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History of
American Trotskyism
The conference on the 'History of American Trotskyism' took place in New York University (NYU) on 29 September to 1 October last year. It was sponsored by the Tamiment Library which is part of NYU.
Although always small the American trotskyist movement (principally the Socialist Workers Party [SWP]) has always been considered to be of the utmost interest to the world trotskyist movement. This being due to its place in the centre of capitalism and to the very close relations between it and Leon Trotsky during his final years in exile in Mexico. The movement had been in existence for over 70 years so the organisers felt it was due time to explore its history. The conference attracted participants who had been in the movement for much of that time as well as far younger militants.
One of the main speakers was Pierre Broue well known as an historian of the trotskyist movement and one of Trotsky's biographers. Broue raised three questions: Was Stalinism in Europe in the post-war period revolutionary or counter-revolutionary? Was the expectation one of social peace? What was the role of the American SWP leaders in the Fourth International at that time? Unfortunately Broue was not able to answer these questions.
Bryan Palmer spoke on the American SWP leader James P Cannon. He gave an interesting talk which I am sure will be reflected in his forthcoming book on Cannon. Peter Drucker spoke on another early American trotskyist Max Shachtman who later became the leader of the Workers Party (WP).
Christopher Phelps spoke on trotskyism and African-Americans. Whilst a lot has been written about black communities and the American Communist Party little has been written on black activists' engagement with the trotskyist movement (except on CLR James but this tends to concentrate on him personally). Especially important was the work amongst the black Detroit car workers. Phelps' work is to be published as a book.
Kim Moody spoke on the trade union work of the trotskyists and the Communist Party. He went in some detail into the role of the trotskyists in the strikes of the 1930s and also the role of Shachtman's Workers Party in the 1940s. Kathleen Brown spoke on women in the Minneapolis strike in 1934. This showed how the trotskyists undervalued the contribution of women in support of the struggle.
Victor Devinatz spoke on the work of the trotskyists in the key auto union the UAW. He compared the roles of the SWP and WP after the war. Susan Weissman spoke on 'Trotskyism and the Intellectuals'. This will be elaborated in her forthcoming book Victor Serge and US Intellectuals.
Alan Johnson spoke on 'Hal Draper and the Third Camp'. Maurice Isserman spoke on the roles of Michael Harrington and Irving Howe, especially in relation to their views on the Vietnam war. Kevin Anderson spoke on 'Theoretical Contrasts: Burnham, Novack, James and Dunayevskaya'.
A number of veterans spoke of their experiences in the SWP. Among them was Dorothea Breitman and Theodore Edwards. I thought the most interesting contribution was by Bernard Goodman who spoke of his experience in the maritime industry in the 1930s. Alan Wald spoke on the actions of the SWP in resisting the Vietnam War. Grant Farred spoke on the role of CLR James in the American trotskyist movement.
Esteban Volkov spoke on the history of the Leon Trotsky Museum in Mexico City (Volkov is Trotsky's grandson and was living with the Trotsky family at the time of his assassination in 1940).
Annette Rubenstein spoke as an ex-member of the CP who worked with SWP members in the Independent Socialist Campaign of Corliss Lamont in the late 1950s. An especially impressive speech from this 90 year old.
Dan Georgakas spoke about the role of the Johnson-Forrest Tendency (CLR James/Raya Dunayevskaya).
There were other contributions which I have not mentioned so the above is, of course, only a brief sketch of what was discussed at the conference. Like all such conferences the quality of the presentations and the contributions from the floor was like the curate's egg. And, of course, there was never enough time for discussion (not helped by some of the participants trying to hog time). It is to be hoped that the conference proceedings can be published either in book form or at least on the net.
The Tamiment Library should be congratulated for the fine effort they put into organising the conference. But for me the outstanding contributions to the conference came from the eighty and ninety-year-old veterans. After listening to their accounts of their decades of experience it dawns as to just how impressive these comrades must have been in their heyday.
