I suppose it is odd after all these years to decide today to
take a few minutes to explain in more detail where Scission is coming from and
just who is the guy behind the curtain. I will attempt this now. Please don't expect some well written manifesto, think of this more as something from the "notebooks."
I am a person who combines autonomous Marxism, white skin
privilege theory, dual consciousness ( and duel power) theory with, obviously
some Gramsci, an acceptance of some but not all EMPIRE related theory ,
combined with an autonomous Marxist
version of deep green resistance.
What does the above rambling actually mean. A little about autonomist Marxism from my
personal perspective. This is in no way intended to be in any way exhaustive,
nor does it represent anyone's views but my own.
Most people trace autonomist Marxism back to the anti-Stalinism
of the middle fifties. I go back further into its roots.
Marx, including
but not certainly limited to the Grundrisse, is a good starting point. Of
course, Marx also wrote the basic line in one sentence. "The emancipation
of the working class must be the act of the workers themselves."
From there it
would be onto some of the writings of Rosa Luxemburg, and to some types of left
communism and the Workers Opposition in early Soviet days. I think it is back
in there that you find the first inklings of what would become autonomist
Marxism.
The main
articulation of this trend in the 50s, I think comes from CLR James (and from
the Hungarian Revolution of 1956), and then onto Workerism or Operaismo and via
people like Tronti, Bologna, and Negri right into the heart of the Autonomous
movement in Italy of the 70s and 80s. I would include here the type of feminism
represented most especially by the Wages for Housework movement.
Of course, in
America I would include Harry Cleaver, Midnight Notes, and ZeroWork.
It is continued
on with some of the theory of the Zapatistas and, at least, some of Empire
Theory of Hardt and, again, Negri as well.
Autonomous
Marxist theory includes and centralizes around the self organization of the
working class, construction of identity, grass roots struggles, and sees
workers as the subject driving the class struggle and history (not capital as
in the more traditional Marxist view). Autonomist Marxists emphasize the
importance of the dynamic nature of class composition.
Autonomous
Marxists see the working class as not only autonomous of capital, but
autonomous of any party.
Autonomist
Marxists have absolutely no use for the vanguard party, but do see a role for a
Marxist organization (which, I feel, is best defined by CLR James).
Autonomist
Marxists, true to their name, respect allow for the autonomist development of
various movements of the "multitude," for example, African American
Liberation movement, Women's movement, Gay and Lesbian movement, Landless
movements, youth and student movements, anti-war movements, etc. etc. etc.
Quite obviously I am opponent of the whole Leninist concept of
the vanguard party.
PS: Everyone seems to spell autonomous differently. I seem to
spell it different ways all on my own and from place to place."
I oppose the
whole concept, of the vanguard party.
Back in the 1970s I was with a small cadre organization called
the Communist Workers Group (ML). The
person whom I somewhat humorously describe our “Glorious Leader” was a fellow by
the name of Tom Clark. We eventually had a following out as I began my journey away from the world of Marxism
Leninism toward something new. That
said, I believe to this day that Tom was a genius of sorts and I learned a
great deal from him (some negative, but mostly positive). In recent years a final work of Tom’s has
turned up and is at this time being prepared for an on line release soon by
another former comrade of the group. The
title of the work is “State and Counter Revolution.” It’s release will raise a howl of discontent,
I predict. Much of what immediately follows in the next paragraph owes to that work. Some of it I have
always felt, but could never quite put together.
One reason
there has NEVER been true Marxian revolution can be found in the fact that
virtually the entire "Marxist intelligentsia" has been petit
bourgeois and bourgeois. This includes everyone from Marx and Engles to Lenin
and beyond. This is not to negate the basics of Marxism or of the works of
Marx, but when it comes to the practice of revolution and all the organizing which leads to and continues,
and completes it, what is necessary is the self activity and the self
organization of the working class, not some party of petit bourgeois
intellectuals and the like acting on BEHALF of the class, then as in
revolutions such as 1917 eliminating Soviets of Workers and replacing them
first with Soviets of some workers and peasants and other petit bourgeois
elements, then eliminating Soviets altogether. That path leads to state
capitalism, central planning, nationalization, socialism, but never true
communism.
Socialism is not some preliminary stage of communism, it is
antagonistic to it. It is just another form of capitalism. The working class
must and can smash the state not merely seize it, must valorize itself, must
eliminate surplus value based upon commodity exchange, must produce for
itself not for some form of state capital, must in other words destroy the
capitalist relations of production completely, etc. Only the working class
can do all this. Only the working class is truly a revolutionary class whose
final goal is the elimination of all classes, including itself.
Is there a role for some form of organization of Marxists
(including Intellectuals) in all this. Yes, there is, but its role is NOT to
replace the class, not to be its vanguard, not to take over. Its role is to
assist and to support at most and to stay out of the way. Noel Ignatiev in a
comment related to the late, great CLR James put it this way, "The task
of revolutionaries is not to organize the workers but to organize themselves
to discover those patterns of activity and forms of organization that have
sprung up out of the struggle and that embody the new society, and to help
them grow stronger, more confident, and more conscious of their direction. It
is an essential contribution to the society of disciplined spontaneity, which
for (CLR) James was the definition of the new world."
The working class can
and must develop its own "intellectual" elements in its own way. Is
all this utopia? No, the working class creates communism every single day. It
has demonstrated numerous times its revolutionary capacity.
The vanguard party idea was an understandable but flawed
concept which has only served to prevent the true development of the class,
and a true communist revolution.
I would also add that
by working class I absolutely DO NOT mean only the industrial proletariat.
Marx spoke of the industrial working class when it was but a very small part
of everything, but he could see it was the future and that even in his time
was hegemonic in its outlook. Today, even if the industrial happens to be
predominant in many places in sheer numbers, it is not the future, it is not
hegemonic and it alone can no longer be called the proletariat. Just as Marx
looked to the future, so must we.
In addition
to a grounding in Marxism, I have a continued belief in the theory that
capitalism is upheld as a result of an ideology of white skin privilege. I
could, of course, write page after page about white skin privilege theory,
but rather than do that I suggest you search out and read what Noel Ignatiev
and Ted Allen have to say about it.
There are various versions of white skin privilege floating around,
but Noel’s and Ted’s descriptions come closest to what I believe
Further I am also a fierce supporter of and influenced by a
militant struggle to SAVE THE EARTH from environmental destruction, maybe
best exemplified by a Marxian interpretation of the deep green resistance
movement. We have already entered a
period of history where everything I wrote prior to this may mean
nothing. There can be no communism of
any kind if there is no life on the planet.
We are there.
I am talking about global warming and the environmental
destruction of our planet. It will eventually devastate us all, whites,
Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Indians, all of us. Men and women, gays and
straights, all of us. Workers and
capitalists, all of us. And not just us. All the free wild animals of the
planet are being destroyed right alongside us. It is the creatures of the
planet, the fish of the sea, the birds in the air, the great cats, the
wolves, the bears that are the ones dying off right now. Not tomorrow, right
now. They are being poisoned today. Their habitats are drying up, melting,
dying even as I write this.
Who is and will suffer first and the most amongst us – people
of color, the indigenous, people in the developing countries, working people,
the poor, the multitude. Who will
suffer last amongst us? You guessed it – white folks, the wealthy, the United
States, Western Europe. Who causes most of the suffering – the rich, the
powerful, the huge corporations, mostly white, mostly men, mostly the big
developed countries.
What has to go to save the planet? Capitalism has to go,
traditional states have to go, racism has to go, the way we organize our
societies has to go, our current way of thinking itself has to go. We have
got to understand that ultimately we, and the animals, the plants, and water
and the air – we are all connected, all essentially one. We all live or we
all die.
I am not for going quietly into the night. The movement we build
must be one that convinces more and more people to look beyond tomorrow
morning and beyond the end of their nose. That is particularly difficult here
in America. But we, you and I, must know time is simply running out. We
either get this done in the next few years or we might as well throw in the
towel. It is possible we are already too late.
I’m 63 years old. I’ll probably live a relatively normal life
span (which doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happens, which doesn’t mean
I don’t want the Earth to live on after me). I’ll tell you what, if you’re
twenty, if your two, if your one of the famous unborn, well, you ought to be
mad as hell at the rest of us. And you sure as hell will be one day. Only it
may be when it is hot and dry, when there isn’t much to eat or drink. It may
be while wars and civil wars rage across the planet as nations and regions
run out of water, or food, or land, or power. When it gets like that people
will fight back and with each other. However, it’ll be for nothing then.
And by the way, the future is now. People
are starving now. Islands are sinking now. Coastlines are going away now.
Deserts are expanding now. Rainforests are disappearing now. The ice caps are
melting now. Greenland is becoming green now. We can no longer look at extreme weather and environmental
catastrophes and ask if they are related to something more global, something
bigger. The “one incidents” are adding
up too quickly. We can’t just shrug off the fact that every fish in the damn
world is carrying carcinogens in their systems right now. We can’t shrug off
the fact that mother’s milk is turning to poison right now. We can’t pretend
that the great aquifers under the Great Plains States are drying up now.
Tomorrow is today.
We must act now.
Some of
you have probably noticed that I have not discussed tactics. That is
intentional. There are a number of reasons why I have made that choice. The internet
is no place for such a discussion. When
the discussion of tactics does happen what we need is to find ways to
effectively organize and educate ourselves and others in a manner which can
most most efficiently and directly move forward the agenda of fighting global
capital, white supremacy, white skin privilege, racism, the Empire, while
trying to save the earth.
Of course,much is left out. This isn't supposed to be some all inclusive document. I haven't discussed sexism, I haven't discussed gender issues, I have not said much about the indigenous etc. Everyone one of these, and much more should be here, but I wasn't about writing a book. I presume those of you who read Scission by now know that I consider all of these things important. There is so very much to do. |
NOTE: Please feel free to point out typos, spelling errors, grammar problems, any stupid stuff you note. Someday I may actually try to re write all this in a more serious way.
Also, feel free to make political comments, criticisms, corrections, whatever. Although I am not looking to debate much about all this, as it is a statement of where I am and nothing more, I, like everyone, could certainly learn more from others. I don't claim to be all knowing. I could be totally off base. However, I believe we all operate from some place that we believe to me generally correct and this is that place for me.
