'Tribute to George Breitman' A book well worth reading

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18 SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1987 miner working in a dark shaft, coughing and setting a charge of dynamite, and without a word of dialogue our sympathies are engaged. We have been exposed to two of the deadly hazards of this job: black lung and cave-in. Immediately, we know that these workers must organize or die before their time.

Workers given center stage The story focuses on Joe Kenehan, a traveling UMWA organizer with experience in the Industrial Workers of the World, the early radical union which sought to unite all workers into One Big Union. Among the local people Joe meets is a teenaged miner, whose father has perished underground, and the youth's widowed mother, who must endure the presence of bullying Correction In the article by Nat Weinstein, "Ford Contract, another milestone on the giveback trail," printed in our October issue, the words "South African" were incorrectly added by the editors to a sentence referring to the intention of General Motors to "divest" itself of parts of its product in this country.

The paragraph should have read: "General Motors workers will be at a distinct bargaining disadvantage, especially since this company has not yet carried out its divestment plan. The decision has already been made by GM to cut production costs by contracting out portions of its product."—"The Editors A Tribute to George Breitman-Writer, Organizer, Revolutionary, edited by Naomi Allen and Sarah Lovell, 1987. Published by the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, P.O. Box 1947, New York, N.Y., 10009. $5 paperback.

This book adds up to a political and personal biography of a leading American Trotskyist, George Breitman, who died April 19, 1986. The story of his life is told in the form of speeches and messages from 49 individuals and 15 political organizations on the occasion of memorial meetings held in June 1987.

It is a very different kind of biography, but it works. Because of its form, one may open this book anywhere and find another facet of this remarkable man: his talents as a writer, editor, theoretician, organizer, or teacher, and his selfless dedication to the cause of socialism.

Then, there is the personality that kept him on course for over 50 years-his love for other people, his wry sense of humor, and his almost incredible courage in the face of adversity.

Breitman, as depicted in this book, educated and deeply influenced many, many people both within and outside of his organization. His "Malcolm X Speaks" sits on the shelves of the best Black militants. His "Writings of Leon Trotsky" (which he edited) is the definitive edition.

For many of us, the most valuable item in the book is "George Breitman's Appeal of Expulsion," his letter to the National Committee of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Everyone interested in revolutionary politics should study this letter. It nails to the wall the Jack Barnes leadership of the SWP as bureaucratic usurpers.

A component part of revolutionary socialism is democratic decision-making. But the Barnes clique, surreptitiously engaged in revising the historic LeninistTrotskyist program of the party, had to destroy democracy and frame up and expel its critics-exactly as Stalin did.

Breitman, and more than 100 of us, were expelled from the SWP for "disloyalty." A poignant note is struck when he writes, "I feel embarrassed at the thought of having to prove my loyalty to the party-my record speaks for itself." And that it does. This letter is worth the price of the book. Federal troops against the miners.

The historical events at Matewan occurred during a crest in the labor movement, just as President Wilson initiated a reaction in the form of the Palmer raids, which sent militant workers to jail or deported them for legitimate organizing activity.

"Matewan" establishes John Sayles as one of the most important cultural figures on the left today. All his work is genuinely realistic and radical, and much of it is funny. His other films tackle such subjects as a cross-class high school romance, a lesbian love affair, and life in Harlem as seen through the eyes of a Black extraterrestrial.

His best known film is "Return of the Secaucus Seven," in which '60s radicals try to maintain their idealism later in life. He has published a novel, "Union Dues," and a book of short stories titled after a hilarious piece called "The Anarchist Convention."

Reportedly, his next film is about the baseball fixing scandal of 1919, and it's a safe bet that it will be a winner.

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I recently returned from a three-week tour of the Soviet Union, during which I visited Moscow, Volgograd, Odessa, Kiev, and Leningrad.

Though my stay was short, I was nonetheless able to return with a better understanding of the ruling Soviet bureaucracy and of the character and scope of Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost campaign.

The bureaucracy's distortion of history for its own purposes, for example, was noticeable in the Moscow Museum of the History of the Revolution, which has many exciting exhibits but significant gaps.

When, in pretended ignorance, I asked the museum official showing us about who were Lenin's chief associates in the leadership of the revolution, she replied, "Kollantai and Lunacharsky." She did not say anything about the historical fact that Lenin's and Trotsky's names were so frequently linked during the revolution that many peasants thought that there was a single person named Lenin-Trotsky.

Nor did she say that of the 31 members and alternates of the October 1917 Central Committee, most were killed in the purges of the 1930s by Stalin; only Kollantai and Stalin himself surviving this period.

The museum official did not mention the Hitler-Stalin pact in discussing the outbreak of World War II, but said only that Hitler was going to attack the Soviet Union and Stalin was preparing for it. Unfortunately, however, Hitler struck before the Soviet Union was completely GLASNOST the prospects of the exoneration of the victims of the Moscow trials, in which I cited the Moscow News article, he replied that the Moscow News is the boldest of the Soviet newspapers and that the Russianlanguage edition is always snapped up. As for exoneration, he neither held out any prospect of it nor rejected the idea. He said that there is a continuing process of rehabilitation but that announcements are made sporadically and without explanation.

In response to a question from the audience about anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, he replied that Soviet law makes the promulgation of racial prejudice a criminal offense. I asked why, if this is so, Pamyat, an ultra-nationalist organization which has stated that Jews, together with Masons, are engaged in a conspiracy to control the world, is not prosecuted. He knew of Pamyat but did not know of its statement. (The Moscow News referred to the charge about the Masons but not about the Jews, although in another article it denounced the anti-Semitism of the French racist Le Pen.)

One-party rule unchallenged In response to a question by me about the prospects of more democracy within the Communist Party and the legalization of other parties, he did not foresee other parties being permitted. He did point out that there is a multi-party system in other Eastern European workers' states, but did not mention that the other parties are merely shadows of the ruling Communist parties.

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Speak-out in Defense of n Defense the Right the Right to Saturday, Nov. 21, 1:30 p.m. The Women's Building