First Published: Berkeley Barb, March 4, 1966.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
“The Scheer campaign in the Democratic primary is another way of ’containing’ people in the interest of imperialism. Instead of being an anti-war offensive, it brings more and more people into the part of the war. makers. We cannot enter into coalitions that make profits primary people secondary.” So states Steve Cherkoss, West Coast editor of Free Student and organizer of Progressive Labor, in an article to appear in the March 7th issue of the Free Student, published in New York.
Cherkoss feels that Scheer is running not as an independent “but as an independent Democrat. This only serves to confuse people and impedes the development of a truly independent political movement.”
Cherkoss views the Democratic party as “the main political machine used by the ruling elite to capture the votes of radicals, intellectuals, and the working class.” Thus any attempts to “work from within” are doomed to defeat, hence the plan of Jerry Rubin, of the VDC and now of the Scheer campaign, for an “independent campaign .. (even) if we lose, will be .. the seeds of a third-party radical new left in America” is a false hope.
“Many honest radicals feel that the Democratic primary is just a tactic,” Cherkoss writes. “Most feel that this tactic will be abandoned in June, and Scheer will launch an independent campaign at that time.” But Cherkoss points to a statement by Paul Booth, of the SDS, that “a new political operation is being formed and will be called the National Conference for New Politics. Maybe Scheer won’t win, but in two years we’ll be stronger within the party, (Feb. 14, NY Times). Cherkoss says that “in-light of (this) statement, Scheer’s intention to build a radical third party must be questioned.”