As tempting as it is to respond in kind to Justin's torrent of personal abuse in kind,
I will not do so. For the personal abuse is just one more device designed to forestall
open and frank discussion of how ideological left [primarily socialist and communist]
organizations and mass democratic organizations, especially trade unions, have
interacted. Every attempt at frank discussion on any particular point of this
relationship is met with accusations of red-baiting, and if that doesn't halt all
discussion, with personal abuse, such as Justin's accusations that I am a liar and a
fool if I don't accept his account of the relationship among TDU, _Labor Notes_, and
Solidarity, and their common indebtedness and links to the Trotskyist tradition.
The history of interaction between ideological left organizations and the trade union
movement in the US is long and well-documented. It starts with DeLeon and IWW, it
involves Socialists, Communists and Trotskyists of all sorts, and it continues to this
day. No one could write a history of the AFL without an account of Gompers split from
Marxism and his battles with AFL Socialists, and then the IWW; no one could provide an
account of the rise of CIO without the pivotal role of Communists, many of whom had
been involved in dual CP unions during the 'third period'; no could write a history of
the "left" CIO unions such as the UE, or explain their purge from the CIO, without an
explanation of the battles over Communism; no one could write a history of the UAW,
the ILGWU, or my own AFT, to mention just a few examples, without a study of the
factional fights between Socialists, Communists and Trotskyists of every stripe. No
one could discuss the twists and turns of the labor mov!
em!
ent's relationship with the Afri
can-American community, without an analysis of the role of Socialists and Communists,
from A. Phillip Randolph on. No one could explain the AFL-CIO's international work
without reference to the anti-Communists of the Lovestonites and Shachtmanites. And
all of this just touches the surface.
Those connections continue today, and it is disingeneous to suggest otherwise. To cite
the most obvious example: the old AFL-CIO leadership was clearly linked to
Shachtmanites of the SDUSA variety, which explains, as much as anything, Sweeney's
decision to join DSA. When Shanker was elected AFT President, he filled its national
staff with SDUSA types. DSA members can be found among the elected leadership and
national organizing staff of AFSCME, SEIU, UNITE and the UAW. Solidarity types have
been key to organizing opposition caucuses in the Teamsters, the UAW and the
Transportation Workers.
Now if Bill Fletcher can work at the very top of the AFL-CIO, and be open and honest
about his leadership of the Black Radical Congress and membership in Freedom Road
Socialist Organization [FRSO], than there really is no reason for anyone to suggest
that we can not have a frank discussion of all of these issues.
My local union, the UFT, has four internal caucuses: [a] the leadership caucus, which
ranges from moderate and liberal Democrats to democratic socialists and radical
democrats, with a few retired SDUSA members and some DSA members [b] the main
opposition caucus, organized by the CP, [c] a much smaller group, consisting of a
handful of Solidarity members who refuse to have anything to do with the CP caucus,
and [d] a new, ill-organized caucus with a sort of 'third worldist' bent which has
attracted members of Progressive Labor and Freedom Road Socialist Organization. You
understand nothing about UFT internal politics if you do not understand those
political realities. To attempt to squelch public discussion of them as some sort of
'red baiting' is, to my mind, fundamentally anti-democratic. Discussion of these
realities goes on all the time in private conversation, but only the 'insiders' are
party to these discussions and in the know. I refuse to allow myself to be constrain!
ed!
by such anti-democratic dictate
s.
If you can't defend your politics in open and pubic forums, there is something wrong
with your politics.
Leo Casey
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