Fronting for Stalinists

JBrown72073 at cs.com JBrown72073 at cs.com
Mon Mar 10 14:25:02 PST 2003


Charles Brown writes:
>> First they make it a basis for destroying the Communist Party's
>> (or Workers World) work in the unions or anti-racist movement by
>> redbaiting them for acting in the name "Communist".

ChuckO:
>You are talking about ancient history. Red-baiting is mostly dead these
>days. The capitalists and authorities can't raise the spectre of the
communist
>menace because there are two generations who would have no clue.

Well, that's been the CPUSA's position also, but I think they're out to lunch. Our local Labor Party was called the 'Labor Communist Party' in the paper during a campaign for universal health care. A County Commissioner called us the Socialist Party (Debs lives!) in an open meeting during the same campaign and I've had unionists afraid to affiliate for fear they'll be associated with 'reds.' The recently-defeated Oregon Single Payer bill was derided, I think in the WSJ, as "Leninist." On top of that, anarchists in town charge the NOW chapter with being "Leninist" basically, I think, cause we've got a president, VP, treasurer, and disagree with them on various things. So I don't expect the County Commissioner to, but I expect my comrades in the struggle to argue out the actual political positions--do groups have leaders? If they do, is it better to acknowledge them or pretend they don't have them?--rather than shortcutting to loaded terms about which most people in the U.S. have been bombarded with negative propaganda all their lives.

ChuckO:
>The problem is one organization, not all socialists and communists.

That's an, um, unexpected position for an anarchist. Not that I don't welcome it, of course.

Jenny Brown



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