Trotskyists on Trial

Donna Haverty-Stacke's Trotskyists on Trial makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of American radicalism, the Roosevelt administration's response to criticism of its policies, and the Supreme Court's interpretation of freedom of speech.​ Based on wide-ranging research, her analysis of legal, political, and social issues explains the implications not only for the labor movement but also for civil liberties in wartime and postwar America. ~Richard Polenberg,Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History Emeritus, Cornell University

Haverty-Stackes book draws on newly available records, including FBI reports, to provide an important new perspective on an infamous moment in labor history, one that she persuasively links to the emergence of the Cold War Eras security state. Well-written and deeply researched, this book spotlights a cast of players, that range from rank and file union dissidents to J.Edgar Hoover and a group of front line FBI agents whose behind-the-scenes role has not previously been revealed. In doing so it opens up the significance of this episode well beyond its previously understood role in the history of the Teamsters Union. ~David Witwer,Penn State University Harrisburg

In Trotskyists on Trial, Donna Haverty-Stacke locates the prosecutions of labor radicals under the Smith Act in the wider national landscape of struggles over national security, civil liberties, and freedom of speech. Crediting the defendants with the political vision and democratic optimism, she chronicles their role in petitioning the government and trying to secure appeal, pardon, and exoneration for those convicted. The civil liberties issues involved in this now forgotten case resonate in a society that lives under the shadow of the national security state and made vulnerable by the weakened political influence of the labor Left. ~Elizabeth V. Faue,Wayne State University

Now, 75 years later, the Trotskyist SWP and the extraordinary men and women who fought for it are gone. The lessons they taught about defending the revolutionary movement, however, are very much aliveand now can be learned from reading and this excellent book. ~Socialist Worker

Haverty-Stacke offers a pathbreaking work, a balanced and readable account of the background, proceedings, and aftermath of U.S. v. Dunne, the 1941 trial of 29 leaders of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP)Summing Up: Highly recommended. ~Choice

Haverty-Stackes focus on the first Smith Act conviction provides a rich and readable history that will interest scholars of labor, politics, and the left. ~Journal of Social History

formidable, well-researched and timely ~History News Network