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Book reviews for "Cannon,_James_P." sorted by average review score:

The Socialist Workers Party in World War II: James P. Cannon Writings and Speeches, 1940-43
Published in Hardcover by Pathfinder Press (1975)
Author: James Patrick Cannon
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The second interimperialist slaughter
We are commonly told that World War II was the 'good war.' That maybe Vietnam was 'bad,' but in World War II, the US was fighting against fascism and for freedom. This book will force anyone to reexamine that view and come to a more realistic idea of what the second World War was all about--groups of imperialist countries fighting to redivide the markets, raw materials and territory of the world. The record of the SWP in that war shows just how far the US government was willing to go to silence dissent--leaders of the party who were influential in building up the Teamsters union in Minnesota were imprisoned; and the party's newspaper was banned from the mails. Despite this, as James Cannon shows, the party never abandoned its principles and actually succeeded in gaining members as the war dragged on. This is a fine example to all people today as the US drags us to war in Iraq in the name of freedom and fighting 'terrorism.'

Loyal to Workers world-wide
For those who reject U.S. President George W. Bush and U.K President Anthony Blair-led imperialist flag waving and the current war drive, this book is must reading.

"As weeks and weeks went by, I didn't hear a single one of the defendants say a single word of loyalty to this government and this flag...." So declared the federal judge as he sentenced 18 leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and labor movement to prison for opposing WWII on the day the U.S. entered it.

The loyalty of these leaders was to the working class of the world. This meant opposing their own ruling class and its government, and leading a movement to replace it with a workers and farmers government.

when you fight you win!!!!
Jim Cannon's books are filled with wit, wisdom. As the book opens in the summer of 1940, the party hadsuffered its biggest split, as middle class elements left to get out of the way of fighting Roosevelt. Shortly afterward, Trotsky was assassinated, and Cannon, who had become Trotsky's closest collaborator in the world revolutionary movement gives his assessment of the murder, and of Trotsky's place in history. Then, the SWP faced persecution from the FBI, from the Roosevelt Administration, and from the bureaucracy of the Teamsters Union. The SWP chose to stand and fight for revolutionary internationalist principles. Cannon's also to bring younger working class members of the party into the leadership as he and other leaders were threatened with prison Cannon's struggle led to the biggest expansion of the party in the working class, in the black, and in the immigrant community in the party's history. When you fight you win. To read what happened next, read his books Letters from Prison and then The Socialist Workers Party in the American Century also from Pathfinder.


Letters from Prison
Published in Hardcover by Pathfinder Press (1994)
Authors: James P. Cannon, George Lavan, and Jack Barnes
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Not about being in prison
This isn't a book about being in jail. Instead, it is a book about continuing to fight. Inside prison, Cannon and the others educated themselves about Marxism, discussed plans to explain the workers movement when they got out of prison, surveyed the changes in the world that World War II brought, and fought the pessimism that the war, Stalinism, and imprisonment had brought to some of them. Cannon, as always, is humorous, insightful, and just plain wise

Letters from Prison
In 1944-45 James P. Cannon and 17 other leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and the Minnesota truck drivers union were imprisoned for opposing Washington's imperialist aims in World War II, convicted under the thought-control Smith Act. In his prison journal, Cannon addresses key questions of building, organizing, and educating a communist party capable of preparing for the explosive working-class battles that would follow the war. A traveling organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World before and during World War I, James P. Cannon was a leader of the Communist Party in the United States following the Russian revolution of October 1917. He was expelled from the Communist Party in 1928 for supporting Leon Trotsky's fight to continue V.I. Lenin's revolutionary course. A founding leader of the Socialist Workers Party, Cannon served as its national secretary and then national chairman until his death in 1974. From the introduction by Jack Barnes: "Growing numbers of young people have begun to reject the evils of capitalist America - war, racism, poverty, its sick culture. They want to replace capitalism with a better system. But how is this to be done? What kind of organization must be built to lead this struggle? What kind of men and women will the job require? These are the very questions discussed in Letters from Prison." (from the back cover)


First Ten Years of American Communism: Report of a Participant
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (1980)
Authors: James P. Cannon and Theodore Draper
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This book changed my life
Cannon was the leader of the genuine American revolutionists who continued Communism and didnot succumb to Stalin and the degeneration of the American Communist Party. This is the story of the founding, the struggle of American Communism before Stalinism turned the Communist Party into its opposite. Here too is much history of the IWW, the Socialist party, and the other fighters who came before. This is not nostalgia, but written by a fighter for other fighters to learn to use these experiences to continue Cannon's fight to change the world. . . . I discovered this book in the library 35 years ago when I was dismayed by how rotten American Stalinists of the Maoist and Moscow varieties were and thought I would abandon trying to change the world. This book inspired me with the genuine revolutionism that came before, and that fighters like Cannon continued the fight, I found worth giving my life to.


James P. Cannon and the Early Years of American Communism: Selected Writings and Speeches 1920-1928
Published in Hardcover by Spartacist Pub Co (1992)
Author: James P. Cannon
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Precious resource
This beautifully bound book (high quality archival paper) is a must for anyone interested in the history of the American left and labor movement. These writings are unavailable in any other published source.


Speeches for Socialism
Published in Hardcover by Pathfinder Press (1971)
Authors: James P. Cannon and George L. Weissman
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More than thirty speeches, covering many topics
These are the speeches of an American revolutionary orator, agitator, and educator in the tradition of Eugene V. Debs. James P. Cannon, a long time leader of the Socialist Workers Party, was a prominent speaker for the revolutionary socialist movement for most of this century.

Here are more than thirty speeches, given over four decades and documenting sixty years of labor and radical history. They cover an extraordinary range of topics: the relationship of socialism and democracy, the struggle against war, the famous Minneapolis Labor Case, Trotskyism and Stalinism, the fortunes of the Russian revolution, and the road ahead for revolutionary youth. (from the back cover)


Speeches to the Party
Published in Hardcover by Pathfinder Press (1992)
Author: James P. Cannon
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Fighting for the Future
At the height of the 1950s witch hunt a group of leaders of the Socialist Workers Party wanted to give up the fight for socialism, find cushy positions in the union bureaucracy, or put their faith in the bureaucrats in Moscow and Peking. Cannon's Speeches in this book led the answer to that, faith in a future when working people will fight to change the world. Very much here about real internationalism, about how to fight for your ideas, about fighting for a future.


The Struggle for a Proletarian Party
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (1972)
Authors: James P. Cannon and John G. Wright
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Primer on Building a revolutionary party
As always this book carries lot of Cannon's humor, wit and wisdom. The is a lot of interesting his back and forth in Cannon's correspondence here with leaders like Trotsky, Cannon's collaborator in the 1939-1940 fight to preserve revolutionary communist politics. This is a book for people who retain the faith of the founders of Marxism, the faith of Gene Debs, the faith made real by people like Malcolm X, that workers can change the world and run it themselves. Cannon lead a fight that stopped middle class elements fleeing their fears of the coming of World War II toward anti-communism, from taking the Socialist Workers Party with them. This is not history, but a vibrant guide to building a revolutionary movement, about what principles are, about how to fight for what you want, about the practical realities of building a real revolutionary workers movement.Also recommended: History of American Trotskyism, First Ten Years of American Communism, In efense of Marxism, Capitalism's World Disorder. ...


The Struggle for Socialism in the American Century: Writings and Speeches, 1945-1947
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (1977)
Authors: James P. Cannon and Les Evans
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BEST BOOK ABOUT THE POST-WWII WORLD; 'AMERICAN CENTURY'
At the end of World War II the rulers of the United States proclaimed the "American Century." Their aim was a global empire dominated by American technology and capital. To many, it seemed that the epoch of socialist revolutions opened by the Bolshevik uprising of October 1917 in Russia had ended with the formation of two great oppressive world powers; the United States, representing old-line imperialism, and the Soviet Union, where capitalism had been swept away by a socialist revolution only to be replaced with a new tyranny. What place was there in the postwar world for revolutionary Marxists, striving to construct Leninist, working class political parties to fight for a genuine socialist society?

This volume of the writings and speeches of veteran communist and socialist leader James P. Cannon traces the response of the Socialist Workers Party to the challenge of the postwar world. Cannon and the American Trotskyists rejected the idea that American imperialism would be unshakeable for a whole historic period, or that the struggle for socialism was outmoded. Included here are Cannon's writings on the 1945-46 strike wave; the rebuilding of Trotskyists parties in Europe; the beginning of the cold war; and the SWP's assessment of the Soviet Union and Stalinism - what remained progressive in the USSR and what must be opposed by champions of socialist democracy.

James P. Cannon (1890-1974) was a unique figure in American socialist and labor history. He was an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World from 1911 to 1918, and a member of the left wing of the Socialist Party. In 1919 he became a founding leader of the American Communist Party, was elected to its Political Committee, and served on the Presidium of the Communist International in Moscow in 1922-23, where he worked with Trotsky, Zinoviev, and other Communist leaders. Won to Trotsky's side in 1928 in the dispute with Stalin, Cannon was expelled from the CP and founded the American Trotskyist movement, represented since 1938 by the Socialist Workers Party. (from the back cover)


Background to the Struggle for a Proletarian Party'
Published in Paperback by Pathfinder Press (NY) (1999)
Authors: James P. Cannon, George Clarke, and Leon Trotsky
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The Communist League of America 1932-34: Writings and Speeches, 1932-34
Published in Hardcover by Pathfinder Press (1985)
Authors: James P. Cannon and Fred Stanton
Amazon base price: $60.00
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