01-25-2015: With the expressed differences mentioned, I in general endorse the position of the following book, whose complete contents are here linked to, for your information.: *** Socialism on Trial: The courtroom testimony of James P. Cannon, 1941. NOTE: James P. Cannon was a long-time veteran American labor radical, first active as a kid in the Socialist Party of Eugene V. Debs time, recruited to that party by his father, then active from 1911 on in the Industrial Workers of the World revolutionary radical labor union movement, then in 1918 active as a Left-wing Caucus supporter in the Socialist Party, which, upon its expulsion from the Socialist Party, became key founders of the American Communist movement in 1919. Cannon was therefore a founding early veteran of the American Communist movement in 1919, and a key public spokesperson for the American Communist movement from 1920-1928. In 1928, he came to agree with Trotsky in the dispute in the Third (Communist) International and in the dispute in the Soviet party against Stalin, and was expelled from the American Communist movement with several co-thinkers hed recruited to his views. They became the basis for the American Trotskyist movement. Cannon was then the leading American Trotskyist political leader and activist well into the 1950s when it was then called the Socialist Workers Party, when he retired. But he remained in the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party till his death in 1974. This is a very good basic explanation of Marxist political ideas in the context of a 1941 frame-up federal courtroom trial of Cannon and 28 American Trotskyist co-thinkers of the Socialist Workers Party at that time, many of whom were also important labor activists in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, labor movement. This basic book was the testimony given in a United States federal court in 1941 by James P. Cannon during a U.S. federal court trial of 29 Americans who were trade union activists in the American labor movement, and political supporters of an American revolutionary socialist working class party called, the Socialist Workers Party. Cannon was the political leader of the Socialist Workers Party. The political party called the Socialist Workers Party in 1941 politically supported the political views of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and Leon Trotsky, 4 Marxist-minded communists, 2 of them (Marx and Engels) from the 19th Century, 2 of them (Lenin and Trotsky) from the 20th Century. The political party had many labor union and trade union activists, including labor and trade union activists active in the labor movement of the state of Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is the place where the federal U.S. courthouse where this trial occurred. This trial was the first trial under the Smith Act, an act passed earlier by the United States Congress and United States Senate, supposedly directed against supporters of German Nazi fascism, but, in reality, directed against militant left-wing anti-fascist and anti-Nazi socialists like the Socialist Workers Party. The trial of these 29 socialist and labor-trade union activists partly was the product of then United States Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelts aim to destroy any American anti-war and anti-imperialist political sentiment and people inside the American organized labor and trade union movement, in order to make it easier for the United States government to involve itself in the Second World War in Europe against Germany and in the Pacific Ocean against Japan. It was also the product of then International Brotherhood of Teamsters national union leader Daniel Tobins aim to drive out of the Teamsters Union any militant rank-and-file union and labor activists who worked for an internal rank-and-file democratic controlled labor union movement, and a democratic controlled Teamsters Union, and also to drive out of the Union any militant rank-and-file labor activists who favored militant, fighting, class war and class struggle program-based methods for organizing labor in the U.S. The labor activists in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, Teamsters had themselves been long-time veteran communist revolutionary labor activists in a number of militant labor union movements in the U.S. going back to the early 1900s, including in the Industrial Workers of the World, the left-wing working class wing of the Socialist Party, early militant fighting labor strike struggles in the early 1920s, and the founding of the American Communist movement in 1919-1920. They had been the key people in 1934 who organized the series of 3 major Minneapolis labor strike struggles that really turned the Minneapolis Teamsters into a major force in the American labor movement, and made it the basis for the later mass industrial labor union organizing of the Teamsters in the Midwest of the U.S. Tobin was a pro-capitalist class pro-boss bureaucrat and, as such, didnt want fighting Marxist-minded socialist-minded labor activists running a key bastion of the Teamsters Union in Minneapolis, so he teamed up with Franklin Roosevelts mis-named Justice Department to frame up left-wing radical minded communist minded labor activists in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, Teamsters to drive them out of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and get them jailed. The Smith Act was an anti-Constitution, anti-Bill of Rights, anti-civil liberties, anti-freedom, anti-democratic rights, anti-republican liberties, anti-labor and anti-union, anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-left-wing act passed with the joint and bipartisan political support in the U.S. congress and U.S. senate of both Democrats and Republicans in order to destroy left-wing radical political sentiment and politics in the American labor movement which, in the late 1930s, and early 1940s, was quite significant in the American labor movement. It basically said if you had communist or socialist or Marxist political views, you could be put on trial for advocating the violent overthrow of the government. But in the trial, James P. Cannon clearly and lucidly explained that the Socialist Workers Party did not advocate the violent overthrow of the government and did not, in fact, advocate violence at all. Cannon explained that the party PREDICTED, on the basis of the historical experience of past social revolutions of the masses of the people, that the old ruling class would, in a major revolutionary situation in which the masses were in motion, and aiming at taking over and kicking out the ruling class of the country, resort to ruling class armed terrorist state violence against the masses of the exploited and oppressed people, against the working class and allies of the working class. This book is a series of questions asked of James P. Cannon and Cannons answers. It is therefore a good political lesson to revolutionaries on how to deal with frame-ups of revolutionaries by the American capitalist courts, capitalist cops, capitalist judiciary, capitalist prosecutors, capitalist prison guards, capitalist federal government, capitalist state governments, capitalist local governments, capitalist state. It also is a rather good basic explanation of basic views of Marxist socialism, which it turned into in the course of the questions asked of James P. Cannon and Cannons answers to these questions.: Introduction by Dave Holmes: marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1941/socialism/index.htm#intro Part 1: marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1941/socialism/ch01.htm Part 2: marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1941/socialism/ch02.htm Part 3: marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1941/socialism/ch03.htm Part 4: marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1941/socialism/ch04.htm Part 5: Political Principles and Propaganda Methods: Defense Policy in the Minneapolis Trial: marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1941/socialism/ch05.htm Part 6: Political Principles and Propaganda Methods: Defense Policy in the Minneapolis Trial (Continued): marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1941/socialism/ch06.htm Part 7: Traditions and Guiding Ideas of the Socialist Workers Party in Defense Activities, by George Novack: marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1941/socialism/ch07.htm
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 00:20:16 +0000
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