From the League for the Fifth International and Marcus Otono.......

[socialist_n_TN]

something (rather long) on Baltimore and black oppression in the USA.

http://www.fifthinternational.org/content/baltimore-police-killing-racism-repression-and-resistance

[F4lconF16]

1. K&R nt

[socialist_n_TN]

2. And, interestingly enough, in German......

http://www.arbeitermacht.de/infomail/819/usa.htm

[Cheese Sandwich]

3. This deserves a rec.

Thanks for posting this.

I've never heard of the League for the 5th International before but this is pretty good.

[socialist_n_TN]

4. Thanks. I joined because they reminded me of the original Bolsheviks.....

in party organization. Check out the web site and I post things on here every now and then that I think of as having some general interest.

[Cheese Sandwich]

5. I've been getting into Murray Bookchin lately.

He started out as a Leninist and Trotskyist when he was young, although he left it later in life.

Still there are quite a lot of similarities. He wanted to organize local democratic assemblies that would challenge the system at the local level, and link the the assemblies into confederations. Also organizing around reforms but always toward a revolutionary goal. There might be some differences too. Bookchin wanted things to be very decentralized so I suspect that's different.

[socialist_n_TN]

6. Not necessarily that different......

Basically there's a time and place for everything. While capitalism is being challenged by the masses there is a need for discipline or else the revolutionary fervor of the masses dies out and spends itself. It is also channeled into "safe" channels by the system and representatives of the system, things like recall and regular elections and reformist boards and commissions that wind up doing nothing.

There also needs to be discipline even AFTER a revolution when the representatives of capitalism inevitably counterattack. During these times there is a need for the "centralism" part of democratic centralism. After a revolution is well established, then there can be more of a loosening of that discipline, but until then, you run the grave risk of losing everything to the counterrevolution if you lose the discipline too quickly.

Getting back to the prescriptions for black liberation, these councils would be invaluable towards bringing about a dual power situation in black communities. The ideal transitional strategy would be fulfilled when the people in the communities call on the councils instead of the established power centers of capitalism like the cops, city councils, mayors, etc. There is already a massive distrust of these organs of state power in the oppressed communities, so it should be easier in black and oppressed communities at first than it would be in white communities. But I could see it spreading if the model winds up working well. Once it spreads all over, THEN you have a definite pre-revolutionary situation bordering on revolutionary. Dual power is inherently unstable because it inevitably comes into conflict with the established state authorities. That conflict is the makings of a revolution.

[socialist_n_TN]

7. BTW, the ideas you've been reading sound to me like some....

kind of anarcho-syndicalism. It's not surprising because Trotskyism is MUCH closer to anarcho-syndicalism than it is to the bureaucratic degeneration that the USSR fell into under Stalin. That opinion will probably surprise MANY of the anarchists I interact with on here, but I do think that it's true.

The problem with not having some sort of centralized plan is that the anarchistic revolution embodied in the confederation of councils will NOT stand up to the capitalist counterattack of the counterrevolution.

[Cheese Sandwich]

8. Yeah, it is a closely related idea to anarcho-syndicalism...

But instead of focusing on the workplace as the center of organizing, Bookchin wanted the community assemblies to be the main organizing tool and also to eventually take over the functions of the government. He called himself an anarchist for a while but eventually moved on from that label and called it libertarian-municipalism. That would be strong town governments governed by assemblies arranged into councils and federations, where the critical means of production would be under control of the municipalities. As for counterattacks, you're right. Bookchin basically said

A true civicism that tries to create a genuine politics, an empowered citizenry, and a municipalized economy would be a vulnerable project indeed if it failed to replace the police and the professional army with a popular militia--more specifically, a civic guard, composed of rotating patrols for police purposes and well-trained citizen military contingents for dealing with external dangers to freedom. Greek democracy would never have survived the repeated assaults of the Greek aristocracy without its militia of citizen hoplites, those foot soldiers who could answer the call to arms with their own weapons and elected commanders

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/libmuni.html

[socialist_n_TN]

9. OK there is one difference right there in your summation. As a Marxist........

you can't subjugate the role of the working class in any of these councils. Workers MUST take the leading role simply because ONLY workers have the numbers and the economic power over production to face down and overthrow capitalism. And any system, whether anarchistic, syndicalist, centralistic or anything else that does NOT count on workers is doomed to eventual failure because it won't directly confront capitalism where capitalism lives, i.e., in the workplace. Councils and confederations of councils that merely confront the organs of state power will not cut it UNLESS they directly involve workers and the representatives of the working class who would be the front lines in any confrontation with the system that engenders those organs of state power.

I guess the ideal would be a combination type of council made up of citizens and workers. The overall council would provide the direction and include workers' input, then the organized workers would be the "muscle" to enforce the council's proclamations.

Now this is not to say that councils that challenge the organs of state power, especially the police in oppressed communities, should not be formed EVEN IF THERE IS NOT MUCH WORKER INVOLVEMENT IN THE FORMATION. Those types of councils SHOULD be formed and empowered to the maximum extent possible. But the FIRST job of those councils should be to involve the organized working class in supporting the neighborhood councils.

[Cheese Sandwich]

10. Yeah. It might depend a lot on circumstances too.

I'm thinking similar to what you said, it has to be a combination of workers + communities.

Bookchin was pretty one-sided about it in saying the path is to get control of your local town council and use that power to bring the economy under democratic control. He had some reason why. Something like we already tried revolutionary workers movements and got our asses kicked.