Saturday, January 25, 2014

HONOR THE THREE L’S-LENIN, LUXEMBURG, LIEBKNECHT-Honor An Historic Leader Of The Russian Revolution-Leon Trotsky

 
 EVERY JANUARY WE HONOR LENIN OF RUSSIA, ROSA LUXEMBURG OF POLAND, AND KARL LIEBKNECHT OF GERMANY AS THREE LEADERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT. DURING THE MONTH WE ALSO HONOR OTHER HISTORIC LEADERS AS WELL ON THIS SITE.

BOOK REVIEW

THIS IS A REVIEW OF LEON TROTSKY’S HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN 1930-32, (EDITION USED HERE-THREE VOLUMES, PATHFINDER PRESS, NEW YORK, 1980) BY AN UNREPENTANT DEFENDER OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION OF 1917. HERE’S WHY.

Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution is partisan history at its best. One does not and should not, at least in this day in age, ask historians to be ‘objective’. One simply asks that the historian present his or her narrative and analysis and get out of the way. Trotsky meets that criterion. Furthermore, in Trotsky’s case there is nothing like having a central actor in the drama he is narrating, who can also write brilliantly and wittily, give his interpretation of the important events and undercurrents swirling around Russia in 1917.

If you are looking for a general history of the revolution or want an analysis of what the revolution meant for the fate of various nations after World War I or its affect on world geopolitics look elsewhere. E.H. Carr’s History of the Russian Revolution offers an excellent multi-volume set that tells that story through the 1920’s. Or if you want to know what the various parliamentary leaders, both bourgeois and Soviet, were thinking and doing from a moderately leftist viewpoint read Sukhanov’s Notes on the Russian Revolution. For a more journalistic account John Reed’s classic Ten Days That Shook the World is invaluable. Trotsky covers some of this material as well. However, if additionally, you want to get a feel for the molecular process of the Russian Revolution in its ebbs and flows down at the base in the masses where the revolution was made Trotsky’s is the book for you.

The life of Leon Trotsky is intimately intertwined with the rise and decline of the Russian Revolution in the first part of the 20th century. As a young man, like an extraordinary number of talented Russian youth, he entered the revolutionary struggle against Czarism in the late 1890’s. Shortly thereafter he embraced what became a lifelong devotion to a Marxist political perspective. However, except for the period of the 1905 Revolution when Trotsky was Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet and later in 1912 when he tried to unite all the Russian Social Democratic forces in an ill-fated unity conference, which goes down in history as the ‘August Bloc’, he was essentially a free lancer in the international socialist movement. At that time Trotsky saw the Bolsheviks as “sectarians” as it was not clear to him time that for socialist revolution to be successful the reformist and revolutionary wings of the movement had to be organizationally split. With the coming of World War I Trotsky drew closer to Bolshevik positions but did not actually join the party until the summer of 1917 when he entered the Central Committee after the fusion of his organization, the Inter-District Organization, and the Bolsheviks. This act represented an important and decisive switch in his understanding of the necessity of a revolutionary workers party to lead the socialist revolution.

As Trotsky himself noted, although he was a late-comer to the concept of a Bolshevik Party that delay only instilled in him a greater understanding of the need for a vanguard revolutionary workers party to lead the revolutionary struggles. This understanding underlined his political analysis throughout the rest of his career as a Soviet official and as the leader of the struggle of the Left Opposition against the Stalinist degeneration of the Russian Revolution. After his defeat at the hands of Stalin and his henchmen Trotsky wrote these three volumes in exile in Turkey from 1930 to 1932. At that time Trotsky was not only trying to draw the lessons of the Revolution from an historian’s perspective but to teach new cadre the necessary lessons of that struggle as he tried first reform the Bolshevik Party and the Communist International and then later, after that position became politically untenable , to form a new, revolutionary Fourth International. Trotsky was still fighting from this perspective in defense of the gains of the Russian Revolution when a Stalinist agent cut him down. Thus, without doubt, beyond a keen historian’s eye for detail and anecdote, Trotsky’s political insights developed over long experience give his volumes an invaluable added dimension not found in other sources on the Russian Revolution.

As a result of the Bolshevik seizure of power the so-called Russian Question was the central question for world politics throughout most of the 20th century. That central question ended (or left center stage, to be more precise) with the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s. However, there are still lessons, and certainly not all of them negative, to be learned from the experience of the Russian Revolution. Today, an understanding of this experience is a task for the natural audience for this book, the young alienated radicals of Western society. For the remainder of this review I will try to point out some issues raised by Trotsky which remain relevant today.

The central preoccupation of Trotsky’s volumes reviewed here and of his later political career concerns the problem of the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the international labor movement and its national components. That problem can be stated as the gap between the already existing objective conditions necessary for beginning socialist construction based on the current level of capitalist development and the immaturity or lack of revolutionary leadership to overthrow the old order. From the European Revolutions of 1848 on, not excepting the heroic Paris Commune, until his time the only successful working class revolution had been in led by the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917. Why? Anarchists may look back to the Paris Commune or forward to the Spanish Civil War in 1936 for solace but the plain fact is that absent a revolutionary party those struggles were defeated without establishing the prerequisites for socialism. History has indicated that a revolutionary party that has assimilated the lessons of the past and is rooted in the working class, allied with and leading the plebeian masses in its wake, is the only way to bring the socialist program to fruition. That hard truth shines through Trotsky’s three volumes. Unfortunately, this is still the central problem confronting the international labor movement today.

Trotsky makes an interesting note that despite the popular conception at the time, reinforced since by several historians, the February overthrow of the Czarist regime was not as spontaneous as one would have been led to believe in the confusion of the times. He noted that the Russian revolutionary movement had been in existence for many decades before that time, that the revolution of 1905 had been a dress rehearsal for 1917 and that before the World War temporarily halted its progress another revolutionary period was on the rise. If there had been no such experiences then those who argue for spontaneity would have grounds to stand on. The most telling point is that the outbreak occurred in Petrograd, not exactly unknown ground for revolutionary activities. Moreover, contrary to the worshipers of so-called spontaneity, this argues most strongly for a revolutionary workers party to be in place in order to affect the direction of the revolution from the beginning.

All revolutions, and the Russian Revolution is no exception, after the first flush of victory over the overthrown old regime, face attempts by the more moderate revolutionary elements to suppress counterposed class aspirations, in the interest of unity of the various classes that made the initial revolution. Thus, we see in the English Revolution of the 17th century a temporary truce between the rising bourgeoisie and the yeoman farmers and pious urban artisans who formed the backbone of Cromwell’s New Model Army. In the Great French Revolution of the 18th century the struggle from the beginning depended mainly on the support of the lower urban plebian classes. Later other classes, particularly the peasantry through their parties, which had previously remained passive enter the arena and try to place a break on revolutionary developments.

Their revolutionary goals having been achieved in the initial overturn- for them the revolution is over. Those elements most commonly attempt to rule by way of some form of People’s Front government. This is a common term of art in Marxist terminology to represent a trans-class formation of working class and capitalist parties which have ultimately counterposed interests. The Russian Revolution also suffered under a Popular Front period under various combinations and guises supported by ostensible socialists, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, from February to October. One of the keys to Bolshevik success in October was that, with the arrival of Lenin from exile in April, the Bolsheviks shifted their strategy and tactics to a position of political opposition to the parties of the popular front. Later history has shown us in Spain in the 1930’s and more recently in Chile in the 1970’s how deadly support to such popular front formations can be for revolutionaries and the masses influenced by them. The various parliamentary popular fronts in France, Italy and elsewhere show the limitations in another less dramatic but no less dangerous fashion. In short, political support for Popular Fronts means the derailment of the revolution or worst. This is a hard lesson, paid for in blood, that all manner of reformist socialists try deflect or trivialize in pursuit of being at one with the ‘masses’. Witness today’s efforts, on much lesser scale, by ostensible socialists to get all people of ‘good will, etc.’, including liberal and not so liberal Democrats under the same tent in the opposition to the American invasion of Iraq.

One of Trotsky’s great skills as a historian is the ability to graphically demonstrate that within the general revolutionary flow there are ebbs and flows that either speed up the revolutionary process or slow it down. This is the fate of all revolutions and in the case of failed revolutions can determine the political landscape for generations. The first definitive such event in the Russian Revolution occurred in the so-called "April Days" after it became clear that the then presently constituted Provisional Government intended to continue participation on the Allied side in World War I and retain the territorial aspirations of the Czarist government in other guises. This led the vanguard of the Petrograd working class to make a premature attempt to bring down that government. However, the vanguard was isolated and did not have the authority needed to be successful at that time. The most that could be done was the elimination of the more egregious ministers. Part of the problem here is that no party, unlike the Bolsheviks in the events of the "July Days" has enough authority to hold the militants back, or try to. Theses events only underscore, in contrast to the anarchist position, the need for an organized revolutionary party to check such premature impulses. Even then, the Bolsheviks in July took the full brunt of the reaction by the government with the jailing of their leaders and suppression of their newspapers supported wholeheartedly by the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionary Parties.


The Bolsheviks were probably the most revolutionary party in the history of revolutions. They certainly were the most consciously revolutionary in their commitment to political program, organizational form and organizational practices. Notwithstanding this, before the arrival in Petrograd of Lenin from exile the Bolshevik forces on the ground were, to put it mildly, floundering in their attitude toward political developments, especially their position on so-called critical support to the Provisional Government (read, Popular Front). Hence, in the middle of a revolutionary upsurge it was necessary to politically rearm the party. This political rearmament was necessary to expand the party’s concept of when and what forces would lead the current revolutionary upsurge. In short, mainly through Lenin’s intervention, the Party needed to revamp its old theory of "the democratic dictatorship of the working class and the peasantry" to the new conditions which placed the socialist program i.e. the dictatorship of the proletariat on the immediate agenda. Informally, the Bolsheviks, or rather Lenin individually, came to the same conclusions that Trotsky had analyzed in his theory of Permanent Revolution prior to the Revolution of 1905. This reorientation was not done without a struggle in the party against those forces who did not want to separate with the reformist wing of the Russian workers and peasant parties, mainly the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries.

This should be a sobering warning to those who argue, mainly from an anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist position, that a revolutionary party is not necessary. The dilemma of correctly aligning strategy and tactics even with a truly revolutionary party can be problematic. The tragic outcome in Spain in the 1930’s abetted by the confusion on this issue by the Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and the Durrutti-led left anarchists, the most honestly revolutionary organizations at the time, painfully underscores this point. This is why Trotsky came over to the Bolsheviks and why he drew that lesson on the organization question very sharply for the rest of his political career.


The old-fashioned, poorly trained, inadequately led peasant-based Russian Army took a real beating at the hands of the more modern, mechanized and disciplined German armies on the Eastern Front in World War I. The Russian Army, furthermore, was at the point of disintegration just prior to the February Revolution. Nevertheless, the desperate effort on the part of the peasant soldier, essentially declassed from his traditional role on the land by the military mobilization, was decisive in overthrowing the monarchy. Key peasant reserve units placed in urban garrisons, and thus in contact with the energized workers, participated in the struggle to end the war and get back to the take the land while they were still alive. Thus from February on, the peasant army through coercion or through inertia was no longer a reliable vehicle for any of the various combinations of provisional governmental ministries to use. In the Army’s final flare-up in defense, or in any case at least remaining neutral, of placing all power into Soviet hands it acted as a reserve, an important one, but nevertheless a reserve. Only later when the Whites in the Civil War came to try to take the land did the peasant soldier again exhibit a willingness to fight and die. Such circumstances as a vast peasant war are not a part of today’s revolutionary strategy, at least in advanced capitalist society. In fact, today only under exceptional conditions would a revolutionary socialist party support, much less advocate the popular Bolshevik slogan-‘land to the tiller’ to resolve the agrarian question. The need to split the armed forces, however, remains.

Not all revolutions exhibit the massive breakdown in discipline that occurred in the Russian army- the armed organ that defends any state- but it played an exceptional role here. However, in order for a revolution to be successful it is almost universally true that the existing governmental authority can no longer rely on normal troop discipline. If this did not ocassionally occur revolution generally would be impossible as untrained plebeians are no match for trained soldiers. Moreover, the Russian peasant army reserves were exceptional in that they responded to the general democratic demand for "land to the tiller" that the Bolsheviks were the only party to endorse and, moreover, were willing to carry out to the end. In the normal course of events the peasant, as a peasant on the land, cannot lead a modern revolution in even a marginally developed industrial state. It has more often been the bulwark for reaction; witness its role in the Paris Commune and Bulgaria in 1923, for examples, more than it has been a reliable ally of the urban masses. However, World War I put the peasant youth of Russia in uniform and gave them discipline, for a time at least, that they would not have otherwise had to play even a a subordinate role in the revolution. Later revolutions based on peasant armies, such as China, Cuba and Vietnam, confirm this notion that only exceptional circumstances, mainly as part of a military formation, permit the peasantry a progressive role in a modern revolution.


Trotsky is politically merciless toward the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary leaderships that provided the crucial support for the Provisional Governments between February and October in their various guises and through their various crises. Part of the support of these parties for the Provisional Government stemmed from their joint perspectives that the current revolution was a limited bourgeois one and so therefore they could no go further than the decrepit bourgeoisie of Russia was willing to go. Given its relationships with foreign capital that was not very far. Let us face it, these allegedly socialist organizations in the period from February to October betrayed the interest of their ranks on the question of immediate peace, of the redistribution of the land, and a democratic representative government.

This is particularly true after their clamor for the start of the ill-fated summer offensive on the Eastern Front and their evasive refusal to convene a Constituent Assembly to ratify the redistribution of the land. One can chart the slow but then rapid rise of Bolsheviks influence in places when they did not really exist when the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, formerly the influential parties of those areas, moved to the right. All those workers, peasants, soldiers, whatever political organizations they adhered to formally, who wanted to make a socialist revolution naturally gravitated to the Bolsheviks. Such movement to the left by the masses is always the case in times of crisis in a period of revolutionary upswing. The point is to channel that energy for the seizure of power.

The ‘August Days’ when the ex-Czarist General Kornilov attempted a counterrevolutionary coup and Kerensky, head of the Provisional Government, in desperation asked the Bolsheviks to use their influence to get the Kronstadt sailors to defend that government points to the ingenuity of the Bolshevik strategy. A point that has been much misunderstood since then, sometimes willfully, by many leftist groups is the Bolshevik tactic of military support- without giving political support- to bourgeois democratic forces in the struggle against right wing forces ready to overthrow democracy. The Bolsheviks gave Kerensky military support while at the same time politically agitating, particularly in the Soviets and within the garrison, to overthrow the Provisional Government.

Today, an approximation of this position would take the form of not supporting capitalist war budgets, parliamentary votes of no confidence, independent extra-parliamentary agitation and action, etc. Granted this principled policy on the part of the Bolsheviks is a very subtle maneuver but it is miles away from giving blanket military and political support to forces that you will eventually have to overthrow. The Spanish revolutionaries in the 1930’s, even the most honest grouped in the Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) learned this lesson the hard way when that party, despite its equivocal political attitude toward the popular front, was suppressed and the leadership jailed by the Negrin government despite having military units at the front in the fight against Franco.

As I write this review we are in the fourth year of the American-led Iraq war. For those who opposed that war from the beginning or have come to oppose it the victory of the Bolshevik Revolution shows the way to really end a fruitless and devastating war. In the final analysis if one really wants to end an imperialist war one has to overthrow the imperialist powers. This is a hard truth that most of even the best of today’s anti-war activists have been unable to grasp. It is not enough to plead, petition or come out in massive numbers to ask politely that the government stop its obvious irrational behavior. Those efforts are helpful for organizing the opposition but not to end the conflict on just terms. The Bolsheviks latched onto and unleashed the greatest anti-war movement in history to overthrow a government which was still committed to the Allied war effort against all reason. After taking power in the name of the Soviets, in which it had a majority, the Bolsheviks in one of its first acts pulled Russia out of the war. History provides no other way for us to stop imperialist war. Learn this lesson.

The Soviets, or workers councils, which sprang up first in the Revolution of 1905 and then almost automatically were resurrected after the February 1917 overturn of the monarchy, are merely a convenient and appropriate organization form for the structure of workers power. Communists and other pro-Communist militants, including this writer, have at times made a fetish of this organizational form because of its success in history. As an antidote to such fetishism a good way to look at this form is to note, as Trotsky did, that a Soviet led by Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries does not lead to the seizure of power. That tells the tale. This is why Lenin, in the summer of 1917, was looking to the factory committees as an alternative to jump-start the second phase of the revolution.

Contrary to the anarchist notion of merely local federated forms of organization or no organization, national Soviets are the necessary form of government in the post- seizure of power period. However, they may not be adequate for the task of seizing power. Each revolution necessarily develops its own forms of organization. In the Paris Commune of 1871 the Central Committee of the National Guard was the logical locus of governmental power. In the Spanish Civil War of 1936 the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias and the factory committees could have provided such a focus. Enough said.

For obvious tactical reasons it is better for a revolutionary party to take power in the name of a pan-class organization, like the Soviets, than in the name of a single party like the Bolsheviks. This brings up an interesting point because, as Trotsky notes, Lenin was willing to take power in the name of the party if conditions warranted it. Under the circumstances I believe that the Bolsheviks could have taken it in their own name but, and here I agree with Trotsky, that it would have been harder for them to keep it. Moreover, they had the majority in the All Russian Soviet and so it would be inexplicable if they took power solely in their own name. That, after a short and unsuccessful alliance with the Left Social Revolutionary Party in government, it came down to a single party does not negate this conclusion. Naturally, a pro-Soviet multi-party system where conflicting ideas of social organization along socialist lines can compete is the best situation. However, history is a cruel taskmaster at times. That, moreover, as the scholars say, is beyond the scope this review and the subject for further discussion.

The question of whether to seize power is a practical one for which no hard and fast rules apply. An exception is that it important to have the masses ready to go when the decision is made. In fact, it is probably not a bad idea to have the masses a little overeager to insurrect. One mistaken assumption, however, is that power can be taken at any time in a revolutionary period. As the events of the Russian Revolution demonstrate this is not true because the failure to have a revolutionary party ready to roll means that there is a fairly short window of opportunity. In Trotsky’s analysis this can come down to a period of days. In the actual case of Russia he postulated that that time was probably between late September and December. That analysis seems reasonable. In any case, one must have a feel for timing in revolution as well as in any other form of politics. The roll call of unsuccessful socialist revolutions in the 20th century in Germany, Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria, Spain, etc. only painfully highlights this point.

Many historians and political commentators have declared the Bolshevik seizure of power in October a coup d’etat. That is facile commentary. If one wants to do harm to the notion of a coup d’etat in the classic sense of a closed military conspiracy a la Blanqui this cannot stand up to examination. First, the Bolsheviks were an urban civilian party with at best tenuous ties to military knowledge and resources. Even simple military operations like the famous bank expropriations after the 1905 Revolution were mainly botched and gave them nothing but headaches with the leadership of the pre- World War I international social democracy. Secondly, and decisively, Bolshevik influence over the garrison in Petrograd and eventually elsewhere precluded such a necessity. Although, as Trotsky noted, conspiracy is an element of any insurrection this was in fact an ‘open’ conspiracy that even the Kerensky government had to realize was taking place. The Bolsheviks relied on the masses just as we should.

With almost a century of hindsight and knowing what we know now it is easy to see that the slender social basis for the establishment of Soviet power by the Bolsheviks in Russia was bound to create problems. Absent international working class revolution, particularly in Germany, which the Bolsheviks factored into their decisions to seize power, meant, of necessity, that there were going to be deformations even under a healthy workers regime. One, as we have painfully found out, cannot after all build socialism in one country. Nevertheless this begs the question whether at the time the Bolsheviks should have taken power. A quick look at the history of revolutions clearly points out those opportunities are infrequent. You do not get that many opportunities to seize power and try to change world history for the better so you best take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves.

As mentioned above, revolutionary history is mainly a chronicle of failed revolutionary opportunities. No, the hell with all that. Take working class power when you can and let the devil take the hinder post. Let us learn more than previous generations of revolutionaries, but be ready. This is one of the political textbooks you need to read if you want to change the world. Read it.

 

 

 

 
Smedley D. Butler Brigade of Veterans For Peace

 Saturday, January 25, 2014

Saint Patrick's Peace Parade 2014! Join us!

People's Parade for Peace, Equality, Jobs, Environmental Stewardship, Social & Economic Justice

Unite, Participate, Celebrate


Assemble: 2pm. Parade start: 3pm

SIGN UP TO ATTEND - We Need to Know You will Be There! There are several DIVISIONS marching in the parade, as well as two marching bands, Duck Boats, bagpipers, and the Bread and Puppet Theater.. The DIVISIONS are: Veterans groups; Peace groups; LGBT groups; Faith groups; environmental groups; social and economic justice groups; labor groups; political groups. Please invite your group(s) to come!  

Contact: Veterans for Peace, Pat Scanlon, info@massvfp.org, 978-475-1776; Massachusetts Peace Action, Cole Harrison,info@masspeaceaction.org, 617-354-2169; faith groups contact Lara Hoke, minister@uuandover.org.  

See the Facebook event page by clicking here.

Please join us for our Fourth Annual Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade, the Alternative People’s Parade for Peace, Equality, Jobs, Environmental Stewardship, Social and Economic Justice. (Details follow after flyer image, below...)

Click on flyer to see it bigger, download and share!
DIRECTIONS & LOGISTICS
The parade route is 4.5 miles and ends at Andrew Station.

Rides along the parade route are available for those who need them, but please let us know ahead of time that you may need a ride.

Come by T if at all possible as the area will be very congested. Broadway is the closest MBTA subway station.

Parking is available for participants in the St. Patrick’s Peace Parade. Vehicles must enter from the north from Summer Street onto D Street; the parking lot is at 383 D Street. Look for the lot with 40 foot white truck trailers. Allow extra time for traffic.

From the North
Route I-93 to South Station exit (20 A). Merge onto Purchase Street to light (100 feet). Make a left onto Summer Street (will pass South Station on right). Go approx. 1 mile to Convention Center. Turn right onto D Street, parking lot .2 mile up on left, (look for VFP Flag)

From South

Route I-93 – Take exit 20 toward South Station. Follow signs for Chinatown, continue straight onto Lincoln Street, turn right onto Kneeland Street, turn left onto Atlantic, south Station will be up on your right. Take a right onto Summer Street. Go approx. 1 mile to Convention Center. Turn right onto D Street, parking lot .2 mile up on left, (look for VFP Flag)

BACKGROUND

Why are there two parades in South Boston on Saint Patrick’s Day?

For the past four years Veterans For Peace have been denied to walk in the historic Saint Patrick’s Parade in South Boston. This is the largest parade of its kind in the country with over 700,000 people viewing the parade. The parade has a dual purpose; the celebration of Saint Patrick and the Irish traditions and heritage and a celebration of Evacuation Day, the day the British were run out of Boston. Both days fall on March 17th, so the City of Boston thought it a good idea to have the Allied War Veterans Council (AWVC) organize the parade. The problem is that one side of the equation, St. Patrick, a man of peace, is second fiddle to a military parade. AWVC has the exclusive say in who gets to walk in this historical parade. The City of Boston, South Boston Community Groups, the Boston Police have absolutely no say in who walks the streets of South Boston in the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.

In 2011 Veterans For Peace’s application was denied, when asked why and were told, “They did not want to have the word Peace associated with the word Veteran”. Well they did not know the Smedleys very well. We pulled our own permit and with only three weeks to go before the parade pulled together 500 people and the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade, the Alternative People’s Parade for Peace, Equality, Jobs, Environmental Stewardship, Economic and Social Justice was born.

Twenty years ago the LGBT community wanted to walk in the parade and were denied which resulted in a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court resulting in the Hurley Decision. The Smedleys immediately reached out to the LGBT community, inviting them to “walk in our parade”

In 2013 we had close to 2,000 people, seven divisions (Veterans, Peace, LGBT, Labor, Political, Religious, Occupy Everywhere) two bands, bag pipers, drummers, a Duck Boat, two trollies etc. It was a grand success. We have an Environmental Stewardship Division this year. Our goal is to end this last vestige of institutionalized exclusion, prejudice, bigotry, and homophobia and make this parade inclusive and welcoming to all and bring the message of peace to South Boston on Saint Patrick’s Day.

Please join us in South Boston on March 16. Be sure to bring your Chapter’s or Organization’s banners, signs and costumes and join us in our fabulous Fourth Annual Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade.

On behalf of the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade Organizing Committee.

Thank you,

Pat Scanlon (VN '69)
Coordinator, VFP Chapter 9, Smedley Butler Brigade
***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin, Private Investigator – Leave It To The Professionals 

 
 
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler

Those who have been following this series about the exploits of the famous Ocean City (located just south of Los Angeles then now incorporated into the county) private detective Michael Philip Marlin (hereafter just Marlin the way everybody when he became famous after the Galton case out on the coast) and his contemporaries in the private detection business like Freddy Vance, Charles Nicolas (okay, okay Clara too), Sam Archer, Miles Spade, Johnny Spain, know that he related many of these stories to his son, Tyrone Fallon, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Tyrone later, in the 1970s, related these stories to the journalist who uncovered the relationship , Joshua Lawrence Breslin, a friend of my boyhood friend, Peter Paul Markin, who in turn related them to me over several weeks in the late 1980s. Despite that circuitous route I believe that I have been faithful to what Marlin presented to his son. In any case I take full responsibility for what follows.        
*******

Dick and Dora Francis were strictly amateurs, very strictly amateurs, if there is such a degree of such term, in hard-nosed, rough-edged, seen-it-all professional private investigator Michael Philip Marlin’s eyes. Yes, they were in way over their heads by the time Marlin stepped in to try to unravel what they had knotted up and tied six foul ways to Sunday and then trace the cold leads to figure out what the hell happened, and who did it. The “what the hell happened” being an unsolved murder, maybe. The jury, no, not the court-room kind, but those who knew what went down, and those civic-minded aficionados who follow such things is still out that one. The only thing for sure was that Dick and Dora didn’t do it, and of course Marlin, otherwise everybody else had reason, had the chance, and the desire to do the deed.
To keep you from suspense the suspected deed was the killing of Charles Wyatt. Yes, that Wyatt who invented half the stuff that goes into airplanes and make them passenger- friendly, and who made and lost fortunes in doing so. Lately the former and thus his calling card had once again become welcome in high society where such things mattered if he cared to present himself to such company. Certainly his society-clawing wife and man-hungry (man-hungry if the man came with three names or a “the fourth” after it) fetching but air-headed daughters cared too if he was indifferent to such status. Therefore entered the high- society Francis duo to muddy the waters so that even a highly regarded private operate, a true professional if rather gruff and steely-eyed on the job, cried “uncle” at the end.
 
Marlin and Dick Francis had gone back a long way, back to the time when he had been a Detective Sergeant on the robbery detail for the Los Angeles Police Department and Marlin was just getting kicked off , or left, the force depending on whose story you wanted to believe. Kicked off if you believe that story about him not being on the take to local hood Marty Breen back in the 1930s and thus a loose cannon for that man’s criminal operations such as illegal booze, dope, women and gambling which depended on plenty of police co-operation and so he put the squeeze on one of his “on the take” higher-ups to ditch the troublesome Marlin. Left if you believe, and you should, that Marlin had decided that if he was going to face fists, slugs, and every other hazard known to public police work that he was not going to do so on a cop’s pay.

Marlin had thereafter set himself up as a private- eye and every once in a while he would wind up working in tandem with Dick on some tough case that the department was ready to put in cold storage. Dick in his turn had left the force, walking away without a regret or with regard for that pension that every cop craved as his reward for the dirty work he had performed in his career. The reason for that “no regret” was that Dick had landed one Dora Sweeney, heiress to the Sweeney lumber fortune which had started up in Oregon a couple of generations before and wound up  in her  generation in California. Dick, after investigating a robbery at Dora’s home, her high- style home in Bel Air had become friendly with the available and willowy owner. The robbery had never been solved, the jewels and bonds stolen slipped down some chain out of the country and shut the case down but as Dora said to whoever in her set would listen “she liked the cut of his jibe” and that was that. He left the force to “suffer” the tough life of the rich. And that was how Dick and Dora lammed onto (and fouled up) the Wyatt case.     

Dora had been boarding school friends at the toney Miss Prescott’s Finishing School with Elizabeth Wyatt (no Betty or Liz stuff strictly Elizabeth here, one of those quirks of the dizzy heiresses of the rich, the unmarried, husband-seeking daughters), Charles Wyatt’s oldest daughter and had kept in touch over the years especially the years before Dora’s marriage. When Charles Wyatt went missing, or had fled the home scene, or had been murdered, or any number of other possibilities once he disappeared without leaving word, or a trance Elizabeth frantically called Dora to see if she and Dick could find some information out her father’s fate, find it out on the quiet. Especially that “on the quiet” part since the current Wyatt fortune was at stake, and Wyatt Industries was just then in a precarious position in the markets and such news made public might tip things the wrong way. (And tip the family lifestyle, especially being able to hang with the country club set with its horde of eligible young men).       
The reason that Elizabeth beseeched Dick and Dora had also had been because in their little rarified Bel-Air circle Dick and Dora had developed a reputation for solving some society “crimes,” you know, which servant ran off with a set of the family china, or how did the chauffer, and with whom, crash the Smith’s automobile at two in the morning, or other little squabbles like that. Kid’s stuff really, even though Dick had once been a pro, playing detective stuff to do while they were waiting to have children to take up their spare time. Dick and Dora agreed, agreed too that the important thing was to keep the thing hushed up, and hushed up big time. No sense in letting the riffraff in on the family problems.

Of course while you are trying to hush things up, and not offend anybody by being so crass as to ask pointed questions of one’s social set, you are going wind up with dust. For example there had been a rumor well before Wyatt’s disappearance, a persistent rumor, that Wyatt was having an affair with his young comely blonde secretary, Gladys Pitts. They had been seen together at odd working hours hanging around Spider Greb’s Club Deluxe over in Malibu, and at other watering holes. Gladys had also not been seen for a couple of weeks since around the time of Wyatt’s vanishing act, although she had cashed a check at her bank drawn on Wyatt’s account a couple of days before Dick and Dora were handed the case by Elizabeth. Naturally nobody wanted to upset his long-suffering, unknowing wife, Liz (not Elizabeth, just Liz, in that more democratic although still social-climbing generation) and so no question was directed that way and none answered, period.         
So the weeks passed and Dick and Dora were spinning their wheels, trying with might and main to not get to Charles’ whereabouts, or what might have happened to him despite the mounting evidence that he had either fled the country for some purpose known only to himself, alone or in company, or somebody had done him harm. The evidence pointed a little toward the former since Wyatt had previously done such actions when he was either in financial distress, personal or corporate, had to be alone to work on some gizmo, or was just fed up with his family and their murderous social-climbing ways. That last part was not excluded however when another sizable check was drawn from Wyatt’s account the day after he was last seen. Drawn to “cash” at an outlining Bank of America branch in Ocean City. The Francis’ were at an impasse and that is when Dick cried “uncle” and called in his old pal Marlin.

Marlin, to his credit, agreed to work the case but with no promises and with the right to walk away if he got stonewalled by the society crowd. But even Marlin could not work miracles, except one. He found Gladys out in Fresno in about two days just by looking up her employment application information at Wyatt Industries, finding she had come from Fresno the year before and had given Fresno contact telephone number at that locale. Marlin laughed at that “error” by Dick who must have left all his sleuthing instincts back at the department. What he found out from a quick telephone call was that Gladys had quit Wyatt a few days before his disappearance and gone back to her husband the next day, all subsequently verified (also in about two days).

As for the idea of an affair with Wyatt when Marlin questioned her on that subject she mockingly laughed at the idea since Charles Wyatt was a drunk, crazy, and single-mindedly obsessive about his work. That drinking (by him she just sat and waited for instructions) was why they had spent time at the Club Deluxe and other watering holes. Overtime that Gladys bitterly complained he never paid her before she left. She was clueless as to his whereabouts and to any motive he might have for disappearing although she speculated on a bender. As for Charles Wyatt the family had put out  a reward out for information about his whereabouts and the Francis’ were pursuing whatever leads there were but Marlin has by then walked away from the now stone-cold case muttering under his breathe “leave this stuff to the professionals.” Yeah, that’s right.        


St. Patrick’s Peace Parade!

People's Parade for Peace, Equality, Jobs, Environmental Stewardship, Social & Economic Justice

Unite, Participate, Celebrate

 
Sunday, March 16, 2014, 2:00 pm
D Street & West Broadway, South Boston
Look for white "Vets for Peace" Flags 

Assemble: 2pm.  Parade start: 3pm   
There are several DIVISIONS marching in the parade, as well as two marching bands, Duck Boats, bagpipers, and the Bread and Puppet Theater.. The DIVISIONS are: Veterans groups; Peace groups; LGBT groups; Faith groups; environmental groups; social and economic justice groups; labor groups; political groups. Please invite your group(s) to come! Contact: Veterans for Peace, Pat Scanlon, info@massvfp.org, 978-475-1776; Massachusetts Peace Action, Cole Harrison,info@masspeaceaction.org, 617-354-2169; faith groups contact Lara Hoke, minister@uuandover.org.
Websmedleyfvp.org Twitter@SmedleyVFP   Facebook:  www.facebook.com/smedleyvfp
Please join us for our Fourth Annual Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade, the Alternative People’s Parade for Peace, Equality, Jobs, Environmental Stewardship, Social and Economic Justice.
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DIRECTIONS & LOGISTICS
The parade route is 4.5 miles and ends at Andrew Station.
Rides along the parade route are available for those who need them, but please let us know ahead of time that you may need a ride.
Come by T if at all possible as the area will be very congested. Broadway is the closest MBTA subway station.
Parking is available for participants in the St. Patrick’s Peace Parade.  Vehicles must enter from the north from Summer Street onto D Street; the parking lot is at 383 D Street. Look for the lot with 40 foot white truck trailers.   Allow extra time for traffic.

From the North
Route I-93 to South Station exit (20 A). Merge onto Purchase Street to light (100 feet). Make a left onto Summer Street (will pass South Station on right). Go approx. 1 mile to Convention Center. Turn right onto D Street, parking lot .2 mile up on left, (look for VFP Flag)
From South
Route I-93 – Take exit 20 toward South Station. Follow signs for Chinatown, continue straight onto Lincoln Street, turn right onto Kneeland Street, turn left onto Atlantic, south Station will be up on your right. Take a right onto Summer Street. Go approx. 1 mile to Convention Center. Turn right onto D Street, parking lot .2 mile up on left, (look for VFP Flag)
Why are there two parades in South Boston on Saint Patrick’s Day?
For the past four  years Veterans For Peace have been denied to walk in the historic Saint Patrick’s Parade in South Boston. This is the largest parade of its kind in the country with over 700,000 people viewing the parade. The parade has a dual purpose; the celebration of Saint Patrick and the Irish traditions and heritage and a celebration of Evacuation Day, the day the British were run out of Boston. Both days fall on March 17th, so the City of Boston thought it a good idea to have the Allied War Veterans Council (AWVC) organize the parade. The problem is that one side of the equation, St. Patrick, a man of peace, is second fiddle to a military parade. AWVC has the exclusive say in who gets to walk in this historical parade. The City of Boston, South Boston Community Groups, the Boston Police have absolutely no say in who walks the streets of South Boston in the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. 
In 2011 Veterans For Peace’s application was denied, when asked why and were told, “They did not want to have the word Peace associated with the word Veteran”. Well they did not know the Smedleys very well. We pulled our own permit and with only three weeks to go before the parade pulled together 500 people and the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade, the Alternative People’s Parade for Peace, Equality, Jobs, Environmental Stewardship, Economic and Social Justice was born. 
Twenty years ago the LGBT community wanted to walk in the parade and were denied which resulted in a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court resulting in the Hurley Decision. The Smedleys immediately reached out to the LGBT community, inviting them to “walk in our parade”
In 2013 we had close to 2,000 people, seven divisions (Veterans, Peace, LGBT, Labor, Political, Religious, Occupy Everywhere) two bands, bag pipers, drummers, a Duck Boat, two trollies etc. It was a grand success. We have an Environmental Stewardship Division this year. Our goal is to end this last vestige of institutionalized exclusion, prejudice, bigotry, and homophobia and make this parade inclusive and welcoming to all and bring the message of peace to South Boston on Saint Patrick’s Day.
Please join us in South Boston on March 16. Be sure to bring your Chapter’s or Organization’s banners, signs and costumes and join us in our fabulous Fourth Annual Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade. 
On behalf of the Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade Organizing Committee.
Thank you,
Pat Scanlon (VN '69)
Coordinator, VFP Chapter 9, Smedley Butler Brigade
Vets4PeaceChapter9@gmail.com     Phone: 978-475-1776
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High Power", Film on Nuclear Power in India, with Filmmaker
When: Thursday, February 6, 2014, 6:45 pm to 9:00 pm
Where: Cambridge Main Library • 449 Broadway • Harvard T • Cambridge

 
 

First Thursday Film Series

Filmmaker Pradeep Indulkar will join us for discussion
Sponsored by Women's International League for Peace & Freedom
and the Cambridge Peace Commission
 


Dear MAPA (and other) Activists,
The 6 month interim peace deal with Iran went into effect Monday, January 20th. This is a very positive step, but there are members of the senate who are still trying to push legislation to kill this deal!
Your letters and calls to the senators are effective. Letters to the editor take our message to a wider audience.
Letters to the editor are important!
 
--Studies show that they are among the most widely-read pieces in the press.
--They are followed closely by elected officials and their staffs.
--They are relatively easy to get accepted, especially in local or community papers.
 

Letter Drop Postponed

We won't be doing our letter drop at the JFK Federal Building on Wednesday, Jan 22, after all. We will reschedule it in the future. Sorry for the confusion!
DO. . .
 
--Always mention the elected officials you are targeting (In this case Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey) – this will ensure your letter will be noticed in their offices.
--Respond to articles in the paper to which you are writing.
--Try to connect with issues or views that are widely shared (i.e. No new War, Money for our communities not foreign adventures)
--Be concise.
--Have a community/personal angle if at all possible.
--Keep trying!  If your first one isn’t accepted, further submissions may break through.  Get your friends and neighbors to write too.


Here is a sample letter. Please write your own letter using one of these samples. Let us know if it is printed and in what issue.
I’m concerned that we may be heading for a new war in the Middle East.  The current round of negotiations with Iran, finalized on January 20th, are the best hope of avoiding that disastrous outcome.  But some members of Congress are doing everything they can to undermine a diplomatic solution.  Senate bill 1881, which has a number of Democratic co-sponsors along with almost all the 43 Republicans, would undo much of the progress we made with Iran in 2013 by threatening more sanctions and put in place impossible conditions that would make a war much more likely.  Thankfully, neither Senator Warren nor Senator Markey have lent their support to this bill, but neither have they spoken out against it... (Click here for completed letter plus two more sample letters)
You can follow the status and progress of S.1881 here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s1881
Sincerely,
Jeff Klein
Iran/Mideast Task Force



Join Massachusetts Peace Action - or renew your membership today!  
Dues are $40/year for an individual, $65 for a family, or $10 for student/unemployed/low income.  Members vote for leadership and endorsements, receive newsletters and discounts on event admissions.  Donate now and you will be a member in good standing through December 2014!  Your financial support makes this work possible!
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Massachusetts Peace Action, 11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138
617-354-2169  • info@masspeaceaction.org • Follow us on Facebook or Twitter

5 years ago yesterday Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo. But the Obama administration is still making arguments in US federal court, and to the public that indefinite detention is necessary in Bagram, Afghanistan, as well as other places. From Guantanamo and beyond: indefinite detention and other forms of torture are wrong and must be stopped!

Andy Worthington's back in London now. But for 12 days, the Close Guantanamo NOW Tour, featuring Andy, visited New York City, Washington DC, the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles area, meeting with groups of people and speaking to students who wanted to learn more and do something to shut down the prison at Guantanamo. View videos, read reports and press coverage.


Almost 1,000 people in groups smaller and larger at these gatherings had the opportunity to hear first-hand from the world's foremost expert on the infamous prison and the human beings who have been held and tortured there for so long. He and other participants in the tour appeared on nationally syndicated progressive and mainstream radio shows. Students at Stanford University, Hastings College of Law, and Cal Poly Pomona (in an assembly of approximately 240) learned from Andy and other experts about the illegal prison their government opened when many of them were only 7 years old.

The Close Guantanamo NOW Tour also participated in dramatic and powerful protest actions in DC on the anniversary of the prison's opening. The documentary Doctors of the Darkside was shown four times, provoking intense discussion about the how medical professionals could have colluded with torture, including forced feeding and water-boarding. These doctors have remained unaccountable - just yesterday the American Psychological Association announced it was declining to rebuke psychologist John Leso, who participated in the brutal "interrogations" of a prisoner in 2002.

This tour was exactly the kind outreach we need to step up, challenging people to act on their belief that "America lives are not more important than other lives."

Monday morning, public radio KALW host Rose Aguilar devoted an entire hour broadcast on Your Call, the excellent news feature show. The panel was Andy Worthington, joined via phone interview by CCR Guantanamo attorney Ramzi Kassem, and Sharon Adams, chair of the Committee Against Torture of the San Francisco National Lawyers Guild (and now its Vice-President).
Listen to the show here.
Shaker Aamer
A prime example of who Guantanamo has victimized: Shaker Aamer is the last remaining British resident at Guantanamo. He was been cleared for release in 2007. He has long been an advocate for his rights and the rights of other prisoners at Guantanamo, and is reported to be back on hunger strike after striking off and on for almost all of 2013. He was featured in the full-page ad World Can't Wait placed in the New York Times last May.
One of the comments made by Ramzi is worth quoting at length. He was asked about the total “cost” of Guantanamo, and answered this way:
“My preference is to focus on the costs borne by the main victims of US policy at Guantanamo, and that's the prisoners, their families, and their communities. I think it's important to mention their families and communities because they also suffer from the single unchanged fact which has defined GTMO since 2002, which is not knowing whether they will ever be reunited with their loved ones...They are in the situation of not knowing when or if they will ever get out. That actually constitutes torture. Torture as understood by international law experts and… recognized medical experts is psychological torture... One of the most important forms of psychological torture is these prisoners have to deal with that reality of not knowing whether or not they will ever get out...

“Looking beyond Guantanamo, we know for a fact that torture is not only still taking place, but that it is openly embraced by the Obama administration as a valid policy option. We know that because when President Obama signed that executive order making it illegal for US government agencies to rely on enhanced interrogation techniques [from 1/22/09], what he said in that order…  was that US government agencies can conduct interrogations consistent with the US Army Field Manual, which defines permissible interrogation techniques to be used in military interrogations. The devil is in the details, and it was amended in 2006. There's something called Appendix M which allows for sleep deprivation, stress positions, and a number of other techniques taken in isolation or taken together amount to torture under international law and according to multiple recognized medical experts...

“…[T]he US govt has been picking up people, sometimes at sea, sometimes from other places like Libya, holding them on US military ships for a while, that period of time has stretched from weeks to months, interrogating them there, presumably using techniques from Appendix M, and only then bringing them over to the to the United States for trial. So torture is very much a part of our reality today, and it’s still ‘on the books’ so to speak.”

Read reports and watch video from the Close Guantanamo NOW Tour

From our friends at StopPatriarchy.org:
Stand up AGAINST the March for "LIfe" and FOR Abortion On Demand & Without Apology!
Sat. Jan. 25—1pm--Powell & Market, San Francisco

Stop PatriarchyOn Saturday, January 25 in San Francisco, the anti's stage their Walk for "Life." In both SF and DC, they will fill the streets with their dehumanizing portrayals of women as murderers, and all the messages of shame and condemnation that typifies this front of the war on women. They are puffed up over their vicious progress in dismantling women's reproductive rights.All this at a time when women are being slammed back in every realm: from the mainstreaming of violent and degrading pornography to a global epidemic of rape, from a culture that celebrates pimping to the shaming of women who choose to have sex, and from the sexual enslavement of millions of women and girls in the sex industry to the widespread celebration of Pope Francis while he has changed nothing of church doctrine that enslaves and humiliates women and LGBT people.

This must be opposed!
Fetuses are NOT babies. Women are NOT incubators.
Abortion is NOT murder.


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HOLD the Date: Thursday January 30 World Can't Wait community conversation
10 pm EST - 7 pm PST for conversation to further the mission of closing Guantanamo NOW. 
Thank you!!from the Close Guantanamo NOW Tour
Outside Stanford
Thanks to everyone who donated to make this tour possible, and spread the word to your friends, family and online. With the help of 34 donors on the Indiegogo campaign and an even larger number of donors who pitched in at events, we were able to surpass the $2500 goal and make this tour possible.

Thank you also to all the participants and hosts for the panels, protests, media appearances, and more: Andy Worthington, Todd Pierce, Steven Reisner, Ray McGovern, Jeff Kaye, Michael Kearns, Jason Leopold, Ramzi Kassem, Martha Davis, Sharon Adams, Eric Sapp, Adam Hudson. Dennis Bernstein, Michael Slate, Rose Aguilar, Margaret Prescod, Hadar Aviram, Hastings chapters of the National Lawyers Guild and the American Constitution Society, the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal, Stanford Says No To War, Progressive Christians at Stanford,  Jolie DePauw, Catherine Watters, All Souls Church, Festival Center, Stanford University, Revolution Books Berkeley, Holman United Methodist Church, Revolution Books Los Angeles, Anaheim Unitarian Church, Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Cal Poly Pomona, Hastings College of Law, ICUJP in Los Angeles, and many more.
Donate Now
Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait

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Event to be held at the following time, date, and location:
Saturday, January 25, 2014 from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM (EST)
Spontaneous Celebrations
45 Danforth Street
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

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encuentro5 and OBR.fm/CAMP would like to invite you, your friends & co-workers to experience an evening of   A C T I O N ! Get up on your feet & D-A-N-C-E  ACTION!   MC Chris Faraone will guide us through a dance fantastic night of mixes by  DJ Univers-AL, passed hors d'oeuvres, surprise guest entertainment, $100 door prize, a $100 best costume award, silent auction and cash bar. Put away the...


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