Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 08:08:15 -0400
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-G: Re: Bolshevism and Menshevism on these lists


Hugh Rodwell:
>They want it to be a headless chicken that runs around so they can laugh at
>it and feel good. Being better than a headless chicken is just about the
>degree of competition they can take.

Competition? I can argue Trotskyism better than you can, Hugh. I can even
argue the politics of the Argentinian sect-cult you identify with better
than you can. What Burford does not understand is that Rodwell and Malecki
are to Trotskyism as Rolf Martens is to Maoism. That is, they are
burlesques of the real thing. Someone like Michael Lowy is a serious
Trotskyist. He would take one look at the posts coming from Rodwell and
Malecki and flee for the nearest door. That is the consequence of having
open lists. You end up with things being dragged down to the level of these
kinds of mutts. The plain truth is that Marxism-General has not had a
serious debate since it was born. It is the enemy of serious debate.


>Proyechht doesn't give a toss about revolution or building an organization
>to bring it about, except in as far as he's passionately commited to
>hindering it. His politics are not based on Marxist principle but on
>individual purposes of his own, which is why I hardly ever bother to engage
>him any more. Occasional clarifications of principle are sufficient, plus a
>political practice totally opposed to the disorganized, petty-bourgeois
>self-aggrandizement he epitomizes.

Occasional clarifications? You once alluded to the fact that the Swedish
Morenoites fell apart. I asked you to explain what happened. You couldn't.
When I wrote about the collapse of American Trotskyism, I put everything
into historical context and gave a political explanation. The difference
between you and I is not just political, but of IQ. You are a dummy.

>Because it is a model for political *action* that will get nowhere. It's
>passive, reacts after the event (if at all) and encourages feel-good
>clique-building.

Clique-building? I am a Castroist. I am trying to adapt his methodology to
the United States. The Cuban Communist Party changed history. Sect-cults
like the Morenoites are an obscure footnote.

>Some networks (Proyechht's and Henwood's new toys) embody inconsistency and
>opportunism, the only thing they are merciless about is consistent
>revolutionary priniciple. Mention October and you're out.

That is your problem. All you have ever done is "mention October." You
confuse phrase-mongering with Marxism.

>The Third International (before Stalin disembowelled it) had the full
>authority of October. There is no such generally acknowledged international
>leadership today. Such a leadership must be built, and this will happen in
>connection with both existing parties and with large-scale mobilizations of
>working-class and poor people. And anyway, politics comes before
>organization, so occasional overlaps will always happen.

Politics comes before organization? Actually politics and organization are
dialectically intertwined. Rodwell's problem is that his notion of
"politics" is spouting off in cyberspace. Real politics takes place in real
space. If you want to understand how politics and organization work
together, read James P. Cannon's "History of American Trotskyism." While I
am not a Trotskyist, I can certainly respect Cannon's efforts. He took his
ideas to the workers. All Hugh does is prattle in cyberspace about the
workers, who he lives in total isolation from in his native Sweden. 

>Expressing this in political terms, it says that democratic centralism
>works best when party discipline is rooted in the deep personal commitment
>and revolutionary consciousness of each member. That's the point of a
>vanguard party. Those who are most committed and most conscious seek
>membership because it is the best way to make the most of their individual
>revolutionary contributions. Such militants are not Stalinist hacks or
>spineless yes-men, as in the Proyechht caricature.

What blather. Rodwell has never built an organization. I have no idea
whether the Morenoites ever had a foothold in Sweden, or whether the group
only consisted of  him and his wife. When he tried to discipline her under
the covers one night, she got unruly and he had to expel her. This is the
true story of the historic split in Swedish Morenoite Trotskyism.

>He should know. He's the most consummate sectarian around, under the banner
>of "anti-sectarianism".

The only banner I raise high is the banner of the Proyect clan, a
pawnbroker's logo that identified us in Lvov. 


>Just which Marxist texts does Proyechht know well? What he knows is the
>glib rhetoric of the political putdown. He's trained in party infighting
>and the compilation of ad hoc study material. He is totally at the mercy of
>whatever "party" he ends up in and whatever leadership asks him to provide
>study materials.

Marxist texts? I've read more Trotsky than Rodwell has and can explain it
better. More importantly, I go out of my way to study class relations based
on independent statistics. When I write about Cuba, Algeria or Nicaragua, I
provide information to back my arguments. Rodwell backs his arguments with
more arguments. He is the perfect windbag and an insult to Lenin and
Trotsky's memory, who both backed up their analysis of the coming Russian
revolution with extensive economic data.

>They can be exposed (limiting any damage they might cause to others) but
>they won't be influenced until they drop the sectarian approach.

You will no longer have anybody to annoy after tomorrow. Good bye.

Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)


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