Below are excerpts of Socialism on Trial, published by Pathfinder Press. The book is the official record of the testimony by James P. Cannon, National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, at one of the most important political trials in U.S. history. On the eve of World War II, 18 leaders of the SWP and Minneapolis Teamsters union were tried and found guilty of "conspiring to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government." Washington's aim was to prevent the building of opposition to U.S. entry into the interimperialist carnage and block the charting of a class- struggle course for the labor movement.

In the excerpt below, Cannon explains the SWP's position on workers' defense guards. Socialism on Trial is currently being reset by Pathfinder Press to make this communist classic more accessible and readable. The book is copyright by Pathfinder, reprinted with permission.

Q: [By defense attorney Albert Goldman]: Will you tell the court and jury the position of the Socialist Workers Party on workers' defense guards?

A: [Cannon]: Well the party is in favor of the workers organizing defense guards wherever their organizations or their meetings are threatened by hoodlum violence. The workers should not permit their meetings to be broken up or their halls to be wrecked, or their work to be interfered with, by Ku Klux Klanners or Silver Shirts or fascists of any type, or hoodlums, or reactionary thugs, but should organize a guard and protect themselves where it is necessary.

Q: How long ago was the idea of a workers' defense guard first put forth by the group of which you are a member?

A: I may say that I have known about this idea, which we didn't invent at all, all my thirty years in the labor movement. I have known about the idea of workers' defense guards and seen them organized and helped to organize them more than once long before I ever heard of the Russian Revolution....

We formed a workers' defense guard in Minneapolis in January 1929, and the IWW [Industrial Workers of the World] gave us the use of their hall. They had a hall of their own somewhere down here on Washington Street. We advertised the meeting widely and announced that this meeting was going to be held under the protection of the workers' guard. And I personally know that there was such a guard, that they equipped themselves with hatchet handles, and stood along the side of the hall, and stood out in front and announced that nobody should interfere with this meeting. I spoke for about two hours there without any interference, under the protection of that workers' guard....

Q: Now, with reference to the workers' defense guard advocated by the Socialist Workers Party, what formal action did the party take at any time?

A: Well, in this later period of 1938 and `39, in some parts of the country we were confronted with an incipient fascist movement. Different organizations with different names began preaching Hitlerite doctrines in this country, and tried to practice Hitlerite methods of physical intimidation of workers' meetings, of Jews, Jewish stores, and suppressing free speech by violent methods.

In New York it became a rather acute problem. The various Bundists and associated groups in New York developed the practice of breaking up street meetings when either our party or some other workers' party would attempt to speak under a permit given by the city authorities. They had a habit of going around and molesting Jewish storekeepers, picketing them, and beating them, and challenging them to fight and so on.

There was an organization rampant at that time called the "Silver Shirts." I don't recall them in New York, but at various points in the West and Midwest.

Q: Do you recall the Christian Front?

A: Yes, in New York the Bundists and the Christian Front, and two or three other would-be fascist organizations, used to combine on this kind of business. At this time free speech was being very flagrantly denied in Jersey City under the authority of this man [Mayor Frank] Hague who announced that he was the law, got the habit of chasing people out of town and permitting meetings to be broken up ostensibly not by the authorities, but by the "outraged citizens" whom he and his gang had organized for that purpose. In general there were signs then - there was a lot of discontent and unrest in the country - there were signs of a fascist movement growing up, and the question arose of how we could protect, not only ourselves, but how could the unions protect themselves. For example, in Jersey City picketing was denied by these means and the right to strike infringed upon - very serious questions of the invasion of civil liberties by unofficial bodies.

Basing ourselves on the experiences of the German and Italian fascist movements, which began with gangs of hoodlums and ended by destroying completely the labor unions and all workers' organizations and all civil rights - we came to the conclusion that the fascists should be met on their own ground, and that we should raise the slogan of workers' defense guards to protect workers' meetings, halls and institutions against hoodlum violence by the incipient fascists.

We discussed that with [a leader of the Russian Revolution Leon] Trotsky; his part in it was primarily an exposition of the development of the fascist movement in Europe. I don't recall now whether he originated the idea, but at any rate he heartily seconded it that our party should propose that the unions, wherever their peace was menaced by these hoodlums, should organize workers' defense guards and protect themselves.

Q: And did the unions follow the advice of the party?

A: I recall that we organized, in cooperation with some other radicals and some Jewish people - even some Jewish nationalists who didn't agree with our socialist program, but agreed on defending their human rights to live - we formed at that time a workers' defense guard in New York. To protect not only the meetings of our party but of any organization menaced by these hoodlums. To protect citizens from molestation in the Bronx, where these hoodlums were intimidating and insulting Jewish people. This guard had several scuffles and fights with these gangs.

Then conditions in the country began to change. The economic situation in the country improved a bit. The question of the European war began to absorb attention, and take it away from these provincial American Hitlers. The fascist movement dropped into passivity and our workers' defense guard in New York didn't have anything to do and it just passed out of existence. In Los Angeles, if I recall correctly, there was a similar experience....

Q [By prosecutor Henry Schweinhaut]: ...Don't you want to build, while you are advancing toward power, a workers' militia? To help you get into power?

A: We use the expression "workers' defense guards" because that is most American and most easily and precisely defines what we want. The workers' defense guards will grow in size and strength insofar as the guards have a task to perform, not because we want them to grow.

If the fascists grow and fight the unions, the unions must inevitably counter that movement by developing their defense guards, and if the defense guards are overpowered by fascist gangsters and hoodlums and thugs, the only answer of the unions can be to strengthen the guards, and in the course of that struggle between the fascist gangs and the workers' defense guards, we hope the workers' defense guards will grow strong and eventually become a very effective power....  
 
 
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