File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-04-08.224, message 89


Subject: Re: M-I: SWP's current practice
From: jschulman-AT-juno.com (Jason A Schulman)
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 1997 12:12:58 EDT


OK, Jon, I see where you're coming from.  

And it's true, the blame for the current state of the SWP can't simply be
laid at the feet of Jack Barnes.

I attended the Socialist Scholars Conference session on "Writing the
History of Trotskyism: Two Views," sponsored by Humanities Press
(publisher of TROTSKYISM IN THE
U.S.), where Alan Wald gave his "broad and philosophical"  views on US
Trotskyism.  A fellow named Roy Rollins declared that he preferred Wald's
views to Paul Le Blanc's because at least I was an open revisionist while
Le Blanc was "crypto." Dorothy Breitman, widow of George Breitman, went
on to explain that Le Blanc is a *true* Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist while
"Wald is just an academic who writes well and who is a very nice person."
 Such talk makes me want to puke. Have these people learned nothing about
hammering "orthodoxy" down others' throats?

Alan also had to deal with Bolshevik Tendency people throwing old and
tired accusations at him regarding the SWP's behavior in the late 1960s. 
Some woman from the Spartacist League showed up later at the Tamiment
Library, spewing out the same tired shit.  As if having "incorrect"
positions could alone explain the degeneration of the SWP!  As if having
"correct" positions has lead the Sparts and BTers to the leadership of
mass movements!

(At least I now know that Frank Lovell brought the wrong glasses to the
Taminent, couldn't read his prepared talk, and was trying to fake it,
which explains why his speech was so excruciating.)

Both panels depressed and bored me.  It seems to me that the main
heritage of the SWP is one of sectarianism and self-righteousness.  There
was little at either of these panels to inspire a new generation of
radicals.  They simply reinforced my belief that Tim Wohlforth is right
in his descriptions of the internal life of such groups as
extraordinarily unhealthy.

I should note that the SWP was the first socialist group I ever
encountered.  I knew nothing of their history then; I found them
laughable.  Was *The Militant* always so poorly written?  At least
*Workers Vanguard* has entertainment value.

-- Jason
______
"For Marx, the theoretical axis of CAPITAL -- the core around which all
else develops -- is the question of plan: the despotic plan of capital
against the cooperative plan of freely associated labor." Raya
Dunayevskaya , *Marxism And Freedom* (1958),  p.92.





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