This claim that the “real” understanding of proletarian revolutionism can only be acquired via the SWP reminded me of the Christian Bible, where the author of the “Gospel according to St. John” lets Jesus say in chapter 14, verse 6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
http://www.bibleserver.com/text/KJV/John14

While feeling some pride of being part of that following, although a continent apart, I also questioned myself: where does that leave the Cuban revolutionists? And what about Marx and Engels? How could they discover the laws of movement of the capitalist society and class societies in general without having met the Political Committee of the SWP? Should it really be impossible today to make those scientific discoveries 150 years later? The telephone was invented by at least three people independently of each other because the time was ripe for it. Should it be impossible today to discover the laws of capitalism and of class struggle, absorbing the lessons of 200 years of revolutionary struggle without having been at an Socialist Educational Conference in Oberlin College?

I just read Gus Horowitz’ article from where John Riddell quoted the above quote. I think this is the best explanation of the psychology resulting from overloading oneself with an historic responsability and hybris of uniqueness. Thanks to Gus.

I also remember, and that was probably from a speech or talk by Jack Barnes, the observation that errors can easier be revovered when one is moving forward. The image of a person stumbling when storming forward and can easily regain her step as against stumbling when going backwards was graved into my memory.

As to the “permanent revolution”, I agree largely with Jack Barnes that this theory did more harm than good, by allowing large parts of those people calling themselves “Trotskyites” (I am not one of those) to cherish Trotsky where he differed from Lenin, instead of seeing him as the necessary link to pass Lenin’s legacy to a younger generation. It lead too many people to an ultraleft and sectarian policy, disregarding the need to mobilized the peasantry on the side of the proletariat, disregarding democratic demands. Lenin explained that the working class is the leadership of the democratic revolution, but it can only be the leader by promoting the utmost democratism, the revolutionary goals of oppressed and exploited farmers and other petty bourgeois layers, including the demands for nationial sovereignty of oppressed nations.

I just think that Jack’s sectarian and disruptive way did more harm than good. The title “Their Trotsky and Ours” is already drawing a sharp dividing line between “us and them”. “80% of those calling themselves are sectarian” — with such declarations of war one can’t be very convincing. Better would have been a patient policy of publications recounting the experiences of the Cuban and Russian revolutions, also the Chinese and Vietnamese, and of all revolutionary struggles instead of this head on confrontationist approach.

Let me conclude by stating that I believe that theres is still some revolutionary substance in the SWP, it is just dried out like a seed waiting in the desert for a new fresh wave of class struggle watering it again and allowing it to bloom and flourish.

The question is: what is the SWP doing in these unions?

The Militant does not reflect any shop-floor activism or sustained work in the unions. It does not give much attention to politics in the unions. It does not draw on the party’s forces in industry for insightful and objective portrayals of the thinking and feelings among industrial workers. There is no more talk of fractions in industrial unions. Writers are no longer identified by union affiliation. Yes, there are excellent reports on visits to picket lines and anti-racist demonstrations, but such work can also be done by students. The “industrial turn” has all but vanished from the SWP press.

And yet we know that the “turn” continues. Able comrades sell literature and have political discussions. But this often fails to link up with the structures and struggles of the working class and does not find expression in sustained united-front work in workers’ organizations.

How were the SWP forces utilized during the Occupy movement? It is easy to criticize the inexperience of many young activists, but more significant is that this movement saw a junction between youth and organized labour forces more significant than any seen in many years — in a context of an intense nation-wide civil liberties confrontation. What did SWP unionists do? The SWP did not even support the movement, and its intervention — judging from the Militant — did not amount to much more than paper sales.

What about the last great junction of youth and union forces — the movement against the Iraq war? The SWP was hostile to the antiwar movement and did not take part in the efforts to mobilize opposition in the unions. The SWP took no note of the opposition to the war among the soldiers – the workers in uniform. The SWP did not speak of its great experience in this work in 1945 and again in the Vietnam era.

And the previous junction around anti-globalization? A similar story.

The SWP tries to counterpose the industrial working class to the “middle-class radicals” – an apolitical SWP term for all left-wing and socialist political currents, other than itself. But there is no such division in life; the movements of the “middle-class radicals” flow together with those of all segments of the working class. I fear that the SWP’s antagonism to the “middle-class radicals” translates in life into tendency to abstention from major expressions of working-class politics.

That said, I do believe that the SWP forces in industry as an important resource of the socialist movement as a whole, and it would be good to hear more about what the SWP comrades are experiencing and doing.

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/barnes.htm

It is useless to get tied up in right or left socialist definitions. The differences between all the other left groups and the SWP is that the SWP views the key environment for a socialist party that wishes to make a SOCIALIST REVOLUTION is the Industrial working class. They need to be there regardless of the level of radicalization or expected radicalization. This is not the primary orientation of any of those other organizations. You can disagree with that orientation, but the industrial sector of the working class is the sector, organized and disciplined by capitalism, that is socially capable of overthrowing capitalism in the Imperialist countries. When I was in the Party, I was a ‘tribune of the people’ to that Industrial working class. The Turn was not something done just because of some expected radicalization, but because that is where a REVOLUTIONARY party must be regardless of the current level of radicalization. The SWP did not leave the trade union movement and the industrial working class because of the greener pastures of the social movement of of the 60s, it had been driven out of the trade union movement in the 50s. Had they not been driven out, the Party could have been even more effective in those social movements. (But that is a useless ‘what if”) In a real sense the Turn of 1978 was a re-turn. The reason the Party has declined in numbers is because Imperialism’s descent on the curve of capitalist development has been slower than anyone could have expected. Looks like that is changing now. Ernestos response is wonder of clarity on this issue. I go further in detail on the centrality of the Industral working class at Gus’s site in respnse to his contribution about the radicalization of the 60s.

In response to Binh, the SWP did play a significant role in some labour struggles during the downturn, as I noted, but that was not the predominant tone.

Barry Sheppard argues in his volume 2 that another kind of industrial turn was possible. See his chapter 24 and his appendix.

In the early 1980s, I thought possibilities for trade union work were good, including around Nicaragua work. But, then, I was in Canada.

Was this necessarily so? What about organizing defensive struggles, the kind of struggles that a period of retreat entails? I’m not clear whether the “talking socialism” or propagandism was a forced necessity or a political choice (perhaps an unconscious one)?

Ironically some of the ex-members who are the most politically disengaged are the ones who were the most enthusiastic supporters of Barnes back in the day.