Socialism on Trial

In 1941, 28 socialists and trade union militants, mostly members of the Socialist Workers Party, went on trial in Minneapolis in the United States charged with “sedition” for their opposition to US involvement in the second world war. It was the most famous civil liberties case of the wartime years.

Together with the powerful courtroom testimony of SWP leader James P. Cannon explaining the ideas of socialism, other selections in this volume deal with how socialists defend themselves against capitalist state repression and how democratic rights can be won and defended.