Re: [Marxism] LENIN’S RETURN By Paul Le Blanc

[David Walters <dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, Louis's rather crass "Cannon-baiting" is quite obvious. Thank 
goodness for the scholarship and activism of people like Le Blanc and 
Palmer who don't bend to such immature prattling. I would ignore Louis' 
sterile flag-waving detour and read Palmers's book. There is no doubt 
that Palmer is an admirer of Cannon (here, interestingly, Louis has the 
*wrong* group Palmer was a member of briefly in Canada as if it has 
anything to do with the book or subject in question). I suspect we 
should all be "aware" that Issac Deutscher was a supporter of Leon 
Trotsky, and thus avoid any contamination of this writers views on the 
subject, suspect they may be...

I finished reading the book and Le Blanc couldn't do the book any better 
except that he is, maybe, selling it short. It is hard to give the full 
color of the such an adventure as the early years of the Communist Party 
in a review. The book, truly, is less about Cannon than it is using 
Cannon as a hand-held literary camera to see the early life of the CP up 
through Cannon's expulsion. What it was like being a full time IWW 
organizer during WWI. What the SP was like with all it's wings. You see 
this through Cannon but the focus is outward, to these events and 
people, not inward toward Cannon. Cannon becomes the stage from which to 
look outward into the crowd of CPers/SPers/Wobblies.

I would disagree with Paul on one important issue.  The CP was a 
minefield of sectarian factions, petty-arguments, personal animosities, 
gross opportunism, and other attributes that Paul dismisses in his 
review. I think the book does a damn good job of documenting everything 
anyone has actually said about the CP in the many histories of the 
organization. It was complex and it was a mess. But it also functioned 
as the kind of organization Paul suggests, as a 'vanguard' of sorts, way 
more influential than it's few thousand members suggest it could of.

It's an extremely good read and one of the best political biographies 
I've ever read.

David Walters

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