George Breitman (February 28, 1916 – April 19, 1986) was an American

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

political activist and newspaper editor. He is best remembered as a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and as a long-time editor of that organization's weekly paper, ''

The Militant ''The Militant'' is an international socialist newsweekly connected to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Pathfinder Press. It is published in the United States and distributed in other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Aus ...

.'' Breitman also supervised and edited several important publishing projects as the head of the SWP's publishing house in the 1960s and 1970s.

Biography

Early years

George Breitman was born February 28, 1916, in a

working-class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

neighborhood of

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.iceman, and his wife Pauline Trattler Breitman.Wolfgang Lubitz and Petra Lubitz
"George Breitman,"
Lubitz TrotskyanaNet, May 1, 2009; p. 1. He attended

public school Public school may refer to: * State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government * Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England an ...

in Newark. Upon graduation from Newark Central High School, Breitman was employed in the ranks of the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...

. He later found a job working in the New Deal's

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

."Guide to the George Breitman Papers TAM 169,"
Tamiment Library, New York University.

Political career

Breitman returned to Newark in 1935 and joined the

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...

movement as a member of the

Spartacus Youth League Spartacus ( el, Σπάρτακος '; la, Spartacus; c. 103–71 BC) was a Thracians, Thracian gladiator who, along with Crixus, Gannicus, Castus (rebel), Castus, and Oenomaus (rebel slave), Oenomaus, was one of the Slavery in ancient Ro ...

, the youth section of the

Workers Party of the United States The Workers Party of the United States (WPUS) was established in December 1934 by a merger of the American Workers Party (AWP) led by A.J. Muste and the Trotskyist Communist League of America (CLA) led by James P. Cannon. The party was dissolved i ...

(WPUS).Lubitz and Lubitz, "George Breitman," p. 2. He joined the adult WPUS that same year. He also of became involved in the unemployed movement of the period as a leading activist in the New Jersey Workers Alliance. Breitman followed the Workers Party into the

Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...

in the middle 1930s, before leaving to become a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party in December 1937. He was elected to the SWP's governing National Committee for the first time in 1939 and served continuously in that position until 1981. He was also frequently a member of the party's Political Committee, which handled day-to-day operations of the organization. In 1940, Breitman married Dorothea Katz (1914–2004). He was four times the SWP's candidate for the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

for

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, running in

1940 A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January *January ...

1942 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Declaration by United Nations is signed by China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 22 other nations, in wh ...

1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...

, and

1954 Events January * January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...

. Following the departure of

Max Shachtman Max Shachtman (; September 10, 1904 – November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany. Beginnings S ...

and his political associates to form a new Workers Party, Breitman was named editor of the SWP's weekly paper, ''

.'' He held that post from 1941 until 1943, when he found himself drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. In March 1946 he participated in the first post-war conference of the

Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of wor ...

, held in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He was arrested at this meeting along with other participants but quickly released, owing to his American citizenship. After the war, Breitman was once again named editor of ''The Militant,'' handling primary editorial duties from 1946 to 1954. During this time, he wrote copiously, publishing over 500 articles in ''The Militant'' from 1947 to 1955. In 1954, the Breitmans moved to

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

, where for the next 13 years they served as District Organizers for the SWP. There George and Dorothea Breitman helped to organize the "Friday Night Socialist Forum" (later called the "Militant Labor Forum"), a weekly lecture series that attracted participants a broad range of activists from labor, radical, and black liberation groups. To pay the bills, Breitman worked as a printer and proofreader for the ''

Detroit Free Press The ''Detroit Free Press'' is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the ''Sunday Free Press''. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primari ...

.'' As such, he was a member of the

International Typographical Union The International Typographical Union (ITU) was a US trade union for the printing trade for newspapers and other media. It was founded on May 3, 1852, in the United States as the National Typographical Union, and changed its name to the Interna ...

. Breitman returned from Detroit to New York in the late 1960s to take over management of the SWP's publishing arm,

Pathfinder Press Pathfinder may refer to: Businesses * Pathfinder Energy Services, a division of Smith International * Pathfinder Press, a publisher of socialist literature Computing and information science * Path Finder, a Macintosh file browser * Pathfinder (w ...

. In that capacity, he served as editor of a 14-volume collection entitled '' Writings of Leon Trotsky, 1929–1940'', which was published from 1969 to 1979. During his time at the helm of Pathfinder, Breitman was instrumental in the publication of various collections of writings by SWP leading light James P. Cannon and a pioneering selection of writings by

Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...

, entitled ''Malcolm X Speaks'' (1965). Although politically a child of the 1930s, Brietman was deeply influenced by the radical movements of the 1960s and 70s seeing them as a harbinger of a coming social revolution which he prophesied would have a "combined character" being both a socialist revolution of the working class against capitalism merged with the struggles and demands of "specially oppressed" people: Blacks, Latinos and other nationally oppressed people; women, gays and others, groups Brietman pointed that were, like the American population in general, overwhelmingly working class. Brietman described the radical movements of that period as constituting a "New Radicalization" that was deeper and broader than the ones he described as occurring before the Civil War among abolitionists and small farmers and later among industrial workers and socialists during the turn of the century in the era of the Bolshevik Revolution up through the 1930s. He thus saw that it portended the prospect of a great social upheaval. In a certain sense he adopted and translated into Old Left and orthodox Marxist terms, New Leftist ideas. For this he was denounced as a Herbert Marcuse like revisionist by sectarian Marxists, while others viewed his ideas as entirely correct, even visionary, which explored the issues Marcuse addressed on a deeper level, reconciling them with revolutionary Marxism, whose adherents, in the words of Lenin, must at all times be "tribunes of the people" responding to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression. In the late 1970s Breitman opposed what he saw as a growing fixation of the SWP's top leadership on the Castroist leadership of the

Cuban Communist Party The Communist Party of Cuba ( es, Partido Comunista de Cuba, PCC) is the sole ruling party of Cuba. It was founded on 3 October 1965 as the successor to the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which was in turn made up of the 26t ...

, and became involved in a factional opposition group in the SWP beginning in 1981. This disagreement over the direction ultimately led to Breitman's expulsion from the SWP in 1984. Despite ill health, Breitman played a leading role in the foundation of the

Fourth Internationalist Tendency {{Trotskyism The Fourth Internationalist Tendency (FIT) was a public faction of the Socialist Workers Party (US), formed after the 1983 expulsion from that organization of a group of supporters of the Fourth International. While the SWP was not for ...

, which sought to unify U.S. supporters of the Fourth International. Continuing his editorial activities, he was a contributing editor of the group's journal, '' Bulletin in Defense of Marxism.''Lubitz and Lubitz, "George Breitman," p. 3. Breitman used several pseudonyms over the course of his life, including most famously "Albert Parker," but also ""Philip Blake," "Drake," "Chester Hofla," "Anthony Massini," "John F. Petrone,"Jeffrey B. Perry, "Pseudonyms: A Reference Aid for Studying American Communist History," ''American Communist History,'' vol. 3, no. 1 (June 2004), p. 110. and "G. Sloane."

Death and legacy

Breitman died of a heart attack on April 19, 1986, in New York City. Breitman's papers are held by the

Tamiment Library The Tamiment Library is a research library at New York University that documents radical and left history, with strengths in the histories of communism, socialism, anarchism, the New Left, the Civil Rights Movement, and utopian experiments. Th ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. The Breitman papers, consisting of 30 linear feet of material collected in 63 archival boxes, is open for use by scholars without restriction.

Footnotes

Works

* ''The Trenton Siege by the Army of Unoccupation.'' Introduction by John Spain, Jr. Trenton, NJ: Workers Alliance of America, n.d.

936 Year 936 ( CMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * June 19 – At Laon, Louis IV, the 14-year old son of the late King Charles the Simple, ...

* ''The Fight Against Hagueism: A Program of Action.'' (Unsigned.) Newark, NJ: Socialist Workers Party, New Jersey District, 1938. * ''Defend the Negro Sailors on the U.S.S. Philadelphia.'' As "Albert Parker." New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1940. * ''New Jersey in the 1940 Elections.'' (Unsigned.) Newark, NJ: Socialist Workers Party, 1940. * ''The March on Washington One Year After.'' As "Albert Parker." New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1942. * ''The Struggle for Negro Equality.'' As "Albert Parker," with John Saunders. New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1943. * ''Wartime Crimes of Big Business.'' New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1943. * ''The Jim Crow Murder of Mr. and Mrs. Harry T. Moore.'' New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1952. * ''Anti-Negro Prejudice: When It Began, When It Will End.'' New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1960. * ''How a Minority Can Change Society: The Real Potential of the Afro-American Struggle.'' New York: Young Socialist Forum, 1964. —''Reissued 1971 by Pathfinder Press.'' * ''Malcolm X: The Man and His Ideas.'' New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1965. * ''Marxism and the Negro Struggle: Articles by Harold Cruse, George Breitman, Clifton DeBerry.'' With Harold Cruse and

Clifton DeBerry Clifton DeBerry (September 18, 1923 – March 24, 2006) was an American communist and two-time candidate for President of the United States of the Socialist Workers Party. He was the first black American in the 20th century to be chosen by a po ...

. New York: Monad Press, 1965. * ''The Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary.'' New York: Merit Publishers, 1967. * ''Black Nationalism and Socialism.'' New York: Merit Publishers, 1968. * ''Myths About Malcolm X: Two Views.'' With Albert Cleage. New York: Merit Publishers, 1968. * ''The Rocky Road to the Fourth International, 1933-38.'' New York: Pathfinder Press, 1979. * ''Malcolm X and the Third American Revolution: The Writings of George Breitman.'' Anthony Marcus, ed. New York: Humanity Books, 2005.

External links

* Wolfgang and Petra Lubitz
"George Breitman,"
Lubitz TrotskyanaNet, 2009. —''Biographical sketch and a select bibliography.''

Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved March 18, 2010.

Marxists Internet Archive: ** "Lecture on the Negro Movement." ** "The Marxist Theory on the Negro Struggle." In 9 parts. ** "What a Minority Can Do." Speech to 1964 Conference of the Midwest Young Socialist Alliance. In 5 parts.
Guide to the George Breitman Papers 1928-1986.
Tamiment Library, New York University. Retrieved March 18, 2010.