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The story of Line of March's end is complicated; I refer you to the account in Max Elbaum's Revolution in the Air. I'll try to fill in some blanks: In 1989-90 LOM decided to make a move from a cadre group to a looser association. In spirit it was something like the Democratic Socialist Party of Australia dissolving into the Socialist Alliance [and in fact some DSPers were present at the last national meeting, as well as Peter Camejo]. The transition didn't take. When people work for years in a group with tight discipline and orders from above [or as we liked to euphemize, "the center"], shifting gears is very hard. The successor group lasted a year before members decided to concentrate on the lives they left behind - jobs, finishing school, new families. Most went into careers in social services, nonprofits or unions. One reason why the transition was particularly hard was that the leader of the group, who had been an inspiration for everyone - no, it wasn't Irwin Silber - fell into drugs and began to burn out, first secretly and then to the entire membership's horror and disorientation. There was a split - and anyone who ever took part in a cadre group knows how devastating a split can be, especially if the group is large enough that few people knew all the members, but small enough so that everyone would be affected personally. I think the leadership wisely and empathetically brought the project to a slow, steady stop, allowing members to regain their bearings and move on. A core of members [including Max and Irwin] turned over the group's resources to a new project, CrossRoads magazine, which was a direct unitary response to the crisis in the organized left as the whole. Among the more illustrious supporters were Gil Green, Harry Hay, Elizabeth Martinez, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, David McReynolds, Muhammed Ahmad [Max Stanford] and Camejo. Max is currently involved in the web zine War Times <www.war-times.org>. ethan young ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
