[Marxism] "Anti-Communist" cooties

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Eli says: 

    But liberals like McGovern are so frightened about being "tarred" by
    association with Cuba that the thought of saying one word in Cuba's
defense
    is simply too much for them to deal with, even on a subject like the end
of
    apartheid. Instead, he retreats to the "safer" area of "Americans'
    Constitutional right to travel" and the "best way to change things in
Cuba."

And I think that's exactly the situation with ISO/SWP, and why Walter wants
to call them (rightly or wrongly) "anti-Communist." 

*  *  *

I think Eli hits the nail on the head about the charge being made against
the ISO. Basically, the charge is adaptation and capitulation to imperialist
pressure. 

But if the charge were true, the what you'd expect is for that capitulation
to be most craven when it really counts, i.e., at time of maximum pressure
from imperialist public opinion. There have been two such moments that
immediately come to mind in recent years, one was the fight around Elian
Gonzalez, the other, the imperialist push to demonize Cuba at the time of
the Iraq invasion.

In neither of those cases did the ISO waver from what they claimed to stand
for, which is a firm anti-imperialist position. Unlike some (a few) comrades
who were taken in by the Landy statement against Cuba, they saw right
through it. And they did not, unlike a certain other group that has been
mentioned in this discussion, take the bizarro position that the splendid
Cuban campaign in support of Elian and his father finally forcing the
Clinton administration to rescue the child from the Miami mafia was some
sort of attack on the rights of working people. 

These sorts of charges against the ISO aren't just false and scurrilous,
they have a certain history on the left, and not a happy one. They were long
associated with Stalinists of various stripes, and it is disappointing in
the extreme to see these sorts of tactics resurrected not just by comrades
who ought to know better, but also some who used to know better.

Joaquín