RIP Herman Benson; socialist, trade unionist, and fighter for rank-and-file democracy. Herman was the last survivor of the “first generation” of third camp socialists, a Trotskyist who worked with Max Shachtman and Hal Draper to found the Workers Party. nytimes.com/2020/07/10/nyr…
I met him in 2016, and interviewed him about @workersliberty’s book ‘The Fate of the Russian Revolution Vol. 2’, which collected texts from “third camp” Trotskyists, including Benson himself, as they attempted to come to terms with the rise of Stalinism. workersliberty.org/story/2017-07-… 
He reviewed ‘Fate of the Russian Revolution Vol. 2’ for @NewPoliticsMag, the only review of the book written by a participant in the debates it anthologises: newpol.org/review/1939-so…
He also contributed, in 2012, to a symposium I edited of recollections and testaments from activists who’d been involved in “third camp” Trotskyist organisations in the USA. workersliberty.org/story/2012/05/…
Although Herman eventually moved away from specifically revolutionary socialism, he remained dedicated to a socialist transformation of society, achieved via class struggle, and understood the democratic transformation of the labour movement as a key prerequisite for that.
The network he founded, the Association for Union Democracy, was a key source of advice and support, often in the form of Herman himself, for numerous rank-and-file and reform efforts across the US labour movement, including @TeamsterRnF. m.facebook.com/teamstersforad…
In 2015, reporting on an event marking Herman’s 100th birthday, @labornotes, perhaps the most significant cross-union rank-and-fileist project in the US labour movement today, acknowledged the immense significance of his contribution: labornotes.org/2015/10/long-f…
The consistent foundation through Herman’s political work - as a participant in the development of “third camp” Trotskyism and as the organiser of the AUD - was the insistence that socialism was a *democratic* project of working-class self-emancipation, or it was nothing.
An authoritarian state controlled by “Communist” bureaucrats, or a bureaucratic trade union controlled by corrupt officials, could never be instruments for the advancement of workers’ rights, still less the socialist transformation of society.
In our left, where some still defend allegedly “socialist” dictatorships, and where too many are comfortable with our unions being run as passive insurance providers by overpaid, unelected officials (many of whom, funnily enough, defend allegedly “socialist” dictatorships!)...
...the political lessons and legacy of the central work of Herman Benson’s life are still are as relevant and necessary as ever.
I hope that, if I make it to 104, we’ll be in a socialist world by then. But if not (and hey... even if we are), I hope I can emulate Herman’s example by still being a dedicated fighter for democracy - in society and, most immediately, in our movement - and freedom. RIP comrade.
