Thanks for the thoughtful reply, BB. I agree with most of your impressions here, yet the point I was trying to make -- or at least allude to -- is that the somewhat intangible moment hinted at by Luxemburg's phrase, a kind of synergistic moment between historical materialist theory and working class political practice, is actually a deeply contingent one. And what I was trying to point to are the wider preconditions that could permit such a contingent moment to arise.
Now, I think it's interesting that you focus on the big hitters of the party past and present. While some of these individuals have made valuable contributions to the Left in various ways, I think their merits are rather beside the point. It's beside the point too, wherever the ISN's theoretical cards may fall.
At the heart of Rosa's point is surely the idea that a "science" of history or politics can't proceed without a dialectical relationship with the praxis of revolutionaries. This would imply, it seems to me, a collectivity that (a) is deeply rooted in the working class; (b) relates to that class in a direct and active way; (c) advances its practice and theory on the basis of the dialectical movement between the two at the moment of its praxis; (d) has an internal "culture" such based around constant debate and questioning alongside activity.
A very gilded version of the IS's factory-gate past may be forced to approximate such a view. But it's patent that the SWP is no where near fulfilling any of these reconditions: it does not have significant roots in the working class; it rarely relates directly and actively to class concerns; theory is generated by the intellectual aristocrats and academics in thrall to the IS tradition, or by middle-level apparachiks recapitulating their betters' writings at a more simplistic level; within the "tradition" as such there are enough sacred cows to form a small dairy farm; and we know all about how the internal culture operates.
