Marxists’ Internet Archive

Max Shachtman

1904-1971

A major figure in the American Trotskyist movement beginning in the 1930’s. Leader of the minority section of the Socialist Workers Party that split with Trotsky over the analysis of Russia and formed, in 1940, the Workers Party (eventually the Independent Socialist League). Later, in the late 1950s, the ISL merged with the Socialist Party. Editor or contributor to The Young Worker (1923), Labor Defender (1925), The Militant (1929-34), The New International (1934-) and Labor Action. Send corrections, comments and additions to Einde O’Callaghan.

Introduction to Max Shachtman (Ernest Haberkern)

Works Books and Pamphlets
1933:	Genesis of Trotskyism
1936:	Behind the Moscow Trial
1943:	The Struggle for the New Course
1946:	The Fight for Socialism: Principles and Program of the Workers Party
Articles
July 1934:	Dictatorship of Party or Proletariat? – Remarks on a Conception of the AWP ... and Others (The New International)
July 1934:	Fatal Admissions (book review from The New International)
Aug. 1934:	The Second International in the War (The New International)
Sep. 1934:	A Stupendous Bureaucracy (The New International)
Nov. 1934:	The Russian Revolution 17 Years After (The New International)
Nov. 1934:	What Next in the Socialist Party (The New International)
Dec. 1934:	Right Face in the Socialist Party (The New International)
Jan. 1935:	Behind the Kirov Assassination (The New International)
Jan. 1935:	Letters (correspondence with Alice Hanson & Francis Henson) (The New International)
Mar. 1935:	Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg (The New International)
Mar. 1935:	The Problem of the Labor Party (The New International)
Oct. 1935:	A Bolshevik Fugitive (with John West) (The New International)
Mar. 1936:	In Opposite Directions – The Cleveland Convention of the Socialists and the Swing to the Right of the Stalinists (The New International)
1936:	Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism? Internal Problems of the Workers Party
Oct. 1936:	The Moscow Trial (Socialist Appeal)
Nov. 1936:	Nineteen Years of the Russian Revolution (Socialist Appeal)
Feb. 1937:	Prospects for a Labor Party (Socialist Appeal)
Mar. 1937:	Introduction to Leon Trotsky’s In Defense of the Soviet Union
Jan. 1938:	Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Russia (The New International)
May 1938:	Comrade Trotsky’s Life Is Menaced (Workers’ International News)
May 1938:	Lenin and Luxemburg (The New International)
June 1938:	The Socialist Party: A Head Without A Body (The New International)
July 1938:	The Stalinist Convention (The New International)
Aug. 1938:	The Question of a Labor Party: The Challenge and the Answer (with James Burnham) (The New International)
Nov. 1938:	Balabanoff’s Memoirs (book review from (The New International)
Nov. 1938:	The 4th International is Launched (The New International)
Dec. 1938:	China’s Tragedy (book review from The New International)
Dec. 1938:	Footnote for Historians (The New International)
Jan. 1939:	Intellectuals in Retreat (with James Burnham) (The New International)
June 1939:	Old Garbage in New Pails (The New International)
Oct. 1939:	Let the Readers Decide – An Appeal (with Martin Abern & James Burnham) (The New International)
Mar. 1940:	The Crisis in the American Party – An Open Letter in Reply to Comrade Leon Trotsky (The New International)
Apr. 1940:	The Soviet Union and the World War (The New International)
Jan. 1941:	Working Class Policy in War and Peace (The New International)
July 1942:	Two Proletarian Soldiers (The New International)
April 1943:	Introduction to Trotsky on the Workers’ State (The New International)
July 1943:	Trotsky on Democracy and Fascism (The New International)
Aug. 1945:	Letter on Question of Unification of the Workers Party and the Socialist Workers Party (Fourth International)
Oct. 1945:	Letter on Unity (Fourth International)
Dec. 1945:	Pre-war Perspectives and Post-war Realities: An Analysis of the Politics of the Fourth International (The New International)
Oct. 1946:	Setting the Record Straight (The New International)
Oct. 1946:	Trotsky’s Stalin (The New International)
Feb. 1947:	Reply to Grant (The New International)
Mar. 1947:	The Nature of the Stalinist Parties: Their Class Roots, Political Role and Basic Aim (The New International)
Aug. 1948:	Tito versus Stalin (The New International)
Oct. 1948:	An Analysis of the Bankruptcy of “Orthodox Trotskyism” (The New International)
Sept. 1949:	Left Wing of the Labor Movement? (The New International)
Mar. 1950:	Four Portraits of Stalinism (Part III) (The New International)
Mar. 1950:	Is Russia a Socialist Community? (debate with Earl Browder from The New International)
Mar. 1950:	Fact or Fiction on Lenin’s Role – A Reply to David Shub (The New International)
May 1950:	Reflections on a Decade Past: On the Tenth Anniversary of Our Movement (The New International)
Sept. 1950:	Leon Trotsky, 1879-1940 (The New International)
Photos
1938:	SWP political meeting (with Felix Morrow, James Cannon, Max Shachtman, George Clarke, James Burnham, Nathan Gould and Martin Abern)
1938:	Max Shachtman (with James Cannon and Martin Abern)
Reference Max Shachtman, a political-biographical essay by Albert Glotzer, et al. Shachtman Papers (Tamiment Institute) Bibliography Yetta Barsh Shachtman Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line