The discussion is interesting. I want to address the PMP. That is was, as Mark noted, a relic. But why is that? The SWP implemented it later when comrades were drafted into the military during both the Korean War and later during the Vietnam war. For example, the SWP and YSA didn't encourage it's members who were drafted to flee to Canada (which 10s of thousand of US youth did). Rather it said go in and build the anti-war movement from with in. The Workers World Party had a similar perspective and organized the American Servicemen's Union. Even PLP sent folks in to "organize for socialism" which of course never amounted to anything but continued this into the late 1970s having reports from its members in the U.S. Army in West Germany published in their paper Challenge. But this is different than the period of WWII. Why?
Because the entirety of the U.S. working class was for the war and against Fascism and Japanese Imperialism, after Pearl Harbor. While large parts of this sentiment was pure patriotism and jingoism, especially with regards to Japan, it was all combined with a kind of base anti-Fascism. The SWP changed its public "persona" after Pearl Harbor, dropping all anti-war propaganda (which of course would of likely been seen as defeatism...not only by the state but by the working class as well). The Party did not change its analysis of WWII as an Imperialist war aimed at overthrowing the USSR but it had no choice but respond to the inate anti-Fascism of the U.S. working class. I think it understood that a Nazi victory in Europe was a very bad thing for all the reasons anyone can imagine. Less so the Allies, no less Imperialist, but far less nihilistic and certainly without the Fascist ideology. Yes, they "ranked" but without saying so. The place, however, that PMP was applied was not the U.S...since both the SWP *and* the WP did everything they could to get folks into defense industry assembly plants so they wouldn't get drafted and sent to war. So formally they had adopted the PMP but in practice the Trotskyist avoided the draft if possible. No, the place it was a applied was Britain...where Trotskyists joined the Homeguard, organized by Churchill to conduct an anti-occupation war against the Germans should the Wehrmacht invade. With training provided by the British army and armed by the same, they recruited 1.7 million unpaid militia. It would make sense that resistance to German occupation would necessarily go through the Homeguard (with British army units behind enemy lines if the invasion was successful forming another leg of the Homeguard). I think it was correct that revolutionaries in Britain joined their class in training arms in had to fight Fascism. Why would anyone oppose this? David -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42221): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42221 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/119987077/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
