Democratiya 11 is out. It contains a previously unpublished tribute to Max Shachtman written by Tom Kahn in 1973.

Max had special contempt for those who described these societies as socialist and, in the same breath, justified their tendencies toward dictatorship on the grounds that they were, after all, backward. A favourite refrain was (and is): ‘How can you expect these backward countries to transform themselves overnight into full-blown, two-party, Western-style parliamentary democracies?’ To which Max would reply: You cannot expect it. But that’s not the question. The question is: where are the tendencies, possibilities for democratic development, do you support and encourage them, or do you oppose them?

This, Max taught, was always the central issue for a democratic socialist. And in all too many cases, ‘left’ intellectuals were to be found on the wrong side – not encouraging the democratic possibilities but supporting regimes that sought to wipe them out altogether.

Sound familiar?