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David North

14 Jul, 10 tweets, 2 min read

wsws.org/en/articles/20…
In the aftermath of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the International Committee -- while defending the Castro regime against US imperialism -- rejected the impressionistic and facile Pabloite designation of Cuba as a "workers' state." 1/

The essential issues raised in this dispute were not over mere terminology. Rather, the ICFI rejected the Pabloite claim that Castro showed that a socialist state could be established by non-proletarian forces, without organs of workers' power and without a Marxist party. 2/

The SWP justified its adaptation to Castroism and its abandonment of the fight to build the Fourth International with the claim that the masses "are completely unable to wait until a revolutionary-socialist party is constructed before they move into action." 3/

The SWP argued: "Since such parties do not exist, except as small nuclei, the masses, following a well-known law of politics, push to power whatever leadership of national scope happens to stand to the left of the ruling party." 4/

Thus, the SWP, which in the early 1960s was breaking with Trotskyism, hailed Castro as an "unconscious Marxist" and claimed that his regime was the harbinger of a revolution, in which neither the Fourth International nor the working class played a central role. 5/

In response to the Pabloite arguments, the ICFI warned: “If the ‘new’ theory of the socialist revolution in Cuba is accepted there will be no more Trotskyism in South America, in Africa, and possibly none elsewhere..."6/

The ICFI warned against the Pabloite capitulation to bourgeois nationalists. "This tendency, and the neglect of the primary need to recruit, cherish and develop the revolutionary cadre of the Fourth International, will lead to suicide if it is victorious.” So it happened. 7/

Eventually, the Pabloites placed accolades upon movements such as the Algerian FLN, Nicaraguan FSLN, the Argentine Peronists, Grenada's New Jewel Movement, Brazil's Lula, S. Africa's ANC, et al. The stand taken by the ICFI was immensely far-sighted. 8/

The IC was correct: “There is no road to working-class power except [by] the smashing of the bourgeois state and the workers own organs – Soviets, workers’ councils, etc. – controlling the national life. This is true in the advanced countries and in the colonial countries." 9/

The work of the Socialist Equality Party and its co-thinkers in the International Committee of the Fourth International is rooted in a powerful historical, theoretical and political foundation. On this basis, the crisis of revolutionary leadership will be finally resolved. 10/10

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More from @DavidNorthWSWS

David North

@DavidNorthWSWS

6 Jul

Professor Woody Holton of the University of South Carolina has joined the ranks of opportunist and intellectually dishonest academics who deprecate the American Revolution as a reactionary rebellion of slaveowners against the progressive British Empire. washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/0… 1/

The British Empire, Holton claims, was a great emancipatory force. He overlooks the fact that British imperialism devoted considerable energy in the 19th and 20th centuries to enslaving millions of people in Africa, the Middle East and Asia in colonial bondage. 2/

It would be interesting to hear Holton explain how his efforts to cast Britain as the would-be liberator of American slaves meshes with its bloody record of colonial barbarism. What about the "Scramble for Africa"? Has he ever heard of the wars against the Zulus in the 1870s? 3/

Read 6 tweets

David North

@DavidNorthWSWS

30 May

NY Times columnist Ross Douthat has bluntly, even if unintentionally, identified the reactionary political interests that motivate and fuel the Wuhan Lab big lie (which he promotes). In a column titled, "Why the Lab Leak Theory Matters," Douthat writes: 1/

"First, to the extent that the US is engaged in a conflict of propaganda and soft power with the regime in Beijing, there's a pretty big difference between a world where the Chinese regime can say, We weren't responsible for Covid but we crushed the virus and the West did not, 2/

"because we're strong and they're decadent, and a world where this was basically their Chernobyl except their incompetence and cover-up sickened not just one of their own cities but also the entire globe." 3/

Read 4 tweets

David North

@DavidNorthWSWS

29 May

The Economist, in a masterpiece of double talk, writes: “There is as yet no evidence in the public domain that a laboratory leak [in Wuhan] actually took place; just evidence that the possibility is real.” The assertion of “Possibility” unsupported by facts is speculation. 1/

Why is the “possibility” real? Because there is a lab in Wuhan. But there is no factual or science-based evidence that connects the lab to the pandemic. 2/

One can just as well write: “There is no evidence that the US army created the HIV virus at Ft. Detrick. But the possibility is real (because there is a lab at Ft. Detrick).” The Wuhan Lab lie is dangerous. As the WSWS warns today: 3/

Read 4 tweets

David North

@DavidNorthWSWS

5 May

Cliff Slaughter, who between 1957 and 1985 played a leading role in the International Committee of the Fourth International and its British section, died Monday at the age of 92. The WSWS will soon publish a more extensive and critical review review of Slaughter's life. 1/

It is well-known that Slaughter broke irrevocably with Trotskyism in 1986 and that the remaining 35 years of his political life consisted of a shameful repudiation of Trotskyist politics and its Marxist foundations. 2/

However, in noting his death, the ICFI must call attention to the significant role that Slaughter played in the fight for Trotskyism in the earlier period of his life. 3/

Read 18 tweets

David North

@DavidNorthWSWS

21 Apr

In the aftermath of Chauvin's conviction, the official narrative promoted by the Biden administration and media is that police violence is directed almost exclusively against the Black population in the United States. This race-based narrative is contradicted by statistics. 1/

This bar graph [created by Statista] shows the demographic distribution of police killings in the United States since 2017. The total number of people killed by police from 1/1/2017 to 3/31/2021 is 4171, an absolutely staggering number. 2/

Of the 4171 victims,
*1733 [41.5%] were non-Hispanic whites
*908 [21.8%] were Black
*654 [15.7%] were Hispanic
*148 [3.5%] were listed as Other
*728 [17.5%] were listed as Unknown
3/

Read 6 tweets

David North

@DavidNorthWSWS

19 Apr

@jbouie

Fantasizing about a rebirth of a progressive American liberalism -- which died of old age in 1917 -- @jbouie invokes in today's NY Times Roosevelt's New Deal as "the lodestar for liberals and the left alike, from Joe Biden to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez." 1/

This mythologized lodestar would be better described as an intellectual and political deadweight. As far back as the 1930s, John Dewey -- trying to adapt liberalism to economic realities -- understood enough to know that serious social reform was incompatible with capitalism. 2/

Dewey called attention to the basic flaw in Roosevelt's program: "Invoking the profit motive to provide employment is a confession of impotency, since the quest for profits -- as rent, interest and gains on invested capital --is the cause of unemployment and poverty." 3/

Read 10 tweets

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