Marxists’ Internet Archive: ETOL Home Page: Trotskyist Writers Section: Farrel Dobbs
Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 44, 1 November 1948, p. 4.
Transcription & Mark-up: Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
BALTIMORE, Oct. 25 – Drama rode the rails with me today from New York to Baltimore. Not everyone noticed it, but there it was, a real-life tale of human tragedy under capitalism, powerfully portrayed two Negro youth in military uniform.
One young soldier was a veteran of World War II, returning home to Baltimore for the first time in five years, his breast heavily decorated with campaign ribbons and-battle stars. The “Hershey bars” on his sleeve reached almost to his elbow. He looked old and wise far beyond his years.
The other was a young – a very young – draftee, just entering the conscript army of World War III, heading for a military training camp in the Jim-Crow South.
They met for the first time on the train and soon became fast friends. Strong bonds of common suffering as Negro victims of cruel discrimination and as the cannon fodder of imperialist war drew them together.
When they parted at Baltimore, the draftee compressed the story of their future, and the future of all American youth under capitalism, into four bitter words, “See you in Russia.”
I walked off the train with the veteran. When his feet touched the good earth of his home town, he set down his barrack bag, breathed deeply and exultantly, smiling happily at the world.
“Home!” he said, “Home at last, after five long years, but I still can’t believe it until I get out to the northwest side and see my mother.”
Then an unpleasant memory of the past must have flashed through his mind, for he suddenly turned to me and said grimly, “I don’t want to mess up, mister, but nobody better try to push me around.”
I wished him luck and he headed for the cab stand.
Baltimore gave the returning hero his first welcome. Baltimore thanked the veteran of five years of hell in the European and Pacific war theatres by pushing him back to the end of the line until every white passenger was comfortably seated in a taxi.
I hope he picked up the Baltimore Sun a few hours later and read the following story:
“An audience of young men and women heard the young presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party picture a future America with no policemen, no armies and no capitalists, but with all of life’s needs provided for everyone in bounteous measure ...
“Mr. Dobbs illustrated how the workers and farmers government which he some day hopes to head will end the need for policemen, jails, courts and judges ...
“When we abolish the profit motive and increase production – as we would increase it in our economy of plenty – watches and other valuables would become as common and as easily attainable as water. No one would want to take yours and so we would need no police.
“Abolishing armies would be just as simple, he asserted. With the profit motive abolished and the economy of plenty substituted for the capitalists’ economy of scarcity, the people of the world have no motive for which to fight each other ...
“We must organize, he said, by two and threes, by dozens and thousands to establish the Workers and Farmers Government, abolish the capitalist system and form a socialist society.”
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Last updated: 26 March 2023