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The Theoretical System of Karl Marx in the Light of Recent Criticism
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
Louis Boudinoff Boudin was a lawyer and author. He was the author of a two volume history of the Supreme Court's influence on American government, first published in 1932.
Background
Louis Boudinoff Boudin was born on February 15, 1874, in the Ukraine. He was the son of Peter Boudinoff, a merchant, and Frome Feld Boudinoff. Fleeing the repression of the Jews in czarist Russia, the Boudinoffs immigrated in 1891 to New York City, where the family name was shortened to Boudin. Louis Boudin was naturalized in 1897.
Education
Boudin attended law school at New York University while holding such part-time jobs as shirtmaker, journalist, and tutor, and received the LL. B. in 1896 and an LL. M. in 1897; he was admitted to the New York bar the following year.
Career
Boudin served on many national and local party committees, was a delegate to two international Socialist congresses, and ran unsuccessfully as a Socialist candidate for various New York State judicial offices. Because of his hostile attitude toward the Bolsheviks, whom he called "unorthodox Marxists, " in 1918, he was forced to resign from the editorial board of the ultra-radical organ, the Class Struggle, which he had helped to found.
In September 1919, at the meeting that organized the Communist Labor party, a Socialist group that was later subsumed by the Communist party, Boudin's bitter debateagainst the Bolsheviks and their American supporters ended when he stalked out declaring "I did not leave a party of crooks to join a party of lunatics. " This acerbic remark was typical.
In April 1917, on the eve of American entry into World War I, the Socialist party held an emergency convention to draw up an antiwar resolution for consideration by the delegates.
Simply because of personal animosity toward those who worked on the statement, Boudin submitted an alternative resolution of his own that was essentially the same in content.
After 1919, Boudin eschewed politics and concentrated on writing, charitable activities, and his law practice. A leading labor lawyer from the 1920's through the 1940's, he refused to take part in factional quarrels and represented both American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations unions. Much of his time was spent combating attempts to curb union organizers through injunctions in such cases as New York Lumber Trade Association v. Lacey (1935), and Cafeteria Employees Union v. Angelos (1943).
Boudin's cases, many of which set precedents, covered a wide area of labor law. He represented a Teamsters local whose officers were convicted of racketeering because of an improper charge to the jury, headed the fight against the Justice Department's use of antitrust laws against the fur workers' organizing efforts, and represented a C. I. O. affiliate in its effort to disestablish a company union.
In 1950, Boudin won a 4-3 decision from the New York State Court of Appeals to set the precedent that white-collar workers are covered by the state's Labor Relations Act.
In addition to his many court appearances, Boudin remained a prolific contributor to scholarly journals and law reviews on a variety of topics. In 1932, he published his best-known book, Government by Judiciary, an elaborate and combative historical survey of judicial review in the United States.
At the time of his death, which came after a long illness, Boudin was working on a history of economic crises in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Politics
At first, Boudin was a member of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP). He was a member of the governing National Executive Board of the SLP's trade union affialiate, the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance (ST&LA) from 1898 to 1899. Boudin left the Socialist Labor Party during the party fight of 1899.
After the formation of the Communist Labor Party of America and the Communist Party of America, Boudin repudiated communism by 1940 but remained a staunch defender of the civil liberties of Communist Party members.
Views
Boudin's analysis of the outbreak of World War I was orthodox. In Socialism and War (1916), he emphasized imperialism as the cause of the war, condemned European Socialists for supporting bourgeois governments, and asserted that the class struggle must serve as the basis for all Socialist policy.
Despite his militant rhetoric, Boudin was criticized by party radicals for supporting some defensive wars and thus stopping short of Lenin's condemnation of any war that was not conducted to advance the class struggle.
Although he was a leader of the American left-wing Socialists, Boudin considered the Russian Revolution of 1917 a tragedy.
Although perceptive in spots and never boring, Boudin's work suffers from the limitations of the basic premise that the Supreme Court is a consistent and willful tool of capitalism.
Membership
Boudin was a member to the New York State Bar Association from 1898.
Personality
A man of superior intellect and some charm, Boudin was also highly opinionated and often personalized issues of ideology or organization. These traits happily did not carry over into his legal work, but they did hamper him as a political leader.
Connections
On May 15, 1899, Boudin married Leah Kanefsky. Their two daughters, Eleanor and Vera, both became well-known lawyers. Leah Boudin died on December 9, 1906, after a long illness.
On May 1, 1909, Boudin married Anna Pavitt, a dentist who maintained a successful practice for more than fifty years.