The History of American Trotskyism: Report of a Participant

Rating:
Summary: Dozens to thousands, life in a real revolutionary movement
Review: cCannon never explains numbers here. Yet, this is the history of a group of revolutionists who went from two or three leaders of the Communist party who learned of Trotsky's critique of Stalin, to a group of a few dozens--The Generals without an Army they were call. They went from only a few ideas to merging and mixing with new currents of workers who came forward as the CIO Upsurge came forward. Their principles helped spark the organization of revolutionary workers in the great strikes in Minneapolis in 1934 and aftewrwards, then to influence workers in the sit down strikes in Flint and Dearborn and Detroit. Then to find thousands of young workers, intellectuals, and student youth in the Socialist party and battle the reformists there, to build Found the Socialist Workers party, found with thousands of members before World War II. But this is not about those numbers. Through most of history, real revolutionists real communists have been forced to fight in small organizations like the movement Cannon built. What this is about is the principles, the ideas, the lessons, the history, how to do things theoretically, how to do them practically, and how to do them right.

Rating:
Summary: A great political adventure story
Review: For those who wonder whether the American working class is capable of revolution -- read this book and be convinced by an engaging scrapper and committed working class hero who was there at the very beginning. Millions placed their hopes for a new dawn on the young Russian revolution, only to be betrayed by Stalin. Cannon tells the story of how he found his way out of the impasse, stumbling on a document by Leon Trotsky at a Moscow convention in 1928. He smuggled it out (in the days before photocopies and computer discs, no mean feat) and spent the next ten years involved in political faction fights, world-changing strikes, mobilizations against fascism...all leading up to the founding of the Socialist Workers Party in the US in 1938. Descriptions of building a fledgeling revolutionary party without funds for a telephone or office rent, are woven in with discourse on the implications of international debate on whether to defend the USSR in the looming world war. He explains the tactical manoevres, gives acerbic thumbnail sketches of various characters -- and makes hard work and fighting for what's right look like a very realistic option.

Rating:
Summary: las aperturas y oportunidades
Review: Sufrimos una época de guerras y revolución porque el sistema actual, fundado en la avaricia individual, padece cada vez más de sus trastornos mortales. Ya que año con año se avecina la Tercera Guerra Mundial, la editorial Pathfinder nos aconseja aprender de las otras dos ocasiones en que nos llevó al borde de la barbarie.

Los libros de Cannon no son sobre el pasado, sino cómo sacar mayor ventaja de las aperturas y oportunidades que necesariamente se van a presentar en el camino para forjar partidos de los trabajadores de común acuerdo en aprender de las luchas de los explotados donde sea que surgen y unidos en la trayectoria de construir un mundo libre del capitalismo.

Cannon era miembro fundador del movimiento del Obrero Mundial (IWW), los antecedentes del Partido Comunista y el Partido mismo. En los 20 era dirigente de la Defensa Internacional del Obrero (ILD) y fue representante norteamericano en el presidio del Internacional Comunista con Lenin y Trotsky.

Dado que el estalinismo ya no trompea el camino para que los luchadores se reúnen, hoy en día el movimiento comunista no necesita valerse del nombre "trotskista" para diferenciarse de los estalinistas; con este simple cambio de nomenclatura el contenido de La historia del trotskismo estadounidense sigue en pie de lucha. Traza la continuidad ideológica y marca la pauta para que detengamos la marcha de los explotadores hacia su tercera guerra mundial, que ellos mismos no pueden parar debido a su permanente caída en la taza de ganancias.