Source: The Militant, Vol. 13 No. 10, 7 March 1949, p. 2.
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If you are interested in the most up-to-date fundamental analysis of current political trends in the United States, the March issue of Fourth International, monthly magazine of American Trotskyism, is must reading.
In New Problems of American Socialism, James P. Cannon, National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, discusses the difficult task of combatting the powerful alliance which the new conservative labor bureaucracy has made with the most bitter ideological foes of Marxism. He cites this as an instance of the highly complex problems facing the revolutionary socialist movement today in contrast to those of Debs’ time.
“The influence of the capitalists and their ideology inside the working class is the main factor impeding the socialist emancipation of the workers,” declares Cannon. “The grand strategy of the revolution, the key to the overthrow of United States capitalism, is the elimination of this bourgeois influence from the unions.”
Bert Cochran in A New Union Bureaucracy analyzes in some detail the new social formation which Comrade Cannon considered in a broader setting. He foresees the rise of a new union leadership from the progressive groupings which “are not only in opposition to the bureaucracy but are also anti-Stalinists.”
The Priests Bore from Within is an informative expose by Art Preis of the Vatican’s bid for control over the union movement. With facts, figures and citations, Preis shows how the Catholic hierarchy, one of the fountainheads of anti-Marxist propaganda, is penetrating the unions under guise of combatting “communism” and building a sinister force in the service of reaction.
The Editorial Review draws a balance sheet on the latest developments in the cold war between Anglo-American imperialism and the Kremlin. In Peace on the Bargain Counter, the editors discuss the possibility of a deal with Stalin at the expense of the Chinese people. In The Military Welfare State, they show how preparations for another world war are converting America into the kind of state where the welfare of the military comes first.
The second installment of 100 Years of Work and Wages by C. Curtis completes this instructive study of the forecasts of the Communist Manifesto in relation to the United States.
Three book reviews round out the issue. John G. Wright takes apart Three Who Made a Revolution by Bertram D. Wolfe; Alfred Rosmer points out the inconsistencies in How They Murdered Trotsky by General Leandro A. Sanchez Salazar and Julian Gorkin; and Paul G. Stevens weighs Stalin and German Communism by Ruth Fischer.
Single copies of the March issue can be obtained by sending 25 cents to Fourth International, 116 University Pl., New York 3, N.Y.; Subscription rates are $1.25 for six months; $2.50 for a full year.
Last updated on: 29 February 2024