Arne Swabeck: CP, SWP founder

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where James P. Cannon, leader of the faction which Swabeck supported, inad -vertently received a copy of Trotsky's suppressed criticism of the Stalin-Bukharin draft program. Maurice Spector, represent -ing Canadian Communists, also received a copy. [For more information on this topic, see the speech by Tom Kerry in this issue of Socialist Action.] After studying Trotsky's document, both Cannon and Spector found that they agreed with it. They arranged to smuggle copies of the critique out of the country and organize a struggle for its ideas after they got home.

They did this, and Cannon and his supporters, including Swabeck, were soon expelled from the party as "Trotskyists." Thus the American Trotskyist movement was born.

In its early days the new organization was called the Communist League of America (Left Opposition). Swabeck came to New York and became national secretary for a time. He was also editor of the newspaper, The Militant, during this period. He remained in New York from 1930 to 1937, after which he returned to Chicago.

In 1933 Swabeck visited Trotsky in Prinkipo, where he stayed for two months. Arne Swabeck (left) with James P. Cannon in 1949.

In 1934 American Trotskyists and the American Workers Party, led by A.J. Muste, merged to form the Workers Party. In 1936, the members of this party entered the Socialist Party as individuals.

This move won many new recruits, especially youth, to the ideas of the Trotskyists. The Trotskyists were expelled from the Socialist Party in 1937 when they defied a ban on discussion. On Jan. 1, 1938, the founding convention of the Socialist Workers Party was held.

From the time that the SWP was founded, Swabeck played a leading part in it as a member of its national committee. Swabeck continued his party activity until the late 1950s when internal discussion in the party showed that he had altered his views on the 1949 Chinese Revolution and on the nature of Maoism and the Chinese Communist Party.

Intermittent debate, centered in the branch in Los Angeles where Swabeck had moved from Chicago when he retired in the 1950s, was carried on for almost 10 years. Step by step, the discussion revealed that Swabeck was becoming a Maoist. This was more definitely confirmed when several years later, after his views had been firmly rejected in the party, the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was launched in China. Swabeck supported this develop -ment.

In the mid-1960s, Swabeck sent a letter to the British Socialist Labor League, which had split from the world Trotskyist movement, praising the League for publishing an article that complimented the Chinese Communist Party. The letter appeared in the League's newspaper without any prior notice by Swabeck to the SWP leadership and was looked upon as a violation of discipline.

Swabeck was suspended by vote of the SWP national committee, and in 1967, at the party's convention, he was expelled. By then his few remaining supporters had already resigned from the party.

Thereafter, Swabeck's political activity was largely confined to lengthy explana -tions of his version of the Chinese Revo -lution and the nature of Maoism. He remained a supporter of Maoism.

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Joseph Hansen Joseph