PARTISAN!

Mila V, Canberra

There has been a constant and revolving conversation in the pages of the Partisan over the question of how socialists should relate to non-socialist social movements. I would like to weigh into these discussions and, hopefully, clarify their stakes.

Recently, comrades Anthony, Porco, and Edith have fought over the rallies from a few months ago that protested violence against women. They were arguing whether or not socialists should make scathing critiques of reformist or reactionary elements in the movement at the current stage. Porco [Partisan #8, Build a communist women’s movement! But how?] argued that we shouldn’t, because many at the protests have a justifiable suspicion of socialists based on the past behaviour of the sects who, Porco argues, didn’t (and still don’t) take feminist struggle seriously. At this stage, where socialists stand primarily outside such movements, we should make more effort to insert ourselves into them before making big criticisms. Anthony [Partisan #8, Stop killing women! But how? & Partisan #9, Building a movement requires criticism] and Edith, on the other hand, claimed that hiding such critiques is a mistake, because reformist and reactionary views within the movement do not disappear over time, and it is the job of socialists to correct these deviations and put the movement on the right path.

Months ago, a similar prosaic conflict arose between comrades Edith [Partisan #3, Reject the dumbness of dumbing down] and Brunhilda [Partisan #2, RCO needs more than just theory] over the content of political agitation. Brunhilda argued that socialists spend too much time talking about what, at times, can feel like ancient history. Socialists should try to relate the distant horizon of revolution to everyday hardships and struggles here and now, she claimed. For Brunhilda, focusing so much on history is a manifestation of a socialist movement made up primarily of intellectuals and students, not of workers, who are more interested in sectarian infighting than in winning over the class. On the other hand, Edith argued that discussing the successes and failures of past revolutions, or educating workers on complex theoretical concepts, is the very stuff of socialist political education, which should never be dumbed down.

These conversations have been frustrating to witness. Everyone involved has ignored the real insights offered by those they disagree with, dismissing their entire argument because of some perceived error. Though comrades have been correct to criticise one another for their errors, this has led to a ‘missing the forest for the trees’ type situation.

Edith was spot on when she criticised Brunhilda for advocating for the dumbing down of socialist political education. However, she missed the point of truth in Brunhilda’s letter. It is critical that we educate other workers on complex material phenomena, history, and theoretical concepts; but we must do so accessibly. Comrade Edith seems to be of the impression that criticising another comrade’s rhetoric as ‘inaccessible’ is automatically arguing for the dumbing down of their rhetoric. This is often the case (that is what Brunhilda was advocating for), but it need not be. It is extremely important for socialists to make their political education as accessible as possible through use of language, or by relating it to everyday struggles, without compromising on content. This is not only possible for us to do, but also necessary.

Similarly, Anthony and Edith were totally correct to criticise comrade Porco’s argument that we should moderate our criticisms of factions within the feminist movement. Even if we are somewhat split from the feminist movement (though the RCO put an enormous amount of organising effort into it in Brisbane), there will always be those within it who are sympathetic to our criticisms of it. We must always be openly critical and openly advocating for revolution, regardless of our perceived distance from the movement.

But, as before, comrades Anthony and Edith missed the substantive insight in Porco’s letter. Anthony and Edith, in their struggle against tail-ism, have forgotten that pure criticism is pedagogically unsound. Any qualified educator with an interest in revolutionary pedagogy will tell you so. Though we must constantly criticise the supposedly ‘anti-elitist’ pretensions of the sectarian socialists, who truly believe that the working class is stupid and incapable of understanding socialism, it is also true that people simply struggle to learn without some sense of solidarity.

Rhetorically speaking, comrades often forget to emphasise that we socialists are on the side of women, the working class, etc. Reactionary trends deserve total condemnation, yes, but we must take a different attitude to the reformist-minded and less politically educated elements of the social movement.

As things stand, we present our perspective from a place of total superiority. Such people often have the same goals as us in some abstract sense – ending violence against women, improving access to healthcare, ending police brutality, etc. We must be sympathetic to these goals.

Rather than telling them that reform is useless, that revolution is the only way, and ending things there; we must couch our revolutionary criticism in the goals we share with them. We must point out that their strategies will not achieve what they want them to. “Reform is useless, and revolution is the only way, because otherwise we cannot end violence against women, improve access to healthcare, or end police brutality; don’t you want that?”

In the same way that we must make our education accessible, but not simple – we must make our criticism sympathetic, but without flattery. In everything we write on the social movements, we must stress that our criticisms emerge from a faction of that movement, not from outside of it. We must endeavour to engage in these movements. Socialists must always consider themselves part of the “we” of feminism, queer liberation, and indigenous struggle.