A sincere Question for Trotskyists

[Remus Bleys]

Why all the "Reforge the Fourth"? What exactly does that mean? Wouldn't it be simply the fifth international, but under a new name?
Why not call for a fifth international instead?

[helot]

I'd also like to know this.


I'm speculating that the reason is a committment to the politics of the 4th international and so it's to differentiate from setting up an international that would differ politically. This is just pulled out of my arse though.

[Art Vandelay]

Why all the "Reforge the Fourth"? What exactly does that mean? Wouldn't it be simply the fifth international, but under a new name?
Why not call for a fifth international instead?

There are differing opinions on the matter, but ultimately its irrelevant. Some view the degeneration of the fourth as being irreversible and the international as discredited, so they choose to focus their efforts on creating a new 5th international. Others, upholding the revolutionary character of the transitional program, simply view a 'reforging' of the fourth as being the task of revolutionaries today. As I said, its largely irrelevant, what matters is not the label which is slapped upon an international, but rather its program.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Here's a short reading:


Lastly, in this regard, you and we evidently disagree as to why we both still identify with the Fourth International, as opposed to a call for a Fifth International. Let me outline our view:

1. We call for the re-creation of the FI rather than its reconstruction or rebuilding (the more common slogans) in order to open up our explanation that we do not wish to put together the various existing groups as such. Centrists vacillate but that does not mean that they are reformist one day and revolutionary the next, even though upon occasion some of them can carry out particular pro-revolutionary acts. They are not revolutionary Bolsheviks nor is their leadership proletarian. We wish to return to the authentic FI, the genuinely revolutionary FI. That means we seek to split some groups and fuse with others; the few who may be still revolutionary or can become revolutionary.

2. We distinguish between the Second/Third internationals and the FI after their collapse in the following way. The Yellow International had powerful parties in powerful imperialist nations, frequently holding governmental positions. The Third International was a weapon controlled by the Stalinists who commanded state power in the USSR. (Trotsky pointed to the significance of that fact as one reason for moving away from the left oppositional stance.) The various centrist tendencies who claimed to be the FI had no such forces and no such power. While our own forces were and are tiny, the balance of political power between the molecularly divided -- and constantly re-dividing -- pseudo-Trotskyists, was and is qualitatively different than the relation of forces faced by our communist ancestors.

Further, from our beginning days, our analysis told us that the trajectory of the centrist "Trotskyist" leaderships, despite secondary vacillations, would be toward tailing the reformist forces. Thus they would eventually be forced to abandon their independent stance and to abandon their claim to the unstained banner of Trotsky's Fourth International. We would be in a far better position to provide a pole of attraction to the best militant workers within the centrist milieu internationally, if we stood clearly as the ones who wished to remain independent and international; the ones who wished to maintain Trotsky's original program and party. We foresaw that the decisive issue would become 'which tendency stood for authentic Trotskyism,' and standing for the FI rather than some new formation, made that most clear. Given the unfavorable but not qualitatively prohibitive balance of power, plus the anti-party trajectory of the Pabloites, Cliffites and Shachtmanites, the banner of the FI was best indicated to convey our message as to who constituted the authentic Bolshevik-Leninist alternative.

The decision to raise the slogan of Re-Create the Fourth International!, rather than to adopt the new slogan of Forward to the Fifth International!, therefore was and is one of name and is tactical in nature.

Our predictions are now coming true. In the early 1990's, we predicted that soon, when the traditional reformist parties lost more and more of their appeal to working class militants, the centrists would move toward filling the political vacuum and move to create new reformist parties. We predicted that the line between the independently organized pseudo-Trotskyist centrists and the left reformists would disappear as they moved to replace the old discredited parties.

Today, Mandel's USec, the biggest formation, is about to drop even the formal nod it has made in the past to the Trotskyist FI, its independent role and its program. The Cliffites in Scotland, England and Australia, together with most of the various Pabloite groups, are trying to build new "socialist parties," and "socialist alliances." In Germany, the ex-Stalinist PDS, initiated by Gysi, attracted many centrists for a while. The various centrist groups in West Europe are busy maneuvering over an effort to put together a unified pre-party, based upon a sub-reformist program. Already in other countries, various Pabloite and Cliffite groups are supporting popular fronts with the Greens. In Zimbabwe, the Cliffites are in a party led by the big capitalists and white landowners! Of course, you know better than we do, the history of Lula's "Workers Party" in Brazil and its left proponents! We could go on. We believe that the current rapid rightward developments within the pseudo-Trotskyist milieu confirm our predictions and our tactical line designed to meet the possibilities.

3. The question of the number of the coming International -- "4" or "5" -- is not the question of principle at issue; the program is the principled question. For us, the best tactical way to explain our adherence to the international and the program of Lenin and Trotsky was and is to raise the banner of the FI. It is we and not the centrists (who are now becoming open reformists) who stand for the genuine independent workers' international party!

Given the lack of political definition which advanced workers would inevitably see if faced with a call for a Fifth International, its call now could only be confusing. It does not help that various tendencies, including ultra-lefts, have identified with such a slogan over the years, thereby confusing its meaning even more.

4. As the new reformist clones develop, we expect more and more workers to learn from the experience that the world does not need more reformist parties. We hope to win such elements. The immediate situation today could also develop into a possible international confrontation between those centrists who will initially resist the liquidationist tide, versus those who are moving more rapidly to reformism. In the language of carpenters, we will regard that division as "the first rough cut." We will attempt to separate the proletarian elements out of the left centrist milieu by planting a hard pole of attraction featuring the authentic, if updated, program and name of the Fourth International!

http://lrp-cofi.org/archive/DBreply2.html

[Geiseric]

If an organization actually does abide the transitional program they have every right to call themselves the 4th, since the 4th never degenerated as the 3rd and 2nd did. Potato potatoe though, my group does that so I wouldn't recommend most other groups unless I know they don't have their heads up their ass. James Cannon is without a doubt the most useful post Trotsky bolshevik theorist.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

If you are asking Trotskyists in general, well the slogan "Reforge the Fourth" is more than a little ultra-leftist. The Fourth Int'l did degenerate and there is no sense in trying to "reforge" it. James Cannon played an amazing role in developing the US Trotskyist movement but he made fatal errors internationally-he was instrumental in placing Gerry Healey as head of the British movement, he resisted Pablo only when his control of the SWP was threatened, etc.

Anyway today I believe the Internationalist Group, an offshoot of the Sparts, uses the "reforge" slogan. There are Fifth Internationalists I guess but this starts sounding silly.

Its important to have coordination for the working class movement, Marxism is international or not at all but there's no sense in beating a dead horse.

There';s way too uch historical role play among leftists around "Stalin vs Trotsky" it doesn't help matters with even more historical role play Cannon vs. Mandel vs Pablo.The original 4th Int'l went off the rails, big time. Why ressurect it?

[Remus Bleys]

Wait wait wait lenina... trotskyists can't be ultraleft.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

LOL! I'm not sure if this was meant seriously but...

Spart groups-the ICL, the IG and various sympathizers are considered ultra-left.They feel all other organisations, including Trotskyist groups, are opportunistically pandering to reformism, leading the working class to the suffocating embrace of the Democrats. This is exactly what their literature says.

The Socialist Unity Party, purveyors of the World Socialist Website can be regarded as ultra-left.

League for the Revolutionary Party-LRP is often regarded as ultra-left.

"Ultra-left" taken asa a tendency usually refers to left communists, different but with some similarities to the ultra-left Trot groups.

[Remus Bleys]

But they aren't ultraleft. That word means nothing when applied to trotskyism. Look at the positions of trots and ultraleft and there is nothning in common.
Gawd this is foolishness

[Hit The North]

Trot organisations need to develop a presence in their national working classes before they pontificate about erecting grand internationals.

The article published above by the LRP makes me laugh and cringe at the same time. I mean who the fuck are the LRP anyway? I mean, really?

[Hit The North]

But they aren't ultraleft. That word means nothing when applied to trotskyism. Look at the positions of trots and ultraleft and there is nothning in common.
Gawd this is foolishness

Yeah, but 'ultraleft' isn't some stable tradition in the working class, it's a position which is occupied in relation to the class struggle at a given time. So, for instance, demanding the working class seize state power at a time when the class is not even motivated to defend its own sectional interests, would be 'ultraleft'.

[Art Vandelay]

Yeah, but 'ultraleft' isn't some stable tradition in the working class, it's a position which is occupied in relation to the class struggle at a given time. So, for instance, demanding the working class seize state power at a time when the class is not even motivated to defend its own sectional interests, would be 'ultraleft'.

This. Any individual can uphold a position, which at any given time can be considered ultra-left, regardless whether or not that is an accurate label for the totality of their politics.

[Remus Bleys]

So much sigh

[Le Socialiste]

So much sigh

Hit the North is correct in their definition of ultra leftism, Remus.

As for the OP, there are so many groups running around claiming to be the 'true' 4th International that it's embarrassing. It's symptomatic of the general state of the revolutionary left in most quarters, which has persisted for some time. At this point, short of any large-scale regroupment, the pursuit of the 4th International should be scrapped. There are more pressing concerns confronting the left than resurrecting what should remain buried.

That isn't to say we shouldn't be internationalists, far from it. It's essential that national groupings establish ties and coordinate with other global partners. I just don't see how 'reforging' the 4th International can serve as the vehicle through which this process is accomplished.

[Art Vandelay]

That isn't to say we shouldn't be internationalists, far from it. It's essential that national groupings establish ties and coordinate with other global partners. I just don't see how 'reforging' the 4th International can serve as the vehicle through which this process is accomplished.

I think this gets to the crux of the matter quite well. What matters is not whether we 'reforge the 4th' or 'build the 5th' or whatever slogans are being used out there by the various groups which have splintered into existence, while claiming the vein of Trotskyism. What matters is the fact that the proletarian movement eventually gets to a point where we have an international worthy of the title and a proper modern revolutionary program. If we have that, I could really care less what we call it.

[Five Year Plan]

Trot organisations need to develop a presence in their national working classes before they pontificate about erecting grand internationals.

The article published above by the LRP makes me laugh and cringe at the same time. I mean who the fuck are the LRP anyway? I mean, really?

I think what Pierre Frank wrote on this question is more eloquent than anything I can say, so I will just quote him from his book The Long March of the Trotskyists:


In 1902 Lenin wrote, while drafting the programme of Russian Social Democracy, that 'we are the Russian detachment of international social democracy.' Today it is somewhat grotesque that organisations of the far left who maintain, on occasion even rigidly, their adherence to Leninist principles should reject the idea of building an International. They should have understood that 'national communist' organisations built without programmatic coherence tend to develop deep and unbridgeable differences.

An example here would be in order. The British Socialist Workers Party has based its opposition to the Fourth International on an analogy from the building industry: 'first build the walls and then the roof.' Such an analogy is itself thoroughly misplaced, as any architect could demonstrate in a few sentences. But when architectural deviations are carried into politics the result can be catastrophic. The attempts of the SWP to link up with the Portuguese PRP(BR) and the Italian Avanguardia Operaia have ended in unmitigated disaster. The divergences between the SWP and these other organisations are deepgoing and profound. This process will continue to repeat itself unless the SWP attempts seriously to construct an international organisation on the basis of a common revolutionary programme.To the example Frank cites can be added the split between the American International Socialist Organization and the British Socialist Workers' Party's International Socialist Tendency. The cause of the expulsion of the ISO seems to have been disagreements over tactics related to the anti-globalization movement, and dissatisfaction over inter-bureaucratic wrangling, rather than over principled programmatic disagreements. This begins to seem trivial until it is remembered that the socialist revolution will have to be international in scope, and require careful international coordination for its defense and expansion.

The question isn't whether to get involved in building national sections. The question is on what basis should a national section be built. I happen to agree with Frank that revolutionary socialist organizations should be built on a programmatic basis that might serve as a foundation for an international movement, as any movement would have to be if it is to be capable of dealing capitalism its death blows.

[Five Year Plan]

I think this gets to the crux of the matter quite well. What matters is not whether we 'reforge the 4th' or 'build the 5th' or whatever slogans are being used out there by the various groups which have splintered into existence, while claiming the vein of Trotskyism. What matters is the fact that the proletarian movement eventually gets to a point where we have an international worthy of the title and a proper modern revolutionary program. If we have that, I could really care less what we call it.

From point 3 in Aang's excerpt: "3. The question of the number of the coming International -- "4" or "5" -- is not the question of principle at issue; the program is the principled question."

[Hit The North]

aufheben

Lenin was correct but he could point to something that meant something, an international of millions of workers in dozens of countries. The problem with the advocates of rebuilding a 4th International is that they are small and their "international" will be a network of organizations of a hundred members here, a thousand members there. All of them fairly isolated in the class.

Architectural metaphors might have their dangers, but the warning about foundations built on sand is one to be taken seriously.

Internationalism is obviously important but the calls to reconstitute this historical construct or that is lifeless dogma and lacks the motive power to fulfill its goals. It is crucial that communist revolutionaries draw workers into international solidarity and argue for the virtues of forging international alliances based on mutual support for independent working class action, but the idea that this can only be done through an appeal to some program is abstraction and dogma.


The cause of the expulsion of the ISO seems to have been disagreements over tactics related to the anti-globalization movement, and dissatisfaction over inter-bureaucratic wrangling, rather than over principled programmatic disagreements.Why is a falling out over tactics less important than a falling out over "principled programmatic disagreements"? And anyway, in the end, aren't "principled programmatic disagreements" usually just the cover for inter-bureaucratic wrangling, a bit like the appeal to "musical differences" when a band split over money issues?

[Five Year Plan]

aufheben

Lenin was correct but he could point to something that meant something, an international of millions of workers in dozens of countries. The problem with the advocates of rebuilding a 4th International is that they are small and their "international" will be a network of organizations of a hundred members here, a thousand members there. All of them fairly isolated in the class.

Of course their internationals will be small at first, just like newly formed revolutionary socialist organizations will be small when they are first formed. By your logic, socialists shouldn't bother starting and building their own organizations until they are sure they can attract significant portions of the population. That is why we call these processes "rebuilding" a fourth international and "building a revolutionary party." They don't come prebuilt in some package you can find on the supermarket shelf. Neither of these things, either an international or a revolutionary party, currently exists in any meaningful way in any part of the world. They come into existence through consciously struggling to build them as part of participating in the working-class movement. It is not a separate stage that is commenced some day in the indeterminate distant future.


Architectural metaphors might have their dangers, but the warning about foundations built on sand is one to be taken seriously.Indeed, which is why revolutionary organizations ought to be built on a sound programmatic basis from the start.


Internationalism is obviously important but the calls to reconstitute this historical construct or that is lifeless dogma and lacks the motive power to fulfill its goals.The fourth international, as a historical construct, represents a particular set of programmatic principles that can serve as the basis for guidance in real-life struggles, which in turn are tests for those principles. In that context, and I have no reason to believe that any revolutionary socialist organization intends to refer to reconstituting or rebuilding the fourth in any other context, your decision to call them "lifeless dogmas" is confused.


It is crucial that communist revolutionaries draw workers into international solidarity and argue for the virtues of forging international alliances based on mutual support for independent working class action, but the idea that this can only be done through an appeal to some program is abstraction and dogma.I think you don't understand the point of a propaganda slogan. Socialists don't think that speaking them magically realizes the conditions that the slogan is aspirationally invoking. They are used to do precisely what you are saying above: "arguing for the virtues of forging international alliances based on mutual support." A slogan is an argument, after all. And this one happens to be imbued with a compressed set of ideas that will be recognizable to some of the advanced workers that a revolutionary group should be trying to attract at the present moment.


Why is a falling out over tactics less important than a falling out over "principled programmatic disagreements"? And anyway, in the end, aren't "principled programmatic disagreements" usually just the cover for inter-bureaucratic wrangling, a bit like the appeal to "musical differences" when a band split over money issues?Because if socialists split over every minor disagreement involving tactics, we'd be left with millions of organizations consisting of one person.

[Alexios]

Why reforge the Fourth International? Why not strive for something more successful instead of something that was a total failure?

[goalkeeper]

But they aren't ultraleft. That word means nothing when applied to trotskyism. Look at the positions of trots and ultraleft and there is nothning in common.
Gawd this is foolishness

I wouldn't classify trots as ultra left either but trots calling other trots 'ultra left' for what they see as some sort of 'ultra left' deviation is fairly common, so I don't see why you're getting all pissy over this.

[Remus Bleys]

Because it is the most ridiciolous thing ever. I didn't even think it was a real thing until now. Fuckinng trots giving me another reason to be dissapointed in them.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Why reforge the Fourth International? Why not strive for something more successful instead of something that was a total failure?

It wasn't a "total failure." It was a genuine proletarian international and played an important role in promoting genuine Bolshevik prinicples, until its eventual degeneration. We strive to recreate that once successful international. Why would calling it the Fourth mean we're looking to create a "total failure," but if we create a Fifth, how is that more sucessful (keeping in mind that a Fifth hasn't existed, therefore calling it successful is odd)? If we go back to the Fourth's pre-degenerated state, in which it was a truly Bolshevik organisation, how is that going back to a "total failure"?

[motion denied]

What sometimes seems odd is to be a bolshevik almost a hundred years after the Russian Revolution.

I have a question: Isn't it odd that there are about a billion trot parties/leagues/whatnot trying to reforge the fourth or to forge The Revolutionary Party(tm) and they all fail? I mean, wasn't Trotsky mistaken when he wrote that - I'm paraphrasing here - the main contemporary problem was/is crisis of leadership?

[Five Year Plan]

What sometimes seems odd is to be a bolshevik almost a hundred years after the Russian Revolution.

I have a question: Isn't it odd that there are about a billion trot parties/leagues/whatnot trying to reforge the fourth or to forge The Revolutionary Party(tm) and they all fail? I mean, wasn't Trotsky mistaken when he wrote that - I'm paraphrasing here - the main contemporary problem was/is crisis of leadership?

Couldn't all revolutionaries, Bolshevik or not, ask themselves the same question about failure? And what would their answer be? The difference is that Bolshevism has an actual success (albeit a short-lived one) under its belt, whereas the other traditions have exactly zero.

[Fourth Internationalist]

What sometimes seems odd is to be a bolshevik almost a hundred years after the Russian Revolution.

Why? Is Bolshevism, as a Marxist ideology, no longer allowed to exist because of time?

I have a question: Isn't it odd that there are about a billion trot parties/leagues/whatnot trying to reforge the fourth or to forge The Revolutionary Party(tm) and they all fail? I mean, wasn't Trotsky mistaken when he wrote that - I'm paraphrasing here - the main contemporary problem was/is crisis of leadership?

Trotskyists have only failed, in the 21st century, at creating a revolutionary workers' movement as much as the rest of the revolutionary left has.

Edit: Heh. User above has also apparently answered. Why do I bother typing all this out on my phone? XD

[motion denied]

Couldn't all revolutionaries, Bolshevik or not, ask themselves the same question about failure? And what would their answer be? The difference is that Bolshevism has an actual success (albeit a short-lived one) under its belt, whereas the other traditions have exactly zero.

Is bolshevism a tradition though? Or was it the official ideology of the soviet state?

Lenin was quite the bright fellow, I admit it, but he didn't even get to read German Ideology or the Paris Manuscripts etc. If we are looking to for the reborn of marxism, of the revolutionary left, we should not be so attached to these century-old men. As far as I've read, I acknowledge that Marx has built solid grounds for theoretical and practical action.

What I'm trying to say is: we should go back to Marx, not to marxists.

[Five Year Plan]

Is bolshevism a tradition though? Or was it the official ideology of the soviet state?

Bolshevism was a political tradition whose terminology was appropriated by bureaucratic ruling classes looking to legitimize their rule. The practices themselves, like democratic internal debate concerned primarily with stimulating workers revolutionary agency, were obviously inconvenient to the reproduction of the bureaucracy and were therefore not appropriated, in the process making the Bolshevik terminology empty phrase-mongering.


Lenin was quite the bright fellow, I admit it, but he didn't even get to read German Ideology or the Paris Manuscripts etc. If we are looking to for the reborn of marxism, of the revolutionary left, we should not be so attached to these century-old men. As far as I've read, I acknowledge that Marx has built solid grounds for theoretical and practical action.

What I'm trying to say is: we should go back to Marx, not to marxists.Marxism is a living tradition to which capable people involved in political struggle have added considerably over the past century. This is why I don't find it helpful to frame the issue as being one of looking only to Marx or only to the Marxists. That dichotomy assumes others haven't added to Marx, by employing his methodology in new contexts.

[sosolo]

Personally, I'd rather Reforge the Third. RIP Comintern. It actually coordinated the parties of the world.

Commence stoning in three, two, one...

sosolo


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk (http://tapatalk.com/m?id=1)

[newdayrising]

Another question for Trotskyists: is the fourth, or fifth (i've actually heard about a sixth, but let's leave it alone) international supposed to be also the international organ to direct the communist movement in general after the revolution, ior is it just an organ to organise the present day Trotskyist movement?
If it is actually the embryo of the future equivalent of the Comintern, does it mean it's going to be Trotskyist, meaning it will oblige an endorsement of Trotskyist principles by the general workers movement? Or will it be open to other tendencies even if it's led by trotskyists?
I've asked this question in person many times years ago and got different responses.

[freecommunist]

Why all the "Reforge the Fourth"? What exactly does that mean? Wouldn't it be simply the fifth international, but under a new name?
Why not call for a fifth international instead?

My understanding is that it's all about whether or not their has been "revolutionary" continuity since the Fourth was formed by Trotsky. And so for example groups such as Workers Power argued for a fifth on the basis that they saw no continuity between all the different factions (Cliff, Healy etc) that came out of the forth.

When I was a member of WP for a couple of years in the early 90's, their was a group called Workers international league (WIL) that had been formed after the collapse of WRP and one of the main sticking points to a merger was the very question of continuity and whether or not to call for a new or re-founding of the forth international.

[Geiseric]

The 4th international I'm in has tens of thousands of members in brazil, France, Algeria, and thousands in other countries who are actually mobilizing people. This is why I consider the group I'm in to be "correct," because it's members don't complain over the internet when they have a problem, they actually organize how socialists are supposed to. I wasn't alive for all of the bullshit, I don't care about all of those splits as long as socialist are down to organize. If you're not them shut the fuck up, because you are honestly part of the problem.

[Per Levy]

The 4th international I'm in has tens of thousands of members in brazil, France, Algeria, and thousands in other countries who are actually mobilizing people. This is why I consider the group I'm in to be "correct," because it's members don't complain over the internet when they have a problem, they actually organize how socialists are supposed to. I wasn't alive for all of the bullshit, I don't care about all of those splits as long as socialist are down to organize. If you're not them shut the fuck up, because you are honestly part of the problem.

oh hey, is this your international?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_International_%28ICR%29

its quite interesting if you take a look through the organisations there, only like 5 groups of your allmighty international are actuall partys the rest are organizations that have joned social democratic partys in some kind of entryism.
but, as a german, i really do find it interesting that your international has a group in the SPD, you know the SPD right? the party that drowned the german revolution in blood, the party has slashed the welfare state and has put so much pressure on the workers that now 25% of working germans are working poor. and your international is in that party? that shows the character of your international more than anything. and you talk about others being part of the problem? you are literaly part of the problem.

[Geiseric]

We have a section who organizes radicals inside of the SPD. You haven't addressed any of my points. I don't know if you're even organizing as part of a group or if you're too cool for that, but my comrades can take SPD funding to pursue our program which goes against the interests of the leadership if we want.

[Remus Bleys]

We have a section who organizes radicals inside of the SPD. You haven't addressed any of my points. I don't know if you're even organizing as part of a group or if you're too cool for that, but my comrades can take SPD funding to pursue our program which goes against the interests of the leadership if we want.
If someone is a "radical" and in the SPD then they are doing something wrong.
I mean, then they would be collaborating with those who strangled the German Revolution and killed Luxemburg. How radical.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

We have a section who organizes radicals inside of the SPD. You haven't addressed any of my points. I don't know if you're even organizing as part of a group or if you're too cool for that, but my comrades can take SPD funding to pursue our program which goes against the interests of the leadership if we want.

1) organizing "radicals" is of no merit within the modern context. We don't live in in the semi-feudal times of Marx and Engels anymore, the progressive tasks of capitalism have been completed, the only task which remains is abolishing it. Hence whatever degree of radicalism you find in the SPD is irrelevant. The program of the SDP does not transcend bourgeois order therefore Communists can have no unity with what is a bourgeois party.

2) To liquidate oneself within a bourgeois party is to liquidate one's programme into the programme of the bourgeois, a programme consists in the definition of socialism and how it is to be conquered, if you find yourself within an organization which has neither correct definition of socialism nor intentions of achieving it.

3)Acting within the SDP is to support it as an institution of class rule. If the members of your party were truly undermining the leadership they'd be removed. But they are not, they are serving as willing organizers of a bourgeois institution, supporting its ends while maintaining their revolutionary pretensions and funneling dissidence through channels which strengthen the class enemy.

[Per Levy]

We have a section who organizes radicals inside of the SPD.

radicals in the spd, the best joke of the day. but lets be honest here for a moment, there arnt radicals in the spd, with your entryism you wont push the spd to the left or whatever. and you support the spd with paying the partyfees.

[
I don't know if you're even organizing as part of a group or if you're too cool for that, but my comrades can take SPD funding to pursue our program which goes against the interests of the leadership if we want.

yeah delude yourself even more, but hey id like to know more about what your comrads are doing in the spd, tell me what this great program is and how you get funding for it from the spd. also do your comrades go out and tell workers to vote for the spd in elections? that would be very interesting to know.

[Devrim]

Spart groups-the ICL, the IG and various sympathizers are considered ultra-left.They feel all other organisations, including Trotskyist groups, are opportunistically pandering to reformism, leading the working class to the suffocating embrace of the Democrats. This is exactly what their literature says.

That is one way of looking at it. Another would be to say that the Spartsare the most orthodox of Trotskyists (vis their position on defence of "workers' states", something Trotsky himself was uncompromising on). If you classify the Trotskyist groups in terms of their positions on the Russian revolution, and their attitude towards the USSR, and its satillieites, yu end up with a completely different view with the Sparts as the 'ultra-right', and the Cliffities, with their state capitalist theory, as the ultra left.


Yeah, but 'ultraleft' isn't some stable tradition in the working class, it's a position which is occupied in relation to the class struggle at a given time. So, for instance, demanding the working class seize state power at a time when the class is not even motivated to defend its own sectional interests, would be 'ultraleft'.

No, its not. It is generally an insult to apply to people who are more left-wing than you are.

Devrim

[Lenina Rosenweg]

That is one way of looking at it. Another would be to say that the Spartsare the most orthodox of Trotskyists (vis their position on defence of "workers' states", something Trotsky himself was uncompromising on). If you classify the Trotskyist groups in terms of their positions on the Russian revolution, and their attitude towards the USSR, and its satillieites, yu end up with a completely different view with the Sparts as the 'ultra-right', and the Cliffities, with their state capitalist theory, as the ultra left.


Devrim

This is largely true. The Sparts, in theory are "orthodox Trotskyists". As I understand they do disagree with Trotsky on the "Military Transitional Program", stuff Trotsky wrote concerning the situation in France and which I'm not super knowledgable about.

The Sparts differ from classical Trotskyism in their activist approach. They orient almost entirely towards the left, in their paper and in real life. They heckle other socialists, esp Trots for being "class collaborationists" and phony socialists. (Granted their are some grains of truth to this).They devote a huge amount of time in Workers Vanguard to slamming other groups.

The classical Trotskyist approach wasn't this sectarian.The Communist League/US SWP was trying to open a space on the radical left beyond Stalinism, which was hegemonic in the 1930s. The CL entered the Socialist Party in order to reach the working class, opposite of the Sparts approach.

The IG does seem to be involved in actual working class oriented activism, at least in NYC, although they practice the same ulttra-sectarianism as their parent organization.

The Sparts are very similar to the Weisbordists-followers of Adam and Vera Weisbord who split from the CL and denounced the "pseudo-Trotskyists of the Cannon clique". Trotsky referred to them as the "ultra-leftists in our midst".

I would classify the Cliffites to the right of the Sparts (the Sparts would certainly agree). Tony Cliff's version of state capitalist theory is often regarded as simplistic (there are more sophisticated versions of this) and opportunistic. The slogan, "neither Washington nor Moscow but international socialism" was used during the Korean War to make it easier for leftist intellectuals to be socialists but still be good anti-communists.

[Sea]

But they aren't ultraleft. That word means nothing when applied to trotskyism. Look at the positions of trots and ultraleft and there is nothning in common.
Gawd this is foolishnessI can think of 1 thing they have in common.

Trot organisations need to develop a presence in their national working classes before they pontificate about erecting grand internationals.

The article published above by the LRP makes me laugh and cringe at the same time. I mean who the fuck are the LRP anyway? I mean, really?The problem with a Trot international is that you end up with 5 parties representing the same country. :laugh:

[Devrim]

This is largely true. The Sparts, in theory are "orthodox Trotskyists". As I understand they do disagree with Trotsky on the "Military Transitional Program", stuff Trotsky wrote concerning the situation in France and which I'm not super knowledgable about.

The Sparts differ from classical Trotskyism in their activist approach. They orient almost entirely towards the left, in their paper and in real life. They heckle other socialists, esp Trots for being "class collaborationists" and phony socialists. (Granted their are some grains of truth to this).They devote a huge amount of time in Workers Vanguard to slamming other groups.

The classical Trotskyist approach wasn't this sectarian.The Communist League/US SWP was trying to open a space on the radical left beyond Stalinism, which was hegemonic in the 1930s. The CL entered the Socialist Party in order to reach the working class, opposite of the Sparts approach.

The Sparts stratergy is what they refer to as the 'primitive accumulation of cadres'. It is something that Trotsky himself talked about. Approaches and tactics change according to period. I don't think that this puts the Sparts outside of Trotskyism, or even on the fringes of it.


The Sparts are very similar to the Weisbordists-followers of Adam and Vera Weisbord who split from the CL and denounced the "pseudo-Trotskyists of the Cannon clique". Trotsky referred to them as the "ultra-leftists in our midst".

We just goes to show that Trotsky wasn't above name calling either.


I would classify the Cliffites to the right of the Sparts (the Sparts would certainly agree).

Well yes, of course the Sparts would agree. No one on the left likes admitting that others are more left -wing than them. That is where the term ultra-left comes from, the need to develop an insult for people who are more left -wing than you.

I am not sure why you think that the Sparts are to the left of the Cliffites.


Tony Cliff's version of state capitalist theory is often regarded as simplistic (there are more sophisticated versions of this) and opportunistic. The slogan, "neither Washington nor Moscow but international socialism" was used during the Korean War to make it easier for leftist intellectuals to be socialists but still be good anti-communists.

Cliff's version of state-capitalism is rather crude and simplistic. What of it though. That is not what Trotskyists dislike about it. They don't sit there saying that Cliff didn't really understand the process of the circulation of capital in the USSR. It is the political implications of it that they hate.

Also I think that you look upon the introduction of the slogan "neither Washington nor Moscow but international socialism" from your own current understanding. Yes, it probably would be easier to get middle-class leftist intellectuals to go along with it in the contemporary United States than it would be to imagine those same people supporting the enemy a few decades ago. This wasn't the context it was introduced in though. It was introduced in the UK in the 1950s. Rather than this being an opportunist slogan designed to attract the middle class, it was a principled slogan, which the IS took a fair bit of grief for being kicked off trades councils (sort of shop stewards committees) by Stalinist majorities for holding it.

The opportunism came with the Vietnam war when they abandoned the implications of the slogan (if not the actual slogan itself) in order to tail support for the Viet-Cong.

Devrim