
Extraction PDF [->article6599]

Footnotes


[1] See Lenin What Is To Be Done” and The Collapse of the Second International.


[2] Daniel Bensaïd ““Leaps Leaps Leaps”: Lenin and politics”.


[3] Leon Trotsky The History of the Russian Revolution Volume One: The Overthrow of Tzarism”.


[4] Georg Lukacs, 1924 “Lenin: A Study on the Unity of his Thought 1. The Actuality of the Revolution”.


[5] Daniel Bensaïd 2006 “On the return of the politico-strategic question”.

Spanish state
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Anticapitalistas leave Podemos
Statement by Anticapitalistas on leaving Podemos
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Marxism
Questions without Answers: The Dutch and German Communist Left
Analysing global capitalism
Leon Trotsky and revolutionary art
Problems of unequal development in underdeveloped countries
Mandel and Capitalist Breakdown
Debate section
Problems with an Electoral Road to Socialism in the United States
Parliamentary action and social struggles - The experience of the Portuguese Left Bloc
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The Left Bloc 20 years on


Julia Camara


Julia Camara is a historian and member of Anticapitalistas, section of the Fourth International in the Spanish state. She has been active in organizing the mass feminist mobilizations and 8 March women’s strikes in recent years.



- 2020 International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

USA
Justice requires the legal system be abolished and replaced

Wednesday 7 October 2020, by Malik Miah

The decision of the Kentucky Grand Jury ‒ a secret body ‒ to not file murder charges against the two white cops who killed Breonna Taylor shows the United States legal system is criminal, unjust and needs to be abolished and replaced. [1]

During the midnight raid on their apartment, Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker fired a single warning shot at the plainclothed cops, thinking they were intruders. The cops killed Taylor, who was sleeping. To the Kentucky attorney general it was a “tragedy”, but not a crime.

Speaking at a memorial for Taylor in Jefferson Square Park in Louisville on September 23, Until Freedom co-founder Tamika Mallory stressed non-violence: “We have to understand that we have a responsibility, to the rest of this nation and to generations to come, that we conduct ourselves, again, not peacefully, but non-violently, so that the story that comes out of here is that we are not the murderers, we are not the looters, we are not the burners, we are not the ones, they did it to us, and we are only responding.”

Hours before the grand jury’s decision, legendary musician Stevie Wonder released a seven-minute video on YouTube, The Universe Is Watching Us, in which he said: “You say you believe that ‘all lives matter’. I say I don’t believe the fuck you do.”

In the US, cops have total immunity for their murderous actions. Legally, it’s called “qualified immunity”. Whatever a cop does, including murdering an innocent person, is protected.
Family demands transcripts

Taylor’s family is demanding the release of the grand jury’s transcripts. The family’s lawyer Ben Crump said on September 25: "There seems to be two justice systems in America ‒ one for Black America and one for white America."

"What did Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron present to the grand jury? Did he present any evidence on Breonna Taylor’s behalf?

“Or did he make a unilateral decision to put his thumb on the scales of justice to help try to exonerate and justify the killing of Breonna Taylor by these police officers? And in doing so, make sure that Breonna Taylor’s family never got their day in court.

"Release the transcript so we can have transparency. And if you did everything you could do, on Breonna’s behalf, you shouldn’t have any problems whatsoever, Daniel Cameron, to release the transcript to see you fought for all of Kentucky’s citizens.”

Crump said the decision in Taylor’s case follows a pattern "of the blatant disrespect and marginalisation of Black people, but especially Black women in America who have been killed by police.”

The legal system is rigged. The prosecutor is the only person who presents evidence to a secret grand jury. The public has no idea who is a member of the jury or whether the victim of cop violence has her side presented.
False equivalency

All violence before, during and after protests is not the same.

The media makes a false equivalency whenever any violence takes place. The implication is that if there were no protests, there would be no violence.

It’s also incorrect to say that violence ‒ whether by the right or police ‒ is the fault of demonstrators.

When peaceful protesters are attacked by military-style police and Federal government police ‒ as seen in Portland, Oregon, any response to such police violence is justifiable self-defence.

Another type of violence is initiated by right-wing white vigilantes. They infiltrate peaceful demonstrations, as occurred in Minneapolis, as the George Floyd protests began. They went to Kenosha, Wisconsin, as “friends” of the police. Their violence is blamed on the peaceful protesters, who are called “anarchists” and “terrorists” (or anti-fascists). Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement are smeared as un-American.

Police agents provocateurs initiate property vandalism during and after demonstrations and the police blame it on non-violent protesters. While petty crimes against property do happen, this is not supported by the movement. Nonetheless, the media disproportionately targets these activities in their coverage.

The BLM movement is decentralised. It is made up of local organisations and leaders. Its website, M4BL.org, lays out its general positions and principles. There is no support for violence. It is President Donald Trump and his cohorts that invoke violence. The BLM movement is for peaceful, non-violent organising and the right to self-defence.

In addition, BLM seeks to isolate those who commit violence.

Historically, in mass demonstrations during the civil rights era, organisers had marshals to help protect the marchers from the cops.
Defeating Trump

The defeat of an authoritarian ruler rarely happens through the ballot box. In most cases, the authoritarian figure makes sure the vote goes their way.

Trump has never had the majority of popular support. He repeatedly says November’s presidential election will be rigged and a scam ‒ if he is not re-elected. He says there will be no transition of power, only a continuation of his rule. He is prepared to use unauthorised election monitors at polling booths to intimidate voters.

How is this possible?

The US Constitution never trusted the people to elect its leaders. It includes a provision in a contested election to send the decision to Congress, where each state, no matter the size of its population, gets one vote.

The Republicans control 26 state legislatures (representing a minority of voters), enough to give Trump a “victory”, even if he losses the popular vote by a large margin.

In this scenario, defeating an authoritarian president requires more than voting. The ruling class must fear rebellion — mass actions that could overthrow the current system and implement radical reforms.

It has not happened in the US since the 1860s Civil War that ended slavery and made former slaves citizens. It was the bloodiest war in US history.

Malcolm X, in a 1964 speech, “The Ballot or the Bullet”, explained why revolution (the Bullet) is the answer to national oppression and to winning full equality for Black people: “This government has failed us; the government itself has failed us, and the white liberals who have been posing as our friends have failed us. And once we see that all these other sources to which we’ve turned have failed, we stop turning to them and turn to ourselves.

“America today finds herself in a unique situation. Historically, revolutions are bloody. Oh, yes, they are. They have never had a bloodless revolution, or a non-violent revolution. That don’t happen even in Hollywood. You don’t have a revolution in which you love your enemy, and you don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it.

“Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems. A revolution is bloody, but America is in a unique position. She’s the only country in history in a position actually to become involved in a blood-less revolution.

“The Russian revolution was bloody, Chinese revolution was bloody, French revolution was bloody, Cuban revolution was bloody, and there was nothing more bloody than the American Revolution.

“But today, this country can become involved in a revolution that won’t take bloodshed. All she’s got to do is give the black man in this country everything that’s due him. Everything.

“So, it’s the ballot or the bullet. Today our people can see that we’re faced with a government conspiracy. This government has failed us.

“It’ll be the ballot, or it’ll be the bullet. It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death. And if you’re not ready to pay that price, don’t use the word freedom in your vocabulary.”

The end of legal segregation and the expansion of voting rights 50 years ago occurred after Blacks fought for decades to be recognised as equal citizens. The right to vote came as mass marches demanded the ruling Democratic Party act.

Blacks were elected to office and rose to other positions in business and academia because of that mass pressure. It was a non-violent revolution.

Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. A new Black middle class emerged in the 1970s. But the inequality for the vast majority of African Americans remains the same. The wealth gap between Black and white families has actually widened ‒ the average wealth of Black households has dropped from 10% of the average white household to 7% today. Every social gain won ‒ from school desegregation, to fair housing, to affirmative action programs ‒ is in decline, eroded or has been overturned.

Malcolm’s analysis remains valid.
Key lesson

The key lesson from the past and from months of mass protests is that reforms are possible, whoever is in power, only if those movements press forward.

To give Taylor and other victims of murderous police and state-sanctioned violence a chance for justice, the cops must be fired, prosecuted and permanently removed. Justice requires that the current legal system be abolished and replaced.

A new system must be created nationally from the ground up. The old system, including its criminal procedures, must be eradicated. The so-called police “unions” must be limited in their power to undermine oversight. Qualified immunity must be eliminated.

Most liberals reject these solutions. They believe there are only a few bad cops and bad prosecutors, but the system itself is fine and just needs some tinkering. They support public defenders for the poor, but little pressure is organised to fund them.

Their focus is on electing more progressives within the current criminal justice system, with modest reforms. BLM movement leaders demand much more.

A mass uprising, Black Power Rising, is necessary to bring radical change. Anything less will lead to more Breonna Taylor killings and exonerations for killer cops.

The white militias, the far right and Trump’s use of the state to stay in power means that a clear revolutionary vision is needed to defend and protect Black lives.

29 September 2020

Source Green Left.


Attached documents
justice-requires-the-legal-system-be-abolished-and-replaced_a6845.pdf (PDF - 366.6 kb)
Extraction PDF [->article6845]

Footnotes


[1] See also “Outrage in Louisville after police not charged with Breonna Taylor’s murder”.

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Anti-racism
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Athletes Making Sports Matter
Against ‘Valeurs actuelles’ rubbish and its supporters, solidarity with Daniele Obono!


Malik Miah


Malik Miah is a retired aviation mechanic, union and antiracist activist. He is an advisory editor of Against the Current.



- 2020 International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

SPANISH STATE
Radiance and sunset of Podemos - reasons for a farewell

Wednesday 16 September 2020, by Manuel Garí

The creation of Podemos in the Spanish state was an important attempt to build an anti-neoliberal and pluralist mass party to the left of social-liberalism. That experience, which started very well, has finally ended very badly. Perhaps, for this reason, the title of this article could have been “Radiance and decline of Podemos ... as an emancipatory political project.”

The purpose of this article is to explain why it was necessary to create it and why it was necessary to abandon it. This has also meant reflecting on the balance sheet that can be made and the lessons that can be drawn from the actions of Izquierda Anticapitalista, now Anticapitalistas. [1]

Podemos arose because the social democratic and Eurocommunist left were at a dead end after the crisis of 2008. The eruption of the indignados of 15M in 2011 was the catalyst for the emergence of new political expectations in a context characterized by the unstoppable progress of the right-wing Partido Popular (PP) against the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Izquierda Unida (IU) was unable to confront neoliberal policies and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE - social-democratic party) was one of their executors. Both parties bore the heavy legacy of having contributed to the creation of the political regime of the Transition through the political pact with the forces from the Franco regime embodied in the Spanish Constitution of 1978. Both parties were part of that regime and, in the case of the PSOE, one of its main pillars.

On the other hand, there was widespread apathy and social demobilization caused in the first place by the misguided strategy of a social pact at all costs (social concertation) of the majority unions, CC OO and UGT, and the inability of the minorities to build a new hegemony within the workers’ movement, except for the LAB and ELA class-oriented unions in the Basque Country. This enabled the reform of Article 135 of the Employment Code, which made the payment of the public debt the priority in the General State Budgets, and the imposition of two regressive employment reforms: first, that approved by the 2004-11 socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, later worsened by the legislation of the 2011-18 government of the PP, led by Mariano Rajoy, which reduced collective labour bargaining, curtailed the role of unions in workplaces and attacked or annulled important rights of the working class, leading to a large wage devaluation, increased inequality, greater weight of capital income than wage income in gross domestic product (GDP), and increased job insecurity and poverty, especially among youth, practically expelled from the labour market.

As a result of all this, the 15M movement emerged as a protest against the worsening of the social situation and out of revulsion against the political swamp. This opened a window of opportunity for substantially modifying the political map in the Spanish state. Podemos came to fill the void indicated and was presented as the tool to create a new balance of forces in the political sphere that, if consolidated, could have helped to encourage a reinforcement of social organization and mobilization.

In this panorama, it is worth making an exception and pointing out the importance of the mass mobilizations of the Diadas or the days and challenges of 2014 and of 1 and 3 October 2017 in Catalonia, which expressed national aspirations and the demand for the right to decide of an entire people, generating the biggest crack yet in the fabric of the 1978 regime and becoming the main factor of its crisis. Moments in which the political left – including Podemos and its allies in Catalonia – missed a golden opportunity to lead the largest democratic mass popular movement of recent decades in the Spanish state and dispute the political hegemony and leadership of the other actors.

But Podemos quickly aged to decrepitude because it ended up accepting the discursive framework and the limits of the 1978 Constitution, the market economy and the European Union as the only possible horizon. This has meant a failure of the Podemos project and a defeat for the left that promoted it. And yet it was inescapable to try. And expedient.
15M in the genealogy and raison d’etre of Podemos

The eruption of the movement of indignados on 15 May 2011 in the plazas and streets of Madrid – immediately spreading to all the regions of the Spanish state, including Catalonia, Euskal Herria and Galiza – led to the appearance on the scene of the social mobilization of a new generation that did not identify with the parliamentary parties (“they do not represent us”), was particularly affected by austerity policies (“we are not paying for this crisis”), confronted the financial elites who received state aid to rescue the banks (“this is not a crisis, it is a scam”) and denounced the limits of the political regime (“they call it democracy and it isn’t”).

Therefore, it was a movement with an anti-regime vocation, configured around radical democratic demands that called into question the imperfect bipartisan model embodied by the PSOE and the PP, but also the turnismo in the government of the state, now socialist, now conservative, and the electoral model. But it was also constituted as an anti-austerity movement in the face of predatory economic and social policies contrary to popular sovereignty, especially after the reform of Article 135 of the Constitution and the bailouts of Spanish banks, which represented a public investment currently estimated at 65,000 million euros by the Bank of Spain. For this reason, 15M, although in an elementary way, demanded another economy, another model of society and the need for a new Constitution. That was its great contribution and the proof of its creative energy based on the activity of mass sectors. 15M came to have the sympathy of the majority of the population fed up with the austerity period that began in 2008 and the political sclerosis of the system.

The 15M movement meant a rectification to all the parties and unions in the system and opened the way for a popular mobilization sustained by various sectors (the so-called mareas or tides in education, health, public service workers and so on) relatively outside the bureaucracies and with new forms of organization and coordination. 15M generated forms of disobedient mass struggle of a new type, based on the assembly as the organizing matrix, which very soon overwhelmed the traditional organizations. 15M attracted environmental and feminist activists and youth sectors who were having their first experience.

It should be especially noted that 15M, thanks to its criticism of the 1978 regime, made possible the debate on the need for a democratic rupture and the opening of a constituent process, which, over time, led to Anticapitalistas and other sectors to speak plurally, since a set of constituent processes had to be coordinated that took into account the existence of the national question and not only the general dimension of the Spanish state.

But 15M also showed the limits of a social movement without a political expression and, specifically, an electoral representation. In 2013, the political situation was blocked. Very soon, among the most advanced activist sectors, the debate began about the need for a political tool. Although all of them agreed that no political force that could be created could claim the representation of the 15M movement, there is no doubt that Podemos was the beneficiary of the spirit of the indignados.
The dilemmas of Anticapitalistas

In the months prior to the launch of Podemos, within Anticapitalistas the debate on what to do was structured around three positions. One was to form a left front or a tactical alliance with IU - this had the disadvantage of the recent history of subordination of this organization to the Socialist Party, both in pre-electoral agreements at the state level and in the experience of co-government in Andalusia and many municipalities, as well as its growing discredit among left-wing youth. Another advocated promoting a front of organizations of the radical left, all of them small except in the Basque Country and partially in Catalonia, scarcely established and with sectarian features, which precisely would have meant for Anticapitalistas to stand outside the broad current of massive radicalization that emerged from 15M.

A third, defended by the leadership, proposed an initiative of a new type, since it considered that the existing left structures at that time were incapable of being useful in taking a leap that would take the social struggle to the political plane. This last option turned out to be the majority. In the heart of Anticapitalistas, and its predecessor Espacio Alternativo, there was always the discussion on the need to support the birth of anti-neoliberal organizations of the masses, democratic and capable of fighting electoral battles in a complementary way to the social struggles promoted by the movements. For this reason, when conceiving Podemos, great importance was given to the idea of a party-movement structured from the base in what we later called circles.

Anticapitalistas was the first group on the left to consider the need and possibility of taking a political leap because the mobilization was already showing signs of exhaustion as a result of the state blockade and the recovery of certain initiatives by the parties of the regime that were beginning to emerge from their confusion and initial paralysis in the face of a protest that was as extended as it was unexpected. Thus, Anticapitalistas considered that it was urgent and possible to channel all the energy that emerged after 15M towards a new battle that would unlock a political panorama that objectively acted as a lock. Effectively, there was a great potency in the social and political sector without representation. In this regard, Anticapitalistas had the good sense and tactical audacity to promote the Podemos initiative, whose scope and nature were of such a magnitude that they were going to put all the forces and capacities of the organization to the test.

What would have happened if Anticapitalistas had not done this? We cannot know because it did not happen. What we do know is that radical left groups that were not linked to Podemos committed suicide through sectarianism. It is possible that Anticapitalistas would have followed the path of political insignificance like a good part of the groups that remained outside. It probably would not have increased its activist forces and would not have enjoyed the wide audience that its public spokespersons have achieved. It would not have extended its organization to all the autonomous communities. It would not have been able to organize the massive political events, both in person and online, that it has carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic. None of its proposals on the national question or on social inequality would have had the media impact that they have had. It could not have set the political agenda among the vanguard, nor would it have become an ideological and political reference for the sectors most aware of activism. It would not have been able to carry out the experience of working from local, regional and European institutions on anti-austerity and democratic themes favouring the popular classes. At this point it should be noted that Pablo Iglesias and his team very quickly obstructed, through the abuse of anti-democratic regulations, the possibility of anti-capitalist representation in the state Parliament, in which there was a limited presence in one sole legislature.

But these and other issues that appear to the Anticapitalistas credit cannot hide two issues: 1) that already mentioned, that the Podemos project failed and that the Anticapitalistas theses were defeated; 2) that important mistakes were made by Anticapitalistas in the process that led to the triumph of the positions of Pablo Iglesias. Therefore, it is appropriate to remember/critically reconstruct the history of Podemos and take stock of the steps taken by Anticapitalistas to have an overall vision and also be able to understand the other big decision: to abandon Podemos and promote Anticapitalistas as a new political subject.
The Podemos phenomenon in all its complexity

The first characteristic of Podemos is that it reflected the feeling of indignation that existed after the 2008 crisis and the socially widespread perception that a minority benefited thanks to the fact that a majority lost a lot. And that this social question is closely linked to the democratic question. Pablo Iglesias, on 22 November 2014, at his most radicalized moment, when the polls made Podemos the biggest political force, from a clearly populist left-wing discourse which was nonetheless functional for the positions of the revolutionary left, affirmed that: “The line of fracture now opposes those who, like us, defend democracy… and those who are on the side of the elites, the banks, the market; there are those from below and those from above… an elite and the majority”.

A second singular characteristic of the birth of this political formation is the relevant and determinant role played by a small but active revolutionary Marxist organization, Anticapitalistas, in the creation and first stage of development of Podemos. Both the founding document “Make a move, turn indignation into political change” [2] and the electoral programme for the 2014 European Parliament elections reflect, despite the logical transactions of language when various cultures converge, the hegemony of revolutionary Marxist approaches in the meetings and assemblies of activists. Likewise, the contribution of Anticapitalistas in other areas was essential: giving legitimacy to the electoral proposal in front of the social left, facilitating the initial financial resources, making its small organizational structure available to the project and promoting the rank and file affiliative organization, the circles, across almost the entire territory of the Spanish state.

The third characteristic is that Podemos was born as a party that was extremely open to the incorporation of diverse currents of the social and political left, which soon took shape in the incorporation of sectors breaking from IU, incapable of coming out of their internal crisis and offering alternatives to the demands of a new generation of activists, as well as the interest it aroused in social movements, particularly in the sectors of political ecology and feminism. And it captured the attention of the twentysomething generation outside of politics.

There were three sine qua non conditions for the Podemos project to be built and to be useful. That it maintain its discursive radicality; that it establish stable organic ties with the working-class and popular sectors with greater awareness and combativeness; and that it be organized internally in a democratic way to enable deliberation, the participation of supporters in decisions and the creative and fraternal coexistence of the broad ideological plurality and politics present from the first moment at its heart. This plurality encompassed very diverse aspects, with a broader spectrum of differences than that presented by its three main political components grouped around the figure of Pablo Iglesias, Iñigo Errejón and Anticapitalistas, whose best-known public spokespersons were Teresa Rodríguez and Miguel Urbán.

From its origin, Podemos became an internal battlefield between its three souls. The one represented by the anti-capitalist current – broader than the organization that animated it – which proclaimed the importance of programme and organization in the construction of the new party, as well as the need to promote self-organization and social mobilization, an implantation among working people and the combination of these tasks with those of a slow electoral and institutional accumulation that should be put at the service of these objectives through a two-way party-working people relationship.

Faced with this proposal, an alliance was formed between the left-wing populist sector of Iñigo Errejón and the sector of Pablo Iglesias in the first citizens’ assembly of Podemos, known as Vista Alegre I (for the place where it was held). This alliance was reflected in the creation of a bureaucratic clique made up of two factions, constantly remodelling according to the internal balance of forces, whose mission was the absolute control of Podemos. The short-term goal of the alliance was to defeat revolutionary Marxist positions.

The specific objective of Pablo Iglesias was to establish himself as the undisputed leader with total autonomy, without specifying a project outside of electorally overtaking the Socialist Party (PSOE) and coming to government quickly. For this he did not hesitate to radicalize or moderate his discourse at will. He never proposed a project of society, a government programme or a strategy to follow, nor were the conditions and measures to face the attacks of capital considered. Nor were the lessons learned from the Troika’s intervention in the Greek case of Syriza. The old reformist confusion between entering government and having power was repeated, yes, with radical speeches that connected with the challenging spirit of the moment. All his political action has been characterized, with a more or less leftist discourse, by exercising personal hyper-leadership in a simplistic imitation of the less interesting aspects of the Bolivarian experience, but also by what we could qualify as a programmatic relativism that allows proposals to be made and disappeared from a mixed bag according to the tactical convenience of the moment, without any relation to a project of society or strategy to achieve it. The strategic hypothesis was “we were born to govern”; that is, to access government as an end in itself.

In this task, Iglesias initially found a very functional ally in Errejón, a follower at that time of the theses of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe on the total autonomy of politics and the denial of the role played by social classes and economic conflict in the capitalist mode of production. [3] Therefore, from this sector, the speeches and even the articles in the press were filled with abstract disquisitions about the construction of the people subject through the creation of an ideologically transversal interclass electoral base around the mobilization of sentiments for a leader capable of confronting the people with a narrow oligarchic minority. This implied assuming the inappropriateness of left and right categories or of class analyses, and so on. Errejón theorized the possibility of a rapid electoral victory, to which everything had to be subordinated: efficacy versus democracy, hierarchy versus grassroots organization in circles, electoral war machine (a literally formulated expression) versus mass party, plebiscite participation versus democratic deliberation. After the first internal victory of the clique, the circles ceased to have the capacity to make decisions and the election of leaderships was made outside of them, through online voting by people who registered using a form on the website. That was the only commitment of the membership. Elections were without debate and personalized. This was an option absolutely antithetical to that of the activist party and that of the organized mass party. Control and revocation of the leaders by the rank and file was therefore impossible.

These theorizations did not lead to a theoretical and ideological debate of quality either in the academic or political circles, beyond those that could be carried out by a minority very involved in the construction of Podemos, whether they held one position or another, or in the defence of the bipartisan establishment. Although the elections to the Spanish Parliament of 2015 and 2016 were an important result for Podemos, they did not bring the longed-for overtaking of the PS. The electoral decline began along with a search for votes by abandoning any radicalism. The populist moment – Laclavian, broadcast in the Spanish state by Chantal Mouffe in the main national newspaper, El País – was reduced to mere populist mode. [4] The ballot boxes reduced theorizations to ashes.

In the following congress, Vista Alegre II, the Iglesias sector turned left and purged the Errejón sector. The clash between these two bureaucratic apparatuses for control of the party expressed what Jaime Pastor and I described as “Pablo Iglesias vs. Iñigo Errejón: between revived Eurocommunism and the neo-populism of the centre”. [5] For others, like Emmanuel Rodríguez, the clash was another expression of the ideology and conception of the politics of Podemos as a mere generation of elites, a struggle between them and fulfilment of the aspirations of the university components of a progressive middle class without future. [6] The degree of sectarian confrontation between the two factions of the ex-allies through the press and social networks prior to the holding of the second citizens’ assembly threatened its being held. Despite the general inflamed atmosphere, the congress was held thanks to the work and sanity of Anticapitalistas, as one journalist, Raúl Solís, with little affinity to revolutionary Marxism, described in his chronicle, expressing surprise that the revolutionary Marxist left had a “sensible attitude”. [7] For a few months, Pablo Iglesias’s left turn favoured the Anticapitalistas policy. But Iglesias attacked pluralism. First, he marginalized Errejón, the true Epimetheus of this story, who, when he discovered belatedly the type of party he had designed and was able to see what was coming out of the Pandora’s box of Podemos, decided to break for political reasons, but above all because he could not breathe in an organization without democracy. Immediately afterwards came the purging, by means of bureaucratic measures, of Anticapitalistas.

Very soon Iglesias began an evolution, with turns to the right and left, towards his youthful conceptions of Eurocommunist roots; he even recuperated the memory of Santiago Carrillo, the leader of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) who, together with Enrico Berlinguer, of the Italian Communist Party, and Georges Marchais, of the French Communist Party, were the fathers of Eurocommunism, the new form (as they themselves called it) to gain access to government through the parliamentary system. Iglesias began to identify the benefits of the 1978 Constitution as a democratic social shield, as if it could be divided and each article had no connection to another or responded to a logic of legitimation of the post-Franco liberal regime, speaking of its partial reform “when possible”.

Although Pablo Iglesias used Laclau’s conceptual framework in his discourse, he was probably not a devout disciple of it, but he was the beneficiary. The theories of the post-Marxist intellectual went well with the electoralist route to power and with the preeminent role of Iglesias in the process. Abstract appeals to democracy as the tool to transform society within the framework of the institutions of liberal democracy - which are not questioned - lead to the impotence of left-wing populism and Eurocommunism to be able to govern while substantially improving, in a lasting way, the living conditions of people in a situation of economic crisis; even less to transform society. Stathis Kouvelakis is right when he criticizes Laclau because his concept of radical democracy, which excludes rupture with the capitalist socio-economic order and with the principles of liberal democracy, is self-limiting.[Contretemps, 24 June 2019 [“Contre la raison populiste. Les impasses d’Ernesto Laclau].]] And remember that, contrary to what Laclau affirms, it is the class struggle that acts as an “agent of reification of the political subject” and not so-called “populist reason”.

In each of the following elections, including those of 2019, in which Pablo Iglesias headed the Podemos alliance with IU called Unidas Podemos (UP), the loss of votes and seats was constant and overwhelming. Weight and presence in the media were declining; Podemos no longer set the political agenda or the issues of public debate and the prestige of the organization –which was very high initially – declined with each opinion poll. And the desperate search for more traditional left and centre-left spaces began in search of the missing votes. The same result and fate has befallen Más País, the split led by Iñigo Errejón. If initially Podemos had a great capacity to attract with its challenging and winning discourse, the electoral results transformed that impetus into a stark and possibilist “we were born to govern”. This turn was favoured by the process of political involution of IU with the triumph of governmentalist theses and increasing subordination to Podemos.
The weaknesses and mistakes of Anticapitalistas

The result of the reformist/revolutionary confrontation within Podemos was not assured in advance, but there were real possibilities. This required leaving the comfort zone in which the small groups and sects of the radical left settle so often, limiting their activity to self-construction, denunciation and summons to other political agents and propagandism without the will or ability to design political projects for and in relation to mass action. Anticapitalistas bet big, had audacity and unleashed its programmatic and tactical potential.

The task was Herculean: to build a mass party from scratch in a situation of social crisis, but with little culture and traditions of organized militancy. In a context of crisis of the political regime - given the disaffection of the youth and the extent of the Catalan conflict with the central state - but with the post-Franco state apparatuses intact, without fissures. With a bipartisan crisis that caused a situation of ungovernability, but with a stabilizing PSOE that retained the confidence, diminished but still in the majority, of the people of the left. Under these conditions, the construction of the alternative was a difficult mission. The factors that explain the existing window of opportunity for the construction of Podemos could play as its Achilles heel; for example, the years of destruction and regression of the consciousness of the workers’ movement and the collapse of the reformist and revolutionary political left; but, above all, that the organic crisis had not yet occurred. All of this objectively hindered the success of the Anticapitalistas project to make Podemos an emancipatory lever.

However, it is necessary to highlight some errors and weaknesses that, apart from the objective difficulties, weighed down Anticapitalistas. A first error was to accept the de facto narrow framework that the clique imposed through the legalization in a secret and manoeuvring way of anti-democratic and hierarchical statutes that granted legal ownership to the Iglesias team. With this, an attempt was made to hide Anticapitalistas as a founding political subject and present their activists as external conspirators, entryists and enemies of the project (sic) that they themselves had created! Let the reader remember the portrait of the Lenin and Trotsky rally whose image was censored and modified by Stalin in a display of photographic magic to erase memory and make the revolution patrimonial. Well, something like this happened in Podemos. How to characterise this attitude of Anticapitalistas? Today there is only one adjective: naive irresponsible trust.

There was a wilful overestimation of the capacity for action of our modest organized militant forces, not so much to back up the initial spontaneous and massive response of the activists, but in the face of the hyper-leadership built in the media and the plebiscitary link existing (and fostered) between the charismatic leader and the masses. This without any process of deep politicization, training of cadres, systematic structuring of the militancy and organic relationship with broad sectors of the people of the left, and yet with a deep feeling of need for change and new directions and new representatives existing. This factor was key in the level of autonomy that Pablo Iglesias achieved in his role as secretary general – elected apart from the rest of the leadership in a plebiscitary manner - to impose his dynamics on Podemos, corner any proposal for democratic structuring and justify every type of political lurch based on his interests at each juncture.

At this moment Podemos set up the so-called “media command” with Santiago Alba which, for a short period of time, effectively revolutionized political communication both on social networks and in its relationship with the audio-visual media. This partisan device was appropriated exclusively by the Iglesias-Errejón tandem. Faced with this, Anticapitalistas - given that access to the Podemos community was vetoed by the bureaucratic clique - did not organize, even in an embryonic way, a communications system, however modest, that would allow it to express its positions in the media and social networks in an autonomous way. This has long been one of the heaviest burdens that has hampered its activity.

Neocaudillismo in the Spanish state was inspired ideologically, politically and organizationally by the Latin American populist experiences today in decline, but the leadership of Podemos defended its “conjunctural” and “instrumental” necessity with the mantra of its convenience and opportunity faced with “electoral and communicational logic in the society of the 21st century”. The next problem, connected to the previous one, is that Anticapitalistas did not detect in time that this caudillismo connected very well with sectors coming from post-Stalinist experiences and in the main depoliticized, who willingly accepted the hierarchy of the organization, in which many of them began to call themselves soldiers.

This rapid bureaucratization process was favoured because some left-wing activists in the social movements, lacking sufficient political awareness, initially mistrusted Podemos and the anti-capitalist sector could not count on their help at a crucial moment. After the electoral success of the new party they approached it blinded like mosquitoes in the light. Too late to modify the organization in a democratic key. Without a political direction, some settled into the new situation, others simply looked for a job in the institutional interstices, and most left Podemos along with a large part of those who had joined.

In this situation, Anticapitalistas made a mistake in Vista Alegre I. Since the framework of dispute was centred on the organizational model, it focused its effort almost exclusively on responding to the internal democratic question, a really important issue, but without putting enough energy into the battle for a political project to have added existing currents of radicalization to the environment of Anticapitalistas. A lesson from then and for the future: establishing the relationship between the political project and the aspiration to an eco-socialist and feminist society is the sine qua non condition for building strategic political groupings that should have a horizon of post-capitalist society. Only in this way can an antagonistic historical bloc be created and unified. Anticapitalistas failed to put this issue at the centre of the construction of Podemos and this allowed the leadership of Podemos to manoeuvre and change political positions at will and, therefore, define the objectives based on their immediate interests.

But the fundamental question is that if the task was Herculean, Anticapitalistas was lacking in numbers but also in its social implantation and, even more significantly, in the degree of political cohesion it had before undertaking the project that the party leadership proposed. For this reason there were some losses of a less audacious, more sectarian and leftist sector that after a short time was non-existent. But there were also losses in a sector that reduced its expectations to the electoral route and that no longer saw the need for the existence of the revolutionary Marxist organization in the framework of a broader one.

The Anticapitalistas leadership had a good reading of the situation that led to the conclusion of founding Podemos, but not of the political requirements to tackle that leap. A lesson can be drawn from this question, and thinking about the post-Podemos tasks: the need to have significant ideological and strategic preparation in the party prior to making decisions of this magnitude. But since the situations in which new windows of opportunity that allow qualitative leaps will be presented cannot be magically guessed or scientifically predicted, it is imperative to create in a conscious and planned way an internal consistency in the party superior to that which spontaneously and routinely occurs. This must be a constant central task that will be of great use to act in unison, with strategic thinking, tactical ingenuity and organizational creativity, so that opportunities and possibilities are transformed into strengths and realities.
We will see each other in the struggles

As Raúl Camargo explained in an interview, the underlying reasons for the departure of Anticapitalistas from Podemos are twofold. [8] On the one hand, the absence of internal democratic life in an organization whose bodies rarely meet or deliberate, where proportionality is not respected for the election of positions of internal leadership or in the electoral candidacies decided by the general secretary, all of which prevents the development of a pluralistic organic life. On the other hand, because the process of acceptance of the constitutional framework of the 1978 regime and flexible adaptation to the market economy by the Iglesias team has been accompanied by an approach to the PSOE, which has culminated in the formation of a joint government in which UP plays a subordinate and secondary role.

UP’s budget agreements with the PSOE and the coalition government programme have been subordinated to the requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact. It is a government that, under the hegemony and attentive vigilance of economy minister Nadia Calviño, has an economic and social policy determined by the limits set at all times by the European Commission, the Council, the Eurogroup or the ECB. The social soul that inspires Podemos is undeniable, but its proposals, and this has been shown in the pandemic, have a limited scope. The measures in defence of the most disadvantaged are necessary as a palliative but insufficient, those on the employment front have an expiry date and rest on an even greater indebtedness of the state coffers and relief for business profits.

In the short experience of the so-called government of progress, UP has made a cataract of concessions, even renouncing aspects of the programme agreed with the PSOE and has silently consented to important political setbacks and economic decisions. One of the next tests will be its attitude to the flagrant crisis of the monarchical institution, which will not be defeated only with pronouncements in parliament.

It is of little use to regroup the people, appeal to the interests of the people, have an electoral presence or be part of a government if it is not around a project that ends their alienation. Which, even more so, forces us to remember categories such as social class and exploitation; to conceive the social majority not as an arithmetic sum of individuals but as an algebraic aggregate of the working class with all social sectors with outstanding accounts with the system and capable of configuring a new hegemonic block. In other words, conceiving the people as a real antagonistic political subject and candidate for power in every way. This is quite different from limiting their advances to mere occupation by a new elite of professionalized young politicians of a few marginal ministerial portfolios.

Podemos has become a plebiscitary electoral apparatus that, while it represents a part of the left, although in a diminishing way, is an impediment to the development of popular self-organization. On the one hand, because under its leadership the political struggle has been reduced to a merely institutional one; on the other, because it has an instrumental relationship with social organizations. This is complementary and functional with the government orientation of Iglesias, characterized by governing at all costs, to insert itself into the progressive management structure of the state apparatus, limiting the work agenda to possibilist criteria and renouncing the objective of transforming the political, economic and social system; constantly assuming the logic of the lesser evil, as can currently be seen in the management of the post-Covid-19 social crisis.

In summary, the current X-ray of Podemos is that of a hierarchical party whose leadership bodies have no life, identified with the parliamentary group and with the members of the government, a party that has almost completely lost its activist base and has reduced its political action to an institutional presence lacking ideas and transformative proposals. And its main object of reflection is its location in the state structure and in the vicissitudes of Podemos itself. A party that, in the classification made by Antonio Gramsci in his “Brief Notes of Machiavelli’s Politics”, is dedicated to “small politics”, to “partial and daily questions that arise within an already established structure in the struggles for pre-eminence among various factions of the same political class”. And which has abandoned “grand politics”, which really “deals with questions of the state and social transformations”. And has made the mistake – of which Gramsci already warned – of not understanding that “every element of small politics” becomes “a matter of grand politics”.

This is not good news. The current political situation does not favour leftist positions, it presents great difficulties and challenges in the absence of the mediation of a mass party. But this observation cannot ignore the positive aspects indicated above for Anticapitalistas having undergone this experience and this makes it possible for the revolutionary Marxist organization to continue playing, as Brais Fernández suggests, an active role in the crisis of the 1978 regime. [9] To do this, it must promote new political and social alliances in the face of austerity policies, continue working for the creation of new anti-neoliberal groups with mass influence, as is the case with Adelante Andalucía, promote the organization of trade union, social, environmentalist, feminist, youth and social struggles and those in defence of the public sector, and to be an ideological and cultural reference point in the ongoing debates to define a new ecofeminist and social project.

9 September 2020

P.S.


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Attached documents
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Footnotes


[1] Izquierda Anticapitalista participated in the process of creation of Podemos in 2013 and 2014 before renaming itself as Anticapitalistas. Since there is an absolute political and organizational continuity I use the name of Anticapitalistas throughout the entire article for my convenience and to facilitate the reading of those who access the text.


[2] See “Podemos Manifesto”.


[3] Suddenly, for a short period of time, the shop windows of the bookshops were filled with works by Laclau such as On Populist Reason, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy by Laclau and Mouffe or Podemos: In the Name of the People by Mouffe and Errejón. What I don’t know is whether they had real success with readers.


[4] See El País 10 June 2016 “El momento populista”.


[5] “Spanish state: a revived Eurocommunism vs centrist populism”. For an additional assessment of Vista Alegre II (2017) see Raul Camargo “Vista Alegre II: The show is over, are the politics starting?”.


[6] See Viento Sur 7 February 2017 Emmanuel Rodriguez “El podemismo como problema y como ideología.


[7] See HuffPost 8 February 2017 “La cordura de los anticapitalistas de Podemos”.


[8] See “Anticapitalistas leave Podemos”. Original El Diario17 May 2020 “Raúl Camargo: ‘El Podemos del Gobierno con el PSOE no es el original, ha evolucionado hacia posiciones más moderadas’”.


[9] See Viento Sur 14 April 2020 “Y después de Covid19, ¿qué hacemos? Notas para una discusión en la izquierda”.

Spanish state
Anticapitalistas leave Podemos
Anticapitalist strategy and the question of organization
Statement by Anticapitalistas on leaving Podemos
José Maria Galante “Chato” - the tenacity of the rebel
Windows, balconies and terraces for the public health service
Debate section
Problems with an Electoral Road to Socialism in the United States
Parliamentary action and social struggles - The experience of the Portuguese Left Bloc
Duterte is reactionary, counter-revolutionary (to the “EDSA revolution”), but not fascist – On Walden Bello’s definition of a “fascist leader”
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Is a Wildly Popular Fascist – Now what?
Marxism, the Arab Spring, and Islamic fundamentalism
New parties of the left
Building a party at the service of new generations of activists
“The priority for the Left Bloc is clear: to increase the income of those who live by their labour”
Why we left the Awami Workers Party. Lessons to be learned
A predictable fiasco - on the outcome of the European elections and the immediate tasks for Die Linke
The Left Bloc 20 years on


Manuel Garí


Manuel Garí is a trades unionist and leader of the section of the Fourth International in the Spanish state, and a member of the editorial board of the magazine “Viento Sur”.

INDIA
Radical Socialist Statement on Hathras Caste Atrocity 

and the Babri Masjid Verdict

Monday 12 October 2020, by Radical Socialist

On the 14th of September, a 19 year old woman of the Valmiki caste,was gang-raped and brutally assaulted by four Thakur men in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. Her spine was broken, and her tongue cut out. Days later, she died in a hospital from the severe injuries sustained during the attack. The police and local administration have protected the accused upper caste men with characteristic alacrity. The police burnt her body in the middle of the night, without any of her family members present. Immense pressure is being brought to bear on her family members in the hope of silencing them.

Yogi Adityanath’s regime claims that no rape has occurred, and has even hired a PR firm to push this disingenuous narrative. The Sangh Parivar’s disinformation machinery is working overtime to frame the victim’s death as an ‘honour killing’, and paint her family as the ‘real’ perpetrators. Upper caste groups and political figures have rallied around the accused, declaring them ‘innocent’ and openly threatening those calling for justice. BJP’s Rajveer Pahalwan, former MLA from Hathras, hosted one such gathering at his house, which was attended by members of the RSS, Bajrang Dal, Karni Sena, Rashtriya Savarna Sangathan, Kshatriya Mahasabha. The shifting of the case to the CBI, which has a notorious pro-BJP record, is further cause for alarm.

This case forces us to confront once again not only the cultures of cruelty and violence that pervade the lives of Dalits, women and minorities in India, but also the impunity afforded to upper caste men by the nexus between dominant caste lobbies, state institutions and the ruling political regime. Figures from the National Crime Records Bureau indicate that every day three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits are murdered, two Dalit houses are burnt and eleven Dalits are beaten. Public discussion in India is dominated by an upper caste commonsense that runs the spectrum from outright devaluation of Dalit lives to purported caste-blindness. The social power of upper castes is based on a disproportionate control over land or other assets, and proximity to political power through their caste networks. There can be no doubt that this Hathras rape and murder, like countless other atrocities, is the consequence of the relations of caste domination to which Dalits continue to be subject, with little respite. Describing the victim as ‘India’s daughter’ is a jaundiced, even if in some instances well meaning, attempt to downplay the centrality of caste.

Upper castes loyalties structure and pervade virtually all mainstream political formations in India, and cover ups of this sort are a matter of routine. What is distinctive under the ruling-BJP is the sheer brazenness of the cover up, and the stridently unapologetic tenor of the upper caste backlash. This points to the reactionary character of Hindutva: it is an elite revolt, a ‘rebellion’ of Hindu India’s upper caste, upper class elite against the concessions — sometimes significant, often meagre, and always hard-won — forced by liberation movements. Recent attempts to dilute the SC-ST atrocities act, and end caste-based reservation are two examples. While the Sangh Parivar claims Dalits as its own (after all, how else could upper castes, around 26% of the population claim to speak as a ‘majority’?), it is committed to maintaining them in a position of social, political, economic and ritual subordination. The logic of the Sangh Parivar’s programmatic commitment to communalism is laid bare — the demonisation and brutalisation of India’s Muslim minority has a unifying function for the construction of the ‘Hindu’ body politic.

Elsewhere in UP, a CBI special court acquitted all the current accused in the conspiracy to demolish the Babri Masjid. That criminal act, carried out on December 6 1992, was given a stamp of legitimacy by the Supreme Court last year, when it ordered the construction of a temple on the site where the mosque once stood. In doing so the court signalled that it too now participates in the process of consolidating Hindutva hegemony. The BJP’s mass mobilisation around the Ram Mandir — explicitly aimed at bringing down the mosque — was directly responsible for weeks of violence preceding the demolition. Following the demolition, Hindutva stormtroopers led riots in cities across the country. Numerous commissions, not least the Liberhans and Srikrishna commissions, have established this. The leadership of the Sangh Parivar has explicitly, repeatedly and with great pride claimed their responsibility for these acts. For a court to now declare them innocent, after 28 years of a wishy-washy non-investigation, is a travesty.

The political aims of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement have been ticked off one by one: a belligerent and communal nationalism, given ideological cohesion by a loose Brahminism, articulated through an extreme centralisation of power, over a citizenry denied any opposing political voice. The Hathras case is a manifestation of this same reactionary backlash, unafraid to stand in the light. The current political opposition, on whose account must rest decades of inaction and complicity in caste and communal violence are junior partners in this revolt. The media has proven more than willing to amplify the voices of those in power, and to silence the voices of the marginalised. The police and other branches of the executive are now fully paid up participants in this ‘rebellion’.

We confront a Hindutva political movement that controls state power. To end this brutality and discrimination progressive and democratic forces must recognise that we have to build social power to counter it. The times demand that all progressive and democratic forces come together to lift us out of this crisis. This is the only way to win equal rights and inclusive democracy for every citizen today. Political opposition to Hindutva must be a principled one. All opportunistic political formations, including Dalit formations allied with or hoping to ally with the BJP must realise that they are contributing to the growth and legitimation of this upper caste rebellion.

9 October 2020

Attached documents
radical-socialist-statement-on-hathras-caste-atrocity-and_a6852.pdf (PDF - 356.5 kb)
Extraction PDF [->article6852]

India
The Significance of 5th August and Prospects for the Future
The Struggle Against Dalit Oppression in India
Authoritarianism & Lockdown Time in Occupied Kashmir and India
Covid-19: Asian contrasts and lessons
Indo-Nepal relationship under the cloud of Hinduvta
Women
Capitalism Made Women of Color More Vulnerable to the COVID Recession
Situation of Garment Factory Workers in Katunayaka – COVID-19 Update
Globally, the pandemic hits women
Women’s Agenda in Turkey: Top Issue Is Gender Based Violence
Working Women in Lebanon


Radical Socialist
A radical left organisation in India, and Permanent Observer of the Fourth International.
- 2020 International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

 

Instituting a minimum price for alcohol reduces deaths, hospital stays

JOURNAL OF STUDIES ON ALCOHOL AND DRUGS

Research News

 

IMAGE: BOTTLES OF DISTILLED SPIRITS. view more 

CREDIT: RUTGERS CENTER OF ALCOHOL & SUBSTANCE USE STUDIES

PISCATAWAY, NJ - When governments create a minimum price for alcoholic beverages, deaths and hospitalizations related to alcohol use significantly decrease, according to results from a new report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Called "minimum unit pricing," such policies "would result in a substantial and lasting reduction in the harms caused by alcohol in society," says lead researcher Adam Sherk, Ph.D., of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

"As we continue to weather the COVID-19 pandemic and hear concerns about overwhelming our health care systems, this study shows that a minimum unit price for alcohol would help to free up valuable resources by decreasing alcohol's burden on our health care systems," says Sherk.

Minimum unit pricing strategies set a "floor price" for alcohol sales. Specifically, a standard drink -- defined by pure alcohol content [in Canada and the United States, about the amount of ethanol in a 5% bottle of beer] -- cannot be sold below a predetermined value. Such policies help prevent the sale of cheap drinks with high alcohol content. They tend to have their largest effect on inexpensive spirits and the smallest effect on wine.

Similar pricing strategies have already been implemented with initial success in places such as Scotland, Wales and some provinces in Canada. In their study, Sherk and his colleagues sought to determine the potential effect of minimum unit pricing in Québec, a province that has yet to institute such a policy.

For their research, the investigators used a new, open-access model -- the International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies (InterMAHP) -- which can be used to estimate alcohol harms in a country or state as well as the potential health impact of alcohol policies designed to limit such harms.

Using this model, Sherk and his colleagues input per capita alcohol use data from the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. Further, data about hospitalizations and deaths were obtained from government statistics, as was information about sales of wine, spirits and liqueurs (which are partially controlled by the government in Canada). Information about beer sales was obtained from the market research company Nielsen.

In Québec in 2014, the year analyzed, there were an estimated 2,850 deaths and 24,694 hospitalizations attributable to alcohol use, the researchers found. These included deaths from cancer, cardiovascular conditions, and injuries. The leading causes of hospitalizations from alcohol use were unintentional injuries, psychiatric conditions, cancer, digestive conditions, and communicable disease.

The researchers' modeling determined that, if the province had previously instituted a minimum unit pricing policy of CAD$1.50 per standard drink (about USD$1.12), 169 deaths would have been prevented, a reduction of 5.9 percent. Having instituted a minimum unit price of CAD$1.75 per drink (about USD$1.31) would have prevented 327 deaths, a decrease of 11.5 percent.

Further, a minimum unit pricing policy of CAD$1.50 per drink would have resulted in 2,063 fewer hospitalizations that year (an 8.4 percent decrease). A price of CAD$1.75 would have reduced hospitalizations by 4,014, or 16.3 percent.

But what impact would this pricing have on any purported health benefits of alcohol? Although their data did show that alcohol use was related to decreased hospitalizations for cardiovascular conditions and diabetes, the modeling demonstrated that minimum unit pricing would have prevented even more hospitalizations.

"This report adds to the growing body of evidence that minimum unit pricing policies are an effective way for governments to reduce alcohol-related hospital visits and save lives," says Sherk. "National and jurisdictional governments, including Québec, should consider following the lead of countries like Scotland and implementing these policies."

(To learn more about The International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies [InterMAHP], visit http://www.intermahp.cisur.ca.)

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Sherk, A., Stockwell, T., April, N., Churchill, S., Sorge, J., & Gamache, P. The potential health impact of an alcohol minimum unit price in Québec: An application of the International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 631-640. doi:10.15288/jsad.2020.81.631

To arrange an interview with Adam Sherk, Ph.D., please contact Amanda Farrell-Low at farlow@uvic.ca or 250-472-5445.

The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (jsad.com) is published by the Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies (alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. It is the oldest substance-related journal published in the United States.

To learn about education and training opportunities for addiction counselors and others at the Rutgers Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies, please visit https://education.alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu/education-training.

The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs considers this press release to be in the public domain. Editors may publish this press release in print or electronic form without legal restriction. Please include proper attribution and byline.

 

Stressed out volcanoes more likely to collapse and erupt, study finds

A new study has implications for how the world might be better protected against future volcano collapses

MONASH UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

An international study led by Monash scientists has discovered how volcanoes experience stress. The study, published today in Scientific Reports, has implications for how the world might be better protected against future volcano collapses.

Volcanic collapse is the worst-case scenario during volcanic crises. It can trigger dangerous tsunamis or devastating pyroclastic flows (for example Mount Saint Helens).

"But, these events are very difficult to predict because we often don't know what is happening inside active volcanoes, and what forces might make them unstable," said lead study author Dr Sam Thiele, a recent PhD graduate from the Monash University School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment.

"Research on volcano growth helps us to understand these internal processes and the associated forces that could trigger a deadly collapse or eruption," he said.

The research team used drones to create a cm-resolution map of the internal structure of a now dormant volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands and measured the width of 100's of thousands of cracks through which magma flowed during past eruptions.

This allowed them to estimate the forces acting within the volcano, and show that these slowly build up over time, causing the volcano to become 'stressed' and potentially unstable.

By measuring the width of cracks in the volcano through which magma was transported they were able to estimate the forces involved, which helps to predict future volcanic eruptions.

The geological features that the research team mapped are formed when molten intrusions, called dykes, solidify to form a framework inside what is otherwise a comparatively weak structure comprising mostly layers of lava and ash.

"This is one of the first studies to look at the long-term effects of magma movement within a volcano," said study co-author Professor Sandy Cruden, from the Monash University School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment.

"We found that volcanoes gradually become 'stressed' by repeated movement of this magma, potentially destabilising the whole volcano, influencing future collapses and eruptions," he said.

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