Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 01:36:19 -0500
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-G: Proyect's and Trotskyist History!


Well our ex-Swper now neo Stalinist-Menshevik has wrote a long letter on 
what he belives is the history of Trotskyism in regards to the 
Goldman/Morrow faction fight.

Naturally our ex-SWPer has lined his story though his anti-Trotskyist and 
especially anti-Cannon spectacles. In fact a lot of it is a falsification of 
this great fight and in fact Proyect as usual winds up on the wrong side of 
the fence. It is worth noting that this old fight which Proyect paints up in 
favor of Morrow is spiced with his own appetite of not only capitulating to 
Stalinism but also a fundemental break with any kind of revolutionary 
politics. But I find it very bizaar that Proyect brings up this stuff now. 
(Christ he has been whining about how horrible discussing all these old 
fights are).

 Back then the pressure was really on with many of the people involved just 
coming out of prison, but for Proyect ,the New York Librarian, there can not 
be any kind of real pressure involved here except trying to trash the 
Trotskyists on this list with his off the cuff article. In fact my guess is 
he is trying to "dazzle" us with what he thinks is surpose to be Trotskyist 
history. But in reality shows his own political bankruptcy and attraction to 
certain intellectual types like Morrow and his love for a more recent fake 
Trotskyist attempts to compare Trotskyism with science fiction in the form 
of Tariq Ali! However this stuff that he wrote was political and deserves 
and answer.Then again Proyect is also and example of one of those types of 
intellectuals that derived out of the new left under the sixties and dabbled 
in SWP politics a few years during the period when the SWP was heading full 
steam towards being a reformist organisation. One of the types that had Che  
pictures on the wall, read some Trotsky and then slavishly followed the SWP 
into reformist politics. Proyect's fallout with the SWP was not over their 
rotten political line but in fact the SWP's turn to industry. I mean get out 
their and scream the social patriotic slogan "Bring the boys home" and 
inviting the left wing of the imperialist bougeoisie to speak at anti-war 
demos is one thing, but telling Louis Proyect to leave the New York Library 
and get a job in industry is another. Thus his divorce with the SWP. However 
it should be mentioned here that Proyect was hardly ever near any kind of 
Trotskyist positions. In fact he considers people like Tariq Ali, Morrow and 
the politics of the then reformist SWP to be Trotskyist.. Now getting back 
to Proyect's falsification of Trotskyist history..

In fact the minority of the SWP which developed after the end of world war 
two was far more then a discussion around the European perspectives. But in 
the beginning it did have a central part in the faction fight. But the truth 
is that this fight was not something black or white with the bad guys on one 
side and the good guys on the other and in fact a common document was 
written on April 16, 1945 and signed by the leaders of the minority and the 
majority which said;

"1. There are no clearly defined differences at the present time on 
programmatic questions.
2. There is no disagreement on the analisis of the situation in the United 
States and the problems and tasks of the party as outlined at the convention.
3. The differences on the convention resolution dealing with "The European 
Revolution and the Tasks of the Revolutionary Party" are not fundemental in 
character. The differences, insofar as they have found definite expression 
thus far, are rather secondary in character and relate primarily to 
questions of interpretation and emphasis. It remains to be seen whether, in 
the course of events and futher discussions, the present differences will be 
recounciled in agreement or developed into principled divergences."

The docuement continues along these lines and in fact Cannon saw no reason 
at this point to have a split on the European question.

On April 17,1945 Cannon wrote a letter to Jules Geller in Akron, Ohio 
confirming the "truce" in the party.

Between April and the end of July the differences between the minority and 
the majority had taken what it appears to be a sharp turn from the above 
truce towards a open fight and split. Mainly because the minority (Goldman 
and Morrow) purposed  in a motion to the party that the SWP approach the 
Schactmanites with and offer of readmission to the party. And in fact the 
minority without the party's agreement had already appointed a committee to 
begin negiotiations in order to carry out the line of the minority in making 
a defacto block and coup de tate with elements who at the beginning of the 
war deserted Trotskyism under the pressure of Revolutionary opposition to 
American imperialism participation in the war and defense of the Soviet 
Union despite the Stalinists - for a state cap line which ment a plague on 
both your houses and a cozy little place of abstentionism from fighting for 
the line of revolutionary defeatism against American imperialism while at 
the same the taking upon the responsibility of defending the gains of the 
October Revolution and extending them. In other words a line of political 
cowardness in the face of American patriotism and pro war propaganda..

This new turn by Goldman/Morrow was rightfully seen by Cannon as a 
declaration of war against Trotskyism and the then Trotskist SWP and a 
classical rotten block in the making between the Goldman/Morrow faction and 
the Schactmanites! 

In fact the Goldman/Morrow faction declared at the same time as their 
approach to the Schactmanites without the knowledge of the majority 
themselves as a faction to conduct "an organized struggle" in the party. 

The call for a faction was around the following political points. Unity with 
the Schactmanites and to fight the "Stalinist" regime in the party.

So in reality Proyects rosy picture of Morrow is completely false from top 
to bottom.
In fact Proyect is not at all interested in the great struggles that have 
taken place inside of the SWP and in this case the Goldman/Morrow faction 
which was and attempt to destroy the SWP in a rotten block with the 
Schactminites. What Proyect does here is prove his own weakness which he 
repeatly has confronted us with on this list. His love for intellectualls 
who put witty combininations and turns of phrases before concrete political 
line and motion. He in fact time and again has told us with his name 
dropping that the only think that interests him is the name dropping and 
then using the names he drops to beat on the anti-Trotskyist drum that has 
become a fairly rotten tune. 

Proyects real motives in fact is to aline himself with petty bougeois 
intellectuals who have deserted Trotskyism for one reason or the other. In 
the case of the Goldman/Morrow faction fight it was naturally at first a 
fight around "European perspectives" which quickly led for the minority 
towards a block with the Schactmanites against the "Stalinist" regime in the 
party. In the other example that Proyect used so far on the list was his 
great love for Tariq Ali who never was a Trotskyist but a leading member of 
the USec who these days writes science fiction connected to various figures 
and groups claiming to be Trotskyist. 

Proyects style is the epigone who worships the slick intellectual who when 
the pressure is on finds ways and means to desert the party of World 
Revolution. Notice how in both examples Proyect praises the "great" works in 
the form of books on different subjects. Not the fact of what is in the 
books. Nor what political line and motion the individual in question is taking. 

A petty bougeois intellectual who thinks he can dazzle us with his knowledge 
of the Trotskyist movement but in reality puts forth falsification and 
twists through the spectacles of his own Neo-Stalinist Menshevik trajectory. 

Notice that Proyect hardly ever mentions the fact of his own political 
trajectory. On this list he acts much like the Morrows and Goldmans of the 
past in unprincipled opportunist blocks with anybody against the trotskyists 
on the list. Cannon said at the time that the "Proletarian wing of the party 
has seen all of this before" and he was certainly right. Because every time 
there is a deepening crisis on the world level or a gigantic question facing 
the International Proletariat on orientation the petty bougeois 
intellectuals go into a frenzy of all kinds of twists and political turns.

Not anchored in any kind of proletarian working class reality they tend to 
turn to all kinds of political clarifications which mean in fact liquidating 
class struggle and the neccessity of building a revolutionary International. 

If the Goldman/Morrow click connected to the Schactmanites was the petty 
bougeois Stalinphobic reaction to world events in the United States. It was 
Pablo and his followers who were the opposite pole. Thus the petty bougeois 
intelligencia 
under the the outside pressures affecting them tend to do all kinds of hat 
tricks.

For Pablo the pressure came from the Stalinists and the neccessity of 
"centuries of deformed workers states" meaning a political orientation of 
deep entry into the Stalinist Parties everywhere. In the United States it 
was the "American Era" and anti Communist tradition and the coming cold war 
that got the petty bougeois intellectuals to attack the leadership of the 
party as being "Stalinist" and blocking with the Schactmanites with their 
anti Stalinist counter-revolutionary line. These pressures are always present.

Thus on thi list we see the petty bougeios intellectuals doing all kinds of 
hattricks after the demise of Stalinism. We have the Stalinists who want to 
clean up Stalinism and carry on as usual. We have the Stalinists who want to 
see this list as a circle of "Hail Joe Stalin" with pictures and all, just 
as we have the anti-Stalinist intellectuals doing there hattricks. Proyect 
in my view is none of these. In fact he is much more a product of what the 
"new left" intelligensia produced. Fakers with the silver spoon up their 
asses who change positions according too Sonday reviews in the New York Times!

Over and above that in order to keep some sort of fake "Marxist" credentials 
Proyect supports it appears just about anything that moves at least in the 
western hemisphere like the Cubans and the FSLN and their rotten political 
line. Connected to any kind of anti-Trotskyist block possible at present on 
the list along with some incredible thinking. The incredible independent 
thinking for Proyect was his great thesis on "Yankeee Doodle" Socialism just 
recently. In fact the most vulgar sort of Social Patriotism. 

Above and beyond that he belongs to the intellectuals on this list who's 
only reality appears to being able to buy a piece of just about anything 
somebody writes as long as they have a name which can be dropped and is on 
the ten best seller list of the left wing petty bougeois intelligensia.. So 
Sorry Louis once again you have bored us with you utter contempt for 
Trotskyism which for you is doing some sort of quicky book review to dazzle 
the other intellectuals on this list. I bet you are just waiting for someone 
to say . "This is Louie when he is best!  clap clap on the head shit. Well 
for real Communist Revolutionaries you do not impress us with your top down 
style which tries to paint Trotskyism through your own anti Trotskyist 
spectacles connnected to a petty bougeois intellectual stuffiness which i 
find apalling.

And as I said recently. I do not think your present love affair with the PCP 
and Aldofo will get you anything but perhaps a bullet in the head for being 
and agent of something or other. But you are to taken up with your hate of 
Trostkyism and the Communists on this list to even realize this stuff. 

Well Proyect you might fool some of the people some of the time and the 
moderaters it appears all the time. But the Trotskyist on this list got your 
number. So your latest attempt at falsifying history through the Proyect neo 
Stalinist -Menshevik spectacles. But we are not to worried about our aging 
New York Professor because in reality he is as they say "Mostly Harmless".. 
Sort of the last gasp of a dying generation which has done nothing except 
keep their scrapbooks up to date.. Toodle Loo my little Yankee Doodle 
"Socialist"...

Warm Regards 
Bob Malecki

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