Re:SWP & Oct. 6

[Dayne Goodwin <dayneg@xxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 12 Oct 2002, Fred  Feldman wrote:
        . . .
> This phrase caught my attention because it was the first time in my forty
> years of contact with the party that I had known a SWP spokesperson to
> counterpose building the revolutionary party to building protests against
> particular imperialist wars.
        . . .

Fred, I saw a similar line in 1983 when i was involved in building the
local Central America Solidarity Coalition and the SWP(U.S.) was explicity
abstaining from participation in the "stop U.S.intervention" movement.  I
invited the local SWP(U.S.) branch to be part of the coalition from the
time of its founding but they weren't interested. They wouldn't commit to
take any responsibility or do any work - other than to come to publicized
events, conferences and demonstrations to sell SWP publications and
explain how they were more revolutionary than the activists building CASC.
        Local SWP leaders explained to me that building a reformist
anti-war movement would be a step backward for them when the radicalized
U.S. working class was open to revolutionary class struggle politics.
The U.S. working class was now qualitatively more politically advanced and
revolutionary than in the Vietnam War era.  The SWP's political priority
was calling for the spread of communist revolution north from Central
America and the Caribbean.  Anyway it was inevitable that large-scale
direct U.S. military intervention in Central America would be part of the
coming revolutionary upheaval.
        [Actually the word "solidarity" in CASC's name accurately
indicated that we did solidarity work in support of the FSLN and the FMLN
(i.e. in conjunction with CISPES and the Nicaragua Network) but our
highest political profile in the local community was as proponents of the
democratic right to national self-determination and opponents of U.S.
military intervention and the "contra" war.]
        In 1985 the SWP national leadership made an explicit change of
line - which caused some confusion, including an unusual retraction and
condemnation of a major article on Central America published in
_Intercontinental Press_ which still reflected the old line.  The SWP had
now decided to participate in the anti-war movement and locally the SWP
suddenly strongly participated/intervened in CASC (a mixed blessing at
best but i won't go into that now).
        Dayne



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