(Books of the Month column)

During class combat rebellious

workers become revolutionists

In the course of those conflicts some of the more rebellious become revolutionists and join a revolutionary socialist party. This brings unparalleled opportunities to achieve great leaps in social thought and political consciousness as they begin to understand why capitalism is irremediably bankrupt and precisely how the workers’ struggle must be waged to replace it with a new, higher social order. This opens the way for a meaningful reexamination of history, not with past events falsely presented or deliberately ignored, as is frequently the case in textbooks of the official educational system, but through honest, forthright accounts of what actually happened. In this way they can learn valuable lessons from the setbacks as well as the advances, from the mistakes as well as the achievements, of their revolutionary predecessors. …

This study of the struggle for revolutionary Marxist continuity in the United States has been written from the viewpoint of the historic line of march of the working class. The narration of events is designed to bring forth the significance of the successive efforts of the working masses, and above all of the leading cadres, to attain a clearer class consciousness, a better understanding of their place and role under capitalism, and stronger forms of economic and political organization to oppose and combat the exploitation and domination of the capitalist rulers.

Because of the retarded ideological state of the United States working class compared to its counterparts in many other countries, its inability so far to break loose from the Democratic and Republican political machines and establish a mass independent labor party, and the small size of the revolutionary socialist forces within it, it may seem that very little or no progress has been made toward these goals. That would be a superficial estimate. So sterile and pessimistic a view is not warranted.

The various and repeated attempts of the working class and its most advanced leaders to promote and reinforce its independent industrial and political organization have left their mark. This achievement is most evident of course in the trade union field. When the ranks are aroused and set into motion, the U.S. union movement is one of the most powerful, well-organized, and combative against the corporations and their government in the world. What it still lacks to realize its potential is the proper kind of leadership.

This book records and critically reviews the ways in which the successive generations of proletarian revolutionists have participated in the movements of the working class and its allies and sought to steer them along the correct path. As I have explained, their leadership was not always fruitful or well thought-out. They had their share of defaults and disappointments.

Nonetheless, they maintained through the decades the continuity of revolutionary proletarian thought and kept the spirit of conscious anticapitalist resistance alive. Marxists today not only owe them homage for their deeds, their courage in the face of adversity, their perseverance in defending the welfare of the exploited and oppressed. We have a duty beyond this acknowledgment. That is to learn where they went wrong as well as what they did right so that their errors are not repeated.

That is the only way in which the heritage of the efforts of millions, often paid for in blood, can be put to good account and not squandered and nullified. For the Marxist program is simply the generalization of the strategic lessons learned by succeeding generations over the course of the class struggle as the toilers strive to replace the dictatorship of capital with their own.

Just as I have searched for accounts of past developments in the labor and socialist movements throughout my quest for political education, the current generation of fighters will need every bit of information that can be provided on the subject. For that reason I have undertaken this contribution to the history of revolutionary Marxism in the United States, beginning in this first volume with a sketch of the revolutionary continuity from which it stems. I hope today’s worker militants will gain a measure of the enlightenment they seek from the experiences incorporated and lessons emphasized in these pages. …