Trotskyism in the United States gives us a feel for the SWP at its best. It lets us sample the best of the SWP's thinking and educatonal work by reprinting George Breiman's 1974 talks on "The Liberating Influence of the Transitional Program." The talks are a book notes
Breiman's talks are exhilarating. What went wrong? Le Blanc stresses the loss of the group s selt-confident, working-class cadre. He also shows how changes beginning in the 1960s set bad precedents (like the 1965 prohibition against "double recruitment," i.e. explaining minority standpoints to potential new members). But then party-leader James Cannon is, in Le Blanc's eyes, virtually beyond reproach.
Even Wald, who is more critical of the Trotskyist tradition in general, only ventures in the book's last pages to say that Cannon's 1946 assertion that the SWP was already "destined" to lead the US revolution "must be rejected as a model for today," and that the Trotskyist tradition is lost unless it "breaks with the idea (voiced by Cannon ally Morris Stein) that Trotskyists "can tolerate no rivals." (pp.279-80)
Le Blanc expresses "quite sharp" disagreement with Wald's picture of the SWP's past (pp.x-xi). In fact Wald could have gone further. Cannon's 1946 claim that the SWP, with fewer than 2000 members, would itself become the organisation of millions that could lead a US revolution was far-fetched. Even worse was the SWP's decision in 1965, when its working-class base was gone and its membership was down to 420, to reaffirm its 1946 self-proclamation as part of its basic "doctrines."(p.53) Le Blanc also fails to see the kernel of truth in charges of bureaucratisation raised by many SWP minorities. Concerned about "permanent discussion, driving out the workers," Cannon allowed political debates to be crowded off branch and leadership agendas by deadly administrative routine and policy to be set largely by the full-timers (120 of them by the mid-1970s). This ensured that once most of the older, independent-minded cadre were gone and Barnes had the full-timers in hand his regime was secure against challenge.
In the last two of the book's six essays, Wald tackles the question of what all this means for the US left now and in the future.
reviews * On the one hand, he warns against repeating the 1960s New Left's mistake of re-enacting the Old Left's tragedies by failing to study its history, expressing dismay at how little contemporary "rethinking" is informed by all the rethinking done in the past. Trotskyism itself is the fruit of such rethinking, he points out: learning from the Russian revolution's bureaucratisation in the 1920s, learning from the disastrous consequences in 1973 of relying on Chilean bourgeois democracy, and so on. We forget these lessons at our peril. At same time, Wald shows a healthy sense of proportion about how little Trotskyism has really accomplished. He points out some of the many ways in which the politics of a new left must be genuinely new: on ecology, lesbian/gay liberation, Eurocentrism, new forms of imperialism, etc. His discussion of the day-to-day dynamics that lead to factions and splits reveal how much we have to learn from the feminist realisation that the personal
All this leads Wald to the sensible conclusion that "activists emerging from Trotskyist experiences" build a new Trotskyist vanguard nor renounce their past, but instead try to act as "a well-integrated current (not tendency or faction) within a broader organisation of the far left." (p.262) * [a longer review of this book by Peter Drucker will be published in a comming issue of Against The Current magazine.] Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, NJ,1996 (hbk $60) To order the books and magazines mentioned in International Viewpoint, try your nearest progressive bookstore, or write to La Brèche, 9 rue de Tunis, 75011 Paris, France © (+33 1) 43676357 fax 43792961 (English, French and Spanish spoken). Where no price is given, we suggest you enclose US$ 10 in any convertible currency to cover the postage costs of the publisher. To announce your publication in this free listing, send a sample copy to "Book reviews" c/o International Viewpoint, PECI, BP 85, 75522 Paris cedex 11, France.
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION model of revolutionary pedagogy: clear without oversimplifying, engaged but critical-
Women's lives in the new global economy minded. Breiman's account of the SWP's
1938 labour party debate is historically significant as well, and enlivened by his recol-
Penny Duggan & Heather Dashner (editors)
• £4/$5/35FF. Cheque payable to P. Rousset, IRE, Postbus 53290, 1007 Amsterdam, Ntherlands lections of his own role. It gives a sense of the extraordinary freedom and democracy of discussion in the party in 1938-39, when 40 percent of the membership fought and voted against the position Trotsky advocated.
What went wrong?
Le Blanc's account of what became of the SWP by the 1980s is as depressing as by Catherine Samary
Indonesian underground
Visiting Indonesian in December as a guest of the PRD underground movement, Australian video maker Jill Hickson travelled extensively across the country meeting workers, student activists and human rights defenders.
The result is a 30 minute documentary, titled There is only one word, Resist. It provides background to the explosive political and social conditions inside Suharto's Indonesia, and examines developments in the Indonesian pro-democracy movement, in particular the emergence of the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD) which has been banned and forced underground.
Bankok: health and safety
A workshop on workers' health and safety and the rights of industrial accident victims will be held in
Bangkok from May 10-13. The event is organised by labour NGOs from Thailand and Hong Kong.
May 10, 1997, will mark the 4th anniversary of the Kader toy factory fire in which 189 workers were killed and 469 were injured
For further information, contact: Mr Chan
Kam Hong, Association for the Rights of
Industrial Accident Victims (ARIAV), 3/F. 57
Peking Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong, Fax: (852,
2724 5098, or Ms Alice Kwan, AMRC, eMail amrc@hk.super.net
International
Viewpoint
1996
The 1996 collection costs £10/$20.
Bound volumes for previous years
('90, '91, '92 94, 95) cost £5/$10.
20% Discount on orders of four or more volumes. Full Index included. Seminar on the October Revolution Following the July 1996 seminar on Ernest Mandel's Contribution to Marxist Thought, the Ernest Mandel Study Centre will either organize or coorganize a seminar (in English and French) on the October 1917 revolution. It will be held either as a larger-scale colloquium with a broad range of international sponsors and participants in Belgium or on a more modest scale in Amsterdam. / Postbus 53290, 1007 RG Amsterdam, Netherlands © 31 20 6717263, Fax: 6732106 eMail IIRE@Antenna.nl 36 International Viewpoint
PRD members smuggled a camera into prison for an exclusive interview with Dita Sari, the president of the independent trade union, Centre for Labour Struggle (PPBI) and a leading member
The documentary interviews underground members of the PRD who talk about the crackdown, the systematic hunting down of their members and the situation they are operating in underground. One tells of his torture at the hands of the military.
The documentary also features footage of the July 27 military attack on the PDI headquarters which housed Megawati supporters where many people were killed and wounded. This incident sparked off a full-scale riot where many hundreds of people were bashed and
The documentary was launched in Australia on March 21. An Indonesianlanguage version will be smuggled back into Indonesia for use by the PRD. Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) welcomes public showings by organisations with a view to funds raised going to the Free the Political Prisoners Campaign: The video costs US$60 including postage. A copy for private use costs US$35 including postage. All tapes VHS. Please specify whether you want NTSC or PAL format. ASIET: PO Box 458, Broadway 2007, Australia © 61-02-6901032 Fax: 61-02-6901381 www.peg.apc.org/~asiet/