Mark's Pages

September 10, 2003:

I'd had doubts for some time. It wasn't so much that the stories from Russia were unbelievable as it was the patent strategic incompetence of the local leaderships. We debated the Trots as vigorously as we could but, grudgingly, I found myself privately impressed with their criticisms.

One day I led a YCL group from City College to picket at the docks. The organizer was my Party sponsor. I trusted him. As we dropped back to speak in low voices I confided my troubles.

By attacking the Social Democrats we'd led Fascism to power in Europe. The rightward turn was too late and was leading to social patriotism as the buildup to war accelerated. Our organizational structures were undemocratic and aloof to criticism from below. "Internationalism" meant that Moscow's foreign policy took priority over the local class struggle. Our intellectual leaders were European emigres who misunderstood American culture.

These doubts were leading me to question my place in the Party. "What do you do with people like me?" I asked him.

He looked at me with burning eyes, saying, "In Russia, we'd kill ya. Here, all we can do is expel ya."

By 1938 I'd led as many of my YCL comrades as possible into the SWP. Ten years later my former party sponsor had followed Louis Budenz before the HUAC, becoming a professional informer and star witness, reportedly paid tens of thousands of dollars for his expert testimony.