Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 09:39:30 +0200 Subject: M-G: Proyect and the "Trotskyists"! In a new letter (two letters in two days, obviously Proyect must be feeling like a settler in a wagon train circle fighting off those horrible savages) Proyect lists up a number of people on this list and links them to various trends of thought which are surpose to represent how bankrupt "Trotskyism" is and renewing his lies about the "Trotskyists" never led anything which David replied to with some concrete examples of people and organizations claiming to be Trotskyist did have some mass influence. Yes, there are some very serious political differences in the various groups and trends claiming to be "Trotskyist". This can not be denied. They are linked to the complete historical domination of the Stalinist and Social Democratic domination in the workers movement especially since the end of world war 2, but also the victory of the Stalinists in the former Soviet Union in the Bolshevik Party. The political differences range over a large area of programmatic and political positions which in fact are vital to the victory or defeat of the world proletarian revolution. And many of these differences will have to be ironed out before and during the coming struggles which will be facing all of us. But Proyect who's best shot is cheer leading the FLSN and the Cubans while at home he is portraying some sort of Social patriotic "Yankee Doodle" socialism at best and more recently denying even the necessity or even possibility of revolutions on the North American continent and at the same time reaffirming his own role as recreating the "new left" of the sixties and seventies in some sort of anti-imperialist broadie coalition of progressive intellectual types around such astounding magazines as the New Left review. I mean really Proyect if anybody should be accused of doing nothing these days and even back then it must be the intellectual vanguard of the American left from Allen Ginsburg over the LP types who suck up to the Democratic Party to the "Independent Marxist" intellectuals who's at best during the roaring sixties were a chorus around the popular front and Social Patriotic slogans like "Bring the boys Home!" and sucking up to pro-imperialist democrats like Vance Hartke! What has the new left done since the war or before the war in America. Before the war it did not even exist it was more of the traditional political trends of the workers movement foremost Stalinists and the then Trotskyists SWP. During the war it was this large lump of shit on the universities who mostly were in to "Hell no we won't go" as they ran off to Canada and England like Clinton. After the war most got over their revolutionary fever and went on to careers in life and raising families. Albeit a small part like yourself stayed around and played the "radical marxist intellectual" writing for the rags who had a guilt ridden and slowly diminishing amount of subscribers until today. With the demise of Stalinism which was in fact the bottom political line of the new left politically represented in the popular front, single issuism and an un serious attitude to taking seriously the idea of building a really serious Trotskyist revolutionary alternative in the United States including the SWP which you were a member of at that time who turned being big and opportunism into breaking with its Trotskyist tradition and heading towards being a reformist party. And today are at best parroting around the same line as the various new leftists who were tailing either Mao, Che Chevara, or Hoxcha in Albania in the early 60ties, in hoping that they are going to with the Cuba question be the first on the new anti-imperialist bandwagon of the 90ties. A fucking pipedream by the way because the conditions for the new left coming again have about a bigger chance then a snowball in hell. It was a movement which was based on specific conditions of post war economic boom, connected to the cold war and education explosion on the universities and the political forces which were dominant then. Today the Stalinists are dead and the Social Democracy is on its way to committing political Harri Kari against its once historical base the workers movement. This leaves a situation for the Trotskyists to intervene in a situation which they never before been faced with. A vacuum of leadership in the workers movement which the last time was in fact perhaps in 1918 when the Social Democracy declared its bankruptcy before the world. The other historical event which could be seen to the equivalent is the recent demise of the Soviet Union. At best Proyect you have the politics of the New Left Review to offer as the answer to our problems. What a fucking joke. The trotsyists have and arsenal of historic experience and political theory connected both to Stalinism and Social democracy, not to mention all of the twists and turns of many of the groups claiming to be Trotskyist. But the difference is that Trotskyism is not personalities, nor in fact size, you know how big you are shit. It is the program and tactics of world revolution and the historical experience of the Bolshevik Party in Russia and the history of the Left opposition and the documents of the Fourth International. How many numbers of New Left review can you base your political future on Proyect? Oh this is so fucking funny... Yes, once again the so called "Trotskyists" have their ideological and political struggles. And they certainly will continue until we find some clarity in the formation of the future revolutionary Communist International... But what has Proyect and his Ilk? For Proyect it appears that its the New Left Review and others perhaps the collected works of Stalin or Mao..Well time will tell Proyect. But one think for sure.. As a realist and a dialectical historical thinker I can honestly say THAT YOU ARE IN DEEP SHIT WITHOUT A PADDLE.. In fact any time you even try and get serious politically you are forced to draw out your SWP experience in order to say anything coherent..And you are talking about political sects and isolation of the various groupings that claim to be "Trotskyist". Proyect at best is and American centered new leftist who in order to give us a International flavor sometimes mentions struggles in the western hemisphere mainly Nicaragua and Cuba. Because the American new left is just that. And isolated little sect who can't even see the other side of the ocean never mind the rest od the world. Where is Proyect on the discussions on Europe or Africa or China. Yeah he is strutting around name dropping and talking about the next cyber seminar which will provide thougt for the New Left review crowd. So touching. In fact Proyect is so fucking isolated he did not even know what was going on in his own fucking city with the squatters and when Jerry informed him he immediately jumped on the wrong side of the barricades! And he talks about the "Trotskyists".. Sorry Proyect you desperate "sect" letters about the trotskyists shows that in many cases we are talking about both small groups and large groups with newspapers and books and members in a number of countries around the world. Many of them at least trying to intervene in the daily class struggles and trying to move things forward. Despite the political deviations and differences they are ten times if not a hundred times better then the aging new leftists who are waiting around at a revivalist meeting! Hugh's recent observation about you Louis as you see the turf you once thought you owned here being invaded by more and more militants like Yoshie or Utica Rose and the new David over from his entry operation on the LP are a both enfreshing and dangerous turn for Proyect. Now Proyct you can either use the brain you have to make M-I and interesting place or you can take a dive like "Comrade Aldolfo" albeit into the deadend nostalgia of American new leftist isolationism which is far more *real* then anything you are talking about in regards to "Trotskyists" from various political trends on this list.. Warm Regards Bob Malecki ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! Or Get The Latest Issue of, COCKROACH, a zine for poor and working-class people http://www.algonet.se/~malecki Back issues of Cockroach and my book at http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ -------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! Or Get The Latest Issue of, COCKROACH, a zine for poor and working-class people and now starting the "Never Ending Story"... http://www.algonet.se/~malecki Back issues of Cockroach and my book at http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ -------------------------------------------------------- --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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