Yunanistan: Geleneksel partilerin çöküşü


Yunanistan’dan son birkaç hafta içinde gelen haberler geleneksel siyasal yapının tamamen çökmüş olduğuna işaret etmektedir. Bu durum, Mayıs ayında yapılan seçimlerde Yeni Demokrasi Partisi’nin başını çektiği bir koalisyon hükümeti oyların ancak %30’unu alarak iktidara geldiğinde su yüzüne çıkmıştı. Bu seçimlerde oyların sadece %13’ünü alabilmiş olan önceki iktidar partisi PASOK, Avrupa Merkez Bankası tarafından dayatılan kemer sıkma önlemlerinin herhangi bir kesintiye uğramadan yürütülmesini sağlamak için, sağcı rakipleriyle birlikte bu koalisyona katıldı. Ne var ki, o zamandan bu yana yaşanan gelişmeler artık bu partilerin herhangi bir desteğe sahip oldukları bahanesinin öne sürülemeyeceği bir noktaya ulaşmış durumdadır. Yunanlıların ezici çoğunluğu daha başka kemer sıkma önlemi alınmasına karşı çıkıyorlar ve bu önlemlerle özdeşleştirilen partiler halkın tüm öfkesini üzerlerine çekiyorlar. İktidardaki koalisyon hükümetinin ana partisi olan Yeni Demokrasi, şu anda seçmenlerin %20’sinden daha azının desteğine sahip. Seçmenlerin %20’sinin biraz üzerinde bir desteğe sahip olan solcu muhalefet partisi SYRIZA’nın az farkla gerisinde yer almakta olan Yeni Demokrasi, şu anda Yunanistan’ın ikinci partisi konumunda. Birkaç ay öncesine kadar SYRIZA aşırı solda yer alan –gerçek politikaları hem “aşırılıktan” hem de “aşırı sol” olmaktan uzak olmasına rağmen- marjinal bir grup olarak görülmekteydi. Daha da şaşırtıcı olanı ise neo-Nazi Altın Şafak’ın Yunanistan'da üçüncü parti konumuna yükselmiş olmasıdır. Son kamuoyu yoklamalarına göre bu parti seçmenlerin yaklaşık %13’ünün desteğine sahip. Herkesin Mayıs ayında yapılan seçimlerde aldığı %13’lük oyla dibe vurduğunu düşündüğü PASOK, şu anda, seçmenler arasında %7-8 gibi çok zavallı bir desteğe sahip. Ayrıca, seçmen desteği %3-4’e inen ve marjinalleşmiş olan, bir zamanların heybetli Komünist Partisi’nin neredeyse silinip gitme noktasına gelmiş olması da dikkate değer bir durum. Avrupa, Almanya’da Weimar Cumhuriyeti’nin krizinin 1930’larda Nazizmin zaferine kapıyı açmasından bu yana, geleneksel partilerin bu biçimde hızla çökmelerine ve hem solda hem de sağda yeni siyasi grupların yükselişe geçmelerine benzeyen bir gelişmeye tanık olmadı.
Yunanistan'da faşizm tehdidi son derece gerçek bir tehdit olmakla birlikte, uluslararası düzeyde geniş bir destek alabilecek olan sosyalist bir işçi sınıfı devriminin yaşanması olasılığı da aynı ölçüde gerçektir. Bugünlerde Atina’nın sokaklarında yapılan öylesine bir yürüyüş bile, bu ülkede sürmekte olan siyasi faaliyetin derinliğini gözler önüne sermeye yetiyor. Çoğunlukla sol siyasi nitelikteki duvar yazıları her yeri kaplıyor.




Aynı şekilde, önemli kavşaklarda ve insanların toplanabileceği bölgelerde ağır silahlı polis ve paramiliter birimler de her köşeyi tutmuş durumda.




Çeşitli sol grupların afişlerine her yerde, özellikle Sindagma Meydanı ve Üniversite çevresindeki alanda rastlamak mümkün.




Son birkaç aylık dönem, bir yıl önceki kitlesel gösterilerle kıyaslandığında, görece sakin geçen bir dönem olmuştur, ancak bu durumun her an için değişebilir. Bu hafta için bir başka genel grev çağrısı yapıldı. Daha önceki genel grevler gibi, bu genel grev de sendika bürokrasisi tarafından, herhangi bir gerçek değişikliğe yol açmayacak biçimde tasarlanmıştır. Geçmişte bu tür gösterilere katılmış olan insanların çoğu, sadece protesto ederek herhangi bir olumlu sonuç alınamadığını gördükleri için, artık bu tür gösterilere katılmıyorlar. Ancak bu söylenen, bu insanların sonu gelmeyen acımasız kemer sıkma önlemlerine uyum sağladıkları anlamına gelmiyor. Aksine, insanlar bu noktada uygun zamanı bekliyorlar ve müflis kemer sıkma politikalarına karşı gerçek bir alternatif arayışı içindeler. Karşı karşıya oldukları sorun geleneksel partiler ve onların önderleri itibarlarını yitirmişken, inandırıcı bir alternatife işaret edecek yeni bir önderliğin ortaya çıkmamıştır olmasıdır. Bu alternatifin, önderi Alex Tsipras’in kendine model önder olarak müteveffa Salvatore Allende’yi aldığını söylemiş olan SYRIZA olmadığı çok açıktır. Hatırlanabileceği gibi Allende, Şili'de, 1973 yılında, kanla boğulmuş olan solcu bir hükümetin başında yer almıştı. Tsipras gibi, Allende de demokrasiyi koruması için askere çağrıda bulunmuştu. Yunan ordusu ve polisinin önemli kesimlerinin neo-Nazi Altın Şafak partisine sempati duyduklarının söylendiği bir ortamda, 2012 yılının Yunanistan’ında bu stratejiyi izlemek, 1973 yılının Şili’sinde olduğu kadar ölümcüldür. Yunan işçi sınıfının Tsipras gibi önderlere ilişkin yanılsamaları aşabilmesi halinde, Yunanistan’da gerçek anlamda yeni bir şafağın sökmesi mümkün olabilecektir. O zaman bu şafak faşistlerin “Altın Şafağı” değil, sosyalist devrimin “Kızıl Şafağı” olacaktır. Hem Avrupa burjuvazisi tarafından dayatılan kemer sıkma politikalarının hem de Yunan kapitalizmini temel alan, drahmiye dönüşü öngören ve aynı ölçüde gerici nitelikte olan milliyetçi çözümün oluşturdukları ikiz kötülüğe verilebilecek tek tutarlı yanıt budur.

Alex Steiner
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Greece: Collapse of the traditional parties

The news out of Greece the past few weeks is that the traditional political structure has completely collapsed.  This was already evident in the election in May when a coalition led by the right wing New Democracy Party that received barely 30% of the vote came to to power.  The previous ruling party, the PASOK, which obtained a mere 13% of the vote in that election, joined the coalition with their right wing rivals in order to ensure that the austerity measures being dictated by the European Central Bank were carried out without interruption.  However,  things have progressed since then to the point where there can no longer even be a pretense that these parties have any support.  An overwhelming majority of Greeks oppose further austerity measures and the parties identified with them have borne the brunt of their anger. New Democracy, the main party of the ruling coalition government, now commands support from less than 20% of the population.  They are now the second party in Greece, trailing slightly behind the left wing opposition party SYRIZA, which now commands the support of slightly over 20% of the population.  SYRIZA was until a few months ago, considered a far left fringe group, although its actual policies are far from being "extreme" or "far left".  Even more astounding is the rise to third party status in Greece of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn.  They now command approximately 13% support according to the latest polls.  And PASOK,  which everyone had thought had seen its low point at 13% in the May elections, now commands a miserable 7-8% support among voters.  Also significant is the near obliteration of the once formidable Communist Party, which has been marginalized to between 3-4% approval.  Europe has seen nothing like this swift collapse of traditional parties and the rise of new political groups both on the left and on the right since the crisis of the Weimar Republic in Germany opened the door to the triumph of Nazism in the 1930's.

But while the threat of fascism in Greece is quite real, so are the possibilities for a working class socialist revolution,  one that could garner wide support internationally. Even the most cursory walk in Athens these days reveals the depth of political activity.  Graffiti, mostly of a left wing political nature, is ubiquitous.





 So is the presence of heavily armed police and para-military units at major intersections and areas where people might congregate.





Posters from various left wing groups are everywhere, especially in the area around Syntagma Square and the University.




There has been a period of relative quiet in the past few months compared to the daily mass demonstrations of a year ago, but that can likely change at any time.  Another general strike has been called for this week. Like previous general strikes, this is designed by the trade union bureaucracy to be a toothless one day protest. Most people who participated in such demonstrations in the past did not see any positive result emerge from merely protesting and thus are no longer demonstrating. However, that does not mean that they have adapted to the relentless rounds of austerity measures without end.  Rather, they are at this point biding their time and looking for a real alternative to the bankrupt politics of austerity.  The problem they face is that while the traditional parties and their leaders have been discredited, a new leadership has not emerged that can credibly point to the alternative. It is certainly not SYRIZA, whose leader Alex Tsipras was recently quoted as saying that his model of a leader was the late Salvador Allende.  One may recall that Allende led a  leftist government in Chile that was drowned in blood by the military in 1973.  And just prior to his murder in the Pinochet coup, Allende, like Tsipras, appealed to the military to safeguard democracy.  With significant sections of the Greek military and police said to be sympathetic with the neo-Nazi  Golden Dawn party, this is as suicidal a strategy in Greece in 2012 as it was in Chile in 1973.  If the Greek working class is able to overcome their illusions in leaders such as Tsipras, then a new dawn could indeed arise in Greece. It will not be the "Golden Dawn" of the fascists, but the "Red Dawn" of the socialist revolution. That is the only viable answer to the twin evils of the austerity imposed by the European bourgeoisie or the equally reactionary nationalist solution of a return to the drachma based on Greek capitalism.

Alex Steiner
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19 Ağustos 2012 tarihinde Birleşik Krallık’ta basılan Guardian gazetesinde yayımlanmıştır. [1]

Guardian:

1929 yılında Sovyetler Birliği'nden sınır dışı edildikten sonra, Kızıl Ordu'nun kurucusu Lev Trotskiy, 1937 yılında Meksika'da sürgünde yaşamaya gitti.
Onunki çok bütünsel bir yaşamdı.
Kendisini düşüncelerine ve onları pratiğe geçirmeye adamıştı.
24 May 1940 tarihinde, Trotskiy’I öldürmeye yönelik bir suikast girişiminde bulunuldu.
Torunu Esteban Volkov oradaydı.

Esteban Volkov:

Biri bahçeden içeri girdiği zaman ben yandaki yatak odasında uyuyordum.
Kapıyı ittiler ve kapı yere sürterek bir ses çıkardı ve uyanmama neden oldu.
Bir gölge gördüm ve biri içeri girdi.
Bu kişinin ev halkından biri olabileceğini düşündüm. Bir yabancı olabileceği aklıma gelmedi.
Ardından kısa bir süre sonra ateş edilmeye başlandı.

Guardian:

Esteban Volkov Lev Trotskiy’in torunu

Esteban Volkov:

Barut kokusu vardı.
Kendimi yere attım ve köşede üzerimi bir battaniye ile örttüm.
Yatağıma da ateş ettiler; ortasına altı ya da yedi mermi sıktılar.
Neyse ki korunaklı bir yerdeydim ve sadece bir sıyrık aldım.
Üç açıdan ateş ettiler. Bahçe penceresinden, benim yatak odamdan ve çalışma odasından.
Bir Thompson makineli tüfekle.
Elbette, bunun kısa bir süre sonra yeniden olacağını biliyorduk, dedem de bunu biliyordu.
Her sabah [karısı] Natalya’ya, ‘Bize yaşamak için bir gün daha verdiler,’ diyecekti.
Sorun emperyalizme karşı mücadeledir. Bütün bu ülkelere egemen olma girişimine karşı.
Bu ülkelerin doğal kaynaklarına el koyma girişimine.
Bunu şimdi Irak’ta, dünyanın ikinci en büyük petrol üreticisi olan ülkesinde görüyoruz.
Tüm bunlar nereye doğru gidiyor?
Trotskiy bu tarihi olaylar içinde kilit bir oyuncuydu.
Deneyimlerinin tüm detaylarını kaydederek ardında muazzam bir siyasi cephanelik bıraktı.
Yaşamının 40 yılını sosyalist davaya adadı.
Önce Lenin’le devrimi hazırladı ve ardından onu gerçekleştirdi.
Devrimin sonrasında gericiliğe ve Stalin’in bürokrasisine karşı savaşım verdi ve hareketi yeniden hayata döndürdü.
İşte bu mücadeleyi verirken öldü.
Stalin imha etme ve öldürme saplantısından vazgeçmemişti.
20 Ağustos 1940 tarihinde, bir buz baltası ile saldırıya uğradığı sırada çalışma odasındaydı.
Katili, Trotskiy’in yakın çevresine sızmış olan bir Stalinist ajandı.
Trotskiy ertesi gün hastanede öldü.
Kapıdan içeri girdim ve genç koruma Harold Robbins’I gördüm.
Çok üzgündü ve tabancası elindeydi.
Eve doğru yürüdüm ve polisler tarafından tutulan ve yarasından kan akan bir adam gördüm.
O sırada bu adımı tanıyamamıştın.
Daha sonra kütüphaneye doğru yürüyünce dedemi yerde yaralı olarak yatarken gördüm.
Dedem etrafındaki sekreterlere bu sahneyi görmemem gerektiği için beni uzak tutmaları gerektiğini söyleyebildi.
Aynı zamanda korumalar kendisine saldıran adamı döverlerken onu öldürmemelerini de söyledi. Konuşması gerekiyordu.
Kendisine olan inancı öylesine etkileyiciydi ki.
Sahip olduğu özgüven bulaşıcıydı.
Marksizmin tarihsel süreçleri anlamak için en kusursuz teori olmaya devam ediyor.
Umarım daha iyi bir teori ortaya çıkar ama henüz bu olmuş değil.
Kapitalizmin tam bir felaket olduğunu görüyoruz.
Kapitalizm insanlığını sorunlarını çözme becerisine sahip değil. Tam aksine.
Her gün daha fazla kargaşa, daha fazla sefalet ortaya çıkıyor. Hayır, kapitalizm gerçekten de modası geçmiş bir sistem.

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Interview with Trotsky's grandson, Esteban Volkov, on the 72 Anniversary of Trotsky's Assassination

Published in the UK's Guardian newspaper. [1]



Transcript of the interview.

Guardian:


After being deported from the Soviet Union in 1929, Leon Trotsky, the founder of the Red Army, sought exile in Mexico in 1937.
His was a very complete life.
He dedicated it to his ideas and putting them into practice.
On 24 May 1940, an attempt is made to assassinate Trotsky.
His grandson Estaban Volkov was there.

Esteban Volkov:

I was sleeping in the neighbouring bedroom when someone came in from the garden.
They pushed the door and it scraped the floor and made a noise, waking me up.
I saw a silhouette and someone came in.
I thought it was someone from the house. I didn’t imagine it was a stranger.
Then shortly afterwards the shots started.

Guardian:

Estaban Volkov, Leon Trotsky’s grandson.

Esteban Volkov:

There was the smell of powder.
I threw myself to the floor and covered myself with a blanket in the corner.
They shot up my bed too, six or seven bullets in the middle of it.
Fortunately I was covered and only got a scratch.
They fired from three angles. From the garden window, my bedroom and the office.
With a Thompson machine gun.
Well we knew, grandfather knew, that it would happen again soon.
Each morning he would say to [his wife] Natalia, ‘They’ve given us one more day of life.’
The problem is the fight against imperialism. The attempt  to dominate all these countries.
To take away their natural resources.
We’re seeing that now in Iraq, the second biggest oil producer in the world.
Where’s all that going?
Trotsky was a key player in these historical events.
He documented every detail of his experience leaving an immense political arsenal.
He dedicated 40 years of his life to the cause of socialism.
He first prepared the revolution with Lenin and then he made it happen.
In the aftermath of the revolution and Stalin’s bureaucracy he fought the reaction against it and brought the movement back to life.
And it was in that struggle that he died.
Stalin hadn’t lost his obsession for annihilating and killing.

Guardian:

On 20 August 1940 Trotsky was in his study when he was attacked with an ice pick.
His assassin was a Stalinst agent who had infiltrated Trotsky’s inner circle.
Trotsky died in hospital the next day.

Esteban Volkov:

I went through the door and saw the young bodyguard Harold Robbins.
He was very upset and had his pistol in his hand.
I walked towards the house and saw a man who was bleeding, being restrained by the police.
I didn’t recognise him then.
And later when I walked into the library I saw my grandfather injured on the ground.

He managed to say to the secretaries who were around him that they should keep me far away that I shouldn’t see the scene. And he also said when the guard was beating up the man who attacked him not to kill him. That he should talk. 

The belief he had in himself was so impressive.
His confidence was contagious.
Marxism remains the most precise theory for understanding historical processes.
I hope something better comes along, but it hasn’t yet.
We’re seeing that capitalism is a complete disaster.
It is unable to solve humanity’s problems. Quite the contrary.
Every day there is more chaos, more misery. No, it’s really an obsolete system.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/19/trotsky-last-day-by-grandson?intcmp=239
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Review: Left Forum 2012


This year’s edition of the Left Forum, the annual New York conference for the exchange of left wing ideas, achieved record attendance numbers.  Over 4,500 participants were registered for the event, far surpassing previous years.  The conference, which had its first outing in 1965, (it was then called the Socialist Scholar’s Conference), has long since outgrown its origins as a scholarly venue for radical and New Left professors to present their views.  The 2012 Left Forum, which was hosted at Pace University in New York on March 16-18, boasted more than 400 panels and several higher profile plenary sessions featuring a number of semi-celebrities on the left. Included in the lineup of stars were Cornell West, Chris Hedges, Barbara  Ehrenreich, Frances Fox Piven, Stanley Arronowitz and Rick Wolf among others.  There was also a talk by one genuine celebrity, the left-wing film maker Michael Moore, on Saturday night.  [1]

The permanent-revolution web site had initially scheduled its own panel at this year’s Left Forum to follow up the highly successful panel we hosted last year.  However, personal difficulties intervened this year and we had to limit our participation to that of attending several panels and being careful observers of the overall event.  

Although one can still find a number of “theoretical” panels among the 400 that were listed in the program guide, the bulk of the panels were oriented toward activists.  The theme this year was naturally the Occupy Wall Street movement and many of the participants were either active in OWS or were inspired by it.  This is evident in some of the panel descriptions: “Occupy Research – Research by and for the Movement” or, “Occupy Outside Metropolis: Small-Town and Rural Occupations”. There were dozens of other panels with similar titles.  In addition to the more activist-oriented panels, there were also a number of panels in which radical academics tried to engage with the Occupy movement.  One such panel had the title, “How Should Left Theory Respond to the New Movements?”.  Judging from the lineup of participants in this panel, Richard Wolin, Simon Critchley and Stephen Eric Bronner among others, this one promised to be a series of reflections on the Occupy movement from the vantage point of critical theory loosely inspired by the Frankfurt School.  (As I did not attend this panel I cannot report on its proceedings.)

In  contrast to Left Forum’s of previous years, the older generation of academics and radicals that have been a staple of the this conference were outnumbered by a new generation of young people who came to the conference looking for  ideas  to take back with them and inform their struggles. One should not conclude however that the large contingent  of college age participants were simply looking for practical tips in how to organize their individual struggles.  While the anti-intellectualism that is a common staple of radical politics in the U.S. was certainly evident in many panels and a number of contributions, there was also a healthy curiosity on the part of the newer participants who were eager to inform their practice with something more than practical suggestions. At least some of them exhibited what can only be described as a genuine hunger for theory.  And while it would be difficult to obtain a systematic theoretical outlook from anything happening at the Left Forum given its eclectic mixture of viewpoints and theorists, there is no question that the desire was there. Some of the most weighty philosophical and theoretical panels were filled to capacity with younger participants.

The more  overtly political panels were heavily weighted toward a social democratic, left reformist outlook.  This was doubtless no accident as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are the chief organizers of the Left Forum.  Which is not to say that other  points of view were absent.  Aside from the DSA, a number of other political groups participated, including the Stalinist Communist Party U.S.A., the Maoist cult known as the Revolutionary Communist Party, the International Socialist Organization, and the Green Party.

Some political groups chose not to participate officially in the conference or even have an official literature table, but set up informal tables outside the conference or gave out flyers promoting their events.  It is hard to understand why any political group on the left that was serious about winning over the new generation of young people who have been inspired by the Occupy movement would pass up the opportunity to present their views to such a large audience or even pay the modest fee to have a literature table. One of the groups that abstained from the conference was the Socialist Equality Party.  They did however manage to send two supporters one afternoon to distribute leaflets promoting a polemic written by their long-time leader, David North. The polemic is a response to the falsifications of a recent biography of Trotsky by Robert Service.  And indeed Service’s biography does contain a number of crude falsifications.   But other than this extremely modest “intervention”, the SEP was nowhere to be seen at this year’s Left Forum.[2] (Curiously enough in one panel I attended I heard the Marxist scholar Kevin Anderson make some disparaging remarks about this flyer. Anderson objected to the attack on Service and felt that any biography of Trotsky, no matter what its perspective, should be welcome because it encourages public discussion about Trotsky and his legacy.  I replied by saying that having different interpretations of Trotsky is one thing but outright falsification of his life is quite another and the latter should always be exposed.  The falsification of history, far from advancing an open dialogue, only serves to poison the atmosphere.)  

In addition to those panels officially sponsored by political groups, there were a number of non-affiliated panels exploring different political perspectives.  There were more than a few panels from an identity politics perspective: most notably radical feminism and Black Nationalism. Also present were a number of issue oriented panels championed by environmentalists, social justice activists, civil libertarians, political prisoner advocates, housing and health care advocates, union organizers, radical educators, etc.  Added to this lineup were a number of panels of an anarchist leaning, not surprising given the prominence of anarchist ideas among Occupy Wall Street activists.  Finally there were several panels from a broadly conceived Marxist tradition, a few of them quite good.  I will comment about those panels shortly.

Solidly within the left reformist perspective was one panel I attended titled  “The Left in Crisis Today”, featuring Leo Panitch, Bill Fletcher Jr. and Rick Wolff among others.  This panel tried to address the question of what the traditional “left” can say to the new generation  coming into struggle against capitalism whether it is in Tahrir Square in Egypt or Zuccotti Park in New York.  This is clearly a topic worthy of considerable discussion.  However anyone looking for answers to this question would not find it here.  Of all the speakers, Leo Panitch,  whom I would describe as a left social democrat, gave the most radical response.  He said that capitalism is the problem and the left should not be invested in looking for nostrums to patch up capitalism but instead should focus on moving beyond it to socialism.  So far so good.   However, he could not connect this thought to anything specific.  Nor did he provide an adequate historical context in explaining why the left has continuously gotten trapped in the pursuit of band aid solution over and over and lost sight of the goal of socialism. He did correctly bring out the role of Stalinism in discrediting the idea of socialism in the minds of millions.   His talk included a fully justified critique of the notion, popularized by John Holloway and now prominent among Occupy Wall Street activists, that you can change the world without taking power. [3] Panitch also insisted that if movements like Occupy are to have any lasting effect then they must congeal into a coherent political institution. But that is as far as he got. While sounding very left and even claiming to support the cause of socialist revolution, Panitch never explained exactly what kind of political structure is required to bring us from where we are now to the socialist future of mankind.  The need for a revolutionary party guided by Marxist theory never came up in his talk.  The very subject seems to be anathema at the Left Forum (with the exception of the political groups who showed up and proclaimed that they and they alone are the revolutionary party.) One would think that given the unbroken string of failures of revolution after revolution, most recently witnessed in the hijacking of the Egyptian revolution by conservative Islamist forces,  that it might be time to revisit the question posed by Lenin in his ‘What is to be Done?’  But the antipathy to the heritage of Marxism and Bolshevism continues to dominate discussion in this forum. One suspects that had Panitch raised this question - a highly unlikely prospect - it might have embarrassed some of his friends in the academic and left political circles in Canada where he is based.  

Another speaker at this panel was the Marxist economist Rick Wolff.  Professor Wolff has recently broken out of the academic scene and become something of a celebrity, launching his own nationally syndicated radio program and lecturing to the Occupy Wall Street activists in Zuccotti Park  on the topic of Marxist economics. However Wolff’s interpretation of Marxist economics seems to have more in common with John Maynard Keynes than with Karl  Marx.  [4] In his talk at the Left Forum, following on the same theme he discussed in his teach-in at Zuccotti Park in November, Wolff emphasized the need for workers “self-management” of the factories.  Now there is nothing wrong with raising the slogan of workers’ self-management of factories as part of a series of demands aimed at the social ownership of the means of production.  But Wolff specifically counterpoises the demand for worker management of factories to the demand for worker ownership.  Wolff in fact derides the idea that workers should own their factories as just another reproduction of the same capitalist social relations that we already have.  And if ownership is conceived within the framework of capitalist social relations then there is some truth to this. In that case “ownership” merely signifies that workers assume responsibility for running a capitalist enterprise and take up all the obligations involved in ensuring that it turns a profit. If the enterprise is deeply in debt to begin with - and it is only under those circumstances that we have seen the transfer of ownership of an enterprise to their workers sanctioned by the state - then all that has happened is that the workers have inherited the debts of their former bosses and will be forced to institute the same ruthless exploitation of the work force in order to pay off those debts. [5] The fact that the workers have become their own exploiters does not change the essential social relations of capitalism.  However, raising the issue of social ownership of the means of production as part of the struggle for socialism is entirely different than workers assuming ownership of a capitalist enterprise.     By failing to make this distinction Wolff’s championing of workers self-management turns out to be a chimera and leads him right back to a blind alley similar to the illusion of “workers ownership” of  capitalist enterprises that he derides. In this context workers “self-management” becomes little more than a plea for workers getting a better deal within the framework of capitalist social relations, despite his protestations that the problem is indeed the existence of capitalism. 

Of the more theoretically oriented panels that I attended, the most notable were two panels exploring Marxist economic theory, “David Harvey and Capitalist Accumulation”, which presented several critiques of the well known Marxist economist David Harvey, and “Roundtable on Andrew Kliman’s  ‘The Failure of Capitalist Production: Underlying Causes of the Great Recession’”, which focused on reactions to the important new book by Andrew Kliman.    Both the videos of the panels and the texts of the papers presented are now available. [6]  Readers can judge for themselves the intellectual seriousness of these panels.  Suffice it to say that both the critique of Harvey as well as Kliman’s book, “The Failure of Capitalist Production”, are milestones in the restoration of a genuine Marxist understanding of the crisis of capitalism,  one that has to be rescued from decades of distortions by Stalinists, underconsumptionists, and all manner of academic “creative” interpretations. 

I was impressed by Cooney’s analytical deconstruction of Harvey’s theories.  Kliman’s talk focused not so much on the details of Harvey’s analysis but on the trend in academic Marxist economic theory that Harvey represents – what he calls “That 70’s Show” -  and more importantly the conditions that gave rise to those destructive trends.  Kliman convincingly argues that if Marxism is indeed a science then the development of Marxist theory must be taken out of the halls of academia.  As long as the advancement of Marxist theory is tied to the institutions of academia, it is no longer an autonomous scientific practice in the Kuhnian sense of the term, but is prone to the distortions of careerism and self promotion.    We can certainly concur with Kliman’s indictment of academia as institutionally ill-suited for the development of Marxism as a scientific theory. What Kliman proposes as an alternative is however somewhat problematic.  He presents a plea for something akin to a “Republic of Letters” for Marxist theorists where disinterested and unbiased scholarship is encouraged and the validity of any theory must be ultimately justified by its ability to explain the phenomena.  He writes,

“Marxian scholarship needs to greatly reduce its dependence upon the resources of academia. Intellectual autonomous zones need to be created.”


It’s a sentiment with which I can sympathize.  But where are these “autonomous zones” supposed to be? In prior generations the advancement of Marxist theory was tied to the development of Marxism as a living force in the political struggles of the working class.  In those days the Marxist movement itself provided the institutional framework for the development of Marxist theory. There was a certain space created for “autonomous zones” for scholars and intellectuals within the context of a very partisan struggle. But that institutional structure disappeared decades ago, or to be more precise turned into its opposite. Far from being a laboratory for the development of Marxist  theory the parties claiming the mantle of Marxism became a source of anti-Marxism. The degeneration of those movements, whether it was the transformation of Social Democracy into a pillar of the capitalist state, or the liquidation of Bolshevism by the Stalinist bureaucracy, resulted in the destruction of any “autonomous zones” and the transformation of party intellectuals into apologists for a  reactionary bureaucracy.  In the case of Stalinism we also witnessed the physical liquidation of an entire generation of Marxist intellectuals. Furthermore, the betrayals of Social Democracy and Stalinism in the past century created a rupture between Marxism and the working class.   The isolation of the Marxist movement from political life provided the impetus for the rise of academic Marxism in the first place.  But the modern university is a bourgeois institution and, especially in the 21st century when the demands of big business override purely “educational” concerns, it is inherently hostile to Marxism.  Yet  the overcoming of this sad legacy of academic Marxism cannot proceed in a vacuum.  Hoping for the creation of “autonomous zones” without  a firm foundation smacks of wishful thinking.   It is possible to work under adverse circumstances and individuals can still make notable contributions today - even within the groves of academia - but a generalized renewal of Marxist theory is an institutional problem.  It is not conceivable outside of a renewal of Marxism as a vital political force in the working class. 

And for all of the contributions at the Left Forum, some quite stimulating, the development of Marxism as a viable revolutionary movement is the one question that is not even raised let alone answered. 

Alex Steiner

[1] A video of Michael Moore’s talk is available online at http://www.leftforum.org/content/michael-moore-left-forum-2012 .
[2]  For an account of the SEP’s “intervention” at the permanent-revolution panel at last year’s Left Forum see the essay, “Insults and Intimidation: An SEP ‘intervention’ at the Left Forum”, http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2011/03/insults-and-intimidation-sep.html  
[3] John Holloway wrote an influential book a number of years ago with the very title: “Change the World Without Taking Power”.  His talk at the Left Forum is available online at http://www.leftforum.org/content/john-holloway-left-forum-closing-plenary
[4] A good deconstruction of what Wolff calls going “beyond capitalism” can be found here:

[5]  The best known example of this phenomenon is the fábricas recuperadas movement in Argentina, where the bankrupt owners of a number of enterprises literally walked away from their property – and their debts – allowing the workers to take them over and run them as worker-owned cooperatives.  
[6] The videos and texts are available on the web site of the sponsoring organization, The Marxist Humanist Initiative, http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economic-crisis/mhi-panels-at-left-forum-2012-on-harveys-and-kliman%E2%80%99s-books.html

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[Turkish] New York Belediye Başkanı Wall Street’i İşgal Et protestocularını zorla tahliye etti

New York Şehri Polisi dün gece Wall Street’i İşgal Et protestocularının kamp yerine baskın düzenledi ve 17 Eylül’den beri orada bulunan protestocuları zor kullanarak tahliye etti. Polis yetkilileri tarafından dikkatli bir biçimde koordine edilmiş bir saldırı olduğu kabul edilen ve Beyaz Saray’ın talimatıyla girişildiğinden kuşku duyulmaması gereken bu saldırı, Oakland’ı İşgal Et protestocularının zorla tahliye edilmelerinden bir gün sonra gerçekleştirildi. Ne var ki, protestocular yanlarında, NYPT’nin [New York Polis Teşkilatı] gece yarısı gerçekleştirdiği, dikkatle planlanmış olduğu anlaşılan baskın sırasında el koyduğu ve kasıtlı olarak tahrip ettiği çadırları ve eşyaları olmadığı halde, bugün (15 Kasım) öğleden sonra Zuccotti Parkı’na geri döndüler.


Polise bağıran bir protestocu
 Zuccotti Parkı’ndaki manzara ilk elde hem gergin hem de umut vericiydi. Protestocular kamp yerlerini kaybettikleri için demoralize olmamışlardı. Ortaya çıkan yeni koşullar altında görevlerini sürdürebilmeleri için kendi yönetim organlarını yeniden şekillendirerek, sahip oldukları yaratıcılık ve örgütlenme kapasitesini bir kez daha gösterdiler. Mutfak, bu kez Trinity Kilisesi mezarlığının önüne park etmiş olan bir kamyonun kasasında, yeniden faaliyete geçmiş durumda. Geceleri yatacak bir yere ihtiyacı olan yüzlerce insan için kalabilecekleri evler ayarlandı. Kalınacak yerlerin çoğu protestolara sempati duyan New Yorkluların protestoculara evlerini açmalarıyla sağlandı ancak diğer şehirlerde bulunan diğer kamp yerlerine gitmiş olan bazı protestocular da olabilir. Kamp yeri Zuccotti Parkı’nda ya da başka bir yerde yeniden kurulacak olsa da olmasa da, protestocular eylemlerinden vazgeçmiyorlar. Konuşmacılardan birinin yaptığı bir açıklama, protestocuların verdikleri mücadeleyi, Manhattan’ın merkezinde yer alan, sembol niteliği kazanmış bir kamp yerinin ötesine geçen bir mücadele olarak gördüklerini açıkça ortaya koyuyordu:

“Böyle bir hareket zor kullanılarak tahliye edilemez. Bazı politikacılar bizi kamusal alanlardan –kendi alanlarımızdan- fiziksel olarak çıkarabilirler ve fiziksel olarak, başarılı olabilirler. Ancak biz bir fikir savaşımı yürütüyoruz. Biz, siyasi yapılarımızın bize, halka, sadece elinde büyük servet ve güç toplamış olanlara değil, hepimize hizmet etmesi gerektiğini düşünüyoruz. Kongre, Wall Street’e göbekten bağlı olduğu için, komşularımızın evlerinden ve yüreklerinden dökülen güçlü öyküleri, yaşanan amansız ekonomik sıkıntı öykülerini göz ardı ettiği için, bu düşüncenin birçoğumuzda karşılık bulduğuna inanıyoruz. Bizim, içinde önem taşıdığımız bir demokrasi rüyamız var ve işte bu nedenle, bu kadar çok sayıda insan kendisini Wall Street’i İşgal Et ve %99 hareketiyle özdeşleştiriyor.”


Protestocular Zuccotti Parkı’ndan çıkarıldıktan sonra New York Polisiyle çatıştılar Fotoğraf: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Bu gece, Zuccotti Parkı’nda yapılan genel toplantı, son zamanlarda yapılmış olan daha önceki toplantılardan çok daha kalabalıktı. Tahminime göre katılımcı sayısı 1000 ila 3000 kişi arasında değişiyordu. Belediye Başkanı Bloomberg’in giriştiği tahliye operasyonunun ironik bir sonucu, artık çadırlar kaldırılmış olduğundan meydanda halka açık bir toplantı düzenlemek için çok geniş bir alanın açılmış olmasıydı. Genel toplantıda, 17 Kasım Perşembe günü, Wall Street’i İşgal Et’in ortaya çıkışının ikinci ayında, New York Menkul Kıymetler Borsası önünde kitlesel bir yürüyüş düzenlenmesi kararı alındı.

Bugünkü toplantı, meydan birçoğu kask takmış olan yüzlerce polis tarafından kuşatılmış olduğu halde gerçekleştirildi. Meydan aynı zamanda bariyerlerle de çevrilmişti ve böylece polis protestocuların geçmelerine izin verilen tek giriş noktasını yakından izleyebiliyordu. Onlarca polis minibüsü ve naklen yayın aracı meydanı çepeçevre sarmıştı.

Hem bugün hem de daha önceki seferlerde dikkatimi çeken tuhaf bir durum, meydanda neredeyse hiç bir sol grubun yer almıyor olmasıydı. Hiç kuşkusuz sol gruplara üye olan kimi insanlar tekil bireyler ve bazen de internet “gazetecileri” olarak orada bulunuyorlardı ama bu gruplar eylemlerde örgütlü varlıklarıyla hemen hemen hiç yer almadılar. Meydanda, Birleşik Krallık’ta müteveffa Ted Grant’in önderliğini yaptığı, eski adıyla “Militan” grubunun farklı hiziplerini temsil eden iki küçük grubun yayın stantlarını gördüm. Wall Street’i İşgal Et protestocularının saflarında kendi düşünceleriyle mücadele vermek isteyen sosyalist bir siyasi hareketin burada en azından bir yayın standı açmasını beklenirdi. Ancak SWP [Sosyalist İşçi Partisi], Spartakist ya da Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi gibi gruplar eylem alanında yoktular.

% 99 düşüncesi Amerika'nın popülist ve radikal geleneklerinden kaynaklanmaktadır. Ancak Marksist ve sosyalist bir geleneğin en azından iki kuşaktır var olmadığı ve emek hareketinin içinde bulunduğu uyuşukluk hali göz önüne alındığında, %99 düşüncesinin, muğlâk olarak formüle edilmiş bir biçimde de olsa, işçi sınıfının yerini tutan bir ilk adım olarak eklemlendiriliyor olmasının kaçınılmaz bir durum olduğu görülecektir. Bununla birlikte, toplumsal eşitsizliğe karşı oluşmuş olan yaygın duyarlılığın hareket tarafından eklemlenmiş olması, Amerika’nın siyasi yaşamında ileriye doğru atılmış önemli bir adımı temsil etmektedir. Bu, Amerika’nın bir toplum olarak Avrupa’nın daha yaşlı ülkelerinin sınıf sistemlerinden kaçınabildiği ve herhangi bir insanın çok çalışması ve gerekli enerjiyi göstermesi durumunda bir sonraki Warren Buffet olabileceği efsanesine kesin olarak bir son verildiği anlamına gelmektedir. Wall Street’i İşgal Et hareketiyle ilgili dikkat çekici husus, önderlerinin açıkça sergiledikleri tüm siyasi kafa karışıklığına rağmen, hareketin bizzat kapitalizmi siyasi söylemin gündemine yerleştirmiş olmasıdır. İdeolojik aygıtın ve devlet aygıtının bu sorunu gündem dışında tutabilmek için on yıllardır çok yoğun bir biçimde çaba gösterdiği dikkate alındığında, bunun küçük bir başarı olmadığı görülecektir. Aniden, 1960’lardan bu yana görülmeyen bir biçimde, alternatif bir ekonomik sistemin üzerinde düşünülmesine yönelik bir açıklık ortaya çıktı.

Hareket, şu anki haliyle, kökten toplumsal değişimi tetikleyebilmekten hâlâ uzaktır. Bunun olabilmesi, işçi sınıfının siyaset sahnesine çıkmasını ve siyaseti kapitalizmin sınırları içinde hapseden iki partili sistemden bir kopuşun yaşanmasını gerektirecektir. Bu, aynı zamanda sosyalist politikaların bilinçli bir biçimde eklemlenmesini ve devrimci bir önderliğin geliştirilmesini de gerektirecektir –ki bu, Wall Street’i İşgal Et’in anarşist kafa yapısına sahip önderliği için, hâlihazırda nefret edilen bir şeydir. Bununla birlikte, bunlar çoğunlukla kendi politik bakış açılarını hâlâ geliştirmekte olan genç insanlar. Biz Marksistler, bu insanlarla aramızda ne türden farklılıklar olursa olsun, onları çeşitli sol ve liberal örgütlerde yer alan profesyonel siyaset erbabıyla ve kiniklerle aynı kefeye koymayız. Bu bağlamda akla, gerek Nation Dergisi ve Moveon.org gibi gruplar gerekse de UAW [Birleşik Otomobil İşçileri Sendikası] gibi sendikaların bürokratları geliyor. Kısacası, bu harekette gördüğümüz sadece bir başlangıçtır, ama bu başlangıç daha şimdiden milyonlarca insanın hayal gücünü harekete geçirmiştir ve yaygınlaşma ve siyasi olarak olgunlaşma kapasitesine sahiptir.

Alex Steiner, 16 Kasım 2011
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New York Mayor evicts Occupy Wall Street protesters

Send to Printer, PDF or Email The New York City Police raided the Occupy Wall Street encampment last night and evicted the protesters who had been there since Sept 17. This followed by one day the eviction of protesters at Occupy Oakland in what was acknowledged by police officials as a carefully coordinated assault undoubtedly stemming from the White House. But by this afternoon (Nov 15) the protesters were back at Zuccotti Park, though without their tents or their property, which had been confiscated and wantonly destroyed by the NYPD during their carefully planned raid in the middle of the night.


Protester shouting at police



The scene at Zuccotti Park was at once both tense and hopeful. The protesters were not demoralized by the loss of their encampment. They have once again shown their capacity for inventiveness and organization by reconfiguring their governing bodies so that they could continue their functions under the new circumstances. The kitchen was back in operation, this time from the back of a truck parked in front of the Trinity Church cemetery two blocks south on Broadway. Housing arrangement were being made for hundreds who need a place to sleep for the night. Most of the housing arrangements are in the homes of sympathetic New Yorkers but some might be going to other encampments in other cities. Whether the encampment reemerges at Zuccotti Park or elsewhere, the protesters are not going away. A statement from one of the speakers made it clear that they see their struggle as transcending the immediate symbol of an encampment in downtown Manhattan:



“Such a movement cannot be evicted. Some politicians may physically remove us from public spaces – our spaces – and, physically, they may succeed. But we are engaged in a battle over ideas. Our idea is that our political structures should serve us, the people – all of us, not just those who have amassed great wealth and power. We believe this idea resonates with so many of us because Congress, beholden to Wall Street, has ignored the powerful stories pouring out from the homes and hearts of our neighbors, stories of unrelenting economic suffering. Our dream for a democracy in which we matter is why so many people have come to identify with Occupy Wall Street and the 99% movement.”


Protesters clash with New York Police after being removed from Zuccotti Park Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters


The General Assembly at Zuccotti Park tonight was much larger than recent ones. I would estimate the crowd at between 1000 – 3000 people. One ironic outcome of Mayor Bloomberg’s eviction is that now that tents are gone there is plenty of space for holding a public meeting in this square. The General Assembly resolved to stage a massive march on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, Nov 17, the two month anniversary of the start of Occupy Wall Street.

Today’s meeting took place as the square was surrounded by hundreds of police, many of them wearing riot helmets. It was also barricaded so that the police could closely monitor the one entrance point protesters were allowed to pass through. Dozens of police vans and news trucks surrounded the square.

One curious fact that I noticed both today and on previous occasions is the almost complete absence of any of the left groups. To be sure some of them are there as individuals and occasionally as Internet "journalists",  but they hardly ever have any sort of organized presence. I did see literature tables from two small groups representing different factions of what used to be the “Militant” group in the UK, lead by the late Ted Grant. One would think that if a socialist political movement was interested in battling over its ideas among the Occupy Wall Street protesters it would have at least set up a literature table.  But groups like the SWP, Spartacist, or the Socialist Equality Party are nowhere to be found.

The idea of the 99% comes out of America’s populist and radical traditions. But given the absence for at least two generations of a tradition of Marxism and socialism, and the quiesence of the labor movement, it was all but inevitable that the idea of the 99% would be articulated as an initial, if vaguely formulated stand in for the working class. Nevertheless the articulation of widespread sentiment against social inequality marks an important step forward in the American political psyche. It means that the myth of America as a society that has escaped the class systems of the older countries of Europe, and where anyone, as long as they apply themselves with hard work and energy, can become the next Warren Buffet, is once and for all put to pasture. The remarkable thing about the Occupy Wall Street movement is that despite all the political confusion its leaders evince, it has placed capitalism itself on the agenda of political discourse. That is no small accomplishment considering that the full weight of the ideological and state apparatus has worked overtime for decades to keep that question off the agenda. Suddenly there is an openness to a consideration of an alternative economic system the likes of which have not been seen since the 1960s.

The movement as it stands now is still far from being able to induce fundamental social change. That will require the entry of the working class onto the political stage and a break from the two party system that has trapped politics within the confines of capitalism. It will also require the conscious articulation of socialist policies and the development of a revolutionary leadership, something that is currently anathema to the anarchist-minded leadership of Occupy Wall Street. However, these are mostly young people who are still developing their political outlook. Whatever differences we Marxists have with them, we do not place them in the same camp as the professional political operatives and cynics who populate various left and liberal organizations. Outfits like the Nation Magazine and Moveon.org as well as the bureaucrats of unions like the UAW come to mind in this context. In short, what we have in this movement is just a beginning, but one that has already captured the imagination of millions and has the capacity to spread and mature politically.

The following are interviews at Occupy Wall Street that I conducted this past Saturday, prior to the eviction.

Alex Steiner, Nov. 16, 2011 







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