Cadre School 2011 Readings

Readings: Socialist Organization

The Socialist Organization section of the curriculum is divided into four themes: History and Theory of Socialist Organization, Case Study of the 1960-70s, Crisis of Socialist Organization and Solidarity’s Founding and History. The assigned readings are:

Rosa Luxemburg — Organizational Questions of Russian Social Democracy (abridged) (9 pages)
Bring the Ruckus — What is a cadre organization? (2 pages)
Nancy Holstrom and Johanna Brenner — Women’s Self Organization: Theory and Strategy (4 pages)
Kit Wainer and Charlie Post — Socialist Organization Today (10 pages)
Solidarity Founding Statement (12 pages)
Ernest Mandel — The Leninist Theory of Organization: Introduction (2 pages)
Revolutionaries and Broad Left Parties (4 pages)
“Classics Packet” (10 pages)
Hammer and Hoe/Teamster Rebellion excerpts on cadres (5 pages)

Readings: Reform and Revolution

There are two overarching themes here: 1)the revolutionary critique of social democracy/reformism and 2)being a socialist working in movements historically and today.

Revolutionary Critique of Reformism

Rosa Luxemburg, “The Mass Strike, the Political Party, and the Trade Unions,” pp. 168-172 and 191-199. (7.5 pages)
Ian Birchall, May 1968 from Revolutionary Rehearsals
Hilary Wainwright: Response to John Holloway’s “Change the World Without Taking Power” (Draft of a Speech to the ESF-London) (7 pages)
Bob Brenner, “The Problem of Reformism” (4 pages)
Kathy Mcafee, “Socialism and the Housing Movement: Lessons from Boston,” pp. 8-9. 12-13, 50-53 (6 pages)

Case Studies: working in reform movements

This section will have readings but will also draw on comrades’ own experiences in or knowledge of activist movements. Comrades with particular knowledge of a certain arena/movement should be prepared to kick off discussions on each case study. The point of these case studies will be to build on the more general discussion by delving into what we as socialists bring to reform movements, what dilemmas we encounter, how we engage with activists who are not socialists, our method, our strategies, what’s worked, what’s not, etc.

LGBT movement/Marriage Equality (10 pages)

Peter Drucker, “The New Sexual Radicalism” ATC (May-June 2010) (6 pages)
Beyond Same Sex Marriage (executive summary) (1 page)
Interview with Ricky Mananzala (excerpt) (3 pages)
“Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride” (video)
Recommended: Kenyon Farrow, “Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black?” (8 pages)

Immigration Reform/the Dream Act (5 pages)

Subhash Kateel, “Diminishing Returns” (Organizing Upgrade, September 2010) (3 pages)
Julianne Hing, “McCain Runs Away from DREAMers as Reid Vows Senate Vote,” (Colorlines posted November 18, 2010) (2 pages)

Labor movement (13 pages)

Kim Moody, “The Rank and File Strategy” pp. 30-35
Mark Brenner, “A Report on the Solidarity Labor Commission’s Evaluation of the Rank-and-File Strategy” (2004), pp. 6-14
Dianne Feeley, “Autoworkers Fightback 2009” (2 pages)

Student movement

Adam Hefty, “Questions for a New Movement”

Fighting White Supremacy

Introduction

Solidarity is a multiracial socialist organization with a membership that is disproportionately white, relative to the working class. Since its founding, the organization has had important experiences participating in and learning from the struggles of African-American, Latino/a, Asian-American and Native people, in both multiracial as well as community struggles. However, our attention to different theories of racial and national oppression and struggles against them are relatively weaker than those about the labor movement, revolutionary organization, and feminism.

For members of color, a deeper understanding can help with a higher level of political engagement, participation, or leadership of struggles in the comrade’s own community. For members working in an oppressed community not their own (whether white or a person of color), a more nuanced understanding of national liberation struggles – neither dismissive nor romantic – can help these comrades more effectively contribute to and learn from their activism.

As an organization, a better understanding of the relationship between the politics of individual oppressed populations in the United States, other oppressed populations, and the overal political conjuncture will help with evaluations of the objective situation and how and where to participate politically.

As a mainly white organization at its founding, Solidarity has sometimes explored dialogs and alliances with organizations that are mainly or entirely oppressed nationality. There have also been efforts to change the racial composition of Solidarity through systematic recruitment and retention of people of color. This section of the cadre school is intended to educate newer members on this history and to be a part of exploring these questions.

As with other sessions at the cadre school, there is a limited “action” component to this section (although brainstorms, ideas and informal proposals will certainly come up in the discussion). This is because the cadre school falls immediately before the preconvention period, which is the appropriate place for action proposals. We hope that a shared educational experience of newer comrades can both help younger socialists participate more fully in the upcoming convention (in cases where older members may have a deeper level of knowledge) as well as radiate new political ideas into the entire organization during the pre- and convention.

Session 1: Guiding questions.

What are some different ways socialists and revolutionaries have understood white supremacy?
What are different theories about the historic and social origins of these divisions in the United States?
How does white supremacy intersect with capitalism, patriarchy and imperialism?

Required Readings