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The Lesser Evil?
In three debates Marxist leaders explain why a government that advances the interests of the working class and oppressed cannot be established through support to one of the two parties of big business in the United States. And why backing the "lesser evil" of the Democratic or Republican candidates will not slow down or defeat the right wing. They explain how working people -- as they learn through growing struggle that they are part of a class with interests opposed to those of the employers -- will build a mass political party of their own to stop the bosses' march toward fascism and war.
147 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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October 31, 2025
This has gone through a subtitle change, but it's still the same text and same debate participants as it was in 1977. The new subtitle is "Debates on the Democratic Party and Independent Working-Class Politics." This is because the Socialist Workers Party does not define itself anymore as part of "the Left," but as part of the working-class. Almost everything the groups that define themselves as part of the left agree with, the Socialist Workers Party disagrees with. Even in 1977 you can begin to see that.
So, you can consider the three people the SWP debated: Michael Harrington, Stanley Aronowitz, and Carl Haessler as having represented part of the left, but although the SWP used that terminology at the time, it didn't reflect class relations, which for Marxists is always foremost in our thought.
I bought a new copy to reread to see how these debates stand up today. They still stand up very well, although one needs to know a bit of history, or be interested in reading some to understand it.
Today college educated youth know little history and don't think anything important happened before their generation. And I'm talking especially about the ones on the "left." Basically, all of the "left" supports the perspective of working in the Democratic Party, and I'm not really interested in trying to convince them of this or anything else. I tell someone on Facebook that I've never voted for the Democratic or Republican parties, and the response is "then you're not doing anything." As if there is no politics except voting, and no possibility of forming any party other than the two capitalist ones existing in the US.
As if wars, revolutions, huge mass movements like we've seen in this country: The organization of the CIO, an industrial union movement, the Civil Rights/Black Power movement, and the movement against the US war in Vietnam weren't politics! As if choosing a "lesser evil" was the only possibility in taking part in electoral politics.
All these people in the "left" who know who he was say Eugene Debs is their hero. But they must mean Debs after he got out of prison, rejected the new Communist Party (granted it was ultraleft as hell, but it was where people who wanted to make a revolution like in Russia were gathering). And Debs said he supported the Russian Revolution. After that Debs stopped having a consistent class-struggle outlook and supported coalition with bourgeois forces in his last few years.
The people I'm interested in trying to convince are primarily young workers getting their feet wet in the class struggle today. There is an enormous wealth of Marxist and other literature that can help convince them. Let's start with those three mass movements I mentioned earlier. On the CIO, the best book to read is Art Preis' Labor's Giant Step: The First Twenty Years of the CIO: 1936-55. One might also want to start with the more readable Teamster Rebellion for one of the key strikes that led to the CIO. (It's the first of a four-book series, but they don't have to be read all at once).
For the Civil Rights Movement, despite its King-centric approach, I personally think that Taylor Branch's 3-part set, 'America in the King Years' is the best, although there are dozens of good books on the Civil Rights Movement. Along with this I recommend Fighting Racism in World War II: From the pages of the Militant and especially Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power. While Branch has a good section on Malcolm X, this book puts him in a different perspective.
For the Antiwar Movement, there is only one book I recommend, which is Out Now: A Participant's Account of the Movement in the United States Against the Vietnam War by Fred Halstead. There are a lot of people at the moment saying that this movement was led by liberals--This is a lie! Of course, most of the participants in the mass demonstrations and other activities voted for the Democrats, but that's an entirely different question from who led.
For those who want to start earlier, Eugene V. Debs Speaks) is a good place to start, along with The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene Victor Debs. This could be accompanied by reading two books by Teamster organizer Farrell Dobbs. Besides his four books on the Minneapolis Teamsters and over the road organizing across the Midwest, he wrote two volumes, Revolutionary Continuity Vol. 1: Marxist Leadership in the U. S., 1848-1917: The Early Years, and Revolutionary Continuity: Birth of the Communist Movement 1918-1922.
From there one can move on to James P. Cannon, First Ten Years of American Communism: Report of a Participant and The History of American Trotskyism, 1928—1938: Report of a Participant. Some Lenin is essential: What Is to Be Done?, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, National Liberation, Socialisim Imperialisim: Slected Writings, and Lenin's Final Fight. Then Trotsky on the rise and decline of the Russian Revolution, History of the Russian RevolutionThe Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?. I'll stop there, although there's a lot more Jack Barnes worth reading than his one debate in this book. A lot more of most of the other people I've mentioned. And I haven't even gone back to The Communist Manifesto! One might want to start with that: the Pathfinder edition with the Trotsky introduction.
So, you can consider the three people the SWP debated: Michael Harrington, Stanley Aronowitz, and Carl Haessler as having represented part of the left, but although the SWP used that terminology at the time, it didn't reflect class relations, which for Marxists is always foremost in our thought.
I bought a new copy to reread to see how these debates stand up today. They still stand up very well, although one needs to know a bit of history, or be interested in reading some to understand it.
Today college educated youth know little history and don't think anything important happened before their generation. And I'm talking especially about the ones on the "left." Basically, all of the "left" supports the perspective of working in the Democratic Party, and I'm not really interested in trying to convince them of this or anything else. I tell someone on Facebook that I've never voted for the Democratic or Republican parties, and the response is "then you're not doing anything." As if there is no politics except voting, and no possibility of forming any party other than the two capitalist ones existing in the US.
As if wars, revolutions, huge mass movements like we've seen in this country: The organization of the CIO, an industrial union movement, the Civil Rights/Black Power movement, and the movement against the US war in Vietnam weren't politics! As if choosing a "lesser evil" was the only possibility in taking part in electoral politics.
All these people in the "left" who know who he was say Eugene Debs is their hero. But they must mean Debs after he got out of prison, rejected the new Communist Party (granted it was ultraleft as hell, but it was where people who wanted to make a revolution like in Russia were gathering). And Debs said he supported the Russian Revolution. After that Debs stopped having a consistent class-struggle outlook and supported coalition with bourgeois forces in his last few years.
The people I'm interested in trying to convince are primarily young workers getting their feet wet in the class struggle today. There is an enormous wealth of Marxist and other literature that can help convince them. Let's start with those three mass movements I mentioned earlier. On the CIO, the best book to read is Art Preis' Labor's Giant Step: The First Twenty Years of the CIO: 1936-55. One might also want to start with the more readable Teamster Rebellion for one of the key strikes that led to the CIO. (It's the first of a four-book series, but they don't have to be read all at once).
For the Civil Rights Movement, despite its King-centric approach, I personally think that Taylor Branch's 3-part set, 'America in the King Years' is the best, although there are dozens of good books on the Civil Rights Movement. Along with this I recommend Fighting Racism in World War II: From the pages of the Militant and especially Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power. While Branch has a good section on Malcolm X, this book puts him in a different perspective.
For the Antiwar Movement, there is only one book I recommend, which is Out Now: A Participant's Account of the Movement in the United States Against the Vietnam War by Fred Halstead. There are a lot of people at the moment saying that this movement was led by liberals--This is a lie! Of course, most of the participants in the mass demonstrations and other activities voted for the Democrats, but that's an entirely different question from who led.
For those who want to start earlier, Eugene V. Debs Speaks) is a good place to start, along with The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene Victor Debs. This could be accompanied by reading two books by Teamster organizer Farrell Dobbs. Besides his four books on the Minneapolis Teamsters and over the road organizing across the Midwest, he wrote two volumes, Revolutionary Continuity Vol. 1: Marxist Leadership in the U. S., 1848-1917: The Early Years, and Revolutionary Continuity: Birth of the Communist Movement 1918-1922.
From there one can move on to James P. Cannon, First Ten Years of American Communism: Report of a Participant and The History of American Trotskyism, 1928—1938: Report of a Participant. Some Lenin is essential: What Is to Be Done?, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, National Liberation, Socialisim Imperialisim: Slected Writings, and Lenin's Final Fight. Then Trotsky on the rise and decline of the Russian Revolution, History of the Russian RevolutionThe Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?. I'll stop there, although there's a lot more Jack Barnes worth reading than his one debate in this book. A lot more of most of the other people I've mentioned. And I haven't even gone back to The Communist Manifesto! One might want to start with that: the Pathfinder edition with the Trotsky introduction.
January 29, 2024
Pretty short book. A presentation of several debates among socialists that happened in the last century. Didn't realize that's what this book was. From reading the debates & considering they were pressed for time, there were some specific & important points that were emphasized. They are done so in way that sticks with you & they are illuminating considering the format in which they were conveyed.
Recommend if you want to take a trip to the past so to speak & see fellow leftists hash it out, as well is gain some understanding as to why running & remaining hostage to the institution that is the Democratic Party is not the way if we want real change.
Recommend if you want to take a trip to the past so to speak & see fellow leftists hash it out, as well is gain some understanding as to why running & remaining hostage to the institution that is the Democratic Party is not the way if we want real change.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews