[Marxism] Re: Sheppard's book on the SWP in the 1960s

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carlos Rivera wrote:
> But no single political group had as big a piece of it as
> the SWP at that time. That is my firm conviction.

Still unrepentantly sectarian aren't we? The BPP, to name one, was
running
circles around the SWP. The PLP (as PLM) did the first demo against the
Vietnam War back when the SWP was infighting over Cuba. The CPUSA was
key in
leading the fellow travellers into the Civil Rigths Movement, and in a
moment of ludicrous self-agradizing, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr,
mobilized millions upon millions of black people in an exercise of
self-determination and self-liberation that is still ongoing to this day

(and has had unexpected results, such as Colin Powell.)


Fred replies:
Well, I expect a lot of criticism on this, most of which I plan to let
pass because I am busy with other things.  Most people think less of the
SWP in the 1960s than I do. That's what makes horse races. I myself do
not wish I had been in the Black Panther Party or the Maoists or SDS or
the Communist Party or the other general political alternatives instead.

But with his very customary slovenliness, (I'm sloppy too, but I try to
fix my mistakes), Carlos Rivera simply misrepresents what I was talking
about.  There are no claims in my comments or the book that the SWP
played a bigger role in the Black struggle than the Panthers, much less
Martin Luther King.  By selecting a sentence that centers on an "it"
that has no antecedent, Rivera allows himself to ridicule a claim that
was not made.  The issue posed by Barry's book, for me, is not some
claim that the SWP played the central role in the struggles of the
1960s. Even in the antiwar movement we played a certain important role,
but we hardly was the motor that brought millions into action.

The issue I raised was the question of revolutionary perspective.  Here,
yes, I think we came out of the 1960s with a deep sense and awareness of
a revolutionary perspective for this country that was valid, and remains
valid, and which I still hold today, whatever changes have to be made in
the details as experience accumulates. And a revolutionary perspective
for this country is the only basis for a revolutionary movement in this
country, no matter how it is organized (broad or narrow, tight or loose,
disciplined or free-wheeling).

Yes, I think the SWP came out the 60s with more of that vitally
necessary characteristic than  the Black Panther Party,  the Maoists,
SDS, the Communist Party, NOW, the Guardian, Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (King, of course, did not make it to the end of
the '60s), SNCC, etc.

My opinion.

I expect a lot of people to differ with it, as they have a right to do.
I don't expect to change my mind. Carlos may have excellent reasons to
disagree, but he should disagree with what I said, not with absurdities
of his own invention.

Of course, we're in a different period now, and an organization that had
a lot of historic and other weaknesses and failings, but had that
valuable characteristic, is gone.  We have to start from where we are.
But I am glad that there is a book available now that conveys this
spirit.

So that Carlos and others can be clear on what I was writing about, here
is the section of my comments that he responded to, with antecedents and
other context restored:


The great loss that the SWP leadership underwent in the 1980s, a process
registered initially with the savage, politically unjustified split,
was the loss of the revolutionary perspective that was reinforced by and
came out of the experiences of the 1960s. This exaggerated and
destructively implemented every weakness inherited from the past -- the
one underlying all the other crap. This  revolutionary perspective that
was reinforced for the older cadres and FORGED for the younger ones such
as myself by the experiences of the 1960s. This was embodied for that
time in the party more than any single other place in the US (leaving
aside Malcolm X, who stands as the outstanding voice of the
revolutionary perspective of our generation).

Many, many others had a piece of it or more. Robert Williams. AJ Muste.
ED Nixon. Gloria Richardson. Martin Luther King. James Forman. AJ Muste.
Stokely Carmichael. Clark Kissinger (no kidding!). Bernadine Dorhn (no
kidding!). George Jackson. Ruchelle Magee. H Rap Brown.  Dave Dellinger.
Many others.  But no single political group had as big a piece of it as
the SWP at that time. That is my firm conviction.

That is what our generation of leadership could not successfully
maintain as Cannon's did with the decline of the Russian revolution and
as Cannon and Dobbs did after the labor upsurge of the 1930s and 1940s
faded. This perspective -- not some organizational schema (or as Barnes
says today, "the organization question is the central question") --  was
the real issue in debates over the Theses, whatever imperfections that
document had historically.

Fred Feldman


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