Re: Democratic centralism: myth and reality

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

>         It wasn't until the SWP committed to building a branch in Salt
> Lake City in 1976 that i finally joined and became a founding member of
> the new branch.  My participation in building that new SWP branch gave me
> an opportunity for fairly thoroughgoing examination of the SWP's
> organizational practice, partly because of the direct involvement of
> national SWP leadership.  My disagreements with SWP internal
> organizational practices deepened.
>         But i didn't see a better marxist organization around, so it
> wasn't until the SWP really 'went off the rails' in the early 1980s that i
> definitively walked away.
>         Dayne

Don't get me wrong. I am all for *organization*, cadre-building,
dedication, seriousness, a proletarian orientation in the generic sense,
etc. There were many very good things about the SWP which probably
reflected native revolutionary traditions as it did Russian ideas. You have
to remember that Cannon was a top leader of the IWW, the SP and the CP
before he ever got involved with Trotskyism. Those earlier traditions were
part of the culture that informed the SWP. To Paul LeBlanc's credit, he
views this broader working-class socialist culture as a precondition to the
reconstruction of a revolutionary movement.

I like to compare the period we are in with 1959 or so. I see vast
political ferment that will eventually lead to a new radicalization. In
order to prepare for the future, we have to cut down some dead wood. I
would like to see all the good aspects of the political subculture we were
raised in combined with a much more pluralistic and effective
organizational paradigm.

I remain optimistic when I see the high level of awareness from *all* the
people on this list, including those I have serious differences with.


Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org


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