About Louis Proyect

“a revolutionary career does not lead to banquets and honorary titles, interesting research and professorial wages. It leads to misery, disgrace, ingratitude, prison and a voyage into the unknown, illuminated by only an almost superhuman belief.” –Max Horkheimer The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose,  because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing – for the sheer fun and joy of it – to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it. –I.F. Stone

---

Email me

I am the moderator of the Marxism mailing list, where my various articles first appear. For information on how to subscribe to the list, go here.

I first became active in socialist politics in 1967, the beginning of my 11 years in the American Trotskyist movement. Despite my profound respect for Leon Trotsky as a Marxist thinker, I view the Trotskyist movement as such a sectarian mistake. Throughout most of the 80s, I was active in the Central American solidarity movement, first with CISPES and then with Tecnica, an organization that sent computer programmers and other skilled professionals to Nicaragua. The project eventually took root in southern Africa as well, where it worked with SWAPO and the ANC. More recently I have given workshops on the Internet to community and union groups, as well as moderating a Marxist mailing list on the Internet that can be linked to above.

I have been strongly influenced by the example of The Socialist Union, a group led by Bert Cochran and Harry Braverman who left the Trotskyist movement in 1953 in order to create an alternative to the sectarian “vanguard” model. For six years they published a magazine called The American Socialist and worked to regroup the left. Marxmail is a conscious attempt to link up with their traditions.

I have also created a small archive of the writings of James M. Blaut, who died in November, 2000. Jim was an outstanding scholar and revolutionary whose contributions to our movement are best commemorated through his work.

My articles, many of which appeared originally as postings to the Marxism list, have appeared in Sozialismus (Germany), Science and Society, New Politics, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Organization and Environment, Cultural Logic, Dark Night Field Notes, Revolutionary History (Great Britain), New Interventions (Great Britain), Canadian Dimension, Revolution Magazine (New Zealand), Swans and Green Left Weekly (Australia).

I am also a proud member of the NY Film Critics Online: