On May 2, 2015, Harry Targ posted in his blog, Diary of a Heartland Radical, an article that was originally published on May 1, 2009, “May Day Brings Thoughts of Socialist Alternatives.” I dedicate today’s post to reflections on Harry’s article.
Harry begins with a good description of the turn of the United States to a permanent war economy immediately following World War II, and the turn of the global elite in 1980 toward neoliberalism and financial speculation, two developments that are inconsistent with the well-being of the US republic and that undermine the sustainability of the world-system.
Drawing upon visions of a socialist future articulated by utopians, anarchists, Marxists and revolutionaries of the world, Harry formulates a conception of socialism for the twenty-first century, along four dimensions. (1) Institutions must be created by and serve the interests of the working class. Harry notes that there are disagreements concerning the meaning of the working class in today’s world, and Harry wants to focus on those who do not own or control the means of production and are excluded from an instrumental role in political institutions, and these conditions pertain to the overwhelming majority of humanity.
In my view, we socialists need a clarifying reformulation of the Marxist concept of a working class at the vanguard of the socialist revolution. Marx believed that the development of capitalism would create automated industry, which would create the technical foundation for a socialist society, characterized by versatile forms of work and reduced labor time, thus creating a more humane type of society, similar to the primitive communism of the first human societies, but on a foundation of advanced technology. The capitalist class, however, would resist the transition to socialism, because its interest was in profit as an end in itself; it would seek to create false needs to expand markets, rather than reduce labor time. The factory workers, on the other hand, had the clearest vantage point for seeing the trend of automation and envisioning the more fully human form of work and way of life that it implied; accordingly, they would take necessary revolutionary steps to promote the emerging economy and society (see “Marx on automated industry” 1/13/14).
Marx thus envisioned a socialist revolution with factory workers in the vanguard. But the workers’ revolution did not occur in Western Europe, as Marx (and Engels and Lenin) anticipated. Instead, the Western European working-class movement became reformist, coopted by the capitalist world-economy. As a result, the epicenter of the global revolution shifted from Western Europe to the colonized and ex-colonized regions. They evolved as revolutions of a dual character, on the one hand seeking social liberation, a transformation of class and other inequalities; and on the other hand, seeking national liberation and the end of European colonial and neocolonial domination of the world. The leaders of the Third World revolution found that the notion of the working-class vanguard, especially understood in the strict Marxist sense as an industrial working class, did not fit their colonial situation. Not only was the industrial working class much smaller than in Western Europe, but in addition, the petty bourgeoisie and the peasants formed the mind and heart of the revolution. So the revolutionary leaders, in different ways, fudged the Marxist concept of the proletarian vanguard. I like the way Fidel did it. He simply proclaimed a revolution of the people, and he named and invoked the various popular sectors: the industrial working class, agricultural workers, peasants, the unemployed, teachers, professionals, women, and students. Later, Chávez in Venezuela used a similar strategy, and he was particularly oriented to the spreading of socialist ideas to the middle class (see various posts in the category of the evolution of Marxism-Leninism).
I think that today, in the interests of clarity and for purposes of strengthening our appeal, we should follow the strategy of Fidel and Chávez. Instead of describing a socialist revolution as a revolution of the working class, we should describe it as a revolution of the people, formed by various popular sectors. In fact, this is the way that it was in Marx’s time and has been ever since, although Marx’s projections have tended to confuse us. We should understand the revolutionary subject to be the people, and we should be calling all of the sectors of the people to revolutionary understanding and revolutionary action. In the United States, the popular sectors include workers, industrial, agricultural and service as well as urban and rural; blacks, Latinos, and original peoples; women; students; farmers; small businessmen, teachers, professionals, and other sectors of the middle class; and the unemployed and the homeless.
(2) Harry maintains that in a socialist society, the working class fully participates in the institutions that shape their lives. I believe that we socialists should more fully articulate the difference between representative democracy and popular democracy. The latter has been developed in socialist societies, and they have attained an advanced expression in Cuba. They involve the development of structures of popular power, established on a foundation of neighborhood nomination assemblies and elections of municipal assemblies. And they include mass organizations of workers (in the broadest sense to include professionals), farmers, students, women and neighborhoods, which are intertwined with popular power (see “The Cuban revolutionary project and its development in historical and global context”). If we were to more completely explain popular democracy and critique the limitations of representative democracy, we would be able to begin to develop popular organizations, in accordance with the principles of popular democracy, that would be able to play various roles in socialist movements in capitalist societies. Although the pace of development of popular democracy is shaped by particular political and ideological conditions, the development of structures of popular democracy in appropriate and politically possible forms is integral to socialist transformation.
(3) A socialist society develops policies that sustain life, and Harry is on the mark in identifying policies that protect social and economic rights. But I would add another: the right of all nations to full independence. The protection of the rights of all nations to sovereignty is the fundamental historic demand of the Third World project of national liberation, and it is a necessary precondition for a just, democratic and sustainable world-system. This socialist principle implies a rejection of US imperialist policies and a commitment of US socialists to propose national policies of cooperation and to develop practices of solidarity with the nations and peoples of the world.
(4) As Harry notes, a socialist society creates institutions that foster the maximum development of the human person. I believe that this has been one of the impressive characteristics of the Cuban Revolution, which understands itself as affecting not only political, economic and social transformations, but also as involving the cultural and spiritual development of persons. It not only has educated doctors; it has formed doctors who live modestly and are committed to providing services humanely and to all in need. It not only has educated scientists; it has formed scientists dedicated to developing those components of knowledge that serve the needs of the world’s poor. And it has formed doctors, scientists, and artists who are knowledgeable about human history and the contemporary world, and who are committed to the creation of a just, democratic and sustainable world. Moreover, it not only has educated philosophers, historians, economists and political scientists; it has formed intellectuals in philosophical-historical-social science that have an integral view of the world, analyzing contemporary social problems from the vantage point of the colonized. Cuba demonstrates that socialism involves not only a political and economic transformation, but also a cultural and spiritual formation of persons committed to the good of the nation and of all humanity.
Harry concludes with the observation that we who believe in socialism have a contribution to make. I am in agreement. We who are socialists in the United States must creatively and actively search for ways to create a popular coalition that unifies the diverse sectors of our people, integrates the various single issues into a comprehensive project, formulates a perspective that sees the problems of the nation (and their solutions) in a historical and global context, and rejects the imperialist policies that have guided the nation for more than a century; a popular coalition that seeks to take political power in order to be in a position to defend the people, humanity, and the earth. We need to form a new socialist political party that is connected to the needs and hopes of our people and that is able to mobilize them to action in their own defense and in defense of humanity.
In Socialist Cuba, we celebrated May Day, or International Workers’ Day, with mass marches organized by the Cuban Federation of Workers (CTC). The CTC is a mass organization of workers, without distinction between white collar and blue collar labor; between manual and mental labor; among industrial, agricultural or service; or between rural and urban. All are workers, and more than 90% of Cuban workers are members. The membership elects its leaders; it is a non-governmental organization, but it is not anti-government. Pertaining to socialist civil society, it participates in the Cuban socialist revolution.
In Havana on May 1, workers were lined up before dawn on the length of Paseo Avenue and its various tributaries to pass through the Plaza of the Revolution and before the review of Raúl, the principal leaders of the revolution, and representatives of 209 labor organizations from sixty-eight countries. The festive celebration of unity and commitment occurred throughout the country: 300,000 in Santiago de Cuba; 300,000 in Artemisa; 150,000 in Granma; 300,000 in Matanzas; 400,000 in Pinar del Río; 300,000 in Cienfuegos; 242,000 in Holguín; 200,000 in Camaguey; 50,000 in Mayabeque; 200,000 in Las Tunas; and unreported numbers in Villa Clara, Sancti Spíritus, Guantánamo and Ciégo de Ávila.
Key words: May Day, socialism, International Workers’ Day
Harry begins with a good description of the turn of the United States to a permanent war economy immediately following World War II, and the turn of the global elite in 1980 toward neoliberalism and financial speculation, two developments that are inconsistent with the well-being of the US republic and that undermine the sustainability of the world-system.
Drawing upon visions of a socialist future articulated by utopians, anarchists, Marxists and revolutionaries of the world, Harry formulates a conception of socialism for the twenty-first century, along four dimensions. (1) Institutions must be created by and serve the interests of the working class. Harry notes that there are disagreements concerning the meaning of the working class in today’s world, and Harry wants to focus on those who do not own or control the means of production and are excluded from an instrumental role in political institutions, and these conditions pertain to the overwhelming majority of humanity.
In my view, we socialists need a clarifying reformulation of the Marxist concept of a working class at the vanguard of the socialist revolution. Marx believed that the development of capitalism would create automated industry, which would create the technical foundation for a socialist society, characterized by versatile forms of work and reduced labor time, thus creating a more humane type of society, similar to the primitive communism of the first human societies, but on a foundation of advanced technology. The capitalist class, however, would resist the transition to socialism, because its interest was in profit as an end in itself; it would seek to create false needs to expand markets, rather than reduce labor time. The factory workers, on the other hand, had the clearest vantage point for seeing the trend of automation and envisioning the more fully human form of work and way of life that it implied; accordingly, they would take necessary revolutionary steps to promote the emerging economy and society (see “Marx on automated industry” 1/13/14).
Marx thus envisioned a socialist revolution with factory workers in the vanguard. But the workers’ revolution did not occur in Western Europe, as Marx (and Engels and Lenin) anticipated. Instead, the Western European working-class movement became reformist, coopted by the capitalist world-economy. As a result, the epicenter of the global revolution shifted from Western Europe to the colonized and ex-colonized regions. They evolved as revolutions of a dual character, on the one hand seeking social liberation, a transformation of class and other inequalities; and on the other hand, seeking national liberation and the end of European colonial and neocolonial domination of the world. The leaders of the Third World revolution found that the notion of the working-class vanguard, especially understood in the strict Marxist sense as an industrial working class, did not fit their colonial situation. Not only was the industrial working class much smaller than in Western Europe, but in addition, the petty bourgeoisie and the peasants formed the mind and heart of the revolution. So the revolutionary leaders, in different ways, fudged the Marxist concept of the proletarian vanguard. I like the way Fidel did it. He simply proclaimed a revolution of the people, and he named and invoked the various popular sectors: the industrial working class, agricultural workers, peasants, the unemployed, teachers, professionals, women, and students. Later, Chávez in Venezuela used a similar strategy, and he was particularly oriented to the spreading of socialist ideas to the middle class (see various posts in the category of the evolution of Marxism-Leninism).
I think that today, in the interests of clarity and for purposes of strengthening our appeal, we should follow the strategy of Fidel and Chávez. Instead of describing a socialist revolution as a revolution of the working class, we should describe it as a revolution of the people, formed by various popular sectors. In fact, this is the way that it was in Marx’s time and has been ever since, although Marx’s projections have tended to confuse us. We should understand the revolutionary subject to be the people, and we should be calling all of the sectors of the people to revolutionary understanding and revolutionary action. In the United States, the popular sectors include workers, industrial, agricultural and service as well as urban and rural; blacks, Latinos, and original peoples; women; students; farmers; small businessmen, teachers, professionals, and other sectors of the middle class; and the unemployed and the homeless.
(2) Harry maintains that in a socialist society, the working class fully participates in the institutions that shape their lives. I believe that we socialists should more fully articulate the difference between representative democracy and popular democracy. The latter has been developed in socialist societies, and they have attained an advanced expression in Cuba. They involve the development of structures of popular power, established on a foundation of neighborhood nomination assemblies and elections of municipal assemblies. And they include mass organizations of workers (in the broadest sense to include professionals), farmers, students, women and neighborhoods, which are intertwined with popular power (see “The Cuban revolutionary project and its development in historical and global context”). If we were to more completely explain popular democracy and critique the limitations of representative democracy, we would be able to begin to develop popular organizations, in accordance with the principles of popular democracy, that would be able to play various roles in socialist movements in capitalist societies. Although the pace of development of popular democracy is shaped by particular political and ideological conditions, the development of structures of popular democracy in appropriate and politically possible forms is integral to socialist transformation.
(3) A socialist society develops policies that sustain life, and Harry is on the mark in identifying policies that protect social and economic rights. But I would add another: the right of all nations to full independence. The protection of the rights of all nations to sovereignty is the fundamental historic demand of the Third World project of national liberation, and it is a necessary precondition for a just, democratic and sustainable world-system. This socialist principle implies a rejection of US imperialist policies and a commitment of US socialists to propose national policies of cooperation and to develop practices of solidarity with the nations and peoples of the world.
(4) As Harry notes, a socialist society creates institutions that foster the maximum development of the human person. I believe that this has been one of the impressive characteristics of the Cuban Revolution, which understands itself as affecting not only political, economic and social transformations, but also as involving the cultural and spiritual development of persons. It not only has educated doctors; it has formed doctors who live modestly and are committed to providing services humanely and to all in need. It not only has educated scientists; it has formed scientists dedicated to developing those components of knowledge that serve the needs of the world’s poor. And it has formed doctors, scientists, and artists who are knowledgeable about human history and the contemporary world, and who are committed to the creation of a just, democratic and sustainable world. Moreover, it not only has educated philosophers, historians, economists and political scientists; it has formed intellectuals in philosophical-historical-social science that have an integral view of the world, analyzing contemporary social problems from the vantage point of the colonized. Cuba demonstrates that socialism involves not only a political and economic transformation, but also a cultural and spiritual formation of persons committed to the good of the nation and of all humanity.
Harry concludes with the observation that we who believe in socialism have a contribution to make. I am in agreement. We who are socialists in the United States must creatively and actively search for ways to create a popular coalition that unifies the diverse sectors of our people, integrates the various single issues into a comprehensive project, formulates a perspective that sees the problems of the nation (and their solutions) in a historical and global context, and rejects the imperialist policies that have guided the nation for more than a century; a popular coalition that seeks to take political power in order to be in a position to defend the people, humanity, and the earth. We need to form a new socialist political party that is connected to the needs and hopes of our people and that is able to mobilize them to action in their own defense and in defense of humanity.
In Socialist Cuba, we celebrated May Day, or International Workers’ Day, with mass marches organized by the Cuban Federation of Workers (CTC). The CTC is a mass organization of workers, without distinction between white collar and blue collar labor; between manual and mental labor; among industrial, agricultural or service; or between rural and urban. All are workers, and more than 90% of Cuban workers are members. The membership elects its leaders; it is a non-governmental organization, but it is not anti-government. Pertaining to socialist civil society, it participates in the Cuban socialist revolution.
In Havana on May 1, workers were lined up before dawn on the length of Paseo Avenue and its various tributaries to pass through the Plaza of the Revolution and before the review of Raúl, the principal leaders of the revolution, and representatives of 209 labor organizations from sixty-eight countries. The festive celebration of unity and commitment occurred throughout the country: 300,000 in Santiago de Cuba; 300,000 in Artemisa; 150,000 in Granma; 300,000 in Matanzas; 400,000 in Pinar del Río; 300,000 in Cienfuegos; 242,000 in Holguín; 200,000 in Camaguey; 50,000 in Mayabeque; 200,000 in Las Tunas; and unreported numbers in Villa Clara, Sancti Spíritus, Guantánamo and Ciégo de Ávila.
Key words: May Day, socialism, International Workers’ Day
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