[lbo-talk] ISO?

Lenin's Tomb leninstombblog at googlemail.com
Sun Nov 6 17:24:24 PST 2011


On 07/11/2011 00:46, Ferenc Molnar wrote:
> Collectively, a cult that preys on college students.

Minus the demonology, you're saying they're a small party that recruits among students. It's a piece of anticommunist mythology that revolutionary parties are totalitarianisms-in-germ, power-maximising entities who 'prey' on the naive. A more serious analysis must at least attempt to gauge a party's behaviour in relation to its social basis, its political and strategic orientations, the circumstances it operates in, etc. Even if it were a 'cult' or exhibiting cult-like behaviour, this would be something to be understood and explained. Moreover, one would think this could be done in a comradely manner befitting attempts to coexist in a common socialist culture.


> In terms of political action they do very little.

They're a small group with few resources, yet the assertion that "they do very little" simply isn't borne out by the evidence. Your own cited example, of the CAN, is not an instance of doing 'little', but - on your account - of doing something poorly.


> To my knowledge no outside writer has been able to stay awake long enough to write the history of their utterly toothless Campus Anti-War Network (CAN).

More likely (one would hope) is that any socialist of reasonable talent and perspective would either a) join the network and try to make it better, or b) if that was impossible, form an alternative network. Either course would be preferable to the futile politics of resentment.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list