[Marxism] The crisis in Respect

[Louis Proyect]

The fight that has broken out in Respect should be of interest to 
anybody who is interested in building broad left-wing political parties. 
If this party had continued to prosper, it would have served as an 
inspiration to radicals and socialists everywhere–especially in the US 
where efforts to build an alternative to the Democratic Party, our 
version of New Labour, have proved exceedingly difficult. While it is 
possible that Respect might work through its difficulties, it is 
necessary to figure out what went wrong in order to prevent future such 
difficulties.

Since the charges and counter-charges defy substantiation, especially 
from afar, this article will avoid trying to establish who did what to 
whom. That being said, from the evidence I have seen so far, the crisis 
seems to be of the sort that grips just about every broad left-wing 
electoral initiative that “Marxist-Leninist” groups take part in. One of 
my goals in analyzing the Respect crisis is to try to understand why 
this is such a chronic disease of the left.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/the-crisis-in-respect/