*The Cause That Passes Through The Prisons- From The Pen Of James P. Cannon

Click on title to link to the James P.Cannon Internet Archive for James P. Cannon's trial testimony for revolutionary socialist opposition to World War II that is the basis for the book below, "Letters From Prison".

BOOK REVIEW


LETTERS FROM PRISON, JAMES P. CANNON, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1973


If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the communist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you. This book is part of a continuing series of volumes of the writings of James P. Cannon that were published by the organization he founded, the Socialist Workers Party, in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Cannon died in 1974. Look in this space for other related reviews of this series of documents on and by an important American Communist.

In their introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question that underlies the reviewer's analysis of these volumes of Cannon's work. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon’s leadership of the early Communist Party and later, after his expulsion, to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show?

This certainly is the period of Cannon’s political maturation after a long and fruitful political collaboration working with Leon Trotsky, the exiled Russian revolutionary. The period under discussion in his letters to his long time companion Rose Krasner- the years 1944-45, after Cannon and 17 other leaders of the Socialist Workers Party had been indicted, convicted, refused appeal by the United States Supreme Court and then imprisoned under the then new Smith Act provisions for their revolutionary opposition to American participation in World War II - demonstrate a continued commitment to the goals of revolutionary socialism and a desire to fight for those goals. One thing is sure- in his prime, which includes this period- Cannon had the instincts to want to lead a revolution and had the evident capacity to do so. That he never had an opportunity to lead a revolution is his personal tragedy and ours as well.

When the American Government under Franklin D. Roosevelt goaded on by one of his favorite abject ‘labor lieutenants of capitalism’, Daniel Tobin, President of the International Teamsters Union, went after the real opponents of World war II, the Socialist Workers Party and the Teamsters local their supporters led in Minneapolis, they went to the right address. Unfortunately, unlike in World War I, those organizations were politically virtually the only ones in opposition to the war from the left. The American Socialist Party and the American Communist Party( after a short opposition during the infamous Hitler-Stalin Pact) had both made their peace with imperialism. If anything those organizations were among the chief labor cheerleaders of the prosecutions.

This volume of letters from Sandstone prison by James P. Cannon, central leader of the Socialist Workers Party, are testimony to what happens to revolutionaries when they fundamentally oppose a bourgeois government on its most cherished right, the right to make war. They go to jail. Kicking and screaming, yes, and using every avenue to avoid that fate. But, when the time comes that is what they do. In no case do they flinch from the consequences of the necessary action to oppose war. This comes with the territory of being a revolutionary. While few today remember such boldness in the face of a popular war, militants today who stand in opposition to the current Iraq War would do well to honor that commitment by the Minneapolis 18.

As his letters indicate, political people do not roll over when in prison but within the limiting circumstances they find themselves in they act as political people and carry on as best they can –whether it is Czarist, fascist, Stalinist or bourgeois prisons. In the present case it turned out to be an advantage that many of the party leaders were with Cannon and could essentially form a leadership in exile to supplement the official leadership left behind on the outside. Of course, all things being equal, prison definitely cuts into the effectiveness of a revolutionary but the enforced idleness from the outside struggle can be used as a time to study and for reflection. Cannon did this very ambitiously and systematically. Through Karsner and other sources Cannon kept up with internal party affairs and made plans for the future of the party.

Finally, it is rather ironic that Cannon, who was the guiding force in the American Communist Party’s class struggle defense organization-the International Labor Defense in the mid-1920’s should need the services of the Socialist Workers Party’s class struggle defense organization -the Non-Partisan Labor Defense. What Cannon said in the 1920’s applied to his own case. The struggle of the class-war prisoners- the cause that passes through the prisons- is the concern of the whole working class. An injury to one is an injury to all. That slogan is still valid for today’s militants to organize around.

SOME OF THE BOOKS REVIEWED HERE MAY NOT BE READILY AVAILABLE AT LOCAL LIBRARIES OR BOOKSTORES. CHECK AMAZON.COM FOR AVAILABILITY THERE, BOTH NEW AND USED. YOU CAN ALSO GOOGLE THE JAMES P. CANNON INTERNET ARCHIVES.