File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-02-11.162, message 25


Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 12:17:01 +0100
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: M-I: Re: Hugh's support for Robert


Chris (fishing for something deep?) writes (from London, England, no less):

>While Hugh has a right to claim that some of the past ways of
>arguing against Robert were unfair, (and it is a matter of historical
>record that I agree with some of those points) if we are actually
>to move beyond personal confrontations, I would like to put a
>political question.
>
>Granted that Hugh may have a close overlap of ideas with Robert, they
>are presumably not identical. Without detracting from any support he
>may wish to give Robert as a "serious and principled marxist", could he state
>where he has a significant difference or two? That should be possible without
>anyone feeling rubbished.


The only difference that matters is that we're not organized in the same
party -- yet.

None of the differences that would arise between us in discussions in the
party, on the basis of what we've seen so far, are significant enough to
justify this organizational separation.

This is in fact the case with a lot of comrades and groups in the struggle,
and it's one of the biggest historical disadvantages we have to overcome in
trying to forge a revolutionary leadership.

Trotsky helped dissolve the differences between the four Chinese Trotskyist
groups in the mid-1930s (see Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary, by Wang
Fan-Hsi, Oxford 1980). Our job today is made more difficult by the lack of
a leader with Trotsky's revolutionary and organizational authority. We have
to tackle it more collectively, so to say.

Chris putting the question in such personal terms (*my* differences with
*Bob*) distorts the issues involved.

Cheers,

Hugh




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