James Weinstein

James Weinstein

James Weinstein...

James Weinstein (1926-20050 was a Chicago based socialist activist, writer and publisher. Weinstein wrote five books, Including-"The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912-1925".

On his death, Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont called Weinstein one of the intellectual leaders of the American progressive movement.

James Weinstein was married to Beth Maschinot and left two children, Lisa Weinstein of Chicago and Joshua Weinstein of San Francisco.

Early life

James Weinstein was the son of privilege, but he always put his inherited wealth at the service of his lifelong radical ideals.

A New York City native, Weinstein was politically active in left-wing causes from the age of 14. In 1944 he left his undergraduate studies at Cornell to serve 19 months in the Navy.

Communist Party

Weinstein returned to finish taking his degree, then went on to graduate school at Columbia University, where he joined the Communist Party USA in 1948. he broke with the party in 1956 after the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

Studies on the Left

Weinstein was the founder (and principal financier) of three important radical publications. In the early '60s, while teaching at the University of Wisconsin at Madison-he was one of the co-founders of Studies on the Left, an intellectual journal that saw itself as the counterpart of the British New Left Review. The Studies on the Left editorial board included, besides Weinstein, disciples of the radical historian William Appleman Williams, who was teaching at Madison at the time.

New York activism

By 1966, Weinstein had moved back to New York. His townhouse in the Chelsea neighborhood, was the frequent host to radical gatherings and fundraisers.

That year, ran for Congress as a self financed anti-Vietnam war Independent on Manhattan's West Side against an entrenched, Democratic Party machine hack.

Weinstein was supported by a diverse spectrum of activists from the anti-war, civil rights, and radical movements of the '60s, as well as many rank-and-filers from the labor movement (the district in which Jimmy ran included the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' huge housing project in Chelsea, home to many working-class veterans of the Socialist and Communist movements...,

Weinstein lost, but gained a respectable vote.

Institute for Policy Studies connections

James Weinstein maintained a long a deep relationship with the radical, Washington DC based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

The IPS/TNI Annual Report for 1979-80 lists a sampling of seminars and lectures. Lecturers on U. S. political activities included Frances Fox Piven, James Weinstein, editor of IPS's weekly newspaper In These Times, Ned Crosby, president, Center for New Democratic Processes, Lee Benson, History Department, University of Pennsylvania, Harley Shaiken United Auto Workers consultant and Robert Cole, Economics Department, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Socialist Review, In These Times

On moving to San Francisco in 1967, Weinstein founded the Socialist Review, a now-defunct intellectual journal,and also the still existing Modern Times bookstore.

Weinstein's most enduring legacy is the biweekly [[In These Times](ITT), In continuous publication since 1976. Weistein was editor and publisher of ITT from 1976 to his retirement from both roles in 1999.

The Chicago based ITT was originally billed as a "socialist" newspaper and as the organ of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Since then ITT has become a magazine and dropped the socialist label. it has however continued to promote leftist ideas and is still closely associated with IPS and Democratic Socialists of America.

Weinstein and Hugh DeLacy

During the late 1970s Weinstein maintained a relationship with Hugh DeLacy a Southern California activist, who served as west Coast agent for In These Times. DeLacy had been a secret member of the Communist Party USA inside the Washington State Democratic Party and had even served a term in Congress from 1944 to 1946).

Delacy was active in communist party fronts up until the late 1960s and subsequently worked closely with members of the New American Movement.

Tactical view

According to longtime Weinstein friend and collaboratorDoug Ireland;

Among many points made in his writings -- both in his books, and in scholarly articles -- Weinstein argued coherently that the Communist Party USA helped squander that rich legacy of native American radicalism by its slavish devotion and subservience to Soviet Russia --which was utterly irrelevant to the needs and experience of working-class America.

Weistein believed that the;

CP's eternal fidelity to Moscow...gave the domestic Cold Warriors the hammer and tongs with which to destroy the large US left of the Popular Front period -- including within the labor movement.

Chicago activism, Carl Davidson relationship

Chicago Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism leader Carl Davidson claims a long relationship with James Weinstein.

According to Davidson, Weinstein helped him with the Midwest Radical Scholars & Activists Conference and Chicagoans Against War & Injustice, the organizers of the 2002 Chicago anti-Iraq war rally that first brought Barack Obama to the wider attention of the US left.

Jimmy Weinstein was a founder of Chicagoans Against War & Injustice.

He was an active and creative participant in our meetings until his illness grew stronger and held him back. He helped with our early successes, and many in our group were close friends with him.

He was an active and creative participant in our meetings until his illness grew stronger and held him back. He helped with our early successes, and many in our group were close friends with him.

I first met in him in my youth, in the 'Studies on the Left' and SDS days, where we both saw ourselves as shaping the 'New Left' of the 1960s. Our paths diverted as I went into Leninist party-building and he built In These Times and continued his research and writing.

After the crises in socialism in the late 1980s, we got together again as I sought his advice on the Midwest Radical Scholars & Activists Conference, rethinking socialism, and other projects. Despite old polemics, he was always warm and helpful.