(Copy to W,G,R,F&L1)
July 5, 1949
My Dear William,2
Your letter was a long stride forward. You have grasped the essence of the matter. Be ready 1) to do 2,000 words on the Political Affairs C.P. number.3 It stinks; this at short notice. 2) Go on with the big article. If you want to send me an outline, do so. If not - Suggestions, ideas, etc. for each or both can be sent to you (with copies). I would suggest that before you give any talks etc. you let me know what you propose to say. You. Because you are going to write, and also because what you say, I am sure, is carefully studied over. Meanwhile a pattern is shaping up, concretely, and all serious politicos, must be on the alert, and hold their tongues, watch their pens, and think hard.
This is what is happening.
1) I promised to write, or proposed to write on the Fr. Rev. months ago - hoping to bust open the Robespierre dictatorship, and sharpen unbearably the conflict between Robespierre and the masses. I mentioned Mathisz4 etc. Novack5 informed me that Beard6 was the same type etc. Everybody very enthusiastic (except me who a) had to do the work b) know what was involved. I was merely enthusiastic.
2) Suddenly came the chance of doing the Leveller article.7 It was too good a chance to miss. I wrote one, and handed in the other. I didn't do so well with the second. I have it for revision - this month.
3) Novack and GB8 and I discussed a Negro number.9 N. says, on his own initiative: It is time we draw some conclusions about the bourgeois revolution. But he is to write an article showing the importance of the military dictatorship of 1864-187610 and the progressive role it played. He had in mind a) attacking the intellectuals who squeal democracy b) the American Stalinists who squeal democracy also. Now it is precisely, here that heads can roll and I don't want any of us to stick our necks out. A chicken did that once and the result was - arroz con pollo11, very good for humans but awful for chickens.
On an international scale the Stalinists and many intellectuals are pro-Cromwell, pro-Robespierre, pro benevolent or progressive dictatorship, anti-mass. We are going to get them there. The first Leveller article has fixed that perspective.
But in the US anybody, including the Stalinists, screams democracy for ever.12 So that when you and Rae grumble, as you will, about N's support of the military dictatorship, and want to show, as your letter, so clearly shows, the dictatorship suppressing both the Bourbons and the Negroes, you can get into an awful lot of trouble unless you watch every step. When N wants to use the fact of of the American dictatorship to jeer at the die-hard democrats in the US, he is perfectly right - just so long as he does not ignore the masses against the dictatorship. It is a specifically US phenomenon today, the extreme ones, want Federal FEPC,13 Federal anti-lynching, etc. to enforce democracy "from above". To get N to see the thing complete is going to be a job. I shall handle it and hope for the best. He will not see it all, but we have to make him at least leave it loose, so that we are not limited, or forced to challenge him directly.
4) Unfortunately this is not all. It is only the beginning. Hence this letter. It is now fairly clear that up to 1914 LENIN and the others thought in much the same way (FORMALLY) as the Stalinists, etc. are thinking today. For them Jacobins and Cromwell represented the revolution; and so it did, to this day it does against reactionaries, or the "pure" democrats of 1914. But that breed today exists only in the US. Lenin & Trotsky (in bourgeois-dic. Russia) defended "the dictatorship". In 1949 "the dictatorship" is being defended by the Stalinists against "the left". They, and I am afraid, if we make one slip, the SWP, will use those quotations against us. The thing became particularly dangerous when in the study of Lenin and the Logic, the, in my opinion, the main job, is to show just how L left that kind of thought, and leapt into the Leninism that we know, Lenin of the III International. The whole thing, the whole thing, can come crashing down on our heads unless we watch every step, and even if we do, it is going to be difficult enough. State-capitalism is involved. For the only way to suppress the proletarian revolution is the dictatorship. The dialectical line from the bourgeois revolutionary centralized dictatorship to the state-capitalist dictatorship is very clear. It is all very well to scribble these things from Nevada. But I have been preparing a letter to GN14 to suggest the point to him; now comes your letter, William, pushing the thing to an extreme, a very brilliant, very correct extreme, but extreme nevertheless. The Marcuse thing will just finish it. We will be accused of having "plotted" the whole thing and the mess will be copious. The SWP has a very sharp nose for games of that kind. The only thing to do is to tell GN pretty plainly in advance what is involved as far as the US revolution is concerned and the connection with 1649 and 1789. Before I do so, however, I want the whole business clearly understood, and I want replies to this letter, particularly from W and R15 showing concretely what is involved a) for a clear exposition of the Civil War, b) for our attack on Stalinism. Draw every point out to the limit. Unfortunately, I am not as familiar with the stuff as I am with 1649 and 1789. Be concise but be prompt and tell me all the dangers and problems FOR US. When I know those (give references etc.) I shall be able to talk to George or write to him as a start. Strange how everything ties up, and can tie up, still mor round around our backs.16 Guerin17 got himself in a fine mess for not getting his line clear. I can give you one hint in conclusion to help your ideas. Marx and Marx alone, never for one second was ever in that trap. His method was simplicity itself. He said: they did fine; Robespierre was wonderful, Cromwell was super; but they were bourgeois: we tell Marxists find our ancestors in the revolutionary movement of those days. Will it work with the 1865 crisis? I don't know. Please write early.
J.
P.S. I have got a long letter from Rae. Very very fine. Concrete. I recommend it to all - the closest study. We have now, clearly defined stages of internal work ahead of us. Some time tonight I shall define them precisely - I have them in mind.
The remarks I ask for in this letter need not be detailed; brief indications will do. But daylight on Marcuse is beginning to appear.
1 W is possibly William (Willie) Gorman (party name for Morris Goelman), G is Grace Lee, R is Raya Dunayevskaya, F is Freddy Paine & L is Lyman Paine.
2 William is most likely William (Willie) Gorman. Gorman was a member of the Johnson-Forest Tendency. When the split between Dunayevskaya and James happened in 1955, Gorman went with James. When Grace Lee-Boggs and James split, Gorman went with James. He was one of the co-authors, (with James, Martin Glaberman and George Rawick), of The Gathering Forces, (1967), published by the Facing Reality Publishing Committee.
3 Political Affairs was a publication of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA).
4 The editor has been unable to identify who, or what, Mathisz is a reference to.
5 This appears to be a reference to George Novack (pseudonyms: G. N. Edward; John Marshall; Manuel; William F. Warde). Novack was a leading figure in the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP).
6 This is possibly a reference to the progressive historian Charles A. Beard (1874-1948). Beard, with his wife Mary, co-authored a history of the United States that was reviewed by JFT member Martin Glaberman, (under the pseudonym Martin Harvey) in the Workers' Party publication, The New International.
7 James (under the pseudonym G.F. Eckstein) wrote two articles on the English Revolution - 'Cromwell and the Levellers' and 'Ancestors of the Proletariat' which were published in the SWP publication Fourth International.
8 GB might be George Breitman who was a leading figure in the SWP and long-time editor of its publication The Militant.
9 The May-June 1950 issue of Fourth International was a special issue on 'Marxism and the Negro'. It included an article by William Gorman, 'W.E.B. Du Bois and His Work' and a SWP position statement on 'the Negro struggle'.
10 This article by Novack was published in the Special Issue of Fourth International on 'Marxism and the Negro'. It was published under the pen name William F. Warde, with the title 'Two Lessons of Reconstruction'.
11 'arroz con pollo' is Spanish it translates into English as 'chicken and rice'.
12 The right-hand side of the manuscript is obscured or missing at this paragraph. The text in this paragraph is the editor's best guess at the text.
13 FEPC is abbreviation of Fair Employment Practices Committee. The FEPC (official title: the Committee on Fair Employment Practice) was created by President Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, under Executive Order 8802. The Order outlawed racial discrimination in employment. The Order was a response to campaigning by African-American workers, spearheaded by A. Philip Randolph, the founding president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The Order, signed on the eve of the entry of the USA into WW2, was a recognition of the need for African-American labour as part of the war effort. CLR James wrote some articles, in the Workers' Party publication Labour Action, on the FEPC. He criticised the FEPC as a toothless body in November 1943, (writing under the pen name W.F. Carlton). He pointed to the role of organised African-American workers in pressurising the Government to pass the legislation in February 1946, (writing under the pen name J. R. Johnson).
14 GN is George Novack (see note 5 above).
15 W most likely William Gorman, R is most likely Raya Dunayevskaya.
16 The end part of the sentence reads like gibberish. That may be because a few crucial words are difficult to discern, or it may be an unnoticed fault with the original typed text.
17 Guerin is most likely a reference to the French Anarcho-communist Daniel Guerin. The comment may be a reference to an article by Guerin, 'Fascism and Socialism', carried in the September 1946 issue of the SWP publication, Fourth International.