Hal Draper

Learning about our tradition

Mike Wood reviews the new online archive of the first series of the New Politics journal. The American website UNZ has recently made available the entire run of the first volume of New Politics journal, from 1960 to 1978. This is a valuable resource for those interested in the history of the socialist movement and should ensure a wider readership for a tradition of thought that has largely been forgotten by the left today. New Politics was started by Julius and Phyllis Jacobson in 1960, following the collapse of the Independent Socialist League in 1958. The right wing of the ISL, led by Max...

Why I became a third camp socialist, and what I've done

I grew up in a working-class neighbourhood on the South Side of Chicago. My Dutch immigrant grandfather, John Cornelius La Botz, became a socialist in Chicago during the Great Depression. As socialists, my father Herb and my uncle Bert La Botz were conscientious objectors to participation in World War II. They were drafted, interned in a camp for conscientious objectors in Big Flats, New York, and there became friends with other socialists, some of whom were associated with Dwight McDonald’s Politics magazine (est. 1944), which had broadly third camp politics. Since I was not born until 9...

1. The "other Trotskyists" and Palestine

In the debate between Sean Matgamna and Jim Higgins ( Workers’ Liberty June 1996; July 1996; September 1996; February/March 1997) both sides have, in passing, invoked Hal Draper in their defence. From Workers' Liberty 49 . Workers' Liberty 50-51 carried a reply by Sean Matgamna . Here, I will assess Hal Draper’s thought as it evolved from 1948 to 1990 in the organs of third camp revolutionary Marxism - Labor Action , The New International and New Politics . I will summarise the writings and speeches of Hal Draper on this question, using his own words as much as possible. What emerges is a...

The Student Movement of the Thirties in the USA: A Political History (1965)

Most of the references one hears to the student movement of the thirties, and most published references too, are quite wrong in one basic respect: they speak as if “the thirties” represented a single, homogeneous period for the student movement. But the biggest single fact about the history of this movement is that it went through a sweeping change in spirit, methods, and politics, which changed its face completely in mid-course. The present sketch will concern itself mainly with that transformation. [1] 1. A New Movement This movement was newborn in 1931; it was not the continuator of a...

Marxists, Stalinists, Anarchists, Fascists and Workers in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-37

Introduction: Revolution and Betrayal in Spain Spain by WH Auden The Spanish Revolution and Those Who Killed It: a Chronology Trotsky: A "Diary" of The Spanish Revolution and the Civil War 19936-39 Workers' Control in the Spanish Revolution 1936-7 How the Stalinists Killed Workers' Control in the Spanish Revolution Issues in the 1936-7 Spanish Revolution Spain 1936-7: A Study in Workers Power Marxism and Anarchism Hobsbawm's Miserable Apology for Stalinism The Spanish Revolution George Orwell: Eyewithness in Barcelona: 1936-37: With the International Brigade The Scottish Volunteers in the...

Hal Draper on Anthony Crosland's Social-Democratic Reformism

The idea of Gordon Brown writing on the future of socialism will come as a surprise to many, but that is precisely what he invites us to discuss in his foreword to a new edition of Anthony Crosland’s The Future of British Socialism. Brown describes its publication in 1956 as “a decisive moment in post-war Labour history” and that it should be the starting point for “any serious discussion of the politics of social equality”. Brown endorses Crosland's contention that the task of a party that challenges vested interests is to be radical whilst being credible enough for the task. Does Crosland...

Hal Draper on Israel, 1948: War of independence or expansion?

Editorial from the US Marxist newspaper Labor Action. "War of Independence or Expansion? appeared on 24 and 31 May 1948, soon after Israel’s declaration of independence. All UN roads lead to war. This is again being demonstrated in Palestine. The UN, set up with fanfare to bring peace to the world, is again showing that it cannot prevent or halt war even by fifth-rate powers, such as the states of the Middle East - let alone by the major warmakers who control its deliberations. Cannot? The Anglo-American leadership of the UN has proved that it has no wish to do so. If the US and Britain had...

The nature of Stalinist imperialism

By Hal Draper THERE is a paradox - only an apparent one - in the development of Stalinist imperialism. Stalinism arose out of the counter-revolution in Russia under the slogan of building “socialism in one country” as against the perspective of “world revolution” represented by the Bolshevik left wing under Trotsky. An historic internal struggle took place within the party under these different banners, in which, as everybody knows, the Stalinist wing won out. To the Stalinists, the theory of “socialism in one country” which they put forward meant: Let’s keep our eyes fixed on our problems at...

Hal Draper: An Eye-Witness Account of the Russian Revolution

The Russian revolution was the most important event of the 20th century. It was the most important event in the entire history of the working class. The working class took and held power in territory that covered one sixth of the globe. That working class power was overthrown in the early-mid 1920s by the Stalinist counter-revolution, which though continuing to call itself "communist" and "working class" put in a brutal and savage state bureaucracy as a new ruling class over the working people. That Stalinist "dictatorship of the bureaucracy" — brutal, exploiting class power pretending to be...

An open letter to Ignazio Silone

Dear Comrade Silone We were glad to publish your political statement in Labor Action (see left), for we know that what you have to say will be of justifiably great interest to all who admire your novels as well as all who respect your past contributions to the struggle for socialism and human rights. If we seek to continue the dialogue now, it is because of our feeling that your statement does not do justice to the need which prompted it. That need is the need, which every politically responsible person faces of confronting his views of today with his views of yesterday and accounting for the...

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