Right, history is written by the victors. You are pointing to a real problem, the disjuncture between theory and practice that has characterized broadly-defined Marxism. My practice involves trying to end this disjuncture (which means among other things that if the theory is wrong, it should be rejected).
>... Whether out of opportunism or native intelligence, the CP's popular front policy or the IS people working in trade unions, by foregoing what I calling 'marxian' premises, have made or are making their work possible. For the same reasons, of course, it is inherently self-limiting, but that's probably inevitable. Better therefore for all of us that we recognize this more self-consciously when engaging in the business of politics.<
I have no brief for the CP, but most of the time, the IS folks were putting their theory into practice. The rank-and-file organizing that was so successful inside the Teamsters fits with the IS tradition of Marxism, i.e., Draperism or third campism. The mature third-camp view of Hal Draper (etc.) involves the rejection of both capitalism and bureaucracy (i.e., the USSR, the trade-union bureaucracy, the government, etc.) in favor of grass-roots democracy, of socialism from below. The point of organizing workers, in this view, is to organize them to liberate themselves rather than to be cannon-fodder for the organization (the CP, the IS, or whatever).
Unfortunately, the anti-bureaucratic politics wasn't applied as consistently as it should have to the IS organization itself. The IS did the crazy "colonization" number that Louis P. refers to for the SWP (i.e., sending all sorts of folks who didn't belong there into factory work). I guess it was a fad, an idealist application of perceived Marxian theory by power-mad party bureaucrats. (I wouldn't know, not having been there.) In any event, I wouldn't argue that the IS was ever perfect.
this is my last message for today. Work calls.
for socialism from below,
Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.