PROFILE
THEGoldber
Workers World Party member Jerry Goldberg
believes capitalism is the root of all evil.
Assistant Editor
erry Goldberg has
lived many lives.
In his childhood,
he was president
of the Chicago
B'nai B'rith Youth Organiza-
tion. In his college years at
the University of Michigan,
he denounced the Vietnam
War and fought to eradicate
racism. Today, he's a Marxist.
Mr. Goldberg is a member
of the Workers World Party,
a national Marxist organiza-
tion with some 1,000
adherents. The Detroit office
is located downtown. A
number of the members, in-
cluding Mr. Goldberg, are
Jewish.
Earlier this year, Mr.
Goldberg ran on the Mich-
Mich-
igan Workers World Party
gubernatorial ticket, receiv-
in ."a typical middle-class
Jewish family," the son of
immigrants. His father had
suffered through pogroms in
Russia. As a boy, Jerry at-
tended Hebrew school and
read from the Torah at his
synagogue.
In 1967, Jerry Goldberg
came to U-M, where he says
he became political because
of the times. He opposed the
Vietnam War and supported
black rights. He became ac-
tive in the radical Students
for a Democratic Society,
then affiliated with the
Youth Against War and
Fascism organization, of
which the Workers World
Party is an outgrowth.
His initial interest in
politics was because of the
war, but anyone serious
about such issues necessari-
ly searches for their causes
and cures, Mr. Goldberg
says. That's what led him to
communism or, as he calls it,
"My Trotskyite-Marxist-
Leninist origins."
As a member of the
Workers World Party, Mr.
Goldberg holds as one of his
goals a socialist society that
provides basic needs — food,
shelter and health care — for
all. This doesn't mean living
a spartan life, he stresses.
Mr. Goldberg believes high
technology should be utiliz-
ed, always with the goal of
helping all human beings.
"Fifty million live in pov-
erty in the United States,"
he says. "Yet the technology
exists to liberate humanity."
In this ideal world, each
person would be allowed to
develop "based on his own
human potential." Physi-
cians, for example, would no
longer be motivated by mak-
ing money but by serving
humanity, says Mr. Gold-
berg, who lives in Detroit.
His second goal is
eradicating racism, which
includes anti-Semitism. He
says the Workers World Par-
ty is constantly involved in
anti-facist activities like
demonstrating wherever
"Marxism is
: fundamentally a
science. The world
is in a constant
process of change.
We adjust to the
living reality of
struggle."
— Jerry Goldberg
ing 50,000 votes. This tur-
nout for what is essentially
an unknown party shows
that "people felt we had
something to say," he states.
His basic philosophy is
simple: capitalism and
imperialism are wrong. But
the ramifications of that
philosophy are much more
complex. Even a devoted
Marxist like Mr. Goldberg
admits it took him years to
come to terms with what is
today a hallmark of the
Workers World Party plat-
form —condemning Zionism.
"Israel is not a haven for
the Jewish people," Mr.
Goldberg says. "It is a
deathtrap."
Mr. Goldberg, who works
at a local auto plant, was
born in Chicago. He grew up
Nazi groups march.
The party also aims to
guarantee reproductive, gay
and handicapped rights, he
says.
Despite such lofty goals as
helping the poor and
homeless, the Workers
World Party is not without its
critics. Among them is John
Judis, a writer for The New
Republic who in an April
1991 article labeled the
organization "a neo-
Stalinist, Third World revo-
lutionary fringe group that
backed state violence in
Tiananmen Square and sup-
ports the right-wing opposi-
tion in the Soviet Union."
Mr. Goldberg brushes such
Photo by Glenn Triest
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
esto
Jerry Goldberg of the Workers World Party: "Israel is not a haven for the Jewish people. It is a deathtrap."