Re: [Marxism] Did Trotsky urge voting for Black Democrats?

[Aaron Aarons <aaron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 09:51 -0400 2008/10/12, Louis Proyect wrote:
>The entire effort of the SWP in the 1930s was to create alternatives in the 
>electoral arena, a Labor Party first of all, and a Black organization that 
>would not conduct litmus tests on how the candidates identified themselves.

The main efforts of the SWP in the 1930s were outside of the electoral arena. 
Their work with the Minneapolis Teamsters and in other union struggles is most 
outstanding, but there was also, for example, their organization of a massive 
demo against a pro-Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden in, I believe, 1938.

>Just as was the case when Democrats spoke from the platforms of antiwar 
>rallies in the 1960s, it was their contradiction not ours.

The SWP-led section of the movement rallied around the slogan "Out Now!", which 
could be supported by U.S. patriots who thought the Vietnam War was not good 
for the U.S.. That's why Democrats could speak at their rallies without any 
contradiction on their part. They could not have done so if those rallies had 
raised revolutionary defeatist slogans. In other words, the line the SWP 
defended in the anti-war movement was in contradiction with its supposed 
revolutionary politics.

 - Aaron
 

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