3/14/50
Dear J:
My dear Marx is always on the spot. Yes, he was in the very latest mine strike.1 It now turns out that among the additions in the 1872 edition was the transposition of a long footnote on miners into the text itself; you will find it on pp. 541-551.2 As soon as I get down at least some notes on the literally dozens of books I have read on coal in these past two weeks, I will put it away for a while since there seems to be no chance for an article. Or I may decide to write a rough (very rough first) draft anyway and then just let it lie with you and me in that condition until we can get ready to rework. In the meantime I will return to work on CAPITAL. (You can keep the minutes as I am being permitted the branch copy; but please do find JB's MS.3 Will see you get all current material possible).
Meanwhile some gossip. You noted in the minutes that the initiative for the tri-state discussion was not from P'gh., but from Youngstown where people with higher trade union status of either El or me reside. Frank had to come to town about his leg yesterday and so dropped in and told me that they now have a letter from Youngstown asking "red" to come down there to speak to the Ohio branches, and P'gh. would be invited too. Naturally he accepted. There is no doubt that both "Red" as a new member and the importance of the strike and relief actions has made Youngstown more than wish it was closer to Morgantown; an actual tie-up that-a-way is being built up.4
Have not heard from George, but did see that minutes seem to have set the contents of the FI for a solid year!5
Heard from WL6 whose comments prove pretty useless; in any case here is the one concrete suggestion for what it is (or is not) worth: "Your friend should write up the Melville part separately & circulate it for criticism among specialists; I have grave doubts about his symbolic interpretation".7 Otherwise, he thought few people "would have the patience to plod through the overlong prospectus" and hence he could give no suggestion either as to publishers or people with money. John8 is now finishing it and will let you have his comments in a week or so.
Back to coal for a minute; I could deal with it either in the context of a full century, 1849-1949 (the first strike and union occurs in US 1849), or restrict myself to the two WW9 when all the technological changes occur. The crisis in coal, you know, began in 1924, not 1929. It seems many "friends" of miners as well as the coal barons thought that technology would eliminate the union since it would eliminate that independence of the miner and make him a button pusher even as it did the factory operative who was not organized (1925). The interlude of newness however lasted but a couple of years and the strikes recurred ever more sharp and in fact the initiative comes from the most mechanized mines, as it came in this very last one. These is no richer mine for Johnsonism than a real mine.10
Best to Connie and Nobbie11
1 From June 1949 to March 1950 miners across the USA were involved in labour disputes about conditions in mining, and in particular the introduction of the 'continuous miner', an automated coal cutting machine. Miners in the north West Virginia were some of the most militant miners in this dispute and the local branch of the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) in north West Virginia was unusual in that a majority of its membership were supporters of the state-capitalist position. Dunayevskaya was an active member of the SWP local during the strike. In 1984 News & Letters published a pamphlet on the miners' strike, A 1980's View: The Coal Miners' General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S.. Dunayevskaya's contribution to the pamphlet is available on the MIA. The SWP weekly publication, The Militant, carried several articles on the strikes, including articles by Dunayevskaya (written under the pseudonym of Freddie Forest).
2 'the 1872 edition' is a reference to the French edition of Capital: Volume One, the translation of which was supervised by Marx himself and which included additions made by Marx. These additions are not included in their entirety in the two most popular English language translations of Capital: the Aveling and Moore translation, (which is the version on the MIA), or; the Penguin published translation by Ben Fowkes.
3 The minutes of an SWP regional meeting on the strike are available on the MIA.
The editor has not been able to establish who JB is, it is not James Boggs, because he only joined the Johnson-Forest Tendency after they had left the SWP and formed the Correspondence Committees.
4 'El' was a member of the Pittsburg branch of the SWP (Dunayevskaya was a member of the same branch). 'Frank' and 'Red' were members of the Morgantown branch of the SWP.
5 'FI' is most likely a reference to Fourth International, the monthly theoretical publication of the Socialist Workers' Party. 'George' could be a reference to George Clarke, who was the managing editor of Fourth International from 1949-1953. Or it could be a reference to George Novack (party name William F. Warde), who served on the SWP National Committee from 1940 to 1973. Dunayevskaya had some correspondence with Novack during the strike (MIA, pages 9236 & 9237).
6 The editor has been unable to identify who 'WL' is a reference to.
7 The reference to Melville suggests that Dunayevskaya is talking about the manuscript of CLR James's book on American Civilization. A revised version of part of that book, with a significant focus on Herman Melville, was published as Mariners, Renegades and Castaways,(1953).
8 'John' is most likely a reference to Raya Dunayevskaya's husband, John F. Dwyer, who wrote under the pseudonyms John Fredericks, John O'Brien, and Peter Mallory.
9 'WW' is an abbreviation for 'World Wars'.
10 'Johnsonism' is a reference to the philosophy of the Johnson-Forest Tendency.
11 'Connie' is Constance Webb, who CLR James married in 1946. 'Nobbie' was the family name for their son, (James Junior), born in 1949.