It appears that there was no Oberlin Conference this year.
I could be wrong. But here it is--three weeks into July--and there is no report on the Oberlin conference. What's more, I don't recall any previous mention of the conference in recent issues of The Militant. Usually they advertise said conferences in advance, inviting people sympathetic to the Party to attend.
The Party refers to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), and said Party has been hosting annual conferences ever since I was a member (beginning in 1969), and then probably for years before that. Those conferences have traditionally occurred on the campus of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio--though in 2021 and 2022 they were moved to Wittenberg College. Because of the pandemic, no conference was held in 2020, which would be the only year they've missed in at least 55 years.
Until this year. Or so it seems. Maybe I'm just jumping the gun and next week there will be a full account in The Militant (the Party's newspaper) on the Oberlin Conference. Or maybe the conference has been delayed for some reason and will happen later this Summer, as happened in 2021.
I hope I'm wrong. I'll be happy to eat my words, or eat crow, or whatever it is an ex-comrade has to eat when he gets it wrong--but if the Oberlin conference really didn't happen this year, that would be bad news. My last post was entitled Is Trotskyism Dead?, and it appears it was prescient.
I can only think of three possible reasons why.
First, perhaps the Party's leaders are just too old. The National Secretary (CEO) is Jack Barnes, born in 1940, turns 84 this year. He's served as leader since 1972, or 52 years. That's longer than Stalin (30 years) or Mao Tse-Tung (32 years) reigned as head of their respective Communist Parties. Comrade Barnes has even out-lasted his bff Fidel Castro, who ruled from 1976 to 2008, retiring at the youthful age of 82.
It's pretty obvious that the SWP has a leadership succession problem.
It's not just Mr. Barnes, but the second member of the Troika (my term for the Party's leadership) is Mary-Alice Waters. She, along with Comrade Jack, graduated from Carleton College in the early sixties--whether at the same time or a year or two apart, I don't know--but she is approximately Mr. Barnes' age. Indeed, she's been his lifelong companion--and at least for much of that time his main squeeze. Party leadership apparently runs in the family.
The third member of the Troika (that's why it's called a Troika) is Steve Clark. Comrade Clark is much younger than Comrades Barnes & Waters--indeed, I think he's younger than I am, which suggests he's about 71 or 72.
Oberlin conferences come in two flavors. In most years they are an Educational Conference, held mainly to get comrades together and touch base with the big ideas. In some years they are a Convention (the last one took place in December, 2022) where the Party approves a new program (called the Political Report) and supposedly elects new leadership. I have compiled the attendance at recent Oberlin conferences here.
Either way--whether it is a Political Report or simply a Keynote Speech--Comrade Barnes has to prepare a major presentation. Plus he has to be physically able to travel. I'll suggest that he is no longer able to complete one or both of those tasks, and therefore leadership succession in the Party becomes an urgent issue.
The second possible reason for no conference is that they're running out of money. As commenter John B wrote here, the Party (as of 2023) has only $6 million left from the $20 million horde it got by selling its building. That cash has to subsidize publication of The Militant, along with costs associated with Pathfinder Press.
A third possible reason--depressing in its own way--is that there is nothing to talk about. The median age of our comrades is probably about 70, they've all attended dozens of Oberlin Conferences, and the notion that they somehow require more "education" seems silly. Plus the travel costs are expensive.
The Party is running candidates for US president and vice-president this year--Rachele Fruit and Dennis Richter, respectively. They're doing their usual respectable job of campaigning--its obviously on a small scale, but nobody can accuse them of lack of professionalism. They are working to get on the ballot in at least a few states, notably Tennessee and Vermont.
But their program doesn't inspire. Rachele Fruit says it all: ‘Workers need to form our own party, a party of labor’. A true Trotskyist demand is a demand on the bourgeoisie, and not an exhortation to the working class. Beyond saying that the "ruling class" is evil and does not rule in workers' interests, the Party doesn't demand of the rulers to do anything hard or impossible. There is no demand similar to what Trotsky describes in the Transitional Program.
Indeed, their demand is identical to all the other so-called Trotskyist grouplets. Left Voice's lead slogan is The Presidential Debate Showed the Time Is Now to Build a Party that Fights for Immigrant Rights, Workers’ Needs, and Socialism. (With a title like that who needs to read the article?)
If the SWP styles itself as the Vanguard Party, then Jeff Mackler, while nominally the head of the mostly defunct group Socialist Action, stands alone as the vanguard of the proletariat--I call him Vanguard Man.
Vanguard Man ran for president (of the USA) twice, in 2016 and again in 2020. Mr. Mackler is roughly Jack Barnes' age (perhaps a bit older), which means he's older than Joe Biden. And it showed--apart from a brief tour of southern New England there was no further activity. For some reason Mr. Mackler chose to run again in 2020, running a similarly lackadaisical campaign. Indeed, it was a lot like Mr. Biden's campaigning from his basement. I had fun mocking the attempt with headlines like Boring Jeff Mackler Runs for President Again and Jeff Mackler Quits 2020 Race!
Unfortunately my comedic routine won't be repeated this year--Mr. Mackler appears not to be running in 2024. It seems he has health problems--expected of an 84 year-old--and is no longer able to travel very much. Which means the working class is screwed--after all, once Vanguard Man is gone, there will be nobody left to lead the Revolution. The imperialists will win.
As far as I know, Mr. Mackler has not endorsed any other candidate for president. Apparently none of them rise to the class consciousness of our Vanguard Man. After all, having spent 30 years as a California school teacher and living now probably 30 years into retirement receiving a generous pension from the Golden State--Mr. Mackler surely knows what it's like to be a poor, miserable oppressed worker--just like the shlub at Walmart with no health insurance (who's gonna vote for Trump!).
Compared to comrades Mackler, Barnes and Waters, Joe Biden is a spring chicken--a perfect symbol of youth. But it appears that time has caught up to him as well.
The SWP, despite their advancing age (or perhaps because of it) knows better what the real working class is about:
- That civil liberties are important, and an attack on one (Donald Trump) is implicitly an attack on all American workers.
- The murdering all
JewsZionists in Israel is not moral, and is certainly not in the best interests of the Palestinian people. - That Wokeism is not an ideology that benefits the working class, but instead is a set of Orwellian language and practices mandated by the petty bourgeois, academic elite.
