Historical troughA step, as they note, not taken lightly.
Guilded slippers more like from that exhausted moan above,
The war situation has developed, not necessarily to Japan's advantage.Like the last Japanese soldier found in the Borneo jungle in the mid 1970s.
There's some good stuff in that article but clicking on somelinks in there I found the answer to a question that used to puzzle me ie how come there was always an American amongst them when you had the misfortune to bump into them,Don't know if it's been mentioned on here already, but the International Bolshevik Tendency, which split from the Sparts in the late 80s, also itself split over a year ago, with one group departing to found the Bolshevik Tendency (BT)
Here's their obit of Robertson:
Jim Who? - Bolshevik Tendency
There is something a bit odd going on with the Spartacist League (SL), a group I joined at the tender age of 22 and have since maintained an interest in. In the 1960s and 70s…bolsheviktendency.org
“Robertson was always good at sizing up people and was attuned to detecting human weakness. He generally took a conservative approach to building the Spartacist tendency; tended to avoid taking too many chances and preferred to avoid risk rather than pursue opportunity. He wanted to scale up the operation, but was very reluctant to lose tight personal control. This is why, even in its best period, every foreign section of the iSt had one or more trusted American cadres in its top leadership.
“In its best period the SL under Robertson’s leadership not only defended the Trotskyist program, but also made some important contributions to it, including the now repudiated approach to the national question, particularly the difficult and complicated challenges posed by situations of ‘interpenetrated peoples.’ The renunciation of much of this history cannot detract from the clarity of the analysis put forward by the revolutionary SL in the 1970s.
On a slightly less serious point. when I was SWP, at the LSE freshers week thing the Sparts came over and "engaged us in comradely discourse". This involved an American Spart thumping our table and shouting at us. I pointed out that he was in danger of breaking a copy of Mike Carter's double A side single "Brixton/Ordinary People" that we had for sale at which point he apologised profusely and went away.
I was 19. It was my first "interaction" with Sparts, and I won!
There's some good stuff in that article but clicking on somelinks in there I found the answer to a question that used to puzzle me ie how come there was always an American amongst them when you had the misfortune to bump into them,
Ken Macleod, the author, was in the Sparts. He got kicked out of the IMG
Is that the SNP groomer?If they appeared now they would probably demand International Proletarian Defence for Derek Mackay.
Is that the SNP groomer?
Did he refuse to get divorced?
I remember doing a Sat morning papersale and we went to the offy to get some cans, as we were going round someone house for a barbecue late afternoon , and some Yank spart selling their paper came up and says 'you guys gonna partry at this time of day, wheres your political commitment to revolutionary politics?'Even in Coatbridge, just outside of Glasgow, there was a yank Spart.
I remember doing a Sat morning papersale and we went to the offy to get some cans, as we were going round someone house for a barbecue late afternoon , and some Yank spart selling their paper came up and says 'you guys gonna partry at this time of day, wheres your political commitment to revolutionary politics?'
To be fair it's his entire identity.That's amazing, you had a friend who was a fish!
"It's a furry - don't let it touch you"To be fair it's his entire identity.
Mrs. Idris has run into him a few times, and seemed to find him one of the good guys - and she normally takes a dim view of all things Trot (esp. the SWP and its Irish branch).The US Sparts sent a fella called Tom Crean to the 26 Counties to recruit for them. Ostensible amongst the CWI etc. Tom ended up joining the CWI and is now a leading figure I believe
The US Sparts sent a fella called Tom Crean to the 26 Counties to recruit for them. Ostensible amongst the CWI etc. Tom ended up joining the CWI and is now a leading figure I believe
I remember seeing him speak in New York for Socialist Alternative about 10/11 years ago.
I remember encountering a couple of Sparts outside Brooklyn College when my wife was a student there. Both Sparts were German.