What are Posadists?

[EvilRedGuy]

Or what is Posadism?

[graymouser]

J. Posadas was an Argentine Trotskyist in the post-World War II period who sided with Michel Pablo (Raptis), Germain (Ernest Mandel) and the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ISFI) during the 1953 split. Posadas' brand of Trotskyism took Pablo's concept of "War-Revolution," which saw the coming revolution as an objective process in the fight between the US and USSR, to its logical limit. He called for the USSR to engage in nuclear war with the USA, which would clear the bastions of Stalinism and imperialism off the globe and allow for socialist development in the rest of the world.

Posadas fell out with Mandel from 1959-62, at the start of the process of re-unification of the ISFI with the American Socialist Workers Party and the Latin American groups around Nahuel Moreno to form the United Secretariat (USFI). He formed his own Fourth International, the Fourth International (Posadist), that would have a few sections. The most notable one was the Cuban group, which started off fighting alongside Fidel and Che, but increasingly took an oppositional stance and was suppressed, first by the Stalinists and then the new Cuban government.

During the late 1960s and into the 70s, Posadas became increasingly obsessed with the nuclear war question, and took up conspiracy theories about UFOs. He thought that flying saucers were from an alien civilization which had reached the higher level of communism, and would give us their advanced alien socialism. I am not kidding. Posadas' group was increasingly irrelevant, obsessed with esoterica of this sort, and petered out after his death in 1981. There may be fragmentary remnants but they are an irrelevance.

[penguinfoot]

He thought that flying saucers were from an alien civilization which had reached the higher level of communism, and would give us their advanced alien socialism

After being tortured. It's not very funny.

[Q]

After being tortured. It's not very funny.

Exactly. Devrim made the same point multiple times in the past, for example here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-aliens-really-t133987/index.html?p=1731847): Posadas only started ranting about UFO's and nuclear wars after he was severely damaged by torture. It of course doesn't excuse any of the followers.

[graymouser]

Exactly. Devrim made the same point multiple times in the past, for example here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-aliens-really-t133987/index.html?p=1731847): Posadas only started ranting about UFO's and nuclear wars after he was severely damaged by torture. It of course doesn't excuse any of the followers.
If this is true, it's virtually undocumented. Aside from Devrim saying he was told as much, there is absolutely no indication in any text about Posadas being tortured before he started saying crazy things that I've ever found in the histories of the Trotskyist movement. He was talking about nuclear war in the early 1960s, and only went on the more bizarre tangents about UFOs and such after 1968, so it's not clear what time period we are talking about.

I'm not saying this is false - just that I haven't seen solid documentation, or when it happened. I can certainly believe it. But torture or not, Posadism was batshit insane.

[Magón]

I know a guy in Mexico who has/had a drawing of J. Posadas in his office. (It's also where he kept a lot of his UFO stuff, such as books, reports, etc.) I think if you look into supposed Leftists who believe in UFOs like in movies or whatever, you'll find they know something on J. Posadas. I've never looked into the guy though.

[Devrim]

I'm not saying this is false - just that I haven't seen solid documentation, or when it happened. I can certainly believe it. But torture or not, Posadism was batshit insane.

I thought it was pretty much common knowledge. I will look into it. There is a friend I am going for a beer with at the weekend who knows about these sort of things and where to find out about it. Posadas was also a professional footballer incidentally.

Devrim

[BuddhaInBabylon]

learn something new everyday.

[graymouser]

I thought it was pretty much common knowledge. I will look into it. There is a friend I am going for a beer with at the weekend who knows about these sort of things and where to find out about it. Posadas was also a professional footballer incidentally.
It's really not, maybe in Argentine circles but not among English-speakers who've heard of Posadas. I've run across you and one person on Leftist Trainspotters who've made this claim, so I am sure you are not just making it up, it just never comes up in anything I've ever read or heard about the guy.

I'm really curious as to when it would've happened in terms of what was going on in world Trotskyism - if it was before the 1953 split of the ISFI/ICFI, between then and the 1962 split of Posadas from the ISFI, or between then and 1968 when he started to come up with the really off-the-wall stuff about UFOs.

[Kléber]

Considering that thousands of Argentine Trotskyists were killed by the army in the 1970's and they had a history of being imprisoned before then, it seems very likely Posadas was tortured. A biography in three languages will apparently be published online (http://www.quatrieme-internationale-posadiste.org/archive/anglais/historydocs/posadasbio.html) at some point in the future by Posadist remnants so we have that to look forward to. However, the list of Posadas' writings (http://www.quatrieme-internationale-posadiste.org/anglais/other/Html/englishtexts.html) (the Spanish version is less complete) indicates he was not incapacitated for much more than a month immediately prior to '68 (was he even in Argentina though?). Scouring google for Posadas and torture in multiple languages brings up mention of Posadists being tortured to death, but as for Posadas himself only that he had a "tortured" or "torturous" writing style. I can't find any books that cover his activities in the late 60's but there must be a printed biography available somewhere in some language. Posadism should also be understood in the context that its beloved Soviet government (like the US) believed there was something to UFO's at the time, they wasted state funds and resources investigating them.

[graymouser]

Considering that thousands of Argentine Trotskyists were killed by the army in the 1970's and they had a history of being imprisoned and repressed before then, it seems quite likely he was tortured. A biography in three languages will apparently be published online (http://www.quatrieme-internationale-posadiste.org/archive/anglais/historydocs/posadasbio.html) at some point in the future by Posadist remnants so we have that to look forward to. However, the list of Posadas' writings (http://www.quatrieme-internationale-posadiste.org/anglais/other/Html/englishtexts.html) (the Spanish version is less complete) seems to indicate that he was not incapacitated for a significant period of time immediately prior to '68. Scouring google for any mention of Posadas and torture in multiple languages brings up mention of many other Argentine Trotskyists being tortured to death, but as for Posadas himself only that he had a "tortured" or "torturous" writing style in multiple languages. I am nevertheless inclined to believe he was indeed tortured although I know little to nothing about his life story. Posadism should also be understood in the context that its beloved Soviet government (like the US) apparently believed there was something to UFO's at the time because it wasted state funds and resources investigating them.
The timing is what I am wondering about the most, because Posadas has several distinct periods - the time before his split with the ISFI, the period 1962-1968 when he was calling for nuclear war, and the time after 1968 when he was talking about UFOs et al. Unless whatever happened to Posadas occurred between 1953 and 1962 it isn't relevant to his theories on atomic war at all. It makes more sense in the context of his shift in the late 60s but as you point out there isn't the gap in his writing to make sense of this.

[Nuvem]

J. Posadas was an Argentine Trotskyist in the post-World War II period who sided with Michel Pablo (Raptis), Germain (Ernest Mandel) and the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ISFI) during the 1953 split. Posadas' brand of Trotskyism took Pablo's concept of "War-Revolution," which saw the coming revolution as an objective process in the fight between the US and USSR, to its logical limit. He called for the USSR to engage in nuclear war with the USA, which would clear the bastions of Stalinism and imperialism off the globe and allow for socialist development in the rest of the world.

Posadas fell out with Mandel from 1959-62, at the start of the process of re-unification of the ISFI with the American Socialist Workers Party and the Latin American groups around Nahuel Moreno to form the United Secretariat (USFI). He formed his own Fourth International, the Fourth International (Posadist), that would have a few sections. The most notable one was the Cuban group, which started off fighting alongside Fidel and Che, but increasingly took an oppositional stance and was suppressed, first by the Stalinists and then the new Cuban government.

During the late 1960s and into the 70s, Posadas became increasingly obsessed with the nuclear war question, and took up conspiracy theories about UFOs. He thought that flying saucers were from an alien civilization which had reached the higher level of communism, and would give us their advanced alien socialism. I am not kidding. Posadas' group was increasingly irrelevant, obsessed with esoterica of this sort, and petered out after his death in 1981. There may be fragmentary remnants but they are an irrelevance.You are the perfect Trotskyist. I applaud you. I love your posts so much.

[Red Commissar]

conspiracy theories about UFOs. He thought that flying saucers were from an alien civilization which had reached the higher level of communism, and would give us their advanced alien socialism.

Well then, I for one welcome our new alien overlords.

[Black Sheep]

It of course doesn't excuse any of the followers.
Most important point here. :)

[razboz]

Well then, I for one welcome our new alien overlords.

In Socialist Space they're called 'comrades' and they want to crush human-imperialist ambitions on the Solar system.

[Aurora]

Well i think we can all agree that socialism in one planet is impossible :p

Didn't Posadas also have some ideas about communicating with dolphins or something? or am i mixing him up with the hitchhikers guide..

Anyway here is the posadist site if anyone is interested:
http://www.quatrieme-internationale-posadiste.org/anglais/indexan.htm

[Devrim]

It's really not, maybe in Argentine circles but not among English-speakers who've heard of Posadas. I've run across you and one person on Leftist Trainspotters who've made this claim, so I am sure you are not just making it up, it just never comes up in anything I've ever read or heard about the guy.

I asked the guy, and he said that he was told by somebody who knew Posadas and it is quite common knowledge in Latin American Trotskyist circles. I can't provide any links though. The guy I spoke to is about twenty years older than me, and not really up to date with the internet.


Considering that thousands of Argentine Trotskyists were killed by the army in the 1970's and they had a history of being imprisoned before then, it seems very likely Posadas was tortured. A biography in three languages will apparently be published online (http://www.quatrieme-internationale-posadiste.org/archive/anglais/historydocs/posadasbio.html) at some point in the future by Posadist remnants so we have that to look forward to. However, the list of Posadas' writings (http://www.quatrieme-internationale-posadiste.org/anglais/other/Html/englishtexts.html) (the Spanish version is less complete) indicates he was not incapacitated for much more than a month immediately prior to '68 (was he even in Argentina though?).

I was in a Syrian prison for about ten days, and I still have the physical scars. A month is well long enough.

Devrim

[graymouser]

I asked the guy, and he said that he was told by somebody who knew Posadas and it is quite common knowledge in Latin American Trotskyist circles. I can't provide any links though. The guy I spoke to is about twenty years older than me, and not really up to date with the internet.
Huh. It's a shame that it's not well documented (at least in English), it does make sense but like I said I'm really curious about when it would have happened, because there are sort of two "levels" of eccentricity to Posadas's line, and it's mostly the post-1968 stuff that's infamous.

It would make the most sense that the latter turn was occasioned by torture; Argentina was under a series of military dictatorships from 1966-1973, so the timing would certainly line up. But it would mean that it was the "sane" Posadas who came up with the line on nuclear war during the break from the ISFI, which would put the claim that he was a serious militant to doubt.

[Devrim]

Huh. It's a shame that it's not well documented (at least in English), it does make sense but like I said I'm really curious about when it would have happened, because there are sort of two "levels" of eccentricity to Posadas's line, and it's mostly the post-1968 stuff that's infamous.

It would make the most sense that the latter turn was occasioned by torture; Argentina was under a series of military dictatorships from 1966-1973, so the timing would certainly line up. But it would mean that it was the "sane" Posadas who came up with the line on nuclear war during the break from the ISFI, which would put the claim that he was a serious militant to doubt.

I have no idea at all, sorry.

Devrim