Marrxists’ Internet Archive

Felix Morrow

(1906-1988)

Biography

Felix Morrow was for many years a leading figure figure in American Trotskyism, best known for his classic Revolution and Counter-Revolution In Spain. He joined the Communist League of America in 1933 and after Max Shachtman’s minority split in 1940, served as editor of the Socialist Workers Party’s paper, the Militant, and its theoretical journal, Fourth International. He was one of 18 SWP leaders imprisoned under the Smith Act during the Second World War. In 1943 he formed a faction with Albert Goldman which challenged the SWP’s ‘orthodox’ catastrophic perspective. In one of the most instructive factional struggles in the history of the Trotskyist movement, Morrow and Goldman projected the likelihood of a prolonged period of bourgeois democracy in western Europe and emphasised the need for democratic and transitional demands against the maximalism advocated by the majority. Although he was expelled from the SWP in 1946 for ‘unauthorised collaboration’ with Shachtman’s Workers Party, he did not join Shachtman, and drifted out of politics.

Works:

Religion — Its social roots and role, 1932

Soule’s Revolution, August 1934 (book review)

Declining America, November 1934 (book review)

God and Society, January 1935 (book review)

The Spirit of the US Constitution, February 1936

How the Workers Can Win in Spain, October 1936

The Civil War in Spain: Toward Socialism or Fascism? December 1936

Proposed Solutions to the Spanish Crisis, January 1937 (article from Socialist Appeal)

Revolution and Counter Revolution in Spain, 1938

Anarchism in Spain, January 1938 (book review)

The War in Spain, February 1938 (book review)