I was unaware of the reunification talks with the SWP. My overall
summary of their take on the SWP's course is sup****ted by this
sentence from the essay above:
"The dissolution of the LTF was to
hasten the process of degeneration of the SWP toward an openly
Castroist and pro-Stalinist course, starting from the era of the
1970s, to end with suppressing any reference to the Fourth
International or to Trotskyism altogether."
In the first S.O. do***ent I posted, they take a mostly favorable view
of the SWP's role in the anti-war movement. This is apparently mostly
retrospective. They follow a strategy today through Liaison
Committees that seems to resemble, as far as I can tell, the
mobilization committees against the war--that is building focused ad
hoc organizations open to all inidividuals and tendencies who agree.
One thing I wonder about on this is to what extent the SWP pioneered
this approach. I recall during the Vietnam War where the WL
intervened in a Stalinist conference with the same open-to-all
approach. Perhaps they were aping the SWP's conferences. Although one
wouldn't bet anything on Stalinist guarantees of democratic procedure,
we did openly denounce them as Stalinists. I recall a Shactmanite
acquaintance telling me this was dangerous to do, as well as an
argument with Harry Turner, who maintained the matter should be posed
as "reformism" rather than "Stalinism."
srd
On Jul 23, 5:58=A0am, dave.walt...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> On Jul 23, 2:35 am, stephen <srdiam...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > This Socialist Organizer do***ent contains more on the Lambertiste
> > view of the 1960s. I infer they do not believe the SWP decisively
> > degenerated until the middle 1970s. It was the position of the IC
> > circe 1971 as I recalll, that many healthy elements still remained in
> > the SWP. It seems that the Lambertistes, like Healy and Wohlforth,
> > viewed the SWP as closer to Trotskyism than the Mandelites.
>
> I think it's the other way around, sort of.
>
> They completely opposed the 1963 reunification and essentially aligned
> with Healy on the im****tant points except the class nature of Cuba.
>
> They then pretty much ignored the SWP until the mid-1970s when their
> positions on Angola, ****tugal and the USFI generaly became congruent
> with the SWP. At that point discussions were opened...circa 1975. Both
> parties had been growing and the SWP/LTF tried to manouver for a
> fusion between the OCI's OCRFI and the USec.
>
> The 800 lbs gorilla in the room was Moreno, who had pretty much
> dominated L. American Trotskyism in this period and had been a key
> ally in the USFI with the SWP. By 1977 they had pretty much
> established their Bolshevik Faction after the SWP (mistakingly IMO)
> dissolved the LTF. The Nicaraguan revolution intervened, the BF and
> the OCRFI found themselves MORE congruent with each other than either
> had been with the SWP and the honeymoon was over.
>
> IMO, Lambert should of followed Moreno into the USFI in 1965. Big
> mistake. Oh well.
>
> David.
> David
|
