Larry Trainor

{{short description|American political activist}}

{{for|the DC Comics superhero character|Negative Man}}

Larry Trainor (April 20, 1905 – July 22, 1975) was a leading activist of the Socialist Workers Party (US) in Boston and a member of the party's National Committee.

Trainor was a noted socialist educator, giving classes on Marxism, the history of the American socialist and Trotskyist movements and especially on Stalinism. He was the author of an extensive oral history {{Cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/audio/index.htm|title=Holt Labor Library Collection Audio Index|website=www.marxists.org}} of American socialism.

Barry Sheppard wrote: "Larry had no formal higher education, but he knew more about politics and the world than any professor I had ever known...a true worker-intellectual, always reading when he was not explaining something. He had a very strong character."Barry Sheppard. 'The Party: A Political Memoir, Vol. I: The Sixties'. Resistance Books, 2005.

Trainor's role in discussions of organizational questions in the SWP in the 1960s is referred to in articles by George Breitman{{Cite web|title=Don't strangle the party|url=https://www.angelfire.com/pr/red/usswp/dont_strangle_the_party.htm|website=Angelfire|access-date=2020-05-26}} and Frank Lovell.{{Cite web|title=The Struggle Inside the Socialist Workers Party|url=https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/fit/partynorms.htm|website=www.marxists.org|access-date=2020-05-26}}