[R-G] Open Letter to Dave McReynolds (Reformatted)

[Carrol Cox]

I find posts with short lines & many >s unreadable. This exchange seems
important, however, so I have reformatted it for the list.
Carrol

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [R-G] Fw: Open Letter to Dave McReynolds
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 21:39:17 -0500
From: Jay Moore <pieinsky at igc.org>
Reply-To: rad-green at lists.econ.utah.edu
To: Rad-Green List <rad-green at lists.econ.utah.edu>

FYI, here's a response from a WWP member (Chicago) to Dave McReynolds
criticisms posted on this list.
jay
www.neravt.com/left/


----- Original Message -----
From: "LouPaulsen" <LouPaulsen at attbi.com>
To: <marxism at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 6:30 PM
Subject: Open Letter to Dave McReynolds

McReynolds wrote, in a statement forwarded to the list:

@@@@@

Black, white, brown - all were there. Some of us had questions about the
organizers of the demonstration, but our misgivings proved irrelevant.
The primary organizer, ANSWER, is pretty much run by a small group of
Marxist/Leninists who belong to the tiny Workers World Party. This fact
has been used by some, including such pompous nitpicking academics as
Michael Walzer, coeditor of "Dissent" and at the moment the
Establishment's  favorite "leftist," as a reason not to take part.
(Workers World was set up in 1956 as a split from the Trotskyists - to
support the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Later it supported the "coup"
against Gorbachev, and the Chinese suppression of students at Tiananmen
Square). Workers World probably wouldn't have had the success it has had
without the help of Ramsey Clark, a former Attorney General, who has
acted as the public face for ANSWER.

But, for the tens of thousands of people who came, including me, the
issue wasn't who did the backbreaking work of organizing the
demonstration - it was who was in the White House! And I want to say,
for the record, as a long time opponent of the politics of Workers
World, they deserve a lot of credit for the work they  put in, [...]

@@@@@
Dear Dave,

In other contexts we have been able to have reasonable discussions, as
you have acknowledged in a recent post to another list.  Furthermore,
while we have, of course, significant differences, I certainly have a
great deal of respect for the many years of work which you have devoted
to the struggle and for your sincerity.  Therefore, I don't think it's a
waste of time to respond as I do below, and to respond in such a way as
to actually invite a response, not just to score points off you.

First, let me say that I am glad you attended the January 18 action, as
I am glad that United for Peace endorsed the action and that Bill
Fletcher spoke at it.  Speaking for myself and for other people in and
around ANSWER who helped to build the action, the diversity of the
participants was exactly what we hoped to see, and that diversity
includes you and your current.

In this whole movement so far, an enduring feature has been the fact
that the rank-and-file participants, the new people who have come
around, the people who have made this a movement of hundreds of
thousands rather than just of us 'veterans', all want unity.  While you
and I may argue about how a slogan should be worded or what the
speakers' list should look like, they - the hundreds of thousands - are
not nearly as concerned.  They want to stop the war and will go to just
about any action that looks antiwar in any way.  They are going to 'keep
us honest' as the saying goes.  If any of us starts to act divisive or
sectarian, or as if our main purpose were not to stop the war, but to
come out better-looking than this party or that coalition, they are
going to vote with their feet against the forces that seem not to be for
unity and inclusiveness, and for the forces that seem to be
appropriately focused on opposition to the Bush administration's war
drive.  This has been a very healthy thing.

I am glad that you attended and that you shared in an experience which
was so positive.  In calling around after the action here in Chicago, my
experience so far is that people who attended were very happy to have
gone, are excited, and want to do more work, volunteer their time, set
up new organizing centers, and so on.  All this despite the cold,
despite having to wait an extra hour in the cold for the buses to show
up, despite riding 15 hours there and 15 hours back.  It is even true on
the one bus where we messed up the information about the pickup point
and sent them to the wrong location, where they had to wait while a
delegation went out through the streets looking for the bus.  People in
general have been very patient with each other and with the logistical
shortcomings and with all the inconveniences imposed by weather,
calendar, and the state, and are all the more inspired and determined.

I accept your positive remarks about the work that we in WWP did to help
build the action, with the qualifications in (1) below, and I recognize
that it cannot have been easy for you to write them. It's easy to write
nice things about the hard work that people you agree with have done,
but not nearly so easy to give credit to people when you sincerely
really hate some of their positions, think them morally wrong, and
believe that it would be disastrous if they were able to win other
people on the left to their approach.  It was principled of you.

I do notice that although you say that your 'misgivings' proved to be
'irrelevant', you still feel compelled to put in a paragraph detailing
what the misgivings actually WERE.  It reminds me just a little bit of
something I saw last night when watching the movie "The Contender" on
DVD, where the evil committee chair says "I hope everyone in the world
ignores the baseless smears of the senator which can be found at
www.nicholsreport.com".  (This is a non-working URL btw.)

Still, I accept that you feel it is your responsibility to warn the
movement against us, and not to be led by the success of January 18 into
ignoring the features of WWP which you find to be objectionable and
dangerous.  Given the depth of your differences with us, I don't expect
you to evade this 'duty'. However, I would like you to GET IT RIGHT.  I
would like you to avoid writing statements which are factually false. 
And I would urge you to avoid clearly misleading language.

I don't expect David Horowitz, or Chuck0 Munson, or David Corn, or the
Washington Times, or some of these other characters of the right wing
and the right wing of the left wing to respond to such suggestions, and
I wouldn't bother arguing with them, but I expect it from you.

(1) "ANSWER is run by WWP"
PARAGRAPH
You write,
PARAGRAPH
[McReynolds]The primary organizer, ANSWER, is pretty much run by a small
group of Marxist/Leninists who belong to the tiny Workers World Party. 

[Paulsen]This is a misstatement.  International ANSWER is a coalition. 
The member organizations are listed on the internationalanswer.org
website.  There is a board which has meetings and which makes plans. 
The International Action Center, which WWP supports and in whose work we
participate, is a member of that board, and it's quite true that some
spokespeople for ANSWER are also WWP members.  But most leaders of
ANSWER are NOT WWP members, such as, for example, Elias Rashmawi of the
Free Palestine Alliance, who played a leading role in the recent Cairo
Conference. 

You might mean that the actual work of ANSWER is all being done by WWP
members.  But this would also be untrue.  Here in Chicago, where I can
speak from personal experience, there is an active group of volunteers
in support of International ANSWER, most of whom are not WWP members,
but are people who like the approach that ANSWER has been pursuing and
the work that it has been doing. 

By writing as if ANSWER were 'run by WWP', you are declaring that these
organizations like the Free Palestine Alliance, Bayan, IFCO/Pastors for
Peace, the Nicaragua Solidarity Committee, etc., are our compliant
pawns, serving only as window dressing so that we of WWP can pretend to
be a coalition.  This is rather insulting to them, really.  Why not ask
them if they feel that WWP is running ANSWER?  They might, you know,
respond to you that, to the extent that WWP members and friends have
given labor and material support to ANSWER's activities, it better
enables them to organize the kind of anti-war activity that they
themselves want to organize. 

In a recent letter which was publicized on some listserves, Elias
Rashmawi wrote, in part: 

"The charge that we simply exist in the coalition as a front for others,
requires a visit to our reality, perhaps so that those making charges
can become more real themselves. No, you can not turn us into tokens -
no matter how hard one tries. For our might in the  struggle is borne in
a rough stone held by a youngster equal to all the might mustered by the
US,  Israel, and the West. Dare you ever call us tokens, inadvertently
or otherwise. 

"Like it or not - we are your equal - we are no one's guests - we are
your partners in the future - and we will not be marginalized - no
matter how hard some try. 

"The ANSWER Coalition is our home - in it we exist with our equals,
those who have full respect for our presence and struggle for decades
and decades ...  we jointly built it along with thousands and thousands
across this nation - and are proud to be associated with its constituent
members - everyone of them - It is where we find our comrades who do not
question our color, language, birthplace, and national origin. It is
where we are not invisible - but leaders of our destiny and makers of
our future. It is where self-determination is supreme to all - where we
are equal as organizations, and equal as comrades, and equal as human
beings. " 

This is by far the most important point here.  If you don't feel that
WWP deserves fairness, okay, but you should at least be fair to the
forces within ANSWER. 

[McReynolds] (2) "Workers World was set up in 1956 as a split from the
Trotskyists - to support the Soviet invasion of Hungary." 

[Paulsen]Are you aware of the provenance of this supposed datum?  In
2001, the week before the September 29 demonstration in DC, the Sun
Myung Moon-controlled Washington Times printed an 'exposé' of WWP which
included just this point. It was then copied uncritically by the
anarchist Chuck0 Munson to his infoshop.com site.  From there it went on
to circulate around the Internet and was copied uncritically by our
enemies of whatever stripe.  Despite the fact that it appeared on the
Internet, it is, however, remarkably enough, thrice untrue. 

In the first place, WWP was founded at the beginning of 1959.  The first
issue of our newspaper appeared in March, 1959.  If, however, you mean
to refer to the point at which the Marcy-Copeland-Ballan tendency began
to coalesce and express differences with the leadership of the SWP-US
(whom you refer to as "the Trotskyists") it would have to be 1948, when
our future founders recommended participation in the presidential
campaign of Henry Wallace.  1956 is just a mistake. 

In the second place, it is true that the Global Class War tendency
differed from the leadership of the SWP-US in our evaluation of the
events of Hungary in 1956.  But it is untrue that we then went and
organized our own party just because of this difference.  It would be
idiotic to foment a split over a single difference like that.  It is a
big deal to split a party.  That was Sam's view, anyway, and it's what
he taught us.  It is not something you do just because you disagree with
the current leadership about something.  If you disagree about
something, you stay in the party, keep doing the work, and fight for
your position.  The only valid excuse for splitting is if you believe
that the whole class trend of the party is wrong, it cannot
realistically be reclaimed, and the only way to do effective socialist
work is to split and set up your own organization. 

During the period 1948 to 1958 a whole series of differences manifested
themselves between the working-class comrades in Buffalo and Youngstown
and the SWP-US leadership.  These included their evaluation of the
CPUSA, the Rosenberg case, the Chinese revolution, the civil rights
movement, Khrushchev's turn in the politics of the USSR CP, Boris
Pasternak, 'regroupment', and every other aspect of the struggle. 
Ultimately our comrades concluded that the SWP-US had adapted to the
political line of the bourgeoisie, to democratic illusions, and to
bourgeois anti-Stalinism (as distinct from, and opposed to, correct left
criticism of revisionism). We split because we wanted to pursue a
different line, an uncompromisingly anti-imperialist line.  Not 'over
Hungary'. 

In the third place, by characterizing our position on Hungary as
"support for the Soviet invasion", you reduce the whole thing to a
supposed war of conquest on the part of the USSR.  From our point of
view, it would be much more correct to say that our difference with the
leadership of the SWP-US is that THEY supported a 'revolutionary
government' that wanted to invite in NATO tanks.  Everyone talks about
the Soviet tanks, but nobody talks about the NATO tanks, which, however,
are much more our responsibility, here in the U.S., to oppose.  More on
this below. 

[McReynolds] (3) Hungary, Tien An Men, Moscow 

[Paulsen]Apparently writing for people who don't know what WWP is, you
choose three data points to define us: all cases in which, as you would
presumably characterize it, we supported "oppressive Stalinism" against
"democracy". 

During the 55 years of our existence as a tendency, then as a party, we
have undertaken or participated in a great many initiatives: against
U.S. imperialism, against racism, against sexism, in support of the
liberation of the LGBT community, in support of workers' struggles,
against cutbacks in social services,  against police brutality and the
death penalty, and on a hundred other matters that directly affect
people's lives here.  We have run candidates in elections.  We have
organized public meetings.  We have published our newspaper continuously
for 44 years.  We have educated people about socialism. 

Considering all these things, Dave, are you selecting these three
moments in history to characterize us because you really think they
accurately convey our essence as a party?  Or are you looking to their
propagandistic value, because they push certain 'buttons'? 

I would point out that these three historical events - Hungary 1956,
China 1989, and USSR 1991 - all have some other things in common other
than the fact that we supposedly chose 'Stalinism' over 'democracy', or,
as we would put it, socialist construction over capitalist
counterrevolution.  First and foremost, they are all cases in which U.S.
imperialism was deeply involved and interested, and in each case THEY
chose the side that you call 'democracy' over the side that you might
call 'Stalinism'.  They were very much hoping for the stabilization of
the Nagy government in Hungary, and for the overthrow of the government
of the PRC in 1989 (I hope you remember the CNN footage of tanks around
Beijing and all their speculation about whether the 'good army' would
fight the 'bad army'), and they were exuberant about the victory that
they DID win, in which Yeltsin was able to engineer a 'democratic'
countercoup against the coup plotters, the parliament, the constitution,
and ultimately Gorbachev, install a capitalist government, and dismember
the USSR.  The current U.S. war for empire is the fruit of this triumph. 

Secondly, these were all situations in which we of WWP had absolutely no
power to participate directly or to shape the situation the way we would
really like to have it.  They were all happening thousands of miles away
from us, with events developing very rapidly, with no time for any real
discussion among the world communist movement.  In fact, this 'support'
you refer to was basically confined, of necessity, to after-the-fact
assessment in all three cases.  We were not fighting in Budapest or
Beijing or Moscow; we were here in the U.S., presenting our evaluation
of the situation and disputing the evaluation which was being offered by
the imperialist bourgeoisie.  So, in the latter two cases, we are
talking about educational leaflets and evaluative articles in our
newspaper.  In the former case, you are talking about our participation
in an internal SWP discussion, which was not discussed publicly for
years after!  In all three cases, the nature of our evaluation was that
we should consider it a defeat if socialist regimes, however imperfect,
were overthrown by imperialist agency, however 'democratic'-sounding,
and that we should oppose our own imperialist government's machinations
and refuse to accept its democratic pretensions. 

Thirdly, in all three cases the forces which were in our view
objectively defending socialist construction were not our co-thinkers,
not people we would have selected, not people who had in any way
followed our advice (if of course they could possibly have been made
aware of our advice) in the past.  In fact we had been quite critical of
all of them: of the government of the USSR circa 1956, for its
heavy-handedness and bureaucratism; of the leadership of the Chinese
Communist Party in 1989, for its turns away from the socialist line
which had deprived it of popular support and brought into existence this
very privileged stratum which now wanted to oust them; and of the Soviet
'coup plotters' in 1991, for their conservative approach to the
preservation of socialism and refusal to trust or call upon the working
class.  We did not get to pick and choose the forms in which these
conflicts, as we saw them, between socialism and imperialism were played
out. 

I certainly do not wish to back off one inch from the evaluations which
we made of the events of 1956, 1989, and 1991, but it would be more
correct for you to talk about the actual underlying basic difference
between you and us, rather than to make bare references to Hungary, Tien
An Men, and the August coup, which have been elevated to the status of
code words whose significance has been determined by the right.  It
would be more correct for you to say that "The WWP believes that the
Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Chinese Revolution of 1949, and
similar revolutions were progressive in character and established a
'superior' social system," - (see, I am allowing you to use scare
quotes) - "and that attempts to overthrow those governments, and that
system, as was successfully done in Eastern Europe and the USSR in
1989-91, and as was attempted in Hungary in 1956 and in China in 1989,
were reactionary in character, regardless of the sincerity or background
of the participants, and were instigated by imperialism." 

Of course, your problem in writing it that way is that some people might
start to think they agreed with us. 

Although it doesn't directly bear on my criticism, let me point out to
you that by choosing these issues to distinguish yourself from us, you
have chosen the other side of the contradictions, and that IF I felt
like doing it, and IF I thought it would be correct strategy, I could
start going around saying things like "Dave McReynolds' party supported
the counterrevolution in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, thus
taking moral responsibility for the Yeltsin and Putin governments, the
shelling of the Russian parliament, the Chechen wars and numerous other
wars within and among the former Soviet republics, the decrease in life
expectancy and dramatic growth of poverty throughout the former USSR,
the suppression of the trade unions, Russian support for the Gulf War of
1991 and other imperialist wars, US imperialist penetration of the
Caucasus and Central Asia, the present undisputed US hegemony over the
world, the undermining of national liberation movements worldwide, the
weakening of socialism as an ideological trend, the corresponding rise
of other ideologies including Islamic fundamentalism, and the subsequent
destruction of the World Trade Center."   I don't think it would be very
productive to do this, though, beyond this once, as an illustration; nor
would it be fair to write -only- this, as if it were the only thing
which your party, or you personally, had ever done, ignoring the many
positive contributions which you have made and do make to the
progressive movement. 

Awaiting your response (assuming you see this; I'll dig around and find
if I have a working e-mail address for you), 

Lou Paulsen 
member, WWP, Chicago 
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