Permanent Counter-Revolution

Written in his characteristic style, William F. Dunne presents a scathing indictment of the Trotskyite leadership during the two Minneapolis strikes of May and July 1934. He argues that these leaders, for all their revolutionary posturing, betrayed a disciplined and militant rank and file; first by smothering a general strike the workers had already voted for, then by shielding reactionary Governor Floyd B. Olson as he declared martial law, raided the union hall, and issued the permits that broke the strike. Dunne closes by insisting that only the Communist Party correctly identified the Farmer–Labor administration as an instrument of capitalist rule, and that these lessons must be raised to the Minneapolis workers before the struggles ahead.