File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-21.060, message 28


Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 07:29:05 -0800 (PST)
From: Scott McLemee <mclemee-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: M-I: Cyberseminar Report:  Johnson-Forest Tendency



	Certain annoying interruptions (read: making a living) have 
delayed my report for the cyberseminar on the revolutionary 
nature/potential of the working class.  But I hope to post the first of 
two parts by the end of this week, and the conclusion by next Sunday.  At 
the suggestion of Louis Proyect, though, a few words on the topic of the 
report.

	The Johnson-Forest Tendency is probably better known within the 
broad left (academic and activist alike) than ever before -- though more 
as a rumor or a legend than in any substantive way.  In large measure 
this renown is a function of the growing interest in C. L. R. James 
(1901-1989), whose history of the Haitian revolution THE BLACK JACOBINS 
(1938) is one of the landmark works of Marxist historiography in English, 
to make no grander claim for it.  During a prolonged stay in the 
United States (1938-53), he wrote for the Trotskyist press under the 
party name "J. R. Johnson"; together with Trotsky's former secretary and 
sometime translator Raya Dunayevskaya ("F. Forest"), he lead an 
opposition current that regarded the Soviet Union as "state capitalist" 
>from at least 1936 onward.  If that were the only distinguishing feature 
of "Johnsonism," it would scarcely be of interest to any but sectarian 
trivia hounds.  But the disagreement with Trotsky (and for that matter 
with Max Shachtman and others) drove James and associates into a close 
study of Marx's and Lenin's work -- and the Johnsonite insistence on the 
revolutionary nature of the American working class inspired them to focus 
on the "lifeworld" of the factory and the newly proletarianized 
African-Americans and women ignored by most of the Trotskyist left of the 
day.

	The first chapter of my report will chronicle the history and 
publications of the Tendency.  The first English translation of extracts 
>from Marx's 1844 manuscripts appeared in a mimeographed edition prepared 
by the group -- a fact at least as significant to understanding its ideas 
as the differences on "the Russian question."  The Tendency was 
particularly interested in getting workers, youth, and women to write 
about their experiences, and one of the documents I will discuss at 
length in the second part of my report, THE AMERICAN WORKER, is exemplary 
of this.

	I have been researching the history of the Tendency for a few 
years, and edited a couple of books of James's writings.  Once I get a 
handle on the technology, it might make sense to post some Johnsonite 
documents to the list -- if there is sufficient interest.

	Anyway, I've got to apply my nose, again, to the grindstone -- so 
it may be Thursday or Friday before the first installment of the report 
goes out.  In the meantime, anyone so inclined might have a look at the 
book MARXISM AND FREEDOM (1958) by Raya Dunayevskaya.  After the Tendency 
distintegrated in 1955, she very shrewdly gathered up her ex-comrades' 
work and wrote it up, with her own "spin" but without mentioning their 
names.  Talk about expropriation of labor!

				Scott McLemee
				20 Jan 1997


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