File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-12-30.023, message 16


Subject: Re: M-I: Lenin in Context, conclusion
From: jschulman-AT-juno.com (Jason A Schulman)
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 11:37:48 EST


On Sat, 28 Dec 1996 08:04:52 -0500 (EST) Louis N Proyect writes:

>American Trotskyism advanced fitfully through the 1930's. Its 
>"entryist" tactic into the Socialist Party was a defining moment for 
>its sectarianism. Trotsky had noticed that the Socialist Parties
worldwide 
>were once again becoming a pole of attraction for radicalizing workers 
>because many of these workers could not stomach the brutal, 
>totalitarian Stalin regime. He advised his followers to enter the SPs 
>as a bloc, capture the left-wing and then engineer a split in order to 
>build Trotskyism and smash Social Democracy. The American Trotskyists 
>were quite successful. They did wreck American Social Democracy 
>and did expand their sect. After the success of the "entryist" tactic, 
>American workers had 2 choices: 1) the CP 2)a Trotskyist party that 
>would feature articles in its newspaper advising working-people to 
>"vote Trotskyist." The loss of the SP as a left-wing alternative to 
>the CP partially explains the weakness of American socialism today.

Trotsky can't be wholly blamed for this.  The SP right-wing was just as
anxious to expel the Trotskyists as Trotsky was to get out.

Do you think it would have been a better idea for the Trotskyists to stay
in the Second International parties and "revolutionize" them, Lou?

[snip]

>Soon after the split from the SP and the formation of the Socialist 
>Workers Party, a fight broke out in the party over the character of 
>the Soviet Union. Max Shachtman, Martin Abern and James Burnham led 
>one faction based primarily in New York. It stated that the Soviet 
>Union was no longer a worker's state and it saw the economic system 
>there as being in no way superior to capitalism. This opposition also 
>seemed to be less willing to oppose US entry into WWII than the 
>Cannon group, which stood on Zimmerwald "defeatist" orthodoxy.

But the Workers Party ended up being more othodox than the SWP on this
question, right?

-- Jason
______
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary
is guided by a great feeling of love.  It is impossible to think of a
genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.
- Che Guevara


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