 |
| Gerry Healy addressing a conference of the Workers Revolutionary Party in 1980. |
by Alex Steiner
The
World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) edition of May 17 featured a hysterical
diatribe against me by the leader of that organization, David North.[1] North’s piece was triggered
by an informal comment I made in response to a WSWS supporter. [2]
A
few words are in order.
First,
the title of North’s piece, “An aging liar peddles his wares,” is
notable. It is the title of a chapter of
a polemic North and I co-authored against Wohlforth in 1976. In those days it did not occur to us that the
title is an insult to a large section of the population who were considered
something of a burden on society, namely the elderly. But in those days we were equally blind to
many other prejudices that were not recognized for what they were even in left
wing circles. For example, in 1976 and
for many years afterward, if you were an acknowledged homosexual you were
automatically barred from membership in the Workers League, the predecessor
organization of the Socialist Equality Party.
Some of us have become more enlightened since those days, while some of
us have learned nothing.
Moving
on to the substance of North’s diatribe, what is peculiar about it is that
nowhere does North challenge or try to rebut any of substantive issues I
raised.
Here
is the comment that set North into motion.
The so-called ICFI has nothing to do
with the heritage of Trotsky other than appropriating the name… In truth, they
turned their back on those traditions decades ago to become the sterile sect
they are today.
Between those two lines I listed 12 separate ways
in which the ICFI/SEP/WSWS has departed from Trotskyism.
The “smoking gun”
North’s
response does not address a single one of the 12 points I listed. Rather North launches an ad hominem attack
against me in hyperdrive. He introduces
into the evidence what he insists is a “smoking gun” – a letter I wrote 20
years ago in which I gave an honest assessment of my political evolution. In
that letter, which was written privately and never meant for publication, I
presented a candid account of the contradictory forces that were pushing
me. North focuses on the part of my
letter where I discuss the temptation of a comfortable middle-class existence,
while neglecting to mention that I overcame those temptations to throw in my
lot with the struggles of the working class.
North also neglects to mention that he previously used the same “smoking
gun” in his previous smear campaign against me and to which I responded in
detail in Chapters 2 and 3 of Downward Spiral. [3] To North and the trolls who buzz around the
comments section of his diatribe, my admission of being tempted to abandon the
political life is equivalent to an admission of an original sin from which
there is no deliverance. As if they
themselves have never been tempted.
I
think I have done a fairly good job of resisting the trappings of that middle-class
life that at one time seemed so desirable. But the irony here is that I don’t
know anyone who lives a more comfortable life than Mr. North himself. And it
would be wrong to call it a “middle class” life. After all, we are talking
about the CEO (or by now the retired CEO) of a medium sized business. He owns a palatial home in Southfield, a
well-to-do suburb of Detroit. When comrade North travels to give one of his
lectures, all his needs are attended to by a personal assistant and his devoted
followers. And I have little doubt that
unlike the rest of us who are forced to sit in the bone-crunching spaces the
airlines reserve for economy and sub-economy class, Mr. North travels leisurely
in Business Class. As Mel Brooks said, “It’s good to be the king.”
Other
leading comrades in Southfield have homes adjoining a river with a marvelous
view. I can testify to that personally
as I was a guest at one of these houses in 2003. If you are one of those leading
comrades in the Southfield area, it’s a good life. That being said I don’t
doubt that all these people have made personal sacrifices along the way and
things were not always so comfortable. I recall the days when some of us in the
Workers League would get up before 5 AM so that we can make it to the Brooklyn
waterfront to sell the Bulletin before the morning shift of longshoremen
arrived. I also recall Dave Neita and Ed Bergonzi working through the night on
the printing press. A number of us regularly did “all-nighters” to earn extra
income from the print shop during the period of Wohlforth’s manic drive to
“Bolshevize” the Workers League. And then some of us had to go to our full-time
jobs in the morning. I only want to point to the incredible hypocrisy and
dishonesty involved in North’s use of a letter I penned 20 years ago to prove
that I am an enemy of the working class because I was once tempted with a
“comfortable life”.
The swarm of commentators
I
note that the great majority of commentators on North’s screed begin by taking
North’s statements on faith and then fall over themselves to come up with ever
more lurid denunciations of me and ever more imaginative recitations of my
crimes. Here is a typical example from a
commentator,
If Steiner is among those who assert
that U.S. Imperialism is intervening in Syria in order to back a
"revolutionary" movement against Assad (who is certainly an
authoritarian) by the Syrian people, then that's all I need to know about the
man & his philosophy, notwithstanding his past efforts.
So
this person refuses to read anything I write (“that is all I need to know”)
because I support the U.S. intervention in Syria. Only problem here is that I never said
anything of the sort. He “knows” that I support U.S. intervention in Syria
because David North or someone in his group told him so. This is a typical illustration of the
mindless and destructive nature of the comments North’s piece has elicited.
Other comrades who know better than this fellow remain silent, thereby encouraging
more such slanders. The comments on the WSWS have the dynamic of an online
lynch mob. It’s a nauseating spectacle.
The question of ‘When’
Aside
from his pulling out the 20-year-old “smoking gun” from his hat, the only other
issue that exercises North is his insistence that I come up with a precise date
when the ICFI ceased representing the heritage of Trotsky. But that question is equivalent to asking
someone to give a precise date and time when the Soviet regime turned its back
on the October Revolution. It was a process that took place over a number of
years and not something that happened all at once. With the ICFI there were indications that we
were dealing with a very sick organization as far back as the early 1960s. The
thuggery practiced by Healy was one indication of that sickness. Among the leadership of the WRP there was a
coverup of Healy’s abusive behavior that long preceded the blow up of
1985. And that coverup was a bigger
indication that we were dealing with a sick organization - even more than Healy’s abusive behavior
itself. Healy’s behavior was not merely
a personal failing, but a reflection of a deep political disorientation of the
organization he led. That political disorientation became much more obvious
from the early 1970’s. Much of this was
exposed in the literature related to the split with Healy. I should add that North’s account of that
split in his “Heritage we Defend” was one sided and incomplete and has been
used in more recent years to create a legend about his own role in those
events. There are other sources that
present a far more honest and comprehensive account of Healy’s degeneration and
the subsequent dissolution of the WRP. [4]
I thought that after the split with Healy in
1985 the ICFI had an opportunity to rethink a lot of issues and return to the
road of Marxism. And for a few brief
years, there was a certain openness to discuss issues within the ICFI. But as we have noted, that period ended
decisively after Sept 11.
The
possibilities that seemed to open up with the split with Healy – the promise of
an organization that is capable of discussing differences rather than
condemning points of view that challenge the leadership – that promise
disappeared after 9/11. Neither Frank
Brenner nor myself had a good understanding of that when we began our polemics
with North in 2003. Initially we still thought there was a possibility of
having a real dialogue with the members and supporters of the ICFI. But we had underestimated the degree to which
this organization had degenerated. In
the face of North’s turn to a campaign of personal vilification and slander
against us and the failure of anyone in the leadership of the ICFI to come
forward, it became clear to us that we were dealing with an organization that
resembled a cult more than a party rooted in the history and traditions of
Trotsky. At which point we ceased our fruitless attempts to try to reform this
organization.
I
gave an exhaustive account of my own political evolution in relation to these
events in Downward Spiral, the book that North never mentions. But search as much as you like in the
archives of the WSWS, and while you may find lots of effusive praise about
North’s “contributions to Marxism”, you will find absolutely nothing about his
formative years or his political evolution.
The continuity of Trotskyism
North
invests all his political authority in the claim that the organization that he
heads, the “International Committee of the Fourth International” is the sole
legitimate heir to the organization launched by Trotsky in 1938, The Fourth
International. This has become a matter
of faith for his followers who view it as a form of heresy to question it. To justify this assertion North cites several
landmark factional splits in the history of the Fourth International and its
successor organizations, namely the 1953 split from Mandel/Pablo, the 1963
reunification of the SWP with the United Secretariat and the 1985 split of
Healy and the remnants of the Workers Revolutionary Party from the International
Committee.
But the history of the
Trotskyist movement has demonstrated over and over again that groups who were
on the right side of a faction fight were far from healthy organizations
themselves. While it was correct in 1953 for Cannon and other defenders of
“orthodox Trotskyism” to oppose Pablo’s conception that the Stalinist
bureaucracy could play a progressive role, the Socialist Workers Party was then
at the beginning of a process of accommodating itself to the middle-class
movements that would eventually destroy it.
And while it was correct to oppose the precipitous reunification of 1963
with the United Secretariat, by the late 1970s the most enthusiastic Palbloite
on the planet was none other than Gerry Healy whose groveling before the reactionary
regimes of Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini and Muammar Gaddafi surpassed
anything dreamed off by Pablo. As for
the events of 1985, it was correct to address the corruption of Healy and the
degeneration of the WRP and North was on the right side of that split. But it was also clear that the remnants of
the International Committee that were left after the 1985 split had a lot of
work to do. All the baggage that was inherited
from the organization Healy built needed to be rethought. But the critique of
the IC that took place in the 1985 split was superficial in nature. And while there was a certain openness to
exploring theoretical and political issues within the International Committee
for a number of years after the 1985 split, all that came to an end after the
events of Sept 11.
And
here we are today, 33 years after the split with Healy. Does the fact that
North was on the right side of that split confer upon him the legitimacy of a
hereditary monarch? Reading North’s comments, one would think that for him the
Fourth International is some kind of franchise that he alone can operate. If
the continuity of the Fourth International is to have any meaning, other than a
ritualistic invocation meant to shore up the flagging morale of one’s followers,
it can only be in one’s adherence to the program and theoretical conceptions of
the Fourth International. If we examine the political conceptions and
organizational practices of the group North has led for all these years it is
clear that in all respects it bears little resemblance to the organization
Trotsky founded in 1938. It is in fact our exposure of the hollowness of
North’s claims to be the inheritor of the mantle of Trotsky that has so
infuriated him. Why else would he be spending more time writing about me and
Frank Brenner, two individuals, than about the Stalinists, Pabloites and state
capitalists?
The 12
issues ignored
Moving
on from a consideration of North’s attempt to divert the discussion away from
the issues I raised, let’s address those issues.
I
will briefly review each of my charges and present some evidence from the more
recent coverage of the WSWS to back up my characterization of this
organization.
1 1. The SEP/WSWS have abandoned the
transitional program. Is this true or not?
We have written extensively about the
disappearance of transitional demands from the pages of the WSWS over the
years. And it just so happens that I
touched on this in an essay I wrote just a few weeks ago, Hatred of the
Dialectic. I was pointing out the WSWS position on the Greek referendum of
2015 and how it was so at odds with the method of the transitional program and
the past practice of the Trotskyist movement.
Here is an excerpt from that essay,
“They [the WSWS] labeled the call for
a referendum “a reactionary fraud” but then - inconsistently - urged workers to
cast their votes in this “reactionary fraud” of a referendum. But anyone in Greece and internationally with
the slightest connection to the working class understood that while the logic
of the Tsipras government could only lead to a betrayal of the working class,
the fact that they were forced to call a referendum presented a golden
opportunity to educate the working class.
That was not possible with the WSWS’s sneering dismissal of the
referendum.”
“There was indeed a similar issue that
came up in discussions with Trotsky in the 1930’s in relation to a proposal for
an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Ludlow Amendment. The Ludlow Amendment called for an end to
war. It encapsulated illusions in pacifism and the efficacy of bourgeois
democracy. Yet Trotsky’s attitude to this referendum was the very opposite of
the WSWS’s attitude toward the Greek referendum of 2015 which was also
intertwined with illusions. Rather than calling the Ludlow Amendment a
“reactionary fraud”, as the sectarians at that time were doing, Trotsky urged
his followers to participate in the campaign for the amendment and in the
process seek to educate the working class. He wrote,
“We must advance with the masses, and
not only repeat our formulas but speak in a manner that our slogans become
understandable to the masses…”
“The referendum is not our program,
but it's a clear step forward; the masses show that they wish to control their
Washington representatives. We say: It's a progressive step that you wish to
control your representatives. But you have illusions and we will criticize
them. At the same time we will help you realize your program. The sponsors of
the program will betray you…”
“It is not hard to guess what
Trotsky’s attitude would have been to the WSWS’s calling the Greek referendum
of 2015 “a reactionary fraud”. [5]
I should add that the abandonment of
the transitional program goes hand in hand with a lack of concern with mass psychology.
If you have no interest in developing a program to bridge the gap in the
consciousness of the working class, why bother with trying to understand mass
psychology, with “keeping a finger on the pulse of the masses” to paraphrase
Lenin? [6]
2. I assert that North and his
organization have abandoned any concern with dialectics. If North wishes to refute that claim all he
has to do is provide some citations for a serious discussion of dialectics in
the pages of the WSWS. He can’t because
there isn’t any. This is a point I made in an essay a dozen years ago when I
noted that the WSWS had published exactly one article devoted to dialectics in
the previous decade! [7] Were I writing that essay
today I would have to update it slightly by noting that since his review of
2006 North has added one other article that touches on dialectics, namely an
assessment of the role of the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov. [8] However, the article on Plekhanov deals with
dialectics only perfunctorily. And what is astonishing about this article is
that nowhere does it even mention Lenin’s critique of Plekhanov. Yet it was Lenin’s exposition of the
inadequacy of Plekhanov’s understanding of the dialectic that began the entire
cycle of our polemics with North way back in 2003. In an essay I published that year I called
attention to Lenin’s remarks in his Philosophical Notebooks where he
takes issue with Plekhanov’s understanding of dialectics. [9] I highlighted the following remarks of Lenin
about Plekhanov,
“Plekhanov criticizes Kantianism ..
more from a vulgar-materialistic standpoint than from a dialectical-materialist
standpoint ...”
“Marxists criticized (at the beginning
of the twentieth century the Kantians and Humists more in the manner of
Feuerbach (and Buchner) than of Hegel.”
“Work out: Plekhanov wrote probably
nearly 1000 pages (Beltov + against Bogdanov + against Kantians + basic
questions, etc. etc. on philosophy (dialectic). There is in them nil about the
Larger Logic, its thoughts (i.e. dialectic proper, as a philosophic science)
nil!!” (CW Volume 38: 277) [10]
Later in my essay, I explained the significance of
Plekhanov’s adoption of a vulgar understanding of the dialectic for his
political evolution.
“It was a
truism among Marxists that following the emancipation of the serfs in 1861,
capitalist social relations would soon take root and wipe out the remnants of
the obischinia, the Russian peasant commune. The emergence of capitalist social
relations, according to this prognosis, would give rise both to a liberal
bourgeoisie with a vested interest in a constitution and democratic reforms,
and a modern working class. The early Russian Marxists, Plekhanov above all,
therefore suggested that the progress of the working class and its eventual
emancipation was tied, for an entire historical period, to the cause of the
liberal bourgeoisie. This was what Plekhanov argued against the Russian
populists. It can be argued that throughout his political career, whether he
was defending revolutionary principles against the Economists and the
Revisionists, or opposing the Soviets in the 1905 revolution, or taking the
standpoint of Russian patriotism in 1914, he was consistent. It is not
Plekhanov that changed, but the world around him. In 1905, the Russian working
class demonstrated that it was not content to wait for the bourgeoisie to lead
a revolution, while the bourgeoisie demonstrated that it had no interest in
leading a revolution, but only wanted to gouge out a small role for itself from
the monarchy. Plekhanov, who still believed himself a defender of the working
class and its cause, threw in his lot with the cause of the bourgeoisie,
thinking that the working class had overreached itself and threatened to upset
what he viewed as the inevitable march of history. It was the same logic that
lead him to become a social patriot in 1914. He thought that the cause of the
Russian working class would be served by supporting the Russian bourgeoisie,
who were at one with the war aims of the autocracy. Somehow, Plekhanov had
missed the moment of transformation into opposites, the moment where the
bourgeoisie had been transformed from a relatively progressive social force to
a backward one. To identify this decisive moment, the study of empirical data
is of course indispensable, but by itself it is insufficient. One must be able
to make sense of the facts. This is where Plekhanov fell short of the mark. He
thought formalistically and could not cognize the whole as it was changing into
something new.” [11]
That North could write a lengthy treatise claiming to
provide an assessment of Plekhanov and not even mention Lenin’s critique of Plekhanov’s
version of dialectics is nothing short of astounding. It’s a fair indication of
his contempt for the subject.
This decades-long abandonment of dialectics is a good
measure of how far the ICFI/SEP/WSWS have strayed from Trotskyism when you
recall that Trotsky, in his last polemical battle against the Shachtman-Burnham
faction in the SWP, emphasized that training the comrades in dialectics should be
given the highest priority in the educational work of the party.
3. I made the claim that North and his
acolytes have done no theoretical work on such burning issues as the nature of
Russia and China. Again, all North has
to do to refute that statement is provide a reference to the major theoretical
articles in the WSWS that explored this issue. Funnily enough, just a few days
ago the economics specialist of the WSWS, Nick Beams, weighed in on the nature
of China. He wrote,
“This domination of finance, to which Rachman points,
exposes the economic nonsense advanced by the various pseudo-left groups which,
in their support for US imperialism, seek to label China as an imperialist
power. There is no possibility of the renminbi functioning as a replacement for
the dollar as a world currency, and China’s financial system is completely
dependent on US finance capital.”[12]
This passing comment can hardly be considered a serious
discussion of the nature of China but that is all you will find in the pages of
the WSWS. Aside from the swipe at an anonymous “pseudo-left”, a recurring trope
in practically all WSWS commentary, the stupidity of this statement is beyond
belief. Is the criteria for whether a nation is an imperialist power whether
its currency can replace the dollar? If that were the case then neither France
nor Germany could be considered imperialist powers.
[Our discussion of the nature of Russia and China and our critique of the WSWS on these seminal questions can be found in the essay, Russia as an imperialist power and the follow-up essay, Once more on the nature of Russia and China. ]
4. I stated that the WSWS has aligned
itself with right wing forces in calling for the breakup of unions. A recent
article in the Guardian explores some of the right-wing forces that are today trying
to destroy what is left of unions in the U.S. and much of their work is focused
on the pending Supreme Court decision in the Janus vs AFSCME case. The Guardian writes,
“…the US supreme court is poised to
deliver its ruling any day in Janus v AFSCME, one of the most important trade
union cases in recent times. If the five conservative justices on the highest
court vote in favor of the anti-union plaintiff, as many expect, they would
deal a severe blow to organized labor by giving employees the right to opt-out
of paying their share of the costs of collective bargaining even though they
benefit from negotiated higher wages and improved conditions.
That in turn would give the green
light to conservative groups like SPN to step up their efforts to encourage
mass resignations of union members. As a clear statement of intent, SPN invited
Mark Janus, a child support worker in Illinois who is the named plaintiff at
the center of the supreme court case, to speak at its annual meeting in San
Antonio, Texas, last August.” [13]
What is the position of the WSWS
toward Janus vs AFSCME?
In an article devoted to the Janus vs
AFSCME case the WSWS explicitly renounces any defense of the agency shop,
“There is nothing democratic or
progressive in requiring workers to pay agency fees to the right-wing,
pro-capitalist unions.” [14]
The same article later goes on to
denounce rallies in defense of the agency shop organized by unions. The article also characterizes the right-wing
organizations backing Janus,
“Among those backing Janus’s challenge
are a host of right-wing groups including the Liberty Justice Center and the
National Right to Work Committee.”
It would be hard to find a more
explicit statement calling for the breakup of the unions.
North has nothing to say about this at
all but one of the comments on his piece attempts a rescue operation by
providing the argument missing in North’s piece. The commentator, writes,
“The ICFI does not call for the 'break
up' of the unions, but for workers to extricate themselves from the control of
the union bureaucracy by setting up workplace committees. The role of the
unions in the current teachers strikes more than validates the ICFI's analysis
of the unions as anti-working class organizations.”
But this just a cop out. You cannot say that you are “only” asking
workers to “extricate themselves from the control of the union bureaucracy”
when you refuse to defend the agency shop.
Furthermore, if it is true, as this person and the WSWS claim, that the
unions are “anti-working class organizations” then why shouldn’t you call for
their dissolution? You can’t have it both ways.
5. I maintained that the analysis of
world politics that you find on the WSWS has degenerated to the level of
conspiracy theories. This is not to deny
that conspiracies by governments and individuals exist. But a genuine Marxist analysis could never be
reduced to a description of the machinations of the ruling class. Yet that
seems to be the substance of most WSWS articles when it comes to world politics
as a quick glance at headlines on the WSWS would show.
There is a difference between acknowledging conspiracies
and ‘conspiracism’, which is an outlook prone to find conspiracies anywhere and
everywhere regardless of the evidence. Much of WSWS journalism, whether the
topic be the threat of war with China or the #MeToo movement, is embedded in
the mindset of conspiracism. For example, an article by WSWS columnist David
Walsh claims that the press coverage of the Russia investigation and the #MeToo
movement is part of a plot by the New York Times and the Democrats.
“The promotion of the #MeToo hysteria serves to obscure
the basic class issues motivating the opposition of workers and youth to Trump,
counter growing anti-capitalist sentiment, and sow divisions within the working
class.”[15]
I don’t doubt that those elements exist in the Times
coverage of #MeToo, but is that all there is to the #MeToo movement? If so it
is hard to explain why the headliner for the #MeToo movement is Harvey
Weinstein, a person of pronounced liberal views and no political friend of
Trump. Wouldn’t this anti-Trump conspiracy function more effectively if it
targeted a well known Trump supporter? There are no shortage of such people who
have also been accused of sexual misconduct. (Think of the late Roger Ailes,
and Bill O’Reilly. ) But if Harvey
Weinstein is the most well known of those accused of sexual misconduct, might
there not be something else going on here besides a plot to channel anti-Trump
sentiment into the Democratic Party? Perhaps a genuine spontaneous movement of
outrage?
6. I maintained that the WSWS has
abandoned any perspective of defending the rights of women. This is particularly glaring in their
coverage of #MeToo which features lots of sympathy for the alleged perpetrators
of sexual abuse and no sympathy for their female victims. While there is certainly legitimate criticism
to be made of some of the leaders of the #MeToo movement, and some people who
were accused were treated unfairly, the fact that women are standing up after
eons of silence should be welcomed by any progressive movement let alone
revolutionary socialists. One has to conclude that the WSWS’s approach to this
issue is nothing other than misogynistic. My colleague Frank Brenner has done a
superb job in disentangling the logical gymnastics of the apologia offered by
WSWS journalists on behalf of sexual abusers. I refer readers to those
articles. [16]
7. I asserted that one particularly
destructive legacy from Gerry Healy from which the WSWS never recovered was in
its crisis mongering. Healy was
notorious for claiming that a Bonapartist dictatorship and a struggle for power
was just around the corner. While the
group headed by North correctly criticized these conceptions of Healy during
the 1985 split the conceptions underlying that false perspective were never
really challenged. Here is the critique
from 1985,
“In fact, the theory of
"Bonapartism" was created to fill the gap between the WRP's refusal
to demand that the TUC and the Labour Party bring down the Tory government and
its propaganda campaign for a Workers Revolutionary Government. The claim that
Thatcher had been transformed, in the course of March 1984, into a Bonapartist
dictator provided the apriori substantiation for the WRP line that a full-blown
revolutionary situation existed in Britain. From this came the further
deduction that Thatcher could be replaced only by a Workers Revolutionary
Government under the leadership of the WRP, and that any suggestion that there
existed a number of intermediate links was a capitulation to reformism. The
theory of Bonapartism was not derived from any analysis of the development of
the class struggle and the relations between class forces in Britain, but was
concocted to justify a political line that had already been worked out.” [17]
An “apriori substantiation of a line” has been pretty
much the method of the ICFI/SEP since the split with Healy, despite their
correct criticism of 1985. This is borne
out in their numerous articles about the imminent threat of World War III. It so happens that I wrote an article a while
back pointing to this peculiarity of WSWS journalism in this area. My article
was written in a humorous tone but its intention was to point to a serious
problem in the WSWS perspectives, their blanket characterization of just about
any turn in world politics or economics as portending a move toward World War. [18]
I also wrote another article pointing to the
tired use of the “rising tensions” metaphor in WSWS journalism. [19] I made it clear in both articles that I was
not all discounting the threat of war, even nuclear war, but that I was
pointing to the fact that the WSWS analysis of events lacked any relationship
to concrete developments in the world but was simply a refrain of a previously
worked out scenario, a reliance on
empty formulas. And the continual
fanning of the flames of imminent war and crisis had the effect, as it did in
Healy’s WRP, of scaring the cadre into ever more heroic efforts. This is no way to educate the working class.
The reaction to my articles from North and his army of
trolls was entirely predictable – I was denounced as being a ‘complacent petit
bourgeois’. North went on to accuse me of subscribing to Karl Kautsky’s theory
of ‘ultra-imperialism’ because I maintained quite correctly that the WSWS had
never analyzed the new forms of imperialism that were predominant in the 21st
century. [20]
As I wrote in Crackpot
philosophy and double-speak,
Crisis mongering was a tried and true
technique of Gerry Healy’s and he used it to good effect in order to insulate
members further into the bubble he created, leading them to believe that the
either one remains a loyal member or one joins the camp of counterrevolution.
North uses the same method of scaring
new recruits with the proposition that either you join his party now and bring
with you hundreds of thousands of others or the planet will go up in flames
shortly. This is not a reasoned argument for opposing imperialist war but
a weapon used by a sect that is rapidly devolving into a cult bent on
inculcating its members with the idea that there is no life outside of their
little group. [21]
8. I maintained that North and his
followers use gutter tactics against their political opponents. The evidence
for this is overwhelming. One just has to look at the piece to which I am
responding. It’s little more than a
smear campaign against me. It’s also full of lies. I am for instance accused of
being a “Pabloite”. North writes,
Steiner cannot explain why, having
originally joined the Workers League in 1971 to oppose the anti-Marxist
politics of the Pabloites and Shachtmanites, he now embraces their positions.
So not only am I a “Pabloite” but I am also a “Shachtmanite”.
First of all, on the face of it that seems to be impossible since the positions
of the Pabloites and Shachtmanites contradict each other. The other problem
with North’s thesis is that I never subscribed to the key positions of Pabloism
or of Shachtmanism and North cannot produce any evidence to this effect. Did I
ever write that the Stalinist bureaucracy could play a progressive role or that
petit bourgeois nationalist movements can bring about some form of socialism as
Pablo maintained? Or that the Soviet Union was either a state capitalist or
bureaucratic collectivist regime as the Shachtmanites maintained? No, I did
not. So where does this accusation come from? North is also very big on
producing guilt by association type arguments to condemn his political
opponents. This form of political debate
has nothing to do with the traditions of Trotskyism. Rather it is borrowed from
the playbook of Stalinism.
9. I stated that the WSWS publishes
articles that are supposedly “theoretical” in nature but that in fact have no
real content. I already provided one example of this in the article by Beams
where he makes a statement about the nature of China. This is a topic I explored in some depth in
my essay on the nature of Russia and China. In that article I discussed some of
the issues involved in a Marxist analysis of Russia and China and noted that
with few exceptions, groups calling themselves Marxist, while spilling a lot of
ink about Russia and China, have made no serious examination of the
socio-economic foundations of these countries and how they have evolved in the
21st century. In that respect the WSWS is not unique. I also compared the
poverty of theory in this area with a few serious investigations that went
against that trend. Chief among the
investigations I cited was the work of Michael Pröbsting. I noted that whatever
you may think of his conclusions, whether you agree with them or not, you have
to acknowledge that he did some serious work in this area. Others who did some
serious work here are Walter Daum and Jan Norden. I have serious political
differences with all these people but that does not discount the fact that they
did their homework. I cannot say the
same thing about the ICFI/SEP/WSWS which has done no work at all in this area
and whose position is almost impossible to pin down. The reaction from the WSWS to my calling
attention to their theoretical vacuum was as expected. I was accused of sharing
the politics of Pröbsting and others in their typical guilt by association
arguments.
10. I noted that the internal regime of
the SEP bears far more resemblance to a cult than to a serious party following
in the traditions of democratic centralism.
There is of course plenty of centralism in the SEP but democracy is
unheard of. We are talking about an
organization that has not had a single serious factional struggle in more than
30 years. This is not to say that factions are some kind of a virtue. If your
organization is constantly consumed by factions, then that is an indication of
serious problems. But an organization that has had no factions in decades, and
is proud of that fact, is even worse. It means that differences are
artificially suppressed. And we know
from the testimony of many former members of the SEP, some of whom have
contacted us over the years, exactly how this takes place. Comrades who
expressed differences with the line of the party, or even who bring up
questions about issues that are considered “unorthodox”, are viewed with
suspicion. Their
behavior and communications are closely monitored by a senior comrade and they
are constantly harangued until the deviant ideas they expressed - or even
inquired about - are withdrawn. Those
monitoring the behavior of wayward comrades try to isolate them from other
comrades, lest the “infection” spread. That is one reason factions never emerge
in the SEP. In those cases where the
unorthodox ideas are not withdrawn, life is made more and more uncomfortable
for the holdout. Former associates and friends are informed that so and so has
become influenced by “alien class forces”.
More and more demands are made of the comrade to show his or her
loyalty. There is indeed a reason why National
Conferences feature resolution after resolution adopted unanimously and it is
not because the truth of these resolutions is beyond discussion.
Should someone actually leave the organization or be
expelled because of differences over party policy, or a fundamental challenge
to the leadership, they are cut off from further contact with friends and
associates remaining in the party and its periphery. It is well known that the SEP/ICFI practices
this form of shunning and uses the threat of it to discourage anyone from
leaving.
11. I maintained that the ICFI/SEP has rewritten its own
history, an effort spearheaded. by North, in order to hide from their newer
members some of the more dubious enterprises they were involved with in the
past. There were many chapters in the
history of the ICFI that were gross departures from Marxist politics and
ethics, particularly in the period from 1975-1985. One particularly heinous
episode that I noted in my series Downward
Spiral was the support expressed by the ICFI and in the pages of the Bulletin, for the political persecution of members of a group affiliated
with the United Secretariat in Iran by the theocratic Khomeini regime. [22] North’s approach to this
history is to either ignore unpleasant reminders of these chapters in the
history of his own organization or blame it all on Healy.
12. I maintained that North’s push to label all his
political opponents part of an amorphous group he calls the “pseudo-left” has
no objective content. It is but a thin
veneer for name-calling. It is also meant to insulate his supporters from any
contact with other left groups. It tries to maintain an “us” against “them” division and discourage any examination of opposing arguments. It
provides the illusion for his followers that they have somehow resolved all theoretical
questions by labelling every other tendency part of a “pseudo-left”.
I have made the case that North’s
organization bears no resemblance to the history and traditions of Trotskyism.
I provided lots of evidence for my statement, and not for the first time. North’s response is a turn to the politics of
the gutter. In doing so he is following the traditions not of Trotskyism, but
of Stalinism. I don’t think it is necessary to delve any further to recognize
what kind of leader Mr. North has become.
The author also recommends:
Crackpot philosophy and double-speak: A reply to David North
The SEP on the nature of Russia and China
Russia as an imperialist power
The working class in fantasy and reality
Sectarianism and the Greek working class
Marxism without its head or its heart
Downward Spiral of the ICFI
A charlatan exposed: A review of Gerry Healy
[2] Karl
Marx 200 years later, Comment,
[4] One such account that I would strongly recommend is the one from WRP member Bob
Pitt, The Rise and Fall of Gerry Healy, https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/healy/pitt/index.html
. While Pitt’s politics are very
different than my own, and I do not subscribe to every interpretation of the
events he presents, his account is factually truthful and far more nuanced and
comprehensive than anything found in North’s writing on the subject.
[6] I
gave a lecture on the subject of dialectics, mass psychology and its
relationship to transitional demands in Athens in 2015. A transcript of that talk can be found here: The
Dialectics of Revolutionary Strategy and Tactics,
[8] Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (1856–1918): His Place in the History of
Marxism,
[10] The references for these quotes are taken from
my essay, The dialectical path of cognition, pages 10-17. Those interested in the context behind these
quotes should read that section of the essay.
[12] Two voices of concern over Trump’s “New
World Order”,
[14] US Supreme Court hears arguments in union agency fees case,
[18] A comment on the resolution of the SEP on the fight against war,
[19] Worn out metaphors and tired politics,
[20] North’s accusations were published in yet another attack on myself and Frank
Brenner in 2015,
Foreword to The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism
and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left: A Marxist Critique,
Part Two:
I responded to North in Part I of Crackpot
philosophy and double-speak,
[21] Crackpot
philosophy and double-speak: A reply to David North, Part I, War,
Imperialism and Crisis Mongering
