May 5 2007
On February 4, 2007 Claire Tran published a short piece on love in the revolutionary movement. Writing for an organization that may be moving toward a clearer line on the white working class, Claire Tran says, "Revolutionaries need love is the point here and we need to share love with others in our circle in good principled ways." At least one other organization has echoed the line and said that revolutionaries who give up their love are cutting off their right arm that they need to fight with.
We would like to say that the statement is correct but not placed in overall context. What makes the statement correct is that word "circles." What makes it incorrect is that our circles should not be the principal focus.
MIM has argued that "friendly sectarianism" is the placing of unity of revolutionaries in a certain organization above the needs of the international proletariat. So on the one hand, we cannot deny the logic of having a tight revolutionary bond of love. Claire Tran also gains the credit of raising beyond that that perhaps love could be with someone not revolutionary.
At the same time, it is our task to accentuate class struggle, which means separating the bourgeoisie and proletariat or there will be no socialism. There are those who argue separating males and females away from heterosexual relations is also the task of feminist revolution.
So the word "love," is it a fuzzy excuse for unity between oppressor and oppressed is the question that needs asking. The long run answer is "yes." For patriarchy to survive, people have to be taught to love it.
Catharine MacKinnon has taught us to look at the intertwining of power and love. The disturbing thing about it is that there really is no other explanation possible other than that love has covered for oppression over centuries.
That's on the theoretical level. In addition, on the strategic level, we need to go beyond the 1960s types who think there are still millions of revolutionaries in motion. At a time when a generation is in revolutionary motion, the question of the "circles" and the overall strategy is one and the same. Today it would have to be delusional in the imperialist countries to act as if we were uniting tens of millions of revolutionaries around anything.
So what makes Claire Tran's statement not totally off the wall is a reference just to "circles." There will be those who find this unsatisfying, because it amounts to saying that what goes in revolutionary circles is not what goes for society at large. The word "hypocrisy" comes to mind.
Yet, scientific socialists actually have no ownership of the "hypocrisy" concept at all, since it came from Christianity. In addition, revolutionaries have specific security needs that ordinary people do not have.
In particular, again flowing from theory to strategy, in the majority-exploiter countries, we are working behind enemy lines, and so the tactic of seeking strong love for revolutionary circles is correct. At the same time, we cannot advocate "love" for society at-large, so we have to be skeptical. It would amount to asking people to love oppressors and exploiters. If this sounds hypocritical the reason is that the revolutionaries behind enemy lines have no power to change the patriarchy for a strategic length of time.
When we who work behind enemy lines join into the larger, international revolutionary stream through the joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations, then we will need to toss our old line for love in circles or be guilty of sectarianism. It will mean there are hundreds of millions or billions of revolutionaries and the distinction between the circle and the society will fade.
We believe Claire Tran's argument belongs in a party primer somewhere. On the whole though, what we need to do is point society into the future, and most of what we call love today will be gone, ditched as oppression by the wimmin of the future. The principal task is not party-building, not circle building. The principal task is still the same as when Lenin instructed Amerikans to go out and "above all" "shake things up politically." The inward focus is not healthy at our stage.
Note:
http://freedomroad.org/content/view/434/65/lang,en/