Marvin Gandall wrote:
But this doesn't contradict that each in its own way was trying to build
their own party to replace the Democrats, whom the workers then favoured,
any more than the entry of the SWP into the Socialist Party was an
indication that American Trotskyists had abandoned their perspective of
building their own party around their own program.

It depends on how you define "trying". After all, Browder proposed that the CPUSA be transformed into the Communist Political Association in the same sort of magnanimous gesture as David Cobb's offer not to get in the way of Democratic Party ambitions. My idea of trying has more to do with the abolitionists of the 1850s and Malcolm X, but then again, I don't mind swimming against the stream. As far as the SWP's entry into the SP is concerned, I think it was a huge sectarian mistake. They should have never left the SP and went off on their own. An SP with a powerful and vibrant left wing could have made a difference in the postwar period, but the Trotskyists preferred to be pure.

You may disagree with the political accomodations made by these parties
during the 30s, and some did then and since, but it doesn't follow that they
represented an effort by the CP and SP to dissolve their organizations into
the Democratic party. The CP, in particular, conducted much useful political
activity under its own banner in the unions, and in the unemployed and other
depression-era movements, as did the SP and the smaller SWP to a lesser
extent.

The CP did useful work in the unions. Their usefulness, however, was always qualified by the overarching need to maintain the "popular front". This meant attacking A. Philip Randolph's March on Washington, backing a no-strike pledge during WWII, etc.


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