Wed, 23 Apr 1997 23:52:18 -0400 COCKROACH! #55 (welfare state & capitals crisis ) A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS. It is time that the poor and working class people have a voice on the Internet. Contributions can be sent to Subscribtions are free at Now on line! Check out the Home of COCKROACH! http://www.algonet.se/~malecki How often this zine will appear depends on you! Back issues of Cockroach and my book at http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ -------------------------------------------------------- 1. One step forward, two steps back!!! 2. welfare state & capitals crisis 3. The dainty toes of the boys from Buffalo! -------------------------------------------------------- One step forward, two steps back. Actually the article Scott writes about the "Sparts" is most interesting and revealing about the political appetite of Scott himself. Most of the article sounds like a gossip column which at best is only impressionistic according to if Scott got out of bed on the left or right side! However when he comes to any kind of politics he only exposes his own political bankruptcy! Let us take a look at a couple of the paragraphs where Scott actually does try to be political.. > it is never difficult to spot the > Spartacist League at a > demonstration. They are the ones > with the most intricate (not to say > unchantable) slogans. To the > consternation of many who opposed > the Gulf War, television cameras > invariably zoomed in on the Spart > banners reading "Defend Iraq! > Defeat U.S. Imperialism!" What is interesting here is that in fact the Spartacist political banner at the demonstration was completely politically correct. And Scott is defending all those who have a feeling of "consternation" or find correct political slogans "unchantable"! Naturally the question to Scott is just begging to be asked. What slogan or political banner would have not been taken by yourself and friends as a feeling of "consternation" and being unchantable. Perhaps "Defend Desert Storm! Down with sadam Hussien!".. And it also reminds of the old days when the liberals and reformists went crazy when the Trotskyist called for the "military victory to the Viet Cong" and "All Indochina must go Communist!". I bet that these slogans just raised the hair on the back of the neck of Scott and friends! < Their means of differentiation have been curious indeed: >For a long time, the League showed a strange enthusiasm for the >Soviet military (exemplified by the unforgettable Spart >headline/banner/slogan "Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!"). Ah yes the unforgettable slogan of "Hail the Red Army in Afghanistan!" Actually Trotskyist do take sides in a choice between Islamic fundementalism backed up by Pakistan and American Imperialism. While at the same time warning that the Stalinist bureaucracy could make a deal and sell out its regime in Kabul for Glasnost. Thus leaving the millions of Afghani's in the hands of the fundementalists who lately have been trying to take Afghanistan back to the middle ages! And especially women should notice Scot's position on Afghanistan which is what. Victory to the Mullahs? Put the Veils on Girls!? And not only that but his completely sexist position throughout the whole article devoted to the Sparts. I think that Doug for a change pointed out clearly Scott's sickening attitude towards women in another letter today to M-I.. And that is it! Really there is no other politics in the whole of the article. Just a long and boring commentar from Scott about how he thinks the play by play split between the Norden Group and the Sparts developed. So rather then try to answer an article which says absolutely nothing about the split itself I post and article I wrote recently after looking at some of the main documents of the two sides.. In another letter... Warm Regards Bob Malecki One step forward, two steps back!!! Well Scott! Believe it or not the header that you used to trash the politics of the Sparts is perfect for your answer to my letter. So I added three exclamation points!!! >, Robert Malecki wrote: > >> Naturally the question to Scott is just begging to be asked. What slogan or >> political banner would have not been taken by yourself and friends as a >> feeling of "consternation" and being unchantable. Perhaps "Defend Desert >> Storm! Down with sadam Hussien!".. Scott replies; >Don't be any more of an imbecile than absolutely necessary, Malecki. I >wanted the US defeated as much as the Sparts did, and at some level of >extraterrestrial abstraction, yes, "Defend Iraq" was "correct." The idea >of building a *mass* movement against the war was never anything the >Sparts lost any sleep over. I did. My family and the folks I went to >high school with are *exactly* the sort of people who become cannon >fodder. You aren't the only working-class person on this list, you >righteous prick. Well, well, well. Grudgingly Scott has to admit that at least half of the Spart slogan was "correct". That is the one step forward! Then he goes on to excuse himself from a correct Leninist position of who's side we were on in this war the other half of the slogan. That is the two steps backward in reality. Because despite Sadam and without giving one ounce of support to this bloody butcher of the Kurds Communists do take sides. In this case calling for the military defeat of America in this war! And he is silent about Afghanistan and the women's question where even the liberal Doug has got your number! Could you be a little more specific about the "righteous prick" stuff. I mean i don't think that my experiences of growing up in New York City during the McCarthy era and the rest of this history was self righteous at all. In fact it was pretty fucking horrible! But perhaps for you who at least got to high school things were different. Most of the people i know never made it that far! But you my friend make it quite clear that the "mass" movement is everything and the political content is nothing. Thus trashing the sparts for their correct line on the anti Vietnam war movement. Where the same fundemental question of which side you are on is posed! A capitulation just like that of the SWP who in order to bath in the light of the imperialist liberal spokesman for the democratic party broke with Trotskyism for reformism of the second International. Naturally a new question just begs for the asking! What happened to the great "mass" second international in August 1914. Yes! they betrayed every principle causing the death of the second International by betraying the proletaliat internationally bt supporting war credits for their own bougeoisies? And the question is deadly revelant both in the case of the Vietnam war and the Gulf war. Where the american left capitulated to its *own* liberal wing of the bougeoisie! > >The slogans I chanted, as if you care, were "No blood for oil" and "Bring >the troops home." I yelled them at two big demos in DC, until my vocal >chords were shredded. And as it turns out, being against that war turned >out to be the very last straw in my relationship with a woman I'd been >together with for most of a decade. If I need any lessons in political >principle, they won't come from you, any more than instruction in correct >spelling. Exactly! The slogans you used were the same popular front slogans of the Vietnam war pasted onto the Gulf war and completely a classic example of the fundementally neo-Stalinist and reformist dominated left of the United States in both periods.. However I an sorry that your Menshevik position caused problems in your personal relations with your girlfriend. And i would not dare on principle drag this kind of stuff into the discussion.. These slogans are in ground and bottom the slogans to mobilize all "progressive" forces against the war. But in fact tying the working class to the bougeoisie! It is the bottom line of both the Stalinist and Menshevik school of falsification. And time and again has led the working class to defeat after defeat after defeat. And your whining about the Sparts never losing any sleep over the anti-war mobilizations is a lie and a slander. Trotskyists took this stuff very seriously and certainly did everything in their power to build a movement based on some very basic Leninist principles. Why even the USec here in Sweden who followed Mandel thought that the SWP was completely bankrupt! In fact we had to fight with the AStalinists of the Maoist version just to raise the slogan og "Victory to the Indochinese Revolution"! Now that was not even a Spart slogan but the slogan of the swedisah Mandelites! Who had a left center position on this stuff. >The reason I wrote a humorous article and not a piece of serious >political analysis on the split (by the way, just where *was* my "long >and boring" account of that split?) was, as it must seem obvious to >everyone but you, because the matter did not seem to me either serious >or, in any real way, political. More like an episode in the life of a >seriously dysfunctional family. I see why you like them. Not really Scott. Because it is just in the process of these splits and fusions that a Leninist vanguard must ultimately be forged! Because it is in these regroupments and splits that the ideological and human material can be found that has the historic links back to Trotsky, lenin and the Bolsheviks... And your last bit makes me want to throw shit at your girlfriend and relations problems. However I will not do that. But Scott I advise you to keep my family out of it! Because it might make me bring up your own personal tragedies linked to your sexist and reactionary line on the women's question. Bob Malecki -------------------------------------------------------- welfare state & capitals crisis Neil writes; > >The main point of my post was to show the economic evolution >of the big capitals since the imperialist WW2 period from >the reconstruction/boom period up to the present day austerity >demands of capital -and hence the casting aside of Keynesian policy.. The above that you write contradicts the below that you write. And the more I think about it you appear to have got it ass backwards! The casting aside of "Keynesian" policy is in fact a general trend today as the Social Democracy jumps to the right after the fall of the Soviet Union and in fact more reforms came by the way of Keynesian politics in the post second world war boom then anything of the earlier part of the century. The first part of the century was a period of winning political rights like the vote for women and the right to organize trade unions etc. The post war reforms were more applied to bread and butter reforms.. > >Your point is well taken on the Bismarckian >period in Germany, but this was in the 19th >cent. at the beginnings of modern imperialism > when in capitals development more lasting >reforms could still be won and German social democracy >had not yet become counterrevolutionary. Then you go on incredibly to say that about; " the 19th century when in capitals development more lasting reforms could still be won and German social democracy had not yet become counterrevolutionary." Most of the "lasting" reforms in regards to bread and butter of the welfare state came after the second world war. But just to think in the terms of "lasting" is wrong. Nothing, nor any reforms are lasting under the yoke of capitalism, imperialism but are only a measure of the relative strength or weakness of the working class itself. Naturally the question of who is leading what where also has a lot to do with the results. But at present the working class has not been defeated physically in anyway. Nor have the gigantic defeats like Germany led to war as of "yet". But it will come. And the outcome of these battles will be determined by the leadership. Thus once again we are back to what Hugh continually harps on and which isd central to any discussions. The present crisis is a crisis of leadership. The class struggle is alive and well because of the in buildt mechanisms of the bankrupt capitalist and imperialist modes of production creates. Class struggle will exist as long as this system works the way it does. And only a leadership with a program and tactics that can take us to the point of destroying this present system in this case " a Bolshevik Party" can create the qualitive leap neccessary to overcome what is lacking to take the step on the road to a communist mode of production and distribution as a superieror model.. I think that "reforms" certainly were expanded upon in the Social Democratic Keynesian sense long after the victory of the October Revolution and after the second world war up unto perhaps the middle of the 1970ties. This was because of the gains of the October revolution and in fact these reforms were perhaps the only way that capitalism could delay October Revolutions from spreading throughout the world. And after the second world war it was more to contain the expansion of the Stalinist led states. So to claim that no reforms were possible after the early 19th century as Neil does defys reality in anyway at all. In fact reforms (both the giving and taking back) can only be seen as a form of taking the temperature of the class struggle Internationally and its leadership. >On the US struggles of the 30s, these were >recuperated by the US state thru the hitching >of the workers organizing to alliance with the Democrats >and the CIO business unionism by the CPUSA and other > reformists. This in turn paved the way for the >workers to lined up to do the sacrificing in the >imperialist WW2--while the rich waxed fat on >war profits and gained temporary world hegemony. This is in a certain sense true. Because of the special character of America and the in the thirties complete victory of the Stalinists parties and there politics in preparing the defeats that did come. Not only in the United States, But Spain, Germany as elsewhere. But once again Communists at least try to tell the difference between the treacherous leaderships of lets say the trade unions and the trade union itself as an massive organisation of the working class in defense of its interests. Unfortunately Neil does not see the difference... > > >On the Russian state-cap bloc. No it was no >'paper tiger" post WW2 but with a new accumulation >cycle world wide in the wake of the imperialist war, >the state cap bloc though weaker than the US led >imperialist bloc, was challenging the western exploiters >for world power, markets, cheap labor, raw materials, spheres >of influence. >The precipitous decline, both in economic and political terms for >the state caps regimes came later, in the 70s-80s. >The "free world" was NOT free and that "communist world' >was NOT communist. Has Neil actually found a contradiction between the imperialists and what he calls "state cap" regimes? WoW, that is a step forward. Usually Neil likes to put them all in one big bag and scream a plague on both your houses. Naturally it would have been better if the state caps like Neil saw the real contradictions of the former deformed and degenerated workers states who's gains sat on the victory of the October Revolution and derailed by the Stalinists. Just as their is a difference between how Social Democrats and capitalist look at Keynesian politics and where the various leaderships like the Stalinists and the Social Democrats have there historical base. Thus the Stalinists base rested on the October Revolution, Bolshevik Party and the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and the Social Democratic base rested on the working class and trade unions in countries where capitalism was not overthrown. And in fact Internationally the various Stalinists and Social Democratic Parties acted in respect to the base that they were built on. Naturally as bureaucratic traitors and a caste fighting in there own interests. That is why the Trotskyists had the politics and tactics they had in regards to this reality. Things like the "unconditional" defense of the Soviet union rested on the defense of the historic gains made by the working class despite the Stalinists. Just as the United Front to defend whats left of the keynesian "reforms" that the Social Democratic Parties in capitalist countries were responsible for under the pressure of the October revolution which forced capitalism into and alliance with Social democracy. Where as the state caps like Neil have no tactics! They say "Down with Everybody!".. Including the trade unions who are one of the organised expressions as a whole of the working class.. >Again , the key to my orginial in this thread , >is that the MATERIAL economic basis for >the "welfare states' has been undermined >by the nature of capitals own laws of >development and decay. With this >also comes the increasing political, >ideological and social rot. Bullshit Neil! The key is that the central contradiction of the period has partielly been removed in favor of imperialism! This key factor was the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union and its disintegration. That is why we are seeing what we see today. It was a tremendous defeat to the International Proletariat and should be recognized as such. However this also has created a new situation which leaves and opening for a Bolshevik Leninist organisation to intervene in and perhaps gain mass influence very quickly. > >A new workers movement has to be built >in struggle to face up to the huge challenges >today. This statement is true. However the state caps like Neil have no program, no analisis, no tactics that can help the workers movement one bit along the way. In fact their line is the opposite of the Social Democracy. A desertion of class struggle with the politics of the ultra lefts. And it is because the state caps in a very critical point in history turn their backs to the Trotskyists and deserted the defense of the Soviet Union thus putting themselves above and outside the class contradictions that then existed in order to abstain from building the Fourth International. Today the state caps like Neil find their model which once applied to the Soviet Union transplanted to the trade unions and probably lots of other fields of struggle like the parliment etc. And in fact Neil is really coming with nothing new in fact he quite openly defends the line of the Bordigists among others who long ago deserted serious Proletarian class struggle. Bob Malecki -------------------------------------------------------- The dainty toes of the boys from Buffalo! you wrote: >I call upon all critics of what the Revolutionary Marxist Collective has >written to demonstrate intellectual and political responsibility by offering >a critique of this position rather than simply dismissing it out of hand, OK! A serious critique... The Buffalo boys who call themselves "Marxists" have actually taken a little step! No longer is everybody on the list characterized as "cyberfascists". Yesterday a whole new list of labels were pasted on some of the actors on this list. Now that is a real little step. Even Louis P. is being nice to you and giving you lectures about how he wants to have you in his "family" of Marxists and comrades.Here you have a chance to build perhaps a new block against those horrible ignorant and economist prolo types who don't understand your highwire circus act! I think Louis likes you secretly because you appear to dislike the classic "marxist" characterizations that have been thrown around here like "Stalinist", "Menshevik, "neo Stalinist" "Trot" etc. Your characterizations of yesterday remind me of Louis P when he is really enraged and in top form. So perhaps there is common ground to work on here for the Buffalo boys with the dainty toes! There you have my serious "intellectual and political" critic of this group who originally was throwing that characterization of cyberfascism around as confetti or rice at a wedding is thrown. But you still have a long way to go before your land on earth. Now you are whining about being accused of "Stalinism", "sectarianism" and "ultra-leftists". You forgot by the way "Cretins" and at best "elitism". Reminding us of the McCarthite witch hunt days seeing yourselfs now has the victims of a plot. All of your arguements from the beginning and critisms of others you are now using yourselfs in order to defend those dainty Buffalo toes that the list people in many different ways started stepping on. I think that we could put the word "cyber" in front of these characterizations of the Buffalo boys because I think that there kind of antics can only take place in cyberspace although it looks like the university of Buffalo and the small circles that this group obviously travel in have nothing to do with the day to day reality of poor and working class people around the world, despite that a tiny bit of lip service does turn up once and awhile in there long winded screen writes as if this was a soapbox opera or something. In fact the Buffalo boys who before were the doctors and everybody on the list was patients has now turned to the Buffulo boys turning it around and becoming the patient begging for a doctor. So the doctor once again asks the patient. What is it you do in real life? As he tries to bring them back from there paranoid world of cyberfascism everywhere now turned to a "McCarthite" witch hunt! Please let us know when you have come down off your ego tripping high horse and want to discuss real politics with some serious people on the list. Because its either that or you marching off in cyberspace screaming nobody understands us! And believe it or not I find your brand of "marxism" and almost soap opera in the best Dallas style extremely funny and entertaining. It is almost better then reading the "Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy" to escape the real world for a while.. This is very funny but also pathetic coming from people who are surpose to be smart? In two short weeks you have managed with your elitism and cretinism to paint yourself into a corner and now you are sitting their whinning like a couple of puppies.. Now everybody knows that one must have patience with puppies (if they are puppies?) right... IT will be quite interesting to see how the Buffalo boys get themselves off the couch from here. Stayed tuned for what is it for act number now guys? I promise to bring popcorn and pepsi cola as i watch this cyber drama continue for a while. And in the best soap opra style I end with.(That is if I am not expelled from the list) Will the dainty toes of the Buffalo boys be able to raise themselves from the couch? Will the heavy curtain of of McCarthite witch hunting relieve the pressure for our cyber "Marxists" who find themselves lost in space? Will Doctor Louis P. coming rushing in to save the patient at the last moment seeing in them a possible cure from the horrors of the ever returning prolo trot disease that has smitten the list? Will Utica Rose take out his scapel and by mistake cut out the heart of the patient understanding that there is no sense in trying to operate on the brains that don't exist? Will the list clown Barkely go from joking to apoligizing to the dainty toes of the Buffalo boys? Has David left M-I to return to the toils of deep entry into the LP and the left wing of the Democratic Party? Will Gary (" I don't give a fuck") from Australia stay on this time? Will their be a wedding on M-I between the boys from Buffalo and our Portuguise patient? When will the next cross posting from the "Lenin" list arrive from Molentov Jones and who posted it? Will the moderaters intervene in order to set M-I back on course and which couse is that? Mean while I suggest that everybody support some of the very serious stuff that has come up on the list lately. The dockworkers stuff from Hugh. The stuff from Yoshie on Black Liberation Radion. John Holmes stuff on the KKK stuff. Not to mention the Tennesse strike and Swedish Imperialism. John's stuff on the railway workers. And finally Welcome to the list Chistie:) And Hi Paul Z who is also and Lper from (you guessed it) BUFFALO! Glad to see that you are still here. Warm Regards Bob Malecki ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! Or Get The Latest Issue of, COCKROACH, a zine for poor and working-class people and now starting the "Never Ending Story"... http://www.algonet.se/~malecki Back issues of Cockroach and my book at http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ --------------------------------------------------------