James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928
by Bryan D. Palmer
University of Illinois Press, 2010 Cloth: 978-0-252-03109-0 | eISBN: 978-0-252-09208-4 | Paper: 978-0-252-07722-7 Library of Congress Classification HX84.C36P35 2007 Dewey Decimal Classification 320.532092
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Bryan D. Palmer's award-winning study of James P. Cannon's early years (1890-1928) details how the life of a Wobbly hobo agitator gave way to leadership in the emerging communist underground of the 1919 era. This historical drama unfolds alongside the life experiences of a native son of United States radicalism, the narrative moving from Rosedale, Kansas to Chicago, New York, and Moscow. Written with panache, Palmer's richly detailed book situates American communism's formative decade of the 1920s in the dynamics of a specific political and economic context. Our understanding of the indigenous currents of the American revolutionary left is widened, just as appreciation of the complex nature of its interaction with international forces is deepened.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Bryan D. Palmer is the Canada Research Chair at Trent University. He edits Labour/Le Travail and is the author of ten other books, the most recent being Canada's 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era.
REVIEWS
"Palmer's biography is destined to become a classic in the historiography of US Communism. It is the most serious treatment of the Communist movement's history in the 1920s since Draper's two volumes appeared approximately 50 years ago. . . . Palmer is currently preparing the second volume of his Cannon biography, chronicling the subject's Trotskyist years. I can hardly wait to read it."--Left History
"Palmer's faithful, moving account of the choices Cannon faced has important lessons for us. One of those lessons is that, even as we weigh the decisions the choices and hopes of previous radical generations, we need to attend to our own imperatives and dreams."--Canadian Dimension
"An important contribution to the study of American radicalism."--Journal of American History
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Communist Can(n)on
Questioning American Radicalism
Stalinism: What¿s in a Name
American Communism: Histories of Ambivalence and
Accomplishment
At the Point of Embattled Historiographic Production: The
Meanings of Theodore Draper
The Three Drapers
Communist Biography and Stalinism: James P. Cannon and the
Origins of the American Revolutionary Left
1. Rosedale Roots: Facts and Fictions
An American Birth
Fin-de-Siècle Context: Kansas in a World of Change
In the Shadow of the Irish Diaspora: England and America
The Industrial Frontier
Family Fortunes
A Boy¿s Life
Meanings
2. Youth¿s Discoveries
Mothers and Fathers and Adolescent Work
Early Encounters with Socialism
Education and the Discovery of Desire
The Limitations of Rosedale Socialism
3. Hobo Rebel/Homeguard
A Soapbox Apprenticeship
Traveling Man: A Vincent St. John Seasoning
Anarchy in Akron: Rubber Workers and the Mass Strike, 1913
Fast-Train Hoboing and Hell Popping in Peoria
A Solidarity of the Jail Cell: Marriage
Duluth and the Testing of Class-War Leadership: Gunmen,
Kidnappings, and Beatings
The Home Front: Cannon Back in Kansas
World War I and Revolutionary Doubt
The Personal Is Political: Radical Manhood
The IWW: The Great Anticipation
4. Red Dawn
1917: Revolution in the East; Repression in the West
Socialist Revival
A Revived Class Struggle
Browder and Cannon
A Revolutionary Press
A Fractious Left Wing
Foreign-Language Federations and the Dialectic of
Revolutionary Mobilization
Cannon and the Communist Labor Party
The Agitator¿s Return: Kansas Coal Fields, 1919
Caught in the Anti-Red Dragnet
5. Underground
A Suit of Clothes
The Divided Communist Underground
Bridgman Brokering: The Emergence of Cannon as a Potential
Communist Leader
A Cleveland Sojourn: Challenging Ultraleftism
New York: Bohemians and Clandestine Communists
Cannon, Consolidation, and an Above-Ground Party: Kansas
Charm and the Politics of Revolutionary Regroupment
6. Geese in Flight
Founding the Workers¿ Party
Undergroundism Unreconstructed
Cannon and the Struggle for an Activist Communist Party,
1922
The Birth of the Goose Caucus and the Turn to Moscow
7. Pepper Spray
The Americanizer¿s Return to America
Cannon on the Road Again: The Push and Pull of Party
Assignment
Pogany/Pepper
Communists Outmaneuver Themselves: Farmer-Labor Party
Illusions and Intrigues, 1923
Cannon, Foster, and Trade Union Combination, 1923
Pepperism Rampant
The Romance of Politics
The Third National Convention of the Workers¿ Party,
1923¿1924
8. Stalinist Suspensions
Of Factions and Foreign Domination
Labor Organization, Communist Education, and Sustaining
Collective Leadership
Blind Spot: ¿Women¿s Work¿
Race and Revolution
Pepper, Bureaucratism, and Permanent Factionalism
Farmer-Laborism, Again
Factionalism¿s Enigmatic Fulcrum: Ludwig Lore
Comintern Changes
Bolshevization and Electoral Campaigns
Lore, Escalating Anti-Trotskyism, and Factional Stalemate,
1924
Return to Moscow and Comintern Degeneration, 1925
¿Tearing Each Other to Pieces¿: Factional Gang War
Of Cables and Comintern Men: American Communism¿s Decisive
Subordination
9. Labor Defender
Bolshevization and Leninist Mass Work
Labor Defense and the Shifting Nature of Communist Trade
Union Work, 1923¿1926
¿Professionalizing¿ Nonsectarian Labor Defense
Press and Propaganda
Class-War Prisoners
Sacco and Vanzetti
Factionalism¿s Toll, 1927¿1928
10. Living with Lovestone
A Cannon Faction to End Factionalism, 1926
Ongoing Stalinization
Regrouping a Collective Leadership
Ruthenberg¿s Death and the Lovestone Coup
Stalinism and Lovestone Becoming Lovestone, 1927
The Lovestone Regime: A Right Lurch, 1927¿1928
11. Expulsion
Cannon and the Corridor Congress, 1928
The Temporary Eclipse of Foster
Cannon and a Canadian: Maurice Spector
Trotsky¿s Draft Program Surfaces
The Cannon-Dunne Split
A Clandestine Cannon
American Trotskyism Underground
Antoinette Konikow: Boston¿s Red Birth-Control Advocate and
Pioneer Left Oppositionist
Piecing Together Possibilities of an American Left
Opposition
Flushing the Trotskyists Out
Before the Court of Lovestone
¿Three Generals without an Army¿: Under Attack
How Communist Party Repression Organized Early American
Trotskyism
Chicago and Minneapolis: Centers of a New Movement
Trotskyism and the Communist Party: An Uncertain Future,
1928
Conclusion: James P. Cannon, the United States Revolutionary
Movement, and the End of an Age of Innocence
Revolution and Reaction
Communism¿s First Decade: The End of an Age of Revolutionary
Innocence
Stalinism at Work
Cannon and the Struggle for a Left Oppositionist Practice
Cannon¿s Legacy: The Theory and Practice of Building a
Revolutionary Party
Communist Continuity: The Significance of Revolutionary
Subjectivity
Notes
Index
James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928
by Bryan D. Palmer
University of Illinois Press, 2010 Cloth: 978-0-252-03109-0 eISBN: 978-0-252-09208-4 Paper: 978-0-252-07722-7
Bryan D. Palmer's award-winning study of James P. Cannon's early years (1890-1928) details how the life of a Wobbly hobo agitator gave way to leadership in the emerging communist underground of the 1919 era. This historical drama unfolds alongside the life experiences of a native son of United States radicalism, the narrative moving from Rosedale, Kansas to Chicago, New York, and Moscow. Written with panache, Palmer's richly detailed book situates American communism's formative decade of the 1920s in the dynamics of a specific political and economic context. Our understanding of the indigenous currents of the American revolutionary left is widened, just as appreciation of the complex nature of its interaction with international forces is deepened.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Bryan D. Palmer is the Canada Research Chair at Trent University. He edits Labour/Le Travail and is the author of ten other books, the most recent being Canada's 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era.
REVIEWS
"Palmer's biography is destined to become a classic in the historiography of US Communism. It is the most serious treatment of the Communist movement's history in the 1920s since Draper's two volumes appeared approximately 50 years ago. . . . Palmer is currently preparing the second volume of his Cannon biography, chronicling the subject's Trotskyist years. I can hardly wait to read it."--Left History
"Palmer's faithful, moving account of the choices Cannon faced has important lessons for us. One of those lessons is that, even as we weigh the decisions the choices and hopes of previous radical generations, we need to attend to our own imperatives and dreams."--Canadian Dimension
"An important contribution to the study of American radicalism."--Journal of American History
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Communist Can(n)on
Questioning American Radicalism
Stalinism: What¿s in a Name
American Communism: Histories of Ambivalence and
Accomplishment
At the Point of Embattled Historiographic Production: The
Meanings of Theodore Draper
The Three Drapers
Communist Biography and Stalinism: James P. Cannon and the
Origins of the American Revolutionary Left
1. Rosedale Roots: Facts and Fictions
An American Birth
Fin-de-Siècle Context: Kansas in a World of Change
In the Shadow of the Irish Diaspora: England and America
The Industrial Frontier
Family Fortunes
A Boy¿s Life
Meanings
2. Youth¿s Discoveries
Mothers and Fathers and Adolescent Work
Early Encounters with Socialism
Education and the Discovery of Desire
The Limitations of Rosedale Socialism
3. Hobo Rebel/Homeguard
A Soapbox Apprenticeship
Traveling Man: A Vincent St. John Seasoning
Anarchy in Akron: Rubber Workers and the Mass Strike, 1913
Fast-Train Hoboing and Hell Popping in Peoria
A Solidarity of the Jail Cell: Marriage
Duluth and the Testing of Class-War Leadership: Gunmen,
Kidnappings, and Beatings
The Home Front: Cannon Back in Kansas
World War I and Revolutionary Doubt
The Personal Is Political: Radical Manhood
The IWW: The Great Anticipation
4. Red Dawn
1917: Revolution in the East; Repression in the West
Socialist Revival
A Revived Class Struggle
Browder and Cannon
A Revolutionary Press
A Fractious Left Wing
Foreign-Language Federations and the Dialectic of
Revolutionary Mobilization
Cannon and the Communist Labor Party
The Agitator¿s Return: Kansas Coal Fields, 1919
Caught in the Anti-Red Dragnet
5. Underground
A Suit of Clothes
The Divided Communist Underground
Bridgman Brokering: The Emergence of Cannon as a Potential
Communist Leader
A Cleveland Sojourn: Challenging Ultraleftism
New York: Bohemians and Clandestine Communists
Cannon, Consolidation, and an Above-Ground Party: Kansas
Charm and the Politics of Revolutionary Regroupment
6. Geese in Flight
Founding the Workers¿ Party
Undergroundism Unreconstructed
Cannon and the Struggle for an Activist Communist Party,
1922
The Birth of the Goose Caucus and the Turn to Moscow
7. Pepper Spray
The Americanizer¿s Return to America
Cannon on the Road Again: The Push and Pull of Party
Assignment
Pogany/Pepper
Communists Outmaneuver Themselves: Farmer-Labor Party
Illusions and Intrigues, 1923
Cannon, Foster, and Trade Union Combination, 1923
Pepperism Rampant
The Romance of Politics
The Third National Convention of the Workers¿ Party,
1923¿1924
8. Stalinist Suspensions
Of Factions and Foreign Domination
Labor Organization, Communist Education, and Sustaining
Collective Leadership
Blind Spot: ¿Women¿s Work¿
Race and Revolution
Pepper, Bureaucratism, and Permanent Factionalism
Farmer-Laborism, Again
Factionalism¿s Enigmatic Fulcrum: Ludwig Lore
Comintern Changes
Bolshevization and Electoral Campaigns
Lore, Escalating Anti-Trotskyism, and Factional Stalemate,
1924
Return to Moscow and Comintern Degeneration, 1925
¿Tearing Each Other to Pieces¿: Factional Gang War
Of Cables and Comintern Men: American Communism¿s Decisive
Subordination
9. Labor Defender
Bolshevization and Leninist Mass Work
Labor Defense and the Shifting Nature of Communist Trade
Union Work, 1923¿1926
¿Professionalizing¿ Nonsectarian Labor Defense
Press and Propaganda
Class-War Prisoners
Sacco and Vanzetti
Factionalism¿s Toll, 1927¿1928
10. Living with Lovestone
A Cannon Faction to End Factionalism, 1926
Ongoing Stalinization
Regrouping a Collective Leadership
Ruthenberg¿s Death and the Lovestone Coup
Stalinism and Lovestone Becoming Lovestone, 1927
The Lovestone Regime: A Right Lurch, 1927¿1928
11. Expulsion
Cannon and the Corridor Congress, 1928
The Temporary Eclipse of Foster
Cannon and a Canadian: Maurice Spector
Trotsky¿s Draft Program Surfaces
The Cannon-Dunne Split
A Clandestine Cannon
American Trotskyism Underground
Antoinette Konikow: Boston¿s Red Birth-Control Advocate and
Pioneer Left Oppositionist
Piecing Together Possibilities of an American Left
Opposition
Flushing the Trotskyists Out
Before the Court of Lovestone
¿Three Generals without an Army¿: Under Attack
How Communist Party Repression Organized Early American
Trotskyism
Chicago and Minneapolis: Centers of a New Movement
Trotskyism and the Communist Party: An Uncertain Future,
1928
Conclusion: James P. Cannon, the United States Revolutionary
Movement, and the End of an Age of Innocence
Revolution and Reaction
Communism¿s First Decade: The End of an Age of Revolutionary
Innocence
Stalinism at Work
Cannon and the Struggle for a Left Oppositionist Practice
Cannon¿s Legacy: The Theory and Practice of Building a
Revolutionary Party
Communist Continuity: The Significance of Revolutionary
Subjectivity
Notes
Index
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
