From:    Louis Proyect 
To:      marxism-international
Subject: Re: M-I: For a culture of scientific discussion (Ben replies to Proyect)
Date:    Wednesday, April 08, 1998 7:24 AM

Ben Seattle:
>But until that time, until fresh forces arrive on the scene
>and there is more to work with, I am content to simply
>observe much of the nonsense that passes thru here.  I know
>the future will be very different.

Why thank you, Ben. There's that lovely song from the musical Annie called
"Tomorrow". Have you heard it? "Tomorrow is only a day away..."

>Louis does not see the potential of such a news service.
>One of the problems with being in ideological orbit around
>formations like the Labor Party in the U.S.--is that the
>idea of workers and progressive activists launching their
>own *independent initiatives* (ie: indepedent of bourgeois
>control) gradually becomes a dim memory as revolutionary
>enthusiasm is eroded and replaced by cynicism and
>demoralization.

This is absurd. The Labor Party in the United States is not under
"bourgeois control." It was founded by leftish trade union bureaucrats like
Tony Mazzochi. When something like this appears, it is absolutely critical
for revolutionary socialists to push it to the left. This has to be done on
the inside of the party, not outside it. The difference between a Labor
Party and an Internet news service is that the former involves living human
beings with social power. They can call strikes, elect candidates, raise
money for liberation movements, etc. A news service is directed toward
people's thinking. All well and good, but at a certain point you have to
marry ideas to action.

>I emerged, essentially alone, with the view that the
>communications revolution will transform the progressive and
>communist movements in what will turn out to be the ultimate
>nightmare for the bourgeoisie.  My "cyberLeninism" site can
>be found at www.Leninism.org.  Whether I am afflicted with
>the disease of sectarianism--readers will be able to judge
>for themselves.

Why does this remind me of the final scene of "Moby Dick", with Ben Seattle
as Ishmael.

>I think it is worthwhile to consider the methods Louis is
>using.  This is not Louis at his best.  I brought up the
>idea of an electronic news service open to all trends as
>*the* decisive task in practice around which the elements of
>a communist organization worthy of the name will assemble,
>connect with one another, and eventually create a communist
>movement capable of commanding the loyalty of millions of
>workers and overthrowing bourgeois rule.


Ben, you know as well as I do that I agree with you on the importance of
electronic communications. I gave workshops on the Internet at the Brecht
Forum in NYC to over 300 participants, as well as union groups and people
with disabilities, etc.

My problem is with your itch to fight reformism. I have big problems with
this. The biggest problem is that your model of how to do this is much too
influenced by the internal fights of Lenin's party, which I don't think you
understand in context. The context of those fights was a united socialist
movement. The Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks were comrades. At one point
Lenin considered reuniting the two groups. He was willing to block with the
Mensheviks against the ultraleft Bolshevik leader Bogdanov. Even in the
1920s, after the formation of the 3rd International, there were
rapprochements with the social democrats. The idea of the United Front was
to make united action possible. Beyond this tactic, there was a proposal
for workers and farmers governments in Europe that would have consisted of
combined revolutionary and reformist forces. Indeed, the social democratic
leader of Saxony in 1923 was an open collaborator with the German
Communists and helped them prepare an insurrection, which failed for
reasons I explained previously. The FMLN in El Salvador worked with
Guillermo Ungo, a social democrat. His politics and the politics of the
revolutionary forces overlapped in a period of severe social and political
crisis. The reason it is useful to dialogue and keep open doors to
reformist forces is that they have social power. Millions of people look to
Jesse Jackson, Gloria Steinem and Bernie Sanders. Nobody looks to the
revolutionary "trends" that you feel affinities with who are isolated,
feckless and idealistic and have no prospects of changing.

Louis Proyect



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