> On Nov 10, 2024, at 1:37 PM, sartesian via groups.io
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I think the possibilities were there, existing only as possibilities But as
> soon as the "single issue front" gave a platform to Democrats, the
> possibilities began to disappear.
The Workers League objected to it,
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/bulletin/v08n23-w232-feb-14-1972-Bulletin.pdf
on page 6 complains that YSA'ers supported to allow "Youth for Muskie" and
"Youth for McGovern" participation at a Student Mobilization Committee meeting
in 1971.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1971/2/22/smc-antiwar-conference-calls-for-peaceful/
describes another split, "Throughout the conference, a major dispute was
between people who wanted to make immediate withdrawal of U. S. troops from
Southeast Asia the main focus for the antiwar movement, and those who wanted
the antiwar movement to join in the struggle of working-class revolutionaries
to overthrow capitalism in the United States."
The National Peace Action Coalition was also single issue, Out Now!, and they
too invited Democratic Party politicians to speak at their mass actions, along
with labor and socialist speakers.
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/workersvanguard/1971/0002_00_11_1971.pdf
lists the groups that considered that tactic to be a betrayal: The
Revolutionary Marxist Caucus was critical of the SWP’s participation in NPAC,
particularly its willingness to work with Democratic Party politicians calling
such alliances a form of popular frontism, which they believed compromised the
revolutionary potential of the anti-war movement.
So the split persists today and is much the same, then and now.
For my part, I advocate working with Democrats (such as having their pols
invited to speak at marches) because the DP coalition includes labor and other
working-class constituencies; involving their DP leaders allows socialists to
also speak to them on an equal footing. I think the socialist groups that did
this saw a growth in their numbers as they attracted people away from the
Democratic Party, which was responsible for the crisis in the first place. I
think the SWP grew doing this during the anti-Vietnam war movement, and running
against Democrats was an important part of the tactic. In fact, one of the
last things I did for the SWP was to run an election campaign,
https://www.themilitant.com/1978/4225/MIL4225.pdf has an article I wrote about
it on p. 14.
Mark
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