Episode 143: The Gerry Healy Scandal and “Democratic Centralism” (interview with Aidan Beatty)
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Co-hosts Andrew Kliman and Gabriel Donnelly welcome Aidan Beatty, a lecturer in the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University, to discuss his book The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism. In the first part of the discussion, we discuss the Gerry Healy scandal and the fallout from Healy’s abuse as well as how Aidan researched the book. The interview then moves into a more general discussion of “democratic centralism.” Aidan attributes the abusiveness of Healyism not just to Healy and his particular organization, but also to the “democratic centralist” form of organization in general. Gabriel and Andrew question this thesis, arguing that so-called decentralized movements, and “centers” and projects without a formal organizational structure, can be just as abusive and undemocratic as centralized parties. Plus current-events segment: Epsteingate! Trump keeps hoping that the scandal will go away, but his conspiratorial followers won’t let it go. Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page. |
A question for Dr Kliman, please…in this interview you comment on several “despicable monsters on the left”, including Monthly Review.
As someone who has subscribed to TMR for several years, I was shocked.
Would you able to explain why TMR is a “despicable monster”?
Thank you in advance.
Hi Gregory,
Their attempts to shut down dissent are up there with the worst parties. A couple of decades ago, I was invited along with a coauthor (Peter Hudis) to a weekly lunch thing they did. He talked about our article. Evidently, it was against their line. Several minutes in, one of them loudly interrupted, “Who invited this PERSON to lecture us?” After some discussion, he was allowed to continue, but to make it short. Etc. Definitely wasn’t allowed to complete the talk. It was so bad that I left in the middle of the event. Afterward, Hudis said that he felt more humiliated than he ever had before.
The tragedy is that he later capitulated to them.
Off of their premises, I was at a seminar where Harry Magdoff spoke. I asked a question or made a comment. He viciously laid into me. Afterward, he said something like “what did you expect?”
Another of their people, Michael Yates, was active (in his capacity as honcho at the so-called Review of Radical Political Economics) in publicizing a lie about me that endangered my ability to hold an academic job (this is before I had tenure) and vilifying me.
I disclosed serious error in one of their articles–https://marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economics/more-misused-wage-data-from-monthly-review-the-overaccumulation-of-a-surplus-of-errors.html . Wrote to them informing them of it and requested that they print a correction. No acknowledgment of my message and no correction.
And of course, their publications (journal, books) are certainly no forum for open debate on the left. They publish only the sliver of views that they regard as tolerable. The problem with that is that they and a few other ventures (like Historical Materialism) between them have oligopoly power over publication and debate. In an internet age, others can publish, of course, but only from a marginalized position.
E.g., I would have loved for them to publish this response to the Michael Heinrich thing they published and celebrated: https://marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economics/the-unmaking-of-marxs-capital-heinrichs-attempt-to-eliminate-marxs-crisis-theory.html . They allowed a weak reply by others on their website (not the journal), but there was no way they would publish a contrary piece like ours that lands real blows.
Their internal decisionmaking processes are not transparent (which is itself troubling). But from what I can tell, they seem to be as hierarchical and undemocratic as those of the most centralist parties.
The really weird thing is that the same intellectuals who hate the vanguard parties and “democratic centralist” organizations have no problems with the same methods and processes practiced by MR and other “centers” and informal organizations. What they actually hate aren’t these methods and processes, but the fact that the parties–unlike the “centers” and informal organizations–typically don’t go along with the “I scratch your back, you scratch my back” ways of functioning that upper middle-class people like and take for granted.