From the hang out was Re: John Percy on the Marxism list: hangout for "anti-Leninists"

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I am truly sorry that John Percy put things this way.  The Marxism list is
not a "hangout".  Lou's approach to party organisation is thoroughly
Leninist in spirit.  His delineation of Zinovievism represented a genuine
breakthrough in terms of Marxist thinking about political organisations and
was in essence an attempt to rediscover the relevance of Lenin for today.

It was actually Lou's very, very good post on Lenin and WW1 on the old
Marxism list that brought me out of my anti-Leninism.  Maybe one day he
will re-post it to this list.  It will show cealry that is absolute
nonsense to describe Lou as 'anti-Leninist'.

Perhaps some day as well Tom will give us some reflections on the methods
of organisation in the ISO tendency in its pre-"Leninist" or Trotskyist phase.

As for the attitude of this list to the DSP, Phil Ferguson and myself have
regularly praised the DSP as has Lou himself. Indeed Lou's whole approach
to the Percyites has been comradely. He is also correct I think about the
partial nature of their break with Zinovievism, as is witnessed by Percy's
method in this characterisation of the list as a hang out.  That is the old
Trotskyist method of slandering rather than engaging one's opponents.


regards



Gary