Literature and Revolution

[p064] Literature and Revolution schools,’ development, strives to pre- serve against ‘industrialism’. BUKHARIN Such an idea is only a ‘cultural’ reflection (a reflec- tion in the lower middle-class intelligentsia) of English reformism, with its message that capitalism can be gradu- ally rendered harmless and un- recognizable by the gradual growth of progressive tenden- cies within it. These gentlemen mean, of course, that middle-class intel- lectuals themselves and bureau- crats, leaning on the working class and preventing it from asserting its real strength, will be able to attain high positions and influence’ in bourgeois society and thus achieve the middle-class dream of stabliza- tion. What has this to do with the problems dealt with by Trotsky in 1924? The differences over ‘culture’ are directly related to political differences. In his criticism of Stalin’s and Bukharin’s theory of ‘socialism in one country’, Trotsky insisted first of all that it was a reversion to reformism; to a national ver- sion of socialism which destroyed the _ revolutionary and internationalist essence of socialism. When Bukharin, for example, commented on Trotsky’s ‘Literature and Revolution’, he rejected its main argument (the impossibility of a proletarian culture) on political grounds. According to Bukharin, Trotsky underestimated the length of time which would be taken up by the era of proletarian revolution. Trotsky, he said, was impatient and over-optimistic about the world revolution. There could be a _ long. period before socialism was achieved, and this would give time for the formation of a proletarian cul- ture in Russia. What Bukharin was actually arguing was that the cultural tasks in Soviet Russia should be tackled in a way consistent with the whole Stalin- Bukharin political line: capi- talism is stabilizing itself, the Soviet economy can be built ‘at a snail’s pace’, the workers’ struggle in all countries—from China to Britain—will go through different ‘stages’, often under non-communist leader- ships, before the world revo- lution spreads; the ‘Trotskyist’ (actually Leninist) theory of world ‘revolution is dangerous and must be dropped. ‘Proletarian culture’ was therefore encouraged as_ the artistic and literary accompani- ment of the ‘experiment’ of building a special Russian kind of socialism. In ‘Literature and Revolu- tion’, Trotsky presents a thorough Marxist analysis of the real relations between literary creation and the pro- letarian revolution. To do this he had to discuss fundamental questions of the Marxist method — and for this reason the book is invaluable to stu- dents of Marxism. If we take, for example, the question with which middle- class intellectuals are most often preoccupied in the dis- cussion of Soviet literature: namely, the authority of the proletarian state and party, we find Trotsky presents it in quite different terms from the usual argument about ‘free- dom of the individual’. Monstrosities Of course the subsequent Stalinist monstrosities and atrocities in this sphere them- selves contributed to alien- ating many intellectuals. But the most important point is to understand the more funda- mental and historical relations between the revolution and the artist’s work: ‘The proletariat has to have in art the expression of the new spiritual point of view which is just beginning to be formu- lated within him, and_ to which art must help him to, give form. ‘This is not a state order, but an historic necessity. You cannot pass this by, nor escape its force’ (p. 170). ‘It follows, therefore, that the proletarian state and the Marxist party under the pro- letarian dictatorship has to judge literary schools from the standpoint of their contribu- tion to a future ‘truly human’ culture. , ‘It cannot create schools of literature by decree. Besides writers from the working class, there are writers who give only general support, and who are trying to adapt the literary forms they know to the his- torical forces created by the revolution. ‘The party cannot tell them what they should write. ‘The party stands guard over the historic interests of the working class in its entirety. Because it prepares consciously step by step the ground for a new culture and therefore for a new art, it regards the literary fellow-travellers not as the competitors of the writers of the working class, but as the real or potential helpers of the working class in the big work of reconstruction. ‘The party understands the episodic character of the literary groups of a transition period and estimates them, not from the point of view of the class passports of the individual gentlemen literati, but from the point of view of the place which these groups - occupy and can occupy in pre- . Paring a socialist culture’ (pp. 218-219). It was because Stalin and the Kremlin bureaucracy, representing all the most con- servative forces in Russia and leaning on world imperialism, broke with these fundamental Marxist conceptions of the transition to socialism, that there ensued the later vicious repressions in literary and scientific fields as well’ as in politics. Those who prefer to attack the Stalinist ‘theories’ of ‘pro- letarian culture’ and ‘socialist realism’ simply as some sort of undemocratic and crude appli- cation of dictatorial methods can only seek for a liberaliza- tion or humanization of Stalinism — and cannot attack it at its roots, in a revolu- tionary way, from the stand- point of Marxism and _ the working class. They become simply middle- class well-wishers of Stalinism. By approaching the problem of literature and_ revolution 37

[p065] with the method of Marxism, Trotsky was following out very consciously the line and the advice of Lenin. Lenin himself denounced all attempts to invent a special ‘proletarian’ culture and especially empha- sized the need for the pro- letariat to acquire the culture of past societies. But there is a deeper sense in which Trotsky carried into effect the method and approach of Lenin on this question. The whole book ‘Literature and Revolution’ keeps return- ing to the theme of this dialec- tical materialist method, as opposed to idealism: which is, of course, rampant in fields like literary criticism. LUNACHARSKY For example, idealism of an ‘ultra-left’ variety was very -.common among dramatic critics at that time in the USSR. Instead of analysing and presenting drama as the living expression of specific social and historical relations, these critics thought they could deduce a new and truly revo- lutionary drama _ from_ the general ‘nature’ of the revolu- tionary proletariat; its atheism, its activism and its need for objectivity etc. These critics attacked a French writer’s work, which depicted a stage of the struggle of the French working class, as ‘repetitive’ and tiresome — contrasting it with their own ideal version of the dynamism of the October Revolution, out of which they constructed in their minds a ‘true’ drama. Trotsky says: ‘To carry over the action of a definite historical milieu into an abstract constructivism, is in this case a deviation from the revolution — from that 38 real, true revolution. which is developing obstinately and moving from country’ to country, and which appears, therefore, to some _ pseudo- revolutionists as a boresome repetition’ (p. 238). We are back to the same methodological point as when Trotsky explained the role of ‘fellow-travellers’ in literature. It is a matter of examining, and working on, as revolution- ists engaged in making history, the actual process of pro- letarian revolution in all its forms and with all its influ- ences and shadings; examining the ‘fellow-travellers’, for example, ‘... from the point of view of the place which these groups occupy and can occupy in preparing a socialist culture’. In the 1920 controversy in the Bolshevik Party concerning the role of the trade unions, Lenin had laid great stress on this aspect of the dialectical materialistic method. At that time grave dangers had arisen from a tendency to impose a schema of what the workers’ state ought to be upon the working class and the trade unions; to deduce from the theory of trade unions and the workers’ state what their interrelation ought to be. Lenin hit very hard, against both Bukharin and Trotsky at that time, insisting that the actual struggle of opposites within reality must be estab- lished by the ‘concrete analy- sis of concrete conditions’: ‘The truth is always concrete.’ Such a ‘concrete study’ showed up the _ bureaucratic distortions in the workers’ state, and made necessary the independence of workers’ trade unions from ‘their’ state. Thus it was no idle philo- sophical discussion. The dia- lectical method had to be fought for as a matter of the life and death of the workers’ state. Bukharin not only refused to correct his mistakes but persisted in them, and_ this was largely responsible for the Party crisis of 1921 which led to the ban on factions. This Party discussion had its own dialectic. Mistakes Those who persisted in their mistakes thereby created a new situation. Small mistakes, given a new development in the class forces and the revolution, became the transition to big problems and to a major party crisis. Lenin considered that Trot- sky made errors in this respect at that time, but the apologists for Stalinism always like to forget that at the vital. stage it was Bukharin — soon to be Stalin’s main ‘theoretician’ — who made the fatal descent into syndicalism by persisting in his mistake. As Lenin put it: ‘Trotsky, who had been “chief” in the struggle, has now been “outstripped” and entirely “eclipsed” by Buk- harin, who has thrown the struggle into an entirely new balance by talking himself into a mistake that is much more serious than all of Trotsky’s put together’ (‘Collected Works’, Vol. 32, pp. 50-51). Between 1921 and 1924 (when ‘Literature and Revolu- tion’ appeared), of course, Lenin embarked upon _his alliance with Trotsky against the bureaucratic methods of Stalin. In his work on literature, then, Trotsky was _ fighting against the growth of bureau- cracy, and this fight coincided and was identical with the fight for the dialectical method against idealism, which pro- ceeds with norms of what ought to be. Interesting here is a com- parison made by _ Trotsky, which incidentally may be noted by all those who try to separate historical materialism from the dialectics of nature. Against all these who ‘deduced’ from the ‘revolution- ary nature’ of the proletariat the programme of a proletarian art and literature, Trotsky asks: why not a proletarian science also? ‘What are the metaphysicians of a purely proletarian science going to say about the theory of relativity? Can it be recon- ciled with materialism or not? Has this question been decided? Where and when and by whom? ‘It is clear to anyone, even to the uninitiated, that the work of our physiologist, Pav- lov, is entirely along materialist lines. ‘But what is one to say about the psychoanalytic theory of Freud? Can it be reconciled with materialism, as for instance, Karl Radek thinks (and I also), or is it hostile to it? ‘The same question can be put to all the new theories of atomic structure, etc., etc. ‘It would be fine if a scien- tist would come along who could grasp all these new generalizations methodologic- ally and introduce them into the dialectic materialist con- ception of the world. He could thus, at the same time, test the new theories and develop the dialectic method deeper’ (pp. 219-220. My emphasis—CS). Trotsky, proceeding as a materialist, considers the vari- ous arts, as well as natural science, to be elements of man’s living struggle to control nature and his own destiny. They must develop in and through this struggle, and cannot be deduced from abstract theories. For example, having des- cribed briefly the social and technical elements of the architecture developing in Soviet Russia, Trotsky says: ‘Thus, beyond a_ practical problem and the steady work of solving this problem, one cannot create a new architec- tural style. ‘The effort to reason out such a style by the method of deduction from the nature of the proletariat, from its collec- tivism, atheism and so forth, is the purest idealism, and will give nothing but an ingenious expression of one’s ego, an arbitrary allegorism, and the same old provincial dilettant- ism’ (p. 136). Trotsky makes’ many brilliant and profound explana- tions on the Marxist theory of literature, but it is only because he has been able to enrich the Marxist outlook: precisely by a materialist and dialectical analysis of the revolutionary conditions of Soviet literature, and not by writing a general textbook on Marxism = and literature. Readers of ‘Literature and Revolution’ should therefore not be put off by the fact that the book deals with schools of writers with whose works we are unfamiliar, and should not simply try to extract passages ‘of more general interest. It is precisely because he makes that detailed analysis of the relation of writers to the Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p066] Trotsky pictured in 1924 in Caucasia. Russian revolution that Trot- sky can make a major con- tribution to Marxist theory in this book. ‘LITERATURE and Revolution’ is best known for its attack on the idea of a ‘proletarian culture’. Put forward by groups of artists and writers after the Russian Revolution, this idea soon played into the hands of the Stalinist bureaucracy, which tried to give some special historical value to the products of Russia’s back- wardness and isolation. This, the theory of ‘socialism in one country’ and all that went with it, was the bureau- cracy’s programme of opposi- tion to Trotsky’s insistence on the revolutionary role of the working class and the defence and development of dialectical materialism. The task of the proletariat was and is to create a classless society in which art and all culture will be ‘truly human’, and its class character sur- passed. Literature and Revolution In the course of the many years of proletarian revolution, there would be developments in art which would inevitably reflect the problems = and achievements of the revolution, but even that art which could be called ‘revolutionary’ (not ‘socialist’ or ‘proletarian’) is produced in the context of definite artistic traditions, according to the past achieve- ments within each art form etc., and is not freshly baked according to some recipe de- duced from the nature of the proletariat: ‘It is untrue that revolu- tionary art can be created only by workers’ (p. 217). And what is the dialectic of artistic and literary creations? Obviously Marxists do not think that each novel, poem, play, painting etc., is simply the unique expression of an individual’s imagination. It is that, but, for it to mean some- thing to others, it must express something common to. all those who read, see or hear it. Historical materialism shows that the characteristic atti- tudes, assumptions and modes of feeling of any epoch are not ‘natural’, however much they are taken for granted. These thoughts and sentiments grow out of (and also then help to give shape to) the necessary economic foundations of life, and especially from the in- terests of the classes which oppose one another as a result of their relation to that foundation. Individual If Marxists say then that an artist (writer, painter, poet etc.) expresses a _ particular class or section of a class or group of classes under the impact of particular historical experiences, choices etc., does this mean that the individual talent and uniqueness of the artist is set at naught? That would be a totally un- dialectical conclusion: ‘One of the most important tasks of criticism is to analyse the individuality of the artist (that is, his art) into its com- ponent elements, and to show their correlations. ‘In this way, criticism brings the artist closer to the reader, who also has more or less of a “unique soul’, “artistically” unexpressed, “unchosen”’, but nonetheless representing a union of the same elements as does the soul of a poet. ‘So it can be seen that what serves as a bridge for soul to soul is not the unique, but the common. Only through the common is the unique known; the common is determined in man by the deepest and most persistent conditions which make up his “soul”, by the social conditions of education, of existence, of work and of associations. ‘The social conditions in historic human _ society are, first of all, the conditions of class affiliation. That is why a class standard is so fruitful in all fields of ideology, including art, and especially in art, be- cause the latter often expresses the deepest and most hidden social aspirations. ‘Moreover a social standard not only does not exclude, but goes hand-in-hand with formal criticism, that is, with the standard of technical work- manship. This, as a matter of fact, also tests the particular by a common measure, because if one did not reduce the particular to the general there would be no contacts among people, no thoughts and no poetry’ (p. 60). It is therefore precisely in those attitudes and values which individuals (and artists themselves) do not question, but ‘take for granted’ and express naively, in relation to all sorts of questions (the family, love, personal integrity etc.), that their deepest assumptions are expressed, and it is these deepest assumptions that are moulded by the most basic, class-historical interests. (This illuminates the well- known fact that Marx and Engels, for example, never judged writers by their explicit political opinions, but only by their artistic success in pene- trating to these basic ques- tions. Engels even said that a literary work would be better, from the proletarian stand- point, if it was not politically explicit.) ‘Incriminating’ Opponents of Marxism, in Trotsky’s day as now, objected to the Marxist analysis, com- plaining that it was simply a way of blackening or ‘incriminating’ a writer by pointing to his class affiliation or interest. Trotsky, in replying, elabor- ates on the way Marxists should approach these ques- tions: ‘{(Marxism] does not at all “incriminate” a poet with the thoughts and feelings which he expresses, but raises questions of a much more profound significance, namely, to which order of feelings does a given

[p067] 40 artistic work correspond in all its peculiarities? What are the social conditions of these thoughts and feelings? What place do they occupy in the historical development of a society and of a class? And, further, what literary heritage has entered into the elabora- tion of the new form? ‘Under the influence of what historic impulse have the new complexes of feelings and thoughts broken through the TROTSKY shell which divides them from the sphere of poetic conscious- ness?’ (p. 170). ‘The final sentence in this quotation begins to answer our question: what is the struggle of opposites at the root of artistic creation? As Trotsky sees it, there exists the whole tradition of past literary creation; ‘the sphere of poetic consciousness’. Inevitably, in class society of every type, this ‘sphere’ has been relatively and often com- pletely isolated from the life and sentiments of the masses. The breakthrough of a new class in history, and its rela- tion to the lives and feelings of ail the oppressed masses, changes all these relationships, and conflicts with the old forms. Under this ‘new _his- toric impulse’ the ‘new com- plexes of thoughts and feelings’ break through ‘the shell which divides them’ from poetry, from art. Enriching To a certain extent the changes taking place in social reality are always tending to modify the literary conscious- ness; only in revolutionary periods are the _ conditions created for profound changes, and there is then often a long interval before the new class, its interests, and its charac- teristic feelings, come to define and work out artistic styles. ‘Artistic creation is always a complicated turning inside-out of old forms, under the influ- ence of new. stimuli which originate outside the art’ (p. 179). The old forms are developed and transformed, not created completely anew by the new stimuli. Here Trotsky, in a passage which recalls Lenin’s exposi- tion of the dialectical theory of knowledge (‘Philosophical Notebooks’), insists that the literary forms developed by writers in the past are an acquisition of mankind in handling the problems of life. They must not be thrown away but dialectically overcome: ‘Literature, whose methods and processes have their roots far back in the most distant past and represent the accu- mulated experience of verbal craftsmanship, expresses the thoughts, feelings, points of view and hopes of the new epoch and of its new class’ (p. 180). This applies to the forms and techniques of all the arts, some of which are now of course (like film) directly associated with the develop- ment of science and the forces of production. Past literature and art, there- fore, while having a class character determined by the type of exploitation of the ruting class, also represents the progress of humanity in its contradictory historical course: ‘What the workers will take from Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin or Dostoievsky, will be a more complex idea of human personality, of its passions and feelings, a deeper and _ pro- founder understanding of its psychic forces and of the role of the subconscious etc. In the final analysis, the worker will become richer’ (p. 225). Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p068] 1 In other words, Shakespeare, Goethe etc., the giants of bour- geois literature, did not only develop literary forms, but through those forms made genuine discoveries about the nature of man. Art and litera- ture thus have a distinct role of enriching man’s perception and capacity for life. For the proletariat to appro- priate these cultural gains, it must concentrate all energies— through the leadership of a revolutionary party based on Marxism — to the overthrow of capitalism and the establish- ment of its political power. This provides the conditions for creating a classless society. The Russian Futurists wanted to work out an art and literature just from this revo- lutionary nature of the pro- letariat, condemning the ‘individualism’ of bourgeois literature. The dangers _in- volved in such an attitude of revolt rather than revolution are indicated by the fact that their fellow-Futurists in Italy found themselves intimately associated with Mussolini’s fascists, who also took a new broom to sweep away the ‘decadence’ and ‘individualism’ of ‘democracy’ and the ‘old world’! ‘Threshold’ Trotsky points out that the proletariat, by its revolution, only puts itself ‘on the thres- hold’, culturally speaking. ‘When the Futurists propose to throw overboard the old literature of individualism, not only because it has become antiquated in form, but because it contradicts the collectivist nature ‘of the proletariat, they reveal a very inadequate under- standing of the dialéctic nature of the contradiction between individualism and collectivism. ‘There are no - abstract Literature and Revolution truths. There are different kinds of individualism. ‘Because of too much indivi- dualism, a section of the pre- revolutionary intelligentsia threw itself into mysticism, but another section moved along the chaotic lines of Futurism and, caught by the Revolution — to their honour be it said — came ne. > *~ the proletariat. ‘But when they who came nearer because their teeth were set on edge by individualism, carry their feeling over to the proletariat, they show them- selves guilty of egocentricism, that is, of extreme _ indivi- dualism. ‘The trouble is that the average proletarian is lacking in this very quality. In the mass, proletarian individuality has not been sufficiently formed and differentiated. ‘It is just such heightening of the objective quality and the subjective consciousness of individuality that is the most valuable contribution of the cultural advance at the thres- hold of which we stand today. ‘It is childish to think that bourgeois belles lettres can make a breach in_ class solidarity’ (p. 225). We return, then, but on the basis of the most fundamental historical and theoretical con- siderations, to questions of policy of the workers’ state and the Bolshevik Party. The Bolsheviks represent and lead the working class and must determine its policy to- wards other classes and to- wards the literary intelligentsia, some of whom seek in the Revolution a new source for their creativity. ‘In its struggle for the preservation of continuity in artistic culture, the left wing of the old art, whose social basis has been destroyed by the Revolution more thoroughly than ever before in history, is compelled to seek support in the proletariat, or at least, in the new social en- vironment which is_ being formed about the proletariat. ‘In its turn, the proletariat takes advantage of its position as ruling class and tries and begins to make contacts with art in general, and thus to prepare the ground for an un- precedented influence of art. In this sense it is true that the factory news-bulletins pasted on their walls represent a very necessary, though very remote, premise for the new literature of the future. ‘No one, however, will say: Let me cross out everything else until the proletariat shall have risen from those walled bulletins to an independent craftmanship of art. ‘The proletariat also needs a continuity of creative tradi- tion. At the present time the proletariat realises this con- tinuity not directly, but in-. directly, through the creative bourgeois intelligentsia which gravitates towards the pro- letariat and which wants to keep warm under its wing. ‘The proletariat tolerates a part of this intelligentsia, sup- ports another part, half-adopts a third, and entirely assimilates a fourth. ‘The policy of the [Soviet] Communist Party towards art is determined by the com- plexity of this process, by its internal many-sidedness. It is impossible to reduce this policy to something short like a bird’s bill. Nor is it necessary to do this’ (p. 227). It is the release of the pro- ductive forces by the new collective social relations of socialism which lays the basis for the ‘truly human’ culture of the future. The content of this culture will constitute a re-working of the whole cul- tural heritage of past class societies in the context of quite new tasks. Men no longer confront their destiny as some blind fate or as a set of powers exercising uncontrollable power. They will, under com- munism, be ‘the associated producers’, consciously creating and catering for “human needs, with the contradiction between the common interest and the free development of the indivi- dual resolved. ‘And as all problems in a socialist society—the problems of life which formerly were solved spontaneously and auto- matically, and the problems of art which were in the custody of special priestly castes—will become the property of all people, one can say with cer- tainty that collective interests and passions and _ individual competition will have the widest scope and the most un- limited opportunity .. . ‘It will be the aesthetic schools around which “parties” will collect, that is, associa- tions of temperaments, of tastes and of moods. In a struggle so disinterested and tense, which will take place in a culture whose foundations are steadily rising, the human personality, with its invaluable basic. trait of continual dis- content, will grow and become polished at all its points. ‘In truth, we have no reason to fear that there will be a decline of individuality or an impoverishment of art in a socialist society’ (pp. 231-232). ‘Literature and Revolution’ is one of the classics of Marxism. Trotsky’s vision of the future society, of communist man, has often been praised for its passion and nobility, and rightly so. But nowhere else, besides his book, has any Marxist so clearly traced and defined the relationship be- tween that future, the revolu- tionary tasks before the Marxist party, and the funda- mental elements of dialectical materialism. This is what gives ‘Litera- ture and Revolution’ its great value. 41

[p069] To the memory of VINCENT RAYMOND DUNNE Pioneer American 1890- 1970 Trotskyist VINCENT RAYMOND DUNNE, veteran US workers’ leader, founder member of the American Communist Party and later of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, died on February 17 at the age of 80. The whole of Dunne’s working life was devoted to the organization of his class against its enemies. His life and experiences span_ the most decisive landmarks in the history of both the American and European working classes. His first contact with the socialist movement was in Montana, where he_- was working as a lumberjack at the age of 16. 42 It was there that he met the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW or ‘Wob- blies’) and learned from them the news that the Russian workers had risen in revolt against the Tsar in the revo- lution of 1905. It was at this time that he became a_ convinced inter- nationalist. Trade union organization was still very weak, and embraced largely skilled work- ers in the American Federa- tion of Labour (AFL). The IWW, with its syndical- ist emphasis on militant indus- . trial unionism, attracted many unskilled workers into its ranks in the years before the First World War, and trained many fine union organizers. Dunne was one of them. Unlike so many of his class in the USA, Dunne raised him- self above trade unionism to the level where he began to see the need for political power. From the IWW he joined the Socialist Party of Debbs, and began a serious study of the socialist and Marxist classics. From his very begin- nings as a revolutionary social- ist, Dunne tried to give his practical activity a theoretical foundation. He rapidly won a reputa- tion in Minneapolis as a union militant, and was repeatedly sacked for his organizing acti- vities. During the First World War, he refused to buy war bond stamps from his employer, and was_ again sacked—this time for inter- nationalism. Betrayals Great events in Europe again thrust him forward. The October Revolution in Russia and the betrayals of social democracy in the rest of Europe convinced Dunne that only Bolshevism and the Third Communist International could organize the US working class for the socialist revolution. He became a founder mem- ber of the American Commun- ist Party. From 1921 until 1933 he worked in the Minneapolis coal yards as a truck driver for the DeLaittre Coal Co., until the firm was taken over by Ford — and Dunne was sacked again. During these 12 years he won a reputation that was to stand him in good stead when the historic class battles of 1934 transformed Minneapolis from a trade union backwater into one of the best-organized cities in the entire mid-West. But six years before the 1934 explosion, Dunne’s poli- tical development was again influenced—for the third time by great events in Russia. The rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy and the fight of the Left Opposition reached a climax in 1927 with the expulsion of Trotsky and his comrades from the Bolshevik Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p070] To the memory of VINCENT RAYMOND DUNN Pioneer American 1890- 1970 Trotskyist VINCENT RAYMOND DUNNE, veteran US workers’ leader, founder member of the American Communist Party and later of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, died on February 17 at the age of 80. The whole of Dunne’s working life was devoted to the organization of his class against its enemies. His life and experiences span the most decisive landmarks in the history of both the American and European working classes. His first contact with the socialist movement was in Montana, where he was working as a lumberjack at the age of 16. 42 It was there that he met the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW or ‘Wob- blies’) and learned from them the news that the Russian workers had risen in revolt against the Tsar in the revo- lution of 1905. It was at this time that he became a _ convinced _inter- nationalist. Trade union organization was still very weak, and embraced largely skilled work- ers in the American Federa- tion of Labour (AFL). The IWW, with its syndical- ist emphasis on militant indus- trial unionism, attracted many unskilled workers into its ranks in the years before the First World War, and trained many fine union organizers. Dunne was one of them. Unlike so many of his class in the USA, Dunne raised him- self above trade unionism to the level where he began to see the need for political power. From the IWW he joined the Socialist Party of Debbs, and began a serious study of the socialist and Marxist classics. From his very begin- nings as a revolutionary social- ist, Dunne tried to give his practical activity a theoretical foundation. He rapidly won a reputa- tion in Minneapolis as a union militant, and was repeatedly sacked for his organizing acti- vities. During the First World War, he refused to buy war bond stamps from his employer, and was_ again sacked—tthis time for inter- nationalism. Betrayals Great events in Europe again thrust him forward. The October Revolution in Russia and the betrayals of social democracy in the rest of Europe convinced Dunne that only Bolshevism and the Third Communist International could organize the US working class for the socialist revolution. He became a founder mem- ber of the American Commun- ist Party. From 1921 until 1933 he worked in the Minneapolis coal yards as a truck driver for the DeLaittre Coal Co., until the firm was taken over by Ford — and Dunne was sacked again. During these 12 years he won a reputation that was to stand him in good stead when the historic class battles of 1934 transformed Minneapolis from a trade union backwater into one of the best-organized cities in the entire mid-West. But six years before the 1934 explosion, Dunne’s poli- tical development was again influenced—for the third time by great events in Russia. The rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy and the fight of the Left Opposition reached a climax in 1927 with the expulsion of Trotsky and his comrades from the Bolshevik Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p071] Party by its Stalinist leader- ship. But at the Sixth Congress of the Communist Inter- national in 1928 a section of Trotsky’s criticism of the Draft Programme of the Inter- national, submitted by Trotsky to the Congress from exile in Alma Ata, was accidentally translated and circulated to all the delegations at the congress. Stalin wanted to suppress it. James P. Cannon, a mem- ber of the US delegation to the Congress, kept a copy of the document, and, when he returned to America, began a fight inside the US Commun- ist Party against the Stalinist programme of ‘socialism in one country’ attacked in Trot- sky’s critique. When Cannon’s group was expelled by the pro-Stalinist faction, Dunne voted against the expulsion: ‘This had to be challenged’, he said many years later. ‘We had to protest against this expulsion, this bureaucratic disregard of all rights in the Party. When we made our protest, we were expelled too.’ Dunne was then on _ the Minnesota district committee of the Communist Party. With him were expelled around 30 other comrades from the same region. Together, they formed the working-class nucleus that was to play the decisive part in pioneering trade unionism in Minneapolis and the whole mid-West. Their break from Stalinism in 1928 was an essential pre- requisite for this historic inter- vention in the class struggle six years later in 1934. The adherence of Dunne and his comrades to the Inter- national Left Opposition and later the Fourth International was of profound importance in the development of Trot- skyism. The movement was founded, as Trotsky once said, on the most advanced ideas on this planet. Yet its cadres were few, persecuted and in many cases isolated from the mainstream of the class struggle. Essence Many of those who rallied to Trotsky in the early period were middle-class intellectuals, impressed by the superficial or secondary aspects of the struggle against Stalinism, but Vincent Raymond Dunne 1890-1970 unable to grasp the principled and class essence of Trotsky- ism, which lay in its fight for Bolshevism and the conquests of the Russian Revolution against the Stalinist counter- revolution in the Soviet Union. All the more vital therefore that Trotskyism should secure an anchorage deep in_ the working class from which to begin a real training of revolu- tionaries in the fight against both social democracy and Stalinism. The decision of the Dunne brothers to break from the Communist Party and join Trotsky was. therefore of immense value to the move- ment. It was not just the deci- sion of a small group of advanced workers, but a deci- sive trend inside the working class sensitive to historic issues raised by the Russian Revolution and its degenera- tion under Stalin. It was a development of profound international signifi- cance. This break-through inside the US working class, which reached a high point with the Minneapolis strikes of 1934, came at a time when _ the European working class was being betrayed in defeat after defeat by the Second and Third Internationals. First in Germany, then Austria, France and Spain the counter- revolution struck. But in the United States, the working class, recovering from the terrible ravages of the aok BOCA gy sites THE STRIKE ES 1929 depression, began to take its first giant strides towards organizing itself as a _ class against the employers. Excluded by the skilled craft unions from the AFL, indus- trial and other _ unskilled workers began to recover their confidence with the upturn of the economy in 1934. It was no accident that Minneapolis was the arena of the first great confrontation between the big battalions of US labour and the union-hating giants of American business. By a twist of history, the theories of revolutionary Marxism, Trotskyism, began to take root in a section of a working class traditionally the most hostile to theory and the most deeply steeped in the philosophy of individualism and class collaboration. Opposites These two opposites were consciously brought together by the American Trotskyist movement in the two great Minneapolis truck drivers’ strikes of 1934, strikes which saw the US working class, with all its resources of ingenuity, improvization, audacity and organizational skill, at its greatest. In the course of the strikes, Dunne proved himself to be a superb strike strategist and organizer, using all his experi- ence and knowledge of the working class and its enemies to outwit and out-think his opponents. The Dunne brothers: Broke from the CP to join Trotsky. When these _ skills were allied and enriched by the political understanding that ~* only Marxism can give to the working class, the combina- tion proved overpowering. Routed The two strikes for union rights and better wages and conditions brought the ‘Citi- zens’ Alliance’ to its knees, and routed the armed police of ‘Farmer-Labour’ Governor Olsen, at the battle of Deputies Run, for good measure. At the time of the strikes, Dunne and his fellow militants were not even officials of their union local, 574, but were only members of the trugk drivers’ organizing committee. This did not prevent them from playing the decisive role in the whole strike, because behind Dunne and his com- rades in local 574 was a party, a programme and a_ theory based on the historical experi- ences of the _ international working class in its struggle against capitalism. The Minneapolis strike was won and the trade’ union movement established in the town not only through the militancy of the working class, but because the strike was led by Trotskyists, by a leadership that began with a political and not purely trade union per- spective. At the height of the battle, when many workers were still looking to Olsen for protec- tion from the Citizens’ Alli- ance, Dunne warned: 43

[p072] Minneapolis, 1934: Striking truck-drivers battle with police. Bullets and bayonets could not shift them until their demands were met. ‘Submit to the governor Olsen and the strike is lost. Workers must rely only on their own organizations.’ This was the authentic voice of the American working class speaking. For Dunne, however, this slogan had a deeper mean- ing. The most’ important organization of all was the revolutionary party, and Dunne, from his first days with the IWW, constantly worked towards an_ under- standing of its role in the class struggle. The Minneapolis strike was not just a victory for trade unionism, but for the revolutionary party. The Dunne leadership also contributed other unique fea- fures -to US trade unionism ‘that were to set the pace for the giant movement that created the unskilled workers’ unions a few years later. The strike committee issued its own daily paper, and involved every possible’ striker in deciding and carrying out the policy of the local. ° Not only the strikers, but their families, and particularly their wives (always singled out for special attention by the 44 employers) were drawn into the fight. Everything was thrown at the picket lines and _ the strikers—but neither blandish- ments from the clergy, prom- ises from ‘Farmer-Labour’ Olsen, nor bullets and bay- onets from the militia could shift them until their demands had been granted. Red-baiting, Bolshevik scares and all the usual _§anti- strike propaganda tricks of the employers fell on deaf ears. The leadership had prepared the Minneapolis working class for every one of these attacks. It was the employers, and not local 574, that cracked. The fame of local 574 spread far and wide, and soon Dunne and his comrades became the terror of union bureaucrats and employers throughout the entire mid- West as they loaned organizers to other workers fighting to establish unions in their indus- tries or towns. Later in 1934, Dan Tobin, President of the Teamsters, expelled local 574, and began a war of intimidation against Dunne and its other leaders. Beaten up Dunne himself was beaten up by Tobin’s thugs. But when faced with the flat refusal of any Minneapolis worker to join his own newly formed ‘local 500’, the union bureau- cracy capitulated and in 1936 re-admitted local 574 — with Dunne still in its leadership. This stand proved that the union bureaucracy, despite all its gangsterism and friends in high places, could be beaten if an appeal was made to the rank and file on a militant pro- gramme of class: struggle. The Dunne brothers, through their training in the Trotskyist movement, were .able to harness this power in the working class and deal a blow to Tobin and the AFL bureaucracy that was never forgotten. The Dunnes set the pace for trade unionism in the whole mid-West just as they had for Minneapolis. And in 1938, after a period of work as Trotskyists inside the Socialist Party of Norman Thomas, Vincent became a _ founder member of the Socialist Work- ers’ Party, the American Trot- skyists. Dunne and his fellow work- ers in the SWP had travelled only a certain distance along the road to becoming fully- fledged Marxists. They embodied all the strengths of the American working class, revealed first in the Minneapolis strike and then on a vaster scale in the organization of the unskilled millions into the Congress for Industrial Organizations (CIO). But this group had political limitations which it also shared with the class as a whole and it could not be otherwise. Organizational skill and adherence to the party and its programme had _ carried them a long way. Mass basis Now it was the responsi- bility of the party intellectuals to apply themselves to the training of this working-class cadre in Marxist philosophy, without which there could be no possibility of securing a mass basis for the SWP in the American working class. Trotsky gave this task first priority: “.. . my first serious con- versation with comrades Schachtman and Warde, in the train immediately after my arrival in Mexico in January 1937, was devoted to the necessity of persistently pro- pagating dialectical material- ism. . . . In the United States . where the bourgeoisie sys- tematically instills vulgar empiricism in the workers, more than anywhere else is it necessary to speed the eleva- tion of the movement to a pro- per theoretical level.’ (‘In Defence of Marxism’. New Park Publications edition. p. 142.) It was precisely at this point that the middle class struck its blow against the Fourth International in the United States, crippling those workers in the party fighting their way towards an understanding of Marxism and the class roots of pragmatism, the outlook that judges everything by immediate results, by ‘what works for: me’. The disdain and even con- tempt for Marxist philosophy Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p073] displayed by the majority of intellectuals within the SWP came to the surface in 1939 at the time of the Stalin- Hitler Pact, which made unconditional defence of the Soviet Union extremely unpop- ular in ‘democratic’ and radical circles. In the course of the struggle against the petty-bourgeois Opposition, Trotsky several times expressed disgust at the theoretical level of its arguments and_ philosophical pretensions. Of Burnham, Trotsky said: ‘TT. grit my teeth upon losing my time in the reading of these absolutely _ stale documents. The errors are so elementary that it is necessary to make an effort to remem- ber the necessary argument from the ABC of Marxism.’ (‘In Defence of Marxism’.) The working-class core of the party, led by cadres such’ as Dunne, never wavered under the pressure of the American ruling class. But the middle class ran from the party as fast as their legs would take them, several, such as James Burnham, not stopping till they ended up on the extreme right. Already under attack from within, the party was hit by a new wave of persecutions. The target was ostensibly local 574, whose leaders were again witch-hunted by Tobin on a framed-up charge of ‘racketeering’ (Tobin himself was a notorious union racketeer). Cleared But in October 1940, after three years of investigations, the local was once again cleared and re-admitted back into the AFL. But still Tobin was not satisfied. He attempted to place the local in receivership, which would mean that the control of its affairs would pass out of the hands of its members into Tobin’s own bureaucracy. Armed with a _ crushing mandate from the rank and file, the leadership of the local applied for admittance to the CIO. But before this could take place, an unprecedented red- baiting campaign was unleashed by the government. The Minneapolis offices of the SWP were raided by the Vincent Raymond Dunne 1890-1970 FBI, and _ practically the entire leadership of local 574 indicted under the notorious anti-union Smith Act to the applause of every employer— and, of course, Stalinist. Together with 25 _ other prominent leaders of the local and the SWP, the three Dunne brothers stood trial in August 1941 charged with advocating the overthrow of the American government by force. Eighteen of the defendants, including Vincent Dunne, were found guilty and finally, after a two-year campaign, sentenced to jail for periods ranging from one year to 16 months. Dunne’s devotion to the party helped him to withstand these attacks when the middle class had deserted the SWP for the camp of Roosevelt and ‘democracy’. But his political development now took a new turn. The main _ philosophical questions raised by the 1939- 1940 struggle with Burnham and Schachtman had never been probed. Trotsky insisted that the pragmatic traditions of the American ruling class had penetrated deeply into the thinking of not only middle- class radicals, but the working class itself. In siding with Trotsky, the Cannon leadership, based on the working-class cadres of the SWP, had not departed from the pragmatic method. Their relationship with Trotsky ‘worked’, while the middle- class opposition threatened to destroy the party built by Dunne and Cannon. The Cannon-Dunne leader- ship leaned heavily on Trotsky for the theoretical arguments against the renegade Schacht- man-Burnham group, but never seriously began to develop themselves as Marxists in the day to day struggle against pragmatism in the USA. Trot- sky, cut off in Mexico from the daily struggle to build the Party in the concrete condi- tions of the US class struggle, could not do this for them. Fidelity to the party and its programme, and reliance on strong proletarian class in- stincts and organizational skill, essential qualities in any revo- lutionary leader, still could not serve as substitutes for dialec- tical materialism, developed in conflict with the highly sub- jectivist ideology of the American ruling class, matism. prag- In turn, this development could only have been made through the conscious relation of theory to practice in the work of the party. It also demanded a struggle within the leadership of the SWP after the defection of the Burnham-Schachtman opposi- tion. as Trotsky insisted, still domi- nated the thinking of the Cannon group, despite its support for Trotsky in the fight against Burnham and Schachtman. Even though he directed his main blows at the opposition, Trotsky still found it neces- sary to express his concern at the low theoretical level of the \whole party as revealed in the discussion. Governor Olsen’s troops raiding the Central Labour Union. Dunne wrote ‘submit to him and the strike is lost’. Marxist theory cannot be developed in the abstract, but by its application to the task of training a _ revolutionary leadership. Inevitably, this would have led to conflicts within the SWP majority lead- ership on questions of philo- sophy, of dialectical material- ism against pragmatism, which, Burning issue ‘Let me also add that I feel abashed over the fact that it is necessary to justify coming out in defence of Marxism within one of the sections [the ‘leading’ one!] of the Fourth International!’ (‘In 45

[p074] Defence of Marxism’, p. 143.) This was written in 1939— a full 11 years after the Cannon-Dunne break from Stalinism in 1928. Trotsky was murdered less than a_ year later, and, had he lived, he would have undoubtedly re- turned to this burning issue in the SWP. It was mainly left to Trotsky to call the petty-bourgeois in- tellectuals to order when they began their open attacks on the party, its traditions and theory. _The Cannon wing of the SWP combined their know- ledge of the American working class with Trotsky’s enormous theoretical and historical understanding. But this re- mained a pragmatic relation- ship, which was very sucess- ful while Trotsky was alive. The real problems came into the open after Trotsky was murdered in August 1940. cae xy as All the SWP leadership, in- cluding Dunne, share the responsibility for failing to carry through the theoretical fight begun by Trotsky in the last year of his life. And when Trotsky was assassinated by a _ Stalinist agent in August 1940, SWP leaders like Cannon and Dunne began to spend the political— capital inherited” from the founder of the Fourth Inter- national without either adding to it or really understanding it in philosophical terms. The great weakness of the US working class, its reliance on combinations and _ tactics as a substitute for principles,’ theory and strategy, was the outcome of pragmatism inside the workers’ movement. The CIO was a_ classic example of these features—it was built within a matter of a few years by an enormous upsurge in the US working ee. 4 Above: A meeting of the Local 574 stewards. Below: A cartoon on the employers’ ‘Red scare’ propaganda from the strike committee’s dailv paper. aN ‘ class, and yet succumbed just as quietly to the same class collaborationist philosophy that dominated the AFL, once faced with the challenge of political action. Against the instincts of the CIO rank and file, many of whom had taken part in that most lethal of all strikers’ weapon—the ‘sit in’—the CIO was tied to the Roosevelt democratic chariot and driven full speed into the Second World War, ‘no-strike pledge’ and all. The political future of the working-class cadres in the SWP therefore hinged on the ability of the party’s leader- ship to train militants in the unions to understand the philo- sophical roots of American class collaboration. The trade union bureaucracies were un- derpinned not only by strong- arm men, but the _ political backwardness of the class itself. Trotsky alerted the SWP majority to this problem when he wrote: ‘It is moreover impermissi- ble to forget that the actual or possible mistakes of those comrades working in the trade unions reflect the pressure of the American proletariat as it is today. We are not preparing to capitulate to this _pres- sure... .’ (‘In Defence of Marxism’, p. 184.) In his fight for the develop- ment of Marxist philosophy in James Cannon: pragmatic relationship with the Fourth International. the SWP, Trotsky first col- lided with the middle-class opposition, but they only expressed pragmatism in its purest and most naked form. The workers in the party, as part of American working class, though instinctively siding with Trotsky, shared that pragmatic outlook though on a less conscious level. Discussion In a discussion with SWP leaders in June, 1940, Trotsky pointed out the dangers for the party inherent in any adaptation to the trade union consciousness of the working class: ‘I believe we have the criti- cal point very clear. We are in a bloc with so-called pro- gressives—not only fakers but honest rank and file. Yes they are honest and progressives, but from time to time they vote for Roosevelt—once in four years. This is decisive. You propose a trade union policy not a Bolshevik policy. Bolshevik policies begin out- side the trade unions... . (emphasis added.) “You are afraid to become compromised in the eyes of the Rooseveltian trade union- ists... . If you are afraid, you loose your independence and become half-Rooseveltian. Our policy is too much for pro- Rooseveltian. trade - unionists. I notice that in the “North Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p075] West Organiser” [the journal of Local 574]. We discussed it before, but not a word was changed; not a single word...’ {emphasis added] (Transcript reproduced in ‘Fourth Inter- national’, August 1965, Vol. 2 Number 2.) Implicit What had been implicit in many of Trotsky’s contribu- tions in the fight against the Burnham and Schachtman was made explicit in the discussions with the SWP leaders on trade union strategy, the tactics to be adopted towards the Stalin- ist party, and the policy for the Presidential election. Pragmatic combinations in the trade unions had taken the SWP away from the Stalinist- led workers (many of whom, Trotsky insisted, could be won to the Party) towards the pro- Roosevelt layers, who were tied, through the CIO leader- ship, to the Democratic Party machine. In suggesting that the SWP critically support the Stalinist candidate at the Presidential election if the Party was un- able to run its own candidate, Trotsky unearthed and dis- turbed this combination. The next stage in the struggle for Marxism in the United States would inevitably have led to sharp conflicts with sections of those workers drawn around the Party in the big trade union fights of the preceding period. Dunne, as a founder member both of the Communist Party and _ the Trotskyist movement in the USA, could have _ greatly assisted in that development. But it never took place. A few articles on philosophy by Novack and Serland were written, and then the whole issue was dropped. Affected After the end of the war, the worker elements in the SWP began to be affected by the inflationary boom, and, after the outbreak of the Korean war, by the cold war. The pressures of the US ruling class, previously exerted on the Party through the middle-class intellectuals, now also relayed themselves through this more conservative layer in the trade unions that had not developed theoretically since Vincent Raymond Dunne 1890-1970 the split with Burnham and Schachtman. The Cannon-Dunne leader- ship, resting on its tradition as Trotsky’s allies in the struggles of 1939-1940, when the Second World War came to an end, substituted the Pablo leader- ship in the Fourth Inter- national Secretariat for the murdered Trotsky. Cannon was to handle the organizational side, Pablo, the ‘theory’ as in the days of Trotsky. So pragmatic methods still prevailed, despite all Trotsky’s appeals in the last years of his life for a develop- ment of dialectical materialism within the SWP. Instead of a unification of theory and practice within the SWP being fought for, Cannon substituted a combination of his own strong side in organ- izational questions with first Trotsky’s, and later Pablo’s, theoretical guidance. This pragmatic relationship with the Fourth International had great dangers, not just for the SWP, but the entire inter- national movement, which understandably looked to the SWP for leadership on import- ant questions. When Pablo began to move towards a revision of Trotsky- ism in the early 1950s with his theory of the ‘War Revolution’ the SWP leadership at first said nothing. It was only when Pablo, through a small group of sup- porters inside the SWP (the Joseph Hansen: cynical petty-bourgeois who headed the drift back towards Pablo. Cochrane and Clarke group) began to disrupt the old rela- tions established by the Cannon leadership that the SWP re- plied with its ‘Open Letter’ of 1953 (see ‘Fourth Inter- national’, Summer, Volume 2, Number 1 together with other documents on the Fourth International and the SWP). But as in 1939-1940—there was no probing of the philo- sophical and methodological roots of Pablo’s liquidationism. Instead, there was an abrupt split, and the expulsion within the SWP of a group around Cochrane, composed mainly of trade union workers based on Detroit, who sided with Pablo. Once the gravity of the situation had become clear, British Trotskyists (already en- gaged in a fight against Pablo’s supporters led by John Law- rence) called for a deep-going discussion in 1954 between all sections of the international movement, including Pablo, on the nature and origin of the dispute. But as far as Cannon, Hansen, Dunne and Dobbs (now the leaders of the SWP) were concerned, the matter was closed. An organizational remedy had been applied to what was in fact a theoretical, indeed, philosophical question. By cutting the discussion short, as they had done in 1940, the SWP leadership walled themselves off from any understanding of the crisis in the Fourth International. And because the theoretical questions had been covered over with a pragmatic, organ- izational solution — expelling Cochrane ‘worked’, it ‘settled’ the problem —the SWP laid itself open to the same. pres- sures that had already begun to destroy Pablo. Headed by Joseph Hansen, a cynical petty-bourgeois, the SWP leadership began its drift back towards Pablo, More and more the leadership, including Dunne, adopted Pablo’s method of turning empirically towards non-proletarian forces to carry through the socialist revolu- tion: petty - bourgeois _ left- nationalist leaderships in the semi-colonial world and _ left- ward -impelled centrist and Stalinist leaderships in the ad- vanced capitalist countries. Rejoined This adaptation was re- flected in the class composi- tion of the SWP itself, which became more and more domi- nated by middle-class _ ele- ments. Finally, in 1963, the SWP leadership rejoined the Pabloites, without any con- cessions being made by the latter group on either the 1953 split or any of the subsequent actions and policies of its supporters. But even at this later stage, the Socialist Labour League tried to continue the discus- sion inside the movement and probe to the roots the differ- between the Inter- ences Dobbs: organizational remedies for the SWP leadership. 47

[p076] national Committee and the Pabloites. After the SWP-Pabloite unification, the International Committee of the Fourth International (set up—-with the SWP’s support—to fight re- visionism after the 1953 split) wrote to the Pabloite ‘International Secretariat’ ask- ing for a continuation of the discussion: ‘, . . this discussion must take place in all sections, not only in the leadership, but the ranks. Unless this decision [is] carried out it would be impos- sible for the international movement to develop new cadres. . . . A proper circula- tion of all documents must take place.’ This appeal was brusquely turned down. The Pabloites feared such a political confron- tation, as it would expose their decade and more of retreat from the principles of Trotsky- ism. In the case of the SWP, it could have brought home to many of its rank and file the inconsistencies between the stand taken in 1953 and the unification ten years later with the very forces denounced in the ‘Open Letter’ to Trotskyism. In his fight against the SWP opposition, Trotsky wrote to Cannon, warning him against any minimizing of the philo- sophical issues at stake : ‘I understand well the im- patience of many Majority comrades (I suppose that this as traitors impatience is not infrequently connected with theoretical in- difference) but they should be reminded that the happenings in the Socialist Workers Party have now a great international importance. .. .’ (‘In Defence of Marxism’, p. 198.) Dunne, like many _ other worker members of the SWP, became a victim of this indif- ference to theoretical ques- tions. Pragmatism rotted the foundations of the SWP far more effectively than any amount of police persecution, bureaucratic repression and Stalinist thuggery could ever have done. It withstood all the physical blows of the class enemy in the war and in the great strike battles of the 1930s and 1940s —only to succumb to the philosophy of the ruling class a decade later. This is the tragedy of Dunne, as it is with all the other workers who built Local 574 and led the Minneapolis strikes of 1934. (Tribute must be paid here to the role of the late Carl Skoglund in pioneering Local 574. With Dunne, he was the great strategist of the 1934 victory.) The revolutionary Party will only be built in the United States, the bastion of world imperialism, in the course of the most ruthless struggle for Marxist philosophy against the idealist outlook of the Ameri- can ruling class—pragmatism. This will involve not only a fight against the middle-class radical exponents of student and black power, but deep within the working class itself, where pragmatism is embedded firmly after a century and more of bourgeois domination over the workers’ movement. Combination The same combination of the SWP leadership with Trotsky established before 1940 con- tinues to this day. On the one hand, the party’ publishes Trotsky’s works, and com- memorates his life in numerous books and pamphlets, while on the other, inside the youth movement, the Young Socialist Alliance, an orientation to- wards the middle class pre- dominates. The name and tradition of Trotsky, founder of the Fourth International, serves as a cover for the most opportunist adaptations to the anti-war movement, student power and now ‘women’s liberation’. Nevertheless, within the SWP youth movement, there are many that can be won to Trotskyism provided that the theoretical struggle for dialec- tical materialism begun inside the SWP by Trotsky in the last year of his life is taken up and applied to the prob- lems of constructing revolu- tionary working-class leader- ship in the United States today. Despite all his great ex- perience in the US workers’ movement, and his deep loyalty to the party, Vincent Dunne was not able to achieve this. The present generation of advanced American workers, trained in the revolutionary party, must. 6d. Paper 12s. back: Hard Price: 30s. cover ~ TROTSKY BETRAYED WHAT IS THE SOVIET UNION AND WHERE IS IT GOING? Paper back: 6d. 10s. Price: Hard 21s. cover NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. 48 186a CLAPHAM HIGH STREET, LONDON, S.W.4 Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p077] national Committee and the Pabloites. After the SWP-Pabloite unification, the International Committee of the Fourth International (set up—-with the SWP’s support—to fight re- visionism after the 1953 split) wrote to the Pabloite ‘International Secretariat’ ask- ing for a continuation of the discussion: ‘. . . this discussion must take place in all sections, not only in the leadership, but the ranks. Unless this aa itlon [is] carried out it would be impos- sible for the international movement to develop new cadres. ... A proper circula- tion of all documents must take place.’ This appeal was brusquely turned down. The Pabloites feared such a political confron- tation, as it would expose their decade and more of retreat from the principles of Trotsky- ism. In the case of the SWP, it could have brought home to many of its rank and file the inconsistencies between the stand taken in 1953 and the unification ten years later with the very forces denounced in the ‘Open Letter’ to Trotskyism. In his fight against the SWP opposition, Trotsky wrote to Cannon, warning him against any minimizing of the philo- sophical issues at stake : ‘I understand well the im- patience of many Majority comrades (I suppose that this impatience is not infrequently connected with theoretical in- difference) but they should be reminded that the happenings in the Socialist Workers Party have now a great international as traitors importance. .. .’ (‘In Defence of Marxism’, p. 198.) Dunne, like many _ other worker members of the SWP, became a victim of this indif- ference to theoretical ques- tions. Pragmatism rotted the foundations of the SWP far more effectively than any amount of police persecution, bureaucratic repression and Stalinist thuggery could ever have done. It withstood all the physical blows of the class enemy in the war and in the great strike battles of the 1930s and 1940s —only to succumb to the philosophy of the ruling class a decade Jater. This is the tragedy of Dunne, as it is with all the other workers who built Local 574 and led the Minneapolis strikes of 1934. (Tribute must be paid here to the role of the late Carl Skoglund in pioneering Local 574. With Dunne, he was the great strategist of the 1934 victory.) The revolutionary Party will only be built in the United States, the bastion of world imperialism, in the course of the most ruthless struggle for Marxist philosophy against the idealist outlook of the Ameri- can ruling class—pragmatism. This will involve not only a fight against the middle-class radical exponents of student and black power, but deep within the working class itself, where pragmatism is embedded firmly after a century and more of bourgeois domination over the workers’ movement. Combination The same combination of the SWP leadership with Trotsky established before 1940 con- tinues to this day. On the one hand, the party publishes Trotsky’s works, and com- memorates his life in numerous books and pamphlets, while on the other, inside the youth movement, the Young Socialist Alliance, an orientation to- wards the middle class pre- dominates. The name and tradition of Trotsky, founder of the Fourth International, serves as a cover for the most opportunist adaptations to the anti-war movement, student power and now ‘women’s liberation’. Nevertheless, within the SWP youth movement, there are many that can be won to Trotskyism provided that the theoretical struggle for dialec- tical materialism begun inside the SWP by Trotsky in the last year of his life is taken up and applied to the prob- lems of constructing revolu- tionary working-class leader- ship in the United States today. Despite all his great ex- perience in the US workers’ movement, and his deep loyalty to the party, Vincent Dunne was not able to achieve this. The present generation of advanced American workers, ‘ trained in the revolutionary party, must. Paper 6d. 12s. back: 30s. cover Hard Price: Gi TROTSKY BETRAYED WHAT IS THE SOVIET UNION AND WHERE IS IT GOING? Paper 6d. 10s. back: : Hard Price 21s. cover NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. 186a CLAPHAM HIGH STREET, LONDON, S.W.4 Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p078] BOOK REVIEVV