Canada and the SWP (was Re: Where, oh where has the SWP gone?

[Andy <xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for all the interesting contributions on the Barnesization of the
SWP. I'm wondering if someone could comment on how the SWP's supporters
succeeded in taking over the Revolutionary Workers League in Canada and
how Ross Dowson, the long time leader of Canadian Trotskyism and a
loyalist to the SWP since attending its founding convention in the 1930s
ended up getting sidelined from the League for Socialist Action (one of
the RWL's founding groups and, for many decades the Canadian FI
franchise.) Also, I find it interesting the Barnes tried to install
puppets in his various client groups worldwide but in Canada, Steve
Penner (a former leader of the pro Madel RMG) and John Riddell were able
to be the leading members of the RWL and then the Communist League until
just recently when Penner was 'retired' from the CL's leadership body.
Riddell had been put out to pasture a decade or so earlier when he went
to New York to work on the "Communist International in Lenin's Time"
series. He has since returned to Canada but has not resumed a leadership
role in the CL.

Thanks,

Andy


> Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 23:16:40 -0400
> From: "Jose G. Perez"
> Subject: Re: Where, oh where has the SWP gone?
>
> Alan,
>
>     Neither you, nor I, of course believe that Jim Percy was Jack's "Hatchet
> Man." The Australian comrades and I'd say especially Jim always had a
> distinct point of view and style, even if it was only a question of emphasis
> of shading, just as Moreno did. That's why I say the LTT/LTF current in the
> 70s was the joe-jack-jim & hugo tendency. Didn't include the Canadians,
> which was perhaps a little unjust, and of course there were tons of others
> at various points, like Hugo Blanco and the underground Spanish Communist
> League, who were a bunch of great comrades.
>
>     The ostensible reason for the break between the Australian group and the
> U.S. SWP was Afghanistan, the SWP pulled back from wholehearted support to
> the Soviet move within a few weeks or a couple of months (I don't remember
> the timing except vaguely, as I was then in the leadership school). I think
> the real reason was, as you indicate, that we in the SWP were going off the
> deep end.
>
>     It was a mistake on my part to say that SA views itself as a
> continuation of that tendency, it is probably more accurate to say they view
> themselves as continuators of "Cannonism" plain and simple.
>
> José
>