[lbo-talk] Back and forth

[andie_nachgeborenen]

Without having read Hedges I just note that the Palmer Red Raids smashed the IWW in 1917-18, until then an increasingly important force in American unionism. The Socialist Party, the only mass socialist electoral party to achieve any measure of serious success (10-12% of the Presidental vote vote in 1912) was destroyed as an effective force after the prosecution for sedition of its candidate,the unionist Eugene Debs. In the late 20's though the mid 40s, unionists of various stripes from Trotskyist and Communist to more mainstream people like John L. Lewis and the Reuthers, who later helped drive the Reds out of the unions they helped build. So if Hedges meant there was no more progressive moment in the US until, perhaps, the Civil Rights movement, he was wrong.again I don't know what he said. But he is very smart and knowledgeable and I doubt thatis what he meant. I think he meant the destruction of the IWW, the SP, the anarchist movement, and the effects of A.G. Palmer's Red Raids and deportations (including sending Emma Goldman and Big Bill Haywood to Soviet Russia. They didn't much like it. Goldman was at least Russian-born, but Haywood was corn-fed American.).

Sent from my iPad

On Aug 21, 2012, at 6:04 PM, "Chuck Grimes" <cagrimes42 at gmail.com> wrote:


> 
> CB: This seems to be contradicted by all the pro-labor accomplishments of the 1930's , especially winning unions in the industrial sector.
> 
> --------
> 
> I didn't know the earlier history before WW1 and 1917. After reading Trotsky's descriptions of union meetings I realized I had never seen anything like them when I was a union member in the Carpenter's local and later AFSCME local. By the 60s-70s these unions were reduced to offices and dues where total apparatcheks existed instead of workers. The systems were completely altered from any concept of social democracy. Their idea of a meeting was We Talk, You Listen. An ossified parlamentary rules of order were in place, all conduced in a pre-rehearst farce.
> 
> Where were the speechs, where were the demands, where were the votes, where were the open elections, where were the workers, if they bothered to show up at all?
> 
> Stalinism politely called corporatization prevailed, without the prisons, exiles, and assassinations.
> 
> So the meaning of Chris Hedges comment was before Wilson's anti-commie era there was a lot more social democracy in the union movements than afterward. It took awhile for this ossification process to take hold and become the order of the day. A false nationalism coupled with roll backs in ethnic and racial integration were other factors in the reaction.
> 
> Anyway, this problem which is the transformation from worker revolution to state apparatus deserves a better answer. All I can suggest is reading Trotsky's works. And most especially if you've been politically involved. They open your horizon on what is possible.
> 
> CG
> 
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk