Third Camp Marxism

The dispute over attitudes to the "Bay of Pigs" invasion was the first sharp break on a big world-political issue which separated the ageing Max Shachtman from long-time co-thinkers such as Hal Draper and Julius Jacobson.

This pamphlet, published by Draper in May 1961, presents the dispute.

Click here to download pdf (which includes excerpts from the contemporary press not transcribed below, giving factual background on the invasion).

Contents and note

Warsaw belongs to those heroic and
martyrized cities like Stalingrad.
London, Budapest and Berlin that
marked turning points in the war.
But Warsaw is distinguished from
these other cities by this—that the
imperialist war passed through War-
saw at its beginning, at its climax,
and at its end, leaving in its wake
dead and barbarous ruins that have
not been seen since the remote times
of Attila and Genghis Khan.
When Hitler invaded Poland, it was
Warsaw which bore the whole weight

Dedicate May Day 1945 to - a new world of socialism!

MANIFESTO OF THE WORKERS PARTY

Working Men and Working Women: This May Day, 1945, arrives at a time when civilization stands on the edge of disaster. The war, rapidly approaching conclusion in Europe and with a swifter than anticipated defeat of Japan in the offing, has shown the dual tendencies in capitalism: its tremendous capacity to create the means of abundance; its equally tremendous capabilities of destruction.

The world is paying dearly for the isolation of the Russian
Revolution, paying in blood and sweat, and tears and in car-
nage and destruction such as history records nowhere else.
The Bolshevik Revolution of November, 1917, opened up a
new eporh for mankind. It contained, the promise of a life of
security and peace, of abundance and brotherhood, of equality
among men in a world freed of classes and class rule. What no
other social upheaval before it had even dared to hope for, the

The program of the anti-Communist revolution in Eastern Europe can be summed up in one word: democracy. And its content can be summed up in one phrase: democratic socialism.

Today this can be asserted not as a hypothesis, a theory or a hope, but as a fact demonstrated and confirmed by every one of the great revolutionary movements which have challenged the rule of the Stalinist bureaucracy for the past decade and a half.

We present a day-by-day diary of the greatest strike movement which has yet taken place in the Nazi-occupied countries. It was written by a man who. Escaped from Noray. We think that this diary in its simplicity gives a better picture of Europe than ever-so many elaborate articles.It should be remembered, however, that events like this are as yet the exception and that in general the class struggle has not yet taken on such acute form.

Max Shachtman, national chairman of the Workers Party, before the Loyalty Board of the United States Department of Commerce, on January 14 1949.

MAX SHACHTMAN was called as a witness, was duly sworn, and testified as follows:

DIRECT EXAMINATION

By Chairman Short:

Q. Will you state your full name to the reporter?

A. Max Shachtman.

By Mr. Migdal:

Q. Mr. Shachtman, will you identify yourself please, for the Board?

A. I am National Chairman of the Workers Party.

Q. Do you know T.?

A. I met him this morning

Click here to download as pdf
Click here to download as mobi
Click here to download as epub

I: Why did Cliff traduce Shachtman? (Workers' Liberty 62)
II: Was Stalinism the new barbarism? (Workers' Liberty 66)
III: Attitude towards the Communist Parties (Workers' Liberty 2/1)

I: Why did Cliff traduce Shachtman?

American capitalism and its democratic pretensions have received a serious jolt from the Negro people in the United States. Following the Czechoslovakian events [The Stalinist Coup of February 1948] . President Truman gave the signal for a leap in war preparations under the banner of “democracy and freedom.’’

I: 5 September 1939

The Hitler-Stalin pact is the most sensational news to come out of Moscow in many years.

Up to yesterday, it was the general belief that Stalin was moving heaven and earth in an earnest attempt to establish a “peace front” of the “democracies” against the “fascist aggressors”, especially against Fascist Germany.