[Marxism] (fwd) WSWS.org major revamp

[Les Schaffer]

Ruthless Critic of All that Exists wrote:
[ for Einde ]




> On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 5:49 AM, Jeffrey Thomas Piercy 
> <mqduck at sonic.net> wrote:
>
>> "Since it has been given such a prominent place in political discourse
>> over the past week, it is incumbent on **the actual proponents of
>> socialism, whose voice is the World Socialist Web Site**, to address the
>> question." (emphasis mine)
>
> I think they're trying to differentiate themselves from those who
> believe that Cuba is socialist or Chavez is socialist. (The SEP's
> position is that they are not socialists.)
>
I think their claim is even more "radical". Only the SEP and their 
co-thinkers are real socialists. All the rest of us are reformist and 
revisionist class traitors. The first organisation I joined after 
becoming conscious was the Healyite organisation, from which the various 
SEPs are descended, and the claim that they and only they were the one 
and ony custodians of the Holy Writ while all others were heretics to be 
cast into the outer darkness was cultivated assiduously.

I deliberately use the religious terminology as in retrospect (after I 
escaped from their baleful influence) they reminded me strongly of the 
Moonies and the Children of God and other such religious sects that 
abounded at the time (end of the 1960s and early 1970s) than of a 
rational political organisation. The Apocalypse (REVOLUTION) was always 
imminent and we had to work all out to solve the "CRISIS OF LEADERSHIP 
of the proletariat". The intense pace demanded of those who committed 
themselves to the organisation burned out most of the young people they 
recruited and innoculated them against having anything to do with any 
Marxist political organisation ever again. A very small group survived 
this process and were admitted into the "elect", the self-proclaimed 
revolutionary leadership of the proletariat. Butr even among these 
absolute "orthodoxy" was demanded. The slightest indication of a 
deviation from the "Thoughts of Chairman Gerry" was treated as apostasy. 
The guilty were purged from the "elect" as "trqitors to teh working 
class" and their former closest associates and "friends" avoided them 
like the plague in case they too might be tainted by the slightest touch 
of heresy.

It may sound like I'm exaggerating but that's how it felt like at the 
time. After I left them I was completely mentally shattered and felt I 
really swas a "ttraitor to the working class" because I couldn't stand 
the pace of work or give the level of commitment demanded. It took me 
several years to recover and then I had the luck to encounter another 
political tradition which was very different in it's attitude towards 
its members and non-members, whether former members or not.

Einde O'Callaghan