The following is a 1961 letter and postscript by Socialist Workers Party (SWP) leaders George Novack^[1] and Evelyn Reed^[2] to James P. Cannon,^[3] who was then SWP national chairman.

Describing a visit by Novack and Reed with sociologist C. Wright Mills — author of Listen Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba,^[4] the letter centers on an exchange of views on the Cuban revolution, which had triumphed two years earlier, as well as broader issues, including Marxism and Stalinism.

The revolutionary victory in Cuba had a transformational impact, inspiring greater collaboration among fighters for social change who came from different backgrounds and experiences all over the world.

What is striking in the letter that follows — and in Cannon’s reply, which we published next — is the open-mindedness of socialist leaders at the time, the interest in finding common ground with fighters committed to struggle for a world of social equality and human solidarity.

This attitude permeates the writings of Novack, Reed, and Cannon. It is the polar opposite of sectarianism. And it is central to Marxism and to the spirit of the Communist Manifesto, the founding document of the communist movement.

In the same spirit, Novack wrote a tribute to Mills after the latter’s passing in 1962.

“With the death of C. Wright Mills the scholarship of our nation has lost one of its ablest heads and the poor people of the Americas one of its most sympathetic hearts,” Novack said.

“As Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, Mills published a series of outstanding studies of our social structure from 1948 to 1956 in which he investigated the leaders of the trade unions, the Puerto Rican immigrants and the American middle classes. These were capped by The Power Elite, his most probing work, which deftly undraped the anatomy of capitalist rule in the United States….

“Mills became the most influential sociologist in the English-speaking world. His books sold in hundreds of thousands of copies and were translated into many languages. They were read avidly not only in the West but throughout the Soviet bloc. He was one of the contemporary writers most closely followed by dissident intellectuals there and felt a close kinship with them.”

We are publishing this letter for the information of our readers after consulting with the historian John Summers, who is working on a new biography of C. Wright Mills under contract to Simon and Schuster. Summers is the editor of the 2008 collection The Politics of Truth: Selected Writings of C. Wright Mills from Oxford University Press. The Novack/Reed letter, which was circulated to the SWP National Committee, surfaced during Summers’ research for his upcoming book.

Transcription of the letter from the type-written original, as well as the postscript heading, endnotes, and photos are by World-Outlook.

We also want to extend a special thanks to Alan Wald, the H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan and member of the editorial board of Against the Current. His help was essential in the publication of these materials.

— World-Outlook editors

*

Feb. 9, 1961

Dear Jim and Rose:^[5]

Do you remember a year ago when we sat in your living room and discussed the importance of dealing with the work of C. Wright Mills? With your customary generosity you suggested that I undertake the task, which I did. This led Evelyn and myself yesterday to an all-day visit with Mills and his wife at their home in West Nyack, New York. I had replied to his letter to Pioneer suggesting a meeting and he had telephoned me immediately to arrange it. After about four days delay, owing to the snowstorms, we got together.

The three of us talked from eleven in the morning until seven at night, with Mills doing most of the talking. We covered such a variety of subjects that I will have to summarize them under a series of heads:

Cuba:

He is all-out for the revolution in Cuba and undertook its defense; fully conscious of the potential penalties involved. Moreover, he is prepared to fight all attacks upon him for his stand and all pro-imperialist opponents or the revolution. He is prepared to do battle not only with the authorities but with all the state department intellectuals such as Schlesinger, Lerner, etc. He says that the Cuban Revolution is for this generation of liberals and radicals what the Spanish Civil War was in the thirties.^[6] He was not politically interested during the 1930s; he is only 44 years old now, and says he is only becoming fully politically conscious now. And his evolution is by no means completed.

He says that the Cuban Revolution has attracted his attention to the Spanish Civil War and he is avidly reading the best accounts of it. I recommended Trotsky’s pamphlets and Felix’s book to him. What enthuses him about the Cuban revolution is its honesty, its directness, its freshness, its genuinely popular and democratic character. And also its experimental-empirical direction. He said approvingly, “My idea of democracy is one gun one vote — and that’s what they have in Cuba.”

He says that Washington’s policy drove Havana into the clutches of Moscow although they wanted to be friendly with the U.S. At first, they did not turn to Moscow, but to Belgrade for economic aid, but Tito brushed him off apparently for fear of offending Washington, being in the midst of a loan negotiation.^[7] When he went to Cuba, he did not expect to see Castro and the other leaders, but Fidel came to see him at his hotel one day around midnight and they talked through the night. Castro showed him a copy of the “Power Elite” which he had read and annotated in the hills.^[8] Mills believes that Cuba might have cracked economically without Soviet economic help, especially in oil which is indispensable for industry. He believes now that Cuba can survive and go forward economically, thanks to the richness of its agriculture.

Castro was surprised that Washington cut off all relations. He was dismayed by the scores of intelligence agents which were all over the place. Mills thinks that Washington cut off contact primarily because even quite uninformed people who go there are enkindled by what they see and hear, and come back as propagandists.

I was especially interested in his opinion on the leaders’ attitude toward Stalinism. He says they are quite aware of the dangers and defects, but that there is a danger of Washington forcing them into more dependence than they wish. Che Guevara, he states positively, is thoroughly anti-Stalinist. The CP [Communist Party] is not yet powerful, but Castro has not succeeded in organizing or reorganizing the July 26^th movement into an effective party. In talking this over with Castro, Mills says he complained he did not have enough experienced cadres.

Mills sees one of his important functions in Cuba to warn them against the perniciousness of Stalinism.

The book “Listen Yankee” has already sold about 350,000 copies in soft cover and about 8,000 in hard cover. It is being translated in many languages, and is already out in Spanish. He says there will be many individuals killed in “running” these books in the dictatorships in South America. To give you an idea of the impact it has made here, he says that over 200 people have written him saying in effect, “We knew there was something fishy about the official propaganda on Cuba and your book has opened our eyes. We would like to go there not only to see but to help. Send us an address.”

Mills did arrange with the Fellowship of Reconciliation to set up a work project in Cuba and the FOR appointed a committee of six unimpeachable clergymen and professors, to go there to seal the arrangements. However, the State Department gave no reply at all to their request for visas — neither yes, or no — and finally, not receiving an answer at all they were obliged to go back to work. Their free time was up.

He was very sorry that his coronary attack prevented him from debating with Berle.^[9] He was fully primed for him and was preparing a major expose. He was prepared to challenge Berle to join him in asking a Congressional investigation into what really happened with the CIA in Guatemala.^[10] A number of Latin American representatives to the UN privately sympathetic with Castro but unable to speak openly here provided him with devastating ammunition.

Mills is interested in Cuba not only in itself but in its connection with the whole Latin American problem. He expects tremendous revolutionary developments throughout Latin America in the next decade, of which Cuba is only the beginning. He has no confidence that the liberalized Kennedy policy of basing itself upon such middle-class regimes as Betancourt’s in Venezuela and Siles in Bolivia will work out. Not only are their reforms superficial but they leave the old military forces intact.

Literary Projects:

He is a prodigious producer and has five or six different works in progress. One on the Marxians, another on the New Left, a program for radicals; three tentatively called “Tovarich” comprising letters to Soviet intellectuals to break down the barriers between the east and the west — and challenging them to become critical of their own societies. There are others, but these are the most politically meaningful.

I spent about three hours discussing the contents of the Marxians with him. This is a paperback to be finished by June and published next January in a first edition of 100,000. He has three purposes in view. One, to help break the embargo on Marxism in this country, especially among the young. Two, to present his own views on the relevance of Marxism today. Three, to uphold Marx and Engels in the 19th century and Trotsky in the 20th as the finest representatives of Socialist thought. He rates Trotsky as a theoretician above Lenin. “He will be the hero of the book,” he said.

I gave him a number of suggestions for selections not only from Trotsky but from other Marxist sources which will probably help. “I must tell you that up till now I have not really investigated Marxist thought. I began as a disciple of Veblen^[11] and later of Max Weber.^[12] I then saw how much they owed to Marx, but I have been chiefly preoccupied with a criticism of liberalism. I do not regard myself as a liberal but as a rebel, a Wobbly^[13] type,” he said.

He is now trying to settle accounts with Marxism. His second book on the New Left will present his sociological and political positions contra Marxism. He is not an historical materialist and he categorically rejects the Marxist “labor metaphysic” which sees the prime agency of social change in the working class. In the undeveloped countries he sees the peasants and middle-class intellectuals as leaders; in the highly industrialized West he is not sure who will do it, except that the workers will not. He wishes that it were so, but his scientific convictions remain unconvinced.

He says that he has not made up his mind on a number of important questions. He says he taught a class of 150 students at Columbia this last semester and they asked him a lot of questions about his own position and aims that he found disturbing and was unable to answer. I said to him “C. Wright Mills is a big signboard but where is it pointing to, they are asking.” He said, “I can’t tell them; I am a man without a party.” I asked, “Who would you have advised them to vote for in 1960?” He answered: “No one, I didn’t vote.” “Why didn’t you vote for Dobbs?”^[14] “He didn’t have a chance of winning.” “Do you never vote except for a candidate who has an immediate chance to win?” “Well,” he concluded in some embarrassment, “I guess I am just an a-political Wobbly.” But at least he advises them to read the Marxist classics and to think for themselves.

I told him that any work which helps break the ban on Marxism and acquaints people with Trotsky’s ideas is all to the good, regardless of criticism. All we want is a fair hearing.

The Soviet Union and Stalinism:

He has visited the S.U., Yugoslavia and Poland, and is well acquainted with many of the leading intellectuals in all three places. The Soviet representatives are wooing him. They published his “Power Elite” in Russian but cut out the passages critical of Stalinism he sold us scornfully. In his interviews and discussions with Soviet scholars he always asks, “Who, except Stalin, contributed anything to Marxist theory after Lenin.” They could mention no one. He then asks “what about Trotsky?” They had to confess they knew little or nothing of his works. “But you can’t even read them!” he said to them. They lamely protested the books were available in the libraries — which they are not except perhaps a very few. They were, in fact, ignorant of his ideas. Mills told them that until Trotsky’s works were freely available to the public, they could not consider themselves well-informed Marxists or even a cultured and free people, because Trotsky was the greatest representative of Marxism in the 20th century.

Mills has a very high regard for Deutscher^[15] and is friendly with him. He says that Deutscher’s works are becoming more and more available and he himself sent a dozen copies of the Stalin biography into Poland and the USSR.

I asked, “It is not clear to me from your writings, whether you regard the Soviet economy as more efficient and potentially productive than capitalist economy.” He replied, “I am sure it is and that in 20 years the Soviet Union will out-produce the U.S. and China will advance even faster.” He said “this country has the industrial capacity but it has too much waste and anarchy.” He told an interesting story of a suggestion he made to several Soviet leaders that they could win tremendous popularity throughout the world by giving bread free to all citizens. They said it was already possible but, upon reflection, they could not do it because then the farmers would take the bread and feed it to their livestock.

The agricultural situation is their great weakness, but he thinks they are taking measures to overcome even that.

“If the Soviet economy is more productive, is it not then historically superior?” I asked. “What do you mean by historically superior?” he asked. “That it can produce more goods, more wealth, in less time with less labor per person.” “Yes, I think it can be more efficient, but that is not for me the only test of historical superiority. More important is the moral, cultural and intellectual superiority.” The discussion ended when I added that without a superior capacity for material production there couldn’t be a superior cultural superstructure.

He believes, from his own observation that Soviet society is opening up and becoming more anti-bureaucratic and more anti-Stalinist under the surface than appears to outward view. He was immensely impressed by the level of popular education.

He has a high opinion of the Yugoslav leaders whom he thinks are semi-Trotskyist without avowing it. We exchanged views at length on Tito, Kardelj, Djilas, etc. One point is unmistakable: he is anti-Stalinist to the core and that, in part, accounts for his sympathy toward us. He asked a number of questions about our numbers, our finances, etc.

He is not intimately acquainted with our history or our writings but is planning to make up for that. I propose to help along that line and am sending him additional material to that which he has ordered from Pioneer.

He pulled out a copy or “Intellectuals in Retreat” from the 1939 N.I. [New International] — and said we ought to reprint it in a pamphlet, it was so good. I asked if he had read “In Defense of Marxism.” He showed us a copy he had only partially read in 1943 with a notation at the front: “These people are quite mad.” He does not have quite the same view nowadays, although our weakness is a great handicap.

****

To sum up our first impressions and their significance. Mills today occupies a key position in American intellectual life. He is perhaps the foremost intellectual and moral force standing for honesty, in an anti-imperialist, anti-war and anti-capitalist manner. He is doing for the Cuban revolution, which is the beginnings of the socialist upheaval in the Western hemisphere, something similar to what John Reed^[16] did for the Russian revolution. In addition, he is a figure with world-wide connections and influence not only in England and Europe but also in the Soviet zone and in the underdeveloped countries. The fact that he is opposed to some of the basic propositions of Marxism is, under the circumstances, less important than the facts that he is engaged in defending and popularizing Marxism, that he is anti-Stalinist and friendly toward Trotskyism. And he is willing to establish an entente cordiale with us.

Politically, he wishes to be the mentor of a New Left. It is one thing to have that aim in England and quite another in this country. In England, he would be in the Labor Party, with the Tribune, the Left Review and the Victory for Socialism people, and very likely at odds with the Socialist Labor League. But in this country, there is nothing substantial and organized between the liberal-labor wing of the Democratic Party and the SWP that he has any respect for. This is another sign that we can get the inside track on the newly awakening radicals of the sixties, who will begin with many confused ideas and even be quite opposed to our positions especially at first. But they have no alternative except to act together with us on the most vital issues or the day, such as Cuba, the anti-war issue, etc.

I am now working on a new series of lectures and articles, continuing the friendly but critical exchange of ideas with Mills in reference to his “Letter to the New Left.” I told him that I was working on it. He intends to take up my criticism as well as others in his own book. My article is tentatively entitled: “Who Will Change the World?”

George

*

Postscript by Evelyn Reed

In appearance and personality he reminded me of James T. Farrell^[17] — the Farrell of the good old days, I mean. George felt the same way, when I mentioned it later. He’s a big, dynamic, talkative fellow, originally of the Irish Catholic faith. But he told us a little story as follows: while he was very ill, and they didn’t know whether he would live or die, a priest asked to give him extreme unction, or whatever it is called. When told by the nurse, at first he refused, then he said “let him come in.” During the preliminary conversation, the priest tried to help him “off the hook” so to speak. He said, “you are just a literary apostate,” or something to that effect. Mills came back with the statement that since age 13 he hadn’t been a Catholic. “I’m not an apostate — it just never took!” he told the priest. After this, among other similar quips, the priest threw up his hands and left. I laughed very heartily at this story and told him it reminded me of J.P.C. [James P. Cannon]. As a matter of fact, I think he and Jim could spend a night together over a bottle or two (and he can handle the stuff by the bottle) and have a very good time together. He originated in Texas, spent time in the midwest, Kansas, too, I believe, wound up in the East.

He is not only a prodigious writer — but a prodigious worker. He built the house we visited him in by himself, with a few assorted helpers. It’s a California-type colorful cement & plaster deal, two floors, and very functionally conceived. Walls are book-cases; and he has a drawer-type filing system that I envied. Just terrific. Now uses a stenogram machine to talk into — since he has no secretaries or assistants, and a small machine for field use. Gets part-time help to transcribe.

His wife (third) is a very lovely Ukrainian, born on the lower east side where her parents have a store that imports odd foods, etc. Her baby (Nicolas) is about seven months; a very nice child. His child Katy by a former marriage, about five, is also with them. The wife is a painter and artist, often doing sketches for children’s books to earn extra money. After a whole day with kids and cooking etc. she sat down to do the finished drawings for the commitment.

He is recovering well from the coronary and goes up and down the stairs freely. In fact, to an outsider not knowing the details, he would appear to be perfectly healthy and even robust. It will be difficult, I think, for him to adjust to the fact that he has to slow down now, but I think his interest in all his projects will force him to accept the fact. His fertile brain is always buzzing with new things to do and write. Apart from everything else, they are very interesting people to know. George hasn’t said much about how much help he gave him, but it was just what Mills needed to get over the hump fast, and he is up against a close deadline. I am sure he appreciates it tremendously.

Ev.

NOTES

[1] George Novack (1905 – 1992) joined the socialist movement in the United States in 1933. He was a member and leader of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) until his death. As national secretary of the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky, Novack helped organize the 1937 International Commission of Inquiry that investigated the charges fabricated by Stalin’s Moscow trials. In the 1940s Novack was national secretary of the Civil Rights Defense Committee, which gathered support for leaders of the SWP and of the Midwest Teamsters’ strikes and organizing drive who were framed up and jailed under the witch-hunting Smith Act. He played a prominent role in numerous other civil liberties and civil rights battles. Novack authored many books, including Democracy and Revolution and Understanding History. He was also active in defense of the Cuban revolution and against the war in Vietnam.

[2] Evelyn Reed (1905 – 1979) is the author of many works on the origin of the oppression of women and the struggle for their emancipation. Reed joined the socialist movement in 1940 and remained a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party until her death. She participated in many battles for democratic and trade union rights and in solidarity with revolutionary struggles throughout the world. An active participant in the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s and ’70s, Reed was a founding member of the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition in 1971. During those years she spoke and debated on women’s rights throughout the United States and many other countries. Among her most well-known works is Woman’s Evolution, which has been translated into Farsi, French, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

[3] James P. Cannon (1890 – 1974) was the son of Irish immigrants to the United States with strong socialist convictions. He joined the Socialist Party in 1908 and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), nicknamed Wobblies, in 1911. He collaborated closely with “Big Bill” Haywood, a top IWW leader, and was an IWW organizer throughout the Midwest from 1912 to 1914. Like many socialists at that time, he was inspired by the Russian revolution of 1917 and became a founding leader of the U.S. Communist Party and a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International in 1922. Following his expulsion in 1928 from the Communist Party USA, which had become pro-Stalinist, he co-founded and helped lead the Communist League of America, a predecessor of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). In 1938 he was elected national secretary of the newly founded SWP and served in that capacity until 1953 and as the party’s national chairman until his death.

[4] Charles Wright Mills (1916 – 1962) was a well-known sociologist in the Unites States. He was a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death. Mills published widely in both popular and academic journals. His books include The Power Elite, White Collar: The American Middle Classes, and The Sociological Imagination. In August 1960, Mills visited Cuba to find out for himself what Cuban revolutionary leaders and ordinary Cubans where thinking and doing and what their revolution meant to them. He then published Listen Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba — an outspoken, first-hand account favorable to the Cuban revolution. The book sold hundreds of thousands of copies and became one of the most effective tools in countering Washington’s propaganda against the Cuban revolution at the time.

[5] Rose Greenberg Karsner (1890 – 1969) was born in Romania and emigrated to the United States as a child. At the age of 18, she joined the Socialist Party in New York. Inspired by the 1917 Russian revolution, she joined the U.S. Communist Party (CP) in 1920. She met Cannon at the CP’s 1921 convention, and they eventually became lifetime companions and collaborators. In 1925 she and Cannon helped organize the International Labor Defense, which provided legal support for various political cases in the 1920s, the most notable being Sacco and Vanzetti. After the death of Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin and the emergence of Stalinism, Karsner, like Cannon, became increasingly dissatisfied with the direction of the CP, and she assisted in the formation of the Communist League of America in 1928. She was also involved in the formation of the Socialist Workers Party and served as business manager for The Militant newspaper.

[6] The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was fought between the Republicans — an alliance that included liberals, socialists, anarchists, and communists — and the Nationalists — an alliance of fascist Falangists, monarchists, and conservatives with support from both Nazi Germany and the Italian fascists. The conflict inspired a generation of pro-working-class fighters internationally, many of whom went to Spain on international brigades to fight on the side of the Republicans. Approximately 3,000 U.S. volunteers served as soldiers, technicians, medical personnel, and aviators in such a contingent, known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, between 1936 and 1938.

[7] Josip Broz (1892-1980), known as Tito, was the central leader of the Yugoslav Communist Party beginning in 1939. During World War II, he led the Yugoslav Partisans against the Nazi occupation of the region. After the war, he became the central leader of Yugoslavia’s government and oversaw the establishment of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. His defiance of Soviet hegemony led to the Tito-Stalin split but did not lead to a genuine break with Stalinism. Edvard Kardelj and Milova Djilas, also mentioned in Novack’s letter, were among the leaders who collaborated with Tito on the economic model adopted in Yugoslavia.

[8] The Power Elite is a 1956 book by sociologist C. Wright Mills. In it, Mills calls attention to the interwoven interests of the leaders of the corporate, military, and political elements of U.S. society and suggests that the ordinary citizen in modern times is manipulated by those three entities. Mills’ mention of Fidel Castro having annotated this book “in the hills” is a reference to the period leading to the overthrow in 1959 of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba, when the base of operations of the Rebel Army was the mountainous regions of the island.

[9] Adolf A. Berle Jr. (1895 – 1971) was a U.S. lawyer and diplomat. In 1961 he briefly served under President John F. Kennedy as head of a task force on Latin American affairs. During that time, he was involved in forming Washington’s response to the Cuban Revolution, which included the CIA-planned Bay of Pigs invasion that failed to overthrow the revolutionary government headed by Fidel Castro.

[10] The CIA instigated a coup in Guatemala in 1954 that toppled the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz. During the 1960s the CIA continued U.S. intervention in Guatemala, by supporting counterinsurgency efforts against leftist guerrillas, training the Guatemalan military and police, providing intelligence, and overseeing the rise of brutal state-sponsored terror groups like the Mano Blanca (White Hand), which targeted perceived communists and indigenous populations, thus fueling a long civil war in the country (1960-1996).

[11] Thorstein Bunde Veblen (1857 – 1929) was a U.S. economist and sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known critic of capitalism.

[12] Max Weber (1864 – 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, and political economist. He was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sciences more generally.

[13] Wobbly is the nickname for members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

[14] Farrell Dobbs (1907 – 1983), a coal yard worker in his early 20s, became one of the central leaders of truck driver strikes and over the road organizing campaigns led by the Teamsters union in the 1930s. He joined the Communist League of America and was a founder of the Socialist Workers Party. He was the SWP’s candidate for U.S president in four elections from 1948 to 1960. He succeeded James P. Cannon as the party’s national secretary in 1953, serving until 1972.

[15] Isaac Deutscher (1907 – 1967) was born near what is now Krakow, Poland. He joined the outlawed Polish Communist Party in 1926, in which he was active until his expulsion in 1932. In 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, Deutscher moved to London, where he worked as a journalist, historian, academic, author, and political activist. His books include the well-known biographic trilogy of Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky — The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, and The Prophet Outcast — as well as Stalin: A Political Biography.

[16] John Reed (1887 – 1920) was a U.S. journalist, poet, and political activist. Reed first gained prominence as a war correspondent for Metropolitan during the Mexican Revolution and for The Masses during World War I. He is best known for his coverage of the October Revolution in Petrograd, Russia, which he wrote about in his 1919 book Ten Days That Shook the World — an impassioned first-hand account of the 1917 Russian revolution.

[17] James Thomas Farrell (1904 – 1979) was a U.S. novelist, short story writer, and poet. He is most remembered for the Studs Lonigan trilogy, made into a film in 1960 and a television series in 1979. He was chairman of the Civil Rights Defense Committee in the 1940s, which gathered support for leaders of the SWP and of the Midwest Teamsters’ strikes and organizing drive who were framed up and jailed under the witch-hunting Smith Act.

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