A Tribute to Louis Proyect (1945-2021)

Louis Proyect’s death was announced just this week. Having just found out the news, I feel duty-bound to write something in tribute. A well-known and well-respected online Marxist commentator, with a blog that attracted millions of hits over many years, he is one of the people to which I am indebted for rescuing me from Trotskyism. I doubt he would have approved of my political trajectory since then, as he remained a staunch Marxist to the end. But in spite of this, it would be wrong not to say something about this remarkable man, whatever our political differences.

Early in January or February 2020, I came across his blog for what I believe is the first time. I then began several weeks of reading his posts avidly. Proyect was a former member of the Socialist Workers’ Party who joined in 1967, at the height of the counter-culture movement. He remained a member until the late 1970s when he left as a result of the organisation’s increasingly cultish ways, most notably the ‘turn to industry’ spurred on by Jack Barnes, James P. Cannon’s successor. Burned out after giving years of his life to the sect, he took a break from politics, but soon, his interest was revived by his friend Peter Camejo and the Nicaraguan revolution. Proyect and Camejo both came to the same conclusions – that the ‘Bolshevism’ practiced by Trotskyist sects like the SWP was a mockery of how the real Bolshevik Party under Lenin had functioned prior to (and some time after) 1917. Proyect gave his full support to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, even going over there to help the cause, and scorned those Trotskyists who dismissed them as ‘petty-bourgeois nationalists’. He wrote many articles on his blog defending them in the face of such criticisms, including the complaint that they failed to nationalise enough of the economy (a charge made by an IMT article that Proyect quoted in one of his many posts).

Proyect also followed the splits of various Trotskyist sects over the years, such as the SWP and ISO, all of which confirmed his view that the Trotskyist model of party-building was going nowhere fast and needed to be abandoned. He also wrote some riveting criticisms of Lenin and Trotsky’s actions in the early years of the Comintern, taking aim at the shibboleths of the past and arguing for a break with the Cominternist and Zionvievist model of ‘democratic centralism’. He had a mailing list, Marxmail, attached to his blog, where he and others linked articles from his blog and elsewhere, and debated politics with each other. As I read his blog, I began questioning the dogmas of my own sect, the International Marxist Tendency. This was at the same time as I was beginning to question our position on Lenin and Trotsky’s actions at the head of the Bolshevik regime after 1917. Our narrative on things like Kronstadt no longer seemed to make any sense when I actually examined the facts for myself. I exchanged a couple of emails with Proyect and joined his mailing list. I was on my way out, that much was clear, and I knew this very well. The courage to make the definitive break and resign was lacking, but I had lost all belief. Here is what Proyect told me in response to my email:

Thanks for the interesting feedback on your experience in Alan Woods’s
current. My advice is to be true to yourself politically, intellectually
and ethically. All of these leaders (Woods, Grant, Healy, Cannon, Cliff,
et al) were part of a generation that never learned to “think outside
the box”. The British and American Trotskyists tended to be more
“orthodox” than the Europeans like Mandel, Frank and Maitan who were far
more open to broader political currents but had their own problems.

My advice is to follow Marx was for the “ruthless criticism of all that
exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it
arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict
with the powers that be.” He was talking about the criticism of
bourgeois ideology but unless the left is willing to become iconoclastic
when it comes to its own shibboleths, it will fail to be relevant.

There are so many important Marxists outside the ranks of the IMT that
are worth reading from CLR James to Mariategui. I don’t know if you’ve
subscribed to the Marxism list but there are over 1,500 subscribers,
many of whom have come to conclusions similar to your own.

As I expected, when I raised my ideas with the powers that be, I was told to shut up and keep my views to myself. Not appreciating this, I resigned and broke with Trotskyism completely. It was on Proyect’s Marxmail that I confessed publicly my break with Trotskyism. IMT members happened to be among those on the email list and were no doubt outraged and disgusted by my breaching discipline in this way. I gave in my resignation that very day. It was not how I wanted it to end, but I feel no guilt for my actions. Their totalitarian organisational structure, which does not permit any meaningful debate or discussion, pushed me to such an act. If it was not for their corrupt internal regime, I would not have ended up denouncing my comrades publicly before hundreds of people on an internet mailing list. It was a denunciation they jolly well deserved. Many more will follow suit in the coming years. I am glad to have set a precedent. Here is what I wrote:

Hello folks,

So I sent an email to Louis about this, but thought it was worth introducing myself. I’m a 20-year-old student from Britain who is currently a member of the Grantite IMT led by Alan Woods, and the British section known as Socialist Appeal. We have a membership of just over 400 people and at my university myself and the comrades run the ‘Marxist Society’.

Over the past month and a half I have had a crisis of faith which has led me to abandon Trotskyism entirely. It all began as an investigation into the facts of the Kronstadt rebellion. It is clear that Trotsky’s explanation is complete bullshit, and that the rebel sailors were not counter-revolutionaries at all. They were murdered in cold blood for defending the genuine ideas of October. Our organisation promotes Trotsky’s false narrative. Falsehood of any kind makes me incredibly angry. Being forced to defend these lies in the name of ‘democratic centralism’ makes me even more angry.

But it didn’t stop there. I began reading more about the USSR’s degeneration and am no longer convinced that it was entirely down to ‘objective factors’. I think we have to concede that the Bolsheviks made some bad decisions which did not help matters at all and did pave the way for Stalin. I admire Lenin and Trotsky but if we are genuine Marxists we must be honest and objective and accept that they made mistakes which made possible the monstrous totalitarian nightmare that came after them. This does not mean rejecting Bolshevism entirely, but critiquing it and learning from it. Blind idolatry and worship of these figures is preposterous. That is not a Marxist or a scientific approach to history, yet so-called Marxists will defend their heroes to the death, even abusing dialectics to do so. However, if we take a dialectical approach to the question of the USSR, we must accept the interplay of subjective and objective factors. To praise Lenin and Trotsky for all the good things and blame all the bad things on the ‘objective’ situation is hypocritical formalism. It also manages to zig-zag between ‘Great Man’ history, which is idealist, and crude materialism, both of which are equally anti-Marxist.

I also stumbled across Louis’ blog around the same time and have been convinced by his withering critiques of ‘Leninism’ and ‘democratic centralism’, which has produced nothing but sects and cults. The IMT is no exception to this. Trapped in an echo-chamber, I was a true believer who thought only our organisation could lead the working-class to socialism. Little did I know that so many groups have tried the exact same thing and failed, not because they didn’t have the ‘correct’ leaders but because the whole model is inherently flawed and based on Zinovievist methods of organisation.

I went to the trouble of openly expressing my heresy with a couple of leading comrades – both the branch secretary who runs the society and the full-timer for our region. Both went into panic mode. After a failed attempt by the branch secretary to talk me out of my heresy I was dissuaded from raising these issues in branch because the new recruits had a ‘low political level’ (i.e. were stupid) and could easily be swayed by my heretical ideas. The full-timer gave me a call in which he brought out the whole gamut of ‘from a scratch to gangrene’ nonsense about how I was in danger of losing my soul to liberal hellfire unless I returned to the path of true Bolshevism and stopped reading the ‘wrong’ people about what happened in the Russian Revolution. I considered this bullshit, but I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he is paid to spout the party line and police comrades like some Grand Inquisitor for any sign of dissent.

A day after this phone call I had a reading group with the full-timer, the branch secretary and another comrade on a book written by Ted Grant and Alan Woods called ‘Russia: From Revolution to Counter-Revolution’. We covered the introduction and first chapter. I pointed out some inaccuracies and problems with our narrative about the revolution’s degeneration, and easily rebutted many of the frankly weak and tired cliches they kept putting forward. I even brought up stuff they had no knowledge of. So ignorant were they that they hadn’t even read that Trotsky set a date for the German revolution in 1923, or that he made a ‘rotten compromise’ with Stalin around the time of Lenin’s illness and death. The next day I had the full-timer message me on Facebook accusing me of ‘lowering the political level’ (i.e. not bowing down to the all-knowing full-timer trying to impose the correct ‘line’) and other nonsense. Pointing out factual inaccuracies in a book written by the organisation’s founders, it turns out, is even more heretical than criticising Trotsky.

I have since been told to write up a document of my disagreements to be circulated internally as part of a ‘democratic debate’. I’m not stupid and know it will be a waste of time. My thinking was to go along with it, and if I can convince at least a few people that our entire narrative is bullshit, it’s worthwhile, but now I don’t know. Maybe I should just resign and give up on this cult. Nevertheless, my eyes have been opened. The organisation really is toxic. Our internal life is nothing like that of the Bolsheviks pre-1917. We do not encourage dissent, debate, disagreement. We encourage conformity with the ‘line’ and unthinking obedience. Alan Woods and co are making all the errors they rightly accused the Taaffeites of making. We are building a cult of Trotsky and Ted Grant. It is sickening, really. It is, quite frankly, Stalinism. Why the hell does my disagreement on the issue of the USSR and the Comintern have to be a pretext for me being hounded out as a heretic? Why do we have to parrot the same line on what happened 100 years ago? What healthy organisation imposes such an intellectual straitjacket on its members? The Labour Party does not insist that all its members defend a ‘line’ on whether Tony Blair was a good PM or not. It is insanity. And yet this is our organisation, complete with its ‘centre’, its self-selecting CC voted in by slate, its know-it-all full-timers, its ‘correct’ line on everything. It is soft totalitarianism. Imagine if these people ever enjoyed state power.

I am quite honestly heartbroken. I have no social circle outside the organisation. I have met so many people I consider good friends over the past two years. I still have great respect for Alan Woods as a theoretician. I face leaving them all behind. I have spent so much time, money and energy helping build the organisation. Even now, I feel some loyalty to it. My Facebook feed is an echo-chamber of comrades from across the world. I am tempted to post my statement of resignation, but I am partly terrified at the response I will get. I am fairly well-known in the organisation, both by comrades in Britain and foreign comrades I happen to be Facebook friends with and see my posts on a regular basis. I have contemplated deleting my social media entirely so as to relieve myself of this stress. In any case, principles are more important than friendship. 

I am so disoriented and devastated right now, but also relieved that I am on the verge of freeing myself from mental servitude. At least it’s only been two years.

I know that IMT members saw it because at least one high-ranking member, Jorge Martín, linked it to me without comment via Facebook, and a couple of other comrades I spoke to after my resignation also seem to have seen it. I have no idea how many IMT members are on Marxmail. It could be a mere handful. I find it ironic that such intellectually stultified individuals, who are members of a cult that dissuades them from going near any critical information, would be part of a mailing list which is full of staunch critics of Trotskyism. Maybe they wanted to practice ‘entrism’ on Proyect’s mailing list? Or perhaps they are secretly doubting Trots who are open to new ideas? Who knows?

In the end, I had the courage of my convictions and I made my exit from the sect, knowing that slander and derision would result. But I was determined to take a great leap into the unknown and take my leave from something which was smothering and stultifying me. As the months went by, I discovered new thoughts, new feelings, new ideas and new books. I cleansed my mind of Trotskyist bullshit, and I have Proyect to thank for that. As it happens, I broke with Marxism entirely. Proyect would doubtless appreciate this less. I wonder if he ever found out about my ‘renegacy’, and felt guilt at having inadvertently turned me against Marxism? Or perhaps he was simply too ill and too busy with his blog and mailing list to remember the young British Marxist who emailed him out of the blue in the spring of 2020. What I will say is that if I was still a Marxist, I would not be a Trotskyist, but some sort of libertarian Marxist in the mould of a Hal Draper, or a Bert Cochran, or a Louis Proyect. It is the only sort of socialism I could stomach. I have had my experience with totalitarianism, and Proyect’s own experience as a years-long member of a far-left political cult is horrifying to read about. I spent many hours reading old posts of his and the autobiographical comic-book of his life that he got someone to make on his behalf, and felt a mixture of admiration and disgust at what he had to experience. I cannot blame him too much for clinging to his Marxist faith, as this was all he had known, and without it, perhaps his life would have degenerated into a soulless existence. Marxism is not for me, but in a strange way, I do not begrudge Proyect for retaining his faith to the end. I am glad to have known him, for a brief while. I knew he was elderly, but not as old as he turned out to be, and certainly not as sick as he turned out to be. He seemed to have aged gracefully. Or maybe it was his boundless intellectual energy and curiosity that made him seem younger than his years. Incidentally, he is about the same age as the IMT’s Dear Leader, Alan Woods. One of them is worshiped by a cult of 4000 members as a fountain of wisdom and a great revolutionary leader. The other is a mere blogger, yet who has done the greater service for Marxism? I will leave that for the coming generation to decide. Proyect is certainly the more human, the more interesting, the more intellectual figure.

May he rest in peace.