From:David Mcreynolds

Sent: 6/8/2005 12:37:00 PM

Subject: Re old history, Shachtman, Civil Rights, etc. (can be deleted without reading)

I knew the ISL folks from the early 1950's at UCLA, and was one of those instrumental in "opening the door" for them to join the SP. I heard Max Shachtman speak during this time, but since Muste and Rustin were my mentors, I was impressed with Max's humor, not his depth. (Later, when I got to know him quite well, I found he was a pretty dreadful person, brilliant, not deep- but still funny).

Max went through distinct phases (which I realize you will understand since you've written a book on him). Communist Party leader, followed by "Orthodox Revolutionist won over to Trotsky" (becoming the literary executor of Trotsky's estate). Unorthodox Trotskyist, but still Trotskyist in broad outline, at the time of the Soviet invasion of Finland, when he broke with the SWP and for the second time becomes an exile from "the main current". He took with him a number of decent, genuine revolutionists, moved gradually toward a view of socialism with emphasis on democracy. Changed his view of the Socialist Party in the early 1950's when, after first giving his blessing to the pretty pointless "raid" on the SP's youth, conducted by Denitch and Harrington, he sees the SP under NormanThomas as the possible basis for a genuinely new socialist group, which Max would control. Enters the Socialist Party in 1958-1960, closes the door behind him (no overtures to the Gates faction leaving the CP, nor to the Cochranites).
Advocates a quite reasonable position of realignment as one possible "way out" or "through" the American situation. Briefly (as you all know), to work both outside of and within the Democratic Party with a view of driving out the Southern Democrats, permitting the Democratic Party to "swing to the left", where it would come under the influence of labor, and where, in Shachtman's view, his minions would have a kind of "ideological vanguard" position.
This position was "reinforced by reality" of the Civil Rights movement which began in December, 1955, with no help from Shachtman. Bayard Rustin, not at that time on Shachtman's side, played a key role. So did A.J. Muste, with whom King consulted. (Both Bayard and Muste had close contacts with the emerging liberation movements in Africa - the War Resisters League had sent Bill Sutherland to Ghana, then the Gold Coast, to help train people in nonviolent ways of resisting oppression. African leaders visiting the US would often contact Muste before checking in with the State Department). The ISL was a marginal group through all of this - it had, what?, 200? 300? members when they entered the SP. A handful of very good, bright people, who worked very hard. These folks came to include Irwin Suall (who initially was very bitter about Max and in my view "broken" by him - one of my many good reasons for detesting Shachtman's legacy), Joan Suall, Rochelle Horowitz, Tom Kahn, and of course the Drapers, the Jacobsons, Harrington.

The Civil Rights movement had the active support of the Socialist Workers Party, which didn't mean a great deal (their sectarianism meant they were "outside looking in" for the most part), and the Communist Party, which had much deeper roots in the Civil Rights movement than Shachtman, had a core of black members, and was closely involved from 1955 on. Much more so than the ISL folks. But both groups - and the SP, not just the ISL faction - had good records on civil rights. The reality is everyone turned to the Civil Rights movement, which was the revolutionary ferment at that time, as labor had been in the 1930's, and one for which no group of white radicals can take credit. And, of course, you had the Quakers, the pacifists, more numerous, and probably much more important in the long run than the ISL (the "Journey of Reconciliation" - the first freedom rides - were in 1947, under the leadership of Rustin, Farmer, etc. from the FOR - the ISL folks had no contact with this that I know of).

Individuals play a key role, certainly - Shachtman, Rustin, Muste, King (most of all), Farmer, Ella Baker, a few dozen others - but history was just providing a stage on which they could play that role. Deeper events shaped things - the rise of the anti-Colonial movement around the world, but particularly in Africa, the industrialization of the South, the slow erosion of the history of the Civil War and the infamous institution of Jim Crow, and the long hard slog of African Americans from slavery to colleges. Lots of stories here, Shachtman's is a minor one, but real.

I've talked with another historian who tried to get me to confirm how central Shachtman was to Bayard Rustin's thinking - a thesis that Shachtman was really much more a mastermind to the Civil Rights movement. Sorry, just not so. (Worth reading Peter Drucker's biography of Max, if folks haven't - may be out of print, though it isn't that old). David, it simply is not true that the SP was the "dominant" force on the Left for the first time since the early 1930's. While the CP had been deeply discredited by the 20th Congress, the Hungarian Revolution, etc., it remained a formidable force, if one takes into account all those who had left it, but still agreed with many of the main points of the CP. Consider the climate of the time - no one wanted to give the CP credit for anything, it was the kiss of death, and had been since the Cold War began. But in city after city, in the peace movement, the civil rights movement, and in labor, the "left" was much more CP than SP.

Norman Thomas, whom I visited when he was dying, broke down in tears over having signed some statement that Harrington had brought him, promised that he would get Steve Siteman, his secretary, to draft and circulate a rebuttal. This had to do with the internal politics of the SP. Yes, Norman was in general agreement with where Shachtman was at that time, but not with where he was going. Emphatically not in foreign policy areas, where Max had begun his still incomprehensible shift to the far right, toward his quiet support of "State organized murder" from the Bay of Pigs through Indochina to Central America and even South Africa, where his point man was not Mandela but Chief Butalezi (spelling is wrong here).
Yes the Debs caucus regained control of the SP as you state, but the triumph was brief. We were not ruthless enough to consolidate control.

On "anti-Zionism", this was a very late discovery of Shachtman, who had been much closer to the Bund, which was historically anti-Zionist. I've never grasped a real explanation for Shachtman's shift to Zionism, long after it had lost is gloss of idealism. None of us - Jew or non-Jew- can really grasp that early period of Israel unless we are old enough to have lived through it, that time "when all the Left was pro-Israel", when the Arab states were a collection of reactionary thugs, before shifts in Egypt, Libya, Iraq, etc. etc. How naive we all were - Jewish leftists most of all, because they should have been more aware of things. (And it is to the great credit of the best in the Jewish tradition that, once aware of the wrongs inflicted on the Palestinians, they have often become the most hostile voices to Israel - there are very very few Palestinian or Arab voices that speak out as forcefully against the errors within the Arab world as there are opponents of Israel within the Jewish community. The radical anti-Zionist position within Israel may be marginal, but they are the true prophetic voice of Judaism - in time, American Jews will see that this handful, not Sharon, not AIPAC, etc., are the saviors of the best in that tradition).

Remember that back then, in the late 1940's, we were just beginning to come to terms with the Holocaust.

With Melvin [Little], I share an unease at some of the anti-Israel rhetoric,  with the failure of some of the supporters of the Palestinian cause (a cause I support) to realize that "Israel is there, it isn't going away, and a settlement must be based on that reality".

I've gone on far too long - the only reason for sending this by bcc to some others is because I hate "to waste history" even if my view is biased and incorrect - let me throw it into the mix.

The chief honor for the Civil Rights movement must go to black America, not to Socialist/Trotskyist/Communist/Pacifist America. Shachtman's role in this is certainly a good deal less important than that of C.L.R. James who was one of the few in the black community to see that in this country it would be the most oppressed group which would become the "motor force", not labor.

Peace,