On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 09:24 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
> I would never have abstained from the "Greek struggle," and did not
> abstain, having been in contact with an "ultra-left" council communist
> group in Greece during those events.

But surely that is the definition of a sectarian, is it not, Artesian? Someone 
who stays in their isolated little bubble exchanging emails with a handful of 
co-thinkers - in your case, perhaps a dozen of so other anti-Leninist council 
communists - rather than breaking out of it to  join with the great mass of 
socially and politically heterogenous workers and students in their class and 
other social conflicts.

That's why many of us on the list representing every Marxist tendency went into 
unions, parties, and and social movements composed overwhelmingly of liberals 
and social democrats  - in order both to participate in their various struggles 
for democratic rights and improved living conditions and in the process to help 
 them dispel their illusions about capitalism and how to best fight against it.

This is the fundamental basis of my differences with you and Charlie, less so 
your manner of intervening in these debates which some find overly aggressive. 
Your presence on the list, including your manner of intervention, is actually 
positive in that it serves as a useful foil and good example of how NOT ** to 
influence others outside of our own narrow and politically homogenous circles.

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 11:16 PM, ioannis aposperites wrote:

> 
> The largest party on the left confronting Golden Dawn was neither SYRIZA
> nor KKE (PC). It was the Antarsya coalition, which, along with other
> extraparliamentary left organizations and anarchists, stood against the
> fascists in the streets.

Antarysa did engage in street confrontations with Golden Dawn and did other 
useful work mobilizing students and young professionals, but Ioannis 
exaggerates its importance. During the debt crisis, its influence was marginal. 
According to a a leader of OKDE-Spartakos, the  Greek Trotskyist organization 
of around 100 members which Ioannis supported, Antarsya only had some 3000 
members and never gained than more 2% in regional elections and 1.2% in 
national elections.

Ioannis’ group was at odds with the majority of what used to be called the 
United Secretariat of the Fourth International to which most of us with a 
Trotskyist background were once officially or unofficially affiliated.

I had long since left the movement, but followed and shared the USec’s support 
of Syriza’s election in 2015 and its subsequent alignment with the Left 
Platform (later Popular Unity) against Tsipras and his governing faction. It’s 
just a matter of historical interest now, but I would again strongly recommend 
that anyone still interested in this debate should consult Richard Fidler’s 
account of the differences with OKDE-Spartakos and Antarsya in his extensive 
International Viewpoint article which drew on numerous documents issued by the 
FI.


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