Markin comment:
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices. This year we pay special honor to American Communist party founder and later Trotskyist leader, James P. Cannon, Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci, and German Left Communist Karl Korsch.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
*******
Antonio Gramsci 1919
Red Ink
Source: Avanti!, 4 April 1919;
Translated: by Michael Carley;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2011.
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The balance of Soviet Russia is negative, cruelly negative. “Momento” weeps for it like a little calf, “Momento” suffers for it with all its Franciscan soul. Think, think: 13,700 people executed as counter-revolutionaries on the first of January 1919, without counting those condemned “on intuition”; think, think, the same Commissar Lissoflski has declared it. And a deficit of seventeen billion, think, think, weep, weep, oh little hearts of butter lodging in the candy floss breasts of the tender Order of Perpetual Adoration or the curates of feeling. Vade retro, oh communism, here the holy water against the Soviet; cruel and most base apocalyptic monsters, never will you tempt the most tender Order, never will you hear the Te Deum in your glory.
When has there ever appeared on the immaculate earth a slaughter machine, a scourge destroying lives and billions, so horrifying as the Soviet Revolution? What was the slaughter of the Albigensians? A children's garden game: and, please, do not think for a moment that Pope Innocent was a precursor of “intuition,” when he preached of killing, of killing, so much so that the Merciful Lord might, in his omniscience, divide the white lamb from the worm-ridden sheep; you would only show yourself up as an anticlerical vulgarian, without a rudiment of theology or catechism.
What was the war of the peasants in Germany? A Nuremberg toy, even if it be affirmed that it destroyed twelve million human lives. What were the destructions of the Flemish, the Incas, and of the boors carried out by the most Catholic kings of Spain? They were services to the holy faith, most devoted corvées of vassals of Our Omnipotent Lord Jesus Christ. What are the ten million dead and ten million invalids and injured, heritage of the war which His Holiness Benedict called “useless slaughter,” but which “Momento” believes most useful, though His Holiness is Pontiff of the Catholic Church, while “Momento” is only the organ of the Partito Popolare Italiano.
What are the twenty million dead of grippe or Spanish flu, or pulmonary plague, that is war plague, caused and propagated and cultivated by the conditions created and left by the war? What are the thousands and thousands of human creatures who die every day of hunger, scurvy, exposure in Romania, in Bohemia, in Armenia, in India, to note only those countries friends of the Entente.
What is the eighty billion deficit in the Italian accounts, the one hundred and twenty billion in the French accounts, the two hundred billion in damages caused by the war?
What are the one hundred and fifty million Russians exterminated by the Czarist government in the repression of the Soviets in 1905? What would the twenty million Russians do who would be exterminated if the counter-revolution of Generals Krasnof, Denikin and Kolchak triumphed, the friends of the Entente who impale and expose for three days one worker in ten in the towns they manage to reconquer, the friends of the Entente who send armoured wagons full of Soviet soldiers cut to pieces to Petrograd.
What are they, what are they? Trifles, nothings, magnanimous actions compared to 13,700 executed and a deficit of 17 billion. The social revolution is a scourge, the apocalyptic monster. What is a proletarian life, what is it worth compared to a bourgeouis life? You study economics, surely: a bourgeouis is worth at least ten proletarians; so the 13,700 shot by the Soviets are worth 137 million proletarians and they are not 137 million proletarians which international capitalism has bled for its affairs, to fertilize its masses.
Weep, weep, then, most tender Order and most delicate curates of Piedmont, and do not allow yourselves to be tempted by communism, by Soviets, by the social revolution.
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices. This year we pay special honor to American Communist party founder and later Trotskyist leader, James P. Cannon, Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci, and German Left Communist Karl Korsch.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
*******
Antonio Gramsci 1919
Red Ink
Source: Avanti!, 4 April 1919;
Translated: by Michael Carley;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2011.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The balance of Soviet Russia is negative, cruelly negative. “Momento” weeps for it like a little calf, “Momento” suffers for it with all its Franciscan soul. Think, think: 13,700 people executed as counter-revolutionaries on the first of January 1919, without counting those condemned “on intuition”; think, think, the same Commissar Lissoflski has declared it. And a deficit of seventeen billion, think, think, weep, weep, oh little hearts of butter lodging in the candy floss breasts of the tender Order of Perpetual Adoration or the curates of feeling. Vade retro, oh communism, here the holy water against the Soviet; cruel and most base apocalyptic monsters, never will you tempt the most tender Order, never will you hear the Te Deum in your glory.
When has there ever appeared on the immaculate earth a slaughter machine, a scourge destroying lives and billions, so horrifying as the Soviet Revolution? What was the slaughter of the Albigensians? A children's garden game: and, please, do not think for a moment that Pope Innocent was a precursor of “intuition,” when he preached of killing, of killing, so much so that the Merciful Lord might, in his omniscience, divide the white lamb from the worm-ridden sheep; you would only show yourself up as an anticlerical vulgarian, without a rudiment of theology or catechism.
What was the war of the peasants in Germany? A Nuremberg toy, even if it be affirmed that it destroyed twelve million human lives. What were the destructions of the Flemish, the Incas, and of the boors carried out by the most Catholic kings of Spain? They were services to the holy faith, most devoted corvées of vassals of Our Omnipotent Lord Jesus Christ. What are the ten million dead and ten million invalids and injured, heritage of the war which His Holiness Benedict called “useless slaughter,” but which “Momento” believes most useful, though His Holiness is Pontiff of the Catholic Church, while “Momento” is only the organ of the Partito Popolare Italiano.
What are the twenty million dead of grippe or Spanish flu, or pulmonary plague, that is war plague, caused and propagated and cultivated by the conditions created and left by the war? What are the thousands and thousands of human creatures who die every day of hunger, scurvy, exposure in Romania, in Bohemia, in Armenia, in India, to note only those countries friends of the Entente.
What is the eighty billion deficit in the Italian accounts, the one hundred and twenty billion in the French accounts, the two hundred billion in damages caused by the war?
What are the one hundred and fifty million Russians exterminated by the Czarist government in the repression of the Soviets in 1905? What would the twenty million Russians do who would be exterminated if the counter-revolution of Generals Krasnof, Denikin and Kolchak triumphed, the friends of the Entente who impale and expose for three days one worker in ten in the towns they manage to reconquer, the friends of the Entente who send armoured wagons full of Soviet soldiers cut to pieces to Petrograd.
What are they, what are they? Trifles, nothings, magnanimous actions compared to 13,700 executed and a deficit of 17 billion. The social revolution is a scourge, the apocalyptic monster. What is a proletarian life, what is it worth compared to a bourgeouis life? You study economics, surely: a bourgeouis is worth at least ten proletarians; so the 13,700 shot by the Soviets are worth 137 million proletarians and they are not 137 million proletarians which international capitalism has bled for its affairs, to fertilize its masses.
Weep, weep, then, most tender Order and most delicate curates of Piedmont, and do not allow yourselves to be tempted by communism, by Soviets, by the social revolution.
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