it FDASL OVO: By SI GERSON ecent events, above all, the vast popular anti-war upsurge of Vietnam Moratorium Day, have sharp- ened a whole series of strategical and tactical questions for the American peace movement. Leaders of the peace movement — and thousands of rank-and-filers — are pondering the question: What next? For most the answer.is simple: such actions as will compel the Nixon Administration to end the war and withdraw American troops from Vietnam immed- iately. Hence, the powerful feeling for the actions of November 13,. 14 and 15 with the climactic March on Washington the last day. Hence, the wide rejection of crude efforts to split the unity of the peace drive by red- baiting. In short. the essence of the problem for most fighters for peace is getting the largest number ‘of people into anti-war action at all levels. But underlying this seemingly simple proposition there are basic ideological questions. If one estimates that it is possible to unite millions— and the very term ‘millions’ under present conditions includes workers, the black. Puerto Rican, Mexican- American and Indian peoples, students. farmers, pro- fessionals, some business people and even sections of the Establishment — then one develops tactics accordingly. If. however. one estimates that the working class is hopelessly corrupted and that the black and brown peo- ples see only their own national oppression — then an- other set of tactics inevitably follows. In a word, underlying ideological premises are cru- cial to definition of sound strategy and tactics. This is no academic issue, as current debate around the Moratorium and the next steps in the peace fight clearly proves. While anti-war fighters reject red-bait- ing and exclusionary policies with virtual unanimity, oth- er problems have arisen that have considerable bearing on the direction. unity and effectiveness of the peace struggle. There are those, for example. who tend to be aloof or to sneer at the Moratorium movement. (One leaflet distributed at Oct. 15 demonstrations was headlined: DON’T MORITORIATE.”) These people contend that the movement does not have an “‘anti-imperialist’’ con- tent or that the movement will be *‘co-opted by the Es- _ tablishment"’ — nowithstanding the fact that the aims of the Moratorium are directed squarely against President Nixon's continuance of imperialist aggression. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—-NOVEMBER 21, 1969—PAGE 10 ’ we ee eee: eae: es ed | iS RAGVOV OY --aVooH: SOFIA These people profess to fear that a vast mass move- ment with a common end-the-war denominator will some- how dilute the revolutionary struggle, a fear apparently not shared by the Vietnamese fighters for national libera- tion. So these detractors stand apart from the mass move- ment and exhibit a certain elitism with reliance almost solely upon ‘‘confrontations’’ by small and presumably more advanced groups. Their views obtain their main ideological underpin- ning from Prof. Herbert Marcuse, whose writings have received considerable circulation among sections of the New Left. Marcuse’s theories have been subjected to sharp criticism by Marxist-Leninists, above all for his rejection of the working class as the fundamental, long- term agent for social progress and revolutionary change. Marcuse holds that capitalism has given the workers affluence and that the class has now become “’a conser- vative, even counterrevolutionary force’’ (An Essay on Liberation. Beacon Press. 1969). Even the so-called ‘new workingclass’’ of which some in the New Left speak — they refer apparently to highly-skilled workers, many with college backgrounds, who are to be found in automated and computerized industries — is cast aside. On this section, Marcuse wrote in the above-cited work: “This ‘new working class’ by virtue of its position could disrupt, reorganize and redirect the mode and relationships of production. However, they have neither the interest nor the vital need to do so: they are well integrated and rewarded.” If the working class. either ‘‘old’’ or ‘‘new,”’ is not to be the principal force for fundamental social change. who is? : Even non-Communists boggle at Marcuse’s theories on this point. Thus, Prof. Alastair MacIntyre, writing in the Oct: 23 issue of The New York Review of Books, argues that Marcuse places his principal faith on ‘the middle-class whites of the SDS and their counterparts in Britain, Germany and France, who in their combina- tion of insurrectionism and anarchism exemplify what Lenin diagnosed as left-wing communism, an infantile disease.” MacIntyre dwells on this point at considerable length to make the point that Marcuse’s theories break with Marxism. He writes: “Marcuse devotes most of his account of the forces of liberation to an argument about the char- acter of the student revolt. What leads him to take them as the authentic agents of liberation is above all their aesthetic quality, their style. Flower power, - the language of the hippie subculture, that of soul culture, the use of four-letter words mark, so Marcuse Hanoi and Washington. The masS movement cot {he a I- a’ claims, a new sensibility which breaks with the cH t ture of the market. ; pe: } “What traditional Marxism saw as petit-b0 < i geois bohemia closely allied to the Lumpenpralet | iat has become in Marcuse’s latest theoretical po o 1 tion the catalyst of change. Traditional Mar oF 4 took the view that it did for a very good reason: t o 4 the sensibility of bohemia effectively cuts it off 0. the vast mass of mankind on whom the bohemia” — are, in economic fact, parasitic.”’ ae Ww Prof. MaclIntyre’s harsh strictures cannot Dé ‘ cepted as a full description of the courageous and & ing student movement which today forms so vital ares of the anti-war and black liberation struggles. But ™ oft sential point is well-taken and has been made 19 m jo skillful and rounded-out fashion by Marxist-Leninist, i fact. there is a growing realization in sections of the the | dent movement today that the working class * prime historical force for deepgoing social change- y a | There has followed a wider understanding i Be the need for unity with labor and the black people’s§ er gles in the anti-war movement. And hence also a ere all L appreciation for developing tactics that move 1° the the advanced but the great mass of the people mr fot i struggle to end the war and go forward in the figs peace and basic social change. 5 a It is, of course, true that understanding grOW? 4 people become engaged in mass movements to co oda! real changes in government policy. Clearly visible y res is the growth of such understanding, a certain pro ned sion from the elementary desire for peace to a deer jo realization that the war-making forces are inheré qo" imperialism. This is evidenced by the virtual abl iq ment of the ‘impartiality’ that once put equal plan ‘e < views as its target the Nixon Administration an military-industrial complex for which it fronts. e With this there comes a deeper realization it social and class forces involved and a better appr the |: tion of the fact that a handful of monopolists contr? * jis economic and political life of our nation. To defe@™ jij. handful it is mandatory to unite the working clas* the masses of people. a Theories of contempt for the working clas ess those advanced by Marcuse, can only disorient fig the for peace and social progress. That is why those 400 New Left enamoured of Marcusian theories mig Jes well to re-examine them in the light of the real str¥ and real needs of the people. i \d : =