> Max: > >The real throwback here is not Tomasky/Shachtman, but Louis et al. to the Trots who opposed U.S. entry into WWII, or to the CP-USA when it condemned all trade unions but the ones it organized itself. > > I probably should have let this ignorant garbage go unanswered, but just to clarify the real position of Trotskyism on WWII for those interested in the truth. . . . > > The Trotskyists were imprisoned under the Smith Act not for "opposing" WWII, but for exposing the imperialist motives of the ruling-class as indicated in point one above. . . . " As often we have taken a detour, this time into the Smith Act. Bottom line is, did the SWP encourage workers to serve in the armed forces to fight the Axis, or not? If not, as I've said before, that was a honorable position but debatable, especially with the benefit of hindsight. Later in the post, after bloviating about "freedom of speech" (another of the lost M-L virtues, yuk yuk) and vampirism, we get: > Ironically, during WWII CPUSA leaders took the same stance as Max does today. They identified the interests of the workers with the war aims of the superrich. > This was slander then and it is now, though I would criticize what I understand to have been the CP's support for repression of left critics of the war by the U.S. govt. This bit them on the ass later. Then we get an apologia for Japanese militarism/imperialism, which I submit was *worse* than the U.S., tho the comparison of the US-UK with the Nazis is much more stark: > US soldiers died by the tens of thousands in the Pacific theater to make the region safe for rubber, oil, banking, construction, railroad and shipping companies. We resented another vulture--Japan--picking at the flesh of China, the Philippines, and other of our post-1898 conquests. > Finally we get close to the point: > Furthermore, the SWP advocated a revolutionary armed struggle against Hitler modeled on the Spanish Civil War popular militias. They argued that armies under ruling-class leadership with their officer corps would not be as effective as those under working-class control. > Sounds like refusal to serve to me. As a confirmed induction-dodger (I was drafted but classified 1-Y), I would not criticize the refusal on moral grounds. I would, with the benefit of hindsight, say it was the wrong decision. Louis has the benefit of hindsight too, but seems to make little use of it. The idea of workers' militias as a substitute for the Allied Expeditionary Forces is an agreeable fantasy, nothing more. mbs
