Re: Sectarian trivia

[Michael Pugliese <debsian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As they say in Texas, I didn't have a dog in that fight, though I suspected
Mark Curtis was guilty of rape. For what its worth, I heard Curtis was
expelled at some point in the recent past by the Barnes regime. That must
leave the SWP at around 300 or so members. Pretty sad.
    On the Workers League, I used to have their huge "legal dossier" type
document presuming to prove Joseph Hansen was a GPU agent. What silliness,
extrapolated from a book by a Elizabeth Poretsky, I believe, and the Max
Eitengon character, that Steven Schwartz alleged was a Stalinist saboteur,
in the pages of the NY Times Book Review. Schwartz was disproved by,
Theodore Draper in the NY Review of Books about the Eitengon allegations. If
memory serves, a brother of Max, was a big shot in the original circle
around Freud in the first psychoanalytic congress or association. If I can
find the NY Review of Books piece by Draper, I'll post it as it was an
interesting biton the intersections between Freudianism and the Comintern.
Ask Wilhelm Reich, who was unlikely enough to run afoul of
the Freudians, the KPD, and the US Govt. specifically the FDA.
                                Michael Pugliese
                                   Michael Pugliese
.........................................................................
----- Original Message -----
From: John Lacny <deathtocapitalism@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2000 1:09 PM
Subject: Sectarian trivia


> > > World Socialist Website, http://www.wsws.org/
> > >
> > > The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal:
>
>      Since I've never had much experience with the
> intricacies of internecine bickering among the Trot
> sects, and since many on this list have, I wonder if
> someone may indulge my curiosity about a certain
> question.
>
>      Was Mark Curtis-- the SWP member and CISPES
> activist convicted of rape in Iowa back in the 1980s--
> a genuine political prisoner, a real victim of a
> frame-up?  Or was he a bona fide sexual assailant?  I
> seem to recall from my reading of recent sectarian
> history that the owners of the World Socialist Web
> Site-- formerly the Workers League, now the Socialist
> Equality Party-- were vociferous in calling the Curtis
> defense campaign a hoax perpetrated by the SWP on the
> workers' movement. I know that Workers League types
> are potential scabs in any case (go back and read some
> of the stuff they wrote about the strikes in Decatur,
> where they make excuses for scabs on the grounds that
> the "union bureacracy" led the strikes badly), but do
> they have a point here?  Or are they scabbing on the
> fight to clear the name of a genuine political
> prisoner?
>
>      I know this is an arcane question which postdates
> the time most ex-SWPers on this list left that group,
> but can anyone provide a fully-documented answer?
>
>      Thanks,
>
>      John Lacny
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