Re: Where and maybe why the debate on ANSWER goes off the rails

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Fred Feldman wrote:

> I am parrticularly concerned that the debate has begun to revolve over a
> member of the list being under discipline to an organization that claims
> adherence to Leninism.  This stuff doesn't sound any better to me today than
> it did when I was under discipline myself-- quite voluntarily of course and
> out of firm conviction.

But there's no getting around the fact that the SWP, the WWP, the CPUSA
and any other group in the "Leninist" tradition carries some unnecessary
and harmful baggage in any sort of coalition work. We had the spectacle
of SWP floor leaders at national conferences raising their hand so that
everybody knew how to vote. What kind of impression does that make on a
young radical? What is the point of making your best arguments, for
example, about the need to combine anti-racist slogans with immediate
withdrawal slogans when you know in advance that 1/3 to 1/2 of the
conference is going to vote against you whatever you say. This kind of
behavior is not only counter-productive, it is the opposite of how the
Bolshevik party functioned as I tried to make clear recently in my
crosspostings from John Reed. The idea that Riazanov would look for cues
on how to vote from a floor leader is a slap in the face to everything
Lenin and his party stood for.


--

Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org




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