While the ICL is indeed a dim spot on the spectrum, their position to Free Luigi is consistent with the Trotsky quote you provided. They wrote, “ The strategy of individual terror and assassination is counterproductive. The ruling class is responding by ratcheting up their forces of repression, which can only be bad news for workers and everyone else it oppresses.” While Marxists do not support ‘propaganda of the deed’ we have a long tradition of taking sides when the oppressed lash out at the oppressors. Even the radical Nation commenting on the shooting of Frick understood and justified lashing out. “The attempt to assassinate Mr. Frick is a natural result of the attitude taken by the Homestead strikers. His assailant appears to be one of those “cranks” whose mental weakness makes them the easy prey of the preachers of anarchy, and whose love of notoriety is quite as strong as any desire to help the cause of “Labor.” There seems no ground for supposing that the Homestead men had any direct connection with his crime, but the leaders who organized the attack upon the Pinkertons three weeks ago, and who have never expressed any regret for the act, are morally responsible for Berkman’s performance. The leaders of the strike attacked the watchmen sent by the manager of the mills, and killed as many of them as they could; he simply tried to kill the manager who sent the watchmen. If it was right to murder the Pinkertons — and nobody among the strikers, from O’Donnell down, has ever admitted that it was wrong — it was right and logical to try to kill the employer of the Pinkertons.” https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/berkman-shoots-frick/tnamp/ When Thomas Mooney was falsely accused of bombing the WWI preparedness day march the socialist labor movement came to his defense despite the incessant propaganda campaign by the bosses, and despite his anarchist leanings. Cannon and the ILD fought for him regardless of innocence or guilt, likewise with the Rosenbergs, Múmia, Leonard Peltier and all class war prisoners. While Luigi is no Nat Turner or John Brown and his act of desperation is (no pun intended) a dead end, our task is not to distance labor from “propagandists of the deed” but to explain it and all petty bourgeois individualist responses (and even Black Bloc, the Weathermen etc) as a consequence of our failure to build a viable independent working class political alternative (a fighting Labor Party). Today social media abounds with support for killing CEO’s, expressing a growing hatred of the bosses. Many support Luigi with a twisted smile despite their otherwise pacifistic world view. I put it on the socialist left for failing to provide an alternative by breaking with the Democrats and the Union leaderships who make change seem impossible and they by perpetuate desperation and individualism. Did Lenin abandon his brother and support his execution? I think not! Charles Rachlis On Thursday, December 19, 2024, 2:41 PM, Mark Baugher <[email protected]> wrote:
One dim spot in the constellation of 4th Internationals is this, https://iclfi.org/pubs/wv/1183/luigi, which apparently was published without consulting their founder's work: In “Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism," Trotsky wrote "In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission. The anarchist prophets of the ‘propaganda of the deed’ can argue all they want about the elevating and stimulating influence of terrorist acts on the masses. Theoretical considerations and political experience prove otherwise. The more ‘effective’ the terrorist acts, the greater their impact, the more they reduce the interest of the masses in self-organisation and self-education. But the smoke from the confusion clears away, the panic disappears, the successor of the murdered minister makes his appearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as before; only the police repression grows more savage and brazen. And as a result, in place of the kindled hopes and artificially aroused excitement comes disillusionment and apathy. The "Free Luigi" poster has popped up on at least one Marxist facebook page. What makes its reproduction particularly stupid it that it gives Facebook a reason to ban the page. Facebook/Meta chairman and CEO has recently contributed $1M to Trump's campaign. The current arc of US history is bending towards authoritarianism. It would be ironic if a poster from a "Trotskyist" organization got a group banned from Facebook as a result of disregarding Trotsky. Mark -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#34167): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/34167 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/110146372/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
