In the May 4th issue of the Militant, there’s a peculiar article but
probably not that much more peculiar than many that have appeared there
in recent years, as the tiny cult enters its death throes.
Titled “SWP’s 45 years of rich political history in Texas”, it gives the
impression that the party is stronger than ever even though the article
is basically a farewell to Texas:
“We can join in increasing labor resistance today,” Warshell said,
“like the strike by Steelworkers in area oil refineries and widespread
proletarian struggles against police brutality. There are new openings
for communists today to build our movement and recruit.
“We’re leaving Houston and closing the branch here,” he said, “but as
the class struggle deepens and the party grows, we will be back.”
Increasing labor resistance and leaving Houston? How do these two things
go together? Who knows? Who cares?
The SWP once did have a remarkable presence in Houston and the rest of
Texas that is referred to briefly:
The SWP and Young Socialist Alliance in Texas grew out of the fight
against Washington’s war against Vietnam in the 1960s, said Joel
Britton, an SWP leader from Oakland, California. Party branches were
built in both Houston and Austin.
As a result of the party’s growing public presence, it became a target
of the Ku Klux Klan, as were Black rights’ fighters, anti-war activists,
and KPFT, the local Pacifica radio station.
“Houston’s KKK operated with true impunity, tied in with the police
force, the sheriff’s department,” and other parts of the so-called
justice system, Britton said.
“One of the high points in the fight against Klan attacks was when
Debbie Leonard, SWP candidate for mayor in 1971, debated a top Klan
leader — not once but twice,” Britton said.
But most of the article is the standard recitation of the party’s “turn
to industry” that in fact has left it not only capable of continuing in
Texas but has sealed its doom everywhere else. In a normal organization,
there would be feedback mechanisms to allow it to reverse course but in
this bizarre cult that is led by someone more than a bit tetched, there
is no turning back.
I arrived in Houston in the winter of 1973 in order to help organize a
faction fight against a sizable minority in the branch that supported
the Ernest Mandel-led wing of the Fourth International that supported
guerrilla warfare in Latin America. After a year or so in Houston, the
sixties radicalization began to disappear before our very eyes as we
scrambled around for new sources of recruitment. It was around this time
when I began to feel more and more alienated from the party and its
stifling peer pressure both socially and politically that the thoughts
of dropping out began to take shape. I only regret that I hung around
for another four years.
In any case, you will see the pages from my unpublished memoir about the
time I spent in Houston. As is always the case, I am free to post this
material under the provisions of fair use legislation, plus rights
afforded me as the copyrighted author of the text and the full
permission of the artist to circulate the memoir.
full:
http://louisproyect.org/2015/05/15/my-days-in-houston-on-assignment-for-the-socialist-workers-party/
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