From: Godenas-AT-aol.com
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 13:45:55 -0500
Subject: Re: On Trotsky


You're only partly right, Hugh.  I meant to outline the Trotskyist path more
like this: 1)Adventurism (i.e., seeing in every situation the revolutionary
denouement, even where its necessary prerequisites do not yet exist)
2)Opportunism (including ingenious attempts to cobble together all manner of
substitutes for the working class and the working class party---students and
ageing academics are currently Trotsky's main constituency--a perverse
variation on what T. himself called "substitutism", the substitution of the
Party for the proletariat) 3)Despair (the divorce from the masses of the
leadership of nearly all Trotskyite parties) and 4) reaction and support for
reaction (starting with Trotsky himself and the people he surrounded himself
with on his western itinerary, but on down through Tony Cliff supporting the
US during the Korean War, the ISO, SWP's "state department" socialism, etc.

And Hugh, please don't confuse Trotskyism with socialism--the two are, in my
opinion, polar opposites.  We will indeed see socialism, but it will be in
spite of, and not due to, the efforts of Leon Trotsky and disciples and
followers.
                                                  Louis Godena 


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