BY JOHN PINES  
ST. PAUL, Minnesota—“The Militant, above all, has been a party-building newspaper,” and carries with it “the lessons and principles of organization that have been learned through decades of struggle,” said Tom Fiske to an audience of workers and youth here at a 75th anniversary celebration of the Militant on November 15.

Fiske, a longtime contributor to the Militant and active socialist in the Twin Cities, pointed to the role the Militant has played in recent years in providing accurate, timely coverage of the sit-down strike at Dakota Premium Foods in South St. Paul in June 2000 and the subsequent fight that led workers there to win UFCW representation.

One of those participating in the Militant celebration was Matthew Quaschnick, one of more than 70 students who had occupied administration offices at the University of Minnesota October 28 to support striking clerical workers. He spoke about the student action and explained he was glad to find others opposed to capitalism.

A high point of the meeting was a message sent by veteran socialist Mildred Solem from Duluth, Minnesota, which was read to the audience by chairperson Becky Ellis (see excerpts of message reprinted below).

The panel of speakers included Augustina Borreal, a packinghouse worker at Dakota Premium Foods and participant in the victorious UFCW Local 789 organizing drive at that plant. She explained that the Militant is an accurate source of information and offered an important perspective during the fights she has been involved in.

Becky Ellis spoke about how the Militant was part of the public campaign the socialist movement helped lead in Texas in 1971 to defeat the Ku Klux Klan’s bombing and harassment campaign against political organizations and activists.

Ellis, who took part in these events, explained that the Socialist Workers Party had established a branch in Houston in 1970, and in February 1971 announced its first campaign for public office, running Debbie Leonard for mayor of Houston. The next month the Klan bombed the SWP campaign headquarters as well as the local Pacifica public radio station. In response, the Socialist Workers Party initiated the Committee to Defend Democratic Rights, a broad formation that involved students, leaders of women’s rights organizations, leading activists in the anti-Vietnam War coalition, professors, a Black minister who had been targeted by the racist outfit, and others. “There was a huge response to the attacks,” Ellis said.

She described how the Militant, which covered the response to the Klan attacks, was sold frequently at campuses and shopping centers and served as an essential tool in the fight against the ultrarightists. “Our candidate was on TV twice debating the Grand Dragon of the KKK,” Ellis said. The Militant ran excerpts of the SWP candidate’s remarks. “The conclusion was so successful that the Klan night-riding against political activists stopped. Twelve Klansmen were indicted and some were eventually convicted,” she said. Following that success, in December 1971 the Young Socialist Alliance held its national convention in Houston without an incident.

John Pines, a member of the Young Socialists, spoke about the Militant’s role in winning a number of youth to the revolutionary movement in the late 1990s during struggles in defense of immigrant rights and affirmative action in California. He also explained how a Militant reporting trip to Puerto Rico that he participated in helped him see the importance of the Militant’s decades-long record of accurate and trustworthy reporting, and how it has won the trust of many Puerto Rican independence fighters and others involved in struggles for social justice.

Greetings from Duluth to the anniversary celebration for the Militant!

I have been asked, because of my age, to relate some of the highlights of my years in the Socialist Workers Party. I will try to give you a feel of those times, hopefully, without putting you to sleep.

I was born on the prairie of northwestern Minnesota to Swedish immigrant parents at the beginning of World War I. “The war to end all wars,” it was said.

I was a teenager during the terrible Depression that followed the stock market crash of 1929. We were never hungry because my father was a small farmer and we raised our food, but we read about the soup lines and the starving people in the big cities.

We learned to never throw away anything and I still eat leftovers, compost garbage, keep and reuse paper and plastic bags and containers, and wash and reuse any paper towels. And yes, we saved string.

While attending business college in Minneapolis in 1934 I followed the accounts of the truck drivers strike in the newspapers. I did domestic work for my board and room and my employer complained because there was no fresh produce and the grocery shelves were getting bare because the truck drivers had tied up all deliveries to the city. In 1935 I moved to Michigan to find work in the auto plants and I lived in Pontiac during the sit-down strike in Flint. We were very excited by that struggle and the militancy in the auto unions which had been organized by the new CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations).

We returned to Minnesota. After the sudden death of my husband I was offered a job on the Works Project Administration (WPA). This project took me to St. Paul where I worked at the Historical Library and I discovered the SWP headquarters just down the street from where I was living. Soon I became a member of the St. Paul branch. I got involved in the work of the unemployment organizations and we worked together with the Minneapolis Teamsters union Local 544, which had its own unemployed section. I will never forget the parade and demonstration of unemployed workers. It was a huge demonstration with 544 guards escorting us. Unfortunately when we marched past the Historical Library my supervisor was watching out the window and that ended the WPA for me.

I was staying at the home of Henry and Dorothy Schultz while they went to Coyoacan, Mexico, to visit with Leon Trotsky and Natalia and to check on their safety there. Shortly after their return we heard the terrible news that Trotsky had been assassinated by their housekeeper’s lover, an agent of Stalin’s KGB. Our members were in shock with the loss of our great leader. George Novack and Evelyn Reed came from New York and their optimism and confidence in the future of the party and their enthusiasm to carry on inspired all of us.

Another dark period in our party’s history was during the trials and the indictments of the SWP leaders and leaders of the Midwest Teamsters union for their opposition to the U.S. entry into the second world war. Jenny Dunne, Vincent R. Dunne’s wife, organized a commissary at the Minneapolis headquarters and with the help of the other wives of the targeted leaders they provided meals for all of the defendants throughout the trials. It was a very sad day indeed when the “Honorable Eighteen,” which included one woman, Grace Carlson, left for prison.

Chester Johnson, who later became my husband, was the literature agent and financial secretary of the Minneapolis branch. Ray Dunne once told me that in the early years of the publication of the Militant at times there was not enough money to get the paper out, and then they would call Chester for help. One night when he was selling the Militant at a Stalinist-controlled union he was beat up by Stalinist thugs. This earned him a letter from Leon Trotsky. When our daughter was old enough to walk with us we would go out door-to-door on Sunday mornings to sell the Militant.

Then came the McCarthy period when J. Edgar Hoover and Joe McCarthy ran amok over our rights. It was suggested that we not carry our red membership cards and they were no longer issued to new members. The Rosenbergs were executed by the government and communists and their supporters were on trial all over the country by HUAC, the House Un-American Activities Committee. Our activities were limited because of the anti-“Red” hysteria, but we continued our Sunday forums and served a meal afterwards which helped to keep up our morale.

During the Vietnam War we marched and demonstrated in Minneapolis and St. Paul and we went to New York and Washington to march and sell the Militant, which carried the headline “Bring the Troops Home Now.” University and college students participated in them and helped to make them very spirited with songs and music and we recruited new members from them.

The Cuban Revolution was an exhilarating time for all radicals, young and old. It was the most memorable event of all. The civil rights movement and the women’s movements and their organizations were also wonderful periods of progress.

What a privilege it was for me to live through those interesting times in history as a member of the SWP and to meet so many of our great leaders, and to sit spellbound through those great speeches delivered by Jim Cannon, Farrell Dobbs, and Ray Dunne.

The workers here and in the Third World are stirring again and I believe the future of the SWP will be equally exciting, but always with its ups and downs, and it will produce more great revolutionary leaders and bring an end to imperialist war and plunder and save our earth from capitalist destruction.

Mildred Solem
Duluth, Minnesota
 

Celebrate Militant’s 75th anniversary

Below is a list of the programs to celebrate the Militant’s 75th anniversary. The events will be held at the Pathfinder bookstore in each city (see Directory of Local Distributors on Home page). Many similar events were already held the November 14-16 and 21-23 weekends.

FLORIDA
Tampa
Saturday, December 6, 7:30 p.m.
Speakers: Karl Butts and Rachele Fruit, John Benson, Socialist Workers Party; Linda Jenness; Frances Sesler, plaintiff in class-action lawsuit by Black farmers against USDA; Rudolfo Valentín, Carpenters Union member.

PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia
Friday, December 5, 7:30 p.m.
Speakers: John Staggs, John Studer, Hilda Cuzco.

Northeast Pennsylvania
Saturday, Dec. 6, Dinner 6:00 p.m., Program 7:00 p.m.
Speakers to be announced

AUSTRALIA
Sydney
Friday, November 28, 7:00 p.m.
Speakers: Joanne Kuniansky, Communist League; Bob Aiken, participant in Militant reporting trips to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea; Peter Weitzel, president of Australia-Cuba Friendship Society in Sydney; Christian Bava, student activist and Perspectiva Mundial subscriber

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