Spitting on Alan Woods ideas about Iran.

[Karl Marx AK47]

I know this is a bit dated material, but I'd like to know what comrades think of SEP cracking open Alan Woods position on Iran.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j07.shtml

[vyborg]

poor guys. they write from another galaxy. this explains the farcical locig of their position.

luckily they cannot do any harm in the iranian movement or anywhere else

[Kléber]

poor guys. they write from another galaxy. this explains the farcical locig of their position.

luckily they cannot do any harm in the iranian movement or anywhere else
SEP has done public demonstrations in support of dissidents repressed by the Islamic state. There are indeed leftist and worker dissidents in Iran (and Venezuela) who deserve the support of revolutionaries worldwide, but Mousavi isn't one of them. Ignore the governments' rhetoric and the Venezuelan and Iranian regimes represent a similar social base, bourgeois nationalism clinging to state-owned industry. The anti-Chávez and Green Movement leadership both have reactionary anti-worker aims. It is hypocritical to support pro-privatization neoliberals in one country but not another because one lot of bourgeois nationalists wear turbans and the other wear red jumpsuits.

[vyborg]

The Sep cannot do anything good for the workers worldwide. luckily anything bad either.

If one cannot distinguish between ahmadinejad and chavez he/she is useless for any movement let alone for the revolution

[vampire squid]

what revolution?

[it_ain't_me]

That was a pretty good article. Although it was a step up from the U.S. puppet the Shah, the Islamic Regime ultimately represents the defeat of the 1979 Revolution. It hasn't outlived its progressive purpose, though, as long as it is still the vehicle through which the working people of Iran resist U.S. aggression. If a decisive victory is ever won against U.S. imperialism in Iran (perhaps by Iran developing and testing nuclear weapons?), then after that point I would fervently hope for a socialist revolution in Iran. Right now, in the short term, it isn't feasible to call for one, and we all know that such an upheaval at this moment would create the kind of chaos necessary for an imperialist intervention. A socialist revolution at this moment would, with 100% certainty, be defeated. This is just realism: the whole world is focused on Iran, whereas the Russian Revolution took place during the distraction of the greatest interimperialist war in history up to that point, and EVEN THEN the Russian Revolution was almost defeated by outside forces. Even a democratic revolution would not succeed, unless you consider something like what Iraq has now (a neoliberal puppet regime with absolutely no real sovereignty from the United States regarding any of the important decisions of the country) to be ''democracy''. This is just a realistic assessment of the balance of forces, the kind that left communists find so offensive.

[vyborg]

I see, the revolution is unfeasible and undesirable because it creates chaos...what a radical position...

but at least it is a clear position, whereas the original article is much more convoluted

[Zoster]

WSWS isn't a totally idiotic Trotskyite group after all. At least they're not stupid enough to back a movement run by reactionaries and funded by US imperialism, which 90% of Trots do. I wonder how Alan Woods thought about Chavez after he came to the (correct) conclusion about the color-revolution in Iran as well.

[vyborg]

this means Chavez is funded by US imperialism?

[graymouser]

WSWS isn't a totally idiotic Trotskyite group after all. At least they're not stupid enough to back a movement run by reactionaries and funded by US imperialism, which 90% of Trots do. I wonder how Alan Woods thought about Chavez after he came to the (correct) conclusion about the color-revolution in Iran as well.
Back when they were the Workers League, David North's group made practically a cottage industry out of slandering other Trotskyists as part of Gerry Healy's horrid "Security and the Fourth International" campaign. The biggest focus was on Joseph Hansen, one of Trotsky's secretaries who was a leader of the American SWP, although there were others. Hansen was accused of working for the American FBI and the Stalinist GPU - a truly confused person! At the same time, the leading section of the "International Committee" - the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain, led by Healy - was taking money from Gaddafi in Libya, Hussein in Iraq and other Arabic dictators in exchange for promoting their regimes in Britain and elsewhere. (The most serious allegations are that they provided photographs of demonstrations to Hussein, helping him to root out and murder members of the Iraqi left.)

When the money ran out and the rest of the WRP leadership revealed that Healy had been sexually abusing female party members and female relatives of party members, North split with them, leading his own rump "ICFI." He converted the party press, no longer recycling lies about Trotskyists, into a multi-million dollar printing company and stopped doing pro bono work for what became the Socialist Equality Party. Since becoming a capitalist, North has magically discovered that trade unions are wholly reactionary and shouldn't be supported; one might see some class consciousness in that move.

That a bizarre group like North's might embrace the Ahmadinejad dictatorship in Iran is hardly surprising given their history. Chávez at least has the excuse that he is an opportunist in charge of a whole country and is taking the side of his erstwhile ally; North just takes this position out of an entirely corrupted caricature of Trotskyism.

[vampire squid]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Back when they were the Workers League, David North's group made practically a cottage industry out of slandering other Trotskyists as part of Gerry Healy's horrid "Security and the Fourth International" campaign. The biggest focus was on Joseph Hansen, one of Trotsky's secretaries who was a leader of the American SWP, although there were others. Hansen was accused of working for the American FBI and the Stalinist GPU - a truly confused person! At the same time, the leading section of the "International Committee" - the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain, led by Healy - was taking money from Gaddafi in Libya, Hussein in Iraq and other Arabic dictators in exchange for promoting their regimes in Britain and elsewhere. (The most serious allegations are that they provided photographs of demonstrations to Hussein, helping him to root out and murder members of the Iraqi left.)

When the money ran out and the rest of the WRP leadership revealed that Healy had been sexually abusing female party members and female relatives of party members, North split with them, leading his own rump "ICFI." He converted the party press, no longer recycling lies about Trotskyists, into a multi-million dollar printing company and stopped doing pro bono work for what became the Socialist Equality Party. Since becoming a capitalist, North has magically discovered that trade unions are wholly reactionary and shouldn't be supported; one might see some class consciousness in that move.

That a bizarre group like North's might embrace the Ahmadinejad dictatorship in Iran is hardly surprising given their history. Chávez at least has the excuse that he is an opportunist in charge of a whole country and is taking the side of his erstwhile ally; North just takes this position out of an entirely corrupted caricature of Trotskyism.

Talk about slander and recycling lies. :rolleyes:

[Zoster]

All Trotskyite cults are bat-shit insane. The Healyites aren't anything special when it comes to Trotskyite antics.


That a bizarre group like North's might embrace the Ahmadinejad dictatorship in Iran is hardly surprising given their history. Chávez at least has the excuse that he is an opportunist in charge of a whole country and is taking the side of his erstwhile ally; North just takes this position out of an entirely corrupted caricature of Trotskyismlol, what a ridiculous bunch of nonsense. Chavez is leading Venezuela to socialism, and has the support of the masses, and took a correct line of standing up against US imperialism in Iran. That Trotskyite trash like yourself side with US imperialism shouldn't startle anyone: Trotskyism has been and always will be, nothing but counter-revolutionary masked in Marxist jargon.

[it_ain't_me]

I see, the revolution is unfeasible and undesirable because it creates chaos...what a radical position... since this is your position (that taking feasibility into account is not a ''radical position''), i expect to see you on the evening news leading a revolution in italy tomorrow, no matter how infeasible it seems.
All Trotskyite cults are bat-shit insane. so are all maoist cults (RCP). all cults, period, are bat-shit insane.

[graymouser]

Talk about slander and recycling lies. :rolleyes:
What that I said is untrue? That the Workers League and the ICFI specialized in smearing other Trotskyists during the 70s and 80s? That Gerry Healy abused women and took money from Arabic dictators in the same period? That David Green / David North runs Grand River Publishing and has turned anti-union? Except for the last fact, none of this is even modestly disputed; North is quite proud of having "exposed" Hansen and other Trotskyists, and what Healy did was admitted by the leadership of the WRP. So are you going to claim that the printing company isn't North's, or that he isn't a millionaire?

[Kléber]

Back when they were the Workers League, David North's group made practically a cottage industry out of slandering other Trotskyists as part of Gerry Healy's horrid "Security and the Fourth International" campaign. The biggest focus was on Joseph Hansen, one of Trotsky's secretaries who was a leader of the American SWP, although there were others. Hansen was accused of working for the American FBI and the Stalinist GPU - a truly confused person!
Are you denying that members of the CPUSA, under GPU direction, infiltrated the SWP? Are you also denying that Soviet intelligence organized the killing of Trotsky, assassinated US citizens in their service whom they feared would defect, and that the Stalinist regime operated on a policy of regularly killing more, not less in order to reduce the risk of their secrets being revealed? No one claimed that Hansen served two agencies at once - he was most likely a Soviet asset who feared he would get whacked to shut him up about his role in Trotsky's assassination. Hansen gave himself up to US authorities in order to save his own skin, and once he had switched employers he behaved very much like a police agent - for example, he helped steer the SWP towards a pro-Cuba stance, probably to turn the party into an arm of CIA espionage, and he went on a scandalous tour of Latin America writing investigative reports on local FI sections and encouraging them to engage in guerrilla warfare, a suicidal path which led thousands of misguided young Trotskyists to the graveyard.


At the same time, the leading section of the "International Committee" - the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain, led by Healy - was taking money from Gaddafi in Libya, Hussein in Iraq and other Arabic dictators in exchange for promoting their regimes in Britain and elsewhere. (The most serious allegations are that they provided photographs of demonstrations to Hussein, helping him to root out and murder members of the Iraqi left.)The ICFI broke with Healy a long time ago, and if it wasn't for them none of this information would have been revealed.


Since becoming a capitalist, North has magically discovered that trade unions are wholly reactionary and shouldn't be supported; one might see some class consciousness in that move.So we should support AFL-CIO labor aristocrats? Yeah, lot of class consciousness there.


That a bizarre group like North's might embrace the Ahmadinejad dictatorship in Iran is hardly surprising given their history.The SEP has always coupled its opposition to imperialist threats against Iran with denunciation of the Islamic regime, as embodied in the slogan "Free the Iranian students, no to war against Iran!" So your allegation that the WSWS is in Ahmedinejad's pocket is as baseless as the suggestion that Castro and Chávez are unconscious Trotskyists.


What that I said is untrue? That the Workers League and the ICFI specialized in smearing other Trotskyists during the 70s and 80s? That Gerry Healy abused women and took money from Arabic dictators in the same period? That David Green / David North runs Grand River Publishing and has turned anti-union? Except for the last fact, none of this is even modestly disputed; North is quite proud of having "exposed" Hansen and other Trotskyists, and what Healy did was admitted by the leadership of the WRP.Nice way of sidestepping the fact that all the ammunition for your slander comes from the hated "Northites" who broke with Healy and exposed his opportunist antics.

http://www.wsws.org/IML/fi_vol13_no1/fi_vol13_no1_full.shtml


So are you going to claim that the printing company isn't North's, or that he isn't a millionaire?Since you apparently don't support a tendency, all you do is "smearing other Trotskyists," it's easy for you to talk shit about any group that has a print shop. North isn't a millionaire, if you think GRPI - one of the best places to work in Detroit - is a big business you have a lot to learn about economics. The SEP is hardly the first communist outfit to have its own press; a hundred years ago the German SPD had dozens of daily newspapers. But it says a lot about your politics, whatever the hell they are, that you talk 99% gossip, perpetuating an online slander campaign initiated by the Sparts or worse, rather than address the ICFI's political positions.


All Trotskyite cults are bat-shit insane. The Healyites aren't anything special when it comes to Trotskyite antics.
Oh look, a zombie creature groaning incoherently outside of the Maoist-Stalinist blogosphere. How quaint. Why don't you do everyone who can withstand sunlight a favor and crawl back in your grave.

[Zoster]

Oh look, a zombie creature groaning incoherently outside of the Maoist-Stalinist blogosphere. How quaint. Why don't you do everyone who can withstand sunlight a favor and crawl back in your grave.

I guarantee you I've done a thousand times the activism you ever will do in the sunlight. SEP is tiny little cult that goes to protests and tries to sell papers to people. You are nothing and no one gives a fuck about your anti-union cult.

[S.Artesian]

Chavez is leading Venezuela to socialism, and has the support of the masses, and took a correct line of standing up against US imperialism in Iran.

"It aint over 'til it's over," somebody once said about baseball, and perhaps we should keep that in mind before anointing Chavez with the holy oil of socialist emancipation.

Somebody might want to look a little bit into the history of populist "national-revolutionary" movements in Latin America and mark down "wins" in one column, and "losses" in another before we proclaim the triumph of socialism in one ALBA in the 21st century.

Like look at Peron 1 & 2, the MNR in Bolivia 1952-1964 [and Villoreal before the MNR], at Goulart in Brazil, and there's always Allende, not to mention Arbenz, or recently Zelaya [hey whatever happened to him and his demand to serve out his term?].

I mean I know how important it is for all those endorsing popular fronts, and popular behinds, new democracy even when exercised by old mini-Bonapartes brought back from exile, to be able to applaud the bourgeoisie with one hand, while shaking a finger of the other hand at "Trotskyists," "ultra-lefts," "anarchists"-- but really put down the pom-poms, stop twirling the batons and look around at what all the so called "progressive" national revolutionary coalitions accommodating "national capitalism" have produced in the last 60 years.

It's not that hard to add up the ZEROs in the victory column.

[graymouser]

Are you denying that members of the CPUSA, under GPU direction, infiltrated the SWP? Are you also denying that Soviet intelligence organized the killing of Trotsky, assassinated US citizens in their service whom they feared would defect, and that the Stalinist regime operated on a policy of regularly killing more, not less in order to reduce the risk of their secrets being revealed? No one claimed that Hansen served two agencies at once - he was most likely a Soviet asset who feared he would get whacked to shut him up about his role in Trotsky's assassination. Hansen gave himself up to US authorities in order to save his own skin, and once he had switched employers he behaved very much like a police agent - for example, he helped steer the SWP towards a pro-Cuba stance, probably to turn the party into an arm of CIA espionage, and he went on a scandalous tour of Latin America writing investigative reports on local FI sections and encouraging them to engage in guerrilla warfare, a suicidal path which led thousands of misguided young Trotskyists to the graveyard.
This passes from bizarre fantasies into some outright untruths that should be rectified. For what it's worth, I don't support Hansen's theories on Cuba in the 1960s and consider them revisionist. But the record should not be distorted in such a fashion.

As to any alleged GPU ties - there was never any evidence of this outside of the fantasies of the demented Healy, who your party held up as a leader until the ICFI finally threw him out on his ass. Hansen said some things to the FBI on behalf of the SWP, and gave as his address not his home but SWP headquarters in New York. That's what the whole ridiculous "Security and the Fourth International" campaign was based on.

His line on Cuba was wrong, but the idea that it was meant to turn the SWP into an FBI organ is just bewildering - the SWP was a major target of COINTELPRO and proved it during a trial in the 1980s. And while I agree that the USFI has the blood of their young comrades in Latin America on its hands, the truth is that Hansen was leading the opposition to the suicidal line on guerrilla strategy.


The SEP has always coupled its opposition to imperialist threats against Iran with denunciation of the Islamic regime, as embodied in the slogan "Free the Iranian students, no to war against Iran!" So your allegation that the WSWS is in Ahmedinejad's pocket is as baseless as the suggestion that Castro and Chávez are unconscious Trotskyists.
Apparently massive distortion is a knee-jerk reaction for ICFI types - first, I don't hold that WSWS is in Ahmadinejad's "pocket" nor that Castro or Chávez are "unconscious Trotskyists." But the ranting of the original WSWS article overlooks the fact that the protest movement could have overcome the leadership of Mousavi and other pro-imperialists, and led a new revolution, instead preferring to deal with it as a "reactionary" bloc. This is how contradictions manifest themselves, between the pro-imperialist leadership and the subjectively revolutionary membership of such a movement. It's just poor politics.


Since you apparently don't support a tendency, all you do is "smearing other Trotskyists," it's easy for you to talk shit about any group that has a print shop. North isn't a millionaire, if you think GRPI - one of the best places to work in Detroit - is a big business you have a lot to learn about economics. The SEP is hardly the first communist outfit to have its own press; a hundred years ago the German SPD had dozens of daily newspapers. But it says a lot about your politics, whatever the hell they are, that you talk 99% gossip, perpetuating an online slander campaign initiated by the Sparts or worse, rather than address the ICFI's political positions.
"One of the best places to work in Detroit" - man! Of course many parties have had a press - and indeed, a number of them have helped pay the bills by doing printing other than strictly party publications. The SEP is only different in that it turned it into a entire business, and dropped the whole "party publication" segment. It is a multi-million dollar company, though.

As for my own affiliation, you seem to be confusing my politics with those of Socialist Action - which they aren't, I've been a member in the past but there are serious disagreements. That I'm "between groups" is a measure of the rottenness of many of the groups coming out of the wreck of the Fourth International, not a political question in itself.

[vyborg]

I was afraid so many people were spitting on Alan Woods...
actually, nly 2 post concerned the spitting-article