Calendar

Public Meeting: Defend Edward Snowden!
NSA Spying and the Accelerating Disintegration of Democracy in the U.S.

Where: UC Berkeley, room TBA (on Monday, September 16)
When: 7:00-9:00pm, Tuesday, September 17

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden continues to release stunning documentation of the breathtaking scope of unconstitutional NSA spying in the US and internationally. These formerly secret spy programs are deeply unpopular in the US and worldwide, yet they enjoy strong bipartisan support. The near-universal condemnation of Snowden in US media, including many pundits and academics critical of similar policies under Bush, testifies to the absence of any genuine constituency within the ruling class willing to defend the democratic principles laid out in the bill of rights.

Despite a vitriolic campaign of vilification, Snowden continues to enjoy broad support within the US and international working class (i.e. the vast majority of the population). If we want to keep our hard-won democratic rights, it is up to us to organize to defend Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and the generation of whistleblowers that will reveal the greater government crimes that are likely coming.

For those of us interested in building a social movement capable of defending and expanding our basic social rights (e.g. the right to a healthcare, education, access to culture and a good job), perhaps the most pressing question is the approach to organizing. Lenin’s “What is to be Done?” perhaps the definitive text on organizing written in the 20th century, provides a clear and cutting argument for a democratic organization firmly based on principle, prepared to wage an unrelenting theoretical and political struggle against all forms of opportunism that would, wittingly or unwittingly, pull the wool over the eyes of workers. Unsurprisingly, this work has endured a century of sustained, vitriolic (and generally unfounded) criticism from opportunists of all stripes.

We feel that “What is to be Done?” is so critical that we are spending two classes on it. This week, we read a piece by David North, chairman of the editorial board of the WSWS, called “The Origins of Bolshevism and What Is To Be Done”. This short piece provides historical context for Lenin’s groundbreaking work, and rebuts a few of the most-common objections raised by anti-Marxists and pseudo-Marxists alike

In two weeks, we will discuss the whole of “What is to be Done?”

Here is a link to David North’s lecture: http://intsse.com/wswspdf/en/articles/2005/09/le3-all.pdf

After the murder of Greek anti-fascist hip-hop artist Pavlos Fyssas, allegedly by supporters of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, strikes and demonstrations have erupted across Greece in opposition to fascist terror. In the midst of depression-level unemployment being enforced upon Greece by the EU, a strengthened fascist movement is hardly surprising. The rapid rise of Golden Dawn, which polled 7% in the 2012 Greek election after getting only 0.3% of the vote in 2009, is expressed through savage attacks by affiliated paramilitary thugs by affiliated paramilitary thugs. Neither of these phenomena would be possible without the votes and tacit (or sometimes explicit) support of the police.

Moving to channel popular anger behind inoffensive channels, various trade unions and so-called left political parties and organizations are attempting to popularize the demand that the government ban Golden Dawn, while doing their best to prevent open class conflict by limiting the duration of the strikes workers are overwhelmingly voting for. Would banning Golden Dawn be a step forward in the fight against a fascist terror whose key constituency is the police? Probably not. Would giving the Greek state the power to ban political parties pose a serious threat to Greek democracy and to the Greek working class?  Of course.

We invite you to join us to discuss the implications of the rise of fascism in Greece, and the steps we can take at home and abroad in the fight against fascism and the threat of a police state.

Here is an article with more information about recent events in Greece: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/25/gree-s25.html

Lenin’s definitive work on the role of a political party in catalyzing a mass socialist movement of the working class lays out the fundamental task, the fight to bring a scientific socialist perspective to workers. Lenin makes a case for the creation of mass newspaper, whose perspective is guided by an uncompromising Marxist analysis of world events, to help workers understand how their immediate struggles are related to the broader struggles of workers across the Russia and the world, and to expose and study the class relations that underly society. This is the perspective behind the World Socialist Website, wsws.org.

Lenin comes out both barrels blazing against an orientation toward spontaneity or a rejection of the political struggle in favor of a struggle simply for better wages and working conditions. More broadly, Lenin makes the case for an unrelenting fight to expose the class interests behind opportunist and reformist political tendencies of all sorts. This work’s continuing significance is demonstrated perhaps most vividly by the unrelenting efforts of so-called “left” tendencies of all sorts to falsify, obscure and attack Lenin’s unambiguous arguments. Lenin is labeled an elitist, an authoritarian, a revisionist of Marxism (among pseudo-Marxists), a true adherent of Marxism (among anti-Marxists), and ridiculous claims are made that Lenin himself backed away from these views because he didn’t immediately reprint the work after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia.

So, what is the truth? In the current rapidly changing period of history, what is to be done? We invite you to join us on October 8 to discuss “What is to be Done?”.

Here is a link to “What is to be Done?”: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/

Today we face criminal wars abroad, budget cuts at home, skyrocketing incomes for the upper crust, falling living standards for the rest of us, and an economy that can’t seem to survive without $85 billion per month in life support from the federal reserve. We didn’t vote for this, and the ruling elite knows very well that we never would. The status quo cannot be maintained through democratic forms of rule.

It is no accident that today we see unconstitutional drone assassination programs and NSA spying programs openly defended by all branches of government, the militarization of police, and core constitutional rights shredded under the false pretext of the war on terror.

The US ruling class is preparing to fight two sorts of enemies: rivals abroad, such as Russia, China, Iran, Syria and any other country that challenges US strategic interests, and the working class at home. Only the US and international working class has the power to halt the drive toward war abroad and dictatorship at home.

As the US government shutdown continues, nearly every positive federal government program has halted its operations, from nutrition assistance to medical research to regulation of industry and finance. Of course, as hundreds of thousands of federal workers, whose wages have been under relentless attack for half a decade, are forced to shut down work and forfeit pay, the vast US military and intelligence apparatus operates more or less unimpeded by the political showmanship in Washington DC. Of course, the US Federal Reserve continues to dispense $85bn per month in free credit to the banks.

Behind the facade of “partisan gridlock”, the real purpose of this artificially created crisis atmosphere (the third of its kind in the past six years) becomes clearer. As Republicans drop their ostensible insistence on defunding the Affordable Care Act, they are beginning to come together with Obama and the Democrats to carry out a shared agenda: massive cuts to Medicare and Social Security, along with every other social gain of the working class won through a century of bitter struggle.

Please join us Tuesday to get informed and get involved!

Here are a few key news articles covering the shutdown:

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/30/budg-s30.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/01/shut-o01.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/02/pers-o02.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/02/shut-o02.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/07/budg-o07.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/12/budg-o12.html

We invite you to join us for a discussion of sections 4-end of Lenin’s ‘What is to be Done?’

Here is a link to a PDF version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/svjglfdimf2wyfc/WITBD121011.pdf

Lenin’s definitive work on the role of a political party in catalyzing a mass socialist movement of the working class lays out the fundamental task, the fight to bring a scientific socialist perspective to workers. Lenin makes a case for the creation of mass newspaper, whose perspective is guided by an uncompromising Marxist analysis of world events, to help workers understand how their immediate struggles are related to the broader struggles of workers across the Russia and the world, and to expose and study the class relations that underly society. This is the perspective behind the World Socialist Website, wsws.org.

Lenin comes out both barrels blazing against an orientation toward spontaneity or a rejection of the political struggle in favor of a struggle simply for better wages and working conditions. More broadly, Lenin makes the case for an unrelenting fight to expose the class interests behind opportunist and reformist political tendencies of all sorts. This work’s continuing significance is demonstrated perhaps most vividly by the unrelenting efforts of so-called “left” tendencies of all sorts to falsify, obscure and attack Lenin’s unambiguous arguments. Lenin is labeled an elitist, an authoritarian, a revisionist of Marxism (among pseudo-Marxists), a true adherent of Marxism (among anti-Marxists), and ridiculous claims are made that Lenin himself backed away from these views because he didn’t immediately reprint the work after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia.

So, what is the truth? In the current rapidly changing period of history, what is to be done? We invite you to join us on October 8 to discuss “What is to be Done?”.

This week we are reading Results and Prospects, Leon Trotsky’s groundbreaking 1906 work. Results and Prospects explains the political implications of Russia’s particular course of historical development, with a feudal autocracy grafted on top of a rapidly growing industrial base owned by foreign investors. Through this historical analysis, Trotsky lays out, with striking accuracy, a prediction of the revolutionary role the working class would come to play, and the tasks ahead for the instigation of a global socialist transition after the proletariat had seized power in Russia.

In the wake of the 1905 revolutionary upsurge in the Russian Empire, serious questions faced the global socialist movement. The Russian working class had proved itself as the leading revolutionary force against the Tsarist autocracy, while the bourgeois democratic movement the Mensheviks and others expected to replace the Tsar had failed to substantively materialize. Why had this happened? What was the way forward, in Russia and in the rest of the world? These are the questions Trotsky seeks to answer in Results and Prospects.

Here is a link to a PDF that contains both Results and Prospects and Permanent Revolution, which fleshes out many ideas put forward in R&P: https://www.dropbox.com/s/iho8sj7au67odh9/LDTPermRev121104_2.pdf

The Transitional Program, authored by Leon Trotsky in 1938, clearly laid the theoretical groundwork for the construction of a mass socialist party in the US. Trotsky proposes a set of concrete transitional demands, such as the expropriation of super-wealthy individuals, and the creation of independent factory committees, while explaining that the uncompromising struggle to achieve these demands will inevitably lead the working class to fight independently for political power.

Although much has changed since the outbreak of WWII, many of the basic points laid out in the transitional program are just as relevant today as they were then. We hope to see you there.

Here is a link to the text:https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/10/prog-o21.html

“Tsar to Lenin” is the only documentary film comprised entirely of actual film footage from the Russian Revolution, and the periods immediately before and after. This extraordinary footage was compiled by Herman Axelbank, who spent years traveling through Eastern Europe, gathering it using any means at his disposal. Released in 1937, at the height of Stalin’s Great Terror, in which the bulk of the Soviet revolutionary generation was physically exterminated, the film received a warm reception from critics, but was quickly suppressed by the Stalinist Communist Party in the US.

Narrated by Max Eastman, sometimes known as the first American Trotskyist, this film is required viewing  for anyone trying to understand the historical significance of Russian Revolution, and its implications in the present period.

You can watch the preview at: http://tsartolenin.com/