February–March 2011 Socialist 

A radiant program for new generations by Andrea Bauer

What follows is an in-depth explanation of why , embodied in a revolutionary party, is the contemporary answer to the crisis of capitalism. Drafted on behalf of the (FSP) National Committee, this political resolution was adopted at the party’s July 2010 convention. It incorporates additions put forward by the FSP membership.

Overview IThe world and U.S. economies are profoundly troubled, experiencing the most severe crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The economies of entire nations have flat-lined. A mountain of debt forced Iceland into bankruptcy; Greece, Ireland, and other poor-neighbor countries of the southern European Union may yet face the same fate. The unprecedented breakdown of capitalism today is a symptom and signal of a system battling desperately to maintain itself long past its expiration date. Its convulsions are upsetting bankers and bosses, to be sure, but its main miseries are borne as always by the workers of every country — first among them women, the very young and the very old, and those marked for special suffering by skin color, nationality, and sexual orientation. The crisis has wrenched millions from their homes and jobs. In the U.S., in the middle of what bourgeois commentators describe without shame as a recovery, the economy continues to shed jobs month by month. Government stimulus spending, whether in the form of Wall Street bailouts or vast Steve Hoffman Pentagon payouts to “defense” To end the misery of war, mass protest is not enough: what’s needed industries, does nothing but boost is the determination to change the system that breeds it. the profits of the corporate summiteers. In 1938, as the profit system struggled to right itself from its last great tumble, Russian revolutionary leader was preparing the proposed program for the founding of the Fourth International, the new world party of . In it, he wrote: “If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish.”

FREEDOM Socialist SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT — 1  February–March 2011

No moral or logical defense is possible for a techno- vent — although it did provide outrageous profits for a logically advanced social structure that cannot meet few capitalists. As Megan Cornish writes in “A Marxist humanity’s basic needs — and in fact runs the clock Capitalism’s Looks at Capitalism’s Meltdown”: of progress backward by increasing the brutality and insecurity of people’s lives, subjecting them to unend- Capitalist flacksinevitable would have the rest slideof us believe In the last 20 years, free trade, globaliza- ing war and occupation, stripping them of formerly tion, privatization, and deregulation have that today’s economic turbulence is a passing affair, a held rights, and reinvigorating sexism, racism, and IIbump in the road caused by this or that specific and transferred enormous wealth from workers national chauvinism. fixable problem. And in this Big Lie they are backed up around the world to U.S. and European capi- And yet, logic and morality notwithstanding, not only by mainstream media but also by top leaders talists. This has increasingly diminished the capitalism has many defenders. They include not only of the unions and other social movements. international purchasing power of working CEOs, heads of state, and their associated underlings In truth, however, the system’s contradictions are people — at the same time that more and and hired guns, but representatives of the working class catching up with it fatally. One may be tempted to ask: more products are being produced. and the oppressed as well: high-paid union officials, Is this crisis the Big One? The one from which capital- So the very economic strategies that kept movement spokespeople tethered to the Democratic ism cannot recover — short of resorting to fascism or profits up in the recent period have been Party, CEOs of grant-dependent “nonprofits,” and another world war? This is impossible to answer right building this disaster. the like. now. More to the point is the question: Is this the These are the people who make up what Trotsky crisis that will spur the international working class to In this latest period, while all workers watched called the “middle caste.” overcome its divisions, reject the useless strategies of their buying power shrink, millions were laid off In the 1982 political resolution of the Freedom its misleaders, and fight for fundamental change? and saw their paychecks disappear altogether. This Socialist Party (FSP), Murry Weiss, Sam Deaderick, illustrates one of capitalism’s nastiest features: greater and characterized this group of charla- Causes and meaning unemployment as workers’ reward for their greater tans in the as a “vast and obnoxious of the economic meltdown productivity. layer of opportunist professionals, technocrats, labor Pre-recession, between 2000 and 2007, U.S. eco- bureaucrats, mass movement reformist leaders, and The blame for this debacle (a receding recession nomic output (gross domestic product, or GDP) rose slightly left-of-center politicians.” The writers go on according to the politicians and CEOs, a plaguing dramatically, thanks to rising productivity. By the first to describe its function: depression according to people’s real lives) is placed on half of 2010, GDP had almost bounced back to its 2005 level. The official unemployment The middle caste diffuses, derails, and rate, however, remained stuck at just below when pressured, violently combats any 10 percent, or nearly 15 million people — up substantive confrontations between capital from 6.1 percent in 2005. (Dollars and Sense, and labor. This caste claims to represent Sept.-Oct. 2010.) labor or women or gays or people of color Increased productivity means that fewer or war resisters or consumers, but actually hours of labor create more goods and services. acts as a transmission belt that carries the It’s a historical trend that results from technical interests and ideology of the ruling class innovation and stepped-up use of machinery back into the very mass movements it pre- — plus, under capitalism, forced speedup on the tends to lead. job. In a rational world free from the addiction The maintenance of peaceful coexistence to profit, the tendency of productivity to keep is the middle caste’s business, all the way growing would benefit workers tremendously, from international politics to the shop affording more leisure time and more time to floor. spend in creative pursuits. But this is not that world. Instead, bosses use increased productiv- To solve the social, economic, and environ- ity to force workers to compete — nationally mental crises of our time in favor of working and internationally — for a dwindling supply of

people, the overwhelming worldwide majority, AP Donna McWilliam / jobs. This is the importance of the transitional it is necessary to challenge the defeatist demand of 30 hours’ work for 40 hours’ ideology of these misleaders and the deadly pay, which increases job openings while inertia of things-as-they-are. This means maintaining workers’ income — eminently allaying fears about radical change and propounding Even before the recession, a Dallas job fair rational from a worker’s point of view. a reality-based alternative. It means putting forward Without such reforms, layoff notices mount and fighting for transitional demands to address the for ex-prisoners attracted 5,000 people. up alongside heaps of consumer goods. The astronomical unemployment and underemployment “bad apples” in the capitalist barrel: shifty speculators eventual result is recession. The ruling class tries of Black workers and Black youth. It means recogniz- in the housing market and inadequate regulation of the to safeguard its profits during the slowdown on the ing and supporting the leadership of immigrants, financial sector. But this is a skin-deep and essentially backs of workers and the poor by slashing funds for low-paid women workers, public-sector employees, false analysis. This depression, like all recessions and education and public services. This further dampens and students who have already stepped into the fight depressions, is caused by a crisis of overproduction workers’ ability to spend, sharpens the system’s funda- with strikes, mass demonstrations, road blockades, and of goods that is built into capitalism’s DNA — a crisis mental and long-term contradictions, and guarantees other protests. It means uniting a divided class. specific to the system of production driven bythe deeper and longer recessions to come. What’s called for is a program of socialist femi- profit motive. An apparently recent phenomenon is the “job- nism. Capitalism is by nature an expansionist beast. less recovery” after a recession. Less remarked upon Every essence requires a form, every ideology a Profits are made through growth — the production of is the fact that the “normal” rate of unemployment means of realization — an organization. The organi- an ever-increasing amount of items to sell — and by under capitalism has been rising for decades. Both the zation capable of making socialist feminism effective attempting to beat the costs of competitors, above all acute unemployment of a recession/depression and is the vanguard or Leninist party, a leadership body through a constant bid to hold down labor costs. The the permanently higher unemployment rate mean designed to disseminate and update Marxist theory, combination of these two drives leads inevitably to that a demand to reduce the workweek from 40 to 30 maintain the continuity of the struggle by passing on periods in which markets are flooded with goods and hours with no less in take-home pay is an important the lessons of yesterday, guide the battles of today, give services but wage-earners can’t afford them. one to fight for. the best and most passionate class fighters a home, and The early to mid-1970s were one such period, a seri- Socialists traditionally raise this eminently logical inspire and encourage every revolt against injustice ous warning that the decades of growth arising from demand, which would create jobs at management’s and exploitation. the blood-soaked fields and devastated cities of World expense, when jobs are scarce. In the early 20th century, The crucial significance of socialist feminism and War II had come to an end. Neoliberalism — the U.S.- the labor movement was strong enough to achieve the vanguard party make the Freedom Socialist Party driven global policy of privatization of public wealth something similar by winning the 8-hour day and more important than many may realize day to day. and the forcible opening of protected markets — was time-and-a-half for overtime. What the FSP has to offer in meeting the current the capitalist recovery strategy. But, as predicted by The situation is much different now. The possibil- staggering crisis is no less than the real key to the socialist analysts, neoliberalism only worsened the ity of lasting progressive reform — anything that way forward. tendency toward recession it was designed to circum- threatens ruling-class bank accounts, anyway — is long exhausted, in all but the most special and limited circumstances. The profit system is in decline — global, irreversible, long and slow, but punctuated by periods Freedom Socialist Party & events of acute economic crisis and mounting disasters for people and the planet. It no longer offers workers the promise of rising standards of living, even in highly Celebrate Black History Month developed countries like the U.S. February MARCH The capitalist nations and individual capitalists, 10, 26 San Francisco. Salute to 6 . Sydney Road wedded to winner-take-all competition and fixated Black Feminists, Feb. 10, 7pm. At the 19 City. The Brunswick Street Party. Cam- on their own profits, are themselves deeply divided in River I Stand film, Feb. 26, 7:30pm. Resistance of Mumia Abu-Jamal paign for equal pay and an their conceptions of the system’s underlying problems New Valencia Hall, 625 Larkin St. #202 and Political Prisoners. 7:30pm. end to Aboriginal deaths in and how to solve them. Neoliberalism succeeded in • 415-864-1278, baradicalwomen@ Freedom Hall, 113 W. 128th St. • custody. 12-7pm. • 9388-0062, preserving the top economic status of the U.S. through intensified exploitation, but failed as a strategy to earthlink.net, [email protected] 212-222-0633, nycradicalwomen@ ­[email protected] nyct.net steadily expand global growth and avert crisis. The U.S. and world economies remain propped up by Los Angeles. The 12 . Celebrate the cen­ 20 military spending and the prison-industrial complex, Unfinished Battle for Quality 19 Portland, Ore. Black Youth tennial of International Women’s which grow obscenely year after year, and by national, Public Schools. 2pm. and the Fight for Jobs. 7pm. Bread Day. 7pm. New Freeway Hall, 5018 corporate, and personal debt. and Roses Center, 6834 NE Glisan Rainier Ave. S. • 206-722-6057, Hall, 2170 W. Blvd. • The causes and effects of the current crisis are not St. • 503-240-4462, [email protected] [email protected] 323-732-6416, [email protected] new. What is new, at least since the Great Depression, is their extremity. Their progressive options closed, the capitalists worldwide are resorting to anti-worker mea-

FREEDOM Socialist SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT — 2 February–March 2011 Socialist Feminism 

sures that represent an appalling historic regression. it scapegoats the most vulnerable and abused of the time, and capable of being resolved only by workers And this does present a qualitatively new situation. working class, beginning with immigrants, Black taking power and creating a new society. Whether it is for better or for worse depends on the youth and other young people of color, and women “Without revolutionary theory there can be no reaction of the working class. and queers who assert their rights. And it is gaining revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted ground among the electorate, as shown in the 2010 upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable The phony solutions of the midterm elections in the U.S. preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with ruling class and middle caste Since a crisis can resolve in either direction, it is an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical imperative that the FSP and other revolutionaries activity.” In What Is To Be Done? V.I. Lenin follows Whatever the reality, the appearance that improve- seize the enhanced opportunity to inspire and support this assertion with an 1874 quote from Engels, who ment is possible for hard-pressed working people working-class upsurge, thereby advancing the cause explained that the workers’ movement has three remains key to the system’s survival. of the real and lasting solution: . sides: “the theoretical, the political, and the practical- In 2008, U.S. voters elected their first Black president. economic.” By these three aspects Engels meant the Many had turned against the Republican candidates struggle of ideas, the creation of a political voice for early in the election cycle because of their disgust with workers through a party, and resistance to capitalism George W. Bush and especially with the endless war in through labor activism. Iraq. Then, in the immediate lead-up to the election, Theory and According to Engels, the German workers’ move- the news broke that huge financial institutions teetered ment at the time had become particularly strong on the edge of disaster thanks to corrupt and devious program as because it was attending to all three of these “con- speculation in real estate and the derivatives market, the guide to action centric” aspects of the fight in harmony and in their the cause of so many home foreclosures and so much IIIIn “The Post-Seattle Upsurge,” an analysis of the interconnections. The leadership position of the distress for working-class and low-income households. anti-corporate globalization movement a year after German workers internationally, Engels wrote, de- The depth of the economic crisis became clear, recession the 1999 explosion against the World Trade Organiza- manded “redoubled efforts in every field of struggle was officially acknowledged, and the electoral outcome tion (WTO) in Seattle, U.S. FSP International Secretary and agitation. In particular, it will be the duty of the was sealed. People hungered for change. Guerry Hoddersen wrote this in the Freedom Socialist leaders to gain an ever clearer insight into all theo- In order to head off a huge rebellion that might (www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/?q=node/1130): retical questions, to free themselves more and more threaten them, the giant corporations who sponsor from the influence of traditional phrases inherited candidates pushed and Hillary Clinton As is true in all movements, the anarchists from the old world outlook, and constantly to keep to the front of the Democratic pack. This was a bold and face the problem of maintaining momentum. in mind that socialism, since it has become a science, savvy emergency measure by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup This is very hard to do when there are no demands that it be pursued as a science, i.e., that it Inc., JP Morgan Chase & Co., and cohorts to achieve clear goals or program, organization is handi- be studied. The task will be to spread with increased a false front of change by appealing to the mystique capped by the principle of decentralization, zeal among the masses of the workers the ever more of the Democratic Party as the champion of unionists, and the state is cracking heads. To the chant clarified understanding thus acquired.” women, and people of color — the party of working “This is what democracy looks like” might Many activists today disdain the significance of people and “minorities” against the corporations. now be replied: “Yes, but what does victory theory and program. But what they fail to recognize This reputation, wholly undeserved by the second look like?” — or, in some cases, refuse to admit — is that every party of U.S. capitalism, person is guided by some political perspective, con- survives due to the relent- sciously or not. less efforts, and at times Consider the Zapatista National Liberation Army chicanery, of labor and social (EZLN) of Mexico. In 1994, five years before the anti- movement misleaders. These WTO “Battle of Seattle,” the boldness of the Zapatistas middle-casters use all the in confronting neoliberalism, their passionate defense resources at their disposal to of the rights of indigenous people and poor peasants, uphold this myth to their con- and the prominence of women in their ranks roused stituencies. In a longstanding sympathies and gave them stature across the globe. and threadbare refrain, they This was especially true among youth. In 2005, the claim that the Democrats Zapatistas mobilized to “go to the people” for in- will bring the reforms that struction as to what they should be fighting for, and people urgently require in how — a “national program of struggle.” In reality, healthcare, civil rights, im- however, the EZLN already had a program. It contains Robert Stuart Lowden migration and labor law, many good elements, including support for indig- job security, reproductive enous sovereignty rights and gay equality, but rights, and so on. This is the is compromised by an overall perspective that traditional Pied Piper role of is anarchist. This means the EZLN is not inter- the middle caste: to persuade ested in building a fight to take state power; the exploited and oppressed, it is against the very idea of state power, no whom they represent and on matter in whose hands. Thus, whom they rely for their more the campaign of “going to or less exalted existence, that the people” was not so much there is hope for better ultra-democratic as it was days and no need for an an abdication of necessary all-out fight to overturn leadership just at a time and replace the system. Walkout: LA students take downtown, March 2010. when great events, open- To be president of the United States is to be presi- To know what victory looks like, one ing up great opportunities, dent of the headquarters of global imperialism, and has to know precisely what is being were shaking Mexico. Obama’s first obligation is the same as every other fought and why, who one’s enemies was in fact president’s: to maintain the status quo no matter the are, who one’s friends are, and the the main theoretical chal- cost. In a time of severe economic downturn, as the strengths and weaknesses of the lenge for as the ruling classes attempt to claw their way out of crisis, contending parties. One has to latter came to maturity the cost to poor and working people all over the world know oneself! One has to start with a in the second half of the is exorbitant. theory and a program — and the 1800s. Anarchism’s lead- The deep fissures and contradictions of the profit bigger the fight and the more at ing proponent was Mikhail system, and their tremendous toll on workers and the stake, the more important this Bakunin, an outstanding oppressed, are today evident for all to see. The current foundation. Theory provides a insurrectionist but nefarious situation has brought one tremendous advance: con- general and as far as possible intriguer within the Interna- sciousness is growing of the need for a radical road out comprehensive understanding Pedro Sandoval tional Workingmen’s Associa- of the impasse into which capitalism has led humanity. of something, based on experience tion, or First International. Imagine the chagrin of Republican presidential can- and analysis. In the case of a fight against the system, In a letter in 1872, Engels characterized Bakunin’s didate John McCain when his charge that Obama is a it offers an understanding of the nature of the system, philosophy: “Bakunin maintains that it is the state socialist actually increased Obama’s popularity! including its origin, development, and decline, as which has created capital, that the capitalist has his Young people especially are recognizing that they well as its component parts and how they interact. capital only by the grace of the state. As, therefore, have been betrayed by reformism and the empty In politics, as in cooking or sports competition, from the state is the chief evil, it is above all the state which promise of abstract “change.” From Greece and Great theory flows the program — a set of principles and a must be done away with, and then capitalism will Britain to and the University of Califor- broad plan of action shaped by given conditions. go to blazes of itself.” This theory stands on its head nia, they are demonstrating that they are ready and In December 1847, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels the actual historical relationship of the state and the willing to fight. began working on a proposed document for the Com- profit system, which Engels explained inThe Origin At the same time, every social crisis presents an munist League, an international workers’ association, of the Family, Private Property, and the State. In opportunity not only for rapid movement to the left setting out its ideology and practical orientation. It fact, it was the growth of exchange of goods for profit but also for a swing to the right. Capitalists will spur was published in February 1848 as the Manifesto of — the first steps in the evolution of capitalism — that on the reactionary forces in the media, courts, and the (known as The Communist required the state to come into existence to protect legislatures if the middle caste is unable to sufficiently Manifesto). In it, guided by dialectical materialist the developing system of private wealth. rein in the workers’ anger. The billionaire Koch brothers methodology, Marx and Engels elaborated the theory One natural programmatic result of Bakunin’s are funding the Tea Party, for example, and billionaire of capitalist class society and the program of commu- wrong theory was that he rejected any participation media mogul Rupert Murdoch uses Fox News and other nism, or socialism. No other theory and program have in bourgeois elections. More broadly, he rejected outlets to unleash anti-communist vitriol. had Marxism’s transformative power, a power that is “politics.” He did not see the First International as a The far right is strenuously trying to use the present still far from spent. This is because Marxism correctly vehicle for taking on the system — in other words, as upheaval to spread its vicious agenda. It bashes unions. illuminates the real world of Marx and Engels’ time and a revolutionary political party. He saw it instead as a It uses anti-government demagoguery to target those ours: a world of irreconcilable antagonism between propaganda society for revolution and as the anti-au- who need help from society: the poor, the sick, the the interests of the capitalist class and those of the thoritarian replacement-in-waiting for the state once elderly, single mothers and their children. As always, working class, increasing the misery of the latter over it was overthrown by the enlightened masses.

FREEDOM Socialist SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT — 3 8 Socialist Feminism February–March 2011

Anarchism reached its peak of infl uence within the thread that weaves it all together. And FSP members, unions and placed huge numbers of infi ltrators into working-class movement during the Spanish Civil War, grounded in theory, program, and the study of history, radical organizations. in which anti-authoritarian groups and individuals are the weavers. Together with the program, they are Under these circumstances, the party’s “primary and showed glorious commitment and sustained heroism. the party’s biggest strength. imperative practical task” was to “establish an organi- Nevertheless, the false anarchist conception of the state As the crisis of capitalism drags on, more and sation of revolutionaries capable of lending energy, led to confusion, contradictions, and mistaken deci- more people, especially youth, will seek a deeper stability, and continuity to the political struggle,” wrote sions that contributed to Lenin in What Is To Be the fascist defeat of the Done? The RSDLP had democratic and revolu- to become a centralized, tionary forces. disciplined group of One of the grand- theoretically educated, est examples of the politically trained pro- positive role a correct fessional revolutionar- political perspective ies. Lenin’s position put can play is the 1917 him at odds with those October revolution in of his colleagues who Russia. Lenin realized were comfortable with after the February revo- the casual, opportun- lution that events had ist-friendly nature of eclipsed the Bolsheviks’ the highly localized and original idea of the disjointed party. revolution’s course. This Unfolding events was that the Russian showed that the dispute workers and peasants, between Lenin and the after overthrow- Anita O’Shea Bolsheviks on one side ing the czar and and their Menshevik feudalism (mak- Beatriz Páez addresses comrades and friends opponents on the other ing a bourgeois- The best socialist leaders have stressed at the July 2010 FSP convention. went much deeper than democratic revo- “ a question of organiza- lution), would that the party’s survival is dependent on understanding tional form. The Mensheviks turned out to be concili- have to suffer a of society out of ators with the liberal bourgeoisie. In Socialism and whole period of the free fl ow of discussion and debate, a passionate de- War, written with Gregory Zinoviev, Lenin said of capitalist devel- the mutual accountability of leaders sire to change it. Menshevism: “Adaptation of the working-class struggle opment before As James P. Can- to liberalism — such was its substance.” During the their time came and members, and the power of the non, founder of 1917 Russian Revolution, the Mensheviks were the to claim the state U.S. Trotskyism, bourgeoisie’s main prop against the workers and peas- and begin to membership to exercise control. said in another ants. As discussed above, Lenin realized that the time build socialism. ” context in 1942, had come for the working class to seize power, keep Lenin came to recorded in The it, and use it to move rapidly toward socialism. This believe that a workers’ state was both necessary and History of American Trotskyism: “It frequently hap- was necessary if the workers and peasants were to win possible. This brought him into close alignment with pens, you know, that after people get a bad blow they and retain any meaningful democratic gains. But the Trotsky on this question (one element of Trotsky’s begin to wonder about the cause of it.” Mensheviks clung to the outmoded “stages” theory theory of permanent revolution). Once Lenin won the — fi rst the bourgeois-democratic revolution and then, Bolshevik Party to this program — with his fi rst support much later, the socialist revolution — in defi ance of coming from the worker rank and fi le — it led to the what was actually happening all around them. triumphant creation of the fi rst workers’ state. As Trotsky puts it in The History of the Russian On a smaller scale, the FSP’s own experience provides The vanguard Revolution: many examples of the impact of a correct program. party: leadership One notable case is our emphasis on the right wing Only on the basis of a study of political and its role in dividing and suppressing workers and for revolutionar y change processes in the masses themselves, can we the oppressed. It is hard to credit now, in the era of IA political program for the collective emancipa- understand the role of parties and leaders. Pat Robertson, Glenn Beck, and Michelle Malkin, tion of working people can come alive only by means … They constitute not an independent, but but during the 1970s many socialists dismissed this of an organizationv for collective action. The type of nevertheless a very important, element in emphasis, even derided it. Our socialist feminism, organization suited for this monumental task is the the process. Without a guiding organization and our study of the lessons of history, allowed us to vanguard party. the energy of the masses would dissipate like understand the nature and scope of the threat while A feat of imagination may help to bring home the steam not enclosed in a piston-box. But nev- it was still most visibly directed at women, lesbians, enormous signifi cance of the vanguard, or Leninist or ertheless what moves things is not the piston and gay men, and before it was widely understood. Bolshevik, party. At the time of the anti-WTO upsurge or the box, but the steam. This readied us to be the vanguard in a conscious and of 1999, what if there had existed a Leninist party with coordinated campaign against the white-supremacist wide infl uence in the unions and other movements So it was the combination of a correct apprecia- latter-day fascists as they crashed to prominence in and among young people? What prospects would this tion of the type of organization needed with a correct the late 1980s. The FSP made an essential contribution have opened up for the anti-“free trade” movement, theoretical and programmatic orientation that made to quashing plans for turning the Pacifi c Northwest much of whose awe-inspiring energy dissipated over the October revolution possible — a revolution that into an Aryan stronghold, and all the U.S. branches, as the next few years in mass street battles with cops led to advances for humanity not only in Russia, but well as the Australian section, have scored successes in around the world? all over the world! History demonstrated that Lenin’s the ongoing fi ght against the far right, while gaining fi ght for a democratic centralist, professional party of increased recognition and respect for the party. Origin of the vanguard party concept committed revolutionaries guarded the party against Additionally, the FSP founders’ programmatic recog- a hostile takeover by compromisers and sellouts. nition of the importance of an autonomous women’s Lenin began formulating the concept of the As Cannon wrote in The Struggle for a Proletar- movement was a key element of the historic birth of democratic centralist vanguard party at the start of ian Party: Radical Women in 1967. And the party’s insistence the 1900s. His analysis of what kind of organization on the foremost role of the most oppressed as part of the Russian socialist movement needed was rooted Organization questions and organizational the working class has won greater acceptance within in the prevailing conditions. Russia was alive with methods are not independent of political the labor movement for gay rights, secured union revolutionary ferment and Marxist ideas were widely lines, but subordinate to them. As a rule, the support for concepts such as affi rmative action and popular, but the horribly repressive czarist autocracy organizational methods fl ow from the political comparable worth, and much more. Our program made socialist activity illegal, forcing it underground. line. Indeed, the whole signifi cance of organi- determines everything from the nature of the de- The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) was zation is to realize a political program. In the mands we raise in our election campaigns to how we eclectic and primitive in its politics and amateurish fi nal analysis there are no exceptions to this defend ourselves as radicals when attacked in court in its practice. (At the time, “” was rule. It is not the organization — the party or or by employers. Whether defending Native fi shing the term for the socialist movement, in recognition of group — which creates the program; rather it rights, free speech, public ownership of industry, or the workers’ movement as a fi ght both for democratic is the program that creates the organization, the rights of immigrants, the party’s program is the demands and for socialism.) The police controlled the or conquers and utilizes an existing one.

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United States Los Angeles: Solidarity Hall, 2170 W. Port Angeles, WA: Tel 360-452-7534. Seattle: New Freeway Hall, 5018 Rainier Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90018. Email [email protected] Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98118. Tel 206-722- FSP National Office: 4710 University Tel 323-732-6416. Email fspla@ 2453. Email [email protected] Portland, OR: Bread & Roses Center, 6834 Way NE, Ste. 100, Sea ttle, WA 98105. earthlink.net Tel 206-985-4621. Email [email protected] NE Glisan St., Portland, OR 97213. Tel International Newark, NJ: Tel 973-643-0499. 503-240-4462. Email [email protected] Albany, NY: Tel 518-433-1388. Melbourne, , FSP Inter national New York City: Freedom Hall, 113 W. San Francisco: 625 Larkin St., Ste. 202, Office: Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Rd., Baltimore, MD: Email fspbaltimore@ 128th St., New York City, NY 10027. San Francisco, CA 94109. Tel 415-864- Bruns wick, VIC 3056. Tel 03-9388-0062. hotmail.com Tel 212-222-0633. Email [email protected] 1278. Email [email protected] Email freedom.socialist.party@ozemail. com.au Vancouver, : 916 W. Broadway, Call, write, or drop by your local branch Ste. 568, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1K7

FREEDOM SOcialist SPEcial SUPPlEMENt — 4 February–March 2011 Socialist Feminism 

Therefore, the Marxist theory and program of the party. The newspaper would give the far-flung Russian During the Comintern’s Fourth Congress in Moscow, irreconcilability of classes and the need for working- revolutionaries a means of communicating with each representatives of both sides were able to discuss the class revolution to establish socialism requires an other, of reporting on and analyzing mobilizations issue in meetings with leading Comintern representa- organization that takes itself seriously and is always in different locations. It would give them new ideas tives, including Trotsky and Zinoviev, and to make scrupulously oriented to the working class and the for campaigns in which to become involved. It would their case in a formal session. oppressed, not to the capitalists and those who sup- provide guidance for RSDLP members in their attempts In the end, after careful and thorough consider- port them and make excuses for them: in short, a to develop and expand the party. It would also bring ation, all the Russian leaders strongly supported the revolutionary vanguard party. comrades together and educate them through its Cannon faction’s proposal to legalize the party. The actual production. opposing faction had argued that staying underground The Leninist party This plan met with vociferous opposition from was a question of principle. The Soviet leaders com- and democracy the Mensheviks and others and caused a split in the pletely rejected this position, with Zinoviev calling movement. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks were able to illegal underground work a cruel necessity in certain Many anarchists and carry it out. And they succeeded in achieving their goal conditions, far from anything to be made a fetish of. liberals charge all van- for the party: the creation of a core group of The Comintern’s help in resolving this debate laid guard parties with be- revolutionaries who were dis- the basis for the U.S. party to turn outward and grow. ing undemocratic and ciplined, tightly knit, Without it, the infant party may not have survived. elitist. politically educated, In “The Revolutionary Party: Its Role in the Struggle Anarchists object in broad in outlook, and for Socialism” (originally published as “The Vanguard principle to the idea that battle-tested. Party and the World Revolution”), Cannon writes: individuals, even in the When circumstances “The history of American communism since its in- context of a voluntary asso- change, the party must ception in 1919 has been a record of struggle for the ciation, must submit them- change, if it is to answer right kind of party. All the other problems have been selves to authority — as, for rightly the question of related to this central issue.” example, the authority “What next?” Different of a majority vote, times require different The popular front as criminal a basic democratic approaches. In 1905 an substitute for the Bolshevik party process. V. I. Lenin enormous upsurge swept Liberals may belong Russia, battering at the One of the morals of Cannon’s story about the to some of the most undemocratic orga- castle of czarist absolut- Fourth Congress of the Third International is the nizations around, such as churches run ism. Because the necessary incalculable, irreplaceable value of a healthy Inter- on a feudal hierarchy, the Democratic strong foundation had national that enjoys the allegiance of socialist parties Party, grant-funded service organiza- Leon Trotsky been laid, the Bolshe- around the world. Although currently many groups tions, and bureaucratically run social-change and viks were able to shift purport or aspire to be an International, none has the peace groups. Still, for many of them, it is the Leninist gears drastically and combination of political integrity and wide following party that provokes contempt. orient to becoming a truly mass revolutionary party that marked earlier Internationals in their prime. It Critics with some knowledge of Lenin’s works love by recruiting from tens of thousands of newly radi- follows that one of the tasks of today’s parties must to take aim at What Is To Be Done? The book is in calized fighters — without compromising or diluting be to do everything possible to recreate such an part a polemic against calls for “broad democracy” in the party’s program. International. the RSDLP. Lenin scorned these calls as “playing at” To open up the party, Lenin had to overcome quite As socialist parties in different corners of the democracy in the dangerous situation of the czarist a bit of resistance. In February 1905, he argued: globe grapple with this problem, into the vacuum of police state. He pointed out that they issued mainly world revolutionary leadership comes “help” from from members of the social democracy outside Russia. We must considerably increase the mem- an unlikely direction: the head of a capitalist state. Conditions at that moment in Russia, which forced bership of all Party and Party-connected Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has called for a the party to operate in secret, pushed the need for organizations in order to be able to keep up Fifth International to “fight against imperialism and centralism to the fore and made expressions of de- to some extent with the stream of popular capitalism.” mocracy such as full publicity for RSDLP operations revolutionary energy which has been a hun- Chávez has done some good things for the working and elections of the party’s officers impossible. Wrote dredfold strengthened. and indigenous people of Venezuela and he has done Lenin, “‘Broad democracy’ in Party organisation, … Young fighters should be recruited more some bad things. But neither Chávez’ good deeds nor amidst the gloom of the autocracy and the domina- boldly, widely and rapidly into the ranks of his bad ones enter into the equation when it comes to tion of gendarmerie, is nothing more than a useless all and every kind of our organizations. the question of an International that supposedly fol- and harmful toy.” Hundreds of new organizations should be lows in the tradition of the first four. Chávez’ proposal But, despite the severe restrictions imposed from the set up for the purpose without a moment’s fails to conform to the first principle of Marxism: the outside on formal democracy, Lenin wrote, another delay. Yes, hundreds; liberation of the working kind of democracy was still a feature of the RSDLP. this is no hyperbole. … class will be achieved only It was a democracy of comrades: complete, mutual We must use the free- by the workers themselves, confidence among revolutionaries imbued with “a dom we are getting by organized into their own lively sense of their responsibility” to the working- law and the freedom party. class movement. we are taking despite In contrast, this imag- Perhaps most key to real democracy in an organiza- the law. ined Fifth International tion is free debate — full, vigorous, and unrestrained is nothing other than the discussion of every important issue. And this the Although the 1905 latest variant of an old “al- RSDLP had, despite the watchful eye of the czarist revolution was defeated, ternative” to workers’ self- censor and the scattering of much of the party’s mem- it marked a huge leap for- emancipation and the van- bership through exiles and jailings. Lenin certainly ward for the workers and guard party: the popular or contributed his part! peasants, who had gained people’s front. The design Although the means available to implement new freedoms and learned of this Fifth International democracy within the vanguard party change, the invaluable lessons. For a would delegate working- recognition of its crucial importance does not. From while, the Bolsheviks were class emancipation to a Lenin to Clara Fraser, the best socialist leaders have able to function legally. heterogeneous and unsa- stressed that the party’s survival is dependent on the By 1907, before a renewal vory mix of government free flow of discussion and debate, the mutual ac- of extreme czarist reaction representatives (Iran is countability of leaders and members, and the power forced them underground on the invitation list) and of the membership to exercise control. again, they had become a capitalist, Stalinist, Stalin- mass organization of about ist-capitalist, reformist, Development of the party 45,000 people. and politically confused in changing circumstances After the 1917 revolu- organizations, including tion, the party’s tasks the Institutional Revo- As has been said, Lenin’s thinking about what changed dramatically. The lutionary Party (PRI) of form the party should take was determined by his founding of the Third or Mexico, Justicialista Party ideas about its tasks, which flow from the program Communist Interna- of Argentina, Liberal Party and the specific conditions of time and place. Above tional in 1919 reflected of Colombia, Chi- all, he believed it necessary to create “a revolution- this. The Russian Com- nese Communist ary organisation, capable of uniting all forces and munist Party (CP) was Party, Vietnamese guiding the movement in actual practice and not in now “first among equals” Anarchist poster of the Spanish Revolution Communist Party, name alone, that is, an organisation ready at any in a democratic centralist world party — the acknowl- Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) time to support every protest and every outbreak edged leader of the global socialist movement. It had of El Salvador, Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) of and use it to build up and consolidate the fighting fully earned its authority. Nicaragua, Socialist Alliance of Australia, and Chávez’ forces suitable for the decisive struggle” (What Is To In the period before the rise of , parties own United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Be Done?). This perspective he put forward against from all over the world took their problems and dis- The people’s front is an alliance to achieve demo- “economism,” an opportunist, workerist tendency in putes to the Comintern, knowing that they would cratic aims that is made up of workers and their social democracy focused solely on improving pay and receive fair and informed advice of a high caliber. representatives together with the capitalists, under working conditions and adapted to prejudices of the In The First Ten Years of American Communism, capitalist leadership and around a capitalist program. most conservative Russians. He polemicized instead Cannon describes one such request for help from the It is a debasement of the , which is an for what the FSP today calls a multi-issue movement, U.S. CP in 1922. The U.S. party, founded in 1919, alliance for democratic aims, open to everyone who involved in every democratic fight against . was an underground party at birth, thanks to fierce shares its goals, but with working-class leadership The party’s mandate was not to accommodate to persecution of all U.S. radicals during and after World and a working-class program. backwardness, but to rouse, educate, and lead. War I. By 1922, Cannon and others thought that the Hugo Chávez uses socialist rhetoric, but in practice The way for the party to strengthen itself for this climate had changed enough for the CP to operate he heads a capitalist state and defends the system job, Lenin said, was to establish an all-Russian news- in the open so that it could broaden its influence. from radical change. As Guerry Hoddersen wrote in paper — a countrywide rather than local organ for the But the party was deeply divided over this question. the 2006 FSP political resolution, One Hemisphere,

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Indivisible: Permanent Revolution and Neoliberal- tionary effect of the Stalinized Soviet Union on radi- Clara Fraser and Susan Williams describe this in the ism in the Americas, “The [Venezuelan] constitution cal workers, peasants, and young people around the 1978 essay “Socialist Feminism: Where the Battle of upholds private property rights and, in the past, Chávez world. To socialists of the moment Trotsky might say the Sexes Resolves Itself” in Revolution, She Wrote: has said he will not go beyond it. Thus far, his gov- what he said to socialists in 1938, who confronted ernment only approves land or factory seizures if the rising fascism and the approach of a second world war Throughout the late 1940s and the ’50s, property is abandoned or under-utilized.” The Fifth (recorded in The Transitional Program for Socialist when women were herded back to kinder, International Chávez calls for shows absolutely no Revolution): “It would of course be impermissible to kirche and küche, the woman question was kept promise of becoming a revolutionary organization. fall into hysteria.” Timeless advice! alive by a handful of Trotskyist women in the The popular front that Chávez’ International ex- U.S. revolutionaries face particular difficulties. The SWP. … These are the women who coined the emplifies today is perhaps best known among its crit- very freedoms and material resources that make life term “socialist feminism” to distinguish their ics as Joseph Stalin’s tool for murdering the Spanish easier for many people here, including radicals, also advanced politics from single-issue, civil rights Revolution and allowing fascism to gain the bloody dampen class consciousness and reinforce illusions feminism, and from the anti-communist sector upper hand in Spain. The Spanish Communist Party, about reformist and individual solutions to social of the “radical feminists.” And these are the anarchists, and reformist socialists (who inherited problems. The combination of the anti-communist women who sparked not only revolutionary the term “social democracy” after the split between McCarthy era, a suffocating middle caste, media feminism but contemporary revolutionary revolutionaries and reformists on the eve of World disinformation, and a distraction-saturated culture socialism as well. War I) all supported and participated in the bourgeois has made honest-to-Marx socialists, in many people’s government. They did this with more or less sincerity in minds, exotic anomalies of a time past. In Socialist Feminism: The First Decade, 1966-76, order to guard the young Spanish republic against the What does it take to survive in these circumstances, Gloria Martin continues the story: monarchists and fascists. The outcome was a debacle to avoid falling into either sectarianism or opportun- still reverberating today against European workers, ism, or just dropping out? What does it take to advance? The rise of a mass movement for women’s especially immigrants and others most vulnerable to It takes heart and commitment, certainly, but above liberation in the late 1960s and early 1970s fascist scapegoating. all it takes a long view of history, caught all the left parties offguard except one. In the U.S., a broad, diffuse, and longstanding a strong political compass, and The founders of the FSP had long anticipated popular front is practiced by labor of- the building of solidarity among this inevitability. Our women theoreticians, ficials in alliance with Democratic oppressed people. And this is trained in the Marxist method of analyzing politicians who are at the beck and exactly what the theory and the material reality of American life, could see call of corporate America. Healthcare program of socialist feminism the political handwriting on the wall. They “reform” is one of the latest excres- provide. studied the statistics on women in the work cences of this alliance. force. They learned from personal experience The popular front is only one of nu- and objective data that the most educated merous “alternatives” to the vanguard sector of the working class was female. party offered to dissatisfied workers … We [future FSP members] were still in and students. These options, often the SWP when our theoretical work on the interlocking, include but are not limited woman question began, and the to: immersion in single-issuism of one major distinction between us kind or another; absorption into “pure and other SWP women was that and simple trade unionism”; support for we did not consider our feminist third-party electoral vehicles that critique anger, resentment and strong capitalism but still defend it as the only sense of injustice to be atypical choice; direct action as the beginning and or exceptional among women in end of political activism; and escape into general. We knew our advanced lifestyle pursuits, the contemporary opiate consciousness and knowledge of su- of choice. But the people’s front is one of per-exploitation were not far ahead of the first and most pernicious substitutes. As the mass, and in 1950 we were already fascism threatened Europe, Trotsky in The urging the SWP to gear up program- Spanish Revolution (1931-39) drew the matically and strategically for the connections to the original people’s front: coming massive eruption of women into the arena of social protest. The question of questions at present is the Popular Front. The left centrists seek to When the Seattle branches of SWP and present this question as a tactical or even Gloria Martin (at right) its youth group, the Young Socialist Alliance, as a technical maneuver, so as to be able chronicled FSP’s early split and formed the Freedom Socialist Party in to peddle their wares in the shadow of 1966, they did so under the banner of both revo- the Popular Front. In reality, the Popular years, during which Clara lutionary integration and women’s emancipation. But Front is the main question of proletar- Fraser (above) and she the first male members of the FSP found it hard to live ian class strategy for this epoch. It also the feminist program they had adopted, leading to an offers the best criterion for the difference brought old Left, early split within the new party. Over the next few between Bolshevism and Menshevism. , and feminist years, the remaining original male party members also For it is often forgotten that the greatest defected. For six months in 1971, women made up historical example of the Popular Front is radicals together. the entire membership of the FSP — almost certainly a the February 1917 revolution. From unique circumstance for a Leninist party! Nearly February to October, the Mensheviks 40 years later, of course, many male comrades and the Social Revolutionaries … were in have been socialist feminist role models and the closest alliance and in a permanent coali- Founding of the Freedom Socialist Party leaders in the organization for decades. The creation of the first socialist feminist party is tion with the bourgeois party of the Cadets, Nothing can show more clearly the truth of a testament to the fact that as times change, Marxist together with whom they formed a series of Cannon’s statement quoted above that the program theory changes. It grows, deepens, and catches up to coalition governments. Under the sign of this creates the organization than the founding of the developments in life. How could it be otherwise? The Popular Front stood the whole mass of the FSP, which emerged from the Socialist Workers Party ideology of Marx and Engels has expanded over time people, including the workers’, peasants’, and (SWP) in 1966 because the FSP’s political orientation to include Lenin’s elaboration of imperialism, Trotsky’s soldiers’ councils. To be sure, the Bolsheviks was better grounded in the changing times. concept of the permanent revolution, the key role of participated in the councils. But they did not By 1966 the SWP had become an ossified organiza- the U.S. revolution to world revolution expressed in make the slightest concession to the Popular tion. Its period of greatest impact corresponded to the Cannon’s “Theses on the American Revolution,” and Front. Their demand was to break this Popular militant heyday in the 1930s and ’40s of a U.S. union more. Marxist feminism is an expansion of the revo- Front, to destroy the alliance with the Cadets, movement dominated by workers in the industrial lutionary arsenal based on unfolding history. It builds and to create a genuine workers’ and peasants’ trades. After the severe stresses and isolation of the on the thinking of early socialist leaders about both government. McCarthy era, the SWP became stuck in what the class exploitation and women’s subordination. founders of the FSP described as radical laborism. This As Les Evans writes in his introduction to The Span- was an orientation to more privileged workers and the ish Revolution, “Every condition for socialist victory union bureaucracy, to the exclusion of an appreciation Early Marxists on women’s oppression had existed in Spain — save one. And that one, the of the dynamism being shown by the most oppressed Engels, who is under-recognized as the original existence of a mass revolutionary party that aimed at members of the working class. Marxist theorist of patriarchy and women’s liberation, the establishment of a workers’ government, proved In contrast, Richard Fraser originated the ground- laid the basis for all the socialist feminist theory that to be indispensable.” breaking theory of revolutionary integration and would follow in The Origin of the Family, Private developed it in collaboration with David Dreiser, Property, and the State. Published in 1884, his work Clara Fraser, and a multiracial group of SWP members was based on pioneering anthropological evidence of in Seattle and Los Angeles. This theory, as discussed the day. Engels explained how the patriarchy emerged Marxism in the book Revolutionary Integration: A Marxist from the matriarchy and the system of private property Analysis of African American Liberation, explores from the system of communal ownership, famously for our time the interdependence of Black liberation and working- asserting, “The overthrow of mother right was the Lenin, Trotsky, and the other Bolsheviks could not class emancipation in the U.S. and explains why Black world-historic defeat of the female sex.” have foreseen that the kind of mass revolutionary party leadership is absolutely crucial for the whole class. Of the status of men and women, Engels wrote: that Evans mentions, which existed in many countries Alongside revolutionary integration, members at points during the first half of the 20th century, of the Kirk-Kaye tendency (known by Richard and The inequality of the two before the law, vwould be virtually extinct nearly 100 years after the Clara Fraser’s party names, which they took due to which is a legacy of previous social condi- 1917 revolution. Still, this is a temporary condition, McCarthyism) coalesced around a recognition of the tions, is not the cause but the effect of the even if protracted, with reasons that can be explained. explosive power of the fight for women’s liberation. economic oppression of women. In the old These include the artificial life given to capitalism by This awareness flowed from longstanding concern with communistic household, which embraced the permanent war economy and the counterrevolu- the “Woman Question” among female SWP members. numerous couples and their children, the

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administration of the household, entrusted whole new dimension of meaning to Trotsky’s famous concerned only about the first, the most tangible re- to the women, was just as much a public, a injunction in The Transitional Program: “Turn to sult; and then surprise is even expressed that the more socially necessary industry as the providing the woman worker!” remote effects of actions directed to this end turn out of food by the men. This situation changed It may not be easy for today’s younger generations to be of quite a different, mainly even of an opposite, with the patriarchal family, and even more to realize how drastically the situation of women has character.” The vibrant and unstoppable leadership with the monogamian individual family. The altered. A 1965 document by the founders-to-be of the of the most oppressed, from the slaves of Haiti in administration of the household FSP (now part of the book Crisis and 1791 to young Arab immigrants in France and U.S. lost its public character. It was Leadership) discussed the reality for nurses today, is a working-class blow of unintended no longer the concern of society. women at that time: consequences to the ruling class. And the leadership It became a private service. The of women of color, maximally exploited and doubly wife became the first domestic Women’s “inferiority” derives oppressed, is the most powerful blow of all. servant, pushed out of participa- from the condition of the major- Marx and Engels famously wrote that through the tion in social production. ity of women, who are excluded growth of the working class, capitalism creates its by economics and tradition from own gravediggers. Through the super-exploitation Engels was the first to systemati- participating in public social and social persecution of specially oppressed groups cally trace the rise of female oppres- production and are confined to of workers, it has created the gravediggers who are the sion relative to the rise of the profit private domestic labor, leading quickest to hear this calling. system. But an understanding of lives of personal service to iso- the relationship of women’s status lated families. Litmus test for the Left to overall social progress goes back A man engages in social pro- to the earliest utopian socialists. In duction, and thereby serves so- In the early years of the FSP, the party’s multi-is- 1808, Charles Fourier wrote: “Social ciety; a woman essentially serves sue, socialist feminist program and the leadership of advances and changes of periods her man. Since the majority of women, people of color, and queers within it drew are brought about by virtue women are peripheral to outright scorn from other revolutionary socialists of the progress of women public industry and objec- both in the U.S. and internationally. This was a time towards liberty, and the deca- Clara Zetkin tively dependent, all women when wide sections of the Left, notably the Stalin- dences of the social order are are stereotyped as secondary. ist Communist Party and the Maoist Revolutionary brought about by virtue of the decrease of liberty All come to represent an un- Communist Party, still believed that of women. … The extension of privileges to women differentiated domestic function as a sex. was an aberration caused by capitalism’s distortion of is the general principle of all social progress.” the relations between women and men. The special importance of women’s oppression The unpaid labor of women in the home still pro- The Left didn’t much approve of the women’s and battle for liberation was commonly recognized vides the basis for the underpaid labor of women on liberation movement either. Since women were not by socialists around the world in the 1800s and first the job. But how much has changed! Once women being drafted to serve in Vietnam and the AFL-CIO years of the 1900s, from James Connolly in Ireland had a productive existence outside the home, the opposed the Equal Rights Amendment, feminism was to in the United States. In 1903, in subversion of their age-old second-class status was considered a diversion from “real” concerns — that his translator’s preface to August Bebel’s Woman well and truly underway — as predicted. Their skills is, men’s concerns. under Socialism, De Leon struck a note very similar and confidence rose, they stood in a new relationship Today overt sexism on the Left is much reduced. to Fourier’s, asserting that the “Woman Question is of solidarity beside male workers against the bosses, Resistance to female leadership is still a fact, however, the weakest link” in the capitalist armor. “The shot and they brought home their own paychecks. Social- and the FSP’s union of socialism and feminism re- that rips up the wrongs done to her [woman] touches ist feminism could come into mains controversial. In the a nerve that aches from end to end in the capitalist its own. U.S., groups as disparate world,” he wrote. Socialist feminism is the as the Spartacist League As with so many questions, the Russian Revolution recognition that the oppres- and the International enormously validated and enriched socialist theory sion of women, the “original Socialist Organization about women. The role of women entered the spotlight, sin” of the system of private (ISO) are linked by their from Trotsky’s description in The History of the Rus- property and private profit, disapproval of feminism sian Revolution of how female workers sparked the is a revolutionary question, as bourgeois, although February uprising to the lively conversations between the oldest and most profound they find “women’s rights” Lenin and Clara Zetkin about the obligation of com- of all subjugations. Just as or “women’s liberation” munists to fight for women’s special demands and to women’s inequality was a acceptable. The notion work to form an international women’s movement. necessary precondition for still endures, disguised or The legal and practical initiatives undertaken in the capitalism’s rise, it remains open, that feminism is a first years of the revolution to raise women’s position, distraction and detraction and to recognize the rights of homosexuals, have never from the main event, the yet been equaled, let alone surpassed. Left to right: class struggle, rather than In a talk at the First All-Russia Congress of Working James Connolly, a neglected but essential Women in 1918, recorded in a collection of Lenin’s component of it. writings and speeches, The Emancipation of Women, Frederick Engels, Often, as with the ISO, Lenin took note of the legal advances. These included August Bebel. the objection is to femi- instituting complete freedom of divorce and abolish- nism as a “movement of ing divorce proceedings, “that source of bourgeois one’s own” — an autono- degradation, repression and humiliation.” However, mous movement. ISO also he added, “The important thing is not the law” but denies the existence of enabling women “to carry on independent proletar- privilege based on sex or ian socialist work.” race. Party and Radi- Lenin believed that, as he said in this speech, “The cal Women members experience of all liberation movements has shown that have talked them- the success of a revolution depends on how much the selves blue in the women take part in it.” With the Soviet Union fight- face arguing these ing for its life against imperialism, it was essential to points: explaining mobilize the revolutionary potential of women inter- that autonomy does nationally. In the USSR, where the majority of people not mean separation still toiled on the land, this meant getting rid of the from union battles isolating small peasant farms and creating a coopera- and the many other tive agriculture, with the result that women could manifestations of become part of social production. class struggle; providing care- Socialism and feminism: the synthesis a condition of capitalism’s survival. Women’s basic fully reasoned democratic rights, like the rights of people of color in examples of the op- Engels dealt in Origin of the Family with this the U.S., cannot be won short of the destruction of eration of male and question of the relationship between women’s op- capitalism: this is a feature of the permanent revolu- white privilege. Per- pression in general and female exclusion from the tion. And it is the reason why women are the target haps it is time to let workforce: “The first premise for the emancipation of every series of cutbacks by the employers, every Lenin take the field. of women is the reintroduction of the entire female reactionary crusade by the right wing, and every as- In The Emancipation of Women, Clara Zetkin quotes sex into public industry.” At the time he wrote this, sault on rights by the state. Lenin as telling her in 1920: however, Engels believed this reentry would take place Especially in its exhaustion and decline, capitalism after the individual, patriarchal family was replaced as depends for its profits on the super-exploitation of It is … perfectly right for us to put forward society’s basic economic unit. But, because capitalism women workers, workers of color, indigenous peoples, demands for the benefit of women. … Our has so long overstayed its welcome, the majority of immigrants, and workers in the post-colonial and demands are no more than practical conclu- women have become workers while the family, even less developed countries. This super-exploitation is sions, drawn by us from the crying needs though its forms have multiplied, is still the economic propped up by sexist and racist ideology, which divides and disgraceful humiliations that weak and nucleus responsible for the care, feeding, nursing, and and disorients the working class, unions, and social underprivileged woman must bear under the socialization of the next generation of workers. movements, and which becomes virulent and deadly in bourgeois system. We demonstrate thereby The brilliance of the early FSP leaders, as shown times of economic and social crisis. The class is further that we are aware of these needs and of the in the earlier quote from Gloria Martin, is that they divided by heterosexism, a patriarchal offshoot of the oppression of women, that we are conscious anticipated this development, because they themselves subjugation of women. of the privileged position of the men, and that were part of the breaking wave of women workers In an unfinished essay called “Labour in the Tran- we hate — yes, hate — and want to remove — and because they were armed with the Marxist sition from Ape to Man,” Engels takes note of the whatever oppresses and harasses the working analytical tools to understand its meaning. The large- phenomenon of unintended consequences. He writes, woman, the wife of the worker, the peasant scale transformation of women into wage slaves gave a “The present mode of production is predominantly woman, the wife of the little man, and even

FREEDOM Socialist SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT — 7 12 Socialist Feminism February–March 2011

in many respects the woman of the proper- unions! It’s time to take a cue from workers in Europe tied classes. and elsewhere around the world and begin to fi ght … Our national sections still lack the proper Confidence fi re with fi re. understanding of this question. They adopt a Among socialists, the FSP believes in working to- passive, wait-and-see attitude when it comes and tenacity gether on issues and electoral campaigns and, beyond to creating a mass movement of working in advancing toward this, regroupment of Trotskyist forces. We advocate women under communist leadership. They I cooperation among left groups to defend workers, do not realize that developing and leading socialism radicals, GI resisters, whistleblowers, and political such a mass movement is an important part vThe period ahead promises increasing outbreaks, prisoners in these perilous, new-McCarthyite times. of all Party activity, as much as half of all the and increasing militancy, against the hardship of We need to keep it up! Party work. Their occasional recognition of capitalism. Our party has a special role to play. Our international work will also remain important. the need and value of a purposeful, strong and A crucial area of work is the labor movement, broadly The crisis of world Trotskyism and the absence of a numerous communist women’s movement is defi ned. This means not only the unions, but also revolutionary socialist international holds back world but a platonic lip-service rather than a steady unemployed and unorganized workers. The party’s revolution terribly. While FSP has made new allies and concern and task of the Party. history of launching labor-community coalitions to magnifi ed our understanding of Trotskyism in this defend the most oppressed and exploited is a rich source hemisphere, it sometimes appears that if we want an Objection might be made that Lenin here is talking of lessons for today’s battles. Our role is to continue international we will have to create it! Our engage- about a working women’s movement “under commu- advocating and building these united fronts to bring ment in the international arena is critical. nist leadership.” But, at the time, there was no mass together unions, educators, service providers, and the In order to meet all these responsibilities, the FSP women’s movement; he was urging that communists people hurt worst by the crisis. Where Radical Women must grow, both politically and numerically. create one. Lenin would be the last revolutionary in takes the lead in initiating grassroots campaigns like This means we must strengthen our muscles in the the world to condemn the awe-inspiring upheaval of this, such as Sisters Organize for Survival, FSP should area of theory. By turning to the classics, comrades will the “second sex” in recent decades as “bourgeois.” He be a partner in the effort. fi nd basic principles and methodology of inestimable would see it for what it has been and is: a tremendous To these united fronts we can bring a radical pro- value in their work. And we can’t neglect the riches opening for revolutionary agitation and education, and gram and a multi-issue perspective. It will be our job in our own publications! Using and fi nancially sup- a powerful instrument for the amelioration of women’s in them to recognize and promote the leadership porting the Freedom Socialist and our other weapons “crying needs and disgraceful humiliations.” of immigrants, workers of color, women, of mass education are indispensable priorities. On the global scene, the FSP plays an important and queers and to Hand in hand with “book learning” goes learning role in providing theoretical knowledge push for the issues through practical activity — the political training we and practical experience in form- that affect these get through involvement in the mass movements. ing a socialist feminist party and groups, such as de- Comrades should not be afraid to take risks or be para- a mass women’s organization like fense against the lyzed by fear of mistakes. Errors can be learned from if Radical Women. Interest in socialist right wing, qual- local branches follow them up with careful assessment feminism, especially in Latin America, ity public educa- and make good use of the lessons learned. where the recent international work tion, childcare, And, of course, we want and need to attract new of the U.S. section has been concen- affirmative ac- members to the party. We have a great program: to trated, is high. Undoubtedly, this is tion, healthcare make it come fully alive, we need more people! This because of the combination of militant reform, and pas- is especially true for Blacks, other people of color, upsurge in the southern Americas of sage of ENDA, and youth. late and the region’s tradition of class- the gay-focused Revolutionary integration and a recognition of conscious feminism. E m p l o y m e n t the vanguard role of people oppressed on the basis Although the FSP has not yet found Non-Discrimi- of skin color are bedrocks of our program. Without a vehicle for international regroupment, nation Act. Black leadership, particularly, the U.S. revolution will some of the relationships we have ex- not be made — and we need plored with Morenoists in Latin America that same leadership within over the past few years may still prove to our party. be steps along the way. In any case, the Left, demonstrating As to young people, the FSP, experiences have increased our under- to save public education; like the future itself, belongs standing of the Morenoist tradition, of to the generations who have events in Latin America and the state of below, to save libraries, come to maturity since the world Trotskyism today, and even of our services, and jobs. last big radical upsurge in the own socialist feminist program. We have 1960s. Cannon writes in “The every confi dence that the unifying power Together, labor, students Revolutionary Party” that the of revolutionary feminism will be a key and community will be party’s vitality “is certifi ed by ingredient in eventual regroupment. Lowden Stuart Robert the capacity to extend and the winning combination replenish its cadres and repro- Bourgeois feminism for a brighter future. duce qualifi ed leaders from one and bourgeois racial integration generation to another.” That is our challenge, and we have Of course bourgeois feminism does exist, as does something special and precious bourgeois integration. The world saw them both to offer: a multigeneration- on full display during the 2008 election for U.S. al feminist party that gives president. When economic crisis means that the every comrade the chance vast majority of people of color and women will to learn to excel. be made to suffer more than ever, that is the time for The party gives young window-dressing at the top. people a long view of history The ruling-class success of Barack Obama, Hillary and a steadiness that is oth- Clinton, Sarah Palin, Condoleezza Rice, Janet Reno, erwise hard to come by, and et al. gives ammunition to the civil-rights reformists, young people help the party who peddle the notion that, hiccups aside, capitalism keep its edge. Radicals need provides a steady path to the promised land of equal- to cultivate deep reservoirs ity and opportunity. The glitter of these fi gureheads of patience and tenacity, and is meant to draw attention away from the mountain they also need to stay sharp range of evidence that disproves this myth. and alert to opportunity. There Above all, the bourgeois hope is to channel the desire is no better way to do this than for change among women, people of color, immigrants, by taking part in every demo- and lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people cratic struggle. — those who should be leading militant resistance In the times between revo- — into safe (because ineffective) reformist channels. lutions, the socialist camp can In a November 2009 speech, Glen Ford of the Black be led to fear that the next one It will also be our Josh Reynolds Agenda Report decried the pacifying effect of Obama’s job within the labor movement and will never come — while the election among many Blacks, saying, “When Black coalitions fi ghting the crisis to help people create an capitalists hope that it will not! people collapse there can be no progressive movement alternative to the Democratic Party. We must work But social laws move to the tune neither of hopes nor in the United States.” to persuade rank-and-fi le unionists and sympathetic fears. The world socialist revolution is still needed, it Fortunately, it is quite clear that, under the pres- offi cials to run independent labor candidates on an is still indicated, it is still coming. And the FSP will sure of reality, the glitter of the current occupant of anti-capitalist program — as a step toward building a play our part. the White House is fading. Unfortunately, his noisiest serious, genuine workers’ party. Just as deep and sharp as is the crisis we now fi nd opponents are on the right. The guiding political line for our work should be ourselves in, that is how high and sweet our victory The task of radicals now is to provide an alterna- putting the blame for the crisis where it belongs: will be when we overcome it — only to face new chal- tive opposition: to link this current ruling-class con squarely on the capitalists. Using the party’s 10-point lenges as socialist feminism works not to destroy a social job to all the ones that have preceded it, to explain program will enable us to do this while addressing system, but to bring a new one into existence. the workings of the system that regularly produces people’s immediate needs. The demand for “30 for representatives who meet the capitalist needs of the 40,” for example, is a very logical and powerful answer Andrea Bauer, a feminist radical since the New hour. The task of radicals now is to persuade working to disastrous unemployment. Forcing corporations to Left era, is the Freedom Socialist managing editor. people, especially the most oppressed workers, that reduce the workweek from 40 hours to 30 with no loss Email her at [email protected]. only their own uncompromising action can bring a in pay would create plenty of new jobs and thereby better day. The task of the FSP now is to proudly of- alleviate a tremendous amount of suffering. Readers can fi nd a version of “Socialist Feminism and fer socialist feminism and the vanguard party as the When asked how workers can possibly win such the Revolutionary Party” with a chronology of political answer to the working-class needs of the hour. demands, we answer: With labor unity and strikes for continuity, a glossary of people, and footnotes by visiting political demands, supported across the board by all www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/?q=node/1577 .

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