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Andrew Pollack <acpolla...@gmail.com>Andrew Pollock refuses to deal with what it means that so many advocates of the "permanent revolution" has fallen on their face with respect to the Arab Spring, as shown by the stands of Socialist Action and a number of other Trotskyist organizations. Instead, he repeatedly calls me a Menshevik, either directly or by arbitrarily asserting that I uphold Menshevik positions. In October 3, Pollock wrote in reply to me: >Oy. >The Mensheviks are back at it. >Once again 90% of their argument against permanent revolution >is based on whether particular worker >organizing/mobilizing/theoretical steps are >possible or likely. And their answer is always No. So here he derides me as a Menshevik, simply because I criticize permanent revolution. And he says that I am opposed to workers organizing and struggling on all fronts. But for year after year, I have said exactly the opposite. Pollock doesn't know or care what I have written. He simply repeats a stock Trotskyist attack on a critic. Pollock comes back to the same theme, however, on October 21 when he writes that > ... why I get angry at Joe, [is] because he (and Sam Hamad) want > only democratic demands addressed A lie is a lie no matter how often it's repeated. I have stressed, year in and year out, that the working class should raise social demands in a democratic movement. What I do claim is that, due to the concrete circumstances of the Arab Spring, the uprisings didn't have any chance of leading to socialist revolution. That's very different from saying that the workers won't, or cannot, or shouldn't have any their own class role in the Arab Spring. In fact, I would argue that it's essential for the workers to realize the democratic nature of various movements if they are to have a chance to build up their own independent movement which not only zealously participates in the democratic movement but has its own socialist goals that go far beyond that of the general democratic movement. -- Joseph Green _________________________________________________________ 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
