Louis, I can understand why from this vantage-point one can consider the founding of the Fourth International a "sectarian mistake." However, at the time that Trotsky proposed it, Stalinism was not only a mass movement in the working class throughout the world, it was capable of any kind of crime imaginable. The Spanish Civil War, for example, was in progress at the time that the F.I. was being organized and was at the center of political debate. It always struck me as a new recruit to the YSA in 1969 how much energy the older generation used to denounce Stalinism and educate us on its crimes. The Fourth International was launched to combat Stalinism and social democracy in the working class, with the belief that without doing so socialist revolution was not possible.
We are living in a different world today. The Soviet Union is no more, and its bureaucracy has gone over to building a capitalist (with no modifier) state. The Stalinists in the U.S. and Europe are now playing the role that social democrats once played. Significant sections of the social democrats, at least in the U.S. and U.K., have gone completely over to the right (remember, the older neocons were social democrats in the earlier years). It's possible, indeed likely, that the original purpose of the Fourth International is no longer relevant. That does not necessarily mean that the decision to launch it was a "sectarian mistake." The test of practice has not been kind to any tendency of the socialist movement, and it has caused some former comrades (Les Evans, for example) to reject socialism entirely. We have to concentrate on the present-day reality. I don't believe in judging what our comrades did in the 1930s through the prism of political reality today. I think they made the best judgment that they could have made in the conditions of their time. But let's not spend a lot of energy and time on it. I was in Washington yesterday at a very small but important antiwar demonstration that was about 75% African-American, organized by the Black is Back Coalition. This is a politically uneven group, but the work they have started is vital. Let's put our energy into making political movements like this one successful. Tom -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Louis Proyect Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 1:52 PM To: Thomas Bias Subject: Re: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party S. Artesian wrote: > Somewhere along the line, real history has to be apprehended, criticized, > captured so we can maybe avoid repeating the same old same old one more same > old time. Exactly. We all hail Che Guevara as an exemplary revolutionary, but the Bolivian mission was doomed from the start since it was based on a fetishization of the foco. We give enormous credit to Allende for dying with a machine gun in his hand defending the Popular Front but politically he helped create the conditions in which Pinochet came to power. We read and reread Trotsky's writings but understand (at least some of us anyhow) that the Fourth International was a sectarian mistake. Revolutionary politics has to avoid nostalgia at all costs or to put it in the words of Karl Marx, we need the ruthless criticism of everything that exists including our own history. The bourgeoisie has the guns and the money, but we rely on our class analysis which can serve as a scalpel in struggle. But clutching to one outmoded idea or another only serves to thwart our ultimate goal. ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/biastg%40embarqmail.com ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
