From: LeoCasey at aol.com Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 13:54:02 EDT
Some interesting comments on the Trotskyism conference posted on the DSA listserv by Tim Wohlforth, a past leader of some of the more loony of Trot sects (Sparts and then American Healeyites) and now a rather sensible voice in DSA.
I thought that this was Michael Pugiliese's job to crosspost these little ditties, but he seems to have missed this one. I guess he is a little consumed today by the still loony Trots, posting everyone on how Proyect called him a social imperialist. Hell, from what my sources tell me, Proyect's list is now reduced to a small group which congratulates each other on how they "defend Marxism" in such places as the LBO "cesspool" of revisionism and such. With defenders like that, who needs enemies?
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --
From: timwohlforth at earthlink.net Subject: Re: Fw: [ASDnet] Conference on American Trotskyism Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 10:05:02 -0700
Just a few brief comments on the Conference on American Trotskyism.
1. I am sure others have noted that academic interest in Trotskyism is negatively related to its strength. As the movement declines academic study soars.
2. The conference appears to have been dominated by present and former Trotskyists intent on saying a few good and uncritical words on the tendency. Most understandable. There is much to admire and to learn from its history. However, one would have thought some discussion of its failures might also be in order.
3. Most fundamentally, participants seem to shy away from recognizing that Trotskyist was/is after all a wing of Communism. At its best (e.g. its critique of Stalinism in power and its critique of Official Communism's sectarian approach to the rise of Hitler) it pushed against the limits of Communism and almost burst free of it's host. But not quite. Therefore it seems to me quite natural that Trotskyism would fall with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Communist system that wall protected.
4. the future of Trotskyism may be as dismal as the future of Communism.
5. Interestingly, the most open and non-sectarian offshoot of Trotskyism, Solidarity, does not spend much time if any identifying itself as Trotskyist. Similarly the most open and non-sectarian offshoot of Official Communism, The Committees of Correspondence, speaks little, if at all, about Communism. The only one that did, Gus Hall, is now blessedly dead.
6. Perhaps most significant the new generation of radicalized youth think quite differently. Green and militant, pacifist direct actionist, somewhat leaning to anarchism, on its extremes Neo-Luddite. Not really that inclined towards Marxism-Leninism.
The preceding is a personal opinion. Try not to post more than daily.