Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 14:56:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jeffrey Booth <booth2-AT-husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: Socialist Labour Party



Louis,
	As usual I've been enjoying most of your posts lately but the 
recurring thread of writing-off just about all marxist organizations as 
sectarian still strikes me as ignorant.  I still get the impression you 
haven't actually read any material put out by Militant or the Committee 
for a Workers' International or taken the time to talk to anyone in 
Militant/CWI.  We don't consider ourselves a "vanguard nucleii" or act 
that way.  And I can tell you from my experience in the labor movement 
here in the U.S. that most leftists I've run into are under deep cover as 
far as even talking openly about socialism.  They think we're too 
stupid to understand marxism so they don't even try.  There IS a need to be 
in a working class organization that is open with its politics and is 
democratic internally and in the larger movement and that is what the 
various sections of CWI are.  Don't just take my word for it or the word 
of some academic but get down into the trenches and check us out.  It's 
not always fun but it is interesting. 

				In Solidarity,
						Jeff Booth
						Labor Militant, AFSCME 
						3650, etc...

ps. At the risk of sounding sectarian, I don't think the various sections 
of the CWI have anything major in common with the SWP/ISO either 
theoreticaly or in terms of method and organization.  Be glad to 
elaborate if necessary.




On Wed, 29 Nov 1995, Louis N Proyect wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Nov 1995, Adam Rose wrote:
> 
> > Now, in terms of organised, politically coherent forces on the
> > left, there is the SWP and nothing much else. We are the left
> > opposition. Arrogant ? - maybe. But it is the truth.
> > 
> 
> Louis: More noxious super-sectarianism from Adam. Don't you understand, 
> Adam, that these are the sorts of things you are supposed to say at 
> internal meetings to pump up your membership, sort of like the type of 
> things that goes on in locker-rooms before a football match. On a list 
> like this, it can only make a potential "recruit" steer a wide berth from 
> your cult.
> 
> Furthermore, you should get out of the habit of saying things like "as 
> Trotsky said" when you talk about the united front as you did in another 
> post. The SLP is not a united front, it is a proposed party Trotsky was 
> talking about demonstrations, not parties. 
> 
> The best thing the SWP and Militant could do is shut down their dead-end 
> "vanguard nuclei" and try to help bring a broader formation into being. 
> This does not mean withdrawing from politics, going home, drinking beer 
> and watching the tellie. It means mixing with a wide assortment of 
> folks--such as exist on *this list*--and working to create a true 
> vanguard, not a caricature of one. The idea that "state capitalism" 
> theory is a defining one for English revolutionary socialism is sheer 
> madness. I have my own ideas on the former Soviet Union, so do people 
> in England who think like me, or the co-thinkers of Scott Marshall over 
> there. You want a party that has millions of people walking around 
> accepting Tommy Cliff's interpretation of Soviet history? That won't 
> happen. Sorry.
> 
> 
> 
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> 


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