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Vol. 72/No. 39      October 6, 2008

 
$90,000 fund marks 80 years
of building communist party
(front page)
 
BY BEN JOYCE
AND NORTON SANDLER
 
The Socialist Workers Party this fall will be celebrating eight decades of unbroken continuity in building a communist party in the United States—1928 to 2008!

To mark this anniversary, the SWP is launching a $90,000 party-building fund that will run for eight weeks beginning September 27. We urge readers of the Militant to contribute to making this fund a big success.

James P. Cannon, a leading cadre of the U.S. communist movement since its inception in 1919, was sent to the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International held in Moscow in 1928 to represent the American Communist Party. There, he accidentally stumbled upon a document by Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Russian Revolution, criticizing the counterrevolutionary course taken by the bureaucratic caste that was taking control of the Soviet Union and Communist International under the direction of Joseph Stalin.

From there, Cannon and a small group of co-thinkers within the American Communist Party set out on the task of reconquering a Leninist course in building an internationalist communist party in the United States.

“Trotskyism is not a new movement, a new doctrine, but the restoration, the revival of genuine Marxism as it was expounded and practiced in the Russian Revolution and in the early days of the Communist International,” said Cannon in a 1942 lecture on the history of the Socialist Workers Party.

Today, we are living through the worst capitalist financial crisis since the opening of the Great Depression of the 1930s, a crisis that takes a grinding toll on workers and farmers worldwide. As the world capitalist economic crisis deepens, the U.S. ruling class families and their government in Washington are deepening their assaults on the working class.

This offensive is sparking inevitable resistance by workers. A vanguard of the working class has been strengthened over the past three years. The party-building fund will boost the ability of the Socialist Workers Party to take advantage of revolutionary opportunities that come its way, wherever they may be.

For the next couple of months, the Militant will celebrate the SWP’s unbroken communist continuity with articles that document major accomplishments in the movement’s history, beginning with the fight described above to maintain Lenin’s internationalist course in the face of the counterrevolution led by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. Subsequent articles will chronicle the rich history of the party’s participation and leadership in the U.S. class struggle and programmatic milestones conquered along the way—part of the foundation for which the party bases its strategy and tactics in the class battles unfolding today. Along with each article, the Militant will point readers to a variety of books published by Pathfinder Press that illustrate the history of the communist movement since 1928 and its theoretical conquests.

Branches of the Socialist Workers Party have begun to take on local goals for the drive and will put up attractive displays in the halls where the weekly Militant Labor Forums are held that chronicle this continuity and the SWP’s participation in the class struggle today. A chart tracking the progress of the fund drive will be featured weekly in the Militant, along with information on how readers and supporters of the paper can participate. Early this fall, SWP branches across the United States will be hosting meetings celebrating this history and raising funds toward the goal, making possible the party’s response to the political opportunities ahead.

Ben Joyce and Norton Sandler are the cochairs of the 2008 Socialist Workers Party-Building Fund.
 
 
Related articles:
‘Militant’ kicks off fall effort to win new readers  
 
 
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