*To The Armed Struggle League- Propaganda or Agitation?

Click on the title to link to an "Under The Hood" (Fort Hood G.I. Coffeehouse)Web site online article about the "Oleo Strut" Coffeehouse, an important development in the anti-Vietnam War struggle. Hats off to those bygone anti-war fighters.


Commentary

On Slogans- Propaganda or Agitation?

Every once in a while I get a political communication that baffles me. Today is one of those days. I am looking for help and comments from readers as much as I want to comment on this one myself. I monitor a number of amorphous left wing political sites to get a sense of what is happening in our little corner of the political universe and to get a better slant on events than one generally gets from the bourgeois media (although one should not dismiss that source out of hand, if for no other reason than to know what the buggers are up to). I have commented on other occasions that some of these left wing sites have gone off on more than one conspiracy theory tangent to explain away the impotent of the left but the subject of today’s entry is of different magnitude.

Here is what I am up against upon receipt of a communiqué (in English, although today that means less than it used to) from a group called the Armed Struggle League. Personally, I have never heard of this group, at least not under that name although I do not necessarily keep up with the doings of every grouplet as I have enough to do creating my own propaganda along with my own little grouplet. The substance of the Armed Struggle League’s message is that NOW is the time, due to a myriad of political, social and economic circumstances (the usual laundry list- the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the housing crisis, the commodities crisis, the poor American education and health systems) to form workers councils, use those organizations to struggle for power and defend them by arming the workers. That is where we part company-for the moment.

After giving the communiqué some thought my initial satirical reaction was that here was a group that had been underground for a long time and had only surfaced now that United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his majority had given its imprimatur for the individual right to bear arms. But that was too facile an analysis even for this writer. My next reaction was that the group had been underground for a long time and had only recently gotten the word that the 1917 February Revolution had occurred in Russia and that they were playing catch-up somewhere in the summer of that year. Again, that is too easy an answer. I am going to assume for my own political purposes that this is a rational group and that they are just frustrated (like the rest of us on the extra-parliamentary left) that the masses have not yet risen to slay the monster who is certainly taking a big chunk out of their lives.

Elsewhere I have tried to explain the difference between our general propaganda tasks in defense of socialism in this period and our occasional ability to take the offensive and agitate for certain demands either because the objective situation cries to high heaven for that solution or because the demand has some capacity to get a hearing from some segment of today’s political audience. The clearest example that I can give of this in recent times, and that concerned me personally, was the question of creating soldiers and sailors solidarity committees to link up with the soldiers in Iraq to end the war a couple of years ago when there were openly civil war conditions in Iraq and American military forces, especially the rank and file, were in turmoil. Without going into all the details of how my group decided to agitate around that issue it certainly met, for a time, the two criteria I mentioned above- objective necessity and possibilities of a hearing from political elements. Sometime in mid-2007 that slogan lost its agitational edge as things calmed down in Iraq with the ‘victory’ of the Bush/Petraeus ‘troop surge’ strategy. We still use the slogan as propaganda on selected occasions but we do not highlight it much less agitate around the slogan today.

And that, my friends, is exactly what is wrong with the political prospectus of the Armed Struggle League today. Workers Councils- great idea. Center a workers government around this organizational form- even better. Defend those organizations by arming the workers against internal counter-revolution and external imperialist intervention- ABC’s. But what does all that have to do with today’s “simple” little tasks like getting working people in America to break from their political allegiance to the Democratic Party (and, apparently, in the cases of at least some white workers the Republican Party) and struggling to create a workers party that can fight for a workers government. Not as sexy as invoking the glory days of the Russian Revolution but those are our general propaganda tasks today.

Note: The thought had passed my mind that this message was an act of provocation by some nefarious forces, governmental or otherwise. For what purposes, however, I do not know. The e-mail address I tried to reply to was one of those no reply things. However, since the thrush of the communiqué had some sense of historical knowledge I think this is really the work of some antsy “ultra left” kids. In that case I urge them to think things through- our day will come, it is just not today. If any reader knows anything about this group, has received this communiqué or is a member of the group I definitely want to hear from you.

####Electoral Follies- Musings on "Operation Chaos"-The Presidential Campaign of 2008

Commentary

Periodically I return to edit older blogs for spelling problems, technical glitches and to correct artless prose. Yesterday I was in the throes of such a process when I came upon a blog entitled Musings on Presidential Campaign 2008, dated March 7, 2008. The gist of that commentary, a response to a reader’s question, was to answer why I had reduced the amount of time and energy I had been spending writing on the mind-boggling but essentially trivial American presidential campaign. As described then I have kept on that track pretty faithfully, except I went off the wagon once when there was a tempest in a teapot controversy over the relationship between Obama and ex-Weatherpeople Professors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. That is until I read a little article about the doings of one ex-drug addict (I assume) and drafter dodger (Vietnam) radio ‘talk jock’ Rush Limbaugh and his role in the just concluded Indiana Democratic primary.

In the real world it has not been a good spring. Fighting continues to rage in Baghdad. There are no timetables for troop withdrawals in sight, much less the necessary immediate, unconditional withdrawal that we fight for. The escalating war budgets, despite harmless Democratic parliamentary antics, keep getting funded. Fuel prices have skyrocketed. Previously ample and cheap food staples are starting to give the world economy the feel of Paris or Petrograd in their revolutionary days. Homeowners, their tenants and others are going to the wall during the relentless mortgage foreclosure crisis. And those are the good days. Into this mix comes one Rush Limbaugh who has presented a very simple idea. In order to give his beloved Republican Party at least the semblance of a fighting chance to win the presidency in November he has decided to muddy the waters of the Democratic Party nominating process by having Republicans, in states where it is permissible, vote in those primaries for Senator Hillary Clinton.

Well, nobody that I know, and that includes some very committed liberal Democrats, would have thought much of this sophomoric tactic except that in Indiana on Tuesday May 6, 2008 it is very possible that the tactic worked. At least the Obama campaign is acting like the small Clinton margin of victory was essentially based on this crossover vote. Of course, for the Obama campaign this meant something. It meant, in the coin of the realm of bourgeois politics, that they could not close the deal on the nomination.

But what about those of us outside and to the left of this process? That brings me back to my original point above from that March blog. Don’t look for relief from those quarters. This whole process now is about mudslinging and some antics that we would not accept from twelve year olds. But it also brings me back to the litany of problems that I presented above. If you want to address the real problems of this sorry old world then back away, way away from the Democratic and Republican Parties, their agents, apologists and hangers-on and come over and help us build a workers party we can call our own. Join us.

*From The Pen Of James P. Cannon- The Socialist Fight For the Trade Unions

Click on title to link the James P. Cannon Internet Archive's copy of his 1933article, "The AFL, The Strike Wave And Trade Union Perspectives". Again, some sections read like they were written today.

Here is a little article written by James P. Cannon in 1933 that as far as political tasks in the trade unions go, except for the references to the Stalinists of the American Communist Party, could have been written today. Read it carefully and act.


James P. Cannon

The Militant September 16, 1933

THE LEFT WING NEEDS A NEW POLICY AND A NEW LEADERSHIP

Written: 1933

Source: The Militant. Original bound volumes of The Militant and microfilm provided by the Holt Labor Library, San Francisco, California. Transcription\HTML

Markup:Andrew Pollack

The American workers, stirring again on the trade union field after a long passivity and confronting a formidable and well-organized class enemy, need their own plan of battle. The class enemy has organization and a plan. That, in essence, is what the NRA really is. In the unified and comprehensive program of American imperialism against the world, the NRA is that section of the program aimed against the enemy at home, the American working class. The strike movement of the workers, on the other hand, has been elemental and spontaneous, lacking a conscious direction.

Who will assist the workers to formulate their own battle plan in their own interests? Certainly not the present leaders of the AFL and kindred labor organizations. These in reality belong to the capitalist board of strategy. In the machinery of the NRA they are filling to perfection their long-established role of labor lieutenants of the capitalist class. A plan and program for the workers in the trade unions, by means of which their struggle could be organized on a national scale, can come only from the left wing, that is, from the class-conscious section of the movement. But in the present situation, which has witnessed the beginning of a colossal wave of strike struggles, the left wing failed completely in its function. The new events, which should have been foreseen and anticipated, found it unprepared and impotent. The domination of Stalinism deprived the left wing of the possibility of influencing the new movement of the masses and of drawing new life and strength from it. The dogmatic program which had been imposed upon it was refuted in life. The leadership of bureaucratic usurpers showed itself to be bankrupt and helpless. The necessary conclusions from these happenings must be drawn without delay. The problem of reestablishing the left wing, correcting its program, and renovating its leadership is the most immediate and burning problem of the labor movement.

This is a new situation in the labor movement, which the left wing must take as the point of departure. The wave of strike struggles did not fall from the skies, nor were Roosevelt and the labor fakers the creators of it. The fearful sufferings inflicted on the masses during three and one-half crisis years; the starvation rations of the unemployed; the multiplied wage cuts and unprecedented speedup which goaded the employed workers to desperation—these were the real authors of the present strike movement. The workers' resentment and dissatisfaction was due for an explosion, and it was reasonable to assume that it would coincide with the first signs of an economic upturn.

This was foreseen by the most perspicacious representatives of capitalism. The NRA was devised as a means of coordinating the efforts of the employers and their labor lieutenants with the government in a single scheme to arrest this movement at its first stages and to keep it within safe bounds. It is possible that the inauguration of the NRA precipitated the strike movement. But at bottom it was caused by the discontent of the workers with their unbearable conditions, and their aspirations to improve them at the first opportunity.

These causes will remain and will evoke increasingly powerful movements of the masses after the ballyhoo of the Roosevelt program has spent itself, leaving conditions substantially unchanged except insofar as they are improved by organized struggle. Bitter experience will work rapidly and mightily to free the workers from their present illusions about the purposes of the NRA. The capitalists will not voluntarily improve the lot of the slaves under the beneficent influence of the Blue Eagle. The workers will gain nothing they do not fight for. The labor agents of imperialism will not become leaders and organizers of militant struggles, but on the contrary will do all they can, now and in the future, as in the past, to sabotage and defeat them.

The left wing cannot depart for a moment from these self-evident ABC propositions. What has been happening in the way of working-class activity in the recent months is only an anticipation of things to come. It is possible, of course, and even probable, that the NRA swindle will succeed in harnessing the new movement for a time. The illusions of the masses are very great. But the higher the hopes, the more certain the disappointment and the expression of this disappointment in more resolute and determined class action. The first magnificent upsurge of the workers is, after all, only a tentative beginning, a preliminary testing of their collective strength and solidarity. It is implicit with the certainty of another movement, deeper, wider, and more militant.

The left wing must base itself on this perspective and be ready for it. That means to begin now to re-form its ranks and begin to assert its influence in the mass movement. Can this be done on the basis of the trade union policy of Stalinism? No, that is absolutely impossible. Those who try it will be deprived of all influence. On this question the decision has already been rendered by the actual developments in the labor movement. The trade union left wing which eventually rises to the magnitude of the new tasks, coordinates the militant forces on a national scale, and organizes the real struggle against the capitalists and the labor fakers will consist of those who make a complete break with the bankrupt and discredited trade union policy of Stalinism.

The tactical line which the left wing must take is clearly marked out by the actual course of the movement, and no arbitrary scheme which contradicts this course is worth a cent. The left wing must put itself in line with the main trend of the workers, assist and encourage their impulse for organization, and become itself a force to bring the workers into the unions—into the real unions, not the paper unions. And the left wing must go with them and organize the fight inside the unions against the capitalist agents in the ranks.

The left wing—that is, the real left wing, which remains true to principle and to the interests of the workers—will enter the mass unions and urge other workers to do likewise, without any illusions about the reactionary leaders and without the least AFL fetishism. Communists do not make a fetish of any trade union organizational form. In the future, as in the past, a rise of militancy in the unions will be apt to bring wholesale expulsions and splits. It is quite likely that many of the greatest battles will have to be waged independently, as "outlaw" organizations. The resurgent left wing—again, the real left wing, not sycophants and traitors masquerading as such—will remain with the masses under such conditions and not flinch from the formation of independent mass organizations.

That, however, is more a prospect of the future than a present problem. We will keep it in mind and let no labor fakers' cry of "dual unionism" bluff us out of it. But, just as firmly, we must refuse to accept the paper unions of the Stalinists as substitutes for genuine mass organizations. Independent unions have a very slim chance in the present situation. That is not because there is any law to this effect—as the Lovestone opportunists imply—but because a force capable of organizing them is lacking and because the trend of the masses toward the conservative unions cannot and should not be counteracted. (For Marxists, independent unions are not a dogma or a fetish any more than AFL unions are.)

But not the least, and very probably the greatest, factor in the situation which excludes any widespread development of independent unions at the present time is the fact that the Stalinists, who have made a dogma of independent "class struggle" unions, have succeeded in discrediting the idea and alienating the workers who might have cooperated in building them in those industries where their existence had a certain justification and necessity. By their fictitious new trade union center, their stupid tactics, their arrogant bureaucratism, their hooligan abuse and expulsions of critics and political opponents, their subordination of the unions to the narrow clique interest of the Stalin faction, and the conversion of the decimated organizations into mere appendages of the Stalinist party—by their whole policy and regime, they have covered the idea of an independent union movement with their own disgrace.

The verdict of doom has already been pronounced on the so-called unions under their domination. As for the organized workers, they are passing them by, and the non-Stalinist members who have not been expelled are leaving them. Make no mistake about it. Unions that cannot grow now, when new strata of workers are surging forward and seeking organization, are dead beyond the possibility of resurrection. The leftwing militants who want to play a part in the new situation in the labor movement must turn their backs on the Stalinist paper unions and put a cross over the whole experiment.

To see the present strike wave as only the first stage of a resurgent class activity of the American workers and prepare to influence its further development; to call the workers to enter the trade unions and to go with them on this path; to struggle increasingly within the unions against the policy and leadership of the reactionaries; to break resolutely and completely with the Stalinist sectarian paper unions—these, in our opinion, are the main points of the new trade union thesis which the left wing requires.

But the new program, by itself, is not enough. The left wing also requires a new leadership. Up till now the Stalinists have dominated the movement, disorganizing and disrupting everything they could not control and silencing all critical voices with threats and expulsions. They had a monopoly in the leadership. Consequently, the responsibility for the results is also their monopoly. In the light of what happened in the past three months, on top of all that went before, it is possible now—it is absolutely necessary!—to draw the final balance of their trade union policy.

The beginning of the strike wave was the great opportunity of the test of the left wing and its leadership. Given a correct policy and a competent leadership, the left wing in the labor movement could not fail to bound forward, to expand in influence and organization at the expense of the reactionaries. It happened differently, as everybody knows. In the trade union movement in America, as in every vital problem of the working class throughout the world, Stalinism remained true to its mission as the great organizer of defeats. The conclusion which the revolutionary workers throughout the world are drawing must also be drawn here.

In the trade union question, the necessity for a complete break with the Stalinist leadership is especially obvious and imperative. And their disastrous leadership in this field is only a particularly illuminating illustration of their leadership in general.

The question brooks no delay. The liberation of the left wing of the labor movement from the strangulating grip of Stalinism is the key to the problem of planning and organizing the struggles of the American workers, of raising the elemental movement to new heights. This is today the crux of the trade union question.

*On the Workers Party Slogan- From The Archives- Jim Cannon's View

Click on title to link to the James P. Cannon Internet Archives 1943 article by Cannon on "The Campaign For A Labor Party". There has always been some confusion (probably stemming back to the early revolutionary Communist International days) around the propaganda campaign for the labor party in America, its relationship to the united front and the strategic tasks of revolutionaries here. However, Cannon's review here indicates a pretty good grasp on the subject for, as he has been characterized by so-called leftist political opponents then and now, a mere "trade unionist" leader.

COMMENTARY/DISCUSSION ISSUE


FOR A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT

In a sense the question of a workers party in America is, for now, a question posed to revolutionaries and other radical intellectuals. Why? Given the one-sided nature of the class struggle in America it has at this time a propagandistic thrust. This is a slogan that the organized trade union movement, the natural nucleus for such a formation, has not embraced. Yes, an occasional dissident trade union bureaucrat will throw the slogan out as threat to break from the Democrats if they do not do better by working people but I take that as being merely for public consumption. Those same dissidents are much too busy raising money and providing foot soldiers for Democrats to even take it seriously. Or, my favorite response when I have put the question to them, is to wistfully put the struggle for it it in the great by and by when the workers are 'ready'. We, on the other hand, take it seriously. However, in the interest of clarity it is not out of place to discuss what we mean by the slogan and offer a prognosis on the timing of the creation of that formation. As always a prognosis is just that- an educated guess about the probable direction of the class struggle. Below are a few comments in aid of that discussion.

* In the best of all political worlds we would not be talking about the slogan for a workers party. Again, why? In the early history of the Marxist movement, especially of the Russian Social Democratic movement, Marxists saw themselves as THE workers party and they recruited workers, intellectuals and others on that basis directly to the party based for the most part on the full socialist program. And it worked. Our task as propagandists who are on the margins of the class struggle is to provide an important vehicle to break workers from liberalism. In America that means the Democratic Party. The workers party slogan directs the focus today toward the need to break from bourgeois parties.

*It is interesting to note that at various points in American socialist history communists did not raise this slogan. The early American Communist Party saw itself as a small mass workers party and, although it made many mistakes on the way, recruited directly to the party. In the period when Trotsky and his American followers who ultimately formed the Socialist Workers Party were struggling to create a revolutionary party they sometimes raised the slogan and sometimes did not. When they did not it was in periods of increased class struggle like the great unionization movement of the 1930’s when it was possible to recruit directly to the party. The way I look at is that the workers party slogan is a transitional one connected with the struggle for a workers government. Let us put it this way, it would be very, very nice if the class struggle heated up enough for us to recruit directly to a revolutionary workers party. But we have to be ready for other possibilities.


*I will look into my crystal ball and project, given the American political realities today , that a workers party will most likely be formed in a pre-revolutionary situation. A pre-revolutionary situation is one where the government in power cannot rule in the old normal way and the working classes will no longer put up with the old regime. Workers will be looking for answers and leadership. That is a tall order. That is why we have to be there. This prognosis precludes any thought of a long drawn out workers party development analogous to, let us say, the British Labor Party. And that is the point. Our conception of a workers party is basically not a parliamentary one although we will fight the parliamentary struggle, if necessary. That is for sure. I would offer the Bolshevik Party in Russia in the 1917 revolution as one scenario. There the situation of war, physical hunger and land hunger was so critical that the Bolsheviks were recruiting like mad even though at the beginning of World War I they had been a small outcast organization that barely existed in Russia or in exile, for that matter. They had a history of struggle to be sure and were known to the advanced workers, especially in St. Petersburg, but the point is they grew rapidly because they had a handle on the situation and acted on that understanding.

*One of the most frustrating things that an American follower of Leon Trotsky has to account for is the pervasive tendency for ‘progressive’ politics in America to take a popular front form. A popular front is an amalgam of various classes centered on a minimal program and mainly a vehicle to push the Democratic Party to the ‘left’ (or have it do something). This, for the most part, during the last century has been a conscious policy from social democrats to Stalinists. It takes different forms in different periods –one of the earliest forms was the farmer-labor party in the 1920’s. James Cannon had some interesting and personally revealing comments on how hard the young American Communist Party, after coming up from underground, pursued this policy and almost shipwrecked the party by creating a two-class party. Needless to say the appropriate form of political action with other class forces is the united front. But virtually nobody here in America wants to play that way. Sadly, until we do will be in our current predicament.

*Finally, a word on the workers party and the struggle for power. Separately the workers party slogan is just another garden variety reformist slogan that that above-mentioned dissident trade union bureaucrat could use for protective covering. The program of the workers party must lead inevitably to the struggle for state power if it is to mean anything at all. That is hard medicine but if, as I have speculated above, a workers party will be formed in a pre-revolutionary situation then we better be struggling for power. Pre-revolutionary and revolutionary situations, as we are painfully aware, are too far and few between to accept anything less. Build a workers party that fights for workers government.

THE 'CLASS WAR' DEMOCRATS

COMMENTARY

ON THE DEMOCRATIC ‘ANTI-POVERTY’ CAMPAIGN

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

This week, the week of July 16, 2007, we have seen the spectacle of Democratic presidential candidates former North Carolina Senator and 2004 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards and Illinois Senator Barack Obama squaring off to see who is the ‘better’ advocate of ‘class war’ in defense of the downtrodden, or in the parlance of polite society, the “have-nots”. Of course, in response the leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has also chimed in on this theme. What is unusual about all of these doings is that the central electoral strategy of the Democrats for at least the past thirty years has been to deny that the class struggle, despite all the evident of relative decline in the standard of living of the working class to the contrary, even existed. The Democrats were content to struggle along with their version of “trickle down’ theory by arguing that a ‘robust’ economy would help float ‘all boats’. Well, we knew, and now know differently and there is no satisfaction in these quarters that these bourgeois politicians have taken up the issue, for the moment. Why?

Their ‘solutions’ are more of the same. Tinker a little with the system to ‘redistribute’ the wealth (a very little from what I have read of these plans) by tax schemes or public works but to keep the system fundamentally as is. Even with the best of intentions this is a plan for failure for working people, especially the marginal working poor. Not only is it necessary to throw much more money at the problem than any bourgeois candidate would dream of doing but the whole thrust is wrong. The culture of poverty, of being poor and without resources to compete in a ‘rich’ society, not only requires money to get out from under but a whole different way of looking at life. In short, to be empowered. This is not our society. We live in it yes but we do not control it. The way to get empowered is through a workers government. This, dear reader, is the hard reality.

That is the crux of the matter and something none of these well-educated, well fed parliamentary types have a clue about. Even the patently reformist Chicago social activist and community organizing guru Saul Alinsky, whom Hillary admiringly wrote her senior thesis on while at Wellesley and whom Obama admired, knew that much. Moreover what I do not hear about from these born-again ‘class-warriors’ is any talk about the necessary first step in raising the ‘boats’ of the poor-unionization. I have hammered away elsewhere on the importance of organizing the South and the desperate need to organize Wal-Mart. That, rather than 'make work' and easily evaded tax schemes would go a long way toward breaking this cycle of poverty.

One final point on John Edwards. Much has been made of the fact that Edwards is the son of a Southern mill worker. Also he more than other candidates has taken this ‘two Americas’ concept as his theme both in 2004 and now. Yes, John Edwards is a son of the working class. However, his career is a very good case study in why those of us who propagandize for a workers party have been stymied for so long. In the normal course of events if there had been in place even a small viable mass workers party Mr. Edwards in his youth might very well have been attracted to such a formation. In the absence of such a formation he saw his main chance as the Democratic Party. Such are the ways of politics. However, until we can break this vicious cycle our work will continue to be that of unceasing propaganda for a workers party and a workers government. Be assured though that in the end we will get our share of real class war fighters.


THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE HUNGARIAN WORKERS UPRISING- 1956- HONOR PAL MALETER

COMMENTARY

HONOR THE 5OTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AGAINST STALINISM AND FOR SOCIALISM-HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE HEROIC PAL MALETER-MILITANT FIGHTER FOR SOCIALISM

In June of 2006 I wrote a blog concerning the meaning of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 after United States President George W. Bush on a tour of Eastern Europe falsely claimed the valiant efforts of the Hungarian workers in 1956 to create a workers democracy there on behalf of Western imperialism. (See June 2006 archive, dated June 22). Now, as we approach the 50th anniversary of that uprising I am paying honor to that event at its proper time. I stand by the ideas expressed in the above-mentioned blog. Especially so, as I have read more about the extraordinary Pal Maleter. Forget Imre Nagy, who has received far more notice and acclaim- Defense Minister Maleter was the real, if flawed, thing in a world of stodgy Stalinist bureaucrats. The world Stalinist movement produced few such leaders. It produced many more rank and file subjective revolutionary militants. We could have used them then and we sure as hell could use more subjective revolutionaries now.

The world Communist movement would be in a very different place if there had been more militants like Maleter (and “Che” Guevara as well, to name another, for lack of a better term, Left Stalinist ). These were not our people- but they were our people. I would also include an additional point to that June posting mentioned above.

The official Stalinist Hungarian Communist Party in 1956 splintered under the impact of working class pressure from below. In that case, the mass of lower and middle (and in a few cases, such as Maleter's, leadership) cadre went over to the side of the working class revolutionaries. That fracture of the official party and state bureaucracies was observed more fully in the demise of Stalinism in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union in the 1989-1992 period. The difference between the two periods, however, was in the latter case the Stalinist bureaucracy was by then a house of cards easily blown away in the wind. The Stalinist bureaucrats were no longer interested in saving socialism (as they perceived it) but in saving their hides. Such is the contrary nature of Stalinism. Why the use of the word is instead of was in the last sentence? Events within the Stalinist Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state bureaucracy are heading slowly toward such a crisis as occurred during both the above-mentioned events . One would have to assume that the same fracture in the Stalinist bureaucracy of the party and the state will occur there as well. Which way will the bureaucracies go? Hungary-1956 or the Soviet Union/ Eastern Europe 1989-1992? More later.