Against left-wing denigration of the anti-Trump movement
Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2017 1:53 am
Detroit Workers' Voice mailing list
February 2, 2017
2nd Item
Against denigration of the anti-Trump movement (excerpts)
By Joseph Green, Communist Voice Organization
Trump's presidency has ushered in a dangerous period in which many of the things which people relied on for so long will be taken from them. But it has also ushered in a wave of mass protest on a scale that hasn't been seen for a long time. Without this protest, the election of Trump would have drowned people in despair. Instead there is a spirit of defiance growing in the country. ...
It's become fashionable in some sections of the left to denigrate the Women's March and the anti-Trump movement in general because of its varied character and the different viewpoints of those who are taking part. They sneer that it doesn't make sense to denounce Trump because Obama, during his presidency, already oppressed the workers, deported immigrants, and carried out imperialist crimes around the world. They essentially ignore the connection of the present movement with a series of struggles, such as Black Lives Matter!, that took place during the Obama administration, or that the advent of Trump means deepening attacks on the masses. ...
Of course there are varied views and class standpoints in the anti-Trump movement. It's inevitable that there would be different trends in any great movement that broke out at this time. Seeing how extensive the protest movement has been, the bourgeoisie has taken a certain part in it. ...
The role of a real left, a left that can influence events, is to know how to deal with the different trends and help the movement persist and deepen despite the obstruction from bourgeois trends. ...
The anti-Trump movement will be only one stage in a struggle that has a long way to go before it gives rise to an organized class movement. It's a movement in which a large number of people are angry and want to see a determined struggle, even if they still believe, to this or that extent, in forces that aren't on their side. No matter how many times the Democrats betray the anti-Trump struggle, as soon as a prominent Democrat says something oppositional, there will be dreams of transforming the Democratic Party. It will take more experience before the different trends in the movement become clear to large masses of people and the different class trends separate. We need to know how to defy the Democrats and other backward trends by helping people break through the backward orientations of the Democrats and pro-class collaborationist union bureaucrats even while they still have illusions about the Democrats as a whole.
This doesn't mean being silent about the betrayals of the struggle by the Democrats or other backward trends. ... And we must also deal with the crisis of orientation and theory in the radical left. One of the placards that was carried at the Women's March mocked Trump's slogan of "Make America great again" with the counter-slogan "Make America think again". Indeed, we also need to "make the left think again". It's not just the bourgeoisie that is in crisis, it's many of the old trends in the left as well.
The Detroit Workers' Voice list is devoted to both the anti-Trump fight and clarification in the left. Today, a large section of the left denounce popular struggles here or abroad, so that it's impossible to consistently defend the mass struggle without dealing with the crisis of the left. We will persist in defending the interests of workers around the world, even when what we say is anathema to the current left orthodoxy, such as when we defend the Syrian uprising against Assad, when we denounce Trotskyism as well as Stalinism, or when we show the need for direct environmental regulation and control as opposed to the neoliberal pricing measures accepted by both the Green Party and the IMF. We will never betray the interests of the working class and the mass struggle, or abandon the revolutionary Marxist path.
Resist, resist, resist! Take part in the demonstrations, protests and meetings! Defend those under attack from the capitalists and the Trump administration!
Organize, organize, organize! Build groups that will keep the struggle going between actions, and that will spread the truth to workplaces, communities, schools, and unions! Help turn the anti-Trump struggle into a class struggle!
Build the radical section of the anti-Trump movement! Help transform the left itself!
Full text at https://www.communistvoice.org/DWV-170202.html
February 2, 2017
2nd Item
Against denigration of the anti-Trump movement (excerpts)
By Joseph Green, Communist Voice Organization
Trump's presidency has ushered in a dangerous period in which many of the things which people relied on for so long will be taken from them. But it has also ushered in a wave of mass protest on a scale that hasn't been seen for a long time. Without this protest, the election of Trump would have drowned people in despair. Instead there is a spirit of defiance growing in the country. ...
It's become fashionable in some sections of the left to denigrate the Women's March and the anti-Trump movement in general because of its varied character and the different viewpoints of those who are taking part. They sneer that it doesn't make sense to denounce Trump because Obama, during his presidency, already oppressed the workers, deported immigrants, and carried out imperialist crimes around the world. They essentially ignore the connection of the present movement with a series of struggles, such as Black Lives Matter!, that took place during the Obama administration, or that the advent of Trump means deepening attacks on the masses. ...
Of course there are varied views and class standpoints in the anti-Trump movement. It's inevitable that there would be different trends in any great movement that broke out at this time. Seeing how extensive the protest movement has been, the bourgeoisie has taken a certain part in it. ...
The role of a real left, a left that can influence events, is to know how to deal with the different trends and help the movement persist and deepen despite the obstruction from bourgeois trends. ...
The anti-Trump movement will be only one stage in a struggle that has a long way to go before it gives rise to an organized class movement. It's a movement in which a large number of people are angry and want to see a determined struggle, even if they still believe, to this or that extent, in forces that aren't on their side. No matter how many times the Democrats betray the anti-Trump struggle, as soon as a prominent Democrat says something oppositional, there will be dreams of transforming the Democratic Party. It will take more experience before the different trends in the movement become clear to large masses of people and the different class trends separate. We need to know how to defy the Democrats and other backward trends by helping people break through the backward orientations of the Democrats and pro-class collaborationist union bureaucrats even while they still have illusions about the Democrats as a whole.
This doesn't mean being silent about the betrayals of the struggle by the Democrats or other backward trends. ... And we must also deal with the crisis of orientation and theory in the radical left. One of the placards that was carried at the Women's March mocked Trump's slogan of "Make America great again" with the counter-slogan "Make America think again". Indeed, we also need to "make the left think again". It's not just the bourgeoisie that is in crisis, it's many of the old trends in the left as well.
The Detroit Workers' Voice list is devoted to both the anti-Trump fight and clarification in the left. Today, a large section of the left denounce popular struggles here or abroad, so that it's impossible to consistently defend the mass struggle without dealing with the crisis of the left. We will persist in defending the interests of workers around the world, even when what we say is anathema to the current left orthodoxy, such as when we defend the Syrian uprising against Assad, when we denounce Trotskyism as well as Stalinism, or when we show the need for direct environmental regulation and control as opposed to the neoliberal pricing measures accepted by both the Green Party and the IMF. We will never betray the interests of the working class and the mass struggle, or abandon the revolutionary Marxist path.
Resist, resist, resist! Take part in the demonstrations, protests and meetings! Defend those under attack from the capitalists and the Trump administration!
Organize, organize, organize! Build groups that will keep the struggle going between actions, and that will spread the truth to workplaces, communities, schools, and unions! Help turn the anti-Trump struggle into a class struggle!
Build the radical section of the anti-Trump movement! Help transform the left itself!
Full text at https://www.communistvoice.org/DWV-170202.html