Click on the headline to link to the Toward A History Of The Fourth International website for the article listed above.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
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Markin comment on this document
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then. Who were revolutionaries to appeal to at that time? The kulaks? We saw where that led a couple of years later when Stalin/Bukharin made their right turn.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Growing Up Absurd In The 1950s- Be-Bop The Adventure Car Hop-The Golden Age Of Rock 'N' Roll-With Johnny Ace In Mind
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Johnny Ace performing his classic Pledging My Love.
CD Review
The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll; Volume 6, various artists, Ace Records, 1996
Scene: Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which grace each CD in this The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The golden age of the automobile meets the golden age of al fresco dining, okay, okay pre-Big Mac dining. Sorry, I got carried away. And once I have put automobile and teen dining out together all that needs to be added is that Eddie is out, out once again, with his ever lovin’ Ginny in the Clintondale 1950s be-bop teen night, having a little something to eat after a hard teen dance and a bout of down in the Adamsville beach “submarine race” watching night.
“Two hamburgers, all the trimmings, two fries, two Cokes, Sissy,” rasped half-whispering Eddie Connell to Adventure Car Hop primo car hop (and ex-Eddie girlfriend back in junior high days when he learned a thing or two about girls, about girl charms and girl bewilderments), Sissy Jordan. For those who know not of Adventure Car Hops or car hops in general here is a quick primer. Adventure Car Hop is nothing but a old time drive-in restaurant where the car hop takes your order from you while you are sitting in your “boss” car (hopefully boss car, although the lot this night is filled with dads’ borrowed cars, strictly not boss, not boss at all) with your “boss” girl ( you had better call her that or next week she will be somebody else’s boss honey) personally and returns after, well, depends on how busy it is, and right now this in Adventure Car Hop busy time, with your order.
Now Sissy, a little older than most Clintondale car hops at twenty-two, is really nothing but a career waitress, a foxy one still, but a career waitress which is all a car hop really is. Except most are "slumming” through senior-hood at Clintondale High or some local college and are just trying to make some extra money for this and that while being beautiful. Because, and there is no scientific proof for this, but none is needed in any case, at Adventure Car Hop in the year 1962 every car hop is a fox (that beautiful just mentioned), a double fox on some nights, in their short shorts, tight blouses, and funny-shaped box hats.
And in the 1962 teen be-bop night, the teen be-bop Friday or Saturday night those foxes are magnets for every guy with a car, fathers’ car or not, without girls hoping against hope for a moment with one said car hop, and guys with girls who are looking to show off their girls, foxier even than the car hops if that is possible and usually isn’t although do not under any conditions let them know that, and, more importantly, their boss cars. And playing, playing loudly for all to hear their souped-up car radio complexes, turned nightly in rock heaven’s WJDA, the radio station choice of every teen under the age of twenty-one. And right now on Eddie's super-duplex speaker combo The Dell-Vikings are singing their hit, Black Slacks and some walkers (yes, some guys and girls, some lame guys and girls, walk to Adventure to grab something to eat after the Clintondale Majestic Theater lets out. They, of course, eat at the thoughtfully provided picnic tables although their orders are still taken by Sissy’s brigade) are crooning along to the tune. Nicely, although they are still nothing but lamos in the teen night social order.
But, getting back to Eddie and Ginny, see Sissy knows something that you and I don’t know just by the way Eddie placed his order as The Falcon’s doo wop serenade, Your So Fine, blares away from his radio in the Clintondale teen night. Sissy knows because, being a fox she has had plenty of experience (including with Eddie in the days, the junior high days when she and Eddie were nothing but walkers) that Eddie and Ginny (who was nothing but a stick when Eddie and she were an item, a stick being a girl, a twelve or thirteen year old junior high school girl with no shape, unlike say Sissy who did have a shape, although no question, no question even to Sissy Ginny has a shape now, not as good as her’s but a shape good enough to keep Eddie snagged) have been "doing it” after the spending the early evening at the Surf, the lock rock dance hall for those over twenty-one (and where is liquor is served). The tip-off: Eddie’s request for all the trimmings on his hamburgers. All the trimmings in this case being mustard, ketchup, pickles, lettuce, and here is the clincher, onions. Yes, Eddie and Ginny are done with love’s chores for the evening and can now revert to primal culinary needs without rancor, or concern.
Sissy had to laugh at how ritualized (although she would never use such a word herself to describe what was going on) the teen night life was in Clintondale (and really just slightly older teens like the clients of the Surf rock club, Eddie and Ginny, who learned the ropes at Adventure Car Hop way back when). If a couple came early, say eight o’clock they never ordered onions, no way, the night still held too much promise. The walkers, well, the walkers you couldn’t tell, especially the young walkers like she and Eddie in the old days, but usually they didn’t have enough sense to say “no onions.” And then there were the Eddies and Ginnys floating in around two, or three in the morning, done (and you know what done is now), starving, maybe a little drunk and ready to devour Benny’s (the owner of Adventure) cardboard hamburgers, deep-fried, fat-saturated French fries, and diluted soda (known locally as tonic, go figure) as long as those burgers had onions, many onions on them. And as we turn off this scene to the strains of Johnny Ace crooning Pledging My Love on Eddie’s car radio competing just now with a car further over with The Elegants’ Little Star Sissy has just place the car tray on Eddie’s side of the car and brought the order and placed it on the tray, with all the trimmings.
CD Review
The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll; Volume 6, various artists, Ace Records, 1996
Scene: Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which grace each CD in this The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The golden age of the automobile meets the golden age of al fresco dining, okay, okay pre-Big Mac dining. Sorry, I got carried away. And once I have put automobile and teen dining out together all that needs to be added is that Eddie is out, out once again, with his ever lovin’ Ginny in the Clintondale 1950s be-bop teen night, having a little something to eat after a hard teen dance and a bout of down in the Adamsville beach “submarine race” watching night.
“Two hamburgers, all the trimmings, two fries, two Cokes, Sissy,” rasped half-whispering Eddie Connell to Adventure Car Hop primo car hop (and ex-Eddie girlfriend back in junior high days when he learned a thing or two about girls, about girl charms and girl bewilderments), Sissy Jordan. For those who know not of Adventure Car Hops or car hops in general here is a quick primer. Adventure Car Hop is nothing but a old time drive-in restaurant where the car hop takes your order from you while you are sitting in your “boss” car (hopefully boss car, although the lot this night is filled with dads’ borrowed cars, strictly not boss, not boss at all) with your “boss” girl ( you had better call her that or next week she will be somebody else’s boss honey) personally and returns after, well, depends on how busy it is, and right now this in Adventure Car Hop busy time, with your order.
Now Sissy, a little older than most Clintondale car hops at twenty-two, is really nothing but a career waitress, a foxy one still, but a career waitress which is all a car hop really is. Except most are "slumming” through senior-hood at Clintondale High or some local college and are just trying to make some extra money for this and that while being beautiful. Because, and there is no scientific proof for this, but none is needed in any case, at Adventure Car Hop in the year 1962 every car hop is a fox (that beautiful just mentioned), a double fox on some nights, in their short shorts, tight blouses, and funny-shaped box hats.
And in the 1962 teen be-bop night, the teen be-bop Friday or Saturday night those foxes are magnets for every guy with a car, fathers’ car or not, without girls hoping against hope for a moment with one said car hop, and guys with girls who are looking to show off their girls, foxier even than the car hops if that is possible and usually isn’t although do not under any conditions let them know that, and, more importantly, their boss cars. And playing, playing loudly for all to hear their souped-up car radio complexes, turned nightly in rock heaven’s WJDA, the radio station choice of every teen under the age of twenty-one. And right now on Eddie's super-duplex speaker combo The Dell-Vikings are singing their hit, Black Slacks and some walkers (yes, some guys and girls, some lame guys and girls, walk to Adventure to grab something to eat after the Clintondale Majestic Theater lets out. They, of course, eat at the thoughtfully provided picnic tables although their orders are still taken by Sissy’s brigade) are crooning along to the tune. Nicely, although they are still nothing but lamos in the teen night social order.
But, getting back to Eddie and Ginny, see Sissy knows something that you and I don’t know just by the way Eddie placed his order as The Falcon’s doo wop serenade, Your So Fine, blares away from his radio in the Clintondale teen night. Sissy knows because, being a fox she has had plenty of experience (including with Eddie in the days, the junior high days when she and Eddie were nothing but walkers) that Eddie and Ginny (who was nothing but a stick when Eddie and she were an item, a stick being a girl, a twelve or thirteen year old junior high school girl with no shape, unlike say Sissy who did have a shape, although no question, no question even to Sissy Ginny has a shape now, not as good as her’s but a shape good enough to keep Eddie snagged) have been "doing it” after the spending the early evening at the Surf, the lock rock dance hall for those over twenty-one (and where is liquor is served). The tip-off: Eddie’s request for all the trimmings on his hamburgers. All the trimmings in this case being mustard, ketchup, pickles, lettuce, and here is the clincher, onions. Yes, Eddie and Ginny are done with love’s chores for the evening and can now revert to primal culinary needs without rancor, or concern.
Sissy had to laugh at how ritualized (although she would never use such a word herself to describe what was going on) the teen night life was in Clintondale (and really just slightly older teens like the clients of the Surf rock club, Eddie and Ginny, who learned the ropes at Adventure Car Hop way back when). If a couple came early, say eight o’clock they never ordered onions, no way, the night still held too much promise. The walkers, well, the walkers you couldn’t tell, especially the young walkers like she and Eddie in the old days, but usually they didn’t have enough sense to say “no onions.” And then there were the Eddies and Ginnys floating in around two, or three in the morning, done (and you know what done is now), starving, maybe a little drunk and ready to devour Benny’s (the owner of Adventure) cardboard hamburgers, deep-fried, fat-saturated French fries, and diluted soda (known locally as tonic, go figure) as long as those burgers had onions, many onions on them. And as we turn off this scene to the strains of Johnny Ace crooning Pledging My Love on Eddie’s car radio competing just now with a car further over with The Elegants’ Little Star Sissy has just place the car tray on Eddie’s side of the car and brought the order and placed it on the tray, with all the trimmings.
Labor's Untold Story-From The Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Archives-The Struggle For Working Class Organization-Engels To Marx In Zalt-Bommel (1847)
Markin comment:
Every Month Is Labor History MonthThis post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America(algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organizationwith various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
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Letters of Marx and Engels 1847
Engels To Marx In Zalt-Bommel
Source: MECW Volume 38, p. 122;
Written: 30 September 1847;
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, 1913.
Brussels, 28-30 September 1847
Tuesday, 28 September
Dear Marx,
There has recently been a very curious business here. All those elements among the local Germans who are dissatisfied with us and what we do have formed a coalition for the purpose of overthrowing you, me and the communists in general, and competing with the Workers’ Society. [158] Bornstedt is exceedingly displeased; the story emanating from Otterberg, passed on and confirmed by Sandkuhl and exploited by Crüger and Moras, to the effect that we were simply exploiting him, Bornstedt, has made him furious with all of us; Moras and Crüger, who go about complaining of our alleged cavalier treatment of them, have put his back up even further. Seiler is annoyed because of the unpardonable neglect he suffered at the founding of the Workers’ Society, and because of its good progress, which has given the lie to all his predictions. Heilberg is seeking to take spectacular if unbloody revenge for all the slights that have been, and are being, daily meted out to him. Bornstedt, too, is seething because his gifts of books and maps have failed to buy him the status of an influential democrat and honorary membership of, and a place for his bust in, the Society, instead of which his typesetter [Karl Wallau] will, tomorrow evening, put his name to the vote like that of any ordinary mortal. He is also vexed that he, the aristocratic homme d'esprit, should find much less opportunity to make fun of the workers than he had hoped. Then Moras is annoyed at having been unable to win over the Brüsseler-Zeitung for Heinzen. Enfin all these heterogeneous elements agreed upon a coup that was to reduce us one and all to a secondary role vis-à-vis Imbert and the Belgian democrats, and to call into being a society far more grandiose and universal than our uncouth Workers’ Society. All these gentlemen were fired by the idea of taking the initiative in something for once, and the cowardly rascals deemed the moment of your absence admirably suited to that end. But they had shamefully miscalculated.
They therefore decided quite on the sly to arrange a cosmopolitan-democratic supper and there to propose without prior warning a society à la fraternal democrats [122] with workers’ meetings, etc., etc. They set up a kind of committee onto which as a matter of form they co-opted the, to them, completely harmless Imbert. After hearing all kinds of vague rumours, it was not until Sunday evening at the Society that I learned anything positive about it from Bornstedt, and on Monday the meal was to take place. I could get no details from Bornstedt except that Jottrand, General Mellinet, Adolf Bartels, Kats, etc., etc., would be there, Poles, Italians, etc., etc. Although I had no inkling whatever about the whole coalition (only on Monday morning did I learn that Bornstedt was somewhat piqued and that Moras and Crüger were moaning and plotting: about Seiler and Heilberg I knew nothing), nonetheless I smelled a rat. But it was essential to attend because of the Belgians and because nothing democratic must be allowed to take place in little Brussels without our participating. But something had to be done about forming a group. Wallau and I accordingly put the matter forward and advocated it vigorously, upon which some thirty immediately agreed to go. On Monday morning I was told by Lupus that, besides the président d'honneur, old Mellinet, and the actual chairman, Jottrand, they would have to have two vice-chairmen, one of whom would be Imbert and the other a German, preferably a working man. Wallau was, unfortunately, out of the running since he didn’t speak French. That’s what he'd been told by Bornstedt. He, Lupus, had replied that in that case it must be me. I told Lupus that it must be him, but he refused point-blank. I was also reluctant because I look so awfully young, but finally I thought that, for all eventualities, it would be best for me to accept.
We went there in the evening.[159] Bornstedt was all innocence, as though nothing had as yet been arranged, merely the officials (toujours à l'exception de l'Allemand) , and a few registered speakers, none of whose names, save for Crüger and Moras I was able to discover; he kept making off to see to the arrangement of the place, hurried from one person to the next, duping, intriguing, bootlicking for all he was worth. However I saw no evidence of any specific intrigue; this didn’t transpire till later on. We were at the Estaminet Liégeois in the Place du Palais de Justice. When it came to electing the officials, Bornstedt, contrary to all that had been agreed, proposed Wallau. The latter declined through Wolff (Lupus) and had me proposed, this being carried in style. Thus thwarted, the whole plot collapsed. They now +- lost their heads and gave themselves away. After Imbert had proposed the health of the martyrs de la liberté, I came out with a toast in French au souvenir de la revolution de 1792 and, as an afterthought, of the anniversaire du 1er vendémiaire an I de la république.[160] [the anniversary of the First Vendémiaire of the first year of the Republic — 22 September 1792, the day when the Republic was proclaimed, fell on the First Vendémiaire according to the republican calendar] Crüger followed me with a ludicrous speech during which he dried up and had to resort to his manuscript. Then Moras, who read out an harangue almost entirely devoted to his humble self. Both in German. So confused were their toasts that I have absolutely no recollection of them. Then Pellering in Flemish. The lawyer Spilthoorn of Ghent, speaking French au peuple anglais then, to my great astonishment, that hunchbacked spider Heilberg, with a long, school-masterly, vapid speech in French in which he 1) patted himself on the back as editor of the Atelier Démocratique; 2) declared that he, Maximus Heilberg, had for several months been pursuing — but that must be said in French: The Association of Belgian Working Men, that is the goal I have been pursuing for several months (i. e. since the moment I deigned to take cognisance of the final chapter of the Poverty of Philosophy). He, then, and not Kats and the other Belgians. ‘We shall enter the lists when our elders are no longer there’ etc., etc. [Marseillaise] He will achieve what Kats and Jottrand could not do; 3) proposed to found a fraternal democracy and to reorganise the meetings; 4) to entrust the elected bureau with the organisation of both.
Well now, what confusion! First lump together the cosmopolitan business and Belgian meetings on Belgian affairs and 2) instead of dropping this proposal because everything’s going wrong for you, pass it on to the existing bureau! And if he had my departure in mind, should he not have known that it would be unthinkable to bring anyone else but you into the bureau? But the numbskull had already written the Whole of his speech and his vanity wouldn’t allow him to omit anything by which he could seize the initiative in some way. The thing, of course, went through, but in view of the highly factice albeit noisy enthusiasm, there could be no question of putting the confused proposal into better order. Next A. Bartels spoke (Jules wasn’t there), and then Wallau demanded the floor. But how intense was my astonishment when suddenly Bornstedt thrust himself forward and urgently demanded the floor for Seiler as a speaker whose name was higher up the register. Having got it, Seiler delivered an interminably long, garrulous, silly, absurdly vapid and truly shameful speech (in French) in which he talked the most hair-raising nonsense about pouvoirs législatif, administratif et exécutif, gave all manner of wise advice to the democrats (as did Heilberg, who invented the most wondrous things about teaching and questions of education), in which Seiler, further posing en grand homme spoke of democratic societies, in which I participated and which I may perhaps even have directed (literally), and finally, with the latest news to come from Paris; etc., etc., actually dragged in his precious bureau.[161] In short, it was ghastly. Several speakers followed, a Swiss jackass, Pellering, Kats (very good), etc., etc., and at ten o'clock Jottrand (who blushed with shame for the Germans) declared the sitting closed. Suddenly Heilberg called for silence and announced that Weerth’s speech at the free-trade congress [162] would be appearing next day in a supplement to the Atelier which would be sold separately!!! Then Zalewski also spoke, whining a while about the union between that unfortunate Poland and that great, noble and poetical Germany — finally all went home quietly enough but very much out of temper.
Thursday, 30 September
Since the above was written a great deal more has happened and various things have been decided. On Tuesday morning, when the whole plot was clear to me, I hurried round to counter it; that same night at 2 o'clock I went to see Lupus at the bureau i could not Bornstedt he balloted out of the Workers’ Society? Wednesday called on all and sundry, but everybody was of the opinion that we couldn’t do it. On Wednesday evening, when I arrived at the Society, Bornstedt was already there; his attitude was equivocal; finally Thomis came in with the latest issue; my anti-Heinzen article which I'd brought him as long ago as Monday and, not finding him in (2 o'clock in the afternoon), had taken to the printers, was not in it. [Engels, ‘The Communists and Karl Heinzen’. First article, dated 26 September was not printed in No. 78, 29 September; it appeared in the next issue on 3 October 1847] On my questioning him, he said there had been no space. I reminded him of what you and he had agreed.[163] He denied it; I waited till Wallau arrived and he told me there had been space enough but that on Tuesday Bornstedt had had the article fetched from the printers and had not sent it back again. I went to Bornstedt and very rudely told him as much. He tried to lie his way out. I again reverted to the agreement, which he again denied, save for a few trivial generalities. I passed some insulting remarks — Crüger, Gigot and Imbert, etc., etc., were present — and asked: ‘Do you intend to publish the article on Sunday, oui ou non?’ — ‘We'll have to discuss it first.’ — ‘I refuse to discuss it with you.’ — And thereupon I left him.
The sitting began. Bornstedt, chin cradled in his hands, sat looking at me with a curiously gloating expression. I stared back at him and waited. Up got Mr Thomis, who, as you know, had demanded the floor. He drew a prepared speech out of his pocket and read out a series of the most peculiar aspersions on our sham battle.[164] This went on for some time but, as it showed no signs of finishing, there was a general muttering, a mass of people demanded the floor, and Wallau called Thomis to order. The latter, Thomis, then read out some half dozen inane phrases on the question and withdrew. Then Hess spoke and defended us pretty well. Then Junge. Then Wolff’ of Paris who, though he dried up 3 times, was much applauded. Then several more. Wolff had betrayed the fact that our opposition had been purely formal. So I had to take the floor. I spoke — to the great discomfiture of Bornstedt, who had believed that I was too much preoccupied with personal squabbles — I spoke, then, about the revolutionary aspect of the protectionist system, completely ignoring the aforesaid Thomis, of course, and proposed a new question. Agreed. — Pause. — Bornstedt, badly shaken by the vehement way I had addressed him, by Thomis’ ratting on him (there were echoes of Bornstedt in his speech) and by the vehemence of my peroration — Bornstedt came up to me: My dear boy, how terribly impassioned you are, etc., etc. In short, I was to sign the article. — No. — Then at least we should agree on a short editorial introduction. — Very well, eleven o'clock tomorrow at the Café Suisse.
There followed the matter of the admission of Bornstedt, Crüger, Wolff. Hess was the first to get up; he addressed 2 questions to Bornstedt about Monday’s meeting. Bornstedt lied his way out, and Hess was weak enough to declare himself satisfait. Junge went for Bornstedt personally because of his behaviour at the Society and because he had introduced Sandkuhl under a false name. Fischer came out very energetically against Bornstedt, quite impromptu but very well. Several others likewise. In short, the triumphant Mr von Bornstedt had almost literally to run the gauntlet of the workers. He took a severe drubbing and was so thunderstruck — he, who of course believed he had well and truly bought his way in with his gifts of books — that he could only answer evasively, feebly, concedingly — in spite of the fact that Wallau, fanatically in support of him, was a wretched chairman who permitted him to interrupt the speakers at any and every opportunity. Everything was still hanging in the balance when Wallau directed the candidates to withdraw and called for a vote. Crüger, proposed by me as an exceptionally guileless man, who could in no way harm the Society, and purement et simplement seconded by Wolff, got through. In the case of Bornstedt, Wallau came out with a long, impassioned speech on his behalf. Then I stood up, went into the whole matter of the plot in so far as it concerned the Society, demolished Bornstedt’s evasions, each by means of the other, and finally declared: Bornstedt has intrigued against us, has sought to compete with us, but we have won, and hence can now admit him into the Society. During my speech — the best I have ever made — I was constantly interrupted by applause; notably when I said: these gentlemen believed that all had been won because I, their vice-chairman, was going away, but it had not occurred to them that there is, amongst us, one to whom the position belongs by right, one who alone is able to represent the German democrats here in Brussels, and that is Marx — whereupon tremendous applause. in short, no one spoke after me, and thus Bornstedt was not done the honour of being thrown out. He was standing outside the door and listening to it all. I would rather have said my say while he was still in the room, but it could not be done, because I had to spare myself for the final blow, and Wallau broke off the discussion. But, like Wolff and Crüger, he had heard every word. As opposed to him, Wolff was admitted almost without a hitch.
In short, at yesterday’s sitting Bornstedt, Crüger, etc., etc., suffered such an affront that they cannot honourably frequent the Society again, and they've had enough to last them a long time. But frequent it they certainly will; the shameless Bornstedt has been so reduced by our even greater insolence, by the utter failure of all his calculations, and by our vehemence, that all he can do is trot around Brussels whining to everyone about his disgrace — the lowest depths of debasement. He came back into the hall raging but impotent and, when I took my leave of the Society and was allowed to go with every imaginable mark of respect, he departed seething. Bürgers, who has been here since the day before yesterday evening, was present while we discussed Bornstedt.
Throughout, the behaviour of our workers was really splendid: the gifts, 26 books and 27 maps, were never mentioned, they treated Bornstedt with the utmost frigidity and lack of consideration — and, when I spoke and had reached my peroration, I had it in my power to have him rejected by a vast majority. Even Wallau admits as much. But we treated him worse than that by adopting him with scorn and contumely. The affair has made a capital impression on the Society; for the first time they have had a role to play, have dominated a meeting despite all the plotting, and have put in his place a fellow who was trying to set himself up against them. Only a few clerks, etc., etc., are dissatisfied, the vast majority being enthusiastically on our side. They have experienced what it means to be associated.
This morning I went to the Café Suisse, and who should fail to turn up but Bornstedt. — Weerth and Seiler, however, were there to meet me; they had just been talking to Bornstedt, and Seiler was obsequiousness and ingratiation personified. 1, of course, gave him the cold shoulder. Yesterday’s sitting, by the way, was so dramatic, and evolved so splendidly towards its climax that sheer aesthetic emotion momentarily turned Wolff of Paris into a party man. Today I also went to see A. Bartels and explained to him that the German Society was in no way responsible for what had happened on Monday, that Crüger, Bornstedt, Moras, Seiler, Heilberg, etc., etc., were not even members, and that the whole affair, staged without the knowledge of the German Society, was in fact a bid to set up a rival faction. A letter in similar vein, signed by all the committee members, is to be sent to Jottrand tomorrow, when I and Lupus will also be going to see Imbert. I have further written the following letter to Jottrand about the place on the organising I committee of the Brussels fraternal democrats which will become vacant on my departure:
‘Sir, Being obliged to leave Brussels for a few months, I find myself unable to carry out the functions which the meeting of the 27th instant saw fit to entrust to me. — I therefore request you to call on a German democrat resident in Brussels to participate in the work of the committee charged with organising a universal democratic society. I would take the liberty of proposing to you one of the German democrats in Brussels whom the meeting, had he been able to attend it, would have nominated for the office which, in his absence, it honoured me by conferring upon myself. I mean Mr Marx who, I am firmly convinced, has the best claim to represent German democracy on the committee. Hence it would not be Mr Marx who would he replacing me there, but rather I who, at the meeting, replaced Mr Marx. I am, Sir, etc., etc.'
I had in fact already agreed with Jottrand that I would advise him in writing of my departure and propose you for the committee. Jottrand is also away and will be back in a fortnight. If, as I believe, nothing comes of the whole affair, it will be Heilberg’s proposal that falls through; if something does come of it, then it will be we who have brought the thing about. Either way we have succeeded in getting you and, after you, myself, recognised as representatives of the German democrats in Brussels, besides the whole plot having been brought to a dreadfully ignominious end.
This evening there was a meeting of the community [165] at which I took the chair. With the exception of Wallau who, by the way, allowed himself to be converted and whose conduct yesterday was, indeed, excusable on various grounds for which I made allowance — with this one exception, then, the enthusiasm about the Bornstedt affair was unanimous. The fellows are beginning to feel their own importance. They have at last taken their stand as a society, as a power, vis-à-vis other people, and the’ fact that everything went with such a splendid swing and that their victory was so complete has made them enormously proud. Junge’s in the seventh heaven, Riedel is beside himself with joy, even little Ohnemans goes strutting about like a fighting-cock. Anyway, as I said before, this affair has given, and will continue to give, the Society a tremendous impetus, both internal and external Fellows who otherwise never open their traps have attacked Bornstedt. And even the plot has helped us: firstly Bornstedt went about telling everyone that the German democratic Workers’ Society had arranged the meeting and secondly we denied it all and, as a result of both these things, the society has become a general topic of conversation among Belgian democrats and is regarded as a highly significant, plus ou moins mysterious power German democracy is growing very strong in Brussels, Bartels remarked this morning.
By the way, you too are to be included in the committee’s letter to Jottrand. Gigot will sign himself ‘Secretary in Marx’s absence’.
Settle your financial affairs as quickly as possible and come back here again. I'm itching to get away, but must first wait until these plots have run their course. Just now I can’t possibly leave. So the sooner you come the better. But first put your financial affairs in order. At all events I'll remain at my post as long as I possibly can; si c'est possible, until you arrive. But for that very reason it’s desirable that you come soon.
Your
Engels
Every Month Is Labor History MonthThis post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America(algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organizationwith various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
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Letters of Marx and Engels 1847
Engels To Marx In Zalt-Bommel
Source: MECW Volume 38, p. 122;
Written: 30 September 1847;
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, 1913.
Brussels, 28-30 September 1847
Tuesday, 28 September
Dear Marx,
There has recently been a very curious business here. All those elements among the local Germans who are dissatisfied with us and what we do have formed a coalition for the purpose of overthrowing you, me and the communists in general, and competing with the Workers’ Society. [158] Bornstedt is exceedingly displeased; the story emanating from Otterberg, passed on and confirmed by Sandkuhl and exploited by Crüger and Moras, to the effect that we were simply exploiting him, Bornstedt, has made him furious with all of us; Moras and Crüger, who go about complaining of our alleged cavalier treatment of them, have put his back up even further. Seiler is annoyed because of the unpardonable neglect he suffered at the founding of the Workers’ Society, and because of its good progress, which has given the lie to all his predictions. Heilberg is seeking to take spectacular if unbloody revenge for all the slights that have been, and are being, daily meted out to him. Bornstedt, too, is seething because his gifts of books and maps have failed to buy him the status of an influential democrat and honorary membership of, and a place for his bust in, the Society, instead of which his typesetter [Karl Wallau] will, tomorrow evening, put his name to the vote like that of any ordinary mortal. He is also vexed that he, the aristocratic homme d'esprit, should find much less opportunity to make fun of the workers than he had hoped. Then Moras is annoyed at having been unable to win over the Brüsseler-Zeitung for Heinzen. Enfin all these heterogeneous elements agreed upon a coup that was to reduce us one and all to a secondary role vis-à-vis Imbert and the Belgian democrats, and to call into being a society far more grandiose and universal than our uncouth Workers’ Society. All these gentlemen were fired by the idea of taking the initiative in something for once, and the cowardly rascals deemed the moment of your absence admirably suited to that end. But they had shamefully miscalculated.
They therefore decided quite on the sly to arrange a cosmopolitan-democratic supper and there to propose without prior warning a society à la fraternal democrats [122] with workers’ meetings, etc., etc. They set up a kind of committee onto which as a matter of form they co-opted the, to them, completely harmless Imbert. After hearing all kinds of vague rumours, it was not until Sunday evening at the Society that I learned anything positive about it from Bornstedt, and on Monday the meal was to take place. I could get no details from Bornstedt except that Jottrand, General Mellinet, Adolf Bartels, Kats, etc., etc., would be there, Poles, Italians, etc., etc. Although I had no inkling whatever about the whole coalition (only on Monday morning did I learn that Bornstedt was somewhat piqued and that Moras and Crüger were moaning and plotting: about Seiler and Heilberg I knew nothing), nonetheless I smelled a rat. But it was essential to attend because of the Belgians and because nothing democratic must be allowed to take place in little Brussels without our participating. But something had to be done about forming a group. Wallau and I accordingly put the matter forward and advocated it vigorously, upon which some thirty immediately agreed to go. On Monday morning I was told by Lupus that, besides the président d'honneur, old Mellinet, and the actual chairman, Jottrand, they would have to have two vice-chairmen, one of whom would be Imbert and the other a German, preferably a working man. Wallau was, unfortunately, out of the running since he didn’t speak French. That’s what he'd been told by Bornstedt. He, Lupus, had replied that in that case it must be me. I told Lupus that it must be him, but he refused point-blank. I was also reluctant because I look so awfully young, but finally I thought that, for all eventualities, it would be best for me to accept.
We went there in the evening.[159] Bornstedt was all innocence, as though nothing had as yet been arranged, merely the officials (toujours à l'exception de l'Allemand) , and a few registered speakers, none of whose names, save for Crüger and Moras I was able to discover; he kept making off to see to the arrangement of the place, hurried from one person to the next, duping, intriguing, bootlicking for all he was worth. However I saw no evidence of any specific intrigue; this didn’t transpire till later on. We were at the Estaminet Liégeois in the Place du Palais de Justice. When it came to electing the officials, Bornstedt, contrary to all that had been agreed, proposed Wallau. The latter declined through Wolff (Lupus) and had me proposed, this being carried in style. Thus thwarted, the whole plot collapsed. They now +- lost their heads and gave themselves away. After Imbert had proposed the health of the martyrs de la liberté, I came out with a toast in French au souvenir de la revolution de 1792 and, as an afterthought, of the anniversaire du 1er vendémiaire an I de la république.[160] [the anniversary of the First Vendémiaire of the first year of the Republic — 22 September 1792, the day when the Republic was proclaimed, fell on the First Vendémiaire according to the republican calendar] Crüger followed me with a ludicrous speech during which he dried up and had to resort to his manuscript. Then Moras, who read out an harangue almost entirely devoted to his humble self. Both in German. So confused were their toasts that I have absolutely no recollection of them. Then Pellering in Flemish. The lawyer Spilthoorn of Ghent, speaking French au peuple anglais then, to my great astonishment, that hunchbacked spider Heilberg, with a long, school-masterly, vapid speech in French in which he 1) patted himself on the back as editor of the Atelier Démocratique; 2) declared that he, Maximus Heilberg, had for several months been pursuing — but that must be said in French: The Association of Belgian Working Men, that is the goal I have been pursuing for several months (i. e. since the moment I deigned to take cognisance of the final chapter of the Poverty of Philosophy). He, then, and not Kats and the other Belgians. ‘We shall enter the lists when our elders are no longer there’ etc., etc. [Marseillaise] He will achieve what Kats and Jottrand could not do; 3) proposed to found a fraternal democracy and to reorganise the meetings; 4) to entrust the elected bureau with the organisation of both.
Well now, what confusion! First lump together the cosmopolitan business and Belgian meetings on Belgian affairs and 2) instead of dropping this proposal because everything’s going wrong for you, pass it on to the existing bureau! And if he had my departure in mind, should he not have known that it would be unthinkable to bring anyone else but you into the bureau? But the numbskull had already written the Whole of his speech and his vanity wouldn’t allow him to omit anything by which he could seize the initiative in some way. The thing, of course, went through, but in view of the highly factice albeit noisy enthusiasm, there could be no question of putting the confused proposal into better order. Next A. Bartels spoke (Jules wasn’t there), and then Wallau demanded the floor. But how intense was my astonishment when suddenly Bornstedt thrust himself forward and urgently demanded the floor for Seiler as a speaker whose name was higher up the register. Having got it, Seiler delivered an interminably long, garrulous, silly, absurdly vapid and truly shameful speech (in French) in which he talked the most hair-raising nonsense about pouvoirs législatif, administratif et exécutif, gave all manner of wise advice to the democrats (as did Heilberg, who invented the most wondrous things about teaching and questions of education), in which Seiler, further posing en grand homme spoke of democratic societies, in which I participated and which I may perhaps even have directed (literally), and finally, with the latest news to come from Paris; etc., etc., actually dragged in his precious bureau.[161] In short, it was ghastly. Several speakers followed, a Swiss jackass, Pellering, Kats (very good), etc., etc., and at ten o'clock Jottrand (who blushed with shame for the Germans) declared the sitting closed. Suddenly Heilberg called for silence and announced that Weerth’s speech at the free-trade congress [162] would be appearing next day in a supplement to the Atelier which would be sold separately!!! Then Zalewski also spoke, whining a while about the union between that unfortunate Poland and that great, noble and poetical Germany — finally all went home quietly enough but very much out of temper.
Thursday, 30 September
Since the above was written a great deal more has happened and various things have been decided. On Tuesday morning, when the whole plot was clear to me, I hurried round to counter it; that same night at 2 o'clock I went to see Lupus at the bureau i could not Bornstedt he balloted out of the Workers’ Society? Wednesday called on all and sundry, but everybody was of the opinion that we couldn’t do it. On Wednesday evening, when I arrived at the Society, Bornstedt was already there; his attitude was equivocal; finally Thomis came in with the latest issue; my anti-Heinzen article which I'd brought him as long ago as Monday and, not finding him in (2 o'clock in the afternoon), had taken to the printers, was not in it. [Engels, ‘The Communists and Karl Heinzen’. First article, dated 26 September was not printed in No. 78, 29 September; it appeared in the next issue on 3 October 1847] On my questioning him, he said there had been no space. I reminded him of what you and he had agreed.[163] He denied it; I waited till Wallau arrived and he told me there had been space enough but that on Tuesday Bornstedt had had the article fetched from the printers and had not sent it back again. I went to Bornstedt and very rudely told him as much. He tried to lie his way out. I again reverted to the agreement, which he again denied, save for a few trivial generalities. I passed some insulting remarks — Crüger, Gigot and Imbert, etc., etc., were present — and asked: ‘Do you intend to publish the article on Sunday, oui ou non?’ — ‘We'll have to discuss it first.’ — ‘I refuse to discuss it with you.’ — And thereupon I left him.
The sitting began. Bornstedt, chin cradled in his hands, sat looking at me with a curiously gloating expression. I stared back at him and waited. Up got Mr Thomis, who, as you know, had demanded the floor. He drew a prepared speech out of his pocket and read out a series of the most peculiar aspersions on our sham battle.[164] This went on for some time but, as it showed no signs of finishing, there was a general muttering, a mass of people demanded the floor, and Wallau called Thomis to order. The latter, Thomis, then read out some half dozen inane phrases on the question and withdrew. Then Hess spoke and defended us pretty well. Then Junge. Then Wolff’ of Paris who, though he dried up 3 times, was much applauded. Then several more. Wolff had betrayed the fact that our opposition had been purely formal. So I had to take the floor. I spoke — to the great discomfiture of Bornstedt, who had believed that I was too much preoccupied with personal squabbles — I spoke, then, about the revolutionary aspect of the protectionist system, completely ignoring the aforesaid Thomis, of course, and proposed a new question. Agreed. — Pause. — Bornstedt, badly shaken by the vehement way I had addressed him, by Thomis’ ratting on him (there were echoes of Bornstedt in his speech) and by the vehemence of my peroration — Bornstedt came up to me: My dear boy, how terribly impassioned you are, etc., etc. In short, I was to sign the article. — No. — Then at least we should agree on a short editorial introduction. — Very well, eleven o'clock tomorrow at the Café Suisse.
There followed the matter of the admission of Bornstedt, Crüger, Wolff. Hess was the first to get up; he addressed 2 questions to Bornstedt about Monday’s meeting. Bornstedt lied his way out, and Hess was weak enough to declare himself satisfait. Junge went for Bornstedt personally because of his behaviour at the Society and because he had introduced Sandkuhl under a false name. Fischer came out very energetically against Bornstedt, quite impromptu but very well. Several others likewise. In short, the triumphant Mr von Bornstedt had almost literally to run the gauntlet of the workers. He took a severe drubbing and was so thunderstruck — he, who of course believed he had well and truly bought his way in with his gifts of books — that he could only answer evasively, feebly, concedingly — in spite of the fact that Wallau, fanatically in support of him, was a wretched chairman who permitted him to interrupt the speakers at any and every opportunity. Everything was still hanging in the balance when Wallau directed the candidates to withdraw and called for a vote. Crüger, proposed by me as an exceptionally guileless man, who could in no way harm the Society, and purement et simplement seconded by Wolff, got through. In the case of Bornstedt, Wallau came out with a long, impassioned speech on his behalf. Then I stood up, went into the whole matter of the plot in so far as it concerned the Society, demolished Bornstedt’s evasions, each by means of the other, and finally declared: Bornstedt has intrigued against us, has sought to compete with us, but we have won, and hence can now admit him into the Society. During my speech — the best I have ever made — I was constantly interrupted by applause; notably when I said: these gentlemen believed that all had been won because I, their vice-chairman, was going away, but it had not occurred to them that there is, amongst us, one to whom the position belongs by right, one who alone is able to represent the German democrats here in Brussels, and that is Marx — whereupon tremendous applause. in short, no one spoke after me, and thus Bornstedt was not done the honour of being thrown out. He was standing outside the door and listening to it all. I would rather have said my say while he was still in the room, but it could not be done, because I had to spare myself for the final blow, and Wallau broke off the discussion. But, like Wolff and Crüger, he had heard every word. As opposed to him, Wolff was admitted almost without a hitch.
In short, at yesterday’s sitting Bornstedt, Crüger, etc., etc., suffered such an affront that they cannot honourably frequent the Society again, and they've had enough to last them a long time. But frequent it they certainly will; the shameless Bornstedt has been so reduced by our even greater insolence, by the utter failure of all his calculations, and by our vehemence, that all he can do is trot around Brussels whining to everyone about his disgrace — the lowest depths of debasement. He came back into the hall raging but impotent and, when I took my leave of the Society and was allowed to go with every imaginable mark of respect, he departed seething. Bürgers, who has been here since the day before yesterday evening, was present while we discussed Bornstedt.
Throughout, the behaviour of our workers was really splendid: the gifts, 26 books and 27 maps, were never mentioned, they treated Bornstedt with the utmost frigidity and lack of consideration — and, when I spoke and had reached my peroration, I had it in my power to have him rejected by a vast majority. Even Wallau admits as much. But we treated him worse than that by adopting him with scorn and contumely. The affair has made a capital impression on the Society; for the first time they have had a role to play, have dominated a meeting despite all the plotting, and have put in his place a fellow who was trying to set himself up against them. Only a few clerks, etc., etc., are dissatisfied, the vast majority being enthusiastically on our side. They have experienced what it means to be associated.
This morning I went to the Café Suisse, and who should fail to turn up but Bornstedt. — Weerth and Seiler, however, were there to meet me; they had just been talking to Bornstedt, and Seiler was obsequiousness and ingratiation personified. 1, of course, gave him the cold shoulder. Yesterday’s sitting, by the way, was so dramatic, and evolved so splendidly towards its climax that sheer aesthetic emotion momentarily turned Wolff of Paris into a party man. Today I also went to see A. Bartels and explained to him that the German Society was in no way responsible for what had happened on Monday, that Crüger, Bornstedt, Moras, Seiler, Heilberg, etc., etc., were not even members, and that the whole affair, staged without the knowledge of the German Society, was in fact a bid to set up a rival faction. A letter in similar vein, signed by all the committee members, is to be sent to Jottrand tomorrow, when I and Lupus will also be going to see Imbert. I have further written the following letter to Jottrand about the place on the organising I committee of the Brussels fraternal democrats which will become vacant on my departure:
‘Sir, Being obliged to leave Brussels for a few months, I find myself unable to carry out the functions which the meeting of the 27th instant saw fit to entrust to me. — I therefore request you to call on a German democrat resident in Brussels to participate in the work of the committee charged with organising a universal democratic society. I would take the liberty of proposing to you one of the German democrats in Brussels whom the meeting, had he been able to attend it, would have nominated for the office which, in his absence, it honoured me by conferring upon myself. I mean Mr Marx who, I am firmly convinced, has the best claim to represent German democracy on the committee. Hence it would not be Mr Marx who would he replacing me there, but rather I who, at the meeting, replaced Mr Marx. I am, Sir, etc., etc.'
I had in fact already agreed with Jottrand that I would advise him in writing of my departure and propose you for the committee. Jottrand is also away and will be back in a fortnight. If, as I believe, nothing comes of the whole affair, it will be Heilberg’s proposal that falls through; if something does come of it, then it will be we who have brought the thing about. Either way we have succeeded in getting you and, after you, myself, recognised as representatives of the German democrats in Brussels, besides the whole plot having been brought to a dreadfully ignominious end.
This evening there was a meeting of the community [165] at which I took the chair. With the exception of Wallau who, by the way, allowed himself to be converted and whose conduct yesterday was, indeed, excusable on various grounds for which I made allowance — with this one exception, then, the enthusiasm about the Bornstedt affair was unanimous. The fellows are beginning to feel their own importance. They have at last taken their stand as a society, as a power, vis-à-vis other people, and the’ fact that everything went with such a splendid swing and that their victory was so complete has made them enormously proud. Junge’s in the seventh heaven, Riedel is beside himself with joy, even little Ohnemans goes strutting about like a fighting-cock. Anyway, as I said before, this affair has given, and will continue to give, the Society a tremendous impetus, both internal and external Fellows who otherwise never open their traps have attacked Bornstedt. And even the plot has helped us: firstly Bornstedt went about telling everyone that the German democratic Workers’ Society had arranged the meeting and secondly we denied it all and, as a result of both these things, the society has become a general topic of conversation among Belgian democrats and is regarded as a highly significant, plus ou moins mysterious power German democracy is growing very strong in Brussels, Bartels remarked this morning.
By the way, you too are to be included in the committee’s letter to Jottrand. Gigot will sign himself ‘Secretary in Marx’s absence’.
Settle your financial affairs as quickly as possible and come back here again. I'm itching to get away, but must first wait until these plots have run their course. Just now I can’t possibly leave. So the sooner you come the better. But first put your financial affairs in order. At all events I'll remain at my post as long as I possibly can; si c'est possible, until you arrive. But for that very reason it’s desirable that you come soon.
Your
Engels
***The Struggle For The Labor Party In The United States-The Program Of The American Labor Party (1936)- A Link
Click on the headline to link to the Program Of The American Labor Party (1936)
Markin comment on this series:
Obviously, for a Marxist, the question of working class political power is central to the possibilities for the main thrust of his or her politics- the quest for that socialist revolution that initiates the socialist reconstruction of society. But working class politics, no less than any other kinds of political expressions has to take an organization form, a disciplined organizational form in the end, but organization nevertheless. In that sense every Marxist worth his or her salt, from individual labor militants to leagues, tendencies, and whatever other formations are out there these days on the left, struggles to built a revolutionary labor party, a Bolshevik-style party.
Glaringly, in the United States there is no such party, nor even a politically independent reformist labor party, as exists in Great Britain. And no, the Democratic Party, imperialist commander-in-chief Obama's Democratic Party is not a labor party. Although plenty of people believe it is an adequate substitute, including some avowed socialists. But they are just flat-out wrong. This series is thus predicated on providing information about, analysis of, and acting as a spur to a close look at the history of the labor party question in America by those who have actually attempted to create one, or at to propagandize for one.
As usual, I will start this series with the work of the International Communist League/Spartacist League/U.S. as I have been mining their archival materials of late. I am most familiar with the history of their work on this question, although on this question the Socialist Workers Party's efforts run a close second, especially in their revolutionary period. Lastly, and most importantly, I am comfortable starting with the ICL/SL efforts on the labor party question since after having reviewed in this space in previous series their G.I. work and youth work (Campus Spartacist and the Revolutionary Marxist Caucus Newsletter inside SDS) I noted that throughout their history they have consistently called for the creation of such a party in the various social arenas in which they have worked. Other organizational and independent efforts, most notably by the Socialist Workers Party and the American Communist Party will follow.
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Markin comment on this series:
Obviously, for a Marxist, the question of working class political power is central to the possibilities for the main thrust of his or her politics- the quest for that socialist revolution that initiates the socialist reconstruction of society. But working class politics, no less than any other kinds of political expressions has to take an organization form, a disciplined organizational form in the end, but organization nevertheless. In that sense every Marxist worth his or her salt, from individual labor militants to leagues, tendencies, and whatever other formations are out there these days on the left, struggles to built a revolutionary labor party, a Bolshevik-style party.
Glaringly, in the United States there is no such party, nor even a politically independent reformist labor party, as exists in Great Britain. And no, the Democratic Party, imperialist commander-in-chief Obama's Democratic Party is not a labor party. Although plenty of people believe it is an adequate substitute, including some avowed socialists. But they are just flat-out wrong. This series is thus predicated on providing information about, analysis of, and acting as a spur to a close look at the history of the labor party question in America by those who have actually attempted to create one, or at to propagandize for one.
As usual, I will start this series with the work of the International Communist League/Spartacist League/U.S. as I have been mining their archival materials of late. I am most familiar with the history of their work on this question, although on this question the Socialist Workers Party's efforts run a close second, especially in their revolutionary period. Lastly, and most importantly, I am comfortable starting with the ICL/SL efforts on the labor party question since after having reviewed in this space in previous series their G.I. work and youth work (Campus Spartacist and the Revolutionary Marxist Caucus Newsletter inside SDS) I noted that throughout their history they have consistently called for the creation of such a party in the various social arenas in which they have worked. Other organizational and independent efforts, most notably by the Socialist Workers Party and the American Communist Party will follow.
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Friday, September 02, 2011
“Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International-From The Archives-Documents of the 1923 opposition-"Trotsky opens the attack"
Click on the headline to link to the Toward A History Of The Fourth International website for the article listed above.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
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Markin comment on this document:
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then. Who were revolutionaries to appeal to at that time? The kulaks? We saw where that led a couple of years later when Stalin/Bukharin made their right turn.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
*******
Markin comment on this document:
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then. Who were revolutionaries to appeal to at that time? The kulaks? We saw where that led a couple of years later when Stalin/Bukharin made their right turn.
Labor's Untold Story-From The Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Archives-The Struggle For Working Class Organization-ENGELS TO THE COMMUNIST CORRESPONDENCE COMMITTEE in Brussels (1846)
Markin comment:
Every Month Is Labor History Month
This post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America(algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organizationwith various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
******
Letters of Marx and ENgels 1846
ENGELS TO THE COMMUNIST CORRESPONDENCE COMMITTEE in Brussels (1846)
Written: [Paris,] Wednesday, 16 September 1846
First Published: abridged in abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, 1929
Translation: Peter and Betty Ross
Transcribed: zodiac@interlog.com
HTML Markup: S. Ryan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Committee No. 2
[Paris,] Wednesday, 16 September 1846
Dear Friends,
Your news about Belgium, London and Breslau [1] was of great interest to me. [2] I told Ewerbeck and Bernays what was of interest to them. Keep me au fait [3] as well with the success of our enterprise and plus ou moins [4] the enthusiasm with which the various localities are taking part, so that I can expatiate on that to the workers here in so far as it is politic. What are the Cologne people [5] doing?
There's all manner of news from here.
I've had several meetings with the local workers, i.e. with the leaders of the cabinet-makers from the Faubourg St. Antoine. These people are curiously organised. Apart from the business of their league [6] having been thrown into the utmost confusion -- as a result of a serious dispute with the Weitlingian tailors -- these lads, i.e. 12-20 of them, foregather once a week; they used to hold discussions but, after they ran out of matter, as indeed they were bound to do, Ewerbeck was compelled to give them lectures on German history -- starting from scratch -- and on an extremely muddled political economy, a popular rendering of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. [7] Meanwhile I appeared. In order to establish contact with them, I twice discussed conditions in Germany since the French Revolution, my point of departure being the economic relations. What they glean from these weekly meetings is thrashed out on Sundays at Barriere meetings [8] attended by Cherethites and Pelethites, wife and children. [9] Here -- abstraction faite de toute espace de politique [10] -- such things as 'social questions' are discussed. It is a good way of attracting new people, for it's entirely public; a fortnight ago the police arrived and wanted to impose a veto but allowed themselves to be placated and did nothing further. Often more than 200 people foregather.
Things cannot possibly remain as they are now. A degree of lethargy has set in amongst the fellows which comes from their being bored with themselves. For they have nothing to set against the tailors' communism but popularisations a la Grun and green-tinted [11] Proudhon, [12] all this having been laboriously dinned into them, partly by no less a person than Mr Grun himself, partly by an old, bombastic master cabinet-maker and minion of Grun's, Papa Eisermann, but partly, too, by amicus [13] Ewerbeck. Naturally they soon ran dry, endless repetition ensued and, to prevent them going to sleep (literally, this was getting worse and worse at the sessions), Ewerbeck torments them with hair-splitting disquisitions on 'true value' (this last being somewhat on my conscience) and bores them with the primeval forests of the Teutons, Hermann the Cheruscan, and the most ghastly old German etymology according to Adelung, all of it quite wrong. By the way, the real leader of these people isn't Ewerbeck but Junge, who was in Brussels [14]; the fellow realises very well what ought to be changed, and might do a great deal since he has them all in his pocket and is ten times more intelligent than the whole clique, but he vacillates too much and always has some new bee in his bonnet. I haven't seen him for nearly 3 weeks -- he never turned up and isn't to be found -- which is why so little has as yet been achieved. Without him most of them are spineless and irresolute. But one must be patient with the fellows; in the first place we must rid ourselves of Grun, whose enervating influence, both direct and indirect, has been truly dreadful. And then, when we've got these platitudes out of their heads, I hope to be able to achieve something with the fellows, for they all have a strong desire for instruction in economics. This should not take long, as Ewerbeck who, despite his notorious muddle-headedness, now at its fullest flowering, has the best intentions in the world, is completely in my pocket, and Junge, too, is wholly on my side. I have discussed the correspondence [15] with six others; the plan was much acclaimed, specially by Junge, and will be implemented from here. But unless Grun's personal influence is destroyed and his platitudes eradicated, thus reinvigorating the chaps, nothing can be done in view of the considerable material obstacles to be faced (particularly engagements almost every evening). I have offered to confront Grun in their presence and to tax him with his personal rascalities, and Bernays also wishes to be there -- Ewerbeck too has a bone to pick with him. This will happen as soon as they have settled their own affairs with Grun, i.e. obtained a guarantee for the money advanced for the printing of Grun's Landtag shit. [17] But since Junge didn't turn up and the rest behaved towards Grun-like children, that matter, too, is still not in order, although with a little effort it could have been settled in 5 minutes. The unfortunate thing about it is that most of these fellows are Swabians.
Now for something to amuse you. In his new, as yet unprinted book, which Grun is translating, [18] Proudhon has a great scheme for making money out of thin air and bringing the kingdom of heaven closer to all workers. No one knew what it was. Grun, while keeping it very dark, was always bragging about his philosopher's stone. General suspense. At length, last week, Papa Eisermann was at the cabinet-makers' and so was I; gradually the old coxcomb came out with it, in a naively secretive manner. Mr Grun had confided the whole plan to him. Hearken, now, to the grandeur of this plan for world redemption: ni plus ni moins [19] than the already long extant in England, and ten times bankrupt LABOUR-BAZARS or LABOUR-MARKETS, associations of all artisans of all trades, a big warehouse, all work delivered by the associes valued strictly in accordance with the cost of the raw product plus labour, and paid for in other association products, similarly valued. [20] Anything delivered in excess of the association's needs is to be sold on the world market, the proceeds being paid out to the producers. In this way the crafty Proudhon calculates that he and his fellow associes will circumvent the profit of the middleman. That this would also mean circumventing the profit on his association's capital, that this capital and this profit must be just as great as the capital and profit of the circumvented middlemen, that he therefore throws away with his right hand what the left has received, has none of it entered his clever head. That his workers can never raise the necessary capital, since otherwise they could just as well set themselves up separately, that any savings in cost resulting from the association would be more than outweighed by the enormous risk, that the whole thing would amount to spiriting away profit from this world, while leaving the producers of the profit to cool their heels, that it is a truly Straubingerian idyll, [21] excluding from the very outset all large-scale industry, building, agriculture, etc., that they would have to bear only the losses of the bourgeoisie without sharing in its gains, all these and a hundred other self-evident objections he overlooks, so delighted is he with his plausible illusion. It's all too utterly preposterous. Paterfamilias Grun, of course, believes in the new redemption and already in his mind's eye sees himself at the head of an association of 20,000 ouvriers [22] (they want it big from the start), his family, of course, to receive free clothing, board and lodging. But if Proudhon comes out with this, he will be making a fool of himself and all French socialists and communists in the eyes of bourgeois economists. Hence those tears, that polemicising against revolution [23] because he had a peaceable nostrum up his sleeve. Proudhon is just like John Watts. In spite of his disreputable atheism and socialism, the latter regards it as his vocation to acquire respectability in the eyes of the bourgeoisie; Proudhon, despite his polemic against the economists, does his utmost to gain recognition as a great economist. Such are the sectarians. Besides, it's such an old story! [24]
Now for another highly curious affair. -- The Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung of 21 July, Paris, 16 July. Article on the Russian Embassy [25] ...
"That is the official Embassy -- but quite extraneous to it, or rather above it, there is a certain Mr Tolstoy who bears no title, is described, however, as 'confidant of the Court.' Formerly, with the Ministry of Education, he came to Paris charged with a Literary mission; there he wrote a few memoirs for his Ministry, sent them a few reports on the French daily press, then wrote no more but did all the more. He maintains a splendid establishment, is invited everywhere, receives everyone, busies himself with everything, knows everything and arranges much. He seems to me to he the actual Russian Ambassador in Paris.... His intervention works wonders" ( -- all Poles seeking a pardon addressed themselves to him -- ) "-- at the Embassy all bow down before him and in Petersburg he is held in great regard."
This Tolstoy is none other than our Tolstoy, that noble fellow who told us untruthfully that he wanted to sell his estates in Russia. [26] Besides the apartment to which he took us, the man has a magnificent hotel [27] in the rue Mathurin where he receives the diplomats. This has long been known to the Poles and to many of the French, but not to the German radicals amongst whom he thought it better to insinuate himself as a radical. The above article was written by a Pole known to Bernays, and was immediately taken up by the Corsaire-Satan and the National. On reading the article, all Tolstoy did was laugh heartily and crack jokes about having been found out at last. He is now in London, where he will try his luck, being played out here. It's a pity he is not coming back, otherwise I'd have had a joke or two to try out on him, eventually leaving my card in the rue Mathurin. After this, c'est clair [28] that Annenkov, whom he recommended, is also a Russian informer. Even Bakunin, who must have known the whole story since the other Russians knew it, is very suspect. I shall, of course, give him no hint of this, but wreak vengeance on the Russians. Even though these spies may not constitute any particular threat to us, we can't let them get away with it. They're good subjects for conspiratorial experiments in corpore vili. [29] For that they are not really too bad.
Father Hess. After I had happily consigned his spouse, [30] cursing and swearing about same, to oblivion, i.e. to the furthest end of the Faubourg St. Antoine where there is a wailing and gnashing of teeth (Grun and Gsell), I received not long since, through the agency of one Reinhardt, another letter in which the communist papa sought to re-establish relations. It's enough to make one split one's sides. As if nothing had happened of course, altogether in dulci jubilo, [31] and moreover altogether the same old Hess. After the remark that he was to some extent reconciled with 'the party' (the 'Yiddish' Circle appears to have become insolvent) -- and 'also anxious to resume work' (which event ought to be rung in with a peal of bells), comes the following historical note (dated 19 August):
'A few weeks ago we were within a hair's breadth of a bloody riot here in Cologne, Large numbers being already armed' (among them certainly not Moses). 'The affair did not come to a head because the military did not put in an appearance' (tremendous triumph for Cologne's pint-sized philistine), etc., etc...'
Then he tells of the civic assemblies [32] where 'we', i.e. 'the party' and Mr Moses, 'qua communists, won so complete a victory that we', etc.
'We drove, first the moneyed aristocrats ... and then the petty bourgeois, with glory' (none of them possessing any talent) 'from the field. Eventually we could have (!) carried everything in the assemblies' (e.g. made Moses Chief Burgomaster); 'a programme was adopted to which the assembly pledged its candidates, and which' (hear, hear) 'could not have been more radical even if drawn up by English and French communists' (!!!) (and by no one understood more foolishly than by Moses).... 'Keep an occasional eye' (sic) 'on my [wife]' (both parties would like me to take over the distaff side at my own expense and risk, j'en ai les preuves [33]).... 'and pass this onto Ewerbeck as a heartener.'
May God bless this 'heartener', this manna from the desert. I, of course, completely ignore the beast -- he has now written to Ewerbeck too (and this simply in order that a letter may be conveyed to his distaff side at the former's expense), and is threatening to come here in two months' time. If he visits me, I think I too shall be able to tell him something by way of a 'heartener'.
Now that I'm in full swing, I might as well conclude by telling you that Heine is here again and that the day before yesterday Ewerbeck and I went to see him. The poor devil is dreadfully low. He has grown as thin as a rake. The softening of the brain is spreading, and so is the facial paralysis. Ewerbeck says he might very easily die of pulmonary paralysis or of a sudden cerebral stroke, but could also drag on, sometimes better, sometimes worse, for another three or four years yet. He is, of course, somewhat depressed, melancholy and -- most significant of all -- extremely benign (and, indeed, seriously so) in his judgments -- Maurer is the only person about whom he constantly cracks jokes. For the rest his intellectual vigour is unimpaired, but his appearance, made stranger still by a greying beard (he can no longer be shaved round the mouth), is enough to plunge anyone who sees him into the depths of depression. The impression made by the sight of so splendid a fellow gradually wasting away is exceedingly painful.
I have also seen the great Maurer. "Manikin, manikin, how little you weigh!" The man's really a sight worth seeing, and I was atrociously rude to him, in return for which the jackass evinces a particular affection for me, and tells me I have a kindly face. He resembles Karl Moor six weeks dead. Reply soon.
Yours
E.
Write soon, as I shall in a fortnight's time [...] from here; such a business a letter [...] easily remain lying or be refused at the old place.
At the Fraternite there has been a tremendous dispute between materialists [34] and spiritualists.[35] The materialists, outvoted by 23 to 22, walked out. But that has not stopped the Fraternite from publishing a very nice article on the various stages of civilisation and their ability to continue developing in the direction of communism. [36]
You'll be amused by the following: Journal des economistes, August of this year, contains, in an article on Biedermann's article on communism, [37] the following: First, all Hess' nonsense, comically Gallicised; next, we read, comes M. Marx.
'M. Marx est un cordonnier, comme un autre Communiste allemand, Weitling, est un tailleur. Le premier (Mx) n'a pas une grande estime pour le communisme francais (!) qu'il a ete assez heureux d'etudier sur les lieux. M. ne sort (du) reste point non plus' (do you not recognise Mr Fix in this Alsatian expression?) 'des formules abstraites et ie se garde bien d'aborder aucune question veritablement pratique. Selon lui' (note the nonsense) 'l'emancipation du peuple allemand sera le signal de l'emancipation du genre humain; la tete de cette emancipation serait la philosophie et son coeur le proletariat. Lorsque tout sera prepare, le coq gaulois sonnera la resurrection germanique... Marx dit qu'il faut creer en Allemagne un proletariat universel (!!) afin de realiser la pensee philosophique do Cornmunisme'. [38] Signed T. F. (mort depuis).[39]
That was his last work. The previous issue carried an equally comical review of my book. [40] The September number contains an article on Julius which I have not yet read. [41]
[On the back of the letter]
Monsieur Charles Marx au Bois Sauvage, Plaine Ste Gudule, Bruxelles
NOTES
From MECW
[1] Polish name: Wroclaw.
[2] The letter of Marx and other members of the Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee to Engels mentioned here has not been found.
[3] "acquainted"
[4] "more or less"
[5] Roland Daniels, Heinrich Burgers, Karl d'Ester
[6] A reference to the Paris communities of the League of the Just.
[7] Reference is probably to Engels' 'Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy'.
[8] Barriere meetings were Sunday assemblies of members of the League of the Just held at the Paris city gates (barrieres). As a police agent reported on 1 February 1845, 30 to 200 German emigrants gathered in premises rented for this purpose from a wine-merchant in avenue de Vincennes near the city gate.
[9] 2 Samuel 8:18; 15:18; 20:7, 23
[10] "all politics apart"
[11] A play on Grun (green)
[12] By 'tailors' communism' Engels means the utopian communism of W. Weitling and his followers.
Karl Grun, who visited Paris in 1846-47, preached 'true socialism' and Proudhon's petty-bourgeois reformist ideas among the German workers.
[13] "friend"
[14] Adolph Junge, a cabinet-maker from Dusseldorf, was a notable figure in the Paris communities of the League of the Just in the early 1840s. At the end of June 1846, after a short visit to Cologne, he returned to Paris via Brussels where he met Marx and Engels. In Paris he vigorously opposed Grun and other advocates of 'true socialism' and became an associate of Engels when the latter was in Paris. At the end of March 1847, the French police expelled Junge from the country.
[15] 5 May 1856
[17] [K. Grun,] Die preussischen Landtags-Abschiede.
[18] Grun's German translation of Proudhon's book was published in Darmstadt in February (Volume I) and in May (Volume II) 1847 under the title Philosophie der Staatsökonomie oder Notwendigkeit des Elends.
[19] "neither more nor less"
[20] By labour-bazars or labour markets Engels means equitable-labour exchange bazars which were organised by the Owenites and Ricardian socialists (John Gray, William Thompson, John Bray) in various towns of England in the 1830s for fair exchange without a capitalist intermediary. The products were exchanged for labour notes, or labour money, certificates showing the cost of the products delivered, calculated on the basis of the amount of labour necessary for their production. The organisers considered these bazars as a means for publicising the advantages of a non-capitalist form of exchange and a peaceful way -- together with cooperatives -- of transition to socialism. The subsequent and invariable bankruptcy of such enterprises proved their utopian character.
[21] Straubingers -- travelling journeymen in Germany. Marx and Engels used this term for German artisans, including some participants in the working-class movement of that time, who were still largely swayed by guild prejudices and cherished the petty-bourgeois illusion that it was possible to return from capitalist large-scale industry to petty handicraft production.
[22] "workers"
[23] Engels refers to Proudhon's letter to Marx of 17 May 1846, in which he turned down a proposal to work in the correspondence committees.
[24] H. Heine, 'Ein Jungling liebt cm Maedchen' from Lyrisches Intermezzo.
[25] Engels quotes from the article 'Die russische Allianz und die russisehe Gesandtschaft'.
[26] Engels had been misled by Karl Bernays and Heinrich Bornstein as he later pointed out in his letter to Marx of 15 January 1847. The item in the Allgemeine Zeitung dealt with the tsarist spy V. N. Tolstoy and not with the Russian liberal landowner G. M. Tolstoy whose acquaintance Marx and Engels had made in Paris.
[27] "mansion"
[28] "it's clear"
[29] "on the vile body"
[30] Sibylle Hess
[31] "sweetness and joy"
[32] During the campaign for the elections to the local councils in Cologne which started at the end of June 1846, it was obvious at the very first meetings that the Cologne communists had a considerable influence on the petty-bourgeois electors (the Prussian workers were virtually deprived of suffrage). In the course of the election campaign, disorders took place in Cologne on 3 and 4 August, and were suppressed by the army. The people indignantly demanded that the troops should be withdrawn to their barracks and a civic militia organised. Karl d'Ester, a Cologne communist, described these disturbances in an unsigned pamphlet Bericht iber die Ereignine za KoIn vow 3. und 4. Augstst und den folgenden Tagen, published in Mannheim in 1846.
[33] "have proof of it"
[34] By materialists Engels meant associates of Theodore Dezamy and other revolutionary representatives of French utopian communism who drew the socialist conclusions from the teaching of the eighteenth-century Frencls materialist philosophers. In the 1840s there existed in France a society of materialist communists which consisted of workers; in July 1847 eleven of its members were brought to trial by the French authorities.
[35] By spiritualists Engels must have meant the editors of the Fraternite who were influenced by the religious-socialist ideas of Pierre Leroux, and by the "Christian socialism" of Philippe Buchez and Felicite Lamennais.
[36] Engels seems to be writing about a series of articles 'La civilisation' published in the Fraternite in 1845 and 1846. The first article was entitled 'La civilisation est l'acheminement de l'esprit humain vers la communaute".
[37] The reference is to a review of K. Biedermann, 'Unsrc Gegenwart und Zukunft' written by Th. Fix and published in the Journal des Economistes, Vol. 15, No.57, August 1846.
Every Month Is Labor History Month
This post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America(algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organizationwith various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
******
Letters of Marx and ENgels 1846
ENGELS TO THE COMMUNIST CORRESPONDENCE COMMITTEE in Brussels (1846)
Written: [Paris,] Wednesday, 16 September 1846
First Published: abridged in abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, 1929
Translation: Peter and Betty Ross
Transcribed: zodiac@interlog.com
HTML Markup: S. Ryan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Committee No. 2
[Paris,] Wednesday, 16 September 1846
Dear Friends,
Your news about Belgium, London and Breslau [1] was of great interest to me. [2] I told Ewerbeck and Bernays what was of interest to them. Keep me au fait [3] as well with the success of our enterprise and plus ou moins [4] the enthusiasm with which the various localities are taking part, so that I can expatiate on that to the workers here in so far as it is politic. What are the Cologne people [5] doing?
There's all manner of news from here.
I've had several meetings with the local workers, i.e. with the leaders of the cabinet-makers from the Faubourg St. Antoine. These people are curiously organised. Apart from the business of their league [6] having been thrown into the utmost confusion -- as a result of a serious dispute with the Weitlingian tailors -- these lads, i.e. 12-20 of them, foregather once a week; they used to hold discussions but, after they ran out of matter, as indeed they were bound to do, Ewerbeck was compelled to give them lectures on German history -- starting from scratch -- and on an extremely muddled political economy, a popular rendering of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. [7] Meanwhile I appeared. In order to establish contact with them, I twice discussed conditions in Germany since the French Revolution, my point of departure being the economic relations. What they glean from these weekly meetings is thrashed out on Sundays at Barriere meetings [8] attended by Cherethites and Pelethites, wife and children. [9] Here -- abstraction faite de toute espace de politique [10] -- such things as 'social questions' are discussed. It is a good way of attracting new people, for it's entirely public; a fortnight ago the police arrived and wanted to impose a veto but allowed themselves to be placated and did nothing further. Often more than 200 people foregather.
Things cannot possibly remain as they are now. A degree of lethargy has set in amongst the fellows which comes from their being bored with themselves. For they have nothing to set against the tailors' communism but popularisations a la Grun and green-tinted [11] Proudhon, [12] all this having been laboriously dinned into them, partly by no less a person than Mr Grun himself, partly by an old, bombastic master cabinet-maker and minion of Grun's, Papa Eisermann, but partly, too, by amicus [13] Ewerbeck. Naturally they soon ran dry, endless repetition ensued and, to prevent them going to sleep (literally, this was getting worse and worse at the sessions), Ewerbeck torments them with hair-splitting disquisitions on 'true value' (this last being somewhat on my conscience) and bores them with the primeval forests of the Teutons, Hermann the Cheruscan, and the most ghastly old German etymology according to Adelung, all of it quite wrong. By the way, the real leader of these people isn't Ewerbeck but Junge, who was in Brussels [14]; the fellow realises very well what ought to be changed, and might do a great deal since he has them all in his pocket and is ten times more intelligent than the whole clique, but he vacillates too much and always has some new bee in his bonnet. I haven't seen him for nearly 3 weeks -- he never turned up and isn't to be found -- which is why so little has as yet been achieved. Without him most of them are spineless and irresolute. But one must be patient with the fellows; in the first place we must rid ourselves of Grun, whose enervating influence, both direct and indirect, has been truly dreadful. And then, when we've got these platitudes out of their heads, I hope to be able to achieve something with the fellows, for they all have a strong desire for instruction in economics. This should not take long, as Ewerbeck who, despite his notorious muddle-headedness, now at its fullest flowering, has the best intentions in the world, is completely in my pocket, and Junge, too, is wholly on my side. I have discussed the correspondence [15] with six others; the plan was much acclaimed, specially by Junge, and will be implemented from here. But unless Grun's personal influence is destroyed and his platitudes eradicated, thus reinvigorating the chaps, nothing can be done in view of the considerable material obstacles to be faced (particularly engagements almost every evening). I have offered to confront Grun in their presence and to tax him with his personal rascalities, and Bernays also wishes to be there -- Ewerbeck too has a bone to pick with him. This will happen as soon as they have settled their own affairs with Grun, i.e. obtained a guarantee for the money advanced for the printing of Grun's Landtag shit. [17] But since Junge didn't turn up and the rest behaved towards Grun-like children, that matter, too, is still not in order, although with a little effort it could have been settled in 5 minutes. The unfortunate thing about it is that most of these fellows are Swabians.
Now for something to amuse you. In his new, as yet unprinted book, which Grun is translating, [18] Proudhon has a great scheme for making money out of thin air and bringing the kingdom of heaven closer to all workers. No one knew what it was. Grun, while keeping it very dark, was always bragging about his philosopher's stone. General suspense. At length, last week, Papa Eisermann was at the cabinet-makers' and so was I; gradually the old coxcomb came out with it, in a naively secretive manner. Mr Grun had confided the whole plan to him. Hearken, now, to the grandeur of this plan for world redemption: ni plus ni moins [19] than the already long extant in England, and ten times bankrupt LABOUR-BAZARS or LABOUR-MARKETS, associations of all artisans of all trades, a big warehouse, all work delivered by the associes valued strictly in accordance with the cost of the raw product plus labour, and paid for in other association products, similarly valued. [20] Anything delivered in excess of the association's needs is to be sold on the world market, the proceeds being paid out to the producers. In this way the crafty Proudhon calculates that he and his fellow associes will circumvent the profit of the middleman. That this would also mean circumventing the profit on his association's capital, that this capital and this profit must be just as great as the capital and profit of the circumvented middlemen, that he therefore throws away with his right hand what the left has received, has none of it entered his clever head. That his workers can never raise the necessary capital, since otherwise they could just as well set themselves up separately, that any savings in cost resulting from the association would be more than outweighed by the enormous risk, that the whole thing would amount to spiriting away profit from this world, while leaving the producers of the profit to cool their heels, that it is a truly Straubingerian idyll, [21] excluding from the very outset all large-scale industry, building, agriculture, etc., that they would have to bear only the losses of the bourgeoisie without sharing in its gains, all these and a hundred other self-evident objections he overlooks, so delighted is he with his plausible illusion. It's all too utterly preposterous. Paterfamilias Grun, of course, believes in the new redemption and already in his mind's eye sees himself at the head of an association of 20,000 ouvriers [22] (they want it big from the start), his family, of course, to receive free clothing, board and lodging. But if Proudhon comes out with this, he will be making a fool of himself and all French socialists and communists in the eyes of bourgeois economists. Hence those tears, that polemicising against revolution [23] because he had a peaceable nostrum up his sleeve. Proudhon is just like John Watts. In spite of his disreputable atheism and socialism, the latter regards it as his vocation to acquire respectability in the eyes of the bourgeoisie; Proudhon, despite his polemic against the economists, does his utmost to gain recognition as a great economist. Such are the sectarians. Besides, it's such an old story! [24]
Now for another highly curious affair. -- The Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung of 21 July, Paris, 16 July. Article on the Russian Embassy [25] ...
"That is the official Embassy -- but quite extraneous to it, or rather above it, there is a certain Mr Tolstoy who bears no title, is described, however, as 'confidant of the Court.' Formerly, with the Ministry of Education, he came to Paris charged with a Literary mission; there he wrote a few memoirs for his Ministry, sent them a few reports on the French daily press, then wrote no more but did all the more. He maintains a splendid establishment, is invited everywhere, receives everyone, busies himself with everything, knows everything and arranges much. He seems to me to he the actual Russian Ambassador in Paris.... His intervention works wonders" ( -- all Poles seeking a pardon addressed themselves to him -- ) "-- at the Embassy all bow down before him and in Petersburg he is held in great regard."
This Tolstoy is none other than our Tolstoy, that noble fellow who told us untruthfully that he wanted to sell his estates in Russia. [26] Besides the apartment to which he took us, the man has a magnificent hotel [27] in the rue Mathurin where he receives the diplomats. This has long been known to the Poles and to many of the French, but not to the German radicals amongst whom he thought it better to insinuate himself as a radical. The above article was written by a Pole known to Bernays, and was immediately taken up by the Corsaire-Satan and the National. On reading the article, all Tolstoy did was laugh heartily and crack jokes about having been found out at last. He is now in London, where he will try his luck, being played out here. It's a pity he is not coming back, otherwise I'd have had a joke or two to try out on him, eventually leaving my card in the rue Mathurin. After this, c'est clair [28] that Annenkov, whom he recommended, is also a Russian informer. Even Bakunin, who must have known the whole story since the other Russians knew it, is very suspect. I shall, of course, give him no hint of this, but wreak vengeance on the Russians. Even though these spies may not constitute any particular threat to us, we can't let them get away with it. They're good subjects for conspiratorial experiments in corpore vili. [29] For that they are not really too bad.
Father Hess. After I had happily consigned his spouse, [30] cursing and swearing about same, to oblivion, i.e. to the furthest end of the Faubourg St. Antoine where there is a wailing and gnashing of teeth (Grun and Gsell), I received not long since, through the agency of one Reinhardt, another letter in which the communist papa sought to re-establish relations. It's enough to make one split one's sides. As if nothing had happened of course, altogether in dulci jubilo, [31] and moreover altogether the same old Hess. After the remark that he was to some extent reconciled with 'the party' (the 'Yiddish' Circle appears to have become insolvent) -- and 'also anxious to resume work' (which event ought to be rung in with a peal of bells), comes the following historical note (dated 19 August):
'A few weeks ago we were within a hair's breadth of a bloody riot here in Cologne, Large numbers being already armed' (among them certainly not Moses). 'The affair did not come to a head because the military did not put in an appearance' (tremendous triumph for Cologne's pint-sized philistine), etc., etc...'
Then he tells of the civic assemblies [32] where 'we', i.e. 'the party' and Mr Moses, 'qua communists, won so complete a victory that we', etc.
'We drove, first the moneyed aristocrats ... and then the petty bourgeois, with glory' (none of them possessing any talent) 'from the field. Eventually we could have (!) carried everything in the assemblies' (e.g. made Moses Chief Burgomaster); 'a programme was adopted to which the assembly pledged its candidates, and which' (hear, hear) 'could not have been more radical even if drawn up by English and French communists' (!!!) (and by no one understood more foolishly than by Moses).... 'Keep an occasional eye' (sic) 'on my [wife]' (both parties would like me to take over the distaff side at my own expense and risk, j'en ai les preuves [33]).... 'and pass this onto Ewerbeck as a heartener.'
May God bless this 'heartener', this manna from the desert. I, of course, completely ignore the beast -- he has now written to Ewerbeck too (and this simply in order that a letter may be conveyed to his distaff side at the former's expense), and is threatening to come here in two months' time. If he visits me, I think I too shall be able to tell him something by way of a 'heartener'.
Now that I'm in full swing, I might as well conclude by telling you that Heine is here again and that the day before yesterday Ewerbeck and I went to see him. The poor devil is dreadfully low. He has grown as thin as a rake. The softening of the brain is spreading, and so is the facial paralysis. Ewerbeck says he might very easily die of pulmonary paralysis or of a sudden cerebral stroke, but could also drag on, sometimes better, sometimes worse, for another three or four years yet. He is, of course, somewhat depressed, melancholy and -- most significant of all -- extremely benign (and, indeed, seriously so) in his judgments -- Maurer is the only person about whom he constantly cracks jokes. For the rest his intellectual vigour is unimpaired, but his appearance, made stranger still by a greying beard (he can no longer be shaved round the mouth), is enough to plunge anyone who sees him into the depths of depression. The impression made by the sight of so splendid a fellow gradually wasting away is exceedingly painful.
I have also seen the great Maurer. "Manikin, manikin, how little you weigh!" The man's really a sight worth seeing, and I was atrociously rude to him, in return for which the jackass evinces a particular affection for me, and tells me I have a kindly face. He resembles Karl Moor six weeks dead. Reply soon.
Yours
E.
Write soon, as I shall in a fortnight's time [...] from here; such a business a letter [...] easily remain lying or be refused at the old place.
At the Fraternite there has been a tremendous dispute between materialists [34] and spiritualists.[35] The materialists, outvoted by 23 to 22, walked out. But that has not stopped the Fraternite from publishing a very nice article on the various stages of civilisation and their ability to continue developing in the direction of communism. [36]
You'll be amused by the following: Journal des economistes, August of this year, contains, in an article on Biedermann's article on communism, [37] the following: First, all Hess' nonsense, comically Gallicised; next, we read, comes M. Marx.
'M. Marx est un cordonnier, comme un autre Communiste allemand, Weitling, est un tailleur. Le premier (Mx) n'a pas une grande estime pour le communisme francais (!) qu'il a ete assez heureux d'etudier sur les lieux. M. ne sort (du) reste point non plus' (do you not recognise Mr Fix in this Alsatian expression?) 'des formules abstraites et ie se garde bien d'aborder aucune question veritablement pratique. Selon lui' (note the nonsense) 'l'emancipation du peuple allemand sera le signal de l'emancipation du genre humain; la tete de cette emancipation serait la philosophie et son coeur le proletariat. Lorsque tout sera prepare, le coq gaulois sonnera la resurrection germanique... Marx dit qu'il faut creer en Allemagne un proletariat universel (!!) afin de realiser la pensee philosophique do Cornmunisme'. [38] Signed T. F. (mort depuis).[39]
That was his last work. The previous issue carried an equally comical review of my book. [40] The September number contains an article on Julius which I have not yet read. [41]
[On the back of the letter]
Monsieur Charles Marx au Bois Sauvage, Plaine Ste Gudule, Bruxelles
NOTES
From MECW
[1] Polish name: Wroclaw.
[2] The letter of Marx and other members of the Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee to Engels mentioned here has not been found.
[3] "acquainted"
[4] "more or less"
[5] Roland Daniels, Heinrich Burgers, Karl d'Ester
[6] A reference to the Paris communities of the League of the Just.
[7] Reference is probably to Engels' 'Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy'.
[8] Barriere meetings were Sunday assemblies of members of the League of the Just held at the Paris city gates (barrieres). As a police agent reported on 1 February 1845, 30 to 200 German emigrants gathered in premises rented for this purpose from a wine-merchant in avenue de Vincennes near the city gate.
[9] 2 Samuel 8:18; 15:18; 20:7, 23
[10] "all politics apart"
[11] A play on Grun (green)
[12] By 'tailors' communism' Engels means the utopian communism of W. Weitling and his followers.
Karl Grun, who visited Paris in 1846-47, preached 'true socialism' and Proudhon's petty-bourgeois reformist ideas among the German workers.
[13] "friend"
[14] Adolph Junge, a cabinet-maker from Dusseldorf, was a notable figure in the Paris communities of the League of the Just in the early 1840s. At the end of June 1846, after a short visit to Cologne, he returned to Paris via Brussels where he met Marx and Engels. In Paris he vigorously opposed Grun and other advocates of 'true socialism' and became an associate of Engels when the latter was in Paris. At the end of March 1847, the French police expelled Junge from the country.
[15] 5 May 1856
[17] [K. Grun,] Die preussischen Landtags-Abschiede.
[18] Grun's German translation of Proudhon's book was published in Darmstadt in February (Volume I) and in May (Volume II) 1847 under the title Philosophie der Staatsökonomie oder Notwendigkeit des Elends.
[19] "neither more nor less"
[20] By labour-bazars or labour markets Engels means equitable-labour exchange bazars which were organised by the Owenites and Ricardian socialists (John Gray, William Thompson, John Bray) in various towns of England in the 1830s for fair exchange without a capitalist intermediary. The products were exchanged for labour notes, or labour money, certificates showing the cost of the products delivered, calculated on the basis of the amount of labour necessary for their production. The organisers considered these bazars as a means for publicising the advantages of a non-capitalist form of exchange and a peaceful way -- together with cooperatives -- of transition to socialism. The subsequent and invariable bankruptcy of such enterprises proved their utopian character.
[21] Straubingers -- travelling journeymen in Germany. Marx and Engels used this term for German artisans, including some participants in the working-class movement of that time, who were still largely swayed by guild prejudices and cherished the petty-bourgeois illusion that it was possible to return from capitalist large-scale industry to petty handicraft production.
[22] "workers"
[23] Engels refers to Proudhon's letter to Marx of 17 May 1846, in which he turned down a proposal to work in the correspondence committees.
[24] H. Heine, 'Ein Jungling liebt cm Maedchen' from Lyrisches Intermezzo.
[25] Engels quotes from the article 'Die russische Allianz und die russisehe Gesandtschaft'.
[26] Engels had been misled by Karl Bernays and Heinrich Bornstein as he later pointed out in his letter to Marx of 15 January 1847. The item in the Allgemeine Zeitung dealt with the tsarist spy V. N. Tolstoy and not with the Russian liberal landowner G. M. Tolstoy whose acquaintance Marx and Engels had made in Paris.
[27] "mansion"
[28] "it's clear"
[29] "on the vile body"
[30] Sibylle Hess
[31] "sweetness and joy"
[32] During the campaign for the elections to the local councils in Cologne which started at the end of June 1846, it was obvious at the very first meetings that the Cologne communists had a considerable influence on the petty-bourgeois electors (the Prussian workers were virtually deprived of suffrage). In the course of the election campaign, disorders took place in Cologne on 3 and 4 August, and were suppressed by the army. The people indignantly demanded that the troops should be withdrawn to their barracks and a civic militia organised. Karl d'Ester, a Cologne communist, described these disturbances in an unsigned pamphlet Bericht iber die Ereignine za KoIn vow 3. und 4. Augstst und den folgenden Tagen, published in Mannheim in 1846.
[33] "have proof of it"
[34] By materialists Engels meant associates of Theodore Dezamy and other revolutionary representatives of French utopian communism who drew the socialist conclusions from the teaching of the eighteenth-century Frencls materialist philosophers. In the 1840s there existed in France a society of materialist communists which consisted of workers; in July 1847 eleven of its members were brought to trial by the French authorities.
[35] By spiritualists Engels must have meant the editors of the Fraternite who were influenced by the religious-socialist ideas of Pierre Leroux, and by the "Christian socialism" of Philippe Buchez and Felicite Lamennais.
[36] Engels seems to be writing about a series of articles 'La civilisation' published in the Fraternite in 1845 and 1846. The first article was entitled 'La civilisation est l'acheminement de l'esprit humain vers la communaute".
[37] The reference is to a review of K. Biedermann, 'Unsrc Gegenwart und Zukunft' written by Th. Fix and published in the Journal des Economistes, Vol. 15, No.57, August 1846.
***The Struggle For The Labor Party In The United States-The Socialist Party's Attempt At A Labor Party-The American Labor Party (1936)
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the American Labor Party
Markin comment on this series:
Obviously, for a Marxist, the question of working class political power is central to the possibilities for the main thrust of his or her politics- the quest for that socialist revolution that initiates the socialist reconstruction of society. But working class politics, no less than any other kinds of political expressions has to take an organization form, a disciplined organizational form in the end, but organization nevertheless. In that sense every Marxist worth his or her salt, from individual labor militants to leagues, tendencies, and whatever other formations are out there these days on the left, struggles to built a revolutionary labor party, a Bolshevik-style party.
Glaringly, in the United States there is no such party, nor even a politically independent reformist labor party, as exists in Great Britain. And no, the Democratic Party, imperialist commander-in-chief Obama's Democratic Party is not a labor party. Although plenty of people believe it is an adequate substitute, including some avowed socialists. But they are just flat-out wrong. This series is thus predicated on providing information about, analysis of, and acting as a spur to a close look at the history of the labor party question in America by those who have actually attempted to create one, or at to propagandize for one.
As usual, I will start this series with the work of the International Communist League/Spartacist League/U.S. as I have been mining their archival materials of late. I am most familiar with the history of their work on this question, although on this question the Socialist Workers Party's efforts run a close second, especially in their revolutionary period. Lastly, and most importantly, I am comfortable starting with the ICL/SL efforts on the labor party question since after having reviewed in this space in previous series their G.I. work and youth work (Campus Spartacist and the Revolutionary Marxist Caucus Newsletter inside SDS) I noted that throughout their history they have consistently called for the creation of such a party in the various social arenas in which they have worked. Other organizational and independent efforts, most notably by the Socialist Workers Party and the American Communist Party will follow.
*********
Markin comment on this series:
Obviously, for a Marxist, the question of working class political power is central to the possibilities for the main thrust of his or her politics- the quest for that socialist revolution that initiates the socialist reconstruction of society. But working class politics, no less than any other kinds of political expressions has to take an organization form, a disciplined organizational form in the end, but organization nevertheless. In that sense every Marxist worth his or her salt, from individual labor militants to leagues, tendencies, and whatever other formations are out there these days on the left, struggles to built a revolutionary labor party, a Bolshevik-style party.
Glaringly, in the United States there is no such party, nor even a politically independent reformist labor party, as exists in Great Britain. And no, the Democratic Party, imperialist commander-in-chief Obama's Democratic Party is not a labor party. Although plenty of people believe it is an adequate substitute, including some avowed socialists. But they are just flat-out wrong. This series is thus predicated on providing information about, analysis of, and acting as a spur to a close look at the history of the labor party question in America by those who have actually attempted to create one, or at to propagandize for one.
As usual, I will start this series with the work of the International Communist League/Spartacist League/U.S. as I have been mining their archival materials of late. I am most familiar with the history of their work on this question, although on this question the Socialist Workers Party's efforts run a close second, especially in their revolutionary period. Lastly, and most importantly, I am comfortable starting with the ICL/SL efforts on the labor party question since after having reviewed in this space in previous series their G.I. work and youth work (Campus Spartacist and the Revolutionary Marxist Caucus Newsletter inside SDS) I noted that throughout their history they have consistently called for the creation of such a party in the various social arenas in which they have worked. Other organizational and independent efforts, most notably by the Socialist Workers Party and the American Communist Party will follow.
*********
Growing Up Absurd In The 1950s- Be-Bop-My Baby Loves The Western Movies
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Olympics performing their classic My Baby Loves The Western Movies.
The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll: Volume 11, various artists, Ace Records, 2007
Scene: Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which grace each CD in this The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll series. This time the golden age of the automobile meets the golden age of al fresco movie watching meets teenage ingenuity. Here Fred Jackson, riding low in his father’s borrowed Plymouth is taking Betty Sue, his best friend, Zack Smith and his girl, Penny Parker, to the movies. Ya, right. In teen world this is just another name for “parking,” parking with a cardboard hamburger, stale popcorn, and ice-diluted soda intermission. But here is where the teen ingenuity part comes in. Not shown in this picture are Bud, Cindy, Lenny, and Laura who are just this minute uncomfortably lying low in the trunk of car as Freddie prepares to pay for the car-full five dollar price. Neat, right?
*******
“Hey, Zack come on over a little early and help me clean out the trunk of my father’s car, will you so we can fit everybody in there tonight,” Freddie yelled the into telephone on a sunny June 1960 Saturday afternoon over the blare of Lavern Baker’s be-bop Jim Dandy playing on the local rock station, the only station that matter in 1960 teen Clintondale. And as Carl Mann’s Pretend started up Zack yelled back just as loudly that he would be there, and Penny would be too. Now is this ritualistic telephone conversation the beginning of some big-time illegal criminal enterprise like using dad’s car, dad Jackson’s “boss” Plymouth to kidnap some kids for ransom and be on easy street. Well, not a bad idea but no not this night. This night is dedicated to a little party down at the Clintondale Drive-In outdoor theater. And the reason that the boss Plymouth needs to be cleaned out is that not only are Freddie and his best girl, Betty Sue, well, best girl this night, Zack and Penny going but so are Bud, Cindy, Lenny and Laura. Going courtesy of the Plymouth trunk.
As for Freddie and Betty Sue, they have been going through what Freddie calls a “rough patch” and Betty Sue only agreed to come because Freddie, promised, promised, promised on his word of honor not to try any stuff, you know boy grappling with girl stuff AND permit her when she came to his house to hear his copy of smooth Sammy Turner’s Lavender Blue which she is crazy for ever since she heard it last week on WJDA. He almost had to promise her a million listen peek at Jivin’ Gene’s Breaking Up Is Hard To Do but Freddie negotiated his way out of that one by reference to that rough patch and “let’s not stir that up again, okay?”
Now this four-in-a-trunk gag has been around since, well since teens have had access to cars, there have been outside drive-in theaters to go parking in, and most drive-ins have had a policy of charging admission by the car-full. Forever maybe, but if you ask anybody how they coped to the idea they probably could go back no farther than some older brother or sister getting them “hip.” And what of the morality, the corruption of morality, and the corruption of youth’s morality done irreparable harm to by gypping the theater owner of his due? Well, the argument back is that he makes plenty on the cardboard steamed hamburgers, the desiccated hot dogs, the stale, barely-buttered pop corn and the heavily-diluted soda (known in Clintondale as tonic, why is anybody’s guess).
But we will move alone right now because Freddie and Zack trunk cleared out, Penny and Betty Sue clipping their fingernails or something, watching, are ready to pick up the others down at Big Ben’s Pizza Parlor where they will have some real pizza and soda (tonic) to tide them over until movie time intermission. So as they drive off to Big Ben’s we see Betty Sue fidgeting with father Jackson’s radio dials trying to get that awful news hour stuff off and some real gone music, rock music on. Finally, although ready to punch the radio for not cooperating, Betty Sue finally gets ‘JDA as dreamy Matilda by Cookie and His Cupcakes comes on. Free, at last.
The details of the arrangements of the various stow-way couples need not detain us here, in any case that information is not for the prying eyes of the public, the parent public, the authorities public. Let them find there own way into the drive-in, hell they will probably pay full price. We will pick up Freddie, et. al as they are waiting in line to pay their admission, acting cool and listening to ‘JDA tunes. Just then Penny and Betty Sue, as if in some secret girl pact of their own design, beyond boy comprehension, start singing along with Mickey& Sylvia on their Love Is Strange coming over the airwaves. Freddie and Zack look at each other as if to say, this night was not made in heaven.
What was made in heaven though was the ease with which after paying the five bucks admission Freddie guided his car to the back of the drive-in, the unofficially designated “teen night area” (no parent, especially not parent with minor children would go within fifty yards of that place), unloaded his refugees, and made conversation with drivers unloading other trunks in the be-bop Clintondale teen night. Easy stuff, very easy. And the rating of the movies? What movies?
Note: For those who are barely unable to contain themselves about the fate of Freddie and Betty Sue. Well that Mickey& Sylvia sing-along must have had some therapeutic effect because at intermission, or just after consuming one of those desiccated hot dogs Betty Sue hearing Collay and the Satellites sing Last Chance on the car radio turned around to Zack and Penny in the back seats and said, defiantly, “let’s switch.” And that night the solemnly imposed and sworn to "no boy grappling girl" rule went out the window.
The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll: Volume 11, various artists, Ace Records, 2007
Scene: Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which grace each CD in this The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll series. This time the golden age of the automobile meets the golden age of al fresco movie watching meets teenage ingenuity. Here Fred Jackson, riding low in his father’s borrowed Plymouth is taking Betty Sue, his best friend, Zack Smith and his girl, Penny Parker, to the movies. Ya, right. In teen world this is just another name for “parking,” parking with a cardboard hamburger, stale popcorn, and ice-diluted soda intermission. But here is where the teen ingenuity part comes in. Not shown in this picture are Bud, Cindy, Lenny, and Laura who are just this minute uncomfortably lying low in the trunk of car as Freddie prepares to pay for the car-full five dollar price. Neat, right?
*******
“Hey, Zack come on over a little early and help me clean out the trunk of my father’s car, will you so we can fit everybody in there tonight,” Freddie yelled the into telephone on a sunny June 1960 Saturday afternoon over the blare of Lavern Baker’s be-bop Jim Dandy playing on the local rock station, the only station that matter in 1960 teen Clintondale. And as Carl Mann’s Pretend started up Zack yelled back just as loudly that he would be there, and Penny would be too. Now is this ritualistic telephone conversation the beginning of some big-time illegal criminal enterprise like using dad’s car, dad Jackson’s “boss” Plymouth to kidnap some kids for ransom and be on easy street. Well, not a bad idea but no not this night. This night is dedicated to a little party down at the Clintondale Drive-In outdoor theater. And the reason that the boss Plymouth needs to be cleaned out is that not only are Freddie and his best girl, Betty Sue, well, best girl this night, Zack and Penny going but so are Bud, Cindy, Lenny and Laura. Going courtesy of the Plymouth trunk.
As for Freddie and Betty Sue, they have been going through what Freddie calls a “rough patch” and Betty Sue only agreed to come because Freddie, promised, promised, promised on his word of honor not to try any stuff, you know boy grappling with girl stuff AND permit her when she came to his house to hear his copy of smooth Sammy Turner’s Lavender Blue which she is crazy for ever since she heard it last week on WJDA. He almost had to promise her a million listen peek at Jivin’ Gene’s Breaking Up Is Hard To Do but Freddie negotiated his way out of that one by reference to that rough patch and “let’s not stir that up again, okay?”
Now this four-in-a-trunk gag has been around since, well since teens have had access to cars, there have been outside drive-in theaters to go parking in, and most drive-ins have had a policy of charging admission by the car-full. Forever maybe, but if you ask anybody how they coped to the idea they probably could go back no farther than some older brother or sister getting them “hip.” And what of the morality, the corruption of morality, and the corruption of youth’s morality done irreparable harm to by gypping the theater owner of his due? Well, the argument back is that he makes plenty on the cardboard steamed hamburgers, the desiccated hot dogs, the stale, barely-buttered pop corn and the heavily-diluted soda (known in Clintondale as tonic, why is anybody’s guess).
But we will move alone right now because Freddie and Zack trunk cleared out, Penny and Betty Sue clipping their fingernails or something, watching, are ready to pick up the others down at Big Ben’s Pizza Parlor where they will have some real pizza and soda (tonic) to tide them over until movie time intermission. So as they drive off to Big Ben’s we see Betty Sue fidgeting with father Jackson’s radio dials trying to get that awful news hour stuff off and some real gone music, rock music on. Finally, although ready to punch the radio for not cooperating, Betty Sue finally gets ‘JDA as dreamy Matilda by Cookie and His Cupcakes comes on. Free, at last.
The details of the arrangements of the various stow-way couples need not detain us here, in any case that information is not for the prying eyes of the public, the parent public, the authorities public. Let them find there own way into the drive-in, hell they will probably pay full price. We will pick up Freddie, et. al as they are waiting in line to pay their admission, acting cool and listening to ‘JDA tunes. Just then Penny and Betty Sue, as if in some secret girl pact of their own design, beyond boy comprehension, start singing along with Mickey& Sylvia on their Love Is Strange coming over the airwaves. Freddie and Zack look at each other as if to say, this night was not made in heaven.
What was made in heaven though was the ease with which after paying the five bucks admission Freddie guided his car to the back of the drive-in, the unofficially designated “teen night area” (no parent, especially not parent with minor children would go within fifty yards of that place), unloaded his refugees, and made conversation with drivers unloading other trunks in the be-bop Clintondale teen night. Easy stuff, very easy. And the rating of the movies? What movies?
Note: For those who are barely unable to contain themselves about the fate of Freddie and Betty Sue. Well that Mickey& Sylvia sing-along must have had some therapeutic effect because at intermission, or just after consuming one of those desiccated hot dogs Betty Sue hearing Collay and the Satellites sing Last Chance on the car radio turned around to Zack and Penny in the back seats and said, defiantly, “let’s switch.” And that night the solemnly imposed and sworn to "no boy grappling girl" rule went out the window.
Thursday, September 01, 2011
***On “Now” Photos For The AARP Generation- For Robert Flatley, North Adamsville Class Of 1964
Click on the title to link to a YouTube film clip of Iris Dement performing Our Town. Sorry no After You're Gone by her that I could find on that site.
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
“’Cause I’ve memorized each line in your face, and not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me”-a line from the folksinger/songwriter Iris DeMent’s hauntingly beautiful song, After You’re Gone. (You can Google for the rest of the lyrics. Some of her music is on YouTube but I could not find this one.)
Well, of course, those hard-wire lyrics only apply to our male classmates. After all Iris is singing about her gone man. He long gone but not forgotten man. I do not, this age of sexual equality notwithstanding, want to extend their application to our sister classmates because I do not need to have every cyber-stone in the universe thrown at me. But those same lyrics do bring me to the purpose for today’s comment. As part of getting a 'feel' for writing about our days at old North Adamsville High I have perused some of the class profiles this infernal 1964 class committee that keeps badgering me for ever more information has provided me. Apparently once you answer a couple of off-hand questions about your doings (or not-doings) over the past half century you are fair game for every possible form of interrogation. Interrogations that would shame even the most hardened CIA or NSA bureaucrat. I don’t know about you but I am thinking of hiring a lawyer and putting a stop to this maddening harassment, and possible constitutional violation. But that is a subject for another day. For now, forward.
A number of you have placed your current photos on the profile pages thoughtfully provided by said committee, although a number of people, including myself, are apparently camera-shy. I admit to not being particularly camera-shy but rather to being something of a technological luddite (look that word up on Wikipedia if you do not know it) in that I do not own the digital camera required to upload a snappy photo, have no immediate intention of owning one, and would, moreover be helpless to do such a tortuous task as uploading a photo. Truth. Some, however, like the Chase brothers are not. Not camera shy or apparently luddites that is. (By the way, Jim and John, and others as well, what is up with wearing hats these days? We are Kennedy-era boys and hats most definitely were not part of our uniform.) Or like born again "muscle man" (read: huge) Bill Bailey, the star cross country runner and track man our class, whom I have has previously written about in this space as slender-strided and gracefully-gaited. That photo-readiness on the part of some classmates forms the basis for my comment. Those who are photo-less can breathe a sigh of relief-for now.
I have to admit that I have been startled by some of the photos. Many of them seem to have been taken by your grandchildren just before their naps. Or maybe by you just before your naps, or some combinations of the two especially for those who are performing grandparental (is their such a word?) duty as “babysitters” in a world where both parents are forced by hard-time circumstances to work to make ends meet these days. Isn’t the digital age supposed to have made the camera instantly user-friendly? Why all the out-of-focus, soft-focus, looking through a fish tank or a looking- glass kind of shots. And why does everyone seem to be have been photographed down the far end of some dark corridor or by someone about six miles away? Nobody expects Bachrach-quality photos but something is amiss here [ Bachrach’s was the photograph studio that took our individual class pictures for those who don’t remember or didn’t otherwise know-Markin]
In contrast, a new arrival on this class committee profile page interrogation wall (sorry), Robert Flatley, has found just the right approach. Initially, Robert placed a recent shot of himself on his profile page. Frankly, the old codger looked like he was wanted in about six states for “kiting” checks, or maybe had done a little “time” in some far-off county farm or state prison for armed robbery. More recently, however, his page has been graced with a stock photo provided by the site, a tastefully-shot, resplendent wide old oak tree. Automatically I now associate Robert with the tree of life, with oneness with the universe, with solidity, with the root of matter in him, and with bending but not breaking. Wise choice, Brother Flatley. Now, moreover, I do not have to suppress a need to dial 911, but rather can think of Robert as one who walks with kings, as a sage for the ages. And nothing can ever erase the story that tells to me.
Artist: Dement Iris
Song: After You're Gone
Album: Infamous Angel Iris Dement Sheet Music
There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons to face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorised each line in your face,
And not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me.
I'll miss you.
Oh, how I'll miss you.
I'll dream of you,
And I'll cry a million tears.
But the sorrow will pass.
And the one thing that will last,
Is the love that you've given to me.
There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons and I'll face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorized each line in your face,
And not even death could ever erase the story they tell to me.
************
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
“’Cause I’ve memorized each line in your face, and not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me”-a line from the folksinger/songwriter Iris DeMent’s hauntingly beautiful song, After You’re Gone. (You can Google for the rest of the lyrics. Some of her music is on YouTube but I could not find this one.)
Well, of course, those hard-wire lyrics only apply to our male classmates. After all Iris is singing about her gone man. He long gone but not forgotten man. I do not, this age of sexual equality notwithstanding, want to extend their application to our sister classmates because I do not need to have every cyber-stone in the universe thrown at me. But those same lyrics do bring me to the purpose for today’s comment. As part of getting a 'feel' for writing about our days at old North Adamsville High I have perused some of the class profiles this infernal 1964 class committee that keeps badgering me for ever more information has provided me. Apparently once you answer a couple of off-hand questions about your doings (or not-doings) over the past half century you are fair game for every possible form of interrogation. Interrogations that would shame even the most hardened CIA or NSA bureaucrat. I don’t know about you but I am thinking of hiring a lawyer and putting a stop to this maddening harassment, and possible constitutional violation. But that is a subject for another day. For now, forward.
A number of you have placed your current photos on the profile pages thoughtfully provided by said committee, although a number of people, including myself, are apparently camera-shy. I admit to not being particularly camera-shy but rather to being something of a technological luddite (look that word up on Wikipedia if you do not know it) in that I do not own the digital camera required to upload a snappy photo, have no immediate intention of owning one, and would, moreover be helpless to do such a tortuous task as uploading a photo. Truth. Some, however, like the Chase brothers are not. Not camera shy or apparently luddites that is. (By the way, Jim and John, and others as well, what is up with wearing hats these days? We are Kennedy-era boys and hats most definitely were not part of our uniform.) Or like born again "muscle man" (read: huge) Bill Bailey, the star cross country runner and track man our class, whom I have has previously written about in this space as slender-strided and gracefully-gaited. That photo-readiness on the part of some classmates forms the basis for my comment. Those who are photo-less can breathe a sigh of relief-for now.
I have to admit that I have been startled by some of the photos. Many of them seem to have been taken by your grandchildren just before their naps. Or maybe by you just before your naps, or some combinations of the two especially for those who are performing grandparental (is their such a word?) duty as “babysitters” in a world where both parents are forced by hard-time circumstances to work to make ends meet these days. Isn’t the digital age supposed to have made the camera instantly user-friendly? Why all the out-of-focus, soft-focus, looking through a fish tank or a looking- glass kind of shots. And why does everyone seem to be have been photographed down the far end of some dark corridor or by someone about six miles away? Nobody expects Bachrach-quality photos but something is amiss here [ Bachrach’s was the photograph studio that took our individual class pictures for those who don’t remember or didn’t otherwise know-Markin]
In contrast, a new arrival on this class committee profile page interrogation wall (sorry), Robert Flatley, has found just the right approach. Initially, Robert placed a recent shot of himself on his profile page. Frankly, the old codger looked like he was wanted in about six states for “kiting” checks, or maybe had done a little “time” in some far-off county farm or state prison for armed robbery. More recently, however, his page has been graced with a stock photo provided by the site, a tastefully-shot, resplendent wide old oak tree. Automatically I now associate Robert with the tree of life, with oneness with the universe, with solidity, with the root of matter in him, and with bending but not breaking. Wise choice, Brother Flatley. Now, moreover, I do not have to suppress a need to dial 911, but rather can think of Robert as one who walks with kings, as a sage for the ages. And nothing can ever erase the story that tells to me.
Artist: Dement Iris
Song: After You're Gone
Album: Infamous Angel Iris Dement Sheet Music
There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons to face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorised each line in your face,
And not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me.
I'll miss you.
Oh, how I'll miss you.
I'll dream of you,
And I'll cry a million tears.
But the sorrow will pass.
And the one thing that will last,
Is the love that you've given to me.
There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons and I'll face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorized each line in your face,
And not even death could ever erase the story they tell to me.
************
*Labor's Untold Story-The Class War In The Kentucky Coal Fields- Bloody Harlan In Song
Click on title to link to a YouTube film clip of the song You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive. There will be much more on this subject later in September. The Kentucky coal country and its history are personal in these quarters.
Every Month Is Labor History Month
This Commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.
Every Month Is Labor History Month
This Commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.
“Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International-From The Archives-Documents of the 1923 opposition-Foreword
Click on the headline to link to the Toward A History Of The Fourth International website for the article listed above.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and pragmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
******
Markin comment on this document:
It is rather appropriate that this site placed materials here from the original struggle for the preservation of the communist program by the formation of the Left Opposition within the Russian Communist Party in 1923. The operative words are "opposition within party." That was the first place to fight for revolutionary continuity. Not outside the party, or against the party, before the internal struggle to correct the course was exhausted. Later, after the decisive events of the early 1930s, serious revolutionaries had to be outside the Communist International and ready to create a new international but in the 1920s the place to be, at all costs, was inside. That is the cautionary tale to be heeded by revolutionaries today who are sometimes prone to move on before the previous fight is completed.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and pragmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
******
Markin comment on this document:
It is rather appropriate that this site placed materials here from the original struggle for the preservation of the communist program by the formation of the Left Opposition within the Russian Communist Party in 1923. The operative words are "opposition within party." That was the first place to fight for revolutionary continuity. Not outside the party, or against the party, before the internal struggle to correct the course was exhausted. Later, after the decisive events of the early 1930s, serious revolutionaries had to be outside the Communist International and ready to create a new international but in the 1920s the place to be, at all costs, was inside. That is the cautionary tale to be heeded by revolutionaries today who are sometimes prone to move on before the previous fight is completed.
Labor's Untold Story-From The Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Archives-The Struggle For Working Class Organization-Engels To The Communist Correspondence Committee In Brussels (1846)
Markin comment:
Every Month Is Labor History MonthThis post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America(algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organizationwith various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
******
Letters of Marx and Engels, 1846
Engels To The Communist Correspondence Committee [74]
In Brussels
Source: MECW Volume 38 p. 56
Written: 19 August 1846;
First published: in abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, 1913 and in full in MEGA, 1929.
Paris, 19 August 1846
11, rue de l'arbre sec
Committee
Carissimi [Dear Friends],
Our affair will prosper greatly here. Ewerbeck is quite taken up with it and only asks that a committee should not be officially organised in too great haste, because there’s a split in the offing. What remains here of the Weitlingians, a small clique of tailors,[75] is now in process of being thrown out, and Ewerbeck thinks it better that this should be accomplished first. However, Ewerbeck doesn’t believe that more than four or five of the people here will be available for the correspondence, which number is, indeed, fully adequate. In my next letter I hope to let you know who they are.
These tailors are really astounding chaps. Recently they were discussing quite seriously the question of knives and forks, and whether these had not best be chained. [probably in canteens which the utopian socialists planned to set up by way of experiment] But there are not many of them.
Weitling himself has not replied to the Parisians’ last, very rude letter, procured for him by us. He had demanded 300 fr. for practical experiments in connection with his invention,[76] but remarked at the same time that the money had probably been thrown down the drain. You can imagine what sort of answer they gave him.
The cabinet-makers and tanners, on the other hand, are said to be capital fellows. I have not yet seen them. Ewerbeck manages all that with his usual circumspection.
I shall now give you some gleanings from French periodicals, those, of course, which are not to be had in Brussels.
P. Leroux’s monthly is almost entirely taken up with articles on St.-Simon and Fourier by P. Leroux himself. [P. Leroux, ‘Saint-Simon et Fourier’ August 1846] In these he exalts St.-Simon to the skies, and does all he can to detract from Fourier and present him as an imitator who has debased and falsified St.-Simon. Thus he is at great pains to prove that the Quatre Mouvements [Ch. Fourier, Théorie des quatre mouvements et des destinies générales] are no more than a materialistically conceived plagiarism of Lettres d'un habitant de Genève. The fellow’s quite mad. Because at one point the latter work maintains that a system which is an encyclopaedic compendium of all the sciences could best be realised by the reduction of all phenomena, etc., to pesanteur universelle [universal gravity] it must be from this, we are told, that Fourier derived his whole theory of attraction. Needless to say, none of the evidence, quotations, etc., provide adequate proof that Fourier had even read the Lettres when he wrote the 4 Mouvements. On the other hand the whole Enfantin trend is described as Fourierism surreptitiously introduced into the school. The paper is called Revue Sociale, ou solution pacifique du problème du prolétariat.
Of the reformist newspaper congress,[77] the Atelier relates after the event [reference to the article ‘Du manifesto de la presse liberals’ in L'Atelier, No. 11, August 1846] that, not having attended, it was very surprised to find itself on the list of papers represented there. Le peuple de la presse had been kept out until the bases of the reform had been decided upon, and when the doors were then thrown open to the ouvrier papers so that they might vote their assent, it had thought it beneath its dignity to go there. The Atelier further relates that 150 ouvriers, probably Buchezists — which party, the French assure us, is about 1,000 strong — held a banquet, without police permission on 29 July to celebrate the July Days. [Engels relates the article ‘Un Banquet interrompu’, L'Atelier, No. 11, August 1846. July Days — revolution of 27-30 July 1830] The police intervened and, because they refused to undertake not to make political speeches or sing any of Béranger’s songs, they were dispersed.
Mr Wigand’s Die Epigonen are here. A dreadful din is heard as Mr Wigand vents his indignation. ‘An A. Ruge.’ He reproaches the latter with the common misfortunes both have endured during the past four years. Ruge, he says, was unable — in Paris — ‘to go hand-in-hand with fanatical communism’. Communism is a condition
‘hatched out in its own, ignorant brain, a narrow-minded and ignorant piece of barbarism which is to be forcibly imposed on mankind’.
Finally he brags about the great things he will do ‘so long as enough lead remains in the world to make type’. The candidat de la potence [candidate for the gallows], you see, has not yet given up hope of becoming the candidat de la lanterne. [candidate for the lamppost — allusion to the ambiguous position of bourgeois radicals, threatened with government repressions (gallows) for opposition, and in case of revolution — with reprisals by the people — lamppost]
I would draw your attention to the article in today’s National (mercredi 19) on the fall in the number of Parisian voters since 1844 from over 20,000 to 17,000.
Yours
E.
Paris has sunk low. Danton is selling wood in the Boulevard Bourdon. Barbaroux keeps a calico shop in the rue St. Honoré, the Réforme no longer has the strength to demand the Rhine, the opposition is searching for talent and cannot find it, the bourgeois gentry go to bed so early that everything has to be closed by 12 o'clock, and la jeune France accepts it without turning a hair. The police would certainly not have been able to enforce this had it not been for the early business hours kept by principals, whose motto is: ‘Morgenstunde hat usw’. [i.e., early to bed, early to rise etc.]
Mr Grün’s pamphlet, printed at the workers’ expense, is the one I once saw at Seiler’s: Die Preussischen Landtags-Abschiede. Ein Wort zur Zeit (anonymous); it consists mainly of plagiarisms from Marx’s essays (Deutsch-Französische-Jahrbücher) [Marx, ‘On the Jewish Question’ and ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law. Introduction'] and monumental nonsense. To him, questions of ‘political economy’ and of ‘socialism’ are identical. Absolute monarchy developed as follows:
‘The Prince created for himself an abstract domain, and this intellectual domain was called — the State. The State became the domain of domains; as the ideal of the domain it abolishes the individual domain, just as it lets it subsist, and always abolishes it when it seeks to become absolute, independent, etc.'
This ‘intellectual’ domain, Prussia, ‘almost immediately becomes transformed into a domain in which prayers are said, a clerical domain [geistige — intellectual, and geistliche — clerical]!! The consequence of all this is: Liberalism in Prussia has already been overcome in theory, hence the Imperial Estates will no longer concern themselves with bourgeois questions but directement with the social question.
‘The slaughtering and milling tax is what really betrays the nature of taxes, to wit it betrays the fact that every tax is a poll tax. But whoever raises a poll tax is saying: “Your heads and bodies are my own, you are bound to me head and body. ... The slaughtering and milling tax matches absolutism too well etc.'
For two years the jackass has been paying octroi [city tolls on imported consumer goods existing since the Middle Ages] without realising it, believing that such a thing exists only in Prussia. Finally, apart from a few plagiarisms and stock phrases, this little pamphlet is liberal through and through, and German-liberal to boot.
It is generally held by the workers here that the Garantien [W. Weitling, Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit] was not written by Weitling alone. Besides S. Schmidt, Becker, etc., several Frenchmen are said to have provided him with material and in particular he had manuscripts of one Ahrens, of Riga, a worker in Paris, now in America, who also wrote the main part of Die Menschheit wie sie ist und sein soll. The people here once wrote to him in London and told him as much, whereat he became exceedingly angry and simply replied that this was slanderous.
[On the back of the letter]
Monsieur Charles Marx, 19, Plaine Ste Gudule, Bruxelles
Every Month Is Labor History MonthThis post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America(algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organizationwith various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
******
Letters of Marx and Engels, 1846
Engels To The Communist Correspondence Committee [74]
In Brussels
Source: MECW Volume 38 p. 56
Written: 19 August 1846;
First published: in abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, 1913 and in full in MEGA, 1929.
Paris, 19 August 1846
11, rue de l'arbre sec
Committee
Carissimi [Dear Friends],
Our affair will prosper greatly here. Ewerbeck is quite taken up with it and only asks that a committee should not be officially organised in too great haste, because there’s a split in the offing. What remains here of the Weitlingians, a small clique of tailors,[75] is now in process of being thrown out, and Ewerbeck thinks it better that this should be accomplished first. However, Ewerbeck doesn’t believe that more than four or five of the people here will be available for the correspondence, which number is, indeed, fully adequate. In my next letter I hope to let you know who they are.
These tailors are really astounding chaps. Recently they were discussing quite seriously the question of knives and forks, and whether these had not best be chained. [probably in canteens which the utopian socialists planned to set up by way of experiment] But there are not many of them.
Weitling himself has not replied to the Parisians’ last, very rude letter, procured for him by us. He had demanded 300 fr. for practical experiments in connection with his invention,[76] but remarked at the same time that the money had probably been thrown down the drain. You can imagine what sort of answer they gave him.
The cabinet-makers and tanners, on the other hand, are said to be capital fellows. I have not yet seen them. Ewerbeck manages all that with his usual circumspection.
I shall now give you some gleanings from French periodicals, those, of course, which are not to be had in Brussels.
P. Leroux’s monthly is almost entirely taken up with articles on St.-Simon and Fourier by P. Leroux himself. [P. Leroux, ‘Saint-Simon et Fourier’ August 1846] In these he exalts St.-Simon to the skies, and does all he can to detract from Fourier and present him as an imitator who has debased and falsified St.-Simon. Thus he is at great pains to prove that the Quatre Mouvements [Ch. Fourier, Théorie des quatre mouvements et des destinies générales] are no more than a materialistically conceived plagiarism of Lettres d'un habitant de Genève. The fellow’s quite mad. Because at one point the latter work maintains that a system which is an encyclopaedic compendium of all the sciences could best be realised by the reduction of all phenomena, etc., to pesanteur universelle [universal gravity] it must be from this, we are told, that Fourier derived his whole theory of attraction. Needless to say, none of the evidence, quotations, etc., provide adequate proof that Fourier had even read the Lettres when he wrote the 4 Mouvements. On the other hand the whole Enfantin trend is described as Fourierism surreptitiously introduced into the school. The paper is called Revue Sociale, ou solution pacifique du problème du prolétariat.
Of the reformist newspaper congress,[77] the Atelier relates after the event [reference to the article ‘Du manifesto de la presse liberals’ in L'Atelier, No. 11, August 1846] that, not having attended, it was very surprised to find itself on the list of papers represented there. Le peuple de la presse had been kept out until the bases of the reform had been decided upon, and when the doors were then thrown open to the ouvrier papers so that they might vote their assent, it had thought it beneath its dignity to go there. The Atelier further relates that 150 ouvriers, probably Buchezists — which party, the French assure us, is about 1,000 strong — held a banquet, without police permission on 29 July to celebrate the July Days. [Engels relates the article ‘Un Banquet interrompu’, L'Atelier, No. 11, August 1846. July Days — revolution of 27-30 July 1830] The police intervened and, because they refused to undertake not to make political speeches or sing any of Béranger’s songs, they were dispersed.
Mr Wigand’s Die Epigonen are here. A dreadful din is heard as Mr Wigand vents his indignation. ‘An A. Ruge.’ He reproaches the latter with the common misfortunes both have endured during the past four years. Ruge, he says, was unable — in Paris — ‘to go hand-in-hand with fanatical communism’. Communism is a condition
‘hatched out in its own, ignorant brain, a narrow-minded and ignorant piece of barbarism which is to be forcibly imposed on mankind’.
Finally he brags about the great things he will do ‘so long as enough lead remains in the world to make type’. The candidat de la potence [candidate for the gallows], you see, has not yet given up hope of becoming the candidat de la lanterne. [candidate for the lamppost — allusion to the ambiguous position of bourgeois radicals, threatened with government repressions (gallows) for opposition, and in case of revolution — with reprisals by the people — lamppost]
I would draw your attention to the article in today’s National (mercredi 19) on the fall in the number of Parisian voters since 1844 from over 20,000 to 17,000.
Yours
E.
Paris has sunk low. Danton is selling wood in the Boulevard Bourdon. Barbaroux keeps a calico shop in the rue St. Honoré, the Réforme no longer has the strength to demand the Rhine, the opposition is searching for talent and cannot find it, the bourgeois gentry go to bed so early that everything has to be closed by 12 o'clock, and la jeune France accepts it without turning a hair. The police would certainly not have been able to enforce this had it not been for the early business hours kept by principals, whose motto is: ‘Morgenstunde hat usw’. [i.e., early to bed, early to rise etc.]
Mr Grün’s pamphlet, printed at the workers’ expense, is the one I once saw at Seiler’s: Die Preussischen Landtags-Abschiede. Ein Wort zur Zeit (anonymous); it consists mainly of plagiarisms from Marx’s essays (Deutsch-Französische-Jahrbücher) [Marx, ‘On the Jewish Question’ and ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law. Introduction'] and monumental nonsense. To him, questions of ‘political economy’ and of ‘socialism’ are identical. Absolute monarchy developed as follows:
‘The Prince created for himself an abstract domain, and this intellectual domain was called — the State. The State became the domain of domains; as the ideal of the domain it abolishes the individual domain, just as it lets it subsist, and always abolishes it when it seeks to become absolute, independent, etc.'
This ‘intellectual’ domain, Prussia, ‘almost immediately becomes transformed into a domain in which prayers are said, a clerical domain [geistige — intellectual, and geistliche — clerical]!! The consequence of all this is: Liberalism in Prussia has already been overcome in theory, hence the Imperial Estates will no longer concern themselves with bourgeois questions but directement with the social question.
‘The slaughtering and milling tax is what really betrays the nature of taxes, to wit it betrays the fact that every tax is a poll tax. But whoever raises a poll tax is saying: “Your heads and bodies are my own, you are bound to me head and body. ... The slaughtering and milling tax matches absolutism too well etc.'
For two years the jackass has been paying octroi [city tolls on imported consumer goods existing since the Middle Ages] without realising it, believing that such a thing exists only in Prussia. Finally, apart from a few plagiarisms and stock phrases, this little pamphlet is liberal through and through, and German-liberal to boot.
It is generally held by the workers here that the Garantien [W. Weitling, Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit] was not written by Weitling alone. Besides S. Schmidt, Becker, etc., several Frenchmen are said to have provided him with material and in particular he had manuscripts of one Ahrens, of Riga, a worker in Paris, now in America, who also wrote the main part of Die Menschheit wie sie ist und sein soll. The people here once wrote to him in London and told him as much, whereat he became exceedingly angry and simply replied that this was slanderous.
[On the back of the letter]
Monsieur Charles Marx, 19, Plaine Ste Gudule, Bruxelles
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
The Latest From The British Leftist Blog-"Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism"
The Latest From The British Leftist Blog-"Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism"
http://histomatist.blogspot.com/
Click on the headline to link to the latest from the British Leftist blog-Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism
Markin comment:
While from the tenor of the articles, leftist authors featured, and other items it is not clear to me that this blog is faithful to any sense of historical materialism that Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky would recognize I am always more than willing to "steal" material from the site. Or investigate leads provided there for material of interest to the radical public-whatever that seemingly dwindling public may be these days.
http://histomatist.blogspot.com/
Click on the headline to link to the latest from the British Leftist blog-Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism
Markin comment:
While from the tenor of the articles, leftist authors featured, and other items it is not clear to me that this blog is faithful to any sense of historical materialism that Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky would recognize I am always more than willing to "steal" material from the site. Or investigate leads provided there for material of interest to the radical public-whatever that seemingly dwindling public may be these days.
From The Free The San Francisco Eight Committee-Cisco cleared! Last of the charges dismissed
Click on the headline to link to the Free The SF 8 blog
Markin comment:
Once in a while, once in a great while, we see a little belated kicking and screaming justice under bourgeois democracy. We will take what we can get every time with not stopping holding our noses. Good luck Brother Torres.
Markin comment:
Once in a while, once in a great while, we see a little belated kicking and screaming justice under bourgeois democracy. We will take what we can get every time with not stopping holding our noses. Good luck Brother Torres.
Time to get serious about full employment: We need a jobs program that doesn't tinker around the edges-By Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog / August 24, 2011- Okay -30 For 40 (Markin)
Time to get serious about full employment: We need a jobs program that
doesn't tinker around the edges-By Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog / August 24, 2011- Okay -30 For 40 (Markin)
The Rag Blog will present noted writer and political activist Carl Davidson with a multi-media presentation on "The Mondragon Corporation and the Workers Cooperative Movement," on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011, 7-10 p.m., at 5604 Manor Community Center, 5604 Manor Road, Austin, Texas. For more information, go here. Carl will also be Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio, Friday, Sept. 9, from 2-3 p.m. (CST), on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, and streamed live here.
My regional daily newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, to its credit, came out with an editorial Monday, Aug. 22, 2011, urging President Obama to push for a substantial jobs program over Republican opposition.
Action on jobs: Obama must push hard to get people back to work" is the headline, and a key point stresses "Mr. Obama now needs to offer proposals equal to the size of the problem. That means bold strokes, not half-measures. If his Republican antagonists in Congress are determined to stand in the way of getting Americans back to work, the president must say so publicly -- and then go over their heads to enlist the nation in his effort.
Terrific, a good framing of the question. Unfortunately, however, once you get into the substance of the piece, it turns into a muddle. The Post-Gazette offers up a hodgepodge of proposals that tinker around the edges of the problem -- more tax cuts and credits for jobs created, more unemployment benefits, and oddly, more trade deals, even though these deals mostly result in net job losses.
Here's the heart of the matter. In a down economy, jobs are created by increasing demand, by more customers with bigger orders coming to a firm's doors. The problem is that consumer demand has taken a nose dive since the credit bubble burst.
People don't have money to spend. They're cutting back on everything, and trying to unload their debt. This means business-to-business orders shrink as well. Companies may be cash-rich and have high profits, but with no increase in orders or customers at their door, they aren't likely to hire people to do nothing just to get a tax credit.
This is where government has to become the key customer. It has to make huge productive purchases for local work and local materials to build productive infrastructure -- county-owned green energy plants, new and improved schools, modernized locks and dams, Medicare for all, investment in young students and veterans like we did with the GI Bill, investment in research in new industries, and so on.
Most important, to work well, it can't be nickel-and-dimed to death. It has to be on the scale of the expenditures for World War II. That's when the "multiplier effect" can kick in, and related growth in manufacturing can take off in turn. And it has to be paid for by going to where the most appropriate money is, imposing a financial transaction tax on unproductive and destabilizing speculation by Wall Street.
The best the Post-Gazette does on this matter is to support Obama's proposal for an "Infrastructure Bank," while urging him to find a way to bypass a GOP roadblock in Congress.
But even that is too passive. It says, in effect, here's a small pot of money. If you want to repair some roads, come and get some.
What we really need is something like the New Deal's Tennessee Valley Authority and Works Progress Administration, but on steroids, a TVA-WPA-CCC 2.0. We need to pass John Conyers' HR 870 Full employment Bill. We need the Department of Energy and the Department of Labor to go to every county in the country with a fully-funded proposal to build new green energy wind farms and solar power arrays as public energy utilities, hiring local workers at union scale, with no obstacles to a union election. And that's just for starters.
Yes, we need a serious jobs program. But it's time for everyone who utters that phrase to get serious themselves. Why? Because it's going to take a massive upsurge in class struggle to get it -- by removing those standing in the way.
[Carl Davidson is a national co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a national board member of Solidarity Economy Network, and a local Beaver County, PA member of Steelworkers Associates. In the 1960s, he was a national leader of SDS and a writer and editor for the Guardian newsweekly. He is also the co-author, with Jerry Harris, of CyberRadicalism: A New Left for a Global Age. He serves as webmaster for SolidarityEconomy.net and Beaver County Blue. This article was first published on Carl's blog, Keep On Keepin' On. Read more articles by Carl Davidson on The Rag Blog.]
doesn't tinker around the edges-By Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog / August 24, 2011- Okay -30 For 40 (Markin)
The Rag Blog will present noted writer and political activist Carl Davidson with a multi-media presentation on "The Mondragon Corporation and the Workers Cooperative Movement," on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011, 7-10 p.m., at 5604 Manor Community Center, 5604 Manor Road, Austin, Texas. For more information, go here. Carl will also be Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio, Friday, Sept. 9, from 2-3 p.m. (CST), on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, and streamed live here.
My regional daily newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, to its credit, came out with an editorial Monday, Aug. 22, 2011, urging President Obama to push for a substantial jobs program over Republican opposition.
Action on jobs: Obama must push hard to get people back to work" is the headline, and a key point stresses "Mr. Obama now needs to offer proposals equal to the size of the problem. That means bold strokes, not half-measures. If his Republican antagonists in Congress are determined to stand in the way of getting Americans back to work, the president must say so publicly -- and then go over their heads to enlist the nation in his effort.
Terrific, a good framing of the question. Unfortunately, however, once you get into the substance of the piece, it turns into a muddle. The Post-Gazette offers up a hodgepodge of proposals that tinker around the edges of the problem -- more tax cuts and credits for jobs created, more unemployment benefits, and oddly, more trade deals, even though these deals mostly result in net job losses.
Here's the heart of the matter. In a down economy, jobs are created by increasing demand, by more customers with bigger orders coming to a firm's doors. The problem is that consumer demand has taken a nose dive since the credit bubble burst.
People don't have money to spend. They're cutting back on everything, and trying to unload their debt. This means business-to-business orders shrink as well. Companies may be cash-rich and have high profits, but with no increase in orders or customers at their door, they aren't likely to hire people to do nothing just to get a tax credit.
This is where government has to become the key customer. It has to make huge productive purchases for local work and local materials to build productive infrastructure -- county-owned green energy plants, new and improved schools, modernized locks and dams, Medicare for all, investment in young students and veterans like we did with the GI Bill, investment in research in new industries, and so on.
Most important, to work well, it can't be nickel-and-dimed to death. It has to be on the scale of the expenditures for World War II. That's when the "multiplier effect" can kick in, and related growth in manufacturing can take off in turn. And it has to be paid for by going to where the most appropriate money is, imposing a financial transaction tax on unproductive and destabilizing speculation by Wall Street.
The best the Post-Gazette does on this matter is to support Obama's proposal for an "Infrastructure Bank," while urging him to find a way to bypass a GOP roadblock in Congress.
But even that is too passive. It says, in effect, here's a small pot of money. If you want to repair some roads, come and get some.
What we really need is something like the New Deal's Tennessee Valley Authority and Works Progress Administration, but on steroids, a TVA-WPA-CCC 2.0. We need to pass John Conyers' HR 870 Full employment Bill. We need the Department of Energy and the Department of Labor to go to every county in the country with a fully-funded proposal to build new green energy wind farms and solar power arrays as public energy utilities, hiring local workers at union scale, with no obstacles to a union election. And that's just for starters.
Yes, we need a serious jobs program. But it's time for everyone who utters that phrase to get serious themselves. Why? Because it's going to take a massive upsurge in class struggle to get it -- by removing those standing in the way.
[Carl Davidson is a national co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a national board member of Solidarity Economy Network, and a local Beaver County, PA member of Steelworkers Associates. In the 1960s, he was a national leader of SDS and a writer and editor for the Guardian newsweekly. He is also the co-author, with Jerry Harris, of CyberRadicalism: A New Left for a Global Age. He serves as webmaster for SolidarityEconomy.net and Beaver County Blue. This article was first published on Carl's blog, Keep On Keepin' On. Read more articles by Carl Davidson on The Rag Blog.]
I'm Not Down With Jesus Anymore -Mariann G. Wizard- The Rag Blog
I'm Not Down With Jesus Anymore
a response to "The Response"
O I'm Not Down With Jesus Anymore –
They say He votes Republican and leads us into war,
and He will not heal anyone if they've been sick before –
No, I'm Not Down With Jesus Anymore!
I thought that I knew Jesus as a child –
He said he was a friend to all, so gentle and so mild,
and He held out His hand to me when I got kind of wild,
but that was before Jesus got so riled!
Now Jesus just seems angry all the time –
He hangs out with the big shots and overlooks their crimes,
and for the old and helpless, He hasn't got a dime –
it's their own fault if they're not in their prime!
Yeah, Jesus changed on his way to the top –
some say because his Daddy thought He was a flop,
He started acting less laid back and way more like a cop,
and now He's grown up, He's just like his Pop!
Jesus Christ no longer loves his brother –
can you imagine how that hurts His Mother?
And forget that Golden Rule of treating others
as you would like to be – that's just for losers, you schmuck!
I remember all the good times that we had –
like back when wearin' sandals was considered really rad,
or turnin' water into wine, man, that was super-bad!
But I'm not gonna let it make me sad.
We'll still be here if Jesus's new friends
decide that they don't need Him when they win –
when He sees them fill their bank accounts and commit their mortal sins –
He can join us at the barricades we tend!
But I'm Not Down With Jesus Anymore –
not if He votes Republican and still supports the war,
not if He won't heal anyone who has been sick before –
No, I'm Not Down With Jesus Anymore!
© mgw 8/25/11
Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog
[Mariann G. Wizard, a Sixties radical activist and contributor to The Rag, Austin's underground newspaper from the 60s and 70s, is a poet, a professional science writer specializing in natural health therapies, and a regular contributor to The Rag Blog. Read more poetry and articles by Mariann G. Wizard on The Rag Blog.]
a response to "The Response"
O I'm Not Down With Jesus Anymore –
They say He votes Republican and leads us into war,
and He will not heal anyone if they've been sick before –
No, I'm Not Down With Jesus Anymore!
I thought that I knew Jesus as a child –
He said he was a friend to all, so gentle and so mild,
and He held out His hand to me when I got kind of wild,
but that was before Jesus got so riled!
Now Jesus just seems angry all the time –
He hangs out with the big shots and overlooks their crimes,
and for the old and helpless, He hasn't got a dime –
it's their own fault if they're not in their prime!
Yeah, Jesus changed on his way to the top –
some say because his Daddy thought He was a flop,
He started acting less laid back and way more like a cop,
and now He's grown up, He's just like his Pop!
Jesus Christ no longer loves his brother –
can you imagine how that hurts His Mother?
And forget that Golden Rule of treating others
as you would like to be – that's just for losers, you schmuck!
I remember all the good times that we had –
like back when wearin' sandals was considered really rad,
or turnin' water into wine, man, that was super-bad!
But I'm not gonna let it make me sad.
We'll still be here if Jesus's new friends
decide that they don't need Him when they win –
when He sees them fill their bank accounts and commit their mortal sins –
He can join us at the barricades we tend!
But I'm Not Down With Jesus Anymore –
not if He votes Republican and still supports the war,
not if He won't heal anyone who has been sick before –
No, I'm Not Down With Jesus Anymore!
© mgw 8/25/11
Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog
[Mariann G. Wizard, a Sixties radical activist and contributor to The Rag, Austin's underground newspaper from the 60s and 70s, is a poet, a professional science writer specializing in natural health therapies, and a regular contributor to The Rag Blog. Read more poetry and articles by Mariann G. Wizard on The Rag Blog.]
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