A-Infos (en) THE NORTHEASTERN ANARCHIST #5 Revolutionary Strategy Or Stagism? - by Wayne Price

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A response to the 'Bring The Ruckus' statement... [from ] 
Revolutionary Strategy or Stagism?
by Wayne Price, Open City Anarchist Collective (NEFAC-NYC)
The BRING THE RUCKUS (BTR) position paper proposes 
that the "priority" of its organization be the destruction of 
white supremacy. This is supposedly based on a "strategic
argument." It points out that white people have "special 
privileges... such as preferred access to the best schools, 
neighborhoods, jobs, and health care...and better
treatment by the police," among other advantages. This 
leads to white workers "agree[ing] to police the rest of the 
population," and to politically "unit[ing]" with the
ruling class against the rest of the working class. Unlike 
many, the Ruckusites do not deny the strategic importance 
of the working class, as the social force capable of
stopping and starting the society. But they put aside class 
issues for now, while focusing on racial oppression as the 
immediately central issue.

Wooden, crude, workerists (of the mechanical Marxist or 
anarcho-syndicalist varieties) have advocated a two-stage 
theory: First a working class revolution is won, and then,
second, racial issues are solved. BTR proposes a similarly 
wooden two-stage approach (the same thing upside down): 
First white supremacy is overthrown, and then, second,
there is class unity which leads to a socialist revolution. 
Both of these stagist approaches are mechanical and 
unreal. In real life, issues are too intertwined and
overlapping to be so split up into stages. Racism supports 
class exploitation and class exploitation creates racism - 
and both are supported by the oppression of women, and
by other issues such as the destruction of the ecology.

That white workers have relative privileges compared to 
workers of color is true. But it is only half the truth. An 
analysis based only on this fact is completely
misleading. It implies an inaccurate South African 
apartheid model for North America. In South Africa, a 
minority of the working class is white. Under legal 
apartheid, its
main role was to support the white capitalists against the 
majority of African workers, whom it could be said to 
"police". In return, it got specific privileges, such as
virtually full employment.

Statistically speaking, in North America - and even just in 
the U.S. - the majority of the industrial working class 
happens to be European-American. White workers produce
most of the surplus value pumped out of the North 
American working class. They include most of the very 
poor, most of the homeless, and most of those on welfare. 
They
suffer most of the industrial accidents. None of which 
denies that African-American and Hispanic people are 
disproportionately among the most exploited sections of 
the
working class.

To imply that the main role of the white workers is "to 
police the rest of the population" is completely wrong. The 
main role of the white workers, just like non-white
workers, is to be exploited by the capitalist class. The 
so-called privileges of the white workers amount to being 
relatively less exploited, and less oppressed, than Black
or Hispanic workers. But they remain exploited and 
oppressed.

The bloc between the white workers and the capitalist class 
has been a major obstacle to the creation of an independent 
working class movement - as has been pointed out by
many theorists. Due to its origins as a settler society, the 
U.S. in particular has been deeply affected by racism, 
extreme individualism, unconcern for the environment,
and macho sexism. All these lead to a lack of class 
identification - unlike, to a large degree, the workers of 
Western Europe - and to a willingness to identify with its
rulers.

The key question is whether this has been good or bad for 
the white workers. The political tendency which produced 
BTR has held that this white unity has been good for the
white workers -- at least within the limits of capitalism 
(obviously it has been bad in that it has prevented us from 
reaching the delights of socialism). This position is
implied in BTR by only mentioning the so-called privileges 
of the white workers. Of course, each privilege in itself is a 
benefit. But the gains must be balanced by the
losses. A racially-divided working class has been unable to 
force larger gains from the ruling class, gains which are 
taken for granted in Western Europe. The U.S. working
class has been unable to win nationalized health care, 
public child care, month-long vacations, guaranteed 
pensions, real rights to form unions, job security, and other
benefits taken for granted in Europe and, to some extent, in 
Canada. The U.S. has the lowest rate of unionization of any 
industrialized capitalist democracy -now less than
9 % in private industry. All this is directly connected to 
racial division within the working class.

Empirically, the worst-off white workers in the U.S. are in 
the South, the most racist part of the country. U.S. white 
workers are worse off than Canadian workers. North
American workers are worse off than Western European 
workers. So to focus only on the relative privileges of the 
white workers is to miss the most important effect of white
supremacy.

Our analysis of the effects of white supremacy affects our 
strategy to overcome it. The fight against racism would be 
very difficult if the main effect of racism is to make
life easier for the white workers. How are we to persuade 
the white workers to give up those privileges? The only 
possible appeal is a moral one, appealing to their sense
of guilt (if any) and to the values of democracy and religion. 
This is a tough row to hoe. The implications are 
authoritarian - that the white workers may have to be 
forced
to give up their privileges. Otherwise, how will they be 
gotten to give up the benefits they provide for their 
families? Those who invented this theory (Noel Ignatiev and
the Sojourner Truth Organization) were Maoists at the time 
(that is, a variety of Stalinist). They had no problem in 
advocating a revolutionary dictatorship over the white
majority of North America. However, this strategy does not 
fit in with anarchism.

An anti-racist appeal is easier (if still hard) if it is in the 
self-interest of the white workers. Morality always goes 
further when it is merged with self-interest. A
libertarian-democratic society is possible today because 
there is a working class in whose interest it is to overthrow 
all forms of oppression and to create a free,
humanistic, and cooperative world.

The possibility of a more holistic approach is suggested in 
the BTR's section on feminism. Logically, feminism does 
not fit in with a sole focus on overthrowing racism.
But, for reasons which can be guessed at, the document 
calls for "feminist political work...that connect[s] struggles 
against sexism with struggles against white
supremacy". Why not union work which connects struggles 
against sexism with struggles against white supremacy and 
against capitalism? Why not struggles against white
supremacy which connect with struggles against sexism? A 
holistic class struggle approach would attempt to integrate 
all struggles against oppression with the overall
struggle against racist-patriarchal capitalism and its state.

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