James Cannon. Letters From Prison.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

JANUARY 1944 (Letters 1 through 9)

Quarantine—Marking time—One of the positive sides—The day’s routine—In a single cell—The most stupid of all pastimes—The need of a professional staff

FEBRUARY 1944 (Letters 10 through 17)

A dormitory orderly—Team workers are superior—The most important question—Neglect of Leon Sedov— A calendar of our movement—Obliged to get the truth—The beginning of personal wisdom—Like a tree without roots

MARCH 1944 (Letters 18 through 26)

A pretext common in shyster politics—Systematic education of new members about our history—Statements and actions must serve ends—Subscription campaign proposals—Prisoners’ needs take first place—What internationalism means—Motivation for subscription campaign

APRIL 1944 (Letters 27 through 38)

Hillman and Dubinsky—Against careless terminology—Cadre should learn languages—Objections to word «socialist»— No concessions to Russophobes—Lenin’s concept translated—Reminiscences about money— Show movement’s continuity—Young militants need heroes—Principled position and tactical approach— ABCs must be learned again—Sympathy must not obscure political judgment—The bridge for the petty bourgeois

MAY 1944 (Letters 39 through 51)

Element of consciousness—William Ellery Leonard—Write for new generation—Necessity of an educational plan—Inspire new cadres to study—Anational education department—The Trotsky School—A unique pedagogical system—National full-time training school—Trotsky’s commandment—Conditions for matriculation—Students’ sole responsibility —»Plagiarism»

JUNE 1944 (Letters 52 through 65)

Cadre education and mass education—What things can wait—A false conception of publishing program— Appeal to new readers—Dwight Macdonald’s cultivated knack—Their morals and ours—John Dewey’s contribution—An abuse of power—An axiom—A disagreement on pardon procedure—Still a field worker— Echoes of the petty-bourgeois opposition—The ILGWU convention—What did they learn in school?—Time comes to the aid of correct policy—The proper season for full discussion

JULY 1944 (Letters 66 through 78)

Fragile individuals—A new program of expansion—Learning how to talk to workers—Way to write about renegades—A state of war exists—A defense organization to be proud of—Reading the press—Historical materialism’s superiority—»Iconoclasm»—Cheer up and do the best you can

AUGUST 1944 (Letters 79 through 92)

Party financing—Broaden paper’s news treatment—For a literary secretariat—Trade-union policy—The two-party system—Three criticisms of trade-union policy—Programmatic firmness and political objectivity— Boyhood memories—A pedagogical trick—The «trade-union analogy» and the Soviet state—The dialectic of factional struggles—John L. Lewis and Stalin—Trotsky on the Socialist Appeal—News fromItaly—Constructive start of the discussion

SEPTEMBER 1944 (Letters 93 through 104A)

A conciliationist tendency crystallizing into a faction—Trotsky’s autobiography and personality—Pedagogical adaptation to new members—Four grievances and how to handle them—Democratic centralism—Combat party and discussion club—Morrison’s doses become stronger—How resolutions are written—Abuse and praise in politics—The UAW convention—The fundamental alternative facing the Soviet Union—An allied offensive against the USSR is predetermined

OCTOBER 1944 (Letters 104B through 122)

What the art of politics consists of—Emphasis nowon European revolution—In defense of Daniel J. Tobin— The role of Stalinism in capitalist countries—»Hard» and «soft» approaches to organization question—The danger of degeneration in a revolutionary party—The pressure of environment—The sentiment before World War I—Selecting a leadership—The «no-slate» hoax—The spirit of the party constitution—The role of a nominating commission—The stupid and reactionary ruling of 1942

NOVEMBER 1944 (Letters 123 through 139)

The best committee by process of party democracy—With the Russian Bolsheviks—Preachers, lawyers and revolutionary politicians—Ten proposals for coming convention—Tactics in election campaigns—Difficult conditions under which Trotsky worked—Wartime political and religious prisoners—The «circuit system»— Hutchins Hapgood—Development of library—The worst fault of the thinkers’ faction—The convention was a great triumph

DECEMBER 1944 (Letters 140 through 156)

A five-year publishing plan—Three departments of publishing activity—A petty-bourgeois prejudice—The Servant of Man—Pioneer Publishers’ great tradition—The Militant‘s function—Human solidarity at Sandstone—Against conciliationism in international field—Revision of previous ideas about the press—Courtesy and compassion in prison—The price of The Militant—The principle of paying, not the amount paid—The Militant as acombinationtool — Man does not live by argument alone

JANUARY 1945 (Letters 157 through 182)

The Achilles’ heel of the Appeal to Reason—Atentative program for the literary secretariat—Materials needed—Books proposed—The national training school—Dangers of centralization and of am ateurism— Democracy or snobocracy—Genius and men of common clay—All prisons are the same—Leadership and the leader cult—The old movement had many techniques—Appeal to the young—The thought of a better future— Dewey’s philosophy— Objectivity and subjectivity in politics —Insensitivity toward criticism—The recent party discussion—The «Three Theses»—The source of «leftism»—Why attitudes to other organizations changed—Lessons are lost—More books proposed—A party organizer is a joiner of people— The Sandstone assignment is finished