Build Alliances, Advance the Struggle!

By Tom “Big Warrior” Watts

“Alliance politics is the left political terrain characterized by the coming-together of disparate interest groups to pursue a common cause, while retaining their own independence. Alliances have been around a long time (Thomas Paine first used the term in 1782 to describe the relations between the States of America), but as the dominant feature of left politics it is quite new. Alliance politics began to replace identity politics on one side, and left sectarian politics on the other side beginning in the early 1990s.

“Throughout the post-war period when a series of social movements dominated the left political landscape, any number of political parties and interest groups would be found within any social movement (usually engaged in a struggle over program and leadership within the movement). This was because the social movements themselves were poles of attraction, and parties and interest groups adapted themselves to this terrain by working within social movements. This is not the same as alliance politics, where the fragmentary effect of the identity politics which grew up within the social movements is such that no social movement is any longer a sufficiently powerful pole of attraction to be able to build sufficient social force to achieve its own ends; consequently, the various interest groups form alliances in which each participant brings to the alliance its own resources, with the aim of concentrating sufficient weight to achieve the agreed common program.

“The Environmental Movement had already developed a strong practice of alliance politics in the late-1970s, building on the “Think Global, Act Local” methodology which characterizes Green politics. For the same reason, the Neighborhood and ‘Save Our Suburbs’ movements which gained strength during much the same times as corresponded to the rise of identity politics. These local-action movements emphasized the development of community as opposed to identity politics, and developed the ideas of alliance politics which were to become the sine qua non of protest and community action by the 1990s.

“Alliance politics can only ever have a limited scope – to bring this or that issue to public attention, or force the government to adopt this or that regulation – since it is the unifying concept or principle which characterises a genuine social movement which is capable of bringing about a genuine social change, and alliance politics rests on the agreement of participants to respect each other’s differing points of view and motivations.

“As a stage of development of a social or political movement however, an alliance is very important, since it allows people with different ideas and theories to engage in collective practice, and it is this collective practice which forms a concrete basis for the development of a new principle which can be embraced by all the participants.

“The current ‘Anti-Capitalist Movement’ is an example of Alliance Politics, with a very wide range of political and social groups coming together to protest against the big, supranational institutions of capitalism, hated alike by farmers, small business people, trade unionists, the religious, socialists, communists, and environmentalists. It should be self-evident however, that until this movement has an alternative to a world run by transnational capitalist organisations it cannot constitute any fundamental threat; but as soon as the movement agrees on an alternative vision, it is no longer alliance politics.”

– (Marxist Internet Archives, Encyclopedia of Marxism: Glossary of Terms: Alliance Politics)

In building the Worldwide United Front Against Capitalist Imperialism, Racism and Police State Oppression, we must incorporate the concept of “Alliance Politics” with that of struggling for the alternative vision of Pantherism, or “revolutionary intercommunalism.” That is, we must cultivate alliances with divergent elements of the community and communities while at the same time waging ideological and political struggle against identity politics and left sectarianism to promote “all-the-way revolutionary” consciousness and proletarian ideological and political leadership.

It is not enough simply to build an anti-capitalist or anti-racist, or anti-police repression mass movement, and critically necessary that we build a mass movement that incorporates all three aspects while retaining the characteristics of “alliance politics” and bringing together divergent forces.

The original BPP was quite good at building alliances and should be regarded as the initiators of this trend (begun well before the 1990’s). I would go so far as to say that “weaponized identity politics” were initiated as a contra tactic to counter the Party’s growing influence upon broad masses of people within the communities along with the divisiveness of left-sectarian politics.

We must never forget that there is an active opposition in the political police and counter-revolutionary think tanks cooking up contra conspiracies and tendencies to disrupt and destroy our unity and movement, even when their moves are subtle and covertly subversive. The bourgeois state employs legions for the work of neutralizing the people’s struggle and yet maintains an invisible presence by outward appearance.

For every blatant move of repression like the assassination of Fred Hampton, there are a million subtle acts of character assassination, misdirection and disruption carried out with murderous intent. They work night and day to kill the spirit of resistance and revolution and are well experienced in their trade. We must be equally resolute in resolving conflicts and building unity and determination to advance the struggle no matter what obstacles are put in our way. We must use the science of revolution to look through to the essence of things and not merely see the appearance. The essence of identity politics and left sectarianism is petty-bourgeois individualism, and subjective idealism which is weaponized by neoliberalism and must be countered by revolutionary intercommunal solidarity and putting proletarian politics in command.

DARE TO STRUGGLE DARE TO WIN!

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!