School Scope: Democracy, Socialism and the UFT

My weekly column for The WAVE - May 10, 2019 - part of my series where I try to decipher socialism, the left, capitalism and democracy and relate it all to local issues in the UFT and general politics.

School Scope: Democracy, Socialism and the UFT
By Norm Scott

I’ve been writing about the variety of brands of socialism and democracy and no matter how people look at these ideas there are so many interpretations that if you take any one definition of democracy or socialism, you will violate the sensibilities of others: the eye of the beholder syndrome. My views hang from a bungee cord, bouncing back and forth.

Last week we went so see the enormously popular Freda Kahlo exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Kahlo was a lifelong socialist/communist, as was her husband Diego Rivera. They hosted Leon Trotsky, one of the key leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution when he lived at their house in Mexico City before an agent of Stalin assassinated him. Trotsky and his followers were purged by Stalin and became the heart of the socialist movement that became increasingly critical of the Soviet system. They claim Stalin hijacked the Bolshevik Revolution and turned their version of communism into an undemocratic state controlled by one strong man.

Trotsky and Trotskyism were viewed by hard core Stalinists as their major enemy and they persecuted Trotskyists all over the world. Reading George Orwell’s works from the Spanish Civil War, which he fought in in the 30s, he was clearly sympathetic to the Trotsky point of view and his Trotsky brigade came under attack by the Stalinists. Thus, Orwell who became famous for writing anti-Soviet novels like “1984” and “Animal Farm” has been used by anti-communists. But Orwell died a socialist in 1950 and seemed to be aligned somewhat with the Trotskyist wing of socialism.

Back to the Kahlo exhibit, there were many photos of her and Trotsky and others. One photo identified a key Trotsky supporter named Max Shachtman who morphed out of Trotskyism in the late 40s and became the leader of a branch of socialism known as “Shachmanism”.

In a recent column I pointed to the history of my union, the United Federation of Teachers, which due to the high number of members was organized into a powerful political force in the early 60s. Those key organizers, led by Albert Shanker, were socialists. Shanker as a young man in 1948 campaigned for Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas. Shanker and the other organizers of the UFT were fundamentally Shachtmanites. Indeed, Shachtmans wife, Yetta, was a key advisor to Shanker in the UFT for many years.

It is worth exploring this particular brand of socialism in order to better understand the political stances and organizational structure of the UFT which is based on some key concepts of the Leninist branch of socialism, like democratic centralism – which means everyone in the party must go along with the majority publicly or face expulsion. (I will address the complexities of democracy and protection of minority views in the future.)

The UFT’s ruling party, Unity Caucus, has been so organized since 1962 and has maintained power since then, often under the leadership of one strong voice --- which itself undermines the democracy part of democratic centralism. There have been only 4 UFT presidents since 1964. The recent UFT election was won by Unity with 87% of the vote, the kind of dominance Putin would kill for (and he probably has.)

Quoting Wikipedia on Shachtman:
“In 1958, the Independent Socialist League led by Max Shachtman dissolved to join the Socialist Party of America. Shachtman had written that Soviet communism was a new form of class society, bureaucratic collectivism, in which the ruling class exploited and oppressed the population and therefore he opposed the spread of communism. Shachtman also argued that democratic socialists should work with activists from labor unions and civil rights organizations to help build a social democratic "realignment" of the Democratic Party. Though he died on November 4, 1972 and had little involvement with the Socialist Party in the year proceeding his death, his followers, identitified as "Shachmanites", exercised a tremendous amount of influence on the party. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_USA#Background).”

The party is known as SDUSA and in the early decades to get anywhere in the UFT membership was an important ingredient, but has waned once the old-guard founders of the UFT like Shanker and his successor Sandy Feldman were gone and replaced by more traditional Democratic-like politicians like Randy Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew who have never identified themselves as socialists. That original old guard put anti-Communism at the top of their agenda and allied with right wing forces on many issues, leading the UFT away from its earliest roots while keeping elements rooted in methods of control used in certain socialist parties and organizations. Even today, you will find that the UFT, NYSUT and the AFT pretty much aligns with the center of the Democratic Party on most issues, especially when it comes to foreign policy and defense spending.

I will close on this question: Can socialism and democracy co-exist? I don’t have an answer yet but we will keep exploring.

Norm is very democratic at ednotesonline.com where his vote of one always prevails.

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