Notebook of an Agitator: From the Wobblies to the Fight against the Korean War and McCarthyism

by James P. Cannon

A Pathfinder upgraded edition.
Articles spanning four decades of working-class battles--defending IWW frame-up victims and Sacco and Vanzetti; 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes; battles on the San Francisco waterfront; labor's fight against the McCarthyite witch-hunt; and much more. Preface by Joseph Hansen, photos, glossary, index. Now with enlarged type.

Genres: Politics

472 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1958

About the author

James 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."

Reviews

[Marc Lichtman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most enjoyable of Jim Cannon's books and has the widest scope. Part 1 is essays Cannon wrote as leader of International Labor Defense (ILD), a group founded by the early Communist Party, but one that defended all political prisoners from whatever political tendency or trade union struggle. Big Bill Haywood, living in Moscow, had this idea and raised it with Cannon, who also had been an organizer for the IWW. It has the articles Cannon wrote in defense of Vacco and Vanzetti, Billings and Mooney, and many more.

After Cannon was expelled from the CP for "Trotskyism," the defense of the revolutionary positions of Lenin, the ILD never again defended all tendencies.

Part 2 is writings by Cannon during the Minneapolis Teamsters' strikes, some of them quite humorous, a style which he will put to good use in the future. Part 3 is from Cannon's time in San Francisco, as editor of a socialist paper during the short-lived entry into the Socialist Party. Much of this is about the maritime industry.

Part 4 is the largest part, writings from New York, primarily from his frequent column with the same name as the book. This is where you'll find his writings on everything from cinema to religion, from prize fighters to prisoners, and from Stalinists to informers on them.

Part 5 is after Cannon's move to Los Angeles, and largely deals with McCarthyism, a fascist movement, and how the labor movement could be mobilized to defeat it.

If you like Cannon, you'll certainly want to read First Ten Years of American Communism: Report of a Participant and The History of American Trotskyism, 1928—1938: Report of a Participant, but there are many more.