1981 Steve Clark introduction to "The Changing Face of U.S. Politics"

I did not read The Changing Face of U.S Politics until after I 

joined the U.S. Socialist Workers Party in summer 1989. The copy I 

bought was the 1981 first edition with the orange and brown 

cover.


The third edition, from 2002, can be purchased here.


The second and third editions dispensed with the 1981 Steve 

Clark introduction and the 1979 report to the Fourth 

International by SWP leader Jack Barnes.  These editions 

replaced them with far more pertinent material on the turn to 

industry based on party and fraction experience from the late 

1980s and early 1990s.


I recently found a copy of the 1981 first edition at a local 

bookstore here in Cleveland. Coincidentally, it belonged to a 

fellow comrade in the Cleveland branch of my youth: Almeda 

Kirsch.  The red check marks and under-linings in the Barnes 

report "The turn to industry and the tasks of the Fourth 

International" are hers.


[What happened to the Fourth International's turn to industry?  

Some Fourth Internationalists made it, and after a long struggle 

reconstituted themselves as communist parties.  The 1988  Mary-

Alice Waters document "The Communist Strategy of Party-Building 

Today: A letter to comrades in Sweden" 

 tells that story, and can be purchased here.  ]


The 1981 Clark introduction and the 1979 Barnes report I think 

are of more than historical interest.  They can be read here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7trXEFcZimVekVjQmlVd3VXbG8/edit?usp=sharing




Jay
06-21-14