Talk:Spartacist League (US)

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Split in 1996[edit]

"In 1996, Workers Vanguard editor Jan Norden and other founders of the League for the Fourth International were expelled, allegedly for maneuvering with a group from Brazil involved in bringing court suit against a trade union.[11]"

This is heavily POV. It is also weird, since the sentence reiterates the version of events published by the Spartacist League (or, rather, one version, as they have changed their story over time), but referce to an article of the Internationalist Group, which offers a profoundly different version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.45.6.122 (talk) 12:46, 1 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jim Cramer[edit]

Jim Cramer of Mad Money claims he was "a Spartacist" while in college during the 70s. http://polizeros.com/2009/12/30/jim-cramer-was-a-spartacist-in-college-likens-bonus-outrage-to-lenin-in-1917-it%E2%80%99s-really-about-stringing-up-guys/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:558:6045:E3:75BA:9594:8502:252B (talk) 21:35, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Spart Rap[edit]

When I was an organizer with various radical student movements in the mid-to-late 1980s, the Sparticist League was still enough of a presence in some cities that someone (no idea who) actually wrote the following satirical rap about them that people from rival Marxist parties would tell each other at casual gatherings. I was so taken with it that I actually memorized it on first hearing (probably at a Progressive Student Network gathering in the summer of 1987), and now reproduce it here on the Sparticist League entry's talk page for a general audience. I don't know if it's worthy of being added to the entry proper; so I'll let active editors here make that decision. I do think it shows how much the Sparts were disdained by other American left-wing revolutionaries in that period. If anyone has a written copy of the rap from the period, or remembers other stanzas, or thinks I got anything wrong, by all means add other versions below. My only regret is that I can't remember the lyrics of the Bob Avakian spoof song - sung to the tune of The Beach Boys' cover version of Fred Fassert's Barbara Ann.

Chorus
We're the Party of the Russian Revolution (x2) - backing voices can actually maintain this chorus throughout the entire rap if desired

We are the Party of the Russian Revolution
We've got no brains, we've got no solution
We've got a heavy rap, but it's full of crap
So buy our paper cuz that's where it's at

There's a great big system that we've got to smash
So buy our paper we need your cash

Chorus
We're the Party of the Russian Revolution (x2)

If you don't listen to this shit we say
Then we'll come to your meetings and then you'll pay
Our dogma's bigger than a Cadillac
So buy our paper or we'll be back

Chorus
We're the Party of the Russian Revolution (x2)

[use funny alien voice here]
They come in and there they stay
Roach motel for the CIA

Chorus
We're the Party of the Russian Revolution (x4)

jpramas (talk) 19:02, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of the "ET"[edit]

I've edited the article to replace the description of the origin of the SL's "External Tendency" circa 1983. While many of those who formed the ET certainly objected to the SL's retreat from work in the unions (which was the explanation given in the former version of the Wikipedia article), the new group's main raison d'etre was opposition to the stifling internal political life of the SL. Those who founded the ET did not form a faction within the SL to fight for an alternative trade union policy. They quit as individuals, mostly out of demoralization or frustration, and sought to create what might be called Spartacism with a human face. Later, they did develop consistent policy differences with the SL but at the time of the group's formation, this was not the case.

Roman Polanski[edit]

The first article in Workers Vanguard that defended Polanskis sexual "relation" with a minor girl came as early as 10 February 1978, . "Stop the puritan witch-hunt against Roman Polanski". https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/workersvanguard/1978/0192_10_02_1978.pdf— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.205.37.252 (talk) 06:33, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]