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<font color=#. On the high seas2. Queensland, 3. Fiji, 4. Trinidad and the Bahamas, 5. India: the setting6. India: in the legal arena, 7. Kenya, 8. British Honduras 1934.
"With characteristic sagacity and verve, Martin Weiner tackles one of the central themes of modern British imperial history-the relationship between liberalism and empire. His wide-ranging and richly documented study of colonial interracial murder trials gives a human face to a subject too often approached as a theoretical abstraction. Vivid, nuanced, and provocative, this book challenges us to look more closely and think more carefully about racial domination and the rule of law in the British Empire." -Dane Kennedy, George Washington University"This original and well-written study can be read with great profit by scholars of law and of E it adds an important and long neglected dimension to both areas of study, and in the process reveals yet more of the rich and complex weft and warp of the history of British imperial rule." -David Killingray, Goldsmiths College, University of London"In An Empire on Trial Martin Wiener gives us an absorbing account of the tension between the principles of British law and its rendering in the colonies. Wiener does a superb job of demonstrating the profound variation in colonial experience of the law and in revealing the ever fraught relationship between local and central objectives. His extraordinarily wide-ranging comparative approach, his carefully argued position, and his deep knowledge of the criminal law all serve to make this study an important and original contribution to legal and to imperial British history." -Philippa Levine, University of Southern California"One of the many virtues of An Empire on Trial is the way it persuades the reader of the significance of the history of criminal justice and demonstrates the centrality of the law in Britain and colonial society. At another level Wiener interprets the evolution of the law in relation to new trends in the social, economic, and cultural history of Britain and the Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book is thus a historiographical landmark, but it will also be of interest to the general public because of its clear and compelling style and the dramatic focus on murder trials. In every way An Empire on Trial is a tour de force." -Wm. Roger Louis, University of Texas at Austin"In this important, path-breaking, study in comparative colonial history, Professor Wiener engagingly and persuasively demonstrates the complex and conflicting pulls on the criminal justice systems of a range of multi-racial British colonies. Confidently steering between reductionist and complacent renderings of imperialism, he shows the extent to which British politicians, the Colonial Office, colonial officials, the judiciary, and, not least, the colonized, pushed for genuine equality before the law for all residents of these possessions, typically in the face of visceral opposition by European minorities with their own limited and self-interested vision of the rule of law and its protections." -John McLaren, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Victoria, British Columbia"...a complex, fascinating, and sometimes controversial book." -Sascha Auerbach, Journal of British Studies"Recommended." -Choice"An Empire on Trial is strong in its diverse and compelling case studies."Victorian Studies, R. W. Kostal, University of Western Ontario"Lively and well written, Wiener's study addresses important questions about imperial governance and policy and engages with important historiographical issues without losing either its narrative force or the human dimension and particularly of historical events." -Journal of Modern History
&&&&Martin J. Wiener is Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of History at Rice University. He is the author of numerous works, including English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit , Reconstructing the Criminal, and Men of Blood. Dr Wiener is a past President of the North American Conference on British Studies and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
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Collects 60 million poverty alleviation Office under the State Council official on trial， involved cases of Ding Shumiao
Collects 60 million poverty alleviation Office under the State Council official on trial， involved cases of Ding Shumiao(国务院扶贫办官员敛财6000万受审，涉丁书苗案)
Collects 60 million poverty alleviation Office under the State Council officials to stand trial related | the Ding Shumiao Ding Shumiao | Fan Zengyu | poverty alleviation Office _ newsThe Beijing News (by Yuan Zhang) on suspicion of embezzlement, bribery, fraud, yesterday, the poverty alleviation Office of the State Council foreign Fan Zengyu, former Director of the Centre for project management at the municipal intermediate people's Court for trial.It is understood that prosecutors allege Fan Zengyu involving a total of about 60 million, in addition to a lump sum of 100,000, and Shanxi businesswoman Yue Ding (formerly known as Ding Shumiao). Case twice to extend trial timeShortly after 9 o'clock yesterday, Fan Zengyu court case, the media was not allowed to enter.It is understood that on September 27, 2012, approved by the municipal sorting, Fan Zengyu criminal detention by the police on suspicion of embezzlement, taking bribes, was arrested after the prosecution. In the investigation of the case, case and found Fan Zengyu had alleged fraud plot. On December 18 of that year, crime investigation police for alleged fraud. Subsequently, due to some of the facts are not clear, the lack of evidence, return of a case for supplementary investigation case once, twice extended the review period.The prosecutors allege Fan Zengyu was arrested for three counts, involving about 60 million Yuan, in addition to a lump sum of 100,000, other key figures are former railways Minister Liu zhijun case Yue Ding, one of the heart-related. Fishing for men money making staged desertFan Zengyu Yue Ding heart was after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake awareness.Fan Zengyu said after the rustlers, Yue Ding to expand their corporate visibility and money wooing him, he gave the small ideas, such as "contributions to attract the attention of national leaders".Yue Ding on suspicion of bribery and illegal business dealings at the municipal intermediate people's Court for trial, said a second, she and her Fan Zengyu met donated a sum of money, after two years, Fan Zengyu one after another under the initiative to ask for donations, Fan Zengyu had arranged for her to attend the charity General Assembly and made a statement. After a series of events, she quickly became a philanthropist in private enterprises, in 2009 with a $ 90 million in donations had appeared in Forbes China charity sixth place, quickly open fame.Materials show that helped Yue Ding heart "to be famous", Fan Zengyu on 38 occasions requesting or accepting Yue Ding property amounted to the equivalent of more than 40 million Yuan. In March 2010, Yue Ding when going abroad is restricted at the airport exit, it was "dangerous" at the approach. From that time until June 2011 was criminal detention, she works through Fan Zengyu out messages, "out".As far as case authorities know, Fan Zengyu has failed to "Unclog" Yue Ding heart out, instead posing as leaders texted Yue Ding, to dredge the name con continued from Yue Ding heart or her team.At present, the Fan Zengyu case is still pending. Prosecutors allegeCrime of corruptionThe end of 2009, Fan Zengyu used for poverty alleviation and development under the State Council leading Group Office of foreign investment projects Management Center Director and is responsible for duties to facilitate poverty alleviation Office and training center business debts, Yue Ding donated 2.6 million Yuan to poverty alleviation Office for themselves.Crime of accepting bribesFan Zengyu so they commmissioned by the buyer for the work of the Center for poverty alleviation Office of the State Council foreign children, will receive 100,000 yuan.From 2009 to 2010, Fan Zengyu served as Director of the poverty alleviation Office of foreign capital Center is convenient, accepted Yue Ding heart wishing to participate in the poverty alleviation programme, so they commmissioned a positive image, is scheduled to speak at relevant commendation published in relevant journals, and charitable deeds, has appeared 38 times ask for or accept a Yue Ding of property amounted to the equivalent of more than 40 million Yuan.Crime of fraudFan Zengyu to help repay $ 3.9 million by deception from the Yue Ding Yuan.In December 2010, Yue Ding by the relevant authorities investigation, Fan Zengyu posing as leaders, contact mobile phone messages with Yue Ding, Yue Ding cheated hearts 2 million Yuan and 200,000 euros (approximately equivalent to 1.8 million dollars).December
new year's day, when Yue Ding to take compulsory measures are known, Fan Zengyu's subordinate Zhang Yue Ding heart lied about relationship awareness leading to dredge for Yue Ding, Zhang cheated property amounted to the equivalent of more than 8.9 million Yuan.(Original title: the State Council poverty alleviation Office official collects 60 million trial)January 10, 2014 The Beijing News(国务院扶贫办官员敛财6000万受审 涉丁书苗案|丁书苗|范增玉|扶贫办_新闻资讯 新京报讯 (记者张媛)因涉嫌贪污、受贿、诈骗，昨日，国务院扶贫办外资项目管理中心原主任范增玉在市一中院受审。 据了解，检方指控的范增玉涉案金额共约6000万，除一笔10万外，其他均与山西女商人丁羽心(曾用名丁书苗)有关。 案件曾两次延长审限 昨日9时许，范增玉案开庭，媒体未能获准入内。 据了解，日，经市一分检批准，范增玉因涉嫌贪污、受贿被警方刑拘，后被检方被捕。案件侦办中，办案机关又发现范增玉有涉嫌诈骗情节。当年12月18日，警方对其涉嫌诈骗罪立案侦查。随后，因部分事实不清、证据不足，此案被退回补充侦查一次，延长审查期限两次。 此次检方指控范增玉涉嫌的三项罪名，涉案金额约6000万元，其中除一笔10万外，其他均与原铁道部部长刘志军案关键人物之一的丁羽心有关。 捞人骗钱上演落井下石 范增玉与丁羽心是在2008年汶川地震后认识。 范增玉到案后称，丁羽心为扩大自己和企业的知名度送钱拉拢他，他曾给丁出主意，比如“多捐款，引起国家领导人的注意”。 丁羽心因涉嫌非法经营罪和行贿罪在市二中院受审时称，她和范增玉刚认识就捐了一笔钱，此后两年间，曾在范增玉主动索要下陆续捐款，范增玉曾安排她出席慈善大会并发言。在一系列活动后，她很快成为了一名民营企业慈善家，在2009年以9000万的捐款跻身福布斯中国慈善榜第六名，迅速打开了名气。 有材料显示，因帮助丁羽心“出名”，范增玉先后38次索要或收受丁羽心财物共计折合人民币4000余万元。2010年3月，丁羽心准备出国看儿子时在机场被限制出境，其感到“危险”在逼近。从那时起直至2011年6月被刑拘，她又通过范增玉打探消息、运作“解套”。 据办案机关了解，范增玉非但没能“疏通关系”让丁羽心脱困，反而冒充有关领导给丁羽心发短信，以疏通关系名义，继续从丁羽心或她手下处骗钱。 目前，范增玉案尚在审理中。 检方指控 贪污罪 2009年底，范增玉利用担任国务院扶贫开发领导小组办公室外资项目管理中心主任和负责处理扶贫办培训中心业务欠款的职务便利，将丁羽心向扶贫办捐赠的人民币260万元据为己有。 受贿罪 范增玉受人请托为子女安排在国务院扶贫办外资中心工作，收受他人人民币10万元。 2009年至2010年，范增玉利用担任扶贫办外资中心主任的职务便利，接受丁羽心希望参与扶贫项目、树立正面形象的请托，为其安排在有关表彰会上发言、在有关刊物上刊登慈善事迹等，先后38次索要或者收受丁羽心的财物共计折合人民币4000余万元。 诈骗罪 范增玉以帮助归还欠款为名从丁羽心处骗取390万元。 2010年12月间，在丁羽心被有关部门调查后，范增玉冒充有关领导，与丁羽心进行手机短信息联系，先后骗取丁羽心人民币200万元和20万欧元(约折合人民币180万元)。 2010年12月底至2011年春节，得知丁羽心被采取强制措施后，范增玉对丁羽心的下属张某谎称认识有关领导可为丁羽心疏通关系，先后骗取张某财物共计折合人民币890余万元。(原标题：国务院扶贫办一官员敛财6000万受审)日02:39新京报)
Copyright (C)2011-
, Inc. All rights reserved.Socialism on Trial
Socialism on Trial
The courtroom testimony of James P. Cannon
Break with Stalinism, formation of SWP
What socialism means
Capitalism’s internal contradictions
The SWP’s Declaration of Princples
Conditions for a socialist revolution
The class struggle under capitalism
Capitalists responsible for violence
Attitude to the state
Internationalist to the very core
The party and the trade unions
Imperialist war
War and revolution
Party’s proletarian military policy
Attitude to the Russian Revolution
Violence and the Russian Revolution
Differences between Stalin and Trotsky
Marxism a guide to action
Party’s attitude to Lenin
SWP and Trotsky
Party advocates workers defence guards
Expropriation of capitalist class
America’s ‘Sixty Families’
Capitalists will restrict democratic rights
‘The same way Lincoln did’
Workers army after revolution
‘Will not give political support to war’
Rights of rank and file soldiers
Legality of the Russian Revolution
Defence Policy in the Minneapolis Trial:
A Criticism by Grandizo Munis
Defence Policy in the Minneapolis Trial:
Political Principles and Propaganda
Methods by James P. Cannon
1. Our strategy in the trial
2. The setting of the trial
3. Violence and the transition to socialism
4. Is it correct to say we prefer a peaceful transition?
5. ‘Submitting to the majority’
6. Marxism and war
7. Marxism and sabotage
8. Defensive formulations and the organisation of action
Speech on the Way to Prison by James P. Cannon
Traditions and Guiding Ideas of the SWP in Defence Activities
by George Novack
Appendix: The Capitalist Witch-Hunt—And How to Fight It
Resolution of the SWP NC, February 1950
Totalitarian methods used
The aim—war and fascism
Role of the union bureaucracy
Treachery of the Stalinist leaders
Growing resistance to the witch-hunt
‘Critical’ supporters and opponents
Capitalism, Stalinism and democracy
Unconditional defence of all victims
SWP champions solidarity policy
No dependence on capitalist state
Government shields fascist elements
How to fight fascism
Program and perspective
Introduction
By Dave Holmes
Almost 60 years ago in the United States, in 1941, there took
place in Minneapolis, in the mid-western state of Minnesota, the
most famous political trial of the wartime period. Twenty-eight
socialist and union activists were charged with plotting the
violent overthrow of the US government.
Most of those indicted were members of the US Trotskyist
organisation, the Socialist Workers Party, including its national
secretary, James P. Cannon. The party had a long history of
militant and effective work in the Minneapolis labor movement. It
used its positions there to conduct a forceful campaign against
the war drive of US imperialism. Through the trial, the
government aimed to silence the most radical and determined
antiwar voice.
The Minneapolis “sedition” trial and the
SWP’s heroic struggle against it contain some enduring
lessons for socialists, which speak to us across the decades.
This book brings together a number of materials relating to this
episode and the general question of defending civil liberties
against government and rightist attacks.
“Socialism on Trial”, Cannon’s verbatim
courtroom testimony, is a clear and inspiring exposition of the
Marxist view of capitalism, war and revolution—all the more
remarkable for the circumstances in which it was given.
“Defence Policy in the Minneapolis Trial” contains
Cannon’s subsequent defence of the party’s line
during the trial against the ultraleft criticisms of exiled
Spanish Trotskyist Grandizo Munis. It is a masterful explanation
of how socialists struggle to win mass support for radical social
change. The third contemporary document here is Cannon’s
powerful 1943 farewell “Speech on the Way to
Prison”.
George Novack’s 1968 article explains the key principles
followed by the SWP in defending its rights against capitalist
attacks. Novack, a longtime SWP leader with an extensive
involvement in defence work, recounts how the party built a broad
and effective campaign against the Minneapolis frame-up trial. He
also discusses the cold war McCarthyite witch-hunt of the later
forties and fifties and the SWP’s fight against it. A 1950
party resolution appended here amplifies these points.
Today, the capitalist class is relentlessly pushing forward
with an ever-harsher austerity drive. All along the line, the
gains won by working people in over a century of struggle are
under attack. Whatever the conjunctural situation, this is not a
period of broad expansion of civil liberties and workers’
on the contrary, we can expect them to come under
increasing pressure. In such a context, this volume contains
invaluable lessons for socialists and all those fighting for a
better world.
Against imperialist war
The war question was at the heart of the government’s
attack on the SWP.
While the Allied involvement in World War II has always been
presented in propaganda and popular culture as a struggle for
democracy against fascism, the truth is radically different.
In the modern era, militarism and war is an outgrowth of
imperialist capitalism. The imperialist powers and the giant
corporations whose interests they defend struggle for control of
markets and sources of raw materials and spheres of domination
and influence.
Thus World War I was essentially a contest between dynamic but
late-developing German imperialism, which had largely been left
behind in the scramble for colonies, and the old imperialist
powers, Britain and France, with their vast empires of colonial
slaves. The US entered the conflict late in the day, as the main
antagonists were severely weakened, and established its
preeminent position in world economics and politics.
But the “war to end all wars” could do no such
thing. The underlying causes of the conflict remained. US
imperialism was driving, then as now, for world domination (what
would later be called by its ideologists the “American
century”). This drive ran up against the similar ambitions
of German imperialism (Hitler’s “thousand-year
Reich”). In the Far East, US and Japanese interests
collided. A second global conflict was inevitable.
The SWP opposed the war drive being conducted by US
imperialism under the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Democratic president since 1933. The party explained that the
coming war had nothing to do with democracy but everything to do
with increasing the wealth and power of the “Sixty
Families”—the Duponts, Morgans, Rockefellers and so
on—who controlled the country. It would be marked by
attacks on wages and working conditions and trade union and
democratic rights. The labor movement should not fall in behind
the patriotic bandwagon but should defend itself as energetically
as possible.
Of course, along with the clash of rival imperialist blocs,
what has become known as World War II contained other wars and
the SWP’s attitude to these was different.
In 1937, semicolonial China was attacked by Japanese
imperialism. China’s struggle against foreign enslavement
was a just and progressive one and the SWP fully supported it.
The party also gave unqualified support to the liberation
struggles of other colonial peoples, whether against Japanese
occupying forces or against their European colonial masters.
Nazi ideology had always argued that Germany should seek an
empire to the east, principally by attacking the Soviet Union.
The onslaught came on June 22, 1941. The involvement of the USSR
and the heroic resistance of the Soviet people introduced a new
element into the global picture. Despite its irreconcilable
opposition to Stalinism, the SWP had always made it clear that it
would unconditionally support the USSR in a conflict with
imperialism and it never wavered from this stand. In fact, in
1939-40, a struggle in the SWP to defend this position resulted
in a deep split with some 40 per cent of the membership following
Max Schachtman and James Burnham out of the party.
A major question facing the SWP in relation to the coming war
was what attitude it should take toward conscription. In a
situation where most workers accepted the government’s
propaganda about a war for democracy against Hitler, conscription
was widely accepted and the party rejected pacifist and ultraleft
calls for young men to refuse to be drafted. Such individual
moral stands were futile and would simply cut the party off from
any chance of influencing the millions of workers in uniform. The
party sought to wage the fight, not around the issue of the
draft, but around democratic rights inside the army—the
right of the soldiers to have an opinion about the war and be
able to discuss it, the right to elect their officers and so
Struggle in Minneapolis
The SWP was a small force in the labor and radical movement
but it was very well led and had some impressive accomplishments
to its credit. Certainly, the ruling class and its government in
Washington were far from ignoring it.
With scores of thousands of members and supporters, the
Stalinist Communist Party was much bigger. During the period of
the Stalin-Hitler pact—from September 1939 to the June 1941
attack on the USSR—the CP was antiwar but with the Nazi
invasion it swung 100 per cent behind Roosevelt’s war
That left the SWP as the most intransigent antiwar force. An
important part of the government’s war preparations was to
intimidate and cripple any serious opposition at home.
In the course of the 1930s, the party had built up strong
positions in the labor movement in Minneapolis. Its influence was
centred in the Teamsters union which organised workers in the
trucking industry.
Two great strikes in 1934 first established the SWP as a force
in the local union movement and gave it national prominence and
recognition. The story of these great class battles and the
subsequent struggle to defend and extend the gains made is
chronicled and analysed in Farrell Dobbs’ excellent four
books—Teamster Rebellion, Teamster Power, Teamster
Politics and Teamster Bureaucracy (Monad Press: New
York, , 1975 and 1977). James P. Cannon’s
History of American Trotskyism (Pathfinder Press: New
York, 1972) also has a fine account of the great strikes and the
party’s role in them.
As the capitalist war drive intensified in the later 1930s,
the party stepped up its antiwar efforts, especially through its
editorship of the weekly newspaper of the Minneapolis Teamsters,
the Northwest Organizr.e
The Minneapolis Teamsters Local 544 belonged to the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters headed by Daniel J. Tobin,
a notorious case-hardened bureaucrat who was also head of the
Democratic Party Labor Committee. In turn, the IBT belonged to
the conservative American Federation of Labor. This began as an
organisation of craft unions but under the pressure of the 1930s
crisis it also incorporated some industrial formations like Local
544. The AFL was also under some pressure from the rising
Committee of Industrial Organizations, a much more dynamic,
progressive, industrially-based body.
Ever since it came under the leadership of SWP cadres, Local
544 had had a conflict-ridden relationship with IBT boss Tobin.
In 1941, for his own reasons and as a service to Roosevelt, Tobin
sought to eliminate the militant, antiwar leadership of the
Minneapolis Teamsters. On June 9, just as Tobin was moving to
place the local under receivership, it voted to leave the IBT and
the AFL and affiliate to the CIO. In turn, this precipitated a
full-scale government witch-hunt against the union and the SWP as
Roosevelt rushed to help Tobin and at the same time crush a
militant antiwar voice.
Government frame-up
On June 27—five days after Hitler invaded the
USSR—FBI agents raided the offices of the SWP in
Minneapolis and the twin-city of St. Paul, carting off large
quantities of (perfectly legal) socialist literature.
On July 15, a Federal grand jury indicted 29 union and SWP
members. There were two counts to the indictment. The first,
based on the 1861 Sedition Act, a Civil War measure aimed against
the Southern slaveholders and their agents—and never before
used!—charged that the defendants conspired “to
overthrow, put down and to destroy by force the Government of the
United States of America, and to oppose by force the authority
thereof ... The defendants would seek to bring about, whenever
the time seemed propitious, an armed revolution ...”
The second count, based on the 1940 Smith Act, a reactionary
and controversial law which criminalised the mere espousal of
ideas, charged the defendants with advocating the overthrow of
the government by force and violence and urging insubordination
in the armed forces.
The trial began in the Federal District Court in Minneapolis
on October 27, 1941. The state side was unable to produce any
proof of conspiracy, its “evidence” consisting mainly
of public statements by the party and its leaders.
Although the government gained the result it sought, it was a
somewhat dubious victory. After 56 hours of deliberation, the
jury found the 23 defendants then remaining not guilty on the
first count and five were found not guilty on the second count
also. It found 18 defendants guilty on the second but added a
recommendation for leniency. They were sentenced on December 8,
;the day the US declared war on Japan. Twelve of the
defendants received 16-month sentences and the rest 12-month
The 18 convicted Trotskyists included Cannon, the SWP’s
Farrell D Albert Goldman, the
party’s lawyer who conducted the courtroom defence in
M and one woman, Grace Carlson.
The 18 remained free on bail for another year while various
appeals were made. They began their sentences on December 31,
1943. While 14 of the men served their time as a group in the
federal penitentiary at Sandstone in Minnesota, Grace Carlson was
isolated in the federal women’s prison in Alderson in West
V another group of three was confined in Danbury in
Connecticut. The last prisoners were released in February
Political defence
As is clear from the record of Cannon’s courtroom
cross-examination by both Goldman and the government prosecutors,
the party’s defence against the charges was guided above
all by its political objectives, to which purely legal
considerations took second place. The party sought to use the
trial as a platform to get a sympathetic hearing for its ideas
from broader circles of workers and the radical public.
Cannon’s testimony and Goldman’s concluding address,
for instance, were issued as pamphlets and widely circulated and
the SWP’s weekly newspaper, The Militant,
extensively reported the government attack and the party’s
real record as a vanguard fighter for the rights of working
The SWP’s trial strategy and conduct were criticised by
Grandizo Munis. Cannon’s exhaustive rebuttal,
“Political Principles and Propaganda Methods” (also
published as What Policy for Revolutionists—Marxism or
Ultraleftism) is a classic of Marxism, in the same spirit as
Lenin’s ‘Left-Wing’ Communism—An
Infantile Disorder. Cannon explains the concrete political
setting of the trial—above all, the state of working class
consciousness in the US on the eve of the war—and the
party’s objectives flowing from that, the Marxist view of
violence and sabotage in the class struggle, how the party
strives to win majority support for the program of socialism and
the crucial role of defensive formulations in winning that
As George Novack outlines in the 1968 talk included in this
volume, the SWP went all out to defend itself, especially through
the broad Civil Rights Defence Committee. From the time of the
original grand jury indictments in mid-1941 until the last
prisoner was released in early 1945, party activity revolved
around defence work. The CRDC won wide support in the labor and
radical movement, with many labor unions and officials expressing
their opposition to the conviction of the 18 Trotskyists.
Despite this growing support, a widespread recognition of the
significance of the case and extensive disquiet about the
constitutionality of the Smith Act, the Supreme Court three times
refused to review the conviction of the 18. In his farewell
speech, included in this volume, Cannon powerfully denounces
capitalist justice and lashes the hypocrisy of the Supreme Court
judges and their subservience to the ruling class.
The Stalinist Communist Party applauded the government assault
on the Trotskyists. With their fanatically pro-war, pro-Roosevelt
position, the Stalinists were blind to any considerations of
working-class solidarity, let alone any thought that one day they
might be the object of capitalist persecution.
Of course, the alliance of the capitalist West and the USSR
hardly survived the end of the war. The Cold War against the
Soviet Union was launched in earnest in 1947 and in the US a deep
and pervasive witch-hunt was instituted. It fell especially
heavily on the Stalinists—but it was far from being
restricted to them. As scores of its leaders were indicted and
jailed, the CP was virtually friendless, due in no small measure
to its shameful conduct during the war.
*  *  *
A full account of the witch-hunt against Local 544 and the SWP
and the Minneapolis “sedition trial” and its
aftermath can be found in Teamster Bureaucracy, the
fourth volume of Farrell Dobbs’ quartet. The selection of
Cannon’s wartime writings, The Socialist Workers Party
in World War II (Pathfinder Press: New York, 1975), includes
material dealing with the Minneapolis struggle as well as the
party’s efforts to defend itself against government
harassment on other fronts. And, finally, there is Cannon’s
extremely instructive and inspiring Letters From Prison
(Pathfinder Press: New York, 1994), proof that he did not waste
his period of incarceration.
Those wanting an overview of Cannon’s life and work, as
well as an analysis of the more recent evolution of the SWP, can
consult Dave Holmes et al, Building the Revolutionary Party:
An Introduction to James P. Cannon (Resistance Books:
Chippendale, 1997).
*  *  *
Minor stylistic and spelling changes have been made to the
texts for ease of reading. Similarly, the subheads in
Cannon’s courtroom testimony have been inserted by the
editors. All quotations have been checked and the sources
indicated in the endnotes.
