League for the Revolutionary Party

An interview with a member of the League for the Revolutionary Party conducted on April 18, 2009 at the Left Forum in New York City. Their website: http://www.lrp-cofi.org/

The League for the Revolutionary Party is a Trotskyist organisation in the United States.

The group was founded by a faction of the now defunct Revolutionary Socialist League in 1973. The RSL had in turn split from the International Socialists in 1971.

The LRP took from the RSL a strong stress on the need for a Leninist party and coupled this with an emphasis on the general strike tactic. They also developed their own version of what is called "state capitalist theory" to explain the class nature of the USSR and similar states. In later years they abandoned use of the term "state capitalist" in favor of the term "statified capitalism, arguing the difference between Stalinist and traditional capitalist countries is in the form that the ruling class holds its property, and that the proletariat is still exploited and surplus value created in the same way. The LRP views the state in Stalinist countries as a weaker form of the capitalist state, less capable of exploiting the workers but still ruling in the interest of the bureaucracy. This form of state is seen as a compromise by the ruling class, sacrificing a portion of profits to pacify the workers and prevent proletarian revolutions. As such, the LRP viewed the collapse of the Soviet Union as a defeat for the workers not because the workers lost control of the state, as many Trotskyists believe, but because of the increased rate of exploitation and destruction of social welfare programs that accompanied the collapse.

The group is based in New York with a branch in Chicago. It also organizes a group of international co-thinkers called the Communist Organisation for a Fourth International. They publish a journal called Proletarian Revolution, formerly Socialist Voice, to which the late Sy Landy and Walter Daum have been notable contributors.

Category:

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• Trotskyist
• Trotsky
• Communism
• Left
• Radical
• Revolution
• Left Forum
• Pace University
• Radical Unionism

[destructicon500]

These guys don't seem like Trotskyists at all... do they advocate a Leninist vanguard?

[buddhagem]

Links in the sidebar if you'd like to learn more about the League of the Revolutionary Party

[gangstarr92]

@commissarusa : I think that's pretty convincing. I nearly had the same thoughts and the same developement. Trotsky and Lenin had some great ideas, but they were violent authoritarians after all. I don't want to say you shouldn't read their writings, you can still learn a lot from thei theories, and you definitely should learn something from their practical mistakes, which is that trying to change society in a violent/authoritarian way makes it even worse. Forcing people to be free is paradox ;)

[chrispollock]

i cannot hear this communist over the sound of freedom and prosperity and opportunity offered by capitalism. imperfect but better than anything else. eat it, revolutionaries.

[RedStalin1928]

LOL. A bunch of Trot revisionists. League for a REVISIONIST Party is more like it...

[adiosucks123]

@buddymac201 That's not the idea of revolutionary Marxism. I'm not a Trotskyist but I am a Marxist. It's not an I'm right your wrong thing, or forcing people to follow you.

[TheHerbulator]

@GagesChannel Well, Lenin certainly did quite a bit to prevent Stalin from taking power, he seemed to fear it, rightly so I'd argue.

[MD40LD50]

how about you learn somthing...americans kill dirty fucking dog shit reds like you...wonder why...might want to find out or forever be a stupid red unable to think for urself....oh wait thats the whole idea of being a red is you dont think...well enjoy makeing every single death for americas freedom worthless..well untill ur blood is spilled

[MrSkosig]

you have nothing to loose apart from your shit hair cut

[buddymac201]

My views are right your views are wrong, and if u dont agree with me, my ppl will use violence to make you agree with my views. what a joke!

[GagesChannel]

Lenin didn't know stalin would take power the man who was to take over was trotsky but stalin ecused him of treason and deported him to mexico so lenin had good intentions.