Martin Glaberman's letter is the sort of thing I would rather not
comment on. For one thing his experience in the socialist
movement is so different from mine that I have difficulty
understanding his actions and thinking as he relates them in
Revolutionary Optimist, the interview published by Black and Red
and reviewed in DB108. One example is what seems to me to be the
ease with which he moved from one group to another. I joined the
SLP at age 20 because I agreed with and wanted to support its
program. And I remained an active member for 34 years until the
party management kicked me out 20 years ago. I supported the SLP
"wholeheartedly" as opposed to Glaberman's account of
joining the Socialist Party's youth group because it was close to
home. His "leftward" ideological drift means to me only
that he embraced increasingly radical reformism in the evolving
primordial Trotskyist soup of the 40s and 50s. What do I think
Trotskyism is? Well, I assumed it was a Leninist variant that
began as an alternative management group for the USSR Incorporated
and developed to compete internationally with the official
communist parties.
I apologize for what is apparently an error on my part. I was
certain that I remembered Correspondence advocating a
"workers' state." At my age depending on memory is
usually a mistake. I'll try to remember that in the future.
Glaberman also regards my assertion that he continued to
"support the UAW version of capitalist unionism" as a
"pure invention" and challenges me to find evidence. I
go to page 14 of Revolutionary Optimist where he speaks of
attempts to organize a small shop whose workers, mostly women,
voted against joining a union, an act which he describes as
"formally, that's a reactionary position...." He then
goes on to point out the circumstances that made such a vote
acceptable, saying that, "The union is an unqualified plus,
right? In ordinary situations I would say yes, but you have to
understand the contradictions and so forth." I submit that
this together with what I gather was many years of working as a
radical, boring from within UAW locals would suggest to anyone
that he supported capitalist unionism.
What do I mean by "our class"? I had in mind the
working class, the non-owners of the means of production who must
sell their lives to live. I see myself, Martin Glaberman, and
most readers of the DB as members of this class, whether or not
they are intellectuals or socialists or Methodists, or even
pickpockets. Finally, I'll admit to not knowing much about CLR
James and his Tendency, but this a condition that I can easily
remedy.
- Frank Girard
