Independent American Political Groups: Socialist Workers Party (1937 - 1946)

ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY 

1. Founding Convention --- Chicago, IL --- Dec. 31, 1937 to Jan. 3, 1938

 

1a. National Committee Plenum --- New York, NY --- April 22-25, 1938

 

1b. National Committee Plenum --- New York, NY --- Nov. 19-20, 1938

 

2. 2nd National Convention --- New York, NY --- July 1-5, 1939

 

 

3. Special 3rd National Convention --- New York, NY --- April 5-8, 1940
The April 1940 Special Convention was convened to resolve the bitter disagreement in the party over the significance of the Nazi-Soviet pact and the eruption of World War II in Europe. The Burham-Shachtman minority saw the German-Soviet agreement as a rank betrayal of the principles of the Russian Revolution and sought to distance themselves from the SWP's standing policy of "defense of the Soviet Union." They argued that the Soviet invasion of Latvia, Lithuanian, Estonia, and Poland in accordance with the agreement with Hitler was "imperialist," indicative that the USSR had been transformed into some new form of class society. The majority Cannon-Dobbs group, on the other hand, sought a continuation of the party's line towards the Soviet Union, continuing to seek American non-intervention in the "imperialist" European war. Thirteen issues of the party's internal discussion bulletin had been dedicated to the issue, with both of the factions sharing space. Factional documents on the question had similarly been circulated in the party without prohibition.<ref>James P. Cannon, The Convention of the Socialist Workers Party, Fourth International, v. 1, no. 1 (May 1940), pg. 16.</ref>
By a vote of 55 to 31, delegates at the special convention supported the position of the Cannon majority. According to Cannon himself, "more than half of the delegates of the opposition came from New York branches," while "outside New York the delegates stood three to one behind the majority of the National Committee." <ref>James P. Cannon, The Convention of the Socialist Workers Party, Fourth International, v. 1, no. 1 (May 1940), pg. 16.</ref>
The majority group attempted to avert a split by passing a special resolution at the convention assuring the minority of their party rights, including a sactioning of a continuation of debate and proportional representation for the minority on the party's governing National Committee. The convention did demand that discussion at the branch level cease, however, arguing that the party had been paralyzed by the bitter debated. The Burham-Shachtman group elected to exit the party following the convention, relaunching the Workers Party, with its own publication, Labor Action, which was sharply critical of the SWP and its leadership.
Burnham followed this with another resignation letter, this dated May 21, 1940, which marked his outright exit from the Marxist movement:

"The general Marxian theory of 'universal history,' to the extent that it has any empirical content, seems to me disproved by modern historial and anthropological investigation.
"Marxian economics seems to me for the most part either false or obsolete or meaningless in application to contemporary economic phenomena....
"Not only do I believe it meaningless to say that 'socialism is inevitable' and false that socialism is 'the only alternative to capitalism'; I consider that on the basis of the evidence now available to us a new form of exploitative society (what I call 'managerial society') is not only possible as an alternative to capitalism but is a more probable outcome of the present period than socialism. * * *
"On no ideological, theoretic or political ground...can I recognize, or do I feel, any bond or allegiance to the Workes Party (or to any other Marxist party). That is simply the case, and I can no longer pretend about it, either to myself or to others."<ref>James Burnham, "Burham's Letter of Resignation," Fourth International, v. 1, no. 4 (August 1940), pp. 106-107.</ref>

In the June issue of the SWP's theoretical magazine, Jim Cannon likened anti-Stalinist social democrats and the departed oppositionists from the SWP to the Stalin regime itself in practical terms:

"It is an ironical circumstance that revulsion against Stalinism has been instrumental in leqading a whole school of its opponents to a position which, from a class point of view, is on the same level as that of the Stalinists. Seeing in Stalinism the incarnation of all things evil and fighting it to the point of phobia, they arrive at a presecription for the proletariat which is no better and not fundamentally different from that of Stalinism. Stalin recommends to the workers of the world a reconciliation with their exploiters at home in behalf of a fictitious socialism in the Soviet Union. The professional anti-Stalinists recommend an alliance against Communism with the masters of America in the name of a fictitious democracy which can't even tell a hungry worker where he should get a job or show a dispossessed sharecropper where he can find a roof to shelter his family from the elements.
"All opportunists and renegades -- Stalinist and anti-Stalinist -- have common traits. They see only the power of the present-day and bow down before it."<ref>James P. Cannon, "The Pathology of Renegacy," Fourth International, v. 1, no. 2 (June 1940), pg. 54.</ref>

 

4. 4th National Convention --- city? --- date?

 

5. 5th National Convention --- city? --- date?

 

6. 6th National Convention --- city? --- date?

 

7. 7th National Convention --- city? --- date?

 

8. 8th National Convention --- city? --- date?

 

9. 9th National Convention --- city? --- date?

 

10. 10th National Convention --- city? --- date?

 

11. 11th National Convention --- city? --- XXXXXX XX-XX, 1944

 

12. 12th National Convention --- city? --- Nov. 15-18, 1946
The 12th National Convention was opened with an address by National Secretary James Cannon. Cannon's speech indicated that 1,013 new members had been recruited into the party since the 1944 convention.<ref>"The Twelfth National Convention of the Socialist Workers Party," Fourth International, v. 8, no. 1 (Jan. 1947), pg. 3.</ref> There were a total of 117 voting delegates, 70 alternates, and 190 registered guests, making it the largest national gathering in the history of the American Trotskyist movement. There were two reports on the International situation delivered, one representing the majority of the National Committee, delivered by the editor of the party's theoretical journal, E.R. Frank, and a minority report delivered by Felix Morrow. The majority report depicted a world of "grave economic crisis, convulsions and upheavals on a world scale, while the minority report placed an emphasis on the need to restore constitutional states and democratic rights in post-war Europe and placing little emphasis on revolutionary possibilities.<ref>"The Twelfth National Convention of the Socialist Workers Party," Fourth International, v. 8, no. 1 (Jan. 1947), pg. 4.</ref> The convention voted 113 to 3 in support of the majority report.
James Cannon delivered a report entitled "Theses on the American Revolution" in which he argued that in the post-World War II world, economic conditions had deepened and that the explosion of another crisis far worse than the 1930s was imminent. Cannon asserted:

"If American capitalism was shaken to its foundations by the crisis of the Thirties, at a time when the world systme of capitalism, and America along with it, was younger, richer, and healthier than it is now; if this crisis lasted for 10 years, and even then could not be overcome by the normal operation of economic laws; if all the basic causes and contradictions which brought about the crisis of the Thirties have been carried over and lodged in the new artificial war and post-war prosperity, and multiplied many times; if all this is true -- and nobody but a fool can deny it -- then what chance has the capitalist boom of the Forties to have a different ending than the boom of the Twenties?"<ref>"The Twelfth National Convention of the Socialist Workers Party," Fourth International, v. 8, no. 1 (Jan. 1947), pg. 5.</ref>

Cannon's depiction of the situation in millenialist terms was paired with a rosy perspective of the place of the SWP in the coming collapse. "A great party, with a glorious record and a stainless banner, ahs already been prepared for them and awaits their enlistment," he declared.<ref>"The Twelfth National Convention of the Socialist Workers Party," Fourth International, v. 8, no. 1 (Jan. 1947), pg. 5.</ref>
In an Organization Report to the convention delivered by Farrell Dobbs, it was noted that the SWP had launched a "Midwest Vacation School" as a party institution, as well as the "Trotsky School," a training school with a 6 month course on Marxism for party leaders. The first course of the Trotsky School had recently concluded, with a graduating class of 6.<ref>"The Twelfth National Convention of the Socialist Workers Party," Fourth International, v. 8, no. 1 (Jan. 1947), pg. 7.</ref> Party finances were said to be severely strained due to inflation and high printing costs and to meet the "financial emergency" the convention determined to raise a fund of $20,000 by March 1, 1947.<ref>"The Twelfth National Convention of the Socialist Workers Party," Fourth International, v. 8, no. 1 (Jan. 1947), pg. 7.</ref>
The convention also dealt with a unity proposal before it from the Workers Party, established during the Burnham-Shachtman split of 1940. The political differences between the two groups were said to have "deepened and multiplied in the 6-year interval" and the proposal was viewed by the convention as a ploy to engineer a split in SWP ranks. Only 3 delegates voted in favor of the merger proposal, which was decisively rejected.<ref>"The Twelfth National Convention of the Socialist Workers Party," Fourth International, v. 8, no. 1 (Jan. 1947), pg. 7.</ref>
The convention also voted 101 to 4 to expel Felix Morrow and David Jeffries for violation of discipline and "disloyal and disruptive activites."