I have
written these letters directly in English to answer the questions of a
well-known comrade, intellectual and left-wing militant in the USA. I beg the
reader to consider that English is not my mother-tongue and no revision of my
texts has been made by English speaking people: being personal letters that
would have been impossible. But I think that it is exactly the personal
character of these letters that can help in offering a better and deeper
understanding of what it means today to be a member of Red Utopia. The
publication of these texts is intended to explain, especially to young comrades,
the real possibile meaning of the concept of «Red Utopianism». Of course it is
the concept as I see it, since no member of RU is obliged to share these
opinions of mine. For a further reading on the matter I suggest the interview
Michele Azzerri made to me in April 2010, under the title of Red
Utopia and a new idea of revolution.
R.M. (November
2012)
___________________________________________
15-19 th
of August 2012
Dear
comrade,
[…] Let us
start again from your letter of July the 30th, where you asked: «As to Red
Utopia, I would be pleased to hear from you about your kind invitation to “be a
point of reference for Red Utopians in [my] fucking imperialist
country”».
[…]
The
refusal of ideological homogeneity
In Red
Utopia there is no precise ideological belonging, but that doesn't mean that all
the ideologies are the same. My hope is that time will teach each of us to take
all the best which may exist in every single different ideology. Some may have a
lot and some may have little: but this has to be proved in front of historical
action and not in congress papers. You know of course that 90% of the splits in
the workers movement have taken place - in one century and half - officially for
ideological reasons which were hiding, of course, political divisions or
psychological distress.
Red Utopia
will try to make revolution (or at least preach it) out of any apparatus. Single
members can remain where they are (if they belong to parties) but RU as such
will be out of the parties and consider them as a negative heritage of the past.
The democratic historical process which began with French Revolution, with
parties and parliaments is long dead in some imperialist countries: for sure in
Italy
But that is
a piece of pure luck! Because the common political program implies majorities
and minorities: the first ones normally expel the second, and the second ones
make split to the first - always, or at least when it is worthwhile - which can
also happen in the eve of revolution (the split in the Russian
Socialrevolutionary Party in October 1917). It implies divisions with all those
who have another political program, it doesn't matter if right or wrong. It
implies that at every serious change of the world situation (for instance in
1989) you have to suffer splits in different organizations since the analysis of
what happens cannot be the same for everybody, while such an analysis is
integral part of the program and of the political line (at least for serious
revolutionaries).
The
previous Internationals and the grouplets
If you look
very rapidly at the history of the Internationals you see easily tha nature of
the process.
The First
international had only the name (International Association of Workers) but no
political line, no common political program, no common ideology. It is the
International who lasted the most (8 years) and had the biggest concrete results
until the disaster of the Paris Commune. After that defeat it was destroyed (by
Marx) with the split from the Anarchists.
From one
single international organization were born two of them, each one with its own
ideology (and not anymore the tens of different ideologies which were present in
a unitarian and sometimes also fraternal way in the First Int.) and each one
had its presumed political program, which ended up for the Marxist Second
International in the Socialdemocratic collaboration with every single bourgeois
State.
From there
the various splits, until the birth of the Third International, which at the
beginning diffused the Russian Leninist ideology (and not a political program,
except the defense of Soviet Union ) and after
few years was diffusing Stalinism all over the world, becoming a strong
instrument of counterrevolution.
The Fourth
International was the only one which had in the less of 2 years of existence a
common (partly wrong) political program. But then it broke up in several
different/similar political programs and that is why we have today 6-7 different
Fourth Internationals, beside all the psychopatological national small groups
which exist by the hundreds everywhere. You think on Los
Angeles , but you should see in Italy or in Argentina
We analyze
this phenomenon of the grouplets, splits and Mini-internationals on the ground
of political psychopatology, a new discipline which we hope to develop
further with the help of professional psychologists and specialists of medical
care. We all know that today (or at least much more today than in the past) it
has become possible for a single individual to wake up in the morning and
declare that he wants to build an international or a revolutionary party,
disregarding his personal role in the workers movement, his previous
experiences, his relationships with the history of that movement. He has only to
create a split from another group or organization and he will find at once some
(very few) followers, mostly among people affected by his same insecurity,
minority complexes, mental illnesses. But the name the new group will bear (and
a little of social activism as a cover) make (young) people believe that the
grouplet represents the socialist future, a step on the way of liberating
humanity.
The
impossibility of imposing a single political
line
Let's put it
this way: all the political experiences after the end of the Second World War
(not to go too much further) have shown that today it is impossible to stay
together in a party and to have a common program (correct or wrong, but history
has shown that it has been always wrong in the immediate situation and in front
of history itself). Consciousness of the better part of humanity is already
going beyond the idea that a single program or a single political line can be
imposed to the others in order to fight together for a single issue or for a
global issue. For instance, I personally have much more in common with a certain
priest (who is no Marxist) in Northern Italy then with the leaders of the two so
called «communist» parties in Italy which in Parliament have voted the Italian
military missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere in 2006 only because they were
present in the left-wing government. (Consider that the 2 senators of the
Italian section of the Fourth at the time, also voted for this imperialist
mission without provoking any protest in the other sections of the United
Secretariat.)
Principle
(or point) number one for joining Red Utopia
I hope you
agree on the necessity of fighting against the apparatuses (also from within if
it is necessary) and against the ridiculous presumption of imposing a single
program, a single political line, a single
analysis.
But still
the revolutionary idea has to survive in some aspect. Otherwise there wouldn't
be any differences with sport, religious or free-time associations. That's where
the 6 points of Red Utopia (soon 7, I hope) come in. Why these points and
not others?
It is a
complex historical problem. I have written several works (articles, documents
and books) of history, sociology and historical sociology to explain them and to
trace their historical origins and necessity. I also tried in the past to
explain how they have arrived to be the crucial points in today class struggle
at the world level. In one country you may seem not to need a single (which is
dubious): while in a global perspective you need all of them, from
China to Argentina , and from Canada
The only one
I can present here is the first one, because I consider it the most important
one (The goal doesn't justify the means, but in the means etc.) because it is
the scientific one or the one which creates the possibility of a scientific
discussion on political matters. It has become too normal to consider as
irrelevant (or negative!) the fact that somebody proves to be right in front of
historical development and somebody wrong. It is the rule. To be right has
become a handycapp. In the Fourth International, we, the so called Third
International Tendency were expelled for having been right vis-a-vis the
charismatic leadership of Mandel, Maitan, Frank. And this way ended up the
possibility of discussing our ideas (which, by the way, later have been proven
as the correct ones)
In order to
have a scientific discussion we have to arrive at a certain ethical deontology
as it happens in some scientific professions.
Today we
have lots of good theoreticians (which means people endowed with powerful
theoretical instruments) but no valid theories, almost on nothing in the field
of social theory.
And of
course we have armies of single intellectuals who are thinking only on their own
self, their personal books, above all their personal career. Never, never and
never they think on how to use collectively those powerful theoretical
instruments they dominate. Never. In Italy I am the only intellectual who
"looses" time in editing and publishing others' books instead of writing my
books or finishing to write them. But is a choice: I have a collective plan in
my head, those other intellectuals are thinking on themselves, their personal
success.
Will be
UR
I hope
instead that the diffusion of the ideas of UR in the mass movements of several
countries will make possibile the single one worldwide revolution (beginning if
possibile from the United States - the country which has known the highest
levels of class struggle in the world, the most longlasting strikes, with the
biggest participation of workers and families and with the highest levels of
violence on both sides). Yes, I think that today this is becoming the only
possibility. I don't see anybody else working on the same or similar perspective
in any other country. We may fail, our sons or nephews may fail, but I can grant
you that nobody else is trying to create a collective movement for revolution,
out of apparatuses, with few fundamental strong principles (the ethical one
being the first and most important) and without ideological
discriminations.
[…]
20th of
August 2012
Since Red
Utopia doesn't have a political line or a common program, but only the 6
principled standpoints, it is evident that not only you don't have to agree
necessarily with me, but any member of RU could tell you a quite different story
for his staying in the RU family. This is a point of weakness but in the long
run it can prove to be a point of strength in the inner life of Red Utopia;
since different political and social weltanschauungen may cohabitate,
the internal theoretical richness of Red Utopia could reach levels which have no
previous comparative examples in the history of the revolutionary
movement.
[…]
31st of
August 2012
Let's see
your points one by one, comparing them with the text of the 6
principles.
About the
first one (a) The end does not justify the means, but the means which we use
must reflect the essence of the end. [Priority of ethics (Guevara) and the
scientific truth above every other consideration] ): on the 21st of August
you wrote:
a. I
agree.
Fabulous!
For me this
is the fundamental point, not only for ethical reasons but because it is the
only possibile way to have a serious concrete political discussion. Of course
everybody thinks to be honest or at least tries to appear as such, but then,
when you come to the crucial points of the analysis and you show him or her that
they are wrong, or that such and such grouplet is wrong, people switch at once
to the official defense of their own group, party, charismatic leader etc. I
hope that you don’t underevaluate the meaning of this point. The fact that we
are discussing seriously shows that we really share it. The conclusions of our
discussion will give us the measure of how much we share
it.
In my mind
this point is more and more complicate than I can express here or in a sentence.
But this is my personal interpretation of the point, which nobody is obliged to
accept.
Actually,
what I am saying about the personal interpretation it is true for the
interpretation of all the other points. And also this is something very
different from the past in our new way of making (revolutionary)
politics.
The
second principle: on self-determination
The second
point states: b) Support for the struggle of all peoples against imperialism
and/or for their self-determination, independently of their political
leaderships. [Beginning of the Third
International]
b. 1.
What is meant by «Support for the struggle of all peoples against imperialism
and/or for their self-determination»? How can RU provide «support» for a
struggle (even if just «moral support») «independently of its political
leadership», if (counterfactually) there’d be no such struggle in the absence of
that leadership? 2.] What happens if a specific struggle
for independence or self-determination (Chechnyan, Eritrean + ELF, Irish + IRA,
Basque + pre- 20 October 2011 ETA ceasefire, Palestinian + Hamas + Hesbollah)
involves practices – observed and verified by, say, the UN Observers Mission,
Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International -- that violate RU’s first
principle?
Red Utopia
is not able today of leading any mass struggle in any part of the world. His
members can only fight individually or in small groups at a rank-an-file level.
But we know also that except some trade-unions, some special national parties
and some movements for national liberation, nobody is able to wage today mass
struggles, that is to organize and direct them and not just simply being part of
them: not the various Fourth Internationals, psychopathological grouplets etc.,
neither the solidarity movements with this or that national liberation front,
with this or that struggle.
That we like
it or not, the word «support» has for us, and will have it for I don’t know how
long, a fundamental propagandistic meaning or, much better, an analytical
meaning. So when we write «support» we mean first of all an analysis, una «presa
di posizione» (taking a stand), a moral and intellectual
involvement.
If this is
clear, it is clear also that we may have such a position of «support» for the
social or popular contents of a struggle for social liberation, also when the
struggle is not existing (it exists the social problem but may not exist a real
or possibile mass struggle for it – take the example of Tibet) or when some sort
of a struggle exists, but under a leadership which a) is not capable of
leading the movement to victory or b) is acting only in its own interest,
to preserve itself as a caste, a bureacratic caste (tipical example the
Palestinian Al Fatah). Shouldn’t we «support» the rights of Palestinians to
self-determinate themselves, only because the leaderships they have had so far
have been all of them very bad?
I could
multiply these examples at world and historical level. For me, personally, it is
very easy to make such a multiplication because I had familiarity with national
liberation movements since I started politics and I always had very bad opinions
of all the nationalist leaderships of the Sixties: in Africa, in
Vietnam , in Middle East, in
Europe , in Soviet countries etc. I can admit
only a partial exception – my simpathy for the Algerian movement when it was
leaded by Ben Bella – but not more than that. Speaking more widely I could say
the same - always on a personal base – about the Resistance (Maquis) movements
in Europe . It was correct to fight against
Nazism and Fascism, but not under those counterrevolutionary
leaderships.
Anyway, I
haven’t touched yet the main purpose of this point (at least in my head, in my
personal thinking). And the problem is that today there are lots of tensions or
struggles or legal claims for self-determination in all the Continents of the
world (Australia Yugoslavia or in Chechnya , as the pro-Chinese do in
Tibet , the pro-Castroites in
Africa or in Central America , according always
to their own specific opinions and not the needs of the mass movements.
Personally, if I should look at the leaderships of the national liberation
movements in the last 50-60 years, I shouldn’t have «supported» any of them
(with the partial exception, as I said, of Algeria
But luckily,
the peoples who feel the necessity to express their needs through
self-determination wouldn’t have cared the least for my position. They wanted
and still want self-determination regardless of the leadership and regardless
the use to do with such a self-determnation. The proof is that very often they
have changed leaderships (as in Congo or in Angola ) or political line (as in
Northern
Ireland
Self-determination is not necessarily
separation
And here we
come to another point, where I always find serious misunderstandings: the
identification of self-determination with separation. It is a big mistake, it is
very common and it is founded on very false premises, including the assumption
that it is you who decides what use will the freed people do of their
right to self-determination.
All the
contrary: the respect for self-determination implies that you must trust a
certain people (any people) to be able to find the best solution for itself
and by itself. Maybe a certain people will be wrong in using independence,
national autonomy or separation? It doesn’t matter: those mistakes are
expression of the level of consciousness of the sections of that people who
fought on the first line for self-determination. And those mistakes are
historically more important than ready-made political formulas imposed by
others, from outside or by bureaucratic
leaderships.
I am sure
that you agree that a self-determinated mistake is much better – historically –
than a so called «politically correct solution» imposed from
above.
If I had
time (and I hope we’ll have it in the future) I could make tens and tens of
examples of what I am saying.
Up to this
point I have been speaking as a Marxist, respectfull of Lenin’s
position.
(Self-determination is the only theme where Lenin
never changed the thoretical position he had almost from the beginning, and it
is the only ground where I think he was right, including his last battle on the
question of Georgia
Self-determination as
self-management
But now I
want to add something very important as a Libertarian: you cannot propose
self-management (which is a rank-and-file form of self-determination) at factory
level, regional level, productive branch level, etc. and deny it at a global
level. When certain communities of individuals, citizens, gender or sexually or
linguistically identified people etc. claim the necessity for self-determinating
themselves, they must be free (and must be able) to do it. It is not you or
me or such a party or such a State which can decide who has the right or not to
self-manage and to self-deteminate. The active, collective and involved
subjects have to be the real political leaders of their own struggle, of their
projects, of their way of taking part in the more general social project of
humanity or of a portion of humanity.
This
fundamental contribution of Libertarian thought belongs to me (is mine in a
personal sense) and of course I cannot impose it to the comrades of Red Utopia.
Which means that there is not a political line of Red Utopia on this or that
struggle for self-determination. No: if it were, it would be a bad version of a
general program. There is instead a general orientation in favour of
self-determination, a general distrust towards the previous and the existing
leaderships of national liberation movements and there is a general connection
of this principle number 2 with principle number 5 (about direct democracy and
the fight against bureaucracies, apparatuses
etc.)
A final
important question: if a people or a religious, linguistic, ethnic group etc.
thinks that its problems can be solved only through self-detemination (which is
not necessarily separation), it means that somebody or something is oppressing
them. If some areas of the world are splitting apart because of sectorial pushes
to self-determination, I don’t consider responsible them – the
self-determinators – but those political entities which were or are oppressing
them: these are the ones who pushed them to fight for separation, autonomy and
so forth. I am sure that in a different world, more egualitarian and peaceful,
all this scattering around, all these regional splits etc. will be newly
recomposed in a superior form of unity. In any case there is at the moment no
alternative, except violent repression of the movements, which pushes these same
movements on the side of counterviolence, terrorism, suicides as kamikaze,
Twin
Towers
Of course
the acceptance of our second principle - the way we propose it - doesn’t throw
on us any moral responsibility for these horrors, but leaves us at the same time
a political chance to interact with people who think that the only possibility
they have to solve – wrong or right – their social problems is through self-
determination.
I think I
have answered your questions about the second point. I could have talked less or
more, or more clearly. But I tried my best in order to give you an overall
picture of the problem. The concrete examples are so many, the geopolitical
contexts are so different, that really it sounds almost impossibile to try to
give an overall answer which can suits all the possibile existing or thinkable
situations. But still, if we agree on the ground of principles (self-management
and self-determination, self-determination as an answer to internal or external
oppression, self-determination which doesn’t have to become necessarily
separation, distinction between the real needs of people and caste interests of
their leaders) we can arrive together to a fully accurate analysis of every
single struggle or claim for self-determination which exists in the world. We
would only need the most complete information, if we agree on the
principles.
3rd of
September 2012
Total
independence from capitalism
The third
principle of Red Utopia states: c) For the autonomy and
total independence from the political projects of capitalism. [The Left of
Zimmerwald from the Second International].
And you write about this third
point:
c.
How do we know if a specific «political project» is a «political project of
capitalism», regardless of what its architects, advocates, and activists say it
is?
[...] I
don’t understand the essence of your question. And at the same time I must admit
that our sentence is too concise (almost as concise as your question). But the
alternative option would be to write a small treatise on what we mean by
capitalism, what sort of governments or political parties we have in mind and
why should we oppose them in an independent way as a question of principle
instead than as a result of political analysis. Too much for a declaration of
intents. And not enough for a political program of struggle against capitalism.
I’ll try therefore to make few comments and I apologize if I am not answering to
your real worry.
First of all
that sentence assumes that capitalism exists and that we have a rough idea of
what it is. Once upon a time it was a common habit in the extreme left to say
that «we lack an analysis of what capitalism really is». Therefore one was
justified for not taking a clear political stand and for retiring in some
(university) library to study capitalism and its «true»
essence.
On the
contrary I assume (yes, I, because I am giving my personal interpretation
of that sentence) I assume that we both know what capitalism is. I could say
that contemporary and past capitalism is the thing most studied in the world. It
is studied so much that today no single scholar is able to give – as an
individual - an overall picture of the way capitalism functions on a planetary
scale. It is necessary a group of researcers, theoretical work by an
equipe.
About its
way of funcioning there are theories (various theories), tons of statistical
data, interpretations, and billions of practical suggestions. We have very
clever economists also in Red Utopia: I am referring particularly to 3 books on
capitalist economics (written by Michele Nobile) which are among the best works
written on the subject in the last twenty years. Unfortunately they are in
Italian and the author doesn’t have the the public exposure other economists
have at world level.
I might have
personally a poor knowledge of what capitalism is, but humanity knows it or, at
least, we can say that humanity has at its own disposal for the first time in
history all the means and theoretical instruments to know it. But since
capitalism is in a permanent state of evolution or decline, no picture of it is
ever precise, no one can reasonably say to really know it. Capitalism is
continuously changing and no party or research institute or governmental
commision has ever succeded in giving a 100% exact picture of it. However, there
are also some clever theorists who have given at times a deeply erroneous image
of it: for instance a genious like Trotsky was totally wrong in his description
of the apparent rotten capitalism at the end of the
Thirties.
All this to
say that when a political group, party or association claims the necessity of
previously studying capitalism in order to start afterwards a political action,
is only cheating: humanity has a rough idea of what capitalism is because it is
experimenting it on its flesh every day.
The
political expressions of capitalism
More
complicate, instead, it is to say what or which are the political expressions of
such a social system (such a system of productive social relationships). You
cannot define it on a global scale and you cannot define it once and for all.
Normally you have to describe them country by country because they depend on the
special relationship the bourgoisie has with its own State and they depend also
from the correlation of forces in the country.
We skip the
question of the State, because I imagine we both know what it is and we both
consider it an enemy, everywhere it exists and holds
power.
If the
political expressions of the bourgeoisie differ from one another according to
countries and traditions, it is evident that an international claim or appeal
for independence from the State, or from the political parties who defend the
State, has to be absolutely general in its formulation. Do you remember when
there were Stalinist Communist parties underground in some dictatorial
Latinamerican countries, at the same time when others, in other countries, were
part of the State (e.g. the first government of Batista in Cuba Italy
Can you
imagine a statement which includes all these possibilities and the new ones
which will certainly appear while the old ones are
disappearing?
It would be
simply impossibile. Therefore you have to state a principle of autonomy or
independence from all the political projects who are willing to mantain in power
the class who already holds it, who want to defend the State as the dominant
regulator of social life, who want to reinforce (improving them of course!) the
existing productive social relationships, who want the survival of capitalism as
a general way of organizing society: they want it at a national level, and they
want it at a planetary level – ready to make few exceptions, but only for
«others’» countries (as in Cuba today, in China yesterday, in Soviet Union
before yesterday).
It sounds
logical that any political action or movement or project which is not
independent from those who want to preserve the capitalist system, at the end,
or in someway, is functional to the survival and the reproduction of that
system.
At a
general level it seems to me easy and clear the concept of independence from
capitalism. At a national level it is’n t always.
And the question is complicated by the so called «progressive currents» of
modern capitalism, like those impulsed by Lula, Morales, Chávez, Correa,
Kirchner, Raúl Castro etc. in Latin America. They are different from the
procapitalist «left-wing» projects you had in the past in Europe with the Union
of the Left in France , but
also the New Deal in the States, or today with the Centrosinistra in
Italy Africa with the governments born from the struggles for
national liberation etc.
That is
exactly where Red Utopia stops. We don’t have a political line good for
everybody and everywhere, we don’t have a political program. We only share some
principles, some desires, some dreams. Of course «revolutionary» dreams,
whatever is the meaning of that predicate.
What sort
of revolution?
But are we
for any sort of revolution?
No,
absolutely not. Only for a revolutionary process which corresponds to point
number one, which respects point number 2 and particularly points 5 (democracy
and antibureaucracy) and 6 (save the Earth). And we think that the obtainment of
these goals – necessarily after a victory of the revolutionary process – is made
possibile by the respect of points number 3 (autonomy from capitalism) and 4
(unity and solidarity among human beings).
I must add that
I personally don’t believe (anymore, but since many years…) that a political
line or a political program can exists independently from the movements who
create and apply it and outside of a determined historical context. The adoption
of so called «political programs» by grouplets. mini.Internationals and so on,
is in reality only a «shopping list», sort of a bluff, a demagogic way of
keeping the rank-and-file militants occupied in doing something. In the most
honest cases is a negative conception of utopia.
In the old
meaning of the word, utopia was meant as something which you cannot
accomplish, you cannot reach – and such are the political programs not embodied
in mass movements or not created by them.
Instead for us
or at least for me, utopia is something so marvelous to desire, to dream
about, that you may accomplish it only through solidarity, unity and collective
action of humanity: a small part of such a humanity at the beginning (as in the
present situation) and almost all of it at the
end.
Dear comrade, I
beg you not to consider these six points as a decalog (an esalog), as a
different naif way of proposing a political program or organizing a small
group.
There is no
possibile orthodoxy with these sentences. Consider them as general lines of
theoretical elaboration, preparing the ground for organized and collective
political action. These general lines can be changed, improved, augmented (we
need, for instance a 7th point on the revolutionary role of art) but only by
people who still desire the end of capitalism, who dream about social revolution
and who are not yet persuaded that the extinction of human species is an
inevitabile destiny of humanity because of the «laws» of capitalism, of its
market, of its logics based on the principle of individual gain: people who
mistrust the apparatuses, political parties, State institutions and anything
which can create the ground for the development of a new bureaucratic power.
People who believe in direct democracy, self-managemente and self-determination.
And, above all, people who consider internationalism as the first step for the
liberation of humanity.
If I didn’t
convince you, but I succeded in transmitting you a different dimension of
reasoning about political action and revolution, it was worthwhile to write all
these tedious explanations (in a language which is not mine). If the
«transmission» was successfull, I ask you to join us in this titanic and
beautiful enterprise. If it wasn’t, let us be just
friends…
Roberto
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