Facing Reality by Grace C. Lee, Pierre Chaulieu, and J.R. Johnson

Few folks are aware of Grace Lee Boggs’ works while she was in a small organization called Correspondence. Although Correspondence was never a large organization, it had an extremely productive existence as a center, which produced some of the most exciting ideas about its own time and what libertarian-socialism/ anarchism might look like in the future.

One key text Correspondence produced was Facing Reality. Correspondence was inspired by the events of the Hungarian revolution in 1956. This revolution was critical for them because they saw the working class come to power not by the means of seizing state power, but by directly taking over factories. This gave them a breath of fresh air on what alternative visions of socialism might look like. It verified their belief that the socialism practiced in Russia was not socialism, but actually a new form of capitalism—one that was led by the state—state capitalism.

This might seem to be arcane Russian and Hungarian history considering the fall of Russian communism happened almost two decades ago. But the continuing debates about Venezuela and Cuba should make these old questions relevant for our times. The leadership of these countries claim that they are headed towards socialism. Chavez even proclaimed a 21^st century model of socialism a while back. But is socialism only measured by the increases in wages, or more healthcare clinics? Granted these are important markers and no society in the future can do without healthcare for all, quality education, or guaranteed housing and food etc.

This is where Facing Reality’s insights are so critical. We cannot separate those gains from the fact that working people must control the healthcare clinics, their workplaces, their own community patrols, to name a few of the powers that normal people like you and I are capable of administering without professional politicians, managers, or NGO-types. This might seem like a pie in the sky idea, but just look at who is fighting the liberation struggles today: normal people, sometimes with no high school diplomas, let alone college degrees. Looking at the liberation struggles in the Philippines, S. Korea, Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq should be a powerful reminder that only we can build the new society.

I am posting a video of Grace Lee this week. She has continued to grow and this video is a reflection of that. Everyone has their "own" Grace Lee Boggs. I don't think Jomo or I have any secrets that our "Grace Lee Boggs" is the one who wrote "State Capitalism and World Revolution," "The American Worker," and "Facing Reality" to name a few of the key works she co-authored with CLR and/or Raya. However this does not mean we are ignorant of how she has changed in the past forty years.

In this interview, Grace does lay out some of the key problems facing society: war, the prison industrial complex and global warming. She says one of the ways we can solve this is by building community gardens. I do think these gardens can play a role in bringing communities together and teaching young people valuable lessons about the environment and the care it takes to grow food. As Grace mentioned, it also teaches people that the world does not operate on a "press the button" demand system. That there is an organic process to life and we should learn to respect it. However, I believe there are certain limitations to only working in community gardens. I wonder what Grace would think of the danger of community gardens becoming sub-cultures? How do community gardens challenge police brutality, institutionalized racism, poverty etc etc? How would community gardens relate to anti-racist organizations, to labor struggle organizations etc etc.?

Grace shows an uncomfortable relationship with political work. She describes old political movements being about worker's control over production and management and about capturing state power. I definitely agree that if politics is about capturing state power, the history of this has shown no gain or profit for working people. Instead, the best parts of the workers' struggles have resulted in gains such as the eight hour day, better wages, right to unionize etc. But I do disagree with her about the lack of possibilities for workers' power at the site of production. Just because plants might be sent overseas does not mean that workers cannot organize overseas or that there are no plants left in the United States. Nor is international solidarity out the picture. I am not trying to pick a fight with Grace. I got mad respect for her, but I gotta disagree with her on the perspective on workers' power.

I do like what she says about leadership in the end. We cannot look for great leaders who will come out of nowhere to save us. There are millions of everyday leaders. We are all capable of being leaders. We should not elevate Grace, Malcolm, Yuri, or anyone else to such a status where their human abilities and historical legacies are beyond our own capabilities. We should remember that all "great leaders" in the past were young like us, were willing to take a chance, were willing to take imaginative leaps, take risks, and more….

peace,
Suraj

GLB talk on Nov 15th!!