Unrepentant radicals

Previously posted on another site, but now deleted, this is one of my many comments concerning the small, sectarian but surprisingly well known "Oehlerites", a leftist fringe group active in the US during the 1930´s and 1940´s. The names "RWL" and "Fighting Worker" were stolen by a completely unrelated group during the 1970´s, the group currently known as BAMN. 

This is an issue of “Fighting Worker”, the organ of a small left-wing radical group, the U.S. Revolutionary Workers League (RWL). The issue in question was published in 1942, in the middle of World War II. The RWL were led by Hugo Oehler and are hence often referred to as “Oehlerites”. The most well-known ex-Oehlerite is the late anti-war activist Sidney Lens. His autobiography “Unrepentant Radical” contains a relatively positive appraisal of the RWL, somewhat surprisingly given that the Oehlerites are usually roundly condemned as muddle-headed sectarian Stalinophiles. Oehler´s politics sounded like a sectarian version of Trotsky´s (his group originated during a split in the Trotskyist movement). Ironically, it also sounds identical to the sectarian versions of post-Trotsky Trotskyism. Many of the articles in “Fighting Worker” could just as well have been published by, say, the Spartacist League…

While the RWL defended the Soviet Union against Hitler, they didn´t support the war effort of the “imperialist” Western Allies. (If this was identical to Trotsky´s position, or a substantially harder stance, depends on how you interpret Trotsky´s “proletarian military policy”.) This muddled, sectarian and, frankly, treasonous stance is openly on display in this particular issue of the Oehlerite magazine.

Thus, the RWL ask why there are only 50,000 Allied troops (as against 85,000 Japanese) on Java, when the total Javanese population is 40 million. It turns out that the Dutch colonial authorities refused to arm the Javanese, and that natives inducted into the army weren´t allowed using machine guns or board battle ships. The RWL also wonders why so few Indians fight for the Allies. These are all legitimate questions, to be sure, but what is the RWL´s response? They don´t call on the Allies to actually arm the Javanese or the Indians. They explicitly reject the British offer of Dominion status to India, and oppose any deals between the British and Nehru. Instead, they express support for the “seething revolt” of the natives in Burma, which chased out the British, “killing hundreds”. What the RWL fails to mention is that this revolt was provoked by Japan and took place as the Japanese invaded and occupied Burma. Here, the muddled-headed RWL actually gives military support to a pro-Axis rebellion! (The Burmese independence fighters changed sides a few years later, and wisely teamed up with the Allies instead.)

Meanwhile in Mexico, the local Stalinists were conducting a campaign of intimidation against anti-Stalinist leftists given asylum by the Mexican government. Many of these were opposed to both the Western Allies and the Axis, just as the RWL. However, a swift intervention by “New Deal” liberals in the United States forced the Mexican Stalinists to back down. Good, right? No, not for Oehler who in typical sectarian fashion denounces any “reliance” on the liberals, “warns” that the consequences may be “fatal”, etc. After all, Trotsky had been murdered just two year earlier. Presumably, Oehler believes that Trotsky was wrong to cooperate with the FBI and the Mexican police against the Stalinists!

The antics of the RWL are, of course, of little interest today, except as a warning that those who refuse to settle for the lesser evil, will indeed end up with the greater one…