Talk:Larry Trainor

2006 Comments

It was precisely this that contributed to the SWP developing into an insular and ossified sect isolated from the mass movement, a trend that continued to develop even when the radical movement was in its heyday. Fundamentally, it reflected right wing "redneck" workerist resentnment and hostility to the movement-that is at the heart of trostkyite sectarianism generally-coupled with a bureaucratic and small shopkeeper mentality. This led to an increasing obsession with petty rules and apoliticalization at the expense of political activism and solidarity, a mentality manipulated by reactionary goverment agents like Ed Heisler. Thus, all protestations to the contrary, it reflected a reactionary mentality characteristic of religious sects who seek not to lead society, but counterpose themselves to it, which was exactly the attitude of the Party towards the radical movement. Ironically, Trainor himself was the victim of this. A good and somewhat comical take on this was provided by two hippie characters in the Party named Sudie and Geb who wrote a Marcusian screed in this period "Against A Proletarian Orientation."Tom Cod

This is an interesting anonymous comment. Certainly Trainor both reflected and deepened a tendency in US Trotskyism to be somewhat fearful of, and cautious towards, recruiting from outside the trade unions. It is very likely that this acted as both a strength and a weakness at times. It was a semi-sectarian defence that ensured the survival of the organisation but also allowed to to connect with the upsurge less easily than European Trotskyism. While it helped to partly protect the SWP from the disorienting Stalinophobia what disoriented the supporters of Max Shachtman and Pierre Lambert, it also separated the SWP from the mainstream of the radicalisation in the 1970s in a number of ways that included its cultural conservatism. However, it would be mistaken to say that this reflected hostility to the movement, or to assume that the SWP is indicative of the rest of Trotskyism. The SWP's activists -- and even Trainor -- were active in supporting the Black struggle, the movement against the Vietnam war and the student and youth radicalisation. However, the SWP failed to integrate and learn from the new generations of radicals, largely because of its relative conservatism. The SWP's organisations in Britain, France and elsewhere also participated in the broader movement, but they were able to adapt to that movement more easily. Activists like Tariq Ali and Alain Krivine, who joined the USFI groups in Europe, would have been repelled by the SWP, a point that Ali makes in his autobiography. Generally, the Trotskyist movement is not hostile to the broad movement and the exceptions, such as the current led by Gerry Healy, are expections. It would be hard to image the SWP supporting movements that appeared in other countries and which were enthusiastically and materially supported by Trotskyists in those countries: from Rock Against Racism to the European Social Forum. However, the seeds of such openness were in the SWP, as is shown by the American Socialist Union, the Freedom Socialist Party and Solidarity (US). --Duncan 14:48, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

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Thanks, I would say that the International Socialists (ISO) and Workers World Party, in terms of ostensible trot groups, had and continue to have, a healthier social attitude and posture in this regard notwithstanding other political problems with them. Actually during much of this period the SWP drifted into a subtle Shachtmanite anti-communism evidenced by demoralizing attacks on Vietnam, Cuba and Angola among other things. In this regard, the Party's turn in the 80s represented an important rectification (obviously without acknowledging anything but eternal infallability) with its solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution, which other trot groups belittled and mocked in the manner of yuppie philistines recycling the lies of Reagan in the interest of Wall St under the cover of orthodox marxism. They're for a revolution all right-its just that the one going on now has to be opposed-is the political mode of these groups. This is not new, the notorious "New York Intellectuals" of the 30s having defined this mode, moving from "left wing" "trotskyists" in the orbit of the America First crowd to the leading exponents of cold war liberalism in the 50s and 60s, moving farther right to laying the foundations of "neoconservatism" beginning in the late 70s-Tom Cod

You have some excellent insights. I hope you register for an account and spend some more time here. I think it might be be fair to extend your point: It is arguable that the SWP's introversion into a life centred on bookselling and the ossification of its positions into orthodoxy now place most groups with a Trotskyist origin closer to the social movements. I would be interested to compare the anti-Stalinism of the SWP to that of mainstream Trotskyism. Tne Fourth International gave critical support to Maoism's critique of Stalinism, as it had to Tito's. While their positions were not the same, it is interesting that the US Trotskyist who most favoured this approach, Arne Swabeck, found himself outside the SWP while Livio Maitan could retain his leading role in Europe. The SWP differed with the mainstream view that these leaderships were centrists, who could be pushed into revolution, rather than counter-revolutionary Stalinists. This is reflected well in Hansen's writings on China and in the debate between Fred Feldman and Pierre Rousset on the Vietnamese Communist Party. However, the SWP's attacks on what it saw as Stalinist-influenced errors by the Cuban, Vietnamese and Angolan leaderships were also balanced with a level of support which clearly differentiated them from currents like the ISO, ICFI and the Workers' Struggle group in France. On that point, the SWP was probabaly closer to the mainstream in Trotskyism. The viewpoint that those struggles were not revolutions is recognizably close to the politics of the ICFI, ISO and others on the 'Stalinophobic' left than it is the SWP, of the USFI more broadly. --Duncan 20:39, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

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I really disagree with the views of Mr. Evanchick expressed through the link that hits a raw nerve with me. Evanchick supports the views of the Workers League with which I am familiar and with which I was briefly involved in the early 70s as a 19-20 year old. This point of view and attitude in my opinion is classic economism as derided by Lenin in "What is to Be Done"(of a very cult like type, or the WL certainly was) that reflects a right wing "Archie Bunker" hostility to the radical movement of the time which represented, as any objective student of history knows, the real vanguard of social change.

To insist upon retreating from these battles during the heyday of the black struggle and the student movement-of the Black Panthers and Kent State-into some white ethnic backwater in that particular conjuncture represented a political capitulation to the ruling class under the cover of a formalistic and simple minded view of Marxism and social revolution, something trotted in mytical "philosophical" rhetorical garb of "dialectics" (laughable to any mature person, now we have "post modern" as the new hocus pocus) in order to befuddle the naive and weak willed and to demoralize and divert them from the real social battles, imperfect as they were that were going on.

Not suprisingly, this group and similar ones were steeped in a mean spirited reactionary bullying hostility (during a period when the ruling class was orgainizing "hard hat" hooligan attacks on students) to the progressive movement. My experiences with the Workers League really created in me a deep hostility to cult politics and "trotskyism" at least in this country. It's no accident at all that the neofascist LaRouche group emanated out of this mileu. Anyone who has listened to these guys bad mouth Pablo should take a dispassionate look at who he actually was and his accomplishments. A heroic partisan fighter jailed and tortured by the SS in WW2 and then by the French government during the Algerian War. His book written under his birth name Michel Raptis, "Revolution and Counter Revolution in Chile" should be read by all serious radicals and political people.

The Workers League and Healy represented no alternative to the SWP but rather were an even worse example of the political ills represented by this political trend. It is to the credit of them and the mass movement "Pabloites" like Krivine who played a leading role in the May-June 68 and Tariq Ali that they disassociated themselves from them. This of course did not stop these characters attempts at constant harrassment of these activists as their principal political activity which I think was connected to COINTELPRO political counter-insurgency and disruption of the people's struggle. At the very least, as Raptis pointed out in his book on Chile in a brief footnote that represents the only time I have ever seen him even deign to acknowledge these groups: they were isolated, marginal and played no role whatsoever in these historical events. It's groups like this that give credence to Maoist and New Left critiques of "trots" and their "utter rightism" that "shows how counter-revolutionary trotskyism is". (Irwin Silber, 1976). Thus eschewing the trot label by activist groups is entirely understandable, even if not correct in an academic sense.Tom Cod

This is an interetsing point of view. It worth considering how far economism is a concession to the interests of the labour aristocracy rather than to the ruling class directly. I was not aware of Raptis being held by the SS. Are you sure you're not thinking of Ernest Mandel? Lastly, the charges leveled at 'Pabloism' are really about the view of folk like Bert Cochran and John Lawrence, who broke with Pablo, and the FI, at the latest by 1954. --Duncan 12:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

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Yes, Pablo at least according to Livio Maitan's obituary of him which I have no reason to doubt, although I also don't doubt that Mandel did his duty in this period as well. The problem with Cochran, as explained to me once by Vince Copeland of Workers World, was as you suggest, not that he followed Pablo or some other ideological line but that wittingly or unwittingly he and his camp-understandbly-were using that as a vehicle to captitulate to the severe pressure of McCarthy, the Korean War and the 1950s anti-communist witchhunt, were demoralized and withdrawing from political activity when actually the seeds of a new upsurge were already being seen in the emerging civil rights struggle in the South and national liberation struggles in the Third World. Thus in a certain sense they were "liquidiationist" not that they were "liquidating" themselves by intervening into another mass trend, but rather were doing so in a more basic sense of withdrawing from political life. According to Copeland this was at the heart of the differences between he, March and their trend in the SWP ("Global Class War") had in this period with them: they were into being activists and the Cochranites, who had more of an affinity with intellectual study groups, were not.Tom Cod

I only know this obituary by Maitan, which makes no mention of him as a 'partisan fighter jailed and tortured by the SS in WW2'. Can you point me to the one which you have read? --Duncan 16:26, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

2009 Comment

What was Trainor's post-SWP history? Is he still living? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.102.205.220 (talk) 20:02, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Deletions

Some folks I know who knew Larry Trainor considered the earlier version to be tendentious rather than neutral. Some deletions were made by Mary Scully. I added three references and some neutral text. David keil (talk) 20:42, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi David, it's Duncan here from International Viewpoint. I've restored the material you removed with your last edit. I'm not sure if you meant to remove it but it's referenced material in a biography that is still short. Wikipedia is really focussed on things that are referenced (the unpublished memories of others is excluded as original research. Removing references is a really unusual thing to do here. --Duncan (talk) 01:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

All...we need more information...like his date of birth and death.

DavidMIA (talk) 21:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)