Left Forum Speech 2013 by T.C

 

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.