Urban Guerilla

This is the title of a recommended book from the Better Read than Red list. Martin Oppenheimer's work was reviewed in the Socialist Standard of June 1970.

Under modern industrial and political conditions the socialist revolution can only be successful if the vast majority of wage and salary earners consciously and act­ively take part in it. This is what Ame­rican university lecturer Martin Oppen­heimer argues here. Or, as he puts it himself:

"The liberation of mankind, as the Marxian saying has it, mast be the work of mankind :itself, must be majoritarian and democratic, No elite, whether violent or non-violent, can sub­stitute. "

Urban Guerilla is a study of insurrec­tion and revolution. Oppenheimer notes that most revolutionary theory today is still based on the assumption "that a minority may have to carry the revolu­tion through". His book is a criticism of this assumption,

Peasant-based insurrections, he sees, do not and cannot lead to the establishment of a democratic, classless society since the peasants, being 'incapable of ruling society, must hand over power to some minority. Such insurrections bring to power a new ruling class as has been shown in China and Cuba and now also in Vietnam. Writ­ing of thinkers like Mao, Guevera, Fanon and Debray, he says:

"Contemporary revolutionists claiming the Marxist label are not really Marxists at all. In different ways, they all representrule by an elite, but they use Marxist language and peasant revo­lution (consciously or not) to justify their present or future rule. This may not be the intent... but it does seem to be the obiective function of the con­temporary peasant revolution and of its ideologies."

In modern industrial countries an in­surrection can only succeed if the vast ma­jority of the people support it (or are at least neutral) and if the government's machinery of suppression has broken down. In the absence of these conditions an isolated urban insurrection will be crushed with great bloodshed. This was demons­trated in Paris In 1871, in Dublin in 1916, in Shanghai in 1927, in Vienna in 1934 and in Warsaw in 1943 and 1944. The same would happen, warns Oppenheimer, to any Ghetto insurrection suoh as advo­cated by the Black Panthers, Incidentally, he is not taken in one bit by Black Power realising that its aims are in no way incompatible with the present system; the American government might easily grant self-government to the black ghettos and continue to exploit them in the same way as Britain and France do their ex-colonies. Black Power, like Home Rule, is a fraud.

Over the years it has become more and more difficult so that it is now almost impossible for a minority to defeat the government's forces:

"It is clear that modern technology, par­ticularly the speed of communication and travel, has made that harder than ever to accomplish, even with a general strike. The use of such devices as heli­copters, light bombers, and gas and napalm, whiile not excluding revolution­ary outbreaks, makes them much more costly than a century ago."

Oppenheimer recalls that "as long ago as 1895 ... Engels pointed out that street fighting had become obsolete in 1849".

A possible alternative strategy for an active minority in a modern industrial country is to wage a protracted campaign of violence, terror and sabotage - or even of non-violent civil disobedience - in a bid to bring about the collapse of the machin­ery of government. This, suggests Oppenheimer, would probably rather lead to the rise of a fascist dictatorship and, even if successful, being the work of an active minority only, could easily lead to the rule of a new privileged class as in peas­ant-supported revolutions.

To succeed, concludes Oppenheimer, the revolution must be essentially non-violent and democratic involving the vast major­ity df the population, especially white and blue collar workers "for these are the only classes which, due to their relationship to the functioning of modem society, have both the potential for making a revolu­tion and the capæbility of carrying it through on a democratic basis". To attempt a revolution without such majority support "is almost inevitably bound to result either in a counter-revolutionary fascist society or in a revolutionary dictator­ship which destroys the goals for which the revolution was undertaken."

This is more or less how we would put it too.

There are however two important points on the strategy for a majority revolution on which we would disagree with Oppen­heimer.

We agree that a socialist party must be democratic and open and so reflect the society it wishes to achieve, We agree too that it must not get involved in conven­tional politics or seek to form the govern­ment. We cannot agree however that it should engage in the day-to-day struggle as well as agitate and organise for Social­ism. To do so runs the great risk of becoming yet another conventional politi­cal party since engaging in the day-to-day struggle of people under capitalism necessarily involves advocating reforms. A re­form programme would attract people who want reforms rather than Socialism. In a democratic, open party such people would come to dominate it and turn it into a instrument for trying to get reforms ra­ther than for carrying out the social revolution. Oppenheimer is aware of this as he himself mentions the fate of the German Social Democratic Party. The best way to avoid this danger is for a socialist party, while not being opposed to reforms and always being on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors, not to advocate them.

Nor do we see why existing more or less democratic institutions cannot be transformed into instruments of the Social­ist revolution. Given that there is effective universal suffrage, local councils and some central elected body like Parliament or Congress it seems pointless not to use them both to register majority support for the revolution and to co-ordinate the mea­sures needed to carry it through. Why bother to set up also "institutions that would parallel existing structures of go­vernment"? No doubt as the socialist re­volution approaches people will be orga­nising in all kinds of informal bodies ready to take over and run society after the end of class rule, but as long as democ­ratically-elected councils and parliaments exist winning control of them through the ballot-box must surely be central to the strategy of any socialist party in a modern industrial country.

One further criticism. Oppenheimer does not spell out clearly enough that the social­ist revolution cannot take place on a national scale but must be international and lead to the establishment of a world society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life with production solely to satisfy human needs.

We detail these criticisms - all of which mind you, only arise within the context of a majority revolution - because the rest of the book is so good. We unhesitatingly recommend it.

A.L.B.