[Marxism] IWW/CPUSA

["Charlie Parks" <jcparks5550@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lance Murdoch wrote: "I think it's a shame the IWW leaders dumped the IWW
and formed the
CPUSA.  I consider it a tragedy, probably the worst mistake the
American left ever made."

Couldn't agree more, and not merely because I'm libertarian marxist (though
I am). Rather, because although the CPUSA was formed during the Bolshevik
period and hence had the offical support of an internationalist Comintern,
by the time it had built up a substantial party base in the US and
confronted a workforce freshly radicalized by the Great Depression, the
Comintern was well into its "Third Period," during which Stalin's manically
sectarian, ultaleft policies prevented the CP from becoming a serious
revolutionary force anywhere (and, of course, the opposite extreme that he
adopted later, the "Popular Front," had a similar effect). Earlier, in
contrast, when Emma Goldmann visited the USSR, Lenin, though obviously no
anarcho-syndicalist himself, enthusiastically inquired about the IWW's
prospects as a revolutionary organization in America. On a cheerier note,
however, the IWW seems to be undergoing something of a small-scale revival
in the US, with vigorous organizing efforts (so far unsuccessful) to
organize Wild Oats and Starbucks employees, and they are the only American
union in which both the leadership and the rank and file plan to
wholeheartedly participate in the upcoming Million Worker March in D.C. (and
they are prominently promoting it on their website). Moreover, there's the
IWW history tour going on right now, whose details were forwarded to this
list. --CP

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