SV: [OPE] Marta Harnecker's Ideas

Hi Jerry,

- MH probably have written extensively on Cuba, Nicargua and Venezuela - but it does not show in her principles, Cuba is just mentioned once, Lenin, Trotsky, Martov, Dunajevskaja, Pannekoek or Bahro, Uhl, Belocerkovski... I have still not read it properly - but no theoretician of marxist organisation that I know of seems to be even mentioned. Strange - very strange.

- And as Alejandro points out - what she writes and her postions on Cuba, Venezuela etc. are "poles apart" (I do not know her position) but it does not suprise me if that is the case.

- And why write about the SWPs, the FI? I agree that these were small, but was there anything concious, Marxist, cadre organisations thatt were bigger? Is not the real difficulty that rev. org. in the mature capitalist countries a) are small b) easily split up? IMHO any kind of "Ideas for the Struggle" must adress these challenges.

- ASFAICS - is the only organisation that MH mentiones by name is Frente Amplio - but that is a rather particular case focussed on "popular consultations"

- MH to me looks like a very soft critique of the authoritarian aspects of certain Lat.Am leaders/regimes. But since is is so soft, no names mentioned, no concrete affair used as an illustration - it is useless for me.

So the question that is interesting is - why do Links promote these "truisms" (leaders should listen to the masses etc. etc.) - why do Jerry forward it?

Can you throw any light on that issue Jerry?

Regards
Anders

> From: Gerald Levy [jerry_levy@verizon.net]
> Sent: 2009-12-04 13:37:00 MET
> To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list [ope@lists.csuchico.edu]
> Subject: Re: [OPE] Marta Harnecker's Ideas
>
> > If MH had been an OPE member I would have challenged her on that point -
> > what is your analysis of Lenin, of Trotsky of the organisational praxis of
> > SWP (US), SWP (UK), The FI (United. Secr) - the > Sandinistas, the Cuban
> > Communist Party, Chavez etc. etc.
>
>
>
> Hi Anders:
>
> I believe she has written about the last three - all subjects worthy of
> discussion because of
> their historical importance. Why do you think that a critical evaluation of
> the
> organizational praxis of the first three are of great significance? The
> SWPs in both nations
> were never mass political formations [at its high watermark in the early
> 1970s, the SWP (US) had
> close to 2,000 members]; most of the parties affiliated with the FI (USec)
> are *extremely*
> small and relatively insignificant in the political life of their nations.
> (It sometimes amuses me to
> see all of the discussion about the SWP-US, primarily by former members.
> They even have
> a yahoo group - made up of _former_ members and for years the US-centric
> 'marxmail'
> list -- ruled over Stalin-like by former SWP membder, Louis N. Proyect --
> was obsessed with a
> discussion of that group. It reminds me of former members of Scientology or
> some other cult
> getting together to discuss their cult: the difference is that many of the
> former SWPers haven't
> really broken with the praxis of that group and look whimsically back on
> better days - often
> meaning the time just before they were purged.)
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>
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Received on Fri Dec 4 09:07:09 2009