Talk:Jack Barnes
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[edit] A comment by a supporter of the SWP US
The encyclopedia's article was written by someone who is evidently hostile to Jack Barnes and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
I am writing this discussion piece as a former member and current supporter of the Socialist Workers Party. I have done so for nearly 40 years. I am a proud veteran of the party's industrial work in the miners' union (5 years), the garment and textile unions (8 years), and the meatpackers' union (2 years). So it's biased, and it is solely based on my own personal recollection and interpretation of events. None of this is the official position of the SWP, and some of it could undoubtedly be corrected through further research. I urge anyone interested in clarifying or elaborating on this information to consult themilitant.com and pathfinderpress.com. There, one can read the weekly newspaper of the party, find local branch addresses of the party, and purchase any of the hundreds of books that reflect Marxist views and party history. Any encyclopedia entry should list these resources because they offer original, first-hand information.
To me, the biggest problem with this particular article is the portrayal of Jack Barnes as a type of dictator or strong man who controls the party. This view is an attack on the Socialist Workers Party, and it reinforces the bourgeois characterization of communist movements as dupes being manipulated by iron-willed individuals. Every decision made by the party is made at a convention of the party, with elected delegates from all branches, and all sessions open to all members, after a lengthy period of pre-convention discussion. Jack Barnes is the elected National Secretary of the party. Conventions generally take place every 2 or 3 years. One who disagrees with decisions made by the party, as this author does, should not portray these decisions as being made and enforced by Jack Barnes. Like it or not, they are made by the membership.
The industrial orientation of the party restarted in earnest in 1977-8, and that decision - like all major policy decisions - was made by the party membership at a convention after several months of discussion. In fact, the decisions are documented in the pages of The Militant, the party's newspaper, and in many books that have been published. Jack Barnes was clearly a leader of this process, but it reflected a party-wide recognition that political work could be done fruitfully in the industrial unions, and it followed enthusiastic support for several developments within the working class - particularly the "Steelworkers Fight Back" led by Ed Sadlowski and, more broadly, the "Miners for Democracy" movement which transformed the UMWA a few years earlier. Other events, such as the wildcat strikes by auto workers at GM’s Lordstown, Ohio, plant, showed that something new was happening among younger workers. These events reflected deeper social developments led by the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, and women’s fight for equality. One only has to look at issues of the UMWA Journal from the mid-1970s to see that something was new.
Additionally, the party recognized that the U.S.-led world economy had peaked, and was in the early days of a multi-decade downward spiral that would pit industrial workers against the world’s capitalist rulers more frequently, more fiercely, and with higher stakes. That era continues to deepen today, and places today's industrial workers more and more at "center stage," as the party describes it, in spite of the best efforts of dunce-capped visionaries to ignore them with expressions like "post-industrial" and "service-oriented".
Not being in industry has always been viewed by Marxists as an abnormal situation, one that can only be maintained for brief periods of time, and for very specific reasons. The SWP has historically been an industrial-based party, with the main exception of the period following the McCarthy era. Even then, many members remained in industry, although the party did not organize political work there in any regular manner. The "industrialization" of the party could only be viewed as returning to the norms of any communist party since the 1800s. It is completely consistent with Marx's view that only the working class can fully transform society, and the organized industrial component of the working class is the most powerful section.
The party did not focus on meatpacking and mining at first. It focused on other industrial unions, such as those in auto, steel, electrical, and machinery. The inclusion of the mineworkers' union did come rather rapidly, and continues to be a party focus to this day. This, too, was a continuation of party activity - the party had a large miners contingent in the late 1920s and early 1930s, as it did also in the post-war 1940s. Coal miners in particular face conditions that bring them face-to-face with the largest capitalist enterprises in situations where life and death issues are posed. Logically, they have led some of the largest movements in modern US history, from the founding of the CIO, to the strikes during World War II, and the Miners for Democracy/Black Lung movement of the 1970s. The party's modern focus on meatpacking began in the 1980s with the UFCW’s Local P9 strike in Austin, Minnesota, and the spread of that movement throughout slaughter houses in the Midwest and beyond. This, too, was part of the party's continuity: the founding convention of the SWP in the late 1930s had a contingent from Austin, Minnesota, as well as other packing centers. Anyone interested in this issue can consult The Militant (themilitant.com). The author failed to mention the party's current focus on garment and textile workers.
The hostility of the author particularly comes out with the phrase "abandoned Trotskyism in the 1980s." This implies that Trotsky's legacy and contributions were abandoned. For the real record, one should read Jack Barnes’ book, "Their Trotsky and Ours," readily available at Pathfinderpress.com or from Pathfinder distributors in about 30 cities. The party continues to publish and distribute nearly every book available by Trotsky, a leader of the Russian revolution and an outstanding marxist, who opposed and explained the development of a bureaucratic caste in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, and that state's parallel abandonment of revolutionary socialism.
The author refers to the expelling of party members, and associates that with Jack Barnes and the “abandonment of Trotskyism.” But the process was far more complex, and focused on the decision by the party majority to have all of its members participate in the industrial turn – several years after the original decision was made. The issues, which cannot be easily summarized, turn around the “democratic-centralist” character of a communist party and fundamentally the class composition of the party. Such debates and splits are also a vital and common occurrence as Marxist organizations come to grips with historical events. Those who disagree with such developments often go on to found opposing organizations and apparently/appropriately become authors of encyclopedia entries.
Although active in the Socialist Workers Party for over 30 years, I rarely heard it referred to as a "Castro-ist" party, and never by party members, as I recall. Perhaps the author circulates in a group that uses that term and considers that to be a slander, but there certainly are worse things to be called. However, I think that in order to become an “…-ist”, one must believe that there is a new development or line of thought being expounded by the bearer of the name. In my personal opinion, the SWP does not believe that Fidel Castro has made new contributions to Marxist theories in any way that would justify becoming “Castro-ist”, as opposed to “Marx-ist”, “Engels-ist”, and “Lenin-ist”. Castro, like Trotsky, represents an extremely vital continuation of marxism in practice, but there is no need to iconize or exploit those names. While I believe the party does view Cuba as a big part of the vanguard of the world revolution, one should read The Militant (themilitant.com) and books published by Pathfinder (pathfinderpress.com) for a full view of the party's attitude towards Cuba.
That’s all – a discussion piece much bigger than the few words in the encyclopedia. The purpose isn’t to generate a debate or get back at anyone – just to present the perspective of someone who was a voluntary participant in many of the events described in the article – described incorrectly and unscientifically, in my personal opinion.
[edit] A reaction to the above comment
Some good points here, some of which are accounted for very well on the page about the SWP US. It seems better that this entry on Barnes remain focussed on Barnes himself rather than the SWP. DICTATORSHIP OR DEMOCRACY - It's an excellent point to say that it's pointless and misleading to demonise Barnes. Clearly, there was a qualitative change in the politics of the SWP during the 1980s. Barnes clearly played a leading role in this process, but had the national committee majority behind him. Most would also say that the SWP organisational and democratic norms changed: those who were expelled, such as the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, argued it was done undemocratically and wrong-headedly. BREAKING WITH TROTSKYISM - This seems a fair description of the SWP's evolution. However, if the SWP feel it unfair, it would be better to write of a "break with Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution and the struggle to build the Fourth International." In so far as Trotsky agrees with the Leninism, and opposition to Stalinism and the third period, the SWP agree with him. However, Trotskyism clearly refers to the politics of the movement that Trotsky and the SWP founded: the FI. The defining aspects of that movement: permanent revolution in the developing world; anti-bureaucratic revolution in the workers' states and the notion of socialist democracy. Of course, the SWP no longer calls itself Trotskyist and the word is dropped, for example, from the title of Joseph Hansen's book on Cuba. CASTROISM - Similary, it is mistaken to call the SWP a Castoist party. The SWP's 'New International' strategy in the 1980s and 1990s was one of convergence with the Castroist current. However, it's clear that the SWP has its own ideology. --DuncanBCS 19:19, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Jack Barnes [Australian]
You know, I am looking for info on Jack Barnes the Australian biolgist
PARTY'S TURN AWAY FROM SECTARIANISM IN THE 1980s A STEP FORWARD
As someone who was a member of the SWP as a youth and who left it disenchanted for both personal and political reasons in the mid-70s, I found myself-in the wake of capitalism having made my "turn" for me as it does for most workers-in a somewhat ironic position in the early 1980s, several years after my departure from the group, having apparently a distinctly minority view among ex-members in viewing the party's evolution in that period as a step forward.
First thing to keep in mind is that many of those who left the Party in this period were hardened party functionaries in their own right who, like the hacks purged by Stalin, showed little compunction in harrassing those who didn't toe the party line when they were in favor. Thus little sympathy is merited for them as ostensible victims.
Secondly, and this more important point is almost always left out in discussions of this period, there was a deeper change in the party's line at this time as during the 70s the SWP became under the influence of a subtle and sophisticated form of right opportunism of the social democratic type (worthy of Max Schactman) in which sectarian dogma covered for abstention from and right wing hostility to what were viewed as "ultraleft," "reformist" and "Third World Stalinist" struggles. Concomitant with that was, unfortunately all too typical of trotskyites, a drift towards anti-communism with the SWP supporting the right-wing mobilizations in Portugal and opposing the Angolan revolution (until correctly reversed later) and increasingly displaying hostility to Cuba and VietNam. It is important to note in that connection that Ed Heisler who had risen to a central leadership position of the party and insinuated himself into Barnes' intimacy was later revealed to be a long-time FBI plant and informant.
Thus the US government had subtly managed to influence the party's political line in attempt to marginalize it as a dogmatic sect like the SLP. Therefore it can be seen that the turn toward industry was also, most laudibly, coupled with an abandonment of this anti-communist like line and adoption of solidarity and support for the revolutions in Nicaragua and Grenada, something I was very pleasantly surprised to find they had done, as I expected presicely the opposite: embittered right-wing hostility of the 'Lyndon LaRouche Lite' type that animates so many Old Left sects.
The fact that these yuppie critics had a different line and intitially even refused to take the Sandinista Revolution seriously but rather viewied it as something meriting scorn and jest, as they did the plight of workers more generally for whom they had little respect, is something that needs to viewed very seriously not so much in analyzing their critique of the SWP but in assessing these individuals and their milieu more generally.
Moreover, one would think that intellectual honesty would dictate a least a grudging respect for the party's turn to industry from those among the disenchanted who had precisely called for that policy years before in 1971. The fact that they haven't can only make one think that we are dealing with philistines who are into differences for differences sake and contrived arguments typical of the narcissistic mentality of so many intellectuals. Unfortunately, the formalistic, parliamentarian (and yes, downright bureaucratic) concepts of democracy that the SWP had were a breeding ground for those kind of people. However,they and that process has little to do with a party that is part of a mass movement.
The Fall 1983 issue of New International is an excellent one that in addition to the article by Barnes has an excellent one by Mary Alice Waters about the history of the Paris Commune that I found very informative and inspiring at the time as this was an historical episode I knew little about. "Permanent Revolution," without parsing all of its obscure tenets basically evolved into a mystical shibboleth that even those propounding it didn't understand and was emblematic of the "trotskyist movement" having devolved into an ossified and irrelvant talmudic sect or set of sects. It is to the credit of the Party that they split from this mode. Unfortunately it is a process that has not gone far enough and I would point to, while I have some political differences with them as well, Workers World Party as more of an activist model both organizationally and politically for a socialist party to take. Tom Cod
[edit] "Insignificant sect"
I have cut the comment below from the page.
Jack Barnes' leadership has been beyond any serious challenge for over two decades, since the purging of many old Trotskyist cadre in the early 80s and the simultaneous rapid shrinkage in membership precipitated by the ill-advised 'turn to industry'. Today the U.S. SWP numbers less than 200 core members, with several dozen other cadre scattered over Canada, Scandinavia, Great Britain, France, New Zealand and Australia. Jack Barnes, together with his partner Mary-Alice Waters and college buddy Steve Clark, form the leadership of the SWP, exempted from working in difficult industrial jobs and yet remarkably unproductive as intellectuals of the working class. Over the years, Barnes' ideological ticks have become more random and eclectic. For instance, Barnes and the SWP have abstained totally from the movement against the war in Iraq, mimicking Bush administration language in denouncing the Iraqi resistance as nothing more than "Baathist remnants" even when the attacks are carried out by clearly Islamist elements.
ratonale for the cut: It does not reflect a neutral point of view. Some comments -- No SWP secretary faced a serious challenge since 1952 -- Comments on the SWP are better placed on the SWP page -- SWP leadership probably more than three people. -- Point about not taking the turn is good. Certainly work including, also comment that Waters is partner also useful if true. --DuncanBCS 12:34, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, and it's simply not true that they have "abstained totally" from the anti-Iraq war movement or that they echo President Bush's line in any material respect. The actual views of the SWP can be viewed at http://www.themilitant.com Tom Cod
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