My name is Thea
Connolly, and today I wanted to talk about the importance of ideology
in regards to revolutionary activism. One of the most revolutionary
concepts of the ideology of Marxism-Leninism that is rarely discussed
in the United States today is the concept of the Labor
Aristocracy. While I myself am still quite new to the ideology of
Marxism-Leninism, I have been studying this important topic, not just
through readings, but through my personal experiences as a worker and
an SDS organizer.
My experiences with SDS
and cashier of the new Giant Stadium, unionized by Unite Here Local
100 has been a learning experience for me.
I remember three years
ago when the stadium had just opened and I was hired on the spot in
May of 2010. I wouldn't call myself political at the time and didn't
think much about what I was in for. All I knew was that I was
desperate for money and just happy to have a job.
Events were scheduled
that summer and I jumped on any opportunity to work. During that time
there were anti union campaigns spread by other workers. I remember
one worker telling me if I signed up for the union then I would lose
my job. Honestly, that didn't scare me and luckily I was guided by
workers, who became close friends of mine, to inform and educate me
on how unions worked and that I couldn't lose my job for signing up
to be unionized.
I remember the exact
day I had signed up to be unionized, July 9, 2010. A few weeks later,
I was informed that enough people had signed up for the union and
that we were officially unionized. There I was, a 21 year old worker
who had been officially unionized, not really knowing what to expect.
The starting pay for my position as a cashier was 15 dollars an
hours, but what was to follow was not what I expected.
The workers had no
place to eat and only 15 minutes to get food, sit either in the
stairwell or closet, eat and get back to work. Legally, because we
were working about 9 hours a day, were entitled to a 30 minute break.
Throughout the next several months people were getting fired left and
right. The stadium brought in other companies that hired other
cashiers for the less the pay of unionized workers. It was clear what
the bosses were trying to do.
Flash forward two
years, in January 2012 I joined Students for a Democratic Society. I
still worked at the stadium while playing a role in SDS. I had also
learned that the Sodexo workers were also unionized by Unite Here
Local 100. By the time work had started up for me at the stadium in
May 2012, I decided to investigate the situation going on with the
union and the stadium.
I started talking
politics to my co workers and surprisingly they agreed with what I
had to say. It was then when they started talking to me how the union
was in fact not doing its job and how workers were getting fired for
no reason at all. What really stood out to me was how our militant
shop steward was no longer allowed to enter the stadium and speak to
the workers...the union sided with the bosses and forbade her to
enter stadium grounds.
With the help of some
SDS members, I was able to start agitating the union and its leader.
In the summer of 2012, with the presence of an SDS member, I attended
a Union election in which I wanted to run. It turns out there was no
election and people had been picked behind closed doors. I spoke to
the president of the union, Bill, who happened to be a former SDSer.
I told him about the issues regarding the stadium and workers in
Sodexo at Montclair State University. He gave me his card and sent me
to my shop steward, both who pretended to care.
The next few months
following my in person visit, I had emailed the union several times a
week with no response. Eventually I started getting emails stating
that Bill's email was full. By the time work started up for me again
in the fall, there had been an attempted union raid by SEIU 1199
where I attend school. I immediately called up Unite Here to inform
them. I was told that they were coming to meet with me and talk to
the workers, but I never heard from them again.
Back at work I
continued contacting Unite Here, with minimal results. Every few
weeks I was able to see the shop steward in person and demand the
Union to do its job and help the workers. Finally, the idea of me
running for shop steward was brought up. What needed to be done was a
place to hold elections and a day to do it. Afterwards I spoke to the
union, I spoke to my co workers. They seem pleased and encouraged me
to run. They wanted me to be the shop steward, unfortunately despite
the constant attempts to contact the Union in regards to an election,
the shop steward only answered a couple of my emails and was never
heard from.
Putting my experiences
in a Marxist-Leninist ideological context can be difficult. Radical
people are always talking about the “working class” this, or the
“workers” that. People who call themselves Marxists, even
“Leninists,” often say very different things on any number of
issues. And nevermind the anarchists!
How are we supposed to
make sense of our experiences trying to bring about a revolution and
an end to US imperialism?
Studying these issues
has led me to a few quotes I would like to share with you now. Very
few groups on the American 'Left' like to bring these up, but as war
against Sovereign states like Syria are on the horizon, led by a
“Democratic” president in office, I think it is probably more
important now than ever to think about their meaning.
This quote appears from a document called “The Second Congress of
the Communist International.” This is how Lenin defined the primary
tasks of revolutionaries all over the world, after the Bolsheviks
came to power in Russia.
Lenin tells us that
Opportunism is the tool of bourgeoisie used in the working-class
movement. Opportunists defend the bourgeoisie better than the
bourgeoisie themselves. He defines opportunism as the primary
hindrance to revolution.
“Opportunism
is our principal enemy.
Opportunism in the upper ranks of the working-class movement is
bourgeois socialism, not proletarian socialism. It has been shown in
practice that working-class
activists who follow the opportunist trend are better defenders of
the bourgeoisie than the bourgeois themselves. Without their
leadership of the workers, the bourgeoisie could not remain in power.
This has been proved, not only by the history of the Kerensky regime
in Russia; it has also been proved by the democratic republic in
Germany under its Social-Democratic government, as well as by Albert
Thomas’s attitude towards his bourgeois government. It has been
proved by similar experience in Britain and the United States. This
is where our principal enemy is, an enemy we must overcome. We must
leave this Congress firmly resolved to carry on this struggle to the
very end, in all parties. That is our main task.”
Here Lenin is saying that the capitalist class can not remain
in power without their opportunist henchmen. They are a vital
component of the whole system. They are even more keenly aware of the
needs of imperialism than the bourgeoisie as a class! In terms of
people we should be struggling against, this puts them above even the
capitalists themselves.
As you walk around
“Left” forum this weekend, I hope all of you are wondering to
yourselves which organizations and individuals might fit into this
role. I won't name Names *cough ISO cough* but
you should keep this in mind.
Lenin's “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism” was a very
interesting document for me to read. Written before the Russian
revolution, it is a massive polemic against the opportunist traitors
in the Second International, nearly all of whom sided with their own
bourgeoisie against the workers of other nations. Lenin quotes the
liberal anti-imperialist Hobson to stress a point.
“The prospect of partitioning
China elicited from Hobson the following economic appraisal: “The
greater part of Western Europe might then assume the appearance and
character already exhibited by tracts of country in the South of
England, in the Riviera, and in the tourist-ridden or residential
parts of Italy and Switzerland, little clusters of wealthy
aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the Far East, with a
somewhat larger group of professional retainers and tradesmen and a
larger body of personal servants and workers in the transport trade
and in the final stages of production of the more perishable goods:
all the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the staple
foods and semi-manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and
Africa.... We have foreshadowed the possibility of even a larger
alliance of Western states, a
European federation of Great Powers which, so far from forwarding the
cause of world civilisation, might introduce the gigantic peril of a
Western parasitism, a
group of advanced industrial nations, whose upper classes drew vast
tribute from Asia and Africa, with which they supported great tame
masses of retainers, no longer engaged in the staple industries of
agriculture and manufacture, but kept in the performance of personal
or minor industrial services under the control of a new financial
aristocracy. Let those who would scout such a theory [he should have
said: prospect] as undeserving of consideration examine the economic
and social condition of districts in Southern England today which are
already reduced to this condition, and reflect upon the vast
extension of such a system which might be rendered feasible by the
subjection of China to the economic control of similar groups of
financiers, investors [rentiers] and political and business
officials, draining the greatest potential reservoir of profit the
world has ever known, in order to consume it in Europe. The situation
is far too complex, the play of world forces far too incalculable,
to render this or any other single interpretation of the future very
probable; but the
influences which govern the imperialism of Western Europe today are
moving in this direction, and, unless counteracted or diverted, make
towards such a consummation.”
Hobson, the social-liberal, fails
to see that this “counteraction” can be offered only
by the revolutionary proletariat and only
in the form of a social revolution. But then he is a social-liberal!
Nevertheless, as early as 1902 he had an excellent insight into the
meaning and significance of a “United States of Europe” (be it
said for the benefit of Trotsky the Kautskyite!) and of all that is
now being glossed over by the hypocritical
Kautskyites of various
countries, namely, that the
opportunists
(social-chauvinists) are working hand in glove with the imperialist
bourgeoisie precisely
towards creating an imperialist Europe on the backs of Asia and
Africa, and that
objectively the opportunists
are a section of the petty bourgeoisie and of a certain strata of the
working class who have
been bribed out
of imperialist superprofits and converted to watchdogs
of capitalism and corruptors
of the labour movement.”
Here we see that not only are the opportunists better defenders of
capitalism than the bourgeoisie, not only are they our principle
enemy, but they are the enemy of the entirety of the Third-World
proletariat. They want to enslave the people of the Third-World, and
subjugate them to the rule of European and American Monopoly Finance
Capital. And the people who will do this will call themselves
“Marxists” even “Leninists” if they need to, to accomplish
this aim. All so that they can have cushy office jobs.
Now I
want to quote Stalin. Some of you may not like the guy, but I think
this quote from his “On the International Situation” is necessary
here. This was how the Bolsheviks were summing up the question of the
opportunists and social-chauvinists in 1928.
“Firstly, it is not
true that fascism is only the fighting organisation of the
bourgeoisie. Fascism is not only a military-technical category.
Fascism is the bourgeoisie's fighting organisation that relies on the
active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively
the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that
the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive
successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active
support of Social-Democracy. There is just as little ground for
thinking that Social-Democracy can achieve decisive successes in
battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of
the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. These organisations
do not negate, but supplement each other. They are not antipodes,
they are twins. Fascism is an informal political bloc of these
two chief organisations; a bloc, which arose in the circumstances of
the post-war crisis of imperialism, and which is intended for
combating the proletarian revolution. The bourgeoisie cannot
retain power without such a bloc.”
Here Stalin harkens back to Lenin's words. The bourgeoisie can
not retain power without the opportunists, who have revealed
themselves to be nothing but Fascists. The goal of the misleaders and
corruptors of the labor movement are indistinguishable from the goals
of the Fascists.
Now,
least anyone here think Trotsky is much different in this regard, let
me avail you of that notion at once! Toward the end of his life, he
wrote a document called “Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist
Decay.” It should be read by anyone who considers themselves a
pupil of Trotsky. To quote Trotsky:
“Monopoly capitalism is less and less
willing to reconcile itself to the independence of trade unions. It
demands of the reformist bureaucracy and the labor aristocracy
who pick the crumbs from its banquet table, that
they become transformed into its
political
police before
the eyes of the working class. If that is not achieved, the labor
bureaucracy is driven away and replaced by the fascists.
Incidentally, all the efforts of the labor aristocracy in the service
of imperialism cannot in the long run save them from destruction.”
Here Trotsky only differs slightly from how Stalin saw the
situation in 1928. The opportunist and social-chauvinist Labor
Aristocracy, who Lenin says the bourgeoisie could not maintain power
without, become the POLITICAL POLICE inside the labor movement. Who
here has encountered one of these political cops in their movement
work?
The last quote I want to read is again from Lenin's “Imperialism
and the Split in Socialism.”
“Neither we nor anyone else can
calculate precisely what portion of the proletariat is following and
will follow the social-chauvinists and opportunists. This will be
revealed only by the struggle, it will be definitely decided only by
the socialist revolution. But we know for certain that the “defenders
of the fatherland” in the imperialist war represent
only a minority. And it is therefore our duty, if we wish to remain
socialists to go down lower
and deeper, to the
real masses; this is the whole meaning and the whole purport of the
struggle against opportunism. By exposing the fact that the
opportunists and social-chauvinists are in reality betraying and
selling the interests of the masses, that they are defending the
temporary privileges of a minority of the workers, that they
are the vehicles of bourgeois ideas and influences, that they are
really allies and agents of the bourgeoisie,
we teach the masses to appreciate their true political interests, to
fight for socialism and for the revolution through all the long and
painful vicissitudes of imperialist wars and imperialist armistices.
The only Marxist line in the
world labour movement is to explain to the masses the inevitability
and necessity of breaking with opportunism,
to educate them for revolution by waging a relentless struggle
against opportunism, to utilise the experience of the war to expose,
not conceal, the utter vileness of national-liberal labour politics.”
Here Lenin
goes so far as to say the opportunists are literally the agents of
the bourgeoisie. It is as if the bourgeoisie had a paid political
police force inside the unions, whose only duty it was to propagate
lies to the workers.
More significantly, Lenin says
the only thing Marxists should do inside the labor movement is
utilize the war to expose these political police. Today, that means
utilizing the Syrian conflict to tell who is working for the
imperialists inside the labor movement.
How is this idea supposed to
inform our activism inside the labor movement? Namely, that if we
don't keep this in the back of our minds, we could become pawns of
the opportunists and social-chauvinists. In America, than means
becoming a pawn of the Democratic Party. Carrying out Lenin's line
requires a ruthless struggle inside the unions, to break the power of
the opportunists inside the unions. While this may sound like an
impossible task in America, Lenin defines it as the only task
befitting anyone who calls themselves a Marxist.
Thank you.
