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Originally published in 1908.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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Free speech may be a condition of life, but does that right mean anyone will listen? In THE CAPTURE OF SPEECH, Michel de Certeau (1925-1986) offered a fundamental reassessment of what "free speech" really means. De Certeau emphasizes that all too often free speech is upheld in the abstract while social institutions work in such a way as to deny access to truly effective communication. ... Read more

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Inspirational
What a great read!Well written, good pace.And it's all true, just the real life of an amazing man! ... Read more

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The communist movement's turn toward new openings in the unions as the industrial working class begins to recover from the initial blows of the Great Depression.

Index, Glossary, Annotation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

OF REVOLUTIONARIES, LITERATI AND SUCH
If you are interested in the history of the American Left or are a militant trying to understand some of the past lessons of our history concerning the socialist response to various social and labor questions this book is for you. This book is part of a continuing series of volumes of the writings of James P. Cannon that were published by the organization he founded, the Socialist Workers Party, in the 1970's and 1980's. Cannon died in 1974. Look in this space for other related reviews of this series of documents on and by an important American Communist.

In their introduction the editors motivate the purpose for the publication of the book by stating the Cannon was the finest Communist leader that America had ever produced. This an intriguing question. The editors trace their political lineage back to Cannon's leadership of the early Communist Party and later after his expulsion to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party so their perspective is obvious. What does the documentation provided here show? This certainly is the period of Cannon's political maturation, and the beginning of a long political collaboration working with Trotsky.The period under discussion- from the late 1920's when he was expelled as leader of the American Communist Party to the early 1930's and the start of the great labor upsurge which would bring wide spread unionization to the working class. Cannon won his spurs in this struggle to orient this organization toward a revolutionary path. One thing is sure- in his prime, which includes this period- Cannon had the instincts to want to lead a revolution and had the evident capacity to do so. That he never had an opportunity to lead a revolution is his personal tragedy and ours as well.

As an expelled faction of the American Communist Party, which continued to stand on the program of the defense of the Russian Revolution, the Cannon faction needed an orientation. That they considered themselves as an expelled but loyal faction of the Communist Party was the correct orientation for a small propaganda group. The party was where the vast bulk of the advanced political workers were. Immediately going to the "masses", as has occurred with other expelled groupings then and now, would have proved disastrous. Cannon's group needed to cohere a programmatic basis and recruit a cadre to win over workers and intellectuals from the party. Its Platform of the Communist Opposition, a generally good programmatic statement, was its key analysis and tool to win cadre.

That said, there are three related points of interest in this book for today' militants; the necessity of a small propaganda group to struggle in order to cohere an authoritative leadership in the face of severe internal disputes and other difficulties; the necessity for it to break out of its isolation and intersect mass struggles when they develop; and, the necessity of following a policy of regroupment, splits and fusions to create at least a modest vanguard formation, when possible. The history of the American left political landscape is filled with long forgotten groupings that could not surmount these problems. Within limits Cannon dragged the Communist League of America into a modest vanguard formation.

In the post-October Revolution period every serious revolutionary has had to confront the question of the organizational form of the vanguard workers party. The ideas put forth by Marxism have since the time of Marx and Engel held a certain fascination for young alienated intellectuals and others interested in changing the world. And this accrues to the benefit of the working class movement, as the movement needs intellectuals, sometimes desperately, to help formulate theoretical problems and write propaganda. The problem, particularly acute under the conditions of the small propaganda group under discussion, is to find the right mix of revolutionary intellectuals and advanced workers in order to push the work forward. That means, in Trotsky's famous phrase, that the revolutionary intellectuals have to, as he did, harness themselves to the work. Failing that intrigues, squabbles and merely literary propaganda prevail. The beginning section of this volume is filled with such doings. This is the axis that the Cannon-Shachtman struggle ran on here.And it would cause later problems when all hell broke loose over the question of defense of the Soviet Union became operative at the beginning of World War II. Whether this tension can be solved short of the transition to socialism is an open question. In the final analysis the problem was not resolved by this group. Read on.

As an addition to the historical records of this period this book is a very good companion to Cannon's own THE LEFT OPPOSITION IN THE U.S., 1928-31, Monad Press, New York, 1981 and DOG DAYS: JAMES P. CANNON vs. MAX SHACHTMAN IN THE COMMUNIST LEAGUE OF AMERICA, 1931-1933, PROMETHEUS RESEARCH LIBRARY, Spartacist Publishing Co., New York, 2002.

revolutionary politics in the 1930s
This volume of Socialist Workers Party leader James P. Cannon?s writings is dated to a tumultuous time.The Stalinized Communist International, and the German Communist Party, refused to wage an effective struggle against the rise of Hitler to power, causing a defeat felt by workers and farmers around the globe.This defeat was as unnecessary as it was massive.This caused not a whimper of protest within that movement.Communists who defended the traditions of the Communist International of Lenin?s time, led by Leon Trotsky, became convinced that the official Communist movement had now become an obstacle, not an opportunity, for world revolution.They moved to gather their forces into a new revolutionary movement.In doing so, they also searched for, and found, groups of revolutionary-minded workers from other backgrounds, who themselves had been deeply affected by the political and economic turmoil of the 1930s.

Preparing for the mass resistance of workers
Amazon lists this book as out of print, but Pathfinder has reprinted this book in an attractive new edition with more pictures, better type, notes etc. Most revolutionists today fight in small groups awaiting for and seeking out mass struggles by the working class. This is the story of the Communist League of America, the small group of American supporters of Leon Trotsky who went from the peak of the depression with its inactivity and defeats f to the big struggles in 1934 including the Minneapolis Teamster Strikes led by the SWP.
This is the record of Cannon with the support to Trotsky fighting for a clear principled way to turn the movement to the potential of workers resistance, to struggles by Blacks around the Scottsboro frame-up among other things, and at the same time building internationalist principles.
This is also the story of how the CLA and the world movement led by Trotsky realized that the Stalinist capitulation to Hitler in 1933 meant the Comintern was dead, and a new revolutionary international was required.
Everything Cannon writes has a certain wit and wisdom about it, where the value goes beyond the political to the personal and beyond. Even though these were tough times, there is even a glint of humor to be discovered where you might least expect it

Class struggle and leadership: a blow-by-blow account
This collection ofwritings and speeches, steeped in the workers struggles of the 1930s and the leadership challenges of forging a communist workers party, really impressed me with how relevant and useful they are today. James P. Cannon was a young organizer for the IWW and early Socialist Party, a founding member and leader of the Communist Party in the United States in the 1920s, and central leader of the cadre who fought to maintain the Bolshevik's revolutionary course against the Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet Union and Communist International from the late 1920s on.

Here you will find week-by-week, sometimes day-by-day, news, analysis, and proposals for action. Cannon writes as a participant and leader of a workers party involved in organizing coal miners, textile strikes, the big 1933 New York hotel strike, the historic Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934.He takes up key international questions: the evolution of the Stalinist leadership in the Soviet Union, the rise of fascism in Germany, and the difficult, persistent efforts led by Leon Trotsky to rebuild a new revolutionary international movement. Many of his writings detail questions of party leadership, lessons of faction and tendency struggles, or answer key practical questions: "what to do next?"

I'd strongly suggest reading this along with Cannon's "History of American Trotskyism" that covers the same historic period, "Teamster Rebellion"by Farrell Dobbs,and current writings that pick up the struggle today, including "Their Trotsky and Ours" and "Capitalism's World Disorder" by Jack Barnes. ... Read more

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Oh Hercules! Oh Bacchus! This is too much. Here is an universal genius; sophist,--orator,--poet. To what a three- headed monster have I given birth! a perfect Cerberus of intellect! And pray what may your piece be about? Or will your tragedy, like your speech, serve equally for any subject? ... Read more

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This key volume specifically completes the collection of Edmund Burke's Indian Writings and Speeches which is set within the series, and is both an exposition of Burke's views on India from his coverage of the Hastings trial, and his views on maintaining the rule of a universal justice.

The texts for the items, which have appeared in previous editions of Burke's Works, have been reconstructed, largely by the use of manuscripts. Indeed many of the shorter speeches appear here in print for the first time.

The volume includes a key speech which introduced one of the main charges in the trial of Warren Hastings on an impeachment from 1789-1794, and an important report on the conduct of the trial. It closes with Burke's important and detailed summation of the the prosecution's.

However, this volume is not only a full exposition of Burke's views on India but contains much of great interest about other aspects of his thought. In particular, Burke saw himself in these years as being engaged in a battle against the lawless disruption of society, both in Europe and in Asia, in order to maintain the rule of a universal justice, a main theme of this volume. ... Read more

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General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1860Original Publisher: A. B. BurdickSubjects: SlaveryAntislavery movementsAbolitionistsHistory / United States / GeneralHistory / United States / State ... Read more

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Contains revies of Mill, Mirabeau etc. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more