ALAN WALD From the old left to the new left and beyond: the
legacy and prospects for socialism in the United States Crisis of socialism or of socialist movements?
The Left in the United States in the 1990s faces the possibility of nearextinction unless it generates fresh perspectives for the construction of an organized socialist movement. The two largest organizations after the social democractic Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Communist Party (CP-USA), have undergone debilitating splits; and the most significant one-time Maoist groups, such as the League of Revolutionary Struggle, Line of March, and Communist Party/MarxistLeninist (formerly the October League), have formally dissolved. These developments suggest the usefulness of examining the weak and fragmented U.S. revolutionary socialist movement of the post-USSR and post-Gulf War era in relation to its more successful predecessors. One major predecessor, usually called the "Old Left," became a major political force in the 1930s. This "Old Left" enjoyed a brief revival immediately after World War Il, only to be shattered by external and internal crises during the next decade. The other predecessor is popularly referred to as the "New Left, " and it was largely a product of struggles of the 1960s. Quite het-
86 International Marxist Review erogeneous, this movement declined in the 1970s following the end of the war in Vietnam.
A debate by contemporary socialist activists over what might be called the "continuity question," entailing the relationship among the Old, New, and Future Lefts, is rendered necessary by the current political situation, nationally and internationally. This discussion of continuity, however, does not exist because it is primarily linked to reconsiderations of the definition of socialism itself. Fortunately, the definition of socialism is not a matter of debate for those engaged in this discussion who come out of a revolutionary socialist, non-Stalinist, and critical Leninist tradition. Rather, the impetus for such an exchange of views comes mainly from the splintering, practical impotence, inability to consolidate substantial regroupment, and demoralization, that attend the Left in all but a handful of countries around the world. In choosing to make this particular distinction, I am arguing that that the Left faces less a "crisis" of Marxist and socialist theory, and more a "crisis" of Marxist and socialist movements. Of course, theory and movements have close relationships.
My approach might be apprehended as a critical extension of the Trotskyist proclamation of the late 1930s, which, regrettably, has by now degenerated into a tired cliché mouthed by most Trotskyist organizations:
The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.'
For Trotsky and his supporters in 1938, "leadership" primarily meant adherence to a political program — the Trotskyist program codified in the "Transitional Program," which remains today a fascinating, relevant and provocative document. 2
For revolutionary socialists in the 1990s, a "correct program" is a far less simple and less central part of the equation for establishing socialist presence and power in the U.S. than it apparently was for their predecessors. One has now witnessed five decades in which struggle over a "correct program" has failed to significantly shift the relationship of class forces in the U.S. This includes not only the decades of the 1930s and 1940s when Communists and Trotskyists fought for their programs on very unequal footings. It also covers the post-1956 era when Trotskyists and other non-Communist Party currents were given a second chance, with a far more equal relationship of forces, to prove that their programs could build a more effective socialist movement. That second era has now ended and no organization has very much to brag about in terms of success.
Equally disconcerting, as a focus of internal debate and intra-
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 87 organizational conflict, the fixation on a correct program has probably on the whole been more divisive than productive. Groups that would seem to have the same "main enemy" — the bourgeoisie — devoted reams of paper and their most vitriolic language to excoriating each others' programmatic deviations and alleged class betrayals.
One can always, of course, blame all failures of the socialist movement on the absence of a correct program and leadership. That takes little imagination, which may be why it has been the routine itinerary of a wide range of self-proclaimed vanguard sects. It is certainly difficult for anyone to argue against having better programs and better leaderships, when one is told that that is what one needs. It is also virtually impossible to deny that any "really existing" leaderships and programs of "really existing" mass parties and revolutionary conquests are exempt from significant criticisms.
However, if program itself really were the alpha and omega of revolutionary politics, then we would also see a reasonable number of contemporary successes that are attributable primarily to program. Yet, the defining events of our epoch, from the defeat of fascism in World War Il to the wrenching free from U.S. imperial domination of Cuba in 1959 and Vietnam in 1975, to the collapse of Stalinism in 1989, cannot be said to have been guided by adherence to program, least of all a Trotskyist one.
The very best one can say is that such changes "unconsciously" approximated a revolutionary policy, due to the pragmatism of leaders or the press of objective forces, or that such changes would have gone more smoothly and to a better conclusion if the leaders possessed "the correct program." Regarding the U.S., one can at best claim that the independent movements against the Vietnam war, for women's rights, for union democracy, and for self-determination, only got as far as they did because of the presence of those fighting for "correct program." 3 While these types of arguments have an important measure of truth — who can deny the importance of learning lessons from the infamous disasters in Indonesia in 1965, in France in 1968, and in Chile in 1973? — they can also promote certain dogmas. Many are ultimately premised on a "We could do better if we were in charge" metaphysic, which easily becomes a direct transit to vanguardism. Still, one should underscore that, to decenter the fixation on the search for "the" correct revolutionary program, is not at all to obviate the crucial importance of a set of coherent policies. Program is necessary but insufficient. The corollary that a program must be realized through resourceful, experienced and committed human beings who are effectively organized, and who
88 International Marxist Review really have their fingers on the pulse of contemporary political realities, today looms far greater than was allowed by previous theorizations. It is certainly a far more complex matter than simply declaring the need for "correct leadership," defined by adherence to Leninist precedent. It is also more complex than abstract invocations to "follow the rank and file," or to "take one's cue from the masses," or to "institute democracy and more democracy," with which no one can disagree. This is because there is no formula for determining who actually speaks for such heterogeneous entities as "the rank and file" and "the masses." Beyond certain obvious norms, there is no clear measurement for determining what forms are or are not more "democratic" — unless one equates a "democratic decision" with the victory of one's own viewpoint, which is very frequently the case.
In the 1990s, those who are embracing and extending the revolutionary socialist tradition are talking about fostering an entire organizational culture in which the membership (especially those members most silenced in the dominant culture of a society) is fully informed, and has the freedom and motivation to shape through democratic structures a policy truly linked to emergent social movements in a way that assists and respects the autonomy of those movements. As the January 1992 Fourth International Executive Committee resolution, "Building the Fourth International Today," explains:
unity on the Left is facilitated or blocked not just by formal programmatic positions but by
"internal or external practice....sectarianism, a rejection of internal democracy, bureaucratic functioning, a rejection of feminism, manipulative practices within the mass movement, the idea of an International sect, etc. For us, all of these points are absolutely decisive.... It is surprising how so very little of the useful commentaries on program in general, and on the Transitional Program in particular, deal with the nittygritty human side of leadership and organizational functioning. Such writings rarely treat, for example, the kind of issues Michael Dover raises in his 1991 Crossroads article on "The Roots of Discord on the Left" where he mentions competition for staff positions in the "radical labor market" and lack of turnover among left political elites.S There is also very little written about the pressures most individuals face when they join a radical group that opposes the dominant culture and the values of most of its citizens. In 1972, Paul Le Blanc published a valuable testament called "Leaving the New Left," in which he describes how he moved from anti-Trotskyism to Trotskyism solely on the basis of studying program and observing practice. Without denying that such things happened, there is evidence that, for a large number of the New Left, and the Old Left, the movement recruitment experience was much more like the one described by
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 89 Todd Gitlin in his book The Sixties, who recalls his attendance at the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) convention at Port Huron as follows: "I was drawn into a circle of energy... whose bonds were intellectual and moral, political and sexual at once." People recruit people as much as programs recruit people.
Beyond this, there is virtually nothing in Left historiography that confronts the real problems of ego, arrogance and self-righteousness involved in radical movements, where outcasts and rebels against the dominant racist, heterosexist and patriarchal culture, seek to establish an alternative way of life. In spite of ail our talk about "objectivity" and "science," it is often the case that, the more such virtues are invoked and egotism is denied, the more egotism may actually be present. Egotism, the will to power, and the simple human need to be recognized, to get attention, and to be valued, can also be problems for those claiming to speak on behalf of the oppressed, the disenfranchised, and the silenced — whether in society at large, or within Left movements.
It is worth noting how many "interventions" in organizational discussions, and contributions in bulletins, implicitly or explicitly involve a defense of oneself and one's own practice. I do not mean to exempt myself from any of these critical observations, or to suggest that there is a mechanism for purging the will to self-affirmation that so often hides behind the mask of selfabnegating altruism. But I do insist that, as we study the fate of radical as well as most other movements, these all too human traits are a reality that create more havoc by denying them than by acknowledging they exist.
Perhaps the most insightful material about the realities of building radical movements in the U.S. are the recent studies of the history of American Communism that focus on local practice, such as Robin Kelley's remarkable Hammer and Hoe (1990), and a number of the more candid autobiographies of U.S. Communists, such as Al Richmond's A Long View from the Left (1972). One can only hope that veterans of Trotskyism and other Left movements will produce similar studies and rich autobiographies. Even today, James P. Cannon's letters and portions of his History of American Trotskyism (1944) are still the best personal reflections we have illuminating that tradition.
Several novels about Communist personalities and building Communist movements are also among the richest sources for understanding the human factors involved in movement building — especially Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter (1979), with its link between heroic self-sacrifice and emotional toughness; K. B. Gilden's Between the Hills and the Sea (1971),
90 International Marxist Review whose complex personalities are drawn from different classes and ethnic groups to the radical movement; and Dorothy Doyle's Journey Through Jess (1990), with its depictions of racial and sexual tensions within a Left party. The Gay Communist Left has recently been explored in Harry Hay's The Trouble With Harry Hay (1990), Eric Gordon's Mark the Music (1989), and Harold Norse's Bastard Angel (1987).
Human dynamics notwithstanding, theoretical considerations, while not all-determining, are clearly of central importance, and the most advanced debates today about organization-building are fully cognizant of the problematic nature of "program" itself. Indeed, it is dubious as to whether there can be a program for global transformation to socialism in a unified, holistic sense, possessed by a group dedicated to its propagation and with the perspective of guiding its implementation. Those of us in the U.S. who formed the socialist organization Solidarity in 1986, opted for the view that, at the least, what is desired is a range of "programs" on many issues (although, clearly not on all). These must be bound in a restrained, tensive interaction by comrades who recognize that the domination of one program would probably be a pyrrhic victory — just as a completely heterogeneous mish-mash of all political programs, from reformist to ultraleft, would paralyze and ultimately explode us as it did the Socialist Party after World War I, or SDS in 1968. Solidarity leader David Finkel puts it this way in his article on "Solidarity After Six Years":
We propose our method of constructing a revolutionary organization around a set of principles rather than a full "program' as the best bet for the left today....
This is an important component of what has taken Solidarity as far as it has gone, and a key feature to retain if it is to have a future. While certain aspects of Trotskyism remain vital theoretical conquests, anyone seeking to convert Solidarity to "a correct revolutionary program" so that it can "win the leadership" of the socialist movement, is dragging Solidarity backward, not forward. The view I am suggesting here clearly rejects the traditional "Marxist-Leninist" perspective that the problem with the New Left is that it was a departure from the Old Left. This is partly because I think the debate on that issue of whether the New Left was authentic in its own right, or merely an interlude, or a temporary precursor to a return of the earlier forms of radicalism, has already been decided by history. The New Left was authentic. One has to realize that, in the post-New Left period, instead of going "back" to what was regarded as a more classic model of radicalization such as that of the 1930s, the radical movement already appears to be moving into a genuine
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 91 new stage of socialist advance, although, admittedly, at this time it more resembles a "socialist súrvival" than a new beginning.
The full shape of this new stage is by no means clear, but there are enough distinctive objective conditions to sketch its parameters: • the collapse of the USSR; • the Hi Tech Gulf War slaughter; • the new political situation in Latin America with the electoral defeat of the Nicaraguan FSLN, the peace accords signed by the El Salvadoran FMLN, the isolation of Cuba, and the rise of the Brazilian PT; • the Los Angeles Rebellion; • the current Supreme Court threat to abortion rights; • the impact of the Perot campaign.
Thus we must now, more than ever, incorporate and augment the cluster of theoretical, organizational, and practical experiences that can, for the sake of this overview, be grouped into Old Left and New Left "moments." There are, of course, other ways of categorizing and classifying experiences, and neither the moment of the Old Left nor the New was homogeneous or existed in pristine isolation. Just as political currents descended from Old Left movements (primarily Communist, Trotskyist, and Social Democratic) continued to be present in the 1960s, so features now considered part of the New Left (especially radical feminism, national identity of oppressed minorities, and an emphasis on community and culture) were somewhat anticipated in earlier decades. Such overlappings and hybrids are further evidence that we are looking at a broad radical tradition, from which we must assimilate the most useful components, with necessary augmentations. The usefulness of the terms "Old Left" and "New Left" does not flow from a fundamental identification of all trends influential in the thirties as opposed to all trends influential in the 1960s. It is preposterous to politically amalgamate Stalinism and Trotskyism. But the Old Left traditions have in common the same referent to the objective conditions in which they came to fruition in a formative way in the 1930s. Something similar can be said for the heterogeneous movements of the 1960s.
Thus, any argument that we are now on a verge of a new stage of radicalism beyond the Old Left and New Left, must also start with the conditions that are creating the context for new kinds of radicalisms. That is why we are not hunting for the "true Red Revolutionary Thread," to which we must then attach ourselves as its latest incarnation, tracing back our lineage to the pure strain at every juncture when "we" allegedly took the "correct position." To accomplish a fresher, broader, and less tedious reconstitution and advance,
92 International Marxist Review one needs the freest possible comradely debate, with all shibboleths subject to review. At the same time, one must proceed with a respectful awareness of what our predecessors actually wrote, said and did, and how others have tried to draw the links. To the extent that one allows oneself to caricature, oversimplify, and wax demagogic, one only fails to carry out one's task and dooms oneself to the likely repetition of mistakes.
Moreover, it should be recognized that U.S. radicalism has always had a rather self-conscious and self-critical strand within it, even though it is more known for its blind-spots and dogmatisms. There are hundreds of books, articles, and documents, by left-wing scholars as well as militants, that deal precisely with the "continuity problem."° While the quality of such material is uneven, but there is nevertheless wisdom to be gleaned if one takes the time to examine it.
A major motivation for this article is my dismay about the character of a large amount of the recent "rethinking" of the Left. This "rethinking" has mainly been generated in the past few years by the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the loss in the elections by Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the persistence of right-wing ideological and organizational growth in the U.S., and the inability of the Left to halt the hi-tech massacre of Iraqi civilians in the Gulf War. But much of this so-called rethinking has proceeded as if the present generation was practically the first to confront problems of reform and revolution, democracy and social change, racism within the left, bureaucratization of the left, party and state, party and class, the persistence of the national question, the inability of the socialist left to achieve a national presence, and multi-party versus single party systems. Indeed, many of on the U.S. Left look with hope and support to the recent split from the CP-USA that formed the Committees of Correspondence, regarding their members as talented and devoted comrades with whom one desires to collaborate. Yet it is rather disconcerting that these comrades could generate thousands of pages of discussion bulletins, and dozens of articles in Crossroads, the Guardian, and the Corresponder, with so little reference back to the crisis of global Communism in 1956. The enormous outpouring of criticisms following the Khrushchev revelations produced a wide range of rich material with direct relevance to organizational and political issues under dispute today. Such an absence of historical awareness is hardly limited to our friends in the Committees, which represent a segment of the traditional Old Left generated by the experience of the Russian Revolution and decisively formed in the 1930s. An analogous lack of historical appreciation is mirrored in the ves-
tiges of the New Left and its Latin American component, evidenced by the journal produced by committed activists, intelligent and informed, in which the crisis of the socialist movement is surveyed almost exclusively from the vantage point of our generation being "the first" to confront these myriad
It is true, of course, that some aspects of the present situation are new:
• Socialists do not have a long track record in dealing with issues such as
• We are just now beginning to come to grips with Eurocentrism, patriarchy,
• No political tendency came close to predicting the manner in which the
Soviet bloc crumbled, and few have come up with adequate responses to the debilitating inter-ethnic nationalism unleashed in the process.
• The current political terrains in El Salvador and South Africa are also in
However, as I have indicated above, many features of the contemporary crisis are quite familiar and the subject of intense debate by our predecessors.
The inability to reconcile new and old, mainly by leaving out the old, is a sign of significant political weakness, and causes me to worry about where the
To be sure, one is quickly put to sleep by those sectarians who merely pronounce that it has all happened before, and that holy books by Lenin, Trotsky and Mao have most of the answers. But the unique contribution that revolutionary socialists might make to this debate is to participate in the discussion
First, one should proceed as activists in the front lines of anti-racist, pro- working class, pro-feminist, anti-homophobic, pro-environmental, anti- imperialist and democratic struggles occuring today. Radicalizing young people of the 1990s seem to take one's "position," meaning social location, far more seriously than ever before; and the revolutionary socialist "position," regardless of gender, color, or class background, must be on the inside of today's social movements, and at one with Third World resistance
Second, one should proceed as critically informed students of the history of the U.S. and the world Left, reading with a respectful and unprejudiced eye the writings, and studying the actions, of previous generations of socialists of all colors, genders, sexual orientations and political tendencies. The method of discrediting a theorist or activist with a simplistic label — such as social
May 1992 issue of NACLA's Report on the Americas'' problems.
ecology and Gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights.
and many complex aspects of multiculturalism.
many ways unprecedented.
current rethinking may actually lead.
in the following ways:
struggles.
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 93
', an entire issue of a
94 International Marxist Review democrat, Stalinist, liberal, Maoist, nationalist — to prevent a dispassionate hearing of his or her views is unacceptable. A self-proclaimed "liberal" such as I. F. Stone made a longer-term and more substantial contribution to Left politics than many of his reddish Marxist-Leninist critics of the 1960s and 1970s. In surveying various radical political currents, one must recognize, for example, that there were many Maoisms, just as there were many Trotskyisms. One should not blind oneself to the fact that some Maoist groups carried out certain areas of work more successfully than ourselves, and that their veterans have many things to pass on to us.
Third, one should proceed as a person of the future who accepts the possibility that previous theorizations of social change, social formations, and of the idea of progress itself, might possibly prove to be profoundly inaccurate. One must be ready to accept the consequences of such eventualities without thereby losing one's bearings and spinning precipitously into despair, cynicism and apostasy — a characteristic fate of so many of our predecessors.
To the extent that these three postures can be kept in balance — that of the front-line activist, the rigorous and fair-minded student of the past, and the non-doctrinaire visionary of new world realities — revolutionary socialists can move forward into a useful place in the coming socialist struggles of the twenty-first century. Critical legacies
What then of our legacies and their critical extensions into the twenty-first century?
One should regard the Old and New Lefts not as binary oppositions, but in a dialectical synthesis that may help lead to a resolution in the form of a New Socialist Left of the 1990s. As Marxists, one must begin, of course, with the conditions that brought the Old and New Lefts into being; then proceed to lines of continuity and overlap; and, finally, move to at least a preliminary survey of what is new and what is continuous in the contemporary "moment" of anticapitalist struggle. The traditional studies of U.S. radicalism accurately present the Old Left as galvanized into action by a combination of national and international political crises — most notably, the stock market collapse of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression which occurred while fascism was spreading throughout Europe. The U.S. working class, from the urban centers to rural agricultural areas, was largely unorganized. The university campuses were still mostly
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 95 (with the exception of those in New York City) elite enclaves. The Russian Revolution and the USSR had gained worldwide authority as the representation of a viable socialist alternative. Thus the Left of the 1930s was a product of its time — centered on the organization of the working class nationally, and focused on the role of both the Soviet Union and the fascist powers internationally.
This scenario does not exclude the existence of significant carry-overs to the 1930s from earlier radical traditions. Indeed, all the leaders of the main Left movements in the 1930s were products of radicalizations prior to or at the time of World War I, and the prominent intellectual spokespersons for the Left had been heavily influenced by the Bohemians and expatriatism of the 1920s. The Old Left was therefore a blend of earlier traditions with new objective conditions.
This combination proved adequate to become a significant factor in the 1930s and 1940s, because the major Old Left organization, the Communist Party with its close ties to the USSR, was not yet seen as significantly tarnished, except by the Right wing which, of course, had been slandering the Bolsheviks since the Revolution. It also seemed plausible to many that the crisis conditions of the 1930s were a verification and vindication of the Communists' predictions. The power of that mix of factors simply overwhelmed all political rivals, even though the Trotskyists had gained genuine authority by leading the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes in 1934 and had made a distinct mark on New York cultural life through the greater sophistication of the intellectual and cultural critique generated by some of its leaders and supporters.
There were also student movements as well as some autonomous struggles on the part of women and people of color. But the zeal, confidence, vision, and international connections of the Communist movement surpassed and dwarfed all alternatives. Despite twists, turns, contradictions and scandals such as the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the power of the Communist Party was sufficiently great to re-emerge intact after World War II. However, it was not strong enough to do much more than fight a defensive war against the postwar McCarthyite witch-hunt. Whether the power of a strengthened capitalism was too great against the Communists, or whether the Party's own mistakes (such as capitulation to Western imperialism during World War II and its cover-ups of Soviet atrocities) are mainly to blame for its weaknesses, is a topic still under debate.
In contrast, the New Left was the product of very different factors.
If one traces its political origins to the civil rights, peace and student move-
96 International Marxist Review ments of the late 1950s and early 1960s, one sees these set in objective conditions of a U.S. economy that was not in crisis (although the "Other America" of millions of poor was indeed a reality), and a world situation characterized not by the rise of reactionary fascism but by progressive anti-colonial struggles in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Moreover, the U.S. working class in the 1960s was now considerably better organized than it was in the 1930s, although weighted down by a bureaucratized leadership. Significantly, the student population was by now transformed into a much larger and less elite body by the post-war baby boom and capitalism's need for a more educated workforce.
These are some of the key factors determining the social and political character of the New Left. However, also important was the New Left's very different relation to earlier radical traditions than that of the 1930s Old Left to its predecessors. In the early 1960s, the Old Left, while retaining some authority because of its past battles and some status as martyrs during the witch-hunt, was usually regarded as a negative example. The expression "Don't trust anyone over thirty," according to Todd Gitlin's book on The Sixties, was originally coined to warn Free Speech activists on the University of California-Berkeley campus against the influence of the Old Left Communist Party.! The Old Left was widely seen as having a dogmatic ideology, authoritarian political structures, a fixation on the USSR, and an insensitivity to individual needs. The working class base to which it remained oriented was no longer radical, and new sources of rebellion — ghetto Blacks and students — were largely outside its influence. Moreover, as the African-American struggle escalated to center stage with its angry militancy, autonomy and pride, its style became infectious and helped to shape in important ways the character of other unfolding struggles These were not only struggles of people of color (Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native American Indians) but also women and, after Stonewall, gays and lesbians.'3 But if the New Left began by defining itself against the Old Left, the relationship became increasingly dialectically intertwined. Certain Old Left traditions and practices began to be regarded with greater interest because of the inability of the New Left to construct a viable organization of its own, and to sustain a convincing theory of social transformation. '4 Organizational impotence and ideological incoherence contributed without doubt to the greatest failures of the New Left. What happened to the New Left as a result constitutes compelling arguments in favor of devoting oneself to groups such as Solidarity and the Fourth International. While these oppose the self-proclaimed vanguardism of the Old Left, they are far more serious
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 97 about organization and theory than was the New Left.
As Todd Gitlin notes, the elitism of the Leninist Party was replaced in the New Left with de facto elites of other kinds, kinds that didn't even have the staying power of the Leninist party. Even in the case of the totally "selfabnegating style of participatory democracy" promoted by SNCC (Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee) leader Bob Moses, leadership was not eliminated but "disguised":
The de facto leaders were still influential; followers were swayed willy-nilly. Diffident leadone tos uise comade their ald actea, and sented solid targetanipulative than wher ers in disguise couldn't be held accountable
Moreover, the development of opposition to the Vietnam war as the central protest theme of the 1960s (something the New Left was initially reluctant to recognize), forced the young radicals to think more about relating to broader sectors of the U.S. population, including the working class.
The war also raised the question of socialism. After all, the heroic fighters against U.S. domination throughout the colonial world, and not just in Vietnam, tended to be socialists and Marxists of one sort or another. Moreover, many in the militant wing of the Black movement in the U.S., from Malcolm X to the Black Panthers, began to call themselves socialist. And almost all attempts by New Leftists to "name the system" ended up agreeing that it was some form of capitalism, to which some form of socialism stood as the main alternative.
Beyond this, the New Left soon found itself competing with vestiges of the Old Left. While neither the Communists nor Trotskyists were significant enough to be in on the ground floor of the creation of the New Left nationally, they were present in certain cities, especially Berkeley, where forty-fouryear-old Trotskyist Hal Draper significantly influenced the Free Speech movement, and on the East Coast, where middle-aged SWP members played a key role in launching the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. All Old Left groups were initially marginalized by the spectacular growth of the student movement and they contributed little to its formation. But by the late 1960s several tendencies — especially the Communist Party/Young Workers Liberation League, the Socialist Workers Party/Young Socialist Alliance, and the Progressive Labor Party/Worker Student Alliance — had grown to be formidable alternatives because they had ideological coherence, staying power, and organizational stability. Due to its heterogeneity and decentralization, the New Left (mainly SDS, which claimed 100,000 members) simply could not compete. Faced with an attempt by the then Maoist Progressive Labor Party to take over the leader-
98 International Marxist Review ship of SDS, some currents of the New Left attempted to mimic international exemplars such as urban guerrillas (by forming Venceremos and Weatherman) or Maoism (by forming the Revolutionary Union and October League). Others drifted eventually to Social Democracy; most notably, a majority of the New American Movement (NAM) fused with Michael Harrington's Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), to create Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). While nationalist movements of people of color and the women's movement had their own dynamics, they met more or less a similar fate — breaking up on the shoals of ultraleftism or gravitating toward reformism.
Yet, there was one surprise development almost defying Marxist theory. In a kind of extreme "superstructural lag," the impact of New Left thought on U.S. political life seemed to grow stronger as the organizations declined. • The Vietnam Syndrome lasted until the Gulf War of 1990-1991; • The "Second Wave of Feminism" is still a major cultural force; • While the leading militant organizations of people of color are gone, ideas of African-American pride, Latino/Latina pride, etc., remain strong; • Despite Reaganism and the reactionary Bush presidency, there are remarkable shifts in U.S. culture that have enabled, for example, radical and feminist African American writers such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker to be accepted among the major cultural figures of our time;16 • It is also important to note that in some ways the culture of universities is much more radical today than in the 60s, in that radicals are allowed to teach and present egalitarian perspectives in their classes that were unheard of twenty-five years ago; • The current exposé of sexual harassment in the Navy, which was surely just as bad twenty years ago, is another reflection of growth of trends generated by the New Left upheaval of the sixties; • Despite the homophobia unleashed by the Right in reaction to the AIDS epidemic, the gay, lesbian, and bisexual liberation movements are by far more open, proud and aggressive than they were at the height of the New Left. Toward a new socialist left
What, then, might one speculate about a new stage of radicalism into which we now seem to be entering?
The political landscape today certainly has its enigmatic features, requiring
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 99 one to draw more than ever on past lessons and experiences to fathom the route to socialist survival and success. As is so often the case, past expectations and predictions have become realized in unexpected ways. A few examples:
1) The Soviet type societies proved unviable, just as Trotskyists always said they would, and they are now discredited. But this did not, as we also had insisted, come through the struggle of mass working class movements from below seeking to democratize a nationalized economy.
2) Capitalism has failed miserably to abolish racism. Indeed its failure is of such a magnitude in urban centers, where a huge percentage of African American and Latino youth are being propelled into gangs and prisons, and strife between oppressed minorities is intensified, that the anti-racist forces seem to have insurmountable obstacles to overcome.
3) Most of the Left has now come to understand the crucial importance of socialist pluralism. Yet the first major international effort in that direction resulted in an electoral defeat for the Sandinistas.
All these examples of the "irony" or "cunning" of history (one can select one's term of choice from Deutscher or Hegel), mean that a new socialist left of the 1990s and the twenty-first century will have to be acutely aware of both the objective conditions that are bringing it into being, and also of its relation to the prior traditions of Old and New Left, if it is to cope with these conundrums. Clearly the economic situation, while not resembling 1929, is far more fragile and problematic than in the 1960s. It is hard to disagree with the recent Fourth International resolution that begins, the "World balance of forces has deteriorated for the working masses."I7 • The U.S. is in a terrible economic malaise; • The working class is less organized than it was thirty years ago; • The former Soviet bloc societies and the Third World are stagnating if not on the verge of economic catastrophe; • There is a dangerous resurgence of international competition among capitalist powers — a new kind of economic division of the world seems to be underway among the U.S. "Free Trade" zone, Europe (led by united Germany) and Japan; ' • Openly racist, anti-Semitic and fascist movements are on the rise in Europe, the former USSR, and the U.S; • Hi-tech slaughter has acquired a new legitimacy. In U.S. civil society, the Los Angeles rebellion graphically illustrates the legitimate anger of the most oppressed sectors of the U.S. population. Yet there seems at the moment to be no way out, except the syndrome of violent
100 International Marxist Review rebellion and police repression.
In the realm of the political state, the Perot campaign shows that anger over the bankruptcy of the two-party system is greater than ever, yet the Perot campaign revealed no progressive features, ideologically or organizationally. This suggests that the socialist left is more marginalized than ever in the electoral arena even as there is greater openness to the idea of candidates outside the twin-party system. '
What is hopeful, however, is that much of the national debate objectively concerns precisely the arenas in which U.S. revolutionary socialists are poised to intervene: racism, war, inequality, independent political action, defense of workers' living conditions, defense of women's rights, and preservation of the environment. Moreover, the traditional socialist modes of struggle — independent mass action, the creation of democratically controlled unions and autonomous organizations — remain the best routes to social progress. This situation contrasts dramatically with the greatest failure of socialist theory in the present era: The disrepute into which Marxist ideas have fallen about the mechanisms of transferring power in Third World national liberation struggles, and surviving the high and low intensity hostilities unleashed by class enemies.
There is a vacuum for an organized socialist movement that is the bearer of what is best from the socialist legacy, while structured to be open to what is unique to the struggles of the 1990s. Solidarity is among the few groups that have been already contributing to filling that vacuum, and there is a lot more it can do if it can strengthen itself as an organization. But here one must introduce the complex issue of "the generation gap," hostile tensions between different age groups, which may well become a very serious issue as a new radicalization unfolds.
It is true, as the late Trotskyist theoretician George Breitman emphasized in his notable essay "The Current Radicalization Compared to the Past, " that
There is always a generation gap...By and large, in every revolutionary upheaval, it's youth and radicals on one side and old people and conservatives on the other....
Clearly this generation gap has implications for radicals of one generation, 1960s radicals now in their forties or older, who are entering a period of activity generated by women and men in their teens and twenties who are often on or fresh from the university campus.?'
The patterns revealed by our past experiences with generation gaps are not conclusive. By and large the generation gap that confronted the 1930s and 1940s Old Left radicals was not a major source of division; older leaders blended with the young, who more or less respected their elders as veterans.
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 101 It is significant, however, that many of these older leaders of the 1930s stayed on and on and on, leading their movements into the 1940s and even into the 1950s — for example, William Z. Foster (b. 1881), James P. Cannon (b. 1890) and Norman Thomas (b. 1884).22 This superlongevity of key leaders reflects a weakness of U.S. radicalism. The most generous interpretation is that the more experienced were forced to stay on longer than they had anticipated, due to a lack of qualified replacements. A more skeptical view would suggest that this phenomenon may also show the corrupting power of leadership, which one becomes reluctant to relinquish once one has it in his or her grip.
In contrast, hostility between wings of the generation gap definitely was the name of the game in the New Left. The young mostly followed the young. Many New Left leaders were at best just a few years older than the ranks, and not that many stuck it out very long, especially once they were voted out of a top post or staff position. Moreover, there were definitely more features of a generalized youth rebellion that shaped the 1960s generation as one more sexually, culturally, and intellectually liberated than their elders. As longtime Communist Gil Green observes in his book, The New Radicalism,
The youth consciousness produced by the upsurge of the Thirties was not counterposed to the growing class consciousness of the time, but tended to merge with it. Today's [1971] brand of youth consciousness is different. It tends to think of youth as a separate class, even an oppressed class....
Historic Communist, Trotskyist and Socialist Party leaders did not appear in the streets in their suits with their briefcases to lead any sixties movements. Farrell Dobbs (b. 1907) and Gus Hall (b. 1910) were not known outside of their respective Old Left milieux. The Old Left party figures who were known among the New Left are few: Fred Halstead (b. 1927) was in his thirties when he started playing an important role in New York City anti-war movement; and Angela Davis (b. 1944) was in her early twenties when she became a prominent Black member of CP on the West Coast in 1968. A few non-affiliated Old Left activists played significant roles in the anti-war movement: David Dellinger (born 1915), a pacifist and WWII draft resister; Sidney Lens (b. 1912), a Chicago-based labor organizer and former Trotskyist; and A. J. Muste (b. 1885), a pacifist clergyman who had also passed through the Trotskyist movement.
What is more important is the undeniable role that children of the Old Left played in creating the New Left. This is now commonly acknowledged in scholarship and memoirs, although, due to the residual depths of anticommunism in our culture, it is difficult to "name names." These "Red Diaper
102 International Marxist Review Babies" of Communist and fellow-traveling families had mostly grown up in the left culture of the McCarthy era. As Todd Gitlin points out, it was not necessary that they became the major organizers and theoreticians of the movements; only that a large number of activists knew such people, were drawn to them, and were influenced by them. Thus the children of the Old Left became the central transmission belt for radical continuity in the formation of and throughout much of the early history of the New Left.
Still, their presence and role did not necessarily mean friendlier organizational links to the Old Left, and especially to the Communist Party. Most children of Communists and fellow travelers active in the New Left were inoculated against orientations toward the CP-USA, although some evolved into Trotskyists. Basically, the Old Left organizations recruited from the New Left by working along side and demonstrating in practice certain qualities that the New Left lacked: organizational stability, an alternative perspective, staying power, and, also very important, the ability to create radical institutions where whites and people of color could collaborate in the same organization. The Old Left organizations were not part of, nor did they serve as leadership of, the New Left, although there were some unusual instances where a very young Angela Davis or a strategically-situated Hal Draper or a warm and articulate Fred Halstead had a real impact. 24
Will there be a generation gap in the new stage of radicalism, and, if so, what will be its form?
At the moment it does not appear that those of us who are over fortysomething, while sustaining important parts of the organized socialist movement in this difficult interregnum, will enter the new era with tremendous authority. We have not built powerful organizations nor do we have many material achievements. We have kept alive an attractive vision and perspective of bottom-up egalitarian, anti-racist socialism in the labor movement, on the campuses, in the women's movement, and in academic/intellectual circles. But we have not done much more than that. There is simply no comparison between the legacy of the 1960s generation as it survives today and the legacy of the Communist Party after World War II. Moreover, our credentials are perhaps not even as strong as those of the Trotskyists, both the SWP and Independent Socialist League (ISL), in the 1950s. They had fought the bloody battles in the 1930s to build the CIO; they had struggled against the imperialist Second World War; they went hammer and tongs against Stalinism when it was a real force on the Left; they saw their leaders imprisoned under the Smith Act; and they organized the "Troops Home Now" movement at the close of World War II. Even the intellectual apostates from Trotskyism
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 103 managed to dominate New York cultural life in the 1950s; and trade union apostates from Trotskyism rose to important positions in the AFL-CIO!
However, our comparatively paltry achievements do not mean that we are a bad lot. Our lesser glories are partly because of the nature of our generation and our times. For all its accomplishments in expanding socialist theory (especially in the areas of race, gender and culture), our generation of revolutionary Marxists failed miserably at building socialist organizations. We did not lead struggles comparable to building the CIO, although the civil rights, anti-war, and abortion rights movements did have far-reaching consequences. And we did not show an internationalist commitment approaching that of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade where more than three thousand young people volunteered to illegally leave the U.S. to fight fascism in Spain. 25
Some of these comparative weaknesses of the 1960s generation may have been due to the class character of 1960s movements; after all, middle class students had an "out" to live a more individualist life as professionals, or even as "slackers" (from the recent movie by that name), than did the 1930s generation before the post-war era of relative prosperity.
Part of the explanation may have also be due to the lack of a high degree of fervent belief that allows one to sacrifice one's life; for example, the belief of Communists in the 1930s and 1940s that the Soviet Union was living proof of viable socialism.
The main cause of the failure was probably the result of objective conditions that did not favor the development of organizations or forms of commitment that parallel the 1930s calibre.
In any event, this outcome of the New Left era, and the decades that followed, puts us in a special bind. Lessons of the past can be more easily lost because their bearers are smaller, weaker, less authoritative; yet, precisely because of the existence of these limitations, lessons of the past are more crucial than ever. Without a collective memory of those lessons, the danger of repetition of errors, and the inability to rectify weaknesses, is very great.
This, of course, suggests that we must find means for transmission of experience in ways that will receive attention. Such a goal must be a part of the strengthening of our socialist counter institutions; our regroupment and consolidation of far left activist forces; and our placing a greater priority on reaching young activists and figuring out ways to relate to them.
Clearly, we can expect that many young activists will regard 1960s veterans as "out of it," with comfortable lifestyles, living in a nostalgic world of tall tales about the good old days. On the other hand, veterans of the 1960s still on the front lines will no doubt view some novitiates with suspicion, as
104 International Marxist Review potential flash-in-the-pans who will not make a long-term commitment and still be around when their own middle age starts to loom on the horizon.
There is some truth in these mirror images. A survey of existing socialist organizations in the 1990s would probably reveal that young blood is not flowing into positions of responsibility in these organizations. On the other hand, old "forty-something" blood, despite talk to the contrary, is increasingly tired and doing less in regard to contemporary struggles relating to the young. One also suspects that many 1960s veterans are partially blind to or even snide about crucial features of contemporary youth culture to which they cannot relate.
However, in looking to past experiences, as we have tried to do throughout this article, we can note several factors that may assuage the potential generation gap conflict.
One is that organization is necessary; even if new movements start locally or regionally, and with no interest in those who came before, the logic of the situation will demand at some point that the existing organized socialists will be checked out. Even if we are rebuffed at first, and we may very well be, the best elements will eventually come knocking at our office doors, if only to pick up some of our literature. In this situation, the generation gap issue will be a greater or lesser problem to the extent that we stand apart, or aloof, from the concerns and interests of the young. When the Old Left organizations began to grow in the 1960s, it was not just because New Leftists changed and wanted to make a more serious commitment; it was also because some Old Leftist organizations made considerable changes in their style, practices, and policies, too. This can be documented by looking at the publications of the Old Left youth groups in the mid-and-late 1960s.
A second observation is that a cultural divide between the current generations may not necessarily become as wide, and such a site of bitter warfare, as it was in the 1960s. By and large the tremendous liberalization of the 1960s in personal dress, sexual behavior, etc., is shared by both generations, despite some relatively minor differences in matters such as musical taste.
A third observation is that there are ways in which the surviving radicals of the 1960s and the more recent recruits to socialism could mesh nicely in what they have to offer each other politically. For example, the 1960s generation was shaped by the Vietnam War initially prosecuted by a Democratic Party administration. As a result, there was more of a recognition of the deceptive nature of the two-party system. In contrast, many radicals of the 1980s were shaped by the experience of Nicaraguan and El Salvadoran revolutionists under seige from a Republican administration. As a result, many of these
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 105 have yet to cast off their illusions about the Democrats. On the other hand, the 1960s radicals were often disoriented by the Stalinist features of the Vietnamese leadership, while the 1980s generation had the benefit of learning more democratic and less sectarian revolutionary practices from the Latin American left.
A final observation is that it is simply not possible to tell in advance who among the young generation is serious and will remain for the long hall, and who is just passing through. In terms of activist longevity and political reliability, veterans of the 1930s as well as the 1960s have experienced many surprises in the trajectories of their comrades. For this and many other reasons, activists of the 1960s generation must give the benefit of the doubt to the young to the point of enthusiastic support for autonomous youth publications, conferences, and a separate organization when the appropriate time comes. The radicals in this post-New Left stage may not always look like the older radicals, talk like them, or share their tastes in music or food. It has been suggested that the younger activists read less and watch videos more. They may not know about Kronstadt, the Workers and Farmers Government debate, or the Falling Rate of Profit. Indeed, as a recent Fourth International document put it:
We.have to grasp the new form of political thinking in the young activist generations... where ideological references and above all experiences will have to be largely changed from the past.26
Nevertheless, if these young people are in the steets; if they show an internationalist spirit; if they hate racism, sexism and heterosexism; if they want to build a better world with working people; and if they are willing to "fight the power" — then they should be taken very seriously and our doors should be opened very wide to them. The experiences of neither the 1930s nor the 1960s show that any established political currents were destroyed or even damaged simply because they over-adapted to the young. On the contrary, those who failed or delayed in reaching out to the new generation, did so at their own peril. The U.S. Left must listen now, and listen carefully, to the young voices astir in the ghettos and barrios, on the shop floors, in the communities, in the high schools, and on the university campuses. Nothing less is at stake than the redemption of the revolutionary socialist tradition itself. Notes * An earlier version of this article was presented as a talk at the August 4-7, 1992, Socialist
Summer School sponsored by Solidarity, a U.S. revolutionary socialist organization, in St. Louis, Missouri. I am grateful to participants in the discussion that followed for a
many insights, and particularly to Patrick Quinn for making a number of editorial and other suggestions on the manuscript. This essay is dedicated to the memory of Celia Stodola Wald (1946-92), my comrade and lover during twenty-five years of activity to build
1. Leon Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International
2. Some useful discussions of the origin, nature and relevance of the "Transitional Program"
can be found in Leon Trotsky, The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution with
Introductory Essays by Joseph Hansen and George Novack (New York: Pathfinder,
1973); George Novack, The Role of the Transitional Program in the Revolutionary Process (New York: Education for Socialists, 1972); Leon Trotsky, Discussions With Leon
Trotsky on the Transitional Program (New York: Education for Socialists, 1969); and
George Breitman, The Liberating Influence of the Transitional Program (New York:
3. There is no question that the slogan "Out Now!" played a positive role in unifying the U.S.
anti-Vietnam War movement. However, a single united front slogan is hardiy the same
4. "Building the FI Today," Report on the January 1992 IEC Meeting (Detroit: Solidarity,
5. Michael A. Dover, 'The Roots of Discord on the Left," Crossroads no. 13 (Sept. 1991), pp.
6. Paul Le Blanc, "Leaving the New Left," International Socialist Review 33, no. 10
7. Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam, 1987), p. 109.
8. The few scholarly studies to date continue to be weighted heavily toward the "correct position" approach, as in Christopher Z. Hobson and Ronald Tabor's Trotskyism and the
Dilemma of Socialism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988) and A. Belden Fields'
Trotskyism and Maoism: Theory and Practice in France and the United States (New
York: Praeger, 1988). Ben Stone's Memoirs of a Radical Rank and Filer (New York:
Prometheus Press, 1986) is a good popular history of the Socialist Workers Party.
Michael Smith's Notebook of a Sixties Lawyer (New York: Smyrna Press, 1991) contains useful information about the SWP's activities in the 1960s and 1970s.
9. David Finkel, "Solidarity After Six Years," Solidarity Discussion Bulletin #5 (July 1992), p.
10. Some of these writings will be referred to in passing in the footnotes of this essay.
11. "The Latin American Left: A Painful Rebirth, " Report on the Americas 25, no. 5 (1992).
13. In June 1969, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, thus precipitating several nights of rebellion and the formation of the Gay Liberation Front.
14. One of the most compelling critiques of New Left strategy, that describes what might have been done differently, is Tim Wolhforth's "Reflections on the Sixties," New Left Review
178 (Nov.-Dec. 1989): 105-123. Another valuable survey of recent studies of the New
106 International Marxist Review the U.S. socialist movement.
(New York: Pioneer, 1964), p. 5.
1992), p. 27.
23-28.
(November 1972): 18-29.
12. Gitlin, op. cit., p. 161.
Education for Socialists Bulletin, 1974).
thing as a political program around which parties unify.
Left is Maurice Isserman, "The Not-So-Dark and Bloody Ground: New Works on the
1960s," American Historical Review (October 1989): 99-110. Several of the many other useful sources put ting the New Left in historical perspective are Paul Buhle, Marxism in the United States (London: Verso, 1987), Ileana Rodríguez and William L. Rowe, eds.,
Marxism and New Left Ideology (Minneapolis: Marxist Educational Press, 1977), and
James Weinstein, Ambiguous Legacy: The Left in American Politics (New York: New
Viewpoints, 1975). A collection of essays that analyzes the New Left from a social democratic perspective is Irving Howe, ed., Beyond the New Left (New York: Horizon Press,
1970). A fresh interpretation appears in the chapter "Reconstructing the Experiment:
Political Culture and the American New Left" in Stephen Eric Bronner, Moments of
Decision: Political History and the Crises of Radicalism (London: Verso, 1992). An impressive collection of scholarly essays is Barbara Tischler, ed., Sites on the Sixties
16. Of course, it is true that some of the influence of these radical, anti-racist, teminist ideas is commercialized and is trivialized by the consumerism of our society. But if we live in a consumer society, it is better to have the population consume the lush fruit of Morrison's
18. See "Nature of the Period" and "The New World Disorder: What Is Imperialism Today?"
by Robert Brenner, Solidarity Discussion Bulletin #1 (April 1992), Pre-Convention
19. See the analysis of the Perot campaign by Steve Ashby in Against the Current #40 (Sept.-
20. George Breitman, "The Current Radicalization Compared to the Past," p. 93, in Jack
Barnes et al, Towards an American Socialist Revolution (New York: Pathfinder, 1971).
21. Of course, we are talking here about relations to major radical upheavals, which is not necessarily determined by chronological age. There are some activitists in their sixties who are just now entering Left politics for the first time, and there is a sizeable number in their early thirties who were radicalized in the 1980s and who have been militant for over a decade. Some in this latter group might feel closer to the 1960s movements (especially if they have relatives who were active), and others might feel more a part of the
22. Max Shachtman (b. 1904), was significantly younger in the 1930s, but still led his tenden-
23. Gil Green, The New Radicalism: Anarchist or Marxist (New York: International, 1971), p.
24. This should probably be qualified in the case of Maoism in the U.S., which did have features of Third Period Stalinism even though most Maoist cadres (with the exception of some of the founders of Progressive Labor Party) did not come from the Old Left. Part of the appeal of Maoism was its association with a Third World country, blending effectively with the intense anti-racism of U.S. radicals, and also its association with the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which was in some cases artificially identifed with the U.S.
youth radicalization. Also, Maoism was possibly enhanced by China's geographical
15. Ibid., p. 149.
17. Op cit, p. 25.
Series (Detroit, Mi.: 1992), pp. 1-25.
Oct. 1992).
radical movements of the post-1989 period.
cy up to his death in 1972.
9.
proximity to the Vietnamese Revolution.
Legacy and prospects for socialism in the US 107
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992).
Beloved than the junk food of John Updike's Couples.
108 International Marxist Review
25. 2,000 of these were killed. The civil rights martyrs Cheyney, Schwerner and Goodman, along with Benjamin Linder, are our closest equivalents to the Lincoln Brigade volunteers, although they were victims of armed violence, not military combatants.
26. Op. cit., p. 26.