From: "Per I. Mathisen" <perim-AT-ns.interlink.no>
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 16:58:44 +0000
Subject: Re: M-I: No more Mr Nice guy


An angry Adam Rose wrote:
> Louis once said that I dismissed him as a centrist. I replied
> that I had never called him a centrist, which is true. However, it
> is also true that I have always thought he is a centrist, I had just
> never thought it worth saying so explicity. So now I am : Louis P,
> you are a centrist.

And this is based on i) lack of optimism, ii) rejection of Comintern
tradition, iii) "soft stalinism", iv) lack of understanding of trade
union bureaucracy.

The charge of centrism is in most cases so silly that it has become
the mark of sectarianism. When I hear groups denouncing the SWP-UK
for centrism, I rarely bother to hear the rest of their story. The
same goes the other way. A "centrist" is usually one who does not
adhere the The Correct Programme and therefore cannot be a
r-r--r-revolutionary. I am sorry Adam ends up using such a silly
definition.

As I see it, the word "centrist" should only be applied to people
who has it as their conscious or semi-conscious strategy to draw the
movement from below into cooperation with and dependence on "their"
capitalist state, ie attempting betray the independence of the
popular movement. All the world's rejections and lacks of
understanding, save rejection of popular resistance itself, does not
make a centrist. So Louis P. is not a centrist. 

Yours,
Per


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