Anti-Imperialism
October 27, 2006By the middle 1970’s, STO concluded that its initial efforts at revolutionary organizing at the point of production had not been successful. Instead of a growing upsurge in working class radicalism, the period of worker insurgency that began in the late 1960’s had instead wound down (partly because of the then-developing process of de-industrialization). One of the hallmarks of STO, however, was its commitment to re-thinking its own assumptions and strategies. In this case, a shift took place that led, among other developments, to a strong focus on anti-imperialism and action in solidarity with third world national liberation efforts (especially those of Puerto Ricans, blacks/New Afrikans, and Iranians).
This shift had at least two main components, one theoretical and one practical, and each had its own set of consequences. The theoretical shift was the transition from the anti-racist analysis typified in early works like “Black Worker, White Worker,” to the national question framework of analysis found in works such as “White Supremacy and the Afro-American National Question.” The “national question” was a major buzzword in the Marxist left of that era, much as it had been all the way back to turn of the century Russia and even to Marx’s own contentious writings on the subject. In the 1970’s, groups like the Revolutionary Union, the October League, and the Philadelphia Workers’ Organizing Committee participated in arcane debates over the implications of, in particular, Stalin’s writings on the national question.
STO, true to form, entered the fray to oppose Stalin’s influence on these discussions, and instead advocated a position they derived from Lenin, and which the group tied to its own previous analysis of white skin privilege and white supremacy. One main point of disagreement here related to the geographic extent of the Afro-American/New Afrikan nation: most of the New Communist Movement groups argued that black people constituted a nation only in the black belt south, while STO, by contrast, supported the position that all black people were part of the nation, wherever they lived. This may seem today a marginal and purely theoretical point, but the result was a significant challenge to the dominant modes of thought on the left in North America, and a strong defense of the autonomous, self-determining character of the black movement. Similar issues arose around STO’s support for armed struggle in the Puerto Rican context.
On the practical side, STO’s change of direction meant more time spent in solidarity coalitions made up of radical activists, and less time spent organizing in the workplace. In many cases, people with middle class career opportunities left jobs in the workplace; in other cases, people more committed to industrial organizing left STO altogether. Organizing around issues of importance to nationalist movements became more and more the focus of STO’s work, whether it be grand jury resistance by Puerto Rican and Chicano revolutionaries, legal defense for New Afrikan militants, or anti-Shah organizing in cooperation with Iranian students. In every case, the perceived levels of crisis in response to US government repression led to an increase in the amount of work required. The assumption was that this level of crisis correlated to the advanced stage of struggle, and that revolutionary possibilities were on the horizon, just as they had once been in the industrial workplace.
One result of this shift in STO’s politics and strategy was the increasing interaction with groups like the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee and the May 19th Communist Organization. These three groups shared a commitment to direct solidarity with third world revolutionaries, although they disagreed sharply about the parameters of this solidarity, and engaged in their own arcane debates about the meaning of phrases like “unconditional support.”
STO’s anti-imperialist period largely came to an end by the early 1980’s, as the group became increasingly aware of the ideological and strategic differences between their anti-Stalinist radicalism and the more authoritarian tendencies of some of the major nationalist grouping with which they had previously worked. At the same time, STO attempted (with some success) to shift into direct engagement in a number of then-growing social movements, especially anti-nuclear, anti-fascist, and anti-war struggles. (More on this era in STO history later.)
Debate continues to this day among former members of STO as to whether this anti-imperialist period represented a continuation or a repudiation of the initial efforts of the group. In retrospect, both strategies failed, insofar as neither resulted in anything like a successful revolution. The lessons of each era are both complementary and contradictory. Nonetheless, the flexibility shown by STO in its efforts to identify revolutionary openings represents a clearly superior alternative to the two main tendencies in the North American left during that period – the right-ward drift toward reformism (which STO had initially criticized in the trade union context), and the navel-gazing self-isolation of the far left, including most anarchist efforts during those years.
