|
The Spartacist League (or, usually pejoratively, the Sparts) is a Trotskyist political grouping. They are officially called the United States section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) — formerly the ''International Spartacist Tendency'' — but the term "Spartacist League" is popularly used by members as well as non-members. This Spartacist League named themselves after the original Spartacus League of Weimar Republic Germany, though the current League has no formal descent from it. Depending on the context, the League will often self-identify as a "revolutionary communist" organization. In the United States, the group is small, but very vocal, and its activities within leftist-activist coalitions and wide-scale social justice protest movements usually focus on trying to portray themselves as the most authentically communist group present at that activity. In response, most comparable radical left groupings specifically deride the "Sparts", by name, as being a nuisance, an allegation which is not often repeated against other US Trotskyist groupings. They are also notable for their defense of the North American Man/Boy Love Association〔(Sinister Conviction of Boston Priest ), reprinted from the ''Workers' Vanguard'', 4 March 2005. Accessed 15 February 2015〕 and Roman Polanski,〔(Down with age of consent laws! Government out of the bedroom! Hands off Roman Polanski! No extradition! ), reprinted from the ''Workers' Hammer'', Winter 2009-2010. Accessed 15 February 2015〕 as well as supporting the government of North Korea.〔(Nuclear Test Rattles Imperialists! Defend North Korean Deformed Workers State! ), reprinted from the ''Workers' Vanguard'', 5 June 2009. Accessed 15 February 2015.〕 Although the Spartacist League stresses its Trotskyist orthodoxy, claims to be of the direct heritage of Trotskyism in the USA, and places a great deal of importance on being ideological adherents of James P. Cannon, they still retain some positions from their origins within the Shachtmanite tendency, meaning that they reject to this day the "Proletarian Military Policy" associated with both Leon Trotsky and James P. Cannon in the early years of the Second World War; they forthrightly argue that this position was wrong. This is best summarized in the Prometheus Research Library's 1989 publication ''Documents on the "Proletarian Military Policy"''. ==Background== The origins of the Spartacist League go back to a left-wing tendency within the Young Socialist League, which was linked to the Independent Socialist League led by Max Shachtman, in the 1950s. This group objected to Shachtman's plans to merge the ISL into the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation and the YSL into the Young People's Socialist League. This "left wing caucus" was then persuaded to join the Socialist Workers Party's youth group, American Youth for Socialism, in a larger, theoretically independent, Young Socialist Alliance in 1960. A central influence in the recruitment of the former Shachtmanite youth leaders to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) was Murray Weiss who, together with Myra Tanner Weiss, would be among the few older members of the SWP to speak up when the newly recruited youth were later expelled. Another important influence on the emerging tendency was Dick Fraser, who developed the theory of revolutionary integrationism, later adopted by the Spartacist League, which argued that Blacks in the USA constituted a color-caste who could only be fully integrated into society as a result of a social revolution overthrowing capitalism. Like the Weisses, Fraser would exit the SWP in the mid-1960s, going on to lead the Freedom Socialist Party. Also important in the early days were Shane Mage and Geoff White, who had a background in the Communist Party. By 1960 this grouping, mostly active in the youth group associated with the SWP, had become worried by what they saw as the opportunism of the leadership of the SWP headed by Farrell Dobbs and by overtures by the SWP to the International Secretariat of the Fourth International. Particular issues in the dispute included the character of the Cuban revolution, characterized by the majority as a "healthy workers' state", and proper orientation towards the Civil Rights Movement, where the majority attitude was that of uncritical support from afar. Rather than continue as leadership of the youth group, faction leader James Robertson and the others formed an opposition caucus named the ''Revolutionary Tendency'' and made clear their loyalty to the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in 1962. Differences developed in the Revolutionary Tendency as to how to characterise the SWP, leading to a split within the caucus. A minority closer to the ICFI left to form the ''Reorganised Minority Tendency'' (RMT), led by Tim Wohlforth, just as the Robertson-led grouping was being expelled from the SWP. The RMT played a role in the expulsion of the Robertson grouping, on grounds of "party disloyalty". Under the party name "Lyn Marcus," Lyndon LaRouche was briefly a member of the Revolutionary Tendency and then of the American Committee for the Fourth International (ultimately, opposed to the Spartacist League) as he circulated through various groupings on the Left in the 1960s.〔 (PublicEye.org - A '60's Socialist Takes a Hard Right )〕 LaRouche and the Spartacists were at odds no later than early 1972, when the SL published a two-part article declaring LaRouche's Labor Committee to be "Crackpot Social Democracy," 〔"The Labor Committee: Crackpot Social Democracy," Part I: ''Workers' Vanguard,'' no. 5 (Feb. 1972), pp. 8,5; Part II: no. 6, (March 1972), pp. 2, 6.〕 followed in the spring of 1973 by a polemic against the LaRouche organization as "Scientology for Social Democrats."〔"Scientology for Social Democrats," ''Workers' Vanguard,'' no. 19 (April 27, 1973), pg. 4.〕 Having been expelled in 1964, the Robertson group were swift to publish a theoretical journal entitled ''Spartacist'', from which they would later take their name. They still stressed their loyalty to the International Committee for the Fourth International, and attended that body's conference held in London, England, in 1966, only to find themselves shut out from the conference's ranks. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Spartacist League (US)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|