Titles are linked to the full text of the article. For articles without links, the text can be found at TOC04-alt.html, which, however, is only partially formatted. The issue is also available in PDF form.
Communist Voice Organization is founded!
The struggle of the working class
The IMF, the World Bank and U.S. imperialism: an overview
Ejido co-ops and capitalist development in Mexican agriculture
What really happened in the last years of the MLP?
Market-place ideology in the left
About the articles in this issue
In this issue we are proud to announce the founding of the Communist Voice Organization, which will be henceforth be the publisher of Communist Voice. This is the fruit of discussions among comrades over several months. This issue contains an announcement about the CVO as well as the Constitution of the CVO and Where We Stand, its statement of principles.
The workers’ struggle
Our coverage of the situation in the working class is highlighted this time by several articles and leaflets on the Detroit newspaper strike. The workers arc facing a difficult situation, but their spirited resistance has changed the atmosphere. It is the most lively struggle in Detroit for years, as the strikers work to overcome the police, the courts and the policy of their own trade union leaders, and it has national significance. Whatever the outcome, the workers have, for a time, gone beyond the passive resistance which is constantly recommended to them, and have demonstrated a fighting spirit. We report on the militancy that has been shown on the picket lines, and the resistance of the trade union bureaucrats. We also cover the reaction of the reformist left to this strike, and show how it has covered up the treachery of the trade union bureaucrats, while the anarchist- inclined Maoist International Movement (MIM) condemns the strike itself.
Other coverage on workplace issues includes Pete’s review of Goldthorpe’s book of 1969 on whether the British workers are becoming bourgeoisified. This continues a series of articles on how the changes in the working class have affected its revolutionary potential.
And we reprint some leaflets. The Detroit Workers' Voice writes on the newspaper strike and on deteriorating workplace conditions at the post office. As well, we critically comment on the leaflet and report from the Los Angeles Workers' Voice on the demonstration on the 25th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium. This material points out both the increasing devastation of the working class areas in Los Angeles, and the serious problem of petty-bourgeois nationalism in the local movement.
The world situation
On a different front, we continue our coverage of the basic structure of present-day imperialism. An article from Gary continues our study of the IMF and World Bank, which began in the last issue with an article by Phil. It focuses on the pressure exerted by these agencies to keep the subordinate countries in line and bleed them economically.
We also continue our discussion of material related to the peasant uprising in Chiapas. The Zapatista program centers on strengthening agriculture co-ops. the peasant “ejido” Will this work? Can it save the Mexican peasant from ruin, as capitalist farming transforms the Mexican countryside? Mark studies the history of the ejido and shows what it has actually meant for the peasantry.
Marketplace ideology and the left (in this issue of CV, the term neo-conservatism is used for what is commonly called neo-liberalism)
As well, we start a closer study of how marketplace ideology has affected left-wing thinking in the wake of the victory of the West in the Cold War. We carry parts one and two of “The reflection of neo-conservatism in socialist thinking” It shows how the present-day skepticism towards Marxist communism has not brought forth anything new. but just variants of marketplace ideology, which can also be seen in anarchist theorizing. Pan two of the article goes on to analyze one attempt, by Ben of the “Revolutionary Socialist Study Group” of Seattle, to sketch out an anti-authoritarian paradise, and what it turns out to be.
In a way, Mark’s article on the ejido is also relevant to our coverage of anarchism. Many anarchist and reformist trends tend to the “small is beautiful” philosophy and promote small- group enterprises as anti-hierarchical and the foundation of the society of the future. The ejido system consists of a multitude of such small-group enterprises, some of them collective enterprises. Yet for from being a reliable shield for the peasants, the ejidos have seen capitalist relations and class differentiation develop right in their midst.
The debate over anti-war work in the last years of the MLP
And finally, we also continue our coverage of the history of the Marxist-Leninist Party (MLP) and why it collapsed.
Both the CVO and the Chicago Workers Voice group spring from the “minority”, a group of comrades from the MLP who wanted to continue communist work after it collapsed. An issue of concern has been why the MLP collapsed. The CWV group claim that its criticisms in 1991-92 of the agitation of the Workers' Advocate (central paper of the MLP) against the Persian Gulf war and of WA denunciations of the local bourgeoisie in dependent countries dealt with the problems leading to the MLP’s collapse. But other comrades claim that the Workers' Advocate in fact maintained lively agitation for class struggle and socialism, and that the CWV’S criticism was fundamentally wrong and reflected the CWV's own vacillations. These other comrades point to the development of liquidationist viewpoints in the MLP and hold that communism must be anti-revisionist if it is to be a live force in today’s world. They point out that the CWV group has not seen the central importance of anti-revisionism, as shown for example in their attitude to Castroism and towards the Mexican journal El.Machete.
We dealt extensively with the CWV's disregard for anti-revisionism in our last issue. But we hadn't yet discussed the inner-party debate over the Workers' Advocate of 1991-92. To deal with this, we begin serializing a three-part article from comrade Slim — not previously readily available to the public — which replied to the Chicago comrades during the original debate. It provides a well-researched review of the agitation of the Workers 'Advocate on the Persian Gulf war and sketches the theories that lay behind it. And we include statements from other comrades during the debate. []
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