Click on the headline to link to a an online copy of Workers Action, an early labor-oriented newspaper of the International Communist League's Spartacist League/U.S. I am not familiar with the Riazanov Library as a source, although the choice of the name of a famous Russian Bolshevik intellectual, archivist, and early head of the Marx-Engels Institute there, as well as being a friend and , at various points a political confederate of the great Bolshevik leader, Leon Trotsky, sits well with me.
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Thanks to the Riazanov Library for their efforts in digitizing Workers Action. The works provided by the Riazanov Library are © copyrighted by the Riazanov Library in 2010 for the document formatting and editing as they appear here in their PDF format, on the ETOL. The actual content itself remains in the public domain pursuant to US and International copyright conventions.
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Markin comment on this series:
Obviously, for a Marxist, the question of working class political power is central to the possibilities for the main thrust of his or her politics- the quest for that socialist revolution that initiates the socialist reconstruction of society. But working class politics, no less than any other kinds of political expressions has to take an organization form, a disciplined organizational form in the end, but organization nevertheless. In that sense every Marxist worth his or her salt, from individual labor militants to leagues, tendencies, and whatever other formations are out there these days on the left, struggles to built a revolutionary labor party, a Bolshevik-style party.
Glaringly, in the United States there is no such party, nor even a politically independent reformist labor party, as exists in Great Britain. And no, the Democratic Party, imperialist commander-in-chief Obama's Democratic Party is not a labor party. Although plenty of people believe it is an adequate substitute, including some avowed socialists. But they are just flat-out wrong. This series is thus predicated on providing information about, analysis of, and acting as a spur to a close look at the history of the labor party question in America by those who have actually attempted to create one, or at to propagandize for one.
As usual, I will start this series with the work of the International Communist League/Spartacist League/U.S. as I have been mining their archival materials of late. I am most familiar with the history of their work on this question, although on this question the Socialist Workers Party's efforts runs a close second, especially in their revolutionary period. Lastly, and most importantly, I am comfortable starting with the ICL/SL efforts on the labor party question since after having reviewed in this space in previous series their G.I. work and youth work (Campus Spartacist and the Revolutionary Marxist Caucus Newsletter inside SDS) I noted that throughout their history they have consistently called for the creation of such a party in the various social arenas in which they have worked. Other organizational and independent efforts, most notably by the Socialist Workers Party and the American Communist Party will follow.
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Markin comment on this issue:
A propagandistic left-wing, pro-labor newspaper from 1968, driven by current events, is going to contain a lot of material now of just historic interest like the first rumblings of the great, if aborted, French general strike of that year and the first serious overt rumblings against the Black Panthers who were eventually destroyed by conscious governmental policy. The one section that still bears reading for today’s audience is the ten point … And What We Stand For. With a an obvious need for some technical updating, like replace Vietnam War with Iraq and Afghan Wars, the thing reads as a very presentable program for a revolutionary labor party, or a caucus in a reformist labor party in a period of left-wing motion in 2011. This says to me that we had better be getting a move on about the business of creating that revolutionary labor party-enough is enough. Break with the Democrats! Build a workers party that fights for our communist future.
Trotsky had interesting talks with James Cannon and others in the SWP.
ReplyDeleteIts a cardinal rule, when workers become involved in politics, the first place they go to is their traditional groups.
See this.
Ren
ReplyDeleteI too am looking to talk to Democrats, at least some Democrats who are leaning away from that party left-ward. In other words ready to think about breaking from the Democrats in the direction of an independent labor party. It is crazy to think that strategically in the United States you could operate otherwise unless you wanted to, as I think we are now reduced to today, to talking to other reds and radicals. The mistake made in the past and both CP and the SWP though was to equate ephemeral (very ephemeral) reliance on the labor bureaucrats, labor bureaucrats wedded, no welded, to the Democratic Party by a thousand strands, with influence in the labor movement. I think that we saw in the Wisconsin dust-up the extreme limits of relying on that element (except for episodic united fronts over specific issues like in Wisconsin).
As for your Trotsky on Jim Cannon point remember at that time Trotsky was try to get the SWP to orientate toward the Stalinists during the period of the Hitler-Stalin Pact when they were making a “left” turn and to move away, way away from the too cozy relationship with “honest” trade unionists who were working hand and hand with Roosevelt. In the end though whatever strategic approach to the labor party question program will be decisive if we are every going to get this thing right no matter who we talk too. I am sure, as well, that you agree we are rolling a very big stone up a very big mountain. Forward. More later, especially as you have indicated that you are spending more time working on this labor party question as your main arena of work.