Heh, The LEFT, " this...the Left that... <URL: http://revolutionintheair.com/reviews/againstcurrent.html > This review appears in the November-December 2002 issue of Against the Current
By Patrick M. Quinn Revolution Was in the Air
Max Elbaum's Revolution in the Air is a damn good book, one that should be must reading for all those who consider themselves part of the Left today and for future generations of socialists as well...
Impact of Recession and Conservatism
In Part III, "Battered by Recession, Restructuring, and Reaction, 1974- 1981, "Elbaum analyzes the adverse impact of the rightward turn in U.S. politics, which broke the momentum of the growing Movement. He discusses the shift in China's foreign policy towards a pro-U.S. stance, which sharply divided the movement into pro and anti-Maoist components.
Out of the difficulties of this period emerged two new organizations that replaced the Revolutionary Communist Party and the October League as the major organizations of the New Communist Movement--Line of March, which evolved away from Maoism toward a more traditional Stalinist type of politics, and the League for Revolutionary Struggle (LRS) which maintained a pro-Maoist line for a longer period.
Part IV, "Walking on Broken Glass, 1982-1992," concentrates on two major themes: the role that members of the New Communist Movement played in building the Rainbow Coalition during Jesse Jackson's two presidential campaigns (1984 and 1988) and the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during 1989 and 1990, which had a devastating impact on the New Communist Movement.
Clearly Elbaum regards the role that the New Communist Movement played in building the Rainbow Coalition as one of the Movement's "shining hours." Yet in his chapter 13, "The Survivors Build the Rainbow", his descriptive powers appear to outweigh his analysis.