*From The "SteveLendmanBlog"- Global Sweatshop Wage Slavery

Click on the headline to link to a "SteveLendmanBlog" entry, a report on the world wage scale, aptly termed sweatshop.

Markin comment:

Karl Marx said it long, too long ago- not a fair day's wage but abolish wages. He spent his life also saying, and more to the point for us- don't just analyze the world, do something about it. And you know what that means.

*From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Communist Future-In Honor Of The Three L’s-In Honor Of Karl Liebknecht-Revolutionary Socialism in Germany(1916)

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  


Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.  

Markin comment:

One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.

There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
********
Karl Liebknecht
Revolutionary Socialism in Germany

Source: The Social Revolution in Germany, by Louis C. Fraina, The Revolutionary Age Publishers, 1919
Transcription: Sally Ryan for Marxists Internet Archive
Markup: John Wagner for Marxists Internet Archive
Online Version: Karl Liebknecht Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2002

Note: Karl Liebknecht was sent to prison by the government of the Kaiser for four and one-half years because of propaganda against the war. Released from prison by the Revolution, Liebknecht is now the dynamic individual expression of the Revolution.

On August 4, 1914, the representatives of the Social-Democratic Party in the Reichstag, speaking through their official spokesman, Hugo Haase, approved and voted for the first war credit. On the second credit, Karl Liebknecht voted "No!" On December 21, 1915, eighteen Social Democratic representatives, the Haase-Ledebour Group, voted against the fifth war credit, and on March 21, 1916, they voted against a special credit. This created a storm, the eighteen were expelled from the Social Democratic Party.

Many Socialists considered that these eighteen represented revolutionary Socialism, that they voted against the war because of revolutionary convictions. This was not the fact, as Karl Liebknecht makes amply clear in this article to the comrades, written after March 21, almost two years ago.

The eighteen of the Haase-Ledebour group subsequently organized the Independent Socialist Party. This party was neither one thing nor the other; it was against the war, but not on definite Socialist issues; it wanted to go back to the days before August 4, instead of forward to the new tactics and the new International. Liebknecht and other revolutionary Socialists in Germany attacked this party; and today the Independent Socialist Party, by its wavering and essentially counter-revolutionary policy, is confirming the analysis Liebknecht makes in this article of their tendency. The intellectual expression of this party is Karl Kautsky, the moderate and compromiser, the man who manufactured one theoretical justification after another for the Social Democratic Party's abandonment of Socialist principles, the man who declared four years ago that all Socialists were justified in supporting their governments since all nations were on the defensive.

This article of Liebknecht's is an historic document and deserves the serious study of every Socialist.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What was the meaning of March 24, 1916? The eighteen delegates who finally decided on December 21, 1915, to vote against the first war credit, voted on March 24th openly against the proposed special war budget. While in December they issued a "declaration," they now gave the motives for their vote in a speech. The content of this speech, however, did not go beyond the declaration of December. Even the excuse that Germany was safe against invasion was again brought forward. What was it then that caused a sensation on March 24th? It was the wild uproar of the Socialist majority, together with the bourgeois parties, the infamous attitude of the president, the expulsion of the eighteen from the official party parliamentary group. But in this action, the eighteen were "object" and not "subject"; this action was forced upon them and they disliked a rupture so much, that they tried their best to avoid, still in January, 1916, an open break with the treacherous majority, as well as tumultuous scenes against bourgeois parties. And even now on March 24, 1916, they play the part of offended innocence rather than that of showing the clenched fist of rebellion.

What, then, is the meaning of March 24th? A true opinion can only be formed in connection with the general situation. The new Arbeitsgemeinschaft are the same eighteen, the "neither flesh nor fish" policy of whom proved a failure in December and again in the submarine issue on March 22nd, and again in discussions March 23rd. Could you expect the lambs of yesterday to become all of a sudden lions?

Just now the so-called Losenblätter (loose leaflets) are published by comrades affiliated with the group of the eighteen. These leaflets do not even mention the important fundamental problems which are at stake. Direct taxes instead of indirect ones are about the highest wisdom of the program of taxation of the eighteen in the midst of the world war! They do not show any deeper insight into the problem of taxation. They do not even see as was stated in the resolution of the Convention in Chemnitz, that direct taxes can as well be saddled upon the masses and that the decision as to what part of the burden will rest on each class, finally is a problem of political power, not a problem of tax reform; that it depends upon the political and economical situation as a whole, the tax policy being an organic part of the general policy. They do not even see, that the best possible direct tax on top of a system of indirect taxes may easily become a fig leaf of the system and a barrier against a thorough reorganization of the system of indirect taxes. Under the heading "How long will it last," the loose leaflets of the eighteen talk about war in sentimental language, without saying a word about the imperialistic causes of the war. The war is considered due to stupidity of the rulers! They give as highest wisdom the theory that Imperialism has led to a deadlock out of which the Governments cannot find an escape, so that they need the advice of the loose leaflets...a pitiable mixup indeed!

And what about the stand of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft in the first test in the budget committee? Two days prior to the expulsion, this group did not take any decisive stand on the submarine issue. Now the delegate in the budget committee argued, on humanitarian declarations about the horror of the war, against the sinking of vessels without warning. No understanding was shown that the submarine issue is first of all decided by the ultimate aim of the war, as the result of a struggle of groups of capitalists for the control of the war-policy according to the sharpening of the war political situation, and a fight for political power in home policy, in which the scene was carefully prepared to stage Bethman-Wollweg as a liberal and moderate Imperialist, in order to facilitate the treacherous policy of the leaders of the party and labor unions. The delegate of the eighteen even went so far as to advocate again the abolition of the right of confiscation, to attack the English capitalists instead of the German Government at a moment in which this latter Government capitulated before the most unscrupulous war fanatics and needed the most energetic opposition. This policy means a continuance of the Baralong policy of Ledebour on January 15th.

Whether all of the eighteen and all of the "official" opposition in Berlin accept the responsibility for the loose leaflets and the policy of their delegates or not — a group, leaders of which express such opinions, are very far from a policy on principles, although they may claim so loudly. The formal combination of all kinds of indefinite oppositional feelings and motives is always a great danger, especially so in a time of world changes. This means confusion and dragging along on old lines, it sterilizes and kills the militant elements which get into this mixed company. What must be the conclusion from all this?

The warning against uncritical overestimating of the action of the eighteen and of the events on March 24th. The warning, to keep your eyes open, not to forget that if we should join the eighteen unconditionally, this would mean the surest way to make the new group a shield to cover the governmental policy, and to make the 24th of March a mere phantom, just as December 21st has already become a ghostly historic event. In so far as March 24th means progress, this is to a great extent due to the uncompromising critics of all half-heartedness; it confirms the efficiency of these critics on the strengthening of the oppositional spirit.

The tactic of endless consideration and avoiding of conflicts and decisions is damned by the events on March 24th. In the turmoil of a world war all compromising breaks miserably together. Whoever tries to move around between warring armies will be shot from both sides, unless he saves his life in time by joining one party or the other, where, however, he will be received not as a hero, but as a fugitive. The way of the eighteen was a round about way, and not a pleasant one either. Not one advantage worth while to a serious man in this serious period has been gained by this delay.

The masses were ripe for the test already at the beginning of the war. They would not have failed. The only result of the hesitation and doubt has been the strengthening of poisonous opportunism.

Clear cut principles, uncompromising fighting, whole-hearted decision!

Uncompromising Socialist action against the war, against those who caused it, who profit by it, who want to continue to support the war! Also against the supporters of those who slander the name of Social Democrats. Against the policy of the majority, against the National Committee and the Executive Committee of the party, against the Central Committee of the labor unions and all instances of the party and the unions that carry this treacherous policy. To counteract this policy with all means is now the main issue of the war against war. A struggle to gain the majority against the party, misrepresented by the demagogues of the majority. A struggle for democracy in the party, for the rights of the masses of the comrades, against the failing and treacherous leaders, who form the main supporters of the war. Against all of those who in peace time have played into the hands of militarism by opposing mass action in favor of law and order, and who now hang around in the waiting rooms of the army headquarters and the imperial ministers.

Now is the moment to throw away all formal considerations. The party machinery is used ever more and more without scruple by the bureaucrats to enforce their policy. Autocratic decisions are standard features in the party. After the methods of von Puttkamer, power is used to force the opposition, the meanest methods of Prussian-Russian policy brutality are used by the party leaders against the minority. The independence of the party press is disregarded with growing brutality by the so-called party majority. Even the censorship of martial law is beaten by the docile scholars of the military terror of the official Socialist party. War against this party all along the line, to conquer the party for the party! War against the traitors and usurpers, who must be driven from their jobs by mandates laden with the disgust of the workers!

Reconquering of the party from the bottom up through revolt of the masses, who will have to take their organization into their own hands! Not only words, but deeds! Away with all doubt and cowardice! Away with half friends, feeble lily of the swamp! Away with half friends, feeble mindedness and sentimentalists! Those are out of place where the fight is heart against heart. The struggle for a decision in the party is on! It must be fought without and consideration for the sacrilegists, the traitors, the deserters from Socialism.

To the present system of party politics, not a man and not a cent, but a fight to a finish. Those who are not with us in this fight will be considered against us!

*From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Communist Future-In Honor Of The Three L’s-In Honor Of Karl Liebknecht-The Main Enemy Is At Home!(1915)

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  


Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.  

Markin comment:

One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.

There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
**********
Karl Liebknecht
The Main Enemy Is At Home!
(Leaflet, May 1915)


Source: Karl Liebknecht, Ausgewählte Reden und Aufsätze (Selected Speeches and Essays), Berlin 1952, pp. 296-301.
Transcription: Einde O’Callaghan for Marxists' Internet Archive
Translation and Markup: John Wagner for Marxists' Internet Archive
Online Version: Karl Liebknecht Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2002



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What has been expected every day for the past ten months, since the Austrian invasion of Serbia, has come to pass: There is war with Italy.

The masses in the warring countries have begun to free themselves from the official webs of lies. The German people as well have gained insight about the causes and objectives of the world war, about who is directly responsible for its outbreak. The mad delusions about the "holy aims" of the war have given way more and more, the enthusiasm for the war has dwindled, the will for a rapid peace has grown powerfully all over – even in the Army!

This was a difficult problem for the German and Austrian imperialists, who were seeking in vain for salvation. Now it seems they have found it. Italy's intervention in the war should offer them a welcome opportunity to stir up new frenzies of national hatred, to smother the will for peace, and to blur the traces of their own guilt. They are betting on the forgetfulness of the German people, betting on their forbearance which has been tested all too often.

If this plan succeeds, the results of ten months of bloody experience will be made worthless, and the international proletariat will once again be disarmed and completely discarded as an independent political factor.

This plan must be wrecked – provided that the part of the German proletariat which has remained true to international socialism remains mindful and worthy of its historical mission in this monstrous time.

The enemies of the people are counting on the forgetfulness of the masses – we counter this with the solution:

Learn everything, don't forget anything!
Don't forget anything!

We have seen how when war broke out, the masses were captured for the capitalist aims of the war with enticing melodies from the ruling classes. We have seen how the shiny bubbles of demagogy burst, how the foolish dreams of August vanished, how, instead of happiness, suffering and misery came over the people; how the tears of war widows and war orphans swelled to great currents; how the maintenance of the three-class disgrace, the unrepentant canonization of the Quadrinity – semi-absolutism, junker rule, militarism, and police despotism – became bitter truth.

Through this experience we have been warned – learn everything, don't forget anything!

Offensive are the tirades with which Italian imperialism glosses over its pillaging; offensive is that roman tragicomedy in which the now-common grimace of the Burgfrieden ("civil truce") is present. More offensive still is that in all of this we can recognize, as if reflected in a mirror, the German and Austrian methods of July and August 1914.

The Italian instigators of war deserve every denunciation. But they are nothing but copies of the German and Austrian instigators, the ones who are chiefly responsible for the outbreak of war. Birds of a feather!

Whom can the German people thank for this new affliction?
From whom can they demand explanation for the new piles of bodies which will tower up?

It is still the case: The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia from July 23, 1914 was the spark that ignited the world, even if the fire was very late in spreading to Italy.

It is still the case: This ultimatum was the signal for the redistribution of the world, and by necessity called on all capitalist pillager-states to participate in the plan.

It is still the case: This ultimatum contained in it the question of the dominance over the Balkans, Asia Minor, and all of the Mediterranean, and therefore contained all the antagonisms between Austria-Germany and Italy in one stroke.

If the German and Austrian imperialists now try to hide themselves behind the scenery of Italian pillaging and the backdrop of Italian disloyalty; when they don on the toga of moral indignation and aggrieved innocence, while in Rome they have found nothing but their equals, then they deserve the cruelest scorn.

The rule "Don't forget anything" applies to how the German people were just manipulated in the Italian question by the very honorable German patriots.

The Triple Alliance treaty wth Italy has always been a farce – you were all deceived about that!

The experts have always known that in the case of war Italy would be a certain opponent of Austria and Germany – you were led to believe it would be a certain confederate!

A good part of Germany's fate in world politics was decided in the Triple Alliance treaty, which was signed and renewed without your consultation – till the present day not one letter of this treaty has been shared with you.

The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, with which a small clique took all of humanity by surprise, broke the treaty between Austria and Italy – you were told nothing of this.

This ultimatum was given with the express condemnation of Italy – that was kept secret from you.

On May 4 of this year Italy dissolved the alliance with Austria – until May 18 this crucial fact was withheld from the German and Austrian people, yes, in spite of the truth it was directly denied by the officials – a parallel to the intentional duping of the German people and the German Reichstag about Germany's ultimatum to Belgium from August 2, 1914.

You were given no influence on Germany and Austria's negotiations with Italy, on which Italy's intervention depended. You were treated as sheep in this vital question, while the war party, the secret diplomacy, a handful of people in Berlin and Vienna rolled the dice about the fate of Germany.

The torpedoing of the Lusitania not only consolidated the power of the English, French, and Russian war parties, it invited a grave conflict with the United States, and set all neutral countries against Germany with passionate indignation; it also facilitated the disastrous work of the Italian war party right in the critical moment – the German people had to be quiet about this as well; the iron fist of the state of siege was held around their throats.

Already in March of this year peace negotiations could have been initiated – the offer was made by England – but the greed for profit of the German imperialists led this to be rejected. Promising peace endeavors were thwarted by German parties interested in colonial conquest on a grand scale and in the annexation of Belgium and French Lorraine, by capitalists of the big German shipping companies, and by the agitators of the German heavy industry.

This was also kept secret from the German people, once again you were not consulted about it.

We ask – whom can the German people thank for the continuation of the horrid war and for the intervention of Italy? Who else but the irresponsible people at home who are responsible.

Learn everything, don't forget anything!
For thinking people, Italy's imitation of Germany's actions from summer of last year cannot be a spur for new war frenzies, just an impetus to scare away the phantom hopes of a new dawn of political and social justice, just a new light for the illumination of the political responsibilities and the exposure of the public danger presented by the Austrian and German pursuers of war, just a new indictment of them.

But the rule "Learn and don't forget" applies most of all to the heroic struggle against the war that our Italian comrades have fought and still fight. Struggles in the press, in meetings, in street demonstrations, struggles with revolutionary energy and boldness, defying with heart and soul the rabid crash of nationalist waves which were whipped up by the authorities. Our most enthusiastic congratulations for their struggle. Let their spirit be our example! Provide that it should be the example of the International!

Had it been since those August days, the world would be better off. The international proletariat would be better off.

But the resolute will to fight cannot come too late!
The absurd slogan "stick it out" has hit rock bottom; it leads only deeper and deeper into the maelstrom of genocide. International proletarian class struggle against international imperialist genocide is the socialist commandment of the hour.

The main enemy of every people is in their own country!
The main enemy of the German people is in Germany: German imperialism, the German war party, German secret diplomacy. This enemy at home must be fought by the German people in a political struggle, cooperating with the proletariat of other countries whose struggle is against their own imperialists.

We think as one with the German people – we have nothing in common with the German Tirpitzes and Falkenhayns, with the German government of political oppression and social enslavement. Nothing for them, everything for the German people. Everything for the international proletariat, for the sake of the German proletariat and downtrodden humanity.

The enemies of the working class are counting on the forgetfulness of the masses – provide that that be a grave miscalculation. They are betting on the forbearance of the masses – but we raise the vehement cry:

How long should the gamblers of imperialism abuse the patience of the people? Enough and more than enough slaughter! Down with the war instigators here and abroad!

An end to genocide!
Proletarians of all countries, follow the heroic example of your Italian brothers! Ally yourselves to the international class struggle against the conspiracies of secret diplomacy, against imperialism, against war, for peace with in the socialist spirit.

The main enemy is at home!

*From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Communist Future-In Honor Of The Three L’s-In Honor Of Karl Liebknecht-Liebknecht’s Protest Against the War Credits(1914)

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  


Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.  


Markin comment:

One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.
*********
Karl Liebknecht 1914

Liebknecht’s Protest Against the War Credits


Source: Liebknecht “Liebknecht’s Protest Against the War Credits,” Justice, 17th December 1914, p.1;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

The “Berner Tagewacht” publishes the full text of Karl Liebknecht’s protest in the Reichstag against the voting of the war credits. The protest was suppressed in the Reichstag, and no German paper has published it. It appears that seventeen Social-Democratic members expressed their opposition to the credits on December 2, but Karl Liebknecht’s was the only vote recorded against them.

Liebknecht’s protest declares that “this war, which none of the peoples involved desired, was not started for the benefit of the German or of any other people. It is an Imperialist war, a war for capitalist domination of the world markets and for the political domination of the important countries in the interest of industrial and financial capitalism. Arising out of the armament race, it is a preventative war provoked by the German and Austrian war parties in the obscurity of semi-absolutism and of secret diplomacy.

“It is also a Buonapartist attempt tending to demoralise and destroy the growing Labour movement.”

“The German word of command ‘against Czarismus,’ like the English or French word of command ‘against militarism,’ has been the means of bringing forth the most noble instincts, the revolutionary traditions and hopes of the peoples, for the purpose of hatred among the peoples. Accomplice of ‘Czarismus,’ Germany, a model country of political reaction, possesses not the qualities necessary to play the part of a liberator of peoples ...

“This war is not a defensive war for Germany. Its historical character and the succeeding events make it impossible for us to trust a capitalist Government when it declares that it is for the defence of the country that it asks for the credits.

“A peace made as soon as possible and which will humiliate no one is what must be demanded. All efforts in that direction should be supported. A simultaneous and continual demand for such peace in all the belligerent countries will be able to stop the bloody massacre before the complete exhaustion of all the peoples concerned .....”

Liebknecht concludes his protest by declaring that he will vote in favour of anything that will lighten the hard lot of “our brothers on the field of battle, and those wounded and sick, for whom I have the warmest compassion .... But my protest is against the war, against those responsible for it, against those who are directing it; against the capitalistic ends for which it is being pursued, against the violation of the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg, against military dictation, and against the complete neglect of social and political duties of which the Government and the dominant class are guilty to-day.”


There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.

In Honor Of The 100th Anniversary Of The Founding of The Communist International-From The Archives- Iraq Redux In Afghanistan-The Missing Guns?

Commentary

One of the nice things about these modern information technologies like word processors and data retrieval systems is that one can have easy access to his or her earlier work and therefore avoid starting from scratch on every commentary. That is the case with this comment. I have reposted an entry in this space from August 11, 2007. It concerns the question of missing weapons and their fate in that old, almost forgotten, Iraq war posed by the General Accounting Office (GAO) at that time. Recently I picked up a news item from “The Boston Globe” (via “Baltimore Sun”), dated February 13, 2009, concerning this same question posed by this same agency. Except the question is directed to missing guns in Afghanistan in the lead up to the Obama policy that is set to escalate the war there with an increased American troop presence. So, as I said previously, in the interest of “saving” cyberspace I have reposted the old comment. Just put in Afghanistan where I have Iraq and you’ll get the gist of the recent story. As to the numbers, well, the Afghanistan numbers are about 90,000 but who’s worried about the real numbers? Not the GAO, and not Obama. Read on.


August 11, 2007

“Where Did Those AK-47’s Go?

Apparently the American military juggernaut is arming both sides in the Iraqi conflict. What? Well, news has recently come out from the General Accounting Office (GAO) that something like 200, 000 AK-47 assault rifles- the most popular (and useful) weapon in the world for the common soldier- are missing along with plenty of other war material. Now a few thousand rifles mislaid in a war is just ‘breakage’ as they say in the shipping business. 200, 000 missing rifles (enough for several divisions in conventional military terms) that are suppose to be in the hands of the Iraqi security forces , however, is quite another matter. The Pollyanna-ish GAO is worried that such quantities might fall into the wrong hands, that is, the various insurgency groups operating in Iraq. Hello! One can be damn well sure that one way or another, through the black market, stealing or by being given them by those selfsame Iraqi security forces that a significant number have found, or will find, their way into insurgent hands. If we needed one more reason to call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq here it is, in living color.”

Needless to say, Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops From Iraq AND Afghanistan!

Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King OF The Beats" Jack Kerouac-***From The Atmosphere- Not Class Struggle, But Kali Ma- What?

Click on the headline to link to a Kali Ma entry culled from Boston Indymedia  Web site that has the class struggle approach to reality beat six ways to Sunday.

Markin comment:

I, and not I alone, have spilled much cyber-ink over the last several years bemoaning the low level of class struggle in America (by our side, the other side has gone full throttle) in the face of permanent war, bloated military budgets, rampant unemployment, housing foreclosures, social welfare budget cuts and general social ugliness from questions of race, sex, and ethnicity to public mores. Of course, that bemoaning has been done under the rubric of trying, desperately trying, to organize the laboring masses to rise up and smite the oppressor. The real, namable, oppressor- the mad imperialist-driven capitalist bourgeoisie.

Apparently those efforts have been nothing but a fool’s errand as the linked entry culled from the Boston Indymedia Web site testifies to. All that is necessary to smite that oppressor is to chant to Kali Ma, and, someone, someone from California, naturally, has come up with the idea to do just that. On the old grounds of People’s Park in Berkeley where some very real, and bloody, battles against that self-same oppressor and its local agents were fought in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Be still my heart though. I am as willing as the next guy to evoke the shades of om-master, mad beat poet Allen Ginsberg in order to change society- if it works. Unfortunately, for all the chanting, for the bell-ringing, for all the mantra-evoking it took the Vietnamese liberation armed forces to end the Vietnam War. It took plant occupations and picket line street battles to gain trade union recognition in America. It took taking to the streets and the taking of many casualties to gain black civil rights. And all those battles, as today’s social scene bears witness to, were only partial and reversal gains. So, no thank you, I will continue the “old-fashioned” way, the old fashioned chanting- fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. Let old evil Kali Ma take her chances against that.

On The 100th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-*From The Frontlines Of The Anti-Afghan War Struggle- On The Slogan- “Down With The Obama Government”- A Commentary

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  


Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.  


Click on the title to link to the Karl Liebknecht Internet Archive's copy of his protest against the granting of war credits to the German government DURING World War I.

From the front lines of the anti-Afghan war struggle, such as it is.


Markin comment on this link:

This is the time for radicals and other anti-war activists to review the work of Karl Liebknecht, the great German internationalist revolutionary, as we face many of the same political problems that he had to confront with a capitalist government hellbent on war and escalation of war, including, in our case, the question of parliamentary opposition to the executive branch's war budget.

Markin comment:

Recently, while attending one of several impromptu ad hoc demonstrations in Boston called to protest the escalation of the latest American imperial adventure, Obama’s massive troop surge in Afghanistan, I fell into a discussion with a young militant I met there who has been carrying a poster that read – “Down With The Obama Government”. While such a homemade poster should gladden the heart of every old time anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist militant (and every new militant, as well) I argued with her, and I argue here that such a slogan is clearly premature. And here is why I think so.

I have made something of a truism in this space of the fact that politics, and that includes revolutionary politics, is many, if not most, times a matter of timing. That is the case here. To help illustrate that proposition I will give just a couple of pieces of information about this woman’s own political trajectory that I think demonstrates my case for the prematureness of her slogan. Budding militant X , in 2008, became as a freshman at a local Boston college an ardent supporter of, and campaign worker, for the presidential campaign of one Barack Obama. Apparently there was no job too small or place too far away that she would not go to on behalf of his candidacy.

Her reasoning, as she immersed herself emerged fully into the political battlefield, for supporting Obama need not detain us here, although that is an interesting story for another time as it somewhat parallels my own checkered youthful political evolution. As she related her story about her hours of campaigning and the places she had gone let’s just say that I not mistakenly realized that she is a fellow political ‘junkie’. In any case, Ms. X had high hopes, especially for Obama’s peace platform, as least as she understood it. By February of this year, with Obama’s deployment of some 20,000 additional troops to Afghanistan just shortly after his inauguration, she was very worried. This latest troop escalation put her into opposition on the streets.

Hey, this is a nice conversion for our side. This, my friends, is the kind of human material we need to recruit as we gather cadre for our future anti-war, anti-capitalist struggles, right? Right. But this saga of a youthful disillusioned liberal seems to me to be exactly the point. We are just now in the beginning of a period that should see the breaking, among some, of illusions in the Obama government. We, certainly, will add to that process with our own timely propaganda (including the use of this example) but this is where we are realistically- in the process of accruing a critical mass of fervent anti-imperialist, anti-war militants.

I strongly emphasize again, we are not there now- not by a long shot. So take another look at that slogan- “Down With The Obama Government”. What could that mean today? It could only mean some alternate form of Democratic Party administration of the executive branch of government (A Biden government?). Or, more realistically, some “Tea Party”-style Republican administration. Egad- we damn sure do not want that.

For those of us who have some acquaintance with revolutionary history, we know that this kind of slogan certainly has had its uses. In a pre-revolutionary or revolutionary period, as most famously demonstrated by the Bolsheviks in their agitation and propaganda in the spring and summer of 1917 during the Russian revolution, a variation of this slogan can have great effect. Unfortunately, as the old saying goes," times ain’t now nothing like they used to be”.

So, here is what I propose (and I did so, in a kidding and gentle manner) to Ms. X. Store that poster for now and help us get the American and other Allied troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq (and the world). Victory in that effort will go a long way towards fulfilling the reality expressed in her slogan. One day we will unwrap that poster and walk the streets under that banner- with plenty of people behind us. Our day will come, but just to be on the safe side for now -Obama- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Afghanistan Iraq! Not One Penny, Not One Person For Obama's Wars! Build A Workers Party That Fights For A Workers Government!

On The 100th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-* From The Archives -War-Monger-In-Chief Obama Throws Down The Gauntlet- The Gloves Are Off- To The Streets- Not One Penny, Not One Person For The Afghan War

On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  


Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.  


Click on title to link to the Karl Liebknecht Internet Archive’s copy of his 1915 anti-war speech during World War I, "The Main Enemy Is At Home". He was a man who know how to react to the home-grown war-mongers of his time

Markin comment:

We of the anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist left rarely, if ever, get a chance to set the agenda for national and international politics. More often than not we are forced to react to some egregious act or policy, like the current Obama-driven troops escalation in Afghanistan, where we are on the defensive trying to provide the rational voice in the cacophony of voices- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops From Afghanistan.

Today, however, we have an exceptional opportunity to drive our propaganda points home against a president assumed to be some kind of progressive. In retrospect it was almost too easy to discredit the bizarre George W. Bush government as long as the “democratic’ alternative was in the wings, especially an attractive, intelligent black man. Now that Obama has shown his fangs by staking his presidency on Afghanistan we have some very effective ammunition for our pro-socialist alternatives. Step one in that direction is the fight against funding the war. Think this: After Obama, Us. But in the meantime- Not One Penny, Not One Person for This War! Forward.

On The 100th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-*Marxism, War and the Fight For Socialist Revolution- " No One Penny, Not One Person For The War"- A Guest Commentary

Click on title to link to a classic exposition of the Marxist anti-war position on imperialist war,the fight against it, and the need to struggle to change the system that allows it to thrive.


On The 100^th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-


By Frank Jackman

History in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event, person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they were.

(By the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution” these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask your parents, or grandparents.)

Okay here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional. Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918 after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and asking why. 

The big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence. What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their “heroic” and last moment.  

Instead we have a still sad 100^th anniversary of the assassination of two great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me. 

***On The Anniversary Of Greensboro 1979, Never Forget- From The American Labor Archives On The Ways To Defeat The Fascists

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Greensboro 1979 events.


Markin comment:

The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :

Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.

Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.

For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
************
Ohio Union Guard Routs Fascists
Reprinted from the Northwest Organizer,24 November 1938

A company of union defense guards, made up of unionists from Youngstown, Ohio, had the honor of leading the first victorious assault on the fascist Silver Shirts when the boss-supported labor-haters sought to hold a meeting last Thursday in Sharon.

Sharon is 14 miles from Youngstown. Roy Zachary, national commander of the Silver Shirts, appeared in Sharon Thursday to speak before a scheduled meeting of his group.

The Silver Shirts had arranged some time ago to hold their meeting in the local Moose Hall, but without announcing the sponsorship of the meeting. When the Silver Shirts arrived around 8 p.m., lodge officers revoked the permit for the meeting.

A fascist who had wormed his way into the Carpenters' union then suggested that the meeting be held in the nearby Carpenters' Hall. The Silver Shirts went there and started their meeting.

The meeting had no sooner got under way than 10 carloads of union guards arrived from Youngstown, dashed up the stairs and stormed the meeting.

Storm the Hall

As the doors and windows were being battered down, several squads of cops rushed in to protect the Silver Shirts. The union guards circled the building and prepared to storm it from the rear. At this point, two officials of the Carpenters Union arrived and ordered the Silver Shirts out of the building.

Cops Protect Fascists

Quaking, the Silver Shirts quickly stole out of the building and were escorted to their cars by the cops as the union pickets hurled their hatred at the local Hitlerites.

"Union members in this area," writes one of the union
guards, "are determined that the Silver Shirts shall hold no
""meetings. The effectiveness of our swift action in the Sharon
case is shown by the fact that the Silver Shirts called off
a scheduled meeting in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, the following
night. Definite steps are being taken to organize union defense
squads after the pattern of the Minneapolis unions for the
protection of the union movement against any attacks from the
employers' stooge vigilante organization, the Silver Shirts.
Our motto is 'Offense is the best defense'."

The stalwart union defense guards of Youngstown, Ohio, have given a magnificent and inspiring demonstration of labor's resolve that the United States shall not go the way of Germany, Italy, Austria and the Balkans. Labor everywhere must energetically set about to build the union defense guard and smash the Silver Shirted rats wherever they show their heads. We hail the Youngstown union guard!
*********
Minneapolis Picket Line Smashes Fascist Rally
—Reprinted from the Militant 31 August 1946

Minneapolis, Minn., Aug. 22—A united labor movement stopped Fascist Gerald L.K. Smith from speaking last night in Minneapolis. More than 1,500 pickets from AFL, CIO and Railroad unions, along with members of veterans, Jewish, Negro and working class political organizations, including the Socialist Workers Party, rallied in a fighting mass dem¬onstration against America's No. 1 fascist leader.

When Smith's goons assaulted several pickets outside the fascists' meeting place at the Leamington Hotel, the aroused workers stormed the meeting hall and routed Smith and his followers in a pitched battle....

"Stop Fascism!"

Scores of banners carried by the pickets had been distributed by the united labor committee. They carried such slogans as: "Race Hatred is Fascism;" "Stop Fascism and G.L.K. Smith;" "Don't Be A Sucker For Fascists;" "Don't Support Hitler's Agent-Keep Away." By agreement of the committee in charge, each organization carried only one placard.
Among the organizations carrying their own banners were the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the Workers Defense League; the Minneapolis AFL Central Labor Union; the Minneapolis AFL Building Trades Council; the American Veterans Committee; the American
Youth for Democracy; the Socialist Workers Party; the Communist Party; and the Minneapolis Jewish Action Committee.

Prominent in the picket line was the banner of the Socialist Workers Party proclaiming: "American Workers Do Not Want A Hitler-STOP Gerald L. K. Smith!"...

Storming the Hall

As the first pickets reached the hotel, some of the Smith goons attempted to break up the line. Several of the pickets were attacked and knocked to the sidewalk. When the attackers fled into the hotel, the pickets stormed in after them.

Surging through the lobby, the pickets were met by a knot of fascists who attempted to bar the way to the ballroom where the meeting was to be held. With a mighty push, the Smith supporters were brushed aside and the pickets plunged on like a great tidal wave toward the meeting hall.

Charging through a barricade of chairs which the fascists had thrown up to prevent the pickets from entering the hall, the shouting mass of labor anti-fascists made their way into the ballroom. In their frantic retreat, the fascists left broken chairs, tables, lamps and mirrors in their wake. Dozens of Smith's supporters fled through the windows. Those remaining in the hall scuttled to one corner of the room and huddled there.

Workers Take Over

At the call of the picket captain, Walter Frank, all the pickets were seated. Frank's announcement that no Smith meeting would be held was greeted with resounding cheers. He reported that the hotel manager had refused to let Smith's meeting take place and ordered the fascists out, since the ballroom had been obtained under false pretenses. One of Smith's followers had rented the hall in the name of the "Northwest Pioneers."

The assembled pickets were then instructed to march in a body to the Minneapolis courthouse where an anti-fascist would be held. A rearguard of pickets was left at the hotel to see that instructions of the manager were carried out.

Smith came out of hiding only after the pickets left. He attempted to hold a meeting in the hotel lobby but only a handful of people remained. In one of his usual attacks on the labor movement and minorities, Smith declared to his followers that the demonstration was the work of "Jewish terrorists and Communists."...

* Turning Swords Into Plowshares Ain’t What It Used To Be- The October 17, 2009 “Anti-War” Rally In Boston- A Report And Commentary

Click on title to link to "The Boston Globe", October 18, 2009, article by Jeannie Nuss, "Demonstrators in the pink in Copley Square".

Markin comment:

The above link to the “The Boston Globe” article on Boston’s Saturday October 17, 2009 antiwar rally, sponsored by the United For Justice and Peace coalition and those other organizations that adhere to that operation’s “party line”, basically tells it all concerning the sorry state of affairs of the “peace” movement here in Boston. I note that the reporter is being, perhaps, a little generous with her crowd estimate. But that is neither here nor there, except to note that I attended one of the first (if not the first) anti- Afghan war demonstrations in Boston at that same locale in mid-October 2001 and we had almost the same size crowd, a few hundred.

The difference? First off, that 2001 demonstration was held in the wake of the criminal actions at the World Trade Center when “red hot” American-style patriotism was the order of the day and anti-imperialist opposition to ANY American military action was considered tantamount to treason by the vast majority of the citizenry, including from some people that I was very surprised to see on the other side defending George Bush’s actions. In short, that day was no “picnic in the park”, and I freely admit that although I have been in any number of street demonstrations over my long political career that day was one of the few I was afraid to be on the streets of America (even though our group set itself up, like in the old days, in a self-defense mode). In contrast, the October 17th 2009 demonstration took place on a day when, according to many polls, most Americans are sick and tired, or are getting sick and tired of propping up the Afghan government and want to pull out. No one bothered us but very few passers-by stopped to see what was going on.

Part and parcel of our dilemma, and here I mean those of us committed to anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist politics is also summed up by the “Globe” article. One interviewee, representative of the political perspective of the crowd I assure you, but also representative of the whole frame of reference of the parliamentary “peace” movement is a posture of waiting on…..Obama -to do the right thing. After all he got a “peace” prize, right? Overwhelmingly this crowd had a positive view on Obama (very few posters, if any, were directed at him as imperial commander-in-chief, unlike the well-deserved bashing old ‘W’ took), had, in many cases, voted for him and at worst, saw him being guided by “evil counselors”, or some such theory. They are waiting on Obama’s good offices to bring peace. But I tell you, as I told them, the look of American Afghan policy, despite the recent Joe Biden “opposition” fluff, is the peace of the graveyard. That means troop escalation, if not immediately in light of the Afghan election farce, then soon. So just to keep the right perspective here, a perspective that is different from the futile activity at the rally, I once again urge one and all to fight under this slogan. Obama –Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops From Afghanistan (And Iraq Too).

*The People Speak, Kinda- Howard Zinn’s “The People Speak”- A Film Review

On The Anniversary Of The Russian Revolution Of 1905-

By Frank Jackman

For the attentive reader of this unabashedly left-wing publication which moreover not only takes history seriously but commemorates some historical nodal points worthy of attention today I have drawn attention this month of January to the 100^th anniversary of the assassinations of key nascent German Communist Party leaders Rosa Luxemburg, the rose of the revolution, and Karl Liebknecht the heart of the left-wing German workers movement. In that commentary I noted that history in the conditional, especially when things turned out badly as they did in Germany with the failure of the Communists to take power within a few years of the Armistice and aid the struggling isolated and devastated Russian revolution, is tricky business. There were certainly opportunities closed off by the decimation of the heads of the early German Communist Party that were never made up. That failure helps in its own way to pave the road to the Nazi takeover and all that meant for Europe and the world later. I also cautioned against stretching such conditionals out too far without retreating to an idea that the rise of the Nazis was inevitable. Give it some thought though.
History in the conditional applies as well to events that would in the future turn out well, well at the beginning in any case, and that leads to the role played by what many parties including Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky referred to as the “dress rehearsal” for the October Revolution in Russia in 1917. That was the Revolution of 1905 which although it was shattered and many of the leading participants either killed, exiled or banished still provided some hope that things would turn on that proverbial historical dime in the end. The key organization structure set up in 1905, the Workers Soviets, councils, which in embryo provided the outline for the workers government everybody from Marx and to his left argued for to bring socialist order to each country, to the world in the end almost automatically was reestablished in the early days of 1917. Who knows in conditions of war and governmental turmoil what would have happened if that organizational form had not already been tested in an earlier revolutionary episode. Again, let’s not get too wide afield on history in the conditional on this end either. Think about those episodes though as we commemorate that 1905 revolution. 


   

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the late Professor Howard Zinn's A People's History Of The United States.

DVD Review

The People Speak, narrated by Howard Zinn, parts and songs spoken and sung by various actors and singers, etc., 2009

Let’s be clear from the outset, the late Boston University Professor Howard Zinn, narrator and “guiding light” of the film documentary under review, The People Speak, and I were leftist political opponents. I, from the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky-influenced, anti-Stalinist branch of modern Marxism, and he, well, I am not altogether sure what branch but, mainly, something from the moralistic stand of anarchism. (Although that did not stop him from calling for votes for the bourgeois presidential candidate , Barack Obama in 2008. Oh, well.) Although we could share common fights, and did, around anti-war, anti-racist, anti-imperialist and other such perspectives, at the end of the day, we parted company on the strategic, and more importantly, the organizational means to create and order that alternative society that we both, desperately, sought and found passionately necessary to replace the madness of the American imperial state.

That said, I nevertheless wrote, around the time of his death earlier this year, an appreciation of his work, especially of his written history work, A People’s History Of The United States, which forms the basis for this visual and oral companion to that effort. I am reposting that appreciation below for it contains the main positive points about that important work. I will make additional comments below:

Howard Zinn’s A People's History Of The United States

”I have remarked elsewhere on the poverty of information about the ‘making and doing’ of the non-ruling classes, their social concerns, and their hopes and aspirations in America in my own high school history classes in the early 1960s. Such locally important events as the creation of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment (led by Robert Gould Shaw) during the American Civil War and the case of the executed anarchist martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti, never got onto the radar. This despite the fact that I passed, at one point, the Saint-Gaudens memorial plague to the 54th in front of the State House 54th almost every day and grew up within a stone’s throw of where the major events in the Sacco and Vanzetti case took place. All that I know, or almost all that I know, about the micro-history of the American experience (and internationally, as well) came from painfully digging out the information from many scattered sources during my younger political days.

A lot of good things happened as a result of the social struggles in the 1960s, or at least well-intended things that we can proudly stand on, and the dramatically increased interest in getting the “people’s” story out was one of them. And that is where one of the best examples, the late Boston University Professor Howard Zinn, and his book under review, A People's History Of The United States comes in. In addition to his up-front radical political activist perspective on the political issues of the day Professor Zinn wrote a number of books, and many articles, about various aspects of the American experience that had been ignored or neglected by those earlier historians who concentrated on the movements of ruling elites, their predilections and their follies or on great events, minus the under classes that bore the brunt of, or carried out, those policies. The most important, of course, is "A People's History".

Under one roof, and in one place Professor Zinn’s “A People’s History" can act as a primer for those who are interested in the underside of history, and, like Zinn, doing something about it. Of course there is more investigation to do, but that is why I used that word primer. Professor Zinn and I were mainly political opponents within the left. However every young reader, every young searcher for the meaning of the American experience, and every just plain thoughtful budding historian owe the professor a debt of gratitude. Hats off to Professor Zinn. “

This documentary takes the same tack, as various artists and musicians from Danny Glover to Bruce Springsteen, re-enact important speeches, memoir passages, songs and poems from the works of the “voiceless” in previous histories: slavery and Jim Crow Blacks, anti-imperialist fighters, old and new, women’s suffragettes and modern women’s liberation fighters, Native Americans of all conditions and tribes, Japanese internment victims, Hispanics, and generation after generation of workers of every color and nationality. And, at least passing glances at various political movements like the early socialists and IWW- style anarchists.

But this is where the “kinda” in the headline to this entry comes in. In almost two hours the word communist, American Communist Party, Stalinist, Trotskyist, Maoist, New Left communist (an important component as the 1960s drifted on) or anything associated with those words were never uttered. Oh, as in the real American protest experience that communists participated in (and, more often than not led) for a good part of the 20th century they are there, camouflaged. For example, Dalton Trumbo and his excellent anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun. One would never know that he was a leading Communist Party literary supporter and one of the Hollywood Ten victims of the post World War II, Cold War, “night of the long knives" red scare. Or that Genora Dollinger, who was one of the leading figures in the Flint auto sit-down strikes and whose memoir was given heavy play here, was a supporter of the Trotskyist branch of communism. Or that many of those anti-eviction parties in the 1930s highlighted here were organized by reds. Or that the unemployed were organized by reds. Or that those great workers strikes of the 1930s that created the modern American organized labor movement had reds under every bed. And so on.

Professor Zinn and the producers of this effort are under no obligation to identify known communists in what is after all their own amorphous propaganda production Get out an organize) , worthy as the overall project is as an educational if not organizational tool. But this is where we come back to political differences. No, more than political differences, political honesty. And that is where the name Leon Trotsky and those who have tried to learn sometime from his struggles comes into the picture. There was a blood line drawn between him and the Stalinists who hunted him down wherever he was and tried to obliterate him from the history of the Russian revolution. He wrote an important book, among other such writings, entitled The Stalinist School Of Falsification in an effort to write himself and others back into that history. Now I have had no truck for a long time with Stalinists, and their distortions in the Marxist movement. But those Stalinists, organized as the American Communist Party (and in other organizations) formed a part, and important part, of the “people’s history”, warts an all, in the 20th century. They should be written back into that history. So you see the ghost of Professor Zinn and I still have our political differences.