From: UticaRose-AT-aol.com
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 00:33:27 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: M-I: Utica Rose, go away


In a message dated 97-04-01 09:39:43 EST, lnp3-AT-columbia.edu (Louis Proyect)
writes:

<< You are not interested in
 discussing issues of Marxism, but in telling Marxists that they are not
 involved in a legitimate theoretical project. This, I believe, constitutes a
 violation of the charter of marxism-international and it would be a good
 idea for the moderators to expel you. >>

when or where or how was that said ? marxists are not coextensive with
stalinists and, believe it or not, there are people who think outside of
classrooms. having been labelled as a pinhead and cretin by Mr. Henwood and
having been instructed by Mr. Proyect to leave, it seems appropriate to make
a few simple statements and observations. I apologize for the personal nature
of what follows. it is unseemly to concentrate on the individual when social
forces are what count but the nature and surprisingly vivacious viciousness
of the personal attacks predictably elicits such a response.

I became a marxist in the late 60s as a naive and exuberant member of SDS...
>from a deeply religious background and a new deal democrat family of various
immigrant backgrounds (irish, french-canadian and english), I found student
radicalism to be a welcoming refuge in the midst of war and disorienting
social changes. good and decent answers appeared evident and attainable from
that perspective and the way forward led me back to well known working class
neighborhoods I had grown up in. even back then I can remember with some pain
that there were various types of marxists who made activism more trying than
it had to be. the authoritarians, the all-too-conscious intellectuals, the
romantics hopeless caught in an earlier time and earlier doctrinal disputes.
probably the most difficult for me to deal with were the know-it-alls. the
types who, in a more sedate time would have most certainly either been
teacher pets or student government officers. the SDS chapter I worked in for
too brief a time spiralled out of control as PL-WSA flexed its organizational
muscle and made everyone head for the exits. in subsequent years, I gladly
worked with social democrats, new communists, Guardian types, liberals,
left-liberals, pacifists and lots of other people who have had no ostentible
political affiliation. I always relied upon my understandings of marxism and
leninism (although I am sure that they are much less developed than the
heavyweights here) as touchstones of sound political analysis and practice.
please dont bother lecturing me about dedication, activism, involvement or
accomplishments. two decades of working in various parts of appalachia,
mechanized farm towns of the midwest, and the dying cities of the northeast
have taught me that the only people who embody those attributes are those
without the time to engage in theoretical headbanging. I well understand that
without theory there can be no revolutionary movement. I also understand that
without the working class there can be no way to change the world. and
changing is the point,isnt it ?

virtually every group I have worked with foundered, in major part, due to bad
leadership, quite often due to the type of authoritarian or phony
intellectual attitudes displayed so effectively by some making the loudest
noises here. I suppose that leadership is shown by chasing away those who
raise questions you'd rather not deal with. no, lets not talk about why
stalinism was a plague of this century. it is at least one major reason why
workers of the world look to their own nation states with loyalty instead of
to an International. and while we're on this part of the block, why is the
left so prone to shielding our own brown shirts, the stalinists, and bashing
the trotskyists? tell me that is not a curious correlation. while I have
never understood the splits and divisions of trotskyists, they are not
different in number or kind or effect than splits and divisions of
socialists, leftists, communists or protestants. the real undeniable merit of
trotskyists is that they can be depended upon to oppose the fascists on the
left whose poster boy has always been the Great Father of the Peoples of the
Soviet Union, Uncle Joe. did Stalin ever meet a union he failed to  bust ? a
dissident he failed to jail or murder ? Stalin was an anti-semitic,
cold-blooded murderer. 

unless and until the left can face up to its own flaws, it will be unable to
be the progressive force which is needed. that is all that I have
"monomoniacally" been saying. why that should provoke such a howl is
peculiar. 

I have been interested in this list because it involved marxist
internationalism. I spent alot of time in Nicaragua and the USSR. I have
provided whatever support I can afford to struggles in other countries. same
enemy, same fight. I will not just assume the roles which several dominant
males decide to assign for reasons best known to each of them. to me, reading
the posts by the stalinist crowd is no different than reading posts from
nazis. stalinists and nazis both murdered workers, jews and communists. they
even helped one another. the latest crowd of stalinists are playing out the
same script. they dont even bother to make the rhetoric more interesting. and
why do the heavy lefties, as they have done for decades, let the stalinists
play their roles without challenge ? 

those who can, do. those who can't .... 

and I guess that I have learned something new today or perhaps just realized
what I have known since that PL organizer approached me ... those who can't,
they look for small and isolated marxist grouplets so they can create a
country club of there own with high walls, well manicured greens and become
their own audience. that, I think, is what the reaction is about and that,
certainly, is what the interest in expulsion is all about. 




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