Left behind

Shachtmanite nightmare?

Max Shachtman was a dissident revolutionary Trotskyist who eventually became a Social Democrat and ended up supporting the American side in the Cold War. Peter Drucker is a supporter of the “Mandelite” wing of the Trotskyist Fourth International, and the editor of a magazine published by Solidarity, a broad left organization regrouping many “left-Shachtmanites” (admirers of Shachtman before he turned to the right). Drucker's book seems to be the only book-length study of “Max”, the bête noire of the American left. Still today, “Shachtmanite” is a term of opprobrium among Trotskyists (compare how Stalinists use the term “Trotskyite”).

Intriguing personalities such as Hal Draper, James Burnham, Michael Harrington, Irving Kristol and (surprise) Leon Trotsky make guest appearences in “Max Shachtman and his left”, but overall, this is not an exciting biography or who's who on the left. The book is very dense and repetitive, and deals with theoretical issues and nuances probably of interest only to those concerned, i.e. Trotskyists and Shachtmanites. The author has interspersed his own, “Mandelite” analyses at suitable points in the text.

But then, this heaviness is inevitable, given the fact that Shachtman seems to have been a very dogmatic thinker even when he veered to the right, joining the reformist Socialist Party and the “bourgeois” Democratic Party. Until his very death, Shachtman saw himself as a socialist and Marxist, despite supporting the U.S. war in Vietnam at a time when even his erstwhile Cold War allies (including anti-Comunist union leader Walter Reuther) were turning against it. With a few exceptions, good ol' Max seems to have broken off personal relations with pretty much everyone who challenged him politically! In the end, the self-proclaimed leftist was pretty much “left behind”, pun intended.

To be honest, I “only” read about half of the book, the interesting half dealing with Shachtman's odyssey after he broke with Trotsky and the Socialist Workers' Party. I don't doubt that the work is sound on a purely factual level. Drucker seems to have read pretty much everything Shachtman ever wrote, and interviewed his remaining former collaborators in some detail. But, as I said, this probably isn't for the general reader.

Three stars and a half.