The Western Socialist July-August, 1955 Note 2004: The Socialist Union of America was a split from the then trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (US) whose existence lasted from 1954-59. It’s most famous member was Harry Braverman. A Debate between the Socialist Union of America and the World Socialist Party On April 17, 1955. a debate was held at the Community Church of Boston, between Rev. Hugh Weston, Chairman of the Eugene Debs Club of Greater Boston and member of the Socialist Union of America. and George Gloss of Local Boston, World Socialist Party. After the debate Rev. Weston was requested...
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The Present As History. By Paul M. Sweezy. Monthly Review Press (376pp., $5.00); Mr. Sweezy, an editor of Monthly Review and author of a highly regarded but quite muddled Theory of Capitalist Development, presents in this book a collection of book reviews and essays written firing the last fifteen years. Aside from three short and insignificant papers, all the reprinted material is still available in its original publication in various magazines. Its reappearance in book form is difficult to understand, particularly because the review, the editorial, and even the space-restricted essay are not the best media for the consideration...
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THE WESTERN SOCIALIST, Jan-Feb 1955 Review of WHERE WE CAME OUT, Viking Press, 1954 Four years ago Richard Crossman edited a work in which six intellectuals, three members, and three sympathizers, of various Communist Parties, elaborated on why they had been attracted to these Communist Parties, and how they had become disillusioned with them. For some reason or other, Granville Hicks, one of the fair-haired boys in the literary circles of the Communist Party of America in the last half of the 1930’s was not included in this “symposium,” participated in by such well-known writers as Arthur Koestler, Andre...
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Stalin’s Frame-Up System and the Moscow Trials. By Leon Trotsky. With a Foreword by Joseph Hansen. Pioneer Publishers, New York, 1950. (144 pp.) This booklet, published on the tenth anniversary of Trotsky’s assassination, contains Trotsky’s closing speech at the Hearing of the Dewey Commission of Inquiry first printed by Harper & Brothers in 1937. In his foreword, Joseph Hansen finds this reminder of the Moscow Trials particularly apt because of the series of trials of prominent Communists, such as Rajk and Kostov, since the end of the second world war. “Without knowing the truth about the Moscow trials,”...
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Living With Crisis By Fritz Sternberg In this, his latest work, subtitled “The Battle Against Depression and War,” Fritz Sternberg has written another provocative exposition of his theory of the “Progressive Left.” In doing so, he not only again throws down a challenge to revolutionary socialism he also poses the dilemma of social-democracy on an international scale. However one might disagree with Sternberg’s theses, and that we do so strenuously will be shown below, there is no denying that he does an excellent job of accumulating statistics and representing his material. However, a good style...
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Review of Stalin and German Communism. A Study in the Origins of the State Party. By Ruth Fischer, Harvard University Press, 1948, 687 pp., $80; The post-war situation with the new imperialist rivalries brought forth an American boom in anti-bolshevik literature. The latest of several big volumes, starting with Trotsky’s Stalin biography is Ruth Fischer’s work on the relationship between Stalin and the German Communist Party. To deal with Stalinism in this manner us particularly apt, as the competition between America and Russia concerns control over other countries. The “rape” of smaller nations by greater powers is a modern...
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The Real Situation in Russia by Leon Trotsky This book consists for the most part of the statement submitted by Trotsky (and 12 other minority members) to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party in September, 1927. The document was suppressed by Stalin and his supporters, and the opposition group—both in the Central Committee and in the country at large—was broken up by the imprisonment, persecution and exile of its prominent members. As might have been expected a copy of the statement was smuggled out of Russia, and now appears in an English edition. It is translated by...
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Western Clarion, November 16 1920 At the time of the 1917 Revolution in Russia we approved of the Bolshevik leaders. During the many vicissitudes of fortune that have taken place since, we have seen no reason to alter this position. We understood, as we still understand, that Bolshevism is not Socialism. Our knowledge of Russian conditions, though perhaps meager, was sufficient to acquaint us with the fact that this country was not yet ready for Socialism. Economic and social development had not reached the stage where social ownership of the means of production was possible. A resourceful Socialist minority...
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