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Review
March 2001
THE REVOLUTIONARY JOURNALISM OF FELIX MARTIN (ISAAC WOODS)
News & Letters,
2001. 107 pp. $8.
When we think of revolution, and revolutionaries, we often envision the
likes of Biko, Guevara or Fanon. So when we look at a photo of Felix
Martin, we may not immediately recognize a man who was cut from the same
cloth.
When we speak of revolution, we don't think of a farmer from Hell for
Certain, Kentucky or a World War II and Korean War veteran as the most
likely candidate to stand on the front lines of a Marxist movement for
freedom. Yet this man exemplified the universality of Marxist-Humanist
thought.
THE REVOLUTIONARY JOURNALISM OF FELIX MARTIN , a new pamphlet published by
News and Letters Committees, gives the reader a look into the mind, heart
and soul of the making of a revolutionary. In the journalism of Felix
Martin we see the true spirit of revolution and freedom in such a way that
the words of a warrior for freedom, if well-made, will survive his passing.
MEETING MARX
Felix Martin was the pen name of Isaac Woods. He was a worker who believed
in change, and who came of age in expressing his thoughts on paper in the
1970s. In 1983 he wrote, "It was back around the 1970 strike that I first
met leftists. I had had a fight with my foreman and after the battle a
worker came up to me and introduced himself" (p. 52). Felix stated that he
attended some meetings and during this time first heard of Karl Marx.
This pamphlet allows the reader to share in Martin's education in
Marxist-Humanist philosophy. Charles Denby, in his introduction of Felix to
NEWS & LETTERS in 1972, wrote of Felix's insights on freedom: "He reveals
that it is much more than just a question of Black and white unity against
the companies in the factory. What is involved is an understanding of the
need for unity in order to make changes in our everyday lives" (p. 1).
When one reads Martin's first article for NEWS & LETTERS, one can't help
but appreciate the honesty and candidness of the man. "I don't feel I
represent the workers in the shops where I come from, " Felix wrote,
"because I'm a white man, and I feel that most of the white people in this
country now have become the anchor around the Black man's neck...In my
plant-and I think it pretty well represents the other plants-the most
militant people who are searching and trying to do something are the Black
man and the Chicano or Mexican" (p. 3).
KENTUCKY ROOTS
Martin at the time was working for GM on the production line. He wrote his
views from the trenches of capitalism, as a worker, and never apologized
for who he was, or why he fought so vehemently for the rights of workers.
"My white ancestors went into the mountains of Kentucky because they
believed in freedom. I'm a hillbilly, and I don't have too much education,
but I know one thing. Until they put roads in there, we did have one little
spot in this country where we did have freedom" (p. 3).
>From those humble roots, a powerful writer was born. These selections trace
the development of Martin's philosophical growth from that first article in
1972 to a conversation in 1983 with his early mentor, Charles Denby, on
Marx:
"When I first 'met Marx' I saw that he was recognizing workers as being
something in their moving and doing. Here was Marx talking about the
workers having their own movement, their own self-development, and it was
done so that you could see your own thinking and doing. It was not Marx
telling me what to do, but recognizing what I was doing" (p. 50-51).
One gets the impression that no one could "tell" him to do anything, but in
recognizing him as a worker and his value, Karl Marx's writings played a
vital role in Felix's development from a worker/farmer/Marxist-initiate to
a full-fledged Marxist-Humanist philosopher.
"The first book I ever read which dealt with Marx was MARXISM AND FREEDOM.
When I could understand the words, I could begin to understand this
question of mental and manual..." Where I had always been looking to the
foreman or the union bureaucrats as the thinkers-that they were the head
and I was the body-I now saw it very differently" (p. 53).
One of the most appealing qualities of Felix Martin's writings was his
ability to explain complex concepts in simple (but not simplistic) terms.
In 1986 he wrote, "For Marx, freedom meant a society where all people are
equally thinkers and doers, full human beings. That is what I have been
fighting for as long as I can remember, and what people all over the world
are still fighting for today" (p. 61).
Felix Martin was a worker, a farmer, an environmentalist, and a man who
knew, firsthand, the atrocities that corporate bureaucrats visited upon
those who were enslaved by their policies, and he wrote from the experience
that was ingrained in his heart. Martin's writings and involvement with
News and Letters Committees defined the organization's universality, and
the overall message of Marx's philosophy for workers.
BECOMING WHOLE HUMAN BEING
In his memorial to Raya Dunayevskaya in 1987 he wrote, "To me, as a worker,
this Marxist-Humanist organization founded by Raya Dunayevskaya and Charles
Denby is what all of history has been struggling toward, an organization
where workers and intellectuals can come together and work out these new
ideas, where each can become a whole human being, to free ourselves from
this butchering inhuman system" (p. 65).
The writings of the man from Hell for Certain-as plain as they may seem at
first blush-are well-represented in this work, for in their "brown-bagged"
plainly wrapped sincerity, the selections remind us of what
Marxist-Humanism is all about.
In 1987, upon the death of Dunayevskaya, Felix Martin wrote, "Now, for the
first time we are without Raya. It's like we lost our navigator at sea. But
all through the 1980s Raya was trying to help our self-development so we
could all become navigators, Marxist-Humanist thinkers and activists" (p.
65).
As the navigator charts the course, the helmsman must steer the ship to
safe harbors. For future generations, THE REVOLUTIONARY JOURNALISM OF FELIX
MARTIN should act as a guide for those helmsmen who are entrusted to steer
the course and maintain all due speed towards freedom.
--Robert Taliaferro
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