What's the Spartacist League up to these days?
- Thread starter Idris2002
- Start date
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
petee
no gods, no malarkey
With each other? Swapping (no pun intended) leaflets?
it's more than the International Cricket Conference does!
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
Are they still knocking about NYC?
JeffTipps4
New Member
More sign of 'life' this in Canada on the truckers.
Icl-fi.org
Icl-fi.org
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
Idris2002
Christmas Eve, you know?
I was thinking earlier today that it's a remarkable that a tendency or tradition whose roots date back to the 1890s/1900s, and which still has doctrinal continuities with those roots (unlike the social democratic parties), should even exist, and retain the ability to be players, in a small way, in a few countries (I mean Trotskyism in general, not just the Sparts).
petee
no gods, no malarkey
Yes, it's just great, if you like dysfunctional families
at least you have a family!
Idris2002
Christmas Eve, you know?
Their house is a museum.
petee
no gods, no malarkey
at least they have a house!
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
What you mean by doctrinal continuities? There are certainly political continuities from Eduard Bernstein to Jeremy Corbyn, but maybe you mean something else.
Trotskyism is a fairly subjective term. Kshama Sawant's Socialist Alternative (who have done some good work in Seattle) think of themselves as Trotskyists as do the Internationalist Group (1990's split from the Sparts). But the two organisations really are chalk and cheese.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Perfect opportunity to rebuild the fourth international
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Rebuilding the Fourth International is the political equivalent of repainting the Forth Bridge
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
That’s why Workers Power’s Fifth International used Cuprinol
Dom Traynor
Tino Pai
They balanced the millennium foot bridge in London
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
I'll put this here because I don't want to pollute the discussion on the war.
This is from Tom Riley's Bolshevik Tendency. The particulars of the analysis don't interest me very much. The belief that what they write on their website is of historical significance is more interesting. This is the product of living in your head (and never setting foot outside) for 50 years or more:
We know that the ranks of the TF, IG and even the WSWS, are mainly composed of serious subjective revolutionaries. We appeal to them to think through the politics and potential geopolitical stakes in the current confrontation. The WSWS correctly describes it as “in essence, and in fact, a war between NATO and Russia”—in this war Trotskyists have a side, despite the unpleasant character of Putin’s reactionary bonapartist regime. It is not too late to break with muddleheaded centrism and the “anti-war” pacifist neutrality which, at bottom, represents a capitulation to imperialist ideological pressure.
This is no time for sitting on the fence—if Russia successfully “de-Nato-izes” Ukraine, it will make the world a safer place for the Chinese deformed workers’ state, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and the many other countries targeted by the rapacious US imperialism and its allies. A NATO triumph over Russia in Ukraine will represent the opposite, and bring humanity one step closer to the risk of annihilation.
Down with social-pacifist neutrality—Ukraine has no ‘right’ to join NATO!
The international workers’ movement must defend Russia against imperialist encroachment!
Smash capitalism through world socialist workers’ revolution!
This is from Tom Riley's Bolshevik Tendency. The particulars of the analysis don't interest me very much. The belief that what they write on their website is of historical significance is more interesting. This is the product of living in your head (and never setting foot outside) for 50 years or more:
We know that the ranks of the TF, IG and even the WSWS, are mainly composed of serious subjective revolutionaries. We appeal to them to think through the politics and potential geopolitical stakes in the current confrontation. The WSWS correctly describes it as “in essence, and in fact, a war between NATO and Russia”—in this war Trotskyists have a side, despite the unpleasant character of Putin’s reactionary bonapartist regime. It is not too late to break with muddleheaded centrism and the “anti-war” pacifist neutrality which, at bottom, represents a capitulation to imperialist ideological pressure.
This is no time for sitting on the fence—if Russia successfully “de-Nato-izes” Ukraine, it will make the world a safer place for the Chinese deformed workers’ state, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and the many other countries targeted by the rapacious US imperialism and its allies. A NATO triumph over Russia in Ukraine will represent the opposite, and bring humanity one step closer to the risk of annihilation.
Down with social-pacifist neutrality—Ukraine has no ‘right’ to join NATO!
The international workers’ movement must defend Russia against imperialist encroachment!
Smash capitalism through world socialist workers’ revolution!
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
hitmouse
music obfuscation technology
This is a fantastic line as well: Over the years we have had many important political differences with the IG, and have been sharply critical of its refusal to repudiate the social-patriotic flinches of the grotesquely degenerated Spartacist League, our common political ancestor.
The bit about We know that the ranks of the TF, IG and even the WSWS, are mainly composed of serious subjective revolutionaries is also an interesting concept - "looked at objectively, you're a fucking clown, but subjectively, you're very serious inside your head"?
The bit about We know that the ranks of the TF, IG and even the WSWS, are mainly composed of serious subjective revolutionaries is also an interesting concept - "looked at objectively, you're a fucking clown, but subjectively, you're very serious inside your head"?
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
Our common ancestor, a grotesquely degenerated Spartacist
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
As a distraction in these stressful times here are a few more wise words from James Robertson, great revolutionary leader, about one year before his sudden, shocking and totally unexpected degeneration. He's talking in 1977 about how the Spartacist League was first given life:
"The Spartacist League of the U.S. has been built through regroupment and recruitment and in the flowing continuity of the history of Trotskyism, it has not been built the way that a pearl is built. When you unfold all the layers of a pearl, at the bottom you find a piece of hard quartz. The first act in the creation of the Spartacist League was sexual, that is to say, two components came together in a regroupment. And the sexual experience of accretion has continued since. Some comrades don't understand this and since they come in as outsiders, right, in a regroupment, they continue to feel themselves strangers. This is a pathological reaction that is false and I encourage all the comrades to examine where all the rest of us came from. It was all sexual."
Interesting imagery, is it not?
It's from a Talk on Party History in this internal bulletin. The whole talk is 15 pages long and impossible to follow unless you already know the history (so what's the purpose of the talk?)
"The Spartacist League of the U.S. has been built through regroupment and recruitment and in the flowing continuity of the history of Trotskyism, it has not been built the way that a pearl is built. When you unfold all the layers of a pearl, at the bottom you find a piece of hard quartz. The first act in the creation of the Spartacist League was sexual, that is to say, two components came together in a regroupment. And the sexual experience of accretion has continued since. Some comrades don't understand this and since they come in as outsiders, right, in a regroupment, they continue to feel themselves strangers. This is a pathological reaction that is false and I encourage all the comrades to examine where all the rest of us came from. It was all sexual."
Interesting imagery, is it not?
It's from a Talk on Party History in this internal bulletin. The whole talk is 15 pages long and impossible to follow unless you already know the history (so what's the purpose of the talk?)
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
That is one of the ickiest things I've ever read
Dom Traynor
Tino Pai
If one of the groups was much younger than the other, that might explain the support for R Kelly.
Similar threads
