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Among the more than a thousand films I have reviewed over the past 24 years, “Every Cook Can Govern: Documenting the life, impact & works of CLR James” earns pride of place as the most intelligent, serious and passionate application of Marxism that I have seen. I strongly urge buying the DVD from the film’s website since it is not only a study of arguably the most important Marxist thinker since the death of Leon Trotsky but a chronicle of some of the major events of the 20th century class struggle that shaped James’s career. The documentary brings together the most respected CLR James scholars (among them Paul Buhle, Scott McLemee and Kent Worcester) as well as family members such as his former partner Selma James and his nephew Darcus Howe, a revolutionary activist and major thinker in his own right. Finally, you can see James himself discussing his life-long career as a revolutionary that culminated with what he considered his greatest achievement—helping to destroy Stalinism.
When I joined the Socialist Workers Party in 1967, veterans would always speak derisively of those dissidents who eventually found themselves removed either voluntarily or involuntarily from the group that Leon Trotsky considered the gold standard of his ill-fated Fourth International. CLR James was the leader of a tendency in the party along with Raya Dunayevskaya, who wrote articles under the names of Johnson and Forest. When the standard turned out to be made of fool’s gold, I made it a point to read the “renegades” who were always portrayed as fleeing helter-skelter from Marxism. James’s writings were an epiphany for me. All the appetites that I had suppressed in the SWP could be satisfied by reading James, especially his brilliant discussions of both high and popular culture. James was not only capable of writing on Shakespeare and Herman Melville. He also wrote “Beyond a Boundary”, a combination memoir and salute to the game of cricket. Indeed, the title of that book expressed my vision of the kind of Marxism that was necessary, one that sought to transcend sterile sectarian divisions on the left.
full: https://louisproyect.org/2016/09/02/every-cook-can-govern/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
