Cochran and Pablo

["Alex LoCascio" <alexlocascio@xxxxxxxx>]

I think the affinities between Cochranism and Pabloism are much closer than 
Louis would leave one to believe.

For one thing, most of the hardcore Mandelistas I've known in the U.S. claim 
that the experience of reading Cannon's Speeches To the Party (a document of 
the split inside the SWP) was a major influence towards moving them away from 
the ideological influence of the SWP and towards the influence of the Europeans.

Secondly, I would say that the concrete practice of the Pabloites in Europe, at 
least since the late 1970s and arguably since the Cuban Revolution, Has been 
one of trying to build broad-based, revolutionary or centrist parties of a mass 
character, *not* seeking to construct the "one true Trotskyist party."  Witness 
Rifondazione Communista, where Livio Maitan sits on the executive committee, or 
the Workers Party in Brazil (and specifically Porto Alegre), the Red-Green 
Alliance in Denmark, the Bloco Esquerda in Portugal, two of whose 
Parliamentarians are Fourth Internationalists, and the Izuierda Unida in Spain. 
 Attitudes towards the German PDS are a bit ambivalent on this question, but it 
should be noted that Fourth International alumnus Winfried Wolf plays a 
prominent role.

Thirdly, anecdotal evidence suggests that many Cochranite veterans played a 
role in the early founding of Solidarity in the United States, and were eager 
to join its Fourth International Caucus after nearly 40 year of estrangement.

This is why I've always found Lou's reference to Bensaid, Krivine, and company 
as "Trotskyists."  As self-styled Trotskyist cadres like Johannes Schneider and 
his ITO will tell you, the mainstream of the United Secretariat has had nothing 
to do with "Trotskyism" for quite some time, and has taken great pains to 
establish respect for Trotsky as a figure in the workers movement while 
rejecting the organizational forms associated with it as a historical make.  A 
sentiment I believe was at the heart of the founding of this list.


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