Students for a Democratic Society 2.0

Students for a Democratic Society is re-launching with a meeting scheduled for this summer. Several local groupings of the participatory democratic student organization have popped up over the years, and it now seems there is enough of a critical mass to give it a go on a national level. With a the stark lack of an open, left-wing student federation in the United States, this can't but be a good development.

The parallels with the original SDS are interesting. It was in the early 1960s that Tom Hayden and the founders of SDS saw the insufficiency of the (barely socialist) Soviet Union as a simple liberation template. The general resurgence of resistance in the form of the civil rights/black power movement, anti-colonial revolt and a vibrant youth culture washed right over the walking dead corpse of the Old Left, the CP and state-department socialists alike. In fairly short order, the young radicals learned more than many had bargained for.

What began as a pragmatic, utopian network at elite colleges ripped through the heartland creating a laboratory of revolution. Much, if not most, of the SDS leadership moved into various forms of Marxist-Leninist politics in a historical irony that continues to confound both SDS's most ardent defenders and the now old New Left types such as Todd Gitlin who think the political dramas that played out within SDS define the generation.

SDS was one of the first significant groups to break the McCarthy-era ban on communists. Less inspired by Leninism than disgusted with the political repression of their time, it was a truly courageous "anti-anti-communism." In the years since, with the lack of vital socialist countries allowing international capitalists to set the ideological agenda even on the left, anti-communism is almost genetic among the non-party activists such a formation will initially appeal to. That recognized, the organizers of SDS 2.0 are apparently planning to maintain an open membership, which will allow the group to grow very quickly.

Let's see what the students have to teach us this time around.

Two good reads on first incarnation of SDS are Ron Jacobs' The Way the Wind Blew and Kirkpatrick Sale's SDS, which still ranks as one of the most attuned activist histories I've ever read. It's especially invigorating when read in tandem with Todd Gitlin's take that radicalization was some kind of Oedipal drama. Sale's book brings out the players, the pressures and the ways in which democratic process led to socialist politics (and a bit of loopiness).

---------

What follows is the press release received by Red Flags:

STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY CHAPTERS FORM NATIONAL ORGANIZATION

New York, NY: Several chapters of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) announced today, Monday, January 16, 2006, their intent to form a national organization and hold the first SDS national convention since 1969. "It seemed appropriate to make this announcement today, on the observed Martin Luther King day", said SDS regional organizer Thomas Good.  "We have an anti-war movement that is addressing the issue of stopping the bloodletting in Iraq but the civil rights issue remains unaddressed", he added.  The national convention is scheduled for Summer 2006 and will be preceded by a series of regional conferences occurring on the Memorial Day weekend.

The newly formed SDS national organization was the idea of a student anti-war activist who contacted other student and veteran organizers. Good joined the new SDS when Stonington High School (Connecticut) senior Pat Korte contacted him with the idea of linking nascent SDS chapters into a national structure.

"Although I have been an active participant in the anti-war and student activist movement, I have become frustrated with the groups collective inability to unify enough people under a common goal/vision to address the overall problems with our society.  Historically, SDS was able to
address many of the issues pertinent at the time through Tom Hayden's Port Huron Statement. This document has stood the test of time, thus several fellow activists from across the country and myself decided to form a national SDS movement, only to discover that chapters already exist! Because of this we decided to hold a national conference", said Korte.

At his request, members of Korte's informal network of student activists from across the country began contacting Good and very quickly the informal network was replaced by a national structure that now includes a website, discussion forum and mailing list, all of which are now based at studentsforademocraticsociety.org.

Korte, realizing that the original SDS suffered from not having alot of veteran activists, WHO UNDERSTOOD THE IDEA OF STUDENT POWER, reached out to some older activists, including several members of the 1960s era student organization, to help ground the project and provide logistical support.

The first original SDSer to come on board was Alan Haber, president of SDS 1960-62. Today, Haber speaks of "re-membering SDS" rather than eulogizing it. Never giving up on the Dream, Haber is looking forward to the "the next meeting of SDS".  And the next meeting will be a national event linking any and all SDS chapters interested in taking part.

Today chapters exist at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, at the New School in New York City, at the University of Michigan and at Eastern Michigan University. In the western part of the US chapters that sprang up independently in Santa Ana, California and at Reigs University in Denver, Colorado have signed on to the national organization. Connecting these chapters and their organizers proved less difficult than Korte and Good initially thought.  Technology was the key.

"We should reconnect our networks. We should reassert the continuity of the radical movements in American politics. The new technologies of communication and independent media make this more possible than ever", said SDS founder Alan Haber. Korte and Good took this advice and ran with it.

As the project coalesced, Good, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) contacted labor historian Paul Buhle, co-editor of a graphic history of the IWW ("Wobblies") and former SDSer from the Madison, Wisconsin, chapter.  The timing was right on.  Buhle, who teaches at Brown in Rhode Island, is working on a new project: a graphic (i.e. comic book) history of SDS from the perspective of the individual chapters. Working with artist Gary Dumm, Buhle looks to avoid the usual history of the SDS national office by focusing on the street activists and their local branches.  Buhle is asking that members of the original SDS with stories to tell contact him via e-mail at pbuhle@studentsforademocraticsociety.org.

In addition to the book, Buhle has a personal interest in SDS. Describing himself for a recent article in Next Left Notes he noted: "Founder and publisher of RADICAL AMERICA, Paul Buhle was active in Champaign-Urbana, Storrs and Madison SDS chapters, 1965-1969. He hasn't been all that happy since, but he teaches at Brown."  In the piece on NLN Buhle talks about the historical parallels between the 1960s and the present noting that the US empire is over-extended, liberal Democrats are not the answer to vexing problems and the Port Huron Statement remains as vital today as it was in 1962 when Tom Hayden presented it to the third SDS national convention.

"Today, students of all backgrounds can be shown the need to mobilize, to help prevent the ongoing devastation of our world, to help empower the lowly as students learn to empower themselves, and to set out a vision of a really democratic society.  There's the key. The Industrial Workers of the World had it long before. Decentralized democracy, democratic decision-making at all levels is the most radical idea ever hatched in North America and the only one with real lasting appeal", said Buhle who has joined the new SDS.

The new SDS plans to continue the independent radical tradition in America: political education and demonstrating, advocating and organizing for democracy and justice, unions, civil liberties, peace and freedom.  According to Korte the meetings this spring and summer will focus on building an infrastructure that facilitates these goals as the new SDS, like the old, is an organization of activists.  Friends of peace and justice, those students who want a voice, a say in their own destiny, should visit www.studentsforademocraticsociety.org where regular updates will be posted and contact information is now available.

SDS is an education and social action organization dedicated to increasing democracy in all phases of our common life. It seeks to promote the active participation of young people in the formation of a movement to build a society free from poverty, ignorance, war, exploitation, racism and sexism.

Comments

[Eric Odell]

I dunno. This has been tried a number of times over the years. It's never gone anywhere. A comment on Indymedia referencing Marx's "second time as farce" quote rings too true for comfort.

This time it looks like the effort is largely being pushed by OGs who are hoping to rally the current generation of students. I don't begrudge them the sentiment, but I'm not sure how likely the recipe is to work, even if the conditions somehow turn out to be otherwise correct this time around.

I remember a similar regional effort in the '90s. It was centered around some similar ex-'60s activists in the Albany area, pretty multiracial and female-tilted in their case, who were trying to shepherd a new generation of activists in an area/regional network that they, the oldsters, were holding together.

From what I could see, they were doing just about as good a job as one could expect in such a situation, but there was just something fundamental that was missing. When students aren't in ultimate and complete control of their own organization, even if they're not immediately being held back by the older generation in an obvious way, it seems to deform the political dynamic. The students step into the role of followers, and their leadership capacity, their agency, is never properly developed and expressed. I've seen it a bunch of times in the student movement. The student environmental movement in the '90s also had a series of examples of this.

I haven't seen or thought of any way to avoid this dynamic, beyond keeping older generations in a purely advisory role with a tight leash. I also think trying to mechanically recreate SDS, even if current students try it themselves, is the wrong approach.

[Haven't Been There, Haven't Done That]

Lots of things have been tried before. Parties, movements, sects, religions...

There is a need for student mobilization and from where I'm looking, more groups means more dynamism and opportunity. Too many campuses are a one-trick pony. Or a no-trick pony.

I don't think groups founded on the form (not their politics) will work for all the reasons that SDS didn't. That doesn't mean they won't help turn back the hard-right tide.

[roquedaltonlives]

I wish the best of luck to them; I hope they succeed in creating a national left wing student organization. I unite with "Haven't Been There, Haven't Done That"s sentiment in supporting any effort to better organize the left to fight.

That said, general support is one thing. Particular guidance based on years of experience in the student movement is another, very valuable thing. And that is what I think Eric is getting at -- drawing out some very important lessons learned through deep involvement in the student movement in the 1980s, 90s, etc.

And to me Eric's assessment rings true to my experience in the student movement as well. It's great that they are inspired by the student movement of the 1960s, and want to rebuild the student movement as a viable force. But alot has happened in the student movement in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s. Including, as Eric pointed out, numerous attempts to recreate SDS or something just like it. None of those attempts have gained traction. Basically the Progressive Student Network which lasted from 1980-1994, came the closest to learning the lessons of how to build the student movement and sustain a national student organization through upsurges and downward trends in the student movement. SEAC also has lots of important experience. And like it or not, the ISO has lots of experiences in the 90s and 00s in building the student movement (though I disagree with their overall methodology for doing student work).

So I just wanted to say yes to general support for the folks trying to recreate SDS, while also putting out that there are valuable lessons to learn from the student movement from 1970-2006 that might lead to a different approach than trying to literally re-create SDS.

[Skeptikal]

All wishes of good luck granted, can't these founders see that the radical democratic vision of SDS isn't real? The original SDS couldn't hold it together once it became a mass organization because everyone coming into the room didn't already fundamentally agree.

Process democracy only works when everyone 1) comes from the same background and political culture, and 2) when there are no sharp disagreements.

I'm all for democracy in principle. The devil is just in the details: political organizations tend to form on what they are for, not how they hold meetings... unless having meetings is really what they are for.

[Eric Odell]

Just to clarify/correct my somewhat one-sided post, I strongly agree with other posters that these folks should give it a shot. (Not that any of them are listening to me here.) For one thing, there's so much space in the student movement to try out different things. Then of course there's the little matter of correct ideas coming from practice, and from it alone.

The student movement is a tricky thing. As I pointed out, students need to be in fundamental control of their organizations for those groups to have real life. However, students are young and inexperienced and volatile (which is both good and bad), and their organizations tend to go foom sooner or later without outside assistance. It happened to SEAC in 1996, the main group I was involved in during my early years. The only reason SEAC survived at all is because a few of us jumped in to do what we could to put things back on track. It isn't what it once was, but at least it still exists.

I think roquedaltonlives is correct that the PSN had the best balance of the various factors for any group in the predominantly white section of the student movement. It did have FRSO working as a guiding force within it, but the cadre recruited from that work always took great care to keep a light hand on things and to concentrate mainly on handling contradictions, rather than running the thing ISO-style. As a result, there was always a broad spectrum of folks in the network, including anarchists and semi-anarchists, and even Trots.

[roquedaltonlives]

Somewhat relevant to this thread, I just came across this article http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/grahamfelsen in the Nation, which gives a glimpse of the a new pseudo-left formation on campuses. A Clintonesque think-tank, the Center for American Progress http://www.americanprogress.org/ has set up it's student organization called Campus Progress http://www.campusprogress.org/. President Clinton gave the keynote speech at their 2005 conference. Seems to be a student activist veneer for Democratic Party youth. They'll probably do a few good things here and there, but overall it looks to be a dead end for true progresives and radicals who want to, I dunno, end the US occupation of Iraq now, letalone something like support the liberation of Palestine. By comparison the "new SDS" is definitely on the right track!

[Dan]

Hey,
could you please add a link to the Wobblies (www.iww.org) on your website? We would be most grateful!

Comradely,
Dan

[boots]

The re-formation of SDS could be a good thing if it can keep its distance from "entrist" groups like the ISO. If the authoritarians (ISO/NION/ANSWER/etc.) can be kept at bay, the organization may stand a real chance of blossoming into a real alternative to all of the tired communist posturing which has polluted the antiwar movement.
The fact that elements of the IWW are working with them seems a promising signal as well.
Let's see more street parties and less newspaper sales!!!

[the burningman]

Boots is mistaken. In fact, what made SDS originally blossom was the widespread partipation of communists.

When it was an elitist group made up of democratic formalists, it never cracked the upper class colleges that spawned it. By the time Marxist-Leninists were in leadership, it grew to hundreds of thousands.

And they sold papers, too.

Regarding the ISO, you'll find them on DOZENS of colllege campuses doing everything from exchanging ideas (shocking as that is!) to counter-recruitment work.

Through SLAM, we worked in tense coordination with them -- but were never confused as to either our independence from their line, or that they were on the same side as us on every battle that counts.

Let it be said clearly: anti-anti-communism is a dividing line, and if SDS tries to hermetically seal itself off from the existing student left -- it won't happen.

Also, the ISO is not generally an "entrist" organization. They set up their own networks. If SDS has legs, that might change... but I'd put money on them INITIATING chapters before they "take over" other groups.

Anti-communism is for suckers.

[Christopher Day]

I wish that Burningman was right that SLAM understood that the ISO "were on the same side as us on every battle that counts." In fact the situation was more complicated. The ISO was hostile to SLAM's support for revolutionary Black and Puerto Rican nationalism and commitment to remaining a space in which the leadership of women of color could be developed (that is to say restricting membership of men and white folks). At the same time SLAM was prone to sectarianism that occasionally verged on red-baiting and that made it almost impossible to operate in an effective anti-war coalition when one was desperately needed.

[lu]

i think it's a good development in the same way that the iac march on march 18th is a good development. I do agree that a group that builds itself around the way its meetings work rather than its goals is not good. anti-leadership sentiment will not allow an organization in this day and age to go very far - if it does grow quantitatively, it will suffer qualitatively, if it does grow qualitatively, then it will suffer quantitavely.

[the burningman]

Chris -- your point about SLAM and the ISO's relationship at CUNY is correct. But my caveat is that the years we are talking about matter, with the Open Admission/budget cut struggles of a very different content than the post-911 re-shuffle.

[Delirium Tremens]

I would add a caveat to a caveat on SLAM's relationship to the ISO: quite a good bit of the sectarianism I experienced at Hunter (and confess, took part in) was exacerbated by both bad practice and the peculiarities of the ISO's brand of Trotskyism. On the former, there's the matter of the ISO using a more subtle form of the Trot "lead bottom" approach toward decision-making - wherein the activist who has the patience to sit down the longest ends up winning - which invariably alienates anyone who isn't ultra-dedicated cadre. It's a manipulative tactic that serves no real purpose other than to confirm anti-communist stereotypes of what red meetings must look like.

On the latter point, in addition to Christopher's note on their pat dismissal of black and Puerto Rican struggle, I would add that the ISO in my experience upheld as a theoretical tenet that not only can one act without establishing unity, but that one should always act without unity. The ISO's version of entryism and interventions at CUNY was, as far as I can tell, one in which their professional revolutionaries were supposed to waltz in and start telling people what to do, without building relationships and without building the struggle to begin with.

All in all, I will give the ISO props for one thing: the fact that so many meetings with them were so unproductive, manipulative, and divorced from the masses probably made me more interested than I had been in correcting such mistakes in myself, as well as turning me more toward Mao and Lenin's writings on the relationship between cadre and masses.

[Plain Old Daniel]

This is a Delirium Tremens, aka Non Serviam... just to revive and revisit this discussion on the eve of the first SDS covnent, I wanted to bring up some rather discouraging news.

A friend of mine passed me along this email that came from the Convention organizers. It seems there's a bit of heavy-handedness going on:

"Thank you for your request to table at the 2006 SDS National Convention. Unfortunately we are not able to accomodate that request. This is our founding convention and as such we find ourselves without an alternative process with which to resolve issues when consensus cannot be found. The inclusion of political parties and their affiliates in our convention - as tablers and/or workshop panel presenters - is something that generated heated debate within SDS which is an umbrella organization and home to many different types of activists. As consensus was not forthcoming the decision was made to postpone the decision until after this, our founding, convention.

"We regret the inconvenience caused by our inability to find consensus on the issue of inviting political parties to be a part of our convention. This is in no way a "final" decision in the sense that future conventions may well include various political parties - when SDS has a deliberative process in place complex issues will be more easily decided.

"Individual members of political parties are welcome to attend our convention and we would hope they will do so - in fact we are certain they will as many SDSers belong to political parties.

"Again, we are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused and for the delay in (not) reaching a decision.

- Tabling Subcommittee, SDS 2006 National Convention"

By my count, the "parties" excluded are all reds: the ISO, RCP, and both FRSO's. AK Press and CRASH Collective (a PGA affiliate) both got tables.

So it seems that by default, we've all taken a half-step back; radicals can joing as individuals, radical groups can table, but just not the reds. I don't think this is some abomination or death of free speech, but it's still ill. Worse is the fact that there's a liberal/anarchist -- I can't tell the difference really -- who, last I checked, managed to get himself a number of workshop slots throughout the weekend, most of them devoted to shit-talking leftists (do we really need this, or should I just stay in NYC with Fox News on blast?)

There seems to be quite a bit of disarray at the moment -- last I checked the schedule was pulled off the website. Hopefully, things are going to get a bit better, but I sense it's going to be later rather than sooner.

[LS]

I heard about this too. It's really sad that this would happen, as it represents a rejection of one of the most important pieces of the legacy of SDS. One of the things SDS did after breaking with the League for Industrial Democracy was to get rid of the communist exclusion clause. That openness of SDS to the radical and yes, even communist, left was a big part of what gave it its dynamism and allowed it to play a role in breaking out of the stifling McCarthyist atmosphere of the 1950s. Hopefully they will reverse this decision, and if not, hopefully they will learn from it.

[Plain Old Daniel]

Ooops, I should say, the schedule is up on one site but not a mirror. Check it out:
http://studentsforademocraticsociety.org/convention/schedule.html

[the burningman]

The conservatism of consensus strikes again. What is supposed to be democratic about allowing ideological minorities to limit participation is beyond me, and this is the reason consensus has largely been dropped by long-term activists as anything like a first principle.

The issue, here, is reactionary anarchists (a minority of the minority) who know that their bullshit can't handle an open discussion. It's a lot easier to denounce people as "authoritarians" when you ban them from even responding...

It's interesting, if almost ironic, that they have become among the most censurous on the left.

It's interesting that the ISO is more open at their conferences than anti-authoritarians working in groups that promise to be participatory.

If the new SDS flies, this kind of petty bullshit won't last... or it won't fly. Who wants to impose anti-communist bans on left-wing student organizations? It will be brittle, and the most vociferous in pushing these positions will also not be doing the heavy lifting of organizing...

If I was a student organizer/activist, I'd definitely consider joining and building the new sds even if SOME who have been attracted to it are betraying what was a fundamental principle of the original...

People loved SDS becasue it was revolutionary, anti-imperialist and open to a fucking debate, not for the boys club that initiated it and their Roberts Rules...

[Plain Old Daniel]

The note on consensus organizing is mostly on point, though it does serve as something of a strawman for reds. I've seen the ISO in particular engage in a nasty habit of demanding straight 50% +1 majoritarianism on all decisions, even those that strip constituents of their rights (e.g., to end debate and call a vote) or make decisions of a permanent sort (e.g. articles of unity). Even Robert's Rules would call for a supermajority of some sort. It's often a stack-the-deck thing, and it's a documented tick of American Trotskyism.

At any rate, the apologetic tone of the email seems to hint at a determined minority either having blocked or demanded some action either for or against "parties". Whether this bodes well or ill, I do not know.

There are valid concerns, I think, with the possibility of entry by unprincipled sorts -- Trot groups, as I've mentioned above, or Larouche-types. In spite of my overall view of the original SDS's exclusion clause being a fucked up, I think were not very good elements inside of the original SDS -- file under "do not behave well with others" as well as "having tendencies toward racism."

An unheralded aspect of anarchism and anarchists (on this site and elsewhere) is its skepticism of just anyone who happens to be hawking a paper, which in this day and age happens to be a good thing given that most papers are hawked by capitalists, religious kooks, and the like. That this healthy skepticism warps in the hot sun of political contradiction into an unhealthy cynicism (e.g., don't ever trust a zine you didn't publish yourself) is the true irony and tragedy of the anarchists.

[LS]

The Fight Back! website printed the following statement / open letter from Joe Iosbaker to the organizers of the SDS convention about the issue of communists not being allowed to have lit tables there:

http://www.fightbacknews.org/2006/03/sdsletter.htm

Letter to Organizers of SDS Convention

On August 4, student activists and others will be meeting in Chicago to launch a new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In the 1960s SDS was one of the largest and most influential radical student organizations.

The editors and staff of Fight Back! view any attempt to build the student movement as positive and necessary. Unfortunately, some of the SDS organizers have decided that socialist and communist groups cannot set up information tables. We think this does the movement a disservice.

Below is a letter that was sent to the convention organizers:

To: Planning Committee
SDS National Convention

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

As a longtime activist in the student movement, having been a founder of the Progressive Student Network in 1980, I was very excited to hear about the national SDS convention being held here this weekend.

I’m also a communist, and so I was disappointed to learn that the convention has decided to prohibit Marxist organizations from setting up literature tables. It's ironic, given the historic struggle that SDS fought against their sponsors, the League for Industrial Democracy, to include communists in their efforts.

While I understand that certain political groups have a negative history of involvement in the student movement, I feel that the decision taken by the planning committee is a mistake. I hope the convention as a whole considers this matter.

Sincerely,

Joe Iosbaker
Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Fight Back! newspaper
www.frso.org

[jeez]

The tragedy isn't with anarchism that has always been with us and always will be.

It's when a minority can impose a lack of information and discussion. There is no reason to accept this, and once the fight is won -- it will be over.

The need for an open, participatory and radical student federation is apparent. Without openness, it will just be a clique should it even grow significantly beyond a press office.

My 2c: don't let the bastards get you down, they will collapse under their own narrowness if the argument is joined.

[the burningman]

Plain Old Daniel notes the apologetic tone of the email, but what I'd note is that this IS what has come to pass.

Consensus process is very, very easy to abuse.

What it shows is that a committed minority can impose its will be obstructionist fiat.

Let's see how it rolls if communists join this organization and take up the discussion. Let is be shown, once again, who seeks to censor and who wants to build!

Maybe we have to learn some lessons over and over again.

[SDS Revisited]

>>Let's see how it rolls if communists join this organization and take up the discussion. Let is be shown, once again, who seeks to censor and who wants to build!

Maybe we have to learn some lessons over and over again<<

"Communists" in America are a diffuse and fractious bunch with a crazy mixture of discredited theory and sci-fi utopianism. Just what are the ISO, RCP, CPUSA and WWP supposed to contibute to a serious discussion of democracy when they can't work together? Which of these groups would you exclude, Comrade Brandt?
After such a long history of sectarian nastiness it's laughable to read a known RCP agent's talk of inclusion.

[the burningman]

None of those.

Short of straight-up Spart-style disruption, a variety of groups should be allowed to function with liberty.

I don't believe the RCP has "agents." I agree with their politics -- if you have a problem with that, I'm game to argue, discuss and try to lift it higher.

Since my late teens over a decade ago, I have done activist work in a number of open, participatory organizations. Most notably SLAM and Indymedia. I have defended the inclusion of partisans of a wide variety of beliefs, to limited success.

The Indypendent, for example, manages to run material from Maoists to unionists, liberals and anarchists. It's a better read for it, and a more valuable project for anti-capitalists and radicals.

Mass organizations will always have such divisions, they might as well be recognized.

Further, communists have hardly cornered the market on sectarianism. Not by a longshot... as exactly this episode demonstrates. I can think of many, many more episodes of a similar ilk... and it never works. You can't stop people from learning. You can try, but they just end up learning what YOU are... which in this case appears to be a hypocrite.

Ursula LeGuin was long my favorite advocate of "discredited theory" and "sci-fi utopianism." I'd even support her participation...

If anti-capitalist parties (and organizations in the case of the ISO and FRSO-ML) are excluded, perhaps the same standard should be applied to registered Democrats.

After all, their party supports this fucking war and the Patriot Act, it's fractious and has trouble playing with others...

Or maybe "anarchists" should be judged collectively by the shittiest behavior of the self-identified, after all -- that appears to be the methodology at play here.

Ideological minorities should have no right stifle principled participation. If they want to ban communists, they should form a different organization.

[Comrade Zero]

I'm at the SDS convention in Chicago now. I've written a report/critique on my blog. You might want to look at it.

[Plain Old Daniel]

So far. . .

The tabling issue seems to have resolved itself. I can detect few red organizations that have come to the Convention, save both FRSO's, the Spartacist League, and possibly a PL or similarly oriented group. The former have both gotten tables; the Sparts have did some stuff at the entrance on Friday night; that last bit I glean from a few rather workerist comments by a local Chicagoite. Really, I think either a whole lot of groups that would have been here just wussed out of participation from the letter, or are solely observing and not raising points.

CZ's blog is mostly correct about the heavy anarchist presence. There were a couple of folks at the plenary who bashed red groups in an unprincipled fashion, perhaps having some legitimate beef with their local red scene's inactivity. There was an early admonishment to anarchists to chill out their sectarianism. Forums I have attended have been relatively non-sectarian with only a pinch of participation by individuals with axes to grind.

All in all, what I see is that the SDS is a bit gun-shy about the manner in which ideological struggle should be handled, with much of these conversations getting diverted into narrow "what do we do about that Spart?" digressions.

If I had to issue a Mao-style report card on the new SDS, what I'd say is that it's brought out advanced fighters on the scene and getting together; the theory by participants has been intermediate, plagued with some basic problems of anarchism including indecision and vascillation on several questions.

[...]

On the question of abstention, folks are making a mistake. If it is being constructed as an open, participatory student network, there should be deeper presence than "observer" or book-tabling.

If it's bringing forward some advanced people already, why not aid the construction of new chapters, participate with principles -- and help develop a radical, anti-imperialist student movement that doesn't exist yet.

[comrade_zero]

I agree. The anarchists of the new SDS won't be won over by ideology alone. They're pretty much sold on their ideas. They need Marxists to struggle along side them, to lead chapters and to demonstrate what works in building a revolutionary student movement. Practice is the greatest teacher.

[the burningman]

I don't even know how much it's about "winning over" the existing cohort...

This is something I appreciate in efforts like World Can't Wait -- instead of directing their energy towards swinging the already existing "activist base," they are projecting outwards to people who have yet to become involved.

With SDS -- there are undoubtedly thousands of students on hundreds of campuses looking for a way to get involved.

SDS may not have massive name recognition among 19-year olds, but if multiple trends work to develop a participatory student movement -- it will by its own dynamics develop, all the better if principled MLM politics are in the mix.

A relative handful of dedicated anti-communists can be side-stepped inside participatory frameworks... maybe someone should do a piece on navigating the conservatism of consensus... it's a terrible method that turns movements into "spaces."

What I suspect is, given your posted assessment CZ, is that a superficial take will predominate: why go to an organization that has this social base/participation. Instead of seeing what SDS could be, it will be reduced to whoever is in the room... and that's the wrong way of looking at it, including in seeing how communists should do work.

Instead of Trot "interventionaism" targetting the already self-selecting activists, reds need to help BUILD such a student movement -- which does not exist at present.

[Comrade Zero]

I don't think I disagree with any of that, Burningman.

If I gave the impression that the purpose of Marxists working inside SDS was to win over anarchists to Marxism, that's not what I meant. I do think the anarchist thing has a lot of pull for inexperienced young people... maybe what I meant to say was that within SDS we should win over "potential" anarchists to Communism (keeping SDS from going down the blind ally) as best as possible in the context of building a revolutionary student movement.

[Comrade Zero]

And since I don't believe any post is ever finished if it isn't clear and correct, I've added a bit at the end of my report to clearify my position, thanks to your helpful criticism.

[the burningman]

The anarchist "pull" is barely anarchist. It's a way of embracing resistance politics without having to navigate either the complexity of 20th Century socialism, or revolutionary politics today. It is, nine times out of ten, a phase of development along radical democratic lines... much like the initial SDS started.

After any time spent doing mass work, supposing it is done at all, it tends to move either towards Marxism in one form or another -- or more often towards liberalism/social-democratic "choices."

It's an identity politics for white guys on the left... which is roughly the starting demographic for the new SDS. Of course it has spontaneous weight. Lucky for us, people interested in making substantial change beyond their own backyard tend to problematize the anarchist dogmas fairly quickly. I see that the Sisyphus model has already worn thin in the face of a war it has no bearing on.

What's the point of resisting a war if you can't stop it?

Anarchism can't stop a damn thing except activists. If the issue is real activism instead of anti-communist chimeras -- we win every time.

[nick]

some thoughts:

1) I am struck by how little of the discussion here (and elsewhere with folks heading for the convention) around the new SDS) is about program and basis of unity and CORRECT division lines in creating such unity.

In otherwords, it is as if simply "getting together" is assumed (without discussion or real penetrating analysis) to be the main and overwhelming need of the moment, and as if "reaching out" merely needs to be "organized"

...but as if the questions of what the goals, focus, approach, basis of this "unity" will be or should be... etc. are simply left out of the picture.

Even after reading everything I can find on the SDS project, i really have only the vaguest idea of its "basis of unity" -- or even what various (and opposing) forces THINK should be the basis of unity.

2) To discuss organizational matters in terms of "inclusion" and "exclusion" without a discussion of "basis of unity" really is rather idealist -- as if we have various apriori principles for "mass organizations" divorced from space and time. As if principles float down to us (from the great democratic font of principles) and they can/should be applied from there.

3) In my view necessary bases of unity (on many levels -- from solid core to all kinds of mass organization) derive from life, from reality, from the struggle, and from a view of what it will take to emancipate people.

And if you "just unite" -- or if you unite based on the wrong bases of unity, or on a convenient basis (masked over by appeals to idealist and apriori organizational principles) -- then that unity will collapse, and (even more important) will actually not serve the struggle that needs to be built.

4) I'm all for principled unity and broad unity -- includig among people who have widely differing views on many important things. But i'm for unity on a correct and necessary basis, with the correct and necessary focus.

5) Unity is not all good, and division (even exclusion) is not all bad. It depends -- and what it depends on are the assessments drawn from "concrete analysis of concrete reality" and a perspective that takes the goal of liberation at its core.

6) And obviously here I'm not raising agreement with the shameful and unprincipled policy raised by convention organizers both against genuine communists and various forms of organized opportunists.

Though I have to say, the knee-jerk and inaccurate way some people have of equating and grouping the RCP with various forms of revisionism like WWP, FRSO and ISO actually SHARES the confused outlook of the convention organizers on this, and not the outlook of the genuine communists.

7) "The people united will never be defeat"? No, that is at best naive, and at worst it is part of an outlook that accepts an implicit program (and often a reformist one) while implying that the only issues are "unity" and relatively mindless "action."

Just do it? Just unite? For what?

So let me end with a quote (generally called "the mouthful sentence") from Avakian, that i have struggled to understand and apply. A quote which has gotten far too little attention exactly on the question of how to unite broadly....

http://rwor.org/a/chair/uflp/ba9.htm
From the essay:
From Fighters For One to Fighters For All

***********

At every point, and throughout the entire revolutionary process, we have to be good at applying our line and strategic approach of United Front Under the Leadership of the Proletariat (UFuLP), including the aspect of independence and initiative for the proletariat and its vanguard.

We have to be good at doing this all in a way that, proceeding from the strategic interests of the proletariat, we draw the dividing lines so that we can unite the broadest numbers of people in a way that moves them--objectively and, to the maximum degree possible without rupturing that unity, subjectively--in accordance with and in the direction of the proletariat's strategic interests, and which advances those strategic interests overall. Now, that last sentence was a "mouthful," but this is an extremely important point.

What I mean by "objectively and, to the maximum degree possible without rupturing that unity, subjectively" is that we draw the dividing line so that the way the battle is developing is objectively in accord with the interests of the proletariat, and we also try to win the maximum number of people within that to more consciously fighting in that way, without rupturing the unity that's correct for the particular struggle and the particular circumstances.

"The Party at the core" of all our efforts, which is an important principle we have stressed, must be understood in these terms. The Party at the core is essentially and above all a political and ideological question. It is not essentially a question of the Party exercising direct organizational leadership in the broad mass movements and various broad mass organizations at any given time--in many circumstances, even at a more advanced stage of the revolutionary movement (prior to the seizure of power), it would not be correct for us to attempt to do that. However, in the final analysis, in order to carry out the seizure of power and the socialist transformation of society as part of the advance to communism worldwide, the Party will have to establish its direct and acknowledged leadership of the revolutionary movement and of socialist society.

And in carrying out our Central Task today and preparing for the emergence of a revolutionary situation and the all-out struggle for power, it is also crucial to build mass organization in which the Party is at the core organizationally as well as politically and ideologically. This must be done in dialectical relation with building broad mass struggles and organizations and overall developing the revolutionary movement toward our strategic objectives.

*************

[the burningman]

Just unite, in this case, means we need a national, participatory framework for students to engage anti-imperialist and anti-captialist politics.

These participatory organizations, where multiple trends and just-figuring-shit-out individuals can WORK develops a critical, thinking and engaged movement.

If the basis of unity is "action" and veganism... well, it won't go far.

The frank refusal of rc forces to engage broader movements has abandoned them to exactly the kind of opportunist forces Nick is calling out -- and I think does no good.

It's amazing what three or four principled people can accomplish.

And what of the many students who are RC, but because of the de-prioritization of student activity as such have no ability to exert a poll where people are struggling?

To refuse to engage this, where possible, is sectarian. It's a mistake.

Multiple poles are important for the political development of young activists. It's one of the ways they learn to think, and cut their teeth.

Nick says: "And in carrying out our Central Task today and preparing for the emergence of a revolutionary situation and the all-out struggle for power, it is also crucial to build mass organization in which the Party is at the core organizationally as well as politically and ideologically."

Sure. Correct. But not the beginning and end of the discussion. To ONLY engage organizations where the party is at the "center" is to create a situation where activists are trained simply to carry out line -- not to develop it. And this loses many of the best people for no good reason.

It's not either/or.

reading through the SDS listserves, I'm struck at how vicious, and often wrong the discussions are.

A number of the names are clearly non-student, and long-standing "advisors" whose advice is a pernicious, and ironically sectarian habit.

To believe in anti-capitalist political parties is to be ipso-facto "sectarian," and it becomes "democratic" to ban people/oganizations.

Unbelievable... and not challenged in any depth by any participant I can see.

CZ's take is interesting, BM's optimism not uncharacteristic -- but if this is all there is, what a fucking waste.

[Plain Old Daniel]

If there's anything I've learned, it's NOT to take activist list-servs as the final word on anything vaguely resembling the real world. The people who huff and puff on "teh intarweb" are less than paper tigers -- they don't even have paper!

Having come from the convention, my overall evaluation is this: either reds have the courage of their convictions and move forward on building some sort of working relationship, or they stay home and have no one to blame but themselves for the lack of understanding.

No social investigation, no right to kvetch!

[ShineThePath]

well I have always been skeptical of SDS, but I do agree with Comrade Zero, we can't avoid the fact that it is a force within the student movement at this point and time. So Reds are going to work with this organization and try to raise its consciousness. We have to fight the sectarianism in this organization.

However to be honest when I heard SDS was being "revived" I think it was going to move somewhere along this route. This largely reflects really much of the student movement itself (which I guess I have been "jaded" with), and their lack of connection with the masses of people. What really red within the student movement need to do is connect their movement to the masses of people, fighting with Anarchists about their petty differences will ultimately be useless.

[Plain Old Daniel]

To ShineThePath:

There's something to be said for skepticism. Nothing I said should disarm anybody of red politics that organizing within or alongside the new SDS (or any fledgling student group) is easy.

Nevertheless, we wouldn't be talking revolution if it were easy either, right? I'm consistently amazed that those who proclaim themselves ready to go toe-to-toe with the State are afraid of organizing this or that, or are afraid they'll get booed or hissed at.

I'm generally agreed that the student movement needs to maintain a connection with the masses, to fight its own tendencies toward attempting to just liberate an ivory tower and call it a day. Of course, though, there's still something to be said for liberating the ivory tower having a place in the grand scheme of things...

[Christopher Day]

I just wanted to make a comment about the propensity of supposed revolutionaries to depreciate student work. Student movements have been the main initial source of revolutionary leadership in almost every successful (and unsuccessful) revolution of the past century or so.

Of course students need to be linked up with broader sectors of the masses, but before such links are meaningful there needs to a viable student movement. If this was true in largely agrarian societies like Russia or China it is much more true in a country like the U.S. where a much larger fraction of the population partakes to one degree or another of higher education.

The student movement should not be judged crudely on the basis of the class origins of its participants. Many middle class student activists have gone on to be great revolutionaries. But neither should we ignore the significant numbers of working class youth (and returning adults) who end out in college. Indeed it is often where the most ambitious and talented working class youth end up for a stretch (whether they graduate or not).

Unlike many other advanced capitalist countries the U.S. uses its system of higher education as a major holding pen for youth who would otherwise be counted as unemployed.

It is my observation that contempt for student organizing among reds often has more to do with their own eagerness to distance themselves from the middle class environment in which they were radicalized than with a serious appraisal of the importance of the work within a broader revolutionary strategy.

Like it or not, college campuses remain the most hospitable political environment for radical and revolutionary politics in this society. To be sure, student work suffers from certain persistent contradictions and the frustrations of it usually make it unbearable after a certain point for most individuals. But I sincerely believe that any revolutionary organization in the U.S. that isn't engaged in the serious and ongoing development of mass student formations is ultimately condemning itself to the status of a sect.

[ShineThePath]

Christopher, I have said nothing about that "depreciates" the work of students within revolutionary movements. Being a student myself, I have noticed certain tendencies within such student movements that isolates itself into nothing more than debating circles, and overall become nothing more than organizations that focus on identity politics or become just weekend protest warriors. Which is what the student movement has devolved itself into. There is a lack of general connection or work with the masses, I know a few people who can attest to this themselves when they have entered generally "left" schools such as New School.

Are class origins not important? Well I am not so sure, it depends on really whether or not they learn from working people and work with them. If not, I do believe ultimately the groups become more concerned with theoretical underpinnings than the movement itself, which largely attracts higher educated leftists, not people who need experience the systematic concerns of capitalism.

I disagree with the idea that certain communists dislike organizing around students because it is too "middle class." Actually, the only work many communists do today is around students. WCW, ISO, PSL, all these organizations focus largely on students. Perhaps why some communists are moving away from these tactics is because they very problems that develop from this work. These organizations start focusing exclusively on this type fo work and nothing else.

[the burningman]

ShineThePath writes: "Actually, the only work many communists do today is around students. WCW, ISO, PSL, all these organizations focus largely on students. Perhaps why some communists are moving away from these tactics is because they very problems that develop from this work. These organizations start focusing exclusively on this type fo work and nothing else."

I don't see that at all. Not even a little bit.

Of these, only the ISO concentrates on student work. WCW has done significant youth agitation, but that is different in kind.

The is no national student federation attached to any MLM party. Not PL, not the RCP, not FRSO(either/or). They do have student support, and there have been campus actions...

But in terms of generating a student movement? It has been de-priorized. I know that some groups actually urge students to leave school to become organizers off campus. Nothing wrong with that on principle... but not prioritzing student activism is a huge mistake, as Christopher ably laid out above.

There are also very different kinds of schools. CUNY in New York is different from working at the New School or NYU. I mean, TOTALLY different. Hostos Community College in the Bronx has nothing like the social base of Columbia University. They are different in kind.

Both are important. Both should be prioritized. Both through the development of wider political organizations like World Can't Wait AND through participatory organizations that are able to take politics up in an experimental way. Students in particular are going through a period of self-identification, hard work and questioning the world. They are also choosing their way into the world in a way that is amazingly conscious.

Student syndicalism is stupid (sorry) and has a very small spontaneous pull. It's often vociferous where it develops, but it never spreads.

Students most identify with the very biggest issues: war, national oppression, ideologies, the state -- big stuff. Not water fountains and student governments.

When I had to pick a college, I went with a CUNY campus instead of an "alternative" or historically progessive school like Antioch. I visited Antioch and it was such an island (three Berkenstock stores in one small town) that I knew I'd go insane. At Hunter Collge, I found a largely working class, immigrant and advanced student body that was enmeshed in the larger life of the city. Struggle there matters, and generates radicals and revolutionaries by the bushel over and over again.

Back in the 30s, the CP and various other socialists argued in the City College cafeterias. Hunter College's autonomous student paper was founded by James Aronson, the same guy who helped establish the National Guardian in the 50s. The student strike in the late 60s that de-segregated CUNY was a milestone in education reform nationally. The fight over Hostos, a Spanish-language community college in the Bronx was a broad community fight!

I don't know if SDS is THE way to go, but campuses need some intervention, boy. They need some catalysts who are deeply involved and get to know the lay of the land. Resistance is fertile, it just needs to be sown.

[real john]

I agree with the points made about the importance of revolutionary political work among students, about the important role that students can play in a revolutionary process, and about a legacy among communists that denigrates that.

Student play a political role on a number of levels that are all worth understanding and appreciating:

a) as intellectuals becoming communist intelletuals and cadre -- and serving the world revolution as representatives of the historic interests of the proletariat.

b)As an important political force in their own right in society that often intiates and sparks new movements and upsurges -- by often "moving first" and by grasping and promoting radical ideas, and by giving other sections (including the highly suppressed sections of the proletariat) a feeling that there is an opening and a chance to rise up.

A distancing from students has gone hand in hand with economism (the kind of workerism or "identity politics for workerists" that over emphasizes and reifies and glorifies the proletariat, its current cultuire and most immediate struggles and sentiments). Students were seen as too privileged, too middle class, too interested in ideas, and often as a diversion from "the real" focus -- which was supposedly the proletariat itself.

Much of what I have said SEEMS to be in agreement with Christopher Day (and Burningman) -- but I just want to point out that there may be a chasm between the expression Chris uses "student work" and my expression "revolutionary political work among students."

I also want to raise two points that haven't been said yet in this discussion:

First, Bob Avakian has been fighting HARD against this kind of economism, including its distance and distain from students, and from the tendency to view intellectuals (generally) as a king of "problem people."

The RCP has never had "tiers" like the old CP (where the worker comrades were seen as having better instincts and the more pb comrades were always seen as suspect....). Avakian always fought against the kind of anti-intellectualism that was (and is?) far too common among communists -- including the Menshiviks in his own party in the 1970s, and any similar currents around today.

And clearly he is fighting against a whole legacy of lack of appreciation of the role of intellectual life, academia, and communist work to influence that.

What i'm trying to say is that it is more than "students are important why be so narrow minded to write them off."

There is in BA's new synthesis a radically new view and approach to intellectuals and "working with ideas" -- that by extentsion has major implications for work among students (but not just students, among professors and leading intelletuals in all the vrious spheres of society.)

Second, I want to disagree with burningman's disctinction around kinds of colleges. It is (ironically) accepting the ecnomist method, but disagreeing with the application. I.e. It is as if burningman is saying "we should stick to the working class social base, but we should realize that there are many colleges that are working class in that sense... so lets stay out of NYU and colombia, but go deep among the working class and community colleges."

Without denigrating the importance of the working class colleges (or the important role that hunter has played, for example, in NYC)....

Let me just say that if you think through BA's synthesis, what he is saying about how we need to work with intelletuals, and how our goal is not just to mobilize students as a batteringram social force, but also mobilizing THINKING PEOPLE against the mindless religious Christian FAscists and wage struggle in many spheres of the superstructure....

There is (if yhou work that thru) an importance to deepen the criticism of economism, and also to understand that there are some specially important reasons for going into what are considered "elite" colleges (that play a special role in the superstructure of capitalism, including in the struggle within spheres and the making of broad public opinion.)

did you wonder why Raymond Lotta went to Harvard and Colombia -- not a tour of the east coast "community colleges"?

If you didn't wonder about it, perhaps you should.

Let's deepen the criticism... not by making working class students a new "target" for "movement organizing" -- but by thinking over the whole communist revolutionary process from "up on the mountain" and then understanding the role of students, professors and cutting edge intellectuals ON THAT BASIS, AND FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE (i.e. of getting to communism).

The only work I have actually seen WCW engage in has been student work, I can testify to this because I was involved with it mostly since its initiation, at least in NYC. Further they only focused on Columbia, NYU, and to some degree Hunter, because for the most part these were schools that "mattered" in terms of "who will lead society." I haven't seen an effort to move organizing efforts to schools such as Hostos, Lehman, and other less affluent colleges through NYC. Movements such as SDS and WCW have a pull toward more "academic" and middle class environments, and it never engages the "social bases" of somewhere like Hostos college. In fact sometimes it is hostile to engaging it, rather the focus is on "left" colleges and more "politically conscious" ones. Seems like traditional Trotskyite organizing, not Maoist.

Also what do you mean MLM parties don't have a federation of students? I haven't stated that, but the RCP is largely connected with WCW, and WCW has made a large appeal to students in campuses such as Columbia. Sure there is no Columbia Youth Brigade chapter, but RCP supporters are involved with engaging students, and this has been a large part of work for a while. The same is true with an organization such as PSL, and we know it is true with ISO. They too have been engaged in very much the same tactics for a while, and raising consciousness I think it is not doing.

If you say "student syndicalism" is a failure, then student activism on a larger scale is more of a failure. And I never spoke about Students fighting for water fountains and student activity founding, that wasn't my point at all. Why is it we never engage some realities of what students have to go through, especially working class students who face poverty, part-time jobs with low pay, and a future that is dreary. The fact is there has not been any engagement with these students on any level, and further there has not been any work to address their concerns. Anti-Imper