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James P. Cannon Quotes

James Patrick Cannon was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.

Born on February 11, 1890, in Rosedale, Kansas, the son of Irish immigrants with strong socialist convictions, he joined the Socialist Party of America in 1908 and the Industrial Workers of the World in 1911. He was personally trained by "Big Bill" Haywood, a top IWW leader, and was an IWW organizer throughout the Midwest from 1912-14.Following his expulsion from the Communist Party USA in 1928, of which he had been a founding member and the National Chairman of its legal entity, the Workers Party of America, Cannon was national secretary of the Communist League of America, Workers Party of the United States and Socialist Workers Party until his retirement and move to California in 1953. He was national chairman emeritus of the SWP when he died in Los Angeles on August 21, 1974. Wikipedia  

✵ 11. February 1890 – 21. August 1974
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James P. Cannon: 7 quotes1 like

Famous James P. Cannon Quotes

“This knowledge will not fall from heaven; it will be acquired only by those who have the mind and the will to study, as Marx required of his first disciples. Wilhelm Liebknecht’s little volume of reminiscences will be an aid and stimulus in this direction. It ought to have a place on the bookshelf of every revolutionary worker.”

James P. Cannon

"Marx, the Man" (1930)

“Trotskyism is not a new movement, a new doctrine, but the restoration, the revival of genuine Marxism as it was expounded and practiced in the Russian revolution and in the early days of the Communist International.”

James P. Cannon

History of American Trotskyism

“These monster cities we live in today are blights of modern society. They will certainly give way to planned cities interlinked to the countryside. Everybody will live with the natural advantages of the country and the cultural associations of the town.”

James P. Cannon

What socialist America will look like?

“The economic prerequisites for the socialist revolution are fully matured in the US. The political premises are likewise far more advanced than might appear on the surface.”

James P. Cannon

Theses on the American Revolution

“The workers of America have power enough to topple the structure of capitalism at home and to lift the whole world with them when they rise.”

James P. Cannon

The Struggle for a Proletarian Party

“Recoiling against the cult of Stalin, which caused such devastation in the American radical movement, some people now describe all reference to the Marxist authorities as the cult of Marx, the cult of Lenin, or the cult of Trotsky. Those who used to forbid themselves to say anything until it was first said by Stalin, or even to think any thoughts which had not first been thought for them by Stalin, have suddenly decided that the cure for this mental, moral and political prostration is to listen to nothing that is said and to read nothing that has been written outside the borders of the fifty states.”

James P. Cannon

Trotsky on America

“The American capitalists are richer and stronger than their counterparts in other lands. They are also younger and more ignorant, and therefore more inclined to seek a rough settlement of difficulties without diplomatic subtlety and finesse. All that does not change the fact that American capitalism operates according to the same laws as the others, is confronted with the same fundamental problems, and is headed toward the same catastrophe.”

James P. Cannon

Fascism and the workers' part

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