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The Struggle for a Proletarian Party
"The workers of America have power enough to topple the structure of capitalism at home and to lift the whole world with them when they rise, " Cannon asserts. On the eve of World War II, a founder of the communist movement in the U.S. defends the program and party-building course of the Communist International in Lenin s time. Introduction by George Novack, photo, glossary, index. Appendix, "The War and Bureaucratic Conservatism," by James Burnham.
Paperback
First published December 1, 1972
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About the author
James P. Cannon
65 books19 followersJames P. Cannon was born in Rosedale, Kansas, in 1890. His father, who had originally come from Ireland, was a socialist and was a regular reader of Appeal to Reason.
At the age of 18 he joined the Socialist Party of America and became a devoted follower of Eugene Debs. His friend Tom Kerry claimed that Cannon considered Debs as "one of the greatest orators, agitators, and propagandists that the American working class radical movement had produced."
Cannon was also an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) where he worked under Frank Little, who was lynched in 1917. Cannon also got to know Vincent Saint John. He later recalled: "Despite his modesty of disposition, his freedom from personal ambition, and his lack of the arts of self-aggrandizement, his work spoke loudly and brought him widespread fame."
According to his friend Joseph Leroy Hansen: "Fundamentally, Jim was an angry person. He was angry at injustice, at inequities, at special privileges, at exploitation. He was angry at poverty, lack of opportunity, oppression, racism, and sexism."
At the age of 18 he joined the Socialist Party of America and became a devoted follower of Eugene Debs. His friend Tom Kerry claimed that Cannon considered Debs as "one of the greatest orators, agitators, and propagandists that the American working class radical movement had produced."
Cannon was also an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) where he worked under Frank Little, who was lynched in 1917. Cannon also got to know Vincent Saint John. He later recalled: "Despite his modesty of disposition, his freedom from personal ambition, and his lack of the arts of self-aggrandizement, his work spoke loudly and brought him widespread fame."
According to his friend Joseph Leroy Hansen: "Fundamentally, Jim was an angry person. He was angry at injustice, at inequities, at special privileges, at exploitation. He was angry at poverty, lack of opportunity, oppression, racism, and sexism."
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 11, 2021
Essential reading for any serious Marxist.
"To build a combat organization capable of conquering state power, the party must have as its staff a corps of professional revolutionaries who devote their entire life to the direction and the building of the party and its influence in the mass movement."
"To build a combat organization capable of conquering state power, the party must have as its staff a corps of professional revolutionaries who devote their entire life to the direction and the building of the party and its influence in the mass movement."
September 29, 2024
Cannon tar ingen skit! Egentligen inget som inte redan sagts i Till marxismens försvar (som behandlar samma strid inom SWP på 1930-talet), men intelligent, skarp och välformulerad om vad ett kommunistiskt parti är och inte är.
På slutet kan man ana vissa politiska svagheter hos Cannon som kommer utvecklas senare, men allt är ännu sin linda.
Inte det bästa jag läst om marxistisk organisering, men likväl bra! 4/5!
På slutet kan man ana vissa politiska svagheter hos Cannon som kommer utvecklas senare, men allt är ännu sin linda.
Inte det bästa jag läst om marxistisk organisering, men likväl bra! 4/5!
May 24, 2020
"jims Broschüre ist ausgezeichnet. Sie ist von einem echten Arbeiterführer geschrieben. Hätte die Diskussion nicht mehr hervorgebracht als dieses Dokument, wäre sie gerechtfertigt." - Leo Trotzki, Brief an Farrell Dobbs vom 16. April 1940
October 31, 2025
“It is the writing of a genuine workers’ leader. If the debate had not produced more than this document, it would be justified.”--Leon Trotsky
As the Second World War was nearing, a split in the Socialist Workers Party took maybe 40% or more of the membership. Those who left, Trotsky called "the petty bourgeois opposition," not as an insult, but as a scientific evaluation, see In Defense of Marxism: The Social & Political Contradictions of the Soviet Union.
Trotsky always put political questions way above organizational questions. Cannon absolutely agreed with Trotsky on this, but none the less, someone had to answer all the petty charges against the leadership, and the task fell to him as the central leader who faced the main complaints and gossip, some of which had gone on for years. While Max Shachtman and James Burnham had political differences (not only with Cannon, but with each other as it turned out), Martin Abern was the leader of a clique, but never had a single principled difference with Cannon. Abern's major gripe was that Cannon and those close to him couldn't see how important he, Abern, was. Now Abern always had major assignments, as one of the three founding members, he always was on the list of speakers at party events, but that wasn't enough.
Abern's group was based on personal loyalty, which he rewarded by informing his friends with "inside dope." This included copies of what should have been strictly internal correspondence between members of the party's National Committee. And making copies was not as easy a task in those days as today!
Anyway, if one outside the SWP hopes to understand this split, it is essential for them to also read Trotsky's 'In Defense of Marxism' as well as a pamphlet by Joseph Hansen entitled 'The Abern Clique'--Hansen had been a former member of the clique, which hadn't prevented him from being assigned as a secretary to Trosky.
Burnham rapidly decided he wasn't a Marxist after the split, soon becoming a prominent anti-communist and Abern never played much of a role in the new group he had helped found, despite not having any differences of principle. So, it became Shachtman's group, and it was social democratic, although for many years claiming to be "Trotskyist," moving further to the right until it merged with the small Socialist Party.
And the bourgeois pressures which had prompted the split soon changed from anti-communism to prominent people justifying the crimes of Stalin as the Soviet Union turned into an "ally" of US imperialism. The Communist Party formed a large membership and periphery from petty bourgeois elements not so different from the ones who had stopped defending the Soviet workers state.
Must reading along with it: In Defense of Marxism: The Social & Political Contradictions of the Soviet Union, Also recommended, Background to the Struggle for a Proletarian Party' and Th e Abern Clique.
As the Second World War was nearing, a split in the Socialist Workers Party took maybe 40% or more of the membership. Those who left, Trotsky called "the petty bourgeois opposition," not as an insult, but as a scientific evaluation, see In Defense of Marxism: The Social & Political Contradictions of the Soviet Union.
Trotsky always put political questions way above organizational questions. Cannon absolutely agreed with Trotsky on this, but none the less, someone had to answer all the petty charges against the leadership, and the task fell to him as the central leader who faced the main complaints and gossip, some of which had gone on for years. While Max Shachtman and James Burnham had political differences (not only with Cannon, but with each other as it turned out), Martin Abern was the leader of a clique, but never had a single principled difference with Cannon. Abern's major gripe was that Cannon and those close to him couldn't see how important he, Abern, was. Now Abern always had major assignments, as one of the three founding members, he always was on the list of speakers at party events, but that wasn't enough.
Abern's group was based on personal loyalty, which he rewarded by informing his friends with "inside dope." This included copies of what should have been strictly internal correspondence between members of the party's National Committee. And making copies was not as easy a task in those days as today!
Anyway, if one outside the SWP hopes to understand this split, it is essential for them to also read Trotsky's 'In Defense of Marxism' as well as a pamphlet by Joseph Hansen entitled 'The Abern Clique'--Hansen had been a former member of the clique, which hadn't prevented him from being assigned as a secretary to Trosky.
Burnham rapidly decided he wasn't a Marxist after the split, soon becoming a prominent anti-communist and Abern never played much of a role in the new group he had helped found, despite not having any differences of principle. So, it became Shachtman's group, and it was social democratic, although for many years claiming to be "Trotskyist," moving further to the right until it merged with the small Socialist Party.
And the bourgeois pressures which had prompted the split soon changed from anti-communism to prominent people justifying the crimes of Stalin as the Soviet Union turned into an "ally" of US imperialism. The Communist Party formed a large membership and periphery from petty bourgeois elements not so different from the ones who had stopped defending the Soviet workers state.
Must reading along with it: In Defense of Marxism: The Social & Political Contradictions of the Soviet Union, Also recommended, Background to the Struggle for a Proletarian Party' and Th e Abern Clique.
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March 14, 2012302 pages.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews