Tactical reorientation for 2006:
by International Minister
The recent flurry of counterrevolutionary and warmongering activity in connection to Iran has caused MIM to undergo a re-evaluation of its tactical orientation. In forthcoming weeks, we will unfold a struggle to meet the needs of the present moment.
The enemy has shown a stunning ability to penetrate deep into any territory of supposedly progressive u.$. movements that it desires. Our readers are used to seeing MIM criticism of the labor aristocracy and gender aristocracy. Yet with the rise of former Trotskyists in the Bush administration and now the coordinated counterrevolutionary warmongering activities of the white nationalist left, we must go further and acknowledge the enemy's tactical abilities among any organizations it chooses.
We also need to evaluate what new elements the imperialists are trying to introduce into the struggle and seek to nip them in the bud. A typical example along these lines is activist Phyllis Chesler, a pseudo-feminist with previous working ties with the crypto-Trotskyists who is now a frontpiece in the Bush war preparations. She appears front-and-center at a time when the petty-bourgeoisie doubts that the Iraq War is "worth it." Polls show that the heroic Iraqi people have caused a majority of the Amerikan petty-bourgeoisie and gender aristocracy to change their minds and vacillate on the wars, as a practical matter not out of principled opposition to imperialist war. The petty-bourgeoisie's calculations are shameful, but nonetheless, we have no choice but to ally with its vacillations regarding the Iraq War and regard those vacillations as quite positive relative to the new energy of the Phyllis Cheslers, National Reviews and crypto-Trotskyists for warmongering.
Our tactical orientation has to do with keeping the proletarian camp firm with its focus on migrants, lumpen, oppressed nationalities and youth and opposition to the gender aristocracy and labor aristocracy. At this time, we also seek to reach out to vacillating forces. We need to calculate what aspects of their existence are causing their vacillation on the imperialist wars and we need to ally with and play up those vacillations.
Regarding the vacillating petty-bourgeois and gender aristocracy forces opposing the wars at least in words, we need to remember "dim, dimmer and dimmest." We have a generally dim view of the exploiters and oppressors, but sometimes we need to reorder our ranking of which enemies are higher priority enemies. Some we regarded very dimly need to be promoted to dim. Others need to go from dim to dimmest.
The first example of tactical change we would like to make is toward recommending people to work with the National Organization for Women (NOW) in its peace issues section. Our readers already know that our view of NOW is dim. NOW is a gender bureaucracy representing a gender aristocracy that does not work for the overall unity of wimmin. Nonetheless, for whatever tactical reason it has at this moment, it held firm for peace on International Wimmin's Day. The Phyllis Cheslers will snipe at that stance from one side, but we need to show our appreciation and bolster NOW's stance from the other. Chesler is even a part of what NOW regards as "feminist history." So we do not underestimate our problems with NOW. We just have to enter united front with them on the wars.
MIM does not have agitation branches everywhere that it needs. For this reason, some should obtain experience by working with NOW on peace alone while being careful to rebuff NOW's white nationalism. We are not going to allow NOW to use the peace movement to cover for its warmongering and colonialism in other departments. At the same time, we want to build the peace aspect of NOW higher than its bureaucratic aspects that Bush can penetrate with his own agents. In this way, we may hope that something from NOW may be salvaged, at least some vacillation on imperialist wars. Bush is seeking to fire up the pseudo-feminists with an all-righteous passion for war and we must work to keep the pseudo-feminists of the gender aristocracy just vacillating.
It is important to have experience on a wide range of practical matters ranging from stapling leaflets to listening to petty-bourgeois people give their political views and learning how those views stick together. By going out among the petty-bourgeoisie and listening carefully we learn to dismiss white nationalist dogmatists alleging the existence of a white proletariat.
We recommend comrades favorable to the MIM line to go to work with fair trade, environmentalist, Quaker (AFSC) and the NOW peace groups to get experience. Comrades should not seek to take these organizations over; although we should certainly rebuff white nationalism when it arises. We should seek to work in those niches where the problem of having to defeat white nationalism is less urgent. An organization already working on fair trade for Central American coffee growers is already on the right track, whatever other white nationalist illusions its organizers might have. We should be for Liberalism and defending Liberalism only in connection to the Third World, where Liberalism still has a progressive role to play.
MIM is also preparing its policy regarding relations with middle forces. Our policy is going to distinguish between middle forces that are genuine middle forces of a general labor aristocracy or gender aristocracy sort vacillating at this time regarding the wars and those that can only arrive at their middle force position by bribery at the grass-tips level.
Regarding MIM's policy on the People's Wars, we are also undergoing realignment. We do no favors to the Peoples' Wars by encouraging a lax view of CIA agents or other Bush lackeys, which we must expose. Our own action can show how seriously we take this matter.
Regarding this tactical reorientation on the People's Wars, we will make the same statement that we made a decade ago regarding Peru. Any People's War that does not want to associate itself with MIM in any way is free to do so. We will honor any request to stop mentioning any People's War. We will not abide being called "traffickers" or movement pimps. When these charges arise, we must drop what we are doing. MIM can oppose the "War on Terror" and other such imperialist moves without specifically raising the topic of any particular People's War. MIM will not allow itself to become mixed up with imperialist bribery for imperialist war that conflates itself with Peoples' Wars. The People's Wars can only have an accidental coincidental support for imperialist war, especially through bribery of their leaders. MIM confidently ignores such bribery to look at the long run unity of the international proletariat.
It's bad enough that we must work among oppressors and exploiters in the imperialist countries. MIM will strive to protect its own organizational integrity and that of others such as NOW against grass-tips penetration. There will be no compromise with grass-tips of any place or identity on opposing the war moves of our own imperialists. Where we cannot drive out warmongers from organizations or movements, we will seek to go around them and build up the anti-imperialist and anti-militarist forces. One way or another, the warmongers must be forced to back down. The more imperialist country people who back down from their warmongering, the less the price paid in the violent struggle for the joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations.