Sy Landy (7 May 1931 – 28 November 2007) was an American
Trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
.
Born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, Landy studied at
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus.
Being New York City's first publ ...
, where he joined the
third camp
The third camp, also known as third camp socialism or third camp Trotskyism, is a branch of socialism that aims to oppose both capitalism and Stalinism by supporting the organised working class as a "third camp".
The term arose early during W ...
Trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
Independent Socialist League
The Workers Party (WP) was a Third Camp Trotskyist group in the United States. It was founded in April 1940 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who opposed the Soviet invasion of Finland and Leon Trotsky's belief that the USSR under Josep ...
(ISL), led by
Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman (; September 10, 1904 – November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany.
Beginnings
S ...
. The ISL moved away from revolutionary politics and merged with Norman Thomas' Socialist Party in 1958. Schachtman and many of the "Schachtmanites" moved rapidly to the right. Landy was a prominent supporter of
Hal Draper
Hal Draper (born Harold Dubinsky; September 19, 1914 – January 26, 1990) was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement. He is known for his extensive scholarship on t ...
's left opposition to Shachtman's support for the
Bay of Pigs invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called ''Invasión de Playa Girón'' or ''Batalla de Playa Girón'' after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly fina ...
, joined Draper in splitting from the Socialist Party in the early 1960s.Sy Landy, 1931-2007 LRP-COFI During this period, he also became a member of the board of '' New Politics''.
Draper founded the Independent Socialist Club (with the old "third camp" socialist politics), and Landy established the group in New York, initially one of its three main centres. In 1969, it became the International Socialists (IS), and Landy retained a leadership role, but he became increasingly interested in the ideas of black power and the ideals of the French uprising of May 1968. Within the IS, he became a leader of the opposition "Revolutionary Tendency". This split in 1973 to form the Revolutionary Socialist League. Although he was elected to the Central Committee of the new organisation, in 1975 he opened a debate over what he believed was an increasing stagist tendency, and the organisation's refusal to call for a global
general strike
A general strike refers to a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large co ...
under then current circumstances. He was soon expelled from the organisation alongside Walter Daum, and the two's supporters, who had formed the "Revolutionary Party Tendency", soon joined them in founding the
League for the Revolutionary Party
The Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) was a Trotskyist group in the United States established in 1973 and disbanded in 1989.
History
The RSL originated in the Revolutionary Tendency within the International Socialists (U.S.) (IS) led by Sy ...
(LRP).
Sy Landy remained the National Secretary of the LRP until his death, occasionally working as a
teacher
A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.
''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...