Socialist Action Splits!

A couple of days ago Socialist Action published a long post entitled Anatomy of the Recent Split in Socialist Action. It contains a short introduction by Jeff Mackler, followed by the Political Resolution Adopted by the Socialist Action National Committee Plenum, October 6, 2019, detailing the political differences that resulted in divorce. It comes to nearly 11,000 words.

The bottom line is that 29 comrades have left the organization, including the former editor of their newspaper (whom I believe is Michael Schreiber). It's a bit under a third of the total membership. They are referred to in the Resolution as the Permanent Revolution Faction (PRF), and I will use that terminology. I will call those remaining in Socialist Action, specifically the authors of the resolution, the Majority. The PRF has since gone on to found a new organization called Socialist Resurgence. I have not yet had time to study their webpage and so do not know their response to the Majority's resolution. I'll get to that in a later post.

The first topic of disagreement is trans liberation. Here is what the Majority claim:

We begin with our stance of full support to and respect for transgender people’s fundamental right to self-identify and for the full, unequivocal inclusion of trans people in every aspect of society. Gender is a social construct, which is formed by economic, cultural, historical, biological, and class factors. In matters of gender identity, as with sexual orientation, an individual knows best what is right for them. We reject any assertion that their identity is in any way inauthentic or invalid. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. 

That trans people should be assured the civil and human rights is incontrovertible--even I support that! But then they go off the rails. The "social construct" theory is just factually wrong, touted only by ideologues in academic women's studies departments. Nobody who has ever raised children can take it seriously. The final claims--e.g., "trans women are women,"--are also false. If they said trans women are women with an asterisk, where the size and content of that asterisk varies considerably by individual, they'd be a whole lot closer to the truth.

An effort toward radical clarity leads them to oversimplify the whole issue--the trans phenomenon is not so easily dealt with. People with an interest in truth as opposed to mere revolutionary chic will not be able to take the Majority's position seriously. Beyond which, one wonders why the trans issue is so important, concerning, as it does, less than 1% of the population.

The Majority's position on Syria is similarly simplistic and counterfactual. The essential problem supposedly is "U.S. imperialism."

With few, if any exceptions these “rebels” have almost from the beginning been armed, trained, promoted and supported by U.S. imperialism and its NATO and Gulf State monarchy “coalition” as well as the Turkish government.

It's a real stretch to claim that the rebels have been significantly financed by the US, and certainly not since Trump took office. Further,

In Idlib today, the remaining “rebels,” who regularly launch missiles into Syria’s cities, exist only because of the support of the U.S., its NATO imperialist allies, and Turkey. These “rebels,” significantly, but decreasingly, control and dominate, via terror, the population of Idlib.

There are 3 million people in Idlib, including 1.1 million displaced from elsewhere in Syria. They are all Sunnis who potentially face slaughter at the hands of Assad's army. Beyond which, Assad, with Russian assistance, is barrel-bombing Idlib hospitals in the hope of driving the population out of the country. The Majority doesn't tell that side of the story, and the side it does tell isn't accurate.

The Majority presents a hypothetical:

In the course of this monstrous U.S. imperialist war, SA tragically finds itself divided. In Syria, we have explained, we would be on the side of the Syrian government. In Syria, the minority explains, they would be on the side of the nondescript “Syrian masses.”

This is very funny. If the Majority and PRF were both Sunni, then they'd all be refugees somewhere. If they were both Alawite then they'd all support the Syrian government. The notion that some theoretical distinction about "U.S. imperialism" might make any difference is absurd.

Apparently the PRF aren't the only people who speak for the masses. The Majority claims

The only way for serious revolutionaries to win the hearts and minds of the Syrian masses is to be in the front lines of the battle against imperialist intervention and invasion. [emphasis mine]  

In Syria there are no "masses." There are Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Palestinians, Druze, Assyrians, Kurds, and others--all fighting just for survival. The country--always artificial--hangs together now only by force of arms.

The Majority's error is again to oversimplify things to the point of complete falsehood. Surely Syria is more complicated than some kooky story about "U.S. imperialism." Whatever the PRF's opinions, there is at least some recognition of reality.

As a final example, the Majority's position on Venezuela is similarly reality-deprived. They write

The U.S. imperialist beast has sanctioned and embargoed Venezuela, the nation with the largest oil reserves in the world, since the Obama administration and before. These sanctions have led to mass starvation and the death of some 50,000 Venezuelans.

This is simply not true. It is correct that some US sanctions have been in place since 2008 (pdf).

In 2008, the Treasury Department imposed financial sanctions on two individuals and two travel agencies in Venezuela for providing financial support to the radical Lebanon-based Islamic Shiite group Hezbollah.

Two individuals do not an economy destroy. Subsequent sanctions were similarly narrow, in 2014 levying penalties on 89 people. It was only under Trump beginning in 2018 that economy-wide sanctions were imposed. By that time the Venezuelan economy had already imploded.

It's really easy to break stuff. The de-civilization of Venezuela began in 2006 when Hugo Chavez took money from the PDVSA (the state-owned oil company) and used it to buy services for the poor. The NY Times wrote

Critics see the spending as a reckless exercise in populist decadence intended to burnish Chávez's image while embarrassing the Bush administration, his principal obsession since American officials gave tacit support to a failed coup against him in 2002.

It was worse than "populist decadence." Essential maintenance on the oil infrastructure was not performed, and today it will require billions in new capital to repair the damage. In a word, Chavez killed the golden-egg-laying goose. It will be generations (if ever) before Venezuela recovers its previous living standard.

The PRF's sin apparently is pointing out the obvious fact that Maduro is substantially responsible for the disaster. The reward for truth-telling is expulsion.

Socialist Action had about one hundred comrades--now they're down to seventy. This because the so-called Vanguard Party, the sole inheritors of Revolutionary Truth, are unable to say anything truthful or coherent about the major issues of the day. It's not clear to me why I should continue writing about them--it could be they fall off the radar screen in a few months.

It seems they've fallen off their own radar screen. The supposedly important Jeff Mackler for President campaign hosted ZERO events in October, and has absolutely nothing scheduled for November. The idiots can't even ride down an escalator.

Further Reading:

• Boring Jeff Mackler Runs for President Again
• Socialist Action's Convention, 2018
• Democratic Centralism