The Legacy of Leon Trotsky and U.S. Trotskyism: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
JULY 25 — 27TH 2008, Fordham University, New York City

A diverse group of veterans of the Trotskyist movement have organized a conference to discuss and better understand past and present struggles, to clarify issues and to build the socialist movement today and tomorrow.
It’s shaping up to be an exciting event!

Plenary Sessions include:
Permanent Revolution and the Evolution of World Realities
Social Movements and Class Struggle in the United States
What Kind of Political Organization Do We Need?
Lessons of the SWP Experience

Speakers will include:

*Esteban Volkov, Leon Trotsky’s grandson

*Celia Hart, Cuban revolutionary (likely via electronic hook-up)

*Bryan Palmer, author of “James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928”

*Ahmed Shawki, Editor of International Socialist Review

*Gus Horowitz, SWP national antiwar director, and founding national co-coordinator, Student Mobilization Committee

*Suzi Weissman, biographer of Victor Serge; Host of KPFK radio show “Beneath the Surface,” Mondays 5-6

Workshops (preliminary list):
SWP memory project, health care, women’s liberation, electoral action, student and youth, the national question, race-class-gender, gay issues and rights, Cuba, labor and the environment

Theoretical and political perspectives to be discussed:

*What remains relevant in the Trotskyist theoretical and political tradition?

* What do developments of the late 20th and early 21st century indicate regarding the value of such concepts as permanent revolution, workers’ states (and/or workers’ and farmers’ governments), workers’ democracy, the revolutionary potential of the working class, the revolutionary potential of social movements, Lenin on the vanguard party and democratic centralism, imperialism, the national question, and the relation of democratic struggles to the revolutionary struggle?

*And what we should do now?

* What is the best way to organize for change in the world today? What is the political situation that we face, particularly from the standpoint of those who continue to want to create a socialist society? What is the situation in Cuba today and how does that impact permanent revolution in Latin America in countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia? What are the dynamics in the Middle East created by US Empire building and US wars? What is happening on the Left, in the unions, in the immigrant rights movement, the antiwar movement, among environmentalists, and in other social movements? And what are the lessons of the SWP experience that can help to point the way forward today?

Cost: $60/day for room (dorms) and board (3 meals/day, on-site cafeteria) + a registration fee of $40/full conference or $25/day

Donations: We would like to offer scholarships to defray registration costs and expenses for those unable to afford them. ($100 or more gets you a DVD of some conference highlights; $50 gets you a CD of the same.) Please send pledges (payable before the conference) or donations to:

Paul LeBlanc
9000 Babcock Blvd
Pittsburgh, PA 15237
leblanp1@LaRoche.edu

For more information, contact the Conference Coordinators:
Linda Thompson: 203 453-2770, lthompson321@aol.com on the East coast &
Robin David: 415 285-8548, robindavid@speakeasy.net on the West coast

We are looking forward to your support. There is a lot of excitement and interest generating for this event.

For now I want to restrict my comments, more or less, to a response regarding only one of the contriibutions. John L. wrote: “For Paul, party building is left to some future time when the consciousness of the class is better and the objective conditions are changed. Trying to build a vanguard formation *now* necessarily leads to the construction of a vanguard sect. I could not disagree more. This is the classic ‘anti-sectarian, sectarianism’ typified by the US group Solidarity.” First of all, a relatively minor point: I do not think the US group Solidarity (of which I am a member) is in agreement on the idea of “party building” in the future or ever. Solidarity includes Leninists, anti-Leninists, people who are not sure about Leninism, and people who don’t know or care about Leninism. There is no common viewpoint on the question.

I do want to clarify my own viewpoint, however.

As John Ridell suggested in his response, the comrade seems to have missed the fact that his position and mine are not so far apart as he perceived. Of course, it depends on what one means by the term “party-building” — but in my opinion revolutionary Marxists must be doing whatever they can NOW to build a genuine revolutionary party, while recognizing that such a party cannot actually be built now. Such a party must involve a percentage of the revolutionary vanguard layer of the working class — and until such a layer exists, such a party will not be possible. (Groups pretending to be such parties will be sects, trapped in their own little “revolutionary” universe.)

But we can and must do things NOW to help create the possibilities for such a party coming into being. And it seems to me that some of us can be most effective in doing this if we work together — as a democratic collective in agreement around basic revolutionary program — in order to carry out such good work. At the same time we should help draw together and train other activists — what I think one person in this discussion was referring to as “cadre.” While not pretending to be “the revolutionary party” (or even “the nucleus” of such a party), such a group could reasonably be said to be organized along Leninist lines.

As I indicated in my article, while a group existing along Leninist lines runs into the danger of becoming a sect (and most such groups have ended up as sects), there is no iron law dictating that this must be so.

I myself am hoping in the forseeable future to become part of a group (perhaps an existing group) organized along such lines. If I am part of such an organization, I will continue to work not only to help create the labor-radical sub-culture that I see as a necessary pre-condition for a revolutionary vanguard party, but I will continue to insist that there can be no genuine revolutionary vanguard party without the existence of a revolutionary vanguard layer of the working class (which is inseparable from the existence of such a sub-culture). I will push against its crystallization into sectarianism, so that it can make the greatest contribution possible to the coming into being of an actual revolutoinary party.

What we should do to help “prepare the groundwork for a party” is something that I very much am interested in talking about, at the upcoming Trotsky Legacy Cnference and after the conference. There are things that a number of us doing now that have been contributing to the sub-culture that I think we need to be building.

* One example is the Marxist Internet Archive and Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line – which is a huge accomplishment that places a rich Marxist library and invaluable information at the fingertips of anyone who has a computer and access to the internet.

* Another is Labor Notes and the periodic Labor Notes Conferences, which can and should be focal-points for all of us who want to help build a strong and concious labor left.

* Another essential project is US Labor Against the War.

* I think the role that Socialist Action has played in initiating the National Assembly to End the War and U.S. Occupatoin in Iraq, drawing together a broad and somewhat diverse network of anti-war forces, has been extremely important in “helping to prepare the groundwork” and – while it doesn’t self-identify as a “labor-radical” vehicle, it is – and the Cleveland conference of this past weekend has the potential for making a huge contribution to the kind of sub-culture that we need.

* I think the International Socialist Organization has made some very impressive contributions with three things in particular: 1) the publication of the impressive and high-quality International Socialist Review AND getting that publication into Borders and Barnes & Noble outlets throughout the country; 2) the regular “Socialism” conferences; and 3) the whole Haymarket Books project.

* I was able to draw some folks together, a few years ago, to help the Allegheny County Labor Council to develop a website that includes a substantial number of fairly short, readable Pittsburgh area labor history articles (about the uprising of 1877, the Homstead Strike, the founding and early ideals of the AFL, the founding of and the original nature of the CIO, and more – including a suggested reading list for those wanting to know more). This is a very modest thing, but I think it counts for something – and I think there are a large number of very modest things like that around the country that add up.

* In its own modest way, our upcoming Trotsky Legacy Conference (July 25-27 at Fordham University in New York City) is a contribution. One of the contributors to this Socialist Voice discussion has requested more infromation on that, which I will provide in a separate post.

These are just a few things that occur to me off the top of my head There is more brainstorming, discussion, and planning that will be worth doing on this matter.

-Paul Le Blanc

I think there may be some disagreement about what is meant by “a broad labor-radical subculture.” In my view, Paul is right to say that one does not exist in the US, and I don’t believe one exists in the Canadian state either. My assessment of Toronto (where I lived from 1990 to 2003, and which I visit from time to time) is different than John’s.

There is no doubt that there are radical left milieux in Toronto. These are disproportionately drawn from the intelligentsia (a social layer mostly composed of white-collar workers with lots of post-secondary education, and university students). Some are active in community or campus groups of one kind or another, but very few are rooted in communities that are predominantly working-class or poor. Few people in the radical left milieux are union activists, and fewer still are private-sector union activists. I do not believe the radical left milieux in Toronto today are part of a “radical workers’ subculture” of the kind Paul writes about.

I believe that what Paul writes of the US is basically true in the Canadian context too, except in Quebec, where the radicalization of the 60s and 70s created a radical current within the working class that had no equivalent in English Canada. “After 1945, there was a dramatic break in the continuity of this labor-radical tradition due to the realities that resulted from the Second World War, and the transformation of the social, economic, political, and cultural realities in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. Essential specifics of workers’ occupations and workday experience underwent fundamental changes. The organizations associated with the labor movement were similarly transformed — impacted by a complex combination of assaults, co-optations, corruptions, and erosions. The communities, culture, and consciousness of the working class became so different from the mid-1940s to the 1960s that only faded shreds of the old labor-radical subculture remained.

It is not the case that the working class was eliminated. The working class is bigger than ever. But there has been a combined decomposition and recomposition of the working class, and the old labor-radical subculture is long gone. It, too, needs to be recomposed, and within a very different reality than once existed.”

I think this pamphlet is a useful reflection on these issues:

http://www.solidarity-us.org/sot

DC

First, i would like t knw how to get invlved with the pre conference Trotsky Legacy discussion and the conference itself.

I tried to contact the only organizer whose name I had and received no response.

My email is piratefish@yahoo.com

I was an SWP member frm 1964-1967 in Boston.

I quit in 1967 over the directin the SWP was going. Things didn;t just start going wrong in 1972.

A key change was when the preconvention discussin period was reduced from 6mths to 3mths which in the days befre the internet meant that insufficient time existed for proopsals differing from those of the NC majority to be considered and discussed by the membership.

I left precisely because i saw no possibilty of carrying out a sucessful struggle against what i considered to be the bureaucratization of the SWP.

Anyway, i would like an pportunity to present my views to the upcoming conference by submitting a document fr discussion but as yet have no idea how to go about it.

The lack of publicity in the larger activist community makes me think that maybe this is just anther factional gathering. I hope i am wrng about that.

I am not currently affiliated with any Trotskyist organization and have not been since I quit the workers lague in 1971 (member frm 1970-1971)

Les Evenchick
New Orleans

Operator of the currently inactive Trotsky@yahoogroups.com discussion list

Operator of Trotsky@yahoogroups.com

First, of course, we have to remember that Cannonism isn’t the only model of organisation used by Trotskyists. There are others, and some of them may be worth considering. Also, there are many other ways of doing things that have been tested outside the Trotskyist tradition, and this can provide us with useful information about what works and what doesn’t. (Personally, I spent a couple of years in the Australian Greens, and came out of it feeling much better about how the far Left does things).

We can, for example, look at the ways other, non-Trotskyist, tendencies have organised, especially in cases where groups have grown into mass tendencies from tiny beginnings.

In other words, our focus shouldn’t be too narrow. There’s a big world out there we can learn from.

But in the end, there is no substitute for actually trying to put our programs into practice. If they’re not tested, they’re wrong.

Alan B

Any form of organisation we form and use will need to actively engage in struggle, and try and overcome the problems that John raises. This, however, is a political problem, and not primarily one of organisational form. In particular, it requires serious questioning of the theory and practice of groups derived from Trotskyism, and a conscious attempt to overcome any problems identified. That means asking difficult questions, and providing honest answers, even when it is tempting to come up with excuses. I’ve tried. It hurts.

I’ve also spent some time considering alternative forms. I haven’t found one that doesn’t really replicate the vices of the grouplet form, or which is as effective in accumulating cadres. Some might be more effective at retaining existing cadres, but at the expense of recruitment and coordinated action.

But this wasn’t really why I am posting.

What I wanted to do was to point out that in several countries, currents derived from the Trotskyism tradition have actually eclipsed the old CPs. In almost all cases, these are situations where the far left is very weak, but still they present a situation where any future left revival will be influenced by these currents, rather than the old CPs and/or Maoism.

Examples relevant to Canada include Britain, Australia, and to a considerable degree, New Zealand. (One of the two dominant currents in NZ arose from a fusion between “pro-Trotsky” and “pro-Mao” groups). The US is a somewhat different case, as far as I can tell. I could also point out France, where the main Trotskyist currents (LCR and LO) have considerable, if presently rather soft, support, and where the much larger PCF seems to be gradually waning. There are also a number of Third World examples, which are probably less relevant.

This suggests that the Trotskyist project, as a whole, may not have been quite as much a failure as we might be tempted to conclude. Things certainly haven’t turned out the way they were originally envisaged, but, to a degree, the broad Trotskyist movement has, in fact, been one of the ways revolutionary Marxism has survived into the present, and will be transmitted into the future.

The key, of course, is “one of the ways”. That’s something we need to firmly understand. And even within the broad Trotskyist tradition we need to realise that no single strand holds all the answers either. But that’s easier said than done.

In fact, I think that we have most of the answers already, at least in a general sense. The problem is actually putting them into practice.

Alan B

I am glad that Phil C. has raised the relevance of Cuban communism to any project for building a revolutionary current, a concept that is central to Socialist Voice, where this note is appearing.

Alan suggests that there “might actually be an argument for the sect” in their ability to recruit and educate cadres. He’s on to something here: the sect is under present circumstances the easiest way for socialists to organize and – also – the most durable. The problem is that the sect’s members are educated and trained mainly to close their minds to the ideas of non-members, the thinking of the working class ranks, and the lessons of reality. Sects obstruct the building of a revolutionary party and also cause considerable harm in conditions of mass upsurge.

John L. stresses the need to act now to build a vanguard organization: “I think it *is* possible to build a Leninist organization in this period.” John thus agrees with the central point in Paul Le Blanc’s article – the need for revolutionary Marxists to collaborate in making their experiences and understanding available for new generations of activists. But that does not mean we should try to construct a miniature of what we think this party will look like some decades down the road. The problem is to determine what form of organization is appropriate to our present situation.

The dilemma is captured by John L.’s metaphor: “You don’t wait for a flood to build a boat.” But what use is it to me to have a boat sitting on my lawn? And how likely is it that this boat-without-water is really seaworthy? Why not build a conveyance appropriate to today’s conditions? The best training for the big battles coming down the road is to do what corresponds to the challenge immediately before us.

Sam W. asks what is the alternative to a sect, and suggests, “Perhaps a publishing venture.” Socialist Voice is purely a publishing venture – there is no associated organization. We have done this for four years, and it has worked well, particularly in removing any obstacle to close collaboration with and membership in other socialist currents.

But we are not in any sense a model. Organizational forms flow from the circumstances in which we work. The difficult part to achieve collaboration among revolutionaries in political conditions that make this difficult, and to avoid sectarian pitfalls in the process. Paul Le Blanc’s article is a worthy contribution to that task.

John Riddell