Martin Glaberman
Libertarian Marxist autoworker from Detroit, MI, who was close to CLR James and highly influential amongst various radical car industry workers' organisations.
Radical America, November-December 1973
This issue contains a symposium on Jeremy Brecher's book Strike!. Brecher was a member of the American group Root and Branch, and brought a sort of council communist politics to his research in American labor history. In this Radical America, Brecher's essay "Who Advocates Spontaneity?" addresses criticisms of his book and focuses on the theme of class consciousness.
Pdf's of other issues of Radical America are available [url=http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://dl.lib.brown.edu/radicalamerica/img/rad_banner.png&imgrefurl=http://dl.lib.brown.edu/radicalamerica/about.html&usg=__mqVMXc6MS4ikkXMPTCJOKygoGU0=&h=90&w=780&sz=42&hl=en&start=52&um=1&tbnid=woofgdPZE9McAM:&tbnh=16&tbnw=142&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dradical%2Bamerica%2B1973%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3D
Travailler pour la paie: les racines de la revolte - Martin Glaberman
Article in French by Martin Glaberman from Echanges et Mouvement.
TRAVAILLER POUR LA PAIE : LES RACINES DE LA REVOLTE
1. QU’EST-CE QUE LA CLASSE OUVRIERE ?
Nous donnons ci-après le premier chapitre de l'ouvrage de Martin Glaberman et de Seymour Faber, Working for Wages : The Roots of Insurgency*. Martin Glaberman est décédé récemment**.
Strata in the working class - Martin Glaberman
Article by Martin Glaberman on the divisions within the working class.
The following article was written by Martin glaberman under the pen name Martin Harvey. It first appeared in the Internal Bulletin of the Johnson-Forest tendency no. 6 August 21 1947
Back to the future - The continuing relevance of Marx - Martin Glaberman and Seymour Faber
Article by Martin Glaberman and Seymour Faber discussing the ongoing relevance of much of Karl Marx's work to the contemporary class struggle
In the Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx and Engels wrote: "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society" [1] Marx thought enough of these words to reproduce them in Capital.
The Factory Songs of Mr. Toad - Martin Glaberman
In addition to his political writings, Martin Glaberman was also a published poet. Here is an example of his work.
Wildcat I
A most practical cat.
Walking silently on padded feet
Unseen, unheard
Power concentrated
in a compact body
Lean, lithe, less
in appearance
Than the explosive leap,
periodic culmination
of growing power
of growing hunger
Amber, black, mottled, gold.
All colors help to hide
its invisible path
Slowly it climbs and waits
on limb
on cliff
on overhang
Review - Punching out by Martin Glaberman - Red and Black Notes
Red and Black Notes review of Punching Out by Martin Glaberman.
Review by Charles H Kerr, 2002
Martin Glaberman, Marty to those who knew him, liked to describe himself as an "unreconstructed Johnsonite." By that, he meant that he was still a supporter of the ideas and perspectives developed by CLR James when he wrote under the pen name of JR Johnson. That meant that Marty espoused many unpopular ideas:
Glaberman, Martin: 1918 - 2001 - Obituary by Red and Black Notes
Red & Black Notes was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Martin Glaberman on December 17, 2001. Marty was active in the workers' movement for almost seventy years, as a writer, agitator, activist and teacher. His death is a tremendous loss to those who knew him and the working class.
Marty Glaberman joined the Socialist Party youth group in 1932 when he was 13 years old. He came from a social democratic family and joined the SP because it was the only organization in the neigbourhood. Asked why he joined at 13, he replied they wouldn't take him any younger.
A different sort of democracy - Martin Glaberman
The following article was written as an introduction to C.L.R. James' Every Cook can Govern. It has been slightly edited for publication with the author's permission. It contrasts the weakness of capitalist democracy, comparing it to the democracy of ancient Greece as well as a directly democratic society run by the working class.
Celebrations of the 2,500th anniversary of the creation of a democratic society in ancient Greece took place in 1991. Dignitaries from the various Western democracies attended ceremonies in Greece.
1911-1970s: Unions and workers: limitations and possibilities, by Martin Glaberman
Detroit auto-worker Martin Glaberman analyses the bureaucratisation and decline of the US trade union movement. An interesting article interspersed with historical information and personal reminiscences
Consider these two units of time: 36 seconds, the rest of your life. The job that takes 36 seconds to do that you're going to do for the rest of your life. I don't know a better definition of alienation than that...
An open letter to rank and file labor activists
An open letter by the IMPACT group in Ohio, USA, to rank-and-file workers. The letter cointains short accounts of sell-outs and closed-door deals done by union leaders, as well as suggestions for grassroots activity.
