Louis Proyect wrote: "I have a feeling that the same people who are urging a vote for Kerry today will be urging the same policies in the future when workers are occupying factories and calling for a general strike. You don't switch brands from Menshevism to Bolshevism when the "time is ripe". Menshevism is a chronic condition like eczema." --------------------------------------------------------------- The "eczema" remark is unnecessary. It's also wrong. The Bolsheviks wouldn't have acquired their majority in the Soviets and seized state power without the wholesale defection to their side of the mass of Menshevik workers and some important intellectuals. This wasn't unique to Russia; it is characteristic of every revolutionary process, and if the revolutionary party you are contemplating should ever come to pass in the US in our lifetime, it would almost certainly be composed in the main of those trade union and social movement activists whose current allegiance is to the Democratic party and who are "urging a vote for Kerry". It would also likely include many of their secondary and perhaps even some of their nationally-known leaders. This isn't to suggest such a party wouldn't also incorporate many of the people who now support the Greens and the various Marxist groups, but given the present political landscape, this is not where most would come from.
None of us, incidentally, can possibly know in advance how individuals will react to a social crisis. Historically, we know there have been many honest liberals and social democratic activists who have moved left, and Marxist intellectuals who despite their professed commitment to revolutionary politics have turned tail, under the pressure of events.
