BRONX, NEW YORK, November 28 — For the past month, Occupy the Bronx, one of the offshoots of the main Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, has met every Saturday morning, providing further evidence that the anti-Wall Street sentiment is shared by large sections of the working class. The largely black and Latino group here expresses the same outrage and anger at bankers and bosses that is found on Wall Street. PL has been participating in the group’s activities, attempting to bring communist analysis and leadership into the darkness of reform and pacifism that limits this movement.
Perhaps the primary weakness in OWS is its lack of understanding of how racism is essential to capitalist inequality. In the Bronx, the links between racism and unemployment, poor education, and inadequate health care are more obvious. But even here, the task of bringing communist or even anti-racist ideas to the forefront is not necessarily any easier. For one thing, the leadership of the Bronx group is straight from OWS, and they’ve brought the same organizational style with them. Called “direct democracy,” it is actually a strategy to block radical motions and stifle revolutionary ideas. Also prominent is vague, idealistic thinking, typified by slogans like “the power of the people” and “This is what democracy looks like.” While they sound good, these slogans leave the working class unprepared to confront our class enemy.
Idealism versus Materialism
Idealism says that thoughts and ideas are the most important things, and that they determine our material reality, the way we live. The opposite of idealism is materialism, which says that the way we live (including social relationships between workers and bosses or protesters and cops) determine the ideas that we have. To put it simply: Positive thinking, by itself, will never stop the police from attacking us. It will never stop capitalists from exploiting us. Materialist philosophy calls for a deep understanding of the role played by the police and politicians in maintaining capitalism — and the extent to which the ruling class will go to maintain its class rule.
It is unclear how the recent attack by Mayor Bloomberg and the cops to clear OWS from Zuccotti Park will affect Occupy the Bronx and other offshoots in New York. Whatever happens, we will continue to participate in the group. Our first goal is to correct our major weakness: to begin to distribute CHALLENGE to the Occupiers.
We are involved in various “working groups,” including one on education and another called the “think tank,” where we try to bring communist ideas into the group. We are meeting people who are completely fed up. They are looking for answers and finding reformist, dead-end, idealist solutions. CHALLENGE will help us transform the idealistic struggle against Wall Street and corporate greed and into the materialist struggle against the profit system and for communism.