Re: The speech that Barnes should have given

["Richard Fidler" <rfidler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I sent Louis Proyect's posting, "The speech that Barnes should have given", to a
number of former members of the Trotskyist movement in Canada with whom I
maintain contact. The following is a comment by Marv Gandall, published here
with the author's consent. [Richard Fidler]

Comment by Marv Gandall

Thanks for the postings by yourself and Proyect from the marxism list. The 1974
turn favoured by Proyect would undoubtedly have made the internal life of the
SWP more vital and its interventions more relevant, but unfortunately I don't
think a change in strategic line and leadership would have been enough to arrest
the decline of the SWP, much less increase its ranks fivefold (!), as Proyect
confidently asserts. Let me explain why, and invite your comments. Ditto for
Jess, Ernie, and Chris, whom you also copied. (Hi, folks: nice to renew
acquaintances, and hopefully we'll get to do so in person at some point).

Proyect still appears to be a prisoner of what might be called the "leadership
fallacy" -- the view that the failure of the left is mostly the result of a
crisis of leadership; in this case, the analysis is extended to the SWP. This
view, of course, is central to Trotskyism, although when Trotsky advanced it
there was more ground for believing that the failure of the Western working
class to seize power was a temporary phenomenon -- rooted in subjective rather
than objective conditions (Stalinist and social democratic misleadership). The
other day, we both noted his comment shortly before he died that if this
situation proved to be more than temporary, he'd have to engage in some serious
political rethinking. That was sixty years ago, and the situation he wrestled
with then not only congealed, it went into reverse; the Soviet Union is no more,
nor is there any longer a constituency for an uncompromising struggle against
capitalism anywhere. In retrospect, that constituency hasn't existed on a
sustained basis in the West since the Great Depression, although there have been
intermittent flashes here and there since then.

This is the context within which I think we have to view the worldwide demise of
the revolutionary left, of which the disintegration of the SWP is a part. If
there is currently no constituency for socialism, it is because capitalism has
quite evidently not yet exhausted its potential to improve productivity, growth,
jobs and income. This material underpinning is the rock on which every left
organization has been shattered, and to continue to attribute the epochal demise
of the left to false consciousness, leadership betrayals, or programmatic
confusion is, it seems to me, an idealist error. So while I continue to be
impressed by how quickly and unexpectedly things can change -- the fall of the
SU being the most recent historical example -- it would appear that until the
masses suffer a precipitous decline in their living standards, and more
importantly, the system loses the capacity to reform itself through a "new
deal", such revolutionary socialist groups as still remain will continue to be
tiny caricatures of the organizations from which they claim descent -- good
intentions and innumerable tactical twists and turns notwithstanding.

I think even Proyect's revitalized SWP would have quickly discovered this. The
stagnation and sectarianism that Proyect would have had Barnes address in 1974
was, after all, not unique to the SWP, but characteristic of the left as a whole
in the advanced capitalist heartlands. Every organization based on a program
aiming at the overthrow, rather than the reform, of capitalism was destined to
fail because the constituency for such a program no longer existed, no matter
how creatively it was crafted by the likes of Proyect and others.

This is why the retention of existing cadres rather than the recruitment of new
ones became the paramount issue whenever revolutionary organizations ventured
into the broader arena outside their headquarters. The most capable activists
assumed responsibilities within the unions, social democratic parties, and
single-issue movements and gained influence -- but always within the framework
of a reformist program tied to a majority sentiment favouring compromise with
the system and only partial realization of the organization's programmatic
demands, if necessary. Those activists who, for whatever reason, were unable to
accommodate themselves to this framework and who persisted in operating outside
it were apt to became marginalized, confused, and frequently disillusioned --
ultimately abandoning both reformist and revolutionary politics alike. I don't
see how Proyect's orientation would have changed this dynamic; in fact, I think
his more open attitude to the mass organizations and the broad left would more
likely have accelerated rather than retarded the dissolution of the
revolutionary organization in the mass movement. In this sense, there was a
practical basis for the intuitive suspicion and hostility evinced towards the
outside world by Barnes and other insular officials, expressed in repeated
warnings about the "pressures of an alien milieu" on the organization. And a
certain logic also in their retreat into sectarianism, the common response of
all groups feeling hopelessly besieged in a hostile world, which was reflected
in an ever sharper, apocalyptic political line out of touch with reality, as
well as a corresponding tightening of internal discipline under a strong leader.

At any rate, this was how I experienced the movement, the unions, and the NDP.
Despite the disappointments, I regret not one moment of it -- it gave me skills,
understanding, and confidence which I still draw on -- and, as you can see, I'm
frequently drawn back to reflecting on it.

Marvin Gandall