*The Political Evolution of Eugene V. Debs- Professor Currie's View

Click on title to link to the James P. Cannon Internet Archives copy of his tribute to, and political analysis of, the place of Eugene V. Debs in the pantheon of American and international labor movements.

BOOK REVIEW

Eugene V. Debs, Harold W. Currie, Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1976

Every January militants of the left wing of the international labor movement, the European sections more than the American, honor the Three L’s, the key leaders of the movement in the early 20th century- Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht. Since opening this space in early 2006 I have paid individual honor to all three in successive years. In that same spirit for this year’s, and for future January observances, I will highlight some other lesser figures of the revolutionary pantheon or those who contributed in some way to the development of this movement, mainly American at first as befits the title of this blog but eventually others in the international movement as well. This year’s first honoree was the Trotskyist founder and organization leader James P. Cannon. Cannon represented that first American generation who formed the core of cadre directly influenced to the left by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Here I take a step back to the pre-World War I period and honor probably the most well-known socialist of that period, Eugene V. Debs.

For many reasons, the most important of which for our purposes here are the question of the nature o the revolutionary party and of revolutionary leadership, the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was a turning point in the international labor movement. In its aftermath, there was a definitive and I would argue, necessary split, between those leftists (and here I use that term generically to mean socialists, communists, anarchists, syndicalists and the like) who sought to reform the capitalist state from within and those who saw that it needed to be destroyed ‘root and branch’ and new institutions established to create a more just society. This division today continues, in truncated form to be sure, to define the contours of the question. The heroic American pre- World War II socialist labor leader and icon, Eugene V. Debs, as is very well described in this little book, contained within his personal political trajectory all the contradictions of that split. As will be described below in more detail we honor Debs for his generosity of socialist spirit while at the same time underscoring that his profile is, in the final analysis, not that of something who could have led a proletarian revolution in the earlier part of the 20th century.

Professor Currie has here done the very valuable service of outlining the highlights of Debs’ political career and of his inner ideological turmoil for those who need a short course on what set Debs, above all others except, perhaps, “Big Bill” Haywood in the pre-World War I movement. The professor makes clear that his is a political profile and not the extensive detailed informational one of traditional biography. For that, if one is so inclined in that direction after reading this primer, then it is still necessary to go Ray Ginger’s “The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene V. Debs”. I will review that effort in this space at a later time. For now though let me give the highlights I found that every serious labor militant or every serious student of socialism needs to think through.

If history has told us anything over the past one hundred and fifty years plus of the organized labor movement it is that mere trade union consciousness under conditions of capitalist domination, while commendable and necessary, is merely the beginning of wisdom. By now several generations of labor militants have passed through the school of trade unionism with varying results; although precious few have gone beyond that to the class consciousness necessary to “turn the world upside down” to use an old expression from the 17th century English Revolution. In the late 19th when American capitalism was consolidating itself moving onto its industrial phases the landscape was filled with pitched class battles between labor and capital.

One of those key battles in the 1890’s was led by one Eugene V. Debs and his American Railway Union against the mammoth rail giant, The Pullman Company. At that time the rails were the key mode of transportation in the bustling new industrial capitalist commerce. At that time, by his own reckoning, Debs saw the struggle from a merely trade unionist point of view, that is a specific localized economic struggle for better wages and conditions rather than taking on the capitalist system and its state. That strike was defeated and as a result Debs and others became “guests’ of that state in a local jail in Illinois for six months or so. The key conclusion drawn from this ‘lesson’, for our purposes, was that Debs personally finally realized that the close connection between the capitalists and THEIR state (troops, media, jails, courts) was organic and needed to be addressed.
Development of working class political class consciousness comes in many ways; I know that from my own personal experiences running up against the capitalist state.

For Debs this “up close and personal” confrontation with the capitalist drove him, reluctantly at first and with some reservations, to see the need for socialist solutions to the plight of the workingman (and women). Professor Currie details this transformation very nicely, including the seemingly inevitable thrashing about that every political person does when a politically transformative experience occurs. In Debs’ case this involved an early infatuation with the ideas of cooperative commonwealths then popular among radicals as a way to basically provide a parallel alternative society away from capitalism. Well again, having gone thorough that same kind of process of conversion myself (in my case 'autonomous' urban communes, you know, the ‘hippie’ experience of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s); Debs fairly quickly came to realize that an organized political response was necessary and he linked up his efforts with the emerging American Socialist Party.

Before World War I the major political model for politically organizing the working class was provided by the Marxist-dominated German Social Democratic Party. At that time, and in this period of pre-imperialist capitalist development, this was unquestionably the model to be followed. By way of explanation the key organizing principle of that organization, besides providing party discipline for united action, was to create a “big tent” party for the social transformation of society. Under that rubric the notion was to organize anyone and everyone, from socialist-feminists, socialist vegetarians, pacifists, municipal reformers, incipient trade union bureaucrats, hard core reformists, evolutionary socialists and- revolutionaries like Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg who we honor to this day.
The American Social Party that Debs joined exhibited all those tendencies (and some even more outlandish) of the German model. And as long as no great events acted to disrupt the “unity” of this amorphous formation the various tensions within the organization concerning reform or revolution were subdued for a time. Not forever though.

Various revolutionary tendencies within the workers’ movement have historically had opposing positions concerning parliamentary politics: what to do politically while waiting for the opportune moment to take political power. The controversy centered (and today centers around) whether to run for elective executive and/or legislative offices. Since World War I a very strong argument has developed that revolutionaries should not run for executive offices of the capitalist state on the principle that we do not want to be responsible for the running of the capitalist state. On the other hand running for legislative office under the principle of acting as “tribunes of the people” continues to have validity. The case of the German revolutionary social democrat Karl Liebknecht using his legislative office to denounce the German war effort DURING the war is a very high expression of that position. This question, arguably, was a little less clears in the pre-war period.

If Eugene V. Debs is remembered politically today it is probably for his five famous runs for the American presidency (one, in 1920, run from jail) from 1900 to 1920 (except 1916). Of those the most famous is the 1912 four- way fight (Teddy Roosevelt and his “Bull Moose” Party providing the fourth) in which he got almost a million votes and something like 5 percent of the vote- this is the high water mark of socialist electoral politics then and now. Professor Currie goes into some detail here about the demands on these campaigns personally on the aging Debs and of the internal political oppositions to his candidacies. I would only mention that a strong argument could be made here for support of the idea of a revolutionary (and, at least until the early 1920’s Debs considered himself, subjectively, a revolutionary) running for executive office- the presidency- without violating political principle (of course, with the always present proviso that if elected he would refuse to serve). Certainly the issues to be fought around- the emerging American imperial presence in the world, the fierce wage struggles, the capitalist trustification and cartelization of industry, the complicity of the courts, the struggle for women’s right to vote, the struggle against the emerging anti- black Jim Crow regime in the South would make such a platform a useful propaganda tool. Especially, as the good professor as noted, since Debs was one of the premier socialist orators of the day, if perhaps too flowery and long-winded for today’s eye or ear.

As the American Socialist party developed in the early 20th century, and grew by leaps and bounds in this period, a somewhat parallel development was occurring somewhat outside this basically parliamentary movement. In 1905, led by the revolutionary militant “Big Bill” Haywood and with an enthusiastic (then) Debs present probably the most famous mass militant labor organization in American history was formed, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies). As it name denotes this organization stood as, in effect, the nucleus of the industrial unionism that would win the day among the unorganized in the 1930’s with the efforts of the CIO. But it also was, as James P. Cannon an early IWW organizer noted in one of his books, the nucleus of a revolutionary political party. One of the reasons, among others, for its demise was that it never was able to resolve that contradiction between party and union. But that is an analysis for another day.
What is important to note here is that organization form fit in, very nicely indeed, with Debs’ notions of organizing the unorganized, the need for industrial unionization (as opposed to the prevailing narrow craft orientation of the Samuel Gompers-led AFL). Nevertheless Debs, to his credit, was no “dual unionist”, that is, committed to ignoring or going around the AFL and establishing “revolutionary” unions. This question of “boring from within” organized labor or “dual unions” continues to this day, and historically has been a very thorny question among militants faced with the bureaucratic inertia of the trade union bureaucracy. Debs came down on the side of the angels on this one (even if he later took unfavorable positions on IWW actions).

Although Debs is probably best known for his presidential runs (including that one from Atlanta prison in 1920 that I always enjoy seeing pictures of the one where he converses with his campaign staff in his cell) he really should be, if he is remembered for only one thing, remembered for his principled opposition to American war preparedness and eventual entry into World War I in 1917. Although it is unclear in my mind how much of Debs’ position stemmed from personal pacifism, how much from Hoosier isolationism (after all he was the quintessential Midwestern labor politician, having been raised and lived all his life in Indiana) and how much was an anti-imperialist statement he nevertheless, of all major socialist spokesmen to speak nothing of major politicians in general , was virtually alone in his opposition when Woodrow Wilson pulled the hammer down and entered American forces into the European conflict.

That, my friends, should command respect from almost everyone, political friend or foe alike. Needless to say for his opposition he was eventually tried and convicted of, of all things, the catch-all charge of sedition and conspiracy. Some things never change. Moreover, that prison term is why Debs had to run from prison in 1920. Professor Currie does a good job here giving the narrative of the basis of his conviction, the tenor of the times, the appeals process and his eventual release by President Harding.

I started out this exposition of Debs’ political trajectory under the sign of the Russian Revolution and here I come full circle. I have, I believe, highlighted the points that we honor Debs for and now to balance the wheel we need to discuss his shortcomings (which are also a reflection of the shortcomings of the internationalist socialist movement then, and now). The almost universal betrayal of its anti- war positions of the pre-war international social democracy, as organized in the Second International and led by the German Party, by its subordination to the war aims of its respective individual capitalist governments exposed a deep crevice in the theory and practice of the movement.

As the experiences of the Russian revolution pointed out it was no longer possible for reformists and revolutionaries to coexist in the same party. Literally, on more than one occasion, these formally connected tendencies were on opposite sides of the barricades when the social tensions of society exploded. It was not a pretty sight and called for a splitting and realignment of the revolutionary forces internationally. The organizational expression of this was the formation, in the aftermath of the Russian revolution, of the Communist International in 1919. Part of that process, in America, included a left-wing split (or purge depending on the source read) and the creation, at first, of two communist organizations. As the most authoritative left-wing socialist of the day one would have thought that Debs would have inclined to the communists. That was not to be the case as he stayed with the remnant of the American Socialist Party until his death in the late 1920’s.

No one would argue that the early communist movement in America was not filled with more than its share of political mistakes, esoterica and just plain weirdness but that is where the revolutionaries were in the 1920’s. And this brings us really to Debs’ ultimate problem as a socialist leader and why I made that statement above that he could not lead a proletarian revolution in America, assuming that he was his desire. Professor Currie, and not he alone among academic students of Debs, has pointed out that Debs had a life long aversion to political faction and in-fighting. I would agree, as any rational radical politician would, that faction and in-fighting are not virtuous in and of themselves and are a net drain on the tasks of propaganda, recruitment and united front actions that should drive left-wing political work. However, as critical turning points in the international socialism movement have shown sometimes the tensions between the political appetites of supposed like-minded individuals cannot be contained in one organization. This question is most dramatically posed, of course, in a revolutionary period when the tensions are whittled down to choices for or against the revolution. One side of the barricade or the other.

That said, Debs’ personality, demeanor and ultimately his political program of trying to keep “big tent” socialist together tarnished his image as a socialist leader. Professor Currie also has several sections at the end of his book on Debs’ positions on convicts, women, and blacks, education, religion and government. Debs was no theorist, socialist or otherwise, and many of his positions would not pass muster among radicals today. I note his economic determinism argument that the black question is subsumed in the class question. I have discussed this question elsewhere and will not address it here. I would only note, for a socialist, his position is just flat out wrong. I also note that, outside his support for women’s suffrage and working women’s rights to equal page his attitude toward women was strictly Victorian. As was his wishy-washy attitude toward religion. That said, Eugene V. Debs, warts and all, gets a fair exposition here. And should get a fair nod from history as the premier American socialist of the pre-World War I period.

*100thAnniversaryOfTheRussianRevolution - A Liberal's View Of Leon Trotsky-Professor Carmichael's Biography Of The Bolshevik Revolutionary

*100thAnniversaryOfTheRussianRevolution - A Liberal's View Of Leon Trotsky-Professor Carmichael's Biography Of The Bolshevik Revolutionary


Click on title to link to American Socialist Workers Party founder and Leon Trotsky co-thinker James P. Cannon's appreciation of the life of Trotsky at a memorial meeting held in New York City in 1940 immediately after the assassination of Trotsky by a Stalinist agent. This insider look by a political activist is placed here as a contrast to the liberal academic view held by the author in the book reviewed below.


BOOK REVIEW

TROTSKY-An Appreciation of His Life, JOEL CARMICHAEL, ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, NEW YORK, 1975

THIS MONTH IS THE 67TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MURDER OF LEON TROTSKY BY A STALINIST AGENT-ALL HONOR TO THE MEMORY OF THE GREAT RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY

As readers of this space may know I make no bones about being an admirer of the work of Leon Trotsky (see archives). I also believe that the definitive biography of the man is Isaac Deutscher’s three-volume set. Nevertheless, others have written biographies on Trotsky that are either less balanced than Deutscher’s or come at it from a different angle with a different ax to grind. Joel Carmichael’s is a standard liberal democratic take on Trotsky’s life and work. Mr. Carmichael, as others before and after him like Irving Howe, takes on the huge task of attempting to whittle down one of the big figures of 20th century history against the backdrop of that mushy Cold War liberalism that retarded the intellectual development of even fairly critical Western minds in the post-World War II period.

That standard academic response invoked admiration for the personality and intellectual achievements of Trotsky the man while abhorring his politics, especially those pursued as a high Soviet official when he had political power. In the process Mr. Carmichael tries to account for Trotsky’s ‘fall’ from power in the psycho-biographic parlance that was popular in the 1970’s. In short, Mr. Carmichael concludes essentially that if only Trotsky was less of a loner and a better Bolshevik Party infighter his personal fate and history may have worked out better. Hell we, Trotsky’s admirers, have been screaming about his very important failure to umambiously lead the 1923-24 fight against the Stalinization of the Bolshevik Party (also known following the French revolutionary example as the Themidorian reaction) struggle for years. All without benefit of pseudo-Freudian analysis, by the way. In the end Mr. Carmichael’s take on Trotsky demonstrates more about the weakness of the liberal psycho-biographical method than a serious examination into Trotsky’s politics. There are some chasms that cannot be breeched and this is one of them.

In classic fashion Carmichael, as others have done as well, sets up Trotsky’s virtues early. Thus he recognizes and appreciates the early romantic revolutionary and free-lance journalist in the true Russian tradition who faced jail and exile without flinching; the brilliant, if flawed, Marxist theoretician who defied all-comers at debate and whose theory of permanent revolution set the standard for defining the strategic pace of the Russian revolution; the great organizer of the revolutionary fight for power in 1917 and later organizer of the Red Army victory in the Civil War; the premier Communist literary critic of his age; the ‘premature’ anti-Stalinist who fought against the degeneration of the revolution; the lonely exile rolling the rock up the mountain despite personal tragedy and political isolation. However, my friends, Carmichael’s biographical approach tries to debunk an intensely political man by one who plainly is a political opponent of everything that Trotsky stood for. I only wish he had been more honest and open about it rather than use psycho-babble as a device. Thus, all Carmichael’s patently obvious and necessary recognition of Trotsky as one of the great figures of the first half of the 20th century is a screen for taking Trotsky off of Olympus.

And here again Carmichael uses all the wearisome formulas in the liberal democratic handbook; the flawed nature of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution as applied to Russia in 1917 and also to later semi-colonial and colonial countries; the undemocratic nature of the Bolshevik seizure of power in regard to other socialist parties; the horrors of the Civil War which helped lead to the degeneration of the revolution; Trotsky’s recognized tendency as a Soviet official to be attracted to administrative solutions; his adamant defense of the heroic days of the Bolshevik party and the Soviet Union, even in its degenerated state, against all comers until the end of his life; his weakness as a party political organizer in the fierce intra-party factional struggles and later in attempting to found new communist parties and a new international.

Of course the kindest interpretation one can make for Carmichael’s polemic, like that of Irving Howe who approached Trotsky’s life from the social-democratic perspective, is that he believes like many another erstwhile biographer that Trotsky should have given up the political struggle and become- what? Another bourgeois academic or better yet an editor of Partisan Review or The Nation? Obviously Mr. Carmichael did not pay sufficient attention to the parts that he considered Trotsky’s virtues. The parts about the intrepid revolutionary with a great sense of history and his role in it. And the wherewithal to find his place in it. Does that seem like the Trotsky that Carmichael has written about? No. A fairer way to put it is this. Trotsky probably represented the highest expression of what it was like to be a communist man, warts and all, in the sea of a non-Communist world. And that is high historical praise indeed. Let future biographers take note.

From The Archives-THE OTHER SIDE IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR-ROME HONORS FRANCO'S 'MARTYRS'

COMMENTARY


Under ordinary circumstances I do not give a tinker’s damn about the internal ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, or for that matter, any church but a recent news item hit me square in the eye. On Sunday October 28, 2007 at Vatican City some 498 priest and nuns killed just prior to or during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 were given a mass of beatification. Apparently beatification is a direct step in the process to sainthood- the Catholic Hall of Fame. Unfortunately the article did not give a list of reasons why these ‘martyrs’ were chosen other than the fact that they had been killed, presumably by forces that supported the lawfully designated Republican government, in the Civil War.

But wait a minute- this is Spain, this is the Spanish Civil War-what the hell- these are General Franco’s agents who fell all over themselves to aid his rebellion and ultimately led to forty years of hell. Those are the kinds of people that the Roman church is giving its blessing to. Let us further set the historical record straight - these were agents of that Romish church that owned significant lands and assumed all the prerogatives of feudal landlords in relationship to their peasant tenants. This, I might add, is the church of the Inquisition; the church that oppressed the poor, downtrodden and otherwise confused people of Spain for centuries. Yes, there seems to be some symbolic ‘justice’ here as Mother Church honors her most trusted agents.

Popular anti-clericalism had a long tradition in Spain, justifiably so from any fair reading of the history of that benighted land. Many times during social turmoil ignited by the fed up peasantry and the plebes in the smaller cities prior to the Civil War the first plebian act was to go lay waste to the local church and scatter or otherwise harm the clergy. The period of the Spanish Civil War was no different in that sense. Except that by that time the anti-clerics had also taken on an anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist coloration. In fact during this period they made church vandalism into an art form. Thus this batch of ‘martyred’ clergy were likely the victims of that tradition, although a stray irate republican, insolent socialist or undisciplined communist may have gotten caught up in it depending on the furies of the local population. Ernest Hemingway in his Spanish Civil War novel For Whom the Bells Toll has one of his characters narrate a very graphic description of what anti-clerical (and anti-central government) revenge was like in one locale.

Historically attacks on churches are an elemental first reaction by the plebian masses in a revolutionary period. In the English Revolution the yeomen of the Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army made a regular practice of reducing churches (for their silverware to be used as ammunition as well as an expression of rage). In the French Revolution the same thing occurred although on a less disciplined basis. Thus Civil War Spain is hardly an exception to that general trend. However socialists, especially Marxist socialists, have always drawn the line on the question how to deal with religion differently. We stand in solidarity with such elemental acts against the oppressions brought by religion however that is not our program. We recognize that we must change the whole material basis of society in order to get rid of the ‘need’ for religion as solace for an unjust and chaotic world. Hey, we are the ‘religion is the opiate of the people’ guys, remember? Thus we spill no tears over the fate of these Popish ‘martyrs’ but neither do we advocate such action to create social change. We go after the big guns- the capitalists.


While we are on the question of honoring those who died in the Spanish Civil War we have our own heroes to recognize. Like those who fought under the banner of the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias and saved the republic, in the short haul, as Franco’s rebellion reared its ugly head. Or those far flung legions of "pre-mature” anti-fascists who came from all over Europe and the Americas and formed the International Brigades that did valiant service on the Ebro, the Jarama and elsewhere. Or those who defended Madrid in its hour of need so that Franco should not pass. And the anarchist Friends of Durritti (to speak nothing of Durritti himself) and the fighters of the Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) who were ready to give their all in the last ditch effort to save the revolution in the May Days in Barcelona in 1937. Yes, those are OUR kindred spirits. They stand in no need of beatification. However, in the end the best way to honor their efforts is to fight for socialism. Then we can put religions in the museums as historical curiosities

***Speaking truth to power-The 1962 Port Huron Statement describes the goals, values, and strategies of Students for a Democratic Society -- and continues to inform and inspire. By Ken Handel / The Rag Blog / July 19, 2011

Markin comment:


Well, "spoke" half truth to power anyway. And in the end not enough, not nearly enough to the American imperial "beast." But enough of nostagia. Kick up some dust time is running out

Speaking truth to power-The 1962 Port Huron Statement describes the goals, values, and strategies of Students for a Democratic Society -- and continues to inform and inspire. By Ken Handel / The Rag Blog / July 19, 2011

“My Generation,” released by The Who in 1965, is one of that group’s most popular songs -- and a rallying cry for disaffected youth. Three years earlier, in 1962, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) created “An agenda for a generation,” an action plan for young people seeking broad societal change.

(SDS was the leading organization of the Sixties New Left. At its peak it had more than 100,000 members in 400 chapters around the country.)

The 59 SDS members who assembled in the small Michigan town of Port Huron in June 1962 could not accept a status quo that tolerated the possibility of nuclear annihilation, state-sanctioned racism, and a nation suffering from extensive poverty amidst affluence. Scholar James Miller, in Democracy Is in the Streets, described the Port Huron Statement (PHS) as being “one of the pivotal documents in post-war American history.”


In their own words

In Rebels With A Cause, a film on SDS created in 2000 by Helen Garvy, Port Huron participants reflected upon their experiences. Tom Hayden, the document’s primary author, described “sitting around in small groups talking about your values and how they applied to politics and to economics.” He also spoke of the American tradition of “decentralized democracy, or direct democracy, or town-meeting democracy.”

Sharon Jeffrey identified two key themes the document addressed: “…participatory democracy: this was something that somehow it had a resonance to it… This was really significant because it touched very deeply… sort of like the soul of who we were”; and the importance of values.

On this point, Steve Max commented, “The idea that you make your own values as a group was a new thing. That values weren’t just inherited and weren’t just transmitted from the older generation but that people could actually sit down and work out an ethical framework, as an organization…”


Political and cultural influences

In the first paragraph of the Port Huron Statement, SDS members acknowledged their privileged status: they were “bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities…” But in what Hayden has termed “a manifesto of hope,” the 41-page document envisioned an end to racism, a transformation of democracy, a reconception of the economy, and a conclusion to the cold war.

In his book, The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama, Hayden noted the influences that contributed to the document’s explicit idealism.

Port Huron participants had witnessed the independence of many African nations, and Cuba’s successful revolution. They abhorred South Africa’s policy of apartheid and its violent repression of the African National Congress. They allied themselves with other students fighting racism in the U.S. -- and in particular, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). They had read inspiring books, seen influential films, and rocked around the clock. Port Huron, Hayden says, “was a spontaneous beginning, but one informed by legacy.”


Does Port Huron still resonate?

June 2012 represents the Port Huron Statement’s golden anniversary. And the alienation and apathy SDS sought to counter nearly 50 years ago is even more prevalent today: only six percent of a Harris Poll expressed confidence in Congress. In the 2010 mid-term election, 59.1 percent of registered voters chose to withhold their ballots.

To counteract hopelessness, the document offered a new definition of individual rights and of the role a person plays in the political system:

Participatory Democracy: “…we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation, governed by two central aims: that the individual share in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life; that society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common participation.”

Values: “Men have unrealized potential for self-cultivation, self-direction, self-understanding, and creativity. It is this potential that we regard as crucial and to which we appeal, not to the human potentiality for violence, unreason, and submission to authority. The goal of man and society should be human independence: a concern not with image of popularity but with finding a meaning in life that is personally authentic...”

SDS succumbed to factionalism and dissolved in 1969. But the Port Huron Statement is the group’s living legacy. Just as “My Generation” continues to win new fans, so too can the Port Huron Statement assist today’s citizens in fulfilling their aspirations and in making government more responsive.

Monte Wasch offers a unique perspective on the PHS. As a 20 year-old City College student he attended the Port Huron gathering. When he returned to New York, Tom and Casey Hayden temporarily moved into his apartment. There, Hayden worked on final PHS edits, which Wasch typed up.

“I remember,” he comments, “a summer of optimism and challenge. Optimism because we all felt we were on the cusp of something exceptional and unique in the history of American progressivism. The challenge was -- as a new generation with a progressive, reform set of values -- to leave behind the narrow sectarian battles that had long characterized the Left. The PHS prescribed a new model for social change and non-sectarian progressive action by developing a new model for social change: participatory democracy.

[Ken Handel is a freelance writer and editor. This article was also posted to Suite101.]

Sources

Students for a Democratic Society
Port Huron Statement, SDS Documents
Democracy Is In the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago by James Miller (Simon and Schuster, 1987.) “Pivotal Document”: Page 13; “manifesto of hope”: Page 77
Rebels With A Cause, a documentary film written, produced, and directed by Helen Garvy, 2000.
The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama by Tom Hayden. (Paradigm Publishers. 2009). SDS influences: Page 21-23

Poll Citations:
Confidence in Congress -- The Harris Poll. "Confidence in Congress and Supreme Court Drops to Lowest Level in Many Years,” May 18, 2011.
Election Data––United States Election Project. 2010 General Election Turnout Rates

The Rag Blog

*HONOR THE MEMORY OF JULIUS AND ETHEL ROSENBERG-SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION

HONOR THE MEMORY OF JULIUS AND ETHEL ROSENBERG-SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION

COMMENTARY


THEY WERE NOT OUR PEOPLE-BUT, THEY WERE OUR PEOPLE

Eisenhower, Stalin, the Cold War, the Korean War, atomic bombs, atomic spies, air raid shelters, the “Red Scare”, McCarthyism and the Rosenbergs- in the mist of time these were early, if undigested terms, from my childhood. Ah, the Rosenbergs. That is what I want to write about today. Out of all of those undigested terms that name is the one that still evokes deep emotion in these old bones. For those who have forgotten, or those too young to remember, the controversy surrounding their convictions for espionage in passing information about the atomic bomb to the now defunct Soviet Union and their executions defined an essential part of the 1950’s, the hardening of the Cold War period in American history. Their controversial convictions and sentencing evoked widespread protests throughout the world. Thus, those who seek to learn the lessons of history, our working class history, and about justice American-style should take the time to carefully examine the case and come to some conclusions about it.

Frankly, I had not read, until recently when I read The Rosenberg File by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton (originally written in 1983 with a second edition in 1997 taking advantage of the opening of some archives in the post-Soviet period), any books on the case in a long while. Thus one of my tasks is to re-read the old material, read the new post-Soviet material, and make some suggestions about what to look for in trying to understand the history of the case. This commentary will thus express my own thoughts on the Rosenbergs more than answer the questions raised by the scholarship on the case.

And what questions drive the scholarship on the case? Was their trial a frame-up in classic American-style against leftist political opponents of the Cold War and American foreign policy? Were they, individually or collectively, “master spies” at the service of the Soviet Union? Were they innocent, if misguided, progressives caught up in the turmoil of the American “red scare” of the post-World War II period? Did the government through its FBI and other security agencies, its attorneys, its judges stumble into a case which would make many reputations? Did the American Communist Party, itself under severe scrutiny and persecution, betray the Rosenbergs? Did the various international campaigns on behalf of the couple work at cross purposes with their various demands for a new trial, reduction of sentence and clemency? What kind of people were these Rosenbergs? In short, were the Rosenbergs heroic Soviet spies, martyrs, dupes or innocents? Those are the questions thoughtful readers are confronted with and I will deal with at least some of them in due course in latter blogs.

My own evolution on the case goes something like this. In my young left-liberal and social democratic days I believed, based on my reading of the trial evidence and a belief then in the basic fairness of the American justice system, that unlike Sacco and Vanzetti the Rosenbergs were guilty of the charges but as an opponent of the death penalty they should not have been executed. As I moved left, closer to Marxist politics, I still believed they were ‘guilty’. However, I came to believe that the question of guilt or innocence was beside the point and their actions on behalf of the Soviet Union made them heroes of the international working class. That, dear reader, is still my basic position.

And what is the basis of that position. At one time I was ‘in the orbit’ of the American Communist party, a fellow traveler of Stalinism, if you will. One of the criteria posed by that position was the question of defending the gains of the Russian Revolution, as I then understood it. And that meant defense of the interests of the Soviet Union. I saw the Rosenberg case as part of that same continuum, those who could actively aid the Soviet cause, by any means necessary, were kindred spirits although other than spreading pro-Soviet propaganda I personally never did anything materially to aid the Soviet Union.

Those who have read this space over last year know that I am an ardent supporter of the work of Russian Bolshevik warrior Leon Trotsky. As one should also be aware there was, and is, a river of blood, including the physical destruction of the Trotskyist Left Opposition inside the Soviet Union and elsewhere and Trotsky’s own assassination by a Stalinist agent in 1940, between those two concepts of socialist society. Nevertheless to his dying breath Trotsky defended the Soviet Union against foreign and internal counterrevolution. Thus, despite that political divide the Rosenbergs’ action, according to their lights, was not affected by my change of political orientation. Nor should it have changed.

And who were the Rosenbergs? In the headline above I called them soldiers of the revolution and I would add here, as they saw it. I think that is a fair assessment and one that I hope they would have agreed with despite our divergence political perspectives. I like the picture in my mind of Julius Rosenberg standing up for the almost forgotten labor martyr Tom Mooney in the early 1930’s at City College of New York. I also like the picture of the ‘premature’ anti-fascist Ethel Rosenberg singing in Times Square in 1936 to raise money for the Spanish Republicans when damn few others raised their heads. They made, seemingly, every mistake in the spy book. They may have not been the natural leaders of a socialist revolution in America. However, no revolution can be made without such dedicated rank and filers, who stood up when it counted. They did not cry about their fate. And they did not turn into governmental informers to save their skins. Yes, my friends, those are indeed my kindred spirits. They were not our people-but, they were our people. And they should be yours. Some day when there is a lot most justice in the world than there is now a really fitting memorial to their memory will be in order in the socialist society of the future. In the meantime- Honor the Rosenbergs-Soldiers of the Revolution.

A PARABLE CONCERNING PROPERTY-From The Pen Of Bertolt Brecht

A PARABLE CONCERNING PROPERTY-From The Pen Of Bertolt Brecht  

A PARABLE CONCERNING PROPERTY


PLAY/BOOK REVIEW


THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE, BERTAOLT BRECHT, UNIVERSTIY OF MINNESOTA PRESS, 1999


One of the master communist playwright Bertolt Brecht’s strengths as an artist was the ability to set up a moral dilemma and work it out to a conclusion, not always a satisfactory one, by play’s end. This is unusual in a seemingly orthodox follower of the old Stalinist 'socialist realist’ cultural program. This work nevertheless permitted Brecht to address an age-old question about the nature of property ownership, extending it from its natural and historic setting in land and chattels to the question of personal human ownership.

The question posed here is whether a child abandoned by its natural mother then found and raised by another women should go to the former or that latter. Nice dilemma, right? But Brecht, as seem in Mother Courage and other parables, is not above cutting right to the bone on moral questions. What makes this work a cut above some of Brecht’s more didactic plays is the way that he weaves the parable about the odd resolution of an ancient Chinese property dispute and places that ‘wisdom’ in context of a then current dispute between two Soviet-era communes.

In the ancient dispute the judge who is called upon to render judgment, using the circle as a medium to resolve the dispute, seems to be Solomonic but is really a buffoon. This is pure Brechtian irony. This says as much about Brecht's attitude toward property as it does about the old time Chinese justice system. The question of property rights as presented by Brecht and their value as a societal glue is also something the reader or viewer of this play should think about, as well.

ON BEING GEORGE ORWELL-A Book Review

ON BEING GEORGE ORWELL-A Book Review

By Si Lannon

BOOK REVIEW

ORWELL IN TRIBUNE:"AS I PLEASE" AND OTHER WRITINGS 1943-7, COMPILED AND EDITED BY PAUL ANDERSON, POLITCO'S, 2006

The last review that I did on George Orwell’s work was Homage to Catalonia, his compelling story of his involvement in a Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) a left-wing militia regiment in the Spanish Civil War. I noted there that this is the Orwell that today’s militant leftists need to read. The current compilation of articles that he did during World War II and shortly thereafter are not in that same category although they are, as always with Orwell, well worth reading. No matter the subject matter the articles conform to the points that he made in Politics and the English Language about using precise, clear and rational political language. Unfortunately, at the time of the Tribune writings Orwell had already made his peace, even if critically, with British imperialism. This is obvious from the subject matter of some of the articles, particularly those in defense of holding on to the old empire or at least its prerogatives. The articles themselves vary from the topical and mundane under war time conditions to the speculative but as always written in a bit of a tongue and cheek manner. That said, although Orwell by this time was an anti-Stalinist socialist of some sort he preferred to outsource the fight against Stalinism to world imperialism. Apparently, as the recent furor over his naming names of British communists to British intelligence indicates, he had no such qualms about doing so. Certainly this was not his finest hour. He left that in Spain.

From The Archives Of The "In Defense Of Marxism" Website- Spain: The rebellion of the youth

Spain: The rebellion of the youth

Written by Alan Woods
Friday, 20 May 2011


First it was Tunis, then Cairo, then Wisconsin, and now Spain. The crisis of capitalism has set in motion a tsunami that is impossible to control. All the representatives of the old order have combined to halt it: politicians and police, judges and trade union bureaucrats, the hired press and the television, priests and “intellectuals”. But the tsunami of revolt rolls on from one country to another, from one continent to another.

Bankruptcy of Spanish capitalism

The local and regional elections in Spain this weekend come at a time of ever deeper economic, social and political crisis. For ten years the Spanish economy was presented as the motor of job creation in the euro-area. A frenzied speculative boom was followed by a severe slump. Spain now stands on the edge of bankruptcy. Economists are warning of revelations about higher debt levels than previously known. And following the collapse in Greece, Ireland and Portugal, the “market” is turning its attention to Spain.

Spanish capitalism went up like a rocket and came down like a stick. The collapse of the construction boom has left Spain with a painful hangover of falling house prices, huge debts, one million empty homes and the highest rate of unemployment in the European Union. The ranks of the jobless in Spain have soared to about 4.9 million. With unemployment in Spain at 21 percent, dissatisfaction has been growing. The discontent is reflected in scepticism towards all the main political parties, which, given their record, should surprise no-one.

In Spain, there are two main parties: the right wing PP and the “socialist” PSOE. The first is made up of the open representatives of Capital, the party of the bankers and capitalists. We know very well what to expect from this party. The PSOE is supposed to represent the interests of the working class. But does it? Millions of workers voted for this party in the hope that it would defend their living standards. But these hopes have been cruelly deceived.

The leader of the Socialist Party, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was supposed to be a “left”. But under conditions of capitalist crisis, there were only two alternatives: either take action to break the power of the bankers and capitalists, or else accept the dictates of big business and attack the living standards of the workers. There is no third way, as Zapatero soon discovered. The PSOE leaders surrendered to the bankers and capitalists, just as the reformists have done in every other country.

Using the excuse of the economic crisis (that is, the crisis of the capitalist system) the leaders of the PSOE have joined hands with the bourgeoisie to save the system. They are trying to place all the burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of those least able to bear it: the workers, the youth, the old, the sick, the unemployed. They pour billions into the pockets of the bankers, while attacking living standards and pensions. 89% of Spaniards think political parties only care about themselves, according to Metroscopia. But is it any wonder that people are alienated from political parties when they see this kind of thing?

The Social Democrats always prepare the way for right wing reaction. That is their role. Already the opinion polls indicate that the PSOE could lose to the right wing Popular Party (PP) in at least one key region. Even Andalucía, which has always been governed by the Socialists, might fall to the right wing. This would set the stage for a defeat in general elections next year, handing the government over to the right wing Popular Party, the open party of big business.

This is to jump from the frying pan into the fire. If the PP wins a majority, it will introduce even bigger cuts. They will say: “You think there was so much debt, but no, there’s more.” We have already seen this in Catalonia, where regional elections last year swept out the Socialist-led coalition government, but the new government of the CiU has introduced a vicious packet of cuts in health care and education and attacks on living standards that has provoked a wave of wild cat strikes and a 200,000 strong trade union demonstration in Barcelona.

Mood of disappointment

The leaders of the traditional workers parties are completely enmeshed with the capitalists and their state. It is an intolerable state of affairs that leaders who speak in the name of socialism and the working class, or even “democracy”, preside over huge bailouts to private banks, which signifies a big increase in the public debt that will be paid for by years of cuts and austerity. This is done in the name of “the general interest”, but is in reality a measure in the interest of the rich and against the interest of the majority.

Under these conditions, the working class looks to the trade unions for a lead. Under the pressure from below the leaders of the UGT and CCOO called a general strike on 29 September last year. But the union leaders were desperate to do a deal with the government, and saw the general strike only as a means of putting pressure on Zapatero to give some concessions. They think that they can get what they want through negotiation

For the leaders, this is only a means of blowing off steam. For serious trade unionists, on the contrary, strikes and demonstrations are a means of getting the workers to understand their power and prepare the ground for a fundamental change in society. Although they think of themselves as practical and realistic people, the union leaders have not the slightest idea of the seriousness of the crisis of capitalism. They imagine that, by accepting cuts and other impositions in the hope that everything will be all right in the end. This is an illusion. For every step back they make, the bosses will demand three more.

In reality the union leaders are just as out of touch with the real mood of anger of the workers and youth as the leaders of the political parties. Having called a general strike, they then agreed to a pension “reform” that was completely unsatisfactory from the standpoint of the working class. This led to a wave of disappointment that further reinforced the mood of alienation, frustration and discontent.

As the class struggle develops the radicalization of the rank and file of the unions will undoubtedly enter into conflict with the conservatism of the leadership. The workers will demand a complete transformation of the unions from top to bottom, and will strive to turn them into real fighting organizations. But at the present time the unions are lagging behind the needs of the workers and youth. Elena Ortega, who has managed to find only a part-time secretarial job, and helped spread the word on Facebook about the protests on Wednesday, told CNN: "If this is happening, it's because the unions weren't doing what was needed, when it was needed. They haven't delivered".

These moods are most intense among young people, who, as always, are the principal victims of the crisis. The figure of youth unemployment stands at around 45 percent. Many university graduates, having worked hard to obtain qualifications, cannot find work, or else are forced to accept menial jobs on low wages. The levels of “precarious employment”, that is, casual. part-time work, on short term contracts with no rights, is at an all-time high in Spain.

This situation is not so very different to that faced by young people in places like Tunisia and Egypt. Yet Spain is not a Third World country, but a developed and prosperous European economy. This glaring contradiction has produced a mood of anger, frustration and bitterness in the youth, which does not find any reflection in the existing political parties or trade unions.

The discontent and frustration has finally burst to the surface. On Sunday May 15, 150,000 people marched in about 40 cities throughout Spain under the banner of Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Now). The largest demonstration was in Madrid with 25,000 or more, followed by Barcelona with 15,000. The main slogan of the demonstration was “We are not commodities in the hands of bankers and politicians”, which shows an instinctive anti-capitalist character of the movement.

Politicians and expert commentators have dismissed this movement as “not having clear aims”, or even “being opened to right wing manipulation”. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of people present at the demonstrations on May 15 would consider themselves as progressive and left wing. The slogans, about the lack of housing, the lack of jobs, the lack of future, the lack of genuine democracy, the dictatorship of the markets, against corrupt politicians and their obscene wages, about the strength of the organised people, show this clearly.

While May15 took many by surprise, it had been preceded by a series of mobilisations which showed the growing pressure building up below the surface. In January and February, mass demonstrations of civil servants rocked Murcia, where the regional right wing government of the PP has carried out particularly vicious cuts. In the same region, activists have organised and effectively resisted evictions of families who have defaulted on their mortgage repayments. On April 7th thousands of youth took to the streets following a call made by the “Youth without future” platform, a coalition of left wing youth and student groups.

It is also clear that the wave of the Arab revolution has been an inspiration to many in Spain. They have seen the power of ordinary people to change things when they are on the move. The idea of setting up tent camps, comes directly from Tahrir Square in Cairo. Many had also looked up to the Greek workers and youth and their courageous mobilisations throughout last year, the massive strike movement in France and even the movement of the youth in Portugal. A sign in Madrid read: “France and Greece fight. Spain wins, in football”, but not anymore. Despite the complete lack of leadership offered by the leadership of the official organisations, the Spanish youth is on the move, and they have the sympathy of wide layers of the workers.

Thousands have been protesting on and off since Sunday in the Puerta del Sol, the city centre in Madrid and in more than 80 cities and towns all over Spain. Protests have also been organised by groups of Spanish youth outside the embassies in a number of European capitals.

Threat to democracy?

These protests took all the politicians by surprise. They have reacted with hysteria and alarm. The defenders of the existing society are scandalized: “this is anarchy”, they protest. “This is chaos!” Some even say it is a “threat to democracy”. Yet what we are seeing on the streets of Madrid and other Spanish cities is no threat to democracy but, on the contrary, an attempt to exercise direct democracy: to give a voice to those who have no voice, to defend the interests of those who nobody defends.

When they speak of a “threat to democracy”, what do they mean? Democracy in its literal sense signifies the rule of the people. But is it true that the people really rule in Spain or anywhere else? No, it is false. In the framework of capitalist society, the participation of the majority of people in democracy is limited to voting every five years or so for one or other of the existing political parties. Once they are elected, they do whatever they like, and the people have no means of changing anything.

Under capitalism all the key decisions are taken by the boards of directors of the big banks and monopolies. They decide whether people will have jobs and houses or not. Nobody elects them and they are responsible to nobody but themselves. The real relationship between the elected governments and the bourgeoisie was exposed in the recent crisis, when the bankers were given a present of billions of public money with no questions asked. In reality, bourgeois “democracy” is only another word for the dictatorship of Capital.

Those who protest do so because they do not recognize themselves in any of the existing parties. And who can blame them? Many people are saying: what is the use in voting when they are all the same? They look at the election campaign with a mixture of indifference and disgust. If this represents a “threat to democracy”, those responsible are not the young people who are protesting in the Puerta del Sol but the ones sitting in the Palacio de la Moncloa.

The right to peaceful protest is a basic democratic right. It was for this right that the Spanish working class fought for decades against the Franco dictatorship. Last Sunday thousands of people, mainly young but also others, went to the Puerta del Sol in the centre of Madrid to register their protest against a system that effectively excludes them. In so doing they were exercising this basic right. How is this democratic conquest being upheld by those who are in control of Madrid and the whole of Spain?

Those people who fill their mouths with the word “democracy” depicted this peaceful protest as a “threat to democracy”. On the early hours of Tuesday May 17 Madrid authorities sent the riot police to disperse a relatively small group of protesters who had set up a camp in Puerta del Sol with the utmost violence. Madrid is ruled by the right wing PP. They must therefore bear the direct responsibility for this brutal and unprovoked attack. But they could never have done this without the approval (tacit or open) of the Zapatero government. This hypocritical chorus was to be expected from the right wing. But it is shameful that people who call themselves “socialists” and “lefts” should echo this poison.

The tough tactics did not work. On Tuesday night, tens of thousands protesters returned to Madrid's central plaza. By Wednesday morning, many remained in their overnight encampment. On Wednesday afternoon, Madrid's elections board banned the planned demonstration at 8 pm at the Puerta del Sol. A regional office spokesman said the election board was trying to prevent demonstrations during the final days of the election campaign because it “could affect the right of citizens to vote freely”. The board said there were not "extraordinary and serious reasons" to allow the demonstration on short notice. And to sooth the nerves of voters, El Pais reported that authorities planned to have sufficient police officers on hand to prevent the demonstration. The Madrid Metro system was warning passengers not to go to Plaza del Sol “as the rally has not been allowed”.

But faced with tens of thousands of people who once again turned up to show their protest, the authorities realised it would be unwise to use the riot police to confront them, as this would have only radicalised the movement further and provoked and even more massive response.

It is not only in Spain where democratic rights are being trampled. Not long ago Cossiga, who was Christian Democrat Minister of the Interior in Italy in the 1970s, later President of the Republic, and now life Senator, was asked what should be done about students’ demonstrations. He answered:

“Let them get on with it for a while. Withdraw the police from the streets and campuses, infiltrate the movement with agents provocateurs who are ready for anything, and leave the demonstrators for about ten days as they devastate shops, burn cars and turn the cities upside down. After that, having gained the support of the population – making sure that the noise of the ambulance sirens is louder than those of the police and carabinieri – the forces of order should ruthlessly attack the students and send them to hospital. Don’t arrest them, as the judges will only release them immediately; just beat them up and also the professors who foment the movement.”

Here is the authentic voice of the “democratic” bourgeoisie. The moment their privileges are threatened, they cast aside the smiling mask of “democracy” and resort to violence and repression. The youth of Spain – like the youth of Britain a few months earlier – is receiving a splendid lesson in the values of bourgeois democracy, delivered in the form of truncheon blows. By dispersing a peaceful demonstration the rulers of Spain showed two things: firstly their complete contempt for the democratic right to demonstrate; secondly their fear of the people.

Manifesto of the May 15 Movement

The youth of Spain is beginning to draw the most advanced conclusions. The following is the Manifesto of the May 15 Movement. While we do not agree with every dot and comma of this document, it is an extraordinary expression of the feelings of millions of people who are now beginning to awaken to political life, for this is fundamentally a political document, even though its authors do not use this word. The reason they do not like the word “political” is because the scandalous conduct of the existing political parties have made the word stink in their nostrils:

“We are ordinary people. We are like you: people, who get up every morning to study, work or find a job, people who have family and friends. People, who work hard every day to provide a better future for those around us.

"The system is the problem". Madrid, May 17. Photo: Jose A. GeladoComment: The most important aspect of this is precisely that it is a spontaneous movement from below, from the real base of society. It is the voice of those who work in the factories and study in the schools and universities: the real voice of Spain, not that of the exploiters and parasites. This represents its inner strength and resilience.

“Some of us consider ourselves progressive, others conservative. Some of us are believers, some not. Some of us have clearly defined ideologies, others are apolitical, but we are all concerned and angry about the political, economic, and social outlook which we see around us: corruption among politicians, businessmen, bankers, leaving us helpless, without a voice.

Comment: This is a mass movement that is giving a voice to the people who have no voice: the people who do not feel represented by the professional politicians and political apparatchiks who sit in the Cortes, that is to say, the great majority of the Spanish people. It is a protest against corruption and exploitation. But here we find a contradiction. How is it possible to hold such radical views and be a conservative? A conservative is somebody who wishes to conserve the status quo, who defends the existing order that the present movement seeks to overturn.

To seek to build a mass movement with the broadest base is very good. But it is not possible to combine fire with water. Either we stand for a complete change in society, in which case we are revolutionaries. Or we stand for its preservation, in which case we are conservatives. One can be one thing or the other, but one cannot be both.

“This situation has become normal, a daily suffering, without hope. But if we join forces, we can change it. It’s time to change things, time to build a better society together. Therefore, we strongly argue that:

“The priorities of any advanced society must be equality, progress, solidarity, freedom of culture, sustainability and development, welfare and people’s happiness.

“These are inalienable truths that we should abide by in our society: the right to housing, employment, culture, health, education, political participation, free personal development, and consumer rights for a healthy and happy life. ”

Comment: Yes, we must fight for all these things. But we must understand that there are powerful interests opposed to change. The bankers, landlords and capitalists do not accept that the right to housing, employment, culture, health, education, political participation, free personal development, and consumer rights for a healthy and happy life are inalienable rights.

They will tell us that these things are luxuries we cannot afford. Only the right of the bankers to receive vast amounts of public money are considered by them to be inalienable.

“The current status of our government and economic system does not take care of these rights, and in many ways is an obstacle to human progress. ”

Comment: That is right, but it needs to be clarified, so that there does not remain a shadow of doubt concerning the real nature of the problem. Unemployment is not the result of bad policies by this or that government. It is an expression of the sickness of a whole system, that is to say, of capitalism. The problem is not the greed of certain individuals, nor is it the lack of liquidity or the absence of confidence. The problem is that the capitalist system on a world scale is in a complete blind alley.

The root cause of the crisis is that the development of the productive forces has outgrown the narrow limits of private ownership and the nation state. The expansion and contraction of credit is often presented as the cause of the crisis, but in fact it is only the most visible symptom. Crises are an integral part of the capitalist system.

Is it really logical that the lives and destinies of millions of people are determined by the blind play of market forces? Is it fair that the economic life of the planet is decided as if it were a gigantic casino? Can it be justified that the greed for profit is the sole motor force that decides whether men and women will have a job or a roof over their heads? Those who own the means of production and control our destinies will answer in the affirmative because it is in their interest to do so. But the majority of society, who are the innocent victims of this cannibalistic system, disagree.

“Democracy belongs to the people (demos = people, krátos = government) which means that government is made of every one of us. However, in Spain most of the political class does not even listen to us. Politicians should be bringing our voice to the institutions, facilitating the political participation of citizens through direct channels that provide the greatest benefit to the wider society, not to get rich and prosper at our expense, attending only to the dictatorship of major economic powers and holding them in power through a bipartidism headed by the immovable acronym PP & PSOE.”

Comment: Under capitalism democracy must necessarily have a restricted, one-sided and fictitious character. What use is freedom of the press when all the big newspapers, journals and television companies, meeting halls and theatres are in the hands of the rich? As long as the land, the banks and the big monopolies remain in the hands of a few, all the really important decisions affecting our lives will be taken, not by parliaments and elected governments but behind locked doors in the boards of directors of the banks and big companies. The present crisis has exposed this fact for all to see.

We stand for a genuine democracy in which the people would take the running of industry, society and the state into their own hands. That would be a genuine democracy, as opposed to the caricature we now have, in which anyone can say (more or less) what they want, as long as the most important decisions affecting our lives are taken behind locked doors by small, unelected groups on the boards of directors of the banks and big monopolies.

“Lust for power and its accumulation in only a few; create inequality, tension and injustice, which leads to violence, which we reject. The obsolete and unnatural economic model fuels the social machinery in a growing spiral that consumes itself by enriching a few and sends into poverty the rest. Until the collapse.

“The will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency and the welfare of society. Wasting resources, destroying the planet, creating unemployment and unhappy consumers.

“Citizens are the gears of a machine designed to enrich a minority which does not regard our needs. We are anonymous, but without us none of this would exist, because we move the world.

“If as a society we learn to not trust our future to an abstract economy, which never returns benefits for the most, we can eliminate the abuse that we are all suffering.!”

Comment: The right to work is a fundamental right. What sort of society condemns millions of able-bodied men and women to a life of enforced inactivity, when their labour and skills are required to satisfy the needs of the population? Do we not need more schools and hospitals? Do we not need good roads and houses? Are the infrastructure and transport systems not in need of repair and improvement?

The answer to all these questions is well known to everybody. But the reply of the ruling class is always the same: we cannot afford these things. Now everybody knows that this answer is false. We now know that governments can produce extraordinary sums of money when it suits the interests of the wealthy minority who own and control the banks and industries. It is only when the majority of working people request that their needs are attended to that the government argues that the money is not available.

What does this prove? It proves that in the system in which we live the profits of the few are more important than the needs of the many. It proves that the whole productive system is based on one thing and one thing only: the profit motive, or, put plainly, greed.

“We need an ethical revolution. Instead of placing money above human beings, we shall put it back to our service. We are people, not products. I am not a product of what I buy, why I buy and who I buy from.”

Comment: The only solution to the problems listed here is the overthrow of the present corrupt and unjust system and its replacement by a genuinely humane, rational and democratic society, which is genuine socialism or communism. In order to achieve this end, however, what is needed is a fundamental change in society – a revolution.

The Manifesto speaks of an “ethical revolution”. But this formulation is too vague. The ethics of a given society reflect the economic base of that society. If we accept an economic system based on profit, we must accept the ethics that flow from this: “each for himself and let the devil take the hindermost.”

A cannibalistic society will inevitably have cannibalistic ethics. Before we can have humane ethics we must have a society based on genuine human relations. The prior condition for an ethical revolution is a social revolution.

“For all of the above, I am outraged.
I think I can change it.
I think I can help,
I know that together we can. I think I can help.
I know that together we can.”

This conclusion contains a most important lesson. It tells us that whereas I, as a single individual, am powerless, there is no power on earth that can withstand the masses, once they are mobilized and organized for the revolutionary transformation of society. That is the lesson of Tunisia and Egypt. The working class has in its hands a colossal power: not a light bulb shines, not a wheel turns, and not a telephone rings without our permission.

Advanced conclusions

The most important thing is that the youth is on the move, and through the experience of concrete struggle the conclusions that the movement as a whole is drawing are becoming more advanced and are coming more openly into conflict with the capitalist system itself. Thus, at the demonstration in Madrid on Tuesday, in protest against the brutal eviction of the camp that same morning, the following slogans could be heard: “it is not the crisis, it is the system”, “the revolution, has begun”, “they call it democracy and it is not”, and also the slogans from the 1970s Chilean movement: “el pueblo unido jamás sera vencido” (the people united would never be defeated), “luchar, crear, poder popular” (to fight, to build, peoples’ power).


The manifesto adopted by the tens of thousands present at Plaza del Sol in Madrid on May 18 was certainly a step forward. Amongst other things it recognised the political character of the movement: “we have lost respect for the main political parties, but we have not lost our ability to criticise. On the contrary we are not afraid of politics. To express an opinion is politics. To look for alternative ways to participate is politics”. It also clarified that it did not call for an abstention in the elections, but rather it demanded that “voting would have a real impact in our lives”. The manifesto also clearly identified those responsible for “the situation we face: the IMF, the European Central Bank, the European Union, the credit rating agencies like Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, the Popular Party and the PSOE, ” amongst others. Some are also questioning the Monarchy as an institution and arguing it should be put to a referendum.

Now the Electoral Junta has declared that no protests on Saturday (the “day of reflection” before elections day in which no political propaganda is allowed) and Sunday (election day itself) will be allowed. This is a direct challenge to the movement. The only effect of the repression in Madrid on Tuesday 17, and the banning of the demonstration on Wednesday 18 has been to radicalise and spread the movement. Demonstrations in provincial capitals have doubled in size in the last few days and tent camps have sprung everywhere. There is now a call for everyone to remain in the squares from midnight today, thus defying the prohibition of demonstrations.

The Spanish ruling class is faced with a difficult choice: if they use repression to enforce the decision to ban the demonstrations then they can provoke a social explosion, if they do not, then the movement will have won a victory and shown the power of the masses as opposed to the power of the official institutions. Vice-president Rubalcaba was today trying to square the circle by arguing that the fact that people gather despite gatherings being banned, “is not a reason enough for the police to intervene unless there is violence”

We Marxists welcome the protests of the youth. We express our wholehearted solidarity with the protest movement and call on the working class to support it actively. It is time to use the power of the working class to change society. It is time to put an end to all prevarications, unprincipled deals and compromises. Stop trying to prop up a diseased and moribund system! It is time to unite and fight! This is the real meaning of the Spanish protests and the May 15 Movement.

Long live the Spanish protests!

Long live the May 15 Movement!

*A Slight Irving Howe Confession-The Sins Of An Ex- Social Democrat

Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's copy of the chapter on "Dual Power" from Trotsky's "The History Of The Russian Revolution" mentioned below in today's entry.

Commentary

In two recent commentaries I have done my fair share of kicking Professor Irving Howe, the late social democratic editor of the intellectual quarterly magazine "Dissent", around. And I am not finished by any means. (See "The Retreat of the “Greatest Generation” Intellectuals" and "Who ‘Lost’ the Sixties?" in the May 2008 archives) But today, as this is as is oft-quoted a confessional age, I have a confession, or rather two confessions, to make about my connections to Irving Howe. So for the time that it takes to write this commentary up I will call an armed truce with the shades of the professor.

Confession #1- in the mist of time of my youth I actually used to like to read "Dissent". The articles were interesting, and as we were too poor for the family to afford a subscription, I spent many an hour reading through back issues at the local public library. I make no pretense that I understood all that was in each article and some that I re-read latter left me cold but there you have it.

Probably the most impressive article I read was Norman Mailer’s "White Negro". I could relate to the violence and sense of 'hipness' that was hidden just under the surface of the article, especially the violence as it was not that far removed from that in my own poor white working class neighborhood, although I probably would not have articulated it that way at the time. Interestingly, Professor Sorin in his Howe biography notes that Howe thought the article was a mistake for "Dissent" to publish for that very homage to violence implicit in the article. That now says it all.

The funny thing about reading "Dissent", at the time, thinking about it now, was that I was personally nothing more than a Kennedy liberal and thought that the magazine reflected that New Frontier liberalism. I was somewhat shocked when I found out later that it was suppose to be an independent 'socialist' magazine. Most of my political positions at the time were far to the left of what was being presented there editorially, especially on international issues. I might add that I also had an odd political dichotomy in those days toward those to the left of my own liberalism. I was very indulgent toward communists but really hated socialists, really social democrats. Go figure. Must have been something in the water.


Confession#2- Irving Howe actually acted, unintentionally, as my recruiting sergeant to the works of Leon Trotsky that eventually led to my embrace of a Trotskyist world view. As I noted last year I have been a Marxist since 1972. But after some 150 years of Marxism claiming to be a Marxist is only the beginning of wisdom. One has to find the modern thread that continues in the spirit of the founders. This year marks my 35th year as a follower of Leon Trotsky. Back in 1972, as part of trying to find a political path to modern Marxism I picked up a collection of socialist works edited by Professor Howe. In that compilation was an excerpt from Trotsky’s "History of the Russian Revolution", a section called "On Dual Power". I read it, and then re-read it. Next day I went out to scrounge up a copy of the whole work. And the rest is history. So, thanks, Professor Howe- now back to the polemical wars- the truce is over.

Poets' Corner- A Poem To While The Class Struggle By- Claude Mckay's "If We Must Die" -In Honor Of The Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (March 1919)

Poets' Corner- A Poem To While The Class Struggle By- Claude Mckay's "If We Must Die" -In Honor Of The Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (March 1919)


Markin comment:

Sometimes a poem (or a song, play, or picture, but usually a poem) says more in a few lines than all the "high" communist propaganda we throw out about the stakes for our side in the class struggle. Claude McKay's If We Must Die is one of them.

If We Must Die by Claude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

*RANDOM NOTES ON THE WORKERS PARTY QUESTION AND WORK IN THE TRADE UNIONS

Click on title to link to a Leon Trotsky 1938 article on a discussion with leaders of the American Socialist Workers Party on the Labor Party question as it pertained to America.

COMMENTARY

BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM

I have spent a good deal of my political life waging a propaganda campaign here in America in favor of an independent workers party with a program that fights for a workers government, socialism. I have no regrets about that work although I have had more than my share of disappointments over the small inroads made toward that goal. But whining is not what I want to do here. I have received various communications over the past period asking about the whys and wherefores of the workers party question in America and elsewhere and about militant work in the trade unions. Here I make some historical comments and general observations about the work. I will deal with tactical questions at another time.

Let us be clear on this from the outset, calls for formation of a generic workers party are part of the tactics that revolutionaries in America, and elsewhere where such parties do not exist, are appropriate in order to anchor their program and gain a hearing from the more class conscious workers. In the best of all possible left-wing political worlds where working people have developed a level of political class consciousness sufficient to begin flocking to revolutionary parties we would not have to raise the question of a workers party. And there is the rub. Raising the workers party question is a reflection of the apparently undying weakness that the American trade union bureaucracies have for the capitalist Democratic Party (and on occasion a scattering of support for its sister capitalist party, the Republicans) and the weakness of left-wing forces in trying to break that allegiance.

Simply put, unless one assumes some kind of stagist theory of working class organizational development, which this writer does not subscribe to, there is nothing to preclude mass recruitment to a revolutionary organization under proper conditions, like a successful mass trade union organizing drive at Walmart or in the South. To put this point in perspective can one imagine the Bolsheviks in 1917 calling for a mass workers party? Christ, they were the mass workers party (and the class struggle was so 'hot' at the time that there were working class elements to their left who thought the Bolsheviks were unnecessarily dragging their feet on the subject of the seizure of power and wanted to form a ‘real’ mass revolutionary workers party to do so).

To bring this point closer to home there were periods in the 1930’s in America when the workers party question was shelved by revolutionaries because it was possible to recruit the best militants straight to revolutionary organizations. Thus, when we raise the workers party question in the year 2007 it reflects an understanding that we live in tough times for the labor movement. But, as the old Wobbly labor agitator Joe Hill is alleged to have said before he was executed for his labor activities out in Utah in the early 1900’s- “Don’t Mourn, Organize”.

It may be informative to contrast the political tasks that confront American militants with those in, let’s say, Britain where there is a ‘worker's party’, the British Labor Party, that as of this date administers the British imperial state. Despite the changes in that party brought about by one Anthony Blair, in an attempt to make it conform more to a trans –class party like the Democratic Party in the United States, at its core today the British Labor Party is still a working class party, although a clearly reformist one. The British Labor Party has a long and checkered history but mainly it serves as an example of what militants do not want to build. Sure, sure, every British militant today should be a member of the Labor Party in order to get any kind of hearing from the best trade union militants there but their main task is to split the Labor Party and create a ‘new’ workers party that will fight for a workers government. Obviously, that is no simple task given the extreme loyalty of the average British worker to that party. In that sense the tasks in America and Britain, as well as elsewhere are essentially the same.

Someone once told me this little nugget of political wisdom and I hope I have learned it well. Tell me the programmatic basis of your party and I will tell you what kind of party you have. He then proceeded to rattle off various party programs and bowled me over with how close his characterizations came to the type of party he was describing. Sure, innocent political mistakes will be made, and sometimes even conscious ones. Sometimes the whims of personal predilection will twist about the program. Sometimes when confronted with the reality of the class struggle it will fly away in the winds. But, note this well, in the end that damn program is decisive.

If one looks at the latest program of the British Labor Party one will note that even if the greatest amount of class struggle since the Russian Revolution swept through the British Isles that party would stand foursquare in defense of Her Majesty’s capitalist imperial system. Yes, Ma’m. The point is this- if the program of your workers party does not lead to a workers government then you will wind up like the British Labor Party-tied as it is to the monarch, nobility and the state church. Hell, even Cromwell, that consummate bourgeois revolutionary, knew you had to get rid of those things if you wanted to push society forward-and that was over three hundred and fifty years ago!

Those even slightly familiar with American labor history know that the 1930’s represented the last widespread and successful organization of the working class. It was also the time of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reign. Some labor bureaucrats, knowing that many militants would refuse to support Roosevelt under the Democratic banner, organized an organization called the American Labor Party, which was essentially a vehicle for steering militant and socialist votes to Roosevelt. Needless to say our conception of a workers party has nothing in common with that electoral scheme. You can be sure, however, that some bright labor bureaucrat (and there are a few), if there is a labor upsurge will drag out a 21st century model of that moribund organization.


The obvious place to propagandize for a workers party is in the trade unions. I would like to round out my thoughts by observing that the only real way to make an impact on the unions and to break them from their reformist (at best) leadership is to form a caucus within the union based on a program. In that sense the union caucus is the workers party in embryo. Here again all experience has showed that if one does not base oneself on a program one is kind of doomed to failure. A million guys and gals have started out as militants only to burn out, be co-opted by the bureaucracy, or fall silent without such an anchor. If the goal is to bring political consciousness to the working class then it is necessary to have a political program. Yes, yes by all means every militant is the best defending of the day-to-day needs of their fellow workers and defender of democratic rights but one must go beyond that to educate about the need to take power.


Elsewhere in this space I have presented some talking points for the program of a workers party (see the archives under A Modest Proposal for a Workers Party). Here are a few for a trade union caucus. Today, the central question is the war in Iraq and therefore it is necessary to take a position on that in the unions. Sure, plenty of unions these days have ‘paper’ resolutions against the war. However it is necessary to move to action, and fast. I have presented elsewhere my point about building anti-war soldier and sailor committees and that could be fought for here. Moreover, a critical point for the independence of the trade unions is to vote against support to capitalist party candidates. Today, also, in some recent cases this is a desperate necessity, for a fight in support of immigrant rights and organizing the unorganized. More latter.