CONVERSATIONS IN MAINE

        Exploring Our Nation's Future

  James and Grace Lee Boggs
  Freddy and Lyman Paine 

            Introduction


  No radicals are going to get power in this country until
  we have converted a whole lot of people to recognize that
  they are their own jailers; that they take the prison of
  their own selves with them where ever they go; that they
  are not going to be free until they have decided what they
  are going to do with their freedom.
            (Conversations in Maine, 1972)


  I read the Conversations in Maine during the spring of 1974. It
was a critical time in my life. In the four years since I had left the
University of Michigan campus I had worked in a factory with the
idea of becoming one with the workers and giving them leader-
ship. But I found that only a minimal number of people would
involve themselves in militant struggles against health and safety
violations, racism, sexism, production speed-up, or union cor-
ruption. Those few militants have become the present union
leadership in my local. Meanwhile, they and other workers
challenged me with questions such as: What is socialism! What
will revolution mean to my life! What would revolution mean for
my family and neighborhood? They would ask me: "Why are you
Working in a plant!" and "What is your vision of the future?"
                         xi


xii Introduction

Beyond referring rhetorically to China or Vietnam there was little
that I was able to say.
  During the sixties I was actively involved in the movement
against the war in Vietnam. I was in Chicago during the Demo-
cratic National Convention in 1968 and at Dupont Circle and the
Justice Department in Washington in 1969. My life had been
changed by my involvement in support of the black power move-
ment, the women's movement and the struggle against the
Reserve Officer Training Corps (R.O.T.C.) and on-campus
military recruiters. I had rebelled against all the standards and
expectations that society and my family had proiected for me. I
had broken with my past goals of becoming a professional and
with my past dreams and life-style. I was one of the radicals of the
post-war "Pepsi generation," the "rootless generation," the "do-
it-now generation "moving around the country, breaking with our
families and our communities. While most Americans were
looking for individual "get rich quick schemes," we were searching
for a fast answer to our problems and the problems of society.
  By 1974, the sixties had become history. Many of my friends
were either returning to school or joining Marxist-Leninist
organizations. Searching for relevant politics and a vision of the
future, I went from meeting to meeting. In study groups on the
writings of Marx, Lenin and Mao, I sought an answer to the
question: How do we develop a revolutionary struggle in this
country, a country where auto workers make $15,000 a year and
on their coffee breaks smoke dope, drink beer, play cards and
discuss each other's family problems!
  The first thing that struck me about the Conversations was
their close relationship to the reality that I was experiencing in the
plant and in the community. The daily concerns of people are not
limited to their workplace: How does making money six days a
week resolve the crisis on the streets where nearly everyone has
been either a criminal or a victim of crime! What kind of education
can children get in schools where security guards roam the halls,
where teachers are "baby sitters," students are "doing time" and
parents take no responsibility for their children's education? What
is education for? What kind of family relationships should people
strive to build? We don't see any point to the work we do; yet
instead of talking about that we complain to our union representa-
tive about grease on the floor or company unfairness. Despite the
increased availability of health benefits, the health of most of us is
degenerating.



          Introduction xiii

  While people often talked about these concerns, their talk was
dominated by cynicism and apathy. When I tried to get them
involved in a struggle against management, the main argument
ran: "What's the use of getting involved!" or, "Why should I work
if I can hustle my way through life?" As I read the Conversations I
began to see that all I had been doing was pointing out the
injustices in our society. I had been deepening and increasing the
helplessness and victim mentality of people because I had not been
encouraging the self-respect they need in order to rise to their
potential.
  The Conversations brought me face to face with the
liberalism of myself and my radical friends. They challenged every
premise that I had accepted as being legitimate for all revolutions
at all times. The complexity of revolution was being brought home
to me at the same time that I was getting new insight into the
complex and confusing reality that I was experiencing.
  I was struck by how American the Conversations were.
Against the traditional concept of politics, they counterposed the
need to unite ethics, morals and politics. Can politics that are not
ethical be revolutionary? This question challenges not only the
Machiavellian principle that the end justifies the means but also
the sixties' concept that to be an outlaw in the eyes of America is
the badge of a revolutionary. I could no longer evade this question.
  I realized how I had shut out of my life and thoughts the ideas
of people who wonder about where our world is going. Until 1974,
I rarely read any books which didn't completely concur with the
concepts of revolution that I had already accepted and which were
based on the realities and development of countries very different
from my own.
  The Conversations affected me in much the same way as my
introduction to the movement of the sixties did. A new perspec-
tive was opening up that provided me with a direction from which
to evaluate and question the world philosophically. Not that the
Conversations were or are a bible; I came to these conclusions only
after many months of struggle, discussion, and thinking. My first
reaction after reading the Conversations was one of confusion. As
I reread them this past summer I relived the turmoil I had under-
gone during my first reading. The margins in my copy are full of
such questions as: What about revolutionary power! What about
Marx and Lenin! What about economics!
  I would not have read the Conversations in Maine had I not come
across the Advocator's pamphlet What about the Workers? This

xiv Introduction


pamphlet impressed me as describing very accurately the situation
in my plant, where we had lust finished our national contract
struggle in the fall of 1973. It was the first piece of literature I
circulated in the plant to which people responded by saying, "I
thought the guys who wrote this pamphlet worked in our plant,"
and "It's definitely telling it like it is." People did not necessarily
agree with the pamphlet's goals or its conclusions on the need for
fundamental revolutionary change; but they recognized them-
selves in the descriptions of workers.
  I was curious to discuss my questions with the authors, and
that is how I got to know James Boggs. Jimmy is different from any
radical I have ever met. Before we would start to talk about a
particular political issue, he would ask me about my job, my car,
my friends,-my living situations. He would suggest solutions to
various problems and would help fix the plumbing or the car, but
only after he thought that I had made an effort myself.
  James Boggs is self-educated and can remember the days
when he chopped wood for every-day survival. He has developed
himself as a philosopher who emphasizes the importance of slowly
and patiently building an organization so that every member is
critically responsible and able to contribute both theory and
practice to the future that we must work to create. Using exam-
ples from either his days as a young boy in the rural south or as a
Detroit auto-worker, he will develop historically the most com-
plex political questions in simple language and with vivid de-
scriptions. Dedicated to building a revolutionary organization of
Americans to govern our country, he is also a citizen of his com-
munity--sharing with people who do not agree with most of his
ideas. He constantly says, "I can live in the same community with
people who disagree with me but that does not mean they should
be in my organization."
 Jimmy was born in Alabama in 1919, lived in the South until
his late teens, and rode the rails across the country during the
depression. In 1938 he settled in Detroit where he worked at
Chrysler twenty-eight years. He was active in the union move-
ment, the radical Marxist movement, and, during the sixties, in
the black movement. The years after the 1967 rebellion were a
period of travel, writing and reflection for both James and Grace
Lee Boggs. They visited Italy and France during the spring of
1968; and had the opportunity to spend a week with Nkrumah in
Conakry, exploring the reasons why the Ghanian masses whom
Nkrumah had mobilized against British colonialism later turned
against him.

          Introduction xv

  The twenty-five year marriage of the Boggs is intriguing
partly because they are so very different. Grace is a Chinese-
American born in New England and formally educated at Barnard
College and at Bryn Mawr, from which she received a doctorate in
philosophy in 1940. Throughout her involvement in the Marxist
movement in the forties and fifties and in the black movement in
the sixties, she has maintained a special interest in questions of
education?
  What excited me about knowing Grace was her readiness to
read and discuss any topic by any author from any period in the
history of humanity. Every time I call or visit her, she brings forth
new insights to share with me--or says: "We must begin to think
about this question in a new way." Or she is typing notes from her
reading and dittoing copies so others can share in her discoveries.
Grace will discuss what was once considered heretical by most
radicals--religion, the Gettysburg Address, the family or
morality. Yet no discussion is so important that you don't first
have some homemade pie or taste some Chinese delicacy that she
has prepared.
  Because she had been a serious Marxist-Leninist, and had
broken with that tradition, Grace was patient with me as I
struggled painfully to break with old ideas. At the same time she
made it clear that I had to make a choice; I could no longer straddle
both worlds.
  This past summer as I was preparing this introduction I had
the opportunity to go to Maine to meet the other two participants
in the Conversations. Freddy Paine met me at the Bar Harbor
Airport. As we drove to the ferry that would take us to the island,
she began to share her past with me. She grew up a Jewish orphan
with only a third grade education. As a young woman in the late
twenties, she lived in New York City near Union Square where
she could hear the "commies" on their soap boxes during her lunch
break. She became a union activist, organizing in the New York
garment district and the anthracite coal mines of West Virginia
and Pennsylvania. She also worked with women's support groups
during the Auto-lite sit-down strike in Toledo, Ohio in the
thirties. Freddy was clearly the organizer of the foursome.
  One evening as we fixed dinner, Freddy and I continued our
discussion about her life. The way she talked about her union
organizing and political experiences revealed the importance she
placed on ethics and moral-political leadership. As she spoke of
A.J. Muste and the American Worker's Party of the early 1930s, I


 xvi Introduction


was struck again by our need to act and think like Americans if we
are to make an American revolution. Freddy has never been a
heavy ideologue or "worldly sophisticated politico." From the
beginning, her decisions to affiliate or to split from organizations
were based chiefly on the seriousness and the ethics of political
leaders. Listening to Freddy talk about herself and her experiences
over the last fifty years, I couldn't help wondering just how unique
our generation is, and how often we must repeat the mistakes of
the past. Her political work and life-style as an activist did not
seem so different from some of the experiences and issues of the
late sixties and early seventies: Should we live as couples, in a
household with other people or with other couples? What kind of
family should we have?
  She would take me around Sutton Island every day, walking
so fast I could not keep up. I found myself asking this woman of
sixty-five to slow down so I could enioy the scenery. At other
times Freddy would say, "Enjoy the island and quit talking so
much."
  I spent three days at the Paine's house on Sutton Island, one
of the Cranberry Isles off Mt. Desert Island. It has no cars and
only twenty houses, some of which date back 100 to 150 years.
We walked over and around the island hunting mushrooms and
berries. One day we picked apples for apple pie, another day at
low tide we gathered mussels for an evening snack. The fireplace
in one 150 year old house we visited is ten feet long and had once
been used for cooking. Many of the paths are built of stones,
carried by people in wheel barrels. From all this I got a sense not
only of living tradition but of the need to move slowly and think
carefully in developing new ideas.
  The Paine house was once the island schoolhouse and the
school's picture of Ralph Waldo Emerson still hangs in the living
room. Lyman's roots are deep in the New England tradition.
Robert Treat Paine, one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, was an early ancestor, and Lyman's father, who
lived to be ninety-one, is buried in the tiny island cemetery. One
cool night I put on a tweed jacket that Lyman s father had worn on
his honeymoon in 1896. This small incident made me aware of the
thoughtlessness of throwing something away just because it's old,
and made me understand the pride in quality work which Lyman is
always stressing.
  Lyman graduated From Harvard in the early 1920s. He got
involved in politics in the WPA (Work Projects Administration)

          Introduction xvii


days as an unemployed architect. Today at seventy-six he is a very
tall, white-bearded Yankee who says passionately and unreserv-
edly that he is proud of the work he has done, proud to be an
American and proud of his humanity. He questions everything
and believes that the most crucial thing in life is for people "to give
a damn."
  One evening after I had returned from a walk along the rock-
lined shore, Lyman asked me what I liked about the island. When I
said that I liked the quiet, he asked me in quick succession, "Why is
quiet important7 How could the national parks be quiet? Should
cities be quiet" Very simple questions; yet each challenged me to
ask a chain of questions of myself and others. Lyman not only
asked questions but paid close attention to each reply. Although
physically weak from emphysema, he never said anything that he
didn't mean with every bone in his body. His critical responses
toward every word or comment which he considered inaccurate or
superficial often bordered on arrogance; yet they clearly stemmed
from his challenge to others to be as bold and demanding of them-
selves as he is of himself. Lyman is the elder statesman in the
Conversations.
  At night we listened to a jazz album during dinner and to
another piece of music before going to bed. On the last evening as
we listened to Duke Ellington's Concert of Sacred Music the need for
each of us to strive to realize our human potential became very
real to me. Lyman spoke with feeling about the album and about
the way each musician separately and as part of a collective was
"perfect" (another favorite word) and proud of his/her skills and
creativity. An American citizen and an American patriot, full of
love for human potential and anger at human waste--this is
Lyman Paine. His respect for people, whether they are involved in
political work or not, helped me to appreciate how all kinds of
people will help to create a new way of life in this country.
  The strength of the Conversations derives in large part from
the diversity in background of the participants and their commit-
ment to developing new ideas slowly and patiently, their bold
positions on the potential of human beings, and their readiness to
criticize themselves and examine unreservedly their own process.
The ideas developed in the Conversations are not a blueprint nor
are they final answers. They are a beginning. Freddy, Grace,
limmy and Lyman are four individuals who have worked together
and shared each other's lives for almost forty years. Their passion
for life and their sensitivity to human searching have created a basis


 xviii Introduction

 on which we can create a unifying vision for the future.
  During the last three years, I have urged as many people as
 possible to read the Conversations in Maine. I am delighted that they
 will now be available in a more readable and permanent form that
 will encourage a continuing dialogue in the movement to create a
 new America.
  A few themes come to mind as most important to my personal
 growth over the last few years.
  In the past we have struggled to make an abstract or general
 revolution; now we must work to create an American revolution.
 We need to understand the uniqueness of our own history--our
 development as a nation from early colonial days to the present
 has been radically different from that of European nations.
  Rather than accepting a Marxist revolution as the solution to
 our problems in much the same way as Christians have enshrined
 Christianity, we need to begin to understand that there is no pre-
 determined scenario and to see revolution as a complex process
 which is part of the social evolution of humankind.
  The Conversations challenge us to open our minds to the
ideas and philosophy of people who are not usually seen as revolu-
tionaries-and to expand our thinking to include the writings of
people such as Chardin, Mumford, Malraux, Melville, and
Schumacher, and the works of artists like Ellington and Dvorak.
  In the sixties, we romanticized that revolution was a few
years away. The conversations project the need for us to develop a
larger view of time and begin to internalize the patient process of
changing our thoughts and actions as we attempt to move
forward to build a movement of people.
  As we and our friends become parents, the year 2050 when
our children will be seventy years old becomes less abstract. What
kind of human beings are we projecting? What kind of family?
What kind of community and nation! What kind of world?

                Towards the future,
             Richard Feldman Fall 1977