The Communist League and Young Socialists, along with supporters of Pathfinder in Canada, are building a meeting to celebrate the publication of L’histoire du trotskysme américain to be held in Montreal June 15 (see add on page 9). The meeting will feature a number of speakers, including Jack Barnes, Socialist Workers Party national secretary and author of the new preface to the book.

This is the first major work published in French by a founding leader of the Communist Party and then of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States. It is now available almost 30 years after Cannon’s death and 60 years after the 12 talks recorded in the book were presented to working-class audiences in New York City.

This 20th century classic of the communist movement retraces the effort to build a revolutionary working-class party in the United States, and partly also in Canada, on the model of the Bolshevik leadership of the Russian revolution of October 1917. The book begins with the enormous impact of the Russian Revolution internationally and in the United States, and ends on New Years Day in 1938 with the founding convention of the SWP.

The History of American Trotskyism is a key tool to understand the unbroken programmatic, strategic and organizational continuity of the communist movement in North America, from the Russian Revolution to today. Its publication in French makes this invaluable weapon available to a broadened working-class readership in Canada, the U.S. and many other countries of the world.

The publication of L’histoire du trotskysme américain is the result of a worldwide effort--from France and Belgium, to Canada, the U.S. and Haiti--by dozens of volunteers who translated and edited it, formatted and proofread it, and designed attractive new cover and ads.

As part of the publication of the French-language edition of the book, a signature of 24 pages of photos has been prepared, bringing to life many of the events and characters mentioned by Cannon, as well as describing aspects of the political work of the communist movement in the U.S. and internationally. This photo signature will be added to the original English-language edition of the book and to the upcoming first edition in Spanish.