sakaisettlersocr

XIV. TACTICAL &
STRATEGIC
The settler nature of the Euro-Amerikan oppressor
nation is the decisive factor in their political struggles.
It is the decisive factor in relations between Third-
World struggles and the Euro-Amerikan masses. This was
true in 1776 and true in 1976. True for the Ku Klux Klan
and true for the Communist Party USA - not that these
two organizations have the same politics, but that their settler
national character is the decisive factor in both.
It is only by grasping this that the question of
broader unity can be correctly answered. This is a particular
problem for Asian-Amerikans, who as relatively
small national minorities within the Continental Empire
have a high organic need for political coalitions and
alliances. It is difficult to evaluate different forms of unity
just from our own experiences alone. Asian national
minorities here have had a limited history of political unity
with each other, much less with Euro-Amerikans or the oppressed
nations.
Settler radicalism has taught us that two types of
unity are important: proletarian internationalism (strategic
unity of communists and workers of all nations) and immediate
trade union unity (tactical unity of all workers in
unions and other mass organizations). Since historically
most Asian workers here have been nationally segregated,
there has been little opportunity to test out this trade union
unity. The often-cited example is that of the Filipino-
Japanese plantation workers in the Hawaiian ILWU (the
radical-led Longshoremen's Union on the West Coast),
who by the 1970's were the highest-paid agricultural
workers in the world.* This is cited as proof that by uniting
inside the settler unions we will be able to not only get immediate
economic benefits, but will be laying the foundations
for eventual strategic unity with our "brother and
sister" Euro-Amerikan workers. In that viewpoint,
money-based tactical unity with settlers will eventually
produce a heartfelt strategic unity, wherein Euro-
Amerikan workers will join us as true comrades in making
revolution against their Empire. What our analysis has
proved is that this view is worse than simple-minded.
To better examine the question of strategic and
tactical relations, we need to turn to the broader history of
"Black-White workers unity," which has been used in the
U.S. Empire as the classic example of the supposed
superiority of radical integrationism. We need to begin
with the theoretical framework constructed by Message To
The Black Liberation Movement. Message performed a
mentally liberating deed by taking the question of unity
out of the fog of "racial" or "interracial" sentiment -
posing it instead in terms of national interests and class interests:
"Black- White worker solidarity cannot be attained
at any cost, but at a particular cost. We do not agree
with white leftist revisionists that Black and White workers
share the same interest because they are both workers.
While this may be true on a tactical level (specific struggles
around certain issues) it is not true on a strategic level.
Strategically speaking (long range) the Black workers
ultimate goal is the same as the masses of Blacks, which is
toward national self-determination as a people.. . Both the
establishment of a Black revolutionary Nation based on
socialist relations, and overthrowing the present capitalist
system and establishment of a predominantly white
workers state are complimentary struggles, and as such
there will be tactical unity around issues that effect both
Black and white workers." ( 1)
While this view was an important advance, it also
contained certain contradictions. It assumed, despite settlerism,
that the Euro-Amerikan masses and the Afrikan
masses had nationally separate but parallel struggles, both
moving in the same direction. Because of this "complementary"
relationship, there would naturally "be tactical
unity" between "Black and white workers."
First of all, tactical unity should be understood as
temporary, short-run unity around a specific issue by
forces that can even be fundamentally antagonistic. The
Chinese Revolution and the U.S. Empire had for a few
years a tactical unity against the Japanese Empire. The
unity between proletarians of different nations, struggling
towards socialism, is not tactical but strategic. There is
nothing temporary or tactical about the deep bond, for example,
between the Vietnamese Revolution and the
guerillas of El Salvador. We ourselves have deep feelings
of unity - more strategic than any national boundary -
towards our comrades in Vietnam.
If "both Black and white workers" were indeed moving
towards socialism in their respective nations, then the unity
would be more than tactical. In reality this is not the situation.
Message becomes confused when it tries to deal with
the fact that immediate issues (higher wages in a factory,
tenants' rights legislation, etc.) call for some tactical relationship
between "Black and white workers." This is a
relationship in the larger framework of national antagonism.
It is necessary to deepen this to see more fully what
is tactical and what is strategic in the linked struggles of
Euro-Amerikan and Third-World workers. Particularly, in
seeing that revolutionaries are not the only ones with tactics
and strategies. What is the relationship of tactical unity
to genocide?
*They are the first and last such, as the Hawaiian plantations
are closing down and shifting production further into
156 the Third World.