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{{Short description, 1960's Radical Left Group Facing Reality was a radical left group in the United States that existed from about 1962 until 1970.


History

Facing Reality originated in the Johnson–Forest Tendency led by C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya. It has its origins in the
Trotskyist Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...
left but regarded the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
as
state capitalist State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, ce ...
. By 1951, the Johnson–Forest Tendency had left the Trotskyist left to form its own organization known as Correspondence Publishing Committee. C. L. R. James was forced to leave the USA in the early 1950s and Correspondence split. The faction that stayed loyal to C .L. R. James retained the name the Correspondence Publishing Committee and continued to receive advice from James from Britain, while a significant number supported Raya Dunayevskaya and split to form a new group, News and Letters Committees, which publishes a monthly newspaper, '' News & Letters'', that remains in print today. In 1962, there was a further split as Grace Lee Boggs, James Boggs, Freddy Paine and Lyman Paine abandoned the politics of C.L.R. James for an eclectic politics that was third worldist, while keeping the organization's name. The small number of members that continued to endorse the politics of James took the name Facing Reality, after the 1958 book by James co-written with Grace Lee Boggs and Pierre Chaulieu, a pseudonym for
Cornelius Castoriadis Cornelius Castoriadis (; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greeks in France, Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, sociologist, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, au ...
, on the Hungarian working class revolt of 1956. Facing Reality was based primarily in
Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
and published a monthly newsletter, ''Speak Out'', as well as pamphlets by James and other leading Facing Reality figures such as Martin Glaberman. They include ''Negro Americans Take the Lead: A Statement on the Crisis in American Civilization'' in 1964 and '' Mao as Dialectician'' by Martin Glaberman as well as James' ''Marxism and the Intellectuals'' in 1963 and ''Lenin, Trotsky, and the Vanguard Party'' in 1964. In 1967, four key leading members — C.L.R. James, Martin Glaberman, William Gorman and George Rawick — of Facing Reality collaborated to write the pamphlet ''The Gathering Forces'', a document some such as Kent Worcester have characterized as representing the influence of
Maoism Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic o ...
even in Facing Reality. Martin Glaberman, however, has disputed this claim in a review of Worcester's book in '' Against the Current'' magazine.


Political impact

Facing Reality had a particular, if small, impact among
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
political activists at
Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public university, public research university in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 375 programs. It is Michigan's third-l ...
in Detroit and in auto plants in the city. A
community paper Community paper is a term used by publishers, advertisers and readers to describe a range of publications that share a common service to their local community and commerce. Their predominant medium being newsprint, often free and published at regu ...
, '' Inner City Voice'', published articles by James in the late 1960s. Glaberman taught a class on
Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
's '' Capital'' to many of the staff of the ''Inner City Voice''. Numerous members of this group were also active in the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement. In 1970, the group was dissolved at the suggestion of Glaberman over James's objections on the ground that it was too small to have an impact. It is important to note, however that the group had a broader international influence as well, including in Italy's burgeoning "
autonomous In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be defi ...
" communist movement.


Sources


''Martin Glaberman 1918–2001''

Learning from Autonomous Marxism
* Martin Glaberman, "C.L.R. James: A Recollection", '' New Politics'' #8 (Winter 1990): 78–84. * Kent Worcester, ''C.L.R. James: A Political Biography'' (Albany: State University of New York, 1996).


External links


''Facing reality''
complete book at Hathi Trust

Defunct left-wing parties in the United States Political parties established in 1962 1962 establishments in the United States Political parties disestablished in 1970 1970 disestablishments in the United States C. L. R. James