From The Marxist Archives-In Honor Of The Anniversary Of The John Brown-Led Raid On Harpers Ferry-
Palestinian Trotskyists on the Partition of Palestine and the 1948 Arab-Israel War
STRIKE THE BLOW-THE LEGEND OF CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN
Reclaiming John Brown for the Left
BOOK REVIEW
JOHN BROWN, ABOLITIONIST, DAVID S. REYNOLDS, ALFRED A. KNOPF, NEW YORK, 2005
From fairly early in my youth I knew the name John Brown and was swept up by the romance surrounding his exploits at Harpers Ferry. For example, I knew that the great anthem of the Civil War -The Battle Hymn of the Republic- had a prior existence as a tribute to John Brown and that Union soldiers marched to that song as they headed south. I was then, however, neither familiar with the import of his exploits for the black liberation struggle nor knew much about the specifics of the politics of the various tendencies in the struggle against slavery. I certainly knew nothing then of Brown’s (and his sons) prior military exploits in the Kansas ‘proxy’ wars against the expansion of slavery. Later study filled in some of those gaps and has only strengthened my strong bond with his memory. Know this, as I reach the age at which John Brown was executed,I still retain my youthful admiration for him. In the context of the turmoil of the times he was the most courageous and audacious revolutionary in the struggle for the abolition of slavery in America. Almost 150 years after his death this writer is proud to stand in the tradition of John Brown.
That said, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I can recommend Mr. Reynolds’s book detailing the life, times and exploits of John Brown, warts and all. Published in 2005, this is an important source (including helpful end notes) for updating various controversies surrounding the John Brown saga. While I may disagree with some of Mr. Reynolds’s conclusions concerning the impact of John Brown’s exploits on later black liberation struggles and to a lesser extent his position on Brown’s impact on his contemporaries, particularly the Transcendentalists, nevertheless on the key point of the central place of John Brown in American revolutionary history there is no dispute. Furthermore, Mr. Reynolds has taken pains to provide substantial detail about the ups and downs of John Brown’s posthumous reputation.
Most importantly, he defends the memory of John Brown against all-comers-that is partisan history on behalf of the ‘losers’ of history at its best. He has reclaimed John Brown to his proper position as an icon for the left against the erroneous and outrageous efforts of modern day religious and secular terrorists to lay any claim to his memory or his work. Below I make a few comments on some of controversies surrounding John Brown developed in Mr. Reynolds’s study.
If one understands the ongoing nature, from his early youth, of John Brown’s commitment to the active struggle against slavery, the scourge of the American Republic in the first half of the 19th century, one can only conclude that he was indeed a man on a mission. As Mr. Reynolds’s points out Brown took every opportunity to fight against slavery including early service as an agent of the Underground Railroad spiriting escaped slaves northward, participation as an extreme radical in all the key anti-slavery propaganda battles of the time as well as challenging other anti-slavery elements to be more militant and in the 1850’s, arms in hand, fighting in the ‘proxy’ wars in Kansas and, of course, the culmination of his life- the raid on Harpers Ferry. Those exploits alone render absurd a very convenient myth by those who supported slavery or turned a blind eye to it and their latter-day apologists for his so-called ‘madness’. This is a political man and to these eyes a very worthy one.
For those who like their political heroes ‘pure’, frankly, it is better to look elsewhere than the life of John Brown. His personal and family life as a failed rural capitalist would hardly lead one to think that this man was to become a key historical figure in any struggle, much less the great struggle against slavery. Some of his actions in Kansas (concerning the murder of some pro-slavery elements under his direction) also cloud his image. However, when the deal went down in the late 1850’s and it was apparent for all to see that there was no other way to end slavery than a fight to the death-John Brown rose to the occasion. And did not cry about it. And did not expect others to cry about it. Call him a ‘monomaniac’ if you like but even a slight acquaintance with great historical figures shows they all have this ‘disease’- that is why they make the history books. No, the ‘madness’ argument will not do.
Whether or not John Brown knew that his military strategy for the Harper’s Ferry raid would, in the short term, be defeated is a matter of dispute. Reams of paper have been spent proving the military foolhardiness of his scheme at Harper’s Ferry. Brown’s plan, however, was essentially a combination of slave revolt modeled after the maroon experiences in Haiti, Nat Turner’s earlier Virginia slave rebellion and rural guerrilla warfare of the ‘third world’ type that we have become more familiar with since that time. 150 years later this strategy does not look so foolhardy in an America of the 1850’s that had no real standing army, fairly weak lines of communications, virtually uninhabited mountains to flee to and the North at their backs.
The execution of the plan is another matter. Brown seemingly made about every mistake in the book in that regard. However, this is missing the essential political point that militant action not continuing parliamentary maneuvering advocated by other abolitionists had become necessary. A few more fighting abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, and better propaganda work among freedman with connections to the plantations would not have hurt the chances for success at Harpers Ferry.
What is not in dispute is that Brown considered himself a true Calvinist avenging angel in the struggle against slavery and more importantly acted on that belief. In short, he was committed to bring justice to the black masses. This is why his exploits and memory stay alive after over 150 years. It is possible that if Brown did not have this, by 19th century standards as well as our own, old-fashioned Calvinist determination that he would not have been capable of militant action. Certainly other anti-slavery elements never came close to his militancy, including the key Transcendentalist movement led by Emerson and Thoreau and the Concord ‘crowd’ who supported him and kept his memory alive in hard times.
In their eyes he had the heroic manner of the Old Testament prophet. Now this animating spirit is not one that animates modern revolutionaries and so it is hard to understand the depths of his religious convictions on his actions but they were understood, if not fully appreciated, by others in those days. It is better today to look at Brown more politically through his hero (and mine, as well) Oliver Cromwell-a combination of Calvinist avenger and militant warrior. Yes, I can get behind that picture of him.
By all accounts Brown and his small integrated band of brothers fought bravely and coolly against great odds. Ten of Brown's men were killed including two of his sons. Five were captured, tried and executed, including Brown. These results are almost inevitable when one takes up a revolutionary struggle against the old order and one is not victorious. One need only think of, for example, the fate of the defenders of the Paris Commune in 1871. One can fault Brown on this or that tactical maneuver. Nevertheless he and the others bore themselves bravely in defeat. As we are all too painfully familiar there are defeats of the oppressed that lead nowhere. One thinks of the defeat of the German Revolution in the 1920’s. There other defeats that galvanize others into action. This is how Brown’s actions should be measured by history.
Militarily defeated at Harpers Ferry, Brown's political mission to destroy slavery by force of arms nevertheless continued to galvanize important elements in the North at the expense of the pacifistic non-resistant Garrisonian political program for struggle against slavery. Many writers on Brown who reduce his actions to that of a ‘madman’ still cannot believe that his road proved more appropriate to end slavery than either non-resistance or gradualism. That alone makes short shrift of such theories. Historians and others have also misinterpreted later events such as the Bolshevik strategy which led to Russian Revolution in October 1917. More recently, we saw this same incomprehension concerning the victory of the Vietnamese against overwhelming American military superiority. Needless to say, all these events continue to be revised by some historians to take the sting out of there proper political implications.
From a modern prospective Brown’s strategy for black liberation, even if the abolitionist goal he aspired to was immediately successful, reached the outer limits within the confines of capitalism. Brown’s actions were meant to make black people free. Beyond that goal he had no program except the Chatham Charter which seems to have replicated the American constitution but with racial and gender equality as a cornerstone. Unfortunately the Civil War did not provide fundamental economic and political freedom. That is still our fight. Moreover, the Civil War, the defeat of Radical Reconstruction, the reign of ‘Jim Crow’ and the subsequent waves of black migration to the cities changed the character of black oppression in the U.S. from Brown’s time. Black people are now a part of "free labor," and the key to their liberation is in the integrated fight of labor against the current one-sided class war and establishing a government of workers and their allies. Nevertheless, we can stand proudly in the revolutionary tradition of John Brown (and of his friend Frederick Douglass). We need to complete the unfinished democratic tasks of the Civil War, not by emulating Brown’s exemplary actions but to moving the multi-racial American working class to power. Finish the Civil War.
**************
Palestinian Trotskyists on the Partition of Palestine and the 1948 Arab-Israel War
STRIKE THE BLOW-THE LEGEND OF CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN
Reclaiming John Brown for the Left
BOOK REVIEW
JOHN BROWN, ABOLITIONIST, DAVID S. REYNOLDS, ALFRED A. KNOPF, NEW YORK, 2005
From fairly early in my youth I knew the name John Brown and was swept up by the romance surrounding his exploits at Harpers Ferry. For example, I knew that the great anthem of the Civil War -The Battle Hymn of the Republic- had a prior existence as a tribute to John Brown and that Union soldiers marched to that song as they headed south. I was then, however, neither familiar with the import of his exploits for the black liberation struggle nor knew much about the specifics of the politics of the various tendencies in the struggle against slavery. I certainly knew nothing then of Brown’s (and his sons) prior military exploits in the Kansas ‘proxy’ wars against the expansion of slavery. Later study filled in some of those gaps and has only strengthened my strong bond with his memory. Know this, as I reach the age at which John Brown was executed,I still retain my youthful admiration for him. In the context of the turmoil of the times he was the most courageous and audacious revolutionary in the struggle for the abolition of slavery in America. Almost 150 years after his death this writer is proud to stand in the tradition of John Brown.
That said, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I can recommend Mr. Reynolds’s book detailing the life, times and exploits of John Brown, warts and all. Published in 2005, this is an important source (including helpful end notes) for updating various controversies surrounding the John Brown saga. While I may disagree with some of Mr. Reynolds’s conclusions concerning the impact of John Brown’s exploits on later black liberation struggles and to a lesser extent his position on Brown’s impact on his contemporaries, particularly the Transcendentalists, nevertheless on the key point of the central place of John Brown in American revolutionary history there is no dispute. Furthermore, Mr. Reynolds has taken pains to provide substantial detail about the ups and downs of John Brown’s posthumous reputation.
Most importantly, he defends the memory of John Brown against all-comers-that is partisan history on behalf of the ‘losers’ of history at its best. He has reclaimed John Brown to his proper position as an icon for the left against the erroneous and outrageous efforts of modern day religious and secular terrorists to lay any claim to his memory or his work. Below I make a few comments on some of controversies surrounding John Brown developed in Mr. Reynolds’s study.
If one understands the ongoing nature, from his early youth, of John Brown’s commitment to the active struggle against slavery, the scourge of the American Republic in the first half of the 19th century, one can only conclude that he was indeed a man on a mission. As Mr. Reynolds’s points out Brown took every opportunity to fight against slavery including early service as an agent of the Underground Railroad spiriting escaped slaves northward, participation as an extreme radical in all the key anti-slavery propaganda battles of the time as well as challenging other anti-slavery elements to be more militant and in the 1850’s, arms in hand, fighting in the ‘proxy’ wars in Kansas and, of course, the culmination of his life- the raid on Harpers Ferry. Those exploits alone render absurd a very convenient myth by those who supported slavery or turned a blind eye to it and their latter-day apologists for his so-called ‘madness’. This is a political man and to these eyes a very worthy one.
For those who like their political heroes ‘pure’, frankly, it is better to look elsewhere than the life of John Brown. His personal and family life as a failed rural capitalist would hardly lead one to think that this man was to become a key historical figure in any struggle, much less the great struggle against slavery. Some of his actions in Kansas (concerning the murder of some pro-slavery elements under his direction) also cloud his image. However, when the deal went down in the late 1850’s and it was apparent for all to see that there was no other way to end slavery than a fight to the death-John Brown rose to the occasion. And did not cry about it. And did not expect others to cry about it. Call him a ‘monomaniac’ if you like but even a slight acquaintance with great historical figures shows they all have this ‘disease’- that is why they make the history books. No, the ‘madness’ argument will not do.
Whether or not John Brown knew that his military strategy for the Harper’s Ferry raid would, in the short term, be defeated is a matter of dispute. Reams of paper have been spent proving the military foolhardiness of his scheme at Harper’s Ferry. Brown’s plan, however, was essentially a combination of slave revolt modeled after the maroon experiences in Haiti, Nat Turner’s earlier Virginia slave rebellion and rural guerrilla warfare of the ‘third world’ type that we have become more familiar with since that time. 150 years later this strategy does not look so foolhardy in an America of the 1850’s that had no real standing army, fairly weak lines of communications, virtually uninhabited mountains to flee to and the North at their backs.
The execution of the plan is another matter. Brown seemingly made about every mistake in the book in that regard. However, this is missing the essential political point that militant action not continuing parliamentary maneuvering advocated by other abolitionists had become necessary. A few more fighting abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, and better propaganda work among freedman with connections to the plantations would not have hurt the chances for success at Harpers Ferry.
What is not in dispute is that Brown considered himself a true Calvinist avenging angel in the struggle against slavery and more importantly acted on that belief. In short, he was committed to bring justice to the black masses. This is why his exploits and memory stay alive after over 150 years. It is possible that if Brown did not have this, by 19th century standards as well as our own, old-fashioned Calvinist determination that he would not have been capable of militant action. Certainly other anti-slavery elements never came close to his militancy, including the key Transcendentalist movement led by Emerson and Thoreau and the Concord ‘crowd’ who supported him and kept his memory alive in hard times.
In their eyes he had the heroic manner of the Old Testament prophet. Now this animating spirit is not one that animates modern revolutionaries and so it is hard to understand the depths of his religious convictions on his actions but they were understood, if not fully appreciated, by others in those days. It is better today to look at Brown more politically through his hero (and mine, as well) Oliver Cromwell-a combination of Calvinist avenger and militant warrior. Yes, I can get behind that picture of him.
By all accounts Brown and his small integrated band of brothers fought bravely and coolly against great odds. Ten of Brown's men were killed including two of his sons. Five were captured, tried and executed, including Brown. These results are almost inevitable when one takes up a revolutionary struggle against the old order and one is not victorious. One need only think of, for example, the fate of the defenders of the Paris Commune in 1871. One can fault Brown on this or that tactical maneuver. Nevertheless he and the others bore themselves bravely in defeat. As we are all too painfully familiar there are defeats of the oppressed that lead nowhere. One thinks of the defeat of the German Revolution in the 1920’s. There other defeats that galvanize others into action. This is how Brown’s actions should be measured by history.
Militarily defeated at Harpers Ferry, Brown's political mission to destroy slavery by force of arms nevertheless continued to galvanize important elements in the North at the expense of the pacifistic non-resistant Garrisonian political program for struggle against slavery. Many writers on Brown who reduce his actions to that of a ‘madman’ still cannot believe that his road proved more appropriate to end slavery than either non-resistance or gradualism. That alone makes short shrift of such theories. Historians and others have also misinterpreted later events such as the Bolshevik strategy which led to Russian Revolution in October 1917. More recently, we saw this same incomprehension concerning the victory of the Vietnamese against overwhelming American military superiority. Needless to say, all these events continue to be revised by some historians to take the sting out of there proper political implications.
From a modern prospective Brown’s strategy for black liberation, even if the abolitionist goal he aspired to was immediately successful, reached the outer limits within the confines of capitalism. Brown’s actions were meant to make black people free. Beyond that goal he had no program except the Chatham Charter which seems to have replicated the American constitution but with racial and gender equality as a cornerstone. Unfortunately the Civil War did not provide fundamental economic and political freedom. That is still our fight. Moreover, the Civil War, the defeat of Radical Reconstruction, the reign of ‘Jim Crow’ and the subsequent waves of black migration to the cities changed the character of black oppression in the U.S. from Brown’s time. Black people are now a part of "free labor," and the key to their liberation is in the integrated fight of labor against the current one-sided class war and establishing a government of workers and their allies. Nevertheless, we can stand proudly in the revolutionary tradition of John Brown (and of his friend Frederick Douglass). We need to complete the unfinished democratic tasks of the Civil War, not by emulating Brown’s exemplary actions but to moving the multi-racial American working class to power. Finish the Civil War.
**************
From the Archives of Marxism
The small Palestinian Trotskyist group, the Revolutionary Communist
League (RCL), upheld the position of communist internationalism in the 1948 War
between Israel and the Arab states. While recognizing the right of both the
Hebrew-speaking and Palestinian Arab peoples to national self-determination, the
RCL resolutely opposed the imperialist-imposed partition and took a position of
revolutionary defeatism toward both sides in the war. That position is today
upheld by the International Communist League.
We reprint below an excerpted editorial, titled “Against the
Stream,” that was originally published in the RCL’s Hebrew organ Kol Ham’amad
(Voice of the Class). The English translation was published by the
then-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party in Fourth International (May
1948). The excerpts refer to Ernest Bevin, who was foreign minister in Britain’s
Labour Party government; Chaim Weitzmann (Weizmann), Israel’s first president;
and the Husseinis, a clan of Palestinian landowners and political leaders.
* * *
Politicians and diplomats are still trying to find a formula for
the disastrous situation into which Palestine has been plunged by the UNO
[United Nations Organization] deciding upon partition. Is this a “breach of
international peace” or are we dealing with merely “hostile acts”? As far as we
are concerned there is no point in this distinction. We are daily witnessing the
killing or maiming of men and women, old and young, Jew or Arab. As always, the
working masses and the poor suffer most.
Not so very long ago the Arab and Jewish workers were united in
strikes against a foreign oppressor. This common struggle has been put to an
end. Today the workers are being incited to kill each other. The inciters have
succeeded….
“Keeping order” in Palestine costs England over 35 million Pounds a
year, an amount which exceeds the profit she can extort from this country.
Partition will release her from her financial obligations, enable her to employ
her soldiers in the productive process while her source of income will remain
intact. — But this is not all. By partition a wedge is driven between the Arab
and Jewish worker. The Zionist state with its provocative lines of demarcation
will bring about the blossoming forth of irredentist (revenge) movements on
either side, there will be fighting for an “Arab Palestine” and for a “Jewish
state within the historic frontiers of Eretz Israel (Israel’s Land).” As a
result, the chauvinistic atmosphere created thus will poison the Arab world in
the Middle East and throttle the anti-imperialist fight of the masses, while
Zionists and Arab feudalists will vie for imperialist favors….
If the Anglo-American imperialists had forced this “solution” on
Palestine of their own, the rotten game would have been patent in the whole Arab
East. However, they dodged: the “problem” was passed on to the UNO. The function
of the UNO was to sweeten the bitter dish cooked in the imperialist cuisine,
dressing it, in Bevin’s words, with the twaddle of the “conscience of the world
that has passed judgment.” Exactly! And the diplomats of the lesser countries
danced to the tune of the dollar flute, reiterating the “public opinion of the
world.” And the peculiar casts in this performance enabled Great Britain to
appear as the Guardian Angel overflowing with sympathy for either side.
And the Soviet Union? Why did not her representatives call the UNO
game the swindle it really is?—Apparently, the present foreign policy of the SU
is not concerned with the fighting of the colonial masses. And as the Palestine
question is a second-rate affair for the “Big,” the Soviet diplomats saw fit to
dwell upon what Stalin had said about “the Soviet Union being ready to meet
America and Britain halfway, economic and social differences
notwithstanding.”…
The Jewish worker having been separated from his Arab colleague and
prevented from fighting a common class struggle will be at the mercy of his
class enemies, imperialism and the Zionist bourgeoisie. It will be easy to
arouse him against his proletarian ally, the Arab worker, “who is depriving him
of jobs and depressing the level of wages” (a method that has not failed in the
past!). Not in vain has Weitzmann said that “the Jewish state will stem
Communist influence.” As a compensation, the Jewish worker is bestowed with the
privilege of dying a hero’s death on the altar of the Hebrew state.
And what promises does the Jewish state hold out? Does it really
mean a step toward the solution of the Jewish problem?
The partition was not meant to solve Jewish misery nor is it likely
ever to do so. This dwarf of a state which is too small to absorb the Jewish
masses cannot even solve the problems of its citizens. The Hebrew state can only
infest the Arab East with anti-Semitism and may well turn out—as Trotsky said—a
bloody trap for hundreds of thousands of Jews.
The leaders of the Arab League reacted to the decision on partition
with speeches full of threats and enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, a Zionist
state is to them a godsend from Allah. Calling up the worker and fellah
[peasant] for the “holy war to save Palestine” is supposed to stifle their cries
for bread, land and freedom. Another time-honored method of diverting an
embittered people against the Jewish and communist danger.
In Palestine the feudal rule has of late begun to lose ground.
During the war the Arab working class has grown in numbers and political
consciousness. Jewish and Arab workers stood up against the foreign oppressor,
against whom they together went on strikes. A strong leftist trade union had
come into existence; and the “Workers’ Association of the Arabs of Palestine”
had been well on the way of freeing itself from the influence of the Husseinis.
The murder of its leader, Sami Taha, committed by hirelings of the Arab High
Committee could not restrain this development. But where the Husseinis failed,
the decision of the imperialist agency, the UNO succeeded. The partition
decision stifled the class struggle of the Palestine workers. The prospect of
being at the hands of the Zionist “conquerors of soil and labor” is arousing
fear and anxiety among the Arab workers and fellahs. Nationalist war slogans
fall on fertile soil. And feudal murderers see their chance. Thus the policy of
partition enables the feudalists to turn back the wheels of history….
The two camps today mobilize the masses under the mask of
“self-defense.” “We have been attacked, let us defend ourselves!”—say the
Zionists. “Let us ward off the danger of a Jewish conquest!”—declares the Arab
Higher Committee. Where does the truth lie?
War is the continuation of politics by other means. The war led by
the Arab feudalists is but the continuation of their reactionary war on the
worker and the fellah who are striving to shake off oppression and exploitation.
For the feudal effendis [lords] “Salvation of Palestine” means safeguarding
their revenues at the expense of the fellahin, maintaining their autocratic rule
in town and country, smashing the proletarian organizations and international
class solidarity.
The war waged by the Zionists is the continuation of their
expansionist policy based on discrimination between the two peoples: they defend
kibbush avoda (ousting of Arab labor), kibbush adama (ousting of
the fellah), boycott of Arab goods, “Hebrew rule.” The military conflict is a
direct result of the policy of the Zionist conquerors.
This war can on neither side be said to bear a progressive
character. The war does not release progressive forces or do away with social
and economic obstacles in the path of development of the two nations. Quite the
opposite is true. It is apt to obscure the class antagonism and to open the gate
for nationalist excesses. It weakens the proletariat and strengthens
imperialism in both camps.
Each side is “anti-imperialist” to the bone, busy detecting the
reactionary—in the opposite camp. And imperialism is always seen—helping the
other side. But this kind of exposure is oil on the imperialist fire. For the
inveigling policy of imperialism is based upon agents and agencies within
both camps. Therefore, we say to the Palestine people in reply to
the patriotic warmongers: Make this war between Jews and Arabs, which
serves the end of imperialism, the common war of both nations against
imperialism!
This is the only solution guaranteeing a real peace. This must be
our goal which must be achieved without concessions to the chauvinist mood
prevailing at present among the masses.
How can that be done?
“The main enemy is in our own country!”—this was what Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had to say to the workers when imperialists and
social democrats were inciting them to the slaughter of their fellow workers in
other countries. In this spirit we say to the Jewish and Arab workers: The enemy
is in your own camp!
Jewish workers! Get rid of the Zionist provocateurs who tell you to
sacrifice yourself on the altar of the Hebrew state.
Arab worker and fellah! Get rid of the chauvinist provocateurs who
are getting you into a mess of blood for their own sake and pocket.
Workers of the two peoples, unite in a common front against
imperialism and its agents!
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