September 27, 2018
David McReynolds/Photo: Ed Hedemann
David McReynolds was a titan of the peace and justice movement, a socialist, pacifist, Socialist and Green party political candidate, and photographer. He helped organize one of the earliest draft-card burning protests against the Vietnam War and served on the staff of the War Resisters League for 40 years, remaining active with the organization afterwards. He was the first openly gay presidential candidate for any party, running on the Socialist Party ticket in 1980. His photography included his international travel, civil rights, demonstrations, the War Resister’s League, the Socialist Party, and cats, among other topics.
David McReynolds是和平与正义运动的巨人，社会主义者，和平主义者，社会党和绿党政治候选人，以及摄影师。他帮助组织了一场反对越南战争的最早的选秀卡片抗议活动，并在反对战争联盟作为工作人员服务了40年，之后继续活跃于该组织中。 他是第一个公开的同性恋总统候选人，在1980年作为社会党候选人参加竞选。他的摄影包括他的国际旅行，民权，示威游行，反对战争联盟，社会党和猫等等主题。
Jason Schulman, who knew McReynolds, discusses his activist history and political views.
Jason Schulman是了解McReynolds的人，讨论了他的活动家历史和政治观点。
David McReynolds was the first “Old Leftist” I ever met, back in 1996, at one of a number of ill-fated 1990s meetings of representatives of socialist organizations in New York City hoping for some sort of “left unity” around a common project. Strictly speaking, David wasn’t an “Old Leftist” – that label was affixed to members of the Socialist Party (SP), Communist Party (CP) or the Trotskyist groups of the 1930s and 1940s. David was “inbetween” the Old and New Lefts, joining both the SP and the radical-pacifist War Resisters League (WRL) in 1951.
David McReynolds是我见过的第一个“老左派”，是于1996年在纽约市作为社会主义组织代表参加的一系列命运多变的会议之一上见到的，这些会议希望在一个共同的项目中有某种“左派团结”。严格地说，David不是一个“老左派” —这个标签被贴在社会党（SP），共产党（CP）或20世纪30年代和40年代的托洛茨基主义团体的成员身上。1951年，大卫在新旧左派”之间“加入社会党和激进和平主义的反对战争联盟（WRL）。
David’s main inspiration was the Communist-turned-socialist-pacifist Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), who by 1949 was the organizer for “race relations” in the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), an interfaith nonviolent-action organization. David – who refused being drafted into the Korean War and won his case “on a technicality” – began working for Liberation magazine in 1957 under Rustin and A.J. Muste (1885-1967), who was a founder of the FOR (and a former Trotskyist). In 1960 he became a “peace movement bureaucrat,” becoming part of the WRL staff where he remained until retiring in 1999. He helped Rustin organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, organized one of the first draft card burnings, wrote often for the explicitly pacifist WIN magazine, and played a major role in some important demonstrations against the Vietnam War.
大卫的主要灵感来自共产主义—社会主义—和平主义者Bayard Rustin（1912-1987），他在1949年是一个跨宗教非暴力行动组织：合作与和解（FOR）的“种族关系”的组织者。David—拒绝被卷入朝鲜战争并以“技术性”赢得他的案件 —于1957年开始在Rustin和A.J. Muste（1885-1967）的解放杂志上工作，他是FOR（和一个前托洛茨基主义者）的创始人。 1960年，他成为了一名“和平运动官僚”，成为WRL工作人员的一员，直到1999年才退休。他帮助Rustin组织了1963年在华盛顿的为工作和自由的游行，组织了最初的卡片烧毁运动之一，经常为明确的和平主义WIN杂志写作，并在一些反对越南战争的重要示威中发挥了重要作用。
In the early 1970s, David’s anti-war Debs Caucus finally split from the Cold Warriors who dominated the re-named SP, the Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), taking the name “Socialist Party USA.” The SPUSA would be David’s primary “socialist home” until 2015, when he resigned, claiming that the party had neither a healthy internal life nor political relevance. He also paid dues to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) from the 1980s until his death.
在20世纪70年代早期，David的反战Debs Caucus最终从冰冷战士中脱离出来，这些人统治了重新命名的SP，美国社会民主党（SDUSA），取代了原先的“美国社会党”.SPUSA将成为David的主要“社会主义之家”“直到2015年，当他辞职时，声称该党既没有健康的内部生活也没有政治相关性。从1980s到他去世，他还一直向美国民主社会主义者（DSA）支付会费。
But long before 2015, David was the first openly gay man to run for president, on the SP ticket in 1980. He did the same again in 2000, leading to an appearance on Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” show on ABC, winning over much of the audience to Maher’s chagrin. Unlike Rustin, who had been “outed” in 1953 via being “busted” for “lewd conduct” in a parked car with another man, David came out in the pages of WIN in 1969. He revealed that he’d been aware of his sexual orientation since 1949, when he began a brief relationship with Alvin Ailey at UCLA, where both men were undergraduates. Ailey, of course, later became a celebrated choreographer, popularizer of modern dance, and founder of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. (Ironically, before running for president, David had run for Congress from Lower Manhattan as a candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party in 1968 – when the Party’s presidential candidate was the notoriously homophobic Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panther Party.) He would again run for office as a Senate candidate for the New York State Green Party in 2004.
但早在2015年之前，大卫就是1980年代表SP成员竞选总统的第一个公开的男同性恋。他在2000年再次做了同样的事情，导致Bill Maher在ABC的节目上出现了“政治不正确”，赢得了很多观众对Maher的愤怒。与于1953年因与另一名男子在一辆停放的汽车中进行“猥亵行为”而被“殴打”的Rustin不同的是，David于1969年在WIN的页面中出柜。他透露说自1949年以来已经知道他的性取向，他开始与加州大学洛杉矶分校的Alvin Ailey建立短暂的关系，当时两人都未毕业。当然，Ailey后来成为著名的舞蹈指导，现代舞的普及者，以及Alvin Ailey美国舞蹈剧院的创始人。（具有讽刺意味的是，在竞选总统之前，David曾在1968年作为和平与自由党的候选人在曼哈顿下城竞选国会议员—当时党的总统候选人是黑豹党的臭名昭著的恐同的Eldridge Cleaver。）他于2004年再次作为纽约州绿党候选人参与参议院选举。
Although for a time David was on the editorial board of the “Third Camp” socialist magazine New Politics and he considered himself a Marxist, his overall political orientation was fairly distant from the heterodox Trotskyism that informed the outlook of NP’s founding editors, the late Julius and Phyllis Jacobson. Undoubtedly this was partly due to David’s anger at having been “burned” by the Jacobsons’ former comrades in the Independent Socialist League (ISL), particularly by its leader Max Shachtman. The ISL had dissolved their organization and joined the SP as individuals in 1958. David, who was on the left edge of the SP, expected that the ex-ISL members would push the Party to be more radical. The exact opposite happened, as many “Shachtmanites” – who became the dominant faction in the SP – soon expressed support (“critically,” of course) for the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Lyndon Johnson administration, and the Vietnam War. (Tragically, Bayard Rustin joined this faction, abandoning his socialist pacifism.) David also believed that the orthodox Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) played a “splitter” role in the anti-Vietnam War movement. So it isn’t that surprising that David decided that “Stalinism versus Trotskyism” was really little more than a remnant of a power struggle between two authoritarian individuals, though he did admire “Shachtmanites” who retained their old political perspectives, such as Hal Draper and others around NP.
虽然有一段时间David在“第三阵营”的社会主义杂志New Politics的编辑委员会中，他也认为自己是马克思主义者，但他的整体政治取向与非正统的托洛茨基主义相当遥远，这影响了NP的创始编辑，已故的Julius的和Phyllis Jacobson的观点。毫无疑问，这部分是由于David对被Jacobsons在独立社会主义联盟（ISL）中的前同志，特别是其领导人Max Shachtman（Max Shachtman）“烧伤”感到愤怒。 ISL解散了他们的组织并于1958年作为个人加入了SP。David位于SP的左翼，他们希望前ISL成员能够推动党变得更加激进。恰恰相反，正如许多“Shachtmanites”—他们成为SP中的主导派系— 很快表达了对猪湾入侵，林登约翰逊政府和越南战争的支持（当然是“批判性的”）。（悲剧的是，Bayard Rustin加入了这个派系，放弃了他的社会和平主义。）David还认为社会主义工人党（SWP）的正统托洛茨基主义者在反越战运动中发挥了“分裂者”的作用。因此，大卫认为“斯大林主义对抗托洛茨基主义”只不过是两个威权主义者之间权力斗争的残余而已，这并不令人惊讶，尽管他确实钦佩保留旧政治观点的“Shachtmanites”，如Hal Draper以及NP周围的其他人。
David was a very warm person and was my only connection to deceased figures of the “literary left” such as Allen Ginsberg and James Baldwin. I admired him. Over time, however, it became clear that our outlooks were rather different. That said, most of the time, David was on the right side, and I will miss him.
David是一个非常热情的人，是我与 Allen Ginsberg和James Baldwi等“文学左派”已故人物的唯一联系。 我很钦佩他。 然而，随着时间的推移，我们的眼界变得明显不同。也就是说，大多数时候，大卫在右侧，我会想念他。
Jason Schulman is a co-editor of New Politics. He is the editor of Rosa Luxemburg: Her Life and Legacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and author of Neoliberal Labour Governments and the Union Response (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
Jason Schulman是New Politics的联合编辑。 他是罗莎卢森堡：她的生活与遗产（Palgrave Macmillan，2013）的编辑，和对新自由主义工党政府和联盟回应的作者（Palgrave Macmillan，2015）。