Thu, 29 May 1997 00:31:16 -0400 COCKROACH! #63 ("I have had enough Bosses!") A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS. It is time that the poor and working class people have a voice on the Internet. Contributions can be sent to Subscribtions are free at Now on line! Check out the Home of COCKROACH! http://www.algonet.se/~malecki How often this zine will appear depends on you! -------------------------------------------------------- 1. Proyect's and Trotskyist History! 2. From the Labor Party List! 3. "I have had enough Bosses!" -------------------------------------------------------- Proyect's and Trotskyist History! Well our ex-Swper now neo Stalinist-Menshevik has wrote a long letter on what he belives is the history of Trotskyism in regards to the Goldman/Morrow faction fight. Naturally our ex-SWPer has lined his story though his anti-Trotskyist and especially anti-Cannon spectacles. In fact a lot of it is a falsification of this great fight and in fact Proyect as usual winds up on the wrong side of the fence. It is worth noting that this old fight which Proyect paints up in favor of Morrow is spiced with his own appetite of not only capitulating to Stalinism but also a fundemental break with any kind of revolutionary politics. But I find it very bizaar that Proyect brings up this stuff now. (Christ he has been whining about how horrible discussing all these old fights are). Back then the pressure was really on with many of the people involved just coming out of prison, but for Proyect ,the New York Librarian, there can not be any kind of real pressure involved here except trying to trash the Trotskyists on this list with his off the cuff article. In fact my guess is he is trying to "dazzle" us with what he thinks is surpose to be Trotskyist history. But in reality shows his own political bankruptcy and attraction to certain intellectual types like Morrow and his love for a more recent fake Trotskyist attempts to compare Trotskyism with science fiction in the form of Tariq Ali! However this stuff that he wrote was political and deserves and answer.Then again Proyect is also and example of one of those types of intellectuals that derived out of the new left under the sixties and dabbled in SWP politics a few years during the period when the SWP was heading full steam towards being a reformist organisation. One of the types that had Che pictures on the wall, read some Trotsky and then slavishly followed the SWP into reformist politics. Proyect's fallout with the SWP was not over their rotten political line but in fact the SWP's turn to industry. I mean get out their and scream the social patriotic slogan "Bring the boys home" and inviting the left wing of the imperialist bougeoisie to speak at anti-war demos is one thing, but telling Louis Proyect to leave the New York Library and get a job in industry is another. Thus his divorce with the SWP. However it should be mentioned here that Proyect was hardly ever near any kind of Trotskyist positions. In fact he considers people like Tariq Ali, Morrow and the politics of the then reformist SWP to be Trotskyist.. Now getting back to Proyect's falsification of Trotskyist history.. In fact the minority of the SWP which developed after the end of world war two was far more then a discussion around the European perspectives. But in the beginning it did have a central part in the faction fight. But the truth is that this fight was not something black or white with the bad guys on one side and the good guys on the other and in fact a common document was written on April 16, 1945 and signed by the leaders of the minority and the majority which said; "1. There are no clearly defined differences at the present time on programmatic questions. 2. There is no disagreement on the analisis of the situation in the United States and the problems and tasks of the party as outlined at the convention. 3. The differences on the convention resolution dealing with "The European Revolution and the Tasks of the Revolutionary Party" are not fundemental in character. The differences, insofar as they have found definite expression thus far, are rather secondary in character and relate primarily to questions of interpretation and emphasis. It remains to be seen whether, in the course of events and futher discussions, the present differences will be recounciled in agreement or developed into principled divergences." The docuement continues along these lines and in fact Cannon saw no reason at this point to have a split on the European question. On April 17,1945 Cannon wrote a letter to Jules Geller in Akron, Ohio confirming the "truce" in the party. Between April and the end of July the differences between the minority and the majority had taken what it appears to be a sharp turn from the above truce towards a open fight and split. Mainly because the minority (Goldman and Morrow) purposed in a motion to the party that the SWP approach the Schactmanites with and offer of readmission to the party. And in fact the minority without the party's agreement had already appointed a committee to begin negiotiations in order to carry out the line of the minority in making a defacto block and coup de tate with elements who at the beginning of the war deserted Trotskyism under the pressure of Revolutionary opposition to American imperialism participation in the war and defense of the Soviet Union despite the Stalinists - for a state cap line which ment a plague on both your houses and a cozy little place of abstentionism from fighting for the line of revolutionary defeatism against American imperialism while at the same the taking upon the responsibility of defending the gains of the October Revolution and extending them. In other words a line of political cowardness in the face of American patriotism and pro war propaganda.. This new turn by Goldman/Morrow was rightfully seen by Cannon as a declaration of war against Trotskyism and the then Trotskist SWP and a classical rotten block in the making between the Goldman/Morrow faction and the Schactmanites! In fact the Goldman/Morrow faction declared at the same time as their approach to the Schactmanites without the knowledge of the majority themselves as a faction to conduct "an organized struggle" in the party. The call for a faction was around the following political points. Unity with the Schactmanites and to fight the "Stalinist" regime in the party. So in reality Proyects rosy picture of Morrow is completely false from top to bottom. In fact Proyect is not at all interested in the great struggles that have taken place inside of the SWP and in this case the Goldman/Morrow faction which was and attempt to destroy the SWP in a rotten block with the Schactminites. What Proyect does here is prove his own weakness which he repeatly has confronted us with on this list. His love for intellectualls who put witty combininations and turns of phrases before concrete political line and motion. He in fact time and again has told us with his name dropping that the only think that interests him is the name dropping and then using the names he drops to beat on the anti-Trotskyist drum that has become a fairly rotten tune. Proyects real motives in fact is to aline himself with petty bougeois intellectuals who have deserted Trotskyism for one reason or the other. In the case of the Goldman/Morrow faction fight it was naturally at first a fight around "European perspectives" which quickly led for the minority towards a block with the Schactmanites against the "Stalinist" regime in the party. In the other example that Proyect used so far on the list was his great love for Tariq Ali who never was a Trotskyist but a leading member of the USec who these days writes science fiction connected to various figures and groups claiming to be Trotskyist. Proyects style is the epigone who worships the slick intellectual who when the pressure is on finds ways and means to desert the party of World Revolution. Notice how in both examples Proyect praises the "great" works in the form of books on different subjects. Not the fact of what is in the books. Nor what political line and motion the individual in question is taking. A petty bougeois intellectual who thinks he can dazzle us with his knowledge of the Trotskyist movement but in reality puts forth falsification and twists through the spectacles of his own Neo-Stalinist Menshevik trajectory. Notice that Proyect hardly ever mentions the fact of his own political trajectory. On this list he acts much like the Morrows and Goldmans of the past in unprincipled opportunist blocks with anybody against the trotskyists on the list. Cannon said at the time that the "Proletarian wing of the party has seen all of this before" and he was certainly right. Because every time there is a deepening crisis on the world level or a gigantic question facing the International Proletariat on orientation the petty bougeois intellectuals go into a frenzy of all kinds of twists and political turns. Not anchored in any kind of proletarian working class reality they tend to turn to all kinds of political clarifications which mean in fact liquidating class struggle and the neccessity of building a revolutionary International. If the Goldman/Morrow click connected to the Schactmanites was the petty bougeois Stalinphobic reaction to world events in the United States. It was Pablo and his followers who were the opposite pole. Thus the petty bougeois intelligencia under the the outside pressures affecting them tend to do all kinds of hat tricks. For Pablo the pressure came from the Stalinists and the neccessity of "centuries of deformed workers states" meaning a political orientation of deep entry into the Stalinist Parties everywhere. In the United States it was the "American Era" and anti Communist tradition and the coming cold war that got the petty bougeois intellectuals to attack the leadership of the party as being "Stalinist" and blocking with the Schactmanites with their anti Stalinist counter-revolutionary line. These pressures are always present. Thus on thi list we see the petty bougeios intellectuals doing all kinds of hattricks after the demise of Stalinism. We have the Stalinists who want to clean up Stalinism and carry on as usual. We have the Stalinists who want to see this list as a circle of "Hail Joe Stalin" with pictures and all, just as we have the anti-Stalinist intellectuals doing there hattricks. Proyect in my view is none of these. In fact he is much more a product of what the "new left" intelligensia produced. Fakers with the silver spoon up their asses who change positions according too Sonday reviews in the New York Times! Over and above that in order to keep some sort of fake "Marxist" credentials Proyect supports it appears just about anything that moves at least in the western hemisphere like the Cubans and the FSLN and their rotten political line. Connected to any kind of anti-Trotskyist block possible at present on the list along with some incredible thinking. The incredible independent thinking for Proyect was his great thesis on "Yankeee Doodle" Socialism just recently. In fact the most vulgar sort of Social Patriotism. Above and beyond that he belongs to the intellectuals on this list who's only reality appears to being able to buy a piece of just about anything somebody writes as long as they have a name which can be dropped and is on the ten best seller list of the left wing petty bougeois intelligensia.. So Sorry Louis once again you have bored us with you utter contempt for Trotskyism which for you is doing some sort of quicky book review to dazzle the other intellectuals on this list. I bet you are just waiting for someone to say . "This is Louie when he is best! clap clap on the head shit. Well for real Communist Revolutionaries you do not impress us with your top down style which tries to paint Trotskyism through your own anti Trotskyist spectacles connnected to a petty bougeois intellectual stuffiness which i find apalling. And as I said recently. I do not think your present love affair with the PCP and Aldofo will get you anything but perhaps a bullet in the head for being and agent of something or other. But you are to taken up with your hate of Trostkyism and the Communists on this list to even realize this stuff. Well Proyect you might fool some of the people some of the time and the moderaters it appears all the time. But the Trotskyist on this list got your number. So your latest attempt at falsifying history through the Proyect neo Stalinist -Menshevik spectacles. But we are not to worried about our aging New York Professor because in reality he is as they say "Mostly Harmless".. Sort of the last gasp of a dying generation which has done nothing except keep their scrapbooks up to date.. Toodle Loo my little Yankee Doodle "Socialist"... Warm Regards Bob Malecki -------------------------------------------------------- >From the Labor Party List! I respectfully disagree that Malecki's Cockroach publication has nothing to do with building our Labor Party. Nor can I agree that it diverts us from useful discussion. His publication is a source of news and views about working class life and issues, worldwide, and though none of us is at all obliged to agree with the ideas it contains or the particular tone it takes, we have absolutely nothing to lose - however briefly our busy working lives allow - by considering the contents. The working class is worldwide, our problems as workers are increasingly being internationalized, and the Labor Party - at least the one I'm trying to build - is going to be for the working class. An injury to one is an injury to all, worldwide. Bob Malecki has been continuously responsive to the many threads of our discussion, and he has contributed plenty to it, notwithstanding the contrary claims being made. He is obviously a committed and energetic and thoughtful discussant. The fact that his views are not in someone's supposed mainstream for this discussion just reminds me to point out that we are not made of glass, and we won't shatter in contact with dissonant or even - for some - too far-reaching or over-reaching perspectives. Unless we just want to engage in extended, self-congratulatory navel-gazing, looking only for reflections of our own views and suffering increasingly from in-group tunnel vision (or, what is perhaps even worse: pretending we are so busy doing the correct thing that anyone we disagree with becomes somehow an obstruction to our work), we had better keep an open mind and an open channel for labor, working class and social justice issues from whatever quarter they arise. I do strongly concur with Hal in his second paragraph, that we need to become as informed as possible about what's going on in the Chapters, in the AFL-CIO organizing drives, in the run-up to the Detroit March, in the outlook for our union outreach, in organized labor's struggles all over the country, and in the LP's overall strategy and tactics - I would add electoral strategy and timetable, a central issue that will certainly be highlighted in discussions at the upcoming Chapter Convention, as it has been in Chapter debates across the country. With regard to labor struggles, many of them concern the fate of hard-working immigrants and unorganized workers who are trying to organize. Also, many labor struggles involve devastating issues of outsourcing across our borders and inevitably bring up the severe problems of our non-U.S. sisters and brothers both here and beyond our borders in terms of their wages, benefits and working conditions. Our environmental concerns, as American workers and as reflected in our LP Program, do not stop at our borders, obviously, and do not simply concern now and future members of the LP. Finally, many LP'ers are looking comparatively at other labor parties in the world, for their various set-ups and experience. The commonsense idea is that we may very well be able to learn something of practical utility from their experience. Bob Malecki has provided us many times with front-line reports about workers abroad and their struggles and their politics, either through his direct experience or through his many contacts, and although we may disagree with his (or their) conclusions, I do not believe - based on my reading of his many contributions - that we are justified in saying his work has nothing to do with our efforts to build our Labor Party. Bob Malecki's is a voice on the far left in our discussions. His voice is not the first, won't be the last, and certainly is not one that is wholly representative of the left wing of the politically active working class. It's no secret that there is fundamental disagreement both theoretical and practical among leftists, and many leftists engage in opportunistic and parasitic rants when others have done all the work and produced the turnout. But I believe Bob's is a principled, responsive, constructive and honest voice, not a rant, and based on his own hard-fought experience in the struggle for working class justice, as he sees it and as he has experienced it. He has entered into our discussions and debates in good faith, in my estimation. He has provided us with much food for thought with his Cockroach publication. It is not for me - or for you - to make some sort of kingly judgment about his place at the table. I object to his being pushed out simply because he represents for some an unpopular or a frustrating stance. In Solidarity, Tom Potter, AFSCME 3650 Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), Greater Boston Chapter -------------------------------------------------------- "I have had enough Bosses!" > I have not now nor have I ever been a member of the Communist party. > Nor is my name Leah (that's my daughter. She's not CP either.). >Obviously Maelcki has some reading comprehesion problems. I have not >advocated fusion with any party. I advocate building a mass labor >party based on our economic platform. I only feel that harping on >and on about Democrats is a waste of time. We're not running anyone, >at the present, and when we do, I think that it should be on a local >level, and the circumstances of each locality should determine what >each local chapter should do. Gee, that means that I support--, get >this, not at all a CP or central democratic ideal--I support local >unions having more democratic control of their unions, I support rank >and file democracy--and actually, if a chapter wanted to support a >local fusion candidate, I would support their right, not their >choice. Sorry Carol! Obviously your being and "ex-member" of the CP was a mistake on my part. Interesting but false view you have by the way about democratic centralism. If I remember correctly there was a real debate here at one time of how the union bureaucrats with their block votes of membership quite clearly makes it difficult for the grass roots in the LP to do anything which goes beyond the ideas of the bureaucrats who use this block vote to impose their will on the LP. I think that delegates should be elected by a one man/women vote which expresses the real support of each delegate and also the party. Obviously tthe only honest way to see the real strength of the LP and not some bureaucratic number exercise.. In fact I think a local trade union meeting and the way it is run would be a step forward as to the way the LP congress in Cleveland was run. But naturally being in exile perhaps I am wrong about how this "democratic" process in the LP works.. > >The point of my message was that we should focus on organizing the >masses by using our platfrom. How does this make me a once-upon-a >time CP? > >I have NEVER belonged to a Marxist-Leninist party because they >believe in democratic centralism which sounds to me like a small body >of people making all the decisions for everyone else within the >party. I HAVE ENOUGH BOSSES. Naturally the above goes for the bosses stuff here also. But I would like to add that the trade union ONLY orientation of the present leadership of the LP, which for me means "block votes" in tying the LP to the democratic party coattails is also anti-women! anti-minorities and anti-poor..It is a strategy which gives the left wing of the trade union bureaucracy all the power not to do anything that would harnm their priviledged positions. I suggest that a LP program be used to recruit not trade union bureaucrats looking for a left cover, but the most militant spokesman of the trade unions,women,minority groups, poor people and just plain workers in general. The strategy of winning the bureaucracy to the LP is a utopian pipedream and will not change one thing for poor and working class people in the United States. Why not power women's sections, minority sections, tenant unions, or what ever connected to a program and party that fights in the interests of all poor and working class people. In fact the reight wing of the LP are lying when they say that the way they have staked out the course is the "age old" recipe for success! Ha what a joke old Social Democrats in this country went out to not just the unions but were the tribunes of ALL poor and working class people. They are just painting a picture which fits in their bureaucratic image of what the LP should be a left bureaucratic trade union appendage to the democratic party. Every threat, even the latest ideas of working with other organisations like the "greens" which on principle i do not support but which they do not support because they are afraid of things getting out of their controll and strategy of NEVER breaking with the Democratic Party. A couple a months ago I gave a short version of a program which the LP could go out with in order to win women over to the Labor party. What happened the discussion was quickly put aside because discussions even in this modest sense are a threat too the bureaucrats in control. The only line for them is the present which stacks all the votes in their favor thus never having to worry about the activists in the LP who actually do the work running over them and taking things in their own hands to decide the future. A good dose of Democratic centralism where the ACTUAL members of the LP got to discuss and decide and then act upon their own majority decisions would be a great step forward.. A great slogan for you Carol would be certainly being tired of the trade union bosses who with block votes run your life as a member of the LP. Besides the fact of tying you to the Democratic Party. There are no shortcuts to and LP in the states. Only a rotten opportunist line of the present leadership who want to continue to lead the activists around by the nose and get them to support the Democratic Party every four years.. >MY NAME IS CAROL Fine! But if you signed what you wrote it would be easier to address this problem. And with all the anti Swede stuff going on here lately I suggest that you and your daughter get on the nearest plane and fly over to the Polar circle here. I can show you how the Swedish Social Democracy works on the grass roots level which both organisationally and democratically is light years away from the present leadership of the LP. And this is because from the very beginning it was based on a one man/women vote system in the party and not "block" votes! Despite its being reformist..And in fact why Communists can see giving "critical support" to any sizeable leftwing split of the Social Democracy that is prepared to fight the "New" LP trend that is developing here as in Britain...Just as giving critical support to the SLP in Britain was correct in that it showed the aspirations, and anger of the base against the top of "New" Social Democracy.. And it is not surprising that the right wingers on this list are going in the exactly opposite direction! Cheering on an American version of Tony Blair's new labor Party. "The New Bosses" of the Social Democratic Parties... Warm Regards Bob Malecki ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! Or Get The Latest Issue of COCKROACH a zine for poor and working-class people http://www.algonet.se/~malecki Back issues of Cockroach and the book can also be found at; http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ --------------------------------------------------------