Counterrevolution American Style

1976 will mark the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In preparation for the Bicentennial celebration, relevant sections of black neighborhoods have been marked for demolition, and highways, military museums and convention centers are blueprinted to take their place. The Republican version of an Eliot House mixer is planned for each of our major cities.

For Jeremy Rifkin and John Rossen, editors of this five-article anthology and members of the People's Bicentennial Commission--a body whose goal is to "recapture our revolutionary heritage and build on it a society worthy of our legacy," the Bicentennial celebration will provide the spark for the next American revolution. Revolution American Style "is not about how to counter the Bicentennial campaign" Rifkin writes. "It is about how to capitalize on it by building a mass revolutionary movement for a radically restructured America." While this movement is surely American, it is hardly revolutionary.

The theoretical foundation of the Bicentennial campaign is outlined in an 80-page summary of American history, excerpted from a book entitled Will the Revolution Succeed? by Edward Schwartz. Citing the Declaration of Independence, Andrew Jackson, Abolitionists and the Populist Manifestos, Schwartz presents a picture of the American as democratic agrarian. The key to revolution is an appeal to basic American morality. We must now overthrow big capitalism, regaining our spirit of liberty. "The American version of the concept of revolutionary nationalism would be anti-imperialist, humanist, and libertarian in content, and national in form and rhetoric."

The path of his nationalist revolution is outlined in the concluding essay, a speech given by Professor G. William Domhoff at a University of California student strike rally in 1968. The weapon of the radical is "psychic guerrilla warfare"--non-violent confrontation politics, waged with "unfailing good humor, psychological analysis, and the flower power of the hippie." Beginning with a core of academics and intellectuals, the movement will win over blue collar workers, small businessmen and farmers, and eventually the New Right, another foe of the corporate giants.

Domhoff's 1968 speech calls for the welding of these groups into a new revolutionary party with a grass roots base large enough to win a Presidential election. In an August '72 postscript, he abandons the third-party scheme, and concludes that revolutionaries must run in Democratic Party primaries "on the most radical blueprints that can be developed." And as good Democrats, loyalty to the Party is "essential."

THESE RADICAL BLUEPRINTS are based on nationalization of the large corporations. The models for a post-revolutionary economy include the Berkeley food co-op and the Tennessee Valley Authority--which, states Domhoff, "has allowed the beginnings of the sane, productive and beautiful development of at least one-river region in our country"--although the TVA is actually one of the most important and most incorrigible polluters in the Tennessee Valley.

Revolution American Style is correct in asserting that any revolutionary movement in the United States cannot be based on the "hate America" approach often adopted by the New Left. The idea of a nationalist revolution, emphasizing American themes, is tactically appealing. But in reacting to New Left failures, Domhoff has wed his revolutionary faction too closely to traditional American institutions. In order to make revolution palatable, he has abandoned it.

Making "revolutionaries" members of the Democratic Party merely creates a more radical version of New York's New Democratic Coalition, a disorganized and slightly comical caucus of liberal Democrats. As another loyal faction in the Democratic organization, Domhoff's radicals are only another interest group calling for concessions. They bear partial responsibility for party decisions, and are open to co-optation by party liberals. It was a variation on Domhoff's brand of party loyalty that made possible the Watergate break-in and coverup. Dedication to any organization whose basic aim is the expansion of its own power can only lead to Nixonesque immorality. It is doubtful that a radical's convictions could survive a conventional climb to the Presidency unadulterated.

Nationalization of large corporations avoids the real problem. Making the President of General Motors responsible to the President of the United States, rather than a group of absentee shareholders, does little for alienated assembly line workers. We cannot merely imitate Soviet or British socialist ventures. Domhoff has swallowed the industrial system whole, without dealing with the human distortions it produces.

In the end, Revolution American Style fails to live up to its promises. The need for basic change in American life which runs through the Schwartz piece is not fulfilled in Domhoff's plan. Schwartz implies a return to pre-industrial, and even pre-Constitution America. Domhoff is unable to break free of the preconceptions of contemporary American life.

The ideology of revolution must reflect the temperament and social conditions of the time. But it must also yield the revolutionary a new perspective on his society. We can neither abolish, nor permanently accept our governmental and economic institutions. A successful revolutionary movement must have a compelling plan for dealing with the grave injustices which those institutions inflict upon us. It is here that Revolution American Style fails. Without a cogent plan, whatever "American" spirit there is within us remains academic. The Revolution of 1976 will be inoperative.