Third Camp Marxism

Two distinct currents emerged after 1940 from the Trotskyism of Trotsky. The “official” “orthodox” Trotskyism of James P Cannon, E Mandel, Michel Pablo, Gerry Healy, Ted Grant, etc.

History records no greater crime than that of the Stalinist regime in its treatment of the victims in the concentration camps. Hitler's methods were not original. They ran parallel with, if they were not mere copies of those utilized by Stalin. If Hitler sent millions of people, primarily the Jews, into the gas chambers, the Russian camps have crushed, dehumanised and done to death more victims than all other concentration camps combined. For a time the war brought a decrease in the slave labor population of the lagers, as Stalin's hell-holes are called.

Introduction (2010)

Stalinism dominated and shaped the would-be left for two thirds of the 20th century.

Its consequences still warp and shape much of the would-be left, including organisations that are ostensibly anti-Stalinist. To a surprising extent, the left has still not properly come to terms with the lessons of Stalinism.

This review was originally published by the Labor and Working-Class History Association, and appears on their website here. To orders copies of the book, click here.

Ed's note, 1947:
From an Irish comrade, living in Dublin, we have received the following account of the problems facing the revolutionists of that country. We print below extracts from his interesting letter.

Issac Deutscher published his biography of Stalin 16 years ago. Since then he has produced a small book on Russian trade unions, several collections of essays and lectures, a three-volume biography of Trotsky and scores of newspaper and magazine articles analyzing contemporary developments in the Communist world.

From The Militant, July 16, 1951

The US Army which won World War Two, and prided itself on its victory over the Nazi racists, was itself segregated.

THE publication of the book The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham has caused a considerable stir in numerous circles. The book, shrouded with an aura of mystery, is receiving a clever publicity campaign designed to make it sell in large quantities. Here at last, the publishers say, has come a man who not only explains many things about our world which is not widely understood, but provides an answer as to what will be the character of the future society.

Ernest Rice McKinney (1886-1984) was a black US trade union organiser, revolutionary socialist and former National Secretary of the Third Camp Workers Party USA.

Born in Malden, in West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley, McKinney’s father was a coal miner and later a teacher as was McKinney’s mother. McKinney Sr. eventually landed a job at the US Treasury through his involvement in the Republican Party, which had widespread black support in the decades after the American Civil War.