-----Original Message----- From: Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema <crdbronx at erols.com> To: Michael Pugliese <debsian at pacbell.net> Date: Saturday, February 10, 2001 9:58 AM Subject: Sparts
>Dear Michael,
>Interesting material on the Sparts. I worked from 1966 to 1968 in a
>welfare center in the Bronx with Albert Spanfelner, who, I believe, is
>now their maximum leader. He's a working class guy from Philadelphia,
>who is quite smart, but a quite stereotypical example of the transfer of
>a rigid and fairly authoritarian outlook from adoration of all those
>things Catholics adore to a Leninist outlook.
>
>At the same time, while he and his followers were a significant faction
>in our union, Wohlforth's Workers League was another. They fought
>bitterly, even though I eventually came to see the differences between
>them as being more characterological -- the WL'ers being hysterical
>personalities, and the Sparts being obsessive-compulsives.
>
>Wohlforth, of course, is now, as it appears, a pleasant, sane,
>thoughtful person. Spanfelner, by contrast, seems to hide behind
>security operatives, using a false name. At demonstrations, whenever I
>see someone selling the Workers Vanguard, I approach and ask if Al is
>around. They get anxious, and I explain I used to know him. Some deny
>knowing him. Others don't. I tell them urgently that I want them to tell
>him he ought to run for Democratic district leader in his locality.
>
>Christopher
>