“Revolutionary Rehearsals in the Neoliberal Age - 1989-2019," edited by C. Barker, G. Dale, N. Davidson, 2021
This
is an almost excellent account of certain class struggles since the late1980s, best
for those socialists, unionists and activists stuck in the past. It tracks the involvement of proletarians in
uprisings across the globe. It is a follow-up to a prior book that covered the
period prior to 1987 in the same way. While marred by a Schactmanite ‘state
capitalism’ analysis, its real focus is on how workers and proletarians became
active in political upheavals within the context of capitalist and workers’
states. It is also an indirect criticism of ‘movementism’ – which has no
broader goals or organization, just immediate actions based on ‘throwing the
bums’ out. Movementism essentially
relies only on ad hoc organization and reformist demands.
The
great interest of this book, no matter your politics, is that it investigates
recent world social struggles in some detail – including unfamiliar ones. It is really quite enlightening and
optimistic. It shows how the struggles
nearly always went only so far - let’s say getting rid of a dictator or corrupt
imperial lackey, but not his system, cronies, economic relations or ideas. Or why an anti-bureaucratic labor struggle
turned into a pro-imperialist and capitalist one, as in Poland.
INCREASE
in SOCIAL UNREST
One of
the key points the editors make (who, as of publication, were connected to the
International Socialist Organization, (ISO) a Schactmanite Trotskyist group) is
that research indicates there has been an increase in social unrest across the
capitalist world since the onset of neoliberalism. This includes demonstrations, riots, street
battles with police, strikes and general strikes, occupations, the taking over
of squares, cities and geographic areas, council formation, communes, insurrections,
political revolutions and attempts at dual power. Almost none have come to the point of a successful
social revolution - as yet. They do not
analyze rural struggles like Rojava, the Naxalite areas in India or
Chiapas.
In the
context of dialectics, the increase in quantity is significant. Their analysis agrees with the ‘protest’
tracking of John Bieber, Mark Buchanan, Peter Turchin and Jack Goldstone. Their
methods jive with complexity analysis and the ‘power law’ – which says the
frequency of smaller events are inevitably followed by larger and even larger ones,
though with less frequency as size increases.
In a
certain sense, they note the victory of imperialist-led bourgeois ‘democracy’
as a template across the world in this period weakened some capitalist
autocrats, but not others. Some of these
mass movements forced ‘duly elected’ capitalist presidents out of office, sometimes replacing them with reform governments. Business electoralism is a fraught system,
even in the U.S., which is why there is now a bigger rise in corrupt
authoritarian ‘democracies.’ The general
degeneration of ruling-class electoralism is not covered in this volume.
CENTRAL
EUROPE, AFRICA, ASIA, MIDDLE EAST
This
book, written by various comrades in each country, starts with the reactionary
rejection of the bureaucratic workers’ states in the former USSR and Central
Europe, focusing on Solidarnosc in Poland, so the numbers are somewhat
off. But they do include the purely
proletarian demands against the bureaucracies versus later Solidarnosc demands
for a ‘free’ market, privatization and bourgeois democracy.
It
continues by looking at mass ‘extra-parliamentary’ labor, union and people’s
involvement in the somewhat familiar events in South Africa, concluding
in the defeat of apartheid in 1994 and the continuing struggle against
capitalism there. They track the political
upheavals and experience in the Congo/Zaire from 1991 to 1997 and the
overthrow of Mobutu; in Zimbabwe in 1996-1998 and events that eventually
led to the unseating of Mugabe; in Burkina Faso in 2014 against a
military dictatorship; the overthrow of Suharto in Indonesia in 1998 by
a mass movement. Moving to Latin
America, they analyze the overcoming of the Bolivian conservative
government by social movements in 2000-2005, that led to the election of Evo
Morales; the violent mass upheaval in Argentina in 2001 which threw out
an elected president over years of neoliberal IMF and ‘structural adjustment’
programs; in Egypt in 2011, in a tragic political revolution that threw
out Mubarak only to end up with a ‘restoration’ coup and the elevation of Abdel
al-Sisi in 2014.
These mostly mass-based left-wing upheavals clearly show an intimate connection
between economic, social and political demands, not their separation, contrary
to syndicalist or economist ideas. It
also shows that the involvement of a significant or overwhelming mass of proletarians
is essential to any significant change. A simple lesson, but one lost on many
activists. Picket lines of 50 go almost nowhere.
 |
| Bolivia 2003-2005 |
LATIN
AMERICA
As a
specific example, the authors track the 2003 & 2005 ‘gas wars’ in Bolivia,
which led to Morales’ win. The
resistance was based on thick networks of unions, indigenous proletarians,
former miners and peasants who called for a transitional demand: re-nationalizing
Bolivian gas, along with a broad left program.
The authors take a careful look at El Alto, a proletarian suburb near La
Paz that was the seat of this class struggle. In order to succeed, the movement
united every ethnic and labor sector, from local neighborhood councils to
national labor and peasant groups. It
represented the actual creation of a mass ‘workers front,’ something the great Peruvian
Marxist Jose Carlos Mariategui advocated.
However it has not expropriated the bourgeoisie, even though Morales’ MAS
calls itself socialist.
In
Argentina in 2001, the struggle introduced highway barricades manned by the unemployed;
factory occupations and takeovers as collectives; popular assemblies that
formed a sort of dual power and united left formations (Trotskyists and the Communist
Party) that contested for electoral power. Autonomists (anarchists) and Maoists
refuse to participate in the political struggle, even with flawed but successful examples
like Lula, Morales and Chavez in front of them. The
significance of united fronts among leftists becomes more apparent in
Latin America. Presently in
Argentina the actual Marxist left is once again a large force, as part of a
proletarian united front. What follows
is a discussion of the first reformist ‘pink tide’ in Latin America, which was
turned back. A second – in Chile, in
Honduras, in Peru and Bolivia, the survival of Venezuela, even the weakening of
Bolsonaro in Brazil, is upon us again.
THEORY
Neil
Davidson ends the book with a theoretical take on these experiences, citing
Engels and Marx on the alternative outcomes to a victory of the working
class: a, war, b, “the ruin of the
contending classes” and c, permanent economic collapse. Now we have somewhat different negative
consequences according to Davidson: an
environmental holocaust; global corporate autocracy or nuclear war. He does not mention a key role for the issue
of falling profit rates, world-wide debt levels and economic stagnation /
depression.
 |
| The steps and 'stages' towards revolution |
Davidson discusses Lukac’s reconception of Lenin’s approach to revolutionary logic, based on 3 ‘actualities’:
A. Material
pre-conditions. Davidson thinks these
conditions are absolutely present now, across most of the world. Instead reformists grasp the 2nd
International / CP / Kautskyist idea of stages or phrases which must be gone
through - until capital controls every nook and cranny of the world. Then the time will be ripe … in that distant
future. This was also the position of
Samir Amin and some others who follow Mao Zedong.
B.
Revolutionary preparedness. Davidson considers voluntarism and Guevararist guerillaism
as failed approaches to revolution, but neither is passive waiting. He quotes Gramsci as being only able to
predict ‘the struggle’ - not when it will mature into a revolutionary
situation. It is the linking of partial
struggles in a transitional, empowering way, which unites the working class
towards the broader goal of social revolution.
This ‘linkage’ is the prime problem for the Left. It does not involve either shouting
‘socialism’ at every moment or wearing out cadre in tailist and unfocused
hyper-activity around every single issue.
C.
Revolutionary situation. That short
period of time – that moment - that actually would allow a powerful and united
working class to overthrow a weakened capital.
It might only be a matter of months. Lenin in 1917 saw that the
post-Czar provisional government was capitalist, and turned against it. It continued the war, stood up for the landlords against the peasantry
and starved and exploited the workers. At the same time the Party still worked with other left
forces. Yet when the masses turned to
the Bolsheviks, he knew the moment had come.
(Review
to be continued…)
Prior
blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate
our 15 year archive: Use terms like “Lenin,”
“Samir Amin,” “Che Guevara,” “Karl Kautsky,” “Lukacs,” “Mariategui” “South
Africa,” “Poland” or the word “revolution.”
And I
bought it at May Day Books!
Red
Frog
January 4, 2022
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