[Marxism] Turncoats

["ethan young" <ethanyoung@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just a note on Walter's mention of Joe Hicks, one-time LA activist turned 
Horowitz staffer....

Walter writes:

"But moving to
the right is always a step up, at least financially. Ask David Horrible or Joe 
Slicks (aka Joe Hicks who's gone from Line 
of March to being head of the Southern Christian Leadership 
Council and who, at last report, had got a job working for  
David Horrorwitz." 

As an LOM vet, this didn't ring write. A google later, I found 
the source of the report - a 2002 profile in LA Weekly by 
Marc Cooper:

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/27/cover-cooper.php

"'Instead of coming back from Russia and coming to my 
senses,  what do I do? I go even further to the left," Hicks 
says with a  hearty self-deprecating laugh. "I said socialism 
wasn't the problem,  the problem was the way it was 
administered by the Soviets." From  there, he flirted with the 
openly Stalinist Line of March organization. But only briefly. 
After two decades on the revolutionary express, Joe Hicks 
was about to get off the train....."

Someday people who trade off their leftwing backgrounds to 
shill for the right may find themselves in a different role vis a 
vis the revolutionary express - like getting scraped off the 
cowcatcher.

Anyway, LOM wasn't 'openly Stalinist.' The leadership was 
conflicted about embracing Uncle Joe, even though the 
trajectory of their politics - from a Maoist-flavored pro-
Hanoi/Havana stance to a pro-Soviet position influenced by 
Dimitrov's united front - would have made it a likely 
candidate. This lack of enthusiasm for Stalin (for his 
mechanical approach to cadre development, which was 
seen as stunting the political growth of communists) 
distinguished LOM from other left-of-the-CP pro-soviet 
groups.

But this has NOTHING to do with Hicks' defection.  When a 
movement honcho can no longer feed his ego and ambition 
because of an ebb in the left, switching sides can seem the 
sensible thing to do. It's not surprizing we have turncoats - 
just that there aren't more of them. THAT'S something to 
discuss.

ethan young
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