Vol. 80/No. 26      July 18, 2016

 

Arnie Hershkowitz joined SWP on eve of
1979 revolutions

 
Arnie Hershkowitz, a 38-year cadre of the Socialist Workers Party, died June 20 in Houston. He was 83 years old and had been ill with cancer. Arnie, and his wife Leona, met the party in the mid-1970s in Houston.

Hershkowitz was born in 1933 into a family of Jewish garment workers in Brooklyn and grew up in nearby Howard Beach and other parts of Queens. He was drafted into the army at the beginning of the Korean War when he was 18 and returned to New York when he was discharged. He worked as a draftsman, making blueprints for the aircraft and oil industries.

The 1974-75 recession caused massive layoffs in industry. Arnie and Leona, who died a couple years ago, moved from New York to Arizona and then to Houston in 1976, part of a mass migration of tens of thousands of workers looking for jobs in the city’s massive oil, steel and transportation industries.

In the mid-1970s great changes were underway in politics, and the U.S. working class was entering center stage with struggles in the United Mine Workers union against the mine bosses and for union democracy, as well as in the United Steelworkers union.

The world was a political cauldron in 1975: the Vietnamese Revolution triumphed against U.S. imperialism’s brutal war; Cuban internationalist volunteers responded to a request from Angola’s newly independent government to help fight off the invasion of apartheid South Africa’s armed forces; and there was revolutionary ferment in Portugal and Spain.

Vietnam and fight for Black rights

Hershkowitz explained how he had been active in the fight against the Vietnam War and in the fight for Black rights. He and Leona came in contact with the Socialist Workers Party in the fight for abortion rights.

Arnie made a decision, under the impact of these developments, to join the SWP in 1978, as did Leona. He came to the conclusion that a party had to be built to end the dictatorship of capital, based on the recognition of the worth and capacities of working people. He joined on the eve of big revolutionary developments. Revolutions in Nicaragua and Grenada — countries that along with Cuba were “three giants rising on the doorstep of imperialism,” in the words of Fidel Castro. Revolutionary struggles were taking place across southern Africa, and the Iranian Revolution that unfolded in 1979 changed the Middle East.

In 1978 the SWP made a far-reaching decision for its members to carry out a turn to get jobs in industry and practice communist politics in the trade unions — defeating an opposition in the party that said it couldn’t be done. It was clear that developments in the working class and world politics called for that.

Hershkowitz cast his lot with that perspective and was part of building a national party fraction in the United Steelworkers when he was hired into Hughes Tool. It was a massive factory complex making equipment for the oil industry. His union local had been at the center of many struggles in the Houston area, including the fight to transform the union into a democratic and class-struggle organization that could lead workers who wanted to stand up and fight. By 1976, during the campaign of Ed Sadlowski for Steelworkers president, campaigners at Hughes Tool had been targeted by the Ku Klux Klan and were shot at and one seriously wounded while passing out literature at the plant gate.

In 1978 when Hershkowitz was hired, the union was fertile ground for discussions with steelworkers about the struggles of the day.

Enthusiastic propagandist for party

Hershkowitz was a cadre of the party. He worked collectively and in a disciplined way toward the party’s goal of overthrowing the dictatorship of capital that we still live under today. Hershkowitz threw himself into all the efforts of the SWP to win people to the movement. He was an enthusiastic propagandist using the arsenal of Pathfinder books and the Militant in this work.

The author of this article worked with Hershkowitz in Houston for 19 years and was impressed with his ability to talk to workers and the respectful way he dealt with everyone. He would talk to people with his relaxed manner and his genuine smile. Combined with his understanding of politics Hershkowitz frequently took discussions a long way. He was interested in what workers thought, in their experiences.

Cindy Jaquith worked with him in the branch from 2011 to 2015. “Arnie looked forward to forums and the committee meetings that prepared them as an opportunity for political discussion,” she said. “Every week he greeted people, took donations at the door and filed a report on the meeting’s outcome.

“Whatever the assignment, Arnie gave it his best shot. The question for him was always how to do it, not could it be done,” she said.

Today the SWP is responding to new developments in the class struggle and politics. Party members are building on the indispensable continuity that Hershkowitz and his party went back to and brought forward.

Contributions to continue this work can be sent to the Socialist Workers Party, 306 W. 37th Street, 13th floor, New York, NY 10018.

Steve Warshell was the organizer of the SWP in Houston from 2008 to 2015.  
 
 
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