Saturday, June 6, 2009

20

Echanges. This is that they are too, as it were, polite, and they
seem hesitant about the possible concrete role of left and pro-
revolutionary individuals and groups in moments of intense class
struggle (and even revolution). In their introductory text and
elsewhere Echanges appear coy about what they are doing
themselves and what practical effect they might have. It is clear
that their journals are only read by those who might understand
them, that is, a thin scattering of radicals across various countries.
Their journals are read by people who are like themselves, and not
by the working class in general or even by the workers involved in
the struggles that Echanges report and analyze. Echanges are
absolutely right about how the working class might become
revolutionary, but they seem to fail to acknowledge the role that
their readership and themselves (those who might understand
what they are talking about) could have in present class struggles
and future ones.

Because their modesty forbids them to give this scattering of
radicals, themselves included, any real importance in the
development of events they fail to see, or explain, just what it is
they are doing, or think they are doing. Of course, they are right to
understand that they have no (or extremely little) effect on class
struggle in the present time, but their modesty seems to have led
them to deny the role they have now and might have in the future.

What we have to understand is that the effect that we might have
on left radicals (that is, the only people who are able to listen to us)
is very important because, whether we like it our not, many of these
individuals will come to the fore in the times of revolutionary upheaval.
This will be due to their prolonged interest in "changing the world",
their knowledge of what might happen in certain situations and
their general silver-tongue-edness. Thus it is most important and a
matter of constant urgency that we engage this disparate group in
dialogue in order to get as many of them as possible to ditch their
leftist/liberalist/statist/managerial, etc, convictions and take on
communist positions. The process of development must be done
by engaging people bot on paper, in jouranls, and at discussion
meetings, and also in areas of practical struggles. [It goes without
saying that we can also engage, as a separate activity from
"political" work, with our fellow workers in struggles at our

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