[Marxism] Re: SWP and the turn to industry

[Brian Shannon <brian_shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

There were two elements of the turn as announced by Barnes at a much-
trumpeted public meeting at NYU. Finally, we would hear the new leader.

I had met him in Berkeley, exchanged pleasantries and overheard or
had related some unpleasantries in New York, but this was different.
As a speaker, I had only heard how he slaughtered Joel Geier in the
early 1960s in a debate on Cuba. So my expectation was high.

What we got was a summary of a bourgeois sociological study that told
us that blue collar workers now held the same social values that
students had acquired during the 1960s and 1970s. We also heard that
big labor struggles were opening up due to the coming (or was it
ongoing, I now can't recall) economic crisis.

In the back of my mind was a lesson from Paul Montauk* (I once came
across a similar generalization by Trotsky) that workers moved into
struggle not during a downturn, but during an upturn. In any case, I
was not impressed. There was no presence. He was not a Camejo, or a
Sheppard, or a Dobbs, much less a Cannon. In fact, many of us could
have done as well.

I believe that Louis Proyect has written in a similar vein; he
brought a friend or contact expecting to impress him or her. It
probably wouldn't have been such an embarrassment had the hopes not
been so high.

Brian Shannon
________________________

* From what I have heard, no one bought more into the "turn" than
Paul. IMO, towards the end of his life, his strong emotions overroad
his political gifts.


On Feb 27, 2006, at 11:03 PM, Joseph Callahan wrote:

> In my recollection of the motivation for the
> turn, I don't recall predictions of imminent upsurge
> so much at least in the written materials.  Perhaps
> at plenums etc. the rhetoric was more frenzied.
> Certainly any talk of immediate upsurge had to be
> reduced in the early 80's when Barnes used the term
> "route" to describe the unchallenged offensive of the
> capitalists.

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