textfiles-politics/politicalTextFiles/breakaway_02.txt

 
    Voila. Une miracle formidable! ;))) 
 
    Issue number two of Breakaway is here! 
 
    And this time, my Internet account won't make any trouble, 'cause 
I've got a brand new account. So be sure to test it by submitting to 
<vidarh@powertech.no> ;-) 
 
    By the way, a notice about the trouble with my account went out 
to about half of the subscribers. To those who didn't receive it: 
 
    - If you have asked me questions, and didn't get any replies, 
        please mail me again. 
 
    - If you still haven't received issue #1, notify me. 
 
Vidar Hokstad 
Editor 
 
 
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
BEGIN BREAKAWAY.002 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                           B R E A K A W A Y 
 
                       Debates on modern marxism 
 
 
                                 -+*+- 
 
 
                       Issue no. 2, volume no. 1 
 
 
                            June/July 1994 
 
 
 
 
 
======================================================================= 
CONTENTS 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
(00)    EDITORIAL 
 
(01)    column: WHAT'S UP? 
            Some informal notes on issues we want to tell you about 
 
(02)    FIRST VICTIM OF THE REVOLUTION 
            Another poem... 
 
(03)    AUGUST MEETING 
            Red Forum needs a platform. 
 
(04)    column: A SEARCHLIGHT ON INTERNET 
            Revolutionary resources on the information highway 
 
(05)    column: READERS COMMENTS 
            got anything to say? do it here. 
 
(06)    series: FOR A NEW BEGINNING (1 of 2) 
            a critique of secterianism 
 
(07)    GENERAL INFORMATION 
            How and what to submit, how to contact us, etc. 
 
 
 
 
======================================================================= 
(00)    EDITORIAL 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
    Finally. Summer's coming. At least it gets hotter in the air here 
up north. 
 
    So. Time to liven up. But where are we heading? How will we work 
to get a step or two closer towards our goals the last half of 1994? 
 
    For we can't just sit back and dream. Revolution won't grow on 
dreams. 
 
    Submissions might be one way to do something. Because unity can 
only be achieved if we know what other people think; if we know what 
we think ourselves. 
 
    By submissions, I'm naturally fishing for articles for Breakaway, 
but not only that. In general: Write, submit, make noise. If you write 
well, even bourgeois papers might occasionally print. And when they 
don't: Complain, call the editor, resubmit your piece to another, 
more progressive newspaper and tell them who didn't want to print it, 
and what excuse they gave. 
 
    It's worth a try. Even if the only result is that *one* reader 
takes the trouble of learning more about socialism. 
 
    It's up to you. Overflow your local newspaper with articles and 
comments. And if they don't publish, maybe we will... 
 
    Keep writing! 
 
 
Vidar Hokstad 
Editor 
 
 
BTW: I may not have made this clear enough before, so I make sure 
I do this time. The contents of this zine need not reflect the policy 
of Red Forum, even when I it's written by me. Unless an expressivly 
say so, the views presented are those of the author. 
 
 
 
======================================================================= 
(01)    column: WHAT'S UP? 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
- Thursday 20th May, a meeting in the executive committee of the 
    Norwegian Communist Party's (NKP) section in Oslo and Akershus 
    declared to be in favor of supporting a computer project suggested 
    by Red Forum / IC economically. 
 
    Suggested investments went up to 50.000 NOK (7500 USD), with 
    RF/IC paying an additional 4000 USD over a 5 year period, 
    allowing RF / IC to start it's own BBS with UUCP connection to 
    USENET, in addition to using the system for DTP. 
 
    Unfortunately, on a meeting the 15th of June, the final decision 
    were postponed until August. However, it is clear that RFIC will 
    probably set up a UUCP site whatever the NCP decides. 
 
    On the meeting on the 15th, critique against the project was 
    mainly directed towards the emphasis on information gathering 
    through electronic media, and the role of RFIC. An important 
    argument for the project is that the NCP will be unable to 
    provide the same facilities for producing it's party news- 
    paper without cooperation with RFIC. 
 
 
- Breakaway #1 was advertized in three rounds in a series of USENET 
    conferences, and by June 28th, it had been distributed to  
    subscribers from USA, Canada, UK, Norway, Australia, France, 
    Spain, South-Africa, Ireland and Germany. I continued getting 
    responses to one of the posts for more than 6 weeks after it 
    was posted. 
 
 
- Bourgeois censorship? The postal strike[1] in northern Germany 
    throughout this month was barely mentioned in Norwegian media. It 
    was if the whole thing wasn't happening, and our only source for 
    updated info turned out to be GermNews <germnews@vm.gmd.de> (news 
    from Germany in German, edited by some guy in Berlin). 
 
        But really, we should've expected this. Telling people about 
    the suggested "Postreform II", which in essence is the bourgeois 
    forces in the Bundestags attempt at selling the entire German 
    postal service to the highest-bidder, would certainly not 
    increase the popularity of the European Union which our social- 
    democratic government continues to insist is the best way to 
    secure social-democratic values (Notice that they stopped saying 
    "socialist values" about 15 years ago...). 
 
        Breakaway welcomes your comments on this and similar matters. 
    Do you find news on the net or elsewhere which is ignored by 
    bourgeoise newspapers and TV-stations? Tell us about it. 
 
 
- Norwegians: In a short time, if everything turn out the way we 
    want to, we will be able to distribute selected articles from 
    "Friheten" through e-mail. Mail me if you want to subscribe. 
    This is meant to be the first step in providing material from 
    leftist newspapers through e-mail, and in a few weeks several 
    other revolutionary newspapers in Norway will receive the 
    same offer. 
 
        Be sure to specify whether you only want to receive the index 
    (to request selected articles later), or the full text. 
 
        We also welcome initiative from our subscribers when it 
    comes to providing material from newspapers outside Norway. 
 
 
- Information about membership in Red Forum / IC can now 
    be obtained from me. Request the file info/Membership. 
 
 
- Request submission guidelines by asking for the file 
    info/Submissions 
 
---- 
[1] The German "postal" service includes the divisions "Postbank" and 
    "Telecom" in addition to mail delivery, and have about 670.000 
    employees. 
 
 
 
 
======================================================================= 
(02)    FIRST VICTIM OF THE REVOLUTION 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
        I saw a glimpse 
        of our future tonight. 
 
        Misery were thrown toward my eyes, 
        opression like today, 
        but most of all a spark 
        of hope. 
 
        In each and every 
        socalled "home" 
        man discussed his future. 
 
 
        Misery forced him 
 
        into action. 
 
 
        And as days went by in pain, 
        there were each and every day 
        another one 
        that whispered in the dark 
        a little, 
        long forgotten, 
        word. 
 
        But fear 
        it brought 
        when someone 
 
        in broad daylight 
 
        stood up straight and 
        dared to scream 
 
        - Revolution 
 
        and was shot. 
 
 
 
 
======================================================================= 
(03)    AUGUST MEETING 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
    It is quite some time since Red Forum was formed, and it was 
decided to prepare a basic platform. Not much have been done, and now 
summer's threatening :-) Meetings close to summer vacation have to 
many times proved _impossible_... So, final decision concerning our 
platform have been postponed until August. 
 
    But that does not mean that we won't do any work before that. 
Presented here are some of the results of what have been done, with 
explanations of the circumstances under which it has been done. 
 
    We hereby invite all RF / IC members, as well as Breakaway readers, 
and others, to send us comments, alternative platforms (or just the 
platform of _your_ favorite organization), criticism etc. We promise 
that any input will be discussed at our meeting (unless we are drowning 
in documents...), and at least an extensive summary of what we receive 
will be published in Breakaway. 
 
    Since we plan to include as much as possible in Breakaway, and 
to make as much of what we can't include in Breakaway publicly 
accessibly by other means (from this autumn hopefully a series of 
listserv / mailserver services), to as wide a public as possible, 
we would prefer to receive documents in English, but if a) you have 
printed documents you think would be of interest, or b) you feel 
unable to express your ideas clear enough in English, we will at least 
read, and quite possibly also translate, documents received in French, 
German, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. 
 
Vidar Hokstad <vidarh@powertech.no> 
Red Forum / Internationalists Committee 
 
 
PS: Unfortunately, it has during my work on issue #2 of Breakaway 
become clear that the person that were supposed to provide us with a 
draft for discussion haven't been able to do so in time. The 
mauscript, or another draft, will therefore make it to Breakaway at 
earliest in time for Breakaway #3. 
 
    Because of this, this section may seems a litle strange. It was 
meant to include the draft, in addition to two or three other short 
pieces with comments, which all have been left out. 
 
 
 
 
VIDAR HOKSTAD:  On the "Oslo meeting" in February 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
    It was still winter, and cold. Colder than the last years. The 
streets were filled with snow, and walking out of the train station, I 
think we all wished we'd lived somewhere warmer. 
 
    We were fewer than expected as we reached the offices of the 
Norwegian Communist Party, where our meeting were to be held. Still 
the meeting was attended by members from a broad range of 
organisations. 
 
    The agenda of the meeting was nothing less than to form a new 
revolutionary organisation. It wasn't a new party we wanted to build, 
but an organisation that could try to unify through open debate, and 
to spread information about marxism to new people, outside our 
movement, and especially youth. 
 
    As in many other industrialized countries, the revolutionary left 
have since long been dying in Norway. After the maoist movement stopped 
attracting new youth in the middle of the seventies, almost no more 
members came, and the old ones literally started dying. 
 
    However, with Gorbachev, new hopes strated growing. Even though 
many of us, looking back, believe that Gorbachev was a lousy leader, 
he should still be admired for freeing the revolutionary movement of 
the curse which the Soviet union, and the "socialist" countries in 
eastern Europe have been. 
 
    Finally it was possible for us to talk freely about the sacred 
dogmas, the fanatical love directed towards the October revolution 
1917, the admiration of Stalin because of his warfare against Hitler 
(how could he not fight Hitler, a man who treatened his reign, a 
competitor for the "crown"?), without being insulted; being called 
petty-bourgeois, traitor, or "worse":  Trotskyite.[1] 
 
    The main part of our meeting consisted of avoiding "difficult" 
matters. Red Forum was never meant to be an organisation with views 
about everything - the different parties and groups have thos views. 
Too many of them. We wanted an organisation open to everyone, 
everywhere, that accepts a basic platform, that consider themselves 
marxists and revolutionaries, that are consequent internationalists. 
 
    The firm programme, the strong party line, is not something that 
can be voted on by a small group. The revolutionary party, in my 
opinion an international party, can only be formed by uniting the 
existing movement, by bringing at least the majority of existing 
groups and tendencies together.  
 
    It will take years, but continuous debates internally in the 
movement will sooner or later bring the unity that is neccesary; 
an unity that will be forced upon us as the threat from capitalist 
regimes in crisis, scared capitalists, grow stronger. 
 
    One of the results of these principles were that we decided to 
wait before creating a thorough program. We agreed that instead, 
for a few months, giving us time to discuss, and to bring more 
people into the forum, the following would do: 
 
- Red Forum is a forum for the discussion of Marxist theory and 
politics based on a revolutionary, internationlist foundation. 
 
    This is the foundation on which we invite new people to join 
Red Forum / IC (so let me se some new members now ;), and which 
provide a minimal basis for the work we have started doing. It is 
not a foundation that can give us easy solutions to the daily 
political struggle, but for this we have our respective parties. 
 
    It is a foundation which we hope will bring together, at first, 
a small, geographically and politically, widespread group of people 
to discuss new ways for the Marxist movement to escape from the 
secterianism that have polluted the left for decades. 
 
    Applications for membership are encouraged. No fees are charged 
at present, but expect this to change after the August meeting. 
 
V.H. 
 
---- 
[1] But secteric organisations still claim to be a guiding light for us 
all here too. It's less than a month ago a member of "the ML group 
Revolution" published an article covering an entire A3 page in the NCP 
party newspaper, trying to insult me by calling me a "pettybourgeois 
trotskyite" after I had criticized Stalin in the same newspaper on the 
1st of May. 
 
 
 
======================================================================= 
(04)    column: A SEARCHLIGHT ON INTERNET 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
* Pathfinder Press 
 
GOPHER:         ftp.std.com in '/Book Sellers' 
 
    Pathfinder Press specializes in publishing revolutionary and 
working-class leaders in their own words, including Malcolm X, Nelson 
Mandela, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. 
 
    It should be noted that Pathfinder is closely related to Militant 
if I'm not mistaken... 
 
 
* Book Stacks Unlimited Inc. 
 
TELNET:         books.com 
 
    Even though they're certainly not "progressive", it is possible 
to find quite a lot of books by leftist writers among their 270.000 
titles, even Marx. From my position, with the prices of books here 
in Norway, it seemed cheap. 
 
 
* Agora BBS 
 
TELNET:         agora.stm.it 
 
    BBS of the Italian Radical party, supporting 7 different languages. 
(English, French, German, Italian, Esperanto, Russian and Spanish If 
I remember correcly, It's a long time since I tested it). Even though 
the interface is cumbersome, the system might contain some useful 
information. 
 
 
 
======================================================================= 
(05)    READERS COMMENTS 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
    Notice that I will not usually reply to critique on political 
issues in the same issue as the letter is published. Replies will be 
published at _earliest_ the issue after the letter, however admin- 
istrative questions and comments, as well as direct questions to me 
will be answered at once. 
 
    Also, when you write to me, please state clearly whether your 
comment is a submission or not. If you don't, don't blame me if I 
don't treat them as you intended. 
 
Ed. 
 
 
---- 
To: Vidar 
From: Jack Hill <mlbooks@mercury.mcs.com> 
  
Dear Vidar, 
  
I still haven't had time to work up any real thorough critique of the 
first issue of Breakaway.  However, I do have a few thoughts and 
comments that I would like to share with you. 
  
Let me say first of all that roughly speaking I agree with your 
analysis of what is the situation facing Marxist theory and those who 
want to apply it to the current political and economic struggles.  What 
I mean is that we agree that Marxism is essential for the liberation of 
the working class and all the oppressed; that it has been trampled on, 
distorted, and mutilated by a wide variety of forces who claimed to be 
communists; that we face a huge struggle to restore the good name of 
communism. 
  
One place where I think we don't see completely eye to eye, is in how 
to characterize the regimes in Russia, Eastern Europe, China and 
elsewhere which abandoned Marxism (or in some cases, never followed 
it).  You seem to want to call all these bureaucratic regimes 
"Stalinist".  I'm not sure that is an adequate characterization.  I do 
think they were all state capitalist regimes, but they varied quite a 
bit among themselves in terms of how they came to power, how they 
maintained it, to what extent they had popular support.  Maoism is a 
revisionist theory but it is not the same as Stalinism.  There are a 
lot of varieties of revisionism in the world and we have to look at all 
of them carefully.  Another related point is that I think the evidence 
is clear that the Chinese revolution in particular produced substantial 
advances for the Chinese masses.  In other words I think the Chinese 
revolution was a genuine popular revolution although the party which 
led it was not a proletarian Marxist-Leninist party.  So that when we 
denounce Maoism, we are not denouncing the epic revolutionary struggle 
of the Chinese people. 
  
Anyway, there is a lot of theoretical sorting out to do get rid of the 
mountains of historical garbage and re-establish a genuine, scientific 
and revolutionary Marxist theory.  The Marxist-Leninist Party, in my 
opinion, did some very good historical research into some of these 
questions, but there are a lot more questions yet to be cleared up.  As 
one example, comrades in Chicago did very extensive research into the 
women's movement and the struggles for women's liberation in early 
Soviet Russia.  We will be publishing a book bringing together our 
articles and research in the next couple of months. 
  
There is a lot more to be said on this but I don't have time right now. 
  
I have a couple other less political comments.  Personally I didn't 
care much for the poem you published.  I prefer literature which more 
directly attacks the "system" in one way or another.  Have you heard of 
Struggle magazine?  I'll send you a copy in the mail.  The editor and I 
have been politically associated for over 25 years. 
  
The other point is not major and I'm not sure if I should ever mention 
it but I will.  I don't want to sound too harsh or overly critical, but 
my point is that there were some spots in that first issue where the 
English could have been improved.  All your main points came through 
clearly enough, so I don't want to make too big a deal out of this. 
But for maximum clarity, it could probably use a little more work. 
  
So, good job!  Hang in there.  I'm looking forward to the next issue. 
  
While I'm at it I will send you a couple other things that I didn't 
send you before.  There is a May First leaflet we put out, an exchange 
I had on PNEWS Conferences about the dissolution of the MLP, and the 
editorial of Struggle magazine which I posted to PNEWS. 
  
                                Keep up the struggle, 
                                Jack Hill 
 
---- 
Editors comments: 
 
- When it comes to fiction, we'll probably annoy quite a few of you, 
because a lot of what we publish will be experimental in a lot of ways, 
and very much of it related to Cyberpunk.  The reason?  The taste of 
the editor, and the people I relate to, and "steal" material from. 
The only way to change this is by actually submitting... 
 
    So:  All of you that write fiction, submit.  That's the only way of 
increasing the diversity of this zine. 
 
- When it comes to improving grammar and style, please feel free to 
comment.  Especially help on which terms to use etc.  will be 
appreciated, as translating texts on politics in general, and marxism 
in particular, demands quite a lot of terms that certainly can't be 
translated directly, and were it often is little help in a dictionary. 
 
    The problem is certainly not reduced by the fact that we have to 
rely on translations done entirely by people with English as their 
second language. 
 
    If anyone feel they can contribute:  I would be extremely grateful 
if someone offers to read through material to check the language every 
now and then, or, even better, volunteer to help translating when (if) 
we get hold of material in languages you master. 
 
 
Apart from that? Well, I _will_ give my views with regards to Jack's 
other comments in the next issue, so watch out... ;) 
 
 
 
======================================================================= 
(06)    FOR A NEW BEGINNING (1 of 2) 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
I received the following article from Dave Hollis some time ago, and 
even though the article is quite long, I decided to edit it only 
slightly. The unedited text is available on request. To let Dave 
himself tell you about the background (quoted from the message he 
sent me): 
 
  " The following article was written by myself for a conference of 
people who came out of a trotskyist organisation.  Over 1.5 years ago I 
did so myself.  The article is an attempt to elaborate experiences made 
in German and the UK on the questions of sectarianism and democratic 
centralism.  " 
 
 
 
 
FOR A NEW BEGINNING 
 
Written by Dave Hollis <ln_dho@pki-nbg.philips.de> 
Co-authored by Maggie McQuillan 
Please contact the author before republishing the article. 
 
                                        
 
       It is lamentable that he [Ted Grant] has allowed his political 
    authority to be used by people whose main concern is not to  
    clarify ideas but to cause the maximum damage to Militant.  
    One unfortunate feature of political life is the spiteful urge  
    of former activists to justify their defection by hurling  
    allegations of heinous political crimes at their former  
    comrades. 
                                                (Militant, 24/1/1992) 
 
        The action to spread these lies outside the organisation, is a  
    despicable attempt to sabotage our work, which arises from  
    pure spite ... 
                                             (A Reply to PBy, RWe, JG) 
 
 
 
 
The current developments in England come as no surprise to us.  The 
decision we took to leave over a year and a half ago was based on the 
understanding that the new organisation was not fundamentally different 
from the old one.  We realised and said then that it was only a 
question of time until a new split would take place.  The formation of 
the "Democratic Platform" days after the world conference was only an 
harbinger of the events that were to follow. 
 
I have avoided commenting up to now on the events taking place in the 
"Socialist Appeal".  Although a pamphlet was dedicated to us and we 
were used as a stick to beat the "Democratic Platform" with, I chose to 
remain silent.  It was not a case of being unable to answer the 
accusations and the points made, it was quite simply that I, and 
others, had put this sect behind us. 
 
Given that a discussion is now beginning to take place on how one 
should go forward, I feel that the time is now appropriate to comment 
on the current events, relate our experiences and put forward what I 
consider has to be done.  I recommend all Comrades to read the document 
Bruno wrote shortly after we left, "How and what must be Discussed". 
It contains a concise explanation of the state of thinking in Germany 
at that time and what we considered to be the next steps. 
 
Before I go into details, I would like to put the question of Pat's 
role in Germany straight.  Despite what the leaders of sect number two 
think or want to believe, there was no secret activity between the 
"Democratic Platform" and the German group.  There was no one pulling 
our strings.  In addition, anyone with a degree of political 
understanding could have seen that there were (and most probably are) a 
number of political disagreements between us. 
 
An author is often betrayed by the language used when writing or 
speaking.  This is very much case in the article "answering" Pat, 
Julian and Roy.  For instance, why does the second sect talk about a 
"conspiracy"?  Why do comrades act "in spite", and so on?  It is 
necessary to look into the reasons why people react in such a way.  For 
instance, why do members of such an organisation view those who leave 
as "betrayers" who, to add insult to injury, are also considered to be 
acting "in spite"? 
 
The answer to these questions lies in understanding that we are dealing 
here with a typical behaviour of a sect. 
 
 
 
SECTS 
 
One thing that strikes me when thinking back to the definition of a 
sect in the Militant and Socialist Appeal, is the fact that a sect is 
defined by its inability to build a mass base.  At best, this 
definition is only half the truth and at worse, it is totally false. 
 
What characterises a sect is not its inability to build but its 
internal workings - how the members relate to each other, how they 
react to "outsiders", etc.  A sect is a group of people who follow a 
particular teaching and consider every other teaching to be wrong and 
dangerous.  To put it another way:  a sect is the belief of a group of 
people that their "model" of how society is to be interpreted is the 
one and only truth. 
 
This definition does not quite capture the real nature of a sect.  What 
is also important is that psychological factors play the main role.  A 
sect is held together by beliefs.  Either you accept them and you are a 
member, otherwise you have no place within it.  The loyalty to the 
organisation is not based on a conscious understanding of its aims, it 
is loyalty to the group.  The members "function", they mostly do not 
act consciously.  The smaller the organisation the greater the part 
played by psychological factors.  It is no accident that such 
organisations have their idols and "great leaders".  It is also no 
accident that the feeling of "us" and "them" was nurtured in Militant 
and Socialist Appeal.  The "family feeling" is a prerequisite for the 
functioning of a sect. 
 
The Jehovah Witnesses have their bible, a Marxist organisation has the 
works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky or whoever. 
 
This way of thinking leads unavoidably its members to considering those 
who disagree with their point of view to be "not loyal", "spiteful", 
out to cause damage, etc.  Those who become "dissidents" are countered 
in the main by insults and not by arguments.  For most of the members 
of Militant it was only necessary to put us into a particular 
compartment, accuse us of departing from Marxism and that was that - 
and it worked!  In both sects we experienced this, I don't think I have 
to elaborate further. 
 
One particular analogy that springs to mind is that of looking at 
membership of a sect as being like a marriage.  To leave a sect is like 
getting divorced.  It is neither easy, nor is it without pain. 
 
As is the case with other subjects, there is still a lot that needs to 
be written on this.  In passing, I would just like to mention the 
following aspects not discussed in this article:  martyrdom, sacrifices 
for the cause and assimilation.  They are worth an article in 
themselves.  Unfortunately, time is pressing - I want to finish this 
article before your conference and not afterwards.  One of the most 
painful but most interesting revelations for me was the discovery that 
the workings of a political and a religious sect are more less 
identical and that all "cadre" organisations I have met up to know 
operate in the same way. 
 
At first I found it hard to believe this.  Since leaving the second 
sect, however, I have spoken with a number of people who were also 
members of "cadre" organisations and have found out that the behaviour 
experienced was always strikingly similar. 
 
I can imagine the howls of rage at such statements.  I hope, however, 
that no one was offended.  Whoever feels offended should think over 
very carefully why this is the case. 
 
There are many obvious behaviours that indicate the presence of a 
political sect.  A few examples:  The inability to think for oneself, 
the repetition of the "line", blind loyalty, the inability to question 
a point of view, the "functioning" of the members, the inability to 
understand someone else's point of view. 
 
Comrades who do not believe this should ask themselves a few questions: 
Did not the old organisations talk about their faith in the working 
class?  What place does "faith" have for people who consider themselves 
to be "Marxists"?  Either we are talking about a science or we are 
talking about a religion.  It is necessary to decide which of the two 
possibilities we want.  Why does the resolution on the founding of the 
new (old) International talk about being based on the first four 
congresses of the Communist International?  Is it not obvious to anyone 
who claims to be a Marxist that resolutions passed over seventy years 
ago are very unlikely to have any bearing on the economical and 
political situation of today?  The references to the writings of the 
'great teachers' are just as bad. 
 
In passing, the attempt by such organisations to justify their program 
and actions by reference to such things or people is religious activity 
at its purest. 
 
As we only know too well (see the resolution on the founding of the 
"International" passed at Tarrogona), an attempt is made to build a 
line of tradition backwards to particular "gurus" or whatever.  The 
organisation stands at the front of this line as the natural 
continuation of the best traditions of the past.  However, it is 
overseen that this is religion.  Religion is re-ligio - a backwards 
connection to a mystical beginning. 
 
Once a political organisation has laid claim to this "revolutionary 
continuity", the question of a programme's content is also solved. 
Either the timeless validity of programmes out of the past are insisted 
upon or parts of various programmes are eclectically thrown together. 
 
I remember very clearly Ted not being happy with our idea in Germany of 
writing a new political program, i.e.  a manifesto.  "What do you need 
it for, you have the Transitional Programme" -as if the world had stood 
still for the past fifty years!  It is no wonder that in such 
organisations practices characteristic of religious sects quickly 
manifest themselves ... 
 
 
...continued in Breakaway #3 
 
 
======================================================================= 
(07)    GENERAL INFORMATION 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
    A reduced "General Information" column from now on, not to use 
all the space repeating the same info... 
 
    Breakaway will be published as often as we have enough material. 
"Enough" is at present about 30kb of text, but this might increase 
if we get enough submissions. Under any circumstances we'll limit 
ourselves to 30kb until we reach one issue every two weeks. (Probably 
won't happen in your lifetime ;-) 
 
    The format is, as you can see, pure 7-bit ASCII. 
 
 
    Do you: 
 
    - want to subscribe? 
    - have an idea? 
    - have a question? 
    - want to submit, and want to know how? 
 
 
    Just send us a message, preferably by e-mail, and we'll send you 
appropriate information as soon as possible. To ensure that we can 
reply, please include your e-mail address in the body of the message. 
 
 
 
SOME BRIEF NOTES ON SUBMISSIONS 
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
*   BREAKAWAY will accept articles from people belonging to all trends 
    or ideologies related to marxism, or from people who are simply 
    interested in marxist theory or practice. 
 
*   You should limit yourself to articles between 100 and 300 lines if 
    possible (shorter pieces will naturally also be accepted). If you 
    find that difficult, try to divide your article into shorter 
    sections suitable for publishing over two to four issues. 
 
*   We will publish most articles or news reports we receive concerning 
    marxist ideology, the actions of marxist organisations, or 
    information of importance to the average revolutionary. Also 
    fiction might be accepted (contact us for more info) 
 
*   We accept anonymous submissions.  However, if you choose to do so, 
    we would prefer if you give us a pseudonym to use as your 
    signature. 
 
 
 
How to contact Red Forum / Internationalists Committee: 
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Editor      : Vidar Hokstad 
E-mail      : <vidarh@powertech.no> 
Snailmail   : Boks 30, N-2001 Lillestroem, NORWAY 
Tel.        : +47 638 170 35 (5pm to 9pm GMT) 
 
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                 Proletarians of all countries, unite! 
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