James P. Cannon (1890-1974) Founder of American Trotskyism

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... Eastern strike SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1990 17 By ASHER Feb. 11 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of James P. Cannon, the founder of American Trotskyism and perhaps the best representative, so far, of the type of revolutionary that will bring socialism to America.

Cannon was an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1911 to 1918 and was active in the left wing of the American Socialist Party of Eugene V. Debs. He was one of the young leaders who founded the American Communist Party in 1919. He was elected to its political committee and served on the presidium of the Communist International in Moscow from 1922 to 1925.

In the IWW he served his apprenticeship under the great "Wobbly" leaders "Big Bill" Haywood and Vincent St. John. In the Communist International he worked with Lenin, Trotsky, and other leaders of the Russian Revolution.

Opponent of Stalinism

In the great class struggles that took place during and after World War I, the only revolution that succeeded was the Russian, led by Lenin and Trotsky. As the smoke cleared, backward Russia stood alone, isolated, and devastated by civil war. The pressure on its leadership was tremendous.

Gradually, a self-serving bureaucracy, led dence in the ability of the world working class to extend the revolution. It sought instead accommodations with world imperialism: "We'll lay off world revolution if you lay off us."

In time, this strategy led to the Stalin-Hitler Pact of 1939, which marked the opening of World War II.

Lenin and Trotsky had seen what was happening and formed a bloc against Stalin. But Lenin died in 1924. Trotsky's Left Opposition was defeated. In 1928 Trotsky was exiled, hounded from one country to another, and in 1940 assassinated by a Stalinist agent in Mexico.

In 1928 Cannon was a delegate to the Sixth Congress of the Communist International in Moscow. Almost by accident, he and a Canadian delegate, Maurice Spector, came into possession of exiled Trotsky's "Draft Program of the Communist International—A Criticism of Fundamentals."

They decided that Trotsky was right-but (continued from page 20)

Some 2500 planes worth $130 billion are on order for the next decade. Eight airlines control 90 percent of the market.

But the competitive restructuring in the industry is far from over. Three of the eight are in big trouble. Texas Air, Pan Am, and TWA are facing possible sell-offs or mergers.

Two smaller carriers filed for bankruptcy last year-Braniff for the second time in the 1980s, and Presidential.

Carl Icahn, owner of TWA, is demanding big concessions from the workers there. If they refuse, he threatens to sell more TWA assets. At United Airlines, Chairman Stephen Wolf is pressuring the three unions-all of which are working under expired contracts. The Association of Flight Attendants' (AFA) contract expired Nov. 1, 1987; the pilots', April 1, 1988; and the IAM's, Nov. 1, 1989.

Wolf, a former president of Continental, tried to arrange a so-called Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) buyout last fall. This would have given United the largest debt in the industry. To pay it, Wolf told the "new owners" they would have to give major concessions. The IAM said "No". , thus convincing a number of bankers to scuttle the deal.

The pilots' leadership, who supported the Wolf-organized ESOP, have joined with the IAM and AFA for a new ESOP proposal at a lower price. This ESOP is not in our interJames P. Cannon in 1935 didn't dare say so at the time.

Back in America they spoke out and were promptly expelled. They proceeded to set up political organizations to support Trotsky.

Trotsky and Cannon

In 1933 Hitler came to power in Germany, without the million-member CP putting up a serious struggle against him.

Now it was clear that the Communist International (also known as the Third International) was unreformable-that it had become basically counterrevolutionary under Stalin.

Trotsky called for the formation of a new international to combat and replace the Stalinist international. Five years were to ests. It is a proposal for voluntary givebacks by workers in exchange for company stock whose future value is even questionable.

Many workers blame government deregulation of the industry in 1978 as the source of the airlines' problems. But the government and employers were just responding to the laws of capitalism.

The airline industry was a regulated monopoly where many inefficient carriers existed. To increase competition and raise the profit levels for investors as a whole, deregulation was imposed. Inevitably this meant more attacks on the workforce: on our wages, working conditions, and safety.

Twelve years later the industry is more of a monopoly than before deregulation, with real wages and working conditions declining.

The brutal workings-out of the capitalist system are behind the attacks on airline labor-at Eastern as well as other carriers. Cut-throat competition is the main reason for the collapse of small and large airlines.

The 1977-78 and 1981-82 recessions hit all the airlines especially hard. Afterwards, two-tier contracts were imposed in the industry, not only for lower-paid flight attendants and machinists, but also for the labor aristocracy of the industry, pilots.

The 1987 Stock Market Crash exacerbated the situation further. Although that crash had little immediate effect on profits, it pointed to an unstable future of more leveraged buyouts and mergers. pass before this took place.

In 1938, Trotsky, now in Mexico, began a collaborative relationship with the American Trotskyists, led by Cannon. He "adopted the American party [the Socialist Workers Party] as his own, " Cannon often remarked.

Trotsky, like Cannon, considered the founding of the SWP to be one of the great achievements of the American working class and of the Fourth International.

When Trotsky wrote the program for the new international, "The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International," he asked the SWP to adopt it and present it to the founding conference of the Fourth International in Europe in the fall of 1938.

It is in this context Eastern began.

"Union-made" LBOs

Unfortunately, the response of the top labor leadership to the airline bosses' stepped-up attacks has not been to tap the militancy of the union membership. Instead, it is to seek a new cooperative agreement with capitalist investors and shareholders to "save" jobs.

At Eastern, the IAM policy for the past year has been to find another capitalist to buy the airline from Lorenzo.

At United, the lAM's strategy is to negotiate better terms for an ESOP.

The AFL-CIO, in fact, has institutionalized this perspective by setting up the Employee Partnership Fund (EPF). The EPF, according to the Feb. 26 Business Week, will set up union-made LBOs (Leveraged Buyouts).

"It will provide money for employee groups that buy a chunk of their own companies," reports Business Week. "This is not a humanitarian exercise. The AFL-CIO, which has no firm commitments yet, hopes union pension funds will invest in the effort to raise $200 million for small and medium-sized deals."

The new ESOP fund will not be controlled by the AFL-CIO. It will be in the hands of investment brokers Keilin & Bloom. "This is an investment fund with a union label," said Eugene Keilin. "But," he added, "this is not social investing." The transactions will have to stand on their financial merits.

"Union made" ESOPs and LBOs are still fancy terms for employee concessions and must be opposed.

Union consciousness is beginning to to Europe to help organize the conference. Cannon did sounder Trotsky's direction.

For a mass Leninist party Cannon made it his life's work to build a centralized, disciplined working-class party, fully democratic in decision-making-but with one face to its enemies and opponents.

His goal was a mass Leninist party that could take on the American capitalist class and establish a socialist America. His "American Theses" (1946) laid out the basic strategic line to accomplish this goal.

Trotsky called America "the foundry in which the fate of humanity is to be forged." He stated that "in the last historic analysis all the problems of our planet will be decided on American soil."

Cannon agreed. He recognized the destructive power of the American imperialist colossus astride the world, armed with the most technology and nuclear weapons. He insisted that no revolution anywhere in the world-from Latin America, to Cuba, to the Soviet Union itself-was safe until American capitalism was toppled.

The SWP's new course It is a tragedy that the present leadership of the SWP, the party founded by Cannon and to which he dedicated most of his life, has turned its back on many of the revolutionary traditions that Cannon stood for.

The SWP's sectarian and abstentionist attitude toward the trade unions, the women's movement and the antiwar movement, for example, stands in stark contrast to the practice of the SWP under Cannon.

In this process, many proven concepts of Lenin and Trotsky on the strategy of world revolution and the methods of party building are being jettisoned. In fact, Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution has now been discarded by the current SWP leaders.

Those of us in the SWP who sounded a warning to reverse this trend were framed up and expelled in 1983-84, just as Cannon was expelled from the Communist Party in 1928.

Socialist Action was founded by expelled members of the SWP in order to defend the party against the destructive course of its present leadership. Socialist Action was formed to defend the basic ideas of Trotskyism and the Fourth International.

In that sense, James P. Cannon, chief architect of the strategy of the American revolution, stands in our ranks.

For further reading, see "Toward a Socialist America: What Socialist Action stands for," edited by Asher Harer, with speeches by James P. Cannon, $1.10 (includes postage). Make checks payable to Walnut Publishing Co.

change among a layer of workers. The rank-and-file activists at Eastern are the motor force of their strike.

The change taking place among a layer of IAM members is impacting other airline workers too, including pilots, the most highly paid workers in the industry. Not surprisingly, 90 percent of Eastern pilots said they were ready to honor the picket line even before the IAM went on strike.

Some observations The unprecedented unity of the three unions at Eastern is one of the most important advances for airline labor. It is the type of unity necessary for airline workers to resist company attacks, and win broader solidarity. And we need unity not just at one airline, but across all airlines and throughout all industry.

Another advance of the Eastern strike is the beginning stages of real rank-and-file democracy. It is the rank and file who are leading the strike in action. But the no-win strategy has been set on top. That needs to be fundamentally changed from below.

Another lesson being learned by strikers and others is the class bias of the government and courts. Labor has no genuine friends in Congress. Discussions on independent working-class politics are long overdue.

Union activists are stepping forward as leaders in the Eastern strike and other strikes. It is out of these fights that a new, more militant leadership will be forged in the labor movement. Fighting for effective solidarity, more rank-and-file democracy, and independent labor politics will be part of developing a fighting leadership in the unions.