[Marxism] The absence of real forces [was: The low point]

[Joaquin Bustelo]

SAYAN WRITES: 

The Woods tendency ("In Defense of Marxism") seems to have an analysis
completely opposite to Joaquin's. They see the immigrants' movement as
primarily a worker's movement and becoming more so:

<http://www.marxist.com/usa-immigrant-workers-movement.htm>:

"The movement was inevitably heterogeneous at first, with "immigrants"
of from all layers of society participating in its early days.
Business owners and factory workers marched together in the "spring time" of
the movement; there was a carnival atmosphere as millions of oppressed
workers felt the strength of their unity for the first time.
Latino radio stations and business owners jumped on board, pushing the
movement forward. But the seeds for the future division of the movement
along class lines were present from the beginning, and have intensified in
the months since May Day 2006."

*  *  *

Thus far Sayan quoting the website.

Sayan quoted this, I guess without realizing that I also have written pretty
extensively about the different class forces in the Latino immigrant rights
movement, except that I did it in real time, as the actual events were
unfolding in March and April of last year. 

Take for example "The Latino immigrant rights movement and the revolutionary
left," written right after the April 10 wave of demonstrations and posted
early on April 12.  

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2006w15/msg00102.htm

After referring to various "interventions" in the movement by the left, I
said: 

*  *  *

These sorts of issues highlight the importance of having a solid, grounded
class analysis and Marxist understanding of what is going on. An
understanding especially of the *national* character of the movement and the
*nationalist* sentiments that drive it is essential --and there seems to be
a fair bit of NOT even seeing this going around--, but that is not enough.
You have to understand the actual social forces, class forces that find
expression in and through this upsurge in the community and how they
interact with broader forces.

The absolutely all-encompassing character of this movement in the Latino
communities is the result of a confluence of class forces that is not likely
to last.

You have the overall neoliberal drive for world domination, redoubled with a
vengeance after 9/11, which breeds and emboldens white supremacist forces;
and from that, the aggressiveness and inroads and victories scored by the
nativist wing of the Republican Party, the offensiveness of racist
hatemongers like CNN's Lou Dobbs and so on.

But you also have the divisions within the Republicans between the more
mainstream corporatists (Bush-Cheney) and right wing demagogues
(Sensenbrenner-Dobbs-Tancredo), the pusillanimous continuous caving in by
the "liberal" democrats and the stampede for cover from the "mainstream" DLC
Democrats (with honorable exceptions, and more from the Congressional Black
Caucus than the "Hispanic" Caucus, it must be admitted); and within it all
the ACTUAL ruling class expressing its class interests by hiring and
sheltering undocumented workers by the MILLIONS.

And you have this mass of Latino immigrants, both documented and un-, but
especially the undocumented, pushed out of their own countries by the same
neoliberal offensive that is attacking them here, who for years have been
beat up and denigrated as "illegals," as job-stealing, welfare-cheating,
diseased-carrying, school-budget-busting, terrorist sub-humans. Who are
hired to build roads and then denied the right to have drivers licenses. Who
prepare the food served on airplane but are not allowed to board them. 

But within the Latino community, you have something else, you have
middle-class and even some small capitalist layers. Usually subservient to
their master's voice, THIS layer has moved, partly as a result from their
own status as Latinos --including having been undocumented (in Atlanta we
have a couple of ex-"illegal" millionaires), partly from the pressure from
below, from their own workers, friends, and family, but also and very
importantly from their own *class* interests. 

Stalin says in the famous 1913 Bolshevik pamphlet on the national question
that the heart and soul of the nationalism of the bourgeoisie is their home
market. That is the same here, even though it manifests in ways which the
Bolsheviks couldn't have imagined (and even though I disagree with the
Bolshevik 1913 position of reducing the national question to just the
interests of the bourgeois forces).

What has made this a MASS movement is the media, and most of all the radio.
And what made it possible for all these DJ's and radio personalities to go
all-out for the movement is that despite their middle class status, they are
also, almost to a person, immigrants, and immigrants who came here as adults
(very few people can work in Spanish-language media at a professional level,
just from a language point of view, unless they were educated in Latin
America: otherwise their Spanish is too "foreign," too corrupted by
English). But also, because their bosses did NOT tell them to lay off, on
the contrary, they egged them on. And their advertisers ALSO didn't
complain, but said "right on" to the brothers. (And overwhelmingly they are
"brothers" -- there are very few women DJ's).

Frankly, what Nativo Lopez of MAPA told Lou Dobbs is the God's honest truth:
if you had to name one person who was responsible for uniting the Latino
community, that would be Sensenbrenner. The vicious, racist "Latinos have no
rights the white man is bound to respect" bill he pushed through the House
in December convinced bourgeois Latinos and middle layers that their trust
in the fundamental capitalist rationality of U.S. politics was misplaced in
this case. And if you look at the bill, it is simply the legal framework for
a pogrom. 

In desperation, these traditionally "moderate" forces have turned to the
Latino working class, and to the tactics associated historically with the
working class movement, marches and rallies, economic boycotts and --in
essence-- strikes. 

And in doing so they have unleashed a proletariat worthy of the name. One
that realizes that it must not "permit itself to be treated as rabble," one
that instinctively feels that it "needs its courage, its self-confidence,
its pride and its sense of independence even more than its bread." One that
calls its events marches for dignity, not marches for amnesty.

The interactions of this Latino proletariat with the other social classes
isn't as straightforward as people might think. This is not exactly "class
against class," it is much more *complicated.*

One of the untold stories --there must be thousands of them by now
nationwide-- of the Latino movement here in Atlanta is that when we held the
day without immigrants protest here on March 24, a lot of the union members
at a big commercial laundry walked out from the plant and crippled
production. I know the head of that plant's local. She is undocumented, a
mother who is supporting children she left with their grandparents back in
Mexico that she hasn't seen for years because the border crossing has become
too dangerous and she can't risk her job. 

A higher up in her union went to bat for the workers, and got them all off
with a verbal warning. They were also negotiating significant participation
by workers from that plant in the Monday protest, although I don't know the
outcome of that. 

You would think the reaction of the plant management would have been to
immediately fire everyone involved in what was in essence a wildcat but you
would be wrong. The plant management and company involved have been more
lenient because, of course it's in their interests not just to keep their
workers relatively happy, but more fundamentally, because it's in their
interests to keep their workers period. And what the laundry capitalists see
as their right to exploit this labor is under attack, and from their point
of view the action of these workers in defending their staying in this
country is a defense also of the right of the laundry bosses to exploit
them.

I suspect the compañeras who led and took part this action did not
necessarily think this through in such explicit terms to figure out whether
they could get away with it. They acted on instinct but mostly driven by the
attacks against them from the politicians, which as they see it, leave them
no choice but to fight back, and now that the opportunity to do so has
presented itself, they are willing to take risks to do so.

It is important to *understand* the various class forces and interests in
play to orient yourself in this movement. There is on the organized
socialist left very little understanding, and in what's being reported,
there is quite a bit of arrogance.

*  *  *

Nor was this the only thing I wrote along those lines.

See also, "Largest demo ever in Atlanta -- 80, 000 march for immigrant
rights," which is here: 
<http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2006w15/msg00088.htm>

Also a couple of posts in the thread, "What should revolutionaries do in the
Latino immigrant movement?" which are here:
<http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2006w15/msg00103.htm>
<http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2006w15/msg00146.htm>

"The May 1 boycott, the Latino movement and the Left"
<http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2006w16/msg00130.htm>

"Scratches, Gangrene and the elephant in the room no one wants to talk
about"
<http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2006w16/msg00183.htm>

"On Bush's reaction to Nuestro Himno"
<http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2006w17/msg00201.htm>

"The May 1 boycott, the Latino movement and the Left"
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2006w17/msg00003.htm

*  *  *

I will add a couple of comments in another post.

Joaquin