Freedom Is A Social Institution

The Johannesburg YCL study circle generally meets on Sundays at 10h00 in the SATAWU offices, 13th floor, Old Mutual Building, 29 Kerk Street, between Loveday and Harrison Streets, Johannesburg (but next week we will be having our Jhb Central Branch AGM at that venue). If you wish to take part in the YCL school, please contact the Johannesburg Central YCL. The next in their series is Alexandra Kollontai’s 1909 “Social Basis of the Woman Question”. The text is linked below. The Progressive Women’s Movement (PWM) was launched, but not launched. The linked document, undated and unsigned, is taken this week from the ANC web site. Yet the Progressive Women’s Movement has refused to institutionalise itself. It says it is: “Organic - not a formal structure”. This is a contradiction in terms. Organic means formed into set of organs that can together make a living thing. In this case it can only mean constitution, democracy, office-bearers, local structures and annual general meetings or congresses, and whatever else it takes to make an organisation. The Progressive Women’s Movement has refused all of these. The result will be that the PWM exists as a kind of undead zombie, that will only have life when it is dug up from time to time and dressed in a sponsor’s tee-shirt and cap, for whatever purpose the sponsor of the day should want. These sponsors will be bourgeois sponsors. The Communist writer Christopher Caudwell understood the kind of foolishness that declares a constitution that is not a constitution, creating neither rights nor duties. He wrote: “Implicit in the conception of thinkers like Russell and Forster, that all social relations are restraints on spontaneous liberty, is the assumption that the animal is the only completely free creature. No one constrains the solitary carnivore to do anything. This is of course an ancient fallacy. Rousseau is the famous exponent. Man is born free but is everywhere in chains. Always in the bourgeois mind is this legend of the golden age, of a perfectly good man corrupted by institutions. Unfortunately not only is man not good without institutions, he is not evil either. He is no man at all; he is neither good nor evil; he is an unconscious brute.” - Christopher Caudwell, from Liberty, a bourgeois illusion, in “Studies in a Dying Culture”, 1938. What applies to “man” in this case, must also apply to women. It is institutions, and only institutions, that can make them free. The lip-service paid to “Working class biasness” in the PWM document is completely inadequate. As it stands this PWM is either a waste of time or, worse, it is a step backwards for South African women. The Friends of Cuba Society (FOCUS) now, at last, has a web site. Please make it one of your “favourites” and pass it on to others in any way you can. Put links to it on web sites, if possible. On the FOCUS web site is a FOCUS Constitution, never seen before by the Communist University. This is a great step forward, even if the particular form chosen is a little bit more elaborate than perhaps it needs to be. See the linked document below. The biggest breakthrough in this constitution is the institution of FOCUS Local Networks (FLNs!) – see clauses 8.9 to 8.11 of the FOCUS Constitution. Forward to the Johannesburg FLN! Vukani Mde’s Political Diary in the “Weekender” as usual provides abundant wit and insight, as well as an example of good newspaper writing. See the sample (2 items in one document) below. Lastly, and so as not to forget the war in Lebanon, see the linked document of William Lind, a military theorist, who shows how the Israeli colonialists can kill and terrorise, but cannot win. It is even possible that they will suffer a catastrophic defeat, quite soon, and the same applies to their US partners in crime. Click on these links: Social Basis of Woman Question, abstract, Alexandra Kollontai, 1909 (6618 words) A Progressive Womens’ Movement of South Africa, ANC (1347 words) Friends of Cuba Society, Constitution (4901 words) Is NEC the executive board of ANC Inc, Vukani Mde, Weekender (671 words) Collapse of the flanks, William S Lind, Counterpunch (762 words)