> It is really a symptom of loss of direction.
This was left floating after a bit of hasty editing.
It was really intended to refer to arbitrary personal attacks by one list owner on another.
Such behaviour should be held up as a sign of weakness, with a carefully sober refutation.
At its best this sort of activity may get justified by arguing that opportunism is strategically the most dangerous weakness before the "crisis of leadership" of the international proletariat is resolved. The counterargument is that such polemical struggle is a divorce of theory and practice, in the absence of any serious policies that relate to the present.
It turns marxism into a sort of social club, a friendship circle, that defines itself by who it is attacking on a personal basis. Bringing in personal relations between members of the opposite sex, makes that even clearer.
As various forms of opportunism, one-sidedness, or class impurity, are widespread among lists and could well involve the list owner as well as all the subscribers, for a list to define itself by its foolish and arbitrary attacks on certain individuals again demonstrates its weakness, and inability to address real revolutionary change.
Chris Burford