>I am sorry to see Yoshie go. As far as vicious tyrants go, Milo. and S.
>Hussain rank about a 7 or 8 on a scale of 10. Butchery in Central America
>(say in Guatamala) would rank higher in infamy.
<snip>
>The socialist movement was gaining enormous strength at the beginning of
>the century. World War I caused a similar split among the left, between
>those that supported and opposed the war. The socialist movement in the
>west never recovered.
I am unclear whether Michael Perelman thinks that Lenin overemphasised the absolute nature of the split between the Kautskyists and the Leninists in the light of the fact that the revolutionary upsurge was successful in only one European country.
Or on the other hand I have been wondering whether Michael and Doug Henwood have been reading too much Louis Proyect. (BTW Doug, when are you and LP going to subscribe to each other's lists again?)
LP has a 35 K document from 5 years back with the title ZIMMERWALD AND IMPERIALIST "HUMANITARIAN" INTERVENTIONS. He recently reproduced it on his list as the theoretical basis for opposing NATO's actions.
It does not discuss the Zimmerwald Conference of 1915, but merely asserts its existence to defend the line of the tiny Trotskyist SWP in the USA arguing between 1941 and 1945 the Second World War was an imperialist war, and workers and progressive people should have been for the defeat of their ruling class.
It makes no mention of the 1935 change of line of the international communist movement for a united front against fascism. Therefore it can make no sense of the start of the second world war.
It is true that workers and progressive people should be particularly vigilant against national oppression by their own ruling class, but there is no simplistic rule of marxism that in every case an imperialist government will always do reactionary things. Still less that we should not struggle to make it do progressive things.
Doug also fails to understand this when he asks
>You willing to sign on for a united front against the US and UK governments?
No united front could be defined that way.
Are too many people assuming LP's line of revolutionary defeatism of one's own government is the last word in internationalism?
Chris Burford
London