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The Workers' Party Revisited by Betty Reid Mandell Associate Professor of Social Work

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The Workers' Party Revisited by Betty Reid Mandell Associate Professor of Social Work Bridgewater Review Volume 3 | Issue 2 Article 12 Jul-1985 Cultural Commentary: The orW kers' Party Revisited Betty Reid Mandell Bridgewater State College Recommended Citation Mandell, Betty Reid (1985). Cultural Commentary: The orkW ers' Party Revisited. Bridgewater Review, 3(2), 23-25. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol3/iss2/12 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. CULTURAL COMMENTARY The Workers' Party Revisited by Betty Reid Mandell Associate Professor of Social Work your houses." In 1948 this small group of ers' Party, another on Harvey Swados' 1970 Though conservative politicians tend to radicals, called the Worker's Party, was novel Standing Fast as a portrayal of the portray socialism as a unified, monolithic placed on Attorney General Tom Clark's list Workers' Party, and the third on three force, its history as an American political of subversive organizations. In 1958 they journals which had their roots in the Work­ and ideological movement is, as Betty Man­ were removed from the list. Then they ers' Party: Politics, Dissent, and New Po­ dell reports. anything but unified. To under­ disbanded. litics. Invitations were sent to former Work­ standsomething ofthe issues with which the Twenty-six years later, on May 6-7, 1983, ers' Party activists, some friends, and some movement has struggled, a bit of back­ some of that small group and a few friends contributors to early issues of the journals. ground may be useful. reassembled at New York University'S Tam­ The invitation list was a story in itself, In 1929 the Communist League ofAmer­ iment Library for a Workers' Party/ Stand­ combining those who had stood fast in their ica (later to change its name to the Socialist ing Fast conference to reminisce about old radicalism and those who had turned to the Workers Party - SWP) was founded on times and to celebrate the acquisition by right. As Phyllis Jacobson, editor of New principles articulated by the Russian revolu­ N.Y.U. of the papers of the man who had Politics, put it, "In this small gathering there tionary Leon Trotsky. By 1940 the S WP was been the leading theoretician of the Work­ sits both the Old Left and the New Right." split over this issue of whether to defend or ers' Party, Max Shachtman. I attended that Julie Jacobson, head of the Socialist Youth oppose Russia in the coming war. Some in conference, and felt like I was stepping back League, the youth division ofthe ISL, noted the S WP who saw Russia as a "degenerated into a little known, but important, page of that those who turned to the right had worker's state" continued to defend Russia history. Small as the group was, it was rejected all Workers' Party principles but against all Capitalist foes. Others, including influential in the intellectual development of their anti-Stalinism and said that some form­ Max Shachtman (one ofthefounders ofthe the left. Some members of the group are er Workers' Party members (for example, Communist League in 1929), argued that famous today, including Michael Harring­ Saul Bellow and Seymour Martin Lipset) Russia was merely a "bureaucratic collec­ ton, whose book The Other America fired had switched their commitment from Lenin tive"in which a new bureaucratic class ruled the first shot in the War on Poverty; Irving and Leninism to Henry Jackson and Ronald ,in contradiction of workers' interests. Howe, literary critic, renowned author Reagan! The invitation list also contained a sprinkling of radicals turned social demo­ Shachtman and others split from the (World of Our Fathers). and editor of the crats, such as Michael Harrington and Irving SWP andformed the Workers Party (WP) journal Dissent; Dwight MacDonald, liter­ Howe. (Neither attended.) Perhaps the larg­ which remainedaformalpoliticalparty only ary critic and essayist; novelist Harvey Swa­ est irony of the Standing Fast conference is until 1948 at which time, having been labeled dos; and labor activist Bayard Rustin. that the central figure, present only in the subversive by the Federal Department of The conference consisted ofthree separate consciousness of the participants and in the Justice, it became an educational organiza­ panel discussions. One focused on the Work- papers on display, Max Shachtman, had not tion called the Independent Socialist League. stood fast, having ended a brilliant radical (ISL). career by ignobly supporting the American involvement in Vietnam. This split between those who had turned toward the Right and Choose. Choose between Russia and the those who had remained true to the original United States. Choose between Cuba and principles ofthe Workers' Party set the stage the United States. Choose Between China for some tense conference debates. Some and Russia. Choose between starvation and people had even refused to participate be­ totalitarianism. Choose between cold war cause of their rage at those who had turned rhetoric and communist infiltration. But to the Right. why? Are there no other possibilities? Can a There was pride, there were regrets, and socialist be independent of popular defini­ there were ambivalences that seemed never tions of socialism which force such awful to have been resolved. Everyone was proud choices? Can she or he proclaim that Russia, that the Workers' Party had presented a China, Cuba are not socialist, and at the political choice that was independent of same time try to move the United States both the capitalist countries and the coun­ toward genuine democratic socialism? tries calling themselves socialist but run, in There were some radicals in the 1940s and fact, by a privileged bureaucracy. The Work­ 1950s who did just that. In the words of the ers' Party had kept alive an independent anarchist Max Nomad, they felt like "a bone political perspective through the 1940s and that two dogs are fighting over and someone 1950s, and as individuals, even through the asks the bone whose side it is on." To the 1960s and to the present. As some Leftists cold war fight, they said, "A plague on both were chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh," 23 those with a Workers' Party analysis criti­ One participant characterized the usual tone unified in their aims would surely have been cized the totalitarian politics and tactics of ofdiscussion as follows: "Not only must you enlightened to witness the differences expres­ the Vietnam Communists while opposing defeat your opponent in debate, but cut him sed by old colleagues in New York. American involvement in Vietnam. One in several pieces and stomp on him." Part of the debate focused on whether the speakercommented that when neo-conserva­ In the discussions about the Workers' Party original Workers' Party had been truly Len­ tive Irving Kristol points to so-called socia­ position on World War II, old doubts inist. One side s,aid it had not been Leninist list countries andjeers, "Look what happened resurfaced. While the Workers' Party sup­ since the Workers' Party had promoted to socialism," a Workers' Party analysis ported resistance movements in Europe, democratic ideas while Leninism was asso­ would point out, "But that's not true social­ they had advocated resisting the war by the ciated with an anti-democratic, one-party ism - ifit's not democratic it's not socialism." continued prosecution of the class struggle, state. The opposite view was that the Work­ There were regrets, however, about the e.g. through strikes, and they could not ers' Party had been Leninist in its commit­ route Max Shachtman had finally taken, support capitalist powers, even though they ment to the success of the Russian revolu­ and these regrets mingled with the regrets were not conscientious objectors and most tion, and to the idea that the suppression of about the failure of the Workers' Party to did serve in the Armed Forces. In view of opposing parties after the revolution was provide a bridge between the Old and the their predominantly Jewish membership, it due to the treachery of Social Democracy, New Left. It was pointed out that even Dis­ was difficult not to support AJlied capitalist not to the Bolsheviks' Left-wing principles sent) one of the most important Leftist opposition to Hitler. of party organization. Others, preferring journals in America, had been more critical Trotskyism for its "theoretical rigor," of the New Left than of the Vietnam war. criticized the Bolshevism of the Workers' Participants recalled that at the time of the Party for its "sterile and narrow-minded Port Huron Statement, the founding credo Party members orthodoxy, hierarchy, cliches and resistance of Students for a Democratic Society, the to change." SDS had gone to Irving Howe and Michael believed that The theme ofdifferences within the move­ Harrington for guidance and been rebuffed. ment was addressed most directly when the Harrington and Howe had moved so far to capitalism was in its sociologist Lewis Coser, a co-editor of Dis­ the Right that they were no longer opponents sent, discussed the rich cultural tradition of American imperialism, and had opposed death agony and that many Workers' Party members had an American unilateral withdrawal from brought with them from Europe. Many of Vietnam. that revolution was their children, like the radicals depicted in Another painful split within the move­ Standing Fast, had discarded those ethnic ment,that between the Old Left and femin­ just around the and religious traditions in their eagerness to ists, was glaringly revealed when one of the be citizens of the world. One participant, panelists, Albert Glotzer, told of how the corner. who was once in the Catholic Left but is now journal Labor Action had an entirely female a religious Jew, thought the Workers' Party editorial board during World War II (since had ignored cultural differences, seeking to so many men were in the armed forces) then More than one speaker claimed to have build a movement that reflected America as added, "But we managed." become "older and wiser." Articles in the a melting pot rather than a pluralistic society.
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