Fri Mar 29, 2024
March 29, 2024

The Resistance of the Mass Movement

 
To fully analyze the situation of the United States, beyond the rift between the different bourgeois sectors, we must refer to the incipient resistance of the mass movements that are fighting against Trump. A resistance that began with major demonstrations in several important cities of the country (even the same day of the elections’ results) under the slogan of “Not My President”.
By Alejandro Iturbe.
 
The process continued with multiple rallies on the day he took office, and specially the “Women’s March”, which gathered 500.000 people in Washington (DC) and several millions across the country. Some analysts estimate that, as a whole, it was the largest demonstration in the history of the United States. Afterwards, another important fact was the rallies, to airports, against the “Muslim Ban”, which objectively ended with a victory, forcing the government to retreat.
We are seeing unprecedented facts in the history of the country: large demonstrations against a government which has just taken off. We do not want to exaggerate as the next months will reveal the dynamics more exactly. However, it is possible that we are witnessing the first steps of a great mass movement ascent in the United States.
This ascent has deep objective roots: the constant decline, over the last decades, of the life conditions of both the working class and the masses. Hence, the end of the “American Dream”. This objective process corrodes the subjective base and modifies the conscience of the masses that sustained the bourgeois regime. One of the expressions of this process was the Occupy movement and its criticism towards the system that defends the interests of the “wealthiest 1%”. Another one is the crisis that affects both parties of the imperialist bourgeoisie (although with different rhythms).
An objective and subjective element that had already had some incipient expressions over the last years, such as the rebellion of public workers in the state of Wisconsin, in 2010; the Occupy movement, in 2011 (which deeply impacted the youth); the actions of the immigrant movement against deportations; the campaign of the “15 dollars per hour”, which moved (possibly for the first time in an organized way) the most exploited sectors of the working class and, very meaningfully, the wave of Black and Latin struggles against police brutality and murders – process that makes a leap with Ferguson, in 2014, with violent battles against police and repression. There are also the struggles in defense of public education in many states and cities.
Far from ending or mitigating the regime´s elements of crisis and slow down the dynamic of mass mobilization, Trump´s elections seems to have magnified it. For many segments, his policies and measures are –fairly– perceived as attacks to the democratic rights and freedom, so valued by the U.S. people.
The Weak Points of the Ascent
As Lenin did, we believe that the inter-bourgeois fissures can nurture and strengthen the incipient mass ascent. At the same time, we think we should not “fall” for this moment of the process, but we should instead analyze its weaknesses – especially those than can limit or revert it.
The main weakness is that, at least on the last demonstrations, it is basically a popular process of the youth and middle-class segments (with a strong presence of civil rights organizations), without the organized presence of the working class (except for the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, the Oakland-San Francisco longshore and warehouse union, and the Labor Rising Against Trump collective).
The essential reason for this is the role and policy of union bureaucracies. Nearly all its sectors supported and financed the bourgeois candidacy of Hillary Clinton. However, the reactionary leadership of the AFL-CIO1 is now praising the measures of the government. After a meeting with Trump, Rich Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, said that the withdrawal of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is “a good first step toward building trade policies that benefit workers.” James Hoffa, of the legendary Teamsters Union, said something similar. They do it based on the expectations that Trump’s promises have generated among an important segment of impoverished white workers who voted for him. Another group of union leaders ( public workers, teachers and services) will hardly support Trump, but so far, in the recent demonstration, their actions are a light “thank you but I don’t smoke.”[1]
We should not expect AFL-CIO to encourage the working class to join the ascent in an organized way, rather the complete opposite However, what will happen to its rank and file when Trump starts implementing his anti-worker policies?; when the announced tax raise on imported products starts increasing prices?; when the cut of taxes, to corporations, starts expressing through a higher decline of public services?; and when, at the same time, wages devaluate? Also, how much longer can public workers’ and private services’ union leaderships remain passive before the government’s attacks?
Furthermore, there is another attack on workers and unions: the bill presented by the Republicans, on the Congress, known as Right-To-Work, which aims to weakening and dividing the bases of the unions, their fighting strength, and the capacity for self-funding. What will the union leaderships do when faced with this attack?
Thus, a contradiction will open between the interests and needs of these worker bases and the politics of the leaderships. As shown by Erek Slater (leader of the Chicago public transport union) is his article for the International Courier 16: “… the current official labor leaders in the United States are currently not willing to organize and unleash the self-activity and militancy of the working class. This tension between the ineffective strategies of labor officials and the burning needs of workers has created a crisis within the labor movement that has partly burst out in the Fight for 15.”
The resolution of this contradiction, between workers’ objective needs and the policies of most union leaders (with a series of possible hypotheses), will be determined, on one hand, by whether the working class joins the ascent or not (and how strongly), and, on the other hand, by whether the ascent grows and strengthens. Or, on the contrary, if the possibilities of fighting and defeating Trump diminish.
The Other Components of the Ascent
The Black community, and the youth, were protagonists of important struggles during Obama´s administration, especially from Ferguson onwards. The objective basis for these struggles is very deep. It comes from the deeply entrenched racism of US capitalism, the permanent discrimination, and the poverty and squalor they suffer. It fights the persecution, the judicial-police repression, and the police murders, which almost always go unpunished. What has emerged from these struggles is the BLM – Black Lives Matter movement, which was advancing in a very progressive splitting path with the Democratic Party.
However, in the “Not My President” demonstrations, the presence of the Black youth, although important, was no longer organized or centralized. In the struggle against the Muslim Ban, its presence was very frail. A very important factor, for it, was that BLM did not call for participating in them. The movement seems to have said, in practice, that “ that is not our problem.” If so, it is a very serious mistake because the widest unity and solidarity, between all exploited and oppressed, is needed to fight Trump and the bourgeoisie. It is quite possible that this absence reflects the political pressure of certain bourgeois sectors (such as George Soros2 or Google), that with money on hand, attempt to buy this leadership and bring it out of the struggles towards the path of “NGOzation.” Hence, it adopts parliamentary pressure as its modus operandi.
It is very difficult that the objective situation, of the Black community, that fed its raise and struggle, will change with Trump. On the contrary, more attacks can be expected and, with them, the need to struggle will increase. What will happen with BLM’s leadership in this possible situation that contradicts its current dynamics? Will it continue turning to the right and confronting its base or will it give a step back in its adaptation to the system? Another possible alternative is for this leadership to split in front of the pressure by the rank and file. This is another one of the questions that the relatively immediate future will have to respond to determine the dynamics of the ascent.
Another element to be analyzed is the situation of immigrants: 12 million, out of 42 million, are undocumented. The main sector of immigrants is Latin American (specifically, Mexicans), but there are also other communities, such as Muslims. Many of them are part of the most exploited segments of the class, like agrarian workers and those in the lower positions of public services. Undocumented immigrants are persecuted by the Migra, and many of them are imprisoned and then deported. Let’s remember that during Obama’s governments the number of deportations reached a record. Undocumented also suffer repression by the judicial-police system.
During the previous years, there were significant demonstrations against deportation of undocumented immigrants (a very important one was the strike under the slogan “a day without immigrants”). They were also part of an active struggle for the US$15 minimum wage. The major contradiction for this sector is also its leadership. Most organizations have high influence of cadres, linked to the Democratic Party, that seek to deviate the struggle to “paper for all” and against deportations to the tied “legal path” (which divides immigrants in “eligible” and “non-eligible” to be legalized) and to mere “humanitarian aid.”
But, again, Trump´s policies aggravate the objective conditions by pushing the struggle through his plan of massively expelling undocumented immigrants, together with the construction of the despicable wall in Mexico’s border and the Muslim Ban. Here, the possibility of the ascent to feed from this reality and those attacks is to be expected (it happened already, with the Muslim Ban), as this could generate a strong contradiction with the conciliatory leaderships.
Finally, in the most recent period, women’s struggle came strongly into scene. It is enough to look at the effect of the Women’s March on Trump’s inauguration. One of the elements pushing this ascent is Trump’s policy of deepening the attacks, which Obama was already implementing, against free abortion, in valid since 1973. It is a real threat to an already conquered right. To this, we need to add the fact that Trump’s image (disgustingly sexist) suggests this might be only the beginning of major attacks. Thus, several middle sectors of women raise the guard and go to struggle.
Will Trump Dispute the Streets?
Before the demonstrations, Trump has responded with an idea always used by reactionary governments: that they express the “silent majorities” that are not mobilizing. For example, in his Twitter, he made contemptuous comments on the great Women’s March: “Why didn’t this people vote?”
He could rely on a recent Reuters’ research reporting 49% of the respondents supporting his Muslim Ban measures, 41% against and 10% undefined. Beyond what the survey shows, it is very possible that the U.S. population is deeply divided, not only on this measure, but on their government.
The problem for Trump is that the segment, opposing him, is going out to the streets of the main and most dynamic cities of the country, while his “half” (based on the smaller cities of the agrarian countryside) is still passive. In fact, there was a reactionary demonstration: the March For Life, carried annually by anti-abortion sectors, on the date that abortion was legalized, in 1973. Around 50,000 people participated, led by the VP Mike Pence, and it received “full support” from Trump.
But the truth is, until now, the government has been losing the “fight for the streets.” It is not by chance that the latest demonstrations, against the Muslim Ban, chanted in several cities: “Who’s streets? Our streets!”
Up until now, Trump has not fought this battle all the way, by organizing its base in reactionary demonstrations (the anti-abortion rally, as we said, is an annual tradition). We saw already that, regarding immigrants, he chose the “judicial” path. Of course, we cannot dismiss the possibility of him fighting for the streets in the future, even more if he sees himself weakening. We cannot dismiss, either, the possibility of him relying on “legal” repression if he gets legislative or judicial support for measures like the Muslim Ban.
In this scenario, of course, there would be a chance that he defeats the mass movement and then, yes, a “reactionary wave” would open. But there is also a chance that, if he boosts reactionary demonstrations and repression, resistance will increase and the situation will polarize so much that it ends up being dangerous to the imperialist bourgeoisie.
The Leadership Matter
We believe that the main weakness of the ascent is the leadership (or leaderships, if you prefer). We are not even talking about a revolutionary leadership, but a leadership that can express and unify the different sectorial processes combined in the ascent. Many independent sectors participated in the rallies against Trump, but also these rallies were, in many cases, encouraged by Democrat leaders and influencing organizations. Other leaderships, like the union bureaucracy, support Trump or do not fight against him.
The Democrats play a double game: underneath, they encourage some demonstrations to wear Trump out and, at the same time, to avoid losing control of the masses. On top, Nina Pelosi (Chief of Democrats in the Congress) had meetings with the Republican leaders to agree on a “legislative agenda.” For those who were moving apart from the Democrats (like BLM), they try to intervene in sectors like Soros or Google, to co-opt them.
We mentioned that there is a chance for Trump’s government to defeat the ascent “through the right”, through reactionary offensive demonstrations or through “legal” repression as well. However, we believe the main immediate danger, for the ascent, is the policy of the Democrat Party. Its cadres are part of the movement (and also bourgeois sectors acting in the same direction), aiming to control, deviate, and split it, as well as to co-opt the new emerging social leaderships (or that can emerge from now on).
This poses, as the main movement tasks, for the revolutionary and leftist organizations, to encourage the diverse components of the ascent and its unification in a broad movement against Trump. As part of this policy, the emerging of new struggle leaderships must be encouraged in each sector as well as the coordination of a national struggle against Trump. A small example of this is the conformation of the platform Labor Raising Against Trump, in San Francisco Bay area. In this direction, it is posed the need of moving forward on the construction of a revolutionary Socialist leadership to pose a definitive alternative to the imperialist capitalism.
In the next article of the series, we will discuss the possible perspectives for the situation and the IWL-FI´s, and its militants, proposals in the U.S. to move forward on the struggle and organization of workers and the masses.
 
Translation: Gabriel Tolstoy / Sofia Ballack.
[1] Common expression in Spanish to evidence a “neutral” position: not accepting, but also not saying anything against.

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