Fw: [A-List] Forward from PENL- Louis on China and socialism

[Christopher Black]

Melvin,

Perhaps you did not read what I stated correctly. I stated those strikes were organized by the trade unions and social activist groups. If that is not broad enough for you then I do not know what would be. When all industry is shut down, all highways, businesses and government functions, when the government calls the strike a challenge to authority then I say that is a general strike. 

Just because there have been no similar stikes in the US does not mean the left serves no function or those strikes were somehow invalid.

Syndicalist- you have to be joking. These strikes weren't about better economic conditions alone. They were about democratic demands as well. And everyone (at least in the strikes in Ontario I was involved in) knew that if we could push it we could take power. We all knew the stakes, even the most conservative trade unionists.

It seems to me the only general strike you will recognize as such is the revolution itself. 

To state the western left has contributed nothing in the last 50 years to the social revolution is also beyond belief. What do you mean by that? Just becuase the left in the US was crushed in the 70's and has remained (on a national scale) dormant or nearly so does not mean that is what is happening in the rest of the "west" but then Americans always seem to have this narrow view of things. If it doesnt happen there it doesn't exist as far as you are concerned. But I challenge you even on that. 

What exactly do you mean by "nothing of lasting value"? Since the struggle is up and down and always changing and yet continuous how can you say that? 

General stikes can and do take place without turning into the revolution. Yet each general strike contains within it the potential to be the revolution. To state that those which are crushed or wither don't count is to condemn the struggle of working people as useless, a bit elitist if you ask me. You argue like a trotskyist-no struggle is good enough, no socialist country is socialist enough, no workers action is worth supporting, and finally, your comment that the left has done nothing in 50 years. 50 years! Each struggle has its value. The miner's strike in the UK in the 80's, the antiwar movement in the 60's and now, the May Days in France, the exit of France from Algeria, the multiple strikes in all of Europe through the late 40's, 50;s 60;s 70, 80's and 90's. The UPS strike in the US just a few years ago. The longshoreman's strikes. The general strikes in Canada. 

And please tell me how a general strike would be organized without the unions. 

Chris
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