Socialist Action /November 2002
Strategy and Tactics in the New Antiwar
Movement
By JEFF MACKLER
One year after the carefully orchestrated post-Sept. 11 bi-partisan "war
on terrorism," the murderous war against the people of Afghanistan
and the associated crackdown on democratic rights and civil liberties, a
burgeoning mass movement in opposition to U.S. war and intervention had
forced its way onto the stage of real politics.
Every organization, socialist and otherwise, serious about stopping the
impending second U.S. slaughter in Iraq and opposing U.S. intervention more
generally, is engaged in critical discussion and debate about the future
course of the antiwar movement.
Questions that have not been discussed for a decade and longer are coming
to the fore, a good sign that the strength of the movement and its capacity
to involve ever-increasing numbers to challenge the warmakers is on the
rise. What demands this new movement should put forward and what organizational
forms it should take are the central questions to be answered.
The outcome of these discussions will eventually determine the future
course of the struggle against imperialist war. They will determine whether
the new movement can reach the maturity necessary to forge a broad unity,
reach agreement on principled political demands, and construct united front-type
organizational forms through which the full power of the movement can be
brought to bear.
The period ahead will test all those who have already played important
roles in the initial demonstrations and those who are preparing to enter
the fray. It will decide whether the future movement is to be inclusive,
broadly democratic and capable of winning, or exclusive-that is, limited
and controlled by narrow forces that insist on organizational control at
the expense of the movement itself. This article is a contribution to the
present discussion.
Mass protests show a movement on the rise
The new McCarthyism, pressed forward in the name of alleged national
security threats posed by unknown terrorists, has failed to find fertile
ground on U.S. soil. Dissent is on the rise as wary working people see corporate
greed, theft, and business failures looting their pensions and slashing
jobs-while elections are stolen and government-sanctioned racism is practiced
with impunity.
Civil liberties, long taken for granted, are written out of existence.
Billions are spent on wars against defenseless poor people whose rulers
were installed by the U.S. imperial power, only to be removed when the price
of cheap oil requires another bloodbath.
The ruling rich have budgeted an unprecedented $360 billion for war and
additional billions for "Homeland Security." They have rewritten
the Constitution in order to arrest without charges thousands of immigrants,
based solely on their nationality or religion. They have passed witch-hunt
laws aimed at launching spy operations on everyone who rises to challenge
the status quo.
And in the name of a budget surplus that disappeared overnight, they
gifted $1.3 trillion to bail out their friends in ugly corporate America,
where corruption of every variety has proven to be routine.
During this year we have been participants in a whirlwind of events,
marked by tens of thousands of people in this country breaking with the
historic pro-Zionist consensus and standing in solidarity with oppressed,
brutalized, and excluded Palestinians who are daily ground into the earth
with Washington's approval and with Washington's weapons of mass destruction.
We are witness to the exercise of counter-power by West Coast longshore
workers, supported by the entire labor movement, in a confrontation for
jobs and union rights that may represent a turning point for the entire
labor movement. Aware of the dangers, the boss class has invoked the "national
security" bugaboo and employed the reactionary Taft Hartley law to
cool the struggle for the moment while threatening to militarize West Coast
docks with scab troops to challenge union power.
We have seen Teamsters Local 705 in Chicago, the second largest Teamsters
local nationally, resolve that American workers have no quarrel with their
brothers and sisters in Iraq. And many other union bodies and central labor
councils, which in past decades lagged behind the initial wave of youthful
activists, have now issued antiwar resolutions.
From the Vietnam era, through the decade of mobilizations against U.S.
intervention in Central America, to the short-lived but massive actions
against the Gulf War in 1991, important lessons were learned-and unfortunately,
in part forgotten.
The almost unexpected success of the actions against a U.S. war in Iraq
this October stunned even the closest observers. They open the door wide
to a necessary discussion of how to build the broadest and most powerful
united movement against the impending imperialist slaughter in Iraq.
They pose to all who see imperialist war as central to world politics
the possibility of stopping this war and the future wars for profit and
conquest contemplated by an economically wounded U.S. ruling class, driven
in its decline to seek new advantage over its imperialist competitors.
The Oct. 6 antiwar actions initiated by the Not In Our Name: Pledge of
Resistance (NION) group mobilized some 30,000 or more people in Manhattan,
8000 in San Francisco, and 5000 in Los Angeles as well as tens of thousands
in other cities where the date was taken up by a diverse range of newly-formed
organizations.
In a powerful statement published as a full-page ad in The New York Times
and signed by an impressive group of leading intellectuals and countless
social activists across the country, the NION group opposed U.S. war everywhere
and condemned police state restrictions on civil liberties and the detention
and round-ups of immigrants based on religion and nationality.
The spirited text was an important contribution to building a new movement
where everyone is welcome and where the focus is on the real source of the
problem, the United States.
A few weeks later, on Oct. 26, the International ANSWER group (Act Now
to Stop War and End Racism) organized bi-coastal demonstrations that exceeded
even the most optimistic estimates. Close to 100,000 mobilized in San Francisco
and perhaps twice that number, simultaneously, in Washington, D.C.
The October actions brought into the streets what could only be considered
a cross section of the American population, including a great majority for
whom this was a first-time experience.
The NION and ANSWER actions were also endorsed and supported by a broad
range of organizations, including civil and human rights groups, social
justice organizations, pacifist and faith-based groups, and a broad spectrum
of environmental, anti-globalization and left groups and socialist parties.
But other forces also added to the size of the mass assemblies, including
a section of the ruling rich, who, for tactical reasons separate and apart
from the interests of the new antiwar movement, are hesitant to join the
rush to war. This explains why many corporate-controlled daily newspapers
and TV news programs carried reports of the planned antiwar actions several
days before they took place-which in turn helped to publicize and build
the protests.
From Vietnam to Iraq
A review of the previous efforts in this country to build a mass movement
against imperialist war can be instructive. Unfortunately, the tactics of
the past are sometimes ritualized or reduced to formulas devoid of any relation
to the present. On the other hand, there are important lessons to be learned.
A mass demonstration, for example, is an important tactic for protest
that can be effectively employed under particular conditions. Properly used
in the antiwar movement, the tactic can begin the process of the independent
self-organization of the social forces that do have the power to stop imperialist
war-that is, the working class and its close allies.
The mass protest actions during the Vietnam War-which grew in size to
eventually include marches of hundreds of thousands in the streets-served
to counter the government's claim to represent the majority of the population.
They provided a readily accessible vehicle for participation and gave confidence
to millions who previously thought of themselves as powerless individuals
instead of being a vital and cohesive social force in society.
The mass actions, and especially in proportion to their size, exposed
the lie that the war was fought in the interests of the American people.
They provided the basis for alliances with other potent social forces, including
those involved in the battle for civil rights in the United States, where
legal segregation and racism were practiced with impunity.
Mass action is premised on the idea that progressive social change is
the product of the independent self-organization of workers and all their
allies among the oppressed and youth to achieve goals that reflect their
own interests as opposed to the interests of the ruling rich. In short,
history is made by the working masses employing a variety of tactics to
wrest control of society in part or totally from the minority capitalist
class, who appear to run society in everyone's interests.
While the vast majority of those who engage in mass protest are not conscious,
at least initially, of challenging the system as a whole, the sense of empowerment
generated by common action tends to deepen their understanding that the
government does not represent their interests.
Mass action can pave the way to other tactics where working people more
directly utilize their power in solidarity with the oppressed of other nations
and in the fight for their interests at home. These include work stoppages
and strikes, as well as the formation of a new mass political party, based
on the power of a revitalized labor movement and its allies, as opposed
to the parties of the ruling rich.
But mass strikes and similar direct challenges to capital are the music
of the future. Today, the central problem faced by the new antiwar movement
is to maximize the numbers that can be brought into the streets in massive
peaceful protest.
The term "peaceful" is not presented here accidentally. Mass
participation at this juncture in U.S. political life is contingent on providing
a vehicle open to everyone.
In contrast, advocates of "civil disobedience," who insist
that more militant tactics are required to stop the war machine, tend to
ignore the most fundamental aspect of building a mass movement. That is,
they do not accept the premise that any successful movement must have a
mass character and methods of struggle aimed at including the vast majority
of the population. The arrest of a committed few, however well intentioned,
is not a valid substitute for the direct involvement of millions and more.
This is not to say that the tactic of civil disobedience is without merit.
At times when mass forces are engaged in actions where they have no choice
but to defy unjust laws to insure their very survival, civil disobedience
takes on a wholly different character.
Mass strikes in defiance of reactionary court injunctions, as may be
the case as the ILWU battle unfolds, not to mention revolution itself, are
without doubt bold acts of civil disobedience. These are premised on the
involvement of mass forces as opposed to the substitution of the militant
few for what must be the responsibility of the masses themselves. But however
important, we are again venturing here into the music of the future.
In every instance, the employment of tactics is determined by what is
both required and possible. The combination is important. The mass actions
during the Vietnam era, coupled with the radicalization of rank-and-file
soldiers and combined with the courageous resistance of the Vietnamese themselves,
resulted in the first major defeat for American imperialism. Its capacity
for further intervention anywhere was dealt a major blow. The space was
opened wide for the emergence of new social movements.
Vietnam took place at a time of relative economic prosperity. It was
a time when both "guns and butter," that is, war and improved
living standards, were simultaneously achievable. Billions were spent in
Vietnam while funds for public education tripled.
Today, however, the economic strength of the U.S. is on the wane. The
present war drive takes place in the context of a massive drive against
the living standards of American workers. Concessions to workers to stave
off the coming radicalization are not within the reach of the corporate
power. Consequently, U.S. workers can be expected to become involved in
the new antiwar movement to a far greater degree than they were during the
early years of the Vietnam War.
The right of self-determination
To the extent that any social movement relies on the institutions and
political parties of the capitalist state to achieve its ends, it essentially
accepts the legitimacy of minority rule-that is, capitalist rule.
During the Vietnam War era this reliance was expressed in the slogan
"Negotiate Now!" and in the related view, proposed by some forces,
that an end to the U.S. war in Vietnam could best be achieved through the
election of so-called peace candidates put forward by the Democratic Party.
Opponents of this orientation properly noted that the principle of self-determination
of oppressed nations negated the right of the United States to negotiate
by force of arms, or any other means, the future of Vietnam. Support for
self-determination, from the anti-colonial struggles of the 19th and 20th
centuries to this day, demands a rejection of the right of oppressor nations
to conquer and enslave other nations.
The political expression of support to the Vietnamese right to self-determination
was expressed in the demand, "Bring the Troops Home Now!" or the
shortened version, "Out Now!" In the initial stages of the struggle
against the Vietnam War, proponents of this demand represented a small minority
of the antiwar movement. The still prevailing fear generated by the McCarthyite
anti-communist witch hunt (like today's "anti-terrorist" attacks
on civil liberties) led many early participants to subordinate support to
self-determination to indirect support to imperialist war aims.
They accepted the lie that the United States had rights in Vietnam. They
gave credence to the ruling-class argument that the victory of so-called
Vietnamese communism would result, domino style, in the victory of socialist
revolution everywhere.
In effect, they defended the fundamental interests of American capitalism
as opposed to the interests of the workers and peasants in Vietnam and Southeast
Asia, who had spend some thousand years fighting to throw off the yoke of
foreign conquerors-from the Chinese in ancient times to the French, Japanese,
and Americans in the modern era.
As the war proceeded and additional millions entered the movement, advocates
of the "Out Now!" demand became a majority. They argued effectively
that the U.S. had no rights in Vietnam that the Vietnamese or anyone else
were bound to respect.
Their position was bolstered as the horror of the U.S. war became clear
to the American people-both in the form of coffins containing their sons
killed in battle and in the truth that American soldiers brought home regarding
the mass slaughter of Vietnamese civilians. Furthermore, Black and Latino
troops returned home from the racist war in Vietnam to face a racist society
at home.
Proponents of "negotiations" argued, in contrast, that the
election of liberal Democrats would facilitate negotiating an end to the
Vietnam War. The Democratic Party fielded a series of "peace candidates"
in an ultimately ineffectual attempt to demobilize and tame the antiwar
movement.
President Lyndon Johnson, who had been portrayed as the "peace candidate"
against his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, was later driven from
office by popular revulsion against his escalation of the Vietnam War.
His successor, Richard Nixon, was narrowly elected after he announced
that he had a "secret plan" to end the war. Nixon, of course,
went on to invade Cambodia and to decimate North Vietnam with unprecedented
carpet bombing. Finally, after millions of people poured into the streets
in protest, Nixon had no choice but to accede to the simple demand, "Out
Now!" The alternative was to risk a deeper radicalization of the American
people.
Should we call for UN inspection teams?
Today the question of the movement's class independence, and therefore
its potential power, takes the form of the debate over raising demands that
reject U.S. or any other form of imperialist intervention in Iraq. This
includes the imperialist-created agency called the United Nations-which
has served as a mask for U.S. armed interventions and wars, from Korea in
the 1950s to the present day.
Those who demand "No U.S. War in Iraq!" or the several variations
of this slogan, and include the United Nations along with the United States
in their demand, have absorbed the best lessons of the Vietnam War and stand
politically poised to play a leading role in the coming mass movement. On
the other hand, those who put forward demands for either U.S. or UN intervention
or UN inspections essentially reject the right of self-determination of
the Iraqi people.
Support to self-determination cannot be conditioned on one's views on
the nature of the Iraqi regime and its leaders, including Saddam Hussein.
It is not for the U.S. or any other nation to determine the nature of
Iraq's government. "Nation building" is an imperialist concept
employed to justify, supposedly in the name of "establishing democracy,"
the wars instigated by the world's real terrorists, the U.S. government
and its rivals in other imperialist centers.
It was the U.S. that armed and financed the Hussein regime when it suited
American capitalist interests. At that time, following the 1979 Iranian
Revolution that removed the U.S.-imposed regime of the Shah of Iran, it
was convenient and profitable for the U.S. to arm its Iraqi ally, including
Hussein, for a 10-year war against Iran. Whatever weapons of mass destruction
Hussein possessed were provided by the United States, the greatest purveyor
of violence the world has ever known.
The fact that the Iranian people dared to think that they could control
their own resources, especially their massive oil reserves, following the
Shah's overthrow, was unacceptable to corporate America. One million people
died in this U.S.-promoted war, 600,00 Iranians and 400,000 Iraqis.
Without the weapons and other support from U.S. and world imperialism
to dictators around the world, the people of this earth would have removed
their tyrants long ago. The people of Iraq and those of the rest of the
world need no more colonialists dressed as liberators promising "regime
changes" in the name of democracy.
The necessity of the united front
Organizational forms are subordinate to politics. Without principled
political demands, such as we have discussed above, the form of organization
chosen by the emerging mass movement is of little importance.
If millions of people, for example, were organized to demonstrate for
UN inspections in Iraq, any organizational form chosen by the movement to
bring out the masses would be negated. But once a movement has coalesced
around principled demands, the method of organization becomes a critical
question.
The experience of the Vietnam War during the 1960s and '70s and of the
Central American anti-intervention movement in the 1980s and early '90s
is instructive. At the early stages of both struggles decision-making tended
to be in the hands of small groups who took it upon themselves to lead the
movement without considering the merits of the broad involvement of broader
forces with deep roots in American society.
The result was not only constant and unproductive "turf war"
struggles between small groups but demonstrations that proved incapable
of growing to involve the mass forces that were required.
As these movements developed, however, new methods of organization emerged,
the most effective of which proved to be democratically organized mass national
conferences, where the full range of the movement was present and decisions
were made on the basis on one person, one vote.
These conferences, sometimes consisting of as many as 5000 activists,
discussed and debated every aspect of the tasks ahead. They represented
the full breadth of the social forces engaged in the struggle. They were
based on the principle of non-exclusion-that is, no one supporting the basic
demands of the movement was excluded because of their political or organizational
affiliation.
This was particularly important at a time when McCarthy-era exclusion
and red-baiting still permeated sections of the antiwar movement, as it
did the anti-nuclear weapons "peace movement" that preceded it.
Everyone was now welcome-from communists and socialists, to faith-based
groups, pacifists, feminist groups, and labor unions.
In short, the full range of forces were ready to unite for a single massive
demonstration of the movement's power. When such antiwar conferences were
convened, the real movement was, so to speak, in the room.
It was out of such mass democratic organizational forms that the most
powerful antiwar demonstrations were called. All the old hassles that preceded
this form of organization were put aside.
Arguments advocating delegated conferences based on one organization,
one vote disappeared. There was no sense granting one vote to an organization
that represented 100,000 people and an equal vote to a group that represented
five. In truth, when this method of organization was employed, more often
than not, the conference organizers and small groups were usually able to
manipulate representation to serve their own interests.
In the end, the movement settled on mass conferences open to everyone.
This usually meant that the great bulk of those present were new to the
movement and broadly representative of all of its constituencies.
The challenge before the movement today is to develop such forms in which
everyone is welcome. This, of course, requires the conscious collaboration
and agreement of the organizations that have already demonstrated their
capacity to mobilize.
The stakes are high. As the present movement matures no single group,
party, or organization, or even small combinations of them, can effectively
maintain organizational control-not to mention effectively reaching out
to the mass of new forces whose participation is a prerequisite to the construction
of a powerful antiwar movement.
We must not engage in organizing strategies and tactics that unnecessarily
and seriously weaken the movement. Inclusion means the democratic participation
of everyone and a decision-making process that results in the highest level
of unity possible around principled demands. This constitutes the fundamental
underpinnings of a united-front-type organizational structure that has stood
the test of time.
Participation in such a united front cannot be made contingent on agreement
on a broad range of issues. The united front is an action formation, around
a limited number of demands. It is not and cannot be the equivalent of a
political party, whose positions on a wide range of issues constitute the
basis for membership.
By definition, the united front requires agreement that all other issues
be put aside. Faith-based groups cannot insist on the inclusion of their
principles no more than socialist, feminist, and environmental groups can
insist on theirs.
This does not mean that every group and individual is not free to bring
to the contemplated mass mobilization the ideas they choose in the form
of placards, literature, and all the rest. It does mean that the political
basis of the mobilization must be limited to the central issues at hand.
At the same time, however, the broad range of groups involved can express
their individual views as part of the rally program, where the movement's
full diversity is best expressed.
The antiwar movement has expended considerable energy in disputes over
what demands to include as the basis for unity. There are no easy formulas
to resolve this issue. It is clear, on the one hand, that the movement we
are contemplating today is the struggle against U.S. intervention in Iraq.
The addition of other demands should be determined first and foremost by
whether or not they are both related to the war issue and whether they will
help broaden participation.
In today's political climate, for instance, the inclusion of demands
in defense of civil liberties and democratic rights can only expand the
movement. And it is clear that false issues of national security and the
war on terrorism that are used to justify war must be countered in the movement's
literature.
Similarly, any war in the Middle East cannot be separated from the issue
of Palestine. Intelligent ways to support demands for a free Palestine and
oppose the U.S.-backed slaughter of the Palestinian people can also be found
as the movement deliberates.
During the Vietnam War great efforts were made to channel the movement
into the Democratic Party, a party that was properly called the "graveyard
of social movements." Democratic Party supporters insisted not only
on the demand for "negotiations" in Vietnam but also pressed for
the inclusion of a wide range of issues whose content was vaguely stated
so as to appear acceptable to liberal Democratic Party politicians.
The Democrats, fully aware of the power of the antiwar movement, constantly
sought to coopt its leaders and ranks. The inclusion of vague multi-issue
demands at several points in the movement's history temporarily facilitated
the movement's decline.
Today, illusions in the Democratic Party as a force for social change
are somewhat diminished as more and more working people correctly see the
twin parties of capitalism as indistinguishable. Yet the reactionary record
of the Republican Party administration toward social issues has been so
flagrant that advice has come forth once again from some quarters that it
will be necessary to "hold our nose" and campaign for Al Gore
or some other "lesser evil" Democrat in the 2004 elections-as
well as to "recapture" Congress for the Democrats.
The movement must be on constant guard against any attempt to demobilize
it and to sidetrack its independent character in favor of Democratic Party
campaigns.
As the ruling rich prepare for war, the coming months will witness a
deepening of discussion and debate within the emerging antiwar movement.
The decisions made regarding strategy and tactics may well prove to be critical
to the movement's future and to the lives of countless thousands of the
innocent Iraqi and Middle Eastern peoples.
What do you think? Speak out! We invite our readers to submit commentary
on the issues raised in this article for publication in future editions
of our newspaper. Please send your comments to Socialist Action, 3425 Cesar
Chavez St., San Francisco, CA 94110 or e-mail socialistact@igc.org.
Socialist Action /November 2002 |