The Real Lesson of the New Deal for the US Left

[blindpig]

snip

Often lost in the popular view of the Great Depression is the profound role of turmoil, struggle and rebellion. Too many histories of the period recount the actions of politicians while ignoring the mass upsurge that influenced and shaped their actions. Bonus marchers – World War I veterans seeking their promised bonuses from the war – gathered in Washington DC in June 1932 to protest. The Communist-led Workers Ex-Servicemen’s League called the march after Congress rejected its demands for immediate relief. Twenty-five thousand vets and their families responded, forced to set up squalid shelters on the barren land called Anacostia Flats, across the Potomac from the Capitol. In late July, Hoover ordered the military, under the leadership of the future military “heroes,” MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Patton, to attack the bonus marchers’ makeshift city. These brave warriors shamefully drew swords and bayonets and, quoting the New York Times, “Amidst scenes reminiscent of the mopping up of a town in the World War, Federal troops… drove the army of bonus seekers from the shanty village…” Indeed, this was a proud moment for our military. As one of the protester’s slogans said, “Heroes in 1917- Bums in 1932.”

snip

Sixty years before Chalmers Johnson’s condemnation of “military Keynesianism”, Communist leader William Z. Foster anticipated his point by describing “big capital” Keynesianism. In a speech in 1948, he said: “Building a war economy has many political advantages for the reactionary capitalist Keynesians… Armament expenditures by the government are incomparably more favorable from a profit standpoint to the capitalists… in contrast to the less profitable reformist program of public works and the strengthening of the workers’ buying power and social security systems. Moreover, gigantic munitions orders can easily be secured under the cover of hysterical war scares, and besides this, the resultant militarization greatly facilitates big capital’s drive toward fascism… At the same time that the big capitalists readily agree to have the government spend billions yearly for the war economy, they also fill the air with strident cries for government “economy”. It will be seen, however, that their ideas of economy in government sum up pretty much to reducing the outlay of all sorts of social services and to the securing of lower taxes for themselves.”

snip

The current economic crisis has generated fear and panic in ways that recall the Great Depression. We also see policies that echo the recovery efforts proffered by both the Hoover administration and the early New Deal. But unlike the New Deal period, we have yet to witness the mass upsurge that pressured and propelled the Roosevelt administration to offer reforms benefiting the “forgotten man.” Yes, there is widespread dissatisfaction, anger and even desperation. All gauges of the public mood reflect this. But these sentiments are unfocussed, confused, and, most importantly, unorganized. Howard Zinn mentions in his commendable characterization of the New Deal of “the growth of spontaneous rebellion in the early New Deal…” There was rebellion, but it was hardly spontaneous. The undercurrent of resistance and rebellion, so important to the people’s gains in this period, were highly organized. To deny this fact is to diminish the efforts and energy of the many organizations rallying workers, farmers, youth, African-Americans, and veterans to challenge a course bringing misery to the masses. Without the unions, the Communist Party, the left, the CIO, and the farmer’s organizations, the struggle would have been left to the demagogues: Father Coughlin, the Townsendites, Huey Long, the KKK, and many others of this ilk.

Those on the left who are waiting – waiting for a spontaneous upsurge of the masses – miss the real lesson of the New Deal. Those who put their confidence in the Democratic Party alone also miss the lessons of the New Deal. Putting aside our often stated criticisms of the corrupted, corporate dominated Democratic Party, putting aside our profound dissatisfaction with the two-party system, the New Deal period demonstrates that even with a “friendly” Democratic administration, nothing comes without pressure from the masses, which must be organized and led by the advanced forces.

http://mltoday.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=328&Itemid=57

[eridani]

1. Just read the three volume Eleanor Roosevelt biography

Whenever she'd try to push FDR leftward, he would always say "Tell your friends to get themselves organized and MAKE me do that."

[Octafish]

2. Outstanding point.

They fear "organized" Labor. Students. Democrats.