File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/97-04-08.130, message 27


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
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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/

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