BY DOUG JENNESS
ST. PAUL, Minnesota - Last week's Militant described Jesse
Ventura, the newly elected governor of Minnesota, as a
Bonapartist. That's "the best description of this breed of
radical demagogue," I stated in an "As I see it" column. In the
article, "Election of Bonapartist figure Ventura in Minnesota
is danger to working people," I explained that the governor-
elect presents himself as a champion of "the people" who stands
above partisan politics and classes.
Describing Ventura as a Bonapartist is more accurate than simply referring to him as another "ultrarightist." He isn't a rightist in the same manner as politicians like former U.S. president Ronald Reagan or ultrarightists like Patrick Buchanan. Unlike politicians of this sort who espouse a broad range of rightist positions, Ventura takes diverse stands -from supporting a woman's right to choose abortion and legalization of prostitution and drugs - traditionally not positions of the political right - to cutting state-subsidized day care and replacing income tax with a national sales tax.
However, the article mistakenly creates the impression that Ventura's victory isn't a victory for the right wing. One of the breakers states, "Ventura: a Bonapartist, not a rightist." Underneath, the first sentence reads: "It's not accurate to label Ventura as a rightist...."
The truth is that while Ventura's demagogy is designed to draw support from a wide range of voters with contradictory political views and conflicting class interests, the thrust of his victory and his administration will aid the employers' offensive against working people and give a boost to rightist forces.
We should anticipate more assaults on social benefits that working people have wrested in struggle from the boss class -from education to workers' compensation and from child care to public relief for workers that can't get unemployment or medical insurance. And this will all be justified as being in the interests of the people of Minnesota.
What's wrong with `third partyism'
As I pointed out in last week's column, many middle-class
radicals have hailed Ventura's victory as a breakthrough for
building a "third party."
Marvin Davidov, a prominent pacifist in the Twin Cities, wrote to the St. Paul Pioneer Press on November 14: "The governor [Ventura] has opened up space for all alternative political parties. Sen. Wellstone should analyze carefully Jesse Ventura's victory. Paul, move to the left in your presidential run and help build the Third Party." Davidov is referring here to liberal Democratic senator Paul Wellstone, who is currently probing a run for the Democratic Party nomination for president in the elections two years from now.
In a similar vein Greg Gibbs of the Twin Cities Labor Party, in a letter posted on the Internet, stated, "The dead horse of `responsiblé Minnesota politics has been turned upside down. This can only be food for the third party movement. Ventura's victory is the best thing that could have happened as it opens the door for us."
The underlying assumption here is that there is something inherently progressive about a third party. But that's not true. All parties and politics have a class basis -even Ventura who claims to represent businessmen, farmers, and workers alike. The Reform Party, for which Ventura was the standard- bearer, is a capitalist party. Its positions are based on upholding and perpetuating the capitalist system of exploitation.
Those who talk about a third party abstracted from any class perspective inevitably end up being sucked into backing some form of capitalist politics. This has been the historical experience with "populist"-style third parties.
As workers and farmers, however, are drawn deeper and deeper into struggle to defend ourselves against the worsening consequences of the capitalist economic and social crisis, we more sharply confront the political parties and policies of the employing class.
The need is posed of breaking, not only with the Democratic and Republican parties, but with all forms of bourgeois politics, no matter if there are three, four, or five capitalist parties. As our struggles become sharper and more massive, the political confrontation will lead us to establish our own political course and policies independent of the capitalist rulers. It will pose sharply the need to form a political party of working people, based on the mass organizations of working people, including trade unions that become detachments of struggle.