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Louis Proyect said: James, congratulations on getting up to snuff typographically. The politics of course are another question. Has there been the slightest indication at any point that the Syriza leadership is anything but left-Keynesian? For that matter, Hugo Chavez has said pretty much the same thing even though Michael Lebowitz took exception to that. What we are dealing with is leftwing governments in Latin American and now in Greece, with Spain and possibly Ireland and Portugal in the wings, that do not have the rrrevolutionary program of sects like the CPGB, the British SWP or Creegan's old pals in the Spartacist League. It is the easiest thing in the world to draw up a revolutionary program. All you need is a basic knowledge of Marxism and a computer. Here, watch me do it in five minutes: The Proyectist League demands: 1. Nationalize the banks 2. Resolve unemployment by guaranteeing 40 hours pay for 30 hours of work. 3. Arm the workers to protect against fascist bands. 4. Withdraw from the EU and return to the drachma. 5. Make Leon Trotsky's birthday a national holiday. Just checked my watch. Only 4 minutes and 11 seconds. Pretty fucking good. This in essence is how the Trotskyist movement has functioned since its birth. It is to the mass movement, with a few exceptions like Hugo Blanco in Peru, what Roger Ebert was to film--its critic. When I was in the SWP in the 60s, we used to blame our small numbers and lack of influence on Stalinism. When Stalinism pretty much disappeared, we had nobody to blame but ourselves. Most people with political savvy came around to understanding that revolutions are not made by "exposing" the traitors like Alex Tsipras. They are made by leading struggles and winning *millions* of people to your side. That's what the July 26th Movement did in Cuba and what the FSLN tried to do in Nicaragua. The FSLN failed because its triumph occurred just around the time the Soviet Union was embracing capitalism. It is likely that Cuba would not have gotten as far as it did without Soviet help. For sectarians and ultraleftists, the relationship of class forces does not exist. If I sat down with Gary Kasparov and was playing white, with only a pawn taken while he was playing black with nothing but a king and three pawns, I could beat him. This is analogous to the situation that a country like Greece is dealing with but that does not matter to the sectarian Platonic idealists who think because they have the idea of October 1917 in their brain that by simply expressing it like saying "Hocus-Pocus, alakazam", it will happen. Politics is not about what you say; it is about what you do. Creegan is not happy that Syriza is not living up to his favorite sect's ideals. Maybe if the CPGB could learn how to lead millions of people in struggle, we could take its critiques more seriously. Right now they deserve about the same thing the Spart got from the audience at the Syriza meeting the other night--peals of laughter. Ken Hiebert replies: I think we can agree that the point of our activity is to lead struggles and to win millions of people to our side. That is what I understood the Transitional Program to be about, meeting people in their current struggles and attempting to make those struggles into a fundamental challenge to the capitalist system. Of course it is possible to use the Transitional Program in a ritualist way, without regard to what is happening in the class struggle,but I don't think that's what the Trotskyist movement has done, for the most part. Perhaps a good way to asses the Syriza government is precisely to what extent they are able to mobilize the Greek people in opposition to the austerity program and to what extent they are able to inspire struggles in other countries. If politics is the art of the possible, is Syriza doing all that is possible? What should we be doing? We must go through this experience with the movement in Greece, mobilizing in solidarity whenever we have the opportunity to do so. There will not be unanimity in our ranks in assessing the Syriza government. That's OK. Even if it's not OK, that's the way it will be. Let's try to have debate and discussion in such a way that it will be accessible to the many beyond our ranks who will be stirred by events in Greece. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
