VLVL Rex Snuvvle

[jbor]

I'm glad that someone has picked up on Rex's story. The Fourth International
was founded by Trotsky and his followers in 1938 in opposition to Stalin,
and it continued after Trotsky's assassination in 1940. But there was
ongoing faction fighting and in 1951-3 Michel Pablo, Pierre Frank, Ernest
Germain (Mandel) and many other of its leaders led the Fourth International
into a series of self-liquidations, trying to absorb it into existing
Stalinist movements. In 1953 there was a major split.

http://www.bolshevik.org/history.html

Trotsky indeed sided with the Mensheviks after the split of the Social
Democratic Party in 1903, and in 1917 he joined the Bolsheviks and was loyal
to Lenin until Lenin's death in 1924, but, as an internationalist, he
disagreed with Stalin's policy of 'Socialism in one country'. He was
expelled from the party in 1927.

In Pynchon's text, the 500 cadres of the "Bolshevik Leninist Group" who went
to Vietnam in 1953 would have been sent there by someone like Michel Pablo,
and it's not a mistake that they would have been called this at this time
and still classed themselves as "Trotskyist". Rex believes that the BLGVN
had been "sold out by all parties, including the Fourth International"
(207), which is pretty close to what actually happened.

Pol Pot was a student in Paris in 1948-1953, and became a member of the
French Communist Party at that time. He is certainly an example of someone
"to the left of Ho Chi Minh" who "trained in Paris".

best

> What I think to be a bit weird in the 4th International description is
> the idea that the members of a Trotskyite group would call themselves
> 'Bolshevik-Leninist'.  That's something for the Stalinists, especially
> the Maoist variation.  There are, I think, no examples in history of
> such groups/parties with roots within the 4th International.
> Usually, they have something with 'Socialist' in it.  If you have a
> political party in your country with 'Socialist' & 'Workers' in it,  you
> may be pretty sure they are 4th.  The 'Worker' in the word indicates
> they have no active members that actually work for a living.  Well, if
> they work, they usually are teachers, professors etc.
> 
> On the other hand, from the end of WWII to, say, halfway the 60s, there
> have been a lot schisms etc.  Funny stories.
> 
> There are 2 interesting Trotsky biographies: the one by Isaac Deutscher,
> and one of the very best biographies I ever read, by Pierre Broué-don't
> know if that one's ever been translated into English.  Trotsky, never
> having been a Bolsh- nor a Menshevik, and always having been a category
> of his own, has written excellent book reviews.
> 
> Trotskyites have never been defending Pol Pot, nor any other
> Stalinist/Maoist regime.  They do, however, like to party.  They were
> also pretty experienced in forging money during the Algerian war.
> 
> My memory may not be functioning very well, but I think Vargas Llosa, in
> 'The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta', makes more or less the same mistakes.