10:30 PM Saturday April 12

The Service Employees Industrial Union (SEIU) has sent in several bus loads of members to disrupt the annual meeting of Labor Notes in Detroit. The Labor Notes conference is one of the most important gatherings of rank and file labor activists in Canada and the US.

Friends of the WSP at the conference report that an SEIU activist bloodied a 70+ year old female member of Labor Notes.

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R. What is the condition of the working class today? How do you see the status of people who work for a living?

W. Speaking very generally, in the early 21st Century, it’s true that certain luxuries are more easily available: it seems that everybody has television, running water, electricity. Certain consumer goods are very available. Food is also widely accessible in the United States as well, unlike in other parts of the world. In some ways, particularly the American working class is in some respects, I think, sheltered from some of the more horrible aspects of global capitalism.

We socialists are often accused of being accused to reforms: social legislation to ameliorate some more or less intolerable situation - Medicare, Social Security, etc.

“Not so,” we respond. We of the World Socialist Movement are not opposed to reforms per se, any more than we advocate them. We do not support or agitate for them precisely on the grounds upon which they are ostensibly presented. For they do not cure the ills to which they are addressed. We contend further that the interest of the ruling powers lies in attracting votes for their various political programs. Witness the reforms, or promises, offered by the politicos in an election year. They are a necessary policy of governments seeking a broader base of support in their efforts to maintain a sufficient degree of viability in the capitalist system; to keep order in a social system whose nature is to engender disorder; to maintain an unstable equilibrium in a system continually facing crisis; and in times of great stress the offering of reforms to a restless and dissatisfied populace, helps to provide a “breathing spell” to a badly harassed government.

I have been bombarded throughout the past half-century from many quarters to write about this event. Hitherto I have refused, being reluctant to do so, feeling that one cannot deal with events in which one may have been involved and do so with the objectivity necessary. For the same reason I refrain from reviewing books in which I may have been (honorably or otherwise) mentioned.

But now, this year being the fiftieth anniversary of that historic event, receiving an official request from the Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Canada, and simultaneously one from The United Steel Workers of America (Canadian Section) I feel I must comply. The Steel Workers, with headquarters in Toronto, will hold their National (annual) Policy Conference in Montreal, May 1st and 2nd this year, and intend to commemorate the Winnipeg’ Strike’s fiftieth anniversary and have their proceedings covered by national radio and possibly television.

The socialist movement, small in numbers as it is, has within its ranks a fair representation of so-called civilized man. The majority are not noticeably vocal, nor do they have the ability to express themselves in writing. Another section, albeit possessing certain talents for communicating ideas, are unfortunately constrained to keep their propaganda activities at a minimum, even in some cases to the extent of secrecy. Finally, there are those, all too few, among us who have the knack for imparting knowledge and who have neither the compulsion nor the desire to keep their mouths buttoned. Such was Jack McDonald, without doubt one of the very finest teachers and propagandists in the history of the World Socialist Movement.

A column in the “San Francisco Chronicle” dated July 6, 1968, informs us that: “Bookseller McDonald Dies at 79,” as the result of being struck by an automobile near his home in Oakland, California on July 1, 1968. The column deals briefly with his colorful life and states that he was always proud of his one-time membership in the “International (sic) Workers of the World” and that he was a “life-long radical and supporter of Marxian socialism.”

To the Editors:

I read your magazine regularly and find it interesting, informative and also puzzling. What puzzles me is that you advocate socialism and at the same time oppose social reforms. I always thought that socialists saw nothing inconsistent in working for the establishment of socialism while at the same time participating in the fight for immediate demands.

I believe democratic socialism can be achieved when and if a majority of the people become convinced that it is a desirable alternative to the present order. But I rather doubt that I shall see socialism in my time. In fact I doubt if the generations, old and young, living today will see socialism in their time.

What should be the minimum requirements for membership of a Socialist Party? They should be broad enough to include all who are Socialists. There is no justification for barring Socialists from membership. They should be narrow enough to exclude all who are not Socialists.

Since the criterion for membership is based on whether an applicant is a Socialist or not,  it becomes necessary to define what is a socialist.

From the Western Socialist (August 1947)

What should be the attitude of socialists toward trade unions? this not a mere academic question. There are well-informed Marxists who contend that unionism should regarded in much the same light as reforms, since unions, like reforms, cannot abolish the ills of capitalism. Regarding unionism, the following proposition was posed by a socialist recently

“The evils which exist within present society. Be they war, crime, poverty. Or exploitation, have no solution other than the abolition of private property relationships. To fight anyone specific evil is not only a losing battle in itself, but a divergence from the real fight. Hence the only job of a socialist organization is to make possible the speedy introduction of socialism and destroy with one fell swoop the cause of war, crime, poverty and exploitation.”

IN THE LAST DAYS of 1915 a request came to the DEC from the Alberta executive that I be sent to that province for a three months’ propaganda tour. The DEC agreed, urging me to accept. I talked it over with my wife, since it meant leaving her with two small boys, the youngest only three months old. In this, as on many other occasions, my wife was sympathetic and cooperative. “If the Party thinks you should go Will, I think you should.”

So I went first to Calgary, where I met the members of the local, and a vigorous and energetic local it was. I still remember some of those boys today. Alf Budden, who had himself made a similar winter trip of propaganda work among the farmers of the many rural areas of that province, an effective speaker and writer. Bill Scott, solid and serious. Jock Adie, Dick Burge, and many others. Budden was well known throughout the country, not only as a writer for the Clarion, but had written a book, The Slave of the Farm, an analysis of the farmer’s position in this price system, as one also exploited, just as much as the wage worker, but through a different process. This brochure, by the way, was introduced as an exhibit in the famous state trial in Winnipeg in 1920.

Monday morning, very early, I got on the train on the newly opened CNR line to Hanna, and I shall never forget it. The train had just been made up, and no heat had been generated. For miles I sat there, huddled up on the seat, cold and shivering. During the whole of that three months’ trip the temperature never went above 40 below. In Drumheller, later on this trip, I experienced 58 below. More on this later.