Vol. 4, No.. 18 June 3, 1966
A NEW NOTE IN THE AMERICAN ANTIWAR MOVEMENT
At a memorial meeting for Leo Bernard, held in New York May 27, the 8l-year-old Rev. A.J.Muste, referring to the expressions of solidarity that had poured in from all sectors of the American radical movement, said he could not recall anything like it in his lifetime.
In fact, at the meeting where he was one of the main speak-
New York, N. Y. 10010. HPs
ers, the Communist party, U.S.A. -- for the first time in its history -- was officially represented on the platform in a hall of the Socialist Workers party side by side with a representative of the American Trotskyist movement. And a W.E.B. DuBois Clubs leader spoke alongside a leader of the Young Socialist Alliance.
Dave Dellinger spoke for the pacifists who advocate nonviolence; James Aronson for those who clearly distinguish between the violence of the Vietnamese freedom fighters and the violence of the imperialist aggressors. Messages were read from voices as widely separated politically as Murray Kempton, whose stand is scarcely distinguishable from that of the liberal Democrats, to the ultraleft Maoist Progressive Labor Movement. A spokesman of the American Civil Liberties Union was present as well as the Students for a Democratic Society. Messages were read from Betty Shabazz, the widow of the martyred black nationalist leader Malcolm X and from Stokeley Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
If a listing were made of all those who sent either spokesmen or messages to this meeting or others like it held in many cities, © it would include virtually all the significant organizations and tendencies of the antiwar movement in the United States, shading into the related civil-rights movement.
The immediate reason for this unprecedented demonstration of solidarity was-to protest the murder of Leo Bernard and the wounding of Jan Garrett and Walter Graham by an ultraright political assassin in Detroit May 16. [See World Outlook May 27.1]
Without exception, the entire American radical movement viewed this murderous blow against the Socialist Workers party and the Young Socialist Alliance, to which the victims adhered, as a blow against the movement as a whole. And all sectors decided to close ranks in a demonstration of solidarity.
This seems so logical and natural that the only cause for wonder would seem to be that it should cause wonder. Yet the truth is that the old slogan and practice of the Industrial Workers of the World, "An Injury to One Is an Injury to All," has not been observed among radicals in the United States since the poison of Stalinism set in during the twenties.
The sudden reappearance of this proletarian principle is due to a new balance of forces in the American radical movement, to the decay of Stalinism as part of the worldwide process of ."de-Stalinization," to the consistent demand for a policy of "nonéxclusion" of any tendency in the antiwar movement because of its political views, and to the influx of fresh new forces that see no reason whatsoever for maintaining old prejudices and sectarian attitudes.
It is too early to say that this noteworthy demonstration of solidarity represents a qualitative change, but it is a most significant sign of a new mood among radicals in the U.S. which holds bright promise for the development of a powerful antiwar movement.
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