Re: [Marxism] SWP and the turn to industry

[Brian Shannon <brian_shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It would be very interesting if others who went through the "Turn"  
would add their personal experiences to this thread. The more details  
the better, for this may be the most convenient place for those who  
haven't contributed before or don't have other avenues.

A second idea that I have is for Fred or Joseph or another is to  
trace the stages of the "Turn." If one of you lays out the record,  
another can supplement or correct it. Copy the first version and  
improve it — sort of a Wikipedia of the Turn.

brian



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.


> For me personally I didn't mind blue collar work as opposed
> to being in an office where you probably have to
> play office politics.  Ironically, if I had remained in the
> SWP one more year I would almost certainly have shared
> the fate of John Sarge who was expelled in 2000 for being
> an autoworker in the city of Detroit, Mich. and not wanting
> to be a meatpacker.  Supposedly the meatpacking industry
> is the center of the "sea change" in working class
> consciousness.


> Steve Clark and Greg McCartan wrote, "the
> despairing voice of Joe C., while maybe not from another
> planet, is not the voice of workers who want to fight."
>
> This from someone (Clark) who I don't think ever worked
> a day in a factory or carried out any kind of activity in unions
> or among ordinary workers.
>
> "Fraction activity" consisted mostly of literature sales.
> When some comrades at the Tarrytown GM plant in NY
> carried this to its logical conclusion and carried out a
> truly frenzied sales effort the last several months that
> the plant was open, sending in some more people
> just months before it was scheduled to close (including
> Fred F.), they were castigated as if the leadership had
> told them to do something else.
>
> One of the last national fraction meetings I attended,
> included discussion of a dress code for these meetings,
> that consisted of "business casual" attire - no blue jeans.
> This absurdity in the Holiday Inn in Des Moines, Iowa
> where almost everyone in the hotel was wearing jeans.
> I guess that's my final surreal memory for tonite.




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