James P Cannon

Workers' Liberty 3/30: The 1939-40 split in the Fourth International

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WL 3/30
Author: 
Two documents by Max Shachtman

In 1940 the Trotskyist movement split over attitudes to Stalinism. The participation and victory of Stalin's USSR in World War 2 as an imperialist power would make that split a fundamental political dividing-point.



James P. Cannon: "Trade unionists and revolutionists"

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Cannon at 19
Author: 
James P Cannon

"The party is the highest prize to the young trade unionist who becomes a revolutionist, the apple of his eye. But to the revolutionist who becomes transformed into a trade unionist – we have all seen this happen more than once – the party is no prize at all".

This speech by James P Cannon, from 1953, deals with how revolutionaries relate to trade-union activity and its pressures. It was made in the context of a faction-fight in the American Trotskyist movement, in which a section of the movement's "senior" trade unionists joined with people (led by Bert Cochran) who wanted a "softer" attitude to Stalinism, but is instructive way beyond the immediate references.