[Marxism] Underpinnings et al

[Nat Weinstein <nat9sylvia@xxxxxxx>]

Brian,
Neither do I remember any other case. But a review
of the difference between Trotsky and Cannon on
whether or not to give critical support to Earl Browder's
campaign for president in 1940. Perhaps, with hindsight,
 it is possible to believe that Cannon was wrong--I would
not venture to change my view which was in support of
Cannon's position--ex post facto, that is, I was 16-years
old and pro-Roosevelt as were my peers at the time.

However, if you review that dispute you will see, I think,
that it was not a matter of Cannon's Stalinophobia. Neither
was it an  unconscious tendency, in my view. I was in the
SWP when most of us understood the humungous obstacle
that the Stalinism represented  standing in the road blocking
Cannon's party from benefiting from their proven capability
 as class  struggle strategists and no less important,
creative tacticians. Cannon's experienced trade union
comrades like Dobbs, Ray Dunne, Carl Skoglund and those
many comrades  including Cochrane and  so many others
in the UAW and elsewhere certainly should have been able
to play a far bigger role than they were able due almost
entirely to the counter-revolutionary policy of the CP.

Trotsky argued that we should support the Browder
campaign because of its important militant trade unionist
composition. However, Cannon, and my experience on
the ground led us to the conclusion that the Stalinist
policy of physically attacking us and our  organized self-
defense had created a line of blood that effectively closed
 the mind of the Stalinist rank and file to listening to
anything Trotskyite fascists had to say. In fact, they
would likely have seen our policy of CRITICAL support to
 Browder as part of an anticapitalist campaign by the
bosses social fascists in the unions--and lump us in their
minds with the other social fascists in the ranks of the SP.

That it was a tactical thing is further supported by our
 day to day collaboration with the militant class struggle
fighters in the syndicalist unions the most important at
 the time being the union I was in--the SIU-SUP (east
coast and  west coast sailors' unions). This union and
many of its members were not only class struggle fighters,
they were also opposed to entry into WWII. In fact, when I
was assigned by pure accident to an SIU ship after
graduating from the Coast Guard's wartime maritime
school to meet the pressing need for sailors to man its
greatly expanded wartime merchant fleet at the end of
1942 or beginning of '43.

I had qualified to serve as a fireman, watertender,
oiler or ordinary engine department laborer, a "wiper."
But when I came aboard the ship fresh from the
maritime school wearing a navy-style uniform which
the Coast Guard had insisted upon despite the objections
of the syndicalist union, I got a rude introduction to
what militant, class struggle unionism looked like in
those days.  The deck engineer--who was respected as
the most skilled worker in the engine department and a
few delegates from the other engine departments--all
prewar sailors, sat me down in a foc'sle and the first.

Then the deck engineer laid down the law to me. He
literally said, "we fought hard to build this union and
create working conditions that you will enjoy that we
had forced the bosses to give us, and we will not tolerate
 any lack of  cooperation from you"--or again, words to
that effect. I am not exaggerating in the slightest.

Moreover, the SIU-SUP was one of the few unions who
refused to sign the no-strike pledge supported by the
Stalinist dominated NMU and most other unions.

The syndicalist leaders of the sailors union accepted
the Trotskyists who had concentrated all their forces
which were considerable--more than 100 I think sailing
 on both coasts. Lovell, was torpedoed two or three times
 off the NY coast when the German submarine threat was
at the height of its effectiveness for the first three years
of the war. The SWP had a handful of comrades sailing
before the war, and one of the comrades influential in
recruiting me was Bernie Goodman who had been an orphan
and on the streets in the mid-thirties had joined the seaman's
 union well before the war. He was very well respected in
this union by those who sailed with him or new him as a
prominent union activist and Trotskyist.

By the way, let me show you the difference between
how the SWP trade unionists talked socialism in
sharp contrast with Barnes's Talk-Socialism hyper-
sectarian trade union policy which had comrades
hawking the Militant in front of big industrial work
places *where they worked!* We talked socialism every
chance we could but on a one-on-one basis which comes
naturally and does not make you look like the proverbial
Jesus Freak who wore a tee shirt saying "Ask Me About
 Jesus." Remember, when a rank and file convention
delegate who had become an industrial worker got up in
Oberlin in 1977 to report such an experience and
suggested maybe we should wear tee shirts saying "Ask
Me About Socialism." That was followed by a wave of
delegates who had colonized the industrial unions who
enthusiastically seconded his suggestion.

Then just before the summary by the convention reporter
on the union  question, Barnes whojust happened to be the
last speaker, got up to say, "Yes, wear your Ask Me About
Socialism tee shirts and lunch boxes. After which the Talk
Socialism idiocy took off in the party with a flying start.
In my opinion that coming right after Lovell/Barnes's failed
campaign to build "labor party clubs" laid the foundation for
what led to the virtual destruction of the Party that Cannon
and Trotsky built.

(Why I intervene in these Internet discussions as I do.)

Frankly, I am doing these bits and pieces learned in my years
as a revolutionist in order to offset the distorted picture of
what the SWP was, as presented by many if not most of those on
these two lists.
No one I highly respect ever said that Cannon, Trotsky
Lenin or any other important revolutionary Marxist leader was
infallible. That absurdity is implied, however, by too many on
these lists. Sure, the best of us made mistakes. But mistakes are
an integral part of the learning process and the scientific
method. All the great leaders of the sciences including Cliff
Conner's "miners, midwives and low Mechanicks," made
important contributions that included many mistakes later
discovered. And some had a better track record than others as
must be expected. Thus, that is an important consideration to
be taken into account when we characterize any of the best
of the best as sectarian or any other denigrating characterization.

As I may have already said to you or others, dogmatism flows,
in my opinion, from not understanding that all accepted truisms
are only approximations of the truth--in line with Marx's
thesis that "the universe is knowable but we will never know
it all." And I am sure there are and always will be those who say
even that philosophical thesis is dogma. (?!)

PS: I know you will not object if I post my response to you
 below along with your note to me on both Marxmail and the
usswp list serves. It's relevant to another piece I submitted
today to both of them, which you will surely see.

Comradely,
Nat

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