Click On Title To Link To BAAM Newsletter (local Boston anarchist collective) site for two good introductory articles about the labor struggles of the 19th century and a biographic sketch of the heroic anarchist (and later American Communist Party member) Lucy Parsons, widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parson and revolutionary fighter in her own right. While my sympathies are clearly with the communist wing on the left wing continuum, especially the struggles led by Leon Trotsky to save the heritage of the Russian Revolution in the 1920’s and 1930’s, the main points of these articles are made by kindred spirits that all labor militants can stand in solidarity with as part of our common labor history.
Guest Commentary
“I was a revolutionary when revolutionaries were as thick as fleas. I was a revolutionary when revolutionaries were as sparse as hen’s teeth. I am a revolutionary.”- Undated, anonymous quote from an Internet source that collects various revolutionary, radical and republican phrases, expressions and words.
Commentary
I was looking for some material that would be different from my commentary on previous May Days. You know something different from paying the traditional homage to the Haymarket Martyrs. Something a little different from the focus of commentary the past few years on immigration rights (although that is always a worthy subject to highlight on this day in immigrant-created America). But also something, as well, that would pay homage to the subjective desire of the now many generations of radicals and revolutionaries who have laid down their heads in the struggle for a socialist future without seeing that course conquer in their life times.
I was intrigued by the anonymous quote posted above both as to who spoke it and when he (or she) was speaking. The quote, as such, hardly has the pithy wisdom in the manner of a quote from, let us say, Che Guevara’s famous dictum-“the role of a revolutionary is to make the revolution”- although it shares that same determined quality. Nor does it evoke the theoretical wisdom of Karl Marx’s equally famous quote which I paraphrase- “philosophers have thus far interpreted the world; the point is to change it”. It nevertheless expresses in a powerful, if prosaic, way an idea about the need to stay the revolutionary course through thick and thin. That idea has an almost timeless quality and unfortunately has been honored more in the breech than the observance by more than one generation of past revolutionaries.
Here is my purely speculative take on the “profile” of the speaker. I picture an old grizzled, bearded 19th century revolutionary, perhaps French but most certainly a rank and file plebeian fighter, who had spent his share of time on the various barricades of those times, speaking to the schoolboys that he was leading into the next fight. The name of the great 19th century French revolutionary Louis Blanqui comes to mind here. It could well have been one of his associates in one of his various revolutionary attempts to overthrow the then existing government. Anyone with any other possible information on the source of the quote or speculation on who spoke it or when is more than welcome to comment.
Of course, as with my use of any cautionary tale there is some more immediate purpose for using the quote. In rough outline the flow and ebb implied in the two periods of the quote reflect the twin poles of my radical political experiences. I am not sure that we could say in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s that revolutionaries were thick as fleas but there were plenty around to form the nucleus of a revolutionary organization. The smell of revolution, even if illusionary in the end, was palpably in the air. Today, and for a long time past, revolutionaries have been sparse indeed-mainly having, after given the revolution the best two years of their lives, sold out to the academy, Wall Street or for some other personal reason. I will end with this short comment to tie things up. I am a revolutionary. Are you?
Guest Commentary
“I was a revolutionary when revolutionaries were as thick as fleas. I was a revolutionary when revolutionaries were as sparse as hen’s teeth. I am a revolutionary.”- Undated, anonymous quote from an Internet source that collects various revolutionary, radical and republican phrases, expressions and words.
Commentary
I was looking for some material that would be different from my commentary on previous May Days. You know something different from paying the traditional homage to the Haymarket Martyrs. Something a little different from the focus of commentary the past few years on immigration rights (although that is always a worthy subject to highlight on this day in immigrant-created America). But also something, as well, that would pay homage to the subjective desire of the now many generations of radicals and revolutionaries who have laid down their heads in the struggle for a socialist future without seeing that course conquer in their life times.
I was intrigued by the anonymous quote posted above both as to who spoke it and when he (or she) was speaking. The quote, as such, hardly has the pithy wisdom in the manner of a quote from, let us say, Che Guevara’s famous dictum-“the role of a revolutionary is to make the revolution”- although it shares that same determined quality. Nor does it evoke the theoretical wisdom of Karl Marx’s equally famous quote which I paraphrase- “philosophers have thus far interpreted the world; the point is to change it”. It nevertheless expresses in a powerful, if prosaic, way an idea about the need to stay the revolutionary course through thick and thin. That idea has an almost timeless quality and unfortunately has been honored more in the breech than the observance by more than one generation of past revolutionaries.
Here is my purely speculative take on the “profile” of the speaker. I picture an old grizzled, bearded 19th century revolutionary, perhaps French but most certainly a rank and file plebeian fighter, who had spent his share of time on the various barricades of those times, speaking to the schoolboys that he was leading into the next fight. The name of the great 19th century French revolutionary Louis Blanqui comes to mind here. It could well have been one of his associates in one of his various revolutionary attempts to overthrow the then existing government. Anyone with any other possible information on the source of the quote or speculation on who spoke it or when is more than welcome to comment.
Of course, as with my use of any cautionary tale there is some more immediate purpose for using the quote. In rough outline the flow and ebb implied in the two periods of the quote reflect the twin poles of my radical political experiences. I am not sure that we could say in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s that revolutionaries were thick as fleas but there were plenty around to form the nucleus of a revolutionary organization. The smell of revolution, even if illusionary in the end, was palpably in the air. Today, and for a long time past, revolutionaries have been sparse indeed-mainly having, after given the revolution the best two years of their lives, sold out to the academy, Wall Street or for some other personal reason. I will end with this short comment to tie things up. I am a revolutionary. Are you?
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