trine is support for international law, respect for the principle determination and human rights, and economic condemns the invasion of Grenada and the bombing of Libya, supports the Arias peace plan in Central and the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland - although within the limits imposed by a "two state' solution. Jackson was a prominent speaker at the 200,000 strong march for gay rights in Washington DO was conspicuous for presidential hopefuls which Jackson went out of his way to ublicly hug people with Alds. Jackson Mallitalis rhetoric against business, condemning corporate merging, purging and submerging Dispossessed Jackson's avowed attempt to build a coalition of the dispossessed' enjoys support from population. These devase those of isgling against the devastation family farm due to the policies of the Reagan government, through Chicana cannery workers in Watsonville California, to organisations actively engaged against intervention in America. Jackson has not shunned such support but has appeared picket lines and has actively intervened against attempts to foreclose family farms.
Jackson has also attempted to present the mythology of the American of selfHe an White House.
Amenta woollaile lesbian and — which coalition' in the absence of big Liberalism The power supremacy of the perialism during sectors of the Stance, without Central overtly Vicious McCarthyism in the fifties), American Dream - of fairness, equality and the ability of anyone to 'make it', given half a chance. Indeed, this is summed up in his campaign slogan: 'I was born near outhouse, and I'm headin' for the All of this is of major significance for US politics. It represents a churning up of key forces which have supported the Democratic Party. But what is the and dynamic of Jesse Jackson's campaign, and his rainbow American politics? answer that is to see one of the most decisive political processes in the world.
which made the Democratic possible was the gigantic rise of US imand between the two world wars. FDR's 'New Deal' worked because US capitalism recovered from the capitalist economic crisis of 1929-31 and was able to make concessions the most important being the accepeliminate it, of the mass unionisation of ally real attempt the American working class. On that basis the power of US imperialism, then approaching its zenith, was able to integrate the majority of the working class into support for the Democratic Party. The Democrats, capitalising on 'New Deal' liberalism (which had its such remained capital's choice from the 1930s to the late 1960s.. The decline of US imperialism is bringing down the Democratic Party with it.
The structure Roosevelt built first began to come apart with the economic and political strain of the Vietnam war - the war being launched, of course, by a Democratic president. The Rooseveltian consensus collapsed completely with the worldwide economic crisis of the seventies. Suddenly Democrats weren't able to offer working class such things as wage increases anymore. And when no one is offering you anything, you begin to lose interest in an electoral system in which your interests aren't considered.
The result was the growing abstention by American workers from electoral politics. By now almost 50 per cent of the American population, and a higher proportion of the working class, do not bother to vote in presidential elections. The working class support which kept the Democrat's in power is evaporating. This is why the Democrats have won only one presidential contest since 1968 - Carter's in 1976 Failure This crisis of the Democratic Party becomes still deeper as its leadership responds by moving progressively to the right - can Party in vo settisonine Republican jettisoning 'special interests for which Blacks, women, and labour). This electoral policy has met miserable failure — and will continue to do so.
But in particular for the mass of the US Black population this road to the right is not open. They are at the bottom of the heap of American capitalism - and also are the most advanced section of the US working class. Neoliberalism', abandoning old terests, has nothing to offer them. They are consquently no longer prepared to accept the law being handed down by white Democrats who policies both in the United States and regular internationally and who now have no concessions offer. historical threat of a break with the Democratic population.
Discontent Jackson's role is to attempt to maintain the allegiance of the Black population to the Democratic Party by another means. He is attempting to revive the Democratic Party by bringing back into active politics been excluded from voting or fallen into greater and greater years. Jackson's campaign can be clearly understood if one grasps it as an attempt by American capital to head off the murmurings of discontent from the dispossessed of the world's most powerful nation women, gays and lesbians. A last ditch worker read attempt to bring discontent, once more, into the welcoming Democratic Party.
relate not just to the Black population US working class Hormel, for gay thousands independently do, if they situation. of the real situation.
defeated, the 'special for five It raises the off. But by Black surdity of the those who have either apathy over the of American - from Blacks, Hispanics, farmers, trom the misunderstand To recover these Jackson is forced to JaCKsUn. of the United States but also to the signs of rising discontent in the white - a working Class whose real wages have now been stag nant for more than a decade. These elements of discontent are shown both negatively in the rising electoral abstention and positively in events such as the Minnesota, meatpackers strike, the Watsonville, California strike of Chicana cannery workers, the march of 200,000 people in Washington DC and lesbian rights, thousands who working daily for peace and justice in Central America. It is necessary for US imperialism to attempt to prevent these forces organising themselves political!!
of either of US perialism's twin parties. Because if they created even a reformist would drastically weaken the position of US imperialism and its room for manoeuvre. It would be a turn in the entire world political Jackson's mission is co-opting the discontent that is beginning to manites! itself in the US. And, obviously, he is proving to be remarkably successful. He is putting forth a series of demands that are obviously resonating in the ears American working which is the real significance of the fact that he is now getting support well outside the Black population. Significant Yet Jackson also understands the He knows he has no chance of being selected as Democratic candidate for president. And once he is white racist capitalist is selected, Jackson will duly call for a vote for that candidate. Having marched people up to the top of the hill he will then urge them to support candidate sallic racist capitalist party they have been tied to decades. road.
remobilise forces and then to push them once more behind the Democratic party, is Jackson's historical role. He is not a step towards independent working organisation the United States but the attempt to head it what interesting, historically profoundly significant is that US imperialism is now forced to use such methods to attempt to head off even potential US working ass and Black political action In the United States today, the ab"seven dwarfs' for Democratic candidate, in verve and success •OI Jesse • ckson's campaign, one of the greatest a amas in world politics is beginning to unfold This is the break up of the Democratic and the first steps of the US working class towards creating an independent working class party. It is a drama that will take decades te unfold But as it does so it will affect e ry part world politics. the working class form such a party the entire politi Situa tion on the planet will be tra from top to bottom Don't be put off by the ab:
some of the bit players - = =0=:
But this is one :
stories of world politics.
Socialist Action April 1988 THE STRATEGY of permanent revolution implies that Marxists learn to take advantage of all the hesitations and uncertainties of the bourgeoisie in order to win over the popular and peasant masses and advance the revolutionary in an rupted manner toward socialist objectives. In other words, a combined democratic-socialist revolution, under proletarian direction, is an objective possibility in the peripheral capitalist regions, and this possibility does not depend on the prior achievement of the bourgeois democratic revolution (the classic stagist doctrine of the Stalinists). On the contrary, depends on the partial or total success in accomplishing tasks, and/or the capacity of the proletarian vanguard leadership of a block gressive forces.
In caragua as in Cuba, the economy before the revolution was based principally on cash crops for export: cotton, coffee, livestock breeding. The development of capitalism in the countryside since 1960 — notably the cotton boom — had signified the displacement and dispossession of small producers of corn, beans, rice and sorghum. This capitalist 'process' contributed to the growth of poverty. Likewise, it had two important social consequences:
1) the development of an enormous mass or rural workers into proletarianised or underproletarianised conditions, in which many only worked during the four harvest; it is estimated that 78 per cent ot the rura labour force such a proletarianisation;' 2) a vast process of rural exodus that saw the victims of 'land clearings' for cotton and ranches leave for the towns. However the urban industrial uninterit these win of prosugar, months of the experienced promust earn local opposition. submission to Wallac easily COSS fected remained itself in the revolution.
repressive agells ... We MUSI guard against the danger that the insurrec tion will be manipulated by reac tionary forces within the anti-Somoza The objective of the revolution is a double one. One part of its task is to break the power of the criminal and traitorous clique that has usurped bower over the vears The other part is to stop the capitalist component of the opposition, whose imperialism is well known, from taking advantage of the crisis to seize power In its own malle Another distinctive trait of the Nicaraguan revolution is the relationship between the respective roles of urban insurrection and rural guerrilla The decisive political/military moment in the destrucsomoza's well-oiled wal machine was the massive armed upris ing of workers, the urban poor and the youth of the towns - first in the provincial centres (Masaya, Lyon, Esteli), then in the capital (Managua).
The relative maturity of the FSLN understandable since Nicaraguan revolution took advantage of the Cuban revolutionary proTransition On the other hand, the transition to a collectivised economy after the overthrow of the dictatorship was et much more slowly in Nicaragua than in Cuba where two years after the victory of the insurrec tion capitalism had been completely uprooted. It would be false to draw the conclusion from the prolonged character of the transition that the Nicaraguan revolution had taken no anticapitalist measures or that it had prisoner the "bourgeois-national stage.
Paul Le Blanc, author of one of the best revolutionary Marxist studies of the process in Nicaragua, justly remarked: rrom the beginning Nicaraguan revolution did not limit "bourgeois-democratic" tasks. To the contrary, it dismantled capitalist political power. It was only crossing the limits of bourgeois