Kutcher memorial meeting

Scan page 6

Dottle Breitman, long-time friend and comrade of James Ku speaking at April 22 New York City memorial meeting, which Coming in our next issue:

The meaning of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan Behind the upsurge of the Chinese students and workers • Exclusive interview with ex-Star Wars Dir. Dr. Robert Bowman Interviews with leaders of Soviet dissident movement The tasks of socialists in the women's movement Grocery clerks in S.F. Bay Area organize for decent v 6 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1989 over 70 people.

The following letter was sent by the Political Committee of Socialist Action to the April 22 memorial meeting in New York for Jimmy Kutcher.

Dear comrades, Jimmy Kutcher, without ever pausing to contemplate taking life's safer road, devoted his full attention to the struggle for socialism. Hounded and despised by the capitalist witchhunters and Stalinists alike, he lived to see his own ideas-the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky-again emerge for the consideration of today's youth and revolutionary fighters.

tcher, drew Let it be remembered that our Legless Veteran fighter stood tall in the face of great personal adversity and political calamity. Jimmy prevailed against the odds. He left his mark on us all, which is why we are here today-to draw strength from his example, to continue the fight for his dreams without missing a beat.

We will never forget you, Jimmy.

Our best to all his comrades, old and new, and to his organization, the Fourth Internationalist Tendency.

Comradely, Jeff Mackler and Nat Weinstein, National Secretaries, Socialist Action Local 10 hall of the longshore union on his first national tour.

By 1954, the witch hunt had caught up with the Communist Party-with a vengeance. They were finally beginning to realize that their attacks on Kutcher were harming them more than him. Guild members who earlier might have been prejudiced against Kutcher by Stalinist falsification of his case were now ready to listen to him with open minds and buy his book.

While in Detroit, Kutcher worked on the draft of a letter to top CIO officials, hoping to dispel the false rumors against him and his defense committee. His log shows that on June 15, he spoke to a meeting of laid-off Dodge workers at their UAW hall: "Couldn't sell book because CIO is sabotaging sale of book."

Meanwhile, the government struck another Inside Operation Rescue The struggle for land in Nicaragua today Don't miss happened to be one of the first purged, soon to be followed by more than a hundred others. Kutcher was among the victims of the purge who organized the Fourth Internationalist Tendency (FIT) as one current in the U.S. Trotskyist movement and began publishing the Bulletin in Defense of Marxism.

During the remaining years of this life, Tim Kutcher spent his time caring for his personal needs as an invalid and reading. He never gave up his hope that somehow the SWP could be won back to Trotskyism and the traitors in the leadership exposed.

His body finally gave out a few days before his 76th birthday, Dec. 26, 1988. He was taken to the intensive-care unit of the Veterans Hospital in Brooklyn. There he lingered in semiconsciousness until pronounced dead Feb. 10. In his struggle with death, as in life, James Kutcher refused to give up. issue. Subscribe

Scan page 7

In March 1989, Socialist Action