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R. Fahan

Correspondence

Issues in Dispute

(September 1950)

From The New International, Vol. XVI No. 5, September–October 1950, p. 315.
Transcribed & marked up up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).

With the best will in the world, I do not quite see the purpose of Susan Green’s letter. Her general views on the war question have since been expressed in Labor Action and answered there; the present letter, a fragmentary expression of those views, makes little sense unless one is previously aware of them. However, a few fractional remarks:

  1. I do not see why Susan Green writes with such polemical vigor about her proposal that the western labor movements try to communicate with the workers under Stalin’s dominion. Certainly, there is no reason to suppose that I or any other socialist oppose such efforts – though we might well disagree with some of the things that would be said in such broadcasts.
     
  2. Her argument that it is difficult to pose demands that can be acted upon only in the West, is true. But the problem is: what follows from this difficulty? That the socialist movement should cease raising such demands? Then, it might as well close shop. Wherever there remains the possibility for free expression, socialists must express their views in full; which means to call an imperialist war an imperialist war. That this is difficult is hardly news.
     
  3. It is true that I posed the socialist position on war in moral terms, but that does not mean I posed it merely in moral terms, as Susan Green implies.
     
  4. But all this is minor by-play. Susan Green wants a basic change in the movement’s war position. She has a perfect right to propose such a change, and those who disagree have as great a right to answer her. Both have already been done in Labor Action. Her present letter adds nothing to the presentation of her views, and I feel no need to add anything, at the moment, to their refutation.

 
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