May 21, 1939
Dear L. D.
Excuse my not acknowledging receipt of your letter with the enclosed articles on the Ukrainian question and the one on the Thermidorian state.1 I was waiting to find out what would become of them; finally Lola stated that she would handle them insofar as she still handles the Bulletin and its home is still Paris.2 Lola has been having talks with Sara and others re the removal of the Bulletin to the U. S. but I do not know the final results and will need wait till I go to New York next before I will know. In any case, both important articles are now in her hands.
After a most disappointing time for the Washington Branch due to the N.O.'s inefficient handling of James' meeting schedule, and the demoralization that set in after that, James suddenly appeared on the scene.3 Not having been informed about his scheduled meeting in time, be had wound his way up slowly through the South. He made a good many contacts with Negroes in the South so that he was invited to attend a trade union conference of Negro railroad workers in Washington, and that is how we had the luck of also hearing him. The notice was too short to arrange a public meeting but we called whom we could, and 33 people came; 10 of them were Negroes. James spoke on the situation of the international Negro. He is an excellent speaker and completely wins the confidence of the Negroes. Two of these were followers of the Bilbo (that reactionary Southern Senator who is proposing that the Negroes whom he calls "the depressing and depressed race" be repatriated to Liberia; he is getting considerable following among the Negroes whose position in the white civilized society of ours is so unbearable that any change seems to be an improvement, even undeveloped Africa) movement were so impressed by James that they invited him to speak to their meeting; James believes he can win them and many more away from the Bilbo following to the revolutionary road.
To the members James also spoke of his new thesis of a separate organization for the Negroes. I must say that I am leaning toward the idea, which is a far step away from the position that I used to hold of being determinedly opposed to self-determination, etc.. My attempts to work among the Negroes in this city has convinced me that their distrust of the whites is so deep-rooted that they do not bother to distinguish as to whether it is "well-intentioned" or ill-intentioned whites. Also, even those Negroes, who are very close to us and have a fair smattering of Marxism which appeals to them, still can only be aroused to activity when you speak to them of the conditions of their own race and of definite program towards their liberation. One of them, Payne, who has an IWW background and was militantly opposed to self-determination, which he called another fancy word for segregation, is how listening attentively and sympathetically to James' proposals. Though he has not joined the SWP, he would be ready today to join, nay, work hard to start, a separate organization to fight for Negro rights. I believe that if we could, as the Branch will try to do, to get James down here, once a month or so, we could get a militant movement started among the Negroes.
Surely, it is all important that our NO get down to business of elaborating a thesis on the Negro question during the coming (July 4th) convention so that we have something concrete to work on; and so that, having a policy, our work isn't haphazard and different in each part of the country. I do not know whether they intend to issue such a document or issue for the edification for members your discussions with James on the Negro question, but surely pressure has to be brought to bear upon them in that respect.4 All too often such discussions have remained in the files of the PC...
Of the status of the Russian Bulletin I will write you again after I will have seen Lola (I believe it will be June 10). Nothing else is new here.
What is new in the household? How is Natalia Ivanovna? What is the situation with the Russian secretary?5
Please give my warmest greetings to Natalia; also to Van and the other members of the household.6
Rae
1 The articles on the Ukrainian Question is most likely a reference to Trotsky's articles, 'Independence of the Ukraine and Sectarian Muddleheads' (1939) and 'Problem of the Ukraine' (1939). The article on the Thermidorian state is most likely a reference to 'The Bonapartist Philosophy of the State' (1939).
2 The 'Bulletin' [external site] is a reference to the Biulleten' Oppozitsii, the Russian language publication established by Leon Trotsky in 1929, after his exile from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). Most of the articles in the Bulletin were written by Trotsky and copies were smuggled into the USSR and distributed there. Leon Sedov, Trotsky's eldest son, acted as the managing editor until his death under mysterious circumstances in 1938. After Sedov's death printing and publication of the Bulletin moved to New York. During the 1930s Dunayevskaya acted as an agent for the Bulletin in the USA. Some copies of the Bulletin (in the original Russian) are available in the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection at #2318 and #8538 [External site].
3 N.O. is an abbreviation for 'National Office', a reference to the administrative centre of the Socialist Workers' Party; 'James' is a reference to C.L.R. James, with whom Raya Dunayevskaya would go on to form the Johnson-Forest Tendency and develop their critique of the USSR as a state-capitalist society.
4 This is a reference to a series of discussions that C.L.R. James and Leon Trotsky held on the topic of 'the Negro Question' (Black freedom in the USA), in Mexico in 1939.
5 'Natalia' is a reference to Natalia Sedova Trotsky, who was living with Trotsky in exile in Mexico. Raya Dunayevskaya lived with the Trotsky's in Mexico in 1937-38, during the period of the Moscow Trials and the Dewey Commission of inquiry into the charges made against Trotsky.
6 'Van' is a reference to Jean Van Heijenoort. Van Heijenoort, who was fluent in both Russian and French, joined the Trotsky household as a translator and bodyguard in 1932 (in Prinkipo Island, Turkey) and remained in that role, in France, Norway and Mexico, until November 1939.
Last updated on 8 January 2026