The Truth About the Vietnam War Protest Movement

Speaking about the impending war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Marxists write the folowing.

The questions about how Marxists should organize against imperialist war that were posed 25 years ago at the beginning of the Vietnam antiwar movement are again raised by the unfolding Gulf crisis. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Bolshevik Tendency (BT) has attempted to intervene in recent antiwar mobilizations on the basis of a consistent revolutionary Marxist perspective.

The unwritten rule of popular-frontistformations is that no one can present a Marxist analysis of the contradictions of imperialism, or the necessity for revolutionary struggle, because this would alienate people still in the liberal -Democratic camp. The BT proposal generated considerable discussion, and was narrowly defeated. But the WWP had a majority, and so the ECSUSWME remained a popular-frontist propaganda bloc based on a reformist/utopian program. The BT has also intervened in the other major coalition in the Bay Area, Socialist Actions Committee Against a Vietnam War in the Middle East (CAVME).

CAVME is organized around a single demand: U.S. Out of the Middle East! But Socialist Action (SA) proved no more open to the proposal to create a united front than the WWP. It is not just a matter of excluding revolutionaries. The SA reformists are so firmly committed to building a multi-class single issue antiwar movement based on liberal politics that they do not put forward their own speaker at CAVME events!

True to their 1960s SWP heritage, SA measures the success of an event purely by how many people participate, rather than the politics that they are organized around. SA considered the teach-in at Berkeley on 14 September a huge success. A BTspokesperson who attended a 22 September CAVME meeting disagreed: We do not think the teach-in on the 14th was a big success from a revolutionary perspective because out of the over 20 speakers, not one, not one put forward a revolutionary defeatist position; nor was a class-struggle perspective to end war put forward. In our opinion this amounts to an anti-communist exclusion of your left-wing opponents.
http://www.bolshevik.org/1917/no9/no09babt.html

My web site is here.
http://www.grademastersales.com/Jed.html

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[meronmotors]

It is CRIMINAL what the media did to our vietnam soldiers. I will never forgive them or the youth of the time or SPAT on our soldiers on return. You are probably the one who lives in a homless shelter. Did you know 3/4 people who claim to be vietnam vets are not.

[martymcfett]

2 WORDS... BULL SHIT! You're full of it!

Let me ask you something... are YOU a Marxist?

Ron Paul is the Constitution's best friend. He's a BORN, DAMN GOOD American citizen. Who's side are you on?

Get a life, seriously.

[navinmnrk]

POLITICAL IS FULL OF SHIT ALL AROUND THE WORLD,TRUTH IS DIEING ,LIES IS RISEING,THERE IS TWO THIS WE WANT TO FIGHT AND WE ONLY FIGHTIS GOOD AGAINST BAD,BUT WAR IS GOING ON IN THE NAME OF ALL RELIGION.THINK THERE ONLY GOOD PEOPLE AND BAD PEOPLE.PLEASE FIGHT FOR GOOD PEOPLE,EVER FOR GOOD COMMUNIST PEOPLE.LIFE WILL BE BETTER FOR EVER.