On Mon, Oct 21, 2024 at 08:19 PM, Charlie wrote: > > Gandall is a keen observer of the surface of things, period. Today some > Trotskyites still dwell on cursing Stalin > >
Charlie, you will take this as wholly.personal but it is largely intended to make a political point: When you are trying to persuade others, what you say is can be less important than how you say it. You need look no futher for proof than Marxmail. Here we have two regular Stalinist contributors on on a list which is predominately composed of anti-Stalinist Trotskyists and ex-Trotskyists and their sympathizers. One of them is tactful, patient, tolerant, and friendly and has widely earned the respect of others in the group. The other resorts to insults and sarcasm when confronted with strongly held opposing views. .Calling me an enabler or a liar or superficial and your latest broadside against “Trotskyites” (which I’m not) is less designed to persuade than to provoke, to widen differences with myself and others rather than to narrow them. How you intervene is even more important outside our narrow circle, where it counts - among the politically less informed and more diverse masses. Most trade union and movement activists have vaguely liberal and social democratic leanings and are conditioned to regard Marxists and Leninists as alien or, at best, exotic creatures. They are not suddenly converted like Tarsus of Saul when introduced to snippets from Capital or the party press or website. Persuading individual workers in a period when the class as a whole isn’t moving requires long personal and, above all, friendly contact. Those Marxist comrades of different tendencies who I encountered in the unions, the left-centre parties, and the antiwar and other movements who by temperament had this skill were able to build a following. Those bookish intellectuals who grudgingly made the industrial turn at their party’s request and did not mix easily with others, did not. They grew frustrated at the failure of the other workers and activists to grasp the truth of what they were saying and to break, as expected, with their reformist leaders, and they generally left quickly. It’s just as well you were not active in these wider political milieus because I have little doubt this would have been your experience, as well. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#33094): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/33094 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/109145577/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
