[Marxism] A tribute to Steffie Brooks, by Paul LeBlanc

[Fred Feldman]

Paul's was one of many contributions by family, friends, and political
associates of Steffie Brooks to the memorial meeting of 110 held near the
home of Steffie's parents in Great Neck, Long Island.

Paul has kindly provided me with a copy. Sorry to be so late in getting out
the speech and the above very brief report on a very valuable gathering.
Fred Feldman


Steffie was swept up in a very distinctive moment in history.  She was part
of what has been called "the Generation of '68."  In the 1960s, spilling
over into the 1970s, in the United States as in many other countries, there
was an explosion of mass action and creative smaller-group efforts around a
variety of issues and ideas having to do with the hope and belief that, as
one song proclaimed, "a better world's in birth."

1968 saw the May-June worker-student protests in France, the shock of the
Tet offensive in Vietnam, the resistance to bureaucratic dictatorship and
Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia, the worker-student upsurge throughout
Western and Southern Europe, the brutally repressed student demonstrations
in Mexico, and intensified battles for peace and justice in our own land.


Steffie's own trajectory within these turbulent times was rooted, in part,
in the traditions of humanist-radicalism associated with the Jewish
immigrant experience that Irving Howe discusses in The World of Our Fathers
(a fine book that Steffie's mom, Helen, gave me 30 years ago).  

As a teenager, Steffie was associated with the left-socialist-Zionist group
Hashomir Hatzair.  Not only did she participate in its discussions (for
example, of Albert Einstein's wonderful essay "Why Socialism?"), but she
went to an Israeli kibbutz in search of at least a taste of the better
future - one permeated by the socialist vision of community and freedom.  

This is not what she found, however, in the racist treatment of Palestinians
and other realities that conflicted with her ideals.  Sometimes her
rebellion against disappointing realities got her into trouble - as it did
this time, when she baked hashish-laced brownies for the kibbutzniks.  

Back in the United States, Steffie identified with the new left and was
involved in Liberation News Service, an important and influential left-wing
alternative news source.  She also became involved with people from a
current of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), that - in stark contrast
to the more famous and self-destructive faction called the Weather
Underground - sought to build a progressive coalition of the labor and civil
rights movements, with radicals and left-liberals from various backgrounds,
that would help elect such left-of-center Democratic Party politicians as
Bella Abzug and Ron Dellums.  

She was soon drawn to the Communist Party, which shared this general
orientation, becoming a member of its youth group, at that time called the
Young Workers Liberation League.  

Steffie moved to my native Pittsburgh around 1973, where she came into
contact with some of us who were in the Socialist Workers Party.  Unlike
Steffie, we were adherents of the revolutionary perspectives of Leon
Trotsky.  

As such, we opposed the authoritarianism associated with the USSR as it had
evolved under the Stalin dictatorship, and also the Communist Party's
reformism.  Examples included its support for the Democratic Party in this
country, and its preference for the moderate orientation of Salvador
Allende's left-coalition government in Chile, in contrast to the approach
symbolized by Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara.  

Steffie did not have a sectarian bone in her body, and was willing to work
with us around issues of common concern, even as she argued with us.  The
U.S.-engineered Chilean coup of Sept. 11th, 1973, combined with
authoritarian rigidities of the Communist Party, plus the relatively good
political work and compelling ideas of the SWP, resulted in Steffie deciding
to become part of our movement - a member both of the SWP and the Young
Socialist Alliance.  

Over the next several years, she - along with her comrades - was immersed in
resistance to war and militarism, in supporting labor struggles, and
especially in anti-racist and feminist campaigns.  Denouncing oppression,
exploitation, corruption, and pollution, we pointed out: "Capitalism fouls
things up."  

While attending the University of Pittsburgh, Steffie headed the socialist
ticket that ran for Student Government - energetically and eloquently
pushing for campus reform and also for the involvement of her fellow
students in struggles for peace and social justice. 

Steffie was critical-minded not only about the society around her, but also
about the SWP.  She was congenitally incapable of accepting arrogance,
dogmatic rigidities, and any whiff of hierarchical elitism in the
organization to which she had committed herself.  

More than once she sought to push back the limitations - for example, she
was part of an ill-fated dissident current in the SWP that argued for a more
active and forthright policy in support of gay and lesbian rights.  At the
same time, she was a dedicated and energetic party-builder.  

She contributed much effort to strengthening the Pittsburgh branch, and from
1976 to 1978, she and I worked together in Albany, New York to help build a
new branch of the SWP.  She held various leadership positions there, and at
one point functioned as a very capable branch organizer.  


When the Party made its "turn to industry," in order to connect more
completely with what it believed was a radicalizing working class, Steffie
embraced that and went into industry.  When the Party hailed the Nicaraguan
Revolution - and the general insurgency in Central America and the
Caribbean, Steffie embraced the new developments.  

But when the new leadership of the SWP, insecure with its own limitations,
went on to lead the organization into increasingly undemocratic and ingrown
directions, Steffie - like many others - concluded that this was not where
she belonged, even though she chose to remain true to the ideals and values
that had animated her all along. 

I was for a time hopelessly in love with this luminous, dark-eyed young
woman with such distinctive qualities: a wonderful sense of humor, an
amazing audacity, a generosity and warmth, uncompromising honesty, a keen
mind and critical (sometimes self-critical, sometimes overly self-critical)
intellect.  Aspects of our relationship seemed to come right out of one of
Woody Allen's hilarious and painful films of the 1970s.  I think we were
both glad that we could finally end up as good friends.  

Steffie had a deep desire to do what is right, combined with a deep
dissatisfaction with "what is" - which socially and politically took the
form of a vibrant activism, yet personally could result in the emotional
knots she was so often struggling with.  "We are trying to live\As if we
were an experiment\Conducted by the future," Marge Piercy wrote in an aptly
named poem, "Rough Times."  Steffie had her share of those.   

This dear comrade risked a great deal as she struggled to help bring about
the kind of world (and to be the kind of person) she believed in.  The
effort did not always bring her happiness.  Yet this wondrous and wonderful
friend delighted and inspired many of us in multiple ways as we worked
together for a better future.  

To the extent that things have become better (and some things certainly have
become better), it is to a significant degree because of things that people
like Steffie did and were trying to do.  Others will certainly take heart
from the person she was.  The struggle continues.