CLR James

[hardtimes]

My question is: Is CLR James in the tradition of Trotzki or of the Leftcommunism? If you can answer it, please say why you classed him in the respective communist current.

[Devrim]

CLR James became a Trotskyist in the early thirties and later broke with Trotskyism during the crisis of Trotskyism that followed the Second World War.

This crisis involved a number of groups breaking with the conception of degenerated workers' states, and adopting a state capitalist analysis. Of these groups some became left communists for example Munis the Spanish Trotskyist leader, and some still considered themselves within the Trotskyist tradition, for example the UK IS, now the SWP.

So, to surmerize James was a Trotskyist, but broke with it, and never became a left communist though his group, the Johnson-Forest Tendency (He was Johnson) shared some common ground with the communist left on some questions.

Devrim

[hardtimes]

the johnson-forest-tendency shared some commons with the communist left (would you also class the concil communist to the left?), but was the difference between the the johnson-forest-tendency and the communist left?

[Devrim]

the johnson-forest-tendency shared some commons with the communist left (would you also class the concil communist to the left?), but was the difference between the the johnson-forest-tendency and the communist left?

Yes, I would regard the council communists as left communists. I don't actually know that much about the Johnson-Forest Tendency. You would need to ask someone a little older than me, and probably someone American. However state capitalism, and the rejection of an idea that a vanguard party could seize state power are certainly things that unite them. The role of the political organisation would be something they would be divided from modern left communists on*.

Devrim

*Of course they would be closer to council communists on this question, but there isn't really an organised expression of council communism today.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"Introduction to the Johnson-Forest Tendency and the Background to “Facing Reality”" (http://home.earthlink.net/%7Elrgoldner/johnson.html)

[S.Artesian]

Unlike most left, and council, communists, James did not reject nationalism out of hand. He did not regard every expression of nationalism as immediately, or even inevitably reactionary.